Ever heard of Social Darwinism, Nordic Supremacy, eugenics, etc ? These attitudes were shared by all educated whites between 1876 and the 1930's. They were taught in schools and universities, preached in churches, and regarded as the obvious truth by every voice of moral, scientific, political, and intellectual authority in white America. It was perfectly normal and acceptable to talk about "higher" and "lower" races. What made it different for the Irish was that, being white, they could rise and be assimilated. Sure they had no better status than blacks when they got off the boat. But they were still white and were therefore free to violently run blacks out of the jobs they competed for. The volume of violence that was directed at blacks during this period is absolutely staggering.
The situation changed because of external upheavals. The cataclysm of two world wars and the depression crippled the confidence of western civilization. Educated people in 1950 didn't have the smug certainty of their innate superiority over the 'lower races' that they would have had in 1890. The Holocaust discredited white supremacism and racism in the eyes of the educated westerner, as well as finishing what was left of the west's arrogant sense of superiority. The emergence of the Soviet Union which explicitly rejected white supremacism and the collapse of the colonial empires required attitude adjustments. In the Cold War Jim Crow was a terrible propaganda embarrassment for the US. Geopolitical reality required treating non-white people as equals. Furthermore, the New Deal created the concept of the federal government as an agent of societal change, not a night watchman state that just waited for 'the marketplace' to take hold. These were the factors that created the Civil Rights movement, a movement that would have been violently smashed by white Southerners as it was in the 1870's without the active support of the federal government.
The point I tried to make here is that there is a myopic distortion in focusing on your own tribulations, to the point of fetishism, without regard to the similar trials of others unlike yourself in other communities around the world. Why bitch today about what happened in the Jim Crow south when literally millions more have been consumed by statist lunacies around the world in the same time period?
Telling someone with a foot on the back of his neck to take a larger view of things and look beyond his "fetishistic" petty concerns is ludicrous. You fight for your freedom any way you can and take whatever help is offered. Help came almost entirely from the left. None came from conservatives. Sure Rockefeller Republicans helped a great deal. But movement conservatives (if you bothered to check what Buckley, et al, were writing at the time) confined themselves to empty expressions of sympathy and an unswerving devotion to the night watchman state.
The ends of slavery and Jim Crow were federal big government statism at its best so expecting blacks to become "states' rights" or "limited government" or "night watchman state" advocates is foolish. People's politics, like the security policy of nations, are determined by their interests and historical experiences.
Sam, I am in agreement with many of the points you make here. It would behoove more conservatives to find out exactly why it is that most blacks, including middle and upper class blacks, still support the leftist Democrat party. Unfortunately, many conservatives that I have encountered like to dismiss blacks as "welfare queens" and they say that the only reason blacks support the Democrat party is because they want handouts.
It is the very nature of conservatives to CONSERVE society and fight for limited government, both of which are at odds with the civil rights movement. The Republicans who championed the civil rights movement weren't necessarily conservatives. Conservatives for the most part would rather cautiously guard society, not fight for radical changes in law, especially federal law.
It was the federal government that stepped in and "saved" black people. The states in which they lived did nothing to help them. Many black people feel that without the federal government, they would never have achieved any kind of equal rights. This is a big reason why so many blacks are socially quite conservative, but in every way support big government.
I think this is sad. I think that if the black community had fought for its own freedom and independence the way the early Americans did, then they'd champion self-reliance and the benefits of a limited government. As it is, unfortunately many of them are afraid that if their big government "protections" and special status are ever rescinded, they'll lose all of their rights again.
"Ever heard of Social Darwinism, Nordic Supremacy, eugenics, etc ? These attitudes were shared by all educated whites between 1876 and the 1930's. They were taught in schools and universities, preached in churches, and regarded as the obvious truth by every voice of moral, scientific, political, and intellectual authority in white America."
Bullshit!
"Telling someone with a foot on the back of his neck to take a larger view of things and look beyond his "fetishistic" petty concerns is ludicrous. You fight for your freedom any way you can and take whatever help is offered. Help came almost entirely from the left. None came from conservatives."
More bullshit!
"The ends of slavery and Jim Crow were federal big government statism at its best so expecting blacks to become "states' rights" or "limited government" or "night watchman state" advocates is foolish."
Bullshit times three!
So go ahead and vote for the Democrats. They agree with your bullshit!