It's Hard To Be a Racist
Years ago it was easy to be a racist. All you had to be was a white person using some of the racial epithets that are routinely used in song and everyday speech by many of today's blacks. Or you had to chant "two, four, six, eight, we don't want to integrate" when a black student showed up for admission to your high school or college. Of course, there was that dressing up in a hooded white gown. In any case, you didn't have to be sophisticated to be a racist.
Today all that has changed. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., pointed that out back in 1994 when the Republican-led Congress pushed for tax relief. Rangel denounced Republicans' plan as a form of modern-day racism, saying, "It's not 'spic' or 'nigger' anymore. (Instead,) they say, 'Let's cut taxes.'" That means the simple use of the N-word is not enough to make one a racist. If it were, blacks would be the nation's premier racists. Today it's the call for tax cuts that makes you a racist. That's why the "tea" party, short for "taxed enough already," is nothing more than organized racists. What makes tea partyers even more racist is their constant call for the White House and Congress to return to the confines of the Constitution.
Racism has other guises. Say that you're a believer in Martin Luther King's wish, expressed in his "I Have a Dream" speech, that our "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." The call to judge people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin is really code for racism. There's no question about one's racial antipathy if he voted for measures such as California's Proposition 209, Michigan's Proposal 2, Washington state's Initiative 200 or Nebraska's Civil Rights Initiative 424. These measures outlaw judging people by the color of their skin for admission to college, awarding of government contracts and employment. The call for equal treatment is simply racism by stealth and is far more insidious than name-calling and hood-donning.
One might think that seeing as America elected its first black president, it would usher in the end of racism; but it's all a racist plot that's easily uncovered simply by asking: "Who really elected Obama to the presidency?" It surely wasn't black people. Of the 69 million votes that Obama received in the 2008 election, I doubt whether even 7 or 8 million came from blacks. That means white people put Obama in office, and that means he is beholden to white people, not black people.
You say, "Williams, that's preposterous! What's your evidence?" Just look at the unemployment statistics. White unemployment is 8 percent, and black unemployment is double that, at 17 percent, and in some cities, black unemployment is near 30 percent. It's gotten so bad under Obama's presidency that New York's Urban Justice Center has appealed to the United Nations Human Rights Council for help. But Obama's tired of black complaints. Obama told the Congressional Black Caucus to "Stop whining!" "Take off your bedroom slippers; put on your marching shoes. Shake it off. Stop complaining; stop grumbling; stop crying." This kind of talk is unprecedented. Just ask yourself: "When have I ever heard a Democratic or a Republican leader talk this way to his party's strongest supporters? Would Obama tell Jews to stop whining about Israel? Would he tell unions to stop grumbling about card check? Would he tell feminists, if they were complaining about sex discrimination, to shake it off?"
This kind of political treatment of blacks should not be surprising, because black people are a one-party people in a two-party system. That means Democratic politicians have learned to take the black vote for granted, and Republicans make little effort to get it. That's not smart for blacks to set themselves up that way.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2011 CREATORS.COM
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9 Comments | Post Comment
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Black middle class workers are statistically much more likely to be working in government jobs than are white or asian middle class workers. When you gut government employment, black middle class workers are going to be much harder hit than most other groups. The GOP is the one leading the charge to slash the size of government. Blacks should not look to the GOP to slow the destruction of the black middle class. Obama is only to blame for not fighting harder the game plan of the GOP and their corporate masters.
Comment: #1
Posted by: Mark
Mon Oct 10, 2011 11:30 PM
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I am so damn tired of being called a racist.....I HAVE BECOME ONE....yes,yes, lets get on with something else. I think it it about time we all admit being a racist.....racist.....racist....racist....there....NOW WHAT?
Comment: #2
Posted by: maxed out
Tue Oct 11, 2011 3:39 AM
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Re: Mark
Govt jobs are just a form of welfare. I'm sure that the middle class blacks laid off by govt spending cuts will find real jobs in the then recovering economy. We'll all be better off then, including the middle class blacks you're so worried about.
Comment: #3
Posted by: Darren
Tue Oct 11, 2011 4:42 PM
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Darren,
Our men and women in uniform are just on another form of welfare? Police, firefighters, teachers - all just on some sort of welfare? When you are being robbed, are you going to hope that the magic of the market place deals with the bad guys?
Comment: #4
Posted by: Mark
Tue Oct 11, 2011 11:49 PM
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The sole proper purpose of government is to protect rights. Those government workers contributing to that purpose, like the police and the military, are not the ones to lay off. The others, no matter how pure their intentions, are directly or indirectly violating people's rights. If their function relates to something that should be done, just not by government, that function should be privatized, like schools and roads. If their function is something nobody should do, like redistributing your wealth, that function should be abolished.
These may be difficult discriminations for those who believe the purpose of government is to solve problems or some other goal that invites unlimited growth of government power, but it is only these understandings that will move us again toward America's founding principles.
Comment: #5
Posted by: Phillip Schearer
Wed Oct 12, 2011 7:59 AM
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Phillip,
What is your model for education? What nation uses your all private model? I know that education is not publicly provided in many third world countries. Which one of those has been catapulted to the top of the educational world by the magic of the market place?
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If the the 20 factories up wind are spewing pollution into the air and your town has double the cancer risk of similar communities elsewhere, how do you propose to solve this problem in the magic private world without those former "welfare" recipients at the EPA or the local Department of Toxic Substances Control?
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How does the magic of the marketplace deal with those who damage the commons in a dilute but widespread manner?
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I think the physical and economic health of the nation is a bit much to risk on a full libertarian fantasy world, although some such ideas may have merit.
Comment: #6
Posted by: Mark
Thu Oct 13, 2011 10:41 PM
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Phillip,
Without public health departments, how would you even know if your town (In my hypothetical in the last post) had double the cancer rate of some other similar town? Tracking cancer clusters does not generate a lot of private wealth so the market place is unlikely to do much of it.
Comment: #7
Posted by: Mark
Thu Oct 13, 2011 11:05 PM
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Late to jump in on the government worker argument but I don't believe most people are referring to police or firemen when the mention cutting government workers but are referring to the bloated, paper-pushing federal workers which Washington DC is loaded with. Many of the people I know who work for the federal government don't provide a useful purpose. One works for Energy with not education above HS and visits nuclear plants, another worked for the Agriculture department and would go out to inspect and talk with farmers and knew nothing about that and only had a HS education and my third example was someone who go a bonus every year from the federal employment because they did their job and didn't bring a TV into work to watch the soap operas every day at her desk. These are the positions in government that Darren was probably referring to and the federal government in DC is loaded with them. Lay these people off and they will find useful employment as we can't afford their huge salaries and huge pensions and almost free insuramce premiums. There was no reason to ever unionized government workers except to give the unions more dollars to donate to Democrat politicians. We can afford this anymore and we can't afford the unions either. Why have a union to protect an employee of the government who implements the laws to protect employees in the first place. It is a joke and an insult to US taxpayers.
Comment: #8
Posted by: Mandy
Sun Oct 16, 2011 12:58 PM
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Mandy,
Under the GOP, the reductions will be first and foremost among those nasty inconvenient regulators. When the savings and loan mess went down, hundreds went to prison. How many of the bankers whose gross negligence almost destroyed the nation's entire economy in 2008 have been convicted? One or two? Why the difference? The GOP under Bush "saved" the government money by getting rid of almost all those nasty banking regulators who were interfering with the magic of the marketplace. When the GOP says that they want to cut the size and power of government, the place they want to start is those agencies who are tasked with protecting our environment, food supply, fiscal stability, etc. (Their new plan, for example, for the EPA is that EPA must consider the cost any new regulations to industry, but may not consider any cost benefits to public health or the environment, etc.) One of the comments that the traders, who created all of those toxic assets, made afterword was that they had expected that the "grownups" were going to step in and take control at some point, only it turned out that there weren't any grownups left.
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I agree that there is a lot of waste in government that should be cut. We really don't need to spend more on our military than do the next 14 nations combined. We do not need to subsidize big agriculture with the farm bill. We do not need to subsidize the oil companies to the tune of 3 billion a year. And yes, there are undoubtedly some employees who are less productive than others. Of course, they will not be the ones that are dumped. See first paragraph.
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The pay and benefits for the government workers that I know are adequate, but not excessive for their level of education and experience. I know, for example, a Sr. Toxicologist (PhD in both toxicology and pharmacology) who works for state government. He has the sort of defined benefit pension plan that industry used to provide before the era of the 410K. He also gets a few extra holidays each year that I don't get and a decent, but not Cadillac, medical plan. Huge salary? No. The trade off for a secure pension and decent benefit package is that he is paid about 35% LESS than colleagues, with similar levels of education and experience, who work in industry. If you take somebody who is very talented and employable in industry, but who chooses to work defending public health, and tell them that, in addition to paying them 35% less, you are now going to gut their pension and benefits, how long do you think that they will stay? And once the most employable leave, who do you think will be left doing those government jobs? How well will the work be done with a staff drained of both bodies and some of its top talent?
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Of course, part of the corporate plan for government employment is to make sure that the quality of worker and work product from the demoralized workers is degraded. If the public can be convinced that government workers are lazy, overpaid, and unproductive, it becomes much easier to slash government and inconvenient regulators even more. The fact that many of the grand "privatization' plans that have been executed over the past couple of decades have been shown, at best, to not save any money, and, at worst, to have been boondoggles designed to make a few rich at the expense of both the employees and the taxpayer should be a warning for these times.
Comment: #9
Posted by: Mark
Sun Oct 16, 2011 11:03 PM
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