I’m Ok, You’re a White Supremacist - Part II

By Patrick Hall

Let's restate the obvious.  Language about Race in Post-Civil Rights America has been completely set adrift, if not neutered, by Progressive Liberal Democrats and their primary constituencies, who see racism everywhere.  Blacks and other groups, who have taken up the mantle of “most aggrieved minority,” have made it almost impossible to have their so-called open discussion on race. To state this as undiplomatically as possible, the biggest impediment to fostering a genuine conversation about race has not been white supremacists, the Klan, Republicans, institutional constructs, nor that mean-old Donald Trump. It has been blacks, and the growing lists of groups and socio-political movements wedded to the Sirens call of victimology.  The political class (many of them Democrats), academics within the social sciences and humanities, and the corporate media have neither the incentive or awareness to change.  Racism has been a highly effective aphrodisiac that has garnered over 87% of the black vote and has made significant headway into other groups, who have discovered the advantages of employing the Person of Color moniker.

It is a paradox that the Civil Rights Movement under Dr. King sought to confront the sickness of people being judged solely on such an ephemeral as skin color. (1)   Congresswomen Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and other members of the so-called Squad make it a point to propagate neo-segregationist dogma that they are proud Women of Color. Even more frightening is Joe Biden’s pick to Head the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, the “Melanin Queen” herself, Kristen Clarke.  This young woman believes black people are somehow superior to whites because of their dark skin or melanin.  Good grief! Now, who is the racist?

For decades, blacks have been misled, if not betrayed by the very leadership which represents them. For example, the secular canon of Congressional Black Caucus, NAACP, NAN, and other race industry autocrats view blacks primarily as victims. They mainly see the black underclass as a group that can only be aided from the outside. The Great Society Programs of the1960s began this journey into the cul-de-sac of victimology.

The 1964 Civil Rights Bill, in hindsight, became a double-edged sword for many in the Black community.  While it delivered more freedom to Black Americans, it did not inculcate attitudes nor the human capital necessary to thrive in freedom.

 As pointed out by the late Milton Friedman and others, freedom is messy, complicated, stressful, unpredictable, and inconsistent. Soren Kierkegaard, in his seminal work, Fear and Trembling: The Sickness unto Death, insinuated that freedom could be a "burden," if not downright scary. Up until the 1950s, blacks had minimal experience with absolute freedom.

Demonstrating the worst historical timing possible, Black leadership after Martin Luther King Jr,  pushed a plan that maximized victimhood, the race card, along with the welfare state. It was the low hanging fruit or soft target of “blaming the other” that was effectively messaged to a large segment of the African American community, especially the black underclass. Values and mores like individual responsibility, real educational achievement, (2)  delayed gratification, self-interested hard work is not viewed as the first strategy for improving one’s life. Even more destructive to the black community is the preeminence of Critical Race Theory, along with socially castrating philosophies of the White Privilege and the White Fragility acolytes. They have conveniently branded the above values in the minds of many blacks as, you guessed it, acting white!

Subsequently, the exponential growth in the welfare state since the 1970s made poverty, mediocrity, and wallowing in class, gender, and ethnic envy far too comfortable for many.  Of course, all of this was sold under the banners of compassion and social justice by our political class, leftist-academicians, CCP funded movements (via Huawei), like BLM Global Foundation, Antifa, and the corporate media. Today, the socio-political largess and monies maintaining the victim culture blinds blacks and other groups from seizing the opportunities that America affords all of its people.

 Tragically, President Biden’s declaration to the world community that America is systemically racist was more than heartbreaking. It was utterly dispiriting to many Americans who believe that we are not "systemically racist even with our faults." Despite his and Vice-President Harris’ efforts to walk back their comments that America is a systemically racist country, the damage was already done.

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1. See., What Happens to a King Differed
 2. Patrick Hall, “ I can’t spell cat, but I have high self-esteem,” Conservative Review 8 (July/August 1997): 9-10.

[Patrick is a retired University Library Director. He is graduate of Canisius College and the University of Washington where he earned Masters Degrees in Religious Studies Education, Urban Anthropology and Library and Information Science.  Mr. Hall has also completed additional course work at the University of Buffalo, Seattle University and St. John Fishers College of Rochester New York. He has published in several national publications such as Commonweal, America, Conservative Review, Headway, National Catholic Reporter, and American Libraries. He has published in the peer reviewed publications, Journal of Academic Librarianship and the Internet Reference Services Quarterly. From 1997 until his retirement in January 2014 he served on the Advisory Board of Urban Library Journal, a CUNY Publication.]