Steele provides classic lesson on folly of affirmative action
(Note: More comments have been
posted in this entry at 2/12, 12:20 a.m.)
(Note: more comments are posted at 2/12, 3:30 p.m. Don H. with whom I’ve been having the main exchange in this entry, says that I see myself as an ubermensch and that I need to show more Christian love.)
We hear from NewsMax that Michael Steele, the one, the only, is saying that the reason Republicans are criticizing his outrageous and terrible performance as chairman of the Republican National Committee is that he’s black. He is thus accusing his own party of racism. He is implicitly stating that they are not really criticizing him for his performance; but are pretending to criticize him for his performance, as a front for their real motive for criticizing him, which is simply to express their animus against black people. He’s saying this about the party of which he is the head—that party which is always being accused by the other party of being racist.
This fits what I’ve always said. The more a historically white society or institution admits nonwhites in order to clear itself of the charge of racism, the more that society or institution is accused of being racist.
That result is inevitable, for these reasons. If you admit nonwhites for the purpose of not seeming racist against nonwhites, you are not admitting them on the same basis on which you admit whites, that is, you are not admitting them because they are qualified for and compatible with that society or institution, but because of their nonwhiteness. Therefore, once they are admitted (or, in Steele’s case, once they are hired to head an organization), it will become evident that they lack the ability and compatibility to function well within that institution. And since the institution has assured them that they were hired for their abilities, not for their race, they will be unable or unwilling to acknowledge that the reason for their poor performance is their own lack of ability or compatibility, which in turn will lead them to blame their own poor performance, and the criticism they are receiving for their poor performance, on the racism of the institution that admitted or hired them.
At the same time, the institution will be unable to defend itself from the false charge of racism. To speak the truth about the situation, which is that this person is underqualified or unqualified and has a racial chip on his shoulder, would, in liberal eyes (and the “conservatives” all share the liberal belief in white racial guilt) prove the existence of the very racism that the institution sought to clear itself of by hiring this person. The unexamined liberal premises that the whites have accepted leave them with no recourse but the weak retort, “We’re not racist!”—a denial that makes them look guilty. After all, don’t all guilty people declare their innocence?
As I said in 1994:
The great irony is that the admission of nonwhites is supposed to prove that the society is nonracist and egalitarian, yet the more nonwhites are admitted, the more racist and unequal the society seems.
There is NO escape from this trap, other than by whites recognizing and rejecting the false liberal belief in white racial guilt under which they now operate. And the only way whites can reject and effectively defeat that false liberal belief in white racial guilt is by
understanding and stating aloud the truth that the preponderance of racial differences in performance are due to inherent racial differences in ability, not to racial discrimination.
Here’s the NewsMax piece.
Michael Steele Suggests Critics are Racists
Tuesday, 09 Feb 2010 08:46 PM
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele is suggesting that critics of his controversial tenure could be closet racists, according to an interview published Tuesday.
Speaking to “Washingtonian” magazine, Steele wondered why his Democratic National Committee counterpart doesn’t get the same criticism he does, The Hill political Web site reported Tuesday.
There was no online version of the interview, but The Hill offered some of what Steele said.
“I don’t see stories about the internal operations of the DNC that I see about this operation,” Steele said. “Why? Is it because Michael Steele is the chairman, or is it because a black man is chairman?”
The RNC has experienced significant staff turnover since Steele became chairman, especially in the communications shop.
Republican leaders have told Newsmax and other publications that Steele’s penchant for off-the-cuff remarks that tend to insult conservative icons like Rush Limbaugh are unwanted distractions in a year in which Republican could conceivably recapture both the House and the Senate.
[end of NewsMax article]
- end of initial entry -
Roger G. writes:
I thought this post was absolutely brilliant.
Richard Hoste writes:
Beautifully put.
Donald H. writes:
” … the preponderance of racial differences in performance are due to inherent racial differences in ability, not to racial discrimination.”
Are you absolutely sure of this and are you sure you want to go on record as saying the differences between white and black are racial and not cultural?
The Dems have enslaved the American black mind for as long as we can remember and it is now dangerous in the black community to go against the liberal agenda. So how would anyone know this leftward tilt of the black community is racial?
I live in Panama where most people are black, at least by the one-drop rule.
Most of my daughter’s teachers are black, my doctor is black, the architect who designed our home is black, the builder who repairs it, the people who installed and sold the air conditioning units, the electricians, the plumbers, the computer repair guy, are about 90% blacks, the government is at least 1/3 black, and yet most are much more conservative than the average American.
They have not fallen for the “liberal” claptrap of the press, not because they are smarter or black or anything. There is a very old tradition here of operating on the free market principle.
If you use this line of reasoning then you really DO fall—willingly—into the trap of truly expressing racism. BTW, do you ever read Thomas Sowell?
Good conservatives are NOT racist. Please don’t fall for this racial BS. It will hurt our cause tremendously and tend to alienate the growing no. of true black conservatives.
LA replies:
It is evident that you have not read the basic literature and are not familiar with the most most basic facts and arguments on this subject.
Your statement that the assertion of inherent racial differences is necessarily “racist” is false, for this reason. “Racist” means morally bad. But if inherent racial differences in intelligence actually exist, then to state that they exist is true, and to say something true is not morally wrong.
So, in order even to approach the issue in an intelligent way, you first have to clear your mind of the false liberal belief which prohibits any thought or discussion on the issue of race differences. If discussion on the issue of race differences is to be permitted, then the existence of race differences must at least be admitted as a possibility.
In an e-mail, I can’t bring you from race-differences kindergarten to race-differences high school graduation, you’d have to do the reading yourself.
But you could start with my article, which offers a personal angle on the subject:
“My Views on Race and Intelligence: The Evolution of One Person’s Views on Racial Differences in Intelligence “
Then you could read some of the writings that are referenced in that article, particularly Murray and Herrnstein’s The Bell Curve.
Don H. replies:
Yes, I am not familiar with this study. I base my opinion on personal observations.
There may be something to this and I do not mind people expressing non-pc opinions on race, but I wonder where this discussion would lead America. I can’t imagine it being very fruitful.
LA replies:
The alternative to acknowledging the truth about race differences is that America keeps committing suicide because of its false guilt over racial differences that in reality it did not create.
In a nutshell, black poor performance is blamed on white racism. That guilt for white racism leads America to keep doing insane, self-destructive things to make up for its racial guilt, ranging from accommodation to black anti-white politics (Al Sharpton is now a member of the establishment), to the systematic cover-up of black-on-white rape and murder, to the systematic derogation of white men in entertainment media, to anti-white, anti-American multicultural curricula, to support for open third world immigration which is turning us into a nonwhite country. The only way to get rid of that guilt which comes from the false belief that white racism is the cause of racial differences, is to speak the truth about racial differences, which is that they are not caused by white racism, but are inherent. Far from not helping, speaking the truth about racial differences could help save America from suicidal liberalism.
See my 2005 article at Front Page Magazine, “Guilty Whites,” which does not deal with racial differences (as Horowitz wouldn’t let me make that argument), but otherwise parallels the argument I’ve made here.
Garrick writes:
If I’m a big donor to GOP, I’m not giving until Steele is gone.This is what will force the Republicans to get rid of him. In a way this is good. This forces the Republicans to have the guts to fire a black incompetent. This also means that they will be forced to cater to their natural core constituency, white people. Non-whites being invited to join in if they accept white leadership instead of the reverse. Plenty of non-whites will find voting a more white oriented agenda is in their interests. One example is ending affirmative action. This is in the interest of high IQ north Asians and Hindu Indians
February 12, 12:20 a.m.
Don H. replies to LA:
You wrote:
“The only way to get rid of that guilt which comes from the false belief that white racism is the cause of racial differences … ”
Actually, there is another way, a BETTER way: recall that America has done more for blacks and racial equality than any other nation and that we owe them NOTHING except a chance to work and earn their keep and a say in our nation’s destiny IF they accept the Constitution, the notion of equality for everyone and renounce the false claim to wealth and advantages based on victimhood.
It doesn’t matter whether we think they are equal in intelligence or not. That contributes nothing to the dialogue.
Panama is a great example of how blacks CAN be free. I am living that lesson every day.
I don’t care what some study says.
I have a nephew who is black and he is an excellent student who wants to major in PHYSICS and MATH. I hate both subjects. Am I inferior? No, neither of us is inferior, it’s just that he is a littler smarter than I am. I can take it.
There is no better way to make people hate and mistrust you than to start talking about how inferior they are—with or without “proof”. And there is no quicker way to political oblivion.
I think the key is love, my friend. It all starts with love. And I am not talking about the sloppy ’60s hippie kind of love. I mean learning to work side by side with people to make a better fairer America where whites don’t have to hang their heads (our heads) and be ashamed of America’s past—not because we proved we are superior in race but because we have a superior culture built on the Christian principles (which we got from Britain) of mutual respect and fair play.
If you want to talk about American exceptionalism, then we can talk. This is the greatest nation on earth, and it all has to do with the culture we got from England, ok, a white culture, granted, but that is really beside the point.
Know what? I like Panamanians—black and white—because they are MUCH closer to what America was intended to be than the USA at this point in time.
THAT is what counts.
LA replies:
You are not dealing with the reality of what America now is—the racial regime that is already in place, the regime of institutionalized belief in white oppression, of massive favoritism to blacks and Hispanics, and all the rest of it. It’s as though you were living in August 1963, having just heard M.L. King’s “I have a dream speech,” and knew nothing of what America has become since then. So you and I do not share enough common knowledge and assumptions about American reality to have a useful discussion on this subject.
Jim C. writes:
[full disclosure: I do not know enough about Steele to comment on his performance]
“The great irony is that the admission of nonwhites [let’s be specific: low-IQ nonwhites, not Northeast Asians] is supposed to prove that the society is nonracist and egalitarian, yet the more nonwhites are admitted, the more racist and unequal the society seems.”—Auster
Well said. The liberals, of course, would argue that any kind of judgment is also racist—aesthetic, analytical, whatever. Yes, Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou are as important as Shakespeare and Goethe. Yes, Barack Obama is as intelligent as Thomas Jefferson. Etcetera. (Yes, they are even trying to dumb down the physics dept at MIT to accommodate blacks and Hispanics.) So what you have left is “diversity”—the dumb Puerto Rican on the Supreme Court, the incompetent president with a Nobel. I see no way out of this dilemma as long as people continue to lie—to themselves and others—about minority failure.
Sonia Sotomayor’s presence on the bench is the crowning achievement of liberalism, because she got there despite the fact that most Americans realized she was a subpar quota case.
Richard Hoste writes:
And one from the Democrats!
Obama was electable because nobody could imagine him trying this.
LA replies:
I respectfully ask commenters, when posting a link to an article, to give some idea of the subject matter of the article.
Clem P. writes:
That Al Sharpton is mainstream shows just how pathetic we as a people have become.
You wrote:
The only way to get rid of that guilt which comes from the false belief that white racism is the cause of racial differences, is to speak the truth about racial differences, which is that they are not caused by white racism, but are inherent. Far from not helping, speaking the truth about racial differences could help save America from suicidal liberalism.
That is the way out.
Don H. wrote:
There may be something to this and I do not mind people expressing non-pc opinions on race, but I wonder where this discussion would lead America. I can’t imagine it being very fruitful.
And exactly where will we be led and what bounty would be provided by La Raza, the Black Caucus, Affirmative Action, Latino Studies, Massive third world immigration, etc?
LA replies:
Again, Don H. asks that question because, as seems to be the case, he has no knowledge of the current racial regime in this country. He thinks we’re in a good place, a sort of 1963, Lillies of the Field sort of place, and therefore my bringing up innate racial differences is injecting hostility and negativity into an otherwise peaceful and loving situation. He doesn’t know that we are under an unjust, anti-white racial regime which is based on the belief that blacks’ abilities are equal to whites, and therefore since blacks are behind, it’s whites’ s fault, and whites are therefore obligated raise blacks up with a vast array of unearned benefits, and that until whites succeed in making blacks substantively equal to themselves, blacks will understandably have Jeremiah Wright-type hatred of whites. Don does not seem to be aware that this is Barack Obama’s world view, as expressed in his March 2008 race speech. Therefore he doesn’t understand that the only way to break the power of the existing anti-white racial regime which is based on the false belief in racial equality, is to show the falsity of that belief.
No one wants to go out of his way to say that another person or group has lesser abilities. But if that other group is blaming its vastly lower socio-economic status on us , and demanding that we give them our wealth to make up for the terrible wrong we’ve supposedly done them, and that we don’t even have the right to defend our existence and well-being as a people because of the wrong we’ve supposedly done them, then we have no choice but to say: “The fact that that group is behind us not due to anything we’ve done to them (in fact, because of trillions of transfer payments, racial preferences, and cushy government jobs, they are vastly better off than they otherwise would be). The fact that they’re behind is due to their qualities.”
Roger writes:
I have to say, Larry, this is exactly what I’ve said since high school—and that was the early ’60s. I think we talked about this when we met last year. As long as conservatives don’t have the courage to acknowledge innate Negro intellectual inferiority then everything that flows from their reasoning can be made to look false. Given the same starting point, then unequal results have to be the result of an unequal environment, a denial of opportunity, and a suppression of achievement. The starting point for discussion has to be recognition of an enormous black-white IQ gap, 83-85 versus 100.
Ferg writes:
Steele is right, the Republican Party is criticizing him because he is black. They hired him expecting him to behave and perform like a white man. He has in fact behaved and performed like a black man, not a white man. Therefore the complaints of the Republicans against him are indeed because he is black. They hired a black man to be a white man, but he has instead remained a black man. It is not his fault that he has failed to fulfill to their imagined image of him. Their image is that of a white man, not a black man so I repeat, their complaints are based upon the fact that he is black.
February 12, 3:30 p.m.
Don H. writes:
Now I feel really weird.
The people I feel most comfortable with are my mother-in-law, my brother-in-law, my wife and her whole family. They are absolutely wonderful. I don’t have to be politically correct around them.
However, I agree with the assertion that most of us do not deserve white guilt.
However, if the Democrats ever learn to accept their guilt for destroying the black society with welfare then they will be on the right track and America will prosper again.
And if those libertarians and “conservatives” who think of themselves as Ubermenschen can learn to come down off their high horses and show a little Christian love that will also help race relations in America.
I belong to a list serve of libertarians/”conservatives” in Germany and they are quite clever and understand the dangers of the NOW and the EU dictatorship, but at bottom they long for the 4th Reich and that is where I disagree with them. Most are either atheists or belong to some weird New Age religion. A nation built on racial pride is skating on thin ice, especially one that has destroyed its Christian heritage as Germany did long before the 1930s. National pride is fine. We need more of it, but for the right reasons.
America CAN be great again if we learn to humble ourselves.
Why is the ocean greater than the rivers and lakes?
Because it knows how to lower itself.—Lao Ze
ca 500 BC
LA replies:
There is absolutely nothing in what I’ve said to you or in my linked articles that suggests that I view myself or whites as any kind of Ubermenschen. What I’ve said is that modern liberal society is organized around an anti-white campaign based on the conviction of white racism. I’ve said that whites in order to save themselves from this anti-white campaign need to expose the egalitarian lie that black backwardness is caused by white racism. But you interpret that argument as an assertion of Nazi like superiority.
Don H. replies:
Thank you for this:
“I’ve said that whites in order to save themselves from this anti-white campaign need to expose the egalitarian lie that black backwardness is caused by white racism.”
Now we are on the same page. I agree.
LA replies:
Wonderful. I’m happy as Larry.
(But I thought that that was what I was saying all along.)
February 13
E. writes:
OY!! As usual, you are right on target. Imagine, a professional victim in charge of the Republican Party. OY!
February 14
Gedaliah Braun, author of Racism, Guilt And Self-Deceit (review at American Renaissance, with link to pdf version) writes:
This is one of the best discussions I’ve seen of this topic for a while.
LA writes:
To see other references at VFR to Mr. Braun and his work, Google:
“Racism, Guilt And Self-Deceit” site:amnation.com
John Hagain writes:
Regarding the way Don H. seemed to turn around and agree with you, perhaps he had an instant of clarity where the truth of the matter overcame his defenses? Whatever happened it’s a good thing, and it’s the reason you do what you do…. reach people with the truth of what is happening to our society. You did not ridicule him which is important.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 11, 2010 11:36 AM | Send