{"id":8615,"date":"2013-07-22T14:37:29","date_gmt":"2013-07-22T14:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/07\/22\/on-race-progressives-are-stuck-in-the-past\/"},"modified":"2013-07-22T14:37:29","modified_gmt":"2013-07-22T14:37:29","slug":"on-race-progressives-are-stuck-in-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/07\/22\/on-race-progressives-are-stuck-in-the-past\/","title":{"rendered":"On Race, ‘Progressives’ Are Stuck in the Past"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is a bit of a paradox: so-called 'progressives,' i.e., leftists, who routinely accuse conservatives of wanting to 'turn back the clock,' are doing precisely that on the question of race relations.  They yearn for the bad old Jim Crow days of the 1950s and '60s when they had truth and right on their side and the conservatives of those days were either wrong or silent or simply uncaring.  Those great civil rights battles were fought and they were won, in no small measure due to the help of whites.   Necessary reforms were made.  But then things changed and the civil rights movement became a hustle to be exploited for fame and profit and power by the likes of the race-baiters Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.<\/span><\/p>\n

At this point I hand off to Shelby Steele<\/a>.  Excerpt:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The purpose of today's civil-rights establishment is not to seek justice, but to seek power for blacks in American life based on the presumption that they are still, in a thousand subtle ways, victimized by white racism. This idea of victimization is an example of what I call a "poetic truth." Like poetic license, it bends the actual truth in order to put forward a larger and more essential truth\u2014one that, of course, serves one's cause. Poetic truths succeed by casting themselves as perfectly obvious: "America is a racist nation"; "the immigration debate is driven by racism"; "Zimmerman racially <\/span>
stereotyped Trayvon." And we say, "Yes, of course," lest we seem to be racist. Poetic truths work by moral intimidation, not reason. <\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

In the Zimmerman\/Martin case the civil-rights establishment is fighting for the poetic truth that white animus toward blacks is still such that a black teenager\u2014Skittles and ice tea in hand\u2014can be shot dead simply for walking home. But actually this establishment is fighting to maintain its authority to wield poetic truth\u2014the authority to tell the larger society how it must think about blacks, how it must respond to them, what it owes them and, then, to brook no argument.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Two comments.  First, pace<\/em> Steele, what he is calling a "larger and more essential truth" is better described as a brazen lie. Second, the iced tea and Skittles that the 'child' Trayvon was carrying were presumably to be added to Robitussin to concoct a drug variously known as Purple Drank, Lean, and Sizzurp.  See here<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Trayvon,  with his hoodie up, grabs two items from the shelves of 7-11.  One is the  Skittles.  The other is Arizona Watermelon Fruit Juice Cocktail.  The  media avoid the name of the real drink — possibly because of the racial  implications of the word "watermelon," but possibly to avoid probing the real  reason for Trayon's trip.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trayvon,  in fact, had become a devotee of the druggy concoction known as "Lean," also  known in southern hip-hop culture as "Sizzurp" and "Purple Drank."  Lean  consists of three basic ingredients — codeine, a soft drink, and candy.   If his Facebook postings are to be believed, Trayvon had been using Lean since  at least June 2011.  <\/span><\/p>\n

On  June 27, 2011, Trayvon asks a friend online, "unow a connect for codien?"   He tells the friend that "robitussin nd soda" could make "some fire ass  lean."  He says, "I had it before" and that he wants "to make some more."   On the night of February 26, if Brandy had some Robitussin at home,  Trayvon had just bought the mixings for one "fire ass lean"  cocktail.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is a bit of a paradox: so-called 'progressives,' i.e., leftists, who routinely accuse conservatives of wanting to 'turn back the clock,' are doing precisely that on the question of race relations.  They yearn for the bad old Jim Crow days of the 1950s and '60s when they had truth and right on their side … Continue reading “On Race, ‘Progressives’ Are Stuck in the Past”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[163,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leftism-and-political-correctness","category-race"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}