• When leftists talk about America, they say that America is a racist country. Yet, there is racism in Europe, too, and elsewhere for that matter. But when leftists talk about racism in Europe, they do not say that Europe is racist. Rather, they talk about neo-Nazis or right-wing thugs there who are racist. This doesn’t seem very fair, unless they have a study – and as far as I know, they do not – showing that such people are much less prevalent in Europe than they are here. See this article for a report on racism in Greece.
• And if this country is so racist, why are blacks from Africa migrating here? (I’ve met a few, so I know they exist.) Why would anyone leave a country in which blacks are the vast majority of the population to come to racist America? The answers are that the poverty is so bad that a little racism is better by comparison, the ethnic strife there is much worse than the little bit of racial strife here, and the business climate in Africa just doesn’t allow people to get ahead.
• I once heard a “person of color” – he was from south Asia – say that when he knew he was going into a dicey neighborhood, he would dress up because it helped calm those who would bully him. What would have happened if Martin had been dressed up instead of going around in a hoodie? This business about the hoodie died very quickly, but maybe it shouldn’t have. We are always being asked by the left to accept, not just blacks, but blacks dressed a certain way, acting in certain ways, etc. Keep in mind that the initial goal of the left was simply to get whites to accept blacks. If initially the best way to do this is to have blacks dress up, what’s wrong with that? Well, it was thought wrong because it was thought that blacks ought to be able to wear whatever they wanted. But what that entails is that leftists have been engaged in two battles at once: getting whites to accept blacks, and getting them to accept blacks when they are wearing clothes that suggest criminality. This is just doubling the difficulty of the problem.
• It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Back in the late 1960s when it seemed like most of white society was finally ready to accept blacks, what should have happened was that blacks would have integrated themselves into the rest of American society. Instead, many of them preferred to stay on the fringes. They decided that doing well in school was “acting white” (though acting Asian would be a better description), they stayed on welfare for decades, they stopped marrying, they took up drug dealing if they were male and having children at young ages if they were female, and they joined criminal gangs. Regarding the first of these, E.D. Hirsch in his book Cultural Literacy relates with wonder that a Black Panthers newsletter from the 1960s contained not a single misspelling (p. 23). It is hard to imagine such a thing these days.
• Why aren't blacks vying with Asians to be the model minority?
• Another point regarding the refusal to do well in school is that it almost seems as if such blacks were in collusion with those right-wing whites who insist that blacks have lower IQs than whites.
• As for the criminal behavior, it’s as though blacks were saying to whites, “Let’s see if you are really as non-racist as you think you are. Would you accept me if I were a criminal?” This can be a challenge, and some whites pass the test, but more to the point is the damage to themselves that they are doing. Why do this? If you are at the bottom, you already have enough problems without adding to them. Plus, lots of whites don’t like white criminals, so why should they be expected to like black criminals?
• If blacks weren’t so into criminal behavior, then Zimmerman would never have been helping out as a neighborhood guard.
• I’ve read a few columns complaining about the verdict, and they seem ridiculously inadequate. This column from The Nation basically implies that the verdict represents the operations of white supremacy. No, it doesn't, because white supremacy would have ensured there was no trial in the first place. And this column from Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post dismisses the idea that one could be killed by having one’s head banged against the sidewalk. I think he would change his mind if he were actually in that situation, or if it had been Trayvon Martin having his head banged against the sidewalk.
Robinson also brings up an idea I know has been mentioned by others: what about Martin’s self-defense? Now the idea that two people might both be in a position to use a justification of self-defense on each other is unusual. It may even be impossible to conceive of a situation in which each could reasonably say that he feared for his life because of what the other was doing, except maybe a gunfight that one sees in Westerns. Generally, self-defense is legitimate during an altercation when one person has a clear advantage over the other, and if they did have such an advantage, it would be hard to imagine how they could not know this and think that it was the other person who really had it. In this particular case, the only way it would make sense is if (1) the altercation was begun by Zimmerman, (2) who pulled a gun on Martin and seemed about to shoot, (3) which lead Martin to wrestle him to the ground and bang his head against the sidewalk. At that point, although initially Martin might have had a reasonable fear that he was going to die, it would now be Zimmerman in that position. But if you are worried that someone is going to shoot you, you don’t bang their head against the sidewalk; you struggle for the gun and you make sure they can’t do anything with it, which involves trying to get their hands under control. But nothing said by the lone witness suggests that Martin was doing this or that he even knew that Zimmerman had a gun.
• For those on the left, this whole case was about race. For many of the rest of us, it was about crime, and it was about the continuing criminality of black men. I put this question to those blacks who are angry about the verdict. Suppose that you live in a predominantly black neighborhood, and suppose your neighborhood is being plagued by break-ins by non-blacks. Say the perpetrators are either all white, or all Latino, or all Asian. Would you want a neighborhood watch set up? If so, would you want those on the watch to engage in profiling? Those who can honestly answer no to both questions can keep complaining.
• This column pretty much says what I think about the Trayvon Martins of the world. He was the perfect creation of Sixties’ leftism, someone whose creation they should be ashamed of and not going full out to protect. He was the poster child for the bad things that came out of the Sixties. Even if Zimmerman’s acquittal represents a horrible miscarriage of justice, I do not care for the Trayvon Martins of the world and what happens to them.
• Back in the spring of 1972, I was finishing my junior year in college when demonstrations erupted around the country. This was a fairly normal occurrence throughout my time in college, and these demonstratins were no different from any of the others, yet as it turned out this was really the last gasp of student protests. I don’t remember any after that spring. Partly this was because the Vietnam War was winding down, but partly because a younger generation was coming to college that was somewhat less political. Just a few years later there were tons of students majoring in (gasp!) business. Anyway, maybe this is the last gasp of black outrage about dubious cases. The left and its black allies have not exactly covered themselves in glory on this matter, and anyone who steps outside of the mainstream media’s coverage for a moment ought to be able to see how weak the case was.
• And if this country is so racist, why are blacks from Africa migrating here? (I’ve met a few, so I know they exist.) Why would anyone leave a country in which blacks are the vast majority of the population to come to racist America? The answers are that the poverty is so bad that a little racism is better by comparison, the ethnic strife there is much worse than the little bit of racial strife here, and the business climate in Africa just doesn’t allow people to get ahead.
• I once heard a “person of color” – he was from south Asia – say that when he knew he was going into a dicey neighborhood, he would dress up because it helped calm those who would bully him. What would have happened if Martin had been dressed up instead of going around in a hoodie? This business about the hoodie died very quickly, but maybe it shouldn’t have. We are always being asked by the left to accept, not just blacks, but blacks dressed a certain way, acting in certain ways, etc. Keep in mind that the initial goal of the left was simply to get whites to accept blacks. If initially the best way to do this is to have blacks dress up, what’s wrong with that? Well, it was thought wrong because it was thought that blacks ought to be able to wear whatever they wanted. But what that entails is that leftists have been engaged in two battles at once: getting whites to accept blacks, and getting them to accept blacks when they are wearing clothes that suggest criminality. This is just doubling the difficulty of the problem.
• It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Back in the late 1960s when it seemed like most of white society was finally ready to accept blacks, what should have happened was that blacks would have integrated themselves into the rest of American society. Instead, many of them preferred to stay on the fringes. They decided that doing well in school was “acting white” (though acting Asian would be a better description), they stayed on welfare for decades, they stopped marrying, they took up drug dealing if they were male and having children at young ages if they were female, and they joined criminal gangs. Regarding the first of these, E.D. Hirsch in his book Cultural Literacy relates with wonder that a Black Panthers newsletter from the 1960s contained not a single misspelling (p. 23). It is hard to imagine such a thing these days.
• Why aren't blacks vying with Asians to be the model minority?
• Another point regarding the refusal to do well in school is that it almost seems as if such blacks were in collusion with those right-wing whites who insist that blacks have lower IQs than whites.
• As for the criminal behavior, it’s as though blacks were saying to whites, “Let’s see if you are really as non-racist as you think you are. Would you accept me if I were a criminal?” This can be a challenge, and some whites pass the test, but more to the point is the damage to themselves that they are doing. Why do this? If you are at the bottom, you already have enough problems without adding to them. Plus, lots of whites don’t like white criminals, so why should they be expected to like black criminals?
• If blacks weren’t so into criminal behavior, then Zimmerman would never have been helping out as a neighborhood guard.
• I’ve read a few columns complaining about the verdict, and they seem ridiculously inadequate. This column from The Nation basically implies that the verdict represents the operations of white supremacy. No, it doesn't, because white supremacy would have ensured there was no trial in the first place. And this column from Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post dismisses the idea that one could be killed by having one’s head banged against the sidewalk. I think he would change his mind if he were actually in that situation, or if it had been Trayvon Martin having his head banged against the sidewalk.
Robinson also brings up an idea I know has been mentioned by others: what about Martin’s self-defense? Now the idea that two people might both be in a position to use a justification of self-defense on each other is unusual. It may even be impossible to conceive of a situation in which each could reasonably say that he feared for his life because of what the other was doing, except maybe a gunfight that one sees in Westerns. Generally, self-defense is legitimate during an altercation when one person has a clear advantage over the other, and if they did have such an advantage, it would be hard to imagine how they could not know this and think that it was the other person who really had it. In this particular case, the only way it would make sense is if (1) the altercation was begun by Zimmerman, (2) who pulled a gun on Martin and seemed about to shoot, (3) which lead Martin to wrestle him to the ground and bang his head against the sidewalk. At that point, although initially Martin might have had a reasonable fear that he was going to die, it would now be Zimmerman in that position. But if you are worried that someone is going to shoot you, you don’t bang their head against the sidewalk; you struggle for the gun and you make sure they can’t do anything with it, which involves trying to get their hands under control. But nothing said by the lone witness suggests that Martin was doing this or that he even knew that Zimmerman had a gun.
• For those on the left, this whole case was about race. For many of the rest of us, it was about crime, and it was about the continuing criminality of black men. I put this question to those blacks who are angry about the verdict. Suppose that you live in a predominantly black neighborhood, and suppose your neighborhood is being plagued by break-ins by non-blacks. Say the perpetrators are either all white, or all Latino, or all Asian. Would you want a neighborhood watch set up? If so, would you want those on the watch to engage in profiling? Those who can honestly answer no to both questions can keep complaining.
• This column pretty much says what I think about the Trayvon Martins of the world. He was the perfect creation of Sixties’ leftism, someone whose creation they should be ashamed of and not going full out to protect. He was the poster child for the bad things that came out of the Sixties. Even if Zimmerman’s acquittal represents a horrible miscarriage of justice, I do not care for the Trayvon Martins of the world and what happens to them.
• Back in the spring of 1972, I was finishing my junior year in college when demonstrations erupted around the country. This was a fairly normal occurrence throughout my time in college, and these demonstratins were no different from any of the others, yet as it turned out this was really the last gasp of student protests. I don’t remember any after that spring. Partly this was because the Vietnam War was winding down, but partly because a younger generation was coming to college that was somewhat less political. Just a few years later there were tons of students majoring in (gasp!) business. Anyway, maybe this is the last gasp of black outrage about dubious cases. The left and its black allies have not exactly covered themselves in glory on this matter, and anyone who steps outside of the mainstream media’s coverage for a moment ought to be able to see how weak the case was.
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