So Biden is a working class guy? Apparently, his father did struggle for a few years after losing all of his money. But, can you name a more connected national politician than Biden?

George H.W. Bush lost his election for the U.S. senate in his 40s. George W. Bush lost his attempt to be a Member of the House of Representatives in his 30s? They were incredibly connected people.

Biden was ELECTED to the U.S. Senate at age 29. You cannot be any younger than that – literally. To be a member of the Senate, the minimum age of 30. Biden turned 30 after his election (prior to being sworn in).

How many of you were approached to run for Senate at age 29? It is not as if Biden was a prodigy who was sought out because of how wonderful he was. He was a pretty poor student who went to decent, but not outstanding, schools. He had real academic troubles in law school and graduated in the bottom of his class. He cheated – and for a law student that is a much greater crisis than other kinds of students (it can make you ineligible for the bar).

So, how hard did Biden ever have to work? Obviously, the guy was handed everything – otherwise he would not have the opportunity to run for Senate (let alone be elected) at age 29 only a few years after you got caught cheating in law school.

For those of us in the majority who were not handed things before we ever had to work for it – Biden’s claim is incredibly insulting.

Admittedly, societies dominated by “white” groups (or Caucasian groups) are responsible for the term “white” as a term where “whites” were given preferential treatment. Two obvious examples are the United States (particularly the South-East) in its pre-civil Rights Era policies as well as South Africa under apartheid.

I deserve to be treated as an individual. My ancestors deserve, at the least, protection from lies and defamation. The “code word” of diversity should be relegated (thanks to the media and academia) to history’s rotting trash. Diversity has come to be defined, thanks in some sort of bizarre historical revisionism, to relegate all “whites” of being the same along with a false history of “white” collective oppression of other groups.

Today, it has been more than 40 years since Affirmative Action has been mandated by U.S. Federal Policy (a consequence of a Presidential Executive Order by Lyndon Johnson). Thanks to a combination of ignorant beaurocrats, politically correct Universities, the U.S. Congress and a litany of judges ready willing and able to reject the 14^th Amendment (among many contrary federal Constitutional mandates those defined as “whites” in America receive separate and worse treatment from any other “non-white group.”

Recently, I saw a person on television justify affirmative action (and criticize Obama for his suggestion that affirmative action might ought to be class/financially based) with an argument that even though he may have more money than other people, because of people do not like blacks, they as a group should receive preferential treatment.

First, wouldn’t this guy suppose that treating one group better than another group purely based upon a racial characteristic might actually engender some form of hostility? Evidently some people are totally unaware that millions of “white” people struggle financially and receive no financial benefit due to “whiteness.”

Of course, America (and no other “white controlled country”) has ever solved the “problem” of white poverty. While admittedly 50 years ago, as well as today, “whites” have generally earned more than “blacks” in America, that “fact” by no means shows that few whites are poor. 50 years ago, as well as now, more “whites” were in poverty by raw numbers.

Today, statistically speaking, “whites” are not even the greatest earners in financial terms. For example, especially when white Jewish people are excluded, many segments of Asian American earn significantly more than “whites.” Looking at other statistics, such as white female college graduates versus black female college graduates, we can see that black females earn more than white females.

Our bigoted and racist policies are utterly indefensible. Indeed, they do not even, in a narrowly tailored constitutional sense, have some form of “two wrongs making a right” historical basis. 

After World War II, millions of Germans were killed by Soviet soldiers due to a factual “two wrongs making a right” theory. Indeed, Germans generally were responsible for killing perhaps tens of millions of Eastern Europeans. The Soviets at the end of World War II via deportations and simple ethnic cleansing killed hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans who were living in what had been part of Germany (Germany lost significant territory after world war II, as did Poland, the Soviets moved their Republics’ borders Westward forcibly moving millions of people for purely ethic reasons.)

In Rwanda, Tutsis had historically oppressed the majority Hutus – and years later perhaps millions of Tutsis were murdered.

In Tanzania, after more than 100 years of Arab oppression, thousands of Arabs were murdered by the black Tanzanians after independence.

On countless occasions, I have heard the “two wrongs making right” argument to support preferential treatment programs. However, there is no similar historical basis to provide “support” for the unequal treatment as exists for the above atrocities.

Before a full analysis occurs, it is important to understand, in simple terms, how American “affirmative action” operates.

Public Contracting

In public contracting, federally funded programs (which account for a fairly high percent of public works programs) provide “goals” for non-white male contractors to be involved as prime and subcontractors. Putting it simply, anyone who is not white male (as defined by the federal government) can count towards the goal. From the standpoint of both bureaucrats and prime contractors and government consultants, it is much easier to simply obtain the services, goods or participate in a contract than spend significant hours proving that the agency, consultant or company is not discriminating. For practical purposes, it is nearly as ironclad as a quota since it is much easier simply preferring the services of a “minority” firm than “proving” that you tried to solicit “minorities” on to work on the project.

To describe groups that receive “preference” is to engage in a kind of bizarre historical revisionism. That is, the Spanish and Portuguese European Groups receive preference as they are defined as disadvantaged minorities (even if the person is directly from Spain or Portugal as opposed to a former colony).

It is important to talk about Spanish and Portuguese Colonies at this point. While it might be pathetic for any high school graduate to be unaware of certain facts about these groups, I think that a clear majority of Americans probably believe that these groups were “oppressed.”

Spain was at one time among the two most powerful world empires (the others being France and England). Spain killed millions of native peoples (primarily what used to be known as “American Indians” and now are called “Native Americans”) and enslaved millions of black Africans. In places like Costa Rica and Porto Rico the Spanish succeeded in killing most of the American Indians/Native Americans. The Spanish also wiped out hundreds of native languages and obliterated cultural influences in dozens of places now known as Countries.

Of course, in the 1950s people understood that the Spanish were not a different race than the English, Germans and Italians. Had Desi Arnaz been a “different race” I Love Lucy would never have been made (though clearly at that time there was a residual dislike of groups like the Spanish, Southern Italians and Greeks – due to their “Mediterranean” looks).

The Portuguese had a similar history. Slavery and Native killing were a significant legacy of the establishment of Brazil. Brazil did not even end slavery until about 20 years after the United States did.

On top of that, the Portuguese (along with South Africans and Rhodesians) had a apartheid policies in its colonies in Angola and Mozambique.   The Apartheid policy was in full force until the mid 1970s – and unlike South Africa and Rhodesia (which were NOT colonies of Great Britain in the 1970s). So, in certain ways Portugal might have been the most anti-black African country in history.

Don’t you feel sorry for “Hispanics” after these after this historical lesson? As a somewhat logical example, given these well-known historical truths, New York State’s “minority” contracting program has recently rejected European “Hispanics” program. Of course, the New York program still allows preference for New World Hispanics (who are more likely to have ancestors who killed American Indians and enslaved black Africans).

Also benefiting from the our preferential contracting programs are those who are members of high Indian Castes, historically powerful families in Japan, along with countless other groups who have no history of being “victims.” There is no point in writing an anthropological treatise here – the program simply makes no sense.

Interestingly our federal Affirmative Action contracting program actually defines non-Hispanic Caucasians in a way that is “sort of” accurate. That is, North Africans (like Tunisians) West Asians (like Syrians) are not supposed to benefit from the contracting program. So, racial Caucasians are treated alike (aside from “Hispanics”). While we are on the subject of the term “Caucasian” – people should understand (though most probably do not) that the term “Caucasian” stems from a location in between Europe and Asia (Russia, Armenia, Georgia, etc.) The Caucasian “area” is much closer to places like Iran and Iraq than Norway or Ireland. So, and Iranian is much more “Caucasian” than a Scot.

Another weird facet is that these programs do not even require that the beneficiary be an American citizen. So, a price from sub-Saharan Africa whose great-great-great grandfather sold black slaves to the slave traders receives preference over any white (and the same treatment as a black American whose ancestor were slaves).

So, in summary, the program is at best a sloppy and arbitrary program and at worst bigoted. 

Affirmative Action in Education

In education, “affirmative action” is a little bit different. That is, “non-white” groups do very well educationally, particularly in sciences, so preference effectively often does not happen (and, to some extent, discrimination occurs). However, the political correctness of college campuses is, in some cases, violently bigoted.

I am not able to describe the bigoted response by Duke University (and the larger academic community) against the “white” lacrosse players. In sum, there was no evidence any harm let alone any rape to the mentally deranged prostitute (who had semen of multiple persons none of whom included any Duke lacrosse athlete) – who had a criminal history, drug addiction history, history of false claims of rape as well as a history of being involuntarily committed due to mental disease. 

From the very beginning, the case never ever made any sense – and yet these well-off, educated “white” students came very close to being convicted of a crime which would have meant the end of their lives.

Dozens of professors wrote bigoted open statements to the Duke Community and the Public at large. These individuals, to date, have suffered NO consequence.

During the height of the integration crisis at Southern Public Universities, there was no similar ruthless open support of arrest and wrongful conviction by University Professors. Those who supported segregation was composed enough to not suggest “castration” of various blacks in public demonstrations.

Let’s ask this additional question, is there any similar treatment by “whites” who make racial “misstatements” as “non-whites” who do the same thing.

Dusty Baker suffers no consequence by suggesting inferiority of white athletes in baseball “when it is hot” while Rush Limbaugh is off the air for suggesting that Donovan McNabb gets preferential treatment due to his color (by the way, in a prior posting I give historical and logical reasons that I actually disagree with Limbaugh). How about Al Campanis? What happened to him?

While David Duke made inflammatory remarks in the 1970s, Jeremiah Wright has much more hostile statements of recent years (which also have no regard to basic factual points and are vulgar while in church).

What exactly is White History?

Like all “Asians” all “Africans” all “whites” are not the same. In fact, many of them have nothing in common with each other (aside from pigment).

While I would not have wanted to be a black person in the United States in 1945, I would prefer that to being a German in Eastern Germany in 1945. America mistreated blacks but it did not engage in wholesale slaughter of blacks.

Undoubtedly, conditions on a slave-slip were horrific – but for the most part there was a strong incentive for the ship’s captain to keep the cargo alive. That same incentive did not exist for those who fled Europe in the 19^th Century. For that matter, that same incentive did not exist for those who were shipped from Great Britain and Ireland for petty crimes to a life in Australia (which also was a much longer voyage).

There are lots of “white” groups who really share no connection – not in language, culture or religion. Albanians (mostly Muslim) are not like the Dutch, who are not like the Finns, who are not like the Greeks. Even in many “white” countries – internal “natives” have differences – take Finland once again – Finns, Sami and Swedes are native – and they do not have that much in common.

In many cases, “white” groups have, at times, suffered horrific oppression. Much of this oppression is recent (unlike slavery). For example, take what happened to the Jews of Europe in the 1940s – or a more random (but just as horrific) oppression such as the massive numbers of starved people in Stalin’s Soviet Union (particularly in the Ukraine in the 1930s).

Yet, in racial polarization with a political correction based foundation such historical events are being trivialized and marginalized. Facts do not matter.

How Does “Post-Racial” Obama fit into our “National Dialogue.”

Our national “racial dialogue” reminds me of the kind of “dialogue” a bank robber has with a teller. 

Obama can be “forgiven” and his “ignorance” can be celebrated with regard to his “pastor” Jeremiah Wright – but Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton are now, in many segments, considered “racists.”

The ridiculous nature of Barack Obama being a victim of oppression is more absurd than my own creative powers could have thought of. 

American Society largely believes that Obama is somehow a victim of historical oppression. What is the factual basis for this belief? Certainly, some people “do not like” blacks (thought that “dislike” has not been so strong that it prevented the election of people like Doug Wilder, Edward Brook or Obama himself to a majority white electorate. In Brook’s case, he was elected as a member of majority party as well.

Blacks are not (nor have they been) a victim of wide-scale murder like the Christians of today’s Iraq or the non-Arab or Muslim Sudanese. Things were bad for blacks in America – but it is wrong to compare that injustice to Jews in Nazi Germany.

Of course, Obama is NOT connected to black America (aside to having skin pigment). Obama’s ancestors were not American slaves – and were not even subject to Jim Crow. Kenya, where Obama’s father’s family is from, is nowhere near where black slaves came from.

On an even more of a ridiculously sublime example of Obama’s ancestry, he actually has white slaveholding ancestors.

For those who are unaware, black slaves in America were mostly held by large plantations. As a percentage of the population, a very small percentage of “white” Americans held slaves.

Few, if any, “white” Americans holding slaves were Estonians, Italians, Greeks, Slovenians, Icelandic or Finns. Some slaveholders were American Indians.

Another Nuance

Despite historical truths such as “whites’ suffering a whole lot worse in various places than black Americans in the United States, clearly blacks were subject to much worse treatment than any group in the U.S.

Even though much of the ill-treatment of black Americans was borne from slavery – it was actually more complicated than that. For example, because Pennsylvania was progressive – slavery was ended much earlier than the civil war and early on even when slavery was legal most blacks in Pennsylvania were “free persons of color.”

American Indians were treated much better than blacks. They were allowed to own slaves themselves (the Cherokees did in large numbers), many early American leaders wanted to assimilate with Indians (Jefferson wanted “white” Americans to intermarry with Indians – he had no similar feelings about blacks – though this was hypocritical.

It was a point of pride as early as the 19^th century for Virginia families to claim to be ancestors of Pocahontas – yet being suspected of having African ancestry like the Melengeons was a ticket to poor treatment.

Indeed, the foundation of “separate but equal” was from a man named Homer Plessy – who was only 1/8 black African – he was 7/8 “white.”

Meanwhile, while separate but equal was the law of the land, we were able to have American Indian national heroes – Jim Thorpe and “Chief” Bender (who could play major league baseball 30 years before Jackie Robinson, Will Rogers (perhaps among the most popular American humorist 25 years before Brown v. Board of Ed) United States Vice President Charles Curtis in the 1920s (who was nationally elected before even a President put a black Presidential Cabinet Member or appointed a Supreme Court Justice) and even Ira Hayes serving in a Marine Unit with “whites” (who won the Medal of Honor three years before blacks could serve with whites in military units) are examples of why blacks had it worse than any other group in America.

Indeed, if Obama is elected he will not be the first President of Black American ancestry. As stated above, his ancestors were not slaves – they did not even live in America under the Plessy v. Ferguson doctrine. The TRUE fact is that Warren Harding very likely had black American ancestry (albeit he was not “mostly” black). The historical record concerning Harding is quite compelling – and incredibly Harding even admitted this (when questioned by a reporter he famously said “how do I know if I had an ancestor that jumped the fence?”).

Anyway, in today’s politically correct America, it is impossible for “whites” to simply state historical truths about undeniable history. One must remain quiet – or someone will potentially be expelled from school or suffer permanent unemployment.

Any “white” simply trying to make a point on this issue had better hope they were independently wealthy – otherwise they might want to think about leaving the country. No “white” is safe – Bill Clinton’s example has shown this. Wearing a “Hillary 2008” tee-shirt runs the risk of being considered by many to be a “racist.”

In Conclusion

In the America of today, stories like the Duke lacrosse example have shown that non-science University curriculum are no more than a drain on society fostering a distorted untrue of uncontested American and World history.   On this point, though some professors have value, the baby ought to be thrown out with the bathwater. Any good that these people do is far outweighed by political correctness.  

The media combined with liberal arts found in universities have shut-down any real debate on this issue and has caused most informed people to fear having an open discussion on issues. In the process, it is completely acceptable for pot-shots of “whites” to be taken for non-existent collective guilt for crimes.

Any “white” discussing these issues suddenly becomes a clone of David Duke. We can see this with Obama’s potential election as President. Under objective circumstances a politician who is so closely associated with an openly bigoted person would have no chance for nationally elected office. Even during the Jim Crow era most major Presidential Candidates rejected bigotry (though some privately certainly had prejudices) – none attended a church like Jeremiah Wright’s church.

Obama is a product of the most dangerous form of historical revisionism facing America today. In another source of irony, that revisionism has been, and still is, a large component of the fuel that harms black Americans via bad policy.

Despite what the ignorant would certainly claim to be my “racism” – I am a believer that we need to do something to try to improve the lot of black Americans (those who are actually black – not “Homer Plessy black” and those who are actually descendants of slaves). I am a firm believer in the programs that exist today are bad, and I wonder if government is capable of doing anything right in this arena, but government actually some chance of doing something right in this area (in the aftermath of the Civil War it did make many good decisions).

Of course, that leaves many “non-white” groups who under the media and academia’s warped version of the truth obtaining a “free pass” at attacking “whites.” It matters none that the Japanese tortured, murdered and engaged in vivisection on “white” prisoners of war – we need to be reminded of what America did to the Japanese in America.

It matters not that the Spanish and Portuguese had world empires, someone Irish needs to be reminded of their non-existent “oppression” of minorities. I admit in this area some personal displeasure at the accusations that people of Irish background face with the “group guilt” that is pushed by academia and the media. 

A large segment of the Duke lacrosse team was, by both first-name and surname, Irish American. In my case, nearly all of my ancestors came from Ireland (in Specifics, roughly 2/3 were Irish Catholic, about 1/5 Scots Irish, and the remaining made up of Scots with a little bit of Quakers mostly from Ireland).

Historically, it was not so long ago that the Irish faced horrible oppression. In the 17^th Century, well over half of all the Irish in Ireland were murdered by Cromwell’s forces (compare that with the Nazi’s killing perhaps 1/3 of European Jews). Thousands of Irish during this era were shipped to the New World as slaves (many “blacks” of Bermuda, Barbados and Jamaica have some of this distant ancestry).

In the early 18^th century, Queen Anne placed horribly oppressive rules towards the native Irish (which also caused serious harm to the Irish who were Scot’s Presbyterian and the Quakers) many of the non-Anglican Irish protestants left in that Century and came to the United States.

For the Catholics, more hardship was on the way. Catholics were virtually landless, were not able to freely worship and had their native language nearly wiped out in the 19^th century.

Ireland to this day has a strong agricultural base. When the common potato blight hit Ireland (which also impacted much of Western Europe) – since the vast majority of the Irish Catholic were landless they died in huge numbers. Officially, Ireland’s census was around 8.2 million in 1841 – but many of the poorest Irish living literally in holes dug in the earth covered by sticks or a tarp. Nobody will ever know the exact number who resided in Ireland when the blight hit – but it was almost certainly in excess of 9 million people. Between 1845 and 1850, at least 1 million died – many more died uncounted or died on the journey to America or died immediately afterward.

Most of my mother’s family, and a good bit of my father’s family came from the Western Irish Province of Connacht – in certain Places in that Province most people died of starvation and disease. Even today, abandoned cottages dot the Irish countryside. 

Today, Ireland is a successful and developed country – but the entire isle still has a population of under 6 million people. How many other regions in the entire world can say that their population of 170 years ago was greater than today.

In my postings, I admit that it is not unusual for me to return to the subject of Ireland. I am not asking for the British to pay us reparations, I am not asking for (unneeded) preferential treatment in contracting or education. I am not asking for the right to accuse those whom I believe may be of English heritage of  being responsible for my people’s native tongue dwindling – nor am I asking for an apology.

I am demanding the truth. I demand that historical revisionism end. I am demanding that those who trivialize the harm suffered by the Irish at foreign hands open their eyes and minds to the brutal facts.

Obama has a right to speak about reparations? Are we so stupid that he somehow is believed to have a connection to slavery because his father came from Africa?

The difference between "typical white person" me, and Obama is that my relatives who were in the U.S. were abolitionists, while Obama’s held slaves.

The genius of McCain and the Republicans with Hispanics

In 2000, I was quite concerned that the Republicans began to pander to the “Hispanic” voters. First of all, it bothers me to no end (being the descendants of historically oppressed peoples) that we now treat Hispanics – even those directly from Portugal or Spain as an oppressed minority group needing preferential treatment.

Besides almost conquering the New World, along with much of Africa and Asia – how could anyone consider these groups as oppressed.

So, America has created a new “oppressed” group. Of course, many of those people will vote for Democrats because democrats have been the primary party responsible for preferential treatment. Even though there may be some negatives associated with preferential treatment, most people would take it if they got the chance. So, they want preferential treatment for their children as well.

Some people (perhaps a strong minority) of Republicans are against preferential treatment policies. 

When our policies benefit non-American citizens who are rich – and whose whole family has had money for generations – because they are the right race we have a real problem.

“Hispanics”, at best, will vote maybe 30% for Republicans. They will continue to vote for money (govt contracts) and school (scholarship).

America cannot address its racial problem because entire foundation is premised upon lies (all non-whites need to benefit, no whites can).

America now for many years has had “racial” policies that are just plain wrong. However, our society is so disturbed that any challenge to these policies will be either attributed to "racism" or ignored.

Few have really challenged our racial favoritism for groups that have no history of being victims in America. 

People from Spain and Portugal obtain qualifications for many minority contracting programs. What history do they have of being oppressed as a group? None whatsoever. They were oppressors by any definition (killing Indians, taking black slaves from Africa). Do Estonians have such a history? How about the Swiss? How about Slovakians?

Also, people from high castes (as well as any caste) from India (who have a long history of oppressing “lower caste” peoples) once again get preferential treatment. What about Irish people – did they not suffer a long history of oppression – both in America and in Ireland?

These programs broadly benefit many groups who never were as a group “oppressed” at the costly expense in engaging in an ugly form of historical revisionism.

At the same time, a member of a group with a long history of being discriminated against (most significantly black Americans who are descendants of slaves) are treated the same as groups that suffered no oppression and actually enslaved black slaves (like Portuguese). It apparently makes no difference that Portugal also had an apartheid system in its African colonies in the 1970s. Apparently that was OK but the policy we had in the South up until the 1960s was not (?).

On that note, should a black African be treated the same as a black descendant of slaves?

I do support assisting one group (and one group alone) with government policy – blacks in America who are the descendants of slaves. I do not support exactly the same programs that we have because they do not really get to the route of what ails much of poor black society (everyone will benefit if ghettos change).

Recently a (very liberal) colleague of mine suggested that my observation that Obama was an “elitist” was some sort of code for being prejudiced that people use as a “racist” excuse not to vote for him. This observation makes no sense and in and of itself is an example of stark prejudices that many people have.

First, I should mention that this colleague is very educated – so I would not excuse his belief as coming from simple ignorance. His view is more of a nuanced form of bigotry.

First, of all – would a “racist” use that same excuse to denounce a prejudice against other serious previous black Presidential candidates such as Jesse Jackson, Doug Wilder or Carol Mosely-Braun? Would such a criticism really make any sense in the context of those politicians?

Of course, interestingly one could make that same criticism (being an elitist) against someone very different like Alan Keyes.

You see, unlike what my colleague apparently thinks, not all blacks are alike. In fact, the 5 different black political leaders who I have so far referenced are not really that much like each other.

When you throw into the mix other national politicians like Colin Powell and Condi Rice you see that those 7 people are really not much like each other either.

When you throw in for good measure Clarence Thomas and Thurgood Marshall, you can see that you have many different kinds of black American politicians – just like there are all sorts of different “white” politicians.

On a very simple “spectrum” level, those 9 people would probably rate something like:

Left                                                 Moderate                                      Right

Jackson, Obama,                     Powell, Wilder                       Keyes, Thomas, Rice

Mosely-Braun, Marshall

Yet, it is clear that “elitists” can be found in a variety of places (like Obama on the left and Keyes and Rice on the right).

You see, as my colleague misses (and misses very badly) – no group can be considered as “all the same.” 

While it may be true that some racists might be saying that Obama is an elitist (I kind of doubt that is what the first criticism of most “racists” might have) – does that make it somehow untrue?

Obama, in his own words, does not “get” much of middle America. This fact is probably at least in part related to two things (1) lack of exposure to middle American culture and (2) his education.

Obama lived in Hawaii, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Boston – and attended elite (especially Harvard law school) institutions. Having a limited exposure to certain groups coupled with the common (non-secret) disdain that many people in those areas have for certain “groups” might be likely to fuel a disdain for another group is a common occurrence.

Anyway, more importantly, Obama’s “bitter” comments and lack of understanding of why people might value guns or church proves the point. Obama thinks that way – he says so.

Apparently Al Campanis and Dusty Baker also had incorrect general ideas about groups of people.

Rather than using the “guilt” and “shame” (coupled with political correctness) I like to suggest a more stick to try to convince people to not have “group” ideas about generally unimportant physical characteristics (like race or ethnicity).

Even when people use generally more true assumptions it can get people in trouble. For example, while as a general point it might be true that most 20 year olds could fight better than most 60 year olds such a point would be wrong a very significant (probably more than 25%) amount of the time.

For a combination of reasons, such as history, ignorance, political correctness and leftwing ideology America is beset with almost insurmountable problems associated with racial attitudes. A combination of two factors more than others serve as the root of this problem – (1) America’s history of Jim Crow laws and (2) America’s decision to have large scale immigration of previously rare (if not non-existent) ethnic, racial and religious groups.

In order to remedy America’s past historical poor treatment of black Americans (and black Americans most certainly) – identity politics and political correctness became a substitute for historical fact and fairness. A code word for this nonsense is “diversity.”

First, no racial or ethnic group was treated as poorly as blacks were in America. Though American Indians suffered in this country, they never were mistreated like blacks were. For example, American Indians could become a Vice President in the 1920s (Charles Curtis) become major league baseball players in the 1910s (Jim Thorpe) serve along side whites in combat (Ira Hayes). Will Rogers, perhaps the most beloved American in the 1920-30s was perhaps as much as ½ American Indian. Put it bluntly, it was seen as “cool” to be part American Indian. Indeed, some American Indians held black slaves.

From the very beginning, intermarriage between whites and American Indians was tolerated if not encouraged (see Pocahontas’ example). Thomas Jefferson promoted this idea as well.

Why did society treat American Indians better than blacks? There are a host of potential reasons (perhaps stemming from the slavery situation, or perhaps stemming from the simple concept that American Indians “look more” like a white person than a black person). Whatever the root, that is where we found ourselves between 1880 and 1960. 

Slavery itself was not necessarily unique. The first forms of slavery existing in America were not as harsh – and whites were subject to the same slave conditions as blacks. For whatever reasons, slavery evolved in America the way it did and after slavery Jim Crow laws sought to completely treat blacks differently than whites.

During slavery, and in places like Louisiana there was a “mulatto” concept and a Creole concept where mixed race peoples obtained more rights than full “black” persons. Especially in Louisiana an upper level Creole culture developed. Effectively, this was totally over with a case called Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896.

Not only did that case affirm a principle called separate but equal – but it affirmed the treatment of someone 1/8 black and 7/8 white as a “black person.” Homer Plessy – like Peter Ustonov was not visibly black – he announced that he was on the rail car to serve as a good test case to possibly overturn segregation rules relating rail cars.

Without a full recitation of all the laws and court decisions of the 1960s and 1970s, America in essence decided it had to make up for the past by helping out all minorities. While there may have been isolated examples of poor treatment of the few members of racial groups like Chinese or Pakistani peoples – in fact the record was really mixed. The famous Siamese twins (Chang and Eng Bunker) were legally allowed to marry and have children with two white women during the late 19^th century in North Carolina – not something any black person could have done.

Furthermore, we had television shows where “Hispanics” married non-hispanics (I love Lucy).

Strangely, in the past 40 years America changed a linguistic group into a racial group – today we have something called an “Hispanic Race” – and of course there is no such thing any more than there is such a thing as an American Race.

I will recite some of the most inane (and factually false) politically correct racial attitudes that dominate nearly all college campuses, the media and both political parties.

1.) The “white race” (all “white people”). White peoples are very diverse – and had very different histories both in the U.S. and in their respective native countries. Many of the “countries” where “whites” live even have diverse groups within the country itself. A small country like Switzerland has Germans, Italians and French peoples. A larger country like Finland has Fins, Sami (laps) and Swedes as native peoples – all very different peoples. However, “whites” even get more diverse when comparing a Scot to a Greek or a Spaniard to a Russian, an Albanian to a Norwegian etc, etc, etc.

Many of these ethic groups had few if any members of those groups in America prior to the Civil War or during the time where “separate but equal” was established. Members of many of these groups faced open discrimination in the U.S. and often fled their homeland under worse circumstances than slavery (Jews from Germany, Armenians from Turkey, Irish from Ireland). 

2.) The Hispanic Race. Those who speak Spanish can be of any sort of racial or ethnic background – like Alberto Fujioro, Alfredo Stroessner, Sammy Sosa, Bernardo O’Higgins, Fernando Valenzuela, Dickie Thon, Alex Rodriguez – these people are ethically and racially very different. Just like Daniel Inoue, Herbert Hoover, Hank Aaron, Joseph Kennedy, Ira Hayes, Mike Schmidt and Roy Campinella are also different.

Spanish peoples were very, very powerful. They dominated the American Indians (and still do today) and enslaved millions of black Africans. That is also true of the Portuguese peoples – the particular prime example is Brazil.

Calling Spanish or Portugese and Oppressed group is like calling similar groups like the English and French oppressed. These countries were the most dominant empires 200 to 300 years ago – and the world wide spread of those language shows that point.

However, it is a little more nuanced – so many Mexicans peoples who reside in America are either fully or partially American Indian. Many Dominicans who reside in America are fully or partially black African.

So, certainly many “Hispanics” can claim a history of being oppressed just as an English speaking American Indian in Arizona can make such a claim as well as an English speaking Jamaican of black African Ancestry.

However jumping to the conclusion that “English Speakers” have a history of being oppressed makes no historical sense – nor does calling “Hispanics” a historically oppressed “minority.”

3) Asian Americans. Asia is a huge continent – the largest one. It has numerous racial and ethnic groups including groups that people would call “white” and groups that might be mistaken as “black Africans.” 

Within many Asian countries it is common that oppressed minority groups (racial, cultural and/or religious) exist.

America has managed to create a whole new race out of an actually very diverse group of people.

4) East Asians – this is what I think most people who use the term “Asian American” seem to mean. That is, they apparently are substituting the old term of “oriental” with Asian. God knows why “oriental” is somehow offensive.

However, even peoples of East Asia are very diverse – Koreans often are Christians but those from Indonesia are usually not. China itself has many cultural groups.

Anyway, aside from a handful of Chinese and Japanese – few peoples from other cultures like Vietnam lived in the U.S. before the 1960s.

5) Indians – Again, the Indian subcontinent is very diverse. Some groups are historically oppressors, others are not. Some groups have light skin, others do not. Some groups have different facial features from each other, speak different languages, etc.

6) African Americans – 7 syllables – “black” has one. Furthermore, many people who are black have never set foot in America – thus they are not African American.

Sub-Saharan Africans can be described as a race like Europeans could be described as a race. Though many cultural, religious and ethic groups exist in those regions – common physical traits do exist. 

Black Americans who are descendants of slaves in this country virtually all came from West Africa (with a small number from what is now the South East Africa in the Tanzania region). People from Nigeria do not have the same culture as Ethiopians – nor do they look much like Ethiopians.

While one could suppose that an Ethiopian who found himself in the deep South in the 1920s would have had a hard time – the same could be said of any a person who “looks Jewish” who found himself in Germany in 1943. Should that kind of speculative treatment form the basis of public policy?

America is currently very sick in its treatment of racial groups and its attitudes.

For example, any person who is “not white” can obtain preferential treatment in public contracting (all contracts with federal monies). All “non whites” are preferred in government hiring and large corporate hirings in order to satisfy government oversight for equal opportunity and affirmative action (low numbers could mean big trouble – so the pressure is to keep the minority number as high as possible). So irrespective of actual history – you could be the son of a Nigerian Prince or the son of a Colombian Spaniard whose family had slaves and took 1,000,000 acres from native Indian Tribes -- because of membership in a racial or cultural group you get preferential treatment.

In education, it is a bit different – many Asian groups (West, Central and East Asians all) have a tendency to do well in school and on standardized tests. So, it is felt that they are over-represented at many of the elite schools – so it is harder to obtain admission with such a background (still, such a person can get preference in contracting and hiring).

Two major current public examples show the flawed American view. 

First, Tiger Woods. If anything, it would be most accurate to claim he is East Asian given his mother being 75% Thai (50) and Chinese (25) and his father being 25% East Asian (Chinese). In total, he is of a very diverse background 50% East Asian, 25% Black American 12.5% American Indian 12.5% European white.

Woods has always made it a point to correct people for calling him simply “black.” Certainly, under the one drop rule he is – but that should not be a rule. Indeed, it treats “back blood” as something like a “tainted” trait.

A reverse situation is that of Barack Obama. Unlike Woods, who is openly proud of all of his heritage – Obama gravitates to the majority ignorant feelings of Americans. That is, simply while Woods has black American ancestry – Obama does not. He has Kenyan ancestry – a culture different than the West African peoples who were enslaved. However, even more importantly, he has no connection to generations who lived in America and were forced to go to different school, unable to vote, or not able to eat in restaurants.

While an ignorant white bigot of today (who has no power unlike bigots from 50 years ago) can “not like” Obama because of his “look” white bigots have no power in college admissions, large companies or government. Indeed, the reverse is true – irrespective of one’s attitude a school, business or government must advance blacks in order to avoid EEOC potential sanctions. Also, perhaps more obviously, the open attitudes of whites in power in the South in 1960 are no longer popular – just like the German’s attitude towards Jews were not longer popular in 1960. It does not mean that prejudice and racism does not exist – but if it is not backed up with anything – and actually if openly harbored can easily destroy a career of an otherwise successful person in business or academia – then what importance can it have? Indeed, some other statistics show that a racial conspiracy does not exist. For example, whites rarely commit violence against blacks – black college educated women earn more than white college educated women.

Nevertheless, I would like to see the historically poor black areas improve. I believe the government should try to do something – teach people in ghettos the early value of work and responsibility. Giving a middle class black kid a scholarship instead of a poor white kid one does not solve this problem – and it diminishes any success of the black person.

Am I aware of petty racism against blacks? Yes, I am. Some of it has to deal with the crime problem in the community. Other attitudes might be more similar to old attitudes against Polish (allegedly dumb) or Irish (allegedly drunks).

It is also true that groups of non-blacks can sometimes say ugly things about blacks when they are not around (that includes when other non-whites are there). Yet, for the most part, bigotry makes a white person more enemies than friends in my experience.

Those of us who are 40 and under certainly have a different experience.

According to this same philosophy, all of us “whites” (irrespective of actual background and ethnicity) have been exploiting “people of color” (another anti-white racial term) since the beginning of time. Of course, in reality there is no historical basis for this very general view of history.

Of course, “diversity” on a college campus means that nobody (particularly a white male) can question radical feminism and historical revisionism that leaves out key facts of history.

Nobody ever should have to prove that they are not a bigot. At this point in my life, I suppose I am willing to be called a bigot. If bigotry means that you speak about historical truths and believe in equal treatment for equal conduct – then I certainly am a bigot. It saddens me that this Orwellian definition of bigotry dominates (1) mainstream media (2) college campuses (3) the Democratic party (4) about half of the Republican party.

McCain is not able or willing to stand up to politically correct bigots. If he were, the Obama church thing would be a point he would bring up. How is it that Don Imus says a stupid comment about a basketball team and is fired – but I guy can attend a crazy bigoted church and defend the bigoted minister and it makes very little difference.

Oh yeah, Michael Richards overreacts in a club – destroyed. Manager Dusty Baker says that whites cannot play good baseball in the heat – and nothing happens.

The Duke Professors – can say anything they want about innocent students and how white men commit acts of violence against black women (of course, this is a total statistical lie) – and guess what – nothing happens.

Growing up, I did see first hand that blacks could be mistreated. A few times when I was the only white kid around black kids adults would say rude things to my friends (not the kind of things that white kids would typically hear). Nevertheless, being 39 years old – I never lived through an America that had separate accommodations or schools. Ever since I can remember Martin Luther King’s birthday was a holiday (dating from the mid-70s in the state I grew up). That was before King would have even been 50 years old.

Public Service announcements on television and teachers were very anti-racism in the 1970s.  My parents had no bigoted feelings whatsoever (I suppose if they had, they would have prevented my friendships with certain kids growing up).

Anyway, a theme of many of my blogs is that I am tired of being “blamed” for the condition of blacks or any other "minority" in America. Neither I nor my family has any connection aside from an argument that we helped contribute to the freedom of blacks.

Guns matter to me. I have personal experience which shows why they should.

About 14 years ago, my wife and I moved from a large city to a smaller city. Anyway, we picked an attached house to rent in an area that one could call urban. Probably 50% of the people were white and maybe 40 percent were “Hispanics” of some sort and the rest were either black or east Asian.

Anyway, our neighbors on one side were Puerto Ricans (this is relevant as you will see). The people in this house included a mother who was about 40 along with a 16 year old kid as well as an older child who as in his early 20s and sometimes lived at that address (sometimes not).

For a while, these neighbors were alright (I have had loud neighbors in the past – they were not too bad). At some point, the neighbors decided that they should have the parking spaces on the street available to their guests while we should park far enough away for these spaces to always be open.

It started with a couple of comments from guests saying a couple of things (it was not such a big deal, I don't even remember what was said). I really thought nothing of it at first.

About a week later (after a couple of rude statements were said) my wife and I woke up to see that we had a flat tire in one of our two cars. We lived close to a tire place – so it was no big deal to replace the tire. The mechanic mentioned that someone had slashed the sidewall.

The next day, on our other car, 3 of 4 tires were slashed. At this point, it became pretty obvious who did it (our neighbors were warning us not to park in the public spots in front of our house). We called the police – they took a report. We told them of our suspicions – but nobody saw anyone do it.

The next day, we went over to my in-laws house. We were gone for about 7 or 8 hours. We came home and noticed after a minute or so that some things had been taken from the house.

When we looked upstairs, we saw how persistent the burglars were. Our house had an attic – stairs from that attic led to our second floor. By sheer coincidence, that door was blocked off by a bunch of stuff temporarily stored. So, the burglars (who had to know we were not home) broke a hole through the floor (2^nd floor ceiling) and got in.

A few thousand dollars worth of items were taken – but what worried us is that it was obvious who did this. My wife and I had no idea what would be next (we rightfully assumed that it could turn violent).

Fortunately for us, the burglars did not go through the whole house – the grabbed the easy stuff jewelry, Nintendo and other small items. They did not find any of my guns.

Given the 3 attacks on our property, and what we saw  those people were willing to do (obviously they did it, and they came through the connecting attic and roof – the neighbors on our other side had no car, were elderly and nice – so I know who did it).

If we had no guns, we would have had no choice but to abandon our house, take what we could – but let the neighbors take the rest.

The police again did nothing. We called them – and told them how it was obvious who did this. He made it clear that no follow up was likely to occur (this is part of the reason I am so opposed to the war on drugs – cops never follow up burglaries – but go after drug cases).

We called the police again in the evening – we thought we heard a noise which could mean that they were in our attic.

The officer had advice for us: “Why don’t you get a pit bull?”

It would be nice if I heard from him that the police would solve the case.

That day and night I had my handguns on my person. If I had no gun – we would have just left.

Lucky for us, we were able to find a place within one week. While we were moving – our neighbors came out. One of our neighbors went up to a tire on our U-Haul truck. A friend who was helping me was able to yell at him while he did this (subsequently, I put one of my guns in my pocket).

After we were all packed up, our neighbors serenaded us with “We are Puerto Ricans and Proud” (probably about 5 times).