Derrick Bell’s Afrolantica, Part 8: We Have a Right to Your Property

On page 22, Geneva Crenshaw (Bell’s idealized proponent of his Critical Race Theory theology) responds to the fictional speech given by President Clinton:

“…whites have chosen to protect their sense of belonging based on skin color over alliances with blacks that would have improved all of our lives.”

Thus, the capitalist system bears responsibility for a minority of minorities living in poverty. And since capitalism produces these disparities in racial achievements, capitalism itself is racist. (Bell rejects race-neutral and cultural explanations for inner city pathology.) Because free market economies lead to racist conclusions, this means that anyone who isn’t a socialist is a racist whether they realize it or not.

“We have not been passive in seeking our rights but even our best efforts seem to translate into more property for whites and more promises for blacks.”

When Bell refers to “seeking our rights” here he uses the term in the same way as Barack Obama and today’s mainstream Democrats, in the context of what government “must do on your behalf.” Rights = other people’s property that they acquired by luck and that progressives must redistribute to counteract the innate, permanent racism in American society. You have a Right for someone else to pay for your health care. You have a Right to have someone else supply your birth control pills.

Of course this political tradition has deeper roots in the Democratic Party than the Alinskyite infiltration of Obama’s cohort…