It comes as a great shock around the age of five to discover that the flag to which you have pledged allegiance, has not pledged allegiance to you," he told the audience of students at Cambridge University.
"It comes as a great shock to discover that the country which is your birthplace and to which you owe your life and your identity, has not, in its whole system of reality, evolved any place for you."William F. Buckley:
Opposite Baldwin was the equally eloquent figure of Buckley, who argued that these "accusations against our civilization are unjustified".
"There is no miracle remedy to the racial problem in America," he insisted, saying the solution was certainly not to overturn American society.
He acknowledged racism and discrimination, but said Black people needed to do more themselves to improve their lot.
"The most mobile society in the world is the United States of America. And it is precisely that mobility which will give opportunities to the Negroes which they must be encouraged to take," he said.This is the reason for CRT analysis. Buckley’s argument is entirely “white people fought a war and passed the 13th Amendment. We’re done.” Without CRT analysis, how do you counter that “argument” in its own terms?
That would work, too.Racism Resolved After Hero Destroys Mad Scientist’s Bigotry Ray https://t.co/n8t393KO0m pic.twitter.com/ojTTe7kPBO
— The Onion (@TheOnion) July 13, 2023
That's the same William F. Buckley who wrote that Southerners were justified in blocking Black People from voting since they would vote for those who opposed American apartheid. He was about as racist as it's possible to be while being genteel.
ReplyDeleteTry and slide a piece of paper between Buckley's comments and the recent Supreme Court decision on affirmative action in college admissions, you can't. The affirmative action decision is worse, since it not only says you shouldn't do anything to address the problem of racism in America, it says you are barred from doing anything to address the problem. This is just the first step in eradicating efforts to address past wrongs and to move us to a more equal society. Already places like Wisconsin are talking about eliminating scholarships that are based on race. I guess we will see how far the court wants to extend a willful racial blindness in society that is itself not race blind. I was recently reading an article on the riots in France over a young black man being killed by the police. The article pointed out that one of the barriers is that the French government doesn't collect any information based on race. Without underlying data, it's difficult to fix a problem with racially unequal law enforcement when there is no way to understand the scope of the problem. I suspect this case will be used to move us in that direction. Without any data on the racial make up of students for example, how can we even know the extent of underrepresentation? I suspect this won't be seen as a fault of our new colorblind regime, but a feature this majority will quite support. The majority of the court and Buckley ultimately share the same view, racism isn't a societal problem but a problem solely of the individual and for them to "fix" on their own by the grand opportunity of America.
ReplyDeleteThe court has empowered the racists like Buckley (am I the only one that is offended by the writer calling him "equally elegant"? I am reminded of a friend's father who would regularly say "you can take shit, freeze it and shellac it, it looks pretty but it still stinks". That's Buckley), it's that simple. 303 Creative has the same end, the racist, the homophobic, the anti-semite, the bigots of all form now have the additional power to enforce their bigotry over others. It's not enough that they are allowed to hold these views under the first amendment, and even promote them as they see fit, but that they now get to impose them on the victim. This court is engaging in dramatic shifts of power. They are taking power to themselves to second guess all legislation, they are giving power to employers over the lives of their employees based on religious freedoms of corporations, they are granting power to bigots over their targets in terms of denial of commercial services, and they are disempowering minorities to improve their situation. The majority, as did Buckley, use their fine educations to freeze, and shellac their views with elegance, fine words and lots of polish, but the underlying stink will forever remain.