Dee Dee Benkie
Amidst the varying postmortems on an election disastrous for conservatives and Republicans, one theme is debated, but poorly. On November 8, 2012, the O’Reilly show was guest hosted by Laura Ingraham, who grumbled about “bean counting” to make the Republican party more inclusive, as one guest, Dee Dee Benkie, seemed to be suggesting (though Benkie was thinking mostly about women). But adding female or black and brown faces to the optics of the Republican Party will not solve a much deeper challenge: the curriculum that teaches children to hate our country, and to seek Democratic Party [pseudo-solutions] to achieve “social justice.” Personally, I believe in social justice, but it can only come about through a thoughtful reform of the curriculum in all our schools, and it must tell the truth about the American past, which is a mixed bag of glorious achievement and loathsome discrimination, exploitation, and oppression. We should not pretend otherwise, unless we want to look like amnesiac opportunists.
On the last three blogs (https://clarespark.com/2012/11/07/capitalism-is-on-the-line/, https://clarespark.com/2012/11/08/the-demographic-change-explanation-is-racist/, https://clarespark.com/2012/11/08/the-magical-power-of-negroes-and-other-beautiful-people/) I developed the themes of race and racism, perhaps the most relevant problem in our political culture. The progressives (whose racism was once well known) have co-opted anti-racist forces through a version of “inclusion” that spells the end of rational politics and pushes us down the path to total disintegration as a polity:
1. Separatist Black Studies programs that mobilized even more hatred against the “white” oppressor, thus reinforcing the notion of history as above all, racial struggle; and
2. Strategic tokenism. Window dressing that gave a rainbow aura to the Democratic coalition, even as it failed to address the curriculum that should have been dispensing such tools to all students that would aid in their upward mobility, not to speak of an accurate account of U.S. history, which is more complicated than the current curricula would have it. (Where, for instance, is Charles Sumner or Ralph Bunche today?) Above all, it allowed black liberation theology to annex the integrationist approach of Martin Luther King Jr. to the cause of black supremacy. This has gone relatively unnoticed by the white majority, but black antisemitism and hatred of “Whitey” is worse than ever, with many black adherents to the Nation of Islam.
3. The progressives put forth a version of American and European history that described the West as essentially racist, sexist, classist, and ecocidal. Their alternative was the racialist/fascist notion of pan-Africanism, reflected in the favored term of African-American for black people. Instead of defining American nationality as equality under the law for rich and poor alike, American nationality was now hyphenated along racial or ethnic categories: there are Mexican-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Asian-Americans, etc. This is not only a betrayal of the Constitution, but a route to hopeless disunity and a thoroughly racialist discourse. This move is not only bogus, but fatal to everything we hold dear as unhyphenated Americans. (For a related blog see https://clarespark.com/2010/01/02/jottings-on-the-culture-wars-both-sides-are-wrong/.)
Ralph Bunche, American
The Clare Spark Blog 
[…] such as “the people” whom they pretend to defend with their lives and reputations (see https://clarespark.com/2012/11/09/race-and-the-problem-of-inclusion/). Similarly, they have co-opted the language of classical liberalism, deeming their opponents to be […]
Pingback by What makes America strong? | YDS: The Clare Spark Blog — March 30, 2014 @ 9:17 pm |
[…] out more to minorities? I think they should, however, I also agree with Clare when she says in ‘”Race” and the problem of “inclusion”‘ that there is another hurdle to surmount (emphases in the […]
Pingback by A bit of history about revisionism in American schools « Churchmouse Campanologist — December 6, 2012 @ 10:02 pm |
[…] During the period of my life starting in 1969 at Pacifica Radio and on through getting my doctorate (1983-1993) and then shopping my expanded dissertation (1993-1999), I watched the direction of the civil rights movement/the women’s movement that had stirred me out of somnolence during the 1960s. What stunned me was the success of upwardly mobile persons of color and women in climbing the ladders of academe, the media, and to some extent, in business and the professions. What I was not prepared for was the failure of the integrationist project in favor of cultural nationalism and even black supremacy as urged by such theologians as James Cone and his allies in the Chicago Democratic machine. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hal_Cone.) I was even more startled to see that black nationalism had pretty much taken over the civil rights movement by the mid-1960s (see https://clarespark.com/2009/10/31/the-offing-of-martin-luther-king-jr-and-ralph-bunche/, or https://clarespark.com/2012/11/09/race-and-the-problem-of-inclusion/.) […]
Pingback by Petit-bourgeois radicalism and Obama « YDS: The Clare Spark Blog — December 3, 2012 @ 10:30 pm |
Interesting comment. I must have missed the countless “dog whistle” racism Clare used. I suppose that’s because I have the “wrong” identity. Yes, that argument has been trotted out many times before. Its as lame now as it ever was. I’d say that to dismiss “fake” inclusion is to feign ignorance of “structural” or “institutional” racism in which disadvantaged minorities are “included,” just not all the way. Or the construct of the “glass ceiling,” where progressives will “bean count” for the public, but don’t let’s try to make it to the top “just yet, the timing’s not right”. . . . lol
I’m confused, Aaron, by your disstinction. Why is justice to one person not justice to all? Don’t we remember whenever one person experiences injustice, so do we all? Isn’t a system of justice enacted one person at a time?
The transfer of justice from the individual to the identity group in the form of social justice is in fact shifting the focus of real justice from its abstract form to a question of simple power. Progressives constantly mistake power for justice by thinking erroneously that seeking an imbalance of power, finding its victims, locating the responsible bullies, and then punishing, is somehow satisfying. We see it in hollywood all the time. But real justice is color blind, class blind, sex blind, etc.
Not sure how “social justice” based on identity can be seen as anything other than an expression of progressive megalomania.
Comment by Terbreugghen — November 13, 2012 @ 12:13 am |
By social justice, they mean to influence governmental policy and even social norms to deliver justice and equality to many persons instead of delivering justice to ONE person or even just a single group of persons. I would have thought the term to be self-explanatory.
And, to address the post above, I don’t know how to fake “inclusion”. You’re either inclusive, or you’re not. By branding anyone that doesn’t agree with your ideas as “takers”, making countless overtly racist references to the President, joking about electric fences to stop immigrants, referring to women as sluts for using or wanting birth control from insurance coverage that they themselves pay for, and suggesting that women can spontaneously prevent pregnancy while being raped or belittling rape victims by saying their ordeals were not “legitimate, the other party essentially made their case for who they intend to “include” in their party. The Democrats just decided to include everyone that believes that government can work.
Also, your suggestion that racial struggle was NOT one of the many driving causes of conflict in American History is about as flawed as rednecks saying that the Confederate’s wish to secede from the Union was not about slavery, but “state’s rights”. They were wrong then, they’re still wrong today and so are you.
Comment by Aaron — November 12, 2012 @ 6:54 pm |
You misread my blog, Aaron. I had a critique of “race” as a way of sorting people out. I objected to the displacement of class or gender conflict by “racial” conflict. Race is socially constructed, while class and gender are not. Multiculturalism also mimics Hitler’s view of history as “racial” conflict. As for the causes of the Civil War, the expansion of slavery into the western territories was the burning question that started the war.
Comment by clarespark — November 12, 2012 @ 7:16 pm |
[…] https://clarespark.com/2012/11/09/race-and-the-problem-of-inclusion/ […]
Pingback by Index to blogs on education reform « YDS: The Clare Spark Blog — November 10, 2012 @ 3:56 pm |
As usual, agreed wholeheartedly with much of the essay. I have a personal observation about the term “social justice.” I’ve often noted to peers on web discussion groups that the urge to place the term “social” in front of justice reveals something our social justice progressives have missed, I believe. Adding “social” simply indicates that whatever is being contemplated is different than justice. If it were just, if it were actual Justice, there would be no need to add a term. I believe the additional term demonstrates that social justice as it is popularly conceived is actually injustice as it is very much about balancing a percieved power imbalance using race, sex, or class distinctions as justification. Every time I see the term “social justice,” I know an injustice is about to be rationalized. Seriously. Just a thought.
Comment by Terbreugghen — November 10, 2012 @ 3:54 am |
I too am somewhat curious about the term “social” in conjunction with “justice.” It does smack of collective responsibility, and I have been trying to bring attention on wrongdoing by individuals, whether formulators of policy, particular leaders, functionaries, or other flunkeys. Good point. Still, I’m not ready to give it up quite yet. For instance, what is education reform other than social justice? (I refer to charter schools that teach economics, science, and accurate history, without idealizing any group.)
Comment by clarespark — November 10, 2012 @ 5:53 am |