He’s right:
If Romney had used the phrases “light-skinned” and “Negro dialect” his religion and his religion’s history in this matter would have been noted high up in every story.
But Romney is a Republican. It’s only Republican Mormons who are evil.
Really, Reid and Pelosi are embarrassments. I’m glad that they’ve become the public face of the Dems in Congress. Long may they reign, until November. Hang in there, Harry.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Gee, the Black Congressional Caucus is totally down with the “light-skinned Negro” thing. Who would have thought?
[Evening update]
Here’s a handy flow chart to parse and analyze pseudo-offensive racial (and sexual, and gender) statements.
[Monday morning update]
Can someone please explain to me exactly what it was that was so offensive about what Harry Reid said? At least to Barack Obama? Because I’m not getting it. If he owes anyone an apology, it’s the American voters that he slandered and implied were racists. Forgiveness from the president is meaningless.
[Update a few minutes later]
I agree with Roger Simon. Reid isn’t a racist — he’s a hack. And a fool.
Why do you ask?
In an earlier comment you seem to see a distinction between the offensiveness of the statements:
1) “We need more money for unemployment insurance, 31% of our population is African American”
and
2) “We need more money for prisons, 31% of our population is African American”
If I understand your comment correctly, you consider 2) offensive because, as you wrote, “That implies that blacks are criminals, something volitional”.
Now you say that poverty and Medicaid eligibility are also volitional. By that logic you also think Graham was wrong to say, in effect, “We need more money for Medicaid, 31% of our population is African American.”
Or is it okay to use “African American” as a shorthand for “poor”, but not for “criminal”, even though you consider both volitional?
If I understand your comment correctly, you consider 2) offensive because, as you wrote, “That implies that blacks are criminals, something volitional”.
Call me crazy, but I think that, regardless of volition, tarring a group as criminals is more offensive than (accurately) noting that they have a higher poverty rate than the general populace. Maybe things are different in JimWorld.
If would only be offensive if it had no basis in reality.
That’s an interesting standard. So you’d be fine with a politician saying “We need more money for science education, 60% of our population is Republican”? After all, 68% of Republicans polled by Gallup don’t believe in evolution.
Call me crazy, but I think that, regardless of volition, tarring a group as criminals is more offensive than (accurately) noting that they have a higher poverty rate than the general populace.
Even if they have a higher rate of incarceration? So the question isn’t whether the stereotype is accurate, it’s whether it’s offensive (e.g. saying they’re criminal) vs. merely demeaning (saying they’re a burden on the taxpayer)?
What a subtle ethical calculus you have to construct to avoid criticizing Graham’s statement…. Is it that hard to admit that he should have said “we have a high poverty rate” or “x% of our population is eligible for Medicaid,” and not singled out a single race to represent SC’s financial burdens?
So you’d be fine with a politician saying “We need more money for science education, 60% of our population is Republican”?
Well, not being a Republican, I certainly wouldn’t be personally offended. But that implies the stupid notion that evolution is the only scientific issue on which the question of science education should hinge. Democrats are, after all, scientifically (not to mention economically and historically) ignorant in their own ways. So yes, it would be offensive in its mindless one-sidedness.
Here’s my take on why no one was as outraged as you pretend to be, and demand that others be, about Graham’s statement. It fit right in with the “progressive” template of the media and the left that blacks are victims who need extra help from the government. So who could object?
That’s the wrong standard; the real test is whether a black applicant in the U.S. has the same chance of getting an interview as an equally qualified white applicant
Nonsense. In the first place, didn’t you read what I wrote? It’s impossible to have “the same chance” as some other candiate — because people are not interchangeable parts. You can’t take Joe, paint his skin black, and substitute him for Jim, who’s black. Joe and Jim are individuals, with a bazillion varied traits besides their skin colors. To be sure, if you have gross, obvious racism — if Jim never gets a job interview, while Joe who’s roughly equivalent does, then OK. You got something to tackle. But those days are long gone.
And your standard — some mathematically exactly equal “chance” (whatever that means) for “equally qualified” candidates (whatever that means, since you’re not going to allow the hiring person to define “qualified”) — is fantasy. It can never be satisfied. You will always find a disparity in outcomes, because people are people, and not robots. (Of course, if you’re in the racial grievance enabling industry, that’s a feature, not a bug. No one who works for the Affirmative Action or Diversity Monitoring Commission is ever going to agree the need for their services has gone away.)
What you are likely to find by insisting on a hypothetical lunacy is that you are increasingly jeapardizing genuine opportunities for black people. I know this personally. Once upon a time I was on a university hiring committee, and was warned that when you hire a black man as assistant professor, you must assume that you will be giving him tenure, because no other outcome was realistic and would be countenanced by the senior administration at this large public university.
What do you think that does to the chances of a black man getting an interview, hmm? I’ll give you two guesses, since thinking through the actual (as opposed to desired, theoretical) consequences of things isn’t your strong point.
Secondarily, your comment has seriously racist implications. You’re saying it’s OK for a black hiring manager to discriminate against white applicants — because there are so many fewer black hiring managers than white? There’s no way I can see that as anything more than seriously contemptuous of the capability of black men for being moral and reasonable creatures. You’re proposing grading on a curve here, and giving the black folks an extra 10 points headstart, because you know they just can’t compete, is that it? Yuck, Jim.
“So the way to get companies to treat blacks fairly is to make it absolutely clear that there will be no penalty if they treat them unfairly? I think we’ve gone through the looking glass.”
Go ask a disabled worker advocate how well the ADA is working for them (hint…not well).
A data point on the question of whether we’ve made progress on race relations in the last 20 years:
It’s impossible to have “the same chance” as some other candidate
No, it isn’t impossible, it isn’t even hard. The resume studies are one (of many) ways of reliably measuring whether black job candidates have the “same chance” as equivalent white candidates. When those studies start reporting that they can’t find a statistically significant difference between callback rates for candidates of different races, we’ll know we’ve made important progress. That isn’t close to being the case now.
The only reason not to pay attention to this information (and seek out more of it) is if you don’t like the answers, or the implications of those answers. That’s when you throw up your hands and complain that it’s “impossible.”
It can never be satisfied.
There are two responses to this. 1) That’s ridiculous. Of course you can reach a situation where scientifically measured racial hiring bias against a group is undetectable — that’s the case today for most ethnic groups in the U.S. We do not have a systemic problem with hiring discrimination against German-Americans; we do have a systemic problem with hiring discrimination against black Americans. 2) You seem to be saying that we should not move towards something you regard as an unachievable ideal because the ideal can not be reached. We might as well give up on science as well, since perfect knowledge is impossible too.
Once upon a time I was on a university hiring committee, and was warned that when you hire a black man as assistant professor, you must assume that you will be giving him tenure, because no other outcome was realistic and would be countenanced by the senior administration at this large public university.
Of course if they hired more black assistant professors, they wouldn’t have to promote all of them in order to demonstrate that they were being fair in their promotions. No doubt all sorts of situations bring forward all sorts of excuses for why blacks can’t be hired as easily as whites. The excuses aren’t very interesting; the fact that, on average, equally qualified black candidates are less likely to get jobs: that is interesting, troubling, and worth doing something about.
You’re saying it’s OK for a black hiring manager to discriminate against white applicants — because there are so many fewer black hiring managers than white?
No, I said no such thing, you are confusing personal morality with society-wide concerns. Anti-white discrimination by black hiring managers has never been a serious problem in the U.S., and is unlikely to ever be one, given U.S. demographics. Putting the “problem” of black racism on a par with the problem of anti-black racism is an indication of utter ignorance about the past and present of this country.
That speaks volumes. Achievement of a goal isn’t the important thing, it’s “making progress”. Don’t pay attention to any goal, because we’re going to move the goal posts anyway. It’s PROGRESS that’s important. OUR definition of progress
Achievement of a goal isn’t the important thing, it’s “making progress”.
It’s impossible to do the former without first doing the latter.
OUR definition of progress
You don’t think it’s important for black job candidates to be invited to interview as often as equally-qualified white candidates?
Or “We need more remedial reading funds, 60% of our population is Republican”?
If would only be offensive if it had no basis in reality. Which it doesn’t. So it is.
Shouldn’t that be, “We need more remedial reading funds, since only 60% of our population is Republican?” Part of the democratization of knowledge is a strong respect for small-r republicanism, with its fear of both the absolutist monarchy/lordships and of the corrupting nature of the mob. It is, in fact, a large part of why the Founders demanded a system of checks and balances within and against the Federal government, specifically because their Classically-trained members (ie, pretty much all of them) could point to specific examples of tyranny in the time of the ancients, and how their checks and balances would prevent such issues.
That their descendants chose to piss that legacy away at the turn of the last century (right about the time the Progressive Holmes court handed down Plessy v. Ferguson, and the Progressive Wilson administration re-segregated the U.S. military) is neither here nor there; the words remain on the parchment that make up our national contracts. It is up to each succeeding generation to apply them, or not; to “live through all time” as a “nation of free men,” or to “die by suicide,” to quote Mr. Lincoln
Incidentally, on the race angle, I largely agree with Mr. Ab Hugh (link at name) when he points out that race, as separate from the species-wide definition, is a malignant fiction. In short, if I or one of my family can breed with it, it is by definition H. Sapiens sapiens and is therefore the same race as I.
Incidentally, on the race angle, I largely agree with Mr. Ab Hugh (link at name) when he points out that race, as separate from the species-wide definition, is a malignant fiction.
Insisting that there’s no such thing as race, or that race isn’t something that matters to them, is high on the list of Things White People Like.
Insisting that there’s no such thing as race, or that race isn’t something that matters to them, is high on the list of Things White People Like.
Really? I thoght that it was a fetish of the left.
Jim, if I may judge on the evidence (your picture), I’d guess you were a child of the Civil Rights movement. I am, however, somewhat younger. People my age did not grow up with the Civil Rights movement – it won, we declared victory for you, and folded the banners to use again later. To us, “race” is used primarily in the context of “what race you playing tonight?” in video games – where “Human” is one (if that many) option among dozens. To be perfectly blunt, in a life where I can be a ten-foot slime-monster from another planet on demand, basing the differences between humans on skin tone of all things (!) is a quaint and amusing concept, akin to hoop skirts and hair cremes.
Really? I thoght that it was a fetish of the left.
Myself, I most associate it with Stephen Colbert:
hoop skirts and hair cremes
I’m younger than that (born in 1965). If only anti-black racial discrimination were as obsolete as hoop skirts. Pretending doesn’t make it so.