THE END OF SYSTEMIC RACISM AT LAST

The Left is angry, and understandably so. Systemic racism has been a crucial part of their political DNA since, well, forever. The Democrat Party was the the bulwark for slavery against the abolitionist Republican Party and then the party of the KKK. The Leftists leaders quietly changed their brand of systemic racism and the branding of their party to make them more palatable to a post-Jim Crow electorate when they saw an opportunity to secure votes. Now the current Supreme Court decision on affirmative action threatens their carefully crafted narrative, and they won’t go down easily.

It’s apparent with any sober analysis that affirmative action is evil, and at odds with the tenets of our core beliefs as a nation as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and instantiated in the Constitution. Out past is littered with the evils of ignoring these beliefs, requiring Amendments that should never have had to be added. The 1960s was heralded as the “civil rights era,” and it is understandable how the move to jump-start racial equality through preferential treatment of black Americans was lauded. It was deemed that the egregious disparities generated by Jim Crow policies coupled with the still widespread personal bigotry (especially but not solely in the deep South) required extraordinary means to right the scales. I won’t speculate on the relative percentages of those who supported this “reverse” racism out of altruism versus those that simply saw it as a marketing ploy for votes and power, but I will remind the reader that the president who introduced the Great Society, LBJ, was well-documented as to his racist beliefs. So the policies were implemented with no end-point stipulated, a targeted welfare state that unfortunately favored fatherless families and government dependency. Out of this grew a lucrative race-grievance industry dependent on the perception of perpetual, systemic racism. As long as white guilt could be stoked by a vision of unchanged, unadulterated systemic racism, ingrained in our very DNA, those on the gravy train would flourish. It led to the rise of race-baiting superstars such as the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, to name but two of the grifters dubbed “civil rights leaders” who could pardon “offenders” with the appropriate public apologies (and payments to the appropriate organizations). In later years it has evolved into the formation of a vast, well-funded network of DEI policies and departments, infiltrating every aspect of the socioeconomic ether. Books and lectures have made $ millions for those practitioners at the top of the food chain. The problem is, as evidence of systemic racism became more and more scarce, virtually disappearing at the time of the election of our first black (actually mixed race but phenotypically black) president, acts of personal racism had to be generated to support the narrative, such as the Jussie Smollett disaster and the noose in Nascar racer Bubba Wallace’s garage ploy. Despite these subterfuges, the socio-legal evidence for the persistence of systemic racism was wearing too thin. Still, the Leftist Racial-grievance industry knew they they could count on the power and revulsion tied to the word “racist” when cultivated in the fertile loam of while guilt, and spinning any white-on-black incident resulting in the demise of the latter as defacto evidence of systemic racism regardless of the facts (as illustrated by the Michael Brown “hands-up-don’t-shoot” fable in Ferguson, MO, and the George Floyd incident, to name only 2 of the more famous). Critical Race Theory was dusted off, repackaged and distributed everywhere, including to our schools, and with it the concept (debunked, but don’t go there) of the 1619 Project, a country founded not on principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but on slavery. Racial division (including, astonishingly, new segregation and separate black graduation ceremonies) was kept alive by preaching the existence of two classes of people: oppressors and victims. And, it was warned, the sooner that the “white-privileged” masses accepted this reality, the sooner they could join the ranks of the morally righteous “anti-racist.” The “proof” of the “systemic racism” and their righteousness was always and only the statistical disparities in socioeconomic outcomes between racial groups, regardless of cause. Their efforts have been spectacularly effective—racial tensions, with Obama’s early help, have progressively heightened since the early 2000s. The great irony in all of this is that as systemic racism in the legal system and in the minds of the vast majority of citizens had virtually vanished, it was being kept on life support by the very people who most loudly decried it—via the ongoing policy of affirmative action.

I stated above, and it bears repeating, that affirmative action is evil, and this is evident with even a rudimentary, honest analysis. It’s also unconstitutional and, therefore, illegal, and it’s astonishing how long a societal malaise born of historic guilt has allowed it to flourish. To forcibly correct past evils based on skin color in modern society requires specifically targeting some races for preferential treatment over others. In the case just decided by the Supreme Court against affirmative action in the admissions policies of Harvard University and U of North Carolina that particularly disadvantaged the Asian community, there was a resounding majority declaration that admissions decisions based on the hue of someone’s skin flies in the face of the 14^th Amendment. But the issue extends further: By lowering academic standards and test score thresholds for admission based on skin color, one must engage in the execrable practice of bigotry of low expectations. The fallout from this is higher dropout rates by those students that the proponents of affirmative action are purporting to help, students who may have flourished in a more appropriate, meritocratic environment. And those that were qualified by their achievements may be forever tainted by the inevitable and unfair perception by many that they got there simply due to racial quotas. This policy is a clear indication that you cannot fight racism with racism. Our parents taught us “two wrongs don’t make a right.” It seems that we’re forever relearning this basic rule. The Supreme Court got it right. And shame on the two Leftist dissenting justices, Maria Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown, with the latter proferring a particularly vacuous and egregious argument.

It was high time the that the Court decided to abolish the last bastion of systemic racism. Expect the Left, though, to not go quietly into this good night.

Addendum: It is now customary to routinely capitalize racial descriptions of skin color (i.e., “Black,” “White”). I refuse to accede to this new convention as it reinforces the Leftist narrative of the importance of skin color over other personal attributes, including character.

SOCIETY’S DE(I)ATH WISH

The acronym DEI (I prefer DIE as it more accurately characterizes what it’s doing to our society) ostensibly stands for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, but this pervasive and pernicious program is more aptly defined as Division, Entitlement, and Inequality.

The diversity it extols applies to skin color and sexual preference, not ideas, beliefs, or viewpoints. Under this rubric, Critical Race Theory has sprouted like weeds throughout the garden of color blindness that MLK had hoped and prayed for, and accounts for the astonishing lack of competence in even the upper echelons of power.. Children and adults alike are being assaulted by anti-white racism, words to the effect that minorities are kept down by white people who are inherently oppressors and repositories of “white privilege” (ironically, this has an element of truth, as the policies supported by the advocates of DEI indeed foster failure for their targeted groups, but more on that below). This toxic, immoral rhetoric has rekindled racial division that was at its nadir at the time President Obama took office. Polling data bear out the fact that blacks increasingly ascribe their failures to “get ahead” to systemic racism rather than personal agency. DEI has also more starkly divided the nation politically.

This brings us to Entitlement. In a misguided attempt to try to right historical malfeasance via a “two wrongs make a right” approach, as whiteness is demonized, blackness is extolled and given preferential treatment. Affirmative action, which may have arguably served as a useful band-aid in the waning Jim Crow years, has become a millstone around society’s neck, branding every successful black individual with the perception of lower achievement because of the reduced standards accepted for others of the same group, shamefully defined by the superficial characteristic of skin color. In a mind-boggling display of mental contortion, this bigotry of low expectations is regarded as “just,” not as the racism that it is. While one might think that rewarding reduced merit would not be a prescription for success, this destructive entitlement was yet deemed insufficient. These same supporters of affirmative action want to lower the bar with more intense virtue-signaling though reparations. In other words, paying people who have not personally suffered the pain of slavery or Jim Crow by those who never engaged in these abhorrent practices. To make the case for such an immoral policy, they double down on the “white privilege” oppressor-oppressed theme.

And finally, Inequality. To rationalize treating a minority preferentially, it’s not enough to demonize the other race. One must hold equity above equality. Disparate outcomes, a feature of existence, must be viewed as not only unacceptable, but attributable in its entirety to “systemic racism.” This allows the powers-that-be to exclude individual agency and personal accountability. Such a tack dangerously prevents policy-makers from understanding all of the variables contributing to the inequity du jour and precludes legislating in an effective manner, usually exacerbating rather than solving or ameliorating the problem. But perhaps that’s the point—a feature rather than a bug. Convincing the voter that something or someone other than than those in power is responsible for the problem and/or the failure to find a solution provides the necessary distraction to grow government and its associated welfare state even more in size and scope. The cover of widespread individual dependency enables them to double down on ineffectual or deleterious policies in a vicious circle, using equity as a club to perpetuate in the people an ever-growing comfort with, and expectation of, government entitlements. Larger government leads to more power for the elites. It also generates a multi-billion dollar swindle with DEI departments in educational institutions at all levels and through the government and corporate world, so there’s no small incentive for the DEI activists to preserve the scam. By perpetually “solving” (or more accurately, “stoking”) problems of their own making and promoting “equity by fiat” (i.e., at gunpoint), government drives the downward spiral of society we’re now seeing. But that’s inevitable when you elevate equity above equality.

In short, DEI is systemic immorality gussied up and sold as virtue—bottled extract of “lipstick on a pig”— hawked by traveling salesmen we’ve elected to positions of power. How sick will we have to get before we tar and feather them and run them out of town?

Postscript: Some of you astute readers may have noted that I excluded capitalization of the words “black” and “white” as it pertains to people, which has recently become the norm. This is intentional. I refuse to legitimize the notion of importance ascribed to skin color that undergirds the racist ideology of the Left.

BIZARRO AMERICA

When I was a kid, I use to read Superman comics. Some of the issues featured a story line where the antagonist was an inverse copy of our red-caped hero-in-tights: bizarro world Superman. It was all childish fun. Now we’re in bizarro America, and it’s not fun at all.

A conservative friend of mine recently discussed politics with her daughter, only to be dishonored with the younger adult’s dismissal of her as a cult member. It made me think of how often Leftists employ the psychological defense of projection, and of how widespread it has become. They’ve adopted fascism by deciding what is “hate speech” and are attempting to stifle free speech by cancellation and intimidation and defining non-believers as fascists. They’ve adopted and disseminated the concept of intersectionality which is attempting to foist policies designed to force outcomes to match the prevalence of skin color while calling non-participants racist. And they’ve resurrected the ghost of racism past to redefine the present to accomplish their ends.

Racism is so abhorrent to the vast majority of modern Americans, that it can be weaponized. In a country overcome with remorse for its problematic past, an avowedly Marxist group saw an opportunity to replace social class with race and use it to forward its agenda of fundamental change. Black Lives Matter, Inc was born. With Leftist incantations, it conjured the demonic apparition of systemic racism from the grave of US history to terrorize anew, to create the illusion of a United States still standing on the necks of its black citizens (to which Biden has publicly attested). Biden and Harris have also publicly sided with violent criminals resisting arrest and against our heroes doing a dangerous job. Even clear, factual evidence fails, again and again, to discredit the cries of “systemic racism.” The nose ring of “racism” and “white privilege” has now led too many unsuspecting Americans further down the dusty, well-worn path toward increasing government control and fundamental socialist change.

While ostentatiously pointing out every stupid or crass remark the president makes and ignoring his minority-elevating accomplishments, previously sane people on the Left are making increasingly outrageous comments. Senate minority leader Schumer calls filling Justice Ginsburg’s seat an act that will “defile” and potentially “destroy” the Senate while some of his party members threaten to add blue states and “pack” the Supreme Court. House majority leader Pelosi advises Biden to skip the debates because this would “legitimize” them and because Trump “stalked” Hillary during the 2016 debates (ignoring the elaborate 2 year Russian collusion hoax on Clinton’s behalf that will likely prove to be a greater scandal than Watergate). The hysterical Left sees the Right as a cult. But they don’t debate with facts, ignoring or burying them, instead resorting to ad hominem attacks. And many of the smart people I know and love are swept along with them. For me, it’s like looking into a mirror at a bizarro world. Some of these bizarro converts, I’m convinced, could be cured, perhaps simply by listening to a single conservative source backed by real facts (someone like Ben Shapiro comes to mind). The others, I fear, are lost in a phantom world of past racism and a threatened reality of future socialism.

If you think the specter of America’s past can’t devour the present, and the future, keep watching. It’s occurring right before your eyes … or behind your back.

TEACH THE CHILDREN, SAVE A NATION

If the current sociopolitical divide doesn’t succeed in destroying the nation politically, or changing it into an unrecognizable shadow of itself, without a conscious course correction we can anticipate it happening within a generation.

Probably everyone has heard the saying, “If you’re not a liberal when you’re 25, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 35, you have no brain.” There’s a kernel of truth to that, especially the first part. Certainly there are young people raised in conservative families that, by upbringing, share those beliefs from the outset. But many of us, myself included, having grown up typically in liberal large cities, have been overwhelmingly indoctrinated in left-of-center ideology. Despite this, back in the day, far Leftism, now termed progressivism or “wokeness” (metastasizing ever more quickly into the moderate liberal ranks) was either a fringe ideology or nonexistent. “Back in the day” we all pledged allegiance to the flag (although, even then, the phrase “under God” had a brief period of controversy, with God winning) and flag-burning went from illegal to legal (don’t like it, but personally view it as free speech, just like hate speech, as long as you own the flag and don’t break any fire laws). It wasn’t that we weren’t taught about our checkered past, including slavery, the white man’s devastation of the indigenous societies (back then “Indians,” now Native Americans), women’s suffrage, and Jim Crow, but we simultaneously ingested (and took for granted) the extraordinary principles upon which the nation was based. We were taught to respect the flag, the Constitution and the nation and regard it as exceptional. Because wiser minds understood the distinction between good principles and bad behavior that didn’t live up to them, we were taught to recognize this distinction even through the era of Jim Crow (although I was still in grade school at the time). What was true then, and remains so now, is that the principles upon which the nation was founded are unique, extraordinary, and moral. What is also true, and being buried under an avalanche of misinformation, is that there has been a progressive, accelerating, and exponential change in our society toward racial (and sexual) equality. Not only do the statistics, cited in prior rants, support this, but I’ve lived long enough to personally witness the more recent expressions of the trend. Young people, by definition, have not, so the mind diet they’re being fed is not only misleading, it’s pernicious. And it’s turning them from the most color-blind generations in our history to the most race-conscious. Nothing good can come from this.

Some of the those on the left engaged in this re-indoctrination campaign come from a good place. Troubled by the egregious sins of the past, however, they are unable to get beyond this to see the progressive (and I use the word ironically) and remarkable redress of these sins and inequities that has occurred. In fact, the faster and closer we have come as a society to approaching the principles upon which the nation was founded, the more they are convinced that nothing has changed. How is it that otherwise rational, intelligent people can be blind to demonstrable reality? I believe it is due to the same indoctrination techniques that have led to the rise of fascistic socialism before. It’s remarkable how powerful these techniques are, blinding so many people to its sinister recurrence despite the numerous past and current examples, the most recent being Venezuela. It’s becoming so extreme and infiltrating the mainstream so quickly, that it’s now difficult to distinguish those that are simply misguided and misinformed from those that are manipulating cynically in the name of power and fundamental socialist change. And the preparation for its resurgence has been careful and well-planned. Leaders of the movement knew that starting with the young and impressionable would have an inevitable cumulative effect, so they co-opted the educational system and the media. From kindergarten through university, the curriculum was slowly inched more and more to the left, emphasizing the sins of Western civilization and minimizing its unique blessings by removing the context of our country’s evolution from history and the rest of the world, past and present. Vigorous efforts were undertaken to define our country as a nation founded on slavery culminating in the presentation by Nikole Hannah-Jones in the New York Times of the 1619 Project, referring to the year the first black slaves arrived on American soil. Despite credible sources criticizing the opinions and questioning the historical facts behind this interpretation, it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize (another indication of the success of the Left’s program) and it is still widely accepted as fact by many on the left. If you ask for proof of the systemically racist state of the country, you will invariably be directed to historical evidence decades or more old (undisputed), or isolated, recurrent events by bad people, amounting to anecdotal evidence, since the data supporting a systemic problem don’t exist. The concept of “white privilege” was invented to further the narrative of a racist nation and to sow the seeds of white guilt. Racism was redefined; now you need only to have been born white, and if you haven’t regarded yourself as or engaged in anything racist, then it’s “subconscious.” Color-blindness and consideration of character, the goal of Martin Luther King, Jr, is now racist; it demonstrates an unwillingness to see the racist nation as it is, and to acknowledge your white privilege. And countering the narrative becomes as difficult as pushing a boulder uphill, with an inarguably long history of slavery and systemic racism and an endless stream of negative white-on-black interactions, often ending in the death of the black party, used to bolster it, frequently without regard to circumstance, context, or countervailing data demonstrating its rarity relative to our nation’s size. Vigorous efforts to demonstrate the manifest hatred of racism by the vast majority of white people are ironically used as further ammunition to demonstrate the systemically racist state of affairs. The more the guilt and anger can be inflamed, the less the facts matter. The success of this approach is evident. One need only watch the videos of the “guilty,” citizens and police alike, kneeling, the renewed interest in reparations (passed in the California State House), the constant emails from every large corporation decrying systemic racism with pleas to look elsewhere for transgressions, and the adoption of the Leftist narrative by professional scientific association associations (in my case, the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology). The desperation to bolster this straw-man narrative has gotten so bad, that even fake racial incidents, like the recent, debunked noose incident in NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace’s garage, are being used to support it, even after the debunking! (And this despite the fact that the other drivers, all white, escorted Wallace’s care to the front position in protest of the soon-to-be discovered faux-racist non-event.) And if you still think this ideology is limited to the fringe, you need only look to sales of Robin Deangelo’s book, White Fragility. The basic premise of the book is that if you are white, you are racist. It’s so extreme, many on the left (likely members of the dwindling group of brave liberals) have even criticized it. Here are some of the contentions expressed in the book: the history of America has not changed; individualism is bad because it causes you to not think of yourself as a member of a race; attributing causes of inequality between whites and people of color to other than racism, is racism; backing meritocracy and objectivity is racism; claiming you are color-blind or having celebrated color takes race off the table and if black and white friends don’t discuss race it indicates a lack of cross-racial trust, but if you ask a black person about racism, then you are tokenizing the black person. Why does this matter? Because sales have driven this to the status of a perpetual best-seller since its publication in 2018. So, clearly and disturbingly, the message of racial disunity is being effectively promulgated, and accepted. Conveniently forgotten in all this are the recent election of a black president who, because of ingrained belief of a systemically racist nation, rather than using his bully pulpit to united the races, chose to further the narrative and the racial divide. One example reported, among others, was Obama’s remark, “African-American parents are right to fear that their children may be killed by police officers whenever they go outside,” after five Dallas police officers were ambushed and murdered in 2016. It is more convenient to blame the current widening racial divide on Trump, ignoring that a better case can be made for his having implemented policies that benefited the black community (such as, pre-COVID, the lowest unemployment rate in 40 years and prison reform). For those who still believe, despite what is unfolding in real time, the current analysis is conspiratorial or delusional, consider this: It is now considered sacrilegious in many quarters to come down against the group Black Lives Matter, and people fear speaking out due to digital tar-and-feathering and even job loss. Some mainstream politicians have publicly minimized the heinousness of rioting and destruction, fearing it would be interpreted as decrying peaceful demonstrators against police brutality. Anarchists have been allowed to occupy a portion of a city, a blind eye is turned to destruction of statues and other public property, and the police writ large have been thrown under the bus by government leaders for the same reason, based on the heinous action of a few rotten apples and fabricated crimes of a few others. But believing that black lives matter and supporting the group that has co-opted the name aren’t remotely related. In fact, there’s proof that the group, using police brutality and the infrequent but real instances of true racism as fuel, are bolstering a Marxist agenda, to complement the indoctrination of the youth and conversion of the rest by means of the white privilege/white guilt meme. One of the founders of BLM, Patrisse Cullors, admitted that the group is ideological and lead by trained Marxists.

Still, there may be hope. In a recent op-ed, speaking about potential Gen Z voters, Madison Moore wrote, “I’ve sat in a room of Bernie supporters who listened attentively to my eager, if simplistic, explanation of the tenets and moral defense of capitalism and limited government. They responded in a manner surprisingly engaged and open, despite my many requests that they stop me if they preferred we change the subject. ‘Wow, I never knew that’ was perhaps the most frequent response I received.” This suggests that despite attempts at indoctrination, many young people may still be reachable with facts. Although my own indoctrination when young was less over-the-top than in today’s classrooms, it’s still notable that upon transitioning my worldview and political leanings in my 30s when exposed to facts and opinions I’d not previously heard, this relatively apolitical (at the time) person had a difficult adjustment, revealing the insidious and unconscious nature of the process. So it appears that the road back, while boulder-strewn, may not be entirely obliterated. However, nothing is possible without a concerted effort on the part of conservatives to expose more politically/informationally-isolated citizens of all ages to the truth. And it will take some courage. The longer we wait, the more daunting the task and dangerous to our online and potentially physical health; it already takes courage to even hint of a conservative viewpoint in many quarters. Many out there will not be interested, something to which all of us in the conservative camp who have tried can attest. But those that are still open, and they are identified by being willing to listen and debate rather than withdraw passively or angrily, need to be approached. This should be done respectfully; name-calling does not influence anyone. Along with this, if we do nothing to reverse the insidious trend in our schools and universities, the culture battle cannot be won. I hope it’s not already lost.