Cobb

I agree with you that it seems as if blacks are being used as "pawns of diversity" for the purposes of enriching the lives of already privileged white students. Don't you find that inherently insulting?

As far as the stigma idea goes, I don't think whites are to blame. I think AA is directly to blame. If you are in an institution and you know that one particular group or another has been the beneficiary of dumbed down standards, then it is only rational to look doubtingly upon the members of that group who do make it into the institution.

And have you see Reggie White's latest book and speaking tour? He is arguing that integration is bad. My opinion is just that FORCED integration is bad.

Anyway, see if you are offended by this daring little post: http://www.rantingrationalist.blogspot.com/2003_07_01_rantingrationalist_archive.html#105717683913956179

I ignore Reggie White. When he teaches at university, I'll listen.

I don't find 'diversity' insulting in practice. It is insulting to the principle of Affirmative Action in that whitefolks have hijacked the political rationale for it.

So long as Affirmative Action continues, inclusion will happen. That means that some beneficiary who might have ordinarily gotten left out gets *paid* or *educated*, and that's what's most important. Whitefolks may get their jollies from the zoo experience and that may be enough to politically sustain it. It's better than nothing.

Whichever blackfolks cannot handle the stigma of Affirmative Action get what they deserve, and they deserve everything whitefolks can do to humiliate them. Me personally, I met enough whitefolk to know that some of them are heavily invested in being white and twist their logic all over the map when it comes to the subjects of race and integration. I also know those who have their heads on perfectly straight and don't trip. The man who married my sister, for example. Integration and stigma is worth suffering the former to meet the latter in a purely zoo context. But that's only a side benefit of inclusion.

Whitefolks who complain about exclusion as whites are more honest, in my view, than those invested in diversity for zoo purposes. The point of Affirmative Action and racial integration is to mainstream people who are out of the mainstream. So there is a qualification about excluded whites - are they not mainstreamed?

This is a supply and demand issue as well. Black demand for Affirmative Actions must be paid attention. You may recall that it started with demands to be cashiers at Woolworths. That was mainstream, back in the day...

The rant doesn't offend, it's only a slightly exaggerated view of reality. Why do you think whitefolks still ask "Can I Touch Your Hair?"

Offhand, it seems like you would be a fun person to hang around with. I think I could really speak my mind to you without fear of offense, which is basically the number one thing I look for in friends. Anyway, you have some really scattershot opinions, so I don't think I have the time to address everything you say.

I guess my main belief is that I don't care about integration or lack of integration. I'm basically utterly indifferent to it. That means that I don't really notice it. It also means that I think that the government should have no hand in it at all.

In general, I think that blacks are hardcore more racist than whites. This goes double for Puerto Ricans. And as for blacks and PR's interacting- it's something to watch that much vitriol. Also, I think that America is about 1% as racist as the average country in this world of ours. In America, a racially motivated killing (which is rare) gets you the death penalty (reference that poor soul Byrd in Texas). In, say, Uganda, not being the exact right bloodline will earn you your own children forced at knifepoint to machete off their mother's arm.

I guess I'm saying that blacks (and everyone) has it super easy in this country. Like Ken Hamblin says "Pick a better country". If blacks don't have the test scores or whatever to get into college, then they SHOULDN'T get in until they get up to snuff. I went to Penn, and I lived right across from the black dorm. It seemed to me at the time that the only thing they accomplished was creating a mini Southern University inside of Penn. How is this helping them?

You wouldn't have time to answer everything I say, because I've been saying a lot of things for many years. My opinions seem scattershot because the thinking behind them is complex. I'm fairly confident the thinking is complete as well. All I can do is write it, publish it and invite criticism, which you are quite welcome to do on the off chance that you are willing to swallow the Race Man's Home Companion.

As for the number of racists in this society, I can tell you empirically that you are off by an order of magnitude and then some. Go right ahead and take the 'Are You Racist' quiz and know that the results show that 14.2% of the people who take it are shown to be racist.

As for your 2 black friends at Penn, whom obviously made a big impression on you, I'll take your word for it. That still leaves about 36 million. You really ought to get out more, and read some good books by black authors. It will help.

I am a very cool person to hang out with but my schedule is atrocious. These days I'm collecting friends on XBox Live. You can see what other people think of me at Friendster.com

As to whether blacks are more racist than whites, all we have are politics to prove or disprove that. You wanna talk about racial politics?

I think you misunderstood my point about "racists in American society". I pretty firmly believe that virtually everyone in the world is a racist of some sort. In many cases, it's just a normal, non-destructive sort of general thing that doesn't really manifest itself in any harmful way. And for the times that it IS harmful, America is very upfront about prosecuting it. Contrast this theory of rule of law with places such as Albania, where ethnic cleansings are the rule. Go to Japan and see how they treat "others". In America, we have black people high up in government, on the high courts, on TV. We have people like Oprah giving millions of white women advice daily. So, who gives a f..k? Certainly not me. By continually injecting race into it, you are making it worse. When I say I don't notice integration, I really mean it. If I see a black/white couple, it doesn't seem unusual to me. If I go to get LASIK done, and the doctor is black (which he was) I don't make up an excuse and get out of the surgery. IT DOESN'T MATTER TO ME!

Yet, I am definitely a racist. I throw around the "n" word freely. I refuse to have certain words hold me captive. I think blacks have a culture of non-education, and I say so. I also think blacks from West Africa have more fast-twitch muscle fibers which makes them explosive athletes. Does saying this make me a racist?

I don't remember enumerating the number of "black friends" I had in college. The black dorm (W.E.B DuBois House, to be exact) housed hundreds of separatist blacks. That's the only term I can use for those who whine about integration and then procede to segregate themselves.

Blacks more racist than whites: I'm going on everyday, ordinary events I have witnessed having gone to a "black" high school in Louisiana and having lived for the past 7 years in New York City.

I'll leave you with a small vignette which depicts how difficult it is to compartmentalize these issues. They are quite complex, and the term "racist" is almost valueless:

When I was growing up (middle class neighborhood, Baton Rouge, probably 98% white), a black family lived right across the street from us. They had 10 kids and a constant stream of foster kids. They were terrific parents. I was good friends with the kid who was about my age (Charles). Now, my parents were pretty racist. (I can remember doing such things as putting my mouth on a water fountain nozzle directly, and being reprimanded "Why don't you think, son? You don't know what nigger's mouth has been all over that thing".) Anyway, one time, Charles got in an argument with this kid several house down. They were standing about 100 feet apart, yelling at each other, in full view of our driveway, which is where I was standing and watching the whole thing. Finally, the other kid breaks out "nigger", I guess hoping to end the whole thing then and there. My dad comes charging out of nowhere, crosses the street, goes right up to the other kid's face and says: "You'd better goddamned well get over there and apologize to Charles for saying that. And if I ever hear you doing that again, tell your mother that I'll personally come kick your ass and your father's ass". Meekly: "yessir". And he went and did it.

The moral? You tell me. My dad "the racist" fighting racism?

I'm sorry but that doesn't cut it. You seem like a likeable guy and all, no offense, but do you think anybody gives a phat gnat about a water faucet in Louisiana, Oprah, idiot college students, or a shouting match in somebody's driveway about whose ass gets kicked over namecalling?

So let me take you apart.
1. Everybody in the world is not a racist of some sort. That's like saying everybody in the world is a Christian of some sort. It's all about what you believe. Either you believe objectively racist ideas or you don't, and as a rationalist you should be the first kind of person to make this distinction plain.

2. Observe and recognize the operating principles of the Race Man's Home Companion.

• Racial Geography is Destiny
• Institutional Racism Remains Manifest through Free Markets
• Whiteness is Significant
• Facts About Affirmative Action Have Been Obscured to the Electorate
• The Political Impetus for Racial Integration Has Subsided

You will note that I don't mention that 'people aren't nice to each other'. I don't care. When I talk about integration I am talking about mainstreaming and residential integration. I am talking about why the black neighborhoods you know about have been in the same place for 5 generations, and why they are still not desireable places to live.

You make the fundamental error of ignoring power when talking about race. All you are talking about is attitudes, opinions and feelings. You shouldn't care, that doesn't matter. All you are talking about are 'race relations' and you are not grasping the fundamental nut of the problem with racism in this country which is manifest through power & politics. So if you don't come with some talk about votes & policies, dollars and economics, life and death, crime and justice, you are not going to hold my attention because it's just background noise.

So I would suggest that if you are going to be rational about the subjects attending race don't pester people with the kind of shit Rikki Lake talks about. Come with the hard line about economics and politics.

I'm uneducated, but curious. Please bear with me. Or, you know... don't.

Nick's points left me pretty bored, but I don't understand your criticism of them. Yes, all he's talking about is race relations, but I don't understand how that's different from the "zoo" aspect of affirmative action, or the "stigma" of affirmative action.

Aren't both those things at least as separate from "votes & policies, dollars and economics, life and death, crime and justice" as any of his (boring) points? Did I misunderstand your point?

They should be, but Affirmative Action is the single most contested proactive political movement in America. That makes it everything, even though it's incapable of solving our problems.

Let's say that the Constitution is colorblind. So in the courts, absolutely nothing happens on race. So if there is any racism left over from Slavery or the Labor Movement or Jim Crow how does it get fixed?

I say the difference in black and white unemployment is the benchmark. Last time I checked black was about double white. So America catches a cold, black America has pneumonia.

So what is the legislative agenda to fix the disparity? It could be Enterprise Zones, it could be Reparations, it could be Set-Asides, it could be CETA, it could be make-work, it could be block grants, it could be anything. What it is, is Affirmative Action and very little else. And Affirmative Action is going away.

So politically speaking we have reached an impasse. We are at a political equilibrium but not at a socio-economic equilibrium. We have essentially said, we can live with black unemployment double white. We can live with poor black ghettoes in the same place.

So basically all we have is zoo Affirmative Action. It's all we can talk about because nobody in power is willing to do anything more. If you are born black today in the ghetto with a shorter life expectancy, greater infant mortality or any other dysfunction that can be placed at the foot of America's racist legacy, the mainstream says, that's too bad because we aren't going to do anything further to cure that problem. We've had it up to here with race.

I'm sure there are more important things to talk about, but who's talking? Ward Connerly, and all he wants to do is stop the conversation.

Yeah. I totally misunderstood you. I thought you were saying, "Affirmative action is good for whitefolks, and therefore it is bad."

You can imagine my confusion. Upon rereading, I have nothing to say. Good show.