Friends, when the forces of anarchy run riot in America's cities, you'd think that all "responsible" voices would unite in condemning the lawlessness and calling for it to end. Not so! Many leftists are praising the rioters, and defending the unrest as a legitimate response to black America's long list of grievances (some real, and some imagined). In many cities, liberal mayors are forcing police to stand down and let the hoodlums have their fun. President Trump has been restrained so far in his response, as have many Governors, but it's time we all joined forces and said: "Enough is enough!" My latest article, though, isn't about what lies ahead. It's about how we got here, and, as you might expect, I lay much of the blame on the American Left. Read on, and see if you and I are on the same page.
Let's Be Honest: Racial Grievances
are the Lifeblood of the American Left
Politicians all
over the political spectrum are finally coming around to the
commonsensical conclusion that, regardless of how unwarranted,
scandalous, and illegal police officers' treatment of George Floyd
may have been, there is no justification for the campaign of looting
and organized violence that has been unleashed on America's cities.
Violence is rarely the solution to violence, and crime is never the
solution to crime.
We also should be
candid about the fact that the mass protests, civil disobedience, and
even the acts of arson, assault, theft, and murder we are witnessing
in cities nationwide is the product of careful cultivation by the
American Left and a complicit media.
For
years, these charlatans have been selling to people of color a
delusion of gargantuan proportions: first, the idea that America in
the early 21st
century is one of the most prejudiced and oppressive places that has
ever existed; and, second, the idea that it is progressively getting
worse.
Neither notion is
remotely true, but careful editing of news coverage, as well as
indoctrination in the schools, higher education, and in virtually all
facets of our popular culture, has convinced racial minorities (and
many whites) that racism is the defining feature of the American
experience.
Not freedom.
Not opportunity.
Racism.
The recipe is
simple: ignore all prejudice and violence that emanates from people
of color and from liberals, and trumpet all prejudice and violence
that emanates, or can plausibly be claimed to emanate, from whites
who have not knelt before the gods of progressivism.
Thus, every time
a white American is rude to a black person, or displays bias, and the
incident is caught on tape, it is, perforce, national news. If that
white person inflicts any type of violence on people of color, so
much the better — such a storyline fits the agenda of the Left and
the media to a tee. Bias and/or violence that flows from the wrong
sources, however, the Left and the media feel they have a solemn
obligation to cover up, because even to acknowledge these phenomena
would “reinforce” America's “original sin”: white racism.
The result is
predictable: people of color are bombarded with messages, from
politicians, pastors, movie stars, pop singers, sports heroes,
teachers, and news anchors, that draw their attention to white
racism, and which explain virtually all dysfunction and misfortune in
communities of color as the product of such racism, both on the
individual level and in “institutional” forms.
Moreover, as we
see in so many guises these days, the standard of evidence for
proving the presence of racism has been steadily lowered. No longer
does one need to demonstrate clear racist intent to be labeled a
racist. A mere slip of the tongue, or a failure to demonstrate
sufficient enthusiasm for the causes beloved of self-declared
“anti-racists”, is more than enough to mark one as racist trash,
destined for the dustbin of history.
Likewise,
no longer does an organization or institution have to intend
to discriminate against any group to be accused of racism — merely
failing to produce the “equality of results” that leftists desire
will suffice to prove that “implicit bias” must color the
policies and leadership of the relevant party.
Put
simply, racism is the default explanation for everything of which the
modern liberal disapproves. The burden is on each and every white
American to prove that he or she is not
racist, and only complete submission to the agenda of the Left can
accomplish this (provisionally, that is, or rather until the Left
decides to make one of its own a sacrificial lamb to social justice,
which it often does).
The
upshot of this sad state of affairs is that the Democratic Party,
which is the political embodiment of the American Left — even
though most leftists hold the moribund Dems in contempt — has
embraced with aplomb the strategy of race-baiting its way to victory.
The use of racially-based dog whistles is now de
rigueur
among Democrats, and the thought that ordinary Americans, much less
people as odious as Republicans, are entitled to the benefit of the
doubt has long since been dismissed as fanciful and naive.
And now, in our smoldering streets, in the wreckage of countless
stores, in emergency rooms where the victims of mob violence are
being patched up, and in the dingy morgues where the fatalities from
street brawls are accumulating, we see the Left's philosophy of
racial grievance taken to its ultimate conclusion.
Liberals cultivated fear, anger, and despair, because they expected
to profit from them. They did profit from them, in fact, but America
as a whole has paid, is paying, and will continue to pay a steep
price for the leftists' gravely irresponsible and short-sighted
conduct.
And the saddest part is this: we were so close to healing many of
the racial divides that now threaten to swallow us whole.
