FASHIONABLE RACISM AND A WIDENING RACIAL GAP

Racism has become quite fashionable, as long as it’s directed towards the correct racial group. Today, it’s the Whites who are being coerced to pay the price of their sins. Which sins? Jim Grimsley, the author of “How I Shed My Skin: Unlearning the Racist Lessons of a Southern Childhood,” presents a lengthy list:

• [White liberals] ignore the fact that we sit inside an ideology of white superiority that gives us enormous advantages. http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0223-grimsley-white-conversations-racism-20160223-story.html

I have never seen an “ideology of white superiority.” Nor does Grimsley provide any documentation for such a thing. While there is absolutely no doubt that this had been a racist nation and that the Black people are lagging economically and vocationally, it is unfounded that this is caused by the remaining remnants of White racism. Nevertheless, Grimsley continues:

• More than simple anecdotes, these are symptoms of the insanity of white culture and our refusal to understand that racism is part of our makeup — each and every one of us, north, south, east and west — from cradle to grave.

Grimsley mentions several racist encounters. I have no reason to question their veracity. I am sure that there are racist Whites as I am sure that there are racist Blacks. However, Grimsley makes a quantum leap by insisting that “racism is part of our makeup — each and every one of us.”

How can he call ALL Whites racists? Instead, I know many Whites, even Grimsley, who go out of their way to prove that they are not racist by showing favoritism to the Blacks. Nevertheless, Grimsley insists that Whites:

• Re-segregate our schools using every available strategy and continue to profit from long-standing systems that are biased toward the hiring, advancement and empowerment of white people, all the while decrying the racism we see in others, pointing fingers at this or that extremist

What strategies? In fact, Affirmative Action, has tipped things in the opposite direction. I had worked in the NYC Department of Probation for 15 years, where it was the Whites who were vulnerable and had to watch themselves. They could not even dream of forming a society of White Probation Officers. However, the same is not the case for people of color.

I don’t blame them for this, However, it is evidence of a double-standard, reinforced by a good dose of White guilt, happily administered by Grimsley and other racists like him. However, Grimsley seems to admit this:

• White liberals — and I am one — are adept at using these naming and shaming tactics to avoid looking inward. Comfortable in our beliefs, we ignore the fact that we sit inside an ideology of white superiority that gives us enormous advantages even when we mouth the right opinions, trade memes about the awful racist act that one of us committed, and pat ourselves on the back for our sensitivity.

White guilt, instead of being focused on the needs of the Black community, as we should be, and failing to “look inward,” has been motivated more by guilt-reduction, than the welfare of others. Consequently, their social programs have done more to hurt the Black community than to help it.

In fact, I have heard Blacks confess that they were better off before Civil Rights had become a reality. Why? For one thing, their families had been relatively intact. Now, 72% are born into single-parent families.

In Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make it Harder for Blacks to Succeed, Jason Riley argues against White guilt and its destructive impact:

• The intentions behind welfare programs, for example, may be noble. But in practice they have slowed the self- development that proved necessary for other groups to advance. Minimum-wage laws might lift earnings for people who are already employed, but they also have a long history of pricing blacks out of the labor force. Affirmative action in higher education was intended to address past discrimination, but the result is fewer black college graduates— particularly in the fields of math and science— than we’d have in the absence of racial preferences. And so it goes, with everything from soft-on-crime laws that make black neighborhoods more dangerous to policies that limit school choice out of a mistaken belief that charter schools and voucher programs harm the traditional public schools that most low- income students attend.

Conservatives have oft spoken against the negative effects of the welfare system. For this, they have been labeled “racist.” The church has been widely criticized for betraying their mandate to care for the poor. However, if the entitlement programs have done more to hurt the poor than to help, there may be sound reasons for the church’s opposition.

Opposition to the welfare system is not merely anecdotal. It is both empirical and logical, according to Riley:

• Time and again the empirical data show that current methods and approaches have come up short. Upward mobility depends on work and family. Social programs that undermine the work ethic and displace fathers keep poor people poor, and perverse incentives put in place by people trying to help are manifested in black attitudes, habits, and skills. Why study hard in school if you will be held to lower academic standards? Why change antisocial behavior when people are willing to reward it, make excuses for it, or even change the law to accommodate it?

Conservative and Liberal alike can agree that the Black community continues to suffer. However, they differ greatly in their analysis. While Liberals blame the system for the fact that there is a disproportionate percentage of Blacks behind bars, Riley writes:

• Although black civil rights leaders like to point to a supposedly racist criminal justice system to explain why our prisons house so many black men, it’s been obvious for decades that the real culprit is black behavior— behavior too often celebrated in black culture.

If black behavior is the cause, then black behavior must be addressed and not the alleged racist system. Meanwhile, the disparity is growing worse in many areas. Riley writes:

• In September 2011 white unemployment was 8 percent, versus a unemployment rate of 16 percent. For black men it was 18 percent, and for black teens the jobless rate topped 44 percent. Nor was employment the only area where blacks as a group had regressed economically under Obama. According to the Census Bureau, black homeownership rates in 2011 had fallen to a point where the black- white gap was the widest since 1960, wiping out more than four decades of black gains.

Grimsley and Hilary Clinton ascribe the problems to underlying racism and its determination to exclude blacks from society. Sometimes it is called “systemic racism,” a sinister and unseen master-plot to keep blacks in their place. Why do the Leftists invoke this imaginary conspiracy? Since it is an incontrovertible fact that there is no longer legal racism! All of the racist laws of the USA have been over-turned. Therefore, the blame-spinners must re-envision racism in another way. Even black-on-black crime is a product of this conspiracy. However, Riley resists the blame-game:

• Race consciousness helps cohere the political left, and black liberalism’s main agenda is keeping race front and center in our national conversations. That’s why, for example, much more common black-on-black crimes take a back seat to much less common white-on-black crimes. The last thing that organizations like the NAACP want is for America to get “beyond” race. In their view, racial discrimination in one form or another remains a significant barrier to black progress, and government action is the best solution.

Grimsley, Clinton, and other race-mongers have widened the racial gap, fueling unjustified anger that will erupt in violence. However, White guilt and its pathetic “mea culpa” simply refuses to address the issues and offers only false and destructive solutions.

THE NEW RACISM: SO ACCEPTABLE AND SO UNSEEN

Whiteness History Month is scheduled for the month of April 2016 at Portland Community College (PCC). However, this program will be very different than, say, Black History Month. Instead, it is an “educational project examining race and racism through an exploration of the construction of whiteness, its origins and heritage.” Instead of celebrating Whiteness, it castigates it: 

• Whiteness History Month Project, unlike heritage months, is not a celebratory endeavor, it is an effort to change our campus climate. The Project seeks to challenge the master narrative of race and racism through an exploration of the social construction of whiteness. 

Whiteness, a skin color and a worldview, is the problem – a “master narrative of race and racism.”  And PCC thinks that Whiteness exclusionary practice is still alive and well:

• ​At Portland Community College, evidence from hiring data, student-­led research, surveys, focus groups, college-wide emails, and other sources have illuminated the underlying reality of whiteness embedded in the overall college climate. Portland Community College’s strategic plan calls for "intentional action" to "create a nationally renowned culture for diversity, equity, and inclusion."

While it is undeniable that Whites fare better economically than Blacks, PCC blames this on entrenched White racism. However, PCC doesn’t seem to consider the fact that Jews, Indians, and Asians also fare better. Why isn’t Whiteness discriminating against these groups also? PCC doesn’t address this question.

According to PCC:

• Whiteness is a socially and politically constructed behavior. It has a long history in European imperialism and epistemologies. Whiteness does not simply refer to skin color but an ideology based on beliefs, values, behaviors, habits and attitudes, which result in the unequal distribution of power and privilege based on skin color. Whiteness represents a position of power where the power holder defines social categories and reality—the master narrator. Whiteness originates racism. It is relational. “White” only exists in relation/opposition to other categories in the racial hierarchy produced by whiteness. Whiteness is a state of consciousness, often invisible, shaping how white people view themselves and others and thus perpetuating ignorance throughout communities. Cultural racism is founded in the belief that "whiteness" is the universal [or privileged].

If it’s “politically constructed,” why are we seeing billboards advertising it? Instead, “Whiteness” is publicly condemned and never promoted. Clearly, Whites are the bad guys and must be exposed and shamed. While there are racists to be found in every ethnic or racial group, it has become acceptable to single out Whites as the originators of racism. However, isn’t PCC perpetuating racism by identifying one racial group as racist without any direct evidence?

Certainly, if there is a systematic White “cultural racism” that is victimizing other racial groups, then it needs to be uncovered and counteracted. However, PPC has not attempted to provide any evidence of this sinister plot. No confessions! No emails exposed! Nor have they made any attempt to show that other non-White racial groups are similarly disadvantaged. Such a discussion would simply interfere with their Whiteness narrative.

Instead, PCC’s indictment seems to rest on the White racist past, and there seems to be nothing that Whites can do to atone for their guilt but to wallow in it continuously. PCC expresses no appreciation for this country’s progress in eliminating discriminatory laws or the programs that now even favor Blacks, perhaps even to their detriment. Nor do they seem to want to entertain any evidence showing that Whites suffer far more from Black-on-White crime than Blacks from the opposite.

Besides, there is no mention in the White media of other disparities that do not fit into the Whiteness narrative. For example, according to a recent study, white students are subject to the worst bullying in schools. The Star Tribune writes:

• "A higher percentage of white students — 24 percent — said they were bullied than black, Hispanic or Asian students. Twenty percent of black students said they were bullied compared to 19 percent of Hispanic students and 9 percent of Asian students."

In addition to this, charges of Whiteness have become so acceptable that it is rude to even question them. I

However, in "The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech," liberal democrat, Kirsten Powers, writes:

• Mary Frances Berry, an African American and former chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights under President Bill Clinton, wrote in a Politico online discussion: “Tainting the tea party movement with the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats.”

• Berry, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, added, “There is no evidence that tea party adherents are any more racist than other Republicans, and indeed many other Americans. But getting them to spend their time purging their ranks and having candidates distance themselves should help Democrats win in November. Having one’s opponent rebut charges of racism is far better than discussing joblessness.”

Unfortunately, the White media is not holding them to account for such incendiary statements. Sadly, for many African Americans, these charges feel very real. They understandably tend to validate their own frustrations, fears, and anger. Just last night, actor Will Smith announced that he is boycotting the Academy Awards because he “feels” that Blacks aren’t being represented in sufficient numbers. Another allegation of Whiteness, and it met with the approval of the White media, which has blasted this “indictment” all over their networks, further alienating Black and White, to the detriment of all of us!

A friend wrote a letter to the New York Times charging that a local library was being closed because it was bringing too many Blacks into the area. I later asked what evidence he/she had for this inflammatory allegation. Answer: “It just felt that way to me.” Well, it might feel that way to many people, but this kind of charge is not only libelous; it is also incendiary.

Has my friend helped Blacks by affirming the exclusionary Whiteness narrative? Instead, she has joined a long list of Whites whose needlessly inflammatory rhetoric has served to further disenfranchise the Blacks.

Today, allegations of White racism are very acceptable. President Obama has frequently alluded to our racist past, suggesting that White racism is still very much with us. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton recently invoked the charge of White racism in regards to the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. Even though such statements are highly inflammatory and polarizing, no media outlet has asked her for evidence to support her charge. However, had another candidate charged that the Blacks were behind systemic racism or systemic crimes against Whites, they would be tarred and their candidacy thoroughly rejected.

This kind of “help” can actually be hurting. In “Please Stop Helping Us,” Jason Riley argues:

• The intentions behind welfare programs, for example, may be noble. But in practice they have slowed the self-development that proved necessary for other groups to advance. Minimum-wage laws might lift earnings for people who are already employed, but they also have a long history of pricing blacks out of the labor force. Affirmative action in higher education was intended to address past discrimination, but the result is fewer black college graduates— particularly in the fields of math and science— than we’d have in the absence of racial preferences. And so it goes, with everything from soft-on-crime laws that make black neighborhoods more dangerous to policies that limit school choice out of a mistaken belief that charter schools and voucher programs harm the traditional public schools that most low- income students attend.

• Time and again the empirical data show that current methods and approaches have come up short. Upward mobility depends on work and family. Social programs that undermine the work ethic and displace fathers keep poor people poor, and perverse incentives put in place by people trying to help are manifested in black attitudes, habits, and skills. Why study hard in school if you will be held to lower academic standards? Why change antisocial behavior when people are willing to reward it, make excuses for it, or even change the law to accommodate it?

• Although black civil rights leaders like to point to a supposedly racist criminal justice system to explain why our prisons house so many black men, it’s been obvious for decades that the real culprit is black behavior— behavior too often celebrated in black culture.

Perhaps the plight of the Black community isn’t the result of Whiteness. Riley writes:

• In September 2011 white unemployment was 8 percent, versus a unemployment rate of 16 percent. For black men it was 18 percent, and for black teens the jobless rate topped 44 percent. Nor was employment the only area where blacks as a group had regressed economically under Obama. According to the Census Bureau, black homeownership rates in 2011 had fallen to a point where the black- white gap was the widest since 1960, wiping out more than four decades of black gains. 

• When Fox News’s Sean Hannity asked black talk-show host Tavis Smiley in October of 2013 if black Americans were “better off five years into the Obama presidency,” Smiley responded: “Let me answer your question very forthrightly: No, they are not. The data is going to indicate, sadly, that when the Obama administration is over, black people will have lost ground in every single leading economic indicator category. On that regard, the president ought to be held responsible.”

Many ascribe the problems to covert racism and its determination to exclude blacks from society. Sometimes, this is called “systemic racism,” an alleged sinister and unseen master-plot to keep blacks in their place. Why do the Leftists invoke this imaginary conspiracy? Since it is an incontrovertible fact that there is no longer legal racism! All of the racist laws of the USA have been over-turned. Therefore, the blame-spinners must re-envision racism in another way. Even black-on-black crime is to be regarded as a product of this White conspiracy. However, Riley rejects the blame-game:

·       Race consciousness helps cohere the political left, and black liberalism’s main agenda is keeping race front and center in our national conversations. That’s why, for example, much more common black-on-black crimes take a back seat to much less common white-on-black crimes. The last thing that organizations like the NAACP want is for America to get “beyond” race. In their view, racial discrimination in one form or another remains a significant barrier to black progress, and government action is the best solution.

For the sake of all of us, we need to get beyond race. Meanwhile, the Whiteness narrative goes largely unchallenged! PCC castigates Whiteness without even considering the racist politics of other racial groups. Instead, it is enough for PPC to point to the economic disparity between Whites and Blacks as proof of ongoing White discrimination.

Without supporting the truth of their charges of a White conspiracy, the PCC event will have participants grapple with these questions, to reinforce that “already” established “truth of White guilt”:

1. What is whiteness and how is it socially constructed?
2. In what ways has whiteness been institutionalized, imposed and internalized?
3. In what ways does whiteness emerge from a legacy of imperialism, conquest, colonialism and the American enterprise?
4. What are the legal, cultural, economic, social, environmental, educational, and /or intrapersonal consequences of whiteness?
5. Who benefits from the consequences of whiteness? Who loses from whiteness? How?

Meanwhile, many thoughtful Blacks understand that the new racism of Whiteness and its accompanying White guilt have been destructive, even to the Black community. As a panelist at a conference on racism, Shelby Steele was asked what an ideal America would look like. He writes:

·       I said that what I wanted most for America was an end to white guilt... the terror of being seen as racist— [the] terror that has caused whites to act guiltily toward minorities even when they feel no actual guilt. My point was that this terror— and the lust it has inspired in whites to show themselves innocent of racism— has spawned a new white paternalism toward minorities since the 1960s that, among other things, has damaged the black family more profoundly than segregation ever did. I also pleaded especially for an end to the condescension of affirmative action... the benevolent paternalism of white guilt, I said, had injured the self- esteem, if not the souls, of minorities in ways that the malevolent paternalism of white racism never had. Post- 1960s welfare policies, the proliferation of “identity politics” and group preferences, and all the grandiose social interventions of the War on Poverty and the Great Society— all this was meant to redeem the nation from its bigoted past, but paradoxically, it also invited minorities to make an identity and a politics out of grievance and inferiority... their entitlement and that protest politics was the best way to cash in on that entitlement. (Shame: How America's Past Sins have Polarized the Country)

Steele believes that white guilt is now more destructive to the Black community than white racism. He argues that the very programs intended to help Blacks were not simply ineffective but actually damaged the Black community:

·       White guilt was a smothering and distracting kindness that enmeshed minorities more in the struggle for white redemption than in their own struggle to develop as individuals capable of competing with all others.

However, White guilt remains the meta-narrative within our centers of influence, and guilt drives us to do many unhelpful things to reduce guilt. It damages not only Blacks but also Whites. For one example, Germany is leading the way in Europe in taking in refugees who have been repaying their kindness with rape. Why are they tolerating this treatment? As one woman confessed, “We don’t want anyone to think that we are still Nazis.”

Self-atonement is clearly not the answer. However, when society continues to deliver up a steady diet of Whiteness training, it’s hard to resist.

How then do we get beyond race? Love! But not a “love” which degrades one race in favor of another, or a “love” imposed without wisdom, as an entitlement, which just serves to reinforce race! This type of “love” is addicting and disempowering. Instead, we need a love that recognizes that we are our neighbor’s keeper and protector, a love that voluntarily reaches out without coercion, knowing that since we have been given, we too must give.

Who is your Friend?

A highly respected Messianic Jewish leader recently announced that anti-Semitism is just Satanic, meaning that the Jewish people played absolutely no role in anti-Semitism.

I challenged him claiming that the Jews did play a part. Moses and all the Hebrew Prophets had warned the Jews that if they continued to turn their back on God, God would turn His back on them, and they would be hated by the nations.

Understandably, my words were offensive, but who is a friend of the Jews? The one who absolves them of all guilt or the one who calls them to confess their sins and find healing? Many regard their friend as the one who speaks comforting words. However, our Lord sees things differently:

• The visions of your prophets were false and worthless; they did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity. The oracles they gave you were false and misleading. (Lamentations 2:14)

The false prophets always spoke comforting and popular words. Had Israel’s shepherds confronted Israel with their sins, they might have repented and averted death and captivity.

I am certainly not suggesting that my Messianic friend is a false prophet, but this faithful leader is making the same mistake as the false prophets. Instead, the good shepherd must expose sin and not gloss over it, according to God’s instructions to Ezekiel:

• "Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to the wicked, 'O wicked man, you will surely die,' and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood.” (Ezekiel 33:7-8)

A friend will confront his people with their sins. Instead, the politician will tell them what they want to hear to get what he wants. In contrast, the faithful servant will seek the best for his friend and will not draw back from speaking painful but necessary words.

For many, Jason Riley’s words will be painful. He will even be called an “Uncle Tom” and a traitor, but in Please Stop Helping Us, Riley writes words we all need to hear:

• The intentions behind welfare programs, for example, may be noble. But in practice they have slowed the self- development that proved necessary for other groups to advance. Minimum-wage laws might lift earnings for people who are already employed, but they also have a long history of pricing blacks out of the labor force. Affirmative action in higher education was intended to address past discrimination, but the result is fewer black college graduates— particularly in the fields of math and science— than we’d have in the absence of racial preferences. And so it goes, with everything from soft-on-crime laws that make black neighborhoods more dangerous to policies that limit school choice out of a mistaken belief that charter schools and voucher programs harm the traditional public schools that most low- income students attend. 

Conservatives have oft spoken against the negative effects of the welfare system. For this, they have been labeled “racist.” The church has been widely criticized for betraying their mandate to care for the poor. However, if the entitlement programs have done more to hurt the poor than to help, there may be sound reasons for the church’s opposition.

Opposition to the welfare system is not merely anecdotal. It is both empirical and logical, according to Riley:

• Time and again the empirical data show that current methods and approaches have come up short. Upward mobility depends on work and family. Social programs that undermine the work ethic and displace fathers keep poor people poor, and perverse incentives put in place by people trying to help are manifested in black attitudes, habits, and skills. Why study hard in school if you will be held to lower academic standards? Why change antisocial behavior when people are willing to reward it, make excuses for it, or even change the law to accommodate it?

Conservative and Liberal alike can agree that the Black community continues to suffer. However, they differ greatly in their analysis. While Liberals blame the system for the fact that there is a disproportionate percentage of Blacks behind bars, Riley writes:

• Although black civil rights leaders like to point to a supposedly racist criminal justice system to explain why our prisons house so many black men, it’s been obvious for decades that the real culprit is black behavior— behavior too often celebrated in black culture.

If black behavior is the cause, then black behavior must be addressed and not the alleged racist system. Meanwhile, the disparity is growing worse in many areas. Riley writes:

• In September 2011 white unemployment was 8 percent, versus a unemployment rate of 16 percent. For black men it was 18 percent, and for black teens the jobless rate topped 44 percent. Nor was employment the only area where blacks as a group had regressed economically under Obama. According to the Census Bureau, black homeownership rates in 2011 had fallen to a point where the black- white gap was the widest since 1960, wiping out more than four decades of black gains.

• When Fox News’s Sean Hannity asked black talk- show host Tavis Smiley in October of 2013 if black Americans were “better off five years into the Obama presidency,” Smiley responded: “Let me answer your question very forthrightly: No, they are not. The data is going to indicate, sadly, that when the Obama administration is over, black people will have lost ground in every single leading economic indicator category. On that regard, the president ought to be held responsible.” 

Many ascribe the problems to underlying racism and its determination to exclude blacks from society. Sometimes it is called “systemic racism,” a sinister and unseen master-plot to keep blacks in their place. Why do the Leftists invoke this imaginary conspiracy? Since it is an incontrovertible fact that there is no longer legal racism! All of the racist laws of the USA have been over-turned. Therefore, the blame-spinners must re-envision racism in another way. Even black-on-black crime is a product of this conspiracy. However, Riley resists the blame-game:

• Race consciousness helps cohere the political left, and black liberalism’s main agenda is keeping race front and center in our national conversations. That’s why, for example, much more common black-on-black crimes take a back seat to much less common white-on-black crimes. The last thing that organizations like the NAACP want is for America to get “beyond” race. In their view, racial discrimination in one form or another remains a significant barrier to black progress, and government action is the best solution. 

Is Riley a friend to his black people? Not according to most Leftists who instead regard him as an “Uncle Tom!” However, Riley wants to protect his people from certain destructive notions – namely, the belief that there is a plot against them. It is this kind of belief that will inevitably keep them down.

Such a belief might be comforting – the white man can be blamed instead of engaging in painful self-examination – but it will prove costly. What white employer will seek to hire a black youth after watching the Ferguson riots!

Truly, the human race will never reach a place where we will all regard our fellow humans as equals. There will always be racism - both black and white. However, we have made massive strides. Meanwhile, the attempt to spread the idea that blacks are still the victims of a massive, covert, and systemic plot to exclude them from society can only engender bitterness, resignation, and violence – the very things that we are seeing today in growing numbers.

How then should we be a friend? John and Charles Wesley prayed to the Lord about their disintegrating society, where the preaching of the Gospel was often accompanied by violent reactions. Nevertheless, by the grace of their Savior, they were able to organize new believers and seekers into home-fellowships where they studied the Bible, prayed, confessed their sins, and committed themselves to follow Jesus.

What was the impact? Charles White, professor of Christian Thought and History at Spring Arbor University, writes:

• The Methodists made such an impact on their nation that in 1962 historian Elie Halevy theorized that the Wesleyan revival created England’s middle class and saved England from the kind of bloody revolution that crippled France. Other historians, building on his work, go further to suggest that God used Methodism to show all the oppressed peoples of the world that feeding their souls on the heavenly bread of the lordship of Christ is the path to providing the daily bread their bodies also need. (Mission Frontiers, Sept-Oct 2011, 6)

• Coming to Christ through the Methodist movement changed the lives of a million people in Britain and North American in the eighteenth century….most of these people and their children moved from the desperation of hand-to mouth poverty to the security of middle-class life as they made Christ their Lord and experienced the impact of His power on their economic lives. As these people moved up the social ladder, they began to influence the political life of their nation. They helped to transform Britain from as eighteenth-century kleptocracy – where the powerful fueled their lives of indulgence by exploiting the poor into a nineteenth century democracy – which abolished slavery and used its empire to enrich the lives of every subject of the crown. (9)

This is what it means to be a friend!