McGhee and Haney-Lopez make a plausible argument, but as debates over Sanders among blacks or between races show, it's one thing to denounce racism, as Sanders does quite regularly, and another to overcome it. The best-selling author Ta-Nehisi Coates recently endorsed Sanders, but did so reluctantly because the Senator does not support reparations; other blacks may be less forgiving even if Clinton is no more likely to indulge that ultimate fantasy. Again, it will be one thing to convince whites that racism is bad because it divides the working class against itself, and something much different to sell them the continuation and even the enhancement of the sort of compensatory regime black progressives still insist upon. The Nation authors fail to appreciate this. Their account of how Republicans succeeded in turning angry whites against "activist government" has a blind spot in it.
In the New Deal and Great Society years, white majorities broadly supported activist government because they perceived it as helping people like themselves—hardworking, deserving, decent. But as government programs became available to people of color, conservatives saw that they could gain ground by dog whistling about welfare and criminals, using racially coded terms to invoke the specter of liberal government coddling people of color—the very groups whose fortunes seemed to be rising just as life was getting harder for the white working class in the 1970s.
Their account makes it sound like whites resented even sharing government benefits with blacks, but surely the main grievance among angry whites was that blacks and other minorities were receiving "special" treatment and getting "breaks" that whites weren't. Their resentment extended from ignorant assumptions that only blacks received welfare to protests against affirmative action or anything that specifically benefited minorities at the apparent expense of individual whites. Beyond that, the obvious reason no Democratic candidate for President will ever endorse the idea of reparations is that most whites, no matter how they reject racism, also reject the idea that, as individuals and citizens, they still owe something to black people. Most, I suspect, have grown impatient with the whole compensatory regime, blaming it rather than conservative economics for today's misery, while many question whether blacks even envision its end. This is problematic because black progressives want to hear Sanders tell what he will do about racism, and some won't be satisfied until they hear an answer guaranteed to alienate many whites. How would McGhee and Haney-Lopez have Sanders explain how the white working class will benefit from more affirmative action and other compensatory programs, much less reparations? I don't think they can answer because their proposed strategy would only point Sanders toward a "color-blind" ideal that some black progressives already reject as inadequate. It's peculiar, in any event, that they came up with a plan for Sanders to preach anti-racism to whites as a way to build up his support among blacks, which I assume was the actual goal. If I'm right, then Sanders shouldn't look to The Nation but to those blacks like Lee and Coates who've made calculated, pragmatic and principled decisions in favor of Sanders. They may not be the black political establishment -- some of whom, you may recall, resented Barrack Obama because he didn't have to curry favor with them in 2008 -- but they just might be the first sparks of another anti-establishment explosion in this most interesting year.
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The black populace needs to understand this one thing: There is NOTHING the government can do about racism. You cannot force an individual to like, respect, tolerate or accept others. The best the government can do is what has already been done. The only other thing I can see possible to alleviate SOME racism is for the black populace to put an end to "urban culture". The wearing the pants halfway down their asses, speaking ghetto slang, rather than English, etc. As I have stated any number of times, people cannot insist on being non-conformist while demanding that mainstream society embrace them.
In short, easy to understand terminology: Assimilate or shut up.
Q. Do you consider yourself a "non-comformist" in any sense of the term, and if so do you make any distinction between acceptable non-comformity and the kind you denounce here -- or do you also reject the embrace of mainstream society?
Well, I'm not an uneducated low-life scum, acting publicly like an uneducated low-life scum and demanding that everyone treat me with respect and dignity that I refuse to treat them with. I am NOT the sort of person who would emigrate to a black or muslim nation, act like the "ugly American", demand that they make cultural concessions to me, and expecting their people to learn my language so they can communicate with me. I think that pretty much sums it up.
Well, that's a novel definition of "non-conformist," but to each his own.
I am not in high school any more, so those terms have no meaning to me. A strong state is based on a strong culture. Throughout history, empires start to crumble the minute they don't expect "foreigners" to assimilate. A strong culture requires a single base language the population speaks. The United States hasn't been a strong country for over a 100 years. We may be militarily powerful, be we are not strong and as long as we allow foreigners to pollute our anglo-european culture we will not be strong. I can think of no simpler terms to put it.
Do you have some particular historical tipping point in mind after which the U.S. ceased to be strong in your sense of the term? Just curious. Looking back literally 100 years ago, the big complaint was against eastern and southern Europeans coming in, though on the west coast there was an ongoing protest against immigration from Asia. Some of these complaints actually were acted on by Congress in the 1920s, so you might want to revise your chronology of decline accordingly.
Europeans have a common cultural heritage. There are differences, but there are at least commonalities. For the most part, the Asian community has had no problem assimilating - in fact, I think most of them come here now because they want American culture. K-pop, J-pop are both based as much on European and American influences as their own native influences. There is, however, a huge divide between Islam and American culture that guarantees there will always be friction between the two. There will always be those among them who are unhappy because they are "forced" to tolerate atheists, hindus, women who don't dress modestly, etc. and some small number of them will always snap and commit violence on non-muslims because of it. If you can argue for gun control because guns represent a threat, why can you not look at islam in the same manner? And why is it never asked that, since America and western culture in general is so abhorrent, why do they come here in the first place?
Regarding "tipping point". Since whenever it is has already past, it doesn't interest me to spend hours researching it. But I can guess at around the time we decided that the government had to cater to foreigners who couldn't speak English, rather than telling them "Sorry, Charlie, but the first thing you need to do, the first obligation you owe to your adopted country, is to learn to speak the language." That and when, collectively, we decided that money=free speech. Which was obviously some time before the Supreme Court made it official.
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