America’s Discrimination Circus
Claims of systemic racism, white supremacy, and white privilege are part of daily life today. None are true but they persist. America took the lead in ending white supremacy in 1945. It took the lead in ending systemic racism in 1964.White privilege has been replaced with white un-privilege. Why do the claims persist? There must be a simple way to explain why different racial groups experience disproportional outcomes. According to a black professor at Brown University: “the first axiom to the credo of racial loyalty is that when blacks fail [and others], it is whites who are responsible.”
Poverty pimps and race hustlers. The late African American Professor Walter Williams coined the terms poverty pimps and race hustlers to describe people that “make a living on the grievance of blacks.” But these grievances are unrelated to racism. Racism in America is described as residual and nothing that would prevent anyone from availing themselves to opportunities to live out their American dream. However, for the pimps and hustlers, racism cannot be residual it must be systemic. This is why whites are being goaded into thinking that racism in America today is no different than the days of the Jim Crow south when stores hung signs saying no colored folks allowed.
Poverty pimps and race hustlers are behind so much that is driving the circus. Sometimes it’s not obvious. Apparently, that’s not an accident. In 2020, there were 557 riots involving Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists. Many Americans expressed sympathy for the plight of black “victims.” As victims, politicians began absolving rioters and other activists of legal responsibility for crimes they committed. Americans were told this was equity — this was social justice. Some politicians supported the mostly peaceful protests but denounced the violence. BLM leader Alicia Garza cast doubt on their condemnations. She said, “The response of Democratic Party officials to every outbreak of violence—bearing new programs and opening new veins of spending—connected activism and revolt.”
The Racist Law of Disproportionality. Any time a profession isn’t divided 13.4% for Blacks, 18.5% for Latinos, and 1.2% for Native Americans, that seems proof enough to make a claim of racism. It’s the Racist Law of Disproportionality. If disproportional than racist. But this is not a law and it does not prove discrimination. Players in the NBA are 81.7% black. In the NFL, it is 70%. Is this racist against whites, Latinos, and Asians? In 2021, the issue of racism in baseball was raised because African Americans represented 8% of Major League Baseball (MLB) players. Forty years earlier, in 1981, blacks were 18.7% of MLB players when blacks were 12% of the population. As the population of African Americans fell in the MLB, the population of black Latinos from Latam grew. In 2017, Latinos were 27.4% of MLB players and most were black. Independent researchers looking into why more African Americans weren’t playing baseball found a lack of interest in the sport. Some said it was boring and too slow. Others said they preferred basketball and football. The rise in black NBA players is supportive. From just 2015 to 2020 the roster of black players rose from 74.3% to 81.7%. It’s not racist if the NBA is 81.7% black, and it’s not racist if the MLB is 8% black. Qualifications explain disproportionate ratios for most professions. In some cases, disproportionate ratios are due to deficient interest from some racial groups in a profession. That’s not racist either.
There are regular claims to racist health care, education, and criminal justice systems. Each one is supported by the Racist Law of Disproportionality. These systems are not racist, disproportionality is due to, for example, the influence that bad health habits have on disproportional health outcomes, or the influence that not valuing education has on disproportional education outcomes, and the influence of criminal behaviors on disproportional run-ins with the police.
Critical Race “Theory.” So much of what is said today doesn’t make sense. Incessant chants of systemic racism, equity replacing equality of opportunity, extended villages rather than nuclear families…diversity training as key to saving the nation and centering American history on slavery. It makes even less sense, to find an untested theory underlying all that seems bizarre. Introduced in 1989, Critical Race Theory (CRT) is anti-American and anti-white. It is a conspiracy theory about whites obsessed with maintaining a superior position in society to ensure the inferiority of non-whites. As far as conspiracy theories go, QAnon is a relative featherweight. While QAnon followers are cast as crazy, the legions of CRT followers are seen as oracles of …Why America’s minority groups are the most prosperous in the world?
Social justice for some and no justice for others. America’s legal system is morphing from one which endeavors to see all people as equal in the eyes of the law, to one that divides people into victims and privilege. For victims there is social justice, for the others there is legal justice or no justice. For example, the virtual legalization of property crimes in some states offers social justice for thieves and no justice for victims. In California a law became effective January 1, 2021, that should make people’s hair stand on end. This law makes it impossible to charge a person with a crime (even if certifiably guilty) “if there is statistical evidence that people of one race are disproportionately charged or convicted of a specific crime or enhancement.” The people that will benefit from this law are blacks and Latinos, including gang bangers, because they disproportionately commit crime in California, including violent crime. This law promises to deliver social justice to many blacks and Latinos, including gang bangers. The growing momentum behind a two-tiered legal system is undermining a pillar of America’s foundation. It would be impossible to have a nation rich with protected freedoms, like the United States, without rule of law. Right now, that is the direction.
The war on cops? Guess what the criminals are winning. In 2020, 336 officers were killed in the line of duty. That’s a 57% increase over the five-year average.
Benevolent racism. In the 1940s, the poverty rate for blacks was 87%. In 1960, the poverty rate was 47%. President Johnson stepped in to fast track ending poverty. War on Poverty programs commenced in 1965 with an ostensible objective to cure and prevent poverty. Fifty-three years after the programs began, poverty for blacks in 2018 was 20.8%, down from 22.1% in 2000. For Latinos, it was 17.6%, a decrease of 3.6% from 2000. Based on a $1.1 trillion annual spend, the cost to American taxpayers to lift one person from poverty is $22 million. The War on Poverty programs have failed to cure poverty and they have resulted in many unintended consequences, such as people self-selecting slavery 2.0. This is a reference to people being dependent on government handouts. War on Poverty programs fall within a category called benevolently racist programs. Benevolently racist practices “presumably help, empower, or protect communities of color [but] can often support and reinforce— either deliberately or inadvertently—a system of racial domination.” Affirmative action and minimum wage laws also qualify as benevolently racist.
Disproportionate outcomes in education. The inner cities are where charter schools have had some of their grandest wins. Charter schools represent 7% of the public schools in the United States and education to 12% of black students. Most students at charter schools are black or Latino and poor. The charter schools have racked up a number of extraordinary successes. Children that attend charter schools have higher high school graduation rates, higher percentages of college enrollment and higher earnings. Children in DC charter schools had proficiency rates in math and English that were 2 and 3 times higher than black children in non-charter public schools. The success of charter schools, however, is a problem for America’s powerful teachers’ unions because charter teachers are non-unionized. This means charter schools are a problem for Democratic lawmakers, the NAACP, and black leaders like Al Sharpton and his National Action Network (NAN) that receive financial donations from the unions…There is no question that more charter schools, particularly in inner cities, could really be helpful. The black populations in Baltimore and Detroit are 62.8% and 79% respectively. In 2016, in 48% of Baltimore’s high schools from 0-1% of students were proficient in math. In Detroit the percentages were 4% proficient in math and 7% in reading. The unions’ alignment with Black Lives Matter does make sure that these kids are learning that black lives matter, even if it’s not evident in the quality of their education. If their dad isn’t around, they are learning that’s because nuclear families are part of white culture. With curriculums tied to Project 1619 they are also learning if they flunk out and end up in prison, it’s not their fault and not their teachers either.
Project 1619 has revised American history to make slavery the new centerpiece. There are more than 100 documented exaggerations, falsities and outright fictions in Project 1619. Some are real whoppers, like arguing that the American Revolutionary War was fought so America could rule a slavocracy rather than to secure independence from the British Empire and govern a democracy. The response by historians to this faulty assertion was vigorous and lengthy. This absurd claim was supposed to be retracted from the learning materials, but it was not. Students are asked to answer how “some might argue that this nation was founded not as a democracy but as a slavocracy?” History cannot be fiction. History should not be a fairy tale where writers cherry pick history then modify it to convince the reader of a desired position. Project 1619 blames every problem Black communities face on slavery and racism, even an obesity epidemic. Every disproportional outcome is ipso facto rooted in slavery. This will cause black kids to think they are victims and others to be confused.
Sensitivity training. In 2020, the government issued an order to cancel training programs that encouraged racism and sex stereotyping. Seems like a sensible order for a country that has turned all eyes to stopping alleged racism. Not so. The onslaught of criticism was extraordinary, even though there is ample data to support that these trainings do not end bias and often increase it. Some training sessions share parallels with the struggle sessions in the Chinese Cultural Revolution where people were forced to humiliate themselves in front of others. They only thing missing in the American version of struggle sessions is using physical torture to compel confessions. For middle-class white people priding themselves on being egalitarian and trying to keep their families above water, this training is very confusing.
Democratic Socialism. The now oft-heard phrases of equity and equitable solutions are doublespeak for socialism with an aim of delivering equality of outcomes. Socialism regularly proves it can deliver equal outcomes. People have been equally poor, and no one has an opportunity to change that. America offers equality of opportunity. Every American has the chance to avail themselves to opportunities. This has been and remains the single biggest driver of most Americans rising from the bottom 20% to the top 10%. Equality of opportunity has been the driver of America’s extraordinary prosperity. A family of four on welfare in the United States has more income than the average family in 90% of the countries of the world.
LGBTQ discrimination. In seventy-one countries it is illegal to be homosexual. In America, the forecast is for zero biases against homosexuals between 2025 and 2045. This is for homosexuals, not transgenders. Tackling discrimination against transgenders has become a priority. In 2021 a presidential executive order decreed that transgender people could use the bathroom and locker room of their choice and they could play sports per their gender of choice. Jim Crow laws were written to be race neutral and this order is written to be gender neutral, but the impact is clearly greater on females. Statistics are imprecise, but the number of transgender females is believed to be about 4 times that for transgender men. This order could be a setback for aspiring cisgender women in sports. Additionally, lots of young women can find the ladies and locker room uncomfortable but the second sex needs to embrace this as a victory for lessening discrimination against the 0.3% of transgender Americans.
The myths of systemic racism in America are being perpetuated in a Victimhood Olympics. Whites can do nothing to end the contest. Trying to help is an invitation to being called a white supremacist. Only the ethnic and political leaders perpetuating it can solve it.
America’s Discrimination Circus is available on Amazon.
