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 here
was an interesting article in the Washington Post on Thursday.
Not the one headlined, "Conservatives Use Floggings As Way
to Beat Back Reforms," which turns out to be, disappointingly,
about Iran rather than Dick Armey and Tom DeLay.
No, I'm talking
about the one reporting that a voter-rights group has sued Florida,
"saying that parts of a new election reform law could return
the state to its 'Jim Crow' past." The lawsuit was filed by
an arm of Florida's ACLU on behalf of Charles Major Jr., a black
voting-rights activist from Key West.
And what horrible
things has the racist state of Florida done now? It has required
that signs be posted at polling places that urge voters to "study
and know candidates and issues," "bring proper identification
to the polling station," and check their completed ballots
for accuracy. Not only that, but it allows voters to cast provisional
ballots if their names do not appear on precinct voter lists.
But aren't
these exactly the kinds of reforms that the Left said it wanted,
in order to ensure that every ballot counted and every citizen got
to vote? True, but now the ACLU has decided that such reforms aren't
such a great idea after all, because they assume that voters can
read — a no-no under its reading of the Voting Rights Act — and
give too much authority to poll workers.
More and more,
this you-can't-win phenomenon characterizes the left's racial agenda.
Good scientists
hold that, under the scientific method, a hypothesis must be "falsifiable."
Karl Popper taught that, if a scientist has a hypothesis, but under
no circumstances will he ever admit that it has been disproved,
then he's being dogmatic, not scientific.
The same principle
applies in the social sciences, too. Suppose a criminologist asserts
that the death penalty does not deter murderers. If he always has
explanations, and they are increasingly untenable, no matter what
additional evidence contrary to his hypothesis is brought forward,
then eventually it must be concluded that he is offering us not
criminology, but an article of faith.
And this is
true, finally, in politics as well. If Oliver Stone posits the existence
of a vast right-wing conspiracy, and if the lack of evidence for
such a thing proves only how sophisticated and sinister the conspiracy
is — and never can demonstrate that it does not exist — then we
are entitled to conclude at some point that we are dealing with
a nut.
This is a worthwhile
principle to apply to an apparent article of faith for the civil-rights
establishment, namely that Republicans, conservatives, and pretty
much everyone except for Al Sharpton and maybe Julian Bond is a
racist.
A good example
is the reluctance of many people to soften penalties for drug dealers.
The civil-rights establishment reasons this way: Tough penalties
for drug dealers mean more drug dealers go to prison; a disproportionate
number of drug dealers are black; therefore, tough penalties for
drug dealers are antiblack — and those who support them are, too.
But suppose
instead Republicans had decided that we should decriminalize crack.
(At the time that the current, stiff penalties for crack were put
in place, incidentally, the charge was led by Charles Rangel, an
African-American congressman from Harlem, and voted for by a majority
of the Congressional Black Caucus.) Which of the following two reactions
by the NAACP and Jesse Jackson would be more likely?: (a) Republicans
are enlightened statesmen who don't want to throw black youths in
jail; or (b) Republicans are racists who would abandon our inner
cities to the ravages of drug addiction. Right — the latter.
Or take school
choice. If the civil-rights establishment supported it and Republicans
opposed it, the former would accuse the latter of racism, since
why should poor/black children have fewer choices than rich/white
children? Of course, the shoes are on the other feet — that is,
the civil-rights establishment opposes school choice and Republicans
generally favor it — but the Republicans are nonetheless still accused
of being antiblack: They want to destroy the public-school systems
where most black children go (most white children go there, too,
but never mind).
I'm not the
only one who has noticed this. Two African Americans have recently
pointed out the same thing.
Columnist William
Raspberry noted that, when Bill Clinton announced he was going to
locate his office in Harlem, the New Black Panther Party decried
the decision as part of "the white takeover of black Harlem."
But if Clinton had decided not to move into a black neighborhood,
Raspberry points out, he would have been criticized for that. If
the background music in a TV ad is a black song sung by a black
man, that's exploitation; if it's a black song sung by a white man,
that's theft; if it's not a black song at all, whites are "disrespecting
our genius."
John McWhorter
— author of the brilliant Losing
the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America — uses a similar
analysis in his recent review in The New Republic of Donald
Bogle's Primetime
Blues: African Americans on Network Television. McWhorter
shows that, no matter what roles African Americans play on television,
Bogle is offended. If a black woman is nurturing, she is a "mammy";
if she is not, she is a "Sapphire." If a black man doesn't
stick up for is race, he is "tokenism at its worst"; if
he does, he is an "angry black man" or "other."
Bogle is offended if young black singles on television are obsessed
with sex, but of course young white singles are, too — and probably
if blacks and whites acted differently, Bogle would also be offended.
The networks can't win; their racism is unfalsifiable.
This problem
is an important one for the Republican party. If Republicans cram
the stage with African Americans at their convention, that's tokenism;
if they don't, that's racism. If an appointed black is a conservative
Republican, he really isn't a black; if an appointed black isn't
a conservative, then he really isn't a Republican.
Now, I don't
think that Republicans are biased, but my point is that those who
disagree should ask themselves: What would Republicans have to do
to convince us otherwise? If the answer is, they can't, then this
really isn't fair. And, for everyone else, if the critics' accusation
of racism is unfalsifiable, then the criticism has to be taken with
a big grain of salt.
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