----- Original Message ----- From: "Gautam Mukunda" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2003 8:54 AM Subject: Re: McNabb and Limbaugh Re: Raceism
> --- Julia Thompson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Did Rush go to college? My impression is that he > > didn't, or at least he > > never came out with a degree.... > > > > Julia > > I have no idea, actually. What I meant was that every > conservative who even wants to think about racial > issues outside of PC orthodoxies has to accept that > this is the deal - the very first tactic that will be > used by those who disagree with him is to call him a > racist. That's part of the deal. There doesn't have > to be any evidence or anything at all. If you want to > say anything about race beyond talking about the > pervasive racism of American society and how that's > the only explanation for every problem afflicting > African-Americans, you will get called a racist. > Every conservative knows it. I think most leftists do > to, to be honest, but it's too useful a tactic of > intimidation to admit that. In some cases, it happens exactly as you state it. I'm sure, especially at liberal universities, well thought out balanced conservative ideas are shouted down as racist when they are not. If you followed my discussion of my Zambian daughter being told she isn't black enough because she works too hard, you will note that I accept and acknowledge that there are problems that extend beyond the simple effects of prejudice. Having said that, though, I feel that this does not well apply to the criticisms of Rush. I've been mulling over my response to this, and find the need to keep on expanding it in my head. What I write will have to be a subset of this. First of all, I'm 99% sure we agree that slavery was the original sin of the US, and that the obvious manifestations of blacks being second class citizens in the US extended into the '60s. That is not just a matter of ancient history (heck I can close my eyes and see the TWTWTW song being sung when the Civil Rights legislation was signed). It is the necessary backdrop for any discussions because there are strong links between these facts and present attitudes, policies strategies, etc. The analogy I used when I discussed Neli (my Zambian daughter) and her accusers was people dealing with an adult who has been abused as a child. Adam rightly pointed out that white Americans can't see themselves in the position of the therapist. That wasn't the position I was actually thinking of; I was more thinking about the position of the family member. Having seen this, both personally and through Teri's work, I have a strong feel for what being a family member in this position entails. Part of it is an understanding of the background to the problem. Another part is not letting the person use their previous abuse as an excuse for present bad behavior. Sympathy and understanding must be present, but cannot be turned into a license and excuse for destructive behavior. OK, so having given my metaphor, let me look at other aspects of the situation. One of the first that I wish to consider is the change in the US political landscape in 1964. From the 1870s to 1960, the solid south existed. The South would not vote for the party of Lincoln. In Texas, the voters were referred to as yeller dog Democrats; they proclaimed that they'd vote for a yeller dog if it ran as a Democrat. The only real significant exception to this was '48 when the Dixiecrat candidate, Strom Thurmond won 4 southern states. In '64 Johnson signed the Civil Rights bill, and the political landscape changed. Barry Goldwater carried the solid Democratic south, and his own state, and that's all. Even though the Republican leadership went along with the Civil Rights act, the fact that a Democratic president pushed the legislation meant that Southerners now decided that, even though the national Republican party was the party of Lincoln, it was still the lesser of two evils...because they didn't push civil rights. Local Democrats could show that they voted against Civil Rights, and thus preserve their own hides. Nixon saw this, and he wasn't stupid. He devised his "Southern Strategy" to go and get these votes. While Wallace got most of them instead, this strategy has been part of the Republican party overall strategy every since. Now, this cannot be said overtly, because no one can come out and say they are against civil rights. So, code phrases have been developed. "State's rights" is the classic one. The apologists for the Confederacy insist that the war was about state's rights. The supporters of segregation claimed it was not anti civil-rights, but pro states rights. Now, that doesn't mean that anyone who thinks that the balance in federal and state power needs to be shifted more towards the states is racist. There are indeed, principled arguments for this, that are not at all racist. What it means is that the use of this argument raises a red flag, requiring people to carefully look at the context of the argument. Another way this manifests itself is in terms of crime. Its certainly not that people should try to understand why a black man was driven to robbery. I have very little difficulty with the concept that people who rob and kill get the appropriate sentences, no matter how unfortunate their upbringing was. To use family therapy speak, that's just providing appropriate structure. What I am discussing is the obvious ways that attitudes towards "criminal types" and asymmetric results for poor blacks and upper middle class whites who commit non-violent crimes, and how white fear of blacks plays into politics. Let me give an example for each. The first is the difference between the likelihood of a young black and a young white drug user to end up serving time for drug use. I know that drug use is rampant in the upper middle class neighborhood that I live in...and we're not just talking about a little pot smoking. I also don't know of a kid from here going to jail...well that's not true. The drug salesman who shot one of my former girl scouts in the head did get a short sentence for his actions (she lost part of her brain in the shooting and will never be the same). This is not the case for poorer blacks. A significant fraction of them go to jail for drug use. IIRC (and if need be I'll look it up) the number of blacks and whites who go to jail for drugs is about equal. There is no way to look at the numbers and validate the assumption that an equal number of blacks and whites use drugs. One can separate this into grass and harder drugs, too, and still get very strong asymmetry. Thus, we have a situation where poorer blacks are criminalized for behavior that richer whites are not criminalized. To consider this unconnected to the history of race relations in the US, and to be unconnected to the desires of a large number of Americans is naive, IMHO. Its not naive to argue that's not _all_ that's going on. If you want to point out that simply decrying racism here will do little good, I will certainly agree with you. The second is the view of many whites of lower income blacks as the "criminal type." The strongest example of this was the argument that defeated bus service to the Woodlands. The strongest argument of the opponents of mass transit was that it would increase the crime rate by bringing "the criminal element" to the Woodlands. It would be funny, if it wasn't such a successful argument. Can you someone burglarizing a house and then taking Metro back to the inner city with all the goods in hand? The third is to use the fear of blacks by whites in politics. The classic, of course, is the very successful Willy Horton ads. It was no accident that the ads looked as they did. Different examples and different color actors were tried before focus groups, and the black man/white woman crime was the classic. Safety is a legitimate concern. Being tough of crime doesn't make one a racist. So, bringing this up doesn't make one a racist. But, when one does focus groups to select the best ad and comes up with one that looks like the one that ran, it is no accident. The race card is being played for political gain. You may/have argue that the race card is being played by blacks too, in an unfair manner. I'm not arguing with that. I'm just pointing out that the Republicans have played it to their benefit the other way. You can see it, also, in how Trent Lott got caught crossing the invisible line. I have a very hard time believing that the comment on things being better if Thurman were president instead of Truman was an accident. Its one of those signals that's sent to the racist voters to let them know who their true friends are. This doesn't mean that Bush is a racist. I rather think he is not; he just accepts the political reality that keeping the racist vote is an important part of the Republican success story, just as being polite to people like Sharpton is part of the political requirements for Democrats. I also would not consider the first Lady a racist, even though she wrote an impassioned editorial insisting that the very idea that the "War Between the States" had anything to do with slavery was nothing more than liberal PC revisionism. But, Rush doesn't get that kind of pass from me. While I admit that I haven't listened to him for hours on end, and I haven't personally heard things like his telling a black person to take the bone out of his nose and then talk with him, I've lived for many years in the presence of many dittoheads who quote him. We are not talking about someone who gives a thoughtful argument about how best to attack social problems. Rather, we have someone who rants for three hours, entertaining the faithful. I'm not going to argue that there are no left wing rants. But, when he takes his rants off his show and brings it to a football pregame show, he's crossed a couple of important lines. First, he no longer was preaching to the faithful; rather his rants were in front of a diverse audience. Second, he picked a topic that even the faithful didn't have much faith in. Black quarterbacks getting raves only because of the bias of the liberal media? Even my racist friends (the one's who think that I'm obviously biased by PC for not acknowledging that the inferiority of blacks is a simple scientific fact) allows that the black QBs can actually be good good. Yes, he just gave one example, but it wasn't an off the cuff remark; he planned to bring it up. Since McNabb is just one of several high ranked black quarterbacks, it would be hard to explain why you think all the other black QBs deserve their reputations, but not McNabb. The only consistent reason for this viewpoint that I can think of is the belief that the old days, when all the QBs were white, was a reflection of the natural order of things. You know, the inherent intelligence of whites and the inability of whites to regard a black man as a leader, and all that other nonsense. So, in short, while you could argue that PC has been used to attack very reasonable conservative positions, that dog doesn't hunt with Rush. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
