The Origins of Leftist Racial Orthodoxy

American Thinker ^ | May 31, 2012 | Michael Filozof

[Bratch]

If "diversity" is good, why do liberals congregate in lily-white enclaves like Vermont (the whitest state in the Union, according to the Census) and Marin County, California? White liberals hector others incessantly about the need for "diversity," but most have no interest in living in neighborhoods with large numbers of blacks. The ideal society in the liberal mind always seems to be a Scandinavian socialist one (which is to say that liberals strive to make the U.S. more like some of the most uniformly white nations in the world).

The liberal enforcers of racial correctness are quick to decry the evils of racism, yet they are quite willing to practice it themselves in the form of affirmative action -- and they are strangely silent when blacks engage in "hate crimes" against whites. Conservatives have been increasingly willing to point out these and other hypocrisies of our racial orthodoxy, but they invariably fail to understand its true origins.

What drives our contemporary racial orthodoxy? Many conservatives mistakenly believe that liberals obsessed by race are afflicted with "white guilt." Not so. The truth about racial matters in the U.S. is this: racial issues are not actually about race. In the hands of the progressive left, race is a tool used by powerful whites against other whites; specifically, race is a weapon used by liberals to bludgeon conservatives and delegitimize conservative, patriotic values.

But it has not always been so.

[Bratch]

Lots of good stuff here.

[exnavy]

I work in a union shop, democrats are the most prejudiced folk I encounter.

[FreedomPoster]

Bumping. This guy gets it.

[vanilla swirl]

Haven’t read it yet but I sensed it at an early age. It is an elitism that is not based on race per se, but more of a perceived intelligence elitism. “We of the anointed intelligent class have the birthright to rule over all”.

It is perfectly ok to feel sorry for “those poor (black/latino/other) people”, but they will never be welcomed into the inner sanctum of the elite.

[GladesGuru]

Why do whites avoid living with blacks?

Read Derbyshire’s letter, some of which may be found here.

http://takimag.com/article/the_talk_nonblack_version_john_derbyshire/page_2#axzz1sbJpRWmP

A Google search for that letter was very long - Google seems to be hiding it. Something FReepers might want to email Google management about.

Derbyshire was correct, “offensive “ or no.

[FreedomPoster]

I assume you have read The Vision of Anointed? If not, you definitely need to. Sowell’s work is still spot on 15 years or so after he wrote it.

The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy
http://www.amazon.com/The-Vision-Anointed-Self-Congratulation-Social/dp/046508995X

[vanilla swirl]

” I assume you have read The Vision of Anointed?”

I have not, does my observation fit into the premise?
I love Sowells work but I don’t want to dwell on the pain inflicted by family members =/

[IMR 4350]

The so called “moderates” are right in there with them.

During the amnesty debate one of the common statements from moderates that supported amnesty was “they will assimilate into our culture and become our neighbors”.

You never heard them say “they will become our neighbors and assimilate into our culture”.

The “I'm so much better than you crowd” didn't want illegals bringing their culture into THEIR neighborhood, but it was A-OK if the illegals brought their culture into YOUR neighborhood.

[spankalib]

bfl

[Savage Beast]

The Left IS everything that it claims to hate.

It's Orwellian--like "Love is hate!" "Freedom is slavery!" "War is peace!"

The very word "Liberalism" which they apply to themselves means the exact opposite. There is nothing liberal about these people or their beliefs.

My child recently went to a far Left pre-kindergarten. The entire staff became apoplectic when they realized that they couldn't cram him into their mold like the other children.

[nathanbedford]

The last refuge for scoundrels of the left is to play the race card.

These taboos have become weapons of the left in the war that is raging in America, a civil war waged against us by the left. I believe that the Democrat party in the extreme elements of it on the left have become increasingly philosophically bankrupt but the main prop of this empty vessel is the unshakable belief that they are superior to the right because we are racists.

… From Nathan Bedford's About Page

The author has done us a very great service in describing the rank hypocrisy of the left concerning liberal orthodoxy about race. I believe there is one more layer of the onion to be peeled away to expose not just hypocrisy but real cynicism and worse.

The author describes how the left deploys racism in the service of its ideology. If one identifies the philosophical excrescences of The Frankfurt School as the impelling forces of leftist ideology in America today, one sees that racism has so thoroughly marinated into the flesh of the Democrat party that one can no longer separate cause from effect, chicken from egg. As The Frankfurt School consciously sought ways to provide the West, particularly America, the rationalizations with which to dismantle its own civilization such as especially The Critical Theory and Relativism, those who adhered to this epistemology were forced into cynicism. We see the outworking of these pernicious ideas promoted by Cloward and Pivin to bankrupt the whole system. We see it in another generation in the writings of Obama's philosophical mentor, Saul Alinsky.

Bent on dismantling Western civilization because it represented the final obstacle to the ultimate victory of world socialism, The Frankfurt School developed the theories of relativism and the critical theory as a way of discrediting the great institutions which hold our civilization together: the family; the church; the rule of law; our Constitution; our history; patriotism; and the very idea of the nation state. What better way to discredit America than to indict it for racism? Taken to its extreme, and the forces of purposeful civil disintegration by their very nature drive to the extreme, the critical theory ultimately means there is no truth, no reality, no right, no wrong. Inevitably, the drift is into cynicism.

Dostoevsky describes it as something even worse. The cynicism devolves into nihilism. The reflexive negativism leaves one utterly adrift, cynical, and vulnerable and without even the decency to recognize, much less recoil from, evil. One need only cite abortion, even partial birth abortion, to illustrate this phenomenon in blood. Dostoevsky talks about not merely destroying the idea of a thing but the very thing itself.

This is the current state of the Democrat party as described by the author and as I have attempted to describe it in the About Page. In this devastated state the leftist seizes upon the hypocrisy of his own racism to rationalize his condition. The author illustrates this characteristic with the hypocrisy of Ted Kennedy.

This explains how easy it is for the left to hook up opportunistically with virulent, militant Islam which ultimately must be its mortal enemy. It will throw Islam over when the time comes, just as it now throws the Jews over for this moment of convenience. The lesson foretelling the fate of African-Americans can be seen by anyone who is not willfully purblind which means everyone, evidently, except African-Americans themselves.

So the racist hypocrisy of the modern left is not merely a cudgel handy to belabor the right, silence critics, end debates, and win elections, it is the underpinning which props up an otherwise decadent superstructure. If they let go of it, they die.

[No One Special]

Just a great post. Thank you.

If they let go of it, they die.

It's a long way back, but we have to make them let go or else America is dead. The question is how? More than that. How do we even put the subject in play?

[FreedomPoster]

Yes, it does. He covers much more in the text. Probably one of the most enlightening reads out there regarding the Liberal mind. Required reading, up there just a notch back from The Road to Serfdom.

[Zionist Conspirator]

Lots of good stuff here.

I agree (except for the nonsense about MLK being a "man of G-d").

[Zionist Conspirator]

Taken to its extreme, and the forces of purposeful civil disintegration by their very nature drive to the extreme, the critical theory ultimately means there is no truth, no reality, no right, no wrong.

Kinda funny how people who don't believe in right and wrong to begin with start screaming about such-and-such being "wrong," isn't it?