{"id":4029,"date":"2017-01-20T09:47:06","date_gmt":"2017-01-20T08:47:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=4029"},"modified":"2017-07-29T13:28:18","modified_gmt":"2017-07-29T11:28:18","slug":"two-attitudes-to-race-relations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/4029\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Attitudes to Race Relations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Regular visitor Watcher left the following comment<\/a> under\u00a0my post<\/a> on the importance of individuals:<\/p>\n

There is an old (American, I believe) saying that reputedly applied to the difference between the South and the North as regards race. The Southern view was \u2018hate the race, love the individual\u2019 while the North was the opposite. wherein the race was loved but individuals despised.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have an American friend in New York who grew up in South Carolina. I was with him outside his house in Harlem when I was called<\/a> a “European n*gger” by a black guy riding past on a bike. Later on we had a discussion about race in America and he said much the same thing as Watcher does above.<\/p>\n

Down in South Carolina people certainly held racist attitudes, and you could hear these expressed verbally in people’s homes. They could also be seen in people’s behaviour, e.g. interracial dating was frowned upon and blacks weren’t invited into white homes for dinner. But these attitudes\u00a0rarely translated into words or actions against the coloured individuals with whom the white population would interact on a personal basis. A white storekeeper would happily serve a black customer and be as polite as he would towards anyone else, they would say “good morning” to one another, eat alongside each other in restaurants, and chat to each other at sports events. The prejudice remained of course, but maintain good relations and keeping the peace was seen as more important than expressing them to individuals.<\/p>\n

My friend said New York was altogether different, and that incident with me was the first time he’d heard racial abuse being shouted in the streets in America. The Deep South is held up to be a hotbed of racism and prejudice, but it is the cities in the supposedly enlightened coastal regions where individuals throw manners and etiquette in the bin and hurl abuse and threaten one another. This isn’t only confined to race either, far from it. Look at the abuse being\u00a0poured on\u00a0Trump supporters and others like Milo and Ben Shapiro for daring to hold different opinions. And then there’s this<\/a>, of course. If it comes to a choice between privately held prejudices in a polite society and different, approved prejudices in a society where abusing people in public is accepted and normal, I know which one I’d prefer.<\/p>\n

Staying on much the same subject, The ZMan has put up a good post<\/a>:<\/p>\n

There is not point at which one clearly passes from the state of sin to the state of virtue. Instead, virtue is the running from sin, which is always running after you like a monster in\u00a0a horror movie. It\u2019s why the Left today obsesses with\u00a0leaning forward and looking ahead to the future. Virtue is an active state, the act of running from the past, like a frightened animal trying to outrun the slowest of the herd.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re seeing this with anti-racism. The recent Martin Luther King holiday provided an opportunity for the members of the One True Faith to display their piety. When the holiday was created a generation ago, it was sufficient to say some nice things about the man and leave it at that. Most people simply ignored it entirely. Today, you have to come close to demanding the death of all white men or you risk being called a racist by the Cult. The day is filled with one anti-racist after another signalling their virtue.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

This is\u00a0where anti-racism is right now. You cannot be anti-racist enough. There is no limit so anyone can come along and be more anti-racist than the current most anti-racist guy. If one is not constantly racing to be even more pure, they risk being accused of heresy, which in the modern age means being a racist. It is why Trump is called a racist. It\u2019s not just a political taunt. The lunatics of the anti-racism movement see anyone not racing toward virtue as an enemy of their cause.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Go read the whole thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regular visitor Watcher left the following comment under\u00a0my post on the importance of individuals: There is an old (American, I believe) saying that reputedly applied to the difference between the South and the North as regards race. The Southern view … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20,44],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4029"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4029"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5228,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4029\/revisions\/5228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}