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Oh racism card, where is thy sting?
Alexis Zarkov writes:
As pointed out at Big Government, Juan Williams of Fox News tried to play the race card on Gingrich at yesterday’s GOP debate in South Carolina. Rather than back down (as Republicans generally do), Newt pushed back, and pushed back hard to thunderous applause from the audience. Williams looked stunned. The magic of the racism card was gone. Watch the exchange here.
The Democrats and their media allies evidently intend to use race against the Republicans in the upcoming presidential campaign. In my opinion this is a very dangerous strategy for them. While it might help bring out the black vote, it risks alienating the independent voters who must sick and tired of race politics. I hope Newt has given other Republicans the confidence to push back too.
LA replies:
A related article at Newsbusters tells that TV critic Ken Tucker at Entertainment Weekly reported that the audience jeered at Juan Williams’s speaking the words “black Americans,” when in fact what they jeered at was his complete question about whether black Americans would feel “insulted” at what Gingrich had said about the need for young blacks to have work experience.
Repeat: Tucker tried to make it seem that Republican voters are so racist that on live television they boo and jeer at the mere mention of the word, “black.” Many liberals believe something more or less like this.
You write: “I hope Newt has given other Republicans the confidence to push back too.”
The fulfillment of your hope would require a sudden, massive mutation of the entire Republican genome. It would violate the very nature of Republican politicians, which is their lifelessness.
Gintas writes:
“The fulfillment of your hope would require a sudden, massive mutation of the entire Republican genome.”
But there is always punctuated equilibrium!
LA replies:
Hah, that’s what I was thinking of, but I couldn’t remember the word.
We haven’t heard much about punctuated equilibrium in a couple of decades, have we?
Alexis Zarkov writes:
Mr. Auster writes, “The fulfillment of your [Zarkov’s] hope would require a sudden, massive mutation of the entire Republican genome. It would violate the very nature of Republican politicians, which is their lifelessness.” Mr. Auster is too pessimistic. In the 2008 campaign the immigration issue was barely visible. Even Tom Tancredo couldn’t quite get up enough courage to bring it up with force during the debates. He let us down. Compare and contrast to the current set of debates. Rick Perry advocates building a wall and putting troops on the border. Michele Bachmann supports deporting all eleven million (an underestimate to be sure) illegal aliens! Ron Paul wants an instantaneous cut of over one trillion dollars to the federal budget, and that’s not over ten years; he wants that over one year. Newt Gingrich has just burned the racism card right on television in front of a black man. Even the gelded Mitt Romney shows a little life now and then, but I suspect there’s no hope for him. I do see some Republican progress away from their normal poltroonish ways. There is some reason to hope, however feeble.
Paul K. writes:
While it’s true that Juan Williams predictably played the race card, so did Rick Santorum, asking Romney:
Do you believe that felons who have served their time, gone through probation and parole, exhausted their entire sentence, should they be given the right to have a vote? This is Martin Luther King Day. This is a huge deal in the African-American community, because we have very high rates of incarceration, disproportionately high rates, particularly with drug crimes, in the African-American community. The bill I voted on was the Martin Luther King Voting Rights bill. And this was a provision that said, particularly targeted African-Americans. And I voted to allow—to allow them to have their voting rights back once they completed their sentence.
Romney, to his credit, answered, “I don’t think people who have committed violent crimes should be allowed to vote again.”
In the phrasing of this question, Santorum displayed his right liberalism, making it an indictment of our society that blacks have “disproportionately high rates” of incarceration. What an absurdity—a “Martin Luther King Voting Rights bill” to restore voting rights to convicted felons, as if that will somehow be to our benefit. What kind of candidate does he think these miscreants would be inclined to support? The idea that Santorum represents a conservative alternative to Romney is a pathetic joke.
LA replies:
Santorum is not embracing right-liberalism, which calls for equality of rights for individuals of all groups, but left-liberalism, which demands collective equality of outcome for all groups. In Santorum’s mind, since felons can’t vote, and since a hugely disproportionate number of blacks are felons, blacks as a group are unfairly being deprived of the franchise. Therefore we must equalize the black collective franchise with the white collective franchise by eliminating a once-common and unquestioned standard of our society (felons lose the franchise), because blacks as a group disproportionately fail by that standard.
Paul K. replies:
I appreciate the correction. While I think that overall Santorum comes across as a Bush-style “compassionate conservative,” on this issue he argued from a purely leftist viewpoint, just as George W. Bush did on a number of issues.
The two Ricks have nothing further to contribute to the debate. At least Ron Paul gives the others someone to score points against, while Gingrich occasionally schools Romney in how to respond to the liberal press.
Greg W. writes:
I am surprised no one has noticed this. Juan Williams accuses Gingrich of insulting Americans, “particularly black Americans,” by saying they should get jobs as janitors. Gingrich did well in his response which surprised me, but he could have also asked Juan why it’s insulting to be a janitor. Doesn’t Juan’s question insult janitors? I think in Juan’s mind, he’s thinking in black, and that Gingrich is belittling blacks, as if they can only be something like a janitor.
LA replies:
And here’s another odd thing about it.
On one hand, America is obsessed with black dysfunction, black low academic achievement, black criminality, black unemployment, lack of a black work ethic, lack of black family formation, black overall failure, etc., and what to do to solve these problems.
On the other hand, if a Republican politician reasonably suggests that it would be a good thing for young black men to gain work experience and a work ethic by starting in a humble job like janitor, that is seen as an insult to blacks! The implication being that blacks are all so well-functioning and successful that it would be beneath them to be janitors!
So which is it, Mr. Williams? Are there indeed serious problems with black functionality and black employment, or are blacks so talented and accomplished that it’s an insult to suggest that they start at modest jobs?
If Gingrich had made this argument to Williams, it would have been even more sensational.
Paul K. writes:
You wrote: “So which is it, Mr. Williams? Are there indeed serious problems with black functionality and black employment, or are blacks so talented and accomplished that it’s an insult to suggest that they start at modest jobs?”
I think you’ve hit upon one of the great conundrums of the current state of civil rights. In the campaign to over-praise blacks, they are told from an early age that they must aspire to the highest professions, and that they have no innate limitations that might make that difficult. The whole culture has conspired to inculcate them with that message. At the same time, the implication is that honest, useful, menial work is beneath them. Is it the fault of blacks that this breeds frustration and resentment?
I regularly interact with blacks who are working at menial but indispensable jobs in a cheerful and conscientious fashion. The caretakers at the Alzheimer’s facility where my mother resides are nearly all black, and they could not be kinder and more patient. How dare the privileged Juan Williams demean these people who accept their lot with dignity?
LA replies:
You are absolutely right.
Paul K. replies:
The aides at my mother’s facility all seem devoutly Christian, from their conversations I overhear.
These kinds of experiences enable me to maintain a level of compassion for blacks, which from reading the news I might not otherwise feel. It’s why I can’t revel in the negativity of “American Renaissance,” though I believe it serves a purpose. Liberalism bears a large measure of responsibility for black failure, as many have observed. It is not willing to accept blacks as they are, but insists on a false view of them to serve its agenda. This is an insight I picked up from you.
January 18
Mark Jaws writes:
Paul K wrote:
I regularly interact with blacks who are working at menial but indispensable jobs in a cheerful and conscientious fashion. The caretakers at the Alzheimer’s facility where my mother resides are nearly all black, and they could not be kinder and more patient. How dare the privileged Juan Williams demean these people who accept their lot with dignity?
I am in a similar situation with my mother, who suffers from Parkinson’s Disease, and her cadre of caretakers—all black females, and all cheerfully and admirably dedicated to their work. BUT, all of these women are from the Caribbean and were not subject to the uniquely American style of liberal propaganda in their formative years.
James N. writes:
It would be very exciting—transformational, in fact—were the racism card to lose its force in politics.
This is unlikely, of course. Whites who respond to the accusation with self-abnegation are exhibiting a peculiar species of vanity—“I’m better than those BAD whites”—and they are not going to give up that cheap grace for intellectual reasons.
LA replies:
Of course I wasn’t saying that the racism card has actually lost its force. But for a few minutes during the Monday night debate it did. It was a glimpse of the way things could be and ought to be: if conservatives had consistent principles and guts, they could disempower the racism card permanently; indeed they could have done so at any point in the last 30 years. But America continues to be destroyed by the failure or refusal of conservatives to stand up to the racism charge and put liberals on the defensive instead of themselves.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 17, 2012 06:10 PM | Send
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