Tag: racism

Categories
general freedom property rights

And So It Begins

Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi

“Your time is up, white people,” South African politician Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi offered.

This woman, who belongs to the Economic Freedom Fighters, a “far left” political party, is defending something Frédéric Bastiat would have dubbed the very worst kind of “legal plunder”: in this case, a land grab from white farmers to give to (some) blacks, without compensation.

“White South Africans could be forced to give up their own homes from next year as the nation’s government steamrolls through plans for land expropriation,” Zoie O’Brien reports for Britain’s Daily Mail. Why? Well, “over claims ‘Africa’s original sin’ must be reversed.”

There will be no reversal, of course. Not of “Africa’s original sin,” which, I dare suggest, mischaracterizes the problems of South Africa.

And yes, I know, it is complicated, since “many in the nation see the move as retribution.” For past white supremacist racial policies.

But justice simply cannot be two wrongs. For what is happening in South Africa is the gearing up for a mass crime. 

They call it “land reform,” of course. Lots of tragedies begin that way. Ask the people of the country formerly called Rhodesia. 

I’ve referred to South Africa’s gross dysfunction before. There appears to be an instinctive media downplaying of this matter, largely because of past racism and the “white people bad” mentality now too common.

Your time is up, white people. Racism. Sure. (No point in just calling it “reverse racism.”) A crime against the owners of property. The wrong way to address problems, surely.

And ominous, for rarely does an enormity like this stop just there.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi

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Categories
crime and punishment media and media people Popular

What’s Up With Hate?

hate crime, FBI, report, statistics

Reported hate crimes are up.

Last year, you may remember, major media outlets noted an alarming pattern, quoting the work of a “nonpartisan researcher” who seemed more intent on linking Donald Trump to the perceived trend than anything else.

This year’s increase?

Well, the most recent FBI report shows hate crimes for 2017 up a whopping 17 percent!

Sounds alarming.

But is it? I mean, really?

Maybe. CNN offers a fascinating investigation of several rather big-​story hate crimes that did not make it into the statistics. Yes, disturbing.

But what did CNN not report?

YouTuber Matt Christiansen drilled down, focusing on several aspects of the FBI report that are missing from accounts brought to us by major news outlets.

The uptick in sheer numbers of hate crimes may be mostly the result of the increased number of law enforcement agencies that have been brought into the data-​collecting project. How many new agencies? One thousand.*

And consider the demographics changes year-​to-​year as well. Religious-​based crimes saw a small increase in the number of anti-​Jewish events and a similar decrease in anti-​Muslim ones. All in all, notes Christiansen, there has been little change in the proportions of the statistical categories — which would not be what one would expect if Trump were the Malign Influence.

Also bad for that narrative? The biggest detectable change in the distribution of race-​based crimes — more than twice the increase in numbers of crimes against Hispanics — was against (get ready for it) whites.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* That is from the FBI press release; oddly, I did not find that statement when looking directly at the report.

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Categories
education and schooling ideological culture moral hazard responsibility too much government

An Expert Explains Failure

ladder, education, success, poverty, racism, schools, charter

The failures of the public high schools in the District of Columbia go on an on. It is quite a scandal, as I explained this weekend at Townhall.

And yet some “charter schools that serve large populations of children from low-​income families,” notes the Washington Post, after providing much detail about the massive failures, “recorded big increases in scores.”

What hint about improving education does that fact give?

Well, Kevin Welner, a professor who heads the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado, has an interesting thought: “People want to read into these test scores lessons about what the schools are doing. But these scores, even the growth scores, depend a great deal on students’ opportunities to learn outside of school. If we address the poverty and racism, then we will see these test scores increase.”

Hmmm. Let’s review: (a) the problem is at home and (b) it cannot be overcome by the schools. Moreover, the esteemed professor perceives the cause of these detrimental home environments to be “racism and poverty.” 

Once upon a time, public education was proclaimed to be the great equalizer, allowing the disadvantaged to climb the economic ladder, and, if not wipe out poverty completely, to certainly dramatically reduce it. 

Now, we discover from a certified education expert that we had it backwards.

So maybe it is time to chuck the whole experiment and just try to educate kids.

Not “save” them, or society.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Categories
Accountability general freedom ideological culture media and media people

Transcendent Gray Lady

New York Times, The Terror, doxing, firing, racism, double standard

How far are we away from a completely vindictive, murderous madness like The Terror of revolutionary France?

I know, almost no one is talking of guillotines. 

But a lot of people seem determined to destroy others’ lives publicly. We are all too familiar with Twitterstorms where worked-​up outrage forces someone out of a job or a deal  — usually for making jokes.

But it’s not just jokes. Not long ago an actor got in trouble for Tweeting that commentator and Daily Wire host Ben Shapiro seems a nice, honest person on the right that a leftist might listen to. The actor was forced to recant, and then Shapiro himself publicly recanted from some past putatively “dumb” things he “did” or “said.” Or something.

Since we’re talking about Mr. Shapiro, his commentary on the Sarah Jeong case is not irrelevant. The New York Times hired Ms. Jeong despite her past racist tweets. 

Well, racist-​against-​whites. 

“By the rules of the left,” says Shapiro, “this person should now be excised from polite society.”

But the Times is keeping her.

Shapiro finds this “indicative” of more than just the Times. The left at large seems OK with anti-​white racism but not anti-any-other-race.

It’s indicative of a lot more, though, not just racism and anti-​racism and anti-​anti-​racism. 

Outrage and the Twittermob may be fun. But it’s time to stop.

Is the Times leading the way?

Only when the decrepit old rag defends someone not on its own ideological side. Transcending partisan mob mania means first transcending partisanship. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Categories
general freedom U.S. Constitution

Why We Fought

When I was young, we were instructed to revere the men dubbed by President Warren Harding as “the Founding Fathers.” Reverence has since gone out of fashion.

Even today’s freedom-​minded often express a general iffiness about America’s separation from England.

Now, I’m so deep-​seatedly anti-​monarchical, so resolutely anti-​royal that I tend to shake my head at this sort of stuff. Yet people I very much admire might be called Revolution Liberty Skeptics.

“Can anyone tell me why American independence was worth fighting for?” asks economist Bryan Caplan. He says “it’s hard to get a decent answer” on specific policies improved by the secession from the Empire, at least liberty-wise. 

He speculates, for example, that separation “allowed American slavery to avoid earlier — and peaceful — abolition.”

Historian Jeffrey Rogers Hummel ably answers him, noting that before “the American Revolution, every New World colony, British or otherwise, legally sanctioned slavery, and nearly every colony counted enslaved people among its population. As late as 1770, nearly twice as many Africans were in bondage throughout the colony of New York as within Georgia, although slaves were a much larger percentage of Georgia’s population.” Vermont, which did not join the union until 1791, abolished slavery in 1777. By 1804, gradual emancipation had begun in all the remaining northern states that had not abolished slavery outright.*

Do we really think all this would’ve happened under British rule?

As Hummel reminds us, “emancipation had to start somewhere.”

It started in the country that put liberty up front.**

Scoffing at the Revolution now won’t put liberty further forward.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* New York’s gradualist plan declared all children of slaves born after July 4, 1799, to be free after ages 25 and 28 years, female and male, respectively. 

** Hummel makes good points on other freedoms, too.

 

 

Categories
Accountability education and schooling folly general freedom ideological culture local leaders moral hazard nannyism responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

Degrading Expectations

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, race, racism, low expectations, condescension, Stuyvesant High, quota, affirmative action

Expect racism to come from the Right … we are told by the Left. 

On Wednesday, I considered the sad case of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, pushing racial resentment in a black church, asking for an “amen” after telling the parishioners that there was something very wrong with Asian students dominating that most meritocratic of institutions, Stuyvesant High.

Giving up on meritocracy is quite bracing, as is de Blasio’s lack of commitment to the culture of individual achievement.

His assumption? Black and Hispanic Americans just cannot compete on merit alone. 

They don’t need to work harder, and we mustn’t expect them to. They needn’t change their values or encourage their children to be more academically ambitious. What’s the point in troubling to emulate successful cultures, like that of many Asians (many of them quite poor) who have been advancing so effectively? For de Blasio there’s no hope for blacks and Hispanics. 

Except through him.

Note the two pillars of de Blasio’s vision:

  1. racial determinism, where individuals cannot hope to succeed outside the stereotyped behavior of their racial background, their skin color and physical features determining their performance,
  2. except when Government steps in to save them (this is statist messianism).

And yes, by “government” he really means “de Blasio” — or “progressivise politics.”

The first assumption has been called “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” 

The second is idolatry of the State and overbearing pride in one’s own ideological tribe.

You individuals have no chance to succeed, the idea runs, but We, the Progressives, will save you. Vote for us!

How insufferable.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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