White Privilege? Oh Please...

Been thinking lately about teachers and cops. Both are besieged by left-wing, multiculturalists and results are disastrous for schools, cities, and everywhere else. The left needs a public perception of pervasive white racism and it’s stoking the fires whenever it can. Reality has little to do with the campaign, and our mainstream media is assisting whenever they can. Former Attorney General Eric Holder saw this effort as his primary responsibility. According to an article in National Review Online:

“When Department of Justice officials arrived in Ferguson, Mo., one day after the death of Michael Brown, it wasn’t just to conduct an investigation on potential civil-rights violations. In fact, officials from one Justice Department office were conducting meetings with Ferguson residents to educate them on subjects such as ‘white privilege.’”

First Holder put out the notion that a higher percentage of black men in prison as opposed to white men was in and of itself proof of racial discrimination by cops and courts, ignoring the overwhelming evidence that black men commit many more serious crimes than whites. Then he and President Obama accused white teachers and principals in public schools for creating a “pathway to prison” by suspending a higher percentage of black teenagers than whites. Again, both ignored overwhelming evidence that black students misbehave much more than white students. It’s racial discrimination, they insisted, ordering schools to reduce black suspensions.

Leftist educators feeling guilty for being white ordered staff indoctrination in “white privilege,” the trendy notion that white people are unconsciously racist and need to acknowledge, then shed their “privilege.” Completely ignored are fifty years of Affirmative Action during which blacks have been given privilege over whites in hiring, granting of public contracts, and college admissions.

The St. Paul, Minnesota school district spent over $3 million to educate white teachers and principals about their “privilege.” EAGnews (Education Action Group) had to file Freedom of Information requests to learn the amount the district spent over a five year period. The money went to an organization called Pacific Educational Group founded in 1992 which offers conferences around the country at which caucasian teachers can flagellate themselves for their “White Privilege” and their sins of unconsciously propagating “Systemic Racism.”

According to a New York Post article by Paul Sperry: “[Pacific Education Group does] the racial-sensitivity training of teachers as part of professional teacher training workshops, reprogramming them to think that THEY are the problem, not the misbehaving kids, that their ‘whiteness’ and ‘cultural insensitivity’ is the reason African-American students tend to be, on average, more disruptive and violent than other students and tend to underperform academically.”

“Some of the teachers come out of the workshops sobbing,” wrote Sperry. “It’s classic brainwashing.”

St. Paul’s school behavioral policies were modified to make sure the number of suspensions for black students was the same as that of white students based on the percentage of each in the student population. That is, there were racial quotas for suspensions. Once the quota for black suspensions was reached, no more could be suspended until the white quota went up too. Meanwhile, misbehaving black students were given “time outs” instead, as recommended by the all-knowing and all-wise Pacific Education Group.

And how is that working? It’s a disaster. According to City Pages:

“At John A. Johnson Elementary on the East Side, several teachers, who asked to remain anonymous, describe anything but a learning environment. Students run up and down the hallways, slamming lockers and tearing posters off the walls. They hit and swear at each other, upend garbage cans under teachers’ noses. Nine teachers at Ramsey Middle School have quit since the beginning of this school year. Some left for other districts. Others couldn’t withstand the escalating anarchy.”

On another level, cops face a similar quandary. President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, and countless mainstream media outlets fabricate the narrative that “racist,” white cops are to blame for the crimes of young black men. When they’re told to stand down in the face of looting and arson in Baltimore, to use only one example, chaos reigns. “No,” insisted Baltimore’s black police chief Anthony Batts, according the New York Daily News. Cops were not told to stand down. Rather, they were instructed: “Do not engage,” as if there were any difference.

Anthony Batts

Teachers are demoralized when told they are the reason for disruptive behavior by black students. They back off and chaos takes over. Cops are demoralized when they are blamed for the crimes of young black men. They back off and crime skyrockets. Chaos reigns in cities across the country.

Just a few of the killer gang members in Chicago

Even in rural Maine where I live, cops are demoralized. They go into law enforcement thinking of themselves as the good guys who are there to protect people from bad guys. They take their “To Serve and Protect” motto seriously. The Obama Administration and mainstream media assault on the character and integrity of all police has enormous effect on morale. That 95% of “racist” incidents are fabricated or exaggerated is the worst part. It’s all so unnecessary.

How will it all end? Not well, I’m afraid. We still have another year and a half before it can even begin to get better.

Ginning Up The Base

There was no evidence of racism in the Michael Brown shooting last summer until the mainstream media and government officials injected it. The day after the shooting Attorney General Eric Holder sent legions of his “Community Relations Service” personnel to Ferguson. Were they there to prevent racial violence? Doesn’t look like it. They held private gatherings for residents - some of whom reported afterward that the Holder’s people wanted to discuss racism and “White Privilege.” Why would they do that? Because they wanted it to be about racism.

Two weeks ago, six hundred people demonstrated in downtown Portland, Maine with the now-familiar signs declaring “Black Lives Matter” and “Hands up! Don’t Shoot.” Did “Gentle Giant” Michael Brown put his hands up and beg the “racist,” white Ferguson police officer not to shoot him? No. That was a lie told by Brown’s partner-in-crime, Dorian Johnson, and contradicted by other witnesses as well as the forensic evidence. However, leftists all over the country still want to believe it because the media played it up so much the first days after the shooting. Now it will forever be true in the their mindset.

Demonstration in Portland, Maine

Then came the alleged University of Virginia “gang rape” reported in Rolling Stone. The story fell apart and the embarrassed magazine said it no longer had confidence in the report, but that didn't matter to progressives who wanted to believe it anyway. Hence, one of the Portland, Maine demonstrators carried a sign proclaiming “Racism is tinder. Rape is fuel.”

It calls to mind the alleged gang rape by the Duke Lacrosse Team. That fictitious incident combined race and rape. Race-baiters, feminists, and their mainstream media mouthpieces seemed downright disappointed when that juicy story turned out to be fabricated, and they had to stop professing their outrage.

The left doesn’t really want racism or sexism to go away. If Americans were to believe both are diminishing, that’s a problem. The base of the Democrat Party is made up of blacks and single women who need to be kept in state of perpetual outrage against “racist”; “sexist”; white men. If there aren’t enough examples, it becomes necessary to manufacture them.

Despite Democrats being the party of the Ku Klux Klan and Republicans being the party of Lincoln, the left-wing base of the party has been able to control most of the black vote since the 1960s. However, since the election of the first black president, opinion polls indicate that 53% of Americans believe race relations have worsened and that’s not what people expected when they voted for Barack Obama.

When I asked my students (I was still teaching in the public schools when he was elected), why they favored Obama, by far the most common reason was: “It’s time we had a black president,” and their opinions closely reflected what their parents thought. Indeed, that’s the answer most people gave me whenever the subject came up in casual conversation. When they asked me why I didn’t support him, I said it was because he was an inexperienced lefty with strong, socialist tendencies. President Obama’s popularity has plummeted since and Attorney General, who is also black, claims that criticism of both himself and his boss is racially motivated.

Many think Obama won the majority of white voters because they could feel good about themselves voting for a black candidate. Sporting an Obama bumper sticker would declare to the world: “See? I’m not racist.” It's a white guilt thing and that’s a strong, political dynamic for those calling themselves progressives. The Urban Dictionary defines white guilt as “a belief, often subconscious, among white liberals that being white is, in and of itself, a great transgression against the rest of the world for which one must spend their life making atonement. It is often exemplified by embracing the cultures and philosophies of various other ethnic groups while neglecting one's own roots.” Now thousands of white liberals afflicted with it attend the annual “White Privilege” conferences paid for with our tax money.

White guilt also currency for race hustlers like the (allegedly) Reverend Jesse Jackson and his sidekick, the (allegedly) Reverend Al Sharpton. Black writer Shelby Steele, who wrote a book about white guilt, said: “Jackson is what I call a challenger who says to whites, ‘I will never let you off the hook. I’m going to presume you are a racist until you give me something. Then I’ll offer absolution of some kind, but you have to buy your innocence.’” Now Sharpton is one the most frequent guests at the White House, offering advice to the president on racial matters.

Liberals suffering from white guilt were seeking a plenary indulgence when voting an inexperienced, unvetted, radical-leftist Barack Obama into office. Many now realize their mistake. We see those who refuse to acknowledge it out there marching with their hands up.

White Guilt

There it was again on the second day of pre-school teacher workshops. The principal passed out results of NCLB (No Child Left Behind) testing were segregated according to how “African Americans” and “Pacific Islanders” performed. My school didn’t request that data be broken down this way. It’s our federal government which is obsessed with race.

Some may object to my use of the word “segregate” in this case, but it fits. Once again, our federal government is discriminating on the basis of race - something it’s supposed to outlaw. Usually there are many more racial categories like Hispanic, Asian, Eskimo, Native American, and so on. If as a country we really believe there are no other differences between people with different skin tones, why do we keep this up? What if test results showed some races doing better or worse than others? Would government then require special programs for students of one race and not another? Is this what we should be doing? Is it racist?

Some would be appalled that I would even ask the question. “Of course it isn’t racist,” they think. “We’re only trying to help.” They support affirmative action programs and the like, to give minorities a “leg up” over members of the majority race - whites, in the case of the United States. They’re blind to the condescension inherent in such programs. They think they’re atoning for the sins of history for which they feel guilty, though they were born after slavery and discrimination were outlawed and virtually eliminated.

White guilt is a major force - not just here in the United States, but worldwide. In the 1860s and the 1960s it was a force for good. Slavery was abolished in the 1860s after the Civil War, and the civil rights movement of the 1960s finished the job a hundred years later. White guilt is still with us, but now it’s making us all sick - not just white people, but nonwhite people whom white saviors purport to help. Guilt-ridden whites cannot perceive the racial insult inherent in their firm belief that minorities could never make it on a level playing field without the boost of racial quotas.

Last week we were bombarded with reports like “Katrina - One Year After.” The should-have-been-former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin appeared on top-rated radio and television shows like “60 Minutes” and “Meet The Press” and continued to suggest that our federal government discriminated against the “chocolate” people of New Orleans (as Nagin calls them), by delaying emergency aid. If New Orleans had been majority white, Nagin keeps claiming, the federal response would have been quicker and fewer black people would have died. His claims are ridiculous of course, but the media continued to give them the most extensive coverage. White guilt. And Nagin continues to dodge questions about why he failed to evacuate his city after getting plenty of advance warning, even when shown pictures of the rows of drowned school busses he was supposed to use. If the voters of New Orleans reelected him after all that, they deserve him. That he’s still mayor is a strong argument that a lot of people in New Orleans are beyond help.

What else but white guilt is responsible for the decades-long obsession with bussing white and black students past their neighborhood schools and across town long after everyone concerned realized there is nothing to be gained by doing so? Though it has certainly increased racial tension, has achieving “racial balance” had any benefit at all? Evidence simply isn’t there.

“White Guilt” happens to be the title of a recent book by Shelby Steele. After many essays and articles on the subject, Steele makes a strong case that his fellow blacks become dysfunctional when they continually blame severe social and economic problems on white racism and not on their own behaviors. Trying to blame your problems on someone else is a common human tendency, but white guilt has enabled it to grow to the point where it’s the biggest obstacle to progress in the black community.

Steele’s book was not a surprise, coming sixteen years after “Content of Our Character,” in which he first questioned racial set-aside programs allegedly benefiting blacks. More surprising is the most recent book by Juan Williams entitled: “Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America--and What We Can Do About It.” Williams echoes many of Steele’s themes. Remember, Williams co-authored “Eyes on the Prize” with Julian Bond and works for NPR.

Though he wasn’t the first prominent black man to question things, I guess it was Bill Cosby who really blew the lid off. Two years ago, he made a speech to Operation PUSH in Jesse Jackson’s back yard, saying: “It is almost analgesic to talk about what the white man is doing against us, and it keeps a person frozen in their seat. It keeps you frozen in your hole that you are sitting in to point up and say, ‘That’s the reason why I am here.’ We need to stop this.”

We can all do our part to “stop this.” The next time you’re asked to put a checkmark in a box next to a racial category, draw your own box, print “HUMAN” next to it and put your checkmark there. If enough of us do that, maybe government will finally get the message.