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Is It Going to Be Race and Resentment — All the Time? [Victor Davis Hanson]
NRO Corner ^ | June 04, 2009 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 06/04/2009 9:03:35 AM PDT by Tolik

Michelle Obama is now weighing in on the Sotomayor nomination, and I think it will prove a serious political mistake, since she is reverting back to her "me too" campaign mode, in that she emphasizes both race and the anonymous "they" who are not nice or not sufficiently accommodating to the Other.

So Michelle Obama describes the fear that Sotomayor felt at Princeton — and its lasting effects to this day — and then compares it, of course, to Michelle's own ambiguous feelings toward the same Princeton campus (cf. Michelle's thesis for the details), that one is willing to put up with for the education and prestige it gave, but does not really like for the presence of apparently so many stuck-up, rich, preppy kids and their ubiquitous exclusive campus culture. 

Three or four observations:

  1. Many Americans were terrified about our first year in college. Some left farms for sophisticated urban environments and were lost; others were the first in their families to go to colleges, and so on. The Ivy League is by definition snobbish to all outside its traditional insular orbit, whether white, black, brown, country folk, foreigners, etc. But by predicating such common discomfort on their own race and gender, Ms. Obama and Judge Sotomayor deprecate a universal human experience, and instead claim it as something unique to identity politics;
  2. Once more we see the schizophrenia of affirmative action, diversity, and identify politics — the university is both obliged to select students on the basis, at least in part, of race, class, and gender, but then almost immediately faulted for a climate that, in the eye of the recipient, stigmatizes those to whom it gives unusual consideration (what is the answer? — no race/class/gender consideration at all?; constant race/class/gender consideration that begins at admission and continues through graduation?; damned if you do, damned if you don't?);
  3. And the remedy for feeling separate at elite colleges is apparently to reemphasize separatism based on identification with the tribe (e.g., Justice Sotomayor's senior thesis, like that once written by Ms. Obama, is predicated on ethnic and racial grievance).
All this should disturb Democrats because it fuels a general and growing perception (cf. Sotomayor's white-male references, Eric Holder's "cowards" remark, the serial Obama apologies abroad, the confusion about America being an important Muslim nation, etc.) among the public that something very strange is going on — a sort of generic anger being expressed at the highest levels of government that seems fueled by long past resentments against a perceived establishment that at times apparently is to roughly characterized as white, or white male, or rich, or Christian, or something other than poor, of color, or of female?

One would have thought with the presidency, or nomination to the Supreme Court, or with the office of Attorney General, or First Lady, such hurt feelings and old grievances might wane; but instead the resentment seems to be ubiquious, and growing, and the lectures will be with us for the next four years in almost every imaginable circumstance. If the administration is not careful, millions of Americans are going to begin feeling that they are caricatured pretty much as those once were in rural Pennsylvania



TOPICS: Editorial
KEYWORDS: aliens; amnesty; bho44; immigration; michelleobama; race; sotomayor; vdh; victordavishanson
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1 posted on 06/04/2009 9:03:35 AM PDT by Tolik
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To: neverdem; Lando Lincoln; SJackson; dennisw; kellynla; monkeyshine; Alouette; nopardons; ...


    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

       Let me know if you want in or out.

Links:    FR Index of his articles:  http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
                His website: http://victorhanson.com/
                NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
                Pajamasmedia:
   http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/

2 posted on 06/04/2009 9:04:20 AM PDT by Tolik
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http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/victordavishanson/index:
Is It Going to Be Race and Resentment — All the Time?
Multiculturalism Trumps Freedom?
America’s First Postmodern President, Supreme Court Justice, Treasury Secretary…
Sotomayor’s Mistake. The diversity mess
The Affirmative-Action Aristocracy?
Lost in the Labyrinth of Race
Israel’s Cuban Missile Crisis - All the Time ... if Iran gets the bomb
Ministers of Truth
Euroamericans?
Is America Premodern or Postmodern?
And Then There Was Only Guantánamo
President Palin’s First 100 Days. Imagine if Sarah Palin had Obama’s record
Cracks in the Facade. Fissures in the Obama Totem
Once Upon a Time in 2002
Why Did Republicans Lose Their Appeal? And how can they get it back?
Americans Want It Both Ways Our Have-It-Both-Ways Generation
What to Do About Pakistan = There are no good answers.
Our Jekyll and Hyde President. More radical than Jimmy Carter v smoother centrist than Bill Clinton?
Nothing New Under the Sun [Equality of Result, American vs. French, etc]
Crazy Times — Crazier Times to Follow - when nonsense is passed off as wisdom
Confessions of a Contrarian [deconstructing Obama, the Left and more]
 President Obama’s First 70 Days. It really does all make sense
Thoughts About Depressed Americans
Bush Did It. What a difference an election makes [Brilliant Parody]
 Our Battered American [gets angrier - Must Read Rant]
Just a partial list. More at the link:  http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/victordavishanson/index
3 posted on 06/04/2009 9:05:50 AM PDT by Tolik
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To: Tolik

Is It Going to Be Race and Resentment — All the Time?

Is this a rhetorical question?


4 posted on 06/04/2009 9:06:59 AM PDT by GeorgiaDawg32 (I'm a Patriot Guard Rider..www.patriotguard.org for info..)
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To: Tolik
Great VDH, as usual.

If the administration is not careful, millions of Americans are going to begin feeling that they are caricatured pretty much as those once were in rural Pennsylvania

I'm hoping the Supreme Narcissist remains true to form and succeeds in alienating a huge percentage of the living dead who voted for him.

Why should we be the only ones to suffer?

5 posted on 06/04/2009 9:12:59 AM PDT by Madame Dufarge
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To: Tolik

Of course the rage and bitterness will grow as the “Others” seize more and more power. The question is whether the “silent majority” will do anything, or just suck their thumbs in the corner.

Obama is remaking the nation as fast as he can. Will he get away with it, or are there still enough actual Americans to take back their country?

Was California’s anti-tax spasm a one-off? Or the beginning of a meaningful awakening?


6 posted on 06/04/2009 9:14:16 AM PDT by karnage
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To: Tolik

>>>If the administration is not careful, millions of Americans are going to begin feeling that they are caricatured pretty much as those once were in rural Pennsylvania.<<<

Those of us who spent most of our adult life working in the media and academia having been feeling this for decades. In fact, let me do a little Sotomayor right here and use my own ethnic background - Russian Jew - as a filter through which I see these attitudes about race and ethnicity.

White Christian men are the Jews of multicultural America. White Christian men are accused of all sorts of crimes, both real and imagined, and the worst accusation against them is that they have attained wealth, power, and prestige using the labor and property of their neighbors. The multicultural left has stereotyped the white male using the same kind of libel and myth that central and eastern Europeans used against the Jews.

Just like the Jews were accused of all sorts of perversions and conspiracies, white men are accused of a foggy “patriarchy” and portrayed in the media as killers, highly-placed psychopaths, or dunces.

This accounts for the slavering stories, repeated since the 1980s, that someday “whites” will be a minority in the United States. It’s a timeline set by the multicultural left which informs them when they can finally take their hatred to their final solution.

Like Orwell pointed out, the left always needs an enemy. Tell a person for their entire lives that white men have stolen their land, property, prosperity, and ability to succeed, and it’s no surprise you get twisted race hatred from some of those people, and some of those people achieve positions of power. As Rush is saying right now, these people are angry - at those who don’t look like themselves.

God help my son, whose Italian-Jewish ancestry makes him a target for their hatred.


7 posted on 06/04/2009 9:18:34 AM PDT by redpoll
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To: Tolik
I wonder if Michelle resents and hates one half of her husband...the half that is white?

I wonder if she resents the part of her children that is white?

I wonder if she hated Obama's grandparents who raised him and were white, and if she had known his mother, would she have hated her too?

It is Michelle's open disdain for those with whom she had problems and her continued cataloging all white Americans in the same category that is creating more problems. I never cared about race, I never used that as a point to judge others...but obviously Michelle, Barack and their minions do. So instead of soothing relations, helping to build a more united future, giving thanks that our country has come so far...the Obamas are continually reflecting on the past, making the African American race more angry by pouring oil on dead fires, and causing white Americans to have little trust in the Obamas' intentions.

They are one angry couple and have evidently decided to strike back at everyone every time they can for injustices they felt that probably only a few caused. I am tired of their whining and spiteful attitudes. They need to grow up. Forgive. And get on with living in the present where there are those who would like to do so with them and never had a problem with race in the first place.

8 posted on 06/04/2009 9:19:56 AM PDT by CitizenM ("An excuse is worse than an lie, because an excuse is a lie hidden." Pope John Paul, II)
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To: Tolik

I think that Michelle Obama inwardly realizes how boring she really is.

So, it’ll be the race game, the identity politics, the gender thing and all the rest — to declare, “Don’t ignore me, and if you find me boring, I’ll just pore it on more and more and make you listen.”

I don’t think she’ll ever come out of her closet of knowing how boring she is and how people really, really don’t care a hoot about who she is and what she says.

Her Princeton paper reeked of that “I shouldn’t be here feeling, and only through affirmative action did I ever get here in the first place” — and so it continues.


9 posted on 06/04/2009 9:20:59 AM PDT by detch
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To: Tolik

“millions of Americans are going to begin feeling that they are caricatured pretty much as those once were in rural Pennsylvania”

Albiet a year too late- pisser ain’t it.


10 posted on 06/04/2009 9:24:21 AM PDT by PfromHoGro (Crude Oil - Mother Nature's B.M.)
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To: redpoll

excellent post - you put a vague feeling I’ve had for awhile into concrete words.

I’ve got 4 white boys I’m raising and I’m determined they should not feel guilty and ashamed just for being born.


11 posted on 06/04/2009 9:25:09 AM PDT by Scotswife
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To: Scotswife

12 posted on 06/04/2009 9:27:44 AM PDT by Sig Sauer P220 (The great object is that every man be armed. - Patrick Henry)
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To: Tolik
One would have thought with the presidency, or nomination to the Supreme Court, or with the office of Attorney General, or First Lady, such hurt feelings and old grievances might wane...

The problem is that "hurt feelings" and "old grievances" are merely an extension of the useless and destructive (indeed, demonic) emotion of "self-pity".

Self-pity cannot be satisfied or rectified. It can only be overcome by courage and self-responsibility for one's state in life.

That is why Michele, even as she is now FLOTUS, still harbors feelings of anger for her alma mater, her country, and those of other races. At the root of her personality and emotional relationship with life is that sour, negative, ugly little childish emotion of "why me?"

That's the very thing that Jeremiah Wright tapped into during those 20 years of "G-d D*mn America" and "let's get whitey." The reason, to state the obvious, that Obama and Michelle loved this church was that all this talk of victimhood fit them like a comfy old shoe.

This is what Obama and Michelle are leading America and the world to...this is their example! And this will be their legacy!

13 posted on 06/04/2009 9:36:15 AM PDT by SonOfDarkSkies (Obama: "Enough about me, let's talk about you...what do you think of me?")
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To: CitizenM
Good post citizen. Hanson again writes a thought-provoking and excellent piece.

My two cents (I hope doesn't sound too pointless) is that I've always had black friends (I'm white). My brother was never very happy about it, but other than him no one in my family cared because all of my friends were nice, intelligent, funny, and kind. I was brought up to judge a person by his qualities, good or bad, and befriend them accordingly.

Fast forward fifteen years. My brother married a half-black, half-German woman with a major racial chip on her shoulder. Why someone who is half white would hate whitey is nothing I can understand, but anyway, now my brother is spouting anti-whitey racial paranoia. He's accused my parents and me of being racist numerous times, although we've accepted this woman into our family lovingly and fully.

Whenever there is a minor family argument or difference of opinion, my brother and sister-in-law pull out the race card and turn it into a "you hate black people" shtick. My best friend in the world is black and has never pulled the race card...probably because she is mature, and successful and doesn't need a crutch or chip or card to make a point.

Sorry for ranting but my experience is that when someone pulls the race card you will never win with them, no matter what you try or try not to do. It is pointless.
14 posted on 06/04/2009 9:40:43 AM PDT by fleagle ( An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. -Winston Churchill)
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To: GeorgiaDawg32

It also means that if the First Lady is injecting herself into policy matters, then she becomes fair game for politicing.


15 posted on 06/04/2009 9:45:34 AM PDT by glorgau
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To: redpoll
The best thing you can do for your son is buy him an "assault rifle" and 1000 rds and make sure he knows how to use them. Good Luck and God Bless.

Μολὼν λάβε


16 posted on 06/04/2009 9:49:37 AM PDT by wastoute (translation of tag "Come and get them (bastards)" and the Scout Motto)
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To: Tolik

Is It Going to Be Race and Resentment — All the Time?

= = =

YES. What do you expect from them? It has served them well. Here is how he spent that big date in New York with Michelle.

http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/monday/news/ny-usobam3112824362may30,0,1159893.story

“The nation’s first black president was in town for a date night with his wife Saturday night that included a play about the sons and daughters of newly freed slaves.”


17 posted on 06/04/2009 9:51:23 AM PDT by Sparko
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To: fleagle
When you find yourself looking at "the race card" you are in the wrong place. Try to anticipate "those places" and stay the hell away. It there are "family" there, so much more.

Μολὼν λάβε


18 posted on 06/04/2009 9:52:08 AM PDT by wastoute (translation of tag "Come and get them (bastards)" and the Scout Motto)
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To: Tolik

My parents are Indian, and I went to Harvard. I did not feel “alienated”, and I don’t remember other Indians feeling that way either. Maybe that’s because we were academically qualified for the schools we attended and had real majors to keep us busy!


19 posted on 06/04/2009 9:53:00 AM PDT by reaganaut1
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To: redpoll

God help all our children.


20 posted on 06/04/2009 9:54:50 AM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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