Polite Kid

It appears that the story that was going around, regarding Jamie Foxx playing Frank Sinatra in an upcoming movie, was just a joke which the media ran with.
Was this really a joke, or was it a set-up? In today's insane media universe, almost anything is possible, especially where far-fetched racial ''statements'' are contained in much of our purported entertainment.
The rumor was not all that hard to believe, considering that modern treatments of the Robin Hood story place blacks in Sherwood Forest, not to mention Moslems, and a recent Oliver Twist production was to have a black ''Nancy''. What next?
Is this just another example of lefty multicultists trying to 'push the envelope' with the racial agenda? It seems as if nothing is to be left untouched by the politically correct meddlers, who feel the need to administer the diversity makeover to any and every part of our culture.
The recent Star Trek movie seems, from what I have read and heard, to be pushing the racial envelope too, but then the series always did that, even way back in 1966 when it first began. Of course then it was a little more low-key, with the underlying message being 'isn't it wonderful that in the future, we will all get along and work together as one united people under a unified global government.' Of course now we have had a glimpse of that possible future, and it is not the utopia some of us wanted to believe it would be.
The one ironic twist to the cozy little Star Trek multicult universe is this: if the idea is that the future will be egalitarian and colorblind, with racial harmony prevailing, why then are there still identifiable races and nationalities? Why aren't the people in Starfleet all of the same color and of similar features and hair texture? Why are there still hideously White people like Kyle or Janice Rand or Nurse Chapel or McCoy? Obviously the racial blender broke down, or something, between our age and the enlightened future.
The idea, though, that so many people were willing and able to believe that Jamie Foxx would play Frank Sinatra shows just how bizarre our racial politics have become. It appears that many people have been thoroughly indoctrinated to believe that ''race is just a social construct'', or that it's in the (racist) eye of the beholder only.
So maybe it is not so far-fetched that a White icon might be played by a black actor in a movie. If it is not real today, it probably will be at some point, tomorrow or next month or next year. That's the direction in which we are going.
The whole surreal situation reminded me of a movie I saw some years ago. It was a 1993 movie called 'Suture.'
I've mentioned it and I've never encountered anybody who actually saw it, so I might be tempted to think it was all just a strange dream, but no, here it is at IMDB.com, being discussed by the liberal-leaning commenters there.
The plot of the movie, as best I can describe it, is that two brothers or half-brothers meet, after which one is killed, and his identity stolen by the second brother. The twist is that one brother is black, the other is White. Yet in the movie everybody believes the identity switch. The fact that the brothers were of two different races and resembled each other not at all is not noticed by anybody.
What could the point be? That race is not important? That if we, the audience, noticed the racial difference, we are racist? Who knows? The commenters don't even know, and the tone of their comments amuses me:
The concept of all reality being a facade and prey to the unexpected warpings of fate, accident and whimsical doom-laden coincidence is a fundamental aspect of noir. With the twist of no one actually making the obvious connection between the brother's difference and Dennis Haysbert's character Clay gradually absorbing the life of his (not) dead brother without incident, the surreality of the film is magnetically compulsive and as noirish as some of the best films of the 1940s and 50s in dreamy, menacing atmosphere. I found myself deeply caring what happened to Clay on his odyssey towards a (false) identity and finally claiming it.
The whole cast is good, but in this film Dennis Haysbert shows the gravita s and dignity and vulnerability that makes him the real star of the excellent TV thriller '24'. A landmark film of the '90s gone unnoticed!
[...]
The first time I watched "Suture", in 1994, it ripped through me like some kind of high speed extra-terrestrial spacecraft, and I found myself asking, "What was that?" A year later I watched it again and the whole thing began to make sense. This film is unapologetically bizarre, mysterious, and aesthetically engaging -- almost everything I desire in a film. It is more like a piece of music, becoming more enjoyable with each viewing. One reason for the films superb milage is that it can be enjoyed on so many different levels. It is both a mirror image of contemporary society and a message from some alternative universe. The Surrealists made the point that the transcendent is found in the mundane, and "Suture" wallows in the mundane.
[...]
Viewers will not find themselves concerned with such trivia as performances, costumes, cinematography or sets, but rather issues, questions and statements. Issues such as self-awareness, questions such as: "Can we become someone else?", and statements such as: "Skin colour has no relevance to the identification of self". In their black and white feature, McGehee and Siegel fail to differentiate between and African/American man and a man of European descent. We're concerned not with the physical here, but the meta-physical.
As for the answers to these conundrums, one can only reach one's own conclusions. For me though, the personal soul is unchangeable and cannot be interchanged for another's. We may take someone's place, but we cannot become who they are.''
It's strange to see these people dancing around the issue of race while not really touching it. It's as if they have an unspoken agreement not to notice the racial issue.
Only one comment on that page raised the obvious question:
So, some scrawny old balding guy decides to kill his brother who is this big black guy. He slips his magical, indestructible drivers license into the black guy's wallet, and proceeds to blow him up. The dental records won't survive, but the ID card certainly will!
The black guy survives, but has amnesia. But somehow everyone mistakes the black guy for the white guy... Apparently, being in an explosion gives you black skin, African facial features, a full head of hair, and a different voice and personality.
Despite how insanely ridiculous this movie idea is, somehow the film continues to be completely predictable throughout. It's boring to boot.
If anyone can give me one good reason this film exists, please do.''
That last comment is very like the little boy in the Andersen fairy tale ''The Emperor's New Clothes.'' He is the only one who breaks the taboo and points to the obvious, while the others are blinding themselves. This is very much the state of our society, with a large segment of our White population agreeing to ignore the obvious, and to admire something which is not there, something which is only a construct of their minds.
Race-blindness is a social construct.
When I saw ''Suture'' back in 1995 or so, I found it absurd, but now it is becoming more and more plausible. In the context of today's willful race-blindness, in a world in which Ralph Kramden has become black and Morgan Freeman fits into medieval England, anything is possible, including a black Frank Sinatra.

Labels: Entertainment Media, Liberals, Multiculturalism, Political Correctness, Race Denial

On this blog, we return every so often to the discussion of culture vs. race, or nature vs. nurture, if you like.
Over at TakiMag, there is a piece by John Derbyshire in which he addresses this issue.
Derbyshire discusses how some, who, although believing that human beings evolved in Africa 50,000 years ago, then stopped evolving suddenly after dispersing throughout the world, in groups widely separated from one another.
That does seem quite a contradiction for those who believe in evolution. How does one rationalize or explain away this sudden stop in what is supposed to be an ongoing process? How can it be that the races of human beings, despite the great variations in appearance, are still somehow exactly the same in all the ways that matter?
He discusses how the idea of the 'psychic unity of mankind' was developed by Adolph Bastian and then later by Franz Boas, who is one of the most influential figures in anthropology and sociology. So much of the 'thinking', if it can be called that, of liberal egalitarians is based on Franz Boas' theories.
This idea of the "psychic unity of mankind" is a sort of blank slate principle. It says that all human beings everywhere have the same physiological nature, most especially the same brains, and that all observed differences, both group and individual, are the result of "culture" acting on this infinitely plastic substratum�writing words on this "blank slate."
"Blank slate" is in fact sometimes used as an identifier for this point of view�this belief in the psychic unity of mankind. It is also sometimes called a "Boasian" viewpoint in honor of Franz Boas�poor Bastian seems to have been forgotten.
[...]
Those of you who like to trace things back through the history of philosophy will recognize culturism as an extreme form of existentialism. In philosophical jargon your essence is what you are, as it might be put on a police WANTED poster: white male, 190 lbs, married two children, etc. Your existence is that you are�the fact of your being in the world. The old philosophical conundrum is: Which comes first, essence or existence? Do you come into the world with preset atrributes�the essentialist position? Or do you come in as a blank slate, and have to get some attributes for yourself, as the mid-20th-century Existentialists argued, or have them imposed on you by your social conditions, modes of production, and so on, as classical Marxism argued? ''
I had never thought of this culturalist 'blank slate' theory as being existentialist, but it is that. And as Derbyshire notes, our offical dogma in this society is 'an extreme existentialist one.' It's usually expressed as the utopian notion that we can all, or each of us as individuals, do anything and be anything we wish to be. And if we fail to do so, it's because of some environmental cause; opportunity has been cruelly denied us, holding us back from achieving our dreams.
Obviously, as we've discussed here before, if we believe, as the doctrinaire blank-slate egalitarians do, that everybody is equal in potential, then we have to find some explanation for why certain groups fail to achieve on an equal level. If we refuse dogmatically to accept that because races are intrinsically different, each group has differing abilities, then we have to resort to blaming any disparities on 'racism'. Of course, the all-encompassing belief in racism accepts as a given that White people are being gratuitously malicious towards nonwhites, thwarting their every effort to achieve. This is unfair to minorities in that it gives them a false diagnosis of the problem, rendering a realistic solution nearly impossible, but even more, it is unfair to Whites who are labeled as born 'racists' who are guilty whether they acknowledge it or not. It is slanderous; it amounts to calling Whites an innately evil group of people, and the only people capable of what is now considered (by our liberal society) the worst of all human evils -- ''racism.''
Our educational bureaucracy and our politically correct politicians who set policy are invested in egalitarian belief, and so they are forced to keep re-enacting this absurd play in which certain racial/ethnic groups fall short in academic achievement, followed by the ritualistic response that 'racism' is keeping these groups from ''closing the achievement gap.'' The vast sums of money our governments spend on trying to equalize the races is never enough to close the persistent gap, and no amount of money can ever be enough, apparently. Yet this charade goes on and on, with no end in sight. Worse, the 'achievement gap' issue is further complicated by the introduction of yet other ethnic/racial groups who also fail to compete academically as egalitarian dogmas imply they should. So now we have not only the black/White 'achievement gap' to fret about, but also the Hispanic/White gap. And on it goes.
The egalitarian is forced to resort to the belief that 'culture' causes all significant differences among the races, and that if we just 'assimilate' everyone to our ways, they will be just the same as we are, and will eventually achieve at equivalent levels. If not, it's because we have not done enough to bridge the cultural divide. Or it's because Whites are so incorrigibly 'racist.'
So this stubborn belief in egalitarianism of course entails more spending of money, and renewed efforts to indoctrinate teachers and citizens in the belief that we are all really equal, but for culture, and culture can be taught or shared. More propaganda is generated in an attempt to 'correct' the attitudes of 'racist' Whites, and more 'hate speech' laws are passed to curtail the evil of 'racism.'
According to the blank-slate believers, inequality has nothing whatsoever to do with race or genetics. It has only to do with 'culture', and culture apparently grows out of the ground, or falls out of the sky like rain; it does not grow out of the soul and mind of a particular people or race.
It is not just the extreme left egalitarians who believe this; just visit any mainstream 'conservative' forum and you will find many staunch Republicans protesting that ''Bill Cosby is right; blacks just have to learn how to succeed in majority culture and give up the ghetto culture.''
Thomas Sowell wrote that black social pathologies were caused by their exposure to 'redneck culture' in the South. Again, a 'conservative' variation on the old evil Whitey explanation for everything.
Many 'conservatives' believe that Hispanics ''will assimilate just like everybody else, if you give them a generation or two. After all, the [insert favorite European ethnic group name here] assimilated." They say the same about even more exotic peoples such as Somalis or Hmongs. The belief is that they will all become as American as apple pie, given enough time and exposure to our 'culture.'
For an illustration of how the debate on culture vs. genetics goes, just read the discussion on this blog thread regarding the Walmart trampling death. The 'r-word' flies, and denials likewise follow. This kind of back-and-forth is never-ending.
Stating a belief in innate racial differences, especially where behavior is concerned, draws accusations of 'racism' just about every time.
So most "conservatives" fall back on the idea of culture as being the determinant, although nobody ever answers the question of how culture develops. There is an implicit belief that culture just happens, or that it's comparable to a suit of clothes that we can put on or take off at will.
Everybody is equally capable, apparently, of adopting any culture. How certain ethnicities and races come to have distinct cultures, that are unique to them alone, is never discussed, much less explained.
Derbyshire alludes to the reaction James Watson experienced when he stated a simple belief in IQ differences among the races.
But since the feared results of believing such differences exist are considered undesirable by liberals and egalitarians, the idea of differences must be banished from polite discussion. Any heretic who expresses such a belief must be dealt with by ostracism, job loss, re-education, or whatever means, in order that the forbidden idea not be spread.
But until or unless we can honestly acknowledge the simple and self-evident fact that we are not blank slates and not all ''the same under the skin", this pattern will persist. The endless laments about 'achievement gaps' and 'the failure of our schools' and our 'failure to integrate and assimilate' everyone, and the endless accusations of racism in all its various forms, all will continue, and the frictions attendant on these accusations will increase.
If you read the comments at TakiMag following Derbyshire's article, you will notice that one rather angry liberal commenter shows that he is fearful of the results which might follow an acceptance of innate racial differences. He mentions 'eugenics', for example. I don't know whether the commenter eventually will resort to the old reductio ad Hitlerum, but I would not be surprised.
Why do people, or liberals, I should say, fiercely resist the idea of innate differences? Is it because of their dogmatic belief that we all have a right to self-create and self-define? Or are they really fearful that some kind of totalitarian policies would be implicit in the idea of differences?
Many of the people who express these kinds of fears are members of minority groups (sometimes ethnic Whites) who feel themselves to be endangered by an acknowledgement of ethnic and racial differences. Some of these people identify strongly with nonwhites, and have a knee-jerk resistance to any ideas which they deem potentially ''racist".
I am not surprised that the leftists and liberals cling fiercely to their egalitarian, blank slate belief system. Reality never intersects with their perceptions. But I am perpetually frustrated that many who are somewhat more to the right, who pride themselves on being 'realistic', insist on mouthing the same platitudes as the left-liberals. How do we get past this?

Labels: Cultural Marxism, Egalitarianism, Liberalism, Race Denial, Racial Guilt

Once again, it's a liberal who speaks politically incorrect truths about racial matters. Nader is not on our side but even a broken clock is right twice a day: Nader: Obama trying to 'talk white'
Nader said he is not impressed with Obama and that he does not see him campaigning often enough in low-income, predominantly minority communities where there is a "shocking" amount of economic exploitation.
[...]
"He wants to show that he is not a threatening . . . another politically threatening African-American politician," Nader said. "He wants to appeal to white guilt. You appeal to white guilt not by coming on as black is beautiful, black is powerful. Basically he's coming on as someone who is not going to threaten the white power structure, whether it's corporate or whether it's simply oligarchic. And they love it. Whites just eat it up."
In the Free Republic discussion of this article, a commenter asks:
'How should Obama talk? Should he sound like an African-American? That makes no sense. He's 50% white, and the rest is a mix of his Arab and Kenya heritage.''
Another Freeper offers:
Uhhh....Ralph. He is white. He�s as much white as he is black.''
Another says:
Why are liberals so hung-up on race?'
Yet another bizarrely insists:
Obama is MORE white than black. Arab bloodlines are not considered black bloodlines.''
Another says:
While BO's father was from Kenya, his father's family was mainly Arabs. His father was only 12.5% African Negro and 87.5% Arab. (His father's birth certificate states he is Arab, not African Negro).
I'll leave it to you and others to sort this out as to legitimate sources, etc. One source is as good as the other. Pick your own pew. Since Obama is purportedly half-black and half-white, why does his "birth certificate" say "African". This is not 100% true.'
First, I've read the claims of his being mostly of 'Arab' ancestry on his paternal side. His father's appearance is 100 percent African as far as I can see; if there is any 'Arab' ancestry it must be so remote and so diluted as to be invisible. So I put no stock in that claim, although the Freepers seem willing to believe it because their only apparent objection to Obama is that he is a crypto-Moslem (and he may well be) who is partly Arab.
But the more baffling question for me is this: there seems to be a new (to me) definition of 'White.' Since so many on the 'right' are genuinely upset that Obama does not prefer his White ancestry, it appears that there is some newly-devised definition of White wherein anybody with half-White ancestry is 'White'. This was never the historic definition of White anywhere that I know of. So what is up with this new understanding of racial categories? Are conservatives finally surrendering to the 'race is a social construct' dogma? It could be interpreted that way. Or do conservatives think that when someone is half-and-half, one can pick a race? If so, the definition of White will be substantially changed.
This whole issue seems to be a curiously emotional one for many 'conservatives'. I've commented here before about how I've read so many rather hurt comments from Whites asking why Obama won't claim his White ancestry. They truly do seem genuinely wounded by this; they say things like 'he was raised by his White grandparents and grew up in White culture but he won't call himself White.'
Whence the hurt feelings here? I don't get it. I can see how the White relatives who raised him might feel hurt and rejected, but why should random White people be so emotionally invested in this?
I wonder if many people, 'conservatives' as well as liberals, truly crave acceptance by blacks and other minorities (but primarily blacks). Is this just one more manifestation of the White guilt Nader alludes to? Do we think that our Original Sin might be washed away by Obama's embrace of his White ancestry? Would that be the ultimate absolution White liberals (and 'conservatives') are yearning for?
If so, I would find that more understandable, though servile, and less troubling in a way than the idea that we are suddenly ready to re-define racial categories or to proclaim that race is, after all, a social construct, or whatever we decide it is.
Does a black man become White by 'talking White' as Nader says, or does reading ''lit fic novels'' make a black man White, as Steve Sailer implies here? I thought Sailer believed that race is real. Maybe I've misunderstood him all along.
...white Democrats haven't seemed to like black candidates much. They've looked down upon non-racialist pragmatic black politicians like former LA mayor Tom Bradley as Uncle Toms, yet also looked down upon racialist politicians popular with blacks like Rev. Jesse and Rev. Al as buffoons. So, Obama is the unexpected answer to their fantasies. A black candidate who has worked hard to establish a career for himself as a South Side racialist, but who is really a lit fic novel reading white man in a semi-black skin.''
Shades of 'Stuff White People Like.' Is being White a matter of having 'White' cultural preferences, like the caricatured, aracial 'Whites' of the SWPL blog? There are plenty of Whites who are not 'lit fic novel reading' types; where do they fit in?
There have always been a few blacks, regardless of whether they have White ancestry, who speak standard American English, have conservative ideas, or work in predominantly White professions or businesses. Are they then automatically Whites?
A prominent example would be Oprah. She 'talks white', so much so that she was on the receiving end of many jokes by some stand-up comics back in the early days of her career, before she became some kind of saint. She is culturally more White than black, it seems. She may claim some non-African ancestry, probably American Indian like 90 percent of blacks do. But does anybody say she is anything other than black?
To me, the old commonsense rule still applies. If someone looks black, they are black, even though they may have White genes. African genes are outwardly dominant. No one with one White parent and one black parent looks White. In the past anyone who suggested Obama might justifiably call himself White would be viewed askance, to put it mildly.
So what is going on with this silly-putty view of racial identity?
Somewhat pertinent is this post which discusses American blacks' ancestry:
Studies have repeatedly shown American blacks average ~20% European admixture, while white Americans show minimal if any non-European admixture. Gene flow was overwhelmingly one way.
It is no surprise that among American blacks "self-report of a high degree of African ancestry in a three-generation family tree did not accurately predict degree of African ancestry". The overwhelming majority of American blacks have "African" (black) parents and grandparents. No doubt most of Aframs' European genes entered the Afram gene pool more than 3 generation ago. Aframs without recent white ancestors may range from light-skinned to coal-black. We see no such variations in the phenotypes of white Americans.''
That first sentence I quoted disposes of one of the common myths or 'arguments' of the social construct devotees: the claim that 'many White Americans have African blood, so there is no true White American.'
I've heard that said or seen it claimed in many internet discussions.
But the racial myths and half-truths will go on as long as they serve the purpose of blurring all distinctions.

Labels: Political Correctness, Presidential Candidates, Race Denial, Racial Guilt

It's been asserted, usually by those on the left end of the spectrum, that 'everything is political.' Well, since the beginning of this present administration, everything is certainly racial, at least in the eyes of the administration's minions and defenders.
Example: the appalling exchange between Chris Matthews of MSNBC (he of the 'leg tingle') and professionally black Cynthia Tucker. The topic under discussion is the townhall protests, and the mostly conservative protesters:
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Put 100 of these people in a room. Strap them into gurneys. Inject them with sodium pentathol. How many of them would say "I don't like the idea of having a black president"? What percentage?
CYNTHIA TUCKER: Oh, I'm just guessing. This is just off the cuff. I think 45 to 65% of the people who appear at these groups are people who will never be comfortable with the idea of a black president.''
Leaving aside Matthews' outrageous proposal -- it's hypothetical, supposedly, but what kind of mind imagines such scenarios? -- Tucker's implicit claim to be able to read the thoughts of the White townhall protesters is itself pretty outrageous.
But this is typical, run-of-the-mill stuff for the media arm of the regime. This is what they do, day in and day out. This is how they earn their livelihood. This is what they think about, and this is how they see the world. They see a world in which just about everybody who is not ''of color'' is racist to some extent or other, and those who deny it merely affirm the truth of the accusation by their very denials. So in these people's warped minds, White=racist. And no exceptions exist.
Regardless of whether the allegations of 'racism' are true in any given case, the real issue is: why have we allowed this society we created become so fanatically obsessed with 'race' and with purging out any incorrect thoughts on the subject? The whole idea of this bogeyman called 'racism' is an idea without which we managed to live successfully and peaceably for centuries, and yet now it seems to completely consume our thoughts and our public discourse. It has become so all-consuming that we managed to elect someone to the highest office in our land, someone whose experience was extremely limited, somebody whose CV is not even known to the public, except as unsubstantiated claims as to biographical details. And this person was elected, for all intents and purposes, because of his race. A White man (or woman) would be laughed off the public stage if he or she thought to run for President with such meagre experience, and while claiming the right not to divulge crucial evidence of past accomplishments, citizenship, and birth. That we elected someone of unknown background and scanty experience belies all common sense, except when we bring the race factor into it.
Over the last half-century we've become fully indoctrinated, most of us, to the idea that black people, and to a lesser extent other 'people of color' are essentially our moral betters, always sinned against yet never sinning. We are always in the wrong where they are concerned, and they themselves can do no wrong. When caught in some misdeed, the benefit of the doubt always accrues to them, and never to us. When a dispute occurs between a White or group of Whites and a black, the black is always the victim, the White the villain. It's as simple as that.
Even when the nonwhite is caught red-handed in a crime, excuses are made, the handiest excuse being: he was a victim of 'racism', or of 'the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.' Whenever a White criticizes a black or other nonwhite, the most effective defense for the nonwhite is to accuse the White of 'racism' and 'hate.' Playing that race card immediately is generally very effective, because the focus shifts to the White 'racist' who is then on the defensive trying to establish that he is innocent of this most serious of moral failings. At that point, the White man is assumed to be the bad guy, regardless of whether the black involved was justly criticized or accused.
So life becomes one long exercise, for Whites, of trying to disprove one's putative racism, to pre-emptively show the world, lest we be accused, that we are really not racist. Liberals are people who work full-time at trying to pre-empt any accusations of racism. ''Conservatives'', especially of the mainstream Republican variety, are not quite as zealous, although they will react when accused with the same protestations of innocence, and the same flailing attempts to establish one's innocence of that 'moral evil'.
Conservatives react, when cornered by race-baiters, by pointing the finger back if the accuser is a White Democrat: ''Democrats are the real racists! Democrats keep blacks on the liberal plantation! Robert 'Sheets' Byrd....'' and so on. In other words, they accept the validity of the concept of racism as the greatest evil, the scourge of our time, and they accept the idea that Whites are often guilty of it (although they point the finger at liberals) and they accept the idea that being found guilty of it should bring condemnation and punishment. In fact they cannot or will not simply step outside of the game and say 'I'm not playing this game anymore.' Why they are stuck in that paradigm, which is the one established by the enemy, is a puzzle to me.
So now conservatives and other common-sense Americans who oppose the health plan are being accused, as usual, of being racists, because they 'obviously don't like the idea of a black president.' Again, the left is asserting mind-reading capabilities.
But should somebody not ultimately ask: is it wrong or 'racist' to have a problem with electing a black president? Is race truly an irrelevant, superficial category that must not be even noticed in choosing between candidates, or making any other choice?
Even the Republicans seem to have bought the idea that race, even if not a 'social construct', is still an irrelevant category, like eye color or height. They accept the belief that race is merely skin color, and that it has no significance in making judgments about people. They are implicitly accepting the idea that race tells us nothing about an individual or group.
During the campaign, when all sorts of nonsensical ideas were floating around ('worse is better,' for example) I had an extended discussion with a fellow blogger, with whom I had an amicable, ongoing exchange, about whether race was significant in the election. The argument also revolved around whether, given a choice between two liberal candidates with similar leftist views, race even mattered. What would it matter if Clinton or Obama were nominated, if they pursued roughly the same agenda?
My thought was: even if the two had very similar policy goals and agendas, race did matter. I believed, and said, that the election of a black president would mean the racializing of virtually everything. I said that even if the media, for some strange reason, decided to be unbiased, the hypothetical administration would racialize things, especially criticism. Any criticism of the president's policies could be -- and therefore would be -- called 'racist.' How could a Democrat administration resist playing that old race card? It's the ultimate weapon in their arsenal; why would they suddenly develop compunctions about using it?
I said that Clinton, however disastrous a President she would be, would not be above criticism. I said that the Republican opposition (even given their craven cowardice) would not be above criticizing her in very blunt terms. She was and is a polarizing figure, and one who already evoked a great deal of hostility from conservatives. She would not be treated with kid gloves. She could be opposed vigorously and openly. Now, contrary to what feminists say, this is not because of 'sexism' or 'misogyny', but just because she was a woman who raised people's hackles, and who had no scruples about attacking her own perceived political enemies.
However, a black president, any black president would be treated with kid gloves, because Republicans are scared stiff of the race card. They would tiptoe around a black president and pull their punches. Nobody would want to be called the 'r-word' so they would roll over. And so far, that's what they've mostly done, throughout the campaign and after the inauguration.
So yes, it matters very much whether the president is White or black, as long as we still have this bizarre system in place in which people quail before a word, and will do or say almost anything to prove they are innocent of the charge of racism.
The system of political correctness, and the victimolatry which makes people fear transgressing against the 'victims' of the world, by word or deed, in essence makes us powerless. It disarms us. We have a right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment; self-defense in that sense is legal and allowed. But we are disarmed verbally and in our thoughts. We are not allowed self-defense in our speech. All criticism of the protected 'victims', even in self-defense, is denied us.
We are subject to sanction if we speak uncomfortable truths which ''offend'' the professional offense-takers. So we are to all intents and purposes disarmed. We are at a disadvantage vis-a-vis minorities, and they know this, and use it mightily against us.
Even were we to wake up, stand up, and reject this arcane system, it would still matter whether a president is black or White or some other color. It matters because there is a power differential in this society, and the power is not with us, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. Look who has to bow the knee and apologize constantly; look who has to watch what he or she says. Look who cannot be ill-spoken of or criticized or looked at wrongly. It's not us.
Chris Matthews, and all the other media lackeys, are wrong in insinuating that it is illegitimate or immoral or evil or unjust to consider race when choosing a president.
It's a legitimate criterion for choosing a president. It's legitimate and reasonable because race is not merely a question of skin color or complexion. It is a fact, not a 'social construct', and blacks know this, as do Hispanics, American Indians, Asians, and essentially everybody except mesmerized Whites. Nonwhites recognize that they have an enormous advantage in their race, and this is why they racialize everything. When everything, including the health care debate, is racialized, and when that racialization is meant to marginalize us and make us out to be the villains, nonwhites have every incentive to make it about race.
Think about it: if race were really insignificant, or if White race conferred some special privilege as some insist, then nonwhites would not constantly call attention to race. But they do so constantly, proving that they see some benefit in being nonwhite. They perceive that their interests are served by disassociating from Whitey.
And the stark fact is that many minorities, if not all, see Whites as their rivals if not as The Enemy, or as competitors who stand in the way of their goals, if not as an obstacle to their ambitions. As long as members of other races take an adversarial or even hostile approach towards Whites, it's not only legitimate and sensible to take race into account; it's downright essential to one's survival.
We are not supposed to notice nonwhites animosity and hatred towards us, though it's in our faces in many ways. Some easily-fooled or pollyannaish Whites comfort themselves with believing that minorities like us, they really, really like us, and it's only White 'racism' that makes them hostile to us sometimes. But the fact is: their interests and ours are in conflict. We have every right, indeed, we have a duty to take reality, including racial reality, into consideration when choosing our elected officials.
There are real, significant differences among the races, and these differences should and must be allowed to be taken into account, given that these differences include differences in temperament, personality, innate abilities, and culture.
And for now, at least, everything is racial, because those in charge have made it so, because it serves their purpose nicely.

Labels: Cultural Marxism, Freedom Of Speech, Media Bias, Political Correctness, Race Card, Race Denial, Racial Division, Socialized Medicine, Thought Crime

Some of you (I hope most of you) who read this blog or similar blogs, will be familiar with the writings of Carleton Putnam. He was the author of Race and Reason, as well as Race and Reality, in addition to other books.
At Archive.org there is a sound file of Putnam addressing a Citizens' Council group in Jackson, Mississsippi, in 1961. He was being honored for his Race and Reason, and for his efforts to defend the South against the constant propaganda barrage by the Northern establishment. Putnam also strove to try to reconcile the two regions, North and South, where their disagreements on racial matters were dividing them. In the speech you will hear of how the North and West were being fed a lot of anti-Southern rhetoric in relation to the issue of segregation, and Putnam tried to educate his fellow Yankees about, well, 'race and reality', to use his phrase.
In the course of his remarks, he runs through the origins of the egalitarian dogma that has come to be the accepted orthodoxy of today, for example the Boasian influence in the social sciences.
Towards the conclusion of his speech, you will note that his points still resonate very much today, except that it is not just the North that is under the sway of indoctrination, but the entire country, and the entire Western world. His words were rather prophetic.
What would he think of the dire predicament we are in today, as a result of the very influences against which he fought? I rather think he would still not counsel defeatism and resignation. I think he would still exhort us to continue to stand up for the sake of our progeny and the future.
I recommend listening to the speech; it's worth 50 minutes or so of your time.

Labels: Cultural Marixism, Egalitarianism, Political Correctness, Race Denial

I've been spending some hours visiting various right-wing/conservative blogs to get a feel for what people are saying about these latest instances of violence in the news. I'd like to be able to say that I see movement towards some kind of realism, or an 'awakening'. According to the still-extant ''worse is better'' philosophy, there ought to be a mass awakening to reality by now, or very soon. I don't see much of it.
I do see that there is a lot of blunt, even harsh rhetoric on the part of many mainstream 'conventional conservatives.' But I think the bluntness somewhat belies the fact that underneath some of the tough talk, there survives much of the 'colorblind' memes.
For example, a lot of the comments express the creaky old idea that the violence is due to 'liberalism'. The liberal welfare state and the media and school propaganda have kept blacks down, held them back, and made them dysfunctional. Had it not been for the Great Society or the New Frontier, and the myriad liberal programs since then, blacks would by now have blended in seamlessly with the rest of us, and enmity between or amongst the different races would not exist.
Occasionally, even on this blog from time to time, somebody will say that before the 60s, there was no problem, with black dysfunction or crime. Apparently they were all well-behaved and docile. There is a grain of truth here; things have gotten worse since the 60s, but there were problems before. Read old books and histories; there are indications that things were not as orderly in the past as some Republicans want to believe.
This idea dies hard.
In my post last night, I blamed the media to some extent for fomenting conflict, actively stoking the flames of hatred towards Whites. But in saying that, I was by no means excusing the people who commit violence. The media did not create the very real animosity, nor did 'liberalism' or The Democrat Plantation nor any of the other handy scapegoats so favored by the aracial right. The media exacerbate the existing bad blood; they egg it on, goad those who are already prone to acting out violently. They are instigators and spectators gleefully observing the mayhem from the stadium seats. I do believe some leftists, too wimpy to act out themselves except verbally, use minorities as surrogates to carry out the deeds they would do, if they were not to cowardly to do so themselves.
You could also say that the media are like those arsonists who set fires, then call the firemen, and skulk in the shadows watching the conflagration with excitement. Then they can boast that they did their part to curtail the damage, when in fact they lit the match.
But again, they are sparking a situation which is already combustible.
But how do we answer the conservatives who say that 'liberalism' and the Democrats are to blame? One obvious answer is to point to the violence endemic to many countries where there are no Democrats or American-style liberals to blame. Look at Haiti, and various African countries. The pattern holds true there.
But the liberal-conservative Republican type will not acknowledge this; they have their story and they're sticking to it, facts notwithstanding.
The other fall-back argument that stubborn 'colorblinds' use is the 'Thomas Sowell' argument, or the Walter Williams argument, or Herman Cain, or whoever the current paragon of black conservative virtue. This is a variation of the ''they're not all like that!' argument, which is one that exasperates me. In other words, until every individual, every last one, of a given group is actively attacking you, then there is no problem. Generalizations can't be made, even if 99 percent fit the stereotype.
And as always, liberal Republicans are just as likely as liberal Democrats to pull out the old, frayed race card: ''you're a racist'' or a ''supremacist'' or an extremist. A hater. A bigot.
This of course is not an argument at all, just verbal abuse, but it's the best they have, or so they think.
I am always looking for the half-full glass, but optimism is not the same as pollyannaism or denial. I would love to see some movement towards common sense, self-respect, confidence, and a spirit of unity amongst our people, but as of this moment, it seems a long way off.
It is easier to teach those who realize they don't have all the answers than to teach or persuade those who have an ironclad certainty that they know it all. So until something or someone shakes the know-it-all attitude of the smug conservative who is up on his PC moral high horse, I am afraid we won't see the ''hope and change'' that we need.

Labels: Political Correctness, Race Denial, Racial Realism

Yesterday's brief entry, about the different categories of people who call themselves 'conservative', did not address a large group of conservatives (or ''conservatives'') frequently mentioned on this blog: the 'colorblind conservatives.'
As I read the usual blogs and forums I check every day, I notice that among the mainstream Republican ones, the 'colorblind conservatives' are out in full force. It seems that they are quite irate about the Gates brouhaha, and about the president's biased reaction to it. Hell hath no fury like a colorblind conservative scorned. The overwhelming impression I get from these people is that they are angry. They are angry that despite their publicly professed ''colorblindness'' and their willingness to ''put race behind" them, and their willingness to show remorse for the evils done by their ancestors, their feelings are not reciprocated nor even acknowledged by the objects of their affection.
Some of these pieces I have read are fawning, expressing their admiration for various black athletes or performers, or perhaps some virtuous black co-worker or colleague. The message seems to be: we like you, we love you, why don't you love us back?
Some Republicans are almost angry about the escalating racial quarrels in this country, but their anger is directed only at the 'race-hustlers' or the 'liberals' who are keeping the racial conflict alive. As if it would go away, as if all the differences would disappear, if not fanned into flames by the race-hucksters or Democrats.
This is rather reminiscent of a relationship gone bad, in which one person still holds onto a misguided and unrequited affection for the other party, who in turn wants only to exact some kind of payback, or to keep the dysfunctional and abusive relationship alive for self-centered reasons.
I almost feel sorry for these 'colorblind' conservative types; they continue to cling to what is essentially a liberal mindset, based on leftist distortions of history.
Ever since I used to post frequently on a mainstream Republican forum, I've noticed that the most angry and vituperative people, in regards to political incorrectness, are the Republicans. I learned some years ago that if you violate the PC norms among the ''colorblind', they will excoriate you in a way that makes liberals look mild.
I mean specifically those Republicans who have bought the liberal, politically correct viewpoint on race. If they are not out-and-out race deniers, who believe 'we're all the same under the skin', they are people who think that race differences, insofar as they exist, are mostly superficial. They rationalize the undeniable conflicts that exist between races as being ginned up by liberals or minority opportunists. Remove the liberals and the race-hustlers, and we would all live in harmony, and all blacks would think and behave like Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Bill Cosby, or Tiger Woods.
In other words, they are in a practical sense race-deniers, since they don't seem to believe that racial differences of any importance exist; they accept the liberal idea that we are all pretty much blank slates, and that 'culture' makes all the difference. Given the right education and societal influences, there would be complete harmony and racial amity, they think.
This group of people, I'm afraid, are keeping us stuck with the unacceptable status quo between the races. They are largely responsible in that they represent a fairly big group of people, a voting bloc, who find their political home in the officially 'colorblind' new GOP, embodied in Michael Steele and Bobby Jindal. And despite their power, they seem content to keep things as they are, rather than rock the boat, and think forbidden thoughts.
Without the delusions of these people, perhaps we could break this stalemate that exists. As it is, it seems we are destined to go round and round, with the perpetual misguided hope of 'moving beyond race'. And the idea that we can move beyond race by catering to and flattering and favoring minorities is essentially self-contradictory, but yet it seems as if that is what they are resigned to doing.
In that respect, they are very much cut from the same cloth as outright liberals, because they are people who will doggedly keep repeating the same failed action in hopes that ''this time, it will work!" It fazes them not at all that it has not worked in the past; we just have to try harder, longer, more fervently, and it will work.
It never seems to occur to them that for minorities, it would be unprofitable to 'move beyond race.' Why would they want to 'move beyond race' when harping on race and racial guilt has worked like a charm for them? It has made them the center of attention in this country (and now in other Western countries too, by example) and it has made billions (or is it trillions?) of dollars flow to their ''communities.'' It has put them in the privileged position of being above criticism; the captive majority can only speak fawningly and deferentially about them in public; doing anything less has dire consequences, such as job loss, career destruction, loss of money and social status, and public humiliation. Being able to inflict consequences like that on someone just by saying the word is real power.
These colorblind ''conservatives'' are a hindrance, to put it charitably. There are a few glimmerings of hope that some of them are beginning to open their eyes; the FReepers, for example, are getting a little more politically incorrect these days, but there is still some of the fawning over ''favorite minorities'' that is so common.
I shake my head at this servile behavior among a lot of our people; some will defend it as being just generous and magnanimous behavior that comes from our heritage. I can only see it as either guilt-driven, or as an example of peer pressure; nobody wants to be the one to violate the consensus and say the forbidden truths.
I think there has to be a great deal more re-educating of our people, and a deprogramming in order for them to come to their senses. Maybe it will take a few more ''teachable moments'' like this present one in order for the scales to fall from some eyes. Maybe not; maybe ''worse is better'' is simply wishful thinking. However, I would certainly like it to be true.

Labels: Conservatives, Divisiveness, Political Correctness, Race Card, Race Denial, Race Renegades

It's a mutation.
In a blog post recently I said that, given the logic of the 'out of Africa' theory, Whites could be considered a 'mutated' form of human. Actually I had never heard a scientist say anything like that before. The only suggestion of such a bizarre idea came from people like Louis Farrakhan and the black 'Muslims' who believe that a mad scientist invented mutant Whites in a laboratory many millennia ago.
Well, now we have the Washington Post quoting 'scientists' as more or less endorsing the Farrakhan theory of races.
''Scientists said yesterday that they have discovered a tiny genetic mutation that largely explains the first appearance of white skin in humans tens of thousands of years ago, a finding that helps solve one of biology's most enduring mysteries and illuminates one of humanity's greatest sources of strife.
The work suggests that the skin-whitening mutation occurred by chance in a single individual after the first human exodus from Africa, when all people were brown-skinned. That person's offspring apparently thrived as humans moved northward into what is now Europe, helping to give rise to the lightest of the world's races.''
Did you notice the last sentence in the first paragraph above? Race is 'one of humanity's greatest sources of strife.' Just forget all you read in history books about the countless wars fought over various other things (territory, resources, greed, envy, women, religion, etc.) Race is the main culprit.
But lest we start to think race is anything more than a 'social construct', the next paragraph cautions us:
''Leaders of the study, at Penn State University, warned against interpreting the finding as a discovery of "the race gene." Race is a vaguely defined biological, social and political concept, they noted, and skin color is only part of what race is -- and is not.
In fact, several scientists said, the new work shows just how small a biological difference is reflected by skin color. The newly found mutation involves a change of just one letter of DNA code out of the 3.1 billion letters in the human genome -- the complete instructions for making a human being. ''
Keep on repeating it often enough, and maybe that will make it true.
Read the rest at the link, if you have a high tolerance for leftist pseudo-science. Maybe 'pseudo-science' is a harsh term for what we see here, but these people, whether they can admit it or not, are allowing their own backgrounds and prejudices as well as the societal straitjacket called 'political correctness' to color their interpretations of data. Scientists, as we know, are not immune from bias and from peer pressure. Look at the 'global warming' canard, and how strong a hold it has on many ostensibly objective people.
If they really believe that race is a 'social construct' then they should have the courage of their convictions and eliminate the concept of a form of thought-crime called 'racism', and they should oppose affirmative action and every other race-related policy which the Politically Correct faithful defend ferociously.
It rather worries me that this Ms Wang of the National Human Genome Research Institute clearly subscribes to the PC belief system.
If you can make sense of the quote from her at the end, you are cleverer than I am. She seems to be contradicting herself. But she is right about one thing: the 'race is a social construct' crowd do ''sound crazy.'' And for good reason.
Leftist 'scientists' have long railed at people who differentiate in any way between the various races and ethnic groups. The accusation is that such people are practicing 'social Darwinism' or 'racial Darwinism', misapplying Darwin's theory to create a hierarchy of races. Is this idea of Whites as a 'mutation', which in common parlance is a 'freak' or an aberration, not an example of such thinking? As usual, the left contradict themselves, quite brazenly.

Labels: Anti White Racism, Cultural Marxism, Darwinism, Political Correctness, Race Denial

At Vox Day's blog there is a discussion around Vox's question ''Why do white women choose black men?''
One comment brings up a common argument:
NateM
Also, not to be a threadsh***er, but couldn't it be argued that interracial breeding could actually be beneficial for a group, as a way of avoiding eventual flourishing of a genetic disorders that large numbers of a racial group are carriers for due to relative inbreeding? In a way, fresh blood in a group is a long term benefit for the strength of that group. Hell, look at the Russians, they are a mixture of a number of ethnic backgrounds, thanks to years of war between them before eventually settling down to relative homogeny. That's not to discount the cultural strife that usually happens with the process though. I would even say that could be the rhyme or reason behinds mankinds natural tendency towards war and conflict: it puts them into new areas in contact with new groups, and prevents genetic stagnation.''
This is often asserted by proponents of 'diversity' and miscegenation, and it often goes unchallenged, implying that many people accept this claim as having at least some truth.
How do we define 'inbreeding', though? There seems to be no hard-and-fast definition; many of the online definitions I found said only 'breeding between close relatives.' Well, what is a close relative? Judging by what I've read and heard in various discussions, many Americans consider a first cousin as too close a relative to mate with, though many countries and cultures around the world actually favor first-cousin marriages.
Half of the states in our country prohibit first-cousin marriages, reflecting the widespread belief that such marriages are incestuous or at least 'trashy'. Unfortunately, though, many Americans have associated such marriages with 'White trash' from the South. However, looking at the list of states which prohibit such unions, there is no clear breakdown along North and South lines.
Steve Sailer, in an article from 2003, says
''American society is so biased against inbreeding that many Americans have a hard time even conceiving of marrying a cousin. Yet, arranged matches between first cousins (especially between the children of brothers) are considered the ideal throughout much of a broad expanse from North Africa through West Asia and into Pakistan and India.
In contrast, Americans probably disapprove of what scientists call "consanguineous" mating more than any other nationality. Three huge studies in the U.S. between 1941 and 1981 found that no more than 0.2% of all American marriages were between first cousins or second cousins.
Americans have long dismissed cousin marriage as something practiced only among hillbillies. That old stereotype of inbred mountaineers waging decades long blood feuds had some truth to it. One study of 107 marriages in Beech Creek, Kentucky in 1942 found 19% were consanguineous, although the Kentuckians were more inclined toward second cousin marriages, while first cousin couples are more common than second cousins pairings in the Islamic lands.''
Some people mention Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt as being cousins who married, though their relationship was not that close. They were fifth cousins once removed.
Most of us have little contact with cousins that distant from us, unlike with first or second cousins with whom we grow up, and who seem more like close family.
In earlier eras in New England, there was some cousin marriage; my genealogy researches showed that it was not at all uncommon but most of the marriages that I've found were third or fourth cousins, never first cousins, although that probably happened now and again. Massachusetts permits first cousin marriags. The reason for this marriage pattern was their relative isolation in the 17th and 18th century. Travel was arduous, there were few colonists, and most people did not even meet people from distant towns. The fact that they married cousins does not indicate immorality or backwardness. Over time as more colonists arrived, and isolation decreased, there were fewer such marriages. However, reading the works of H.P. Lovecraft, we see that he often alluded to 'inbred' and degenerate families up in the hills or in the remote areas. This is not to say they were the rule; if it were so, then there would be no disdain or social stigma attached to it, as there obviously was.
Today, though, when scientists want to study the effects of inbreeding, they look at certain populations who isolate themselves:
Isolated populations with homogenous genes such as the Amish in central Pennsylvania, the Ashkenazi Jews and Indian tribes offer genetic researchers unparalleled insight into disease and genetics.
These closed populations, whether by geography or religion, were created by just a few families � called the "founder effect" � and built on generations of inbreeding.''
We're all familiar with the genetic diseases that have developed among these populations, due to consanguineous marriages.
But it should be obvious that real inbreeding among average White Americans is not a problem; it just does not happen that much. I find it baffling that so many people, usually proponents of multiculturalism and racial blending, believe that being White is itself proof of being inbred. There are, after all, White people of just about every European ancestry in this country. Except for extreme cases of group isolation, as with the Amish, they have all intermingled to some degree. I would say there is less intermingling of European nationalities in the Southern states traditionally, because there was less immigration of non-British Isles peoples. There were of course Huguenot descendants, especially in certain areas, but they arrived in colonial times and quickly began to intermarry with the English-speaking population. The same is true of the pre-Revolution colonists from Germany who came to Virginia. They did not remain a distinct or isolated population.
Today, too, everyone has become so mobile that few people live their whole lives in the place of their birth. There is little geographic isolation in this mobile age. So the thought of inbreeding in a country of 310 million very mobile people is absurd. Still, the multicultists harp on the subject of inbreeding, implying that we have to mate with every race to keep our progeny 'vigorous and healthy' or to attain 'hybrid vigor', as in the comment I quoted from Vox Day's blog.
As Sailer's article emphasizes, inbreeding is hardly a problem among Americans, especially White Americans, who express considerable aversion to it. So any argument that is based on the supposed 'inbreeding' of White Americans is foolish.
The hybrid vigor argument is not always true, even among animals:
In any case, humans cannot be 'bred' in the same fashion as zoo animals, although at times it seems as if the propagandists working with our rulers seem to believe we can -- and should -- be, as witness the blitz of advertising featuring race-blending.
A leftist professor said, when I was in college, that one day everybody will be required to marry someone of another race, and that will effectively end 'racial prejudice.' Some of us laughed at his words, but it looks as though he was prophetic.

Labels: Miscegenation, Multiculturalism, Outmarriage, Race Denial

I occasionally cite articles from LewRockwell.com and other libertarian-leaning blogs. I've linked to pieces by Justin Raimondo on occasion, but always with the awareness that he, like other libertarians, may only accidentally express an opinion that coincides with my own on some subject.
However, much as I can occasionally find something I agree with in libertarian thought, I have always recognized that in most senses, libertarians are my enemies as much as liberals and leftists/progressives are. I can hear somebody saying, ''no, liberals and libertarians are opposites; liberals want big, intrusive government and libertarians want minimal government. Liberals want social programs and a nanny state, whereas libertarians loathe these things, believing the individual should be as unfettered as possible and make his own decisions without governmental regulation and meddling. Or: ''liberals/leftists hate the free market, while libertarians believe in the free market and laissez-faire capitalism. '' And so on.
But the two groups seem to agree on some important basics, like their blind belief that human beings are some kind of blank slates, who owe nothing to race, family, heritage, or history. Each man is an island, his own sovereign country, to both kinds of 'libs.'
Conservatives, by and large, see human nature as a given, and see that human nature is flawed and in need of laws and restraints to curb the worst behavior, while liberals/libertarians see no such thing. The latter two groups are for the most part not Christian by belief or culture, and so they don't believe that there is a fallen human nature.
While liberals may want a strong state to 'take care' of everybody or to punish incorrect thoughts and ideas, they also believe that crime and deviancy should be defined downward, and people mostly left to their own devices when it comes to ''personal choices'' like abortion, drug usage and dealing, and aberrant sexual behaviors.
I think the liberals and libertarians, for the most part, are simply different factions of the same basic belief system, and have far more in common with each other than with those of a traditional, especially Christian, mindset.
During last year's campaign cycle, I supported Ron Paul's candidacy, though I said here and elsewhere that I was dissatisfied with his aracial and at times quite politically correct positions on racial matters. Libertarians, again like liberals, are ideologues, always trying to squeeze reality into their PC belief system, always denying the obvious realities that clash with the articles of their libertarian faith. Ron Paul, whatever his merits, is an ideologue on racial matters, though some have rationalized that he had to cover up his true beliefs for political reasons.
I think that he truly is an aracialist ideologue, like libertarians in general.
Here is Raimondo's latest piece, denigrating racialist Whites:
...what do the "white nationalists" want? What is their program? They are "nationalists" without a nation. Do they want to expel all non-whites from U.S. territory? Do they want to carve out their own ersatz "nation" in, say, the nether reaches of Idaho and the Dakotas? Do they want to create a caste system based on racial heritage, as the Nazis tried to do, with whites on top and the "mud people"�their disgusting term for non-whites�on the bottom? Or do they just want to abolish race preferences in law and custom�in which case they shed their "white nationalist" hoods and morph into white versions of Ward Connerly? Would Taylor outlaw miscegenation if he could? I have no doubt that he would, no matter what he says in public.''
Notice the allusion to ''hoods''. Not exactly subtle, is he? Read a little further, for his reference to the 'failed portrait-painter from Vienna.'
Americans don�t like racists, not because they have been indoctrinated by leftist professors and do-gooder social workers, but because "white nationalists" and their ilk are looking for the unearned: they want power, prestige, and money in the bank based on factors over which they had no control, that is, their genetic heritage. [...] It is a soulless, materialist, dogmatic view of life that has nothing in common with authentic conservatism, and which has all sorts of statist implications�not to mention a history of racialist-inspired statist measures�that make "white nationalism" antithetical to libertarianism.
Richard Spencer makes a big deal out of how "open-minded" and un-PC Takimag is in publishing Taylor�s tirade against "race-mixing." I cannot share his enthusiasm. There is a good reason to avoid the Taylorites, and their even cruder brothers-in-spirit in the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazi netherworld, and it has to do with maintaining the intellectual and spiritual integrity of the American Right. I agree with Pat Buchanan, who, in pointing out the disparity between his own ideas and those of David Duke, averred: "We come from different traditions." Indeed we do. Taylor�s is the legacy of Lothrop Stoddard, Madison Grant, the Count de Gobineau, and that failed portrait painter from Vienna: ours is the legacy of Christianity, which recognized the centrality of the individual soul, and rejects collectivism, including racial collectivism, as inimical to freedom, reason, and just relations among men.
"If you can�t beat 'em," says Taylor, "join 'em!" The paleoconservative answer to this must be: Never! ''
Where does he get off trying to define 'authentic conservatism', since he himself does not claim that label? Even more ironic is his allusion to the 'legacy of Christianity.' Excuse me? I thought libertarians consider themselves, like liberals, self-created, autonomous individuals, with no debt owed to heritage or tradition. And I understand he is also a non-believing ex-Catholic, and openly living a lifestyle that Christianity does not accept.
Raimondo more or less equates Jared Taylor and other such moderate racialists with the usual liberal ''racist'' villains, tarring all with the same brush. Again, this illustrates that no matter how moderate or genteel the message and the messenger may be, it will be condemned by the Nazi/Hitler/Klan analogies. Raimondo must surely know that every generation of Americans, up until the mid-20th century, held views very much like those of Stoddard, Grant, et al. Racial views like Raimondo's would have been aberrant to all pre-PC generations.
What is going on with this recent volley of anti-racialist (read: anti-White, anti-heartland American) articles at TakiMag? It seems they have 'WNs' in their sights. If racialists are fringe characters and as marginal as these people would have us believe, wouldn't ignoring be a more logical approach? Or are they afraid or threatened by what they see as a resurgence of the old America, the one they've declared anathema?
To the extent that paleos take Raimondo's advice, they will render themselves totally irrelevant; if paleoconservatives go completely PC they will be as useless as the 'colorblind' Republican crowd, the party of Steele et al.
I've noticed for some years now that libertarianism has grown in influence on the right, and I see this, in part, as one of the reasons why there are so many conservatives whose conservatism has more to do with venerating the 'free market' and legalizing drugs than preserving any aspect of traditional America, including (and especially) race and heritage.
The 'colorblind conservatives' who dominate the Republican party are often libertarians at heart who simply see the GOP as the imperfect but necessary vehicle for their political agenda. And because they are libertarians who see race as unimportant if not non-existent, they care nothing for the future of White Americans, seeing themselves only as individuals, and perhaps generic Americans with no particular traditional ties.
If Raimondo and others of similar ideas have their way, White Americans would have no party representing us and our interests, which interests they perceive as illegitimate and immoral anyway. Here is Raimondo from an earlier piece:
...I deny the validity of the concept of "race." We are nearly all of us racial mixtures, except for some isolated peoples who are the exceptions that prove the rule, and therefore when dealing with individuals�and we are all of us individuals�"racial" criteria are practically useless. Furthermore, this is the natural historical trend: in the end we�re all going to be somewhat coffee-colored, and so the racial theorists are headed for the dustbin of history.
It isn�t race, but culture that is the determining factor in human behavior: not genes, but environment that forms the human character and allows us to interact with each other in a way that makes sense. IQ tests don�t measure only inherent genetic limits, but the quality of the environmental factors that have shaped individual characteristics�and, in any case, since the concept of "race" is so imprecise, the idea of racial superiority or inferiority is a meaningless floating abstraction. That�s why there is no "white solidarity"�people generally termed "white" are Italian, Polish, Greek, Scots, Irish, and whatever. That is where their ethnic loyalties, if any, are located. The idea that "whites" should band together against the encroaching Third World masses is a literary-political construct that has no meaning, at least in America�and thank the gods for that.
I would argue that the problems experienced by the black community are the result of State intervention and social engineering programs, starting with slavery�surely the most damaging�and continuing on with the "Great Society" and all the other social experiments supposedly designed to lift blacks up, and which in reality have only kept them down. The social programs of the 1960s destroyed the black family, and led to the appalling statistics the commenters below have remarked on.
In anser [sic]to Paul Gottfried�s remarks, I would add that the degeneration of the "white" (i.e. racially mixed) population in the US shows that my thesis on the environmental factors as determinative is correct. The welfare state has eroded values that were once considered unquestionable: it isn�t our genetic stock that is the problem, but our political and economic structure, which encourages�indeed, subsidizes�destructive social trends.''
He sounds exactly like most of the liberals I know in that part, except for the part about 'social engineering programs.'
So are we 'nationalists without a nation'? We might be a nation without a state or a country, since the country that our forefathers created for us, their posterity, has been commandeered by others. But a nation is a people, not a governmental system or apparatus. We are a nation nonetheless, with the same right to exist as any other nation, regardless of whether we have any political voice in this corrupt empire in which we now dwell.
Update: Please see the deft response to Raimondo's piece here, at Occidental Dissent. Prozium does a great job of answering Raimondo.

Labels: Anti White Racism, Ethnoconservatism, Libertarianism, Nationalism, Political Correctness, Race Denial, Race Realism

Peter Wilson at American Thinker tells us about an exhibit, now at the Boston Museum of Science, called "RACE -- Are we so different?"
You know what the answer is, at least as given by the people who designed this exhibit to program schoolchildren and other gullible people. Wilson says
''Even a sympathetic reviewer in the Boston Globe admits that "there's a wearying didacticism to the show," and it's no surprise that the didactic lessons about race are all slanted toward the left.''
He cites a Boston Globe writer who is "surprisingly critical":
One can support affirmative action, for example, and still wonder about the presence of a display called "Affirmative action: undoing inequality.'' That's not science or even sociology; that's politics. Right or wrong, some people think affirmative action furthers inequality. Another display is called "White -- the color of money.'' It shows stacks of dollar bills whose height corresponds to the relative wealth of whites, Asians, blacks, Latinos, and "others'' in US society. A section on discrimination and real estate has two street signs, "Privilege Place'' and "Racism Road.'' It's like an MSNBC production of "Sesame Street.'' Tendentiousness is no less tendentious for being in a good cause.''The exhibit seems to be just what you'd expect. And it may be coming to your town, so beware of your children being press-ganged into attending this exhibit, if you have children in public school.
The depressing part of this piece is the content of the comments following, ostensibly from conservatives. I suppose if I had to sum up the tenor of most of the comments, the theme that runs through it, implicitly, is that ''I'm willing to be colorblind so why won't these liberals and minorities play the game along with me?'' That's actually a very common refrain among many Whites these days. They don't seem to disagree about the 'race is a social contract' fraud, and they don't want to return to the pre-politically correct terms of debate. No, they just want everybody to play by the rules of the 'colorblind game', as if it could all work if only we all pretended together.
This attitude informs what we see happening with the Republican Party, the Herman Cain fan club among the Tea Partiers, and MLK's cult on the right.

Labels: Conservatives, Cultural Marxism, Indoctrination, Political Correctness, Race Denial

I'm worried about some among our people.
It seems as though all this 'race as social construct' talk has had an effect on many people, to the point where they no longer seem to be able to think about race in a common-sense way. And this is true even of the people who post on race-realist sites. For example, this comment from a discussion about DNA testing for people seeking their African roots:
15 � Anonymous wrote at 11:31 PM on June 29:
Like obama all of these "african americans" have huge quantities of White blood flowing through their veins�''
I've seen this idea repeated many times on such sites. Now, it's true that on the Internet we don't know who is saying what; I am assuming the commenter is White, but it could be anyone posting that comment.
But let's assume he is White.
Where is this idea coming from, that all blacks have 'huge quantities of White blood'? First of all, do our eyes provide us with evidence of this? I don't see it.
I suppose on average, American blacks are lighter in complexion than their cousins in Africa, but they don't appear to have ''huge quantities'' of White blood. Are people unconsciously buying the propaganda that there was a great deal of miscegenation in the slavery days? That idea is very important to the Left, because it further confuses racial categorization; they can repeat their triumphant line about how ''we're all mixed together anyway, there are no pure races!" And then they can start their litany of accusations, with lurid tales of slavemasters cruelly having their way with female slaves. I've read so many stories of people seeking their African roots, finding they have some modicum of European blood, which is explained as a result of 'rape' by a slaveowner. How do people jump to the automatic conclusion of rape in such cases? And must the White admixture, if any, date back to slavery days? Could it not have happened in later generations? I object to this automatic assumption that rape by White men is involved in any case of European DNA appearing in blacks.
But why this belief that American blacks have a great deal of White ancestry?
The always-ignorant 'Yahoo Answers' people echo the nonsense.
The 'best answer' as voted by readers says:
To know for sure they would all have to be tested. In addition many "white" Americans have black ancestry, because their ancestors were light skinned descendants of slaves and usually their owners and they married people of European ancestry until their past was forgotten or completely hidden even from themselves.
"One-third of white Americans, according to some tests, will possess between two and 20 per cent African genes. The majority of black Americans have some European ancestors.
Last year, Professor Peter Fine at Florida Atlantic University had an idea for an art class. He would gather a group of students to produce work around their idea of their racial identity. But as part of the class he asked them to take a DNA test that would break down their racial background. His bet was that most of the class - of whom the majority saw themselves as whites of European descent - had no real idea who they were.
He was right. Of 13 students, only one turned out to be completely European. The rest displayed a mixture of European, Native American, African and Asian genes. The one black student turned out to be 21 per cent white. Fine himself - who admits to looking like a corn-fed stereotype of a white Midwesterner - discovered he was a quarter Native American. 'I honestly think these tests could have a large effect on American consciousness of who we are. If Americans recognise themselves as a mixed group of people, that could really change things,� he said."
Ultimately all our ancestors originated in Africa, since we are all descended from "mitochondrial Eve," an African woman.''
Well, she gets maximum points for regurgitating the PC propaganda, anyway.
So we are almost all mixed, according to the official story.
I can fully understand why the good little leftists, like the person who posted that 'best answer', believe as they do, but I fail to understand why people who are supposed to be realists want to believe similar things.
Is there any reliable information on how much White admixture there is among black Americans, or vice-versa? It seems difficult to find on the Internet, and it would seem likely that without widespread (and reliable) DNA testing any information would be unreliable. Most people don't know their genealogy beyond their grandparents, or in rare cases, great-grandparents.
Until such solid information is widely available, which I don't foresee happening soon, all we can do is go by the evidence of our eyes as well as by what is actually known about our ancestries.
As far as our current president, for some reason this bizarre theory has caught on (propagated, for some strange reason, by Rush Limbaugh and others) that the president is less than 1/8 African or ''12 percent.'' Why, I wonder do people believe that, or why do they want to believe it?
Another often-heard idea from some on the 'realist' side is that ''the president chose to identify as black; he could have chosen White.'' I honestly think that remark, if made, say, 50 years ago, would have met with incredulity.
Maybe this man could have 'chosen', being somewhat ambiguous in appearance, but for most who have more than a little minority ancestry, there is no question of 'choosing' a White identity.
But for the ultimate illustration of racial confusion, this story is being discussed in various places, and on some of the comments sections, people are claiming that the children in question ''look just like Michael''. This, to me, is beyond bizarre. Have people lost all common sense? Is the multicult, colorblind propaganda rendering us just, well, blind? It seems so.
As far as I know, it's still a fact that a black parent cannot father a White child.
A generation or more ago, I think you would not have found many people who could believe such silliness. It's simply counter to common sense, and to the evidence of our eyes. Are more White people on the verge of becoming truly blind to race, or are they convinced of the liberal idea that we can 'choose' who we are, regardless of our genetics? It looks that way.
What's the opposite of a race-realist? A race-fantasist? A race-denier? A race agnostic?
Whatever we call it, it gives me the feeling that I've gone through the looking-glass.

Labels: American History, Ancestry, Can History, Multiculturalism, Political Correctness, Race Denial, Racial Guilt