Posted on 12/12/2002 5:28:54 AM PST by A Vast RightWing Conspirator
I hereby suggest that FR starts a true debate on the merits of or problems created by our government’s forcing us (the people), sometimes quite brutally, to racially integrate. This is a very important issue and everyone else appears to be afraid to discuss this.
I’ve been watching Lott’s courageous and righteous stoning by the usual screamers of the media and here at FR which, for quite some time, seems to have moved far away from the avant-garde of political and social debate and join the ranks of GOP’s ‘followers’. In this particular case, the GOP got scared sh..less by the mainstream media’s screams for Lott’s resignation and many here ‘got the message’. After all, if the Beltway’s Buttboys doubt Lott’s future because he ‘said’ something, then Lott must go. Yes?
The media agrees that the public is outraged today. The ‘public’ is outraged, the media tells us, because Lott seemed to have suggested that the 40 year old official gov’t policy of forced racial integration created problems that a different policy might have avoided. The media, the political monkeys and many at FR now agree that Lott must be punished for what he ‘said’ or thought when he said what he said. Enterprising researchers now uncover evidence that this is not the first time that Lott said or thought that. He is a repeat offender. He dared to say thinks or think about racial integration/segregation more than once. This is viewed as so outrageous as to require his immediate resignation from whatever office he holds in the Senate.
I personally couldn’t care less if Lott gets to keep his current job or not. He wasn’t accused or raping anyone, he didn’t try to have sex with underage boys or girls, he’s not a drunk and he is no in front with the hystericals who are pushing for us to make the Middle East, or the world, safe for Israel by killing all of Israel’s enemies. On the other hand, he’s not at the forefront in the struggle to defend, preserve or expand our liberties – but who is in the GOP these days? What I do find interesting is the total and complete agreement that Lott’s ideas must not be discussed or debated. Just to create a frame of reference, the 10 Commandments and the Bible are subject to debate. The Bill of Rights in its entirety and its various components are debated and interpreted openly. The possibility of unisex marriages is discussed and considered. Assassinating dictators or other inconvenient people in other countries is calmly discussed in the media, with arguments for and against it. Euthanasia is being debated. Human cloning is considered. Evolution vs. creation is a continuing exchange of ideas. There is even a timid discussion on the merits of theories such as global warming. Nothing on racial integration vs. segregation. Not even a thought ABOUT having such a debate.
Okay, so…let’s begin to talk about racial integration which is supposed to be the opposite of racial segregation. And I am only going to offer some pointers here. Hopefully, we could have separate and multiple threads on each of these.
Who is for integration? – The federal gov’t and a bunch of totalitarians that work hard at engineering us (the people) into something that they view as ‘better’. The people are not. The people tend to naturally and voluntarily segregate in their neighborhoods, workplaces (if they are small enough to escape gov’t oversight), churches, cultural organizations, pressure groups, even Congressional caucuses. How effective is the gov’t in ‘integrating’ us? It seems to have happened in the larger companies, those that are the most regulated. The integration of ‘federal workers’ seems to have turned mostly into sending a discrete message to certain races that they needed not apply. Same result at the gov’t run housing projects. The integration of schools appears to be a failure due to unrelenting resistance from the people. The integration of housing produced racially and ethnically segregated neighborhoods. Political integration of races failed completely – the courts have segregated politicians into racially distinct districts and created such horrors in our vocabulary as ‘minority majority district’. The cities are in the process of becoming 100% non-white.
Is the government really committed to racial integration? – Not if one examines the current body of laws and regulation. It tends to be full of provisions favoring or discouraging certain races or ethnic groups from participating in the redistribution of tax funds – the white race is generally excluded while most other races, also called ‘minorities’ are encouraged to request tax funds. Again, people tend to voluntarily segregate even at the top of our government – see ‘black caucus’, ‘Latino caucus’ etc.
What do people have to say and what do they do in their private lives? – While it is true that there is a minority of ‘color blind’ people, and I happen to be one, most seem to feel comfortable and to want to be with ‘their kind’, whenever possible. The majority of people date and marry within their own race or ethnicity. People segregate themselves in their neighborhoods, social clubs and restaurants, schools, even professions and occupations.
Have inter-racial relations improved since the 60’s or not? - It is possible that inter-racial relations are worse today then in the 60’s. The college dorms are segregated. Most people would not even think into moving into a neighborhood populated by another race or ethnicity. Most small businesses are racially or ethnically homogenous. Political parties manufacture specific messages to specific races or ethnic groups.
Did forced (and generally phony) racial integration create problems? – Yes. Harlem’s Renaissance took place BEFORE forced integration, most urban slums appeared AFTER it. The government is less efficient and more costly today because poorly qualified ‘minorities’ may be hired to meet certain quotas (diversity goals). For the same reasons, some of our college graduates leave colleges ill prepared for a successfully professional life. Racial preferences in college admissions and in hiring many ‘minorities’ may cause ‘minority’ resentment for many being to advance in their careers when they are left ‘on their own’.
Is there a taboo on discussing the merits/shortcomings of forced racial integration? – Yes, no question about it. My theory: because the efforts at integration created problems of such an enormous scale, those responsible for taking our nation into the dumpster (who happen to also profit from it) would do everything in they can to stop any discussion else they would be revealed for the evil, incompetent impostors that they are.
Was Lott correct in stating that integration created problems that could have been avoided? – Yes (my view).
I see no reasons why any and all of this topics not be calmly and thoroughly discussed at a forum such as FR’s.
Truman dragged the country, kicking and screaming, into integration. Thurmond wouldn't have integrated the military.
Lott's out of his mind.
The larger question about 1948 to mymind is how Thurmond or Dewey would've dealt with the Marshall Plan, Red China, Korea, the Russian H-bomb and Tail Gunner Joe McCarthy, as those were the defining moments of the last Truman term.
On those scores, Thurman has shown himself to be a staunch anti-communist and defender of liberty. Brown vs Board of Education would've still happened, and perhaps a Thurmond presidency might've expedited it.
Lott's verbal clumsiness at least has given the country a chance at some serious historical re-examination.
Sorry. The issue in 1948 was not government-enforced integration, but rather the removal of government-enforced segregation. The two are not equivalent, and it is either laziness or dishonesty to pretend that they are.
We have a winner. There goes your whole thread, AVRWC.
Is there a quote directly attributed to Trent Lott where he makes the statement that "integration created problems that could have been avoided"? Or is this just an assumption based on press reports and speculation as to what's going on in the dark, cobwebbed recesses of his tired, old brain?
Remember that Thurmond was not just for stopping integration he walked out of the convention because it had passed a civil rights plank in the platform calling for the integration of those places open to the public. I don't think we whites can ever comprehend the fact of being black into the 1960's. My cousin who was Deputy Provost Marshal of Pope Air Base in Fayetteville N.C. tells the story of how he and his friend, a black 2nd Lt from Chi. could not travel off post together.Could not even get a burger and a shake in the local soda fountain. My cousin would never have won any NAACP awards, but this kid from Astoria NYC was bewildered how a man who had sworn to defend his nation , even at the cost of his life, could not get counter service in a soda fountain in Fayetteville NC in 1961. That's the America Strom Thurmond ran for president to preserve.Maybe he changed, as some have claimed, but it's clear from his statements that Trent Lott thinks, even today, that Strom Thurmond's dream was right for America.
Remember when they give you the right to discriminate against one group you're giving anyone the right to discriminate against you. That's why Thurmond's America was and is wrong, and why those who defend it have to be reminded to look past color and race and gender. Trent Lott needs a reminder and losing his leadership post would be a powerful lesson.
You were on a roll until the last line.
Not on F.R.
I remember Lyndon Baines Johnson and the advent of low income "high rise" tenements that were built in Newark, New Jersey and accross this land.
The squalor that followed, and the exodus of the people.
Could it have been different?
Sure it could.
However it won't be discussed here, with any logic.
FWIW? Good post.
Good points and they should be expressed.
Our laws should be 'color blind' and apply to every U.S. citizen equally, and no race should be given preferential treatment by the government over others.
Unfortunately, the government has violated this basic principle in many ways, in a misguided notion of forcing people into associations which are in conflict with basic human nature. Instead of diffusing the racial tensions in America, in many ways, these policies have aggravated them.
We Republicans must continue to strive for true equality for all citizens and strongly attack any form of discrimination.
As well it should. This is someone who is either hopelessly racist or lib agitator who thinks he's going to get Freepers to show their "true" colors. Either way he's wrong.
May I?
What ghetto do you live, and raise your family in?
I think the point the Lott attackers are trying to make is that the Senator is a racist today - which I think is horsehockey. VRWC is trying to start a dialogue on the merits of segregation and the "Great Society" in general, which I think is a worthy debate topic based on the many issues confronting the group these programs were designed to help.
Once you get past the usual race-baiters like Sharpton, Jackson, and the Congressional Black Cacus the remaining attackers are folks like me who think he's a bad Majority Leader-elect.
People want to live around people that are like minded, race for the most part isn't the determining factor of who you will or won't tolerate having as a neighbor.
If you want the races to live around one another it's the cultures that have to be changed not the colors.
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