5 thoughts on “Is America a Racist Country? - Victor Davis Hanson”
Carlos Lionel Urbina
This may be the wrong time and place to say this, but yes, we are a racist country. How could we not be? We’re human. Racism is nothing else but tribalism. It’s been with us for a million years and could be here for as long as humans are alive. But the shrill voices of those who stand to gain from being heard are also part of humanity. There will always be parties. The names may change but the fact remains that our very nature is combative and with great difficulty even manage to sustain unity within the smallest microcosm, the family, let alone the increasingly wider groups. Articles, whether sound or flawed, for and against racism sell. That’s journalism. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to sever the ties between telling it like it is and the need to pay the mortgage and put food on the table. All of us are complicit. I may be an empath like that lovely daughter you mention, so I sympathized with the criminal Clinton, the brilliant psychopath Obama, the bully Trump, and the pitiful Biden. Honestly, they are all American; they all did their best within the imprisonment of the context that grew around them. Brand me a heretic, but I support them all, I wish them well. They are us. There’s no them and us. All of us are us. Poor Nancy Pelosi, poor Adam Schiff, they mean well, they do. I don’t feel sorry for Trump. You don’t feel sorry for a fighter even when he loses. He’s us. Oh, if we could only see this! Trump is us, Biden is us, even the deranged critical race theory people are us. They honestly are calling it the way they see it, even within the context of making a living by ‘calling it’. I sympathize with BLM and Antifa. I don’t sympathize with genuine hate or oppression. I won’t take up arms against oppressors; at most I will say “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” But in my heart, I wish the earth would open to swallow any human being who would dare oppress another human being for any reason. I know, just that wish draws me close to being like them, but I’m a weak and frail human being just like we all are. In closing, we are all racist, Chinese are racist, Japanese are racist, Russians are racist, Cubans are racist, Americans are racist, blacks are racist, whites are racist; that’s who we are. We are against those who aren’t like us; that’s the common denominator of the universal, endemic nature of racism. Oh, that we could take a step back and see, all of them are us!
First of all, you are confusing tribalism with racism. But they are not the same thing. And just because my Mexican American neighbors prefer different music than I do and mostly associate with their family and co-workers does not make them tribal or racist. They are kind, hard working people. So, too, are my Muslim sister-laws-people. Farmers are going to have more in common with other farmers regardless of color or ethnicity. The same is true for investment bankers or teachers. While there are petty or bigoted people in every group, those individuals are the outliers. I’ve lived all over this country and the vast majority of people do their best to get along with one and other. This is the least racist country in history, despite our clearly racist past. However, even during the Jim Crow era black and brown people have handed over their life savings to come to America. French and Germans aren’t leaving their countries. But Africans, Arabs, Hispanics, and Asians are literally tripping over themselves trying to get into this country. Why is this? Because they know we are a generous, accepting people who are the antithesis of racism. What causes any division and strife is our society is bad social policy promulgated by people who are ignorant of history and don’t have to live with any of the consequences of altruistic ideas. I will end with an example of what is at the root of our problems. My other brother who is career military retired and a great guy, wonderful father and husband was calling Donald Trump a bigot after the 2016 election and hoping that “some ‘Dreamer’ from Honduras would shoot him in the head!” He was a colonel in the U.S. Army, mind you. And we have always been on very good terms. But even more problematic for me, personally, was that he then proceeded to call me a bigot who hates Hispanics simply because I voted for Trump. However, I am the one who purposely moved to an town that is almond 80% Hispanic, I have worked, prayed, and played among these people for 25 years. We have gone to each other’s baptisms, funerals, weddings, and graduations. And we have been completely color blind the whole time. My brother, on the other hand, chose Lilly white, affluent Colorado Springs over Tucson or Phoenix to raise a family. Probably because he knows his kids could not hack a rougher town. So who’s the bigot? Neither of us is. But at least I’m not a bloody hypocrite!
The whole concept is a meaningless fallacy but used effectively to undermine and “hopefully” destroy that which
the “self-hating” haters “hate”. The green-eyed monster is one we can never speak about… it would involve really
investigating the EGO psyche against the background of itself–an impossibility. It would be more than tedious
to attempt to talk about what happens in a “godless” culture where so many “misunderstandings” jump up
instantly and “meanings” diverge even more dramatically than the “races”… We can only talk, read, and think
“between the lines”. But is challenge what we’re up to??? We are not alas, all in the same boat, and one size does NOT fit all and never will. Nor should it! There is much truth in the previous comment (Urbina) but it’s a defeatist
well-intentioned dead-end HALF-truth. Once the bait has been swallowed the fish is caught–all mental gymnastics are so much brilliant flailing chasing soulfully after…a created “fact”…
Here’s a simple useful? thought:
If we “loved” OURSELVES how could we be so disturbed as to “hate” or disrespect each other? It only REQUIRES
that we KNOW ourselves but that, in turn, requires confidence, “objectivity”, honesty, AND dare I say it a sense
of history from whence each of us has sprung…(and to Urbina’s point)…in INNOCENCE!!!
Thank you for this well thought out and organized review of this subject. ice my wife hails from the San Joaquin Valley and I’ve lived many years there in the agricultural setting I’ve come to think like you in most ways. There must be millions who think like us, Perhaps we are part of a clan consisting of tribes that feel our political culture is being degraded by various social scientists in our education system. Perhaps this clan of both liberal and conservative groups that I describe has much in common .
This may be the wrong time and place to say this, but yes, we are a racist country. How could we not be? We’re human. Racism is nothing else but tribalism. It’s been with us for a million years and could be here for as long as humans are alive. But the shrill voices of those who stand to gain from being heard are also part of humanity. There will always be parties. The names may change but the fact remains that our very nature is combative and with great difficulty even manage to sustain unity within the smallest microcosm, the family, let alone the increasingly wider groups. Articles, whether sound or flawed, for and against racism sell. That’s journalism. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to sever the ties between telling it like it is and the need to pay the mortgage and put food on the table. All of us are complicit. I may be an empath like that lovely daughter you mention, so I sympathized with the criminal Clinton, the brilliant psychopath Obama, the bully Trump, and the pitiful Biden. Honestly, they are all American; they all did their best within the imprisonment of the context that grew around them. Brand me a heretic, but I support them all, I wish them well. They are us. There’s no them and us. All of us are us. Poor Nancy Pelosi, poor Adam Schiff, they mean well, they do. I don’t feel sorry for Trump. You don’t feel sorry for a fighter even when he loses. He’s us. Oh, if we could only see this! Trump is us, Biden is us, even the deranged critical race theory people are us. They honestly are calling it the way they see it, even within the context of making a living by ‘calling it’. I sympathize with BLM and Antifa. I don’t sympathize with genuine hate or oppression. I won’t take up arms against oppressors; at most I will say “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” But in my heart, I wish the earth would open to swallow any human being who would dare oppress another human being for any reason. I know, just that wish draws me close to being like them, but I’m a weak and frail human being just like we all are. In closing, we are all racist, Chinese are racist, Japanese are racist, Russians are racist, Cubans are racist, Americans are racist, blacks are racist, whites are racist; that’s who we are. We are against those who aren’t like us; that’s the common denominator of the universal, endemic nature of racism. Oh, that we could take a step back and see, all of them are us!
SPOT. ON.
I was just visiting this theory (albeit, not as eloquently) yesterday.
Yup.
First of all, you are confusing tribalism with racism. But they are not the same thing. And just because my Mexican American neighbors prefer different music than I do and mostly associate with their family and co-workers does not make them tribal or racist. They are kind, hard working people. So, too, are my Muslim sister-laws-people. Farmers are going to have more in common with other farmers regardless of color or ethnicity. The same is true for investment bankers or teachers. While there are petty or bigoted people in every group, those individuals are the outliers. I’ve lived all over this country and the vast majority of people do their best to get along with one and other. This is the least racist country in history, despite our clearly racist past. However, even during the Jim Crow era black and brown people have handed over their life savings to come to America. French and Germans aren’t leaving their countries. But Africans, Arabs, Hispanics, and Asians are literally tripping over themselves trying to get into this country. Why is this? Because they know we are a generous, accepting people who are the antithesis of racism. What causes any division and strife is our society is bad social policy promulgated by people who are ignorant of history and don’t have to live with any of the consequences of altruistic ideas. I will end with an example of what is at the root of our problems. My other brother who is career military retired and a great guy, wonderful father and husband was calling Donald Trump a bigot after the 2016 election and hoping that “some ‘Dreamer’ from Honduras would shoot him in the head!” He was a colonel in the U.S. Army, mind you. And we have always been on very good terms. But even more problematic for me, personally, was that he then proceeded to call me a bigot who hates Hispanics simply because I voted for Trump. However, I am the one who purposely moved to an town that is almond 80% Hispanic, I have worked, prayed, and played among these people for 25 years. We have gone to each other’s baptisms, funerals, weddings, and graduations. And we have been completely color blind the whole time. My brother, on the other hand, chose Lilly white, affluent Colorado Springs over Tucson or Phoenix to raise a family. Probably because he knows his kids could not hack a rougher town. So who’s the bigot? Neither of us is. But at least I’m not a bloody hypocrite!
The whole concept is a meaningless fallacy but used effectively to undermine and “hopefully” destroy that which
the “self-hating” haters “hate”. The green-eyed monster is one we can never speak about… it would involve really
investigating the EGO psyche against the background of itself–an impossibility. It would be more than tedious
to attempt to talk about what happens in a “godless” culture where so many “misunderstandings” jump up
instantly and “meanings” diverge even more dramatically than the “races”… We can only talk, read, and think
“between the lines”. But is challenge what we’re up to??? We are not alas, all in the same boat, and one size does NOT fit all and never will. Nor should it! There is much truth in the previous comment (Urbina) but it’s a defeatist
well-intentioned dead-end HALF-truth. Once the bait has been swallowed the fish is caught–all mental gymnastics are so much brilliant flailing chasing soulfully after…a created “fact”…
Here’s a simple useful? thought:
If we “loved” OURSELVES how could we be so disturbed as to “hate” or disrespect each other? It only REQUIRES
that we KNOW ourselves but that, in turn, requires confidence, “objectivity”, honesty, AND dare I say it a sense
of history from whence each of us has sprung…(and to Urbina’s point)…in INNOCENCE!!!
Thank you for this well thought out and organized review of this subject. ice my wife hails from the San Joaquin Valley and I’ve lived many years there in the agricultural setting I’ve come to think like you in most ways. There must be millions who think like us, Perhaps we are part of a clan consisting of tribes that feel our political culture is being degraded by various social scientists in our education system. Perhaps this clan of both liberal and conservative groups that I describe has much in common .