Racism, that difficult word
Commenter “Ray”asks:
The Oxford English Dictionary dates the word racism to 1935, and defines it thus: “The theory that distinctive human characteristics and abilities are determined by race.” Unless you believe the blank slate theory, what’s to disagree with?
One can agree or disagree with the statement on one or both of two levels. The first is whether the definition is correct in terms of the word “racism,” and the second is whether the statement itself is true. I’m not sure which Ray meant, but no matter. I’ll tackle them both.
I wasn’t around back then, but I was around in the 50s and I was among people who had been adults in the 1930s, and what they meant by the word was usually something like this: “the idea that distinctive human characteristics and abilities are determined by race, are almost certainly unchangeable, and that therefore certain races are inferior and should be treated as such.” Although the definition included racist thinking, it was racist action that was considered even more important to the definition.
The definition of the word has changed. When did that happen? I’m not exactly sure, but certainly by the 80s and 90s it was starting, and in the 21st Century it has come into full flower. The new definition went through stages. I’d characterize the starting point as “attributing bad qualities to any race (or any person because of his or her race), or speaking that way, or acting in a way that discriminates against anyone because of race.” It was inclusive and applied to all races.
Then it became something like this: “attributing bad qualities to black people, Hispanic people, Asian people, or any other minority, because of race.” Actions were even worse than thought, but thought was just about as bad, and “actions” were more broadly defined than before. They included the use of ertain words and expressions that hadn’t previously been seen as racist (see for example the “water buffalo” incident, circa 1993).
It was also at that point that CRT began to spread in the guise of its original law school manifestation, Critical Legal Theory. The history of CLT – and of how it came to morph into CRT – is too lengthy and complex for this post, but you can find various discussions online. The point we have now reached is that it has become mainstream and has spilled over even into elementary education and the workplace, and this has been building for quite some time.
That current CRT-based definition of racism is in fact a profoundly racist one. In other words, it defines the racist by the race of the person, with white people inherently racist and “people of color” by definition non-racist. This is considered true because of systemic societal reasons, a poorly-defined (and thus very difficult to refute in any rational way) word. All differences in achievement between races, whether personal or average differences, that put the designated minority-victim groups at a disadvantage, are ascribed to the influence of racism rather than having any reality in characteristics of people in those groups. For some, racism is an immutable characteristic of white people, and others seem to think it’s society that is set up this way and if society were utterly changed and improved according to their dictates then racism might someday cease in the distant future.
This is why arguments such as “what about the NBA, where most of the players are black? Isn’t that racist?” don’t work. Racism only works in once direction, according to this definition.
Now we come to the second question that started this post: is it true that “distinctive human characteristics and abilities are determined by race”? My answer is “no,” and my reason has to do with the definition of the word “determined.”
There is no question that human groups, even groups within groups such as ethnicities or place of national origin within groups, differ on average on a host of characteristics. The overlap is huge, but the average differences are there and there are differences in the tails as well. Thomas Sowell has done an enormous amount of work documenting this and explaining its meaning, and I refer you to his book Race and Culture or any number of his videos and article on the subject. But suffice to say that races definitely exhibit different physical traits (again, on average) and a host of other different traits, and such differences are also found within races by country or place of origin.
“Race” is defined by a spectrum of certain physical traits – for example, skin color. But race is not solely determined by any one trait; it’s a grouping of traits. For example, you can find very light-skinned people defined as black, and very dark-skinned people (from some Indian ethnic groups, for example) are not considered to be of the same race as black people from Africa. It’s a constellation of average physical traits that makes up a race, and those races were generally defined quite a few years ago, although there’s been a certain level of change since.
The bottom line is that the racial designations don’t determine the average differences one finds in the “human characteristics and abilities” among the races. Such differences exist among all groups, including differences within each group such as the average differences between white people of different national origins. People differ for a host of reasons we have yet to fully tease out, and one would never expect those differences to completely even out among groups to produce a total homogeneity. But the differences are not determined by racial classifications; they are exhibited by the different groups (including racial groups), and they are averages.
The differences are also especially pronounced at the tails, as one might expect. That’s why you get all those black NBA stars, and all those Jewish Nobel winners. Is it “racist” of me to say so? I think it’s merely acknowledging what is observed. That doesn’t mean that one doesn’t have a genius such as Thomas Sowell among black people. And if you think there are no Jewish basketball players – well, there sure aren’t a lot, but there are some (see also this).
The definition of racism has therefore expanded way beyond its original meaning, because old-school racists are just not all that common today compared to yesteryear, although they certainly exist. Because accusing people – and groups – of racism has become so very politically (and sometimes individually) useful, it had to be redefined in a broader way, and it had to become divorced from discriminatory actions since such actions became more and more uncommon if they continued to be defined in the old way.
The question that seems to obsess many people is whether these average differences among groups are mostly cultural or mostly genetic. That’s a question that people argue about vociferously, and I’m not going to take it up here. I’ve read tons of material on the subject, including The Bell Curve and much of Sowell, and I believe the differences have a small and poorly-understood genetic component and a huge and poorly-understood cultural one.
I also approach each person not as a member of an ethnic or racial group but as an individual capable of good or bad and usually a combination of both. I realize that’s an old-fashioned notion. But I think it’s the right one.
Was the ‘water buffalo’ incident a peek into the future or what?
race
n.
A group of people identified as distinct from other groups because of supposed physical or genetic traits shared by the group.
Most biologists and anthropologists do not recognize race as a biologically valid classification, in part because there is more genetic variation within groups than between them.
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/race
It’s a silly idea. We really should move on.
““The theory that distinctive human characteristics and abilities are determined by race.” Unless you believe the blank slate theory, what’s to disagree with?”
So Irish people really are more hot-tempered than other races? Jewish people are better with money? Asians better at math?
Considering how genetically similar human beings are to chimps, I genuinely don’t understand how anyone can think the infinitesimal genetic differences between various human ethnicities (and that’s what they are, not races) is determinative of anything.
Mike
Banned Lizard:
Agreed.
And I thought we were going in that direction. But the politicians of the left can’t let that happen, can they?
Any decent society will believe in treating any and all persons not on the basis of the group to which they belong but as individuals and citizens, but the denial of measurable differences between groups, considered statistically, is foolish indeed, as there exists a massive amount of evidence in support (the latest analysis of such being Murray’s Facing Reality, although he is unwilling to discuss the possible reasons for such). This is, of course, the eternal debate over nature/nurture, as intractable as the wrangling over free will and determinism, but it does have massive implications for the setting of public policy, as well as being of unending interest philosophically. Anyone desirous of a good academic introduction to this field should consider the excellent new book from Routledge written by Alexander Riley (Bucknell) and entitled Toward a Biosocial Science.
Yes. I think the cultural component is very large. And I also try my best to treat people I meet as individuals and not to make assumptions based merely upon appearance.
“the denial of measurable differences between groups, considered statistically, is foolish indeed”
And exactly how many people who believe that go on to make the entirely logical and reasonable next argument? You know, the one about how those measurable differences not only justify but demand greater government action to help those genetically disadvantaged groups?
Mike
And exactly how many people who believe that go on to make the entirely logical and reasonable next argument? You know, the one about how those measurable differences not only justify but demand greater government action to help those genetically disadvantaged groups?
That’s only the next argument if you’ve concluded social engineering schemes are a collective obligation.
This is, of course, the eternal debate over nature/nurture, as intractable as the wrangling over free will and determinism, but it does have massive implications for the setting of public policy, as well as being of unending interest philosophically.
You’re confounding several issues. That there are measurable between group differences is demonstrable. The origin of them, much less so. The policy implications murkier still. IMO, neither measurable differences nor any particular model of their origin should motivate public policy. Joseph Rauh found that stance (which is largely normative) to be unacceptable.
“So Irish people really are more hot-tempered than other races? ”
I’m married to an Irish-Italian from Long Island. So the answer is “yes!!” 🙂
So Irish people really are more hot-tempered than other races?
In my experience, more emotionally complicated, which can have a variety of manifestations, including anger. Hot temper is more of a Scots-Irish male thing.
Again, I’d be skeptical of the Sailerite default of assuming that’s heritable.
Jewish people are better with money?
They tend to collect in occupations where price arbitrage is important.
Asians better at math?
They do their homework.
The recent upsurge in black racism (Tom Sowell once wrote, “I am so old I remember when most racists were white.”) is a consequence of the failure of affirmative action, especially in education. There are several reasons for this failure. One is teachers’ unions that do not make an effort to teach black kids. Another is the violence and chaos created by black students who are not interested in school. They sometimes accuse other black students who want school of “Acting White.”
The discipline problem goes way back. I remember Jesse Jackson traveling to Peoria IL to lead a demonstration against suspending black students because they were more likely to get in trouble.
In college we have the “mismatch” problem.
Most of this is not the IQ issue but the weak preparation for being boosted into elite schools for which they are poorly prepared. I taught medical students for 15 years. Many of them were black. Most of the black students I spent time with were not American born. They were from Jamaica or Africa. They did fine. Over the 15 years, I had two American black medical students. One flunked out, in spite of attempted help by other black (African) students. The other was very odd. At first I thought he might be schizophrenic but it turned out his parents were both Black Panthers from Oakland CA. He had never talked to white adults. I was finally able to give him a script to follow to take a medical history from a white person. He seemed to do OK with his own age group.
American blacks, in my limited experience, are immersed in the “victim mentality.” This has gotten much worse in recent years. Long ago, I knew a black surgical resident with me in training, He was a great guy. He laughed about becoming UCLA’s student body president. He said “I was black. Of course they all voted for me!” Like so many black doctors I’ve known, his parents were middle class, his father a doctor.
I think we are headed for trouble with all the stirred up black racism for which I blame Obama.
Everyone knows of what real racism consists. Those of the left simply find it advantageous to pretend otherwise.
Diversity (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry) [inequity, and exclusion] is a dogmatic belief of the Pro-Choice religion of the Progressive Church, Synagogue, Corporation, etc. that denies individual dignity, individual conscience, intrinsic value, and normalizes color blocs (e.g. “people of color”), color quotas (e.g. “Jew privilege”), and affirmative discrimination. The Pro-Choice religion denies women and men’s dignity and agency, and reduces human life to a negotiable asset. Roe, Roe, Roe yourself… #HateLovesAbortion
“For some, racism is an immutable characteristic of white people, and others seem to think it’s society that is set up this way and if society were utterly changed and improved according to their dictates then racism might someday cease in the distant future.”
I think their “dictates”, their “visions,” their “plans” are gestapoesque and begin in enslavement and end in extermination. The “others” that follow these thought-leaders are more numerous than they once were, dumber than they’ve ever been (thanks to the schools), and their numbers are growing.
When our American-Bolshevik politics hands the whip hand around it’s never pretty and it usually devolves to guns. Can we “vote” our way out of this? 2022 will pretty much tell the tale. One hopes for the voting method. Hopes in one hand, watching.
In any case, the “racist” labelers have gone beyond just sliding the targets around for political advantage. Those who are using it and those who are manipulated into using it are just looking to strike a spark without any real understanding of the conflagration that would follow.
I pray that those being manipulated in this wise would wake up and step back from the ledge they have been led to but I just don’t know if this can be done.
The BLM/Antifa riots and lootings — along with the current state of near-anarchy in many cities — do not make me feel much hope. Indeed, the summer of 2020 emboldened all the criminals among us towards more blatant and unpunished crimes — the crime of shopping without money for instance. In many cities, the “rule of law” has been replaced by “the rule of me.”
The cultural aspect is always curious in the United States. In the main, the cultural aspects of today’s American life (movies, tv, music, sports, literature) are dominated by black cultural themes, motifs, and icons. At the same time that piles of praise are heaped upon the cultural artifacts being produced, any criticism of these artifacts is effectively prohibited. Many orders of magnitude fewer than the hosannas are any discussions of the criminality and the social/family disasters that stimulate and/or inspire these cultural products with the life of a mayfly. This puts the chances of a cultural course correction currently at less than zero. It is all pretty much a time of all praise and no blame. Not healthy but then it is clear we are a sick society.
It all puts me in a tragic frame of mind and has caused me to remember this moment from the Ken Burns Civil War series…
Once a black Union Soldier spotted his former owner among a group of Confederate prisoners. ‘Hello massa’ he said, ‘bottom rail on top this time’.
This was said looking towards the end of that Civil War. Now it makes me think we are seeing it from the perspective of a beginning.
If one of the classic definitions of conservative is one who stands in the middle of the road of history waving arms and saying “STOP,” we need to upgrade that to roadblocks and speed traps. The “You so Raaaaaaacist!” set are social firebugs.
By not just laughing at (or in times to come shooting at) someone who calls you a Racist… by not saying ‘Yep, and?’… You’re conceding the moral high ground to them. You’ll always be on the defence… Always be susceptible to the knife in the back from hypocrites you thought were friends…. Always be walking around with your jugular bared to your enemies.
There is simply nothing wrong with making broad social or personal policy judgements about groups of people. There’s far more wrong outcome-wise with pretending that we’re all the same. By all means, pick out your special unique flowers from the bunch and cherish them as exceptions.
‘Racism’ is a term invented by your enemies to cow you, to erect guard rails inside your heads… to make you creep around like a beaten cur. Knocking down those fences does not automatically make you become Amon Goeth (another bit of brainwashing to keep you on the reservation)… it simply returns you to being what your ancestors have always been: Men. Not mewling neuters.
Zaphod:
And with this one sentence – “There is simply nothing wrong with making broad social or personal policy judgements about groups of people” – you show how little you understand about the US.
I am assuming – given the subject matter of the post – that you mean “ethnic or racial groups” rather than other groups such as “landowners” or “people with children” or “people over 21,” who by law are often treated differently than others, in terms of voting rights or for tax purposes or the like.
However, if you mean that individuals should be free to make such personal judgments about racial or ethnic groups as they see fit, I agree. That’s part of liberty. Whether I agree or disagree with their particular judgments isn’t the relevant point. However, I might (and often do) think there is something VERY wrong with such judgments, especially particular ones. But they are free to make them.
But once they take political or societal action against members of such an ethnic or racial group then there is something far more wrong with such action. For example, I have always been against affirmative action, right from the start, because I think it operates on such group principles – and in the case of affirmative action, that two wrongs make a right. I haven’t observed it working out that way.
And what makes you think anyone who comments here is creeping around, cowering in fear of being called a racist? That’s your implication, anyway. I’ve been called a racist for merely being on the right – so what?
Yes, the phenomenon you describe is out there. There certainly are people who are very afraid of being accused of racism for saying some very tepid things that just a couple of years ago were considered Martin Luther King-ish. Mostly, they are afraid of job repercussions or of a Twitter mob frenzy against them. That is very real, however, and if a person is still supporting a family it is not surprising some would be afraid.
I completely agree with your personal approach Neo. However, I have become so frustrated with, and outraged by the current state of affairs that my wife accuses me of being racist. Sorry, can’t help it. But, I also point out that I only express my angst in private. Meanwhile, I will continue to treat each person as an individual, worthy of courtesy and respect unless they prove otherwise. I fervently hope that this becomes the norm.
As to the basic question. The determination as to whether race or culture is determining is beyond my ken. There are ambiguous examples for either argument. Is the endemic (there’s that word) corruption and dysfunction in Africa simply a vestige of the colonial period? That ended quite some time ago. In America there are ample examples of Black people, and I trust that they are what the discussion is about, who have proven their intellectual capacity, and have achieved success on most any scale. Some have overcome severe cultural disadvantages. Contemporary examples include Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, and Dr Ben Carson. On the other hand, the numbers are relatively few compared to people of other races who also started with distinct cultural disadvantages, and also overcame manifest societal prejudices within the course of a few generations, without outside assistance. I think of Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Japanese Americans and, of course, Jews everywhere, for instance. Who knows? Maybe the impact of misguided outside assistance is a key factor.
The bottom line is that we now have a large segment of the population who are actually part of an identifiable underclass, or who at least assume the role of victims. It is becoming a dangerous situation. The argument about causes will go on for a long time; and has really become irrelevant for the most part..
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2022/02/02/heres-what-happened-when-a-school-teacher-lined-up-some-fifth-grade-students-bas-n2602730
Remember, CRT isn’t being taught in schools.
neo writes, “I also approach each person not as a member of an ethnic or racial group but as an individual capable of good or bad and usually a combination of both. I realize that’s an old-fashioned notion. But I think it’s the right one.”
Hear, hear!
@Neo:
I think you missed the point. When you permit the other side to define Morality, to frame the debate, to own the language of discourse… You’ve lost. You’re a Dead Man Walking. You can fight long and convoluted rearguard actions.. but by sundown every day, guess what..? You go to bed a Racist existing on sufferance. Because by participating in the ‘Debate’ (it is to laugh) you’ve agreed to inhabit the Enemy’s frame of reality.
Yes, there is a place for civility in everyday interactions. Yes people with families and careers have to tread very carefully. And they will have to continue to do for as long as even the most supposedly brave and thoughtful ‘Conservatives’ continue to bleat “I’m not a Racist… Some of my best friends are X… but…” <— This is not how you change the world. It's how you creep around in it.
Yeshiva University Maccabees. That’s a cool mascot!
For those who don’t like to bow down before Words:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=racism&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cracism%3B%2Cc0
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=racist&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cracist%3B%2Cc0
Oldflyer:
About Africa, please see this by Thomas Sowell, and also this post of mine.
@Rufus:
They were hardly going to call them the Nebbishes.
Seems to me that the YU Maccabees Basketball Team could do with some Diversity Inclusion and Equity. Godamn Racists:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/yeshiva-university-mens-basketball-team-on-35-game-winning-streak/
Can’t see any Blacks. No ifs, buts, excuses, exceptions… they have to get some Blacks.
Zaphod:
No, it is you – once again – who misses the point.
Over and over and over.
I don’t let the other side define these things, nor do most (perhaps even all) of the people here. You’re beating a dead horse or perhaps a dead strawman. I don’t know why you do this, but you do it repeatedly.
You seem to be addressing some other group of people, perhaps some Republican politicians?
America is a true melting pot.
There was some back and forth yesterday(?) about the low percentage of intrafaith marriage among American Jews. Even if there is some trait predominant in Nigerians, how many Nigerians brought to the U.S. from Nigeria in the 1700s have continued to only marry ethnic Nigerians? Zero. I’m trying to think of any American I know whose spouse has the same ethnic background as they do. It’s most common in children of recent immigrants, but even that dissipates in the following generation.
Few traits humans care about are attributable to a single gene and very few Americans marry, generation upon generation, in a single, ethnic or racial group.
Zaphod:
There are actually quite a few black Israeli Jews of Ethiopian descent prominent in many fields, including athletics. A list can be found here. I don’t see any prominent basketball players on that Ethiopian Israelis list, although there are lots of runners and soccer players.
However, there are also a lot of American black people (some of them are even Jewish) who emigrated to Israel, including athletes. Quite a few converted to Judaism and are Israeli citizens:
Basketball is apparently rather popular in Israel. This black Israeli basketball player is apparently the son of a black American and a Yemenite Jewish “of color”:
I hadn’t known any of this till I looked it up just now. Plus, there’s this:
Basketball has long been a predominantly American sport, but in recent years it has become more international, with some players from other countries in the NBA. A lot of American basketball players play in other countries, as well.
Zaphod:
By the way, I wrote the above comment before I saw your many comments about Yeshiva University, which I deleted as being essentially Jew-obsessed spamming/trolling.
You are obsessed with Jews, and not in a good way. Perhaps you are trying to be obnoxious and stupid, perhaps it just comes naturally.
Yeshiva University is an explicitly religiously-oriented school, and will therefore reflect the demography of the religion. There’s actually much ethnic diversity and some racial diversity among Jews, but there certainly isn’t a lot of racial diversity if by “race” one means black and white and Asian.
Jews aren’t keeping out a lot of black people eager to become bona fide Jews. If they are sincere, they are welcome. So your praise for what you see as Jews’ racial selectivity is quite misplaced.
Sowell, in “Conquests and Cultures”, has examples of cultures lasting quite long periods while being minorities within a larger culture. Volga Germans, for example.
“racism” is said to be the Zimbabwayen dollar of discourse…heavily discounted.
You are obsessed with Jews, and not in a good way.
Hi Goldberg gave him a bad performance review, then fired him. The people with similar experiences hang out at the Unz comment boxes along with the people who climbed into bed with Sarah Rosenberg and were mortified when she pointed at their junk and laughed.
“For some, racism is an immutable characteristic of white people, and others seem to think it’s society that is set up this way and if society were utterly changed and improved according to their dictates then racism might someday cease in the distant future.”
That’s a sentiment unique to the US, and I would only point out that its subtleties are very different to what they were 50 years ago, even moreso 100 years ago – and so it will be in the future.
I lived in the Caribbean for 20 years, where the demographic was 45% African descent, 45% East Indian, 5% Caucasian, and the rest Lebanese and Chinese. Racism abounds, particularly between the two main groups. There was the occasional direction of animosity to old whitey, as well. There is always animosity towards Chinese minorities. I witnessed an even more vitriolic example of this when I was in Jakarta, during the downfall of the Suharto regime. The Indonesians were actively targeting them during the riots.
I think our language has failed us. We need a new way, linguistically, to handle and manage the constructs of race and ethnicity, instead of continually conflating them, with some taking nefarious advantage of this awkwardness by using it as a cudgel to force their adversaries into submission. I mentioned this today somewhere else: I wonder if John McWhorter has ever considered this problem.
Not obsessed. I just find certain things amusing and sometimes hilarious.
@Aggie:
“I think our language has failed us. We need a new way, linguistically, to handle and manage the constructs of race and ethnicity, instead of continually conflating them, with some taking nefarious advantage of this awkwardness by using it as a cudgel to force their adversaries into submission.”
Yep. Except they’re not Constructs. They’re objective observable facts. The Enemy got inside your head for a moment there.
In Jakarta I knew a girl whose family lived by a marina in Pluit and always had the big boat fueled up and ready to head out to their place in the Thousand Islands at the first sign of trouble. Another one whose father owned department stores in Bandung and elsewhere told me that during the riots they rented a TNI armoured detachment to drive them to Jakarta to fly out to Singapore. What it was like for the less wealthy Chinese in Glodok, etc… not something you want to know too much about. Very unpleasant time.
These things are just facts of life. I know Chinese whose families fled Indonesia for Maoist China in the early 60s (a lot were re-settled in Fujian Province whence most of them originated from way back) because they felt and *were* safer there than in Indonesia. I know another now Thai Chinese family in Phuket got run out of Aceh and then settled in Penang, then got out of that Dodge during yet more race riots and settled in Phuket where they did very well for themselves (yet again).
The Indonesian Chinese at least can breath a *little* bit easier knowing now that PRC public opinion would not stand for them being pogrommed in an online world.
Ethnic strife is Human. It’s not nice and we don’t want to encourage more of it… but trying to make it go away is like arguing with the Tides.
Zaphod:
Do you really think anyone here is denying that there is ethnic strife in the world?
I doubt you actually think that. But “ethnic strife” is not what we’ve been talking about here.
Of course ethnic strife is a fact, not to the same degree in all places at all times, however.
Zaphod:
You’ve demonstrated in your comments here your obsession with Jews, over and over again. So your denial is meaningless.
Aggie:
In that passage you quoted – and actually, in virtually this entire post – I was speaking only of the US.
Z seems to assume he is the only knife in this drawer. Talk about a non-learner. They say you can’t fix stupid, but Z is another category of unfixable.
https://gab.com/josefbosch/posts/107736825193259836
🙂
Zaphod:
Do you really think what you just posted is worth looking at? Do you really think Whoopi Goldberg is “the most hated person in America?” The left certainly doesn’t hate her, and anyone on the right who hates her (and I’m not one of those people) hates her for other reasons and other things she’s said – probably for the aggregate of many stupid things she’s said.
As for the photo of the guy on the right at your link – I can just about guarantee to you that whether people here recognize his photo immediately, they certainly are aware of who he is and the abominable acts he committed. All you’d have to do is say “Waukesha parade.”
Goldberg is a celebrity and causes a celebrity sort of ruckus when she says something stupid. The issues her stupid remark stir up are what makes it worthy of discussion, however.
I wrote about the massacre in Waukesha (as well as the relative lack of MSM coverage about the perp) many times on this blog, as did most writers on the right. The MSM hasn’t covered it very much, and that’s why a lot of other Americans either haven’t focused on it.
However, you can still find stories on it (this is from NPR about 3 weeks ago), even in the MSM:
So far it certainly doesn’t sound as though the legal system is letting him fall through any cracks this time. But time will tell.
That link reminds me why I forgot about and never go back to…. GAB.
I think making decisions based on race is racist. For example “If Johnny is black, then Johnny wins the lottery.” is just as racist as “if Johnny is black, then Johnny goes to jail.” The determining factor is the phrase “If Johnny is black”. Nothing else matters.
More or less about what’s her name who is on vacation and getting no views:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/02/robert-wistrich-revisited.php
Antisemitism, Europe, and the left.
skipping over later comments to comment here:
j e on February 3, 2022 at 5:09 pm said: “Any decent society will believe in treating any and all persons … as individuals and citizens…”
But perhaps only a society based on a Judeo-Christian heritage will really qualify? See Larry Siedentop, Inventing the Individual. And thanks for the mention of Toward a Biosocial Science; another book to add to the stack to explore genetics, culture, and morality.
From Om’s Wistrich link:
“PL: What is at stake for those of us outside Israel in the Islamist war against Israel?
RSW: The Islamist onslaught against Israel is to a considerable extent a war by proxy against the West – in which defense of the Jewish State becomes the litmus-test for Islamic probing whether the Western world is really serious about commitment to its core-values of individual freedom and liberal democracy. The Islamic radicals are today not only the spearhead of an annihilationist anti-Jewish ideology but also of a fanatical jihadist war against civilization as it has hitherto been understood in the West.”
Come now… How many of you really actually seriously believe this warmongering Neocon @#$% in 2022? Come on.. Honestly!
On a totally unrelated tangent, the ADL / SPLC have gotten Michelle Malkin and her husband banned from staying in AirBNB properties. Nice.
https://www.unz.com/mmalkin/why-airbnb-banned-me-and-my-hubby-too/
“‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”
Instead of busily poking around and creating much diversionary sound and fury about the boring Alice bit… perhaps some of us need to really really really try harder to listen to the Egglephant in the Room.
Z:
Not so sharp. The interview was from 2012 IIRC. Go shill for Xi and Vlad, who are the warmongers. One anxious to bring back the glory days of the Han and the other pining for the Tsars.
I knew the article would trigger you. What was it mostly about? Antisemitism, Z. Too close for comfort and are you are low on copium? Pathetic.
The Left will not let go of “race” as it is a cover for culture which is what people who are said to be reacting to “race” are really reacting to.
Race along with sex and age were the easily seen markers which formed the original “identity groups” that displaced the working class as the group the Democrat’s Left was supporting. This change got going in 1968 with the McGovern Commission and it’s machinations to displace workers as a power in the Democratic Party.
The Woke have now thoroughly muddled the identity of each of these original groups what with choosing what sex or race you think you are, today. And with that the mask covering the culture of the Left has fallen though they still cry out racist as if that has any effect outside of Woke-ville.
The true war is cultural, always has been.
Regarding the Chinese “diaspora” around the western rim of the Pacific (and beyond), they have been referred to as “the Jews of Asia” (or “of the far east”), “simply” because they are not indigenous and stand out from the main indigenous groups and—generally—are family oriented, value education (and success), work very hard and prosper. Hence they can become targets of resentment—especially if things begin to unravel economically (and/or nationalist feeling erupts among the indigenes) and can be recognized as “different” ethnically, facially and, where religion is an issue, religiously. Once again, these are generalizations (which generalizations are likewise not necessarily true for all Jews—and which also have a general tendency to lessen/weaken/dwindle with each following generation AS, or IF, the connection to the tradition/religion/history becomes more dilute; but the generalization that minorities HAVE to work harder and be “better” so as to be able to succeed and/or be “accepted” holds ).
As such, the Chinese, as has been noted in previous comments, have known “pogroms” (cf. Indonesia) and are still looked upon and considered second-class citizens in places such as Malaysia (e.g.) even though they are the main drivers of the economy and have lived there for generations. They are the main political/economic drivers of Singapore, which has been able despite its small size to sustain social stability (and perhaps cohesion) and safety together with extraordinary financial success ONLY through what might be labeled an “enlightened authoritarianism”, which creates the conditions for encouraging economic entrepreneurship on a global scale.
While there is little doubt in my mind that there IS a measure of actual racism — “bias based solely on skin color or ethnic grouping which is unfounded and unsupported by actual facts and evidence” (MY own personal definition, and one which I believe was the standard def for most people throughout the 70s and early 80s) — remaining in our society, I have noted, personally, that the only type which matters is that of liberals, most of whom exercise what is referred to as “the soft bigotry of low expectations”… usually against black people.
Thinking that black people are incapable of overcoming their racist past experiences, unlike “orientals” and asian-indians, who were also quite deprecated 50+ years ago is a common theme among them, and it, in effect, keeps them oppressed, because they and they alone have to pull themselves up — it isn’t going to be done by “giving them free shit.” and making excuses for how they just can’t hack it without handouts and constant uplift from white people.
I also note that the only two white, educated adults I know who have ever used the N-word pejoratively in my presence in the last 40 years are both “yellow dog democrats”… i.e., unrequited liberals of the deepest sort. I do note that both are now over 60, so, yes, a generational thing, too.
I personally assert the issue that holds people back is black culture and has zero to do with “race” itself — it’s not their skin color or their genes, as much as it is the teaching that they
1 — are not self-responsible for their situation**
2 — that “acting white” is a bad thing (that, itself, is racist)¤
3 — see “2” — denigrating any activity which follows through on two, such as being diligent in school and not inviting problems, and at least keeping drug use restrained… teenage issues are difficult enough without adding drug dependency and/or a legal history of drug problems to the mix. Drugs don’t solve teenage issues, they just push them off until they become more severe.
4 — having kids out of wedlock, and, more critically, absentee fathers. Multiple studies have shown that absentee fatherhood is a much more significant factor in lack of success than skin color is.
5 — a general lack of respect for the notion of property§
I assert that THESE things are what hold black people back, which keep them impoverished, which leads to substantially disparate results. When your schooling was so bad you’re functionally illiterate, when you cannot grasp how to even “make change”. Yes, “black schools” are bad, but as long as you refuse to discourage bad behavior, what else are you going to expect? As long as you encourage black kids to look down on academic success, what are you going to expect? As long as you encourage loose sex and drug use, what do you expect?
===========================
** Which is not to say it isn’t outside factors, too, but “lifting yourself by your bootstraps” tends to be a generational thing — you are usually more affluent than your parents if you’re doing things “right”.
¤ “Acting white” means doing things that white people do to be successful. The thing, here, is that “being successful” here is not about whiteness… it’s about those things being done. Whites have found and identified a set of behaviors — a pattern of them — which tends to lead to greater success in life. Skin color does not have anything to do with how they encourage — “enable” — success for the actor. So if your social pattern is to inherently reject a pattern of behaviors which have been established as inherently leading to success, then what is the likely result? Right — lack of success, if not utter failure. :-/
§ Property — I had an online black friend/acquaintance. He often posted up lots of ridiculous BS, but I continued to speak politely and argue against him because he did not censor me or speak abusively. It ended the first time he censored what I had to say, and that revolved around what I am about to discuss: He had read about some case where, apparently, the police had left an unsecured truck full of Nike shoes in a mostly black neighborhood as a “honey pot”, and then arrested anyone who stole shoes out of it. He claimed this was “entrapment”. I disagreed, pointing out that, unless the police openly called attention to the fact that it was unsecured, thereby inciting the locals to steal from the truck, it wasn’t entrapment. I also asserted that, if you had done the same thing, say, with a truck full of Xboxes, in an economically similar mostly white neighborhood, the incidence of theft, while nonzero, would be lower. I assert that the problem here is that black culture does not encourage a respect for property. That, if it isn’t nailed down, it is ok to take it, if you can do so and get away with it. I was quite clear that this had nothing to do with having black skin, but that it was encouraged by black culture, and was a nontrivial problem for black people.. He deleted the comment and I unfriended him as a result.
I’m trying to think of what argument one might present to make the case that X outsider is entitled to be welcomed by X insiders into a space which they control and make their own home; and, on what grounds this potential host is presumed to have such an obligation and to recognize this proposed “entitlement”.
Thus:
1. What is the authority for this entitlement, or right, or privilege to decamp at will to the home of another and find inclusion and acceptance?
2. What principle is in operation that acts as a moral imperative impinging on the host, when the principle of reciprocity, which grounds most non-teleological and secular natural law style reasoning at base, is clearly inoperative or inapplicable in these circumstances?
It has to be some other principle.
Yet, in an era in which supposed “reason” is celebrated against all forms of tradition and legacy values, in which self interest is held to be the new and unassailable bedrock supporting any modern moral calculus, we nonetheless seem to have a situation in which a mysteriously operating black box is assessing all the inputs, but generating commands that don’t seem to comport with its publicly announced programming.
Somebody, somewhere, looks to be cheating, and they hardly seem to care if you notice.
What kind of game then, is that to be part of and to support?
Assuming of course that you are not a masochistic church lady, a mentally ill prog, or a cuck of some kind.
OBloody Hell,
I think the cultural trait you are attributing to skin color may be more of an “urban” thing. I am white and grew up in an urban area. Personal property was generally respected. If I saw an unattended bike I would not take it*. But commercial property? There was a general attitude that if it was “out of place” it was up for grabs. This was a common attitude, even among adults. If a grocery store had crates of produce on the sidewalk, in front of their business, under their plate glass windows, they would typically be left alone. But in back, or on the side of the building? Folks would help themselves.
Us kids would walk down the alleys and if businesses had things out on pallets, not obviously next to a loading dock or door, we’d grab something if it interested us. I know this sounds odd, but I honestly did not know that was theft at the time. If I had seen a bicycle in a unique place, unlocked and undisturbed over the course of a few days, I would have likely taken it. I guess the assumption was that such things were abandoned. People did leave a lot of trash out, especially in alleys. In your truck example, in my entirely white neighborhood, all the Nike shoes or Xboxes would have been gone, post haste. Unattended, (especially with a commercial association) like a truck meant “up for grabs.”
*There was a small percentage of people who did not respect personal property so in time anything not secured would eventually get spotted by one of these people and stolen. Any bike left out in my neighborhood overnight was guaranteed to be gone before daybreak.
Although surely not the entire explanation an urban environment per se probably has something to do with it as it seems to encourage the waiving of normal human personal boundaries … at least in some contexts; as anyone who has watched a film of subway riders in the 40’s and 50’s will have noticed.
As a suburban kid, I too noticed that many of the city kids had way more flexible moral boundaries than we did. At least with regard to those kids from families that remained in the city post suburban boom, but before the riots and block busting and race conflict and violence in neighborhoods and schools finally drove them out.
(The spirit of Art Deco’s observation aside, a bustling corridor filled with jostlung smartasses, is probably no place for a Scotch-Irish descent American male. You’d spend all your time holding back from smashing faces.)
On the other hand one has urban gang territories, and the migration of the unskilled,the opportunistic and even the amoral, to urban environments so that they may – as authors and social observers have long noted – avail themselves of the various benefits perceived to be found there, especially in the past: Advantages such as the annonymity of crowds; a chance to hitch a ride on patron or public service; simple excitement; or more nobly, industrial employment as a means of climbing out of the lumpenproletariat, and attaining income, respectability, an ordered life, and hopefully “gentile” (in the sense of “gens”) status.
As we all know, the literature of working class urban life is full of voices making proprietary references to the streets as “our” home, play ground, turf, etc. Perhaps among the unmonied, it is almost unavoidable.
just as you can breed dogs for intelligence, ethnicities that selectively breed for intelligence will become smarter.
Or as my Chinese boss repeats, “selectively breeding for intelligence based on Confucianism will after 2500 years pay dividends”
}}} By not just laughing at (or in times to come shooting at) someone who calls you a Racist… by not saying ‘Yep, and?’… You’re conceding the moral high ground to them.
The problem here is a “Have you stopped beating your wife?” issue.
In the real world, “binary” logic is far far less effective than trinary logic — because in this case
“No” == “So, you’re still beating your wife, then?”
“Yes” == “So you have beaten your wife in the past, then?”
i.e., damned if you Yes, damned if you No
The correct response is the third option, offered by trinary logic, “NULL”.
Translated as English, “That makes no sense, because it has a completely invalid assumption inherently a part of it”
You MUST attack the assertion — but you have to do it correctly. Ignoring it allows that defective assertion/assumption to remain standing, and, again, you’re damned either way it is taken.
“You know nothing about me. What gives you the idea that you have ANY data to identify me as being supposedly ‘racist’? You seem to be making an accusation solely based on my skin color — so it’s quite clear which of us is the racist. Clean up your own act before you start casting around accusations improperly”
1 — puts THEM onto the defensive. And fairly, because, chances are, they are being racists.
2 — explicitly identifies and calls into issue the problem, which is the misuse and misapplication of the term “racist!”
Avi – “selectively breeding for intelligence based on Confucianism will after 2500 years pay dividends”
I also wonder if the complexity of the pictographic language sorts or favors for a certain kind of intelligence – good memory, pattern recognition, etc. That and the historical use of exams covering Chinese history and culture also act as a SAT equivalent to enter the bureaucracy and the potential for upward mobility and status.
It’s the people who can’t comprehend that there has been diversity in the concepts of race, and therefore can’t get their heads about either the Holocaust or the Rwandan massacres as racist, who get me.
}}} Avi – “selectively breeding for intelligence based on Confucianism will after 2500 years pay dividends”
I also wonder if the complexity of the pictographic language sorts or favors for a certain kind of intelligence – good memory, pattern recognition, etc. That and the historical use of exams covering Chinese history and culture also act as a SAT equivalent to enter the bureaucracy and the potential for upward mobility and status.
OK, I cannot speak for the Chinese, here, but the Japanese posdef respect those who know their Kanji.
There is little reason to use Kanji, any longer, the Hiragana and Katakana alphabets can be used for any word. The typical Japanese, however, knows about 2000 Kanji. It is a mark of respect and distinction to know 3000-5000 Kanji, and to be “top notch”, people will know upwards to 10,000 Kanji. Kanji is not fading from Japanese culture, despite the lack of need for it and the issues with using it vs. a fixed phonetic alphabet
Contrast, with America, where “high falutin’ words” is denigrated (“Listen to the Dictionary, over here…:-/ “) and puns are derided.
I assert to you that puns are very very much a sign of intelligence in the same sense. Stupid people don’t make puns, intentionally. To make a pun requires a very quick mind (to produce one on the spot, less so to set one up ahead of time), a facile sense of words (you can manipulate the sounds from one form or spelling or meaning into another similar sound, spelling, or meaning readily) and a large vocabulary to apply as the sandbox.
Respect paranomasty. It’s a smart thing to do. 😛
@OBH
“4 — having kids out of wedlock, and, more critically, absentee fathers. ”
Charles Murray, in ‘Coming Apart’, makes this argument about white families as well. From memory, he showed stats on ‘good outcomes’* ranked thusly:
1] Married parents
2] Single father**
.
.
.
6] Divorced mother with live-in
7] Single mother
It might seem as if I’m being snarky (moi?), but the gap between 2 and ‘6’ was significant.
* Good outcomes were defined in the book, and I don’t have a copy to hand.
** Since the number of dads awarded custody in divorce is, um, small, the better results may just be the result of Dad being a super excellent parent (ie, *much* better than the default Mom).
Ahoy!
Batten down the hatches!
The good ship Lollipop bound for Liberia!
I assert to you that puns are very very much a sign of intelligence in the same sense. Stupid people don’t make puns, intentionally.
Puns are not a sign of intelligence. They’re a sign of a twee sensibility.
Contrast, with America, where “high falutin’ words” is denigrated (“Listen to the Dictionary, over here…:-/ “)
Or they don’t like you for some other reason.
The inability to play with words may just mean you do not have a basic sense of humor, puns being an entry level. Puns have been around a longer than “twee.” But maybe there is a statistic about that? That would really be funny.
Art Deco; om:
Is it a sign of a “twee sensibility” to use words such as “twee”?
sonny wayz,
My wife and I have a friend who spent years as a labor and delivery nurse (with a break for about 15 years to be a stay at home mom) and now teaches nursing. One night over a couple of glasses of wine she complained, “I’ve been reading a lot of research on parenting and I’m furious. Mothers do everything! We cook for our kids, clothe them, keep them safe! Dad comes home and barely interacts with the kids. Yet, all the studies show the greatest predictor of success for kids is if there is a Dad in the home!”
We all had an interesting discussion on why this is. I certainly agree my wife put in 100 X the effort I did regarding our children, including risking her very life to carry and birth them. My best guess is it’s sort of like a pride of lions or silver back gorillas. There’s a male present and he’s typically uninvolved, quietly away from the hub-bub. But, when the sh*t hits the f*n, the male jumps in and asserts dominance, restoring order.
Humans are “pack” animals and maybe we key off of alpha males? When none is present, no matter how strong a mother is, children suffer from that lack?
A culture that does not raise children among men will not survive long and men who will not raise their children are unfit to be fathers.
neo:
That may be twue, but misspelling isn’t punning. It’s just not funny! 🙂