National Review Writer Under Fire for Racial Column

[Going Postal]

^^

I use an iPad and I slide the page to the left. Besides Africans, the Maori, Chinese also have the violent gene (wonder if Mongolia is in there) over 60%. and if you know Chinese history, they were fighting all the time back in the day. Ie during the three kingdoms era. Nowadays, have you seen those hundreds of chinese in the parks practicing tai-chi... Wonder if that helps calm them down... plus, the Chinese police state is large and in charge; somebody even thinks about getting uppity and 10 policemen is carting you off to a cell. Then there's that one-child policy where Chinese parents dotes on the one kid, so very little traumatic childhood.

Did you get to see where it said a traumatic childhood (...ghetto...) will exacerbate the warrior gene? And not having the warrior gene but coming from a traumatic childhood doesn't make you a problem child.

Solutions to America's problem now (no genetic engineering)
Better families.
Tai-chi or other meditation techniques.
Or, at worst, a police state that don't take no shit and more prisons (which will cause resentment amongst the non-warrior gene people because of collateral damage).

The Three Kingdoms period was one of the bloodiest in Chinese history.  A population census during the late Eastern Han Dynasty reported a population of approximately 50 million, while a population census during the early Western Jin Dynasty reported a population of approximately 16 million

[Going Postal]

Look at the Chinese and Mongolia wars and deaths:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._by_death_toll

[hadit]

Times certainly have changed.
As for quotas and affirmative action - it takes more than the opinions of two individuals on the net to determine the timeliness of phasing it out.

Unlike you, I believe it has been slowly but surely fulfilling its role of providing opportunity to a group that was robbed of all opportunity for centuries. There will be a time to phase it out, but that time is not something any one person should feel at liberty to determine without the backup of in depth studies.

There is little indication that affirmative action does harm to African Americans. And very few choose to perceive it as an expression of lowered expectations. In the long term, that could change.

As for the comparison between sports teams, and colleges and police departments - its comparing apples and oranges. Discrimination has not prevented anyone from shooting hoops, to point out the obvious. It has, for centuries, prevented us from gaining quality education. And we have a sad history of racially abusive police that has been mitigated by African American officers.

Look, in an ideal world, no racially-oriented policies would be necessary. What you, and to a worse degree others, tend to forget is that America is far from ideal when it comes to race relations. Wishing the problem didn't exist doesn't make it vanish. Getting fed up with the problem, frustrated with it... doesn't make it go away either. What you are doing when you make these inappropriate comparisons, is proving again that you're trying to wish away the facts on the ground. It doesn't do us any good.

I wish the USA were closer to an ideal society too, where cultures exist side by side without deep seated complexes, animosity and fear. We're heading that way slowly but surely.

M.

We will never totally eliminate fear and suspicion. Tribalism ensures that. The problem, as I see it, is that the government stepping in to "balance the scales" tends to swing things too far the other direction. The end result of that is frustration and resentment, which counters the effect of the original effort. A qualified black man in the '70's who was denied a job or a promotion because of the color of his skin had every right to feel frustration. A white man 40 years later who loses a job or a promotion to a less qualified black man will also feel the same frustration. I think we only disagree on how close we are to genuine equal opportunity. I also think we agree that equal outcomes are not part of the equation here.

[Malcolm Wright]

We will never totally eliminate fear and suspicion. Tribalism ensures that. The problem, as I see it, is that the government stepping in to "balance the scales" tends to swing things too far the other direction. The end result of that is frustration and resentment, which counters the effect of the original effort. A qualified black man in the '70's who was denied a job or a promotion because of the color of his skin had every right to feel frustration. A white man 40 years later who loses a job or a promotion to a less qualified black man will also feel the same frustration. I think we only disagree on how close we are to genuine equal opportunity. I also think we agree that equal outcomes are not part of the equation here.

Yes - you are absolutely right about what we agree upon, and thanks for spelling those points of agreement out so clearly and concisely.

You are also correct in terms of our disagreement of how close we are to equal opportunity.

The economic divide that is a legacy of our history has left African Americans living predominantly in low income neighborhoods, with bad schools, degraded environments both outside and inside the home, and the host of complex and inter-related afflictions that come with the territory. Most of the institutions and jobs out there may well be very close to accepting African Americans on an equal footing as European Americans in a job interview, but there is no way near equal opportunity access to the education, skills and experience that make one a viable candidate once in that interview.

That's why it is helpful to facilitate access to quality education for African Americans. It corrects the most easily corrected point of the vicious circle that ingrains ethnic groups into predetermined roles of subservience and dominance.

You would need to demonstrate the swinging 'too far' in the other direction.
On the one hand you have centuries of slavery and a reign of explicit and pervasive terror, followed by another century of struggle for basic rights in a climate of institutionalized oppression.
On the other hand, you have a deliberate, well-intentioned plan to balance this history. I'm not sure how the odd white employee who misses a promotion can feel the pendulum has swung too far the other way, if he really considers how far the pendulum previously swung against the oppressed group.

That's the problem: people not really considering this objectively. One needs to think about history in order to gain historical perspective. Thinking should not be too much to ask.

Maybe we should have affirmative action training sessions in the work place to address the questions of resentment, frustration, and stigma of lowered expectations. Then there would not be the luxury of harboring secret resentment based on a selfish lack of perspective.

We inherit an unfair world. Everyone has to accept that. The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, and upon their children's children, to wax biblical.
That fact should encourage us all to fight injustices, but also to accept that we must suffer through the healing process together, and it can't just be rosy sentiments and good wishes, and condemnations of past behaviors. Actual sacrifice is involved for all.

There is another factor however. Those who are sacrificing in order to set things right need to be engaged in a process of accountability whereby tabs are kept on whether everyone is doing their best to work towards the goal of equal opportunity. In other words, whites should be able to verify and encourage blacks to make the most of anything they sacrifice - to recognize the value of the gesture and its significance, to not take it for granted, and to work diligently towards transforming it into a stepping stone towards our common goal. Likewise, blacks should be able to verify that whites understand what they have to go through to work towards that common goal. It is much harder for a kid growing up amongst drugs and violence, and amidst a culture that does not value education as much as it should, to reach for the stars and actually get there.

Instead of this communication, instead of this mutual valuing of efforts towards healing the sins of our fathers and our fathers' fathers - we have secretive bitching and moaning on both sides, and a complete lack of appreciation for the efforts each side is making, when those efforts are made.

So I don't think the problem is with the measures. I think it is with the lack of communication around those measures. We should probably have a program of community ambassadors with regular delegations to cross pollenate our divided communities. Hard working students who are going to be the beneficiaries of affirmative action should come to speak in corporate environments - candidly, about their experience. European Americans who sincerely seek positive resolution to our race issues could speak in schools where these kids are, inspiring not only them but potentially some of their class mates, to respect the fact that the doors being held open for them are coming at a human cost motivated by good will and a desire for greater unity.

That's how I see things. Of course its a hard road. Even the kind of open discussion you and I are having now, which is a prerequisite for anything like this to happen, is rare. But it doesn't have to be.

M

[hadit]

Yes - you are absolutely right about what we agree upon, and thanks for spelling those points of agreement out so clearly and concisely.

You are also correct in terms of our disagreement of how close we are to equal opportunity.

The economic divide that is a legacy of our history has left African Americans living predominantly in low income neighborhoods, with bad schools, degraded environments both outside and inside the home, and the host of complex and inter-related afflictions that come with the territory. Most of the institutions and jobs out there may well be very close to accepting African Americans on an equal footing as European Americans in a job interview, but there is no way near equal opportunity access to the education, skills and experience that make one a viable candidate once in that interview.

That's why it is helpful to facilitate access to quality education for African Americans. It corrects the most easily corrected point of the vicious circle that ingrains ethnic groups into predetermined roles of subservience and dominance.

You would need to demonstrate the swinging 'too far' in the other direction.
On the one hand you have centuries of slavery and a reign of explicit and pervasive terror, followed by another century of struggle for basic rights in a climate of institutionalized oppression.
On the other hand, you have a deliberate, well-intentioned plan to balance this history. I'm not sure how the odd white employee who misses a promotion can feel the pendulum has swung too far the other way, if he really considers how far the pendulum previously swung against the oppressed group.

That's the problem: people not really considering this objectively. One needs to think about history in order to gain historical perspective. Thinking should not be too much to ask.

Maybe we should have affirmative action training sessions in the work place to address the questions of resentment, frustration, and stigma of lowered expectations. Then there would not be the luxury of harboring secret resentment based on a selfish lack of perspective.

We inherit an unfair world. Everyone has to accept that. The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, and upon their children's children, to wax biblical.
That fact should encourage us all to fight injustices, but also to accept that we must suffer through the healing process together, and it can't just be rosy sentiments and good wishes, and condemnations of past behaviors. Actual sacrifice is involved for all.

There is another factor however. Those who are sacrificing in order to set things right need to be engaged in a process of accountability whereby tabs are kept on whether everyone is doing their best to work towards the goal of equal opportunity. In other words, whites should be able to verify and encourage blacks to make the most of anything they sacrifice - to recognize the value of the gesture and its significance, to not take it for granted, and to work diligently towards transforming it into a stepping stone towards our common goal. Likewise, blacks should be able to verify that whites understand what they have to go through to work towards that common goal. It is much harder for a kid growing up amongst drugs and violence, and amidst a culture that does not value education as much as it should, to reach for the stars and actually get there.

Instead of this communication, instead of this mutual valuing of efforts towards healing the sins of our fathers and our fathers' fathers - we have secretive bitching and moaning on both sides, and a complete lack of appreciation for the efforts each side is making, when those efforts are made.

So I don't think the problem is with the measures. I think it is with the lack of communication around those measures. We should probably have a program of community ambassadors with regular delegations to cross pollenate our divided communities. Hard working students who are going to be the beneficiaries of affirmative action should come to speak in corporate environments - candidly, about their experience. European Americans who sincerely seek positive resolution to our race issues could speak in schools where these kids are, inspiring not only them but potentially some of their class mates, to respect the fact that the doors being held open for them are coming at a human cost motivated by good will and a desire for greater unity.

That's how I see things. Of course its a hard road. Even the kind of open discussion you and I are having now, which is a prerequisite for anything like this to happen, is rare. But it doesn't have to be.

M

It's definitely a thorny issue, with lots of passion on all sides. It sometimes makes for interesting conversation around the dinner table, as my daughter-in-law, who is black (she, my son, and their two sons live with us), was an Obama supporter. Not because she was very political, she just liked the fact that he is black, and her mother is an ardent supporter. Since she lives with us, we've come come to accept and love her as part of the family, but it's fascinating to watch her family's interactions with my son and us. It took them a while to accept the idea of her marrying a white man. More than once when they struggled in their early years, her mother urged her to ditch my son and become a single mother.

[Malcolm Wright]

Sorry about the strife Hadit - I'm glad they've kept it together.

M.

[hadit]

Sorry about the strife Hadit - I'm glad they've kept it together.

M.

Thanks. It wasn't always easy, but the two most precious kids in the world make it all worth while.