Be of Good Cheer

This is not a good time to be a race realist. The depressing news from the front recalls the early days of the War in the Pacific: Victories are scarce, and the woke enemy seems unstoppable, rolling from one triumph to the next. Nevertheless, today’s madness is not forever, and so let me suggest three glimmers of hope: (1) the realization that racial equality is unreachable is slowly gaining strength; (2) asymmetric, largely invisible resistance, is undermining racial totalitarianism; and (3) those pushing racial leveling are not as formidable as they appear.

Mounting failures and legitimacy

It might be useful to compare today’s equality crusade with collapse of the Evil Empire, an event that no expert predicted and that occurred almost overnight.

Central to the collapse of Soviet communism was its loss of legitimacy. The Bolsheviks honestly believed in the Marxist Utopia, and until WWII, many still believed, even though ever more eggs had to be broken to make the omelet. By the 1980s, however, the apparatchiks grasped that the Worker’s Paradise was an economic disaster sustainable only as a police state. Superficially, life continued, as party leaders lied about Five-Year Plan accomplishments and silenced dissidents. But, as failures mounted, faith in Marxism wilted and the Evil Empire imploded.

Counting from the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the quest to level racial disparities is now 56 years old (the Soviet Union was about 73 when it went extinct) and, despite trillions spent and countless regulations, progress has been unremarkable. By some measures — crime and family disorganization, for example — things have gone backwards. The gap in SAT scores remains huge. Black political control in cities such as Detroit has only made things worse. The optimism of the Great Society is gone. Remember when Head Start was guaranteed to work? Recent rioting and looting make this failure indisputable, and the recourse to such fuzzy explanations as “systematic racism” shows that no one any longer believes in the old elixir of fixing “root causes.”

Yet, like the Soviet Union in the 1950s and ’60s, the Mandarins of social engineering continue to push nostrums. The University of Wisconsin-Madison, for example, just announced a shopworn billion-dollar plan for more diversity and inclusion functionaries, more mandatory anti-bias training, and more efforts to recruit black faculty and help students of color feel welcome. Harvard Business School announced a $25 million initiative (plus money from donors) that will include training so faculty can better engage in sensitive discussions about race. This nonsense is now everywhere, like head lice at daycare.

Such schemes have never succeeded, though professors and administrators will soldier on if only to keep their jobs. There’s a Potemkin Village quality to this. Deans pressure academic departments to diversify and mouth all the clichés about diversity, but how many privately believe that African-Americans are up to par intellectually? Even woke professors recognize incompetence. As with fake Five-Year Plan successes and showpiece faux collective farms, the sole purpose of expanded ethnic studies departments becomes appeasement and self-delusion.

The private sector performs the same Kabuki act, and here too, nothing works as hoped. This is especially clear in Silicon Valley where initiative after initiative quickly fails. Jesse Jackson once forced Intel to spend $300 million to increase its workforce diversity, and Apple donated $40 million to HBCUs to jump-start technology programs. Google spent $175 million to boost black employment, plus $100 million for black-owned start-ups and lots, lots more. How much longer before executives realize that this is extortion? Where are the press conferences with tech executives bragging of their achievements?

We can’t probe peoples’ private thoughts, but do university presidents and corporate CEOs still trust in the possibility of racial transformation? After a half century of plain-to-see costly failures, nobody can be that impervious to reality.

This attempt at human alchemy could end quickly. The Supreme Court could ban affirmative action, stockholders/taxpayers might sue to stop hiring incompetents, and voters could pass initiatives banning race preferences. What if the word really got out that no white or Asian need apply? What if whites who suffered discrimination by the thousands sued and won class action settlements, or a financial crisis made diversity an unaffordable luxury? Or if disgruntled customers turned to competitors? Woke capitalism and higher education is not forever, and the odds of them continuing grow smaller as the costs of failure grow heavier. And who knows: Patronized blacks may tire of the charade and, with enough government and philanthropic funding, might all migrate to culturally comfortable HBCUs.

Asymmetric resistance

In asymmetric warfare, the weaker party uses tactics that defeat the enemy’s superior strength. The Taliban uses suicide bombings against Americans. In current racial conflict in which egalitarians enjoy overwhelming advantages via the mass media, government, and “respectable” public opinion, asymmetric resistance is typically personal and nearly invisible, but is relatively easy, cheap, and often effective. Alas, this strategy is seldom publicly acknowledged (that would diminish its effectiveness), and gives the impression that there is no successful resistance.

The most common asymmetric tactic is “voting with one’s feet,” a response facilitated by America’s enormous geographical variety and ease of relocating. Fleeing is usually quicker and cheaper than waging time-consuming, often doomed political battles against superior forces. Egalitarians have not yet found a way to prevent physical escape — thought they may try.

“White flight” was widespread during the 1950s and was driven by an influx of poor Southern blacks into northern cities such as Detroit, St. Louis, Washington DC, and Newark. Recent urban violence has again made it the favorite way for whites to deal with undesirable blacks. Many whites will pay extra for homes in virtually all-white community. Big lots, expensive houses, high security, home-owner board approval for ownership, fees for amenities like golf and extras will discourage even most rich blacks. And there won’t be a nearby McDonalds or public transportation. Needless to say, no one will admit that these are racial strategies.

Retail businesses have other defense mechanisms. Bars and restaurants adjust menus and prices to attract whites and discourage blacks. This can’t be acknowledged, but it works. Piping in baroque or country music and “white” Cracker Barrel-style décor can be effective. Supposedly, under Mayor Richard Daley, Chicago kept blacks away from beaches in white neighborhoods by not building free parking nearby. Businesses under affirmative action pressure can hire white or Asian contractors too small to attract government scrutiny.

With cost-cutting firms happy to have employees work remotely, no wonder residents of riot-afflicted cities are moving to Whitopias in “fly-over” country. For Californians, it’s a stampede. Thanks to the Internet and delivery services such as Amazon, life in Boise, Idaho, is hardly without urban amenities. Even hardcore New Yorkers can enjoy lox and bagels delivered by Goldbelly, and they can watch first-run films on Netflix. With a few weeks and a few thousand dollars in moving expenses, you can solve “intractable” problems such as miserable schools, dangerous litter-filled streets, feral druggies, and other “urban” woes.

Those pitching the advantages of overwhelmingly white cities are silent on race. Communication is by dog whistle. Public schools are first-rate and safe, leave the keys in the ignition, kids walk to school without supervision, people are friendly, and nobody worries about jogging after dark. Ditto for doing business in Idaho — few regulations, a skilled workforce, affordable housing for workers, good infrastructure, and an entrepreneurial spirit. No frivolous racial discrimination lawsuits or mandatory anti-bias training. This is a time machine back to the 1950s.

Finally, millions have taken security into their own hands. Gun sales are soaring, together with the use of private security agencies. Judging by TV ads, home security systems are selling well. Less noticeable but probably more common are the choices people make to avoid imposed diversity. You can live in buildings with 24-hour security, take Uber instead of public transportation, or rely on delivery services. These are all legal, reasonably priced, and still beyond the reach of social engineers. No wonder outward opposition to the diversity mania is so feeble; just flee and cover your tracks with hypocrisy.

Know thy enemy

Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) once wrote that it is human nature to pitch estimates of enemy strength too high. Realists feel overwhelmed, out-numbered, out-gunned, and with few allies. Not true.

Let’s start simple, with looting and rioting as a means of driving public policy. Yes, mayhem can push officials towards harebrained policies like defunding the police or encourage philanthropies to spend hundreds of millions to combat alleged systemic racism, but the street-violence strategy is very limited. Overcoming it is simple and, like crying wolf, it has a short shelf-life.

Electing law-and-order mayors, and changing district attorneys would quickly stop the rampaging. Mass media and academic enablers would be powerless against a crackdown. Eventually, even most progressive capitalists will embrace law and order rather than suffer the consequences of turning New York City into New Detroit. Soaring black-on-black deaths will also move opinion. Despairing race realists should take comfort in knowing that Mother Nature is on our side: an aversion to violent chaos is in our genes, and sooner or later, enough is enough.

Keep in mind, moreover, that this black-perpetrated street violence is headless, largely spontaneous, and without a coherent political agenda. Black Lives Matter is a collection of opportunist malcontents. Yes, there may be a few smart whites hiding behind the curtain, but this is not the Bolshevik Politburo that spent decades organizing and crafting revolutionary theory about the evils of capitalism.

Black violence is consumerist, and wanton destruction is less important than what is being destroyed. The unwashed have always destroyed property, but unlike BLM rioters, few mobs ever targeted high-end luxury retailers. When starving peasants plundered granaries or unemployed weavers wrecked mechanical looms, they sent a political message. But what’s the political message when all the Dior sportswear is gone and Nike stores are boarded up? Is government going to re-stock these stores in the name of social justice? Target was plundered for electronics, not groceries. Very few Americans sympathize with the brute materialism of looters.

The movement also suffers from Attention Deficit Disorder, along with the general problem of blacks trying to sustain bureaucracies. Aside from traditional interest groups such as the NAACP that enjoy white support, black organizations are built around a charismatic leader or two, attract a few passionate followers, make a media splash, and then disintegrate through corruption and infighting. They never achieve the political clout of labor unions or lobbying organizations such as AIPAC. Today’s pesky radical black groups won’t last.

What happened to the Black Panther Party, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Republic of New Afrika, League of Revolutionary Black Workers, Black Liberation Army, Black Revolutionary Assault Team, the George Jackson Brigade, MOVE, the New Black Panther Party, and the Black Guerilla Family? Black Lives Matter will certainly soon join this list as it loses it media appeal and fails to build a large dues-paying membership; it relies on fickle white patrons.

Finally, today’s racial egalitarian dogma is poorly thought out, a slap-dash concoction of platitudes and vitriol likely to alienate potential white supporters (and even many blacks). Will anybody read Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility 20 years from now? Unsold stacks of these intellectually shoddy rants will fill second-hand bookstores. This is a far cry from Marxism , which had at least a modicum of intellectual rigor and scholarship, albeit empirically wrong-headed. Terms such as “toxic whiteness,” “systematic racism,” “institutional racism,” “intersectionality,” and all the woke jargon invite confusion; they don’t solve real problems, And unlike successful religious movements, there is no alluring Utopian vision to keep the passion alive. Imagine the slogan, “Make America into Newark.”

Campaigns typically boil down to symbol-rich ephemera such as getting rid of Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima, or quixotic quests such as reparations. The sugar high of toppling Confederate monuments lasted about a month. Anything presuming to be serious, such as the 1619 Project that puts slavery at the center of America’s founding, is picked apart by reputable scholars. Much of the movement’s bombast comes from low-g athletes and entertainers. Even black academics offer little more than mumbo jumbo that accomplishes little beyond selling books to guilty whites.

Conclusions

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by events. It’s not good for your mental health when career felons are treated as heroes, the media go insane, and billions go to waste on “racial justice.”

The potential damage of woke madness is great and we need stern measures to stop it. Chicken Little is occasionally right: The sky can fall. Detroit was once the Paris of the Midwest. Decades may pass before colleges and universities fully recover from “detoxifying” whiteness and hiring incompetents. Ask any Russian geneticist about Trofim Lysenko if you want to know about how badly science can be corrupted by politics. There is nothing inevitable about our civilization.

But don’t lapse into a victimhood mentality; reality is not as bad as it may seem. Daily life for most Americans, even frustrated race realists, remains livable thanks to our capitalist economy and a still functioning political system. Looted business districts and Ivy League presidents who humiliate themselves in public are revolting, but this not the beginning of the end of white America. Occasional collective foolishness is a regular part of all societies and, at least for now, nobody is being forced to live in East St. Louis. The madness will eventually burn out, and for the foreseeable future, the woke enemy will only annoy, not create an Africa-like Third World nation. There is hope.