MLK III

[songofapollo]

More MLK Day thoughts.

Liberals have a monopoly on race because they are the only ones who seem to care about racism.

Conservatives, libertarians, Objectivists -- they all have sound arguments against some forms of affirmative action, race-based quotas, and identity politics. But they don't give any indication that they really care about racism.

Comments

[philautos]

Ever read Justice Thomas on this subject?

[songofapollo]

I've read his decisions, and he does have power in his pen. This made me also think of Larry Elder, Thomas Sowell (who I don't like anymore), Shelby Steele, Ward Connerly, and others.

They are all resonant non-leftist voices, but...they're all black. So I guess I was saying that white conservatives, libertarians, et al are not in the fight when it comes to racism in America.

[idomeneus]

I'm not sure your argument that this is racism is sound. If it were racism, the key factor ought to be the race of the individual, not whether they were born outside the United States. Do you have evidence that Republicans like or dislike Americans based on their race? And I realize the concept of race is a bit nebulous, but it doesn't seem like the Irish or Italians are really members of a different race than other Europeans, so it's hard to argue that's racism. It seems like xenophobia describes all of these phenomena perfectly, while racism doesn't quite fit.

[shannon_f_r]

t seems like xenophobia describes all of these phenomena perfectly, while racism doesn't quite fit.Anthropologically speaking, we always discriminate against the other guys. The earliest names that humans seemed to have for other groups of humans always meant anywhere from the slightly derogatory to the downright pejorative. There were strong evolutionary pressures to favor members of your group over members of another. I'd suspect that racism originates in xenophobia (not the other way around) and is in fact a brand of xenophobia, more pervasive only because it's very easy to identify someone as belonging to the other group if his skin is a couple of shades lighter or darker than yours

[songofapollo]

Although today we don't think of Irish or Italians as different races (white is white), in the times of their respective immigration waves, they were indeed thought of as very distinctly different races, from the WASP perspective (white was not white).

[radiantsun]

At some point in US history the Irish were treated worse than slaves, because slaves cost money, Irish were free, so there was no cost to letting them die.

I am in favor of reformed immigration laws making it easier to come here legally, I am not in favor of granting amnesty to people who have come here illegaly.