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BY JAMES TARANTO
Thursday, September 15, 2005 4:10 p.m. EDT
The Truth About Race in America--III
Yesterday's installment in this series argued that racial special pleading is at odds with interracial compassion:
It makes no sense to expect nonblacks to empathize with blacks because they are black. Transracial empathy must be based on what people of different races have in common: that we are fellow Americans, or fellow human beings. The use of a natural disaster as an occasion for racial grievance is a hindrance, not an aid, to national solidarity and empathy.
But of course the culture of racial grievance is not about compassion or empathy, which is why the racialization of Hurricane Katrina has struck such a discordant note. The only appropriate response to a natural disaster is to offer concern and help to the victims; claims about justice and guilt are out of place and beside the point.
Yet it is upon claims about justice and guilt that racial politics in America are built. And since those who make such claims have seized on Katrina to press them, it's fair to respond by taking a critical look. Let's begin with our friend Randall Robinson, whose Puffington Host post we cited yesterday, and who is an intelligent defender of an extreme position. Here's an excerpt from the Amazon.com review of Robinson's 2000 book, "The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks":
He goes further than any previous black public figure in calling for reparations to African-Americans for the present-day racism that stems from 246 years of slavery. Citing compensation that Jews and Japanese Americans have received, he writes, "No race, ethnic or religious group has suffered as much over so long a span as blacks have and do still, at the hands of those who benefited . . . from slavery and the century of legalized American racial hostility that followed it." In making his case, Robinson utilizes facts and figures that highlight the disparity between African-Americans and whites.
"Reparations" for slavery are not really a serious idea, but the question Robinson raises in his title is worth asking: What does America owe to blacks?
Up to a point, almost everyone can agree on the answer. America owes blacks full citizenship, which as a formal matter means equal treatment in matters of law, politics, commerce and education. Hardly anyone argues against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, or the outcomes of landmark civil rights cases such as Brown v. Board of Education and Loving v. Virginia.
In post-civil-rights America, racial matters become contentious when the issue is preferential, rather than equal, treatment. "Reparations"--Write me a check, you racist!--are the crassest version of this idea, easily dismissed as silly (remember this guy?). But the policies that fall under the rubric of "affirmative action" are based on the same concept: that white Americans today continue to be guilty for wrongs committed by white Americans of the pre-civil-rights era.
This notion of collective guilt is at odds with America's individualist ethos, and for that reason both the politics and the jurisprudence of affirmative action are muddled. Racial preferences persist largely out of bureaucratic inertia, even though they have been rejected on the rare occasion that they were put to a political test. In 1996 voters in liberal California approved Proposition 209, banning all racial preferences in state and local government, with 54% of the vote.
The U.S. Supreme Court, meanwhile, has long held that any distinction by race, even a "benign" one designed to help minorities, is subject to "strict scrutiny" under the Constitution. But in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), which allowed colleges to impose racial preferences so long as they are somewhat vague about what they're doing, the court preposterously decided that the University of Michigan had met this high standard merely by offering bromides about the importance of "diversity" in education. Muddying the waters further, Justice Sandra O'Connor opined that this justification would expire in 25 years.
Affirmative action is deeply entrenched in America's governmental, educational and corporate institutions. But political support for it--already weak, as we saw in California in 1996--is likely only to become weaker. That's because white guilt is a fading force in America. Every American now under 40 was born after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, so they have no memory of pre-civil-rights America. In two more generations, there will be hardly anyone left with even childhood memories of segregation.
It's hard to make people feel guilty when they personally have done nothing wrong. It's hard to argue that racial disparities are the product of extant racism when there is no direct evidence that such racism is anything but extremely rare, and when public policy actually favors blacks over whites.
On Tuesday we noted that black Americans have sharply different views on racial matters than do white Americans and, therefore, than do Americans as a whole. What we are arguing today is that the views of whites are likely to move even further away from those that blacks now hold.
We do not think there is any serious danger of old-fashioned racism resurging; the post-civil-rights consensus in favor of equal citizenship is as solid as anything in American political life. But the divergence between blacks and whites is still a problem for America, and a much bigger problem for black America. Black leaders would be well advised to spend less energy cultivating grievances and more cultivating an understanding of their fellow Americans. That is the path to integration
William Joyce said:Ah, yes. The path to integration, Taranto the Capitalist Communist intones. It's bullshit. Integration won't happen because the races are too different to integrate. But James Taranto won't tell you that, or even dare think the thought, because to do so would imperil his journalistic career. Says James:
"Hardly anyone argues against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, or the outcomes of landmark civil rights cases such as Brown v. Board of Education and Loving v. Virginia."
Au contraire, mon frere.
Brown was insane, and Loving was insane. None are based on law. Both are based on what boils down to an attack on whites, period, dressed up as "progressive" law. Thus, they are sacrosanct... at least to the MSM. Not to the real people on the ground. Not to the real conservatives.
The hard truth is that blacks recognize, CORRECTLY, they they are generally not as well liked as whites --- never mind that the City of New Orleans is RUN by blacks. In any event. They aren't as well-liked by whites for one simple reason: they behave very differently from whites, beyond simply looking different. This creates natural tension. Blacks see this. Whites refuse to.
It's a fucking mess that won't be resolved --- EVER --- until we acknowledge the plain fact of racial difference. Blacks are a quite different variety of human being, with generally lower intelligence and higher inclination to violence. This is a fact. Sorry, campers. You wanted a happy ending and I gave you reality.
William Joyce said:Oh, now. You'd see me with my bookish spectacles and unfailing WASPy politeness and probably be disappointed that I wasn't more ferocious. It's hard for the wife to figure: how'd a former altar boy get such unpopular far right views?
William Joyce said:Oh, now. You'd see me with my bookish spectacles and unfailing WASPy politeness and probably be disappointed that I wasn't more ferocious. It's hard for the wife to figure: how'd a former altar boy get such unpopular far right views?
