Justice Clarence Thomas
The Tribune ran this Ellen Goodman piece in the paper yesterday. I thought it read like a recycled, thinly veiled 'Uncle Tom' hit like we have seen so often against Justice Thomas. Black conservative, affirmative action appointee, race baiter, race traitor.
I enjoyed, then, this piece at Best of the Web (first story):
Let's focus on one of Goodman's tropes: "We know Thomas as a man who benefited from the affirmative action he scorns." Goodman implies, and others among his critics have stated directly, that because Thomas (purportedly) "benefited from affirmative action"--that is, from racial discrimination in favor of blacks--he is morally obliged to favor such discrimination, and to hold it constitutional.
Ellen Goodman is a person of pallor, and her bio tells us that she finished college in 1963, the year before the Civil Rights Act became law. Thus she is old enough (sorry, Ellen) to have benefited from discrimination because she is white. Would anyone suggest that therefore she is morally obliged to support discrimination in favor of whites? Of course not.
In the white liberal's worldview, if a white past beneficiary of discrimination favors racial equality or even discrimination against whites, that is an act of atonement or principle. But if a black past beneficiary of discrimination favors equality, white liberals view him as a traitor to his race. To put it another way, white liberals expect blacks to act out of self-interest based on race, while they expect whites to act altruistically.
They attack blacks like Thomas who rise above racial self-interest--and they do so in explicitly racial terms--while faulting whites who fail to do so.
This may be the most invidious racial view to remain respectable in 21st century America. The idea that whites are on a higher moral plane than blacks is a form of white supremacy; and the attacks on Thomas and other blacks who embrace equality and reject racial self-interest are an attempt to keep black people in their place.
White liberals often claim that racism is everywhere, "just beneath the surface." Given the intensity with which they target blacks who reject liberal orthodoxy on race, one suspects they are telling the truth--about themselves.
1 comment:
The idea that whites are on a higher moral plane than blacks is a form of white supremacy;
When liberals were pro busing - they assumed that having "underprivileged" black kids sitting next to their precious prodgeny would lift up the race, the black race. Well look what happened. White kids starting emulating the black kids.
I have first hand experience with the "culture of low expectations" prevalent in our public shool systems. When statistisions do comparisons white vs. black reguarding wealth and education, they often kick out West Indians who reside in the USA. The reason is they are not held back by past discrimination. Skin color does not cause underachievement amd liberals continue to see Blacks as deserving of their helping hand. Why? Because in the white liberal mind Blacks are inferior and must be given any and all advantage. Remember when liberals were predicting that if welfare reform passed Black kids would be "starving in the streets" Liberals assumed that Black parents would LET their kids starve in the streets. How insulting is that?
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