RangerDave wrote:
I owe a couple folks responses on this stuff already, but in the meantime, I have a quick question to those drawing a perfect equivalence between anti-black and anti-white racism in the contemporary United States: Do you also see no difference between anti-Jewish and anti-germanic racism in contemporary Germany? Do context and history have no relevance to your evaluation of the moral and, more importantly, practical implications of the two?
*Edit: changed "anti-Germanic" to "anti-germanic" to clarify that I'm referring to ethnic origins not nationality/citizenship.
Context and history are quite relevant. However, that context and history is not limited to the situation of blacks prior to 1965, or even between 1965 and about 1985-1990. That context and history includes all sorts of overt laws and programs to "equalize" the racial averages, and major social shifts in the acceptability of racial stereotypes and predjudices. It also includes the failure of those things to create a major shift in the socioeconomic imbalance of whites and blacks
on average.
The problem is that socioeconomic imbalance is not racism. The history of overt oppression of blacks, and even the covert oppression of the next 20-25 years while laws took effect and attitudes shifted, is fading farther and farther into the past, but to the left it has no expiration date.
However, simply making laws and creating programs and changing attitudes don't actually change socioeconomic statuses; people have to take advantage of those things, and people who are poor and undereducated are least equipped to do so. Because blacks were already largely poor and undereducated as the result of prior racism and racist policy in 1965, the changes that came afterwards didn't, in and of themselves, lift the average very far.
This problem applies to the poor of every race; whether there is discrimination or not, undereducated, poor people have a tendency to stay that way. The problem is that by focusing on race, the left has exploited the historical context you're talking about to have it both ways. When talking about "the poor" without racial context, education and other social programs are called for to lift "the poor" in general and that education is the key to escaping poverty, but as soon as a racial context is added, the problem becomes "racism", even if that is used as the reason education is poor.
This explanation ignores, of course, poor whites, especially rural ones. When they are addressed, its invariably by caricaturing them as ignorant racists themselves, implying they deserve it and trying to ridicule the weaknesses in claims of "racism" out of existence. Not only that, but it ignores the fact that if rural whites constantly see themselves portrayed as evil, ignorant racist rednecks, and social programs that are aimed almost entirely at urban black poor people, it should be unsurprising that non-institutional racial resentment will linger.
Essentially, we are at a point where we are maintaining just enough "racism" on the part of whites, especially the rural poor, to claim it still exists, and thus justify resentment at that racism on the part of blacks, especially urban ones, despite the fact that neither group can really institutionally inflict anything on the other. It serves no purpose except for the left to A) use black resentment to garner votes while B) castigating the right for gaining the white votes and C) relying on a situation that is rapidly approaching a half-century out-of-date as a way to argue that "racial populism is ok when focused on blacks, but not on whites", and ignoring the fact that the right can hardly not have rural, poor whites vote for it. Essentially, the left is telling the right "you have to tell these people you don't want their votes and they have to stay home to avoid being called racist" which, of course, is just a way of demanding the other side hand you elections. While smart politics, it doesn't change the fact that "racism" is entirely a leftist political tool in 2013 even if it wasn't in 1983 or 1973.
It also includes the incredibly bigoted attitude that whites, when voting against anything leftist, must have surreptitious racism as their motive for no other reason than that the left suspects it to be so.
As for Germany, the present historical context is that Germany is essentially still castigating itself for the crimes of WWII, and it's pretty easy to exploit that. Tom Clancy was alluding to this in
Red Storm Rising back in 1986, pointing out that a Soviet agent could avert suspicion by using a Jewish cover identity, then deflecting the attentions of the police by making comments about "How Germans treat Jews" and relying on the fear of a police officer of being accused of anti-Semitism to send him packing.
That's very much how "Racism" is used in this country - it is a tool to prevent debate. It is used to demonize people and ideas and deflect attention from the merits.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
