How a conservative reconciled the prospect of a Kenyan-American president with the news of machete-hacking riots in Kenya

In an entry in early January 2008, Dreher’s latest epiphany, I wrote:

Two events occurred on the same day that set off [Rod Dreher’s emotional storm]: the historic emergence of the son of a Kenyan man as the front runner for the Democratic nomination, and the outbreak of murderous black savagery in Kenya. At the moment of America’s raising up the son of an African black to unprecedented prominence in our civilization, Dreher saw the primitive savagery of African blacks in full throttle. So how did Dreher handle the intense cognitive disjunction produced in his mind by these two events? By declaring that America historically is as savage as black Africa, and that it is only the kind of race-blind liberalism supposedly represented by Obama that can save America from its own savagery. In Dreher’s account the race-blind inclusion of blacks represents civilization, and traditional white-majority America represents savagery; and only through the admission of more and more blacks and other non-whites into our formerly white-majority society can our society’s inherent savagery be eliminated.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 18, 2009 09:04 AM | Send