More On Reagan And Race
Posted by
tgirsch
Publius has some good thoughts on the whole Reagan editorial thing that Kevin addressed earlier. Publius is a little too eager to think that racism is strictly a thing of the past, rather than still being quite prevalent today (well that, or he’s operating from a quite different definition of racism than I am), but apart from that he makes some excellent points. Go read it.
UPDATE: There’s some excellent discussion in the comments there, too. Especially this comment by freelunch:
While I agree that it is possible to be a Republican or anti-immigrant or want to fill the prisons without being a racist, the problem is that you will end up with many allies who are racist and you will be furthering their agenda. The Republican Southern Strategy was effective for the Republican Party, even for those who were not remotely racist, but they traded their heritage for it, just as the Democrats were finally cleaning up their act.
If the Republicans hadn’t made a place for the Confederate Battle Flag Wavers, they would have been marginalized in a George Wallace third party, vile and vicious, but essentially harmless because Democrats were breaking away from their racism and the Republicans had never been.
That pact with the devil is still in place. Republicans who have never been racist, who have Blacks, Latinos, and Asians in their foursomes at the country club and don’t even mention it, are still relying on the deal and are still making decisions that keep the racists who still exist voting for the Republican candidates. As others have mentioned, life in the US has been fraught with racism in the past and ‘color-blindness’ does nothing but reinforce the sins of the past.
UPDATE II: This comment (below the fold), by Gary Farber, is a great rejoinder to the Morrises/Freds/Truths of the world who like to pull the “but the Democrats were racists in the fifties” canard:
[T]he Democratic Party has, as you say, a long history of racism, going back to its pre-Civil War days, and with continued great fervor and virulence in the post-Civil War era, and the construction of Jim Crow as Reconstruction was destroyed.
But the Democratic Party started to take the lead in, first very tentatively, fighting back against Jim Crow, and racism, with the first baby steps under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, with the first civil rights plank in the 1940 Democratic platform, the creation of the Fair Employment Practices Committee in 1941, and other small but important and historic measures.
This trend towards civil rights accelerated greatly under Harry Truman, who integrated the armed forces, and made the first strong push for full civil rights, and against bigotry, of any American President.
Then, of course, after Eisenhower’s tepid course, JFK first stuck with lip service to civil rights, but little more, until finally forced, by the terrible violence on display against civil rights protestors on nightly tv news broadcasts, as America saw young men and women brutally beaten and attack by the authorities and “white” people of much of the south, to take up the cause of civil rights which was already a wide-spread Democratic cause, as it had been growing to be for many decades, led by… the liberals of America.
By the Forties, Fifties, and Sixties, the fight for civil rights in America, and against racism, was led by Democrats, and fought against by Republicans.
If you think that’s sufficiently unimportant that it can be glossed by pointing out that, say, Woodrow Wilson was a dreadful and despicable racist — which he was — or that the Democratic Party was still losing its racist wing in the Forties, Fifties, and Sixties, to the Republican Party — hello, Strom Thurmond! — be my guest.
If the facts make you uncomfortable, alas. I’m not in the least uncomfortable condemning the racist Democrats of the past, whether George Wallace, or Lester Maddox, and any in the near-endlessly long list of past racist Democratic politicans, while noting that when it came time to finally start to deliver on the promises of voting rights, and legislation to ban discrimination in housing, education, public accomodation, and all the other civil rights protections so hard fought for for so many decades, and won at the cost of people’s lives, and the life’s work of so many others, it was the Democrats who fought so hard to accomplish these goals, against the Republicans, who largely fought to prevent those laws.
I’m comfortable with those facts. Tiresome though they may be.
I do agree with your thoughts on Publius’s work. He does make some great points, but he is a little too optimistic when it comes to racism.
Comment 11/14/2007
“a great rejoinder to the Morrises/Freds/Truths of the world who like to pull the “but the Democrats were racists in the fifties” canard:”
I don’t claim that democrats’ racism was limited to the fifties. That is too narrow All you have to do is read the history of democrats to see who the racists are. When I hear the democrats condemn the racism of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and other race pimps I will start taking the democrats seriously. Until then, you have no credibility.
It may surprise you racebaiters, but most people don’t live their lives hating people who are different from them. That’s what liberals do. You are the ones who immediately pigeon-hole people based on race. You set yourselves up as the arbiters of racial righteousness and in the process become irrelevent crybabies. No body likes a crybaby. Grow up and start treating people based on the content of their characters and not on the color of their skin.
Comment 11/14/2007
Morris:
I don’t claim that my house is completely clean, only that yours is dirtier. But as long as you take the self-serving position that you don’t have to worry about your house at all until the other guy’s is completely spotless, well, you’re not worth taking seriously.
And for what it’s worth, though I shouldn’t have to repeat it for the zillionth time, you can’t fix disparities that were caused explicitly because of race by ignoring race.
Comment 11/15/2007
” But as long as you take the self-serving position that you don’t have to worry about your house at all until the other guy’s is completely spotless, well, you’re not worth taking seriously.”
Quit making up things.
“you can’t fix disparities that were caused explicitly because of race by ignoring race.”
And you can’t fix disparities by more racist disparities.
Comment 11/15/2007
And you can’t fix disparities by more racist disparities.
Setting aside your characterization of “racist,” why not? Are the victims of racism not entitled to any remuneration?
Your position, that we should just stop discriminating now and do nothing to correct for the lingering effects of that discrimination, is rather like saying if I beat the crap out of you, all I have to do is stop beating you up and we’re square. Your medical bills, and any pain and suffering that comes because of my beating you, are your problem.
Comment 11/15/2007
“Are the victims of racism not entitled to any remuneration?”
Depends. Who did the discrimination? Was the person expecting remuneration the actual victim or is he simply of the same race as the victim? Who pays the remuneration? The one who practiced the discrimination or someone else who happens to be of the same race as the perpetrator? Who gets to be the arbiter of what is racism and what is not? You liberals seem to think that just being white carries a special burden of guilt in racial matters. That attitude is racist.
tg: “Your position, that we should just stop discriminating now and do nothing to correct for the lingering effects of that discrimination, is rather like saying if I beat the crap out of you, all I have to do is stop beating you up and we’re square. Your medical bills, and any pain and suffering that comes because of my beating you, are your problem.
Morris: Why don’t you quit mistating my position? Your asinine statement above does no credit to your intellectual abilities. As stated on several occasions, I am in favor of people who discriminate against people because of race having to pay the full price under law. If you beat me up I will have you arrested. I would not expect your family or neighbors to pay the price for your transgressions just because they havfe the misfortune of being part of your group.
Comment 11/15/2007
Who did the discrimination?
Irrelevant to the question. Unless what you’re attempting to say is that the victims of discrimination are only owed remuneration on the condition that we find the exact people who personally discriminated against them.
I know this concept is completely foreign to you, but it’s my contention that for such victims, while nobody in particular may owe them anything, society as a whole does owe them something. Because that society got to where it is today in part because of that past (and, in some cases, ongoing) wrong.
As stated on several occasions, I am in favor of people who discriminate against people because of race having to pay the full price under law.
That’s punitive against the transgressor, sure, but does nothing to compensate the victim. I’m not talking about punishing the criminal. I’m talking about helping the victim recover.
Whether you realize it or not, your position comes down to “unless we can find the ‘bad guy’ and extract compensation from him, the victim is shit out of luck.”
Comment 11/15/2007
Let’s try this another way. Suppose your father steals a bunch of money from a guy named Joe. Your father then dies, and leaves you all of his money, most of which he stole from Joe. You didn’t personally do anything to harm Joe. Do you owe Joe anything?
Comment 11/15/2007
“Suppose your father steals a bunch of money from a guy named Joe. Your father then dies, and leaves you all of his money, most of which he stole from Joe. You didn’t personally do anything to harm Joe. Do you owe Joe anything?”
Joe would certainly have the right to recover money that was stolen from him. On the other hand, if your father’s brother stole something from my father, should you be liable for your uncle’s misdeeds? Maybe you think you should. What if the culprit’s only connection to you was that you happened to have the same skin color? How about if you had moved into the neighborhood after the theft took place? Are you going to assume the responsibility for all crimes committed before you got there?
Get an education. Work hard. Quit griping about everything.
Comment 11/15/2007
“I know this concept is completely foreign to you, but it’s my contention that for such victims, while nobody in particular may owe them anything, society as a whole does owe them something.”
To some extent you are right. The idea of using racism to compensate for racism is foreign to me. I’m glad it is.
We keep plowing the same ground. We will just have to agree that you believe in racial discrimination as long as you think it is for a good cause and I don’t.
Comment 11/15/2007
Are you going to assume the responsibility for all crimes committed before you got there?
Personally? No. Collectively? Absolutely. Whether they realize it or not, whites in this country are the beneficiaries of past discrimination, insofar as such policies gave them an unfair advantage over others. To pretend that the impact of that unfair head start disappears as soon as discrimination stops is silly. I simply would not be where I am today if my grandparents (or even my parents) were black instead of white, and that would be through no fault of their own. I refuse to believe that we as a society have no responsibility to do away with that disparity: whether or not we’re personally, directly responsible for it, we have benefited from it, and that makes us culpable.
The idea of using racism to compensate for racism is foreign to me.
Which brings us back around to a question you consistently refuse to answer: How do you propose solving a problem that’s explicitly founded in race without paying any attention to race? You’ll go on at great length about what you aren’t willing to do, but when it comes to viable things that you are willing to do that will reduce the disparity, you fold.
Comment 11/15/2007
“you consistently refuse to answer”
No, that is not true. The solution to racism has been proposed on many occasions. More racism is not the answer. You are just so closeminded that you think your way is the only way. You may as well give up on me. I refuse to buy into your racism.
Comment 11/15/2007
Is this about the spot where the censor comes in and shuts down opposing views?
Comment 11/15/2007
The solution to racism has been proposed on many occasions.
The flaw in your proposed “solution” has been pointed out to you many times (including in the post above), and you have never addressed it. “Stop discriminating” would prevent existing racial disparities from getting worse, but you steadfastly refuse to address how that alone would undo existing race-based disparities.
Comment 11/16/2007
“Is this about the spot where the censor comes in and shuts down opposing views?”
Poor Fred, complaining about being discriminated against.
Comment 11/16/2007
tg: “Stop discriminating” would prevent existing racial disparities from getting worse, but you steadfastly refuse to address how that alone would undo existing race-based disparities.
Morris: “At least you are willing to admit that you support racism in order to “cure” racism. Not all pro-racism advocates will admit it. I can appreciate your upfront support of racial discrimination. I don’t respect it, but I do appreciate your honesty on the subject.”
Comment 11/16/2007
Morris ducks the issue YET AGAIN! Who would have believed it!
Comment 11/16/2007
tg: Morris ducks the issue YET AGAIN! Who would have believed it!
Morris: TG refuses to accept the solution to discrimination is no discrimination, not more discrimination. He insists on ducking his intellect into racism.
I’ve ducked nothing. I’ve answered your questions more than once. Your insistance on racism when you decide that being a racist is for the better good is not an acceptable position in 2007.
Comment 11/16/2007
Morris:
Bzzt. Wrong answer. I have clearly stated that non-discrimination will only stop current racial disparities from worsening, but will do nothing to reverse those disparities. You steadfastly refuse to answer what you would do to correct that disparity. You’re crystal clear about what you WON’T do, but when it comes to what you WILL do, you’ve got no ideas offer. Your only answer to the people who are already behind the 8-ball because of past discrimination is essentially “tough shit.”
Don’t agree? Then prove me wrong, rather than pretending that a simple end to discrimination magically fixes everything and undoes the sins of the past.
Comment 11/17/2007
“undoes the sins of the past.”
How far to you go with this “sins of the past”? (I’m somewhat surprised that you believe in sin.)
Why do you limit this concern to racial sins? My Irish and German ancestors were disciminated against. Certainly, my Cherokee great-grandmother was discriminated against. Do I get a portion of your property because someone discriminated against my ancestors?
My grandfather worked for “the man” at a sawmill. He wasn’t paid good enough wages (in IMO). The government should send me a check to make up the difference in what he was paid and what I think he should have been paid.
Quit being such a nanny. In our society people can achieve great things based on their education, intellect, and drive. I hope they will quit listening to people like you and other racists.
Comment 11/17/2007
OK, then I guess we have our answer. You have confirmed that your answer is “tough shit.”
At least you’re honest about it.
Comment 11/17/2007
“At least you’re honest about it.”
You aren’t very bright. Quit making up lies.
Comment 11/17/2007
What am I lying about? You’ve repeatedly stating that you’re unwilling to do anything to undo the lasting effects of discrimination, because to do so would, in your estimation, be “racist.” How does this differ from telling the victims of discrimination that they’re on their own?
Comment 11/18/2007
How many times must you be told something? The best way to correct discrimination is to quit discriminating.
This is my last post to you on this. Go ahead with your racist views that racial discrimination is okay. I feel nothing but contempt for people who should know better but insist on their racism.
Comment 11/19/2007
How many times must YOU be told something? Simply ending discrimination does nothing to undo the disadvantages already suffered by those who were discriminated against. Those disadvantages DO NOT magically disappear just because the discrimination has stopped. Either you’re too stupid to understand this, or too cowardly to address it directly. Either way, it doesn’t say much about your intellectual integrity that you consistently refuse to address that point.
(I suppose I’ve missed an obvious alternative: You realize that your proposed “solution” won’t actually solve much, and you simply don’t care…)
Comment 11/19/2007
This all old hat, but you do have to admire Fred’s approach. Simply misuse a word (racism) over and over and propose a simplistic tautological solution to a complex problem and voila, an impenetrable position. We all did this in grade school, but most of us who have benefited from a higher education have learned how to formulate a more convincing defense. But then, not thinking critically probably comes in handy often for Fred.
Comment 11/19/2007
Well, that sure was a convincing demonstration that Morris is in fact Fred. He’s even reverted to calling folks liars. Wanna see if we can get him to call us baby killers next?
Comment 11/20/2007