Sunday, December 25, 2011

Savant's words

Lew Rockwell obviously is not a liberal. But he is the one wo whom you attribute those virulently racist articles under Ron Paul's name. And ZAius, to whom yuo are now posting, is clearly a racist whose contempt for Black intelligence is disseminated in various Topix threads. He's obviously NOT a liberal. My experience as an African-American man, and my scholarly studies as well, reveal to me that in America anti-Black racism is a malady which spans the entire political and ideological spectrum in America. But the most stubborn and virulent forms of racism are almost alwasys most prevalent within the political Right. I doubt that articles as virulently racist as those attributed to Paul (allegedly by Lew Rockwell) would get past the editorial scrutiny of even the most mediocre liberal (let alone left of liberal) publication. 

-Savant


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Actually, the Democrats (mainly DIXIECRATS) who imposed segregation were the ones who bolted to the Republican Party. They were enticed in that direction by Republicans like Nixon, with his Southern Strategy, and Reagan with his thinly veiled appeals to white resentments and prejudices. Lyndon Johnson turned out to be right when he said (after passing of civil rights legislation of 1964 & 65) that the support (initially very timid) for civil rights under a liberal Democrat administration would lose the South to the Republican Party for at least a generation. That's exactly what happened. The point that's overlooked is that both Democratic and Republican Parties in THOSE DAYS had rightist, centrist and liberal elements. Rightwing southern Democrats (Dixiecrat) in alliance with Right wing Republicans opposed the civil rights bill and Voting Rights Act. I recall in one of Dr. King's writings his mention of this alliance between reactionaries of BOTH parties. Liberal, Moderate Republicans and Democrats supported it--though sometimes timidly at first. Now I happen to be in academia myself, and one thing I notice is that talk about INHERENT racial inequalities (due to evolution or what have you) again come from rIGHTWING academics like the authors of THE BELL CURVE. (As for Hitler, I ask you to recall that he came from the FAR RIGHT, and hated liberals only a little less than he hated Jews or communists.) As for "affirmative action" one of the earliest advocates of such, was not an "Ivory Tower liberal" but a famous/or infamous Black liberal with socialist leanings by the name of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Evidence of that can be found in his books WHY WE CAN'T WAIT and WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE:CHAOS OR COMMUNITY. Also in THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. And a part of his argument, and that of later liberals or progressives, is not that Blacks are an inferior race unable to compete, but that Blacks been injured by centuries of racial caste, and that this does impair their chances in so competitive society as America. One might also note that while whites argue that Affirmative Action presupposes that Blacks need "special rights" to succeed, they do not worry that the accumulated advantages of centuries of white privilege and white supremacy indicates an inability on THEIR part to succeed without special rights and privilege. Of course, theyu also refuse to admit that such privileges or accumlated advantages thereof actually exist. 

-Savant

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