The Original Sin of Frank Rich
Frank Rich’s most recent Sunday column in the New York Times, titled “Fourth of July 1776, 1964, 2010,” begins:
ALL men may be created equal, but slavery, America’s original sin of inequality, was left unaddressed in the Declaration of Independence signed 234 years ago today. Of all the countless attempts to dispel that shadow over the nation’s birth, few were more ambitious than the hard-fought bill Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law just in time for another Fourth of July, 46 summers ago.
Rich’s reference to slavery as America’s “original sin” is of course not original, but I do believe it is quite revealing of not only his but a wide swath of contemporary liberalism’s view of the United States. There is debate among theologians — both among and within many of the world’s religions — over what the concept entails, but most trace our flawed human nature (whether merely imperfect or inherently imperfectible) to Adam’s fall. Mainstream American Protestantism’s conception of original sin, for example, flows from John Calvin’s belief that:
[H]umans inherit Adamic guilt and are in a state of sin from the moment of conception. This inherently sinful nature (the basis for the Calvinistic doctrine of “total depravity”) results in a complete alienation from God and the total inability of humans to achieve reconciliation with God based on their own abilities. Not only do individuals inherit a sinful nature due to Adam’s fall, but since he was the federal head and representative of the human race, all whom he represented inherit the guilt of his sin by imputation. Redemption by Jesus Christ is the only remedy.
Now, Frank Rich is far from Calvinist, although as he has written of his father’s family in Ghost Light, his memoir, of an upbringing not unlike my own:
It would have been hard to guess that the Riches were Jewish, since they spoke no Hebrew, ate pork chops, and, in further defiance of their nominal religion’s practice, named their firstborn sons after their living fathers.
Thus, though neither a Calvinist nor even, at least theologically, a Protestant, and even though Judaism rejects original sin, Rich’s view of slavery as America’s “original sin,” as a blot on our national soul that can be overcome, if at all, only by more strenuous “good works” (such as embracing Jesus Obama and voting Democratic for years on end) than we seem capable of performing is a not very pale reflection of the orthodox Christian view of human nature.
After his opening “original sin” indictment of the American character, Rich devotes the rest of his July 4 screed to extolling liberal deities — Thurgood Marshall, the Brown decision, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — and denouncing the scurrilous Republicans (and the equally scurrilous — until he saw The Light — and recently departed Robert Byrd) who blasphemed against them. Thus Chief Justice Roberts is guilty of “conservative self-righteousness” (liberals, being righteous, presumably can’t be “self-righteous”) for “nibbling away at Brown v. Board of Education in 2007” by having the audacity to proclaim that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
Since Rich regards Thurgood Marshall as a god, “a hero of our history, a brave and brilliant lawyer whose advocacy in many civil rights cases, and most especially Brown v. Board of Education, helped open the doors for landmark legislation like the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” he treats any criticism of him, even negative “mentions” of him, as virtually sacrilegious.
What is so odd about Rich’s worship of Marshall, Brown, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is that and he and his fellow acolytes in the Church of American Liberalism have so thoroughly turned their back on the “without regard” principle of official colorblindness that underlay and animated all three.
But Rich and the other race-conscious progressives are the last to really do anything more constructive than to criticize America. If Rich were truly upset with black under-representation he would: Give up his job for a black; he would ask that the NYT hire more black reporters and staff; he would ask that the next ME be a black; he would ask that today’s colleges and universities fire half of their white professors and administration and hire blacks and hispanics; he would ask that the big three NBC,CBS and ABC fire their white nightly anchors and hire blacks in their position; he would ask that Harry Smith give up his morning position for a black and that the rest of the majority white morning shows hire blacks; he would ask that the white progressive 527s and on-line progressive media hire many, many more blacks to replace the over-abundance of whites; and finally he would ask that the white Dems in Congress fire half their white staffers and hire blacks.
But we know Rich is just a fake as is the progressive cause when it comes to race.
In the world of the liberal, it’s always the duty of someone else to bear the cost of their grand schemes.
Exactamundo!
John – I doubt that Frank Rich thinks very highly of Justice Clarence Thomas, but Thomas’ opinion of the privileges and immunities clause of the 14th Amendment (in the recent McDonald vs. Chicago case) was magnificent. While the opinion focused on the narrower issue of the 2nd Amendment, it ranged far afield inot the broader category of Civil Rights. Had the Supreme Court enforced that privileges and immunities clause in the way intended by its Republican authors(instead of nullifying via the Slaughterhouse and Cruickshank cases) American racial history could have been far different. One can only regret the opportunity lost to us by the Supreme Court’s nullification of that clause.
“Color consciousness” is just another way of saying “I’m a race-fixated racist, but I hide behind my liberal posture.”
The Left is inherently racist, because the old notion of race (which has, biologically speaking, shown to be untrue) is one way of dividing, and thus controlling, the people.
And Thomas Jefferson’s original draft did include a denunciation of slavery as one of the injustices imposed by George III.
This guy doesn’t have two working brain cells to rub together. Why bother?
Rich reveals his racism when he condescends and then “over-condescends” to African Americans. He’s one of those white cowards who is so afraid of blacks, and of being called a racist, that he’ll excuse anything, as long as he and his stuff are left alone. I’m sure next week he’ll write that PJM should leave those poor black panthers alone; they deserve to intimidate voters, or something.
The only way to have Equality Now! is to physically remove property, or negate rights from one party, and give it to another. A superficial justice.
How do you tell people who are starving, in whatever sense, to be patient? You take care of them “above the law”. Meanwhile, that scourge which beset them in the past is swallowed up by time while they heal. America wasn’t doing that. It was accepted that the law was enough to fix things. Blacks were supposed to fester in crime ridden unfunded neighborhoods and take stock in the Law? Now, anger and resentment has a foothold in that starving people. We should have been voluntarily doing what we are required to do now, so that it wouldn’t be a burden now, nor a foothold for evil.
The Law is supposed to augment reality toward a state of Justice. When that state of Justice is removed from it’s natural ‘invisible’ foundation and put upon physical (naturalistic) bowers the results is Arbitrariness, Confusion, and Inequality. Whenever a people are repentant the first course for them is to put away those Idols that have corrupted them. The Theory of Evolution is such a thing. The fact that this also has taken such a firm foothold in society makes me think there is little hope for a reversal of this downward trend we are witnessing.
People think there is progress because of luxury, but you can feel the eternal Lamenting now in a world that has pacified it’s hope in Divinity, and put it in reincarnation. Luxury is only a function of work, and humans will be working until the earth is purged with fire. Luxury is an illusion of safety. The only real safety and hope is in those invisible things that have never been taken away truly. The clean silhouettes on our halls of justice where their vestments once stood still testify.
But, like I said, I do not see the false theories that are plaguing the world being removed by voluntary and thoughtful consideration, but by physical jarring. Most of us have been placated from the “mountains of evidence” in favor of our naturalist status quo, haven’t we?
as I have stated before many times, the only country we are not ALLOWED to critisize is Israel. all other countries are open to critisism, united staes included
Yes, Miriam. Thank you for your post. I was beginning to worry that no on would remember to blame Jews.
what part of my post does it suggest that I am blaming the jews?
Miriam,
You do not appear to be blaming the Jews here, but because the thread on which you have posted has no discernable connection to Israel, Jews, the Middle East or anything associated with it, your post seems to be wildly off topic. One must inevitable ask the question – for what reason would someone post something so wildly off topic? There are few answers to that question other than those which paint a picture of someone so anxious, so straining at the bit, to say something bad about Israel and her defenders, that they would say something so obviously inappropriate to the topic at hand.
While I cannot see into the heart of such a person, I would suspect that there is a fire there, an unquenchable desire to denigrate the object of your ire, that being Israel and those who would defend her.
I hope this makes clear why you should carefully consider your true motivations and help you to understand others’ reactions to your strange response.
dafrank: i am not off of the topic at all. the problem with people on this site and huff post the liberal site is they label everyone.. the reason I posted this today is the minute you critisize Israel, you are either, anti semite, anti jews or sel hating jews, the fact that Mr. Rich is ctirisizng our government or just speaking his mind doen make unpatriotic or racist…
do you get my point?
The true irony of affirmative action is that it chiefly goes to already middle class blacks. Poor blacks have seen their economic condition decline. . . as indeed, poor untouchables have under Indian affirmative action programs for them, and poor Malaysians (as opposed to the ethnic Chinese) in Malaysia’s “sons of the soil” affirmative actions.
An unkind soul would point out that if poor blacks improved their condition, middle-class blacks would have to give up affirmative action. They have a conflict of interest.
I’m surprised no one mentioned July 4, 1863, the the day after the Battle of Gettysburg, which as much as anything cemented the freeing of slaves in Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
Er, what? Are you confusing Gettysburg with Antietam, after which Lincoln did make the Emancipation Proclamation. Didn’t Pickett’s charge take place on July 4, the 3rd day of the Battle of Gettysburg?
If you are making the point that after Gettysburg, the South never really had a chance to win the War, then I take your point. Apart from that, do you have one?
Rich always reminds me of Boone, the snotty Jewish kid in Animal House who tries to ingratiate himself with the hip “Negro” musicians in the band only to be totally blown off by them.
Rich should have stuck to being a film critic. He has zero credibility
Slavery was not America’s original sin. It was here during the seventeenth century before there was an America. At the time no-one thought that there was anything wrong with it. That took time to develop. The opposition started in England itself in the Church of England. It spread to the United States where it took hold. There was no possibility of simply doing away with it. The Founding Fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence had enough to worry about without solving the problem of slavery. The abolitionist took time to develop. Finally we had a Civil War. Only that did the trick of getting rid of slavery.
Obama’s campaign speech on a post racial America was so moving I almost teared up. It was so inspiring and so uplifting. Unfortunately, the road to hell is paved with good speeches. We are now witnessing what a post racial America really is — a government where the president and those in his administration are perfectly comfortable in supporting the new Black Panthers intimidating voters with night stick/clubs and racial slurs; where justice is defined in a manner that enforces race discrimination only if a black not white person is the victim, and where echoes of Reverend Wright are not only the new reality, but are mirrored in the halls of justice. We are entering a very scary time for America if only a white person can be a racist and only a black the victim of racial discrimination. The principle of colorblindness is being trampled by a president who had the potential for ushering in a new era. Instead, thugs are actually being encouraged to harass voters at the polls by a president who refuses to acknowledge the dangerous thuggery of the new Black Panthers simply because they are his buddies doing his bidding at the polling booth.
Frank Rich needs to get his syphilis treated;it’s reached his brain!
To Helen Kaufman
Your words echoed mine completely.
I’m so impressed by your post that
I might use it word for word I hope
that I haVE YOUR PERMISSION,
kLARA