From the WSJ Opinion Archives
The Truth About Race in America--III
Yesterday's
installment in this series argued that racial special pleading is at odds
with interracial compassion:
It makes no sense to expect nonblacks to empathize with blacks because they are black. Transracial empathy must be based on what people of different races have in common: that we are fellow Americans, or fellow human beings. The use of a natural disaster as an occasion for racial grievance is a hindrance, not an aid, to national solidarity and empathy.
But of course the culture of racial grievance is not about compassion or empathy, which is why the racialization of Hurricane Katrina has struck such a discordant note. The only appropriate response to a natural disaster is to offer concern and help to the victims; claims about justice and guilt are out of place and beside the point.
Yet it is upon claims about justice and guilt that racial politics in America are built. And since those who make such claims have seized on Katrina to press them, it's fair to respond by taking a critical look. Let's begin with our friend Randall Robinson, whose Puffington Host post we cited yesterday, and who is an intelligent defender of an extreme position. Here's an excerpt from the Amazon.com review of Robinson's 2000 book, "The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks":
He goes further than any previous black public figure in calling for reparations to African-Americans for the present-day racism that stems from 246 years of slavery. Citing compensation that Jews and Japanese Americans have received, he writes, "No race, ethnic or religious group has suffered as much over so long a span as blacks have and do still, at the hands of those who benefited . . . from slavery and the century of legalized American racial hostility that followed it." In making his case, Robinson utilizes facts and figures that highlight the disparity between African-Americans and whites.
"Reparations" for slavery are not really a serious idea, but the question Robinson raises in his title is worth asking: What does America owe to blacks?
Up to a point, almost everyone can agree on the answer. America owes blacks full citizenship, which as a formal matter means equal treatment in matters of law, politics, commerce and education. Hardly anyone argues against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, or the outcomes of landmark civil rights cases such as Brown v. Board of Education and Loving v. Virginia.
In post-civil-rights America, racial matters become contentious when the issue is preferential, rather than equal, treatment. "Reparations"--Write me a check, you racist!--are the crassest version of this idea, easily dismissed as silly (remember this guy?). But the policies that fall under the rubric of "affirmative action" are based on the same concept: that white Americans today continue to be guilty for wrongs committed by white Americans of the pre-civil-rights era.
This notion of collective guilt is at odds with America's individualist ethos, and for that reason both the politics and the jurisprudence of affirmative action are muddled. Racial preferences persist largely out of bureaucratic inertia, even though they have been rejected on the rare occasion that they were put to a political test. In 1996 voters in liberal California approved Proposition 209, banning all racial preferences in state and local government, with 54% of the vote.
The U.S. Supreme Court, meanwhile, has long held that any distinction by race, even a "benign" one designed to help minorities, is subject to "strict scrutiny" under the Constitution. But in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), which allowed colleges to impose racial preferences so long as they are somewhat vague about what they're doing, the court preposterously decided that the University of Michigan had met this high standard merely by offering bromides about the importance of "diversity" in education. Muddying the waters further, Justice Sandra O'Connor opined that this justification would expire in 25 years.
Affirmative action is deeply entrenched in America's governmental, educational and corporate institutions. But political support for it--already weak, as we saw in California in 1996--is likely only to become weaker. That's because white guilt is a fading force in America. Every American now under 40 was born after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, so they have no memory of pre-civil-rights America. In two more generations, there will be hardly anyone left with even childhood memories of segregation.
It's hard to make people feel guilty when they personally have done nothing wrong. It's hard to argue that racial disparities are the product of extant racism when there is no direct evidence that such racism is anything but extremely rare, and when public policy actually favors blacks over whites.
On Tuesday we noted that black Americans have sharply different views on racial matters than do white Americans and, therefore, than do Americans as a whole. What we are arguing today is that the views of whites are likely to move even further away from those that blacks now hold.
We do not think there is any serious danger of old-fashioned racism resurging; the post-civil-rights consensus in favor of equal citizenship is as solid as anything in American political life. But the divergence between blacks and whites is still a problem for America, and a much bigger problem for black America. Black leaders would be well advised to spend less energy cultivating grievances and more cultivating an understanding of their fellow Americans. That is the path to integration.
Plus
Ça Change
Here's an unwittingly amusing "newsview" piece from Ron Fournier of
the Associated Press:
It's August in Crawford, Texas, and President Bush is on vacation. His poll ratings are slumping. He hears warnings of a looming crisis that will soon change the course of his presidency.
Is this August 2001? Or August 2005?
The answer is both. Historians will ultimately judge Bush's presidency based on his leadership through two tragedies--the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and Hurricane Katrina, plus a conflict of his own design: The war in Iraq.
Historians will judge Bush by his response to the hurricane? Hmm, OK, let's try a little test. Who was president during each of these events:
- The Galveston hurricane, which killed some 8,000
- The Great Okeechobee Hurricane, which killed more than 2,500
- The Johnstown, Pa., flood, which killed at least 2,200
- The San Francisco earthquake, which killed 700
You have no idea, do you? We had to look it up, and we're almost an expert on American presidents. The answers are William McKinley, Calvin Coolidge, Benjamin Harrison and Theodore Roosevelt. Do you remember ever hearing or reading a single word about how the president responded to any of these events?
Lauren
Sokolski Weighs In
We watched a few hours of the John Roberts hearings yesterday, and you can color
us wowed. The future chief justice was poised and precise, which drove Joe Biden
and Chuck Schumer bonkers. Now that Roberts's testimony has ended, though, we
feel sorry for those who have to keep watching, such as MSNBC's Tom Curry. In
his blog for today, he reports that Sens. Ben Nelson and Mark Pryor, Democrats
from Nebraska and Arkansas respectively, are leaning toward a "yes"
vote. Then he gives us this bit of cotton-candy reportage, all fluff and no
substance:
When we questioned another publicly undecided Democrat, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., she said "I'm going to wait until the hearings are totally over."
I asked her if she was going to read the hearing transcript.
"I'm reading some transcript and reading some very detailed reports of the questioning but it's not over, so I'm going to wait until it is," she replied.
What criteria will you use to decide?" I asked her.
"I will announce that when I make my decision," she said.
She, like the other 99 senators, will decide Roberts's fate in the final week of September. Then we'll know where all 100 stand.
Actually, Sen. Clinton's vote is very easy to predict: She will vote whichever way the majority of Democrats do. Scroll down to Curry's 11:57 a.m. entry, and you see he was even more desperate for material:
Lauren Sokolski, from Silver Spring, Md., was here in the hearing room to witness today's testimony this morning. During a break in the action she gave me her views on the Supreme Court and the nation.
Sokolski, who opposes Roberts, worked during the Clinton administration as a volunteer. I mentioned to her that her two senators, Democrats Barbara Mikulski and Paul Sarbanes, seem likely to vote "no" on Roberts, given how they have voted on other Bush conservative judicial nominees. If that turns out to be the case, then her views will be represented.
But, she told me, "Democracy is not working for me, because (the late chief justice William) Rehnquist decided Bush should be president (by his vote in the 2000 Bush v Gore case) and Rehnquist was first put on the court by Nixon--who subsequently resigned. I find the whole thing very ironic."
Since Bush's election in 2000, she said, "we live in fear of the government, because the government decides what the threat is. I strongly believe 9/11 would not have happened if Bush hadn't been president."
Later, as we chatted about Rehnquist, she added, "I like to think he died of guilt--for what he did to this country."
Maybe tomorrow Curry can score an interview with singer/songwriter Burt Bacharach, who, according to ContactMusic.com, "has attacked US President GEORGE W BUSH for his handling of the Hurricane Katrina rescue operation":
Bacharach, 77, recalls reading newspaper articles months before the hurricane, warning "that (New Orleans) would be engulfed, that people would drown, that bodies would be floating down the road.
"Instead of pushing the funding up, they took most of it away to fight this stupid war, and that's unforgivable.
"I think Bush is just about the poorest president we've ever had. You'd have to go back before I was born to find a worse one."
The genius of American democracy is that Lauren Sokolski and Burt Bacharach are able to vote, just like the rest of us, and yet somehow the system works.
Don't Forget This Fact, You Can't Get It Back
"Cocaine-Linked Memories Might Be Erased"--headline, HealthDay.com, Sept. 15
"Health Tip: Remembering Your Medicine"--headline, HealthDay.com, Sept. 15
At
Least He Didn't Enjoin Endust
"Judge: Pledge Unconstitutional"--headline, Associated Press, Sept. 14
Ponce
de Leon, Call Your Office
"LEAD: Juvenile Delinquents in Russia Becoming Younger"--headline,
RIA Novosti, Sept. 14
Oh
My God, They Killed Kenny!
"South Park Awash in PCBs"--headline, Seattle Post-Intelligencer,
Sept. 14
Put
a Tiger in Your Tank
A German scientist, Christian Koch, claims he has not found a 102nd use for
a dead cat:
[He] said he has developed a method to produce crude oil products from waste that he believes can be an answer to the soaring costs of fuel, but denied a German newspaper story implying he also used dead cats. . . .
But Koch, 55, said there was no truth to stories published in Bild newspaper on Tuesday and Wednesday that suggested he used dead cats as part of the mix for his organic diesel fuel.
"I use paper, plastics, textiles and rubbish," Koch told Reuters.
"It's an alternative fuel that is friendly for the environment. But it's complete nonsense to suggest dead cats. I've never used cats and would never think of that. At most the odd toad may have jumped in."
Which is just as well, because if our cat dies, we're going to need it for a pencil sharpener.
Thar
She Blows
"Palestinian gunrunners smuggled hundreds of assault rifles and pistols
across the Egyptian frontier into Gaza," the Associated Press reported
yesterday from the border town of Rafah:
Palestinian security forces in Gaza apparently were doing little to stop infiltrators. At midday, Hamas militants blew a hole in the Gaza wall, making it even easier for people to enter the 18-foot-wide buffer zone leading to Egypt's fence.
The opening has been christened the Rachel Corrie Memorial Hole.
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Thomas Stahler, Gregory Pimentel, Brad Randall, Ruth Papazian, Joseph Demartino, Daniel Foty, Brendan Vaughn, Curt Schmidt, Harold Kurtz and Mark Murray. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Review & Outlook: President Bush can now reframe the post-Katrina debate.
- Peggy Noonan: Katrina didn't change everything, but it changed a lot.
- Manuel Miranda: Sens. Specter and Feinstein impose an unconstitutional religious test.
- Charlie Ross: In Mississippi, tort reform works.
