White Supremacy is foundational to America. White Supremacy is not a bump on the road toward a better America. It is the road itself, the means by which America justified the taking of land and enslaving of humans, which is to say the means by which America came to be.Last year TNC wrote, "I would be remiss if I did not offer two other entries into the debate." In this case, what he left out is what the Americans themselves said was foundational: "All men are created equal." While this is a principle oft more honored in the breach than the observance, particularly in the early days of the nation, TNC's sweeping assertion leaves out what is most important.
Equality—liberty and justice for all—is a hard fight. But that fight was and still is the essence of our nation. It gave the suffragists an unanswerable argument for extending the vote to women. It gave Martin Luther King the argument for persuading the nation to undertake the monumental effort to end Jim Crow.
The effort to achieve a free democratic society marshals justice to constrain the abuse of power. Our past—"the taking of land and enslaving of humans"—was a consequence of the enormous advantage of modernity relative to the native societies of North America, and Africa, at that time, which inadequate justice failed to constrain. The nation which did these things has improved since then, because contrary to TNC's misleading language, equality is a fundamental principle, beside which "supremacy" is an aberration. Example: The Alaska Native Land Claims Settlement Act:
In 1971, barely one million acres of land in Alaska was in private hands. ANCSA together with section 6 of Alaska Statehood Act which the act allowed to come to fruition affected ownership to about 148.5 million acres of land in Alaska once wholly controlled by the federal government. That is larger by 6 million acres than the combined areas of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. When the bill passed in 1971, it included provisions that had never been attempted in United States settlements with Native Americans. The newly passed Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act created twelve Native regional economic development corporations. Each corporation was associated with a specific region of Alaska, and the Natives who had traditionally lived there. This innovative approach to native settlements engaged the tribes in corporate capitalism. It was the idea of the AFN [Alaska Federation of Natives], who believed that the Natives would have to become a part of the capitalist system in order to survive. As stockholders in these corporations, the Natives could earn some income and stay in their traditional villages. If the corporations were managed properly, they could make profits that would enable individuals to stay, rather than having to leave Native villages to find better work. This was intended to help preserve Native culture. (Emphasis added)TNC next critiques a commenter who 'rejects “collective responsibility” because he believes it "implicate(s) an individual’s [responsibility] based not on their actions but on their 'race.'"' One must start, TNC begins, 'by acknowledging that without "collective responsibility" we do not have a country. Perhaps the most significant form of “collective responsibility” is our tax system.'
What TNC is confusing here is legal responsibility and moral guilt. He associated "white supremacy" and guilt in The Case for Reparations:
Black nationalists have always perceived something unmentionable about America that integrationists dare not acknowledge—that white supremacy is not merely the work of hotheaded demagogues, or a matter of false consciousness, but a force so fundamental to America that it is difficult to imagine the country without it. ... What is needed is a healing of the American psyche and the banishment of white guilt.This is a long way from the obligation to pay levied taxes, which has nothing to do with moral responsibility for the misdeeds of other people. Martin Luther King rejected the idea of judging people based on the group they supposedly belong to when he said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
TNC's shift in which he seems to imply that being a citizen of a nation is membership in a collective wrongly places emphasis on collective rather than individual action or identity—just what the commenter objected to. This is argument by misnaming.
The measure of TNC's extremism is the way he seizes on the most extreme term in many situations, leaves out authoritative counter-arguments, and ignores middle-ground and practical arguments. The measure of TNC's intellectual dishonesty is that he ignores the most articulate defender of American principles we have had, Abraham Lincoln. The measure of TNC's radicalism is that he ignores the most successful African American civil rights crusader we have, Martin Luther King; and disputes the practical advice of the most successful African American politician we have ever had, Barack Obama.
This is because TNC's case is weak. His real problem isn't white people and their supposed supremacism. His real problem is modernity—what V. S. Naipaul called "Our Universal Civilization"—and its tremendous effectiveness. Success in the United States, as in the rest of the first-world countries, requires what is well-known: Education, and 21st-century skills. The Alaska Federation of Natives, above, opted to "become a part of the capitalist system." Ta-Nehisi, in opting instead for a handout, promotes dependency. That's his best idea.
Recently Barack Obama, asked about Ta-Nehisi's criticism, said:
It’s true that if I’m giving a commencement at Morehouse that I will have a conversation with young black men about taking responsibility as fathers that I probably will not have with the women of Barnard. And I make no apologies for that. And the reason is, is because I am a black man who grew up without a father and I know the cost that I paid for that. And I also know that I have the capacity to break that cycle, and as a consequence, I think my daughters are better off. (Applause.)Ta-Nehisi called this "moral invective."
And that is not something that—for me to have that conversation does not negate my conversation about the need for early childhood education, or the need for job training, or the need for greater investment in infrastructure, or jobs in low-income communities.
The progressive approach to policy which directly addresses the effects of white supremacy is simple—talk about class and hope no one notices.That's a radical, extremist slanting of what the first black president said, which unmistakably is a "both/and."
This is not a “both/and.” It is a bait and switch. The moral failings of black people are directly addressed. The centuries-old failings of their local, state, and federal government, less so. (Emphasis added)
Previous blog posts have noted that Lincoln in numerous speeches and writings decisively refuted many of the derogatory assertions in The Atlantic's Reparations series (here, here and here, among others.) The Atlantic mentions none of them.
Wikipedia notes:
The phrase "radical chic" originated in a 1970 New York article by Tom Wolfe, titled "Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny's", which was later reprinted in his books Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers and The Purple Decades. In the essay, Wolfe used the term to satirize composer Leonard Bernstein and his friends for their absurdity in hosting a fundraising party for the Black Panthers—an organization whose members, activities, and goals were clearly incongruous with those of Bernstein's elite circle. Wolfe's concept of radical chic was intended to lampoon individuals (particularly social elites like the jet set) who endorsed leftist radicalism merely to affect worldliness, assuage white guilt, or garner prestige, rather than to affirm genuine political convictions. (Emphasis added)Exactly.
No comments:
Post a Comment