Horrified by a picture of observable reality with which he was hitherto unfamiliar, ESR asks: how can we keep the bigots from winning?
I have read very little in the last few decades that is as shocking to me as this: Essay by a teacher in a black high school. My first reaction was that I wanted to believe it was a bigot’s fabrication. I’d still like to believe that, but it was reposted
by a black man who claims it is representative of “dirty laundry”: bad
stuff [known among blacks] about black folk never to be said around
whites.My second reaction, afterwards, was: for those of us who insist that
people ought to be judged by the content of their characters rather than
the color of their skins, what emotionally compelling argument do we
have against anti-black racism that reading this doesn’t blow to
smithereens?But if this is really where they came from – if this is what they’re
right-end-of-the-bell-curve exceptions to, and that reality becomes
widely known or believed – rational argument won’t be enough. How can
we keep the bigots from winning?
That’s not the right
question. ESR is still making false assumptions in ignorance; he still
believes “all the rational arguments against racism are still sound”.
It is said that one must let reason be silent when experience gainsays
its conclusions, so the correct question for the genuinely rational
individual is: “what if those we called bigots were right all along?”
I
have to admit, all this shock and horror from politically correct
goodthinkers is more than a little amusing to me. I linked to a similar post back in 2007 and wrote about my own experiences with the cruelty of affirmative action in 2011. And, of course, I was called raciss and bigoted and so on, even though I have been entirely open about the fact that I am, by every political and genetic measure, a bona fide Person of Color.
And
as such, I can reassure ESR that the facts are simply the facts. Facts
can only be true or false, they cannot be purple, or racist, or
ruffled. They don’t change depending upon whether the individual
acknowledging them is white, black, or canine.