Category Archives: Racism

Racial Merry-Go-Round Update

What a relief: A panel of CNN cretins comprising Marc Lamont Hill and two interchangeable females magically coalesced around the following idea: There was absolutely nothing racial whatsoever about the beating by blacks of a white store clerk. Only a week back, the same sort of empaneled fools—at least an interchangeable one—intoned in unison about the ostensible racism behind the Ferguson killing ad nauseum.

Well of course.

Atlanta Hawks owner Bruce Levenson quickly shed his property—sold “his controlling interest” in the team—because, in the course of trying to “put customers in seats,” and “build a significant season ticket base,” as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar put it, he voiced some obvious concerns, as to:

“… whether … the emphasis on hip-hop and gospel music and the fact that the cheerleaders are black, the bars are filled with 90% blacks, kiss cams focus on black fans and time-out contestants are always black has an effect on keeping away white fans. … My theory is that the black crowd scared away the whites and there are simply not enough affluent black fans to build a significant season ticket base. … ”

One would think that it’s a team owner’s responsibility to state reality as he sees it.

Rand Paul Opportunistic—And Wrong—On Race

Barack Obama, Drug War, Fascism, Justice, Law, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Race, Racism, Ron Paul

“Rand Paul Opportunistic—And Wrong—On Race” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

Police brutality? Yes! Militarization of the police force? You bet! “A Government of Wolves”? Yes again! “The Rise of the Warrior Cop”? No doubt! But racism? Nonsense on stilts! So why have some libertarians applied this rhetoric to the murder-by-cop of black teenager Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri? The same people who would argue against color-coded hate-crime legislation—and rightly so, for a crime is a crime, no matter the skin pigment of perp or prey—would have you believe that it is possible to differentiate a racist from a non-racist shooting or beating.

Predictably, BBC News had taken a more analytical look at the “unrest in Ferguson,” pointing out that liberal outrage had centered on what the left sees as racial injustice. Libertarian anger, conversely, connected “the perceived overreaction by militarized local law enforcement to a critique of the heavy-handed power of government.”

As its libertarian stand-bearers, the BBC chose from the ranks of establishment, libertarian-leaning conservatives. Still, the ideological bifurcation applied was sound. With some exceptions, libertarians have consistently warned about a police state rising; the left has played at identity politics, appealing to its unappeasable base.

As refreshingly clever as its commentators are, BBC is inexact. The very embodiment of political opportunism, Sen. Rand Paul has managed to straddle liberal and libertarian narratives, vaporizing as follows:

“… Anyone who thinks that race does not still, even if inadvertently, skew the application of criminal justice in this country is just not paying close enough attention. …”

The senator from Kentucky is considered “one of the leading figures in today’s libertarian movement.” Even so, on matters libertarian, Rand Paul is a political pragmatist; not the purist his father is. Alas, Rand has imbibed at home some unfortunate, crowd-pleasing habits—the leftist penchant for accusing law enforcement of racism. In 2012, in particular, during the debate between Republican presidential front-runners, in Manchester, New Hampshire, Ron Paul lurched to the left, implicating racism in the unequal outcomes meted by American justice:

“How many times have you seen the white rich person get the electric chair?” he asked. “If we really want to be concerned with racism … we ought to look at the drug laws.”

Laws prohibiting the individual from purchasing, selling, ingesting, inhaling and injecting drugs ought to be repudiated and repealed on the grounds that they are wrong, not racist. But statism is not necessarily racism. Drug laws ensnare more blacks, because blacks are more likely to violate them by dealing in drugs or engaging in violence around commerce in drugs, not necessarily because cops are racists. …

Read the rest of the column. “Rand Paul Opportunistic—And Wrong—On Race” is now on WND.

UPDATE II: Racism Rhetoric Is Rubbish (Catchall Phrase For The Feeble-Minded)

Crime, Fascism, libertarianism, Race, Racism, Reason, South-Africa

Police brutality? Yes! Militarization of the police force? You bet! “A Government of Wolves”? Yes again, and worse! “The Rise of the Warrior Cop”? For sure! But racism? No! That’s bullshit. So why have some libertarians adopted this rhetoric? The same people who would argue against (color-coded) hate-crime legislation—and rightly so, for a crime is a crime—are suddenly accusing white America of racism (thought crimes).

Sheepishness? No doubt, but racism? Enough of this nonsense:

This doesn’t mean that racism is not also involved. Polls show that a majority of white Americans are content with the police justification for the killing. Police apologists are flooding the Internet with arguments against those of the opposite persuasion. Only those who regard the police excuse as unconvincing are accused of jumping to conclusions before the jury’s verdict is in. Those who jump to conclusions favorable to the police are regarded as proper Americans. …

Could it be that the ordinary Americans Paul Craig Roberts maligns as likely racists are really, truly waiting for more information, or suffer an authoritarian, submissive frame-of-mind, or are uninformed about “police state USA,” or have simply experienced “black crime” first hand, or are fearful of experiencing “black-on-white violence” in all it ferocity”?

UPDATE I (8/23): Et Tu, Stossel?

John Stossel mars a perfectly reasonable column, separating the “liberal from the libertarian response to Ferguson,” with a nod to the endemic racism meme:

Yes, centuries of white people abusing the civil liberties of blacks have left many blacks resentful of police power, and in recent years, white police officers have shot, on average, two young black men every week. But none of that justifies violence and looting like that which followed Michael Brown’s death. Criminals who ransack stores are always wrong to violate the rights of innocent third parties.

It reminds me of the root-causes excuse offered up by lily white liberals for the dysfunction of many young black South Africans, who were born well after the end of apartheid.

UPDATE II (8/24): Racism: The Catchall Phrase for the Feeble-Minded. Jack Kerwick explains why:

… anyone who is interested in thinking clearly and honestly must realize that “racism” is the rhetorical ware of bumper stickers and t-shirts: Because it means—and is intended to mean—all things to all people, it has become meaningless. All that we do know is that “racism” is a dreadful, probably the most dreadful thing, of which a white person can be accused.

Eric Holder’s Howlers About His Independence

Criminal Injustice, Law, Race, Racism

Eric Holder, Attorney General for black America, has been joking about the promise of a “‘fair and thorough’ investigation into the fatal shooting of Michael Brown.”

As he deployed “Approximately 40 FBI agents and some of the Civil Rights Division’s most experienced prosecutors to lead this process,” he continued to tout “the independence and thoroughness of our investigation,” at least four times in one “op-ed for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.”

Amid howlers like the unimpeachable independence of his Department Of Justice, Holder’s impetus is to racialize the incident: “We’re looking for possible violations of federal civil rights statutes.”

In case you doubt what he’s up to, Holder said this to his constituents at a community meeting in Ferguson: “I am the Attorney General of the United States, but I am also a black man.”

Don’t expect Pajama Media to look beyond the tit-for-tat of, “What if the Rioters Were White?” Nevertheless, what J. Christian Adams has to say about the DOJ is edifying; he has covered “the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division for years”:

Why does it matter that the DOJ unit that will investigate the Ferguson police is stacked with leftists and ideologues? Because anti-police biases of lawyers in this unit have resulted in gross prosecutorial misconduct against police officers.
United States District Judge Kurt Engelhardt issued this blistering 129-page opinion documenting prosecutorial misconduct by DOJ lawyers … As Holder moves forward in Ferguson, keep the documented misconduct of his lawyers in mind.

MORE.