April 22, 2004
WHO, ME?
Ditching Diversity: Will elites return to racism? (John Derbyshire, National Review Online, 4/22/04)
And then there is the fact, not quite respectable to mention in polite company, but indubitable none the less, that quite a number of our cognitive elites are Jewish. American Jews have been great supporters of multiculturalism, for reasons perfectly easy to understand. If Jews collectively learned a lesson from the 20th century, it was the terrible danger inherent in being the one conspicuously successful minority in an otherwise-homogenous society. So: The less homogenous the better! Bring on multiculturalism! Unfortunately, if you open the doors of your nation to all the cultures of the world in the early 21st century, and invite them to "celebrate their diversity" on your soil, you might find that an alarmingly high proportion of them are Muslims with viciously antisemitic opinions. Multiculturalism? Hmm, let's rethink this...Now, this is a fascinating theory: the aim of Jewish political activism for some time has been to arrange the country so that Jews don't stick out. Once suggested, supporting evidence jumps out at us. Jewish worship has become more like American standard worship. Jewish dress has become American standard dress (watch "The Chosen" to be jarred by this change). Jews have moved into mainstream, albeit "cognitive", professions. Jews have helped shape popular culture and mid-brow bourgeois culture. In fact, Jews more or less define the American bourgeois class.
At the same time, the culture has moved (been moved) to blur those distinctions that would make Jews stand out. We're all Judeo-Christian now. We all support Israel (in fact, some Christians more so than many Jews). We all agree that religion should play no part in a person's success or failure -- even in public service. Planes serve kosher meals, while on Sunday night you have a better chance of finding a minyin at any Chinese restaurant than at Temple. Our intellectual elite, made up notes Mr. Derbyshire disproportionately of Jews, has pushed multi-culti political correctness right through judgmentalism, on through tolerance, into the territory of moral paralysis.
As with everything that benefits the Jews, which is still a pretty small subset of everything, it is too easy and mostly wrong to assume that there has been any concerted effort to arrange things thusly. It's hard to disintinguish all this from plain old assimilation. In fact, if one spent much time at Georgetown or Boston College, one would probably say similar things about the Irish. It is nonetheless a fact that Jewish Americans and Christian Americans, along with all other Americans, now have a common enemy wishing us all ill. Among some Americans, Jewish and not, the temptation is to blame our relationship with Israel for the enmity we are facing from Islamism. This is wrong, though. The Islamists would hate Christendom with or without Israel. At worst, Israel's existence brought the collision forward, which is probably to our benefit.
But, looking forward, isn't the question whether Jews are content with the status quo? If so, look for them to start voting Republican.
Posted by David Cohen at April 22, 2004 1:43 PMA self-described racist hopes that we all become as racist as he is. In other news, dog bites man.
Posted by: Casey Abell at April 22, 2004 2:20 PMHere's a question to ponder. What makes people think that when the last Jew is gone we Christians are going to let the Muslims have our Holy City?
Posted by: oj at April 22, 2004 4:29 PMThe charge of racism has become one used to stop all discusson of a topic, or to say that a person is unworthy of being heard. Often because its a subject the accuser does't want to, or can't face.
For a variety of reasons, the multi-cultis have become the worst racists in this country, in their beliefs that "the others" can't live up to the same standards they apply to their opponents and critics or even the rare ones they apply to themselves, and so "the others" have to be "helped" or "tolerated" and "understood" but never, ever condemned. There's also this sense of "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you" in their tolerance, as if when "the others" takes over, they will spare the multi-cultis in gratitute for their past condescension, or better yet, let the multi-cultis continue to be their guides.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at April 22, 2004 6:04 PMRaoul, I had the seem feeling when I read Derb's article. They have already turned to it.
I think Derb is off in his analysis at the end of the article. Diversity and multiculturalism will be with us for a long time. I think Derb might be missing that these words have been redefined already from their ideals. Diversity means nothing more or less than apportioning spoils among those favored by the ruling elites. Students of African descent are given a helping hand into elite schools, but do those schools admit any more than those necessary to fulfill the standards of 'diversity'? Multiculturalism has nothing to do with actually valuing a culture, it is window-dressing for excusing the excesses of a culture. These are very good methods of keeping the rest of us outside the walls, since the elites can safely defend the borders of their privileges using the charge of racism.
Posted by: Chris B at April 22, 2004 7:17 PMYou're all being way too kind to a guy who, after all, porudly calls himself racist. Derbyshire's real wish is his 25%-likely outcome:
"They will turn racist, approving a new social order in which legal privileges will accrue to races over-represented in the cognitive elites, and be denied to races over-represented in the underclass."
Derbyshire just doesn't like blacks or Hispanics, as his countless anti-immigrant screeches make clear. He wants this outcome, though he doesn't quite say so explicitly.
Posted by: Casey Abell at April 23, 2004 10:10 AMCasey, do you know the man? Does he let his dog piddle on your lawn or something? I've never gotten that vibe off anything he's written. The "I'm a racist" quote you mention included a qualifier -- "very mild," I think -- and it definitely wasn't code for "I'm proud to be a Klansman."
"Racism" a la Derb seems to mean a belief that race is something more than a mental construct plus skin pigment. It doesn't mean "keep the untermensch in their place, preferably behind barbed wire." If you can think that Kenyans seem to win the Boston Marathon with more frequency than seems likely to be explained solely by training or luck, and suspect that there may be something in the genes that helps them, you're a racist of the Derb persuasion.
I also don't get how hostility to high levels of immigration or support for stringent border control amounts to disliking blacks. He wrote a column about immigration a few months ago where he asked rhetorically whether you'd rather have your lawn mown by a surly native-born black for $20 or by a cheerful immigrant from Mexico for $10, the point being that unlimited immigration hurts native unskilled labor.
Posted by: Random Lawyer at April 23, 2004 1:42 PMMaybe I'm just slow. Oh hey, I know I'm slow. But when a guy calls himself a racist, never loses an opportunity to disparage African-Americans, and continually screeches in horror at Hispanic immigrants...well, yeah, I think he's a racist.
Doesn't have anything to do with the Boston Marathon or mowing my lawn or the price of tomatoes. Derbyshire just doesn't like black and Hispanic people, and he's not shy about saying it. So why deny what he admits himself?
Posted by: Casey Abell at April 23, 2004 2:45 PMBTW, our fourteen-year-old son (white at last report) mows our front and back lawns for $25. But he tosses in edging and trimming as well. He's neither particularly surly or cheerful about it, but he does a good job.
Posted by: Casey Abell at April 23, 2004 2:57 PMBecause (1) there's a big difference between Derb and the Klan, (2) 95% of white Americans, including liberal multiculturalists, are probably just as "racist" as Derb (not that they'd ever say so to a pollster or in the pages of National Review), and (3) as Raoul pointed out above, "racist" is used way too easily nowadays to shut down debate.
Posted by: Random Lawyer at April 23, 2004 3:06 PMSince you concede in point (2) that Derbyshire is a racist, I don't know what we're arguing about. You've just conceded my whole case.
I strongly disagree that 95% of white Americans are as racist as Derbyshire, but I definitely agree that, yes, he is a racist. Derbyshire would agree himself.
So the "argument" is finished. (I can use scare quotes, too.)
Posted by: Casey Abell at April 23, 2004 3:34 PMWhy is racism bad?
Posted by: Random Lawyer at April 23, 2004 3:35 PM