America Awakens to the Danger of Cancer Culture, part 4

 

The Progressive focus on racial disparities emphasizes our differences rather than our commonalities.  America no longer viewed as a melting pot, instead as a collection of racial groups each denied their fair share of the American pie.   Inevitably, cooperation turns to competition between racial groups.  Each group vies for beneficial government policies, advantages, and resources.  The result is antagonisms between racial groups of the kind currently played out between the black and Asian communities.  Hate crimes against Asians are disproportionately committed by Blacks.  The absolute number of hate crimes committed by Blacks is greater than committed by Whites.  Quite extraordinary given that the white population is four times the size of the black population. 

The hostility is triggered by economic disparity made tangible by the large number of Asian owned businesses in black communities.  The hostility echoes the Black anger towards Jews embedded in the black power movement of the 1960s and 70s.  At that time it was the Jews who owned small businesses and apartment buildings in Black communities.

In the views of the poor living outside of America, America is not a racist society but a land of opportunity.  Voting with their feet to answer the question: is America an inherently, irredeemably, systemically, racist society.  The poor’s answer: A RESOUNDING NO!  The worldwide immigration demand so strong, a decade of life passes for each legal immigrant to get their golden ticket – permanent residence in America.  All told, there are 48 million immigrants in the U.S.  This is four times more than any other country in the world 

Legal immigration is not the whole immigration story.   Every year millions of migrants from every part of the world risk life and limb for a life in America by travelling overland from Central and South America.  From the outset of their long trek, the shadow of death is ever-present in the harsh and unforgiving terrain along the route and the looming presence of the Mexican Cartels who control these migration routes.  The fortunate migrants pay exorbitant smuggling sums, and may suffer sexual and physical abuse along the way.  The unfortunate ones become either a part of the Cartel’s Human Trafficking business, or are left along the route to fend for themselves.

Such is the draw America holds for the huddled masses of the world yearning to breathe free.  They come from every corner of the world, comprised of every race; ethnicity; skin color; and religion.  Drawn to America because they see the American Dream alive in America as only an outsider living in a corrupt, totalitarian country does.  They come believing if they work hard and play by the rules they can go as far as their talents, ambitions, and a spoonful of luck will take them. 

And you know what, evidence supports that.  Black immigrants earn 30% more than native born blacks.  Immigrants from Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Jamaica do particularly well.  Asian Americans are the immigrant stars.  Their average income level is the highest in the nation.  Immigrants are much more entrepreneurial than native born Americans, starting businesses at twice the rate.  40% of the Fortune 500 companies were founded by an immigrant or son of an immigrant.  My own story pithily summed up by using Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s question and answer format for describing the American Dream.  Question: what does it take to go from a salesman to the head psychologist for the City of Los Angeles?  Answer: one generation. 

America is an immigration magnet because of its uniqueness as a country.  All other countries formed on the basis of a shared nationality.  America formed by universal ideas that transcend all nationalities -- everyone is inherently equal and free to live their lives as they see fit, constrained only by the principle decent people live by, treating others the way they want to be treated.  So America’s welcome mat is open irrespective of national origin, race, gender, or creed.

Despite all that is good about America, some in America advocate Progressive policies, and an anti-American view that America is fundamentally flawed and racist.  This is not the first time America flirted with Progressivism.  Each time the idealism of the Progressive imagination gave way to the realities of Progressive policies.  

As before, it it true today.  Progressive Mayors and City Councils are awakening to the need for more police when increased crime followed their reduction in police force resources and manpower.  Citizens have initiated recall elections against District Attorneys for no cash bail policies after offenders, released without bail, committed acts of violence.  Parents are seeking changes in schools to eliminate any teaching of concepts which suggest that a child’s skin color defines their character.  Even residents of States are voting with their feet in rejecting Progressivism.  Population in States favoring Progressive policies is shrinking as residents relocate to non-Progressive States.  Most ominous for Progressives, the decrease in the Black and Hispanic support for the Democrat Party as it increasingly embraced Progressive policies and ways of framing issues.  

All this gives me hope that this time too, Progressivism shall pass and they will be voted out by Centrists in next year’s November 22^nd  election.  That way we can return to living our lives the way we see fit, rather than on the basis of uniformity in how we think; act; and talk, the hallmark of Progressivism.       

 

America Awakens to the Danger of Cancer Culture, part 3

A major dividing line between Progressives and Centrists is the issue of individual responsibility.  Are people responsible for their fate in life, or do social forces determining life’s fate?  The divide is not either or, but rather which view is primarily used to organize American society.  Is it best organized by creating a society that emphasizes individual choice with the nuclear family as the basic unit of society?   Or best organized by an all for one and one for all view, where, it takes a village, is the basic unit of society?

America, founded on the principle of individual freedom, created a government and legal system emphasizing individual responsibility and free choice.  One of Government’s primary duties is to ensure the individual’s inalienable rights to life and liberty, enforced through a justice system protecting individual rights from government and/ or individuals attempting to deny them these rights. 

Progressive perspective reshapes the justice system into emphasizing social forces over individual responsibility.  Justice, blind to an individual’s station in life, is replaced by a societal perspective, where combating the ills and inequities in society form the structure of the judicial system.  Some of the extreme recommendations flowing from the Progressive perspective are disquieting and disturbing to Centrist America -- defund the police or reimagine them as social workers, require reduced or no bail with less or no regard to a person’s behavior or criminal history, and eliminate the penitentiary system.  All these recommendations logical consequences of believing the criminal justice system is the instrument of a corrupt society.

There is fascinating research showing that babies’ are born with a built in sense of fairness which undergirds a moral code based on individual responsibility.  Babies as young as three months distinguish between selfish and greedy, fair and unfair behavior.   When given a choice, babies prefer to gaze at a puppet who acts morally than one who is selfish or greedy, in the same way they prefer to look at pictures of their mother rather than of a stranger. 

The importance of individual responsibility underlies the angry reactions when criminals released by Progressive D.A.s commit violent acts or when police are restrained by Progressive mayors from acting when rioters attack others and/or loot and burn community businesses.  These reactions transcend party lines.  They don’t see people who are victims of society.  They see people who lack decency and a concern for others.

Parents teach the importance of personal responsibility when raising children.  They teach their children to take ownership of their lives, and that they are accountable for the good and bad consequences of their choices.  Parents praise children for their accomplishments and hard work.  They also teach their children not to make excuses or blame others for their actions and to say they are sorry to those they harmed.

That is why parents reacted so strongly when made aware of their children being taught concepts in school going against the grain of individual responsibility.  So strong, it overcame the inertia of not attending or speaking out at school board meetings.  I had an equally strong reaction when introduced to the concept that my “whiteness” makes me a racist.   For me, racism is about an individual’s belief of the inferiority of people of color.  Now I am told racism is about skin color, the very standard I, and the dictionary, use for determining racism.  Most outrageous, as a white Jew, being defined as a racist aligns me with White Supremacists, the very group that wants to eliminate me and my kind from the face of the earth.  When White Supremacists chant, “you will not replace us”, the message is directed towards Jews as much as it is to people of color.  

Progressives use equity as the measuring stick for racial injustice by pointing out that blacks fare disproportionately poorer in key measures of wellbeing.  Blacks have disproportionately less access to healthcare, more incidences of serious medical issues, poorer quality of education, lower levels of academic achievement, shorter life spans, less access to supermarkets, higher drug usage, higher incarceration rates, and so on.

While all true, these comparisons neglect to consider socioeconomic status, which is at the root of these disparities.  Poor white communities show the same disadvantages.  Poor white children suffer the same fate as their poor minority counterparts.  A poor white child attends inferior schools, is less likely to finish high school, more likely to commit crimes, more likely to become a drug addict, have a shorter life span, etc.

Progressives do no focus on or promote programs which provide skill sets so the poor can lift themselves out of poverty.  To do so would acknowledge the poor, through individual effort, can improve their lot in life.  Instead Progressives focus on instances where an unarmed minority is killed by a white police officer.  Although touted by Progressives as evidence of systemic racism, the reality is that white officers killing unarmed minorities is so rare that calling it systemic is a libelous distortion of the truth. 

The media coverage of a white officer killing a minority does not include statistics showing the rarity of police killing unarmed minorities, or provide comparable coverage of the killing of unarmed whites.  The Washington Post for the last 6 years tracked the number of killings of unarmed civilians.  During that time period police officers across the country responded to tens and tens of millions of calls.  Of those calls, 478 ended in an unarmed civilian being killed.  Within that subset of unarmed civilian killings, 175 were white, 137 were black, and 79 were Hispanic.  These numbers are not even a blip compared to the number of civilian encounters with the police over that time period, and show no significant disparity in which skin color is victimized.

The largest beneficial impact for the inner cities would be to address the social dysfunction occurring in those areas, where the overwhelming number of homicides occur, along with all manner of social dysfunction.  There is a mantra for success in life my father shared with my son when he was 13, the age of transition from childhood to adulthood in the Jewish faith.  He said to him, “get educated, get a job, get married, and have children … in that order”.  Nothing fancy or profound, but a time tested formula used by citizens and immigrants alike in achieving success in America.   Implementing programs based on that formula would go a long way to breaking the cycle of poverty existing in the inner cities.  It will require a lot of resources and man power, and will span a generation to show significant progress.  There are pockets of such programs in existence, primarily church run.  Such programs need funding for support and expansion to cover all areas where poverty is generational.  This funding should and can receive support from both parties.  Helping the poor is at the core of American values.    

I intended to make this the final in this series of blogs.  Alas, more to talk about.  One more blog coming the end of the week.  Until then.