A few more thoughts on Sherrod and racism
Thinking more about the larger context of Sherrold’s remarks, I will add:
(1) I am heartily sick and tired of the racism thought police on either side.
(2) Let us take as a given that members of all races and ethnic groups have been molded at least in part by their racial and ethnic experiences, and have certain conceptions and perceptions based on those experiences.
(3) We all must struggle against unfair assumptions based on our race and ethnic background, and focus on the individual rather than the group.
(4) The most important thing is how we treat people: the goal is to be fair. Definitions of how to do that will differ (affirmative action being one glaring example), but actions are the key. Therefore we should be most interested in how officials perform in their official capacities, and whether their acts are racist or not.
[NOTE: I understand that thoughts influence acts. But our legal system is mostly act-oriented rather than thought-oriented, and I believe accusations of racism should have that focus as well. Of course, this does not avoid manufactured accusations about acts, such as the alleged—but most likely untrue—racial epithets supposedly voiced by Tea Party members towards Lewis and others. But it would minimize the almost-unending activities of the racism thought police.]
I see similarities in how we’re losing ground to all sorts of radicals overseas and liberalism in general here at home. We have mythologised this concept of American fairness and kindness to a point even our founding fathers would not recognise.
I think they would be puzzled at how we expect to garner respect with what they knew about human nature and i don’t think it has changed. The only reason America exist and the founders are considered great men, is because they were ruthless SOB’s when they had to be.
Great post, Neo. Very worthwhile statement of principle.
After watching the antics of our Left during the 1960s and the Cultural Revolution, I’m a bit allergic to the word ‘struggle’. So, in the spirit of brainstorming, I offer the following:
(3) Our assumptions based on our racial and ethnic experience might be unwarranted. Such assumptions can degenerate into bigotry if we let them fester. We should focus on the individual rather than the group.
Racism is a normal part of human groups. It is one aspect of ethnocentrism. When people look different, they are assumed to be different and are treated differently. The common state of affairs when very different cultures and people of differing physical characteristics come in contact with each other is conflict, often bloody conflict. Modern examples are Christians and Muslims in Nigeria, Hindus and Muslims in India, Serbians and Bosnians in the former Yugoslavia, Malays and Indians in Malaysia and the tribes of Rwanda.
One could make an argument that nowhere on earth do people as racially and ethnically diverse as Americans get along as well as they do. Our objective should be to eliminate interpersonal violence and serious economic discrimination. Focusing on improper thoughts only exacerbates the ill will. Also, handing out rewards on the basis of race and ethnicity only reinforces the importance of group affiliation.
Therefore we should be most interested in how officials perform in their official capacities, and whether their acts are racist or not.
Jennifer Rubin notes that the Sherrod controversy is spotlighting the incompetence of the O’s administration:
“It was a mass jump-before-you-look exercise. The administration’s culpability, however, is greatest. We’ve unfortunately come to expect very little from the media, but the government – any employer, really – should act with a modicum of care before firing someone. This is the second jump-to-conclusion-about-race goof of the Obama administration. . . . The administration has not learned or improved since Gatesgate. To the contrary, this is a White House in a defensive crouch, frenzied and running scared. It is entirely reactive and unreasoned these days. It shows.
In the aftermath of the election, maybe the White House will settle down, get some adult supervision, and stop reinforcing voters’ fears that the administration is not competent enough to handle itself, let alone whole sectors of the economy.”
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rubin/332601
I would add that we should expand #4 a bit and try to discuss policies on how well they will work to solve a problem. So many of our culture war battles end up as a linkage between a specific policy and a specific group interest that persists even when said policy is known not to work. Reevaluation then becomes impossible. It is really awful that racism distorted the debate over health care and overshadowed talk about the upsides and downsides of different proposals.
Mr. Frank,
There is also the comfort factor in choosing people we want to associate with. It’s easier to have people over to dinner if we can make certain assumptions about what they will eat. Having to worry about unknown dietary restrictions among different groups can make you nervous about serving the wrong foods and offending them or leaving them hungry at the end of the meal. These kinds of things work themselves out if people are allowed to get to know one another gradually and become comfortable with different group customs and traditions as well as individual quirks.
Are people really discriminated against anymore because they are black? Or ia the reverse, people discriminate in favor of blacks? It is surely the latter. The last time I even heard of a case where someone did not get a job, promotion, acceptance in a school or for a mortgage or absolutely anything because they were black was…when? In the 1970s?
On the other hand, even without overt affirmative action, private businesses practice it all the time. Almost every major corporation, school, or large organization of any kind goes out of its way to hire blacks, and women, and latinos and absolutely erveryone except white men. That is a fact of life these days and has been for decades. Once hired, they are there to be on the books of diversity something or other. They are never fired – or this is extremely difficult and dangerous.
Everyone knows this is the case. It is never spoken about, and that is part of the deal.
White men are the only people left in the free world who have to get work based on merit and virtues like showing up and working hard. This is universally true in the Western world today. It’s factual. It’s not a lie.
That’s just the way things are and everyone knows it.
Wouldn’t int be simply wonderful if people were treated not based on the color of the few mm of skin layers they have, or on gender, or ethnicity, but on character and ability.
We are as far away from that as we have ever been, only in the other direction.
I heartily agree.
And yet … were Miss Sherrod white and conservative, would there *ever* be forgiveness for her admission that she had realized that she herself had harbored racist attitudes? Would the fact that she had overcome them, or had at least set them aside in persorming her duties, ever give her absolution for the fact of having had the thoughts in the first place?
To ask those questions are to answer them, is it not? Especially had she been an eeeeeevil white heterosexual man.
Of course, if she were
oops ….
Of course, if she were conservative, she’d not have traded in an incipient racist attitude for an implicitly, much less explicitly, classist one.
Grammar! Arrgh!
[To ask those questions *is* to answer them …]
“Therefore we should be most interested in how officials perform in their official capacities, and whether their acts are racist or not.”
Isn’t that about 20 years old? The new politics is ‘you bring a knife, I bring a gun’. I agree with Bill O’Reilly, for once: she can’t work for the government given that she has voiced her prejudices in a public setting. That bell can’t be unrung. How much help is a white guy in a FNC shirt going to get from her?
And I’m simply disgusted with the attempts of the MSM to okay her racism because her father was murdered by a white man. If you reverse the races the mere mention of this would get the writer accused of racism i.e. making excuses for racist whites. And it’s all because lefties couldn’t argue the merits of the tea party arguments (apparently). All they’ve got is slander, kicking any hope of racial reconciliation away.
These incidents hit me in the gut every time. My last Navy job was in Washington and I worked in an all civilian, all black department of about 30 people (not that unusual in DC given that for many years the federal government was one of the few places in the South that gave blacks a fair shake). My boss was in her early 60s and she was well respected because she was good at her job. I liked her quite a bit and we had some fun over the two years I was there (our cubes were adjacent). But after Rev Wright I can’t help believing she went to a ‘hate whitey’ church as she was an officer at a large, black DC church. I hate thinking that. I don’t want to think that. Not to beat to death the metaphor to death but that bell simply can’t be unrung. Simply put, Rev Wright and Ms Sherrod have wiped out my positive memories of that time.
1. My understanding is that Asian Americans are worse off than white males wrt getting their merits recognized by elitist institutions and the government.
2. Afaic affirmative action is a failure that is helping to bring the country into stagnation or worse. IMO personnel decisions should be made on the basis of objective criteria whenever possible, with some noise thrown in to acknowledge that the criteria are imperfect.
3. Once when a friend expressed unease about benefiting from affirmative action, I replied along the lines of, “When life hands you an unfair advantage, take it. Because when life gives you an unfair kick in the ass–and it will–, you can bet it won’t come knocking on your door to make amends.”
4. I read somewhere that affirmative action’s teeth were implanted by Nixon, who wanted to create discord between white craft unionists and blacks. However, I’m willing to pay lip service to how noble it was if that will contribute to getting rid of it (no that I’m optimistic).
5. Affirmative action
quotasgoals, almost 50 years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Give. Me. A. Break.OT
Recalling BART Police Officer Mehserle’s (sp?) trial where M. said that he meant to pull his Taser and accidentally pulled his gun two New Year’s ago, i.e. 18 months ago, I took a look at a uniformed BART cop last night and I couldn’t believe it. As of last night, the cops still have the Taser on one hip and the gun on the other! How many lessons do they need?
Here’s a brief INCOMPLETE list of the races/ethnicities which prefer to associate with their own kind and which cherish the history and traditions of their own race/culture above others: black, white, asian, jew, arab, hispanic, andalusian, awa, inuit, cocopah, hutu, tutsi, and arapaho.
Now, here’s a COMPLETE list of every single race/ethnicity on the planet for whom group pride and preference is considered evil and immoral:
White.
Thoughts are the impetus for material motion
however, since there isnt a 1 to 1 correlation of thoughts to moves, and since we can lie after the fact, thoughts are generally ignored in law for this practicallity
and the moral point of who cares what you were thinking when you did that?
the OTHER reason in law that we focus on acts not thoughts, is that you can think of bad acts all you want, its protected. you can talk bad things, and say shocking things and its protected. you can even put them together and write a book.
actualization of thought through material motion sorts thoughts among those that remain ideas, and those that find reality
if you understand this to its end detail, the way the leaders of the left do, then you do not care what the material thinks, as your only concerned with the actions of that material. give them personal versions, let them believe the false, but power is in the aggregate and why should one endeavor the hard way by merit, when one can assemble a motly crew of fools who all think they are a part when they are nothing of the kind. they are just the score they use to determine who to listen to at the top. in this way, you can get good Christians to follow Satan to heaven.
its another perspective angle on what i keep trying to teach about the institutions created on the left. they don’t believe anything but the tenets of the core, including the horrible parts we mostly don’t want or agree with (like designing humans for the future).
i wish occam can explain it, but i see people trying to salvage parts of myths… as if the ideas they agree with are from those myths and would be gone when the myths go.
its a different level of thinking about other humans.
its a way and means and process that the victims will think they are happy, will not connect goals to results to their own, and defend the myth, for their vanity prevents them from accepting the reality.
this leads to your other statement and why its not understood.
We all must struggle against unfair assumptions based on our race and ethnic background, and focus on the individual rather than the group.
well, thats not what ANY of these different sectors of material collection and impetus believe, nor do they behave and act to that belief.
blacks are now a race collective
women are a gender collective (with gays)
THIS is the mechanism that makes you come up with a personal version. if your a woman and not in the woman collective, then what are you (a nothing).
to say you like a position that the black panthers has is to act as if that position comes from them.
but if you look at history, and ideas, and different times, they never invented these positions, they are not equivalent to them, nor are they really tending and keeping them.
they are just doing what is necessary to move the most material to their ends with the least amount of repercussion and waste. its pragmatic and expedient.
if you come from the position of the individual you may think that they are courting your beliefs and such. they arent, they are courting whatever is needed to get you into the pen, so they can sit with others of similar score and define the future for that is power…
they make sure they ahve power by telling you counterproductive things to do. that are hurtful, wasteful, cause misery, desease, etc.
its a way to validate that they have a grip…
of course they have to mix in their goals, and hold it together with some vanity ideas and things which put you in a chess bind… (cant move were you want because those places are threatened and the place of least resistance is to take up the way they told you to think)
this is why the pseudo individual is not an individual
and so, they tend to shop for belonging, not standing on their own.
[other things that they changed increases mental problems, as those with thought problems are easier to train this way]
they wont let go… they will act like a person raised using a crutch who didnt need it… and they dont know that they can stand without it… they will say, i dont need it for support, but i like the balance it gives me..
point is, the crutch is still there, and its still changing your behavior, and your not changing its.
[in fact its just a lifelong chain of empty threats that next time you will just change to another side. point is not to find a side at all and be 100% yourself, an individual. not internally that, repressed with the personal version, and externally in line… ]
by the way, the SBA 8A program is an institutional version of Sherrod… i mentioned this before, but now that the same methodology is expanded into finance and such… maybe i should point out that it was a way to redistribute wealth to women from men, and why women were the biggest growing group of small businesses..
read the rules, think of what the outcome is.
who made affirmative action normalized?
who made us ignore reality to copy the Nazi logic so as to effect institutional change?
which now has led to the nazi social justice, the same disparate impact idea that justifies obamas shared thing, which is why women and minority dealerships got perks by being kept open and had competition removed… and now they have the SBA 8A perk in finance, and i think in health care… all to remove the oppressor class. (and we are still trying to get agreement on salvaging parts we like before we oppose it).
women (well leaders of women)
They wanted the model that the first feminist magazine tried and made them bankrupt. which gave them the idea that they could push this onto people who would, like them, think it was a great idea, but which would destroy any company not large enough to have the wide profits and state assistance to do it.
to a fascist this is pretty good… you invented a way to bomb industry by fomenting business destroying ideals that many would want and not believe unworkable…
history, the laboratory informs you what the outcomes are, and so you can use the same method (without subscribing to any ideology that used it before), to get the same ends for what you support.
no other group has nomalized the way we think towards these collective mass things than the women. through the teachers union too, and access to children.. which men have no part in now (comparitively)
look who did each part…
there is really only one group that moved it all
and it was done by telling the individuals of that group that they had no real power themselves. that they were nothing but slaves to their husbands alone, but together in a collective with unchanging goals, they can have power (but really only the leaders and the ones above them using them).
this is the end result… and the only people that can reverse it, change it, fix it, are the same people that did it… (and they dont look like they are going to move at all, do they?)
who marginalized the opposition totally?
(to the point where they can discuss extermination of their opposition, and their opposition cant even have a business by themselves)
who crushed all other forms so that they are equated with their material constituency, they are woman, and anyone not with them is not real woman…
they have instruction books, and white papers, and policy documents, and plans, and meetings of leaders that behave exactly like the people on journolist but in terms of their cattle…
We will never put racism behind us until we abolish all racial preferences, quotas, and set-asides. Only then can we hope to achieve a color-blind society. The same applies to sex preferences and quotas.
Regardless of Sherrod’s own views, the existence of affirmative action ensures that a disproportionate number of minorities are hired and promoted in government positions. Private citizens must approach government employees as supplicants, in search of permission, favors, etc. Thus, minorities are given unwarranted and undeserved power over the white majority.
Great point.
C’mon, people. We are all de facto racists. There have been at least a couple of socio-demographic studies tha show pretty convincingly that personal discomfort/nervousness/anxiety/concern for safety increases as a fuction of increasing residential diversity. Different tribes/cultures/races live by differing rules and customs.
When I’ve tried to do the right, “non-racist” thing, i.e. give a black the benefit of the doubt in employment because of their blackness, I have been badly burned every time. So if I were still hiring, would I do that again? You guessed it.
Neo is taking a kind of Scott Brown turn on us by claiming there are thought police on both sides. That’s rubbish.
Tom: there are people who respond to the racism thought police on both sides. Does the name “George Allen” ring a bell?
Tom:
I make a distinction between “prejudice” and “racism”.
Everybody, without exception, has a certain amount of prejudice towards people who are different or alien. Racism, to me, implies actual hatred, and not everybody feels that way.
A simple way to put it is that prejudice means, “I don’t feel comfortable about a black family moving in down the street.” Racism means, “I’m going to throw a rock through their window.”
The way to get past prejudice is to treat people as individuals rather than members of a group. Racism can be overcome too, but it probably involves more introspection and self-analysis and may be more difficult.
That is true, Neo. There are indeed sheep on both sides of the creek But my remark was directed to your para. (1) above.
He’s George MacacAllen to me. I rarely support Democrats, but after the macaca incident I sent Jim Webb a few bucks to help him in that close election. No regrets.
Addenda to my comment about affirmative action:
6. Sometimes I read or hear that society should go back to basing personnel decisions on merit like they were before government-enforced affirmative action. Statements like that strike me as naive or worse. I am old enough to remember echoes of the time when it was said that Negroes, Catholics, and Jews are not 100% Americans. What strikes me as defensible and correct is the claim that affirmative action–as opposed to a focus on equal opportunity–does more harm than good. Laissez faire.
7. When I criticize affirmative action, I am not dog whistling for “those people” to be kept in their place.
My 10:22 was directed at your 9:22, Neo.
You are over-nuancing the distinction between prejudice and racism with your intimation that “racism” is close to violence, a distinction that Prof. Gates, Obama, Holder, the NAACP, et al., and their thought police surely do not make.
I have the temerity to suggest that one cannot expunge personal prejudice by simply treating people of the Other as individuals. Experientially-based prejudice especially. It is a rational response. Recall Jessie Jackson’s immortal observation on hearing footsteps behind him at night and being relieved to see a white male. Is that a prejudice or a statistic-based rational response?
Prejudice is a caution.
I am comfortable equating precudice with racism. Thus my earlier. “We’re all de facto racists.”Of course, I am not a post-modern multi-culti globalist either.
Completely agree with you Neo, and with some of the subsequent comments. All that really matters are actions.
Racism, in the recent vernacular, has been a factor of human existence through out history. As has been noted, it transcends races and cultures. It would be nice if it could be eradicated; but that is problematical.
Still, actions of racial discrimination and hostility can be controlled, and perhaps even eradicated. I believe the United States has made exceptional, heroic efforts to do just that.
My wife chides me for being racist. I expect that she is correct. I have examined myself, and tried to convince myself that my prejudices are aimed at those who revel in racial politics, or use race to exploit others. I don’t know how honest I have been. Ironically, my wife shares my prejudices, although she does not like to admit so.. We both grew up in the South of the mid-30s to mid-50s, but we have lived and traveled far from those roots. We have encountered the same prejudices in varying degrees, and with varying levels of sublimation over a broad spectrum of acquaintances.
I do remind her that even though I may be racist, I strive very hard, with success I believe, to treat every individual with the respect and consideration that their particular behavior warrants, and frequently more than would be warranted. Her behavior mirrors mine. Most of our friends behave in like manner.
I believe it is a reasonable goal for our society to act in a manner that respects the worth and dignity of each individual. To pretend to decipher an individual’s or a group’s thoughts about race in a manner that goes beyond their actions is nothing more than projecting one’s own prejudices on others. Alternatively, the accuser is playing a race baiting game to achieve some advantage. Either way, this is potentially very damaging. We appear to be heading down that road.
evil white male bastard here, so I know that most liberals will consider anything I say to be racist; but here goes:
Yes, Obama (a black man) jumped the gun and called a white police officer “stupid.” No real apology offered; although, he did offer the guy “a beer.” I do wonder if anyone else saw this “beer summit” as a bit of “classism.”
A white man jumps the gun and fires a black woman (who, if she were white would, and should, be fired) and Obama offers her a personal apology. Oh, what a great and magnificient leader we all have!
No, to liberals there is no “racism” in any of these two actions by the white house.
One of my liberal friends posted a “Tea Partiers are racist” sentiment on her facebook page. I took objection to it. We were at a dinner last night and when I pinned her down, it turned out she was calling intolerance “racism”. Well, yes, I am intolerant of many things, stupidity being one of them. So shoot me and call me a racist!
I found this link at Transterrestrial Musings:
That is disgusting. Breitbart needs to stand his ground. Better yet, as Rand Simberg said, he should tell her to go pound sand.
*gs and *rickl:
yesterday I went to an interview in architectural firm that used to have four names on their masthead, all men, all white. Now it only has one – the name of a Korean-American woman.
In course of a 2-hr long interview and subsequent cordial conversation she told me the partners are all still there (except one who is semi-retired and whose place she took), and that the firm decided to change their name and legal registration in order to get access to bids put aside specifically for women and minority-owned firms.
She also told me that with current administration the official percentage of this allowance in bid applications had gone up from 5% to 20%.
This has turned into a discussion about affirmative action, it seems…
It’s at times like these that I wish we had more engineers in Congress. No, I’m not kidding. Engineers know all about unintended consequences; they plan for the unforeseen. (They have to. There is no appeal from the judgment of Mother Nature.)
Affirmative action, it should be noted, is a patently anti-democratic measure, and a racist one to boot — it gives preferences to members of one group over another, purely on the basis of race. As I understand it, this was initially passed to (temporarily) tilt the playing field, a little, in the opposite direction, so as to give American blacks a chance to catch up.
What would an engineer do, faced with the necessity of introducing a component that intentionally unbalances the system? She’d limit its scope. And that’s what should have been done with affirmative action. A sunset clause could have been added (e.g. “we’ll revisit this in fifty years”), or provisions for its demise included (e.g. “we’ll remove affirmative action when the XYZ criterion passes 50%”), or something like that.
With no such provisions, we wound up with: (a) groups determined to gain every possible advantage from this limitless windfall, and (b) people determined to keep the fire hot, so that the question “should affirmative action be ended?” would never get asked, let alone answered.
Sound familiar?
Of course, we’d have had both of those anyway; unintended consequences, and all that. Still, with sunset provisions, we’d know that it wasn’t forever, and we’d have guidelines in place as to when it would no longer be needed.
As it stands, affirmative action will likely only come to an end when it’s so biased, in an otherwise more-or-less unbiased society, as to be utterly ridiculous. Not when it’s no longer needed, in other words, but when it’s obviously doing more harm than good.
Are we there yet? You tell me.
Perhaps we can agree to stop talking about this when, say, a white female Secretary of State is succeeded by a black male Secretary of State, who in turn is succeeded by a black female Secretary of State, followed by another white female — four terms in a row without a white male! — with no one thinking it a big deal.
I wonder how long it will be before that happens. Oh, wait…
I’m also reminded of a cartoon I saw — in the 1970s! — with a job interview candidate being told, “Your qualifications are excellent — but since we don’t discriminate in hiring, we’re looking for a woman.”
Back then it was funny. Now that we have our first Affirmative-Action President — it was bound to happen sooner or later — it doesn’t seem so silly anymore.
“I took objection to it. We were at a dinner last night and when I pinned her down, it turned out she was calling intolerance “racism”. ”
And even there, after that correction, your friend is using language falsely. She is using the term ‘intolerance’ to refer to tolerance, and using the term ‘tolerance’ to refer to agreement-with (or, perhaps, even celebration of).
“What would an engineer do, faced with the necessity of introducing a component that intentionally unbalances the system? She’d limit its scope.”
And that’s where I stop reading. On principle.
Ilion, I have an engineering degree. A 5-years one.
I guess I can print anything from this point, since you stopped reading.
1. Tatyana, in the 1990s I worked for a small aerospace organization. We were visited by a NASA rep who was disbursing those set-asides. He was inquiring if we’d be interested in “teaming” with one of the set-aside contractors so NASA could get some value for the money they had to give away.
I hope your interview works out.
2. Daniel, I fear that as PC continues to advance, affirmative action will be justified as permanent reparations owed by ice people. I perceive its scope as expanding. Hopefully a point will be reached at which the country says, “Enough!”, but I’m not confident about that.
3. Instapundit notes that my man Jim Webb has done some plain speaking about affirmative action.
Back in the early 70’s I had applied for a faculty position at a major university in response to a national ad. I received a letter from the department chair advising me that under ordinary circumstances I would be a strong candidate, but the dean had told them they could only hire a black or a woman. Such situations are very common, but people don’t put them in writing.
Reading this thread reminded me of a colleague joking about a faculty position we were filling. He said we should hire a white male so we could fire him if it did not work out.
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Neo, your point (2) should be augumented by a more specific assertion: members of any tribe (literally and metaphorically) have very good reasons to trust their tribesmen more than outsiders, and should be free to act accordingly in their personal and business choices. The only exception should be government officials who act not as private citizens, but in the name of a state, and so should be as impartial as humanly possible. If this is called racism, everybody is racist, and will be forever.
Sergey,
That’s not necessarily true forever. If the groups interact on a limited basis, they can gradually learn to read one another better and the trust can expand. The important thing is that the trust and comfort levels have to develop organically, which can include tension at the beginning.
expat, this is, of course, possible, but only in a society which already has rather decent standards of honesty and mutial trust. In a society where everybody tries to decieve everybody, except, probably, blood relatives (see Africa or Arab world, and, to some extent, Eastern Europe), this is hardly possible.
Mr. Frank, some decades ago I received a phone call similar to the letter you describe.
Federal mandates for preferential treatment contribute to my sense that the nation’s governance is illegitimate.
(That major institutions are illegitimate does not mean we are living in Stalin’s Russia. It does mean that the country is falling seriously short of its potential.)
Marine’s Mom said:
Ilion commented on the misuse of language, but chose to focus on the word “intolerance”.
But in my opinion, the real travesty of language is the word “racism” itself. This is a perfect illustration of what the underread and underappreciated Jeff Goldstein (no, I don’t know him in person) describes as the Left’s quite intentional takeover and weaponization of language (my paraphrase) as an integral part of their Long March Through the Institutions. But I digress.
“Racism” is the belief in the inherent superiority or inferiority of a race of people (“race” itself being a foggy concept, promoted in the main by racists themselves). The most well-known (in America) holders of this belief over the last century-and-a-half were the Nazis and the Klan. I think it’s safe to say that certainly today, and probably for at least the last 20-30 years, none but a very few in America hold beliefs like these, and even fewer in public, and even fewer than that prepared to act on them.
I don’t believe that Tom, the self-admitted “racist” upthread, belongs in this category, nor do I think Tom thinks he belongs there. What Tom ought to more properly call himself, and all of us (probably with some degree of truth), according to his comment, is:
A BIGOT.
Say it with me, everybody. BIGOT.
The words “bigot” and “bigotry” have seemingly been completely forgotten in the last 20 years. I remember them being quite commonly thrown about in the ’80s to describe what people today call “racist” and “racism”.
Why the change, then? (And here’s where Goldstein comes in)
Because it’s much more effective to browbeat an opponent with the ugly charge of racism, effectively comparing him to the Nazis or the Klan and completely delegitimizing anything he has to say, than to more accurately label him as a bigot, since as Tom said, we’re all bigots; it’s part of the human condition. It allows the Left to paint us as beyond the pale, and effectively shuts us up, until and unless we’re willing to call bullshit and refuse to be illegitimately tarred with the same brush as the Nazis and the Klan.