Last weekend, mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton sent more than a few liberals into bully pulpits to play identity politics. Seriously, the bereaved had barely time to mourn before a host of scribes and talking heads were connecting the dots between a white “lone wolf” killer and the founding fathers. The implication’s scary: a white majority is betraying the very ideals that are America.
Connecting the dots is an interesting piece of sophistry that begins with the founding fathers embedding “white-informed” social and cultural constructs at the 1787 constitutional convention. Thereafter, a privileged majority used political power to its advantage to the detriment of non-whites. Now, fearful of losing their majority status, white supremacists are allegedly engaged in election fraud and ethnic cleansing.
Like all conspiracy theories, there’s a measure of truth. The founding fathers were all white, and Europeans took native-American land. White colonials enslaved Africans, and separate but equal was a sham. A bad story until bipartisan votes for the civil and voting rights acts of the mid-sixties. With calls for reparations, where’s the truth, justice and American way?
America is a white-informed civilization. This is no controversy, because what but their white European roots would inform the early settlers and founding fathers? In the 17th century, England was the leading edge of civilization, and it endowed America with cultural constructs that created the richest, most powerful, and most enlightened nation the world has ever known.
Anglo-American jurisprudence is white-informed, but Thurgood Marshall mastered it to advance civil rights. And, how many want an America with no Christianity, personal property rights, public capital markets, or the scientific method? Even if not perfectly satisfied, non-white immigrants are better off in America than in their countries of origin.
White privilege is much ado about nothing. It is the natural order of nations that racial identity informs the cultural constructs; so, US citizens speak English. Actually, other than requiring English and legal obedience, American assimilation is 100% laissez-faire, and mainstream US culture has been infused with many “good ideas” as it’s evolved. Show me a more culturally diverse nation (good luck trying).
Democracy has allowed the in-group majority to repress out-groups, but non-whites have still enjoyed more economic mobility in the US than elsewhere. In a competitive world, in-groups typically slow-walk progressive ideals into law, but this did not prevent affirmative action from providing black students with access to Harvard.
White supremacy is not pervasive. Mass shootings trigger over-reactions by the political class; and, after El Paso, Democrats linked the white-supremacist’s acts to the President. Maybe, but it’s far more likely El Paso and similar shootings are evidence of growing numbers of socially estranged males, who metamorphose from disaffected loners via the internet to violent jihadists. An even simpler explanation is that El Paso was a copy-cat crime.
Before El Paso, Patrick Crusius evolved from disaffected youth to reader of on-line racist blather to Mexican-killer. In Dayton, Connor Betts went on-line to spew anti-Trump hatred. In Pittsburgh, Robert Bowers screamed anti-Semitic taunts. In Orlando, Omar Mateen was ISIS-inspired and targeted gays. In Washington state, misogynist Gary Ridgway serial-killed 49 women.
Their commonality is hatred and violence – not xenophobia. Crusius’s sin was his alone, in spite of his pathetic “forgotten American” manifesto that blamed “automation and immigration” for his behavior. It is just as sinful for Democrats to suggest Crusius is anything like the family with a Trump sign in their yard. In fact, white supremacists (3,000 KKK members) are dwarfed by annual inter-racial marriages (380,000 in 2018). Go figure.
Identity politics is the problem. Candidate Trump sought “forgotten American” votes by directing their anger toward Democrats for NAFTA and illegal immigration. Congresswoman Waters (D-CA) urged constituents to “get up in their faces and let them know they are not welcome.” Blame both for undermining civility, but don’t blame them for “lone wolf” shootings.
It would help to remember how Gandhi and Dr. King brought about change: appealing to the white-informed ideals of equal opportunity and pluralism. In many ways, US history is the story of the majority’s steady embrace of cultural diversity and shared political power. In my mind, the growing numbers of successful non-white entrepreneurs suggest the arc of the moral universe still bends toward justice. Rather than fret, put on some Motown and pass the salsa.