Posted on 11/22/2002 7:25:25 PM PST by where's_the_Outrage?
NASHINGTO- Teddy Roosevelt, sitting proudly on his oil-W painted horse in the White House room with his name, must have been horrified at Dr. Condoleezza Rice.
As President Bush's national security advisor, she should have known better. She wasn't supposed to say that. Not in a White House peopled with conservative Republicans. Not to a group of black columnists representing major newspapers from around the country.
Not in the Roosevelt Room.
''Race matters in America,'' Rice said. ''It has, it always has. Maybe there will be a day when it doesn't, but I suspect that it will for a long time to come.''
For the record, Rice didn't stutter or backtrack at the end of her interview with the Trotter Group. Instead, she did something that black conservatives aren't known for: She publicly acknowledged the reality and validity of the race question.
Now before you right-wingers get your boxers in a bunch, take a breath. She didn't go Al Sharpton on us, pledging to support reparations. She didn't say that Bush would apologize for the U.S. government's role in the slave trade.
But Rice did increase her credibility with us by affirming her place in the continuing cultural and political struggle that black people in the United States are engaged in - and she did it on her own terms.
Black conservatives, take note: It's OK to admit that race is still a problem in this country. You don't have to sink into denial. The sky won't fall down. The ground won't swallow you up.
It doesn't mean that you have to join Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition, take Congresswoman Maxine Waters to lunch or join the NAACP.
It's safe to take your heads out of the sand and face the truth: While the United States has made tremendous progress on race, it still has a long way to go.
The December 2002/January 2003 edition of Savoy magazine has an extensive article on a class-action discrimination lawsuit that has been filed against Xerox. The plaintiffs contend that sales territories are segregated, promotions are race-based and harassment can take the form of hanging nooses being displayed in some Xerox facilities.
Xerox denies any discrimination, but there is plenty of reason to doubt its denial. According to Savoy writer Marjorie Whigham-Desir, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission dismisses about 80 percent of the complaints lodged by citizens against employers believed to be discriminatory. But Whigham-Desir reported that the EEOC has affirmed the group and individual complaints against Xerox, finding that ''reasonable cause exists to believe'' the charges that the plaintiffs have made.
And in case you Bill Clinton-haters out there are wondering, this is the 2002 Bush EEOC, not that old, tired Clinton-era model.
So maybe Rice isn't alone in the Bush White House. Maybe the GOP is slowing veering away from the Republican Party of 1964, which dealt a fatal blow to race relations during the GOP Convention led by Sen. Barry Goldwater's Cow Palace Republicans in San Francisco. These Republicans were so hostile toward blacks that Hall-of-Famer and convention attendee Jackie Robinson said: ''I now believe I know how it felt to be a Jew in Hitler's Germany.''
At least we can take comfort in knowing that the Bush administration, whatever it's other faults may be, doesn't buy into the lies that have blocked qualified blacks from serving at the highest levels of government. Certainly, it's a good sign that Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell hold two of the top four slots in the Bush White House, a point not lost on Rice.
''I think it says to people that there aren't boundaries in which black Americans are not supposed to play,'' she said. ''I think that's an extremely important message to the rest of the world.
''I am African American and proud of it,'' Rice said later. ''I wouldn't have it any other way. I do not believe that it has limited who I am or what I can become.''
Conservative or not, I can respect that. And frankly, it's easier to respect people with whom you disagree when you know you share an appreciation for your common experiences. And so under Teddy Roosevelt's watchful, if skeptical gaze, Condoleezza Rice - a fan of Motown, Clarence ''Gatemouth'' Brown and Kool and the Gang as well as Brahms - gave and gained a lot of respect last week.
David Person's column appears each Friday on the Commentary page. E-mail: davidpe@htimes.com; phone 532-4362.
There is no incidence of Rh- among non-white groups, or groups without some white admixture (i.e. Filipino's). The incidence of Rh+ blood among whites is directly related to their distance from the Atlantic Coast (Rh- is most predominant among the Berbers of Morrocco, Spain, Ireland and the UK, and Norway), while the further one goes from the coast, the more likely it is that people are really of mixed blood, like the modern Greeks and southern Italians.
A mother, who is RH negative and is carrying an RH+ baby, is NOT going to suffer terribly / die. What old wives tales ( or did you just make that up ? ) are you getting this from ? Neither is aan RH+ mother, carrying an RH negative baby, going to suffer terribly / die.
Ummm .. why then do hospitals give rhogham shots out to Rh- mothers bearing Rh+ children? For fun? To collect extra money from insurance companies?
Oh and an " ethnicity " refers to a person / persons from ddifferent places ( i.c. Sweden, Germany, Austria, England, America,etc. ) and NOT race, per se.
The terms of ethnicity, race, etc. are a mess. Simply put, it is clear that Alpine Europeans (southern Germans, Yugoslavs, northern Italians, French, Spaniards) are different from Nordic Europeans (Swedes, Irish, Scots, Brits, Dutch, northern Germans), and are different from Mediterrean Europeans. And they are just as different as are Chinese and Mongols, and Turks, and Arabs. If you can't tell them apart as a group, you've obviously never been to those countries. They not only look different, but also behave different, and even believe different (is it really an accident of history that most of the Nordics were swept up in the Reformation, while the Alpines and Mediterreans were not?). You are free to call all these people ethnic groups, and I can call them racial groups and we can all site biology texts to "prove" it.
As far as Irish-Catholics supporting Democrats 2 to 1, you are just wrong. Clinton took the Irish-Catholic vote by 16 points in 1996 and Bush narrowly lost the Irish-Catholic vote in 2000. See link. In 2004, look for Bush to take the Irish-Catholic vote outright, as Catholics in general, and Irish-Catholics in particular become more and more Republican in their voting patters.
Whooopdedoo! They voted twice for Reagan!
If you do the least bit of study into political patterns in major cities, you can easily tell where the predominantly Irish neighborhoods are without looking into Census statistics - look for majority white precincts that are carried overwhelmingly by Democrats that have lots of Catholic Churches around. Examples - Grays Ferry and Fishtown/Kensington in Philadelphia, Rockaway Park in New York, South Boston in Boston.
The fact is that most other white ethnic groups, like Poles, Germans, and Italians generally can be found voting at a 6-4 or even 8-5 rate for Republicans, while the Irish are the exact opposite, and the Jews are even further left at about 8-2 Democrat.
Beautifully said, Condi.
BTW, here is an article from July of this year by Mark Shields (who is about as liberal as they come) which makes the same point with regard to Catholics in general --
Long gone are elections like the Democratic victories of 1960 and 1964, when three out of four Catholics voted for co-religionist John F Kennedy and then nearly four out of five Catholics backed Baptist Lyndon B Johnson.
I would be very interested to see something other than an opinion from you that supports your statement that Irish-Catholics vote 2 to 1 in favor of Democrats. I am quite sure that isn't true, but please feel free to prove me wrong.
I prefer to judge a person, unless they are coming at me with a gun or a knife, by the quality and depth of their character rather than the color of their skin. You would not.
But I didn't say anything about making judgements by skin! Why would you tink I do that? I certainly operate by character also, because I interact with many people of all races every day, living in Philadelphia as I do. You can't just dismiss 5/8 of everyone who lives around you.
The neighborhood I grew up in is one of the few truly integrated neighborhoods in the US, with black households and white households cheek-by-jowl, and not merely on opposite sides of town. It is such an exceptional situation that the media figure it prominently whenever they do a story on the subject. I've given some of the reasons I won't live there now (another being that it is 95% DemonRAT). If you think I'm wrong, I'd invite you to put yourself into a similar situation. The vast majority of Americans will not.
In my opinion, Rice does a great job of schmoozing a very liberal audience without saying anything controversial beyond showing that she is, as we know, extremely loyal to the boss. As far as I am concerned, she did everything possible to allow the audience to like her, without ever taking their perspective. Thus, she repeatedly threw out the phrase "race matters," which that audience mostly interprets to mean that America is a racist country, but Rice never remotely gave the phrase that meaning (or much meaning at all, really). And she clearly said that "the individual" matters more than race.
Right now, Rice has the conservatives mostly convinced that she is a conservative, and the liberals mostly convinced that she's a liberal. Heck, some of them are dreaming on the 'net that she'll switch parties and run with Hilliary. Ridiculous, but this just goes to show that she is a heck of a politician.
Is she one of us? Of course not. Three years ago she was provost of Stanford. On the other hand, "compassionate conservative" President Bush isn't really one of us either. Rice isn't an ideologue, but a party loyalist with a great future in American politics if she wants to grab it.
Right, yet it's blacks who are CONSTANTLY whining, like in this article about racism and discrimination. Even if discrimination agianst blacks does exist, would you rather be raped or murdered, or get turned down for a job? Can blacks seriously equate what they suffer with the whites who are murdered and raped every day at the hands of racist blacks. When I see an article like this where blacks are angered that someone might think for an instant of not playing the race card it makes me want to shove it back in their damn faces. Why are blacks allowed to murder/rape whites without limit, but if one black criminal is slammed against a trunk, it's national news. Seriously that Inglewood police video got more international/national coverage than the Wichita slaughter. That is just sick.
Dear Mr. Person,
With all due respect, I simply must take issue with your November 22nd article in which the above quote appeared. From what you wrote, I seriously doubt that you've actually spent any significant amount of time with any black Conservatives. Indeed, judging from intense level of hostility evident in your article it is quite obvious you are not exactly unprejudiced towards those of us who are black, Conservative and Republican.
One reason why I am convinced that you know far less about black Conservatives than you think you do is your actual astonishment that Condi Rice, an acknowledged Conservative actually made the above statement. I'm a black Conservative and I have not yet met a single black Conservative who would have disagreed with what Ms. Rice. A lot of us say it. Clarence Thomas has said it, so has Robert Woodson, Thomas Sowell, John McWhorter, etc. In fact, I believe there's hardly a single white Conservative I know who disagrees with this. We all know race matters. And we all know there's still quite a ways to go.
Where we differ with the black Left is how to get there. And what part race plays in our lives. I doubt you'd find a single Conservatism who would claim that racism no longer exists. But what I've discovered while debating many a fellow black person on the Left is the tendency for Leftists to assume that because we differ on issues like racial preferences, reparations and separate school dorms, Ebonics, etc. we are claiming that racism doesn't exist. What you did in your article was construct a straw man and vigorously beat it senseless.
Ms. Rice also said: ''Sometimes when we say to our kids, `You are a minority,' we don't say it in a way that says it is part of who you are, we say it as if it's an impediment that cannot be overcome by hard work and access to education and all of those things. And I just think the messages are wrong when there is only focus on what group you happen to belong to, rather than the group is part of who you are, but also, who you are is who you are as an individual."
This, in a nutshell, is what is at the core of being black and Conservative. We believe racism is not the hopelessly insurmountable barrier for black people the Left claims it to be. I do not accept that a black child should be told that his getting a 70% on a test is equivalent to a white child getting 95% on the same test (which is precisely what racial preference policies ask us to do. Look at this as an example: http://www.theomahachannel.com/news/1785140/detail.html and tell me that's not true). We're against racial preferences and other race-based programs not because we disbelieve that racism exists but because we believe that a policy of aggressive non-discrimination i.e. color-blindness, is actually better for all of us, black, white, blue, purple, etc.
There is so much more ... but what really surprises me is that I always find myself being the guy in a debate who actually talks up the potential of the black community for greatness while the so-called "Real" black guy on the other side is bloviating about how high crime, high illiteracy and a 70% out-of-wedlock birth rate is somehow a permanent fixture in the black community that we can do nothing about without the Democrats starting up some program (and sometimes not even then). This ignores the fact that this was not the case prior to the 1960s (check it out).
Have you ever noticed that there is no Republican on any of the inner-city school boards where a great deal of black children go to school? Have you noticed any Republican representing any significantly minority community district on city councils, state legislatures or Congress? After well over three decades in which the black community has exclusively and overwhelming given its votes to the Left (i.e. Democrats) most of which had the Democrats holding majorities in both Houses of Congress and six years in which the Democrats (Carter and Clinton) also had the White House, do we not have a right to expect a little more? To consider other options without being accused of treason by Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and people like you?
I am tired of having some idiot getting up to ask me how much I am being paid to "sell-out" because I do not believe the GOP has a secret plan to re-institute slavery or have black children reclassified as food. I am tired of being accused of being an Uncle Tom because I don't believe Clinton was the greatest President there ever was and there ever would be.
I've been all over the world since Bush was inaugurated President and everywhere I've gone, in Europe, Africa and Asia, everyone regards Condi and Colin with respect. Quite a few others are enamoured of Clarence Thomas. I can honestly say that I've not yet met a single person outside America who considers any of them "tokens". But I hear that often when I'm Stateside. From other African Americans i.e. Belafonte, Jackson, Sharpton, Brazille, etc. It's really sad that after many years of struggling and hoping we finally have two smart brilliant people in the highest echelons of American government and we're their most vociferous denigrators.
Sincerely,
Martin Ahmad Knight
I wish everyone well, but that doesn't mean I wish everyone to live next-door to me and marry my children. I want my grandchildren to look like me, not Tiger Woods.
There are THREE and ONLY three, racial groups. Yes, there ARE subgroupings; NO, there are NOT subgroupings amongst European Caucazoids !
No one, not one " expert ", has EVER claimed that the Irish ( mixed blood lines : i.e. Celt / Sapnish / Viking ; to name but a few ) nor the British ( again, even MORE mixed bllod lines : Celt/ Frank / Norman [ which, in and of itself is a mixture of Viking and a few other ethnics ]/Angle / Vicking / German / Dutch / Irish ( Cocknies were originally IRISH ! )/ Hugenot French / and on and on and on) are " Nordics " . The Scothc are mostly PICTS , with a tiny addmixture of Celt . They are the LEAST blended, of ALL of the British Isles and hardly " Nordic " !
There are Englishmen, whom you couldn't tell from a German, whom you couldn't tell from an Austrian, whom you couldn't tell from an Hungarian, and on and on and on. Since YOU seem to be unable to understand that, then following upon your form of " logic ", one MUST suppose that YOU not only don't know what you're talking about, but that you haven't been to any of those countries.
Attempting to make a sociological statement, using Catholic V Protestant, you've completely neglected such reformational outcroppings, that PREDATE the Reformation, and took place in Eastern Europe and France, CENTURIES prior to the actual Reformation.
The majority of Caucazoids, from Europe ( in any and all permutations, that you, pretzel like are trying to do ) are NOT RH- ! Yes, pregnant women, who are + or - and carry an opposite baby, can have problems. They can also become ill and / or die, from a whole host of other reasons.
You're in WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY over your level of knowledge,here, and I heartily suggest that you stop digging so many holes, all at the same time. Before these posts, of your's, one could only speculate on how little you know. Now, we all know just how little you know about and are only too happy to prove your incapabilities. :-)
The highest incidence of blonde hair and blue eyes in Britain is in Scotland (cf. the Military tables in "The Races of Britain", John Beddoe). The Lowland Scots are also the tallest people in Britain. If the Scots were really Picts, we would expect them to be short, narrow-headed, tallow skinned, with dark hair and dark eyes, as the Picts were. They are as far from that as possible, unless you only think of Scots as Highlanders.
The supposed blend ingredients of Britain are little more than various cousins intermarrying. There is litte discernable historic difference between Normans, Frisians, Danes, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Norwegians. The Pictish Iberic aboriginies can still be found there - in the far west reaches of Cornwall, Wales, Sctoland, and Ireland. The fact that they can still be discerned shows the level of non-mixture which has remained, and the difference which originally was. And yes, they have been claimed as Nordics in just about every study of this nature ever made, starting with Benjamin Franklin in the 1700's.
And just because one individual Englishman might look just like one individual German, Hungarian, and Austrian doesn't mean you can't tell the groups apart. If you take 100 Poles, 100 Englishmen, 100 Germans, 100 Spaniards, and 100 Irish, I'd have little trouble at all telling these groups apart. Damn, it so obvious all I need to do is wander down to St. Adalbert's in Port Richmond for Sunday Mass to see the Poles, or hang out in my neighborhood of Fox Chase to see the Germans, or go to St. Martin of Tours in Oxford Circle for a dose of Irish. Or just go to the International Concourse at your airport and watch people going to Warsaw, Frankfurt, and London.
Lastly, I never said that most Europeans ar Rh-. They aren't - today. What I said is that Rh- is only found among Europeans. Since it is a recessive genetic trait (as are also blonde and red hair, blue, green and grey eyes, pink-white skin, straight noses, and high foreheads), it has tended to vanish over time as even the smallest amounts of dominant genes have been brought into the European gene pool from other sources. The Greeks used to be blonde and red haired, but now they are not due to all the Turkish and African blood introduced into them since Roman times. The Indo-Aryans also used to be blonde and blue eyed. Their admixture with just a few of the Dravidians has over a few thousand years almost completely eliminated these genetic traits (you still can find occasional Indians with blue eyes, but blonde hair is now exceedingly rare).
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