What Would John McWhorter Say?

Published on by D. G. Hart

For one, he might say that this afternoon’s conversation about race, sponsored by the Gospel Coalition, is not really necessary:

Despite frequent claims that America “doesn’t want to talk about race,” we talk about it 24/7 amidst ringing declamations against racism on all forms. Over the past year’s time, I need only mention Trayvon Martin, Paula Deen, Cliven Bundy, and Donald Sterling. Over the past few years, three of the best-selling and most-discussed nonfiction books have been Isabel Wilkerson’s chronicle of the Great Migration, The Warmth of Other Suns, Rebecca Skloot’s book about the harvesting of a black woman’s cancer cells (The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks), and Michelle Alexander’s invaluable The New Jim Crow. And let’s not forget recent major release films such as The Help, 12 Years a Slave, and The Butler.

Can we really say that these are signs of a nation in denial about race, racism, and its history? . . .

In exactly what fashion could 317 million people “reckon” or come to certain eternally elusive “terms” with racism? Especially in a way that would satisfy people who see even America’s current atonements as insufficient?

The haziness here recalls doctrine more than proposal. The reality is something less proactive than reactive, not an initiative but a condition—a matter of identity. Four-hundred years of slavery and Jim Crow left us unwhole, and unfortunately susceptible to a baseline sense of existential grievance as a keystone of being black.

The only question is why things would not have come out this way. But, because we are faced with a matter of identity, a sense of self, we have to ask: would the “coming to terms,” once it had happened, be enough?

Imagine: “Okay. The acknowledgment has been expressed. I accept it, and now, finally we can move on.”

I just can’t see it. More likely would be “They better not think they can just say sorry and be done with it.” One imagines the tweets: “400 years and it’s all over with a Conversation? #ItsNotOver.”

So perhaps the real conversation should be about policies about which the Gospel allies have little to say (unless they are moonlighting as think-tank wonks after exegeting Habakkuk by daylight):

The War on Drugs must end, since with its demise, acrimonious and often lethal interactions between the police and young black men would cease as a foundational experience of being black. In schools, few are aware of how magical the effect would be of reading programs that actually work for poor kids, as I have written about here. We must utilize the reality of Obamacare to bring black America into a new relationship with the health-care system. Efforts to coach poor black parents on child care, having results in programs such as the Harlem Children’s Zone, should be taken to scale.

All of those things can happen—and in fact, are happening . . .

McWhorter might also remind Jemar Tisby when he brings up the subject of the microagressions of racism that today’s slights are of a different order from what Civil Rights advocates experienced:

To be a concerned black person, many have internalized, requires harboring a feeling that something large-scale is just out of our reach; that we exist as a people eternally unfulfilled; that a shoe has yet to drop. Our identities, so battered by 350 years of brutality and dismissal, feel incomplete. We seek a true sense of nobility, and we find it in the ironically comforting status of the underdog.

Make no mistake—we must protest where it is called for. I reject the “black bourgeoisie” argument that we must quietly wait things out while keeping our chinny-chins up. But today it’s increasingly difficult to characterize black America’s problems as a matter of a single problem or cause, in the way that desegregation was. The efforts that today’s problems require can’t create an identity as easily. One seeks something larger, something that, crucially for us with our history, heals. Hence the idea of something as large-scale as an ever-elusive, overarching conversation America somehow “never” has. The concept has an operatic sense of catharsis in it. It’s even true that some Americans think race plays less of a role in black people’s fate than it does. None of this, however, belies the fact that what is being proposed is a kind of stage-managing of social change that no human group has ever sought—and which, I submit, black America needn’t seek, either.

I suspect that civil rights leaders before, roughly, 1966 would be perplexed by today’s calls for a conversation about race, especially one that imagines all Americans taking and passing some kind of national history test on institutional racism, past and present. The old heroes fought against segregation and discrimination because it was impossible for any but a few black people to get ahead otherwise. But Martin Luther King, Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Randolph, and the others did not seek a perfect society. Today, we seem to be doing just that: we cannot be whole as long as nonblack Americans are going about with their summer snacks, unmindful of our past. But are human societies ever so exquisitely mindful? Could they be?

I wish the Gospel allies had invited McWhorter to the discussion but I doubt he would have accepted.

71 thoughts on “What Would John McWhorter Say?”

  2. Why is the offer of the Gospel contained in the Word and Sacrament not enough?

    The “multi-ethnic”/diversity angle to all of this is beginning to sound Federal Vision-y. They say “faith, but they mean “faithfulness.”

    How do we know we mean it enough?

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  3. I think we had a terrific moment on race in NYC on December 13th. Santcon is an annual event where 20-30k New Yorkers dress as Santa Claus get together to go from bar to bar hitting a different bar each half hour for about 10 hours. Given that the whole point is to drink to excess: public urination, vomiting, breaking stuff, fights with each other and passerbys, Santa’s elves / Ms. Clauses getting sexually rowdy is of course a regular part of the fun. And there are always a few people who end up in the hospital either from hurting themselves or alcohol poising. This and last year the police are getting tough by cracking down on them by issuing tickets for stuff like public urination and there is a lot of upset about the police spoiling the fun.

    This mass pub crawl criss crossed twice with the similarly sized march protesting the death of Eric Garnet a man who died while being arrested for selling single cigarettes as things spiraled out of control.

    There is a lot of ways to look at this issue. Just imagine is 20-30k black people were getting together every year to swarm local neighborhoods with public intoxication rough behavior and petty crime. Would it be looked upon as somewhere between sexy fun and drunken obnoxious or something all together more sinister? Would they be celebrating their 20th anniversary?

    On the other hand for all the drunken rowdiness there were 0 instances of drunk santa resisting when being ticketed while there were 4 incidents from the march one of which resulted police injury and is turning into a man hunt.

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  4. How outrage works:

    These conditions are hardly new. Over the past decade or so, outrage has become the default mode for politicians, pundits, critics and, with the rise of social media, the rest of us. When something outrageous happens—when a posh London block installs anti-homeless spikes, or when Khloé Kardashian wears a Native American headdress, or, for that matter, when we read the horrifying details in the Senate’s torture report—it’s easy to anticipate the cycle that follows: anger, sarcasm, recrimination, piling on; defenses and counterattacks; anger at the anger, disdain for the outraged; sometimes, an apology … and on to the next. Twitter and Facebook make it easier than ever to participate from home. And the same cycle occurs regardless of the gravity of the offense, which can make each outrage feel forgettable, replaceable. The bottomlessness of our rage has a numbing effect.

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  8. I disagree with McWhorter’s view as expressed here. America doesn’t want to talk about race and one only needs to poll Black Americans to see this. Yes, we have those individual examples victims, racists, and written works that bring up the subject. And yes, one can express politically correct views on racism.

    But there is a real emotional disconnect Americans have with our past and present racism which prohibits us from discussing racism at levels that are not self-serving. For example, would we tolerate Germans who would talk as dispassionately about the Holocaust as we do about the history of racism in America? For when most of the Americans I hang with talk about racism, we don’t express a collective shame for the racism practiced by those who founded and built this nation. We don’t let our racist past challenge the notion of America being exceptional.

    And to further illustrate the problem we have with racism, we need to ask about whom do we first think of when we mention America’s racist past? Do we only think about Blacks? Or, by chance, do we also include America’s indigenous people in our thinking when we reflect on America’s racist past? Or do we also think of the Filipinos we slaughtered when we invaded their nation and our soldiers used the n-word when referring to the people living there?

    Yes, most of us will talk about racism as long as the conversation does not discomfort us, as long as the conversation does not challenge either our individual or collective self-images. And again, would we be as tolerant to Germans who so regarded their past with the Holocaust as we do with our past and present racism? We should note here that the Germans have an advantage over us. The Holocaust is over with.

    Finally, we should note King’s comprehensive approach to battling racism. He saw battling poverty and materialism, and battling war and militarism were all a part of battling racism. To see why, one only needs to read or listen to his speech that opposed the Vietnam War (see http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2564.htm) and read his Nobel Lecture–his Nobel Lecture is a different address than his acceptance speech (see http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-lecture.html). So we should have express no surprise that we still have problems with racism when we have yet to address these other problems. And that our disconnection with our racist past and present is tantamount to not talking about race should be obvious. For it is obvious to those who still suffer the effects of today’s racism.

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  9. I’d lean more populist in regards to the economic analysis of the airline industry though. That is an excellent example of why well informed and proper government regulation is sometimes needed in certain industries- especially in regards to allowing or not allowing mergers. I’m sure all oldlife readers will agree with me about that- of course they won’t to make myself more clear.

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  13. D.G.,
    And? Don’t Blacks disagree with other Blacks? If they can, why can’t I?

    BTW, how different is McWhorter’s view from that of Voddie Baucham? He wrote on today’s racism in the Gospel Coalition website and was at that conference.

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  14. Curt, when you and I do it it’s white privilege, right?

    McWhorter isn’t trapped by trying to make his understanding of race conform to biblical texts that say nothing about it. Plus, McWhorter is smarter than you and I.

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  15. Curt, you’re leaning on outrage to make a point about outrage. But would anyone be willing to dial down the tired template for all evil in the Third Reich? Yes. It would be one step toward dialing down the screeds over race and reproductive politics, both of which tap into American made fear and loathing by comparing their opponents to (cue the scary music) slave owners and Nazis.

    You say the holocaust in Germany is over. So is chattle slavery in America. But Fergusonians want us all to know that the spirit carries on. Don’t look now, but your remark is as evidently ignorant about race relations in Germany as some here in America.

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  16. Curt, and btw, when you’re pondering race relations, do you ever ponder what Civil Rights actually accomplished? Did the 1960s change anything, or is it still holocaust conditions? And doesn’t it make any difference that now blacks are on the police force and hold positions of power and are out to protect officers like Wilson as much as whites are?

    But if you need outrage to stand on your lefty soapbox, you got it.

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  17. D.G.,
    Either you comment on White Privilege was an attempt at humor or. In addition, everybody, regardless of whether they are smarter or dumber than us can contribute to the discussion on race. And perhaps the problem is that too many of us are looking for the “right” elites to say something.

    BTW, even if only temporarily, which was actually more than that, the Civil Rights Movement did accomplish a lot. But their accomplishments do not imply that there either still much to be done or that we haven’t backslid some. The latter is true especially with the growing authoritarianism we’ve seen around the world, especially in the West.

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  18. Zrim,
    your comment about chattel slavery is odd especially since the Civil Rights Movement didn’t address that particular issue while it was battling the racism of its day. And believe it or not, we have a significant amount of racism today to account for.

    BTW, I am not ignorant of the racial problems in Germany.

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  20. Great article you linked, Zrim. I think Lanier is saying almost the same thing. The outrage does not need to be furthered. We have to deal with it on a daily basis. Perhaps we disagree on the best way to handle it.

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  21. Curt, your response is odd given that the point is that outrage is way over-rated. You are to outrage what experiental Calvinists are to affections–an uncritical champion.

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  22. Zrim,
    The only thing I contested was the statement that America wants to talk about race. In a realistic, meaningful way, America does not want to talk about race because it is an indictment on White America, rage or no rage.

    In addition, I agreed with Martin Luther King Jr in that there are some inseparable issues that come with racism and to ignore them is to maintain racism.

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  23. BTW D.G., you never answered my question about the difference between McWhorter and Baucham. I asked because you stated that McWhorter would have never been invited suggesting that it was because of his views that that would be the case.

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  27. Curt, that’s what outragers say–we don’t talk about race. It’s code for “I’m not satisfied” and good for shaming those not up to snuff. But sorry, it’s the very opposite–we talk about race all the time. It’s an obsession. Kind of like the experimentalists wanting to wallow in affections.

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  28. D.G.,
    The spike in authoritarianism started with Bush and continued with Obama. In fact, it was the Left who filed suit against his 2012 NDAA because of its creeping authoritarianism evidenced by the pronounced right of the President to imprison those under the suspicion of terrorist ties, if memory serves, without having to prove that in court. The Left also has pointed out that Obama’s administration has prosecuted more whistleblowers than all of the previous administrations combined as well as has expanded the use of drones in warfare. The Left also criticized Obama for Obamacare.

    BTW, which form of communism? There is more than one form.

    And finally, are you bragging or complaining about not answering questions? Oh, I forgot, you don’t answer questions regardless of what inquiring minds want to know.

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  29. McWhorter is smarter than you and I.

    Really?
    He sure does got the spiel down pat.
    As in America doesn’t want to talk about race, they only want to talk about white racism. All the time.

    That’s right Virginia, there is no such thing as black racism. IOW McW is a tool and an enabler for the NYTimes Book Review literari lapdogs aka the liberal white guilt media complex.

    True, he did mention the LWG porn 12 Years and forgot Django, but he knows snitches get stitches.
    As in more blacks are killed by fellow blacks that by police, white or black.
    Or that just maybe DeAndre Joshua got snuffed by the homies for telling the truth about Michael Brown’s death. And how come Dorian, Michael Brown’s friend never got shot? Is he leaving town after lying in public and telling the truth in private to the FBI and the grand jury? What about the other grand jury witnesses?

    Mum’s the word from McWhort, but Fred Reed spills the beans.
    http://www.unz.com/freed/obama-racism-deeply-rooted/

    Meanwhile that doofus Chris Rock wants white Americans to own up to what their ancestors did.
    Well, mine weren’t here, but even if they were, most folks just might be looking to leave West Africa, pal. Sumpthin about ebola if I remember correctly.

    And what’s he going to do when he gets there and meets Kofi Annan’s relatives, who’s ancestors sold his into slavery?
    Crickets.

    These tools need to up their game or shut up.

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  30. The Left also criticized Obama for Obamacare.

    Yup, they sure did. Because it wasn’t single payer totally govt. run healthcare aka communism.

    I think rather, you got the Left confused with the libertarians, Curt.

    cheers

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  32. TGC seems to be in a perpetual struggle for relevance. What would Jim Wallace do? seems to be the present dilemma.

    I fail to see what TGC has to offer on race that has not already been discussed elsewhere. Instead I see a moderator to the “discussion” sporting a relevant facial hair style while a pastor with a masters in psychology pontificates about “social systems.” Do “conservative evangelicals” no longer pay their preachers to talk about things they actually know something about?

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  34. Luke 16:8 “And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.”

    “This is the moral of the whole parable. Men of the world in their dealings with men like themselves are more prudent than the children of light in their intercourse with one another” (Alfred Plummer).

    “We all know how stupid Christians can be in their co-operative work in the kingdom of God, to go no further.” (A.T. Robertson)

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  35. Bob S
    Posted December 19, 2014 at 1:11 am | Permalink
    The Left also criticized Obama for Obamacare.

    Yup, they sure did. Because it wasn’t single payer totally govt. run healthcare aka communism.

    I think rather, you got the Left confused with the libertarians, Curt.

    cheers

    Well, you kicked CommieCurt’s ass on this one, BobS. Or, more accurately, reality did.

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/395045/vermont-goes-john-fund

    This week, however, Governor Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, admitted the state couldn’t afford the plan’s $2 billion price tag and consequent sky-high taxes, and pulled the plug. The lessons for Obamacare are obvious and profound.

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  36. @Curt

    OK well time for a Democrat who makes no claim to being a conservative to step in here. If you want to have a discussion of race you are going to need to bit more discerning.

    But there is a real emotional disconnect Americans have with our past and present racism which prohibits us from discussing racism at levels that are not self-serving. For example, would we tolerate Germans who would talk as dispassionately about the Holocaust as we do about the history of racism in America?

    As Zrim mentioned Germans 2 generations removed from the holocaust do talk dispassionately about it. The generation that did it was quite defensive if you look at the politics of the 1950s through early 1970s in Germany and Austria. The children of that generation were the ones who wanted to clean the stain off of and were very concerned. The grandchildren mostly think that bringing up the issue now is BS anti-Germanism. When you start talking about Northern slavery you are talking 10 generations and something that only a tiny minority of the current Northern states inhabitants were involved in anyway in. Even for Southern slavery you are getting 5 generations out, and again slavery was something that most southern whites suffered from in terms of wage suppression more than benefitted from.

    In terms of Jim Crow you can make a far better case without conflating that with slavery and without dealing with the complexities of slavery. But just grouping everything under the title “racism” isn’t going to get you very far. Because in the same sentence you are talking about racism you are also talking about “authoritarianism”. The rise of Jim Crow was tightly tied to a national liberation movement as a people restored their self governance. Exactly what you are complaining about in the Philippines below is what you are supporting in the South. The carpetbaggers were imperialists and the scalawags their domestic supporters.

    You can be opposed to imperialism or opposed to racism in the south but you can’t be opposed to both because the imperialists and the racists were the two opposite sides.

    Do we only think about Blacks? Or, by chance, do we also include America’s indigenous people in our thinking when we reflect on America’s racist past? Or do we also think of the Filipinos we slaughtered when we invaded their nation and our soldiers used the n-word when referring to the people living there?

    As for the Filipinos I see no evidence this war was meaningfully driven by racism either. At every step when we gained military advantage we tried to import American law. If you want to say colonialism / Imperialism absolutely. Rather the racism in the Philippine–American wars was primarily on the anti-war side which was concerned that incorporation of the Philippines would result in huge numbers of non-white immigrants. So if anything I’d say Filipino independence not its colonization is the result of racism.

    As for the American-Indian wars there may be racial aspects but there were also cultural ones. How many French settlements do you see in USA territory anymore? What about Spanish? The colonies and then the USA were clearing away all foreign governments and unifying. We can play what-if history about what-if the natives had wanted to be part of the American culture that was evolving. The American-Indian wars lasted 3 centuries mostly regarding what type of culture was going to exist here. The Native Americans didn’t lose because they were the wrong race they lost because they weren’t able to hold territory against a military superior culture. As an aside virtually all the native-american cultures that were destroyed had also engaged in mass migrations and replaced earlier cultures. Were they racist when they did that? And similarly going back further and further. Unless you intend to kill off all the plants and give the planet back to the anaerobic bacteria everything is the product of mass migration and displacement. That’s the way life works. You make racism meaningless when you conflate it with non-racial history.

    Americans do acknowledge the history of race. Our entire discussion of slavery is presented without a complete lack of nuance and complexity which comes from our trying to decontextualize racism which comes from us trying to distance ourselves from it. That’s what an abhorrence of racism looks like. It looks like people cutting it out of context. If people put racism into context you would see that kind of dialogue as “racist” and “apologists for racism”.

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  37. CD,
    Regarding Germans and the Holocaust, you seem to have missed the point. The point being how would we react to Germans speaking dispassionately about the Holocaust. It isn’t whether some Germans do. Btw, my personal experience in talking to Germans about the Holocaust is that though there might times they talk about dispassionately, they don’t feel that way. And here, I am referring to people from Germany. They tell me that a spirit of self-criticism is strong today because of the Holocaust. But again, how would we feel if they were to speak dispassionately about it is the issue.

    The reason why I picked how we would feel as the issue is because those who still suffer from racial marginalization feel even worse when we speak dispassionately about the ethnic cleansing of the the land of its indigenous people and both the enslavement of Blacks and the racial persecution that followed. We are not 10 or even 5 generations from the end of Jim Crow and we still live in a time where White privilege reigns and we have systemic persecution of Blacks. And that is not to mention what we continue to do to America’s indigenous people. And Germans have an advantage over us. They had their time of shame when they were forced to tour the camps and be occupied by armies that showed them what they did. When did Americans ever adequately admit to having shame over our racial atrocities? When? When in our history has our nation’s self-image not included the perception of being exceptional and above all other nations?

    And no, we just didn’t try to import American law when we went to other nations like the Philippines. Imperialism and colonialism have always been based on economic or strategic gain for the nation practicing it. The conquest resulting from carrying out the self-fulfilling prophecy of Manifest Destiny is but another example of empire that coincides with what happened after the Spanish American War. One key difference between the two is that the conquests that followed the Spanish-American War pass the ‘salt water’ test of imperialism. We simply slaughtered people, based on race, in order to conquer.

    And what about the Spanish? Were they more innocent than our forefathers? No. This idea of conquering in the name of God and King seemed, and still is, prevalent among Western nations.

    Finally, don’t know why you mentioned being Democrat. Being such doesn’t give you a that different of a perspective from many Conservatives I know. Both base their thinking on self-exhaltation first. And following that, there is simply no context that can buffer our past and current atrocities. Moral relativity does not apply when it comes to committing atrocities–which, btw, you might want to be a bit more specific regarding the replacing of cultures by America’s indigenous people. We leave the job of buffering our wrongdoings to denial.

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  38. @Curt

    you might want to be a bit more specific regarding the replacing of cultures by America’s indigenous people

    The various tribes were replacing other tribes. There had been a massive series of wars 400 BCE – 600 CE where most of the tribes we ran into were victorious. At the time the Europeans were arriving the tribes we met were migrating northing and pushing other tribes further north. So for example when when you talk about the North East those are tribes descended mainly from the 1st migration that had displaced other tribes that had just a few centuries earlier lived in the area being forced North. There is plenty of stuff online about the migrations (intro article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_history_of_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas ). Humans are a mass migrating species that displace other humans when they move into an ecosystem.

    The point being how would we react to Germans speaking dispassionately about the Holocaust.

    We react fine. We don’t bring it up. No one suggests that we should bring back the occupation. Its obnoxious to hold current day Germans responsible for what their grandparents did.

    The reason why I picked how we would feel as the issue is because those who still suffer from racial marginalization feel even worse when we speak dispassionately about the ethnic cleansing of the the land of its indigenous people and both the enslavement of Blacks and the racial persecution that followed.

    First off I’m not going to get into a face off about being holy then thou regarding how people feel.

    What I am going to say is that the type of talk with its inaccuracies is a perfect example of the fact that it is not dispassionate but rather quite passionate. The ethnic cleansing happened after the enslavement. The African slavery system started around the 13th century and was mostly over by the 17th. The system that was in place during the “ethnic cleansing” was the Virginia system where America was breeding slaves not enslaving Africans. The slaves themselves played a key role in the ethnic cleansing in “the west” (Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas). The fact that you can so casually group the two, ignore all the details and just think of it as one “bad stuff” category proves that the conversation is not dispassionate. If it were dispassionate then the history of slavery would be taught like any other history where we do mention details. It is because it is passionate that people talk in such historically inaccurate terms.

    They had their time of shame when they were forced to tour the camps and be occupied by armies that showed them what they did. When did Americans ever adequately admit to having shame over our racial atrocities?

    Every February. Martin Luther King day? Regularly when issues related to black America come up. What adult American is unaware of slavery?

    we still live in a time where White privilege reigns and we have systemic persecution of Blacks.

    We don’t have systematic persecution of blacks. We likely have some structural discrimination but we do not have systematic persecution. For example the number 1 area where whites had structural advantages was in family housing. The American legal response to that was to drive up the percentage of home ownership though an aggressive subsidization of the housing market with implicit risks being absorbed by the government. The policies of Fannie Mae that existed for a decade to increase family wealth were exactly the opposite of what one would see in a country with systematic persecution.

    As for white privilege…. that’s a tricky term. Moreover it conflicts with the idea of systematic persecution. You don’t have subtle privileges in a society which is engaging in systematic persecution. I don’t disagree that it exists to a certain extent but your whole throw everything into one big pile means you are really just using buzz words. A serious conversation about race in terms of white privilege would mean trying to disentangle issues of race in America from issues of class and that would require dispassionate discussion. The passion would get in the way.

    And no, we just didn’t try to import American law when we went to other nations like the Philippines. Imperialism and colonialism have always been based on economic or strategic gain for the nation practicing it.

    Where do you see the contradiction between those two statements?

    The conquest resulting from carrying out the self-fulfilling prophecy of Manifest Destiny is but another example of empire that coincides with what happened after the Spanish American War.

    If we are fighting a war to accomplish the ends then the prophecy is not “self-fulfilling”. Also last time I checked the Philippines are not in North America so what does Manifest Destiny have to do with the conquest of the Philippines. Seriously, are you just playing liberal buzz word bingo? You do realize the way you are talking is exactly what makes Liberals come off as to unserious to be considered fit to govern by conservatives. Your sentences don’t even make sense.

    This idea of conquering in the name of God and King seemed, and still is, prevalent among Western nations.

    As opposed to non-western nations that don’t have this concept? Is that what you are going to argue that the west invented conquest? The last century has mainly been one where the west has mostly been losing territory not gaining it. The kinds of neo-liberal policies you are complaining about with therms like “white privilege” are the result of outright conquest being ruled out. Every life-form on this planet that exists today is the result of conquest. Every human culture is the result of conquest.

    We leave the job of buffering our wrongdoings to denial.

    Dude, you had nothing to do with slavery or ethnic cleansing. You weren’t alive. You aren’t demonizing your wrong doings you are demonizing the wrong doings of others. So far your wrong doing is lecturing people about a history you know nothing about other than having picked up some buzz words and mixing them in a way that makes no sense. You don’t score high points in my book for confessing other people’s sins. That’s pride not humility.

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  41. Speaking of microagressions.

    Pinker is getting more vocal and resolute about speaking out against everything at Harvard that trivializes, infantilizes, or plain represses intellectual life on campus. Here’s a noble and eloquent excerpt from a letter he wrote yesterday about Israel BDS (boycott, divest, sanctions) movement at Harvard, where the presence of a SodaStream sparkling-water machine made by an Israeli-based company is alleged to be a “microaggression” that has to be purged from the university community.

    Equally foreign to the mission of a university is the idea that students are to be protected from “discomfort” or so-called “microaggression” when they are exposed to beliefs that differ from theirs, or when the university does not accede to demands that it prosecute their moral and political crusades. Discomfort is another word for tolerance. It is the price we pay for living in a democracy and participating in the open exchange of ideas.

    Middle East politics above all is a subject on which thoughtful people disagree; it is certainly not one on which a university should decree the correct position. While I am sympathetic with many of the students’ objections to the current policies of the Israeli government, I object even more strongly to the policies of the governments of countries such as Russia, India, Pakistan, China, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. In a world filled with governments with deplorable policies, it is pernicious for a university to single out one of them for opprobrium.

    Pinker’s objection, of course, is to suppressing reasonable political disagreement because some students are uncomfortable with it. Any good class is full of “microaggressions” that aren’t perceived as such. Words aren’t merely weapons to secure power and advantage — or so we must believe if we take higher education seriously. The soft combat — the dialectic — called conversation, which is central to higher education, is with the truth in mind. The “correct position,” in principle, is the goal of an open-minded conversation, which proceeds on the premise that each side — all sides — has some good reasons but still is more confident about what it believes it knows than is reasonable.

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  43. CD,
    Not really specific in citing the wars that occurred here, are you? Besides, I never let my students cite wikileaks as a reference. Not saying that there weren’t wars, but we need to be specific when saying there were. And what point is to be made by citing the wars that did exist? Is there no difference between border wars and ones for empire? And what point is there is citing the sins of others? Is it to cover our own sins? We didn’t invade this continent to end their wars, we invaded it out of greed and a sense of entitlement–see Manifest Destiny.

    And your note ironically illustrates our problem. We have a real problem confessing the depths of our sin and that is ironic because of our claim to rely on the Gospel of Grace. After all, confessing the depths of our sin would mean that we couldn’t claim American Exceptionalism. This is even, or especially, true if all we did was to imitate some of the warring tribes that existed on this continent before we arrived. For some odd reason, we choose to ignore the victims of our violence especially when they don’t qualify for sainthood.

    And what is the point in saying that the ethnic cleansing started after slavery? Does that make it less sinful? Or what is the point in saying that either some of America’s indigenous people enslaved Blacks and others or that some Blacks participated in the Ethnic cleansing of America–which, btw, occurred in all 13 colonies.

    And what is the point in distinguishing between slaves brought over from Africa and slaves who were bred here? Or what is the point in saying that slavery ended in the 17th century especially without stating what it took to end the slavery? And what is the point in ignoring how slavery continued under a different name as Blacks were arrested in order make them participate in prison labor?

    I could continue but your whole note proves my basic point, that we have an emotional disconnect with the horrible atrocities our nation practiced in the past. And we keep that disconnect in order to claim to be exceptional, to justify our empire, and to facilitate tribalism. For if we had an emotional connection with the past, whatever pride we would have in the gaining of independence would be canceled by shame for how we subjugated those who were different. And unless you think each person is solely a product of their times, what happened in the past, both the good and the bad, is extremely important in understanding what we and others are doing today. And my fellow Christians who wish to remain disconnected from the past might be showing that their comfort is the result of self-soothing rather than reliance on the Gospel. They also show that they refuse to take Daniel’s cue in Daniel 9.

    BTW, use a statistically valid sample of Blacks who are randomly selected and ask them if there is such a thing as ‘White Privilege.’ Also, after asking the same group of people about whether there is a systemic persecution of Blacks today, check the incarceration rates.

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  45. Curt, does it help to concede that white (even male) privilege exists? But I’m not sure the implication of its reality is repentance-unto-utter-equality. Every society necessarily has its complicated stratifications, such that even white males have times and places wherein they are not privileged.

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  46. Curt, be careful, white man, with the “we” language in addressing CD-H. He’s not a Christian.

    You’re Christian privilege is showing.

    BTW, have you considered that your blathering on about the injustice of our nation — why call it sin in mixed company — may also suggest a certain emotional disconnect. If you really feel badly, then grimace and shut the hades up.

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  47. Zrim,
    If you want a more just society, it always helpful to acknowledge and try to undo privilege regardless of who has the privilege.

    But it seems odd that those whose faith in not in any righteousness of their own but in the righteousness of another are sometimes the most resistant to admitting wrongdoing by their group. And that is a problem all Christians must be aware of regardless of the groups they are in. We always want to make sure that Christi is more important than our groups.

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  49. D.G.,
    In addition to the love of money, tribalism is also destroying the world. But we should note that tribalism causes us to either compromise our own faith or to misrepresent it. Should we really be quiet about that?

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  52. Curt, lots of things cause misrepresentation of the faith, like your opposition to tribalism (what do you have against Cleveland?). You keep drawing up the bulls eye and always hitting it. Problem is, the real world is not on your target.

    Long live Marx and the Communist tribe.

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  54. CW,
    Are you saying that what I suggested in my blog (see http://flamingfundamentalist.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-kind-of-revolution-we-need-for.html) is supporting conditions for the ambush?

    Also, are you saying that the protests and not past police violence and abuse of authority are responsible for the ambush? Well, what about the ambush of 2 PA State Troopers that happened earlier in the year? Did race or protests have anything to do with that ambush?

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  55. Curt, if you’re an egalitarian, sure. If you’re not then not so much. But it’s odd that that those who believe that in Christ there is no more Jew nor Greek (male nor female, slave nor free) also think that means in the world things don’t still run along natural lines. If theonomic neo-Cals want OT codes to apply in the wider world then progressive neo-Cals want NT ethics to apply. Protestants oppose both.

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  56. Curt, reality calling. Crazy people are inflamed and moved to action by crazy rhetoric. And plenty of that is coming from your side (tribe?) — see link in my last comment. And let me sum up your blog post for everyone: Let’s everyone get together and talk, listen, bitch, and issue demands, and if the bad guys don’t cave to the good guys the good guys are justified. By the way, again, what would Real Paul (as opposed to your fanciful Hippie Jesus) make of all this resistance to the magistrate? Real Paul seemed really uninterested in of the issues that you (One-Man Social Justice Army) are exercised about.

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  58. CW,
    Reality calling here, there is more than one reason why people do crazy things. For example, why do heavily armed men throw flash grenades into cribs where a young child is or shoot a 7 year old who is sleeping on a couch in a living room? Why do men with guns shoot at unarmed men of a particular race?

    Your note is a denial of the effects that have occurred from the treatment of Blacks some police officers have practiced. What do you think you imply when you blame the horrible ambush of the two police officers on protests? Is it that if Blacks only knew their place, then there would be no problems? Is that what you are saying?

    Let me ask this, what caused the ambush of two PA state troopers earlier in the year?

    BTW, you can sum up my blog anyway you want. What you seem to object to is the idea that Blacks have, for a very long time, many legitimate grievances regarding how they are treated by the police. And what you seem to favor is authoritarianism.

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  59. D.G.,
    Since I have no problems with criticizing Marx, I fail to see the point of your note except that you are misrepresenting me for your own designs.

    Criticism is fine within bounds. Though it may not read your blog, the world sees too many Christians exhibiting the attitudes expressed by some here and it causes them to not even want to listen to the Gospel. Do you care about that?

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  61. Kent,
    Please quote anything I’ve said that would suggest that your question is valid. Rather, you’re just trying to provoke an angry response with you unfounded question. But think about this, in my blog (see http://flamingfundamentalist.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-kind-of-revolution-we-need-for.html), I suggested that across the whole nation, members of the Black communities and police officers should get together to express grievances and work out solutions together. Is that something you object to?

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  62. OK, that’s enough CW.
    I can see your hat peeking out from behind the Curt Day avatar.
    That shows just how much respect you have for your fellow comboxers that you think you can troll us so egregiously.
    Like just how venally stupid are you?

    It’s hard to have even the proper amount of contempt for the kind of behavior that is beneath even a weasel.

    Why, you probably write speeches for Al “The Snitch” Sharpton in your spare time when you’re not babysitting for Eric Holder on the weekends .

    Come on man. Come clean. Confession is good for even the diseased soul.
    Do you pen Bryan’s little question begging rejoinder’s also?

    For your penance, say . . . .
    .

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  64. Curt, I don’t know about the PA incident. You seem to be an expert so enlighten away. I do not deny the problems the blacks have and have had. But one of those problems is stupid white leftists like yourself who nurture victimhood and tell a certain class that their problems are all to be blamed on someone else. I know it’s a sad thing that a manchild can’t rob a convenience store, rough up the puny owner, walk down the middle of the street, disobey a police officer, attack the police officer (twice), and get away with his life. But a march (or even something less flashy) that encouraged keeping the law, being respectful of the police (even if they are bad), and building homes with resident fathers and no more children than you can reasonably provide for would save more lives and cause more “human flourishing” than the crap you encourage, O Occupier.

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  67. Pingback: What Did Charlie Hebdo Accomplish? - Old Life Theological Society

  68. Is my existence a microagression?

    They are small, almost invisible. They are being spotted on college campuses from UCLA to the University of Michigan to Fordham to Columbia. They are as elusive and questionable, so tiny yet so destructive. They are called microaggressions: the slight remarks, subtle innuendos, insults, and actions that come off as unintended discrimination.

    But maybe it makes more sense if we regard marriage as microagression:

    Racial microaggressions are the latest iteration of the inevitable in human society: As forgiven sinners living in a fallen world, we are bound to offend and to be offended in a variety of ways. As one Harvard professor put it, “We’re talking about people in close contact who are experiencing the painful intersections of intimacy,” Henry Louis Gates Jr. said. “The next part of that is communication, and this is a new form of communication.”

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  69. Is my existence a microagression?

    Maybe.

    For (all about), life is like a box of chocolates.

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  71. Here’s what David Brooks said (microaggression alert):

    I find the causation between the legacy of lynching and some guy’s decision to commit a crime inadequate to the complexity of most individual choices.

    I think you distort American history. This country, like each person in it, is a mixture of glory and shame. There’s a Lincoln for every Jefferson Davis and a Harlem Children’s Zone for every K.K.K. — and usually vastly more than one. Violence is embedded in America, but it is not close to the totality of America.

    In your anger at the tone of innocence some people adopt to describe the American dream, you reject the dream itself as flimflam. But a dream sullied is not a lie. The American dream of equal opportunity, social mobility and ever more perfect democracy cherishes the future more than the past. It abandons old wrongs and transcends old sins for the sake of a better tomorrow.

    This dream is a secular faith that has unified people across every known divide. It has unleashed ennobling energies and mobilized heroic social reform movements. By dissolving the dream under the acid of an excessive realism, you trap generations in the past and destroy the guiding star that points to a better future.

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