Category Archives: Race

Updated: Barack Wants More History From Below

Affirmative Action, Africa, America, Barack Obama, History, Pseudo-history, Race, Racism

For the Atlantic slave trade, contemporary Americans and Britons have been expiating at every opportunity. But as historian Jeremy Black points out in The Slave Trade, Europeans also brought about the demise of this despicable practice in Africa.
Having made the obligatory pilgrimage to Ghana, Barack told Anderson Cooper—the “journalist” noted for introducing the country to the practice of tea bagging—that “slavery is a terrible part of the United States’ history and should be taught in a way that connects that past cruelty to current events, such as the genocide in Darfur.”

What a change that makes, doesn’t it?

Does our overlord seek to repetitively rub in the never-changing theme of the white man’s burden, the theme WASPs welcome like wimps? Or is he open to teaching Americans about the robust slave trade conducted by Arabs across the Sahara Desert? Or across the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea to markets in the Middle East. How about the vibrant, indigenous slave trade conducted well into the nineteenth century in the interior of West Africa?

I suggest that Africa’s own Little Lord Fauntleroy read the words of a brother who’s seldom seen on the idiot’s lantern, and whose works are not distributed widely across the racial tyranny that is America: Keith B. Richburg.

Wrote Richburg in Out Of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa:

“I feel for [Africa’s] suffering, I empathize with her pain, and now, from afar, I still recoil in horror whenever I see yet another television picture of another tribal slaughter, another refugee crisis. But most of all I think: Thank God my ancestors got out, because, now, I am not one of them. In short, thank God that I am an American.”

Repeat after Richburg, Mr. president.

Update (July 14): Myron, I had objected to the use of “slavery” with reference to the West. Alistair addressed the so-called plight of women in the West. The Third World is a different matter (or is it what remains of the Second World that you decried?). There, statutes may declare slavery illegal, but tradition sees nothing wrong with forms of it. Guess what wins out?

Updated: Welcome Hard-Core Sound In MJ’s Last Video

Celebrity, Music, Pop-Culture, Race

As all the repugnant muso hip-hop adulators pronounce vacuously on Michael Jackson’s contributions to “black music,” and other permutations thereof, the King of Pop’s last video reveals a hardcore edge: a catchy riff accompanied by a LOUD—and wait for this—competent guitar. The very antithesis of the aforementioned “art form.” Jackson the perfectionist sought out a competent, I suspect, studio axe woman playing in the progressive rock tradition, which relates to “black music” as Barack relates to economic recovery. Jackson had moved away from his signature, intolerable, squeaks-and-hiccups sound. Good for him—and for posterity, however long that lasts in this culture.

What a shame that, in Lawrence Auster’s astute estimation, Jackson had destroyed his health through drastic, disfiguring, medically-sanctioned self-mutilation.

‘Wise Latina’ Loses

Affirmative Action, Constitution, Individual Rights, Justice, Law, Race, Racism, The Courts

Sonia Sotomayor’s Latina wisdom has come back to hurt and haunt her in the case of the New Haven Honkies, whose discrimination case she dismissed. So too is the Supreme Court’s blah blah Bader Ginsburg’s dissent noteworthy for its unwise quality. At least neither one of these Delphic ditzes carried the day. Reports the Christian Science Monitor:

“The US Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 on Monday that the Connecticut city violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by using race as the key criterion in refusing to certify a group of white and Hispanic firefighters for promotion.

City officials said they were afraid that if they promoted the white and Hispanic firefighters but no African-American firefighters, the city would be subject to a lawsuit by black firefighters. The high court disagreed.

“Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer’s reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

The high court’s action overturns the 2008 decision of a three-judge appeals-court panel that included Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s nominee to replace retiring Justice David Souter.

The New Haven firefighters case – and the Supreme Court’s view of it – are expected to play an important role in Judge Sotomayor’s Senate confirmation hearings next month.

The judge is believed to be a strong supporter of New Haven’s legal position in the case. In addition, it is unclear why her three-judge panel initially handed down a brief, unpublished, unsigned summary order disposing of the case without offering even cursory legal analysis.

Beyond the Sotomayor nomination, the decision is important because it provides guidance to employers that they may continue to rely on objective, work-related exams without facing a discrimination lawsuit from those who do not pass the test.

At the heart of the case were two competing provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. One section bars discriminatory treatment based on race or ethnicity. A different section urges employers to avoid making job-related decisions that create a disparate impact on minority workers.

If, for example, a city conducts an exam to determine which workers will be promoted and then no African-Americans are identified for promotion – that disparate impact on black workers is presumed to be illegal. The city is expected to correct the situation.

But the law also forbids employers from using race as the sole or primary criterion for hiring or promotions – including decisions that disfavor white employees because of their race.

In this way, New Haven found itself in a Catch-22.

Justice Kennedy and the other majority justices resolved this dilemma by ruling that New Haven needed a “strong basis in evidence” to justify its discrimination against white and Hispanic firefighters. He said a mere statistical disparity alone could not amount to the strong evidence necessary.

Kennedy added that once a fair test procedure is set, employers may not invalidate the results based on race or ethnicity. “Doing so … is antithetical to the notion of a workplace where individuals are guaranteed equal opportunity regardless of race,” he wrote.

In a dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said New Haven had not engaged in illegal discrimination against the white firefighters because they had no vested right to a promotion.

She wrote that the majority justices ignored “substantial evidence of multiple flaws in the tests New Haven used.” She added that the court failed to acknowledge better tests used in other cities.

“The court’s order and opinion, I anticipate, will not have staying power,” she said.

[SNIP]

From “Beware of ‘Absolut’ Libertarian Lunacy”: “By petitioning the courts, when they should go gentle into that good night, white men like Ricci are seeking equality of results much as blacks do through coercive civil rights laws. … Ricci was wronged for excelling. He is not petitioning for special favors; he’s petitioning against them. If anything, Ricci is asking only that the city accept inequality of outcomes; accept that not all are created equal—and that he, more so than his less-qualified colleagues, is most suited to fighting fires and dousing departmental flames.”

'Wise Latina' Loses

Affirmative Action, Constitution, Individual Rights, Justice, Law, Race, Racism, The Courts

Sonia Sotomayor’s Latina wisdom has come back to hurt and haunt her in the case of the New Haven Honkies, whose discrimination case she dismissed. So too is the Supreme Court’s blah blah Bader Ginsburg’s dissent noteworthy for its unwise quality. At least neither one of these Delphic ditzes carried the day. Reports the Christian Science Monitor:

“The US Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 on Monday that the Connecticut city violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by using race as the key criterion in refusing to certify a group of white and Hispanic firefighters for promotion.

City officials said they were afraid that if they promoted the white and Hispanic firefighters but no African-American firefighters, the city would be subject to a lawsuit by black firefighters. The high court disagreed.

“Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer’s reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

The high court’s action overturns the 2008 decision of a three-judge appeals-court panel that included Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s nominee to replace retiring Justice David Souter.

The New Haven firefighters case – and the Supreme Court’s view of it – are expected to play an important role in Judge Sotomayor’s Senate confirmation hearings next month.

The judge is believed to be a strong supporter of New Haven’s legal position in the case. In addition, it is unclear why her three-judge panel initially handed down a brief, unpublished, unsigned summary order disposing of the case without offering even cursory legal analysis.

Beyond the Sotomayor nomination, the decision is important because it provides guidance to employers that they may continue to rely on objective, work-related exams without facing a discrimination lawsuit from those who do not pass the test.

At the heart of the case were two competing provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. One section bars discriminatory treatment based on race or ethnicity. A different section urges employers to avoid making job-related decisions that create a disparate impact on minority workers.

If, for example, a city conducts an exam to determine which workers will be promoted and then no African-Americans are identified for promotion – that disparate impact on black workers is presumed to be illegal. The city is expected to correct the situation.

But the law also forbids employers from using race as the sole or primary criterion for hiring or promotions – including decisions that disfavor white employees because of their race.

In this way, New Haven found itself in a Catch-22.

Justice Kennedy and the other majority justices resolved this dilemma by ruling that New Haven needed a “strong basis in evidence” to justify its discrimination against white and Hispanic firefighters. He said a mere statistical disparity alone could not amount to the strong evidence necessary.

Kennedy added that once a fair test procedure is set, employers may not invalidate the results based on race or ethnicity. “Doing so … is antithetical to the notion of a workplace where individuals are guaranteed equal opportunity regardless of race,” he wrote.

In a dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said New Haven had not engaged in illegal discrimination against the white firefighters because they had no vested right to a promotion.

She wrote that the majority justices ignored “substantial evidence of multiple flaws in the tests New Haven used.” She added that the court failed to acknowledge better tests used in other cities.

“The court’s order and opinion, I anticipate, will not have staying power,” she said.

[SNIP]

From “Beware of ‘Absolut’ Libertarian Lunacy”: “By petitioning the courts, when they should go gentle into that good night, white men like Ricci are seeking equality of results much as blacks do through coercive civil rights laws. … Ricci was wronged for excelling. He is not petitioning for special favors; he’s petitioning against them. If anything, Ricci is asking only that the city accept inequality of outcomes; accept that not all are created equal—and that he, more so than his less-qualified colleagues, is most suited to fighting fires and dousing departmental flames.”