In Praise of Liberal Guilt
| AR Articles on Groveling |
|---|
| The Humiliation of Trent Lott (Feb. 2003) |
| Philly Flap (Oct. 2002) |
| Race in “The Real World” (Oct. 2001) |
| Groveling Fails Again (May 2000) |
| Search AmRen.com for Groveling |
| More news stories on Groveling |
When did “liberal guilt” get such a bad reputation? You hear it all the time now from people who sneeringly dismiss whites who support Obama’s candidacy as “guilty liberals.” There are, of course, many reasons why whites might support Obama that have nothing to do with race. But what if redeeming our shameful racial past is one factor for some? Why delegitimize sincere excitement that his nomination and potential election would represent a historic civil rights landmark: making an abstract right a reality at last. Instead, their feeling must be disparaged as merely the result of a somehow shameful “liberal guilt.”
{snip}
Since when has guilt become shameful? Since when is shame shameful when it’s shame about a four-centuries-long historical crime? Not one of us is a slave owner today, segregation is no longer enshrined in law, and there are fewer overt racists than before, but if we want to praise America’s virtues, we have to concede—and feel guilty about—America’s sins, else we praise a false god, a golden calf, a whited sepulcher, a Potemkin village of virtue. (I’ve run out of metaphors, but you get the picture.)
Guilt is good, people! The only people who don’t suffer guilt are sociopaths and serial killers. Guilt means you have a conscience. You have self-awareness, you have—in the case of America’s history of racism—historical awareness. Just because things have gotten better in the present doesn’t mean we can erase racism from our past or ignore its enduring legacy.
{snip}
Actually, I think it requires a kind of strength, not weakness, to face the ugly truths of history and to react to them in an honest way. “Liberal guilt” isn’t a reason one must automatically support a black candidate, but that doesn’t mean that liberal guilt—better defined as an awareness of the need to contend with, and overcome, a racist past—shouldn’t be a factor in politics.
Of course, it’s not enough just to feel guilty or to act on guilt alone. But guilt can often spur us to deal with the enduring consequences of the injustices of the past and force us not to pretend there are none.
It’s especially surprising to hear “guilt” being disparaged by conservatives, since they present themselves as moralists; they are quick to decry liberals for seeking to abolish guilt over various practices conservatives deem immoral. But was slavery not immoral? For those conservatives who make a fetish of “values”: Was not the century of institutionalized racism and segregation that followed the end of slavery a perpetuation of “flawed values” that the nation should feel an enduring guilt over? For those conservatives who are forever speaking of the way they value history and memory more than liberals: Should we abolish the history and memory of slavery and racism just because they’re no longer legally institutionalized?
{snip}
What I don’t understand is why there doesn’t seem to be any conservative guilt over racism. Contemporary conservatives could learn from their revered godfather William F. Buckley Jr., who, early in his career at the National Review, wrote a pro-Jim Crow lead editorial—little remembered in liberal and other encomia to the man—titled “Why the South Must Prevail,” in which he argued that segregation should persist even by illegal means because “the White community . . . for the time being . . . is the advanced race.”
A valuable essay on this question by William Hogeland in the May/June issue of the Boston Review reminds us that even Buckley felt guilt—if not precisely “liberal guilt”—about this editorial, guilt that he expressed in a 2004 Time interview. “Have you taken any positions you now regret?” Time asked him. “Yes. I once believed we could evolve our way up from Jim Crow. I was wrong: federal intervention was necessary.” Why can’t conservative wiseguys (especially at the National Review) stop sneering at liberals long enough to learn from the admirable guilty wisdom of their sainted leader?
Shouldn’t conservatives feel guilty about slavery and racism and the consequences thereof, or must they disdain such feelings, however moral, because they are associated with liberals? Do they choose their moral priorities because of their popularity among others? That doesn’t seem like a conservative way of thinking about moral values. It sounds like a form of relativism. It’s the kind of thinking that treats values as a brand identity. Guilt over racism is not part of the conservative brand identity. The more shame if that be the case.
{snip}
Or could it be that conservatives disdain liberal guilt about race because they have historically more guilt to bear for the perpetuation of racism and segregation?
{snip}
This is what I don’t understand about the conservative attacks on “the ’60s.” They willfully ignore, in their rote denunciations of the sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll aspect of that decade, the great movement of moralists known as the civil rights movement. The movement that brought deserved honor and pride to America. The movement that may well have been motivated (among whites participating) by liberal guilt. But so what! The guilt was justified. The truly guilty were the ones who didn’t feel guilt. Such as the conservative movement of the day that largely stood on the sidelines making carping arguments about states’ rights that were a shamelessly transparent defense of institutionalized racism. Where’s the conservative guilt about that? No wonder they ignore the civil rights movement, one of the great epochs in American history, when they demonize “the ’60s.”
{snip}
Do the people who dismiss black anger think there’s nothing to be angry about? As a Jew, I think I have a right to be angry, still, about the Holocaust, even though it happened before I was born. It would be hard for me to understand an African-American not being angry about 400 years of murder, rape, and enslavement on the basis of race. Anger, like guilt, shouldn’t be the endpoint, but anger at injustice is not illegitimate and can be a starting point, a spur to moral action. Where you end up is, alas, often a different matter.
But it seems to me that some people use the Rev. Wright’s ugly expression of anger as a fig leaf to discredit Obama, who has clearly ended up at a different place from the Rev. Wright (largely due, one imagines, to the civil rights movement). Yes, Obama may well have an understanding of the Rev. Wright’s anger, but if you can’t see the difference between the two men historically, culturally, generationally, and temperamentally, then I’d say you just don’t want to: It’s a kind of willful blindness that seeks to find ways of discrediting Obama and his “guilty liberal” supporters by holding up the Rev. Wright as the true face of black anger. I think intelligent people are able to make these distinctions.
{snip}
People who lack guilt also lack humility, which is another one of those virtues conservatives are always flogging (although not with a lot of humility).
{snip}
To be a truly “great American,” one doesn’t have to be a guilty liberal, but one has to know guilt.
(Posted on May 28, 2008)
Comments
The fact is that there a large number of Whites who have been and are downright nasty to Black, Latinos and other minorities.
Posted by Latrice at 5:59 PM on May 28
“There are, of course, many reasons why whites might support Obama that have nothing to do with race.”
Yes, like left-wing radicalism, emotional and mental disorders, plus do-gooderism from those who just have to feel morally superior or they don’t think they’ll be able to get into Heaven.
But, bottom line Mr. Rosenbaum, race is the MAIN factor, no matter what you might want us to believe. And it includes racist blacks who would vote for this man no matter what his policies were, except ones that demanded black accountability and a denial of victimhood.
Posted by Robert Kelly at 6:04 PM on May 28
Nothing makes me happier than to see the financial failure and ruin of the msm. When slate fails, I will experience the most sublime ecstasy.
Posted by at 6:07 PM on May 28
I’m not complaining about the potato famine. Cry me a river.
Posted by ex-liberal at 6:31 PM on May 28
“The only people who don’t suffer guilt are sociopaths and serial killers. Guilt means you have a conscience.”
Well, I guess blacks don’t have any conscience then. Read about their behavior after they are done raping, robbing or murdering someone, let alone shoplifting or something ‘minor’ like that - nary a feeling of guilt to be found.
One of the defining characteristics of blacks that separates them from the rest of humanity is their unique inability to suffer any type of guilt at all, which makes them well represented among the ranks of sociopaths and serial killers - not the Ted Bundy type but the ordinary black killers who take out convenience store clerks for the $13.87 in the till.
One of the literary hallmarks of Western Civilization is Crime and Punishment, a novel whose central theme is guilt. And there are countless others. Is there even one artistic work by a black person that addresses introspective guilt among blacks?
Guilt over lying, cheating and stealing is natural - guilt over Howard Zinn’s cartoon version of history is idiotic.
Posted by Civilized Neighbor at 6:51 PM on May 28
“Anger, like guilt, shouldn’t be the endpoint, but anger at injustice is not illegitimate and can be a starting point, a spur to moral action.”
What was it one of us White Nationalists was saying, when aggression meets submission the result is annihilation? Apparently it’s a discerning type of guilt here that only the enlightened truly understand, and a guilt that only applies to us of course. No other kind of guilt or morals need apply. What Ron Rosenbaum seems to be saying in reality is that the absence of racism against whites, should be considered the most foul racism. And that apparently anyone who is not sufficiently repentant, make that, sufficiently anti-white, can never be a great american.
One could argue there’s no such thing as guilt really, only the fear of punishment. Perhaps Mr Rosenbaum’s only concerned is that after a certain point citizens become immune to punishment. Punishment and guilt, only intended for us of course.
Posted by LHathaway at 7:20 PM on May 28
Guilt is good, people! The only people who don’t suffer guilt are sociopaths and serial killers. Guilt means you have a conscience. You have self-awareness, you have—in the case of America’s history of racism—historical awareness. Just because things have gotten better in the present doesn’t mean we can erase racism from our past or ignore its enduring legacy…………………….I think people who feel guilty about something they did not do are Socoipaths. Feeling guilty about being white is racist.It is no different than blaming a jew for killing jesus.
Posted by at 7:23 PM on May 28
my ex-wife, a bleeding heart ‘liberal’ attorney at Indiana Legal Services. Hanging around her type for 3 years was all I needed to see to understand the ‘progressives” as they are now known. They all view themselves as ‘superior’ to conservatives, yet I found they had plenty of flaws- most of the males I met were weak slackers that were supported by stronger women. Alot of these guys dealt with their emasculation by having affairs. Blacks ALWAYS get a free pass (from Liberals) when they misbehave, but its open season, 52 weeks a year on working class whites. Being a ‘liberal’ is a narrow minded extremist mindset, with its own dogma.
Posted by toonces at 7:38 PM on May 28
“Guilt is good, people! The only people who don’t suffer guilt are sociopaths and serial killers. Guilt means you have a conscience.”
Guilt is a tool used by many a would be manipulating parent. So the nanny state would use this to coherse. But this author’s claim that American White Guilt is based on being historically aware is a sham. If everyone were historically aware, the cries of injustice would soon cease, least we all call on everyone for retribution.
To add - By his description all non-whites are socialpathic, serial killers.
This writer is an idiot.
Posted by Whiteplight at 7:47 PM on May 28
Does this person believe anything he’s saying? I doubt it. A certain kind of individual enjoys saying ridiculous things just to see it anyone is dumb enough to buy into it. This is the written equivalent of a flying saucer photo that’s actually a frisbee. Between the lines it screams “sucker!”
Posted by WaitNow at 7:47 PM on May 28
I wonder where Comrade Rosenbaum obtained his degree in abnormal or forensic psychology? He certainly seems to feel himself to be the “expert” on what defines a psychopath or murdering predator, when he notes:
“Guilt is good, people! The only people who don’t suffer guilt are sociopaths and serial killers. Guilt means you have a conscience. You have self-awareness, you have—in the case of America’s history of racism—historical awareness. Just because things have gotten better in the present doesn’t mean we can erase racism from our past or ignore its enduring legacy.”
Indeed, while it is one of the key anti-social traits to lack both guilt or a conscience in the psychopath, so too is objectifying others for manipulation or abuse. One key element in taking advantage of an intended victim, would be to recognize their capacity for guilt and shame and then exploit it. For example, the abusive husband who beats his wife senseless and then through crocodile tears, screams: “I am sorry, but you made me do it.”
Here Comrade Rosenbaum and his fellow travelers in the “guilty white” vanguard, certainly derive tremendous sociopolitical advantages by way of superficially making a masochistic fetish of “white guilt” and forcing others to do likewise. In so doing, not only do they justify what is at best their tenuously “worthwhile” existences, but also subject an entire population to validating them and funding through taxation, their bizarre and sadistic social engineering programs to eliminate “racism.” Thus, it is a “guilt” on their part that is largely self-serving and feigned, while also promulgated for the direct purposes of repressing and degrading the group interests of the white majority, or even allowing the serious expression of them in a public forum.
Hardly what I would call a healthy manifestation of guilt, not in the least.
As always, God help us all!
Posted by John PM at 7:48 PM on May 28
“It would be hard for me to understand an African-American not being angry about 400 years of murder, rape, and enslavement on the basis of race.”
But, apparently this Obama fanatic has trouble understanding any resentment over the undoubtedly more numerous murders, rapes, and miscellaneous violent crimes vengefully perpetrated by blacks against whites just in the half-century since the civil rights movement empowered them.
In the writer’s own words: “Anger, like guilt, shouldn’t be the endpoint. But anger at injustice is not illegitimate, and can be a starting point, a spur to moral action.”
Let this serve as a motivation for each of us to do his part to see that a Southside Chicago “community organizer” doesn’t become the first black President; America isn’t ready for that OR the tyranny of the ascended leftists who would find such self-righteous satisfaction in the event.
Posted by KonfederateKarl at 8:06 PM on May 28
Based on the liberals I’ve known, or whose writings I’ve read or speeches I’ve heard, it seems to me that they are not so fond of “admitting guilt” as they are at pointing fingers at conservatives and labeling THEM as guilty — of “racism,” of having supported slavery, of practicing “McCarthyism”, whatever. And where is this “humility” the author speaks of conservatives not having much of? The liberals I know personally (several of them attorneys) tend to be as cocksure, stiff-necked and arrogant as anyone I’ve ever known.
And by the way, Mr. Rosenbaum, yes, the Jews have the right to still be angry over the Holocaust if they feel they must, as the blacks have the right to still be angry over slavery 143 years after it was abolished. But one of the reasons the Jews survived as a separate, intact people for 3,000 years was because, while they certainly may not have forgiven, or have had reason to forgive, the people that wronged them, they always moved onward and upward from oppression to re-establish themselves and rise to the tops of their chosen fields again. With the Holocaust, I think they started to forget that important reason for their survival. I think the blacks could learn something from the ways that the Jews USED to handle oppression: Admit it hurts, acknowledge that the people who hurt you are vile, then move on. Don’t endlessly dwell on it, because it will become an obsession. And it has.
Posted by Wayne Engle at 8:10 PM on May 28
The fact is that most Whites are in denial about their evil behavior toward Blacks (and now Latino’s).
Posted by Betty at 8:28 PM on May 28
“But what if redeeming our shameful racial past is one factor for some?”
I think everyones ancestors probably did something shameful in the past. Look at the English they practically destroyed the gaelic language and culture during their occupation of Ireland.
Or the Japanese during WWII and how they treated Allied POWs’ or Filipinos and Chinese civilians.
Or look at the plight of indigenous peoples in Asia and South America during the 60’s and 70’s.
Even as late as the 1990’s we had the terrible ethnic cleansing in Rwanada and the former Jugoslavia.
The real queston is this are there are a group of people who haven’t enslaved, butchered or conquered their fellow human beings?
If we all decided to “get even” with some group that has wronged us in the past I doubt there would be any human beings left at all. We would truly have “peace on earth”.
Posted by Yellow Man at 8:37 PM on May 28
“Guilt is good, people! The only people who don’t suffer guilt are sociopaths and serial killers”
Of course guilt is good - if you actually did something worthy of guilt. But if you feel guilty just because other people who happen to share your skin color did bad things long ago then you are in need of psychiatric evaluation. It appears Mr. Rosenbaum is Jewish - so maybe he should feel guilty about the Jewish role in unleashing liberalism upon the world. That particular crime is still being committed and by none other than the likes of Mr. Rosenbaum. Let him feel guilty about that!
Posted by jewamongyou at 8:42 PM on May 28
“The fact is that most Whites are in denial about their evil behavior toward Blacks (and now Latino’s).”
That’s interesting. In what sort of evil behavior do most whites engage? I suspect you don’t mean the sort of thing detailed here:
http://www.amren.com/store/color_of_crime.html
Posted by Cassiodorus at 9:06 PM on May 28
Betty,
If anyone has a right to be angry today because of racism it is whites. The reason is crime.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cvus/current/cv0542.pdf
See this link to the Justice Department crime statistics. I’ll do a little of the math up front. In 2005, 37,000 white women were raped by black men. In 2005, 0, that’s correct, zero, black women were raped by white men.
There are other just as damning statics in the Justice Department report. These are really people, suffering real damage. I should know. My grandmother was brutally murdered by a young black man and my daughter knew two girls who were raped by black men.
Beth, if you are white, you should understand that the black mentally toward whites is not what your mentality is toward them. Whites (especially white women) are, in effect, being hunted by black males. The statistics show this fact. Take reasonable precautions and do not feel guilty about it in the least. Your life may depend on it.
Posted by GWS at 9:40 PM on May 28
The fact is that most Whites are in denial about their evil behavior toward Blacks (and now Latino’s).
Betty, you have the audacity to accuse whites of evil behavior?
From 1976 to 2005, blacks committed more than 52% of all murders in America. In 2006, the black arrest rate for most crimes was two to nearly three times blacks’ representation in the population. Blacks constituted 39.3% of all violent-crime arrests, including 56.3% of all robbery and 34.5% of all aggravated-assault arrests, and 29.4% of all property-crime arrests.
Black Serial/Mass/Spree Killer List:
1. Matthew Emanuel Macon (Murdered and Raped 5 White Women in Lansing)
2. Jimmie Reed (Murdered his wife and his 2 month old daughter and set them on fire)
3. Shelly Brooks (Murdered 7 prostitutes in Detroit Cass Corridor)
4. Justin Blackshere (Stabbed two white cooks at Cheli’s Chili downtown Detroit)
5. Jervon Miguel Coleman (Murdered three people.)
6. Donell Ramon Johnson (Murdered a mother and a daughter)
7. Brian Ranard Davis (6 women known murdered)
8. Paul Durousseau (Seven women)
9. Mark Goudeau “The Baseline Killer” (Eight women and a man in 2005-2006)
10. Coral Eugene Watts (11 women in Texas & 1 in Michigan)
11. Anthony McKnight (Five girls and young women)
12. Derrick Todd Lee (8 Women)
13. Charles Lendelle Carter (4 known murders; admits to ‘hunting’ Atlantans for 15 years!)
14. The Zebra Killings (71 White people)
15. Chester Turner (L.A.s most prolific killer 12 women killed.)
16. Lorenzo J. Gilyard (Kansas City, MO.—13 victims)
17. Eugene Victor Britt (Gary, IN.–3 known murder/rapes.)
18. Reginald and Jonathan Carr (The Wichita Massacre–6 Whites murdered)
19. Ray Joseph Dandridge and his uncle, Ricky Gevon Gray (Richmond, VA.–Murdered 7 people in 7 days, including an entire White family.)
20. The Tinley Park Murderer (Suspect hasn’t been found but has been described as black - murdered 5 women in a store.)
21. Henry Louis Wallace (Raped and strangled 5 women to death.)
22. Charles Johnston (Murdered 3 unarmed white men in hospital)
23. Craig Price (Brutally murdered 3 women)
24. Harrison Graham (Brually Murdered 3 women)
25. Charles Lee “Cookie” Thornton (Murdered 6 Whites at the Kirkwood, MO. city council. )
26. & 27. Darnell Hartsfeld & Romeo Pinkerton (Abducted and Murdered 5 from a restaurant)
28 &29. John Allen Muhammad & Lee Boyd Malvo (Sniped 11 people from a car in DC, 9 died.)
30. George Russell (3 women, WA state)
31. Timothy W. Spencer (5 killed, Arlington, VA and Richmond, VA)
32. Elton M. Jackson (12 gay men killed, Norfolk, VA area)
33. Carlton Gary (3 killed in Columbus, GA)
34. Mohammed Adam Omar (16 women, Yemen. Omar is Sudanese.)
35. Kendall Francois (8 women, Poughkeepsie, NY and surrounding areas.)
36. Terry A. Blair (8 women, Kansas City area)
37. Wayne Williams (33 many of them children!, Atlanta, GA)
38. Vaughn Greenwood (11 killed in LA)
39. Andre Crawford (10 killed in Chicago - southside)
40. Calvin Jackson (9 killed possibley more in NY)
41. Gregory Klepper (killed 8, Chicago – southside)
42. Alton Coleman (Killed 8 in the Midwest)
43. Harrison Graham (killed 7+ in N. Philadelphia)
44. Cleophus Prince (6 killed in, San Diego
45. Robert Rozier (7 killed in, Miami)
46. Maurice Byrd (killed 20 + in St. Louis)
47. Maury Travis (17 and rising, St. Louis and possibly also Atlanta)
48. Hulon Mitchell, a.k.a. Yahweh Ben Yahweh (killed 20+ in Florida)
49. Lorenzo Fayne (killed 5 children in East St. Louis, IL)
50. Paul Durousseau, (killed 6, two of which were pregnant women, Jacksonville, FL; Georgia.)
51. Eddie Lee Mosley (killed 25 to 30 women, south Florida)
52. Henry Lee Jones (killed 4 in, south Florida; Bartlett, TN)
53. Richard “Babyface” Jameswhite (15 killed in, New York; Georgia.)
54. Donald E. Younge, Jr. (killed 4), East St. Louis, IL; Salt Lake City, UT.
55. Lorenzo J. Gilyard (killed 12 women in, Kansas City, MO)
56. Michael Vernon (Bronx, NY. Killed at least seven people - )
58. Chester Dewayne Turner (12 women killed in, Los Angeles
Posted by at 10:24 PM on May 28
No, the fact is that most blacks (and latinos) are in denial about their own evil behavior. They never take responsibility for their own actions. Everything is the White mans fault. I don’t buy it. When your neighborhoods are first built, there was no spray paint on the walls, no crack vials in the hallways, no urine or excrement in the buildings. THEY did that! They put the bullet holes everywhere. THEY have created an unsafe environment. Whites work hard and foot the bill with their tax dollars for these parasites to live. For them to take their welfare money and food stamps and use them to buy crack cocaine. The fact is You are not so much a product of your environment as your environment is a product of you. To say that their are no racial differences and that we are all equal is stupidity. You are a slave to left-wing propaganda. To be racially aware is the ONLY logical conclusion. Whatever “evil behavior” the Whites show towards blacks is well deserved.
Posted by Sean at 10:38 PM on May 28
The author of this piece is just another victim of the relentless brainwashing inflicted upon whites in their schools and through the media over the past 30 years-this guy is the “strange fruit” of cultural marxism. As the sexual deviant poet Allen Ginsburg said over 40 years ago-“We will steal your children” and the Left has. The only way to effectively combat the Left is to duplicate their tactics and co-opt them for the Right.
Posted by Boethius at 10:54 PM on May 28
Odd how a media hack urinalist would drag sociopathy into the (ethnically hostile) guilt-mongering; I was just reading yesterday about Antisocial Personality Disorder (typical PC semantics - it began as Moral Insanity, morphed into Psychopathy, then Sociopathy, then APD), AKA sociopathy, and how it is more prevalent among media hacks than among the general population. THAT figures.
Posted by Svigor at 10:56 PM on May 28
When did “liberal guilt” get such a bad reputation?
Since when has guilt become shameful?
Ron Rosenbaum
What more needs be said?
True and legitimate guilt for acts committed should invoke shame and contrition.
Liberal guilt got a bad reputation by using it to manipulate people.
I have said and done things in my life for which I feel a sense of guilt and shame and for which, when I had the opportunity, sought forgiveness.
I will never feel an iota of alleged collective guilt or shame for the sin of an individual or group.
Sorry, Mr. Rosenbaum, I don’t play that game. Lay your guilt trip on someone who you can manipulate with your claims of guilt and shame.
Posted by sbuffalonative at 11:15 PM on May 28
This article assumes many “liberal” things.
It assumes that inter-racial marriage is good and normal (Obama is the product of such a union), if not preferable to traditional marriage.
It assumes that blacks are fit to rule over whites. Yet can you name a major city in the country where black rule has brought prosperity?
It assumes that slavery was a wholly evil institution with no redeeming qualities.
And worst of all, it assumes collective racial guilt for white people. A majority of whites do not even have ancestors who owned slaves. Many whites came to these shores long after slavery was abolished.
If this author were more correct, wouldn’t it at least make better sense to select a Black whose ancestors were slaves, rather than one whose father is a modern African Black?
Posted by Thrasymachus at 11:22 PM on May 28
What a bunch of hogwash.
Why should I feel guilty about something I had no part in as well as failing to benefit from the action?
I am no psychology major, but if we are going to label people according to personality traits, the following diagnostic criteria regarding “antisocial personality disorder” may be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder:
Three or more of the following are required:(per the American Psychiatric Assn)
-Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest.
-Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
-Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead
-Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults
-Reckless disregard for safety of self or others
-Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations
-Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.
Sure sounds familiar to me- these traits could be applied to many blacks I have encountered in my lifetime.
Posted by Aunt Bea at 11:26 PM on May 28
“it requires a kind of strength, not weakness, to face the ugly truths of history and to react to them in an honest way.”
A strength? Then just what does it take to face the ugly truth in an honest way in the present? I agree with the poster who said Ron Rosenbaum doesn’t believe anything he’s saying. I wouldn’t call it a hoax. I’d attribute it to cynicism. The kind that comes from a lifetime of seeing healthy ‘liberal guilt’ in action. What other kind has there been since the 60’s?
Posted by at 11:51 PM on May 28
“Actually, I think it requires a kind of strength, not weakness, to face the ugly truths of history and to react to them in an honest way.”
This sentence speaks to the core of Liberal Pathology.
Correctly defining words like “Guilt” and “Shame” and then stubbornly, arrogantly, applying it to an entire Race, no matter how poor, or how detached from those involved with Slavery, and saying that their use of the word is absolute.
In short, he defines the word and then misapplies it.
And Race? Again? No “Guilt” or “Shame” about Family, at all. None. In fact, no discussion. No, instead, they bury the real guilt they should feel about Family in the abstract guilt over Race, and then hold on for dear life while they drive it down our throats in a million ways, non-stop, until we all cry “uncle.” But not one word about what this country has done to the first teaching and learning Institution we ALL pass through as a part of a life long socialization process. You’d think he’d be interested in it as another way to assign more guilt and shame. But he doesn’t, for a reason. If he did his whole argument would begin to unravel. And these guys have the gall to call themselves “Progressive”?
And to make a connection with Family, where do you think these people learned to talk to the entire world like a Shaming Parent? Or, if they pity you and want to “help” they talk to you like a Fawning Parent dedicated to spoiling you By Any Means Necessary.
This is a sick article by a person obsessed with guilt and shame. But for all of their talk about these words they fail to impress. In fact, just the opposite. Their obnoxious moral sanctimony and irritating aggressiveness add up to a barely veiled threat of “agree or else.” I’m so sick and tired of it.
It’s pretty clear that this person is himself shameless and that his shamelessness is so deeply internalized that it’s irreversible. I don’t know if there’s any one out there aside from me who read this and felt that horrible pit one feels when they are in the presence of a fanatic obsessed with their subject and incapable of seeing things from any other way, WHILE preaching tolerance, openness. Oh, and by the way, did you also notice that in spite of his tone of moral superiority he did not mention the word “forgiveness” once? Personally, I don’t need to be forgiven because I’m not guilty. But you’d think a guy who mentions the word “guilt” about 40 times in a short article ought to mention “forgiveness” especially since he’s supporting Obama on the premise that he’s going to “heal” the country.
Posted by Scott Landers at 12:03 AM on May 29
KonfederateKarl: “But, apparently this Obama fanatic has trouble understanding any resentment over the undoubtedly more numerous murders, rapes, and miscellaneous violent crimes vengefully perpetrated by blacks against whites just in the half-century since the civil rights movement empowered them”
I think the point that the writer was trying to make, is that in the 400 (sic) years of murders and rapes he says that blacks endured in America, the perpetrators did not receive any punishment. But blacks who rape and murder white people today, are often (though not always) punished, as can be seen by the very large number of blacks in prison. That (partly) seems to be the basis of much of the white guilt the author is writing about.
But there is also the fact that modern day rape of white women does not receive much attention in the media (which reflects liberal media bias). In contrast, the mulattos who were produced by white men during and after the slavery years, are seen by some liberals as walking evidence of white sin. The TV series, “Roots”, dramatized that unpleasant aspect of American history. The revelation that Strom Thurmond had a mulatta daughter, helped advance the liberal cause.
The blacks who harbor the greatest levels of anger, hatred, and bitterness against whites, are mulattos like Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, Julian Bond, Malcolm X, Angela Davis, and others. Being a higher IQ group, they are the leaders of the blacks, and it is they who keep the other blacks angry at white America. Since the 19th Century, novelists have written about the plight of the “tragic mulatto”. White readers of that literature have often had more empathy for the plight of mulattos, than for the darker blacks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragic_mulatto
As long as the mulattos retain their leadership positions over the blacks, they will use their platform to rail against whites, the race that created them, and which they feel has abandoned and excluded them. Their tactics will ensure that white guilt will continue to grow in future.
Posted by VonWagner at 12:07 AM on May 29
I really don’t feel guilty enough, Hmm maybe if the author could give me a Black person to abuse myself I might feel a pang of guilt since I’ve never had the opportunity to abuse anyone and asfar as I know my family has always been as poor as churchmice I’ll refrain from guilt for my fathers sins.
Posted by PAT at 12:13 AM on May 29
“The fact is that most Whites are in denial about their evil behavior toward Blacks (and now Latino’s).”
If this were true there would be nothing more humane than to keep them away from us. Do it for them.
Posted by at 12:44 AM on May 29
“…The fact is that most Whites are in denial about their evil behavior toward Blacks (and now Latino’s (sic))…”
Posted by Betty at 8:28 PM on May 28
Yes! Such evil behavior exhibited by those pesky Whites who gave up their very lives in the Civil War—did you know there were more than 500,000 of them? They were certainly evil, and Whites must be made to remember (and pay for) the devious intentions of their long-dead ancestors and what they did to blacks—even though Whites and only Whites put an end to slavery.
Oh, and don’t forget such evil White behavior as blacks and ‘Latino’s’ receiving race-based preferences in jobs, college slots and scholarships over more qualified and deserving Whites.
Pat Buchanan writes:
“….First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known…”
And:
“…Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than White Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.
Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against White folks—with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas—to advance black applicants over White applicants…”
Did you catch the part about White Americans spending trillions to up-lift blacks?
And yes, we mustn’t forget Whites’ evil behavior against ‘Latino’s’—allowing them to over-run a White-created, White-controlled country, letting them on the Affirmative Action band wagon, paying their medical bills, offering free education and citizenship for their American-born children, allowing them to become another ‘protected’ class with…job preferences, special race-based scholarships for college and other things not allowed for Whites.
Yes, Whites certainly have the force of government behind them! A government that allows every single ethnic/racial group in the US to form race-based advocacy groups to promote the interests (and extort money from White taxpayers) of only their group.
And aren’t Whites allowed to spew invective at non-Whites with impunity—as non-Whites are allowed toward Whites? It certainly didn’t harm the careers of Trent Lott, Michael Richards or Don Imus did it? And Al Sharpton was excoriated in the MSM for accusing Steve Pagones of rape in the Tawana Brawley case was he not? And there was an outpouring of apology from accusing blacks on the front pages of every major paper in the Duke non-rape case was there not?
With that said (or written) could you please give us specific examples of ‘evil White behavior toward blacks and ‘Latino’s’?
I strongly suggest you read Pat Buchanan’s article— and feel free to rebut anything he writes.
http://www.vdare.com/buchanan/080320_obama.htm
Remember: We don’t take kindly to ad hominem arguments here and being called ‘racist’ is tiresome to say the least. You wrote: “The fact is that most Whites are in denial..”
How about giving us a few facts to prove your point?
Bon
Posted by BonBon at 12:48 AM on May 29
Cassiodourus:
You can’t point all the isolated incidents you desire, the facts are what they are, America has been a rotten nation in regards to its treatment of Blacks.
As someone who grew up in Chicago in the mid to late 1960s, I can tell you firsthand how nasty and bigoted Whites were. I was almost killed as I was marching through Cicero with thousands of other people including Dr. Martin Luther King in the summer of 1966 as people shot at us, burned our cars, etc… There was even a group of young White males one with a baseball bat yelling “we want King!” So don’t tell me anything about Black violence. For every act of Black violence I can give you 20 examples of White violence!
Posted by Betty at 12:49 AM on May 29
GUILT IS NOT GOOD. GUILT IS USELESS. U-S-E-L-E-S-S!
This is a central tenet of advanced spirituality, on every plane, from the most philosophical, to the most practical.
Here’s why: guilt is there as a rather primal, low-level brake against antisocial behavior. It may be a worthwhile emotion for those primitive enough to need it. But for anyone with advanced morality (they understand the escence of suffering, and therefore have empathy and a sense of fairness), guilt is dead weight. When someone with a high degree of personal integrity does something wrong, they can sort it out, and remind themselves of the consequences of bad (immoral) behavior. They understand that we all suffer, and that to bring harm to another needlessly-is to be avoided. The advanced human realizes he is fallable, but knows they are yet good. They mostly act in good ways, and do not needlessly flog themselves over the past, over shortcomings, or, especialy, over things that they did not do, which were unintended, or which were not their fault.
Any such sophisticated, evolved human knows guilt is like superstion. They kick it out of their minds, and get on with the present, they get on with life. They know that no ammount of hand-wringing or neurosis can right a past wrong. Instead of entertaining guilt-as people entertain needless neuroses or ridiculous, time-wasting daydreams- the spiritually aware THINK, and ACT.
This article-which could easily be more journalistic pablum meant to fill a page, help sell ad space, and raise the ire of the readers- is, if SERIOUS, a prime example of the difference between the indoctrinated, the dark backward, the superstitious, the weak of spirtt-and the aware. People crouching in perpetual fear and neurosis, cling to guilt. They believe, in the dark corners of their minds-in a subconscious, non-rational, unexamined construct-that guilt will save them, keep them bound for heaven (even if they’re atheists), or protect them from harm.
Letting go of guilt-which true spiritual seekers do-means the seeker of truth has to take responsibility for themselves.
And that’s simply not a task for a sychophant, a follower, a mind-servant, or an indoctrinator. Sadly, we are surrounded and outnumbered by these types. But we always were.
Posted by at 2:41 AM on May 29
BonBon:
There are Whites who benefit from pell grants, student loans and other forms of government assistance as well.
Posted by William at 3:10 AM on May 29
Guilt for things that happened centuries ago is stupid and counter productive.
This kind of fuzzy thinking on race is driving many progressives to read AMREN although we do not agree with its rancorous tone, nor the often ill–informed beliefs that come with the package, including such silliness as anti–environmentalism and the lack of a critique of the US corporate oligarchy that actually owns America (handy dandy hint: they are not black!!).
For example: The MSM is not “liberal” or “left,” but corporate owned, and if it is pro immigration, than we should be asking ourselves why the richest americans want it so.
Naivete about our corporate masters or the madness of the pharma firms, who are drugging the US for profit, are not in any way corollaries of skepticism re race equality.
Progressive WANT to believe in equality.
That is not really “guilt,” but mistaken idealism, and a realization that a republic cannot be based on the serfdom of a low–paid and permenantly impoverished caste.
The programs designed to lift up blacks have largely failed, and some were ill conceived, but on the whole it was a noble effort.
Much of the agenda of AMREN readers is reminiscent of the black underclass you despise: the anti semitism, the homophobia, the provincialism, the ties to extremists, the refusal to address the deterioration of WHITE genetic stocks.
I am a white progressive intellectual in favor of eugenics and “race realism,” and I’m still waiting for an apropriate forum for my ideas.
Here is my credo:
I would save a black child with an IQ of 140 before a white child with an IQ of 80. If that makes me a race raitor, then fine.
Posted by elitist at 4:31 AM on May 29
The only thing that distinguishes “white” America and Anglo-Saxons in general in terms of our historical treatment of blacks is that we were the group that ENDED the slave trade, and slavery, and “Jim Crow’, and so on.
Enslavement of conquered tribes, racial strife, and the oppression of subgroups was simply the way of the ENTIRE WORLD, until white male Christians stepped up and brought about an entirely new, radical paradigm.
I don’t feel guilty, I feel owed. I was taught all my life growing up in the Marxist public schools that white males were/are the bad guys of history, but since discovering AmRen and David Horowitz and other scholarly sources, I know the opposite is true.
Our forbears laid down their lives by the hundreds of thousands to give American blacks the good life(compared to their cousins who remain today in sub-Saharan hell-holes), and I, for one, want reparations! I’m sure I’m related somehow to at least ONE dead white male Yankee soldier.
Cassius Clay(AKA Mohammed Ali), when asked by a reporter, “Champ, how did you like Africa?” upon returning from his title fight on that continent, is quoted as saying:
“Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat!”
Posted by at 4:50 AM on May 29
Given the condition that African slaves existed in at the time they were brought to this continent, it would not have been possible for them to work and exist side by side with White Europeans as equals. The only way the two groups could function at the time was in the relationship of master and slave.
The long term problem with the situation is that gradually the slave will adopt the culture of masters and will slowly begin to earn his right to more and more equality until eventually the lines between the two classes will dissapear and the two groups will start to blend. Inevitably this blending will not favor the formerly superior group. This is the real problem with slavery, it’s long term detrimental effects not on the slave class but on the master class. The slave will eventually drag down and replace his master. Just give him enough time.
Posted by Mick at 5:43 AM on May 29
Personally I don’t feel any guilt about slavery, I had absolutely nothing to do with it, blacks were not sold into slavery because they were black, but because they were available. I personally think the guilt should be from liberals whom have promoted and turned loose on society this plague we are suffering, our streets of America are so overrun with these criminal miscreants.
Posted by abc at 6:25 AM on May 29
“You can’t point all the isolated incidents you desire, the facts are what they are, America has been a rotten nation in regards to its treatment of Blacks”
You’re the one pointing to “isolated incidents.” Moreover, assuming for the sake of argument that you are not lying, you have to go back over 40 years to find something relevant. In present-day America black-on-white violence occurs at a rate many, many times the reverse.
I am a native of Chicago, and I’m afraid I know all too well what you blacks have turned the entire area into. Chicago, of all places, is an example of anti-black violence? Please.
“For every act of Black violence I can give you 20 examples of White violence!”
This is a mathematical impossibility.
Posted by Cassiodorus at 7:04 AM on May 29
To Betty:
Between about 1860 and 1970, about 4,700 people were lynched in the US. Of those about 3,500 were black. Although some of these lynchings may have been of innocent men, the majority were against black men who were caught committing violent crimes.
That works out to about 32 black men lynched each hear for committing violent crimes over a 110 year period.
Take a careful look at the murder rates from the Department of Justice showing the murder rates of black on black and black on white:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm
It’s interesting to me that you talk about how nasty and bigoted white people were during the civil rights movement and how you were almost killed. The facts are that no matter how nasty and bigoted you found white people to be, they weren’t killing you and blacks by the thousands every year. Your personal ideas about hate and bigotry by whites are a construction of your own ideological-driven thinking process. The facts are blacks are the ones who are violent, dangerous, and killing a disproportion number of their own people and white people.
Posted by sbuffalonative at 7:49 AM on May 29
I’ve said this before. As someone who never owned slaves, I don’t feel any obligation toward someone who never was a slave.
Even if I did believe in ancestral guilt, which I don’t, fewer than 10% of Southern Whites were slave holders. The majority of whites today are either descended from non slave holders or from Ellis Island immigrants. In addition, a bloody Civil War was fought, in part, over the issue of slavery. Six hundred and eighteen thousand soldiers died in the civil war of which the overwhelming majority was white. Trillions of tax dollars have been spent by the government to improve the lives of blacks. In addition, affirmative action quotas favor blacks in employment and university admissions. Blacks live so well in America that I suspect that over fifty percent of Africans and Black Caribbean’s would love to immigrate to the United States. No, diversity liberals keep your sick guilt for yourselves—I don’t have any.
Posted by Sardonicus at 8:06 AM on May 29
“Since when has guilt become shameful?
My answer to that would be, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent…”
“For every act of Black violence, I can give you 20 examples of White violence!”-Betty
Okay Bettster, fair enough. According to the post at 10:24 p.m. You owe us 1,160 examples of White violence.
Posted by Tim Mc Hugh at 8:46 AM on May 29
Since when has guilt become shameful?
When it is based upon propanda and a lack of self-respect and pride.
Posted by NoObamaNation at 8:53 AM on May 29
“America has been a rotten nation in regards to its treatment of Blacks.”
Compared to whom or what? Africa’s treatment of Blacks? Blacks treatment of Blacks? Blacks treament of Whites?
“As someone who grew up in Chicago in the mid to late 1960s, I can tell you firsthand how nasty and bigoted Whites were.”
So? As soneone who grew up in Wash DC during the 60’s I can tell you first hand how nasty & bigoted Blacks were/are.
Betty is suggesting *she* is altruistic and anyone else who doesn’t buy what she is selling is not. In fact you are evil and need to be silenced and put away. The poster child for this article.
Posted by CEP at 8:57 AM on May 29
“So don’t tell me anything about Black violence. For every act of Black violence I can give you 20 examples of White violence!”
Couldn’t pass that stupid math class, huh?
Actually, on average, for every 1 act of white violence there are over 7 acts of black violence.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm
Could it be that what you see as white “bigotry” is really a nervous hostility to endemic black criminality?
Posted by NoObamaNation at 8:57 AM on May 29
Brahmin to Untouchable: “You are guilty of sins in a past life; that is why you are now an untouchable and you must defer to me.”
Priest to Peasant: “You are guilty of sins; that is why you must come to us for absolution.”
Psychoanalyst to Patient: “You should feel quite guilty—you want to have sex with your mother. That is the source of all your problems. You need to sign up for my 20-year plan of analysis.”
Liberal to Decent Folk: “Of course you are guilty. Look at what your ancestors did. Just do as we say and everything will turn out all right.”
Posted by at 9:15 AM on May 29
“Guilt is good, people! The only people who don’t suffer guilt are sociopaths and serial killers…”
Well, I’m not a sociopath or a serial killer and I feel absolutely NO guilt! Rather than feeling guilt, I feel tremendous anger for what’s being done to the founding peoples of this once-stable and prosperous country!
I read an excellent article just yesterday about “white guilt” by Devvy Kid, and how it’s being used to destroy our freedoms in America…
White America Stand Up!
Posted by Jackers at 9:22 AM on May 29
I am of Scotch-Irish descent my ancestors held no slaves and took no part in the slave trade. In fact they were “blue bellies” who fought “grey backs” The only guilt I have is over the slaughter of white males to free a debased race of malcontents. Who have become a drain on my nation. The Obama campaign is about playing the race card to hide his Marxist beliefs. When ever the Senator speaks before different groups of people he tells them what they like to hear. In an effort to hide his real left wing agenda. And Mr Rosenbaum is a true Marxist who uses the race card. In fact Obama is an “Utopian Socialist” and a white hater. Be very aware.
Posted by Burr Hamilton at 9:31 AM on May 29
“in the summer of 1966 as people shot at us, burned our cars, etc… “
People shooting at you from high rises with high powered rifles (hunting rifles), burning cars, etc… From this account, surely you must have been a national guardsman called out to prevent ‘black on black’ violence during a riot in 1966, or 56. Oh - the number of ‘blacks’ who were killed during those… Always greater than the number of whites of course. Almost like it was Katrina coverage. That’s almost funny.
Posted by at 9:51 AM on May 29
I feel guilty alright. Guilty about what I have done to other whites in trying to help these blacks to become something. Not just something, anything useful at all. Free rent, Free food, extra special help and consideration in schools and the workplace. But alas none of it has worked. Most are still what they have always been. Slackers, liars and whiners. All at the expense of those who tried to raise them up. So YES I feel GUILTY and I appologize to other hard working whites I have drawn into this bottomless pit.
Posted by Poco at 9:51 AM on May 29
If ‘BETTY’ can only cite as near back as the 1960s, then it really goes to prove that Betty is some leftover from that broken down era.
When this generation of lefties from the sixties is gone, real race relations will once again advance in this country. Tradition must be re-instated in this country not only to the detriment of the founding majority, but also to those who would emulate the behavior to their own success.
Posted by Mr Optional Name at 10:20 AM on May 29
“Here is my credo:
I would save a black child with an IQ of 140 before a white child with an IQ of 80. If that makes me a race raitor, then fine.”
Elitist, you don’t like the tone or the ideas..then split. We don’t need you. You’re the problem. There is no time to think. only act. Get out of here with your self proclaimed noble ideas. I would rather save a white kid with an IQ of 80 than a black kid with an IQ of 140..because the white kid is my genes.
Posted by at 10:29 AM on May 29
“Shouldn’t conservatives feel guilty about slavery and racism and the consequences thereof, or must they disdain such feelings, however moral, because they are associated with liberals?”
Well, umm, no.
For one thing, theologically speaking, you cannot (and should not) feel guilt over something that YOU PERSONALLY HAVE NOT DONE.
But, yes, I have come to my conclusions on race, slavery, and all the rest (including the hardest revisionism- that of seeing Lincoln as a ‘good man’) by reading HISTORY. Instead of just accepting the fodder given to me by the Public Indoctri—-I mean, Schools, I began to read Otto Scott, Rushdoony, Augustine, Chrysostom, Duke, Butz, Bork, Hall, Stauffer, Dilling, Nilus… in short, ANYONE who had a POV not my own, and I came to see that a historical awareness (so NOT desired in this day and age)coupled with a biblical faith, like the Founding Fathers all expressed as necessary, is the ONLY guarantee that false Guilt and social engineering not be foisted on a stupified populace, for devious ends.
Also, as the author is not a Christian, (he said it himself) he cannot take the cure for guilt- the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. Liberals and anti-christs are thus steeped in guilt, with no hope for absolution. A psychosis-inducing recipe for derangement, as the recent column stated…..
Posted by Fr. John at 10:35 AM on May 29
“Elitist” - you are a Race Traitor. And good luck on finding that Black child, with an IQ of 140. Why don’t you try searching in Newark, NJ, or Detroit? All by yourself, unarmed? Go ahead. Let’s see how smart you really are.
Posted by PearlGirl at 10:52 AM on May 29
..”So don’t tell me anything about Black violence. For every act of Black violence I can give you 20 examples of White violence!”-Betty
Betty, you are the one pointing out personal incidents that happened in the 60’s. Posters here have quoted the USA Justice Dept figures. Do you know about the 37,000 black-on-white rapes in 2005 while the white-on-black figure was zero. That’s right zero. Your experience pales into insignificance compared to this yearly holocaust by blacks on whites. And it is happening now.
And please don’t reply in the standard black illogical manner as blacks always do, i.e., ‘whites commit murder/rapes/crimes too.
And for your information blacks do not, I repeat, do not, have a monopoly on suffering. Slavery has been around on this planet as long as human beings have. It took the efforts of the White Christian West & the deaths of many of our race to halt the slave trade. Unfortunately it is still around today in black African countries like Mauritania, Mali & Sudan as blacks have always been slavery’s greatest practitioners along with the Muslims. But then don’t let’s talk about that, let’s just blame evil whitey & keep the whole hate-whitey gravy train rolling along.
Posted by dr dees brainwashing elixir at 10:58 AM on May 29
I have no guilt, none, although I have a disdain for idiocy and fantasy thinkers.
Not one city, state or country run or controlled by blacks is prosperous. Not one. So, why should I want to contribute to a morass of inadequacy by voting for this black for president? This man can get no historical fact correct, he is a dweeb and a shallow thinker, he deserves no credit or endorsement from people who wish to maintain a free and prosperous country.
This is the wrong man, for the wrong reasons, avoid your “phony guilt” and say NO.
Posted by jdavis at 11:03 AM on May 29
Black Serial/Mass/Spree Killer List:
Posted by at 10:24 PM on May 28
You forgot about the Carr brother who were responsible for the Wichita horror.
Posted by at 11:25 AM on May 29
All in all I thought the article was stupid. But there is an issue here. The essential point is: The fact that I might be guilty of all kinds of stuff (nothing huge, of course…) does not negate my right to survive. My admitting that I’ve done wrong (or that “my people” have done wrong) is one thing — letting bozos like the author of the above article try to evoke huge feelings of guilt in order to manipulate me is something else entirely. I went into some related issues in an essay I wrote a few years ago: Well-Tempered Guilt.
Posted by larry k at 11:45 AM on May 29
I loved this story and ended up blogging on it.
“There’s a couple things wrong here. First of all, Rosenbam feels guilty for slavery as an American. Does he feel guilty as a Jew for his people’s overrepresentation in the communist government that ruled Russia? Does he feel the need to “make it up” to Slavs, the way he does for blacks? Marx himself was a Jew and I wonder if he’ll take responsibility for him the way he wants gentiles to take responsibility for their own ancestors.
Secondly, blacks commit murder, rape and robbery against whites at a very high rate. I doubt Rosenbam thinks that a decent, law abiding black should feel personal guilt about this. Neither do I. But why not? If whites are responsible for the actions of their great great grandparents, then blacks are certainly guilty for what their racial kin does today. “
http://thenewfaith.org/2008/05/25/collective-guilt-only-for-whites/
Posted by Dmytro Kornilov at 11:56 AM on May 29
“As a Jew, I think I have a right to be angry, still, about the Holocaust, even though it happened before I was born.”
As a White Christian, I think I have a right to be angry, still, about the Soviet Holocaust (Purge), even though it happened before I was born.
Posted by Sensitivity Trainer at 12:15 PM on May 29
There’s nothing wrong with voting for Obama out of white guilt.
On the contrary, there is a plenty.
However, there is nothing wrong with not voting on him because he is (partially) black. Voting is an expression of trust, and it’s the most basic individual right to not trust to individuals based on their secondary characteristic, like appearance, way of talking, body language, curtural and religious background, etc.
Here is a link to an insightful commentary on this subject:
YOUR TRUST IS NOT SOMEONE’S BIRTHRIGHT
http://www.americanpatrol.com/GUESTCOLUMNS/DWYER/TrustBirthrt040928Dwyer.html
Posted by A Reader at 12:19 PM on May 29
Liberals believe in collectivism, and collective guilt and collective reparation are 2 forms of collectivism. How can anyone in his right mind argue that a person who has done nothing to damage anyone “owes” a person who has not been damaged by anyone?
Posted by at 12:24 PM on May 29
wow. this article jumps all over the board and makes a lot of generalized assumptions.
Basically, I really don’t think that anyone should feel guilty about slavery. It was definately a horrible thing, but so was the holocaust and I don’t feel guilty about that. I think that it was wrong, but I certainly could not have affected it since I was not born.
If your Great, Great, Grandfather robbed a ban and was never caught, would you feel “guilty” and serve his sentence for him?
I am sure some white people might be more inclined to vote for Barack because of race, but i really hope people aren’t just voting based on someone’s race. that’s plain dumb.
Posted by at 1:53 PM on May 29
Posted by elitist at 4:31 AM on May 29
Since you’re so elitist, you might want to do some remedial reading on regression toward the mean, and ponder its implications for your (faux) IQ fetishism.
Posted by Svigor at 4:28 PM on May 29
Obama
“the Obama camp want to make the up coming general election about racism in America.But the daily racist remarks from the Obama camp will energize the White American voter to totally reject this flawed and psychologically damaged man.The real psyche of Barak Obama,it is not about wanting to bring hope to American.Its not about the war in Iraq.It’s about a twisted and tormented mind that struggles with abandonment and rejection issues.Not fitting into the mainstream of America.Not feeling accepted.You do not go out on politicla stump and make suck racially charge statements like Obama done for the past severl month,and not have that be a corner stone in your agenda.It’s not about Martin Luther King’s dream to have every white child and black clild playing together,color blinded as to the origin of their parentage.It is about being accepted.Accepted into a community,a group,a culture,and a family.Its is years of rejecton that cannot be stymied into the sub conscious ot this man’s mind.I am convinced more now than ever,Barak was rejected and abondoned by his immediate family,accepted by a Madman,Rev Wright.He is going to take Rev Wright racism to the White House and re defing American on those terms.The goal will be to redistribute the wealth in this country utilizing socialistic programs.”
Posted by at 4:49 PM on May 29
I don’t believe you will find any blacks who are willing to trade life in America to return to Africa and live like an African. If I were black I would thank the Almighty every day of my life that my ancestors have been brought to America as slaves. Whites have nothing whatsoever to feel guilty about and if blacks can’t put American slavery behind then they are free to leave. They are the ones who should feel guilty over living parasitically off of whites…
Posted by at 5:17 PM on May 29
The charming and effervescent Comrade Betty notes:
“For every act of Black violence I can give you 20 examples of White violence!”
Well Comrade Betty, here is your chance to make good on your point. The anonymous poster of 10:24 PM on May 28, gave you a list of 58 black on white atrocities that ranged from the years 1976 to 2005. So please write down your 1,160 examples of the reverse and teach all us “racist” monsters how wrong we are.
However, please use well known cases that gained media attention only, none of your anecdotal 1966 Cicero escapades with “Saint” Martin please.
Thanks in advance Comrade Betty,
John PM!
Posted by John PM at 5:30 PM on May 29
“If this author were more correct, wouldn’t it at least make better sense to select a Black whose ancestors were slaves, rather than one whose father is a modern African Black?
Posted by Thrasymachus at 11:22 PM on May 28”
Indeed. In fact, while Obama’s white and black ancestors were not slaves in America, it is possible that they were slaveowners or slave sellers.
Posted by at 6:59 PM on May 29
Ayn Rand says it best: “The worst guilt is to accept an unearned guilt.”
Wow, this article defies all logic. I’m speechless.
According to the author’s logic we should also vote for Hillary. Don’t we all have guilt for the oppression of women in this country and the world? This kind of logic is very difficult to understand. It requires a higher level of intelligence that only Ron Rosenbaum possesses.
Should Obama vote for Hillary because his dad is a muslim and muslims circumcise women? He must have a lot of guilt for that.
Posted by Josh at 7:31 PM on May 29
There is some debate about white crime vs black crime here in this thread, so let me put it in simple terms.
If it’s 11 PM, and you had to walk the one-half mile on foot that you have to walk to get to the closest gas station convenience store in order to get some food or other supply you had to have for the morning, meaning that not getting it was not a choice, would you rather do it in a 100% white suburb, or a 100% black inner city?
Posted by Question Diversity at 9:04 PM on May 29
“I was almost killed as I was marching through Cicero with thousands of other people including Dr. Martin Luther King in the summer of 1966 as people shot at us, burned our cars, etc… There was even a group of young White males one with a baseball bat yelling “we want King!” So don’t tell me anything about Black violence. For every act of Black violence I can give you 20 examples of White violence!”
Posted by Betty at 12:49 AM on May 29
It sounds as if your analysis of racial incidents considers only what happened forty plus years ago, and only involves super-charged tempers during protests. And it also sounds like you have been a programmed left wing radical your entire life.
Anybody who believes that black on white violence is less numerous than white on black has to be in absolute denial to all known facts. Read the Color of Crime from this site, which can be cross referenced to the statistics from the US Dept. of Justice, and if you still hold your erroneous beliefs you either have poor reading comprehension or you’re so far into the Orwellian world of mind control you wouldn’t recognize the truth if it were staring you in the face.
Actually, just reading the news on the internet will tell any non-brainwashed person all he/she needs to know about anti-white racism without wading through statistics. Any research, however, is a useless effort to those who are too brainwashed to accept information objectively. Those of that type seem to be always saying, “I know what is true, so don’t confuse the issue with facts.”
Posted by Robert Kelly at 9:48 PM on May 29
“Here is my credo:
I would save a black child with an IQ of 140 before a white child with an IQ of 80. If that makes me a race raitor, then fine. “
Posted by elitist at 4:31 AM on May 29
==========
Gee “elitist”, you will certainly have a lot of time on your hands, since it will be difficult for you to find black children with IQ’s of 140. Good luck separating the wheat from the chaff. Your self flagellation is amazing.
Answer this for me: your car breaks down one night on a deserted highway. Would you rather find yourself in say, the Appalachians of West Virginia or downtown Detroit? Get back to me on that one ok, if you can pull yourself away from your Marxist indoctrination manuals.
Posted by Aunt Bea at 12:39 PM on May 30
Aunt Bea:
It would be difficult for him to find many White children with a 140 IQ.
Posted by Race Realist at 12:52 AM on May 31
So whites today should feel bad for things done before we were born? By the logic I think the Japanese today should feel bad for the fact their great grandfathers and grandfathers murdered 100,000s of Chinese in 1931 and for starting WWII. I think blacks today should ALL feel bad for selling themselves into slavery. I think the Muslims today should ALL feel bad for invading Europe and killing jews since the inception of their religion.
Being a non-white means never having to say you’re sorry.
Posted by at 11:21 AM on May 31
To Race Realist “Dear Aunt Bea-it would be difficult to find many white Children with a 140 IQ”- In reply, it would be no problem at all to find numerous white children with an IQ of 120, but extremely difficult to find similar numbers of black children with 120 IQ’s. Therein lies the problem-almost 1/3 of whites have a 120 or better IQ, while only 3% of blacks do. Blacks with IQ’s of 100 to 110( W. E. B. Dubois’s “talented 10%”) are thrust into positions of leadership by affirmative action that require an IQ of 120 or 130, with predictable results-watch news footage of a typical black big city mayor and ponder this fact.
Posted by Blowtorch Mason at 1:01 PM on May 31
“It would be difficult for him to find many White children with a 140 IQ.”
Posted by Race Realist at 12:52 AM on May 31
————————
“Elitist” used the comparison of 140 vs 80 IQ points as their benchmark, not I.
According to what I have read, only about 1% of the world’s population has an IQ of 140 or above. Depending on the IQ test, 140 is considered either extremely gifted or genius level.
Elitist’s point apparently was he or she would salvage an extremely gifted or genius black over a white anyday. My point is good luck finding the genius black to salvage. Check out a list of individuals considered “geniuses” and you will see that virtually all are “white”, i.e. European or European ancestry. Consider for example Stephen Hawking, Marilyn vos Savant, Leonarda da Vinci, Johann von Goethe, Wm Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, Alexander the Great, Madame Curie, Alexander Graham Bell, Albert Einstein, JS Bach, Wolfgang Mozart, etc. etc.
I can not think of any “genius” blacks, with the exception of George Washington Carver perhaps?
Posted by Aunt Bea at 3:28 PM on May 31
Aunt Bea:
Benjamin Banneker and Dr. Charles Drew would probably come close.
Posted by William at 11:13 PM on May 31
“Therein lies the problem-almost 1/3 of whites have a 120 or better IQ, while only 3% of blacks do.+
9% of Whites, 1% of blacks…
Posted by belle kerve at 11:25 PM on May 31
Mr. Optional Name:
It seems like you are wishing for a return to pre-segregation.
Dream on! Not going to happen!
Posted by Linda at 1:40 PM on June 1
If one could travel ten million years into the future they would discover that American blacks would still be crying about ancient slavery in the new world while denying black on black slavery ever existed in Africa before the whites came…
Posted by at 1:40 PM on June 2
jdavis :
As opposed to John McCain?
Posted by Tina at 4:21 PM on June 2
Blowtorch Mason: Average White IQ is 100. The standard deviation is 15. That means that one third of Whites have IQs more than 15 points distant from 100. Half of that 33 percent, one sixth of Whites, have IQs over 115. And 5 percent of Whites have IQs over 130.
Posted by Schoolteacher at 11:05 PM on June 2
“And 5 percent of Whites have IQs over 130.”
Actually, 2.28 percent.
I should get paid for this. I always double check numbers- seldom are they accurate.
Posted by belle kerve at 11:59 AM on June 3
“According to what I have read, only about 1% of the world’s population has an IQ of 140 or above. Depending on the IQ test, 140 is considered either extremely gifted or genius level.”
Assuming (guessing) world IQ of 87, 140 -87 = 53 divided by 15 equals 3.53 SDs, or one of five thousand.
Posted by belle kerve at 12:16 PM on June 3
“Guilt is good, people! The only people who don’t suffer guilt are sociopaths and serial killers. Guilt means you have a conscience.”
This is the so-called enlightened thinking that governs the West today. Feeling guilty about something you did not do is clear cut masochism: the tendency to invite and enjoy misery of any kind, especially in order to be pitied by others or admired for forbearance. It has nothing to do with having a conscience. Inviting, creating and perpetuating misery of any kind is the result of total detachment from the self and it is a very sophisticated form of barbarism. Simple psychology Mr. Rosenbaum
Posted by Lisette at 11:14 AM on June 4