I’m sure I’m not the only one who has been quite baffled by the claim that there is something called systemic racism. I thought whatever racism still existed manifested itself in sporadic, random, non-repeatable incidents done either unintentionally and thoughtlessly by decent people – these are the famed microaggressions – or else deliberately, but by people with virtually no power whatsoever. To learn that our elites think there is systemic racism is completely baffling because they control the system. Are they saying they screwed up? Obviously not. To take the case of Minneapolis, the city is run by Democrats, yet they acted as though they were not at fault for George Floyd’s death, but that Trump was. This is why some liberal friends were totally astonished when we said that Amy Klobuchar was partly to blame. Why, we might just as well have said that Martians were to blame, but our reasoning was perfectly sound. She had had a chance to fire the officer in question a few years ago when a complaint against him was raised, and she didn’t do so.
Anyway, some light has been shed on the strange worldview of the average liberal and leftist by this column from Jonah Goldberg. His claim, bolstered by insights from Matt Continetti and David French, is that everyone in America thinks they are rebelling against the system. He doesn’t go into this very deeply, but presumably this is because no one thinks they control the system. But I assume everyone on the right thinks that liberals and leftists control the system. After all, they control the schools, they control most of the media, they control most big cities, they control Hollywood, and they are beginning to exert a lot of control over our corporations. If only we had such control.
I don’t intend to explore why leftists think they don’t control the system. I just want to explain why anyone would think that there is systemic racism when it is perfectly obvious (to me, anyway) that the people saying this are the ones in control of the system. For whatever reason, these people who have so much control are convinced that they are not in control of the system. Incredible, but true.
Goldberg is lost at sea. The term "systemic racism" was invented by smart people who know exactly what they are doing. They are not interested in racism, they are interested in abolishing "the system," i.e. free market capitalism and limited government. They are quite clear about this.
Black Lives Matter, for example, was founded by three self-described "trained Marxist activists" and promote ending Western civilization as the ultimate goal. They do not defend blacks' lives, but "Black lives." "Blackness" is a political definition, and they say so. Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, etc. are not "authentically Black" and BLM sees them as the enemy.
Goldberg, like most of the National Review crew, can't bring himself to admit he was wrong about Trump, hence articles like this.
Posted by: Charles N. Steele | 07/27/2020 at 11:34 AM