The Ugly Un-American 10.02.07: Monoculturalism
Posted by Ray Church on 10.02.2007
From the Jena 6 to Bill O'Reilly, racism has become the watch word again, but I can't help thinking we need a bigger dictionary to deal with the nuances. Plus, a look at Ahmadenijad, Hillary Clinton and, of course, this week's "Shut the Hell Up" Award.
A New Language for Racism
Mark Radulich decided to become the defender of the indefensible this week, moving to Bill O'Reilly after defending Britney Spears for not being fat. And she wasn't, she was just insanely bad.
The Bill O'Reilly defense was … interesting. I can't say I agree with him, but he did bring up all the interesting arguments that get people thinking, but fundamentally he makes a big mistake in his thinking, namely:
Racism is the belief and/or practice that your race is superior to all others or a certain other and that the inferior races should be treated as such with specific actions to intimidate or control said inferior race
This got me thinking… we need a new word. Racism is so tied up with the morons in Jena who are dragging nooses behind their cars that when other forms of bigotry come up they get ignored because they aren't as extreme. Mr. Radulich points to the context of what O'Reilly said which is notable but maybe underscores the point: O'Reilly was trying to point out the pre-conceptions people have about African American, which was fine, except that he was pointing out pre-conceptions most people don't have.
OK, I'm not American, but when I hang out with African Americans (and there are some outside of America) I don't expect the type of things which O'Reilly described. While it was a defense of African Americans, it came during an attack on certain groups within African American culture, namely rap culture. Yes, he was talking to an African American at the time, but it Juan Williams, the one man of the NPRstaff that Bush deemed was appropriate to interview him.
O'Reilly was defending one group of African Americans, but at the expense of another group of African Americans, and it was the group that O'Reilly saw as believing and acting just like him.
I think black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves. They're getting away from the Sharptons and the Jacksons and the people trying to lead them into a race-based culture
So, while Al Sharpton was taking him out for soul food, he was trying to say that Sharpton doesn't represent the African American race. Neither do "Twister, Ludacris and Snoop Dog", which is fine, except that he sees African Americans as the ones who believe:
They're just trying to figure it out: "Look, I can make it. If I work hard and get educated, I can make it."
And people who don't believe:
People deal with that stuff in a variety of ways. Some get bitter. Some say, [unintelligible] "You call me that, I'm gonna be more successful."
So, in other words, he thinks that African Americans are great so long as they fit the Republican mindset. That they are prepared to ignore the insults and believe that if they work hard, they can go to university and succeed. They should be more like Bill Cosby and Juan Williams and less like Malcolm X and Jesse Jackson. They shouldn't make waves.
Getting back to what I was saying, we need a new word. This is not what most people recognize as racism because he's not out there burning crosses and lynching the blacks, so let's propose a new word:
Mono-Culturalism
My grandmother was out and out racist. She wasn't out burning crosses, that doesn't happen in New Zealand, but she was always moaning about the Maori and the Chinese that were ruining New Zealand. When I married a Chinese woman, she rolled in her grave so hard that shock waves were felt in Taiwan.
My mother inherited some of my grandmother's modes. She had many friends of different races, but every so often you'd hear her claim she was "working like a nigger" or something similarly grating. From friend Karl got a different reaction from my mother than my friend James. There was a perceptible change in pitch whenever I suggested Karl came over; just enough to let you know that she wasn't as comfortable with it.
Just for the record, Karl is now a moderately successful actor and every so often my mother will send me newspaper clipping letting me know how his career is doing.
I would call my mother a residual racist. She knew it was wrong, but she couldn't help but judge people by their race. That was how she was bought up. She can't get away from it.
Now, O'Reilly goes one further. He says that black people are wonderful, so long as they think like him. So long as they are polite and prepared to go to family shows and dress in tuxedos, they're fine by him.
This is the same thing we get got from people like Peter King a week or so ago:
Unfortunately we have too many mosques in this country, there's too many people who are sympathetic to radical Islam. We should be looking at them more carefully, we should be finding out how we can infiltrate, we should be much more aggressive in law enforcement
Here, Peter King equates big Islam, the average Muslim in the street, with small Islam, the small bunch of idiots prepared to declare war on the world. King gets scared of the first because of the second.
But read on: "We should be looking at them more carefully". He is scared because they are "different".
One can look to Jena, where we got this press conference:
If you don't have the patience to work this out. He points to Jesus, saying he protected Jena from disaster.
What disaster? Protesters. 1000's of people turn up to protest the D.A.'s racist policies, and he thinks that they are the disturbance. He expects violence. He expects… terror.
These were merely protestors. His expectation of violence may not be racism, but it does indicate a mindset. He sees disruption as violence. He sees other cultures as a threat.
This also explains people like Tom Tancredo and Michelle Malkin, who are so anti-immigration, but would be nobody without it. It's not that they're scared of other races (for Malkin that would mean white people), it's that they're scared of people who are culturally different to themselves. They feel comfortable in one culture.
This further explains people like Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. They're not judged by their race, but by their culture. They act and behave like good republicans. Colin Powell served for years in the armed forces. Rice plays classical piano. They meet the criteria for conservative behaviour.
Short Shot: Ahmadinejad
You know, I seem to be one of the few people in the blogosphere who believes these two statements equally: Columbia University was right to invite Ahmadinejad and that University President Lee Bollinger was right to eviscerate him in his introduction.
I say give him the stage and then get your facts together. He can't win this argument.
The laughter when he said there was no homosexuality in Iran should have been the beginning.
They should have confronted him with the facts and figures of the Holocaust, the ones where they have Nazi documentation showing the breadth and scope of the holocaust from the people who committed it. They should have presented him with the photos of the death camps and the critiques of David Duke which show clearly what a nut job Duke is.
They should have asked him about the Council of Guardians, which prohibited the 11 duly elected women in the Iranian Parliament from running for government, only letting conservative women to run for Parliament.
They should have asked him about the weapons found in Iraq with Iranian stamps on them.
They should have pushed for a better answer to the rights of the Baha'i religion in Iran. How Baha'is are arrested for teaching classes to underprivileged children, and as bond have to sign all their property over to the state. How Baha'is are refused education, and 800 youth were refused entry into University simply for being a different religion. Ask him about the confidential circular issued by Khamenei in 1991 which stated the government should seek quiet methods to destroy the Baha'i community.
People should not be scared of Ahmadinejad. He is as moronic as he is made out to be. It sure makes more sense than declaring war on him. Put him in the spotlight and get him to answer for his methods of governance.
Clinton Watch
By God, this is going to become a regular event.
Last week, Hillary Clinton voted to condemn MoveOn.Org for their advertisement against General Patreus. Simultaneously, I was beating my head against a wall.
Like or hate the MoveOn.Org ad, voting to condemn it in the Senate was just stupid. Props to both Bill and Hillary Clinton for calling it such when it came up.
But then, why did Hillary vote to condemn it. It's a distraction. Either don't vote on it at all, or vote against it and call it what it is.
"Hillary Clinton, why did you vote against condemning MoveOn.Org? Do you support the demonisation of the military?""
"I voted against it because it was a stupid vote to begin with. I voted against it because our country is in the midst of an unpopular war and some demagogues in the Senate thought this was more important than the war itself. Anymore questions?"
But no, she has the wave the flag and state how much she supports the troops, so what happens? Now we have a motion to condemn Rush Limbaugh for calling troops who spoke out against the Patreus Report "phony soldiers". Now, Limbaugh is a big, bloated buffoon and I'm all for pointing that out in as many public forums as possible, but let's be real here: having the Senate condemn his acts is like performing cancer surgery with a chainsaw. He's a zit: you pop him with your fingers, you don't screw you head in a vice.
Shut the Hell Up Award
Michael Medved.
Michael Medved may well have been the inspiration for Ned Flanders, if it weren't for the fact he is Jewish. He might also have inspired a conservative revolution in Hollywood, if it weren't for the fact he is an absolute nutcase.
OK, get over the fact he's borrowing the phrase Al Gore and applying it to a defense of slavery, let's look at some of the content.
Starting from the beginning:
Those who want to discredit the United States and to deny our role as history's most powerful and pre-eminent force for freedom, goodness and human dignity invariably focus on America's bloody past as a slave-holding nation
Well that and the genocide committed against the Native Americans, the Mexican-American war which was manufactured a war to gain more land from Mexico, the entire concept of Manifest Destiny, the genocide in the Philippines, where 200 000 men, women and children were slaughtered by US troops, the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the KKK movement, Vietnam… I could go on. But let's just imagine this was not his first sentence. Let's look at this defense of slavery.
An honest and balanced understanding of the position of slavery in the American experience requires a serious attempt to place the institution in historical context and to clear-away some of the common myths and distortions.
Well, no it doesn't. Just because Person A was a prick, doesn't excuse Person B of being a prick as well. This is called moral relativism, and typically conservatives hate it.
SLAVERY WAS AN ANCIENT AND UNIVERSAL INSTITUTION, NOT A DISTINCTIVELY AMERICAN INNOVATION
Agreed. But how does this support the idea that America is the "history's most powerful and pre-eminent force for freedom, goodness and human dignity". Oh, of course, it's all relative.
SLAVERY EXISTED ONLY BRIEFLY, AND IN LIMITED LOCALES, IN THE HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC
Only briefly, but that's because America came to the party late. Yes, Britain had slavery for centurise before America did, but that's because it existed for centuries before America did. They ended slavery at about the same time, as many other nations did as well.
– INVOLVING ONLY A TINY PERCENTAGE OF THE ANCESTORS OF TODAY'S AMERICANS
His reasoning?
Given the fact that the majority of today's non-black Americans descend from immigrants who arrived in this country after the War Between the States, only a tiny percentage of today's white citizens – perhaps as few as 5% -- bear any authentic sort of generational guilt for the exploitation of slave labor
But wait a second: a paragraph ago he talked about how slavery was not an institution unique to America. My brain hurts.
I could go on to mention the Coolie Trade, which was another form of slavery which outlasted Abolition because it was new Chinese immigrants getting paid next to nothing with no political rights, rather than African Americans getting paid nothing with no political rights.
THOUGH BRUTAL, SLAVERY WASN'T GENOCIDAL
This is right before he mentions the Middle Passage, where he admits that as much as one third of the slaves would die on the trip. But it's not genocide, so it's okay.
IT'S NOT TRUE THAT THE U.S. BECAME A WEALTHY NATION THROUGH THE ABUSE OF SLAVE LABOR: THE MOST PROSPEROUS STATES IN THE COUNTRY WERE THOSE THAT FIRST FREED THEIR SLAVES
His argument rests on the idea that the Northern States, at the time of Abolition, were the wealthiest. This misses the fact that Virginia, for the majority of the early days of the American Empire, was the wealthiest state and it made its money from Iron Works, which relied on slave labor.
The Northern States abolished slavery because their wealth was not based slavery. The Southern States, which relied on slave labor for their industry, maintained slavery as an institution until they were forced to end it.
WHILE AMERICA DESERVES NO UNIQUE BLAME FOR THE EXISTENCE OF SLAVERY, THE UNITED STATES MERITS SPECIAL CREDIT FOR ITS RAPID ABOLITION
Um, no. In fact he points out why this was wrong in his very passage.
In the course of scarcely more than a century following the emergence of the American Republic, men of conscience, principle and unflagging energy succeeded in abolishing slavery not just in the New World but in all nations of the West
Let me repeat the important point here.
abolishing slavery not just in the New World but in all nations of the West
In other words, America ended slavery at about the same time as other Western Nations ended slavery, but apparently that deserves "special credit".
As early as 1646, the Puritan founders of New England expressed their revulsion at the enslavement of their fellow children of God.
Well, some of them. But notice it's the Puritan's, not the founding fathers he mentions. Thomas Jefferson was busy making babies with his slaves, but some of the puritan leaders were against slavery, just as Quakers and Abolitionists in many other countries in the world were agitating against slavery at the same time.
Let's look at some dates.
Britain: abolished the slave trade 1808, abolished slavery 1833
France: abolished slavery in 1791 and 1848 (after Napoleon reinstated slavery)
Wallachia and Moldavia (in Romania): abolished slavey 1746 and 1749 respectively, although the Roma were still legally enslaved.
USA: Northern States 1804, the entirety of the United States: 1863 / 1865
Portugal: Abolished slavery 1761 (but it continued in their colonies)
Sweden: Abolished slavery 1335 (but it continued in their colonies)
Upper Canada: Act against slavery 1793 (didn't free slaves, but freed their children)
Lower Canada: Declared incompatible with law1803, ended outright 1834 (under British law)
America only deserves "special credit" when you compare it against countries like China (1910), Saudi Arabia (1962) the UAE (1963), Oman (1970), Iran (1928) Nepal (1921), and Qatar (1952). When you compare it with its peers, it actually looks slow on the uptake, running 30 years behind the UK, 20 years behind France, 100 years behind Portugal (although this is debatable) and 500 years behind Sweden.
THERE IS NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT TODAY'S AFRICAN-AMERICANS WOULD BE BETTER OFF IF THEIR ANCESTORS HAD REMAINED BEHIND IN AFRICA
Or the "Stand on your neck and tell you that you like it" defense.
African Americans are better off in America, because that meant that they didn't have to face the Belgians in the Congo, or any number of horrors committed in Africa, which is true. But if there were no slavery, would those horrors have been committed? And if they had been committed, could they have been prevented by the existence of more strong men to fight against it? And if we had a time machine and went back and killed Hitler, would my parents have ever met and would I be alive today?
Retroactive History doesn't work. Medved is setting up an argument as to why the descendents of former slave do not deserve reparations.
It is a red herring.
Most reparation activists today point to the Special Field Orders, No. 15, which set aside land for the freed slaves and was revoked by President Andrew Johnson. This meant that, while free, the freed slaves started with nothing. Reparations has nothing to do with how good they would have it if they had never been slaves, it's about getting what was promised under the law.
Now, I'm not promoting Reparations one way or the other. I honestly haven't thought about it much. But if you're going to use such ideas as the basis for a diatribe against slavery, at least get the facts straight.
The Section Formerly Known as Pimping
So much to pimp, so little time.
Check out the Political Mock 5 this week and every week. Mr. King gets to the heart of it quick and succinctly, unlike my massive 3000 word edicts each week.
Joe Rivett claims that Bill Richardson is the only serious anti-war candidate. He purposely forgot Gravel and Kucinich, because heaven forbid people should support candidates that the media doesn't give constant airtime to.
Michael Thompson schools us on Ron Paul. Can't say I get the Ron Paul thing. Sure, he's one of the few Republicans who's been consistently right on the war, but other than that his talking points consist of promises to cut funding for everything from the Department of Education (which is underfunded anyway) to the United Nations (which the United States conveniently forgets to pay its membership dues for anyway.
Brian McLain continues to educate us against the perils of big brother here Always factual, always frightening.
And I better give props to my friend Justin, because if I don't he starts pimping other people's columns.
STAY CURRENT