The Race Scolds Are Largely Pasty
This piece discusses with data something I've really noticed in recent years. White liberals - not people of color - are setting the tone on discussions about race. A small group of white liberals are pushing ideologies many minorities don't agree with.https://t.co/hUSIlty3FH
— Clay Routledge (@clayroutledge) March 18, 2019
And for a bit from the story in his tweet, Eric Kaufmann writes in The New York Times:
Race pertains to communities defined by ancestry and physical appearance. Racial ideology turns instead on race as a political idea. Questions like "Should Northam resign?" or "Is the wall racist?" divide voters today by ideology far more than race. "White" is a description of a person's race, whereas feelings about whether whites are privileged or whether diversity makes the country stronger are part of a person's racial ideology.Liberal whites -- not minorities -- are setting the tone on these issues.
Since 2012, white liberals have moved considerably left on questions related to race, reflecting both a campus- and online-driven cultural awakening that has accelerated in response to Mr. Trump. On the American National Election Study's scale measuring how respondents feel about a group -- white liberals are warmer toward minorities than their own racial group.
...The Hidden Tribes study from the More in Common organization -- which groups the American electorate on the basis of its views -- helps identify the leading proponents of racial liberalism: Of the seven major voting blocs, the most racially liberal are the Progressive Activists, who form just 8 percent of the population. This group is over 80 percent white and only 3 percent African-American. Similarly, a Pew Research Center report finds that the "Solid Liberals" group is overwhelmingly white, and that minority Democrats are more conservative.
This commenter at The New York Times totally gets it -- saying something I've been saying for a while now:
John, New York:The biggest problem I have with concepts like "white privilege" is they are tantamount to religious concepts like "original sin".
They are Maoist/Stalinist in nature and suggest a certain ethnic group is born sinful. It's deemed that white privilege (original sin) is something that's impossible to escape.
It's something you must confess before your peers in order to cleanse yourself of sin, and only those who enter the confessional will be admitted to the higher order of "enlightened progressives".
Ultimately, the scale of repentance demanded is impossible -- it's designed to be impossible for political reasons -- and the person must live their life feeling perpetually ashamed of themselves. While this may be electorally advantageous, it also breeds resentment and toxicity.
Aside from the illogical nature of such concepts, the mainstreaming of such terms is a dangerous political game to play, not only because of America's charged racial history but because such concepts are totalitarian in nature.
This commenter gets it, too:
RK, Arizona:I think for the most part, these white liberals are mostly engaging narcissistic moral posturing. The phrase 'virtue signal' I think is appropriate. Too many liberals are just playing a game, making sure everyone around them understand what virtuous, right thinking people they are, and seeking rounds of applause and pats on the back.
And everything is maximal with pointed fingers and raised voices and accusations. I've never seen a group of people spoiling more for a fight in the streets they will surely lose, and lose badly.
It's also virtue shaming. At once it is "look at me, I confessed my sins and am virtuous" and "but what about you? have you confessed your sins? you are not virtuous!"
I R A Darth Aggie at March 19, 2019 6:23 AM
The American political Left has been unable to admit that its ideology has taken on a religious aura, where its tenets are true, not because they've been proven to be true by experience, but because they've been declared to be true; because they are held to be true; because they fit a certain narrative and, therefore, simply must be true.
These tenets are being used to enforce obedience and conformity. Failure to adhere these tenets and to promote them as absolute truth is tantamount to heresy and must be punished - swiftly and overwhelmingly.
Exile from the Left community is the most commonly implemented punishment - much like shunning for the Amish or excommunication by the Catholic Church. And, like those medieval Catholics, exile from the faith (in this case a secular one) puts in peril one's immortal soul and is a punishment worse than death.
Conan the Grammarian at March 19, 2019 6:30 AM
It occurs to me that the Left exploits something akin to the gambler's fallacy to obtain obedience. I've said before that the original sin that the Left ascribes to out-groups allows for no possibility of salvation (and so why should anyone care about it?). However, I see that that's not quite true: the Left may grant salvation to a seeker of repentance occasionally. But, the decision is completely arbitrary. Thus, we have people who keep prostrating themselves, holding out hope against hope, because of sunk cost and because they heard that someone in Reno hit it big last week, and you can't win if you don't play, right? Another aspect of our educational system's near-total refusal to teach anything about probability or risk.
(And in Leftism, even the saved can become un-saved at a moment's notice. Break a rule, exhibit a weakness, or worse yet, fail to notice that the rules have changed, and you're back to square Trotsky.)
Cousin Dave at March 19, 2019 6:53 AM
"but what about you? have you confessed your sins? you are not virtuous!"
"If she weighs the same as a duck ... then ... she's ... made of wood ..."
"And, therefore ...?"
"Ummmm .............. SHE'S A WITCH!!"
- Python, Monty 1975
bkmale at March 19, 2019 7:18 AM
you're back to square Trotsky
Which is why the correct answer is to tell them to go pound sand while they self-copulate. If they run out of witches, they'll just manufacture more as needed.
They'll still hate your guts, but you'll declared your independence of their opinion. Which is likely the worst possible sin you could have committed short of burning a cross.
I R A Darth Aggie at March 19, 2019 7:31 AM
John (letter writer): The biggest problem I have with concepts like "white privilege" is they are tantamount to religious concepts like "original sin".
Wait, is he saying, or implying, there is no such thing as "original sin"? I bet he also doesn't believe there was a Garden of Eden with Adam & Eve (and a wily serpent.)
JD at March 19, 2019 8:36 AM
If you want status in a group where everyone is already Yale grad and wealthy, you need something more. The only thing that the Left can think of, since they dumped religion, is victimology. And yet they do not actually have black friends, and do not respect blacks. Progressives talk baby-talk to blacks whereas repubs do not, and progressives assume all sorts of bigoted things about blacks like that they are unable to register to vote without help and don't know what is good for themselves.
cc at March 19, 2019 9:08 AM
The scary thing is that this is satire.
Conan the Grammarian at March 19, 2019 12:33 PM
cc: "The only thing that the Left can think of, since they dumped religion,
You may want to check out this Pew Research website:
U.S. religious groups and their political leanings
Although religious groups which are categorized as "Evangelical" certainly skew to the right, many others are about equally split between left & right and still others -- including Catholic, Orthodox Christian, Episcopal, Jewish and Muslim skew to the left.
JD at March 19, 2019 1:10 PM
Catholic, Orthodox Christian, Episcopal, Jewish and Muslim skew to the left
How's that abortion on demand, any time, any place, and all that anti-semitism working out for y'all?
I R A Darth Aggie at March 19, 2019 1:32 PM
It's ironic that those whites who preach against white supremacy are, in fact, white supremacists.
Adopting these causes tends to bring out a very paternalistic and condescending attitude. When Obama was first elected, some lofty posters on an AOL message felt the need to tell black people, "You've come a long way." (Obviously, referring to the fact that we had our first black President. A shame he was a terrible one.)
It's such a shame they will never see that they claim to espouse equality (without actually proving that we're unequal), but can't stop looking down on black people.
Patrick at March 19, 2019 2:55 PM
They're outraged but not outraged enough to move to Compton.
I'm sure they WOULD move to Compton but there are just so few soy-friendly gastropubs there, y'know?
But still, TOTALLY down with the online struggle.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at March 19, 2019 3:07 PM
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