You know, there are people who frustrate me. The way they say things. The way they approach people who may be less intelligent, or at least less credentialed than them. Or maybe they don't see the moral implications of a thing the way I do. It happens.
I'm a very intelligent dude. That's not a boast. It's just the way things are. 97.4% of the time, I'm the smartest person in any room. But I'm the son and grandson of average folks. I like ordinary people. I really do watch NASCAR. I listen to country music. If I ever run for office, my opponent is already doomed, because I connect with people pretty well.
Provided, of course, that I can stay calm. I do have a bit of a temper. My trigger for anger is usually incurious stupidity or rank unfairness or injustice. People who have seen me argue politics and think I make Rush Limbaugh look like a moderate are very wrong. On the other hand, I will argue an extreme position or defend a marginalized person in a discussion if I think the other argument is a needless attack or otherwise stupid. Whatever kind of political conservative I am, I came to it because those positions and people were not being heard. In fact, they were being denigrated as subhuman. And everyone smugly moved on, content in their credentialed elitism. I hated that, and I still do.
But those things that I might be considered a "progressive" on usually have something to do with race, at least indirectly. And just to be blunt about it, I mean black people. African-Americans. I'm sure my own wrestling with becoming me as a "different" sort of person who didn't quite fit in had something to do with it. I listened to black music. I even "talked black" sometimes, and I can do it now pretty easily. [You still listen to black music, all the time.--ed.] When I was 13 maybe, I picked up a book called "The Days Of Martin Luther King." It was probably written in 1972 or '73, not long after he died, and it borders on hagiography. But you know what? I don't care. That's big-time hero stuff right there. The whole Civil Rights movement of that era was. Because most of it was done without hurting a fly, and with the gospel of Jesus Christ as the driving force. If the South had not been profoundly Christian, it would not have worked. And Dr. King knew that. Which is not to say that it was a big huge Bible study. No; his "Letter From Birmingham Jail" is one of the best articulations of natural law you will read.
We all have to try to remember a few basic facts about how we got to that movement in the first place. Essentially, after the North won the Civil War and passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution (look them up), we had in place at least the basics for legal equality. But the North lost the political will to enforce Reconstruction. The South "redeemed" their governments soon after, and basically undid or rendered void those amendments. The North and South were like two countries, as they would have been if the South had won. I seriously doubt we would be where we are (such as it is) if some of the major events of the movement had not been on TV, like Emmett Till's funeral, or the Montgomery bus boycott. You know white people; it didn't really happen until it's on TV.
If there was a virtue in Dr. King's assassination (and he definitely deserves that word to be applied to his death) it's that his more narrowly political projects (read: leftish) never came to public scrutiny. And he himself became both more disillusioned and radical than he appeared in public in the early days. I'm glad we never saw that. Leftism is still stupid, even when done by heroes.
If I may make a political digression, I think it will be absolutely critical that the Republican Party begins to have its leaders and figureheads be black and brown. So goes Black America, so goes America. And we're right; we've always been right. The Civil War, won by a Republican president. Constitutional amendments? GOP Congress. Federal desegregation? Republican. Passing the Civil Rights Act? Republicans. I think it's moronic and inane that Republicans today are presumed racist, given these facts.
And as much as I suspect that discussions of "white privilege" are a Marxist plot, (and they are) we also cannot expect that a magic wand was waved in 1965, and made everything OK. It wasn't that long ago. And I'm all for not making excuses, and holding people responsible, but we cannot tell Black America to "get over it." Even as I think that most of the progressive responses to all this are racist themselves, either in outright intent, or in result, I must stress that.
Big-time hero stuff. So please, don't let your mental encyclopedia article on Dr. King or Rosa Parks say something like, "Some people who did stuff a long time ago, and apparently, people are still excited." Well, yeah. In a sense, the great promise of our nation was not realized until it was experienced by those people. How great is America? We can be brought to shame with the true meaning of our own ideals. We still have work to do, but I'd rather tackle a great challenge in America than anywhere else.
I'm a very intelligent dude. That's not a boast. It's just the way things are. 97.4% of the time, I'm the smartest person in any room. But I'm the son and grandson of average folks. I like ordinary people. I really do watch NASCAR. I listen to country music. If I ever run for office, my opponent is already doomed, because I connect with people pretty well.
Provided, of course, that I can stay calm. I do have a bit of a temper. My trigger for anger is usually incurious stupidity or rank unfairness or injustice. People who have seen me argue politics and think I make Rush Limbaugh look like a moderate are very wrong. On the other hand, I will argue an extreme position or defend a marginalized person in a discussion if I think the other argument is a needless attack or otherwise stupid. Whatever kind of political conservative I am, I came to it because those positions and people were not being heard. In fact, they were being denigrated as subhuman. And everyone smugly moved on, content in their credentialed elitism. I hated that, and I still do.
But those things that I might be considered a "progressive" on usually have something to do with race, at least indirectly. And just to be blunt about it, I mean black people. African-Americans. I'm sure my own wrestling with becoming me as a "different" sort of person who didn't quite fit in had something to do with it. I listened to black music. I even "talked black" sometimes, and I can do it now pretty easily. [You still listen to black music, all the time.--ed.] When I was 13 maybe, I picked up a book called "The Days Of Martin Luther King." It was probably written in 1972 or '73, not long after he died, and it borders on hagiography. But you know what? I don't care. That's big-time hero stuff right there. The whole Civil Rights movement of that era was. Because most of it was done without hurting a fly, and with the gospel of Jesus Christ as the driving force. If the South had not been profoundly Christian, it would not have worked. And Dr. King knew that. Which is not to say that it was a big huge Bible study. No; his "Letter From Birmingham Jail" is one of the best articulations of natural law you will read.
We all have to try to remember a few basic facts about how we got to that movement in the first place. Essentially, after the North won the Civil War and passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution (look them up), we had in place at least the basics for legal equality. But the North lost the political will to enforce Reconstruction. The South "redeemed" their governments soon after, and basically undid or rendered void those amendments. The North and South were like two countries, as they would have been if the South had won. I seriously doubt we would be where we are (such as it is) if some of the major events of the movement had not been on TV, like Emmett Till's funeral, or the Montgomery bus boycott. You know white people; it didn't really happen until it's on TV.
If there was a virtue in Dr. King's assassination (and he definitely deserves that word to be applied to his death) it's that his more narrowly political projects (read: leftish) never came to public scrutiny. And he himself became both more disillusioned and radical than he appeared in public in the early days. I'm glad we never saw that. Leftism is still stupid, even when done by heroes.
If I may make a political digression, I think it will be absolutely critical that the Republican Party begins to have its leaders and figureheads be black and brown. So goes Black America, so goes America. And we're right; we've always been right. The Civil War, won by a Republican president. Constitutional amendments? GOP Congress. Federal desegregation? Republican. Passing the Civil Rights Act? Republicans. I think it's moronic and inane that Republicans today are presumed racist, given these facts.
And as much as I suspect that discussions of "white privilege" are a Marxist plot, (and they are) we also cannot expect that a magic wand was waved in 1965, and made everything OK. It wasn't that long ago. And I'm all for not making excuses, and holding people responsible, but we cannot tell Black America to "get over it." Even as I think that most of the progressive responses to all this are racist themselves, either in outright intent, or in result, I must stress that.
Big-time hero stuff. So please, don't let your mental encyclopedia article on Dr. King or Rosa Parks say something like, "Some people who did stuff a long time ago, and apparently, people are still excited." Well, yeah. In a sense, the great promise of our nation was not realized until it was experienced by those people. How great is America? We can be brought to shame with the true meaning of our own ideals. We still have work to do, but I'd rather tackle a great challenge in America than anywhere else.
Comments