By Nicholas Stix
Note that when the content producer of the following thing speaks of “racism,” he always means anti-black or anti-black and Hispanic racism. American culture is inundated with racism, but it is almost all anti-white racism.
Jamelle Bouie is a future author of books that almost no one will read, and future professor of African-American Studies.
Race, Millennials and Reverse Discrimination
By Jamelle Bouie
April 26, 2012 - 2:05 p.m. ET
The Nation
The most commonly said thing about the “Millennial” generation is that it’s more diverse and more tolerant than its predecessors. Millennials are more likely to be persons of color, more likely to show acceptance of same-sex relationships and more likely to have diverse social connections. With that said, none of this means that we’re somehow immune to problems of racism, prejudice and privilege.
Indeed, you don’t have to look far for examples of young people acting with an eye toward ignorance. There’s the “ironic racism” [liar!] of Girls writer Leslie Arfin, the incredible outpouring of hate toward African-American actors in The Hunger Games [?] and the annual stories of kids who throw blackface parties [how is this racist?] or complain about Asian students for existing [liar!].
All of this is [sic] lead in [sic] for a new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute, which polled adults aged 18 to 24 on everything from religion and morality to economic issues and the 2012 election. They also posed questions on race and ethnicity: Does government pay too much attention to the problems of blacks and other minorities? Is “reverse discrimination” [sic] a problem in today’s society? Is demographic change a good thing for American society?
The results weren’t heartening. Overall, 46 percent of Millennials agree that the government pays too much attention to the problems of minorities, with 49 percent who disagree. 48 percent also agree that discrimination against whites is a genuine problem. When you disaggregate by race and count only white Millennials, the picture is much worse.
A solid majority of white Millennials, 56 percent, say that government has paid too much attention to the problems of blacks and other minorities. [Excellent progress!] An even larger majority, 58 percent, say that “discrimination against whites has become as big a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minorities.” [Equally good. What I’d like to see is the question added, “Discrimination against whites has become a bigger problem than discrimination against blacks and other minorities. Do you agree or disagree?”]
The pollsters at PRRI don’t try to tease out what this actually means, and honestly—as an African-American myself—it’s hard to figure out. Discrimination against minorities takes many forms, and most are easy to identify. There’s the overt bigotry of day-to-day life [liar!], the subtle discrimination of laws [liar!] and institutions (the arrest rate for black men [liar!], the predatory lending aimed at minority communities [liar!]) and the miasma of racist ideas that flow through our culture [liar!] and sit in our subconscious, ready to act.
These things might hinder white Americans in a spiritual sense, but it’s absurd to say that they have a material effect on the prospects of white people [liar!]. If you are white in the United States, almost everyone in a position of power or influence looks like you [liar! Like “Obama,” Holder, Sotomayor, Thomas, thousands of congressmen, state legislators, city council members, mayors, police chiefs, etc.]. You won’t be questioned if you find yourself in a nice part of town [But you might get murdered by an invading Trayvon] , you won’t be the picture of criminality [Because blacks commit the majority of violent crimes], and few people will ever question your right to take government help [liar!]. Cops won’t give you a hard time as a matter of course [liar!], and no one will ask you to speak for white people as a whole [liar!]. Sports fans won’t go apoplectic and shower you with racial slurs because you scored a goal [pathetic; he found one such case]. The list goes on. [No, it doesn’t.]
A quick note for those of you who will say that all of these things have happened to you. I’m not saying that individual white people are immune to being hassled by the cops, or being followed in a store. What I am saying, however, is that none of that will happen on the basis of your skin color [liar!]. Being white doesn’t carry a host of negative assumptions. It’s considered neutral. Being black (or Latino) does, and that’s the difference. [Being black carries a host of observed, negative behaviors, not assumptions.]
With all of that in mind, I don’t quote [sic] understand how anyone could plausibly say that discrimination against white people is a problem in the same way that it is for minorities. But if I had to hazard a guess as to why a majority of young white people believe it, here is what I would say:
Because many young people are either in college or preparing to go to college, affirmative action is a salient issue, and there’s a widespread perception [Liar! It’s the reality, not the perception] that minority students have an easier time of getting into school. Of course, this isn’t true at all [liar!]; affirmative action adds racial (and ethnic, and gender, and religious) disadvantage to the collection of things that colleges examine when determining an applicant. There are no quotas [liar!] and it doesn’t guarantee entry [liar!]; a bad candidate is a bad candidate, regardless of their race [liar!]. But if a Latino student and a white student are equally matched [ha! ha!], the university might lean towards always choosing the former. [“Might” … “always”: I see that you’re not much of a stylist, either. A liar and a bore, in the bargain!]
(Another note: just because the white student didn’t get in doesn’t mean that someone took “their” spot. Colleges don’t owe spots to students, and if you don’t get in to the school of your choice, the college took nothing away from you. With or without affirmative action, the odds of getting into a selective college are low). [Liar! Colleges “owe” spots to unqualified, incompetent blacks and Hispanics. This guy has always felt that a school or employer “owed” him a slot.]
What's more, we live in a culture where honest conversation about race is rare, especially among white people [liar!], where it’s surrounded by fear and anxiety. For many white kids, if not most, racial conversations are limited to a few units in elementary and middle school. Otherwise, they’re left to fend for themselves, which either leads to a sense of privileged obliviousness [liar!]—i.e., you live and act as if this were a “colorblind” world, despite the fact that color matters for many people—or confusion and resentment. [Liar! They don’t live and act as if this were a colorblind world, but because they learn that anything they say about race will be pounced on by racist blacks like Mr. Lying Bore here.]
Indeed, at the end of the day, Americans do a terrible job of teaching our history, and an even worse job of teaching our awful racial history. By and large, slavery is treated with appropriate horror, but everything after that is passed over and ignored. In my experience, students—white or otherwise—are ignorant of the violence and economic oppression that characterized much of the black experience for the better part of a century. Racism is morphed into a personal force—represented by Bull Connor or George Wallace—and there’s no attempt to show the economic and social effects of Jim Crow and segregation. [Like, how the only time blacks collectively behaved themselves in a civilized manner was under Jim Crow and segregation.]
For a lot of young white people, I think, racism has become completely untethered from history. [And what of young black people?] They’ve been taught “colorblindness” sans [Ooh, he through in a French word!] a sense of what it means to grow up in a country where white supremacy was once the ruling ideology. [What sense does he have of that? None!] “Reverse discrimination,” then, is a catch-all for frustration [liar!] at rules they don’t understand (white people can’t say the “N-word”)[liar!], and double standards that seem unfair [liar!] (e.g., “Why can’t we have White History Month and a White Entertainment Channel?). It’s understandable, but also a little depressing.
[So, he’s patronizing, too. The little white people don’t understand. The little white people are frustrated. The little white people perceive that “double standards” … “seem unfair.”]
Needless to say, since Bouie is an AA hire, he is vulnerable, and has to be protected from evil, wacist whites. And so, most critical comments were either deleted or blocked altogether, but several critics were permitted to post, in order to create the illusion of tolerance.
I posted at least one response, but it was blocked from ever being published. However, it is possible to vote for comments that were published, and then removed, which I did.
The page presently says “Showing 112 of 122 comments,” but the 10 missing comments are only those which were deleted after initially being published. Comments by people like me, who were blocked from the get-go, aren’t even counted.
One racist poster who was permitted to publish one idiotic comment after another goes by Eric Daniels.
•
Eric Daniels
[Previous poster:] "What happened to Trayvon was a tragedy, but I don't feel any guilt for it, nor do I feel any guilt for oppression suffered by slaves and their
descendants at the hands of Americans."
You whites are so condescending always with the Slavery [sic] rhetoric or my ancestors fought a civil war to end Slavery [sic] and I am not responsible for any racism after that. Well what about the 110 years [?!] of de facto racism, race riots and destroying of separate black communities by white immigrants in the 20th century through the 1930's? Legal Racism did not end in America until the mid 1970's [?!]. So spare me your blaze [sic] attitude. [Race riots, indeed.]
As to Trayvon Martin how about some common decency for a innocent life? I see if some black group of kids beats up some innocent white person you people go ballistic and demand that 40 million people of African descent not only condemn what was done or we are responsible for setting race relations 100 years backwards. Yeah you whites will make us feel guilty if it was in reverse.
o 1 Like
I responded,
“As to Trayvon Martin how about some common decency for a innocent life?”
Amen, brother! And the innocent life is that of George Zimmerman, who had no duty to die, just as Trayvon Martin had no license to kill.
I counted 26 lies, including the “Ha! Ha!” How many did you find?
[A tip 'o Occam's Butterknife to Mangan's.]
I too have been denied posting rights at The Nation. And all I did was post an innocuous comment analogizing the much maligned attitude of the majority of Millenials' to the reaction of the acquaintances of the boy who cried wolf in the fable which originated circa 500 BCE.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.jbcampbellextremismonline.com/5/post/2012/04/kill-the-killers.html
ReplyDeleteLOL! Give em hell Nicholas!
ReplyDeleteBut then, the Nation is the Leftists Bible, having a sordid record of being an apologist, if not a down right supporter, of such illustrious "progressives" as Stalin and Pol Pot.
That they are in the National Lynch Mob to get Zimmerman is no surprise.
That some young whites are finally seeing through the racist indoctrination they get in the schools and in the media is encouraging. Now if a national politician would pick up the ball and run with it, the racist cowards at the Nation would really have a fit!
Hopefully this will happen soon.