Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
I Am Not Your Slave
The constant attacks on American citizens who are white are absurd and insulting. The commentary insisting that all whites must be racist is bizarre and on a closer look, based on no facts at all. I’ve decided that I’ve had enough of these intended insults. (I can only be insulted if I accept the observations.) I’m pushing back. I realize that some black Americans and people on the Left would be outraged at my ideas, and if they had the opportunity would vehemently chastise me.
I don’t care.
I only care about living a life of integrity, about being a good person to my fellow man (no matter what the person’s color is), and to make good choices. No person has the right to force me to think or behave in a particular way—a person can certainly try, but I will ignore their intimidation tactics and efforts to humiliate me.
Let me explain why the efforts to coerce me into thinking or acting in a particular way is not only a waste of time, but it defies everything this country stands for. My arguments appear below:
- My strongest argument is that you have no scientific data that says a person is born or will become inherently racist. Just because a person is a scientist or creates facts to support his or her position does not make this statement true. We are, of course, influenced by our culture and its norms; our families, teachers, and all relationships have an impact on our worldviews. But I have something called agency: nothing can force me to be racist. Anyone who purports to present data otherwise is providing opinion, not fact.
- You are totally incapable of knowing my mind, how I feel, or how I think. My mind is not open to your analysis, and at any given time you are not able to know my thoughts, unless I choose to share them with you. So, your stating whether or not I have racist thoughts or how I created them is impossible; therefore, stating that my racism is unconscious is illogical.
- Your assessment that we live in a racist society cannot be ascertained. At what point is any society racist? How many members of society need to be racist to justify labeling the entire society racist? Is a society racist if 1%, 5%, or 10% of its members are racist? Must every single person be purged of his or her racist ideas for a society to be free of racism? What tools or criteria will you use to measure the degree of racism in society? What makes your tools or criteria legitimate?
- You say that if I don’t speak out or act to support your claims about racism, I am complicit. If your claims are not legitimate, what am I complicit in? Who are you to decide how I should live my life? Who are you to demand that I act for a cause that I don’t think is legitimate? Even if there are racists in this country (and I’m sure there are), why do I have to take action against them? What makes your cause stand out against all the rest of the needs of society?
- I will reject any demands to tell me how to think about anything, including racism. You have no authority to tell me how to think. If I’m racist, you have no right to tell me to reject those ideas. You are free to say that if I have racist thoughts, I will act on them. The fact is, I may or may not act on them. I may simply keep them to myself. That is my right–I’m not racist, by the way—but of course, you will likely not believe me, and that is also your right. I accept that you have this choice.
- When I explain the reasons that I am not a racist, I am not defending myself, although you may claim that I am. I don’t need to defend myself; I’m simply sharing my opinions, my point of view. But if you choose to see those as defensive statements, fine.
- When I give an opinion on racism or current events, it is just that: an opinion. I am not required to be deeply informed on the history of racism or its current iteration. I will also decide the subjects on which I want to be educated; you have no say in that decision. So if you believe that I am not sufficiently educated on racism, that’s unfortunate.
- I refuse to live my life in the framework of racial stereotypes: white, black, Asian, Hispanic, or otherwise. Yes, some of the descriptions of races may or may not be true. But I will be the one to decide, person-by-person, which descriptions are legitimate. And those choices do not require your approval.
- This country guarantees me freedom of expression. Your efforts to silence me defy the Constitution and I will disregard them.
- I regret that some of you believe that your violence and disruption for your cause are legitimate acts. That the destruction of businesses and homes of citizens is acceptable. I reject your opinion.
The conclusions you draw about me based on the points listed above are your opinions. They have no more legitimacy than my own opinions. You are entitled to them, as I am to mine. You have no power to force me to do anything: change my mind, take a stand, support your causes, confess my beliefs, or legitimize your positions. Your intention to improve equality and justice in this country is admirable; your strategies are abominable. As long as I live in this free society, I will make my own choices, my own decisions, voice my own heartfelt opinions and share my ideas. You have no authority to dictate any of those.
I am not your slave.
Published in Culture
Thanks, Kent! I hope others join in!
Not yet. People are still in shock over the George Floyd video.
I love you, Susan Quinn. That was perfect.
Oh, @skyler. High praise from you. Thanks. Oh, and I’m already taken. ;-)
I hate to say it, but I think it has to get much worse before it gets better (and I pray it does).
This is marvelous!
The whole notion of race is bunkum. Some who claim African heritage are virtually white and some are virtually black. There are some Yemenite and Moroccan Jews who are darker brown than Latinos. Where do they fit into the racial spectrum? I suppose Ethiopian Jews who immigrated to Israel would be guilty of genocide against the Palestinians according to blm which accuses all Israelis of this crime.
It’s interesting that Sephardic Jews (usually from Africa) were discriminated against when they first immigrated (made aliyah). I think things are much better now, with intermarriage between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews increasing.
Different kind of love. Don’t want your husband shooting me!
It’s time for me to sign off. Thanks for making me laugh as I leave. And, oh, no worries!
I’m always reminded of the black woman who said that if she ever brought a white man home she would be kicked out of the family. This has long been the case among many in the black community. And whites can be subject to racism in a black-run company as well.
The big mystery is that if this is an evil country, founded by evil men and still with a majority of racists, why is it still not 1878? What happened to the Klan? How the hell did a black guy get elected President? Twice. Why are there no segregated corporations, colleges or stores anymore?
Why have tens of millions of white people currently agreeing upon request to ignore the issue of our grossly dysfunctional black urban communities (whose epidemic violence poisons race perceptions more than any “systemic” cause) and focus instead on a handful of aberrational instances of death while resisting arrest?
We cannot acknowledge overwhelming evidence of white good will and morality or honestly inquire about the causes of a subculture of self-defeating behavior.
Yes, the one thing that keeps occurring to me is why destroy the one country which lets you live so well? Why destroy the memory of how we got to be what we are today? And why do you denigrate the very laws that allow you to protest, and video your protests in an iphone and ping it to all your friends and around the world?
Great O.P. and what I feel most guilty about by my silence isn’t a failure to bow and confess etc. but not standing up more to the pressure.
“Juneteenth” will surely become a national holiday….another thing being pushed on us – meaning: my contrarian nature is to ignore it. I’m already disgusted that my bank closed early for it and Ebay sent some blather that they were going to endorse ”social justice” causes. What does that even mean? The Seattle type activity or what? I don’t sign on until I read the fine print, and a lot of that stuff is social regression, not progress. I think many people react the same way: Our minds belong to no one, even if saying so is radioactive. But what are they really “winning” when they drive resentment below the surface from a climate of fear? It won’t translate as desired if they really want acceptance, and it distracts from the efforts they should be making at legitimate success. So they must be after sheer (evil) power or material plunder – nothing else makes sense.
Just occurs that if America is truly racist that the Dems had to massively commit election fraud in 2008 and 2012. So which is it, Dems?
It’s a state holiday in Texas, since that it was the day that emancipation was announced in Texas. It represents the freeing of the last remaining slaves in the Confederacy. So, it’s a Texas thing, but it has wider ramifications because they were the last.
About Juneteenth, Republicans in Congress should take the position: no net increase in the number of federal holidays. If you want us to vote for a new one, eliminate one already on the books. There are only about 250 working days in a year. Where does it end? So let’s eliminate Memorial Day maybe, since it’s close to Juneteenth.
Progressivism is a restless philosophy. Progressives can never stop, declare victory, and enjoy life. Like sharks, they will drown if they stop moving. They have to always be fighting the enemy, and if the enemy is defeated, they need a new enemy. That’s why racism is always being redefined, its definition always being expanded to include more and more people and more and more beliefs. That way there is always an endless supply of bigots for liberals to look down upon. Racism used to be understood as an act of will. Now it’s just in your genes.
I’m fed up with these rioters. I’m sick of them all. I’m pushing back too. Did you see in Oregon they just toppled a statue of George Washington? Looks like by a bunch of spoiled white college students. It’s time the police/army or whoever to go and knock some sense into some of these punks. It’s gotta stop.
A black man is capable of every good and evil that a white man is. What black people have is fewer opportunities to significantly affect on other people through racist acts.
I don’t know how Social Justice is defined, but I know it’s been around for decades and was well-known to KGB propagandist and defector Yuri Bezmenov back in the eighties. I assume it is a tool of the communist insurgency back then to destabilize and demoralize the US population.
The word “racist” and the word “racism” have both been hurled about so recklessly for so long and so completely debased that they are both essentially meaningless except as slanders and insults.
Sorry. Did not mean to flag
A while ago, on NRPlus FB, I was talking about Ayn Rand profound understanding of the show trials of 1930s. It always disturbed me [although, I grew up in the USSR during the time called “vegetarian” by the great Anna Akhmatova (it is a very layered metaphor)] – the eagerness of the old Bolsheviks to denounce and self-incriminate publicly while being dragged to NKVD dungeons for their back of the neck bullet or Gulag.
She – the only one (Arthur Kessler had an inclining; trust me, I read them all) understood with absolute clarity, that any regime, however brutal and immoral, craves legitimacy. The only way to obtain one is “by the sanction of the victim”.
It is up to us not to give that sanction
I have never shaken off the image of Farrakhan in pole position at Aretha Franklin’s funeral (alongside Bill Clinton and Jesse Jackson). Where was the concern about racism then?
Disturbing, as advertised.
And it’s reaching a point, in my opinion, where they’re not even really that anymore.
Many people dismiss Ayn Rand because they don’t like her conclusions, sadly, but she is one of the bravest and shrewdest observers of the mentality and methods used to control vast populations.
Every time I start thinking I am Libertarian or Objectivist, I need only talk to a real Libertarian or Objectivist to be quickly disabused of the notion.
Blacks will continue to cry racism until they are no longer treated as a separate class of mentally and socially disabled but instead are expected to excel on their own just like everyone else. Affirmative action and welfare programs intended to help have done nothing but increase dependency, foster resentment, and keep many down on the Democrat plantation. Instead of tv and movie portraits of single welfare mothers and druggies in the inner cities, it would help lift everyone up if we could see examples of blacks and whites who worked their way out of poverty or drug addiction and are now married with children and solid citizens. Inspiration doesn’t have to come from doctors, lawyers or Indian chiefs; it can also come from carpenters, waiters, waitresses, plumbers, window cleaners, landscapers, and others who are proud of their achievements and respected by their peers. We all need role models to inspire us.