Monday’s Wall Street Journal’s Best Of The Web Today further proves that the incoming Democrat senate majority leader did make a bigoted remark against black people a few weeks ago.
It is my belief that Harry Reid’s view of minorities (that were dumb) is not an isolated instance, this is typical with liberals in general.
Liberals, from what I have seen, view minorities as parents view children, or as a teacher views her/his mentally handicapped student. We are judged at a different (lower) standard than others, and any progress we make isn´t primarily because of our hard work and dedication, but because of the benevolence and good will of our parents, who made it so (read: liberals).
This is primarily why, in my opinion, liberals get so irrate at Alberto Gonzales and all the other minorities that were nominated to high positions in Republican Administrations. They see minority conservatives as minorities that have succeeded without paying respect to their saviors (read: liberals) and all the work they did, because afterall, we all know those minorities couldn´t have made it without them.
It´s not so much a general joy that minorities made it that is part of liberalism, or a recognition that certain laws or legislation helped make it easier. It´s a view that is tied to a ¨It´s all because of us¨ mentality, and a view that assumes we couldn´t possibly have made it without them. There have been several other groups of people that suffered racism and prejudice in this country, whether it be Catholics, Jews or even the Irish (and don´t give me the bs response that it´s hard to spot one, back then it was pretty easy to see who was Jew, or Irish etc), and all have made it on their own. And I have no reason to believe that us Mexicans, or my black brothers and sisters, couldn´t also make it without the help of the liberal´s sympathy and pity. I would even be willing to bet that we would have made it better, and faster, without the help of our ´friends´.
I would go even further and say that this is a logical deduction of liberal policies. I remember reading a philosopher who said that one is a product of the decisions one makes. Well, I would take this another step and say a party is a product of the policies it champions. And it has always been liberals, not conservatives, who emphasize race specific solutions, as opposed to cultural specific solutions.
Just to give one example of a policy that is largely shared by most liberals, lets talk about affirmative action. Affirmative action has classically been tied to race as opposed to cultural upbringing. If you were a black student who had a lawyer as a father and a doctor as a mother, you would traditionally qualify for affirmative action over say, a white kid who grew up in Compton (purely fictional scenario, as there are no white kids in Compton) with divorced parents. Maybe, and I stress maybe, this was necessary early in the civil rights fight, but this type of affirmative action is now closer to handicap points than anything else. And a policy built like that, implies that minorities can not compete with white students not because of their cultural upbringing, but solely because of their race. I am of the belief that it is growing up in poverty that makes the playing field unequal, not because I am Mexican, or Black, yet liberals tie it to race.
So I believe that this is a natural deduction of what liberals, and yes a majority of them, already believe. It´s just that some have logically followed their beliefs to its natural end, while others have not.
“What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. … All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! … Your interference is doing him positive injury.” –abolitionist Frederick Douglass in an 1865 speech
Fascinating, but I must say that my personal observation has been precisely the opposite.
Yes. Exactly. But not for the reason that you are implying. Liberals do not believe the fault lies with the applicant’s race, but with the negative bias on the part of the employer/selection committee towards that applicant’s race.
If you sincerely believe that liberals are the enemy of minorities, then you would hate to meet the social conservatives that *I* know.
Do you honestly think that there currently is enough racism to stop a minority who geniunely wants to go to college?
I don’t think so anymore. Maybe before, but certainly not in today’s climate. That’s why I said, “Maybe, and I stress maybe, this was necessary early in the civil rights fight, but this type of affirmative action is now closer to handicap points than anything else”.
It seems obvious to me that your views come from conversations within the conservative “reality” bubble.
Your assertion that liberals feel like they need appreciation or to be “paid respect” for the “work they do for racial minorities” is absurd and is filtered through the self serving perception perpetuated by the conservative mythos. Liberals don’t do the work they do in the realm of civil rights for racial “minorities” they do it for themselves and the minority at large so that the rights of the few are not sacrificed to the tyrany of the masses.
I’ve worked for some of your so called “liberal” organizations fighting for the rights of racial minorities and guess what? A large majority of those involved in those organizations are either racial minorities themselves or low income whites who believe in equality for all and don’t require the supplication of the racial minority to wish them success.
The reason liberals have an issue with people like Alberto Gonzales is that he is the antithesis of racial equality. Gonzales lives within a world where he got his and has become one more member of the elitist culture that not only turns their back on equality, but ensures that their work for the minority amounts to lip service backed by policy and action that insures the continued suppression of the minority by the elite.
Methinks you speak not from experience with the “liberal” groups you bad mouth her but rather from the distorted perception of someone who has bought the conservative story.
As a follow on I should say that, first of all I am a member of the minority you mention “growing up in poverty” and I am also white and “liberal.”
I happen to agree with your assertion that “it is growing up in poverty that makes the playing field unequal” but that doesn’t negate the fact that there are people, and indeed groups of people, who use racial prejudice as a justification to force racial minorities into poverty through unfair political and economic policy. To say that racial prejudice and racial profiling designed to oppress ethnic populations doesn’t exist or is not valid is both dangerous and ignorant. Further, it shows how far conservatives will go to turn reality on it’s ear to minimize an issue that has plagued the planet since cultures and ethnicities began to clash.
The fact that you are hispanic does not, in my world, give you any more credibility on this subject than anyone else other than to share your personal experience of being hispanic in our culture. I happen to agree with you that race and ethnicity plays absolutely no part in ones ability to rise to whatever socioeconomic level one wishes. The reality is that there is racial prejudice out there that presents a huge obstacle to many out there who don’t view the world through the prism that you do.
I agree with you in regard to affirmative action — I believe that affirmative action needs some work. I would add, however, that you are viewing affirmative action from the other side of the civil rights battle. Affirmative action does serve a purpose and I believe that, while racial equality is still not a universal reality, it needs to include those who are, regardless of race, disproportionately likely to succeed due to their socioeconomic status.
Lastly, your ignorance of racial issues is revealed in your comment that there “purely fictional scenario, as there are no white kids in Compton.” while whites are certainly a very small minority in Compton, there are in fact white kids in Compton as well as mixed race children. Roughly 2% of the City of Compton is white.
OK, I feel kind of silly now, but this issue is an important one.
I just read the Wall Street Journal article you mentioned and nowhere in the article does Reid ever indicate that his view that Thomas is an “embarassment” is reliant or in any way connected to Thomas’ race or ethnicity.
You are inserting a racial argument where none exists. Yet one more example of the delusional state of the conservative mode of thought. In fact, your argument reveals that where the real issue exists is with conservatives who will argue that liberal criticism of successful individuals on the right who fit into a particular racial minority is based on racial opinions as opposed to opinions on the actions or policies of that individual regardless of their ethnicity. It is, once again, a case where conservatives attempt to distort reality to fit their agenda. In doing so you reveal who the true racists are. The irony is thick here — you are asserting that liberals are racist and ignoring the fact that their criticism could in fact be a function of their opinion of that individual regardless of race (which is what I believe you argue should be the case). I guess liberals just can’t win in the universe of conservative thought. We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t.
It would be funny to call you a hispanic racist if racism, no matter it’s source, wasn’t so tragic.
I agree that ones ideology has something to do with this. We all look at the world through the lens of our presuppositions, is something I strongly believe in.
And it is a fact that liberals credit much of their programs and their effort with minority success. Why is Clarence Thomas successful? Of course it’s not because of primarily his own effort, but because of what liberals did for him. And curse him for not acknowledging that.
Liberals are usually hush, although sometimes it comes out like it did with Reid, about their presuppositions as long as the minority in question behaves. But as soon as he goes and starts thinking it was primarily his hard work and dedication that got him where he is at, or worse, starts to join the enemies (read: conservatives), liberals are there to remind him of who his savior was and the dues he owes them.
You also write, the fact that there are people, and indeed groups of people, who use racial prejudice as a justification to force racial minorities into poverty through unfair political and economic policy. To say that racial prejudice and racial profiling designed to oppress ethnic populations doesn’t exist or is not valid is both dangerous and ignorant.
I never said that racial prejudice and racial profiling doesn’t exist, I said there isn’t enough of it (subtle, but very important distinction) now to stop a minority from succeeding. Especially enough to justify affirmative action as anything more than handicap points.
You write, while whites are certainly a very small minority in Compton, there are in fact white kids in Compton as well as mixed race children. Roughly 2% of the City of Compton is white.
I grew up in Compton for the better part of my life and it has only been six years since I lived there. I spent a considerable amount of time throughout all parts of Compton, especially the worse areas. And I can honestly say that throughout that whole time, be it when I was eleven and twelve playing baseball at the park, or as late as when I was in my early twenties, I have not met one single white person that lived there. I lived on Alondra and Central and, just out of curiousity, I asked another friend of mine that also grew up in Compton, but on a different side, if he has ever met a white person that lived in Compton. This is a person that has been in Compton so long, that he was even born there (back when the hospital was in Compton, there isn’t any hospitals now) and currently still drives down there on weekends. He also said that he has never met a single white person that lived in Compton. Not one.
Does that mean your lying? No, not necessarily. There certainly may be white people that live in Compton, but they either hardly ever come out, or certainly don’t look white. ANd if they do, they probably live on the side closest to long beach (one of the better sides of Compton), because I sure as hell don’t see them on the side I grew up on.
You also write, I just read the Wall Street Journal article you mentioned and nowhere in the article does Reid ever indicate that his view that Thomas is an “embarassment” is reliant or in any way connected to Thomas’ race or ethnicity. You are inserting a racial argument where none exists. Yet one more example of the delusional state of the conservative mode of thought.
Oh really? Well it wasn’t just me, or conservatives for that matter, that saw a racial element here. In fact, several liberals have called Reid out for precisely this.
Angela Onwuachi-Willig, professor at the University of California-Davis School of Law, writes,
If that doesn’t convince you, how about this from Noam Scheiber at The New Republic:
And if that still doesn’t convince you, how about what the Congressional Black Caucus said:
Damn the congressional black caucus, how dare they, to use your words, “attempt to distort reality to fit their [racist] agenda”.
HP, your statement that Jews made it on their own, without any outside help, is preposterous, and belied by my own family history.
My father grew up poor, and in an all-Jewish neighborhood. He attended college on the GI Bill. When he was a boy, and a young man, colleges had quotas as to the maximum number of Jews they could admit.
Indeed, Nobel laureate Richard Feynmann, a pioneering physicist (and one of my personal heroes), faced problems getting into college because the colleges he wanted to attend maxed out their quotas of Jews.
During the same times, you’d still see small towns with signs at the city limits, “No niggers, Jews or dogs allowed.”
So who do you think overturned those quotas and tore down those signs? Conservatives?
Yes, people like Feymann and my father achieved what they did on their own hard work. But they were able to be rewarded for their hard work because liberals tore down the barriers to racism. If they’d waited for conservatives to get off their asses and do something, my father—and I—would still be a pushcart vendor, like my grandfather before us.
As to the case of Clarence Thomas: It’s possible that Clarence Thomas is the victim of white bigotry. It’s also possible the man really is an idiot. I challenged you on my blog, and now I challenge you here—what are the noteworthy decisions and dissents Thomas has written, speeches he’s made, law review articles he’s authored, textbooks he’s produced? You’re a law student; if Thomas is smart enough to be worthy of a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, then you should be able to spout this stuff off the top of your head, five minutes after rolling out of bed, before having a single sip of coffee.
It doesn’t cut it to say that Thomas agrees with Scalia a lot, and Scalia is smart, therefore Thomas must be smart. Agreeing with a smart person doesn’t make a person smart himself. I agree with Richard Feynman’s theories of quantum mechanics, but nobody’s offering me any Nobel Prizes for physics.
Also, you persist in the notion that liberalism is a white thing, and that we white liberals want minorities to be grateful to us. But, as Brian pointed out on my blog, that’s not the case—liberals won out when people of all races, ethnicities and religions work together for social change.
My father grew up poor, and in an all-Jewish neighborhood. He attended college on the GI Bill. When he was a boy, and a young man, colleges had quotas as to the maximum number of Jews they could admit(Emphasis Added).
Really, I did not know that? What about the Irish, or the Catholics, quotas there too?
As to the case of Clarence Thomas: It’s possible that Clarence Thomas is the victim of white bigotry. It’s also possible the man really is an idiot. I challenged you on my blog, and now I challenge you here—what are the noteworthy decisions and dissents Thomas has written, speeches he’s made, law review articles he’s authored, textbooks he’s produced?
Fair enough.
This is what the Wall Street Journal has to say:
Liberal Noam Scheiber at The New Republic writes:
Or how about this, liberal Angela Onwuachi-Willig, professor at the University of California-Davis School of Law writes:
But that is not the point here. I did not make the claim that he is a prolific writer, it was a liberal, specifically Senator Reid, who made the claim that he is an embarrassment to the court. So the burden of proof lies with Reid to show how he arrived at that conclusion. Angela Onwuachi-Willig, professor at the University of California-Davis School of Law writes:
To make matters worse, when Reid did provide evidence of Thomas ‘embarrassment’, it was no evidence at all. So Reid is on record calling Thomas an embarrassment with no proof to back it up.
So I ask you, how Reid concludes Thomas is an embarrassment to the court? He made it clear that it wasn’t his conservative views that were the focus, but something else? Can you tell me what that is and provide proof? Because Reid certainly can’t.
You also write, You’re a law student;
Hey now! No need to get personal. I’ve been nothing but civil towards you, I expect the same in return.
I am not a law student, I am an (wannabe) Electrical Engineer.
HispanicPundit, I deeply, deeply apologize for calling you a law student.
(And I don’t know where I got the idea that you are one.)
Yes, there were quotas for Jews being admitted to colleges. Also, Jews were forbidden from joining country clubs where WASPs networked and did business. I don’t know about Catholics and the Irish, maybe someone else does.
Apology accepted. I almost lost it there for a second…;)
I learn something new everyday. Thanks for the info. I’ll look into that. Jews have always been one culture that I hold in high regard because, forgive the stereotype, but they are one very smart bunch of people.
However, even with that correction my point is still made. I stand behind my statement above that currently, in todays day and age, there isn’t enough racism to hold someone back. Maybe affirmative action was needed a few decades ago, but it has become nothing but handicap points now. And with handicap points, comes the natural deduction that we are handicapped. Senator Reid (probably subconsciously), along with many other liberals, make the connection.
HP: “However, even with that correction my point is still made. I stand behind my statement above that currently, in todays day and age, there isn’t enough racism to hold someone back. Maybe affirmative action was needed a few decades ago, but it has become nothing but handicap points now. And with handicap points, comes the natural deduction that we are handicapped.”
I can’t disagree with you on any of these points.
I once counselled the teen-aged son of a black friend; I told him that in America today, a black man can be anything he wants to be. Even President of the United States; after all, Colin Powell probably could’ve beaten Clinton and Bush I handily in 1992, and he still had a good shot at it in 1996 and 2000.
The black man will have to work a hell of a lot harder and be a hell of a lot better than his white competitors for many jobs—but, still, those jobs are within his reach.
And I’m ambivalent on the subject of affirmative action. I see its flaws, certainly.
(Of course the teen-ager didn’t listen to me—what do I know? I’m over 40…. )
Hey Mitch,
I don’t want to open up old wounds but I just had to bring this up. You had said earlier,
My father grew up poor, and in an all-Jewish neighborhood. He attended college on the GI Bill. When he was a boy, and a young man, colleges had quotas as to the maximum number of Jews they could admit.(emphasis added)
Believe it or not, I had read that to mean that Jews benefited from quotas like blacks do. I had thought you meant minimum number of Jews, not maximum. This was a perfectly natural mistake since in the context I was using Jews in contrast to blacks, and the way you brought them up gave the impression you were using them in relation to blacks. So when I saw the word quotas I immediately assumed you were discussing their similarities not their differences. I simply glanced over and never registered the word maximum as opposed to minimum.
That’s why it caught me by surprise. So I was doing some research, since this was such a shock to me, and the more I looked, the more I realized my original claims were true. Jews rose economically despite racism, without quotas to assist them. So I wanted to come back and defend my original claim with more proof, only to read that you indeed had said just that. Jews rose economically despite racism.
So my original point still stands. Blacks, Mexicans and all minorities, like other minorities that have suffered oppression in the past (Jews, Irish, Catholics, even Japanese), can make it on their own merits despite racism. And I have every reason to believe that they will make it even faster, and better than with the current ‘help’ modern day liberals give them.
And apparently, some Jewish people agree with me as well:
There is something to be said about a person doing things on ones own merit. I’m not against the general principle of helping people out per se, but if it’s just as easily to help them out as let them do it on their own, I’d much rather let someone do it on their own. It adds a certain dimension to the character of that person, and it removes that social stigma that assumes one can’t make it on their own.
Of course, Reid may have met Mr. Thomas and decided on that basis he is dumb. Or he may have read his opinions. Or noted that 99% of his opinions are “me-too” with Scalia’s. And calling an individual dumb says nothing about that person’s race.
Of course he could have, but yet he didn’t give that as a reason. He just implied he was dumb. In addition, when asked for supporting evidence, he gave no sustainable evidence at all.
But why should he? It is a given in liberal circles that Thomas is dumb. Reid is just repeating the same worn out liberal belief that Thomas is dumb without any supporting evidence. Or as the liberal logic goes, because, of course, Thomas made it only with the help of affirmative action, he certainly couldn’t have made it on his own…A black person making it without the benevolence of a liberal, not possible!
Could be that Affirmative Action is a bad idea. I’m not in love with it, and, as I said in (I think) another thread, I see that it has deep flaws.
Still, that’s secondary to the major discussion, which is your apparent belief that conservatives have done more for minorities than liberals have, and that conservatives are now better friends to minorities than liberals are.
Correct me if I’m wrong on either of those two points.
They are preposterous assertions. Throughout the 20th Century, conservatives were supporters of laws and “gentleman’s agreements” that favored white, Christian men over minorities. Meanwhile, liberals were on the front lines, getting gassed and clubbed and lynched and thrown into prison to protect and expand the rights of minorities.
Now, I agree with you that Bush and his administration do not practice segregation on the basis of race and ethnicity. But they have put in place laws that benefit the rich over the poor and, y’know, that comes down to pretty close to the same thing. So for conservatives to come in and claim all the credit for our equalitarian society and claim liberals are keeping minorities down, well, that’s just ludicrous.
I’m reminded of a scene in a novel called, appropriately enough, “King of the Jews.” It’s set in the Polish ghetto in the early days of World War II. A small boy is sick, and being cared for by a doctor who tries every medical technique known to science at the time, but the boy does not improve. Then a charlatan comes in and starts praying over the boy and giving the boy sucking candies. The boy improves. The charlatan claims all the credit, and the family and community give it to him.
The novel was so skillfully written that I was duped along with the boy’s family and friends. Neither I, nor they, realized that the doctor’s treatments had required time to work—it was the doctor, not the charlatan, who cured the boy.
Still, that’s secondary to the major discussion, which is your apparent belief that conservatives have done more for minorities than liberals have, and that conservatives are now better friends to minorities than liberals are.
You know, pardon my rant, but I get sick of hearing this stuff. I talk to older black people about voting Republican, and they come at me with the same thing. How they could never vote Republican because Republicans did this, or Republicans did that, twenty or so years ago. If you ask them why they vote Democrat, a lot of them have no clue as to what constitutes real Democrat beliefs. They simply keep marching along to the same vote because of something Republicans did twenty years ago.
Times are a changing Mitch. And the Republican party (or the Democrat party, for that matter) is no longer the party of the Klu Klux Klan. Conservatives and liberals now are different than the conservatives or liberals of the past. For example, all the famous female liberals that fought for the right for women to vote were pro-life, something seen as strongly anti-women by todays liberals. It is time we move past the labels, and see what the party stands for today. I understand that there are some real wounds, and I don’t hold it too much against those older black democrats for continuously voting Democrat. But I am only 28 years old, I am coming into politics fresh from bias, and I can honestly tell you, that I truly believe Republicans of today are better for minorities, as hard as that may be for you to understand.
I am not saying conservatives were better for minorities in the past…I agree that the liberals of the past had the best interest of the minority in mind. I am just saying that those liberals would not feel completely comfortable in your camp, nor in mine. Conservatives and liberals have changed. Simply because we call ourselves by the same names does not mean we continue to hold the same beliefs.
That is all I am trying to say.
If by “my camp,” you mean Democrats, well, I’m not entirely comfortable in my camp. The Democrats of today are a spineless, limp lot, reacting to every defeat by Republicans by concluding they need to become more like Republicans.
I think it was Will Rogers who said that, given a choice between a fake Republican and a real Republican, the American public will vote for the real Republican every time. That was 80 years ago, and yet it’s a lesson the Democrats of today seem to be incapable of learning.
I’m hopeful that the November election will teach the Democrats a lesson about remaining true to their principles. But I’m not getting my hopes up too high.
They seem to be engaging in the normal behavior of the contemporary Democratic party: form a circular firing squad and start blasting. The first victim: Michael Moore. You many not like Moore, but he did not cost Kerry the election—Kerry’s numbers were looking good in the aftermath of “Fahrenheit 9/11,” and only began to decline during the Swift Boat scandal, when the Kerry campaign showed itself to be incapable of defending itself against baseless lies promulgated against its candidate.
Still, who’s better for minorities today? Republicans or Democrats? Well, the Republicans have spent us hundreds of billions of dollars in debt, have pursued an incompetent foreign policy, and have sought to appoint an attorney general who condones torture and believes the president stands above rule of law. Those things are bad for all Americans, but they’re going to hurt minorities more because minorities tend to be poorer than white Christians, and the poor are hurt by bad government more than the rich.
By comparisn, the Democrats sin by, well, speaking in a patronizing manner toward minority members they disagree with.
Hmmm… I was sure I posted a reply to this thread just now, but it’s not showing up….
Hello Mitch,
Don’t know why my blog held your comment back for inspection. Maybe you used one of the key spam words, or maybe it is my blogs conservative bias…:) Who knows? But I hit the accept button, and it should be in full above.
As for which political party does more damage to minorities by its economic policies, I don’t want to get into that now, other than to say I disagree. I want to keep this particular blog focused on the topic at hand(Good idea for the topic of a future post though).
So I’ll let your comment stand as it is without me responding directly to it. Just keep in mind that I disagree with you.