8 Ways Blacks Perpetuate Racism and the Only Way to Thwart It
Note: This article from Walter Hudson was first published last year on July 17 here.
It shouldn’t matter that I, an author with the audacity to select such a title, am black. The arguments presented should stand or fall on their objective merit. Nevertheless, I declare my racial identity at the outset to defuse any prejudice readers may bring regarding the motivation behind this piece. Indeed, it is in part because I am black that the following must be said.
All things considered, blacks and the civil rights culture surrounding them are the most open and prolific purveyors of racism in America. This is an ironic travesty which spits upon the graves of history’s abolitionists and offends all who are committed to a dream of equality under the law and goodwill among men.
Surely, such a claim is provocative. Unfortunately, it is also demonstrable.
In a recent interview with National Public Radio host Michel Martin, the Oscar-winning black actor Morgan Freeman made the odd declaration that President Barack Obama is not America’s first black president. NPR reports:
“First thing that always pops into my head regarding our president is that all of the people who are setting up this barrier for him … they just conveniently forget that Barack had a mama, and she was white — very white American, Kansas, middle of America,” Freeman said. “There was no argument about who he is or what he is. America’s first black president hasn’t arisen yet. He’s not America’s first black president — he’s America’s first mixed-race president.”
This is a new take on Obama’s racial identity from Freeman, who has previously cited Obama’s blackness as the chief motivation behind political opposition from both Republicans in Congress and the Tea Party movement. From an interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan:
… Morgan asked the actor, “Has Obama helped the process of eradicating racism or has it, in a strange way, made it worse?”
“Made it worse. Made it worse,” Freeman replied. “The tea partiers who are controlling the Republican party … their stated policy, publicly stated, is to do whatever it takes to see to it that Obama only serves one term. What underlines that? Screw the country. We’re going to do whatever we can to get this black man out of here.”
Apparently, Obama is black enough to trigger baseless charges of racism, but not black enough to qualify as the first black president. If that makes your brain hurt, you might be rational.
Freeman’s comments are not anomalies. He channels long-held, broadly accepted ideas regarding what it means to be black, the relevance of race, and the claim of blacks upon the rest of society. These ideas are horrifically racist, yet uniquely tolerated.
The tolerance of racist ideas openly expressed by blacks and the larger civil rights establishment is informed by sloppy thinking regarding both race and the role of government in society. True reconciliation requires confronting these ideas with reason. Here are eight ways in which blacks are perpetuating racism, and the one true way to effectively thwart it.
Obama’s not black enough for this guy.
8) Seeking Racial “Purity”
Individuals or groups who seek racial “purity” are properly condemned as bigots — if they are white. Non-whites are routinely given a pass, and in some cases encouraged to “preserve their culture” through sexual segregation.
Morgan Freeman laments President Obama’s “white mama” and cites her as evidence that Obama is not truly black. This raises a few questions, the first of which is: what is “black”?
At the very least, by Freeman’s standard, having a white mother disqualifies one from being black. (That counts me out, too.) But not all blacks are equally so. Freeman himself is relatively light-skinned, certainly on a global spectrum. Many native Africans are far darker than Freeman, closer to ebony than brown. Indeed, the American black is invariably of mixed race, distinct from African cousins by breeding with whites over hundreds of years. Of course, the same can be said of any race over a long enough period of time. American whites are commonly a melting pot of Norwegian, Swede, German, Irish, Latin, Russian, and any of a dozen others.
That speaks to a critical truth. Race is a social construct of little objective value beyond efficiently communicating an amalgam of physical descriptors. President Obama is black, not because both parents were so, but because his physical characteristics are categorized as such in our thought and language. Beyond that, race means nothing. The notion of racial “purity” is inherently irrational, because race itself is subjective.
Why then should we distinguish Obama as the first black president, or argue over whether he is black enough to qualify as such? What rational value does such a distinction have? What is Freeman getting at?
Given the political context, it seems likely that Freeman desires a president whose blackness more dramatically informs public policy. Of course, a president so oriented would necessarily disenfranchise everyone else. And that’s the idea.
… unless we’re the ones doing it.
7) Cultural Segregation
Perhaps the most objective metric supporting the claim that blacks prolifically purvey racism is the astounding number of organizations which openly segregate. There are names we have all come to know, from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to Black Entertainment Television. And there are many others which are lesser known. Consider this list from one of many similar ones available on the web:
- American Association of Blacks in Energy
- The Association of Black Psychologists
- The Executive Leadership Council
- Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies
- National Association of Black Accountants
- National Association of Black Hotel Owners, Operators, and Developers
- National Association of Black Journalists
- National Black Business Council
- National Black Chamber of Commerce
- National Black MBA Association
- National Black Nurses Association
- National Council of Negro Women
- National Coalition of 100 Black Women
- National Medical Association
- National Newspaper Publishers Association
- National Urban League
- National Society of Black Engineers
- Organization of Black Designers
- United Negro College Fund
- 100 Black Men of America
Surely, blacks are not the only demographic group which chooses to associate together, and there is certainly nothing wrong with free association. The problem is the double standard. Substitute white for black in any of the above and you would have theatrical public outcry and claims of civil rights violations.
Segregation of blacks by whites is widely regarded as one of the banes of the civil rights movement. Yet segregation is widely tolerated when blacks choose to engage in it. Such an obvious double standard fuels racial animosity rather than soothing it. If the goal of the civil rights movement was and remains equality and inclusion, how does such prolific segregation advance that?
Little do they know one of them is responsible for the systematic oppression of the other.
6) Collective Responsibility
Comedian Chris Rock took this past Fourth of July as an opportunity to pimp antiquated racial hatreds. He tweeted:
Happy white peoples independence day the slaves weren’t free but I’m sure they enjoyed fireworks (sic)
Rock, of course, leads a life of distinguished privilege among the entertainment industry’s brightest stars. He has never lived in chains as the property of another human being. Nor has anyone he knows. Nor has any American in several generations. That the philosophical bias of emancipation was enshrined in the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 is as elusive to Chris Rock as the fact that the men who signed it were not made free by the stroke of a pen. Ideas proceed actions, and the process of crafting government which regards all men as equal under the law continues even today.
Nevertheless, Rock feels justified feigning indigence at a crime to which neither he nor any person alive was a party. How is that possible? He subscribes to and relies upon an irrational sense of collective responsibility.
He is black. The slaves were black. So he is as a slave.
There exist whites. Slave masters were white. So whites are as slave masters.
It’s an elementary logical fallacy which is nonetheless amplified by academics and entertainers alike. It has become a kind of racial gospel, quite literally in the case of black liberation theology. Popular culture is replete with black commentators, preachers, authors, and celebrities testifying to the injustice of slavery as if it happened to them personally and continues to this day.
This offends on two fronts. First, a son is not responsible for the sins of his father. Second, though overt slavery has been long abolished in America, there remain rampant intrusions upon fundamental liberties to varying degrees throughout the world. It is stunningly disingenuous to wring hands over distant history while at best saying nothing about and at worst advocating the many encroachments upon individual rights commonplace today.
In a piece examining black author Touré and the objects of prescribed “spiritual liberation,” PJM associate editor David Swindle asks:
What are his primary liberation concerns in the chapter he titles “Keep It Real is a Prison”? Liberating the black children trapped in inner city schools mismanaged by Democrats and teacher union bureaucrats? Liberating the law-abiding, black families struggling to keep out of the crossfire amidst the the astronomical rate of black-on-black violence? What about liberating the untold numbers of African blacks oppressed by dictators and Islamists? How about all the black women around the world today living as victims of female genital mutilation? What about the black women victimized by gang rape in the Congo?
No tweets on any of that from Chris Rock.
O.J. Simpson was all smiles after his acquittal. Many black onlookers saw it as a victory against racism.
5) Masquerading Vengeance as Justice
You can’t have justice without equal treatment under the law. Yet many policy prescriptions and attitudes relating to race explicitly call for the preferential treatment of minorities.
Perhaps the most egregious example is affirmative action. Rather than apply the same standard to all candidates for a given opportunity, affirmative action lowers or eliminates standards for favored groups. This is insulting to all parties concerned, making experience and qualifications inferior to irrelevant political considerations. It is by definition an injustice. Yet is is tolerated and even mandated. Why?
Building on the notion of collective responsibility, affirmative action is sold as social justice. The sins of white fathers deprived black sons of opportunity, it is argued. So white sons must cede their place to blacks. This is not justice in any objective sense. It is an irrational vengeance exacted upon the innocent on behalf of the un-wronged. It is at best a punishment of the son for the sins of his father, and never connected to a demonstrable wrong. What are the odds that a given white person’s ancestor committed a crime against a given black person’s ancestor? To the black racist, it doesn’t matter, because white guilt is collective, as is black entitlement.
Another common way in which vengeance is masqueraded as justice is the rationalization of specific black crime as justified by generalized white crime. Blacks celebrated as O.J. Simpson was acquitted, not because they believed he was innocent, but because he put one over on the Man. Consider this 2007 admission from the blogger of The Black Factor:
For more than a decade, O.J. Simpson has been the Negro that got away. To put it into historical context, O.J. Simpson is the ni**er Whites couldn’t lynch at noon. O.J. was one of the few Black people, who could afford to play the legal system the way Whites have longed played the legal system (Claus Van Bulow, anyone?). And, right or wrong, he walked free. And, many Whites got all beside themselves. As a result, Blacks have been listening to Whites play the crying game every since (sic).
Note no concern for justice. O.J. was a black man getting back at whites for the collective injustices of the past. The object of such a sentiment isn’t to obtain equal treatment under the law, but to turn the tables of history and subject whites to injustice as revenge.
4) Loose Accusations of Racism
Race is one of several factors which inform an observer’s subjective judgment, and is not particularly special. What a person wears, how they talk, their posture and demeanor — all have an effect upon what an observer presumes about them. This is particularly true when the observer has to make a quick judgment in an impromptu encounter.
The ability to make snap judgments about another is an integral part of our survival instinct and ought not be blunted by political correctness or cited as evidence of racism. Prejudice, or pre-judgment, is something we rationally inculcate in our children at a very young age. We teach them to beware of strangers. How a person looks is one of the first and most effective means by which we determine them to be strange.
In this sense prejudice is both innate to all persons and appropriate in many contexts. If a woman taking a turn down an alley suppresses her prejudice regarding a gang of motley young men, she risks much unnecessarily.
Prejudice is not inherently racist, and loose accusations of racism based on isolated perceptions of prejudice are premature. Words have meaning, and we have different words to describe distinct concepts. Prejudice, bigotry, and racism are not interchangeable. While prejudice can be innocent and even reasonable in certain contexts, bigotry is the irrational maintenance of a prejudice in light of evidence to the contrary. Bigotry can be informed by a multitude of factors, of which race is only one. Racism is what we call bigotry informed by race.
These distinctions are important in any intellectually honest discussion of race relations. When prejudice, bigotry, and racism are used interchangeably, it is evidence that the discussion is not honest.
3) Fighting Irrationality with Irrationality
The consensus that racism is bad does not seem to be informed by a consensus as to why. For many, it seems that racism is simply out of fashion, rather than an objective wrong.
Bigotry offends reason. Sustaining a prejudice about an individual in light of evidence to the contrary does not make sense. It is a rejection of reality, and that is what makes it offensive. Attempts by hand-wringing “progressives” to combat racism with equally irrational assertions compound the offense.
A recent example is the so-called Unfair Campaign, an initiative out of Duluth which was until recently supported by the University of Minnesota. The mission of the Unfair Campaign is to “to raise awareness about white privilege in our community.”
The notion of “white privilege,” as articulated by the Unfair Campaign, is itself a racist sentiment. To assume that all whites have an inherent leg up on the rest of society is as irrational as assuming all blacks are somehow inferior. Indeed, the sentiments are one and the same, a point raised in this response featuring yours truly.
The University of Minnesota has since quietly removed its support of the Unfair Campaign.
Liberty fosters respect and cooperation.
2) Treating Whites as Hostiles Rather Than Traders
All of the above fosters racism because it perpetuates irrationalism in the culture. At worst, irrationalism becomes institutionalized through public policy, wielding government’s monopoly on force toward subjective and therefore unjust ends. As the populace perceives such injustice, animosity is created where it may not otherwise exist, and accelerated where it might otherwise be benign.
The underlying principle is applicable beyond race relations. Under a condition of liberty, where each individual is protected against the initiation of force by another, trust is engendered and people deal peaceably with one another in trade, offering value for value. When strangers meet in the market, they begin with a greeting.
Conversely, when strangers meet in the wild, they begin with a threat or warning. Why? Because they are not otherwise protected from the initiation of force. Suspicion and hostility is fostered whenever public policy treats people unjustly, such as when one race is granted preferential treatment over another. It doesn’t matter whether it’s whites being treated preferentially under Jim Crow, or blacks being treated preferentially under affirmative action, the injustice and resulting cultural degradation are the same.
These civil rights would enslave producers to consumers.
1) Lifting Civil Rights Above Inalienable Rights
The term “civil rights” has become sacrosanct in the political discourse. It has become interchangeable with “correct” and a rhetorical bludgeon with which to bloody opponents of “social justice.” To call something “a civil rights issue” is to end the argument. Health care. Marriage. Education. Jobs. All have been evoked as civil rights. In so doing, proponents of a new affirmative action hope to paint their opposition as bigots, because popular sentiment holds that only a bigot would oppose a civil right.
This is another corruption of the language, most egregious because of its effect upon public policy and the way in which force is applied in people’s lives. Not all civil rights are good. In fact, when they are crafted in opposition to the inalienable rights recognized in the Declaration and protected by the Constitution, they are downright evil.
Civil rights are legal grants from the state which can be wholly arbitrary. The inalienable rights of the individual are objectively derived and exist independent of the state. Good civil rights support inalienable rights. For instance, voting is a civil right which compliments the inalienable rights of the voter. Bad civil rights oppose inalienable rights. Granting a civil right to health care or any other provision places a burden upon producers to supply their wares without trade, something which used to be called robbery.
Because the civil rights movement of the 1960s was in opposition to institutionalized racism, civil rights have since been associated with decency and justice in the public discourse. That association has been abused to promote all manner of wrong. The potential exists to make a civil right out of anything. In fact, the claim of a slave owner over his “property” in a state with legal slavery would be a civil right. A hammer might be used to bash in someone’s head as readily as it may pound a nail. Likewise, civil rights may be crafted for ill as readily as for good.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of a world where people were treated equally under the law, and judged by one another according to the content of their character. Such a world requires the condition of liberty, where people may only deal with each other in trade, not by force. Absent the fear and distrust which manifest in a system of political favoritism, people are incentivized to deal with each other respectfully. Free association can never deprive anyone of anything. Force can, however, and therefore ought to be removed from human relationships. That’s what proper government does. True concern for racial equality can only manifest in a vigorous defense of individual rights. Those who mindlessly seek civil rights in opposition to objectively derived individual rights seek tyranny, not equality, and deserve to be regarded as the agitators they are.
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Image courtesy: StampGirl / Shutterstock.com
See more of Walter Hudson’s recent articles at PJ Lifestyle. Some of the subjects he focuses on include religion, technology, culture, economics, and the Tea Party:
The upshot of the black racism that you describe above is that it has served to create an entrenched political elite of leftists – a political elite that has wreaked havoc and ruin on the US.
I always dread this time of year, and not only because of the bad weather. Martin Luther King was a Marxist whose activities paved the way for BHO. He deserves no holiday and nothing should be named after him, unless perhaps a welfare office or a bankruptcy court.
I am no apologist for chattel slavery. Even so, those of African ethnicity who currently live in the US are far better off than they would be if their ancestors had never been brought here.
Chattel slavery didn’t do the white people any good either; we are incomparably WORSE off now than we would be if no Africans ever came here. We are under the political control of an organized group of people who, owing to their own color-based prejudice, will always hate us and who will seek to abuse us and extract everything they can from us until there is nothing left to take. I am punished as an oppressor even though none of my ancestors set foot in the New World until long after chattel slavery had ended.
I was young during the civil rights movement, but IMHO, Martin Luther King was 100 times better than the Stokely Carmichael types who took over the leadership after he was assassinated. King was not a hater. He had some great lines, especially the one about people being judged by the content of their characters.
Thanks to the editors for rerunning this piece. I had not seen it before, and it brightened a bleak day for me.
No, the Rev. Dr. King was not a communist, however, he did business with communists and was influenced by them. “My readings of Marx convinced me that truth is found neither in Marxism nor in traditional capitalism. Each represents a partial truth. Historically capitalism failed to see truth in collective enterprise and Marxism failed to see the truth in individual enterprise…The Kingdom of G-d is neither the thesis of individual enterprise nor the antithesis of collective enterprise, but a synthesis which reconciles the truths of both.” Martin Luther King
King may not have been a declared communist but the significant quotes he uttered display him as a globalist.
King was perpetrating a false dichotomy. The free enterprise system(labeled “capitalism” by Marxists) is an economic system, whereas Marxism is a totalitarian ideology embracing all aspects of human endeavor. In fact, the free enterprise system does not prohibit or disapprove of collective enterprise. It is welcome to compete on an equal basis. The problem is that it generally is inferior to private, individual enterprise, and fails without govt support.
@1389AD
First of all, Dr. King deserves a holiday because he had the courage to fight for civil rights with threats on his life almost the whole time he was doing, and he continued to do so,KNOWING that there was a chance his life would be taken. And black people only perpetuate racism because white people spent near almost 400 years perpetuating it AGAINST us as black people. As for calling Sharpton and his colleagues “race hustlers”, white people are the biggest race hustlers around,and have gotten near the whole world to believe that they are more superior simply because they dominate the most powerful country in the world. If white people are so superior, then how come they couldn’t see the 2008 economic crash coming? Explain that.
And to the idiot racist poster caliing that black people are just ignorant and have no direction—black people are raised with morals and values just like anybody else–as a black woman, I’m sick of white people and everyone else always assuming that black people who commit crimes and other horrible things represent all 38 million of us in the U.S. Nobody ever says that the “Honey Boo Boo” represents ALL white people, or that it means that ALL white people are lower-class rednecks. There are plenty of black people doing positive things and contributing to society–I find it strange that you’re only focusing on negative thing SOME black people do, as if nobody else does those same things.
And to the column writer–your column makes no sense at all, because, for one thing, black people didn’t invent racism, or even profit from it like white people have. Even if black people stopped being racist today, white people wouldn’t because they’re had too much invested in keeping it going for too long. I also don’t understand why you would take a major actor’s opinion to make your point. As far as I’m concerned, Obama’s black–period. There’s no getting around that–apparently the only way some of you can even accept him is because he’s part white, which is pretty sad. Your being black dosen’t mean you speak for all black people–you certainly don’t speak for me.
And who are any of you to say that black people had it better over here than in Africa? Africans had already spent thousands of years surviving just fine on their own continent,having developed their own way of life and survival,just like anybody else on the planet—the white people who first came there probably would not have even survived in the first place without their help, just like the first whites to settle in America would not have even survived without the Indians’ help. I’m sure the first slaves who got sold down the river by their fellow Africans and brought here by the white slavers didn’t think they were going to have it better coming here and they were right. That whole “blacks have it better here” argument is so old, racist and arrogant, and basically just a justification for slavery. Black people damn sure didn’t have it “better” the first 300 years we were here in chains as slaves building up this country with our free unpaid backbreaking labor, or the next 100 years under the Jim Crows being deprived of any rights that white people didn’t even fell like recognizing, before fighting to get those same right for ourselves once and for all.
You Republicans are simply disgusted that you lost and that nobody bought that nonsense you were selling. Get over it, read some real American history (not whatever you made up to make yourselves feel better) and get some lives.
“Even so, those of African ethnicity who currently live in the US are far better off than they would be if their ancestors had never been brought here.”
A southern state representative was defeated for re-election in November (with the help of the liberal media, natch) after having the nerve to say something similar.
A great read on this point is ‘Cosmic Justice’ by Thomas Sowell. He discusses the blessing of being born an American, where we have abundant resources, educational opportunities and the fact that we take for granted the basics of housing, clean water, food and clothing. Others born elsewhere aren’t so fortunate.
Oops! The actual title is “The Quest for Cosmic Justice.”
There isn’t an item here that does not find its origins not with “blacks”, but with collectivists of any race — Leftists, in other words.
Racism is an equal opportunity vice.
Agreed. Nevertheless, and as I pointed out at the start, American blacks are the most prolific purveyors of racist attitudes chiefly because their racism is rationalized and tolerated.
Rationalized, tolerated, and perpetuated by professional racebaiting opportunists, a dystopian gangster culture, misguided do-gooders, leftist elites, nihilistic media, and ultimately politicians that wish to further a socialist agenda.
I actually have to disagree on #8 and #7.
It’s not “evil” to prefer to breed with your own race, or even to prefer to live near your own race, as long as you deal fairly with people of other races and don’t hate them.
I do not like the hatred the blacks sometimes display for whites, but that doesn’t mean that it’s some moral imperative to make your ethnic group cease to exist as a distinct people. Preventing #8 and #7 by force is actually a form of genocide.
The elimination of the world’s races, over their objections, isn’t good — even for noble reasons.
You seem to have misunderstood both points. I do not prescribe force. I present no obligation to integrate, and certainly none to intermarry. I affirm the right to free association, which enables voluntary segregation. My point is to highlight the hypocrisy of decrying segregation while actively engaging in it. In this way, the black civil rights culture demonstrates a contradiction in thinking which requires a reevaluation of their premises.
I do not find it “evil” to prefer relationships with your own race. What you value, what you are attracted to, is your business. However, it is irrational to insist others maintain racial continuity. Further, the notion that race has some intrinsic value should be rejected as antiquated tribalism. There are likely thousands of “distinct peoples” who no longer exist as such. Their “disappearance” results from the progress of human achievement and assimilation into higher cultures. As others have noted, life for the average American black is immensely better than life for the average African black. As American blacks, we are no longer distinctly African. The lack of black emigration to Africa seems to suggest that we value our quality of life above being distinctly African. That is as it should be.
Further, the notion that race has some intrinsic value should be rejected as antiquated tribalism.
The idea that race and ethnicity have no value is imperialistic. Why, then, would one object to expansion such as that undertaken by European countries in the 19th century? Why, then, are multiracial or multi-ethnic societies fractious rather than harmonious, especially when a dominant race tries to force its way on the non-dominant races? Once the “antiquated tribalism” is eliminated from the world (not just America), who’s making all the rules, and can other races opt out of those and live under their own arrangements?
This idea that race is nonsense is meant to homogenize away a diverse population created by chattel slavery and faulty immigration policy. We supposedly value this diversity and call it strength; otherwise, why bring large numbers of foreigners in if you’re just going to stamp out their identities and take away the very thing that makes them different?
As others have noted, life for the average American black is immensely better than life for the average African black. As American blacks, we are no longer distinctly African. The lack of black emigration to Africa seems to suggest that we value our quality of life above being distinctly African. That is as it should be.
Agreed. African-Americans are very distinct from Africans, yet no one would call African-Americans white, nor is there any evidence that they’re being absorbed into the white population (though there are plenty of mixed people — that’s one reason why Afro-Americans are different from Africans.) Afro-Americans value being Afro-Americans and, from what I can tell, don’t want to be subsumed completely.
You seem to be relating two things that don’t go together. You seem to be equating miscegenation almost to genocide. I happen to be someone that has no real ties to “blackness.” It would be of no particular consequence to me if every black (or red, white, yellow, etc.) person became mixed with other races. The difference is whether people choose to do so on their own or whether they are compelled to. In that light, your argument about imperialism is rather irrelevant. Some will choose to segregate themselves, some will not. This choice may be made for various reasons, but is ultimately arbitrary. It doesn’t matter _whether_ a race is “absorbed” or “subsumed by” this or that other race, but rather _how_ it goes about occurring. If it is voluntary, then it is of no consequence.
I’m having difficulty following your argument. When I say race has no intrinsic value, I do not mean people don’t value it. Of course they do. I’m saying such value is subjective, like any other personal preference. I like onions on my pizza. I value it. That does not bestow onions with an objective value which others must recognize. It’s the same with race. My bottom line is that individual rights must be recognized and protected. In such a condition of liberty, race retains whatever subjective value you want to ascribe to it, but is eliminated as a basis for government action. So if you want to segregate through free association – marriage, friends, commerce, etc., more power to you. But segregation will never be forced, and neither will integration. It’s about choice. The bonus is that the condition of liberty actually fosters racial harmony because the ability to choose determines intrinsic value in the long-term.
OH,really, Mr. Hudson? “American blacks are the most prolific purveyors of racist attitudes chiefly because their racism is rationalized and tolerated.” You seem to conveniently have forgotten that white people’s vicious,insidious,hateful racism toward black people and practically everyone else who wasn’t white was not only rationalized and tolerated for the first 300 years of our country’s existence,but backed up by laws which enforced segregation and the complete and total dehumanization of people of color, in every conceivable way possible. And it was enforced and intrenched in our national consciousness for so long, that it still exists today in one form or another—-look at how a lot of people (particularly white folks) have made it clear that they can not stand having a black President in the White House,no matter what good he tries to accomplish. And look at all the fools who threw together these secession petitions as soon as it was clear that he had been voted in for a second term—as if they were actually going to go through with it.
Also, you can say all you that being black dosen’t matter to you, but it will damn sure matter to the policeman who stops your car to profile you or the white woman who clutches her purse when you are nearby. You can keep acting like we live in a post-race age, which we don’t, never have and never will all you want, but at the end of the day, you’re still black–period.
Cheeky, you spout a lot of hustler propaganda. As far as your white woman clutching her purse is concerned, maybe she has good reason. It seems that statistics and Jesse agree.
“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved…. After all we have been through. Just to think we can’t walk down our own streets, how humiliating.” – Jesse Jackson
Really good paragraph on the differences between prejudice, bigotry and racism. I’ve been arguing with idiots on blogs for years that prejudice- the pre-concieved opinion of a particular person or groups of people is normal. Bigotry and racism are much bigger issues – if I meet a black man that looks like a thug, I’ll likely be prejudiced against him – if I speak to him and he comes across as reasonable and/or intelligent citizen(ie not a thug), there’s likely to be far less prejudice on our next encounter. Bigotry would require me to maintain that prejudice despite the fact that the information I’ve collected on that person indicates they are not a thug but a reasonable and/or intelligent person. Racism, of course, is a blanket hatred based on a racial characteristic- reasonable people are not racist.
Unfortunately, when arguing against the race hustlers like Sharpton, Jackson, Toure and others, intelligent people will not point out the distinction – as if they realize they’ll have to admit prejudice, which will undermine their position somehow. Jeff Goldstein, over at Protein Wisdom, likes to talk about how the left has essentially co-opted our language. In this case, its true- any prejudice is called racism, even when it is not, allowing the left to convince the more ignorant minorities that XYZ person hates all persons of that particular minority. Its the use of language to control. For all the complaints about the white man keeping down the black man, who, in this day and age, has enslaved blacks more? I assert its black leaders, who gain money and power through this dynamic, and the Democratic party, who gains votes by keeping blacks poor, dependent and angry at life.
You are absolutely correct. What is so insidious about this is that once you’ve convinced ignorant people of the idea that someone hates them, you can just as easily convince them that anyone that even attempts to tell the difference between racism and prejudice is also racist…it because a self-perpetuating lie.
Great article, in fact the best I’ve ever read on this subject. I would add another way that blacks perpetuate racism, which the author alluded to without specifically mentioning and, as it is IMO the single greatest factor in holding back blacks from greater economic and social parity with whites, its inclusion is needed.
That factor is cultural values. Blacks will never achieve parity with whites as long as most blacks disparage education, reason and logic. Individual responsibility and accountability are other cultural values rejected by most blacks and that rejection prevents individuals from transcending wherever they might reside on society’s economic and social ladder. Most blacks have and are rejecting the very values that brought Americans their prosperity. They have and are forging the bars of their own prison.
Thank you for the reprint. Make it an annual event, iffin’ you please.
Here in the Depths of Depravity, Farmington, Michigan,in bucolic Oakland County,
{Founded by Quakers, 1837, plus or minus}We have been seeing a cultural shift, to the point where last year something labeled :
“The African-American PTA” was established because seemingly, ‘the other one’ was not makin’ it for some reason or other. Try, just try, to be ‘lighter in shade’ and get into those meetings. Sss-Not gonna happen……
Now and again, we see Mixed-Race personages run for various offices in this area, specifically in Detroit.
When a gent named Freeman Hendrix ran against The Hon. Kwame Kilpatrick not so long ago for mayor, various, not-so-subtle terms were used to describe someone who lost, and proceeded to be ‘good enough’ to run Eastern Michigan University.
Kwame, on the other hand, is currently on Trial [Federal] for all kindsa’ stuff, none of it legal, or even slightly funny. His Daddy is in the docket, as well.
You really do not have to make ‘this stuff’ up.
Just sit back and let ‘em have at it……..
On the question of “mixed race” whites, here’s a little experiment you can try :
Ask your white friends if they have any Native American ancestors.
I’ve done this myself, and by my count, the ratio is approximately one in four, or 25 %.
(and I’m one of them, which is why I did the experiment in the first place.)