No More Conversations About Race

I got sidetracked from my original intention with this blog which was to discuss foreign policy issues. The problem is that our problems and issues at home often set the parameters for our foreign policies and for how they are received overseas.

I will try to get back to foreign policy and developments overseas . . . unless the temptation becomes tooooooooo great to weigh in on other issues closer to home.

ONE of those temptations, of course, arises from the recent call for a "conversation on race." The people asking for this "conversation," e.g., The One, Pelosi, Sharpton, Jackson, Holder, do not really mean it. They just want to get on their electronic soap boxes and lecture us on the perfidy of the white race, the racist underpinnings of the United States, and to claim that we have not advanced on race since the Emancipation Proclamation, or at best, that America remains Alabama 1890. They never seem to acknowledge, for example, that we have a mixed race President. The race hustlers, such as the people mentioned above, cannot accept that America has made tremendous progress on race, and, in fact, has become the most tolerant, least xenophobic, and most diverse society on earth.

These liberals, of course, cannot leave the race issue alone, as we saw in the Zimmerman trial. They need strife and turmoil to justify more government intervention, and to create more opportunities for hustlers, academic mountebanks, and political demagogues to earn a living by running down the country that pays and protects them.

When we hear calls to discuss race, those inevitably are about two races, really skin colors, in other words, black and white. That is a grotesque simplification and distortion of American reality. Those who self-identify as black Americans comprise a bit over 13% of our total population (see the US Census chart below). Depending on what you consider race, and liberals prove notoriously flexible on what they consider race--think Elizabeth Warren and George Zimmerman--self-identified Hispanic/Latinos come in just under 17%, not counting a large percent who consider themselves white. Asians make up over 5%. Another 2.4% report two or more races in their ancestry; I suspect that number is much higher in reality.

USA Population, 2012 

People QuickFacts	USA
Population, 2012 estimate	313,914,040
Population, 2010 (April 1) estimates base	308,747,508
Population, percent change, April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2012	1.7%
Population, 2010	308,745,538
Persons under 5 years, percent, 2012	6.4%
Persons under 18 years, percent, 2012	23.5%
Persons 65 years and over, percent, 2012	13.7%
Female persons, percent, 2012	50.8%
White alone, percent, 2012	77.9%
Black or African American alone, percent, 2012	13.1%
American Indian and Alaska Native alone, percent, 2012	1.2%
Asian alone, percent, 2012	5.1%
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone, percent, 2012	0.2%
Two or More Races, percent, 2012	2.4%
Hispanic or Latino, percent, 2012	16.9%
White alone, not Hispanic or Latino, percent, 2012	63.0%

This corner of Southern California where I temporarily sit for family reasons has a very large Asian population, both East and South Asian--in fact, the mayor of the city is an East Asian immigrant. It is a very diverse city and everybody seems to get along quite well. The membership of the gym where I go to try to become 30 again seems evenly split, about 45% to 45%, between whites and Asians, with many of both groups being foreign born--reminds me of Singapore. There are also fair representations of blacks and Hispanics. I see no racial animosity, no racial tension, and serious crime is just about non-existent. After decades away from California, I am struck by how many inter-racial marriages I see, mostly white-Asian, but others as well. Shouldn't a conversation on race include these people? Hispanics, too, no?

Unlike liberals who see what they believe, conservatives tend to believe what we see. We do not see a country in the grip of racial tension, at least not until the charlatans begin to act. I always harken back to my years in Sri Lanka; now, my friends, there was a country ripped open by a genocidal ethnic hatred stirred up by politicians. I saw the same process in Guyana and throughout much of the Caribbean: ordinary people getting along until rabble rousers arrive and drive wedges between them.

In sum, we have had way too many conversations about race. Let's stop talking about race, stop giving opportunities to those who would divide us. The black community needs to evaluate honestly its many social pathologies and deal with them. There lies the secret to putting an end to lower black economic and academic performance. Part of that process will involve dumping the current generation of black "leaders" and finding brave new ones who will address black-on-black murder, the high illegitimate birth rate, poor schools, and many other ills that disproportionately afflict black Americans--afflictions made worse, infinitely worse, by a political culture of dependency on government, by the turning away from traditional pillars of the black community, such as the churches, and by the glorification of the gangster.  

Race is not the issue in America. The destruction of the black community by black leaders in conjunction with white liberals, now that is an issue.

WLA