I've often thought that a frank racial quota system would be far better than the present arrangement. More honest, certainly. Probably more fair, in that those filling the quotas would be the best from their respective pools, thereby preserving meritocracy.
A return to freedom of association would be welcome, too. Let those who prefer to live among their own do so. Why should blacks compete with white businesses?
As to the decay of black communities, I could be wrong, but was under the impression this was largely after Civil Rights, driven mostly by the welfare state destroying the black family. The same lumpenproletarianization is rampant within the white rural poor.
"That's racist" reminds me a bit of "So you don't love me anymore". Some people will engage in emotional manipulation where they take any criticism as a personal attack. Often just calling them out on their emotional manipulation will make them walk it back
Wokal Distance is correct. The purpose of the system is (or was) to hire qualified candidates. Hiring more Whites than Blacks is a side effect of that.
Which is a mistake. White civilization - and the fruit of the labors of generations of Whites - should be maintained by Whites and only Whites.
Why can't these 'superior' non-Whites manage to create their own advanced White-like civilizations in their own territories?
Even modern advanced China has built itself out of the largesse of the White ruling classes exploitation of their laboring classes (in order to hurt the White working class in White lands). Entire factories were dismantled in the West and shipped to China.
If you don't want 'welfare' for Whites, then *every* available position needs to be filled by a White person.
It does not matter how much 'talent' a non-White brings to a situation. What they will always bring is the problem of multiracialism.
It would be quite nice in 2024 if there could be a further development on an alternative view on how to solve the problem of competency crisis in lieu of deeply-ingrained group differences. As far as I see it, I am only able to come up with five options:
1. Chad Yes! and hope for the best. (unrealistic and not the greatest)
2. Go along with the Woke. (not doing that)
3. Liberal solutions like the civil rights act and welfare state are in fact what prevents success. Repeal them and restore freedom of association. (not easily believable.)
4. A form of stoic racial complementarianism wherein particular non-critical institutions are put under a form of racial protectionism, while critical institutions are made meritorious. (requires a lot of decisive action that I am not sure we are getting anytime soon.)
5. Racial separation. (basically the same as Chad Yes!)
I feel that dealing with this situation is extremely tough because it is so deeply connected to other phenomenon and values. Any usage of power to generally solve this problem or move into a better place feels like it requires us to carefully thread the needle.
I'm not sure that the actual solution is that different from what Wokal et al would advocate, ie some rollback of the CRA, perhaps not a full repeal but...you know how laws and even constitutional amendments can become dead letter, like the 10th amendment.
Because while I think Dave did an excellent job of laying out how Wokal's position is incoherent, I don't really buy his political analysis of why this is a pressing issue where action must be taken. Mostly because I'm not sure that African-Americans would revolt over a rollback of CRA because, frankly, I think the interests of the average inner-city black and Ibrahim Kendi are not the same, not even similar. If we go with a partial solution #3, rollback the CRA but not welfare state...I'm sure plenty of PMC minorities with affirmative action backgrounds will be deeply upset but I'm not sure the average African-American would be deeply troubled.
The article this brought to mind is the Last Psychiatrist's "The Terrible, Awful Truth About Supplemental Security Income" (1), let me quote:
"Do you want riots in the streets? How much does it cost to prevent LA (or the city of your choice) from catching fire? Answer: $600/month/person, plus Medicaid."
The thing that struck me in that article is how...different the people on SSI are from Claudine Gay and Ibrahim Kendi and a host of other people whose jobs are...less dependent on their personal merit than political considerations. Does the guy on $600/month plus Prozac care about Claudine Gay? Does he even know she exists? If not, as long as the welfare state keeps rolling, if Wokal et al get their way and convince Harvard et al to go back to de jure meritocracy and de facto racial segregation...if the elite don't care and the majority of African-Americans don't care, then who does care?
I don't want to say this is costless, you are committing to the perpetuating the welfare state to some degree but...would even an ideal king be able to make every change you want? If not, you probably can't end the CRA and end welfare, you've got to offer people something. Which one is more important or is there a third path?
The main group that is disadvantaged is the current lot of black elites.
It is hard to estimate the power of the black elite over the general black population in the US. There is probably a lot of great reasons for the general black population to hate the black elite seeing as they seem to benefit the most whenever something bad and black appears in the news. At the same time, there seems to be a form of in-group racial preference among them that has them go along with what black elites want because they are black.
I would probably say that a new loyal black elite would probably help solve a lot of problems much more so than the current lot.
On the matter of paying the Danegeld, that is not a solution for dealing with the Dane. It is a bad deal. I argue that it would be less costly to do anything else no matter how ridiculous it sounds.
In the short term, paying the Danegeld absolutely works. Alfred the Great specifically did it near the start of his reign to buy ~5 years to reform the Wessex military to the point where it could consistently beat raiders and compete against large Norse/Danish/Viking armies.
Not everything can be a priority. In Alfred's time, the priority was reforming the English army. In our time, is the priority reversing the CRA or is ending the welfare state? Because, A, we probably can't do both and, B, there's actually a 20-page reactionary wishlist of other priorities and we definitely can't do a CRA rollback and an end to the welfare state and everything else. So, which one is the priority? If you or Dave had to pick one, which one?
But, long-term...what exactly are you planning on offering African-Americans and minorities more generally? I mean, take Dave's point seriously...without radical and/or revolutionary change, returning to Wokal's meritocracy means de facto reducing African-Americans to an underclass and you're also going to remove social services and financial aid they depend on. Sounds like a bad deal for them. Dave says politics is collective, cool, what does a new regime offer the African-American voting block? Nothing? Actually, worse than nothing, an actively worse deal across the board. If you think that Wokal's solution is unsustainable because African-Americans will never accept it, how they heck do you think they're going to react to this?
I don't want to pursue this too far, because I feel like I'm putting a lot of words in Wokal's mouth, but if political priority #1 is regaining control of elite institutions through rolling back the CRA and political priority #2 is controlling immigration so it doesn't shift demographics further...we're probably going to need to pay a lot of Danegelds to a lot of different actors until those objectives are accomplished and we should be happy to pay them if we get the chance.
I dont particularly disagree that buying time to build up a real solution is bad. I don’t really consider buying time to be Danegeld, but rather the belief that problems will go away if we keep paying people money.
In regards to a positive vision of a new regime considering blacks in America, I feel that some ‘racial protectionism’ of the sacred could be offered as an alternative to Civil Rights. My view on this is not complete and I am still considering it and the potential implications. What I would have as a real example would be something like how Kosher Wine works wherein it requires rabbi’s to oversee it and label it as Kosher.
I would consider the Aunt Jemima situation in regards to the benefit. This was a product that was genuinely a beloved cultural item that was common to blacks in America that was destroyed and rebranded instead of protected. I feel that most non-elite blacks in the United States are concerned with real community building and could see the current crop of elite blacks as continuously selling them out, but feeling stuck with them as no viable alternative or counter-elite exists.
"Nothing? Actually, worse than nothing, an actively worse deal across the board"
This idea that a proper role of the state is to redistribute resources to persons or groups is fundamentally illegitimate. People and groups will always demand more.
Black elite hold a lot of sway. Plenty of white hate Joe Biden. Very few blacks hate Obama. It is a smaller pool of people and a more homogenous culture. A revolution from below there seems inconceivable.
Blacks are culturally (and perhaps genetically) accustomed to the Big Man mode of governance: in Africa, the Big Man drives his gold-plated Mercedes through squalid slums to his palatial mansion, and everyone just gets along with their lives. It's not that different in America: Al Sharpton flashes his Rolex and tells everyone who to vote for, then they bus them to the polls.
The Negro Street hates the Talented Tenth. There's no love or loyalty between them. The only thing that holds them together is fear of whitey. Take Whites out of the picture and it's Rawanda all over again.
Regarding your point about the average inner city black and Ibrahim Kendi, it's little understood just how much the negro 'street' hates the Talented Tenth. It's why people like Kendi don't live in 'da hood' or even close to it. Kendi is just as much parasite on Whiteness as your common street negro. He just goes about it differently.
The 'third path' is White Nationalism creating a deterrent to continued abuse of the White race. Most liberals are only 'liberal' because (a) it makes them feel good and (b) they are rewarded by the regime for being race traitors. When offered to *stop* being a race traitor and being rewarded for it, most of them will be happy to 'feel good' about being White rather than take their chances with increasingly hostile non-Whites around whom they live.
Once Whites have an alternative to being abused and hated for being White, I believe they'll take it.
Which is why the only politics that is really opposed in the West is any for of White identity politics.
Wooly, the SSI article was hilarious, and I think you’re understanding of how the world works is correct. Incremental change is all we can hope for and out of general common sense ignore the academics.
I am not saying this in a super childish insulting way but are you suggesting we basically Brave New World the black underclass to keep them in line after the CRA is removed? I guess that would work, keep them too busy with drugs and gibs to care about any of it.
I don't see how jobs programs and geographic and industry set-asides are Brave New World, but it has been a while since I have read that book. I think we need to eradicate drugs from that community as step one of this program
I was mainly referring to this bit that the commentor i was replying to said, The drug in reference being the prozac and the gibs being the 600$
"Do you want riots in the streets? How much does it cost to prevent LA (or the city of your choice) from catching fire? Answer: $600/month/person, plus Medicaid."
The thing that struck me in that article is how...different the people on SSI are from Claudine Gay and Ibrahim Kendi and a host of other people whose jobs are...less dependent on their personal merit than political considerations. Does the guy on $600/month plus Prozac care about Claudine Gay? Does he even know she exists? If not, as long as the welfare state keeps rolling, if Wokal et al get their way and convince Harvard et al to go back to de jure meritocracy and de facto racial segregation...if the elite don't care and the majority of African-Americans don't care, then who does care?"
I don't think anything in your main article hinted at that.
There's an African American underclass, and to be fair there's other racial underclasses as well, see Hillbilly Elegy, that is just soooo messed up that there's no realistic way to "fix" them because, well, sorry kid, you were born kinda dumb to a single mother with a dumpster truck of issues in the middle of poverty and violence and you're the 3rd or 4th generation stuck in this trap. And that's a genuinely horrific situation and it's incredibly difficult to solve and the liberals and neoliberals and leftists have no real solution and they've just band-aided the situation through, um, welfare and prescription drugs. And I can't fault this because I genuinely don't have a better solution.
Now that wasn't the original point, my original point was that there's basically an African American underclass and an African American working class and an African American PMC class and while Dave does make a decent argument that the African American PMC class will revolt over Wokal's move back towards meritocracy, since it would eliminate most of them, I don't think the African American working class or African American underclass would really care. Honestly, the PMC's economic and cultural interests are so diverged from those of the working class and underclass that they're probably closer to enemies than allies.
The corollary to that is, if you return to meritocracy, you can't stop the current welfare bandaids to the underclass. And lots of people don't like the welfare state in general and "Danegelds" in particular.
Me, I buy current SSI as being de facto Brave New Worlding the underclass: giving them just enough money and prescription drugs to keep from rioting. And I think it's coherent to say that fixing this problem is important and the underclass deserves better than what they're being provided now but...yo, we got bigger problems right now and those demand our attention so, until we actually have the power and peace to help the underclass, we should leave these bandaids on.
I think that is a very defensible standpoint. We could probably do a much better job with the current system without putting any real effort into it because it's so badly done and i would say at times purposefully destructive which is against the purpose of maintaining stability in that group (such as the rules that purposefully encourage singe motherhood). There is quite a bit of negative stuff that leaks out of there and into the rest of the world. I live nearish to Miami and criminals will come out of those communities and travel like 100+ miles on 95 to try to commit crimes in other counties and towns for instance. On the edge of Martin County there is a big sign that says "No bail for traveling criminals". That being said overall I have to agree its a later problem, a very serious one, but not one that needs solved in the first order.
I think the DR should focus on your numbers 2 and 3 -- deep cultural trends and behaviors. I dont think the dysfunction of black communities is fundamentally a result of slavery, but of Marcuse (his student angela davis), and teaching colleges “proletarianizing” the ghetto populations through education, media, politics etc in the 60s and beyond.
We should be frank about our moral standards. Just like the woke move heaven and earth to get violent carjackers out of jail, so should the right to help people who stay married and don’t do drugs. Paternalistic moralism is in vogue right now, so we shouldn’t be ashamed to preach traditional Christian morality up to and including abstinence till marriage.
Tangentially, all this focus on black communities in the DR is misplaced IMO. White communities are in the process of being “proletarianized” in much the same way black ones were in the 60s. No group can weather the storm of broken families and drug use that has ravaged black America for decades, and it is already on a steep incline in white areas -- just fentanyl instead of heroin and crack.
Very interesting essay. Very insightful observations.
I would, however, like to focus on this statement:
“No one is asking earnestly, “What does this all accomplish?”
I’ve been asking this question for years, increasingly fervently in the last decade. My question involves a more macro perspective though. My postulation involves “our democracy”; the one Biden’s handlers have instructed him to promise to save.
It goes like this.
Every 4 years, we undergo a national crisis, which culminates in approximately 1/3 of the country rejoicing, another 1/3 tearing their hair and promising to move to Canada, and the final 1/3 perpetually too baked or drunk or just plain stupid to care what’s going on.
Additionally, the victorious 1/3 immediately embarks on programs specifically crafted to make the vanquished 1/3 as miserable as possible. Attacking and abolishing everything they hold sacred, replacing it with everything they find profane.
That is 21st century Democracy as practiced in the USA. It doesn’t matter what we wanted it to be, or what we hoped it would be; it is what it is and it’s not going to get better; only worse.
My question then, is, Why would any sane population sign up for that?
This whole thing conversation was very timely. Had my brother-in-law over this weekend who is a classical liberal. Putting aside our two other major points of disagreement (1-things aren’t as bad as everyone thinks, 2-there’s going to be a spontaneous return to sanity), this was why we were talking past each other.
Amazing read, for too many the "civil rights" is religion that should never be question.
The problem with centrist bros is that they are unable to address the grand paradox of the post-civil-rights, the very paradox that had given rise to woke. That if all men are truly equal, why under the same laws and opportunities there are still disparities.
All parts of the world have ethnic conflicts and they can always go one of two ways:
1. Either these groups intermarry and their cultures fusion into something new. Some examples would be the mix between the Magyar and the Cumans that created Hungary or the mix between Spanish and Indian that can be seen in Latin America.
2. The groups develop friction between them that escalates into hatred and violence. Almost all countries have a local example, but some remarkable ones have come out of Yugoslavia. The real challenge is to name countries where two ethnic groups have remained separate and do not hate each other. Maybe Switzerland?
So, I think that in the US racial tensions will not go away until there is some good old mestizaje (unlikely) or until each ethnic group gets their own ethnostate (very messy and potentially violent).
Canada is like Switzerland. We anglophone don’t hate the froggy’s, but the Froggy’s are elsewhere, oblivious, they don’t care about us, the rest of Canada. Their culture will be subsumed.
Under colorblindness, very few blacks would graduate from the top league of American universities, but the number of blacks graduating from any of the lower leagues would actually increase. Black professionals would not disappear.
Wonderfully expounded upon and considerately written essay. This is a profound subject that needs more attention. In the US we have our heritage as well. Although a nation created for equality through individual independence. Contemporary immigrant values must take this in to consideration. America isn't just a country where you can just set-up shop, creat your own town and defend your birthcountry's heritage by claiming racism for behaving that way in America. Everyone has their roots. But when in Rome...
Anyone with kids or employees can attest that "The Purpose of a System Is What It Does" is deeply untrue. The system is socks go into the sock basket, get washed, go into another basket to be put away, and are put away. Reality is the sock, one sock not two, is inside-out lying under some leaves in the backyard. The purpose of the system isn't to put socks under the leaves. Why is the sock there?The system isn't doing what I want it to do.
Any system run by flawed people will sometimes produced bad results.
At least, it's deeply untrue if you try to universally apply it. Applied to politics though, it might have some merit. Applied to Civil Rights Law, it certainly has merit.
Is nature a system? The economy? Unless a system is defined and bounded, all we're doing here is saying bad outcomes are a product of "the system." That's not actionable, it's punching in the dark, like blaming systemic racism for disparate outcomes among racial demographic group. The analogy is useful, but the utility of POSIWID to deliver any meaningful insight decreases the broader and more amorphous the system.
Why should we deescalate anything if justice is not done and the condition is to give up claims to that which is rightly ours, to that which has been stolen from us, not even by these groups but by interlopers enabling them? I can not in good conscience stand by anything that would justify the tactics that have been used against us by allowing them any amount of 'success'.
I am more than sympathetic to these groups and am willing to do much to help them live elsewhere, but no amount of integration inspired by this program of cultural poison should be tolerated. It must be rendered a complete historic failure else we put the future at risk of thinking anything good of these methods or motives, and making the same mistakes again.
To whatever degree we do compromise on the practical level, the requirement of totally discrediting our enemies and their entire edifice of belief and the consequences thereof should be non-negotiable.
I've often thought that a frank racial quota system would be far better than the present arrangement. More honest, certainly. Probably more fair, in that those filling the quotas would be the best from their respective pools, thereby preserving meritocracy.
A return to freedom of association would be welcome, too. Let those who prefer to live among their own do so. Why should blacks compete with white businesses?
As to the decay of black communities, I could be wrong, but was under the impression this was largely after Civil Rights, driven mostly by the welfare state destroying the black family. The same lumpenproletarianization is rampant within the white rural poor.
"That's racist" reminds me a bit of "So you don't love me anymore". Some people will engage in emotional manipulation where they take any criticism as a personal attack. Often just calling them out on their emotional manipulation will make them walk it back
The Purpose of a system is what it does. What this system does is victimize Westernkind. It implements the immoral "antiwhite moral imperative".
Wokal Distance is correct. The purpose of the system is (or was) to hire qualified candidates. Hiring more Whites than Blacks is a side effect of that.
Indeed. If the purpose was to hire more whites, then subcons, Han, and Ashks would not do as well as they do.
Which is a mistake. White civilization - and the fruit of the labors of generations of Whites - should be maintained by Whites and only Whites.
Why can't these 'superior' non-Whites manage to create their own advanced White-like civilizations in their own territories?
Even modern advanced China has built itself out of the largesse of the White ruling classes exploitation of their laboring classes (in order to hurt the White working class in White lands). Entire factories were dismantled in the West and shipped to China.
If you don't want 'welfare' for Whites, then *every* available position needs to be filled by a White person.
It does not matter how much 'talent' a non-White brings to a situation. What they will always bring is the problem of multiracialism.
It would be quite nice in 2024 if there could be a further development on an alternative view on how to solve the problem of competency crisis in lieu of deeply-ingrained group differences. As far as I see it, I am only able to come up with five options:
1. Chad Yes! and hope for the best. (unrealistic and not the greatest)
2. Go along with the Woke. (not doing that)
3. Liberal solutions like the civil rights act and welfare state are in fact what prevents success. Repeal them and restore freedom of association. (not easily believable.)
4. A form of stoic racial complementarianism wherein particular non-critical institutions are put under a form of racial protectionism, while critical institutions are made meritorious. (requires a lot of decisive action that I am not sure we are getting anytime soon.)
5. Racial separation. (basically the same as Chad Yes!)
I feel that dealing with this situation is extremely tough because it is so deeply connected to other phenomenon and values. Any usage of power to generally solve this problem or move into a better place feels like it requires us to carefully thread the needle.
I'm not sure that the actual solution is that different from what Wokal et al would advocate, ie some rollback of the CRA, perhaps not a full repeal but...you know how laws and even constitutional amendments can become dead letter, like the 10th amendment.
Because while I think Dave did an excellent job of laying out how Wokal's position is incoherent, I don't really buy his political analysis of why this is a pressing issue where action must be taken. Mostly because I'm not sure that African-Americans would revolt over a rollback of CRA because, frankly, I think the interests of the average inner-city black and Ibrahim Kendi are not the same, not even similar. If we go with a partial solution #3, rollback the CRA but not welfare state...I'm sure plenty of PMC minorities with affirmative action backgrounds will be deeply upset but I'm not sure the average African-American would be deeply troubled.
The article this brought to mind is the Last Psychiatrist's "The Terrible, Awful Truth About Supplemental Security Income" (1), let me quote:
"Do you want riots in the streets? How much does it cost to prevent LA (or the city of your choice) from catching fire? Answer: $600/month/person, plus Medicaid."
The thing that struck me in that article is how...different the people on SSI are from Claudine Gay and Ibrahim Kendi and a host of other people whose jobs are...less dependent on their personal merit than political considerations. Does the guy on $600/month plus Prozac care about Claudine Gay? Does he even know she exists? If not, as long as the welfare state keeps rolling, if Wokal et al get their way and convince Harvard et al to go back to de jure meritocracy and de facto racial segregation...if the elite don't care and the majority of African-Americans don't care, then who does care?
I don't want to say this is costless, you are committing to the perpetuating the welfare state to some degree but...would even an ideal king be able to make every change you want? If not, you probably can't end the CRA and end welfare, you've got to offer people something. Which one is more important or is there a third path?
(1) https://web.archive.org/web/20140411002758/http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/11/the_terrible_awful_truth_about_1.html
The main group that is disadvantaged is the current lot of black elites.
It is hard to estimate the power of the black elite over the general black population in the US. There is probably a lot of great reasons for the general black population to hate the black elite seeing as they seem to benefit the most whenever something bad and black appears in the news. At the same time, there seems to be a form of in-group racial preference among them that has them go along with what black elites want because they are black.
I would probably say that a new loyal black elite would probably help solve a lot of problems much more so than the current lot.
On the matter of paying the Danegeld, that is not a solution for dealing with the Dane. It is a bad deal. I argue that it would be less costly to do anything else no matter how ridiculous it sounds.
In the short term, paying the Danegeld absolutely works. Alfred the Great specifically did it near the start of his reign to buy ~5 years to reform the Wessex military to the point where it could consistently beat raiders and compete against large Norse/Danish/Viking armies.
Not everything can be a priority. In Alfred's time, the priority was reforming the English army. In our time, is the priority reversing the CRA or is ending the welfare state? Because, A, we probably can't do both and, B, there's actually a 20-page reactionary wishlist of other priorities and we definitely can't do a CRA rollback and an end to the welfare state and everything else. So, which one is the priority? If you or Dave had to pick one, which one?
But, long-term...what exactly are you planning on offering African-Americans and minorities more generally? I mean, take Dave's point seriously...without radical and/or revolutionary change, returning to Wokal's meritocracy means de facto reducing African-Americans to an underclass and you're also going to remove social services and financial aid they depend on. Sounds like a bad deal for them. Dave says politics is collective, cool, what does a new regime offer the African-American voting block? Nothing? Actually, worse than nothing, an actively worse deal across the board. If you think that Wokal's solution is unsustainable because African-Americans will never accept it, how they heck do you think they're going to react to this?
I don't want to pursue this too far, because I feel like I'm putting a lot of words in Wokal's mouth, but if political priority #1 is regaining control of elite institutions through rolling back the CRA and political priority #2 is controlling immigration so it doesn't shift demographics further...we're probably going to need to pay a lot of Danegelds to a lot of different actors until those objectives are accomplished and we should be happy to pay them if we get the chance.
I dont particularly disagree that buying time to build up a real solution is bad. I don’t really consider buying time to be Danegeld, but rather the belief that problems will go away if we keep paying people money.
In regards to a positive vision of a new regime considering blacks in America, I feel that some ‘racial protectionism’ of the sacred could be offered as an alternative to Civil Rights. My view on this is not complete and I am still considering it and the potential implications. What I would have as a real example would be something like how Kosher Wine works wherein it requires rabbi’s to oversee it and label it as Kosher.
I would consider the Aunt Jemima situation in regards to the benefit. This was a product that was genuinely a beloved cultural item that was common to blacks in America that was destroyed and rebranded instead of protected. I feel that most non-elite blacks in the United States are concerned with real community building and could see the current crop of elite blacks as continuously selling them out, but feeling stuck with them as no viable alternative or counter-elite exists.
A lot of this requires a lot more thought.
"Nothing? Actually, worse than nothing, an actively worse deal across the board"
This idea that a proper role of the state is to redistribute resources to persons or groups is fundamentally illegitimate. People and groups will always demand more.
Black elite hold a lot of sway. Plenty of white hate Joe Biden. Very few blacks hate Obama. It is a smaller pool of people and a more homogenous culture. A revolution from below there seems inconceivable.
Blacks are culturally (and perhaps genetically) accustomed to the Big Man mode of governance: in Africa, the Big Man drives his gold-plated Mercedes through squalid slums to his palatial mansion, and everyone just gets along with their lives. It's not that different in America: Al Sharpton flashes his Rolex and tells everyone who to vote for, then they bus them to the polls.
The Negro Street hates the Talented Tenth. There's no love or loyalty between them. The only thing that holds them together is fear of whitey. Take Whites out of the picture and it's Rawanda all over again.
Regarding your point about the average inner city black and Ibrahim Kendi, it's little understood just how much the negro 'street' hates the Talented Tenth. It's why people like Kendi don't live in 'da hood' or even close to it. Kendi is just as much parasite on Whiteness as your common street negro. He just goes about it differently.
The 'third path' is White Nationalism creating a deterrent to continued abuse of the White race. Most liberals are only 'liberal' because (a) it makes them feel good and (b) they are rewarded by the regime for being race traitors. When offered to *stop* being a race traitor and being rewarded for it, most of them will be happy to 'feel good' about being White rather than take their chances with increasingly hostile non-Whites around whom they live.
Once Whites have an alternative to being abused and hated for being White, I believe they'll take it.
Which is why the only politics that is really opposed in the West is any for of White identity politics.
Wooly, the SSI article was hilarious, and I think you’re understanding of how the world works is correct. Incremental change is all we can hope for and out of general common sense ignore the academics.
I am not saying this in a super childish insulting way but are you suggesting we basically Brave New World the black underclass to keep them in line after the CRA is removed? I guess that would work, keep them too busy with drugs and gibs to care about any of it.
I don't see how jobs programs and geographic and industry set-asides are Brave New World, but it has been a while since I have read that book. I think we need to eradicate drugs from that community as step one of this program
I was mainly referring to this bit that the commentor i was replying to said, The drug in reference being the prozac and the gibs being the 600$
"Do you want riots in the streets? How much does it cost to prevent LA (or the city of your choice) from catching fire? Answer: $600/month/person, plus Medicaid."
The thing that struck me in that article is how...different the people on SSI are from Claudine Gay and Ibrahim Kendi and a host of other people whose jobs are...less dependent on their personal merit than political considerations. Does the guy on $600/month plus Prozac care about Claudine Gay? Does he even know she exists? If not, as long as the welfare state keeps rolling, if Wokal et al get their way and convince Harvard et al to go back to de jure meritocracy and de facto racial segregation...if the elite don't care and the majority of African-Americans don't care, then who does care?"
I don't think anything in your main article hinted at that.
Kinda. Actually yeah, and we currently do.
There's an African American underclass, and to be fair there's other racial underclasses as well, see Hillbilly Elegy, that is just soooo messed up that there's no realistic way to "fix" them because, well, sorry kid, you were born kinda dumb to a single mother with a dumpster truck of issues in the middle of poverty and violence and you're the 3rd or 4th generation stuck in this trap. And that's a genuinely horrific situation and it's incredibly difficult to solve and the liberals and neoliberals and leftists have no real solution and they've just band-aided the situation through, um, welfare and prescription drugs. And I can't fault this because I genuinely don't have a better solution.
Now that wasn't the original point, my original point was that there's basically an African American underclass and an African American working class and an African American PMC class and while Dave does make a decent argument that the African American PMC class will revolt over Wokal's move back towards meritocracy, since it would eliminate most of them, I don't think the African American working class or African American underclass would really care. Honestly, the PMC's economic and cultural interests are so diverged from those of the working class and underclass that they're probably closer to enemies than allies.
The corollary to that is, if you return to meritocracy, you can't stop the current welfare bandaids to the underclass. And lots of people don't like the welfare state in general and "Danegelds" in particular.
Me, I buy current SSI as being de facto Brave New Worlding the underclass: giving them just enough money and prescription drugs to keep from rioting. And I think it's coherent to say that fixing this problem is important and the underclass deserves better than what they're being provided now but...yo, we got bigger problems right now and those demand our attention so, until we actually have the power and peace to help the underclass, we should leave these bandaids on.
I think that is a very defensible standpoint. We could probably do a much better job with the current system without putting any real effort into it because it's so badly done and i would say at times purposefully destructive which is against the purpose of maintaining stability in that group (such as the rules that purposefully encourage singe motherhood). There is quite a bit of negative stuff that leaks out of there and into the rest of the world. I live nearish to Miami and criminals will come out of those communities and travel like 100+ miles on 95 to try to commit crimes in other counties and towns for instance. On the edge of Martin County there is a big sign that says "No bail for traveling criminals". That being said overall I have to agree its a later problem, a very serious one, but not one that needs solved in the first order.
The purpose of politics is to hide what it does.
I think the DR should focus on your numbers 2 and 3 -- deep cultural trends and behaviors. I dont think the dysfunction of black communities is fundamentally a result of slavery, but of Marcuse (his student angela davis), and teaching colleges “proletarianizing” the ghetto populations through education, media, politics etc in the 60s and beyond.
We should be frank about our moral standards. Just like the woke move heaven and earth to get violent carjackers out of jail, so should the right to help people who stay married and don’t do drugs. Paternalistic moralism is in vogue right now, so we shouldn’t be ashamed to preach traditional Christian morality up to and including abstinence till marriage.
Tangentially, all this focus on black communities in the DR is misplaced IMO. White communities are in the process of being “proletarianized” in much the same way black ones were in the 60s. No group can weather the storm of broken families and drug use that has ravaged black America for decades, and it is already on a steep incline in white areas -- just fentanyl instead of heroin and crack.
Very interesting essay. Very insightful observations.
I would, however, like to focus on this statement:
“No one is asking earnestly, “What does this all accomplish?”
I’ve been asking this question for years, increasingly fervently in the last decade. My question involves a more macro perspective though. My postulation involves “our democracy”; the one Biden’s handlers have instructed him to promise to save.
It goes like this.
Every 4 years, we undergo a national crisis, which culminates in approximately 1/3 of the country rejoicing, another 1/3 tearing their hair and promising to move to Canada, and the final 1/3 perpetually too baked or drunk or just plain stupid to care what’s going on.
Additionally, the victorious 1/3 immediately embarks on programs specifically crafted to make the vanquished 1/3 as miserable as possible. Attacking and abolishing everything they hold sacred, replacing it with everything they find profane.
That is 21st century Democracy as practiced in the USA. It doesn’t matter what we wanted it to be, or what we hoped it would be; it is what it is and it’s not going to get better; only worse.
My question then, is, Why would any sane population sign up for that?
This whole thing conversation was very timely. Had my brother-in-law over this weekend who is a classical liberal. Putting aside our two other major points of disagreement (1-things aren’t as bad as everyone thinks, 2-there’s going to be a spontaneous return to sanity), this was why we were talking past each other.
Amazing read, for too many the "civil rights" is religion that should never be question.
The problem with centrist bros is that they are unable to address the grand paradox of the post-civil-rights, the very paradox that had given rise to woke. That if all men are truly equal, why under the same laws and opportunities there are still disparities.
All parts of the world have ethnic conflicts and they can always go one of two ways:
1. Either these groups intermarry and their cultures fusion into something new. Some examples would be the mix between the Magyar and the Cumans that created Hungary or the mix between Spanish and Indian that can be seen in Latin America.
2. The groups develop friction between them that escalates into hatred and violence. Almost all countries have a local example, but some remarkable ones have come out of Yugoslavia. The real challenge is to name countries where two ethnic groups have remained separate and do not hate each other. Maybe Switzerland?
So, I think that in the US racial tensions will not go away until there is some good old mestizaje (unlikely) or until each ethnic group gets their own ethnostate (very messy and potentially violent).
Canada is like Switzerland. We anglophone don’t hate the froggy’s, but the Froggy’s are elsewhere, oblivious, they don’t care about us, the rest of Canada. Their culture will be subsumed.
Under colorblindness, very few blacks would graduate from the top league of American universities, but the number of blacks graduating from any of the lower leagues would actually increase. Black professionals would not disappear.
Wonderfully expounded upon and considerately written essay. This is a profound subject that needs more attention. In the US we have our heritage as well. Although a nation created for equality through individual independence. Contemporary immigrant values must take this in to consideration. America isn't just a country where you can just set-up shop, creat your own town and defend your birthcountry's heritage by claiming racism for behaving that way in America. Everyone has their roots. But when in Rome...
Anyone with kids or employees can attest that "The Purpose of a System Is What It Does" is deeply untrue. The system is socks go into the sock basket, get washed, go into another basket to be put away, and are put away. Reality is the sock, one sock not two, is inside-out lying under some leaves in the backyard. The purpose of the system isn't to put socks under the leaves. Why is the sock there?The system isn't doing what I want it to do.
Any system run by flawed people will sometimes produced bad results.
At least, it's deeply untrue if you try to universally apply it. Applied to politics though, it might have some merit. Applied to Civil Rights Law, it certainly has merit.
Is nature a system? The economy? Unless a system is defined and bounded, all we're doing here is saying bad outcomes are a product of "the system." That's not actionable, it's punching in the dark, like blaming systemic racism for disparate outcomes among racial demographic group. The analogy is useful, but the utility of POSIWID to deliver any meaningful insight decreases the broader and more amorphous the system.
Why should we deescalate anything if justice is not done and the condition is to give up claims to that which is rightly ours, to that which has been stolen from us, not even by these groups but by interlopers enabling them? I can not in good conscience stand by anything that would justify the tactics that have been used against us by allowing them any amount of 'success'.
I am more than sympathetic to these groups and am willing to do much to help them live elsewhere, but no amount of integration inspired by this program of cultural poison should be tolerated. It must be rendered a complete historic failure else we put the future at risk of thinking anything good of these methods or motives, and making the same mistakes again.
To whatever degree we do compromise on the practical level, the requirement of totally discrediting our enemies and their entire edifice of belief and the consequences thereof should be non-negotiable.