Tag: Race Relations

California’s Reparations Report

 

A while back, there was a news alert on my phone that the Committee finally decided to release its preliminary report.  As expected, reparations are to be extraordinarily broad and far-reaching, impacting multiple industries rather than just the personal items of descendants of slaves.

No one should be surprised by this.

What I was surprised by is how quickly this alert and topic dropped off of my phone with nary a trace.  I had to do an internet search to find further information (including recent news articles about it) and to see what the actual recommendations are.

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Discrimination based upon race is wrong. That is standard racism. Systemic racism is alive and well in the United States of America.  I am talking about intentional and systematic discrimination by the government, government supported entities, and social justice warriors based upon race. Preview Open

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Better Late Than Never: Learning About the Tulsa Race Massacre

 

I love my home state of Oklahoma. It is home to wonderful people; family, friends, excellent schools, a terrific and diverse culture, and some remarkable history.

Attending public schools during my formative years, from kindergarten in Guymon to college in Chickasha, I took my share of Oklahoma history classes and remember much of it today. In college, my Oklahoma history class taught me about President Andrew Jackson’s forced relocation of Indian tribes from the southeast to Oklahoma Indian Territory — the “Trail of Tears.” Thousands died.

Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud

 

@drbastiat wrote a characteristically insightful post about recent remarks by the President of the United States to the effect that there is a white supremacist behind every tree and bush in America. These “domestic terrorists,” the president would have us believe, are everywhere and heavily populated by former military and law enforcement personnel.

The “rise of white supremacy,” as the president calls it, is really more of a descent in the definition of white supremacy, as I tried to say in the comments. But it is worth reflecting on the motivation for this increasingly desperate attempt to redefine white supremacy downward.

’70s Blaxploitation Movies

 

Quote of the Day: “An independent filmmaker’s only hope of survival is to do something the mainstream studios can not or will not do”—Roger Corman, Hollywood’s king of B movies.

Let’s start by explaining what a pimpmobile was. If you take a look at the ‘70s films listed in this post, you’re going to see a lot of them, rolling jukeboxes cruising the ghetto streets of south Chicago, south-central Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and above all, New York City’s Harlem, for many years the unofficial capital of Black America. A pimpmobile was a big luxury car, usually a Cadillac Eldorado or Lincoln Continental, tricked out with garish accessories that boasted of money to burn. It was the ride par excellence of the urban criminal class, with no attempt to remain inconspicuous. On the contrary, it was as conspicuous as the Batmobile. It bragged to the world: I’m the king of the city. Nobody can stop me. Not white society, not the law, not my enemies in the streets. No one. That’s what the era of ‘70s Blaxploitation movies was all about—a young man’s fantasy of women, riches, limitless power, and revenge.

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They just got their categorization wrong by failing to distinguish between race and culture. But if their categorization of race as inseparable from culture is correct, the conclusion may be that people of different races cannot live together in a society, and we would be better served by building separate race-based societies, rather than trying […]

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Fox News Senior Political Analyst Brit Hume joined host Ben Domenech to discuss race relations in America and how the issue has been politically manipulated by the left.

Hume argued that, since the nation reached an overwhelming consensus against racism, marked by the passage of the Civil Right Act, movements such as Black Lives Matter are capitalizing on that sentiment to usher in a new era with a different agenda. A movement that was once about tearing down barriers has switched to focus on tearing down statues.

What Will the Mob Do with Woodrow Wilson?

 

I’m fascinated by the defacing and destruction of statues and monuments around the world, but especially in the US. The mob seems focused largely (but obviously not exclusively) on those who served for the Confederacy during our “Great Unpleasantness.” After all, they are targets of our modern-day “Presentism,” that is, applying modern “morals” or “standards” to people and events from decades if not centuries ago. The complications and nuances of history don’t seem to matter.

But a few particular monuments seem exempt from the current “unpleasantness,” and that baffles me. Especially one particular former Governor of New Jersey, President of Princeton University, and President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson.

This particular historical figure re-segregated the military. He infamously chose “Birth of a Nation” as the first motion picture (silent) to feature at the White House. Never seen it? It glamorized the Ku Klux Klan, the militarized wing of the Democratic Party from the end of the Civil War to the Great Depression. Look up the 1924 Democratic Convention, infamously known as the “Klanbake.”

About Those US Capitol Statues Nancy Wants to Dispose Of

 

One of my privileges as a former Secretary of the United States Senate is the ability to conduct guided tours of the US Capitol. One of the offices I supervised was the US Senate Historical Office. One of the Secretary’s responsibilities is to promote the history and significance of the US Senate, a responsibility that I continue to relish. During my tours, I frequently stop to point out certain statues, especially in Statuary Hall (the former House Chamber until about 1857, when the current Chamber was completed).

So when the latest brouhaha over statues began, especially given the “presentism” gripping our political discourse, I knew right away it would find its way to many of those statues. Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not disappoint, calling for the removal of 11 statues of historical figures she finds especially objectionable.

Here’s what you need to know. About 100 of those statues, half of which are located in Statuary Hall, are there under a Concurrent Resolution that invited every state to send up to two statues of their choosing. They get to decide; not Congress, not Speaker Pelosi. Other statues are placed under other congressional resolutions.

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I had a thought about the relationship between oppression (racial or otherwise) and riots. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been reading Victor Klemperer’s I Will Bear Witness; a Diary of the Nazi Years.  It is the day-to-day record of  life as a Jew in Nazi Germany between (in Volume 1) 1933 and 1941.  History buffs will […]

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Heather Mac Donald joins City Journal associate editor Seth Barron to discuss the dubious scientific and statistical bases of the trendy academic theory known as “implicit bias.” The implicit association test (IAT), first introduced in 1998, uses a computerized response-time test to measure an individual’s bias, particularly regarding race.

Despite scientific challenges to the test’s validity, the implicit-bias idea has taken firm root in popular culture and in the media. Police forces and corporate HR departments are spending millions every year reeducating employees on how to recognize their presumptive hidden prejudices.

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Daughter, Soon you will be heading off to your first year at college, a school which has already given you an assignment for summer reading: the non-fiction, epistolary cri de coeur titled Between The World And Me, by author Ta-Nehisi Coates. I gather that the idea is for you and other incoming freshman to have a common […]

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Tonight’s national news segment once again, showed another bomb threat called into Jewish Centers across the United States. This has been, alarmingly, almost a nightly event.More evacuations, fear, questions with no answers, as of yet. I thought I heard this was the act of one deranged person who was apprehended, yet it continues? Christians are […]

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Major Premise:  Race relations have gotten worse over the past eight years because of the culture’s relentless focus on race.  This has been pushed forward by Obama himself, who in 2009 called for a “national dialogue” on race, as if nobody had talked about it for the past century.  This dialogue was not intended to be an […]

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It is time for some accountability. I have noticed that dual and often contradictory messages are interlaced in Obama’s remarks. It is clear to me that he is speaking to different groups, different audiences, with each audience hearing a different message due to their focus. I believe there is general audience he is trying to pull […]

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