Posts tagged as “Racial and Identity Politics”

Why 14 GOP Congressmen Voted Against Juneteenth National Independence Day

Why 14 GOP Congressmen Voted Against Juneteenth National Independence Day

By John R Guardiano on June 20, 2021

The media suggest that it’s all about “racism” and “white supremacy.” In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

The 14 Republican congressmen who voted against making Juneteenth a national holiday ought to be recognized as profiles in political courage. They took a principled stand to make a legitimate and much-needed point that will be ignored and dismissed by progressive critics eager to demonize anyone who disagrees with them as a “racist” and a “white supremacist.”

The legitimate and much-needed point: that by calling Juneteenth “National Independence Day,” we detract from the longstanding July 4 Independence Day holiday and create, in effect, two independence days: one for caucasians and non-blacks (July 4) and one for blacks (June 19).

Thus we risk aggravating racial tensions and racial divisions when, instead, we should aspire to do the exact opposite: bring Americans together as one people and one nation.

Founding Principles. All Americans, after all, are heirs to the Declaration of Independence and the independent republic that the Declaration established or at least initiated.

That’s why, during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s, Martin Luther King Jr. famously appealed to the Declaration of Independence, as well as as the Constitution of the United States.

In his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, King declared:

When the architects of our great republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

True enough, as King noted:

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given its colored people a bad check, a check that has come back marked “insufficient funds.”

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.

So we have come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and security of justice.

Similarly, as President Obama famously declared in his 2004 keynote address to the Democratic National Convention:

There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.

Political Courage. For this reason, thoughtful GOP congressmen, such as Chip Roy (Texas) and Thomas Massie (Kentucky) urged Democrats in Congress to change the name of Juneteenth from “National Independence Day” to something more fitting and appropriate, such as “National Emancipation Day,” “National Freedom Day,” or “National Liberation Day.”

“I fully support creating a holiday to celebrate the abolition of slavery, a dark portion of our nation’s history,” Massie explained. But “I think this day is misnamed.” Why “push Americans to pick one of these two days as their independence day based on their racial identity?” he asked.

“As a country,” Roy said, “we must stop dividing ourselves by race and unite in our common pursuit of the ideals set forth in our Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal.”

Democrats refused to change the name of Juneteenth; and so, 14 Republican congressmen cast a protest vote to make an important political point. This, obviously, doesn’t make them “racists” or “white supremacists.” Instead, it makes them principled and courageous.

As for Juneteenth, despite being inappropriately named, the holiday need not divide us. In fact, quite the opposite: all Americans, obviously, can celebrate the triumph of America’s founding principles brought about by the end of slavery and the emancipation of African Americans.

It’s just that, by misnaming the holiday, Congress has made the task of racial reconciliation and national unity more difficult. Fortunately for us and for posterity, 14 brave Republican congressmen have drawn attention to Congress’ error through a rare act of political courage.

Good on them.

Feature photo credit: GOP Congressman Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) is a profile in courage for voting against Juneteenth even though he supports a federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in America, courtesy of Mediaite.

Biden’s Cabinet Picks and the Media’s Bastardization of ‘Diversity’

Biden’s Cabinet Picks and the Media’s Bastardization of ‘Diversity’

By John R Guardiano on November 25, 2020

True diversity involves a diversity of thought and professional backgrounds, not a quota system for blacks, Hispanics, and women.

President-Elect Biden made his first cabinet appointments this week. These new officials will have vast legal authority to establish new policies on such contentious issues as immigration, trade, foreign policy, the budget, energy, et al.

Yet, to the media, what is most important about these new officials is not the policies that they espouse, but rather their racial, ethnic, and gender identity.

“Biden Will Nominate First Women to Lead Treasury and Intelligence, and First Latino to Run Homeland Security,” declares a headline in the New York Times.

“The racial and gender mix of the expected nominees also reflects Mr. Biden’s stated commitment to diversity, which has lagged notoriously in the worlds of foreign policy and national security,” says the Times.

Progressive Dog Whistles. Of course, “diversity” is a code word—or dog whistle, if you will—for racial, ethnic, and gender preferences.

The idea is that supposedly disadvantaged minority groups—principally blacks, Hispanics, and women—need to be favored in the hiring or selection process because they have been historically excluded or discriminated against.

These supposedly disadvantaged minorities, moreover, are said to bring a fresh or unique perspective, which needs to be heard in the workplace and in the corridors of power.

Of course, no one would dispute the importance of affirmative efforts to be inclusive and considerate of all Americans regardless of their race, ethnicity, or gender. However, it is unfair (and bigoted, quite frankly) to favor certain groups of people because of their race, ethnicity, and gender.

We ought to be color-blind and racially indifferent—as well as blind and indifferent to a person’s ethnicity and gender. These are, or at least ought to be, largely meaningless categorizations in the workplace and in the corridors of power.

After all: blacks, Hispanics, and women do not all think alike. Their views are as varied and multifaceted as any other group’s. So to speak of a “black perspective,” an “Hispanic perspective,” or a “woman’s perspective” is typically wrong and misguided.

And yet, the left has infused our culture and our politics with an unhealthy obsession over racial, ethnic, and gender identity—as if these categorizations are what matter most.

This obsession is also a disservice to the officials so categorized. It reduces them to cardboard cutout representatives of a group rather than individuals with minds of their own.

Indeed, as the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board points out in an editorial about “Mr. Biden’s nominee for Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, [and] Avril Haines, who will be director of national intelligence”:

Both deserve better than to be described as “the first Latino” to run DHS, or the “first woman” at DNI, as the press insisted on describing them. The media’s insipid preoccupation with identity politics obscures what’s important. How about what they think?

Exactly. True diversity involves a diversity of thought. Different policy views and professional backgrounds are what matter, not whether a cabinet official is black, Hispanic, or a woman.

Let’s put the focus where it belongs: on what Biden’s cabinet officials think and the policies they espouse. That’s the discussion our nation needs and the debate the American people deserve.

Anything less is a disservice to those who serve.

Feature photo credit: Biden cabinet picks Alejandro Mayorkas (L), Janet Yellen (C), and Avril Haines (R) (Getty Images/Alamy, courtesy of the BBC).

Kamala Harris as VP Shatters the Myth of the ‘Glass Ceiling’

Kamala Harris as VP Shatters the Myth of the ‘Glass Ceiling’

By John R Guardiano on November 8, 2020

Kamala Harris’s apparent election as vice president is historic. However, it does not represent a shattering of the “glass ceiling,” because the glass ceiling is a political myth pushed by progressives for overtly political ends.

If, as appears likely, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-California) has been elected Vice President of the United States, it is, indeed, historic and should be recognized as such. But can we please dispense of the tired and shopworn notion that her election breaks some “barrier” and “glass ceiling”?

Nothing could be further from the truth. In the United States of America, there is no real “barrier” stopping women from professional achievement.

The “glass ceiling” is a political myth pushed by “progressive” or left-wing activists whose real aim is to increase the government’s control over our lives—ostensibly to end discrimination and eliminate social and economic disparities between men and women.

Female Representation. But it is 2020, not 1920 or 1820. Today in the United States, women are well represented in all walks of life and even predominant in some fields, such as pharmaceutical science (61 percent), medical and life sciences (71 percent), and public relations (63 percent).

“Women account for roughly 40% of the country’s physicians and surgeons, up from about 26% in the late 1990s,” reports Quartz “A full 57% of college degrees awarded in 2018 were given to women, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.”

Women outnumber men in law school. Three Supreme Court Justices—Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Amy Coney Barrett—are women.

President Trump’s Ambassador to the United Nations (Nikki Haley) was a woman. Presidents Obama and George W. Bush had female Secretaries of State (Susan Rice and Condoleezza Rice, respectively).

There are a record number of women—26 senators and 101 representatives—serving in Congress.

The “glass ceiling,” if it ever existed, was shattered a long time ago. Yet, numerous commentators have been falling over themselves to laud Harris’s election as a “breakthrough” achievement that lays waste to yet another “barrier.”

Harris herself, moreover, lauded Vice President Biden for having the “audacity to break one of the most substantial barriers that exists in our country: [by] select[ing] a woman as his vice president.”

Admittedly, this is good politics, but it’s also complete nonsense unsupported by any empirical evidence.

Disparities. It is true that women often earn less than men and that disparities still exist. But this is not because of “discrimination” and “sexism.”

Instead, it is because of professional and career choices that women sometimes make, which limit their time in the workforce and constrain their earnings and professional advancement.

For example, according to the U.S. Census Bureau:

Female attorneys work full-time, year-round on average more than the average for all working women (82 percent vs. 63 percent), but less than male attorneys (85 percent).

They also are more likely to work for the government and less likely to be self-employed than their male colleagues.

All this contributes to differences in median earnings between women and men, with a female-to-male earnings ratio for full-time, year-round attorneys of 76 percent, lower than the 80 percent average across all occupations.

As a wiseman once said, “facts are stubborn things.”

“Equal pay for women has been the law of the land for more than a half-century,” with a wide array of legal remedies available to litigants, writes Gerald Skoning in the Wall Street Journal.

Consequently, no one can legitimately claim women earn less than men for the same work.

Pay “disparities” between men and women generally reflect other factors such as interrupting a career to raise children, the types of jobs men and women on average choose, the type of education they have (sociology vs. engineering), etc.

Politics and History. So yes, the election of a female vice president is an historic milestone that should be duly noted. But let’s not pretend that Harris’s election represents some triumph over a genuine barrier—legal, cultural or otherwise—that she had to “break through” and “overcome.”

To the contrary: Harris surely benefited from the fact she is a woman and a woman of color, as they say, from a big and diverse state. Would Biden, after all, have selected her as his VP if she were a male senator representing, say, Montana?

Of course not.

Harris, remember, flopped in a big way during the Democratic primaries, where she failed to garner popular support—even amongst black women, who much preferred Joe Biden.

Antiquated Myth. Let us, then, retire the antiquated notion of a “glass ceiling” or “barrier” that women must “overcome.” This is a progressive political myth designed for overtly left-wing political ends.

Women today are full and equal citizens, with full and equal rights and opportunities; and the glass ceiling was shattered long, long ago. Good riddance.

Feature photo credit: Sen. Kamala Harris (D-California) courtesy of Doug Mills, New York Times, published in the San Antonio Express-News.

The Questions No One Dares to Ask About ‘Systemic Racism’ and ‘Police Reform’

The Questions No One Dares to Ask About ‘Systemic Racism’ and ‘Police Reform’

By John R Guardiano on June 14, 2020

Before we rush forward to enact new legislative “reforms” we should step back to ask important and searching questions.

Excuse me, but may I ask a question? Or rather, a series of questions?

Oh, I know that no one today has much time for questions: because the loudest voices, in our newsrooms and out in the streets, are too busy telling us what the answers must be.

And, unlike the activists, the politicians, the pundits, the sports stars, and assorted other know-it-alls, I don’t pretend to have all the answers. However, I do have some pertinent—and perhaps unwelcome and inconvenient—questions to ask.

May I?

Thank you. I won’t take much of your time. I promise.

Federalism

1. Should the federal government micromanage state and local police departments and law enforcement agencies?

2. Does federalism matter, and might federalism help us determine which reforms work and which ones don’t?

Legislating Police Practices

3. Do we have a problem with specific police practices, such as chokeholds and no-knock warrants?

Or, instead, do we have a problem with specific police officers, such as Derek Chauvin, who misuse and misapply those practices?

4. Did Officer Chauvin kill George Floyd with a choke hold or by pressing his knee into his neck?

5. If the problem is specific police officers such as Chauvin, then why focus on stopping certain practices? Why not focus on recruiting better officers, training them better, and screening out bad officers?

6. Rather than ban or proscribe certain police practices, might we do well, instead, to train officers to use better, less dangerous, and more effective practices by which to subdue and control suspects?

7. Will legislation designed to outlaw or ban specific police practices actually end police brutality or make much of a difference? Or will bad police officers still find ways to commit egregious acts of wrongdoing?

8. Fox News host Sean Hannity has promoted non-lethal weapons that will “incapacitate violent or threatening subjects” without killing them.

Hannity says non-lethal weapons in the hands of the police are a way to balance the need for robust and proactive policing while simultaneously averting the excessive use of police force and wrongful deaths.

Does Hannity have a point, and should not the use of non-lethal weapons rank high on the police reform agenda?

‘Systemic Racism’

9. Is our problem “systemic racism” or human nature and human frailty?

If the latter, is it possible to legislate or change human nature and human frailty? Or will we still inevitably have incidents of police brutality and excessive police use of force?

10. If our problem is “systemic racism,” then why did the police kill more unarmed white suspects in 2019 (nineteen) than unarmed black suspects (nine)?

Why did unarmed black victims of police shootings represent just 0.1 percent of all African-Americans killed in 2019?

11. If our problem is “systemic racism,” then why is a police officer “18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer”?

12. Does “systemic racism” explain why the vast majority of African Americans are killed by other African Americans, and why, overwhelmingly, the victims of black crime are innocent African Americans?

13. An increasing number of police officers are black, Hispanic, Asian and other minorities, as are big-city police chiefs. Many departments—including the New York City and Los Angeles police departments—are majority minority.

Are these police officers and departments, too, plagued by “systemic racism”?

14. If, indeed, the police are statistically more inclined to police or confront African Americans, and sometimes on specious grounds, is this necessarily because of racism? Or might disparities in criminal conduct among different racial and ethnic groups have something to do with it?

15. Is there any other country than the United States of America where blacks have achieved more and enjoyed greater opportunity and more equitable treatment?

16. In the past 20 years, America has elected and reelected a black man as President of the United States, had two black secretaries of state, two black national security advisers, and at least a dozen black, Hispanic, Asian, and Indian governors, lieutenant governors, and senators.

Does this not refute the notion that ours is a country imbued with “systemic racism”?

‘Black Lives Matter’

17. If the protesters really believe that “black lives matter,” then why do they show little or no concern and passion for the lives of black teenagers and children murdered by black criminals in the inner city?

18. Why are there no “take-a-knee” protests and high-profile, high-vis funerals for black police officers killed by violent thugs?

19. We hear much about the historical legacy of racism and how it haunts law enforcement, and American society more generally, even today. Okay, but has anything changed for the better in the past 50 or 60 years, and can we also acknowledge this history and its relevance to the current debate?

20. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are considered landmark legislative achievements on the road to racial equality.

Ditto the 24th Amendment to the Constitution (also ratified in 1964), which prohibits poll taxes or any other tax that infringes upon a citizen’s right to vote.

The Fair Housing Act of 1968, likewise, prohibits racial discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing. Did this and similar legislation, as well as the 24th Amendment, achieve anything substantive and long-lasting?

21. America across the board—in government, corporations, public and private agencies—has instituted affirmative action programs to assist disadvantaged blacks.

Federal, state, and local governments, likewise, have spent trillions of dollars over a period of decades to assist disadvantaged Americans, black and white.

Is this evidence of a country that doesn’t believe “black lives matter”?

22. Polls consistently show that Americans are far less racist today than they were 50 or 60 years ago. Do these polls reflect reality, or are people lying to pollsters about how they really feel?

‘Militarization of the Police’

23. Is there any evidence that the so-called militarization of the police has resulted in more killings and bad community relations?

What if better armed police actually have had the opposite effect? Will policymakers and pundits then call for increased “militarization of the police”?

24. When the police receive equipment from the U.S. military, is this equipment assigned to every police officer within a law enforcement agency, or just specialized units such as SWAT teams?

25. Within police departments, is there a role for SWAT teams and should these teams be heavily armed and equipped?

26. Does the so-called “militarization of the police,” especially during introductory induction training, contribute to any shared sense of camaraderie, pride, and esprit de corps among cops? And, if so, might this help promote professionalism and good conduct?

27. Counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan emphasized protecting the indigenous population and exerciseing real restraint in the use of force.

Are there useful lessons here for our police? And, if so, doesn’t greater “militarization of the police”—meaning greater DoD-police cooperation and training—make sense?

‘Defund the Police’

28. Former NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly notes that about 95 percent of all police budgets are for personnel costs. So would not “defunding the police,” or reducing police budgets, mean fewer police and less of a police presence on the streets?

29. Given that blacks in the inner cities are the most victimized by violent crime, would not “defunding the police,” or reducing police budgets, hurt them the most?

30. Heather Mac Donald observes that “the most urgent requests [for a proactive police presence] come from the law-abiding residents of high-crime neighborhoods”; and that she’s seen these requests “time and again in the dozens of police-community meetings [that she has] attended.”

Moreover, she writes, “the percentage of black respondents in a 2015 Roper poll who wanted more police in their community was twice as high as the percentage of white respondents who wanted more police.”

Do these black citizens matter, and should their concerns be listened to and heeded?

31. Incidents involving the mentally ill, the psychologically maladjusted, domestic disputes, spousal abuse, juvenile delinquency, and drug addicts can be dangerous, with the threat of violence ever-present.

Given the clear possibility (and sometimes likelihood) of violence, then, does it really make sense to have unarmed social workers and not police officers deal with these type incidents? What happens if social workers who respond to these type incidents are killed as a result?

‘Qualified Immunity’

House Democrats have unveiled a bill that would abolish “qualified immunity” for police officers—on the grounds that this “undermines police accountability and encourages bad behavior.”

But qualified immunity is rarely invoked and revoking it is a recipe for police inaction, according to Ray Kelly, former head of the New York City Police Department.

32. Who’s right: House Democrats or Ray Kelly?

33. What is the greater risk or danger: that police will withdraw from the streets and cities because they fear lawsuits, or that police will respond too aggressively and with excessive force because they need not fear a lawsuit?

34. What does the data tell us?

Honest, Good-Faith Debate

33. Is there any evidence that the so-called reforms being pushed will actually save black lives? What if the so-called reforms will do the opposite?

34. Can we discuss these issues fairly, honestly and dispassionately? Or must we, instead, dispense with fairness, honesty and dispassion because “this time’s different”?

Excuse me? “Am I done?” you ask? Yes, well, I understand that I have exceeded my time and perhaps overstayed my welcome. I have many other questions, and perhaps I can ask those at another time.

But with all due respect, it seems to me that before we legislatively chisel the protesters’ preferred answers into the legal equivalent of Mount Rushmore, we ought to ask some important and searching questions.

I offer these up only as a starting point. We have, dare I say, a lot more to think about.

Feature photo credit: Refinery29.com.

George Floyd’s Murder Is Not About ‘Systemic Racism’ and It’s Not Emblematic of a Larger-Scale Problem

George Floyd’s Murder Is Not About ‘Systemic Racism’ and It’s Not Emblematic of a Larger-Scale Problem

By John R Guardiano on June 3, 2020

The facts and the data tell a far different story than what the media is feeding us.

As I’ve explained here at ResCon1, groupthink is a real problem in contemporary America. We’ve seen it with the cult-like following behind mask-wearing allegedly to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

And now we see it with the universal declaration, trumpeted throughout the media and in the popular culture, that the murder of George Floyd is an obvious instance of racism—and emblematic of the “systemic racism” that supposedly pervades U.S. law enforcement and American society more generally.

In truth, racism is less of a problem today in American than in all of human history. No country in the history of the world, moreover, has done more for blacks and other minorities than the United States of America.

And, despite the best efforts of left-wing, “progressive” journalists to show otherwise, there simply is no data to support the notion that there is “systemic racism” in law enforcement.

Quite the opposite: as Jason Riley reports in the Wall Street Journal :

In 2016, [Harvard economist Roland] Fryer released a study of racial differences in police use of deadly force.

To the surprise of the author, as well as many in the media and on the left who take racist law enforcement as a given, he found no evidence of bias in police shootings.

His conclusions have been echoed by researchers at the University of Maryland and Michigan State University, who in a paper released last year wrote:

“We didn’t find evidence for anti-Black or anti-Hispanic disparity in police use of force across all shootings, and, if anything, found anti-White disparities when controlling for race-specific crime.

Adds talk radio host Larry Elder in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity (June 2, 2020):

According to the CDC, in the last 45 years, killings of black by the police has declined [by] 75 percent.

Last year there were nine unarmed black people killed; 19 unarmed white people. Name the unarmed white people who were killed.

You can’t because the media gives you the impression that this is something that happens all the time [and only to black people].

Obama said this ought not be normal. Mr. former President, it’s not normal; it is rare. Cops rarely kill anybody, let alone an unarmed black person.

And the idea that this happens all the time is why some of these young people are out there in the streets. And it is simply false. Isn’t that good news? It’s not true!

What most left-wing “progressives” gloss over or refuse to forthrightly acknowledge is that, as Riley explains, “racial disparities in police shootings [stem] primary from racial disparities in criminal behavior.”

“Why are the Minneapolis police in black neighborhoods?” asks Heather Mac Donald.

Because that’s where violent crime is happening, including shootings of two-year-olds and lethal beatings of 75-year-olds.

Just as during the Obama years, the discussion of the allegedly oppressive police is being conducted in the complete absence of any recognition of street crime and the breakdown of the black family that drives it.

The murder of George Floyd was an abomination, but it is not a racial or racist abomination. Instead, it is a rare law enforcement problem that affects a small number of police officers, white and black.

It was only last year, after all, in Minneapolis of all places, that a black Somalian-American police officer, Mohamed Noor, was convicted of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for wrongly killing an unarmed white woman while on patrol in 2017.

Acording to the New York Times, the woman “was unarmed, wearing pajamas, and holding nothing but a glittery cellphone.” Yet she was killed by this black police officer. However, nowhere in this Times article on the case does the word “racism” appear.

Racism? So why is racism being seized upon now in the murder of George Floyd?

In part because all Americans of goodwill are understandably sensitive to the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, and racial discrimination, and how that legacy might have ramifications even today.

But there are less benign reasons as well.

Anti-American anarchists and far-left extremists seek to use the cudgel of race and racism, real and imagined, to attack and destroy America.

These are the people affiliated with Antifa and foreign intelligence services who have hijacked otherwise peaceful protests and used them as vehicles for arson, looting, rioting, and lawlessness.

Politics. There also are nonviolent “progressives” eager to exploit Floyd’s murder for rank political reasons. They see in his death an opportunity to push for sweeping legislative changes that will “fundamentally transform” America along statist lines.

The racist narrative, albeit false, is politically useful to these left-wing activists; so they push it with unrestrained gusto.

We the people, however, should not be fooled. While racism certainly exists and should be called out and acted against whenever it rears its ugly head, it is a far cry from the most significant problem that we face today.

And it is far cry from the most significant problem that blacks and other minorities face today.

What’s worse? Subpar schools and a lack of educational choice and opportunity in too many poor black neighborhoods. The breakdown of the family and the absence of fathers in too many homes, black and white.

Black-on-black crime that results in the senseless death of too many young black men and innocent children. And a relative lack of jobs and economic opportunity in too many of our nation’s disadvantaged communities.

But all of this has very little to do with racism and a lot do with economics, sociology, and public policy.

In truth, we Americans should take pride in what our nation has done for blacks and other minorities. And we should be grateful for our police, of all hues, colors and ethnicities, who put their lives on the line every day to protect us from the barbarians at the proverbial gate.

The thin blue line, remember, is neither black nor white. It’s blue, and it includes Americans of every race, color and creed.

Feature photo credit: LAist.com.