For me, the very first – although not the most momentous disappointment in the accumulated collection racked up throughout the Obama administration – was the realization that there would be no line drawn under the old bug-bear of racism with regard to those of us – as a friend of mine during my assignment to Greenland in the early 1980s put it – with the year-round dark tan. Yes, said friend was black, Afro-American, a person of color, or whatever the approved term is these days. (You kids, get off my lawn! Oh … I don’t have a lawn.) My friend was a totally middle-class young woman, the daughter of professionals, who like me, had grown up without ever personally observing much in-your-face unmistakable racial antagonism or prejudice. It was merely something that had happened to other people, a fair number of decades ago; at worst howlingly illegal, at best, rude. We were in the habit of walking together every Saturday, around the end of the Sondrestrom AB runway to the Danish side of the base, there to enjoy a cup of tea and a pastry in the SAS air terminal cafeteria.
North of the Arctic Circle, you take your diversions where you can find them; in this case, the air terminal cafeteria was A) away from the base, and B) actually had rather good food, since it was entirely run by Danes; masters of pastry and good solid comfort food. One Saturday, the cafeteria was empty save for a large party at another table, who stared at the pair of us in a manner most disconcerting. It freaked both of us out, as soon as we noticed. Had we each suddenly grown another head? Were we trailing toilet paper stuck to our mukluks? It wasn’t an American uniform – both of us were clad in the customary Sondy winter mufti, of jeans and plaid shirts, with the addition of dull-green issue parkas and mukluks – why were they staring at us? Finally, I ventured – “Is it because you’re black and I’m white, and they’re from South Africa or something, where it’s illegal to sit at the same table?”
She agreed that it must be something like that; it must have been the only explanation, and we returned to enjoying our tea and pastries, marveling at how things had changed so much for the better, from the times of violent civil rights demonstrations twenty years before.
At that point – and especially in the military – systemic racial prejudice appeared to be something from the bad old days. It was so far off the table, it wasn’t even in the same room. No one turned so much as a hair over a commander, supervisor, NCOIC being of another race, and if racial prejudice were a factor in the dating and marriage scene, it was one of the best-kept secrets since the Enigma coding device. So, twenty-some years after that tea-time in the airport terminal, I had some thin and comforting hope that the election of B. Obama to the highest office in the land would at the least put a dagger in the heart of the myth of the USA being Teh Most Racist Nation Evah! – even if he delivered on nothing else of note. And this, even after the “G*d Damn America” sermon stylings of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright came to light among the conservative side of the blogosphere. I’m at heart an optimist … surely the chances of a light-weight Chicago machine pol, with not much going for him other than a mellifluous voice (when reading from a teleprompter) and a slightly unusual personal background couldn’t do all that much damage … could he?
Ten years later, that answer is along the lines of ‘oh, hell, yes!’ Between the crazed indifference to the actual facts of the various ‘police on black thug’ shootings on the part of BLM (and the statistics on crime by black vs white perps generally), the curious rise of the ‘knock-out game’, an anti-Semitic race-mongering sleaze-ball opportunist like Al Sharpton achieving a comfortable sinecure and apparent social respect among Dems as a media commenter, American institutions of higher learning piously condemning ‘whiteness’, an earnest and involved group of citizens like the Tea Party partisans being routinely condemned by the establishment news and entertainment media as racist … all that is bad enough. But now it seems that Nation of Islam honcho, Louis Farrakhan – vicious, anti-Semitic, poisonously-hateful of whites in general, and all-around nut-bar – was on closer acquaintance with our former President than previously thought. Yes, presidents and rising pols need to rub elbows with those from whom a normal private citizen would otherwise run screaming, or at least murmuring polite apologies as they edge towards the door – but what are we to make of this? Trump is expected to apologize endlessly for having attracted the support of David Duke – but the support of a malignant hater like Calypso Louie is just – oh, well, one of those political things?
Sharpton, at least, gives off the vibe of being a particular sort of crass racial opportunist (aside from the anti-Semitic thing). Stoking racial animosity been berry, berry good to him over the years – but Louis Farrakhan? He comes off as a fanatic, and of a dangerous sort. Discuss, if you can bear it.
As I have mentioned here before (I think) I have been teaching medical students on small groups for 15 years.
I also interview and examine applicants to the US military.
Those experiences have shown me several things about racial politics in the US.
Foreign born blacks do not understand US blacks. Some of my students were from the West Indies and thus have some background of slavery.
One of my first black students 20 years ago was married to a white Australian who was a grad student at USC in Engineering. She was from Trinidad.
They were very poor, as I had been once, but there was no racial issue between them.
One year I had a black student from Los Angeles who decided to live at home. By Christmas vacation he was losing weight and depressed. That year, I had a couple of other black students in my group, one from Eritrea, and they tried to help him but he flunked out.
I know quite a few black doctors. All have middle class, mostly professional, parents. Their children are following professional paths like my kids, mostly.
Except they have an advantage of being black. Most of them don’t need it but don’t turn it down.
Some are hurt by it as they would do well at Howard U but stumble at Harvard.
I have talked to African blacks who wonder at American blacks who are offered this banquet and ignore it to see themselves as victims.
Obama made it much much worse when he could have helped.
Notice that Al & Jesse have been very quiet regarding Trump. Why? Because surely Donnie has copies of all the checks he wrote to them over the years…
Notice that Al & Jesse have been very quiet regarding Trump. Why? Because surely Donnie has copies of all the checks he wrote to them over the years…
Even more: copies of all the letters and news clips in which they praised him.
Mike K…”Some are hurt by it as they would do well at Howard U but stumble at Harvard”
Is this true anymore? There have been a lot of reports to the effect that once you get *in* to Harvard (or Yale, etc), then the odds are very high that you will graduate, because of the grading policies.
Maybe it’s different in medical school?
The election of Buraq Hussein Obama was an irrevocable turning point. It meant that those who were part of the urban black culture, and those who were immigrating/invading from Mestizo cultures were never going to integrate into the mainstream culture and instead from then on were encouraged to and are seeking to destroy it.
Seriously, even if we were to enter a new economic golden age, those cultures actively reject the existence of both European and Asian cultures that have come here no matter how successful.
Black urban culture considers both literacy and schooling to be “acting White”. And they do not care that the next generation do better than themselves.
In California, there are multi-generation families of illegal invaders who have not learned English and cannot function in the larger culture.
European, Asian, Caribbean, and sub-Saharan African immigrants come with the intention of making themselves part of the American dream. If the first generation does not learn English [because they are too busy supporting their family] or cannot [because they are too old to learn and are in their own ethnic community and lack exposure]; you can absolutely bet that the first generation born here learns English, sometimes to the exclusion of their family’s home language. And the kids are pushed to success. The first American born generation IS American.
This is a difference that is not going to be overcome peacefully. The American Left is intent on making sure that we cannot vote our way out of this. Darwin IS going to take the hindmost.
But now it seems that Nation of Islam honcho, Louis Farrakhan – vicious, anti-Semitic, poisonously-hateful of whites in general, and all-around nut-bar – was on closer acquaintance with our former President than previously thought.
Was it more than the photo-op with the other Black congresspeople?
What a lot of people forget about Louis Farrakhan is his shameful record with regard to Malcolm X – though that information is readily accessible. After Malcolm X’s trip to Mecca in 1964, he broke with the Black Muslims. Louis Farrakhan, then known as Louis X, did not take kindly to Malcolm X’s leaving the Black Muslims for mainstream Islam.
It was no accident that when Malcom X was killed in early 1965, Black Muslims were his killers, though those who were convicted didn’t implicate any higher-ups.
Decades later, Farrkhan indicated he had no problem with the assassination of Malcolm X:
While Louis Farrakhan didn’t pull the triggers that killed Malcolm X, his previous incitement and his later reaction to Malcolm X’s assassination indicate that no decent person should associate with Farrakhan.
That anonymous comment was mine.
once you get *in* to Harvard (or Yale, etc), then the odds are very high that you will graduate, because of the grading policies.
That may well be true but I wonder how many will realize their grade is meaningless.
Medical school, like engineering school, has a system of results that provides a check on BS.
The black student who took Allan Bakke’s place at UC, Davis in the 1970s was later convicted of second degree murder and his license was revoked for incompetence.
Bakke has been quietly practicing for 20 years as an anesthesiologist.
“The American Left is intent on making sure that we cannot vote our way out of this.”
I have talked to a number of Vietnamese refugees. I remember one girl who had a Masters from UCI and who was applying to medical school.
She told me how her father had lifted her from her bed when she was nine and carried her to a canoe that took them out to a fishing boat offshore that carried them to a Philippines refugee camp. They were several years there before they got to California.
Nobody will deny these people their chance.
The blacks are passing up opportunities they will never see again.
The blacks are passing up opportunities they will never see again.
Not all are. But Blacks are bifurcating into those who are assimilating into mainstream culture and those who remain Black crackers. In a few more generations there will be so much mixing in the mainstream culture that it will be difficult to retain affirmative action. Then the Black crackers and the rednecks of Hillbilly Elegy will be seen as a single unassimilated group, one part urban, the other rural.
Then the Black crackers and the rednecks of Hillbilly Elegy will be seen as a single unassimilated group, one part urban, the other rural.
The black feral types who commit all the crime will be with us but maybe, just maybe, they will get controlled by somebody who is not afraid of being called “Racist,.”
The white “Hillbillies” are not a problem unless you object to their voting for Trump.
Read Jim Webb’s book, “Born Fighting.”
@Mike K,
When the Hispanics take over, the blacks are done. I’ve already seen that effect take place, and heard the expressed opinions often enough to tell you that the future of a Hispanic-majority US won’t be peaceful until all the blacks are either dead or subsumed into some other other group entirely.
You can see it happening in California right now. Walk into a government office down there, and count noses: Majority of the faces and names of the employees Hispanic? Watch how the dynamics work out for the black clientele. Observe the hostility. Likewise, if the majority of the employees are black, watch how the Hispanics fare.
I’m not ever going to forget the conversation I overheard between a Mexican-American senior NCO and a black one. They’d gotten into a situation where ethnicity and accountability created a conflict, and the Mexican-American guy was pissed that the black guy was playing the “race card” to avoid accountability for himself and a couple of black subordinates. His words went something to the effect that “…when we’re (meaning Hispanics) running things, your free ride is going to be over, n-word… We’re not stupid, like these white people are… You assholes are going to have to start working for a living…”.
Lotta hatred and hostility there, invisible to a lot of us. There are a lot of Hispanics that flat-out loathe the “black mentality”, and I don’t see that mentality surviving much after the white SJW power structure actually immanentizes its longed-for eschaton and manages to destroy the rest of the so-called “white power structure” in this country. Instead, what you’re going to see that doing is ushering in a prolonged period of racial strife between the successor ethnicities that will make the previous state of affairs seem like a paradise of racial harmony.
“Lotta hatred and hostility there, invisible to a lot of us.”
There are weekly, almost daily, race riots in LAUSD schools. Ain’t no whites left in these schools. It’s all black vs. Mexican. Therefore of course the media doesn’t talk about it at all.
>’We’re not stupid, like these white people are’
I guess our next Civil War will have a strong racial component.
We could have been countrymen. Instead they have fed themselves fat on a bunch of adversarial left-wing horsepucky and want to be conquistadors. Fortunately Mexicans are about as good as the Irish at organizing themselves.
Well, at least we still have someone fighting. In Britain they’ve just laid down and handed over their children to the invaders
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/britains-worst-ever-child-grooming-12165527
The Mirror’s 18-month investigation reveals abuse on unprecedented levels. We found:
Social workers knew of abuse in the 1990s but police took a decade to launch a probe
Council staff viewed abused and trafficked children as “prostitutes” instead of victims, according to previously unseen files
Authorities failed to keep details of abusers from Asian communities for fear of “racism”
Police failed to investigate one recent case five times until an MP intervened
One victim said cops tried to stop her finding out why her abusers had not been prosecuted because they feared she would talk to us
“When the Hispanics take over, the blacks are done.”
Oh, I know what you are referring to. I knew this back when Nat King Cole did his Spanish album, “Nat King Col, Espanole.”
It tanked and we all knew why.
Ain’t no whites left in these schools. It’s all black vs. Mexican. Therefore of course the media doesn’t talk about it at all.
And in prisons and they really don’t talk about that.
The formerly black areas of Los Angeles, like Watts, are all Hispanic now.
The problem with the Hispanics is the illegals who are on welfare through their anchor babies.
ROTFLMFAO. No, no racism here, that’s for sure. ;)
Pengun, from the great white north, is an expert on racism.
To Penny, it seems that pointing out the dysfunctions of black-ghetto-thug culture, and realistically meditating on the possible results of embracing said culture — is racist.
Shrug. Don’t care. Can’t be made to care.
Seems to me that in addition to agreeing with Kirk’s observation about blacks and Hispanics, that black Americans are fracturing into two different cultures. There is the black-ghetto-thug element, and then the hard-working and ambitions element. (Met many of those in my time in service, and some of them were pretty frank about how they had enlisted to escape from it.) My next-door neighbor and her son and grandsons are an example of the striving element; decent, hardworking, good neighbors … and what her daughter-in-law has to say about Section 8 beneficiaries would peel the paint off Penny’s walls, I am certain. Trash is about the most repeatable word she used.
But the trouble is, I think – the solidarity of color lumps them in with the trash element, not just from the outside-looking-in, but within the overall black American society itself. Yes, by hard work and ambition, they have escaped … but there is that tug of feeling somehow responsible for the ones left in the brutal ghetto.
This reminds me of something that John Derbyshire wrote about his time in Africa: can’t find the link at the moment, but it was to the effect that in the place where he did his initial service as a doctor in Africa — a native entrepreneur absolutely could not make it, if he set up a commercial enterprise, or qualified as a skilled tech – because he would be expected as a matter of course to look after, or give extreme discounts to all of his fellow clan … and so be dragged down again by the implied obligation to the extended clan.
I wonder if this isn’t going on in a small degree in the black community: those who have gotten ahead by hard work, still feeling obliged by racial solidarity to defend the counter-productive element.
“Pengun, from the great white north, is an expert on racism.”
Haha. You can’t even get mad at PenGun. He’s too stupid to be evil.
This reminds me of something that John Derbyshire wrote about his time in Africa: can’t find the link at the moment, but it was to the effect that in the place where he did his initial service as a doctor in Africa — a native entrepreneur absolutely could not make it, if he set up a commercial enterprise, or qualified as a skilled tech – because he would be expected as a matter of course to look after, or give extreme discounts to all of his fellow clan … and so be dragged down again by the implied obligation to the extended clan.
I believe you are talking about Anthony Daniels, who is best known under the pen name of Theodore Dalrymple.
I have also read Dalrymple’s comments about African professionals having to support their extended clan. Support for the clan was also a motivator in corruption in Africa. Get as much as quick as possible for your people.
Some time in the last year or so, PenGun talked about a recent Ami emigrant to Canada- from the city of Baltimore- a city that in previous decades was blessed by the governance of Nancy Pelosi’s father and brother. If PenGun were to spend a year in Baltimore, I wonder if his opinions would change any. A hometown peer of mine bought a house in Baltimore, and ended up selling it for half what he paid for it. Guess the Chinese prefer propping up Vancouver’s real estate market to propping up Baltimore’s.
Ah, yes – Gringo; I stand corrected: Theodore Dalrymple was the writer I so imperfectly recalled.
I keep posting the link to that Dalrymple article.
Here it is again.
some of them were pretty frank about how they had enlisted to escape from it.
I met a young man who was trying to do that. He was applying to the Army at 23.
He told me he had been raised in foster care. Never used drugs. Never arrested.
He said he had “23 half siblings and I hope I never see any of them again.”
He had some scars of self mutilation from when he was younger, which is disqualifying, but I hope he got a waiver.
I’ll bet the Army is full of them.
The woman that I most particularly recall — who enlisted to get away from the dysfunctional black ghetto culture was a fellow student in the senior NCO course with me, at Kirtland AFB, in the early 1990s. From Chicago, IIRC, child of a working-class widowed mother, who worked her fingers to the bone to send her kids to parochial schools. Because she knew they would get a good education there. This woman and I were in the habit of running a couple of miles in the evening from the school facility where we were billeted, to the main part of the base, and then to jog back. Fitness, you know. And we talked a lot, going back and forth, and she was very frank about the ghetto culture. She was married, with a kidlet or two, wanted to go back to Chicago and work in social services, helping other women get out of the ghetto trap. She was pretty certain that she would be effective at it, since — as she said — she knew all the dodges, and would be able to ruthlessly shoot them down.
Don’t know if she ever did — this was one of those temporary situational friendships: same place, same time, compatible temperaments and tastes. But yeah – she struck me as being totally honest about the ghetto pathologies.