My online liberal friend Mitch Wagner, someone who I have dialogued with on various occasions, demonstrates some of what I mean by liberal racism. Over at his website we have the same topic being discussed.
Throughout the back and forth, Mitch responds with this*:
It was because of liberals that blacks and Hispanics and other minorities had an opportunity to prove themselveir merit. Even if Clarence Thomas is a great legal mind, without policies pushed through by liberals, Thomas would be the smartest janitor in Washington, D.C.
That’s right all you minorities reading this, let it be clear that without the liberals and all the policies they pushed through you’d be nothing but janitors.
Like I said at the beginning, this view is something inherent in liberalism. I believe this is more his liberalism than Mitch Wagner (an otherwise very civil guy) coming through. This belief is soo deep in liberalism that the liberals commenting throughout the exchange can’t see what offends us (go read the whole exchange for yourself).
At least in this case, unlike Democrat Reid, Mitch Wagner doesn’t imply Thomas is dumb. Something that is very common in liberalism.
This is what John C. Yoo, professor at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law has to say with regard to Reid’s comment:
But the idea that Bush might appoint Thomas clearly worries Democrats. Last month, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) declared support for Scalia, whom he called “one smart guy.” Reid then announced his opposition to Thomas with a personal attack: The justice, he said, was “an embarrassment” whose “opinions are poorly written.” Reid did not offer a single example of this. For all we know, Reid may never have read a Thomas opinion.
He continues with…
As a former Thomas clerk, I can personally attest that his opinions are the product of a thorough drafting, rewriting and editing process that makes them the equal of any. Read a Thomas opinion on a subject like affirmative action, religion, crime or free speech — they have an authentic voice unmistakable in its clarity, logic and moving language.
What are some of these insightful opinions you ask? Professor Yoo gives us some:
Take, for example, his dissent opposing the use of race in law school admissions. Thomas quoted Frederick Douglass: “If the negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!” Thomas observed: “Like Douglass, I believe blacks can achieve in every avenue of American life without the meddling of university administrators.“(emphasis added)
What!?!?!? How dare Thomas say that! Do you mean to say that he believes blacks are capable of making it on their own, without liberals to hold their hands? The blasphemy!!! Doesn’t he realize that he’d be nothing more than “the smartest janitor in Washington, D.C.” if it weren’t for liberals?
Professor Yoo gives more:
In 1995, Thomas declared affirmative action “racial paternalism” whose “unintended consequences can be as poisonous and pernicious as any other form of discrimination.” An alleged beneficiary of affirmative action, Thomas spoke from the heart: “So-called ‘benign’ discrimination teaches many that because of chronic and apparently immutable handicaps, minorities cannot compete with them without their patronizing indulgence.” He argued that “these programs stamp minorities with a badge of inferiority and may cause them to develop dependencies or to adopt an attitude that they are ‘entitled’ to preferences.”(emphasis added)
Based on the current discussion I would call Thomas observation pretty darn keen.
Professor Yoo concludes:
Clarence Thomas, growing up in the segregated South, beating poverty and hardship to succeed in his education and surviving in the political shark pool of Washington, brings a unique outsider’s perspective to the court and the Constitution. Without the burden of the chief justiceship, Thomas can pull aside the curtain of clever legal and intellectual argumentation to reveal the stark and real policy choices being imposed by the court on the nation.
But according to Reid he is an ‘embarrassment to the Supreme Court’.
Come now children mommies only looking for what’s best for you…
*Update: Mitch Wagner is using the term liberal to include all liberals at the time of every race, including black and hispanic liberals, and would like for me to mention that he is not a WASP, for whatever reason.
Simply amazing! Just think what righteous indignation would come from all those fair-minded liberals if conservatives treated their nominees like Bork and Thomas. We need to find the strength and resolve to call them on this ongoing injustice to all minorities.
HP, you do like to quote selectively, don’t you?
Please add any quotes that you feel change the context of what you wrote. I was under the impression that what you wrote above pretty much speaks for itself.
HP: First of all, what makes you say that I am not a minority? Why do you assume that, because I’m a liberal, I’m therefore a WASP?
You misquoted me by leaving out the part where Brian said that minorities have achieved advancement through liberals of every race, ethnicity and religion working together. I liked that so much that I repeated it myself. Your quote makes it appear that I believe that Clarence Thomas owes his success to white people, which is not the case.
This is the second time today that you have selectively quoted me, or yourself, out of context to misrepresent what was previously said. Until now, I’ve been happy to discuss these points with you, thinking you were a person of open mind and goodwill. Now, I’m coming to the conclusion that you’re simply a troll, who likes to play bait-the-liberal, and I’m losing patience with you and tempted to go off and do something more productive. Like sort my sock drawer, for instance.
But let me try this one more time:
Your ignorance of the fact that Jews historically had quotas capping the numbers of Jews who could be admitted to college surprised me, and made me realize that you actually know very little history at all. I doubt that you know much about anything that happened in America before the 1960s, and much of what you think you know has been filtered through partisan bias.
I expect your picture of American history vis-a-vis minorities goes something like this: There was slavery and bigotry in the 19th Century. It persisted into the 20th. Shit happened. Then liberals came and, because of their paternalistic policies, attempted to put the iron boot back on the minorities’ throats.
In fact, what happened was this: After the Civil War, Southern leadership (they were Democrats, by the way) continued fighting the war by political means. They allied themselves with northern bigots, and instituted a series of laws known collectively as Jim Crow. They restricted black participating in the schools, in the workplace—even forbade blacks from riding on the front of public transportation and using bathrooms and drinking fountains reserved for whites.
Then, throughout the 20th Century, liberals of every ethnicity and color worked to tear down Jim Crow. Harry S Truman, a liberal Democrat president, integrated the Army. Martin Luther King, a black liberal, led sit-ins on segregationalist restaurants, until the white aristocracy was shamed, and coerced by the federal government, into rolling back segregationalist laws.
Meanwhile, conservatives like Lester Maddox and Strom Thurmond fought vigorously to keep segregation in its place. As a young man, William Rehnquist worked in the South to suppress voter turnout in black precincts.
So, no, Clarence Thomas would not have been a Supreme Court Justice today without liberals. If not for the social changes enacted by liberals of every race and religion, Thomas would likely never have been allowed to get into law school. Sure, there were black lawyers before the Civil Rights advances of the 50s and 60s, even before the Civil War, but they were much more rare than they are today.
And even if Thomas had been able to become an attorney, it would have been EXTREMELY UNLIKELY that a black man would have been confirmed by the white membership of Congress.
So, yes, Thomas owes his success to liberals. Many of whom were black.
First of all, what makes you say that I am not a minority? Why do you assume that, because I’m a liberal, I’m therefore a WASP?
I’ve re-read my post several times and Ican’t seem to find what you say. Where did I imply that you were a WASP? Spell it out for me please, I will correct it ASAP.
You misquoted me by leaving out the part where Brian said that minorities have achieved advancement through liberals of every race, ethnicity and religion working together. I liked that so much that I repeated it myself. Your quote makes it appear that I believe that Clarence Thomas owes his success to white people, which is not the case.
Where did I bring skin color into this? I repeatedly used the term liberal, and I don’t see how you can assume that the term liberal somehow translates to only white people. Are you implying that liberals are only white? If not, than how do you arrive at the conclusion above.
As for me leaving out Brians response, and your repeating him, if you notice the sequence of comments on your blog you will notice that I asked you if I could use the link of our discussion before Brian had even made the comments you are referring to. You responded in the affirmative, without further explaining your comment, yet I had specifically singled out that comment as the one of focus.
So I think it was perfectly normal, even respectful, of me to single out a quote that I had already singled out to you privately. Since you did not clarify when I specifically singled that quote out, I assumed I understood you correctly.
But lest I be accused of trying to paint an unfair picture, let me offer you the chance of clarification. Do you want me to add to the quote that you are not a WASP? Since that is what you are accusing me of implying.
This is the second time today that you have selectively quoted me, or yourself, out of context to misrepresent what was previously said.
Where else have I misquoted you Mitch, by all means, please clarify.
Now, as for my ‘ignorance’ of history, it is beside the point. I feel that I know enough history to engage you on a higher level, but to avoid taking this dialogue to unneeded tangents, I specifically allowed for the possibility of affirmative action playing a different role previously in history. Notice that I said it may have been needed back than yet I still continued to affirm that today is a different story. My example of affirmative action is based on how it is used today, not yesterday.
I would say that there are evolving definitions of the term liberal. I am currently referring to todays liberals, not yesterdays liberals. I have specifically told you, in a previous discussion, that,
Now that doesn’t necessarily mean I would classify him as a conservative either. MLK, along with several ‘liberals’ of yesterday, are on a different level from modern day liberals and modern day conservatives.
HP - I should start by saying that I am pretty disgusted with the state of what passes for liberal leadership in this country. People like John Kerry, the leaders of the Democratic National Committee, and Jesse Jackson are not fit to carry pencil-boxes for people like Bella Abzug, Harry S Truman, FDR, Bobby Kennedy, and of course, Martin Luther King. When I declare myself a liberal, I am declaring myself adherent to a philosophy that ended the Great Depression, extended equality in the U.S. to a broad range of races, ethnic groups and one gender that didn’t have it before, and ended abusive labor practices. Also, a liberal President kicked the crap out of the Nazis and Imperial Japan, too.
The current crop of liberal leadership in this country are a bunch of sissies. But they’re all we’ve got. The Republicans are ignorant crooks, the Dems are sissies. Who do you like better?
Is English your second language? This may explain your difficulty in communicating clearly.
I said: First of all, what makes you say that I am not a minority? Why do you assume that, because I’m a liberal, I’m therefore a WASP?
You asked: Where did I bring skin color into this?
Um, how about in the title of the thread here, which is “Liberal Racism,” and the first sentence, where you accuse me of being a racist? Race and skin color are the same thing in American society.
Yes, of course, there are light-skinned blacks who are darker than dark-skinned whites, but they are the statistical exception, rather than the norm.
You said: I’ve re-read my post several times and I can’t seem to find what you say. Where did I imply that you were a WASP? Spell it out for me please, I will correct it ASAP.
Your entire post (until you updated it in a passive-aggressive fasion) implies that I am a WASP. You have me addressing minorities as some group that I am not a member of. In this country, if you are not a minority, you are a WASP. QED.
I want to leave Clarence Thomas out of this discussion because, well, I’m still not convinced that he is as smart as you say he is.
Let’s talk about Colin Powell instead, shall we? A black man, with a brilliant military career, capped by the Gulf War I. He invented an entire Doctrine of his own that is (or should be) a touchstone for American foreign and military policy, and only three or four men in the entire history of the U.S can say they’ve done invented a Doctrine.
Of course, Powell was kind of a failure as Secretary of State, but what the heck, we won’t count that against him. Plenty of white military leaders failed when they tried their hand at politics, starting with Ulysses S. Grant—one of the most brilliant generals in 10,000 years of recorded history, and one of America’s worst presidents.
Did Colin Powell reach his status because he had his hands held by liberals? Was the bar set lower for Powell than for white generals? The answer is, emphatically, no and no. Indeed, I’d say Powell probably had to be BETTER than white candidates for any job he held, because that’s the way it works when you’re a minority trying to crack a new profession.
Still, do you really believe that it was possible for Powell to have risen to the rank of Joint Chiefs of Staff for the United States in 1930? Of course couldn’t have; I doubt he could have even served in a combat unit alongside white men.
Who removed those barriers? Liberals.
And that’s what liberalism is all about, at its best. It’s about removing obstacles to advancement for the pooor and disenfranchised, obstacles that were put there by the rich and powerful.
When I declare myself a liberal, I am declaring myself adherent to a philosophy that ended the Great Depression, extended equality in the U.S. to a broad range of races, ethnic groups and one gender that didn’t have it before, and ended abusive labor practices. Also, a liberal President kicked the crap out of the Nazis and Imperial Japan, too.
Fair enough. I am referring more to modern day liberals like John Kerry and the Jesse Jackson types. In other words, liberal elites, or sometimes referred to as limousine liberals.
(But for the record, I have some serious beefs with some of the civil rights legislation enacted by older day liberals )
Is English your second language? This may explain your difficulty in communicating clearly.
That, and because I am more of a math person than anything else. Those who get their degrees in the social sciences have an easier time communicating through writing. It just plain takes alot of effort on my part.
Um, how about in the title of the thread here, which is “Liberal Racism,” and the first sentence, where you accuse me of being a racist? Race and skin color are the same thing in American society.
I think all races can be racists. Not just white people. And not just racists towards other races. I’ve met some Mexicans who get pretty close to being racists against other Mexicans…
Let’s talk about Colin Powell instead, shall we?
Lets not talk about Colin Powell. I don’t think he will be a good example of liberal racism. Liberals still find Colin Powell, although Republican, overall acceptable on their terms. He is still close to being a friend so their racism won’t come out as much with him, than say, another minority who has completely accepted all conservative beliefs.
Let me see if I can explain myself better with an example.
Lets say that me and another guy who, for the sake of clarity, happened to be white are the best of friends who went to college together. We get along very well and never do I sense any inferiority in his eyes. We have fun, we laugh, and overall have the best of times. During this friendship, my friend knew that I had benefited from affirmative action. Something that many people say is a form of handicap points. But he swore to me that he believes in affirmative action and doesn’t see it as handicap points, but a way to even out the playing field, with racism and all.
One day I do something that really pisses him off, whatever that may be. If after I do this, that same guy all of the sudden turns around and starts calling me dumb, despite the fact that I got the same degree from the same school he did and despite the fact that we both have prestigious jobs. Wouldn’t that make you believe he always saw me as dumb? It just came out when we fought because of his anger?
Colin Powell, overall, is still on friendly terms with liberals. He is the dove in an otherwise hawkish adminstration. He is the balance, to an otherwise out of balance administration. In many ways, he is the liberal balance to an otherwise very conservative administration.
So of course liberals will go on and on about how smart he is. How great his intellect is, afterall, he leans in alot of ways in their direction.
But let that same candidate be Condi Rice, and (white) liberals come out of the wood works with cartoons depicting her as dumb and calling her aunt jemima. All this, while Condi Rice was a professor at Stanford University, one of the most prestigious universities in the country.
Or let that same person be Clarence Thomas, someone who really gets the wrath of liberals both because he is extremely conservative, but also because he sits on the Supreme Court. A place where he can exercise those beliefs with immense social effects. And he immediately becomes too dumb to sit on the Supreme Court.
Notice here, it isn’t Clarence Thomas’s conservatism that makes him dumb. Reid, for example, fully acknowledges that Scalia, a justice very similar to Thomas in conservative beliefs, is extremely smart. Yet it is Thomas that is the dumb one.
Now, I ask you Mitch, honestly, can you deny that the belief that Thomas is dumb compared to other Supreme Court Justices is common among modern day liberals. I visit more than my fair share of liberal forums and blogs, and I have several liberal friends, and I can testify that a great majority of them take it as an undeniable fact that he is dumb. This is more than a belief that he got to where he is because of affirmative action, or that he disagrees with liberals on fundamental issues, they imply this on an overall level of his own personal intelligence.
The racism among modern day liberal ‘elites’ is shown more clearly when you talk to inner city blacks and see how differently they view Clarence Thomas. The liberalism of people who live in the inner cities is very different than the liberalism of todays modern day elites, the limousine liberals. I have this very close black friend that still lives in one of the worse areas of LA. He has grown up there all his life, and overall is very liberal in alot of his beliefs. I was sitting around one day talking to him about the blacks in power today. And it was very interesting to see how he would know all of them by name, what school they went to, and several things about their background. It was as though they were all heros to him. He would go on and on about how Colin Powell is a tremoundesly smart man, he knew everything there is about his military background and all the achievements he has won. He will talk about how Condi Rice was professor at Stanford University, about how she is one of the Presidents most loyal confidents, not because she is a puppet to whatever Bush wants, but because she is extremely smart, and proved to be more in tune with foreign policy than Rumsfeld. When the conversation turned to Thomas, he starts going off about how he read somewhere that Thomas has a photographic memory, how his intelligence is of tremendous power. Sometimes in his conversation about Clarence Thomas, you would get the impression that he saw Thomas not just smart, but probably smarter than the rest of the Supreme Court Justices.
This was a person who is overall liberal in all his beliefs, but who was genuinely proud of his black brothers and sisters that made it. In his eyes, they didn’t make it because of their race, they made it despite their race. Where as liberal elites emphasize that he made it because of his race.
Now what do you think his reaction would have been if I had told him that Condi Rice is too dumb, not educated enough, to be in the position she is, and that the only reason she got to where she is at is because of her loyalty to Bush? Or that I think Thomas is an embarrasment to the supreme court, and has written some of the worse opinions on the Supreme Court? Do you think he would call me a racist? I think he would, and I think he would have every right too.
Have you ever noticed that it is primarily those black people that disagree the strongest with liberals that are always classified as dumb, or not educated enough to hold their positions?
To use Ann Coulters way of putting it,
To use what the Wall Street Journal wrote,
But as soon as a black or minority breaks that unspoken deal the liberals get angry, and like my friend analogy above, their true colors come out.
I think this racism is harder for liberals to see than the racism of the past. The reason being that it manifests itself differently than it has in the past. Liberals tend to see racism as just that belief and desire for minorities not to succeed. Since these liberal elites (probably) do want minorities to succeed, they conclude they can’t be racist.
But that is to ignore my analogy. I said that liberals see minorities as parents view children, not as a KKK member views blacks. Do parents want their children to succeed? Of course they do, but they still view their children as mentally inferior* to them who need their guidance to succeed. Liberals want us minorities to succeed, but they don’t view us as mentally equal to them. And I believe that current day affirmative action, along with many other liberal beliefs and legislation, only encourages that stereotype.
*Update: For those that may be confused, I don’t mean mentally *retarded*, I meant it in the sense of ‘in need of guidance’, or ‘can’t make it without their
parents’,or as Kerry would say, ‘not responsible for their actions in the same sense parents are’.
HP - I could refute you on specifics, and I may do so later today, but actually I think you make some good points.