Is ‘Wuhan Virus’ Racist?

I'll grant you that it is if you grant me that leftism is a deadly virus and that leftists, 'liberals,' 'progressives,' and members of the Democrat Party in the USA knowingly and willingly carry and transmit it.

Do we have a deal?  But if 'Wuhan Virus' is racist, then then so are the following:

  • West Nile
  • Lyme (named after a town in Connecticut)
  • Spanish flu
  • German measles
  • Norovirus (named after Norwalk, Ohio)
  • Middle East Respiratory Syndrome
  • St. Louis encephalitis
  • Lassa fever (named after a town in Nigeria)
  • Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever
  • Ebola (named after a river in Africa)
  • Legionnaires' disease (named after the American Legion)

If the bulleted entries are not racist expressions, then neither is 'Wuhan Virus.'

Class dismissed. Above list found here.

The Wages of Frugality

Some of us from modest origins will end up with more money than we will ever need or be able to spend. The wages of our frugality will not be spent by us but passed on to benefit others. We credit our success to the old-time virtues.  We understand that poverty is more a lack of virtue than a lack of money.

But to suggest that blacks could profit from these old-school virtues will get us branded as 'racists.' Apparently, to the mind of  a leftist, a black who can defer gratification is like a black conservative, a 'traitor' to his race, as if race is a political construct. 

Such is the real racism of low expectations fueled by 'progressive' reality denial according to which race is a socio-political construct.

Is There Such a Thing as Racial Profiling?

A re-post from 5 December 2014

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One of the tactics of leftists is to manipulate and misuse language for their own purposes.  Thus they make up words and phrases and hijack existing ones. 'Islamophobe' is an example of the former, 'disenfranchise' an example of the latter.    'Racial profiling' is a second example of the former.  It is a meaningless phrase apart from its use as a semantic bludgeon.  Race is an element in a profile; it cannot be a profile.  A profile cannot consist of just one characteristic.  I can profile you, but it makes no sense racially to profile you.  Apparel is an element in a profile; it cannot be a profile.  I can profile you, but it makes no sense sartorially to profile you.

Let's think about this.

I profile you if I subsume you under a profile.  A profile is a list of several descriptors.  You fit the profile if you satisfy all or most of the descriptors.  Here is an example of a profile:

1. Race:  black
2. Age: 16-21 years
3. Sex: male
4. Apparel: wearing a hoodie, with the hood pulled up over the head
5. Demeanor: sullen, alienated
6. Behavior: walking aimlessly, trespassing, cutting across yards, looking into windows and garages, hostile and disrespectful when questioned; uses racial epithets such as 'creepy-assed cracker.'
7. Physical condition: robust, muscular
8. Location:  place where numerous burglaries and home invasions had occurred, the perpetrators being black
9. Resident status: not a resident.

Now suppose I spot someone who fits the above profile.  Would I have reason to be suspicious of him?  Of course.  As suspicious as if the fellow were of Italian extraction but fit the profile mutatis mutandis.  But that's not my point.  My point is that I have not racially profiled the individual; I have profiled him, with race being one element in the profile.

Blacks are more criminally prone than whites.*  But that fact means little by itself.  It becomes important only in conjunction with the other characteristics.  An 80-year-old black female is no threat to anyone.  But someone who fits all or most of the above descriptors is someone I am justified in being suspicious of.

There is no such thing as racial profiling.  The phrase is pure obfuscation manufactured by liberals to  forward their destructive agenda.  The leftist script requires that race be injected into everything.  Hence 'profiling' becomes 'racial profiling.'  If you are a conservative and you use the phrase, you are foolish, as foolish as if you were to use the phrase 'social justice.'  Social justice is not justice.  But that's a separate post. 

Addendum.  There is also the liberal-left tendency to drop qualifiers.  Thus 'male' in 'male chauvinism' is dropped, and 'chauvinism' comes to mean male chauvinism, which is precisely what it doesn't mean.    So one can expect the following to happen.  'Racial' in 'racial profiling' will be dropped, and 'profiling' will come to mean racial profiling, which, in reality, means nothing. 

___________________

* See here:

Any candid debate on race and criminality in this country would have to start with the fact that blacks commit an astoundingly disproportionate number of crimes. African-Americans constitute about 13% of the population, yet between 1976 and 2005 blacks committed more than half of all murders in the U.S. The black arrest rate for most offenses—including robbery, aggravated assault and property crimes—is typically two to three times their representation in the population. [. . .]

"High rates of black violence in the late twentieth century are a matter of historical fact, not bigoted imagination," wrote the late Harvard Law professor William Stuntz in "The Collapse of American Criminal Justice." "The trends reached their peak not in the land of Jim Crow but in the more civilized North, and not in the age of segregation but in the decades that saw the rise of civil rights for African Americans—and of African American control of city governments."

Some Questions about White Privilege

There is a lot of talk these days about white privilege.  The notion cries out for some squinty-eyed scrutiny.

1. White privilege is presumably a type of privilege.  What is a privilege?  This is the logically prior question. To know what white privilege is we must first know what privilege is.  Let's consider some definitions.

D1.  A privilege is a special  entitlement or immunity granted to a particular person or group of persons by the government or some other corporate entity such as a university or a church on a conditional basis.

Driving on public roads is a privilege by this definition.  It is not a right one has  just in virtue of being a human being or a citizen.  It is a privilege the state grants on condition that one satisfy and continue to satisfy certain requirements pertaining to age, eyesight, driving skill, etc.  Being a privilege, the license to drive can be revoked.  By contrast, the right to life and the right to free speech are neither conditional nor granted by the government.  They can't be revoked.  Please don't confuse a constitutionally protected right such as the right to free speech with a right granted by the government. 

Faculty members have various privileges, a franking privilege, a library privilege, along with such perquisites as an office, a carrel, secretarial help, access to an an exclusive dining facility, etc.  Immunities are also privileges, e.g., the immunity to prosecution granted  to a miscreant who agrees to inform on his cohorts.

Now if (D1) captures what we mean by 'privilege,' then it it is hard to see how there could be white privilege.    Are there certain special entitlements and immunities that all and only whites have in virtue of being white, entitlements and immunities granted on a conditional basis by the government and revocable by said government?  No.  But there is black privilege by (D1).  It is called affirmative action. 

So if we adopt (D1) we get the curious result that there is no white privilege, but there is black privilege!  Those who speak of white privilege as of something real and something to be aware of and opposed must therefore have a different definition of privilege in mind, perhaps the following:

D2. A privilege is any unearned benefit or advantage that only some people have in virtue of their identity.  It needn't be granted by any corporate entity, nor need it be conditional.  Aspects of identity that can afford privilege in this sense include race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, class, wealth, ability, or citizenship status.

White privilege cardPeople who speak of white privilege probably have something like (D2) in mind.  The idea is that there are certain unearned advantages that accrue to whites just in virtue of their race, advantages that do not accrue to members of other races.

One question arises right here.  What justifies the broadening of the term 'privilege' to cover any unearned benefit?  If the term is used strictly, there is no white privilege.  To speak of white privilege one has to engage in a semantic stretch.  What justifies this stretch?  Is it a legitimate stretch or a example of linguistic distortion?  And what is the agenda behind it? 

One thing to note about (D2) is that it leads to a proliferation of privileges. There will be as many privileges as there are unearned benefits possessed by some but not all.  For example, there will be the 'privilege' of being right-handed since this is a minor  advantage — better to be right-handed than either left-handed or ambisinistrous — and it is unearned and not possessed by everyone.  And the same goes for being ambidexterous.  I lack the  'privilege' of ambidexterity, being right-handed only,  and so I am disadvantaged relative to the ambidexterous.  But I am not as disadvantaged relative to the ambidexterous as the ambisinistrous.  They are the worst off when it comes to handedness.  Should they receive something like reparations for nature's niggardliness?

Now clearly all of us enjoy all sorts of unearned benefits. Tall men, of whatever race, have an unearned advantage over short men, as long as they are not too tall.  In the USA at least it is better to be 6'1" rather than 4'11".  (D2) therefore implies that there is a tallness privilege in some cultures.  Is this a problem?  Does justice demand that heights be equalized?  And who will appoint and equalize the Procrustean equalizers?  Or are the equalizers exempt from equalization?  If so, this would be an immunity, hence a  'privilege,' a leftist privilege.

Blacks born in the post-war USA have an unearned advantage over both whites and blacks born in some other parts of the world.  Blacks born into two-parent homes in the USA have an unearned advantage over blacks born into single-parent homes in the USA.  Blacks born without birth defects have an unearned advantage over blacks born with birth defects.  Many blacks born without birth defects have an unearned advantage over some whites born with birth defects.  And so on.

If there is an advantage to being white, is this an advantage enjoyed by all whites?  And if it is not shared by all whites, why should this advantage be called white privilege?  Do 'poor white trash' share in white privilege?  Wouldn't it be better to be born into a solid, middle-class two-parent black or Hispanic family than to be born into a 'poor white trash' family?  Do rednecks and Southerners generally share in white privilege?  It didn't seem to help Paula Deen very much.

What is the relation between white privilege and majority privilege?  I grant that, ceteris paribus, it is better to be white than black in the USA at the present time.  But how much of this advantage is due to whites' being a majority?  When Hispanics become a majority in California, say, will there be talk of Hispanic privilege?  Should Hispanics then start feeling guilty about their unearned advantage?

Here is an important question.  Am I not entitled to my unearned benefits despite the fact that I have done nothing to earn them?  My being tall is not my own doing, and I don't do much of anything besides staying alive to keep myself tall.  I don't work at it in the way I work at improving my mind and work at maintaining my physical and fiscal fitness. 

Suppose you are a black male born in the post-war USA into a middle-class, two-parent, loving home.  You have all sorts of unearned benefits.  Do you feel guilty because you have  unearned benefits that a lot of 'poor white trash' lack?  Should you feel guilty?  Change the example slightly: you were born in London and have the unearned benefit of a British accent.  You come to the States and are hired by CNN or FOX News, beating out white competitors, in large part because of that beautiful and charming accent.  Do you 'check' your privilege or feel guilty about it?  Does it bother you that a Southern accent is a definite disadvantage?

So those are some questions that come to mind when I think about white privilege.  I'll end with a bit of analysis of an interesting quotation from this article:

Those of us who are white and male in the U.S. were born with significantly more chips [with which] to play the poker game of life than were people of color or women. Although our white, male status is a biological reality, the unearned benefits that our race and gender identity provides us are a social construction, that is—they are special perks granted by a white patriarchal society.

The second sentence is gibberish.  Males are on average taller than females.  Being tall is an unearned benefit, but surely it is no social construction.  The very notion of social construction is dubious by itself.  What does the phrase mean? Care to define it?  It smacks of the fallacy of hypostatization.  There is this entity called 'society' that constructs things?  I am not saying the phrase 'social construction' cannot be given a coherent meaning; I'm just saying that I would like to know what that meaning is.  Define it or drop it. 

Perk? Isn't that what the coffee does — or used to do back in the day?  The word our 'professor' wants is 'perquisite.'  As I suggested above, perquisites are privileges.  So what the 'professor' is doing is conflating privileges with unearned benefits.  That conflation needs to be either justified or dropped. We are told that these 'perks' are granted by a white patriarchal society?  Smells like the fallacy of hypostatization again.  Where can I find the group of people who collectively decide to grant these special 'perks' to white people? 

I could go on, but this is enough 'shoveling' for one day.

Is ‘Again’ a Racist ‘Dog Whistle’?

We must never forget the contemptibly vile things that regressive 'progressives' and illiberal 'liberals' say about us. This is a repost from 25 May 2016.

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Some liberal-left idiot is arguing that 'again' in Donald Trump's 'Make America Great Again' is a racist 'dog whistle.'  The suggestion is that Trump wants to bring back slavery and Jim Crow.  This is yet another proof that there is nothing so vile and contemptible and fundamentally stupid that some liberal won't embrace it.  If you think I go too far when I refer to contemporary liberals as moral scum, it is incidents like this that are part of  my justification. 

Mark Steyn supplies some other 'dog whistles' for your delectation:

On MSNBC, Chris Matthews declared this week that Republicans use "Chicago" as a racist code word. Not to be outdone, his colleague Lawrence O'Donnell pronounced "golf" a racist code word. When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell observed that Obama was "working to earn a spot on the PGA tour," O'Donnell brilliantly perceived that subliminally associating Obama with golf is racist, because the word "golf" is subliminally associated with "Tiger Woods," and the word "Tiger" is not-so-subliminally associated with cocktail waitress Jamie Grubbs, nightclub hostess Rachel Uchitel, lingerie model Jamie Jungers, former porn star Holly Sampson, etc, etc. So by using the word "golf" you're sending a racist dog whistle that Obama is a sex addict who reverses over fire hydrants.

I must reiterate my principle of the Political Burden of Proof:

As contemporary 'liberals' become ever more extreme, they increasingly assume what I will call the political burden of proof.  The onus is now on them to defeat the presumption that they are so  morally and intellectually obtuse as not to be worth talking to.

Would a Cut in the Capital-Gains Tax be Racist?

But of course:

Most of us think of the capital-gains tax, if we think about it at all, as a policy that is neutral as regards questions of race or racism. But given that blacks are underrepresented among stockowners, Klein asked, would it be racist to support a capital-gains tax cut? “Yes,” Kendi answered, without hesitation.

I will leave the logical analysis to my readers.

First step: scrutinize 'underrepresented.' What does it mean? Is it perhaps ambiguous? Does it paper over an important distinction?

Second step: find other arguments of the same logical form and see if they have true premises and a false conclusion.

The purpose of such an exercise is to convince oneself that leftists have lost their minds. There is no point in trying to change their minds. They have vacated the plane of reason. 'Dialog' with them is pointless. They simply have to be defeated or 'quarantined.' Let us hope that their defeat or 'quarantine' can be achieved politically.  

We will have to think further about political quarantine.  That may sound ominous, but the contemporary hard Left, as represented in the USA by the Democrat Party, is a cesspool of political pathogens inimical to the health of the body politic.

Illegal Aliens and Black Reparations

Here is another problem for the ill-starred notion of black reparations. Should those who reside illegally in the U. S. pay them? Why not? Don't they benefit from the putative legacy of slavery like everyone else?  On the  other hand, if you think that only the  descendants of slave-holders should pay reparations, then we citizens who are are not descended from slave-holders are off the hook. And what about the blacks who are descended from blacks who held slaves? Do they get reparations too? And who is black anyway? Rachel Dolezal?  If race is just a social construct, can I re-identify as black and get in on the goodies? If I can identify as a girl and then compete in an all-female athletic event, why can't I identify as black?

There will never be black reparations for slavery. The idea is just too incoherent for implementation. And it perpetuates the victim mentality that keeps blacks on the bottom. Nor should there be reparations for slavery. See the following. Trigger warning! They are exercises in reasoned discourse.

David Horowitz on Black Reparations

On Black Reparations

Amy Wax Interviewed

Here is a taste:

Once again, you’d have to define racism. You’re basically saying any generalization about a group, whether true or false—and we know it doesn’t apply to everybody in the group, because that’s just a straw man—is racist. I mean, we could do “sexist,” right?

We could.

So, women, on average, are more agreeable than men. Women, on average, are less knowledgeable than men. They’re less intellectual than men. Now, I can actually back up all those statements with social-science research.

You can send me links for women are “less intellectual than men.” I’m happy to include that in the piece if you have a good link for that.

O.K., well, there’s a literature in Britain, a series of papers that were done, and I need to look them up, that show that women are less knowledgeable than men. They know less about every single subject, except fashion. There is a literature out of Vanderbilt University that looks at women of very high ability—so, controlling for ability—and, starting in adolescence, women are less interested in the single-minded pursuit of abstract intellectual goals than men. They want more balance in their life. They want more time with family, friends, and people. They’re less interested in working hard on abstract ideas. You can put together a database that shows that. The person who has the literature is a man named David Lubinski, and he shows that intelligence isn’t what’s driving it. It is interest, orientation, what people want to spend their time doing.

Now, is that sexist? We can argue all day about whether it is sexist. We can argue from morning till night. And it is sterile. It is pointless. Let’s talk about the actual findings and what implications they have for policy, for expectations.

[. . .]

Environmental Racism!

The other night we heard Elizabeth Warren speak of various forms of racism, including 'environmental racism.' Bear with me as I try to figure out what this might be.

An industrial polluter dumps chemicals into a river. Now rivers come in colors. Anything that has a color, however, has a race. After all, race = color. So rivers are of various races. Now the river in question that the capitalist dog sullies is a River of Color. The rapids portion of the river is of course white and therefore white supremacist; but that doesn't count since the portion of the river where the pollutants enter is brown. So what we have here is a River of Color being maltreated by a white supremacist capitalist dog.

Here, then, is a clear case of environmental racism.

Alles klar?

Addendum

Another important question is whether any river is an illegal alien. Could a river change its course in such a way as to violate the territorial sovereignty of the USA, say? The Rio Grande perhaps? Would such a river become an illegal alien river? Presumably it would. And given the leftist conflation of illegal aliens with Hispanics, would such a river be rightly deemed an Hispanic river eligible for certain perquisites and privileges such as 'free' health care? Polluted rivers need health care; to withhold such care from an Hispanic river would be racist!  We need to have a 'conversation' about this.

Will Middle America Go Gentle . . .

. . . into that good night? Patrick Buchanan:

Writes The New York Times‘ Charles Blow in a column that uses “racist” or “racism” more than 30 times: Americans who do not concede that Trump is a racist—are themselves racists: “Make no mistake. Denying racism or refusing to call it out is also racist.”

But what is racism?

Is it not a manifest dislike or hatred of people of color because of their color? Trump was not denouncing the ethnicity or race of Ilhan Omar in his rally speech. He was reciting and denouncing what Omar said, just as Nancy Pelosi was denouncing what Omar and the Squad were saying and doing when she mocked their posturing and green agenda.

Clearly Americans disagree on what racism is.

Buchanan's definition is on the right track except that he conflates race with skin color, which is but a superficial phenotypical indicator of race.  He also uses the silly phrase 'people of color.' But let that pass. He's a journalist; what do you expect?  Journalists, lemming-like, tend to repeat what they hear others saying.

The 'definition' of Omar and the Squad ought to be called a 'daffy-nition.'  You would have to be daft to accept it. To wit:

A racist is a person who criticizes anything any person of color says or does.

By this definition, Nancy Pelosi is a racist.  Now Madame Speaker is many things, few of them good; a racist, however, she is not.  If Pelosi is a racist, then we are all racists, and the word has been rendered useless.

Note also that the Squad definition implies that 'persons of color' can be racists. If Kamala Harris and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortz criticize each other's ideas, then both become racists, despite being 'persons of color'!

But this contradicts a key tenet of race-baiters, namely, that 'no person of color' can be racist. Such are the wages of stupidity.