Democrats very much want a “national conversation” on race post-Charleston shooting. Well, what they really want is a soliloquy, as well as a massive amount of Blamestorming, particularly of Republicans. It seems that Democrats haven’t gotten over losing the Civil War 150 years ago, along with losing when it came to eradicating Jim Crow/Segregation laws and the passage of the Civil Rights laws. Here’s comes Paul Krugman
Slavery’s Long Shadow
America is a much less racist nation than it used to be, and I’m not just talking about the still remarkable fact that an African-American occupies the White House. The raw institutional racism that prevailed before the civil rights movement ended Jim Crow is gone, although subtler discrimination persists. Individual attitudes have changed, too, dramatically in some cases. For example, as recently as the 1980s half of Americans opposed interracial marriage, a position now held by only a tiny minority.
Yet racial hatred is still a potent force in our society, as we’ve just been reminded to our horror. And I’m sorry to say this, but the racial divide is still a defining feature of our political economy, the reason America is unique among advanced nations in its harsh treatment of the less fortunate and its willingness to tolerate unnecessary suffering among its citizens.
Of course, saying this brings angry denials from many conservatives, so let me try to be cool and careful here, and cite some of the overwhelming evidence for the continuing centrality of race in our national politics.
OK. Let’s see it.
The first, by the political scientist Larry Bartels, analyzed the move of the white working class away from Democrats, a move made famous in Thomas Frank’s “What’s the Matter With Kansas?†Mr. Frank argued that working-class whites were being induced to vote against their own interests by the right’s exploitation of cultural issues. But Mr. Bartels showed that the working-class turn against Democrats wasn’t a national phenomenon — it was entirely restricted to the South, where whites turned overwhelmingly Republican after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Richard Nixon’s adoption of the so-called Southern strategy.
So, white flight from Detroit, which started well over 40 years ago. Perhaps Mr. Krugman could explain why Whites fled Detroit. Oh, wait, we can see the results of what happened: falling property values, a massive increase in crime, a collapse of the education system, a collapse of the economic values, a collapse of social capital. Can Paul explain why, in the absence of the fleeing Whites, Detroit, went from being called the Paris of the West to being called the Mogadishu of America? Why it has been called the murder capital of the US many times? Why Whites were no longer considered welcome per the words of the first Black mayor of Detroit, Coleman Young, who also said that Detroit was now a Black city? And spent oodles of money only on Blacks? Oh, right, we aren’t allowed to have that conversation, because it doesn’t fit the soliloquy.
The second paper, by the economists Alberto Alesina, Edward Glaeser, and Bruce Sacerdote, was titled “Why Doesn’t the United States Have a European-style Welfare State?†Its authors — who are not, by the way, especially liberal — explored a number of hypotheses, but eventually concluded that race is central, because in America programs that help the needy are all too often seen as programs that help Those People: “Within the United States, race is the single most important predictor of support for welfare. America’s troubled race relations are clearly a major reason for the absence of an American welfare state.â€
Interesting. We can certainly discuss the idiocy of not having a welfare state being raaaaacism, but, let’s wonder about Liberals thinking that Blacks cannot survive without welfare and massive help from government. Is that not racist, believing that Blacks are too stupid, too lazy, to succeed on their own? Have you ever seen Liberal like Paul Krugman call for a welfare state for Asians, Latinos, or Whites, among others?
And it’s not just health reform: a history of slavery is a strong predictor of everything from gun control (or rather its absence), to low minimum wages and hostility to unions, to tax policy.
So, unless you follow the far, far left Progressive policy prescriptions, you’re racist. Soliloquy.
But that hasn’t happened yet. Every once in a while you hear a chorus of voices declaring that race is no longer a problem in America. That’s wishful thinking; we are still haunted by our nation’s original sin.
Of course, Democrats will never let this meme go, and will never work to better race relations (which, interestingly, have gotten worse with Obama’s election). How better to keep Blacks in the box Democrats put them in? Is it not racism to see Blacks as an interest group, rather than individuals with different hopes and aspirations? Dems raise money off of this, get support from the Black community, despite Liberals being very bad for Blacks. Republicans freed the slaves: Democrats did all they could to put them back in chains. Today’s chains are ghettos of crime and despair in mostly liberal cities like Detroit, Baltimore, Newark, Chicago, Birmingham, and others.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
Read: Krugman: U.S. Is Totally Racist Because Of No Welfare State And White Flight 40 Years Ago »
