Critiquing Jonathan Chait's article on race and the Obama Presidency

[Indy Texas]

The original New York Magazine article: http://nymag.com/news/features/obama-presidency-race-2014-4/

Even if racial issues do not permeate our everyday lives as much as they did in the past, they permeate our political lives to an extent I'm not sure is comparable to any era after the Civil War.

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The second boldface quote, that racial conservatism and conservatism are now the same thing, is unfair and oversimplifying. There is nothing inherently racist about conservatism. But ideologies don't simply exist in a vacuum; they exist in a time and a place. Here is where I think the big disconnect lies for a wide swath of the Right. They operate under the misguided belief that the United States is a nation-state in the same sense that Great Britain or Germany or France is. Our historical status as a Great Power makes this grouping intuitive and intellectually easy, but it misses the point that we are not a mono-linguistic, ethnically homogenous, organic nation-state. We never have been, never could have been and never will be. Our true brethren are other ex-colonies like Brazil and South Africa - far-flung places originally intended to allow European kings to dole out land grants to favored supporters and carry out the task of getting things like sugar and tobacco and gold.

While Europe is today facing its own very specific issues regarding immigrants, their racial history will never be as fraught as that of the United States or South Africa or Brazil. Conservatism in Europe, to the extent that it is about protect the "Old Order" or the "old way of doing things" is not racist. It is elitist and classist, but not racist. But to the extent that conservatism in the United States is about doing that, it is racist in consequences if not in intended ones.

American conservatives are unwilling to admit that for two hundred years, the power of the state was used to explicitly enforce racial inequality. Even if they were willing to admit that, they will not allow that there is no practical redress for this that does not involve use of state power in some way. They see plantation owners forced to forfeit their slaves and see Big Government taking something away from white people. They see public schools forced to allow black children to attend and see something - a share of teachers and classroom seats and time and resources - being taken from white people's children. And that is a fair characterization. But it overlooks that it was taking from white people something white people did not deserve and giving something to black people that they did deserve and that was shamefully denied them for generations.

[AggregateDemand]

The George Zimmerman trial was about racism for left-wingers, but it was about gun rights and stand-your-ground laws for right-wingers. The premise of this article is deeply flawed.

They see public schools forced to allow black children to attend and see something - a share of teachers and classroom seats and time and resources - being taken from white people's children. And that is a fair characterization. But it overlooks that it was taking from white people something white people did not deserve and giving something to black people that they did deserve and that was shamefully denied them for generations.

If you miss a day of work because someone punched you in the face, it is not a good idea to spend 1 month in court trying to recover the damages. The Democratic Party benefits politically by drawing out the unnecessary legal theater as long as possible. The defendant suffers needlessly.

When liberals admit folly, and they join the conservatives and libertarians who are pushing reform, the US will improve. School choice is vital, especially if you want to breakdown the walls around the wealthy suburbs. Rebuilding lower-middle class employment is crucial for helping people work their way out of poverty, with help from vouchers and credits, not welfare payments and food stamps.

[Indy Texas]

The George Zimmerman trial was about racism for left-wingers, but it was about gun rights and stand-your-ground laws for right-wingers. The premise of this article is deeply flawed.

They see public schools forced to allow black children to attend and see something - a share of teachers and classroom seats and time and resources - being taken from white people's children. And that is a fair characterization. But it overlooks that it was taking from white people something white people did not deserve and giving something to black people that they did deserve and that was shamefully denied them for generations.

If you miss a day of work because someone punched you in the face, it is not a good idea to spend 1 month in court trying to recover the damages. The Democratic Party benefits politically by drawing out the unnecessary legal theater as long as possible. The defendant suffers needlessly.

When liberals admit folly, and they join the conservatives and libertarians who are pushing reform, the US will improve. School choice is vital, especially if you want to breakdown the walls around the wealthy suburbs. Rebuilding lower-middle class employment is crucial for helping people work their way out of poverty, with help from vouchers and credits, not welfare payments and food stamps.

What would you rather do? Are you suggesting the person who punched you in the face (or did something otherwise injurious to you) should be able to get away with it? Why have a justice system at all?

The poor already get "vouchers and credits." It's the reason they pay no income taxes and the reason your party mocks and ridicules them as the "47%" behind their backs at cocktail parties.

[Cassius]

I think I have to critique some of your points.

I think that your contrasting 'non-nation states' (like America and Brazil) with 'nation states' (like the UK) is a flawed premise. The vast majority of European countries already had, even before the rise of non-European immigration, considerable minority groups (if you think of the Irish, the Scottish, the Welsh and to some extent the Jews in the UK as an example), and it can be seen, like in America, that the main conservative party is associated with the traditional 'hegemonic' cultural group in most European countries (in the UK, it is the English, in Spain, the Castilians, and so on). This is not all that different from in America, where the GOP is associated primarily with white people (and before was primarily seen as the party of WASP's). It is true that conservatism in Europe is associated with elitism (although, conservative parties, even during the days when they were more openly elitist, have been able to attract sizeable shares of working class votes, as with the Tories at the turn of the 20th century). But, again, American conservatism is no different; the parties which are generally regarded as the antecedents of the Republicans, the Federalists and the Whigs, were (as I'm sure Cathcon and Mecha will tell you) rather elitist groupings in themselves (though they clearly attracted non-elitist support).

I think to say that our racial history, in Europe, is not as fraught as your own, is again an oversimplification. Whilst it is true that we have never quite had anything like the 'white vs black' and 'european vs native' conflicts that you have, we must remember that this is the continent, to use a couple of well-known examples, that gave us the Holocaust and the Serbian war crimes, which are just a couple of examples of how brutal our 'racial past' has been. Indeed, one might even say more brutal than your own. Even countries, such as the UK, that have managed (by and large) to escape genocide in recent centuries, racial history (or, perhaps more accurately, cultural group history) has been very fraught, as can be observed in Northern Ireland, where the divisions between Protestant and Catholic are as much cultural as they are religious.

Finally, I would query your view that the belief of some on the right that America is a nation-state in the same way as European countries apparently are is misguided. Many European countries are both multilingual and multiethnic (Spain is a decent example). Nation-states are not natural things which sprouted into existence out of nowhere. They were made, by individuals and groups, as is the case with Imperial Germany, which was constructed out of numerous independent states (and took in quite a number of other cultural and racial groupings in the process). So, in a way, the belief held by some that America is a nation state is not entirely wrong, as, after all, America has, for a very long time, largely been led and governed by white 'Anglo-Saxons'. From their perspective, America is one, just as the view that Britain is a nation-state is a view held by some British people, or that Spain is a nation-state is a view held by some Spanish people.

[AggregateDemand]

What would you rather do?

Continue working towards your own happiness and success. The kangaroo court of public opinion and bureaucratic transfer payments will not fix anything. It's been 50 years since Welfare. Poverty rates are the same.

People are trapped within a government system that is designed to serve the political-economic complex, not the victims. The reason conservatives sneer from time to time is because the victims cling to the system that ruins them.

[MaxQue]

What would you rather do?

Continue working towards your own happiness and success. The kangaroo court of public opinion and bureaucratic transfer payments will not fix anything. It's been 50 years since Welfare. Poverty rates are the same.

You're right, let's allow the poor people dying of starvation, it will lower the poverty rates and cost less money to the government.

[AggregateDemand]

You're right, let's allow the poor people dying of starvation, it will lower the poverty rates and cost less money to the government.

If you believe our options are "death" or "failure", I'm not really sure why you try to contribute

[Badger]

You're right, let's allow the poor people dying of starvation, it will lower the poverty rates and cost less money to the government.

If you believe our options are "death" or "failure", I'm not really sure why you try to contribute

Seriously, Max. Arrogant Demand is talking! So just SHUT UP!!


Now, radiate more wisdom upon us, oh Swami.