Ta-Nehisi Coates and Occam's Rubber Room
◄►Bookmark◄❌►▲ ▼Toggle AllToC▲▼Add to LibraryRemove from Library • B From my new column in Taki’s Magazine:
Occam’s Rubber Room
by Steve Sailer
In the 14th century, the English philosopher William of Ockham introduced what has come to be known as Occam’s Razor for its usefulness in slicing through intellectual bloviations: Among competing theories that predict equally well, the simplest should be preferred.
About a decade ago, I coined the term Occam’s Butterknife to characterize the contemporary liberal insistence upon implausibly convoluted explanations.
But now that race man Ta-Nehisi Coates is back with a giant article in The Atlantic about “The Enduring Myth of Black Criminality,” I need a more all-encompassing term to describe this increasingly fashionable rejection of reality. Let’s try: Occam’s Rubber Room.
Read the whole thing there.
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I have a Occam-like simple solution to the very high level of black incarceration. Just adjust criminal penalties down by 80 or 90% when the victim is black.
Thanks for telling us something about Edward Mintz in your Taki’s Magazine piece.
Is there a place in Africa that has not been touched by whites at some point in history?
Mr. Coates should want to visit that place to prove his point.
Hopefully he will spend a while in that paradise with his family gathering evidence to share with the rest of us.
I also noted the break with his regular style. Rather than his typical attempts at lofty prose, instead it reads just like Gladwell and a million other writers:
10 anecdote to illustrate theme
20 quote academic expert to support theme
30 link each of the above to theme
40 a = a + 1
50 if a < 10 then goto 10
Today I visited a friend of mine who works at a tech company in Palo Alto called Curbside, which was launched in 2014. I didn’t see a single Negro employee there. Jesse Jackson would have a heart attack if he saw the lack of Sub Saharan Blackness there.
Steve, was this a deliberate reference to the book ‘The Slaughter of the Cities’?
From the article:
[It’s crucial for us to start trying to understand Africans because there are going to be so many of them.]
Other verbs than ”understand” could be inserted in its place in this sentence.
Hmmm… perhaps if Condom Kingdom in Minneapolis was called the Rubber Room instead, it might still be in business. It was run by an Indian, dot-variety.
Perhaps the Razor might be automated, as with Norelcos. We’d have Occam Sock’em Robots.
Too bad. “Curbside” sounds like the perfect name for an “inner city” firm. Does pitching pennies come in app form now?
There will not be two billion Africans in Africa. They can’t feed themselves as it is.
And Blacks do not commit crimes at eight times the White rate. Historically it’s long been 10 or 11 times the White rate. It could be even higher today. The White crime rate is exaggerated by counting a lot of Mexicans as White. Look at Texas Ten Most Wanted list, for an example. Or look at New Mexico, where every Hispanic is a White Hispanic. Or look at the FBI hate crimes tables. Hispanic is a victim category, but not a perpetrator category.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jeffrey_Ulmer/publication/254714673_Reassessing_Trends_in_Black_Violent_Crime_1980-2008_Sorting_out_the_Hispanic_Effect_in_UCR_Arrests_NCVS_Offenders_Estimates_and_U.S._Prisoner_Counts/links/004635335a6ce4e9c4000000.pdf
pp. 225-226 in partiular
Mr. Coates should want to visit that place to prove his point.
Hopefully he will spend a while in that paradise with his family gathering evidence to share with the rest of us.
Ethiopia. It is the only African country that has never been ruled by a colonial power. Look how well it turned out.
Ethiopians have much better organization ability than the rest of Africa.
From 1976-1991, Ethiopia was ruled by a Communist dictatorship backed by the USSR, which can be roughly equivalent to colonialism.
Liberia was never subject to a foreign power, but was funded by the US to send former slaves back to Africa. The native blacks generally have despised the "Americo-Liberians"
http://www.amren.com/features/2015/06/the-fortunes-of-africa/
Both 1969 releases… somewhat similar
There are a few African Americans breaking into SV. Tristan Walker of Walker & Company is one. Hamet Watt, a venture partner at Upfront Ventures, though based in LA now, is another.
Hundreds of thousands of blacks whose only fault was breaking the law are languishing in jail. It just shows how white male privilege has institutionalized racism against black bodies.
And Blacks do not commit crimes at eight times the White rate. Historically it's long been 10 or 11 times the White rate. It could be even higher today. The White crime rate is exaggerated by counting a lot of Mexicans as White. Look at Texas Ten Most Wanted list, for an example. Or look at New Mexico, where every Hispanic is a White Hispanic. Or look at the FBI hate crimes tables. Hispanic is a victim category, but not a perpetrator category.
An uninformed comment. There have only been two famines in Africa in the last 10 years (Somalia and Niger). Africa can feed itself, just not well.
Also a solid third of African counties are rich in at least one resource, which can be traded for food.
I don't know about the 4.5 billion by 2100 estimate, but I do think the 2 billion in the near future will happen without famines making any real dent.
The fastest growing economy (non-resources based) in Africa is Ethiopia. One of the largest non-resources companies in black Africa that is consistently profitable is Ethiopian Airlines, which is one of the three main airlines in sub-Sahara Africa.
Ethiopians have much better organization ability than the rest of Africa.
Not really. Ethiopia was briefly ruled by Italy under Mussolini. Prior to that they had held off the Italians for several decades.
From 1976-1991, Ethiopia was ruled by a Communist dictatorship backed by the USSR, which can be roughly equivalent to colonialism.
Liberia was never subject to a foreign power, but was funded by the US to send former slaves back to Africa. The native blacks generally have despised the “Americo-Liberians”
http://www.amren.com/features/2015/06/the-fortunes-of-africa/
I suppose if we said “Occam’s chocolate teapot” we’d be accused of a sneaky allusion to black bodies. Which would be false: it’s actually an allusion to the popular British dismissive expression “so-and-so is as useless as a chocolate teapot” which is a politer version of “so-and-so couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery”.
And Blacks do not commit crimes at eight times the White rate. Historically it's long been 10 or 11 times the White rate. It could be even higher today. The White crime rate is exaggerated by counting a lot of Mexicans as White. Look at Texas Ten Most Wanted list, for an example. Or look at New Mexico, where every Hispanic is a White Hispanic. Or look at the FBI hate crimes tables. Hispanic is a victim category, but not a perpetrator category.
For estimates on the basis of data, see:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jeffrey_Ulmer/publication/254714673_Reassessing_Trends_in_Black_Violent_Crime_1980-2008_Sorting_out_the_Hispanic_Effect_in_UCR_Arrests_NCVS_Offenders_Estimates_and_U.S._Prisoner_Counts/links/004635335a6ce4e9c4000000.pdf
pp. 225-226 in partiular
Instead of ‘black bodies’, this time we get prison as the ‘grey wastes’, a corny comic-book formulation.
Coates, when confronted with overwhelming evidence of massive cultural failure on the part of black bodies in America, has made it his profession to attempt to elaborately explain it away as being due to a sinister and all-encompassing system of white (bodies?) supremacy.
Although I suspect some part of this is to assist the political movement he favors, it’s also just an attempt to get at an itch he can’t seem to scratch. In a blog post years ago, he once wrote something to the effect that he knows that life and history has winners and losers and one of the most painful things for him was to understand that how blacks/Africans have largely been the losing end whenever they come up a different culture, whether it is colonialism in Africa or that of black Americans here. Who wants to identify with a team that always seems to be a few steps behind the rest of the pack?
It seems that having internalized that humiliation he is doing all he can to construct an alternate history that takes the onus of his people. As an aside, the lengths to which The Atlantic goes to buttress anything he puts forth by posting a barrage of opinion pieces that confirm the points made in the latest Coates piece sort of highlights the fact that his editors surely know what a weak case he has and hope that quantity will suffice instead of quality.
I don't know. Why are there so many Cubs fans, anyway?
And Blacks do not commit crimes at eight times the White rate. Historically it's long been 10 or 11 times the White rate. It could be even higher today. The White crime rate is exaggerated by counting a lot of Mexicans as White. Look at Texas Ten Most Wanted list, for an example. Or look at New Mexico, where every Hispanic is a White Hispanic. Or look at the FBI hate crimes tables. Hispanic is a victim category, but not a perpetrator category.
there are lot of white Hispanics.
fascist Italy occupied Ethiopia.
The media face of campus rape:
Tweets by HavenMonahan
The actual face of campus rape:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/jesse-leroy-matthew-indicted-for-murder-in-killing-of-va-tech-student/2015/09/15/fcf57a7c-5bf6-11e5-8e9e-dce8a2a2a679_story.html
There’s a simple solution to prison overcrowding:
Have a mandatory death penalty for murder — and a handful of other super-violent crimes — with a requirement that the penalty be carried out within a week or two following the conviction.
That policy would save a huge number of Black Lives (TM) in the long run, but somehow I doubt if Coates will agree to it.
Coates is simply taking hints from the Obama Administration’s policy toward race and crime. The whole point of Obama ceasing to assess annual crime statistics by race, is to at some point in time claim equity on the issue of racial crime. Coates, because he isn’t bright, is jumping the gun. Four years of no statistics is not enough time to plausibly claim a reverse of a fifty year trend. But after about fifteen years, that will probably be enough time. Poor, simple-minded Coates just couldn’t wait.
“Out-of-wedlock births were on the rise, and with them, welfare dependency, while the unemployment rate among black men remained high. ”
Coates misconstrues Moynihan’s report, which noted that out-of-wedlock births were rising at a time of falling black unemployment, hence the coinage “Moynihan’s scissors.” This fact flew in the face of the assumption that marriage rates (and legitimate births) would rise as employment and economic prospects improved (Affordable Family Formation), and fall when those indicators fell.
Great piece, Steve.
You guys make your jokes while you can.
You cannot stop the demographic tsunami.
How does it feel knowing your daughters (the few of you who managed to have children) will give birth to Children of Color?
White women being impregnated by Black men is nowhere near the number 1 reason why the White population is shrinking. For one thing White female/Black male is not even the number 1 most interracial pairing in The United States.
Plus Black men makeup only 6 percent of The U.S population. There is no way a demographic group that makes up only 6 percent of The U.S population is impregnating of all the White women.
The vast majority of White mothers I see on the streets have White looking children and this is California a liberal blue state. The percentage of White mothers with White looking children will be even higher in more conservative red states.
Mr. Coates should want to visit that place to prove his point.
Hopefully he will spend a while in that paradise with his family gathering evidence to share with the rest of us.
Most of it, really. The colonials mostly kept to trading centers along the coasts. (With exceptions such as South Africa and European farmers in Kenya and Uganda.) The interior of, say, the Congo, is so vast and so roadless I can’t imagine it could be much affected by either the colonials or today’s governments.
I think one reason (besides the most obvious reason) Coates’ heart bleeds for Odel Newton but not for Edward Mintz is that he (Coates) could imagine himself doing something sneaky and gutless like pulling a gun on someone from behind but knows he could never summon up 1/10 the culliones necessary to disarm an armed robber like Edward Mintz did.
that will just cause black criminality to adjust upwards.
TNC wants a quota system for prison admissions, whatever the opposite of “Affirmative Action” would be.
And the reason he focuses on Odel Newton is because when you make this kind of case, you always focus on the most sympathetic murderer you can find.
However, don’t be fooled: One of the authorities he quotes is wearing a “Free Herman Bell” t-shirt.
And who is Herman Bell? Just some guy who is clamoring for parole after serving 42 years of a life sentence: for murdering two cops, one black, and the other one who begged for his life before being shot 12 times, leaving behind a widow and 2 small kids.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2988897/Black-Panther-double-cop-killer-sues-freedom-plays-FLUTE-Murderer-demands-parole-changed-fury-victim-s-widow.html
I repeat: there’s some merit in putting people — black or white — in prison for minor crimes. But parole for murderers? He is weakening his argument by insisting on that point. It almost seems that that’s all he really cares about.
Although I suspect some part of this is to assist the political movement he favors, it's also just an attempt to get at an itch he can't seem to scratch. In a blog post years ago, he once wrote something to the effect that he knows that life and history has winners and losers and one of the most painful things for him was to understand that how blacks/Africans have largely been the losing end whenever they come up a different culture, whether it is colonialism in Africa or that of black Americans here. Who wants to identify with a team that always seems to be a few steps behind the rest of the pack?
It seems that having internalized that humiliation he is doing all he can to construct an alternate history that takes the onus of his people. As an aside, the lengths to which The Atlantic goes to buttress anything he puts forth by posting a barrage of opinion pieces that confirm the points made in the latest Coates piece sort of highlights the fact that his editors surely know what a weak case he has and hope that quantity will suffice instead of quality.
Who wants to identify with a team that always seems to be a few steps behind the rest of the pack?
I don’t know. Why are there so many Cubs fans, anyway?
You cannot stop the demographic tsunami.
How does it feel knowing your daughters (the few of you who managed to have children) will give birth to Children of Color?
You seem to be visiting lots of sites and saying that, and you seem to forget the other aspect of demographics that is important. Ie, muerte.
From your whole piece over at Taki’s Mag:
“Back in April, I called attention to the U.N.’s 2012 forecast that by 2100 there would be 4.2 billion Africans, calling it the most important statistic in the world.
But the U.N.’s new 2015 forecast says there will be 4.4 billion Africans.”
http://takimag.com/article/occams_rubber_room_steve_sailer/print#ixzz3lv9EUR9O
I only started following unz.com full time back in July, so I missed your April article. When I asked the other day whether anyone else was appalled by the projected increase in Africa’s population by the end of the century, I hadn’t realized you had addressed the issue at length back in April. So I belatedly second your motion and tip my hat to you. I make it a habit to highlight the great increases in population that have occurred in various “trouble spots,” such as Syria, Afghanistan, etc., but the one area that most troubles me is Africa since it is a continent that has demonstrated that it cannot take care of its own needs. It is the continent that can least afford such a tremendous increase in population. Everybody criticizes China with its one-child policy, but I can remember Lesley Stahl interviewing a female Chinese official on 60 Minutes about 10-15 years ago, and she made the irrefutable point that China’s great increase in wealth could not have occurred if China had 300 million more mouths to feed. Why would anybody mourn the reduction in China’s population from its current 1.4 billion to below 1 billion, if that were to happen?
[It’s crucial for us to start trying to understand Africans because there are going to be so many of them.]
Other verbs than ''understand'' could be inserted in its place in this sentence.
And “otherwise” could be inserted between “because” and “there”.
And the reason he focuses on Odel Newton is because when you make this kind of case, you always focus on the most sympathetic murderer you can find.
However, don't be fooled: One of the authorities he quotes is wearing a "Free Herman Bell" t-shirt.
https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2015/09/WEL_Coates_MassIncarceration_Shakur/11314e12c.jpg
And who is Herman Bell? Just some guy who is clamoring for parole after serving 42 years of a life sentence: for murdering two cops, one black, and the other one who begged for his life before being shot 12 times, leaving behind a widow and 2 small kids.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2988897/Black-Panther-double-cop-killer-sues-freedom-plays-FLUTE-Murderer-demands-parole-changed-fury-victim-s-widow.html
I repeat: there's some merit in putting people -- black or white -- in prison for minor crimes. But parole for murderers? He is weakening his argument by insisting on that point. It almost seems that that's all he really cares about.
Reginald McFadden also comes to mind.
There seem to be an issues with this theory: There are just as much parts of black Africa where the ecological conditions are far worse, such as the Sahel or the Horn of Africa. Is the amount of “sexy bad boys” lower there?
From what I seem to be able to google in Mali and Burkina Faso the women tend to the crops just as much as the rest of Africa.
EDIT: That the women of the black community seem to make bad choices is clear: http://genius.com/Mc-lyte-roughneck-lyrics
In an article linked in the article linked here a number of deaths of a serial killer are described that never got noticed.
http://takimag.com/article/wasted_advantages_steve_sailer
That got me thinking. More pressure from black activists will lead to less police in black neighbourhoods. Then more deaths happen and remain unsolved. Mothers of these deaths may claim this is because of racism. They may consider it proof that nobody cares about blacks dying. Which will cause more people to become black activists and thus the cycle is complete.
Ethiopians have much better organization ability than the rest of Africa.
AFAIK Ethiopia has always been the most developed (“sub-Saharan”) African nation. Back in the first half of the 20th century when the Great Powers ruled the world, Ethiopia was one of the few independent nations that remained. Then Mussolini pillaged the joint.
What makes Ethiopia so special? It has to be Christianity – Ethiopia has been Christian since the beginning.
Frankly, I think that’s what Africa needs – heavy doses of serious Christianity. Vaccines and foreign aid will never cut it.
You cannot stop the demographic tsunami.
How does it feel knowing your daughters (the few of you who managed to have children) will give birth to Children of Color?
It could be worse – they could give birth to someone like you.
Steve,
You make a very interesting and profound point here.
On two occasions while living in Chicago, I took cabs driven by AA males who had obvious recent facial bruising and cuts. I could not help but noticing. Each were highly sociable and I enjoyed our conversation. After a while they confessed to have been mugged several times over the years. Both mentioned the general low esteem that cab drivers are held to by the black community, including, if not especially black cabbies.
My gut feeling is that Asian, Indian, Middle Eastern and at least some African cabbies had it easier in that in their communities there was greater support for how they made their living. Mess with lets say a Somali, Korean or Pakistani cabbie and the perp might find himself at the receiving end of vigilante justice. No such hope for a AA driver.
It always struck me as telling that on Chicago’s near south side, where numerous cab and delivery depots are located there are numerous billboards advertising for paternity testing and legal counseling. The tag lines are like “Think before signing that birth certificate!” Here is where there are some black men working long honest hours and night shifts at prole jobs, only to be faced with the concerns that they also must be wary of being potential cuckolds. They got to be concerned that while they are up all night working their girlfriends may be hitting the clubs and sticking them with some hip hopper’s cuckoo’s egg.
By comparison for the white working class there are sitcoms like the King of Queens where the male protagonist and bread winner is a “IPS” delivery driver with a loving and supportive wife.
You cannot stop the demographic tsunami.
How does it feel knowing your daughters (the few of you who managed to have children) will give birth to Children of Color?
There’s not that many biracial (black-white) children in the US compared to how large the black population is. The UK and probably Europe is a different story.
A footnote from The Atlantic’s annotated addition of The Moynihan Report:
You still hear this sort of thing today, but FBI Victimization Surveys have effectively settled the question of whether the arrest rate (for violent crimes) mirrors the crime rate.
Nobody would give a damn what “public intellectuals” like TNC or “scientists” like Neil Degrase Tyson said if they were not black.
You cannot stop the demographic tsunami.
How does it feel knowing your daughters (the few of you who managed to have children) will give birth to Children of Color?
I imagine that will be quite a civilization. Of course, to amount to much of anything the ruling class of it will have to be East Asian and Indian. Colour, but not “Colour”.
I think most people today do not understand the striking difference between colonization of Africa and, say, India. As Africa was so much less developed than India in at way it could not even be colonized.
An Indian colleague told me that. So I don't have a source and I wouldn't bet my life on its veracity.
Funny how even you know you’re describing something bad.
You cannot stop the demographic tsunami.
How does it feel knowing your daughters (the few of you who managed to have children) will give birth to Children of Color?
“How does it feel knowing your daughters (the few of you who managed to have children) will give birth to Children of Color?”
White women being impregnated by Black men is nowhere near the number 1 reason why the White population is shrinking. For one thing White female/Black male is not even the number 1 most interracial pairing in The United States.
Plus Black men makeup only 6 percent of The U.S population. There is no way a demographic group that makes up only 6 percent of The U.S population is impregnating of all the White women.
The vast majority of White mothers I see on the streets have White looking children and this is California a liberal blue state. The percentage of White mothers with White looking children will be even higher in more conservative red states.
You are right. And it isn’t western food aid helping so much as western crop tech.
Also a solid third of African counties are rich in at least one resource, which can be traded for food.
I don’t know about the 4.5 billion by 2100 estimate, but I do think the 2 billion in the near future will happen without famines making any real dent.
You cannot stop the demographic tsunami.
How does it feel knowing your daughters (the few of you who managed to have children) will give birth to Children of Color?
Thanks for dropping the mask and being honest.
A linch pin of Ta’s argument is that increased incarceration had very little effect on crime. This is very hard to believe. Does anyone know if Ta is accurately describing the literature?
For instance, Ta writes:
There's an interesting liberal/radical divide on the subject. A radical like Christopher Glazek (writing for Keith Gessen's n+1) forthrightly argues that we should be prepared to live with higher crime in order to significantly reduce the number of prisoners. A liberal like Adam Gopnik (who wrote a characteristically sharp essay on the subject for the New Yorker) thinks like a liberal technocrat circa 1965: we can have Giuliani crime rates and Lindsay leniency if only we implement these Five Weird Tricks suggested by the cutting edge of social science.
At any rate, society isn't a static object, so we might be able to have lower rates of incarceration now than we could have had earlier. Cell phones and the surveillance society "help" a lot. But that goes both ways. Some exogenous shock could send the crime rate back up to 1990 levels.
Coates speaks fondly of the penal leniency of the early 1970s. This is disturbing. The best book on the subject of mass incarceration (for all its flaws, William Stuntz's The Collapse of American Criminal Justice) is extremely critical of the Warren Court and lenient vogue of those years. It created the political conditions that resulted in the millions in prison today. The American public, living with an absolute decline in prisoners coupled with skyrocketing crime, took matters into its own hands. They forced moderate Republicans and centrist Democrats, who would otherwise be Lindsayites on crime, to embrace tough-on-crime measures in order to protect their right flanks.
“What makes Ethiopia so special? It has to be Christianity”
That and the altitude and good soil make the Ethiopian highlands more like a Middle Eastern peasant culture where the husbands work hard in the fields and the Malthusian Trap is a problem.
There’s a lot of Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Wow – that’s quite a non-sequitur!
Yeah, 5% of 50 million is a lot, but the 95% is a lot more.
For instance, Ta writes:
The truth is that nobody knows the relationship between incarceration and the crime rate. Levitt’s estimate is much higher than Western’s. He says 1/3 of the 90s crime drop could be ascribed to higher imprisonment rates. But take both of these estimates with a boulder of salt. In general social scientists want to give incarceration the least amount of credit possible, so you have to recognize that they might be organizing their calculations in an unconscious attempt at lowballing.
There’s an interesting liberal/radical divide on the subject. A radical like Christopher Glazek (writing for Keith Gessen’s n+1) forthrightly argues that we should be prepared to live with higher crime in order to significantly reduce the number of prisoners. A liberal like Adam Gopnik (who wrote a characteristically sharp essay on the subject for the New Yorker) thinks like a liberal technocrat circa 1965: we can have Giuliani crime rates and Lindsay leniency if only we implement these Five Weird Tricks suggested by the cutting edge of social science.
At any rate, society isn’t a static object, so we might be able to have lower rates of incarceration now than we could have had earlier. Cell phones and the surveillance society “help” a lot. But that goes both ways. Some exogenous shock could send the crime rate back up to 1990 levels.
Coates speaks fondly of the penal leniency of the early 1970s. This is disturbing. The best book on the subject of mass incarceration (for all its flaws, William Stuntz’s The Collapse of American Criminal Justice) is extremely critical of the Warren Court and lenient vogue of those years. It created the political conditions that resulted in the millions in prison today. The American public, living with an absolute decline in prisoners coupled with skyrocketing crime, took matters into its own hands. They forced moderate Republicans and centrist Democrats, who would otherwise be Lindsayites on crime, to embrace tough-on-crime measures in order to protect their right flanks.
Coates misconstrues Moynihan's report, which noted that out-of-wedlock births were rising at a time of falling black unemployment, hence the coinage "Moynihan's scissors." This fact flew in the face of the assumption that marriage rates (and legitimate births) would rise as employment and economic prospects improved (Affordable Family Formation), and fall when those indicators fell.
Never mind.
Hat Tip: commenter Quasim
Ezra Klein interview of Ta-Nehisi Coates at Vox
Key Coates quote:
Ezra Klein interview of Ta-Nehisi Coates at Vox
Key Coates quote:
That’s commenter “Qasim“. I would notice my misspelling one second after the edit period is over.
TNC is putting himself in a hopeless position. There might be "something wrong" with some blacks, but it's only someone who feels he has to identify and defend everyone in his group who's going to tie himself into knots when someone in his group breaks bad. It's like his rejection of "Bell Curve" always comes down to his belief that if that book is true, it means that black are non-humans. Uh, no, TNC.
I mean, I'm white. I can tell you for sure that there are large numbers of white people who are cognitively challenged, prone to criminal activity, prone to activities that most sane bourgeois types would condemn, have low impulse control, low sexual control, low breeding control, and who are dishonest, deceitful, and even prone to abuse, sadism, and violence. But I don't feel any need to defend them.
Ditto the black community: The only issue is the extent to which their percentages of the above categories are greater than among whites (probably, but I don't really know.) Why TNC wastes his arguments while attempting to defend black people en masse is just another quixotic element in his career as most foremost public intellectual du jour.
TNC is the latest hope for his group as they continue to grapple with the abject terror of freedom and responsibility in an increasingly inhospitable environment. When confronted with the challenge of understanding and articulating their position and coming to grips with all the confusing ways of their fellow citizens, it is no surprise that they have been unequipped to handle the situation alone.
Formerly enslaved or subjugated minority groups down through history (note the groups in America and eastern Europe that were freed in the 19th century, for example) have to go through a transition somewhat like a bumpy satellite re-entry, as they discover and adapt to new roles and to brace for the daily affronts to their sense of being and propriety. Another visual is a dam bursting, where pent-up forces follow the landscape and gravity to their end. Ressentiment is never far below the surface in any event.
The human tendency is to go with what you know, and to try to stake out some position relative to the dominant culture. Some sub-cultures have more structure and cohesiveness to try to make any transition somewhat less painful. Others are more individualistic and are likely subject to longer, less successful transitions.
US domestic tranquility will be upset, but nowhere like that to be experienced in Europe as they self-inflict more wounds.
India too. They took a survey there, during the late colonial period, asking people how they felt about the British. The most common answer was, “what British?”
An Indian colleague told me that. So I don’t have a source and I wouldn’t bet my life on its veracity.
An Indian colleague told me that. So I don't have a source and I wouldn't bet my life on its veracity.
I’ve heard that story about India, too. I’ve never been able to track it down, though.
Well, it could have been worse, you could have referred to “Commenter *Quim*”.
TNC is putting himself in a hopeless position. There might be “something wrong” with some blacks, but it’s only someone who feels he has to identify and defend everyone in his group who’s going to tie himself into knots when someone in his group breaks bad. It’s like his rejection of “Bell Curve” always comes down to his belief that if that book is true, it means that black are non-humans. Uh, no, TNC.
I mean, I’m white. I can tell you for sure that there are large numbers of white people who are cognitively challenged, prone to criminal activity, prone to activities that most sane bourgeois types would condemn, have low impulse control, low sexual control, low breeding control, and who are dishonest, deceitful, and even prone to abuse, sadism, and violence. But I don’t feel any need to defend them.
Ditto the black community: The only issue is the extent to which their percentages of the above categories are greater than among whites (probably, but I don’t really know.) Why TNC wastes his arguments while attempting to defend black people en masse is just another quixotic element in his career as most foremost public intellectual du jour.
“There’s a lot of Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
Much of it fairly recent. It took centuries to transform marauding Huns and Avars and Gauls into what we now know as Europeans. And what Christianity there is in Africa is offset by elites and outside well-wishers who think Communism or “negritude” or some other fad or social liberation experiment is a preferable alternative. Not to mention those who will always blame every bad thing in the world, including the squalor in Africa, on white people.
TNC is putting himself in a hopeless position. There might be "something wrong" with some blacks, but it's only someone who feels he has to identify and defend everyone in his group who's going to tie himself into knots when someone in his group breaks bad. It's like his rejection of "Bell Curve" always comes down to his belief that if that book is true, it means that black are non-humans. Uh, no, TNC.
I mean, I'm white. I can tell you for sure that there are large numbers of white people who are cognitively challenged, prone to criminal activity, prone to activities that most sane bourgeois types would condemn, have low impulse control, low sexual control, low breeding control, and who are dishonest, deceitful, and even prone to abuse, sadism, and violence. But I don't feel any need to defend them.
Ditto the black community: The only issue is the extent to which their percentages of the above categories are greater than among whites (probably, but I don't really know.) Why TNC wastes his arguments while attempting to defend black people en masse is just another quixotic element in his career as most foremost public intellectual du jour.
You probably don’t feel any need to defend any less-than-perfect whites is my guess. Consider a WASP-y version of Scott Pollard – would you defend him, try to get him released? Probably not. On the contrary, you probably take an overweening pride in your evenhandedness. When you get down to it, this attitude amounts to cuckservatism-lite and a less pernicious version of white status points competition. It’s a major reason why your group keeps getting its butt kicked so badly. It’s difficult for me to put into words (that Sailer would post) the boundless contempt I have for this attitude.
I assume you mean Jonathan Pollard. And, no, I consider espionage a serious crime, and espionage for money to be particularly damnable.
I consider myself an American, first of all. I am not going to align with someone, or defend someone, because they share this or that aspect of my ethnic or cultural heritage, or the color of my skin. I also am not going to fall for the notion that people who share some particularity of heritage with me are somehow my "allies." I will however, defend an American as an American.
"My group" -- which I assume you mean "white people" is not my group. They are a part of the group of Americans, and some are good, some are bad, and most of us are just average.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/09/15/problems-mount-cheyney-university-oldest-hbcu
Mind may be a terrible thing to waste, but it sure is easy to waste money.
As for ‘black bodies’, they are easily wasted too by other blacks.
Consider a WASP-y version of Scott Pollard – would you defend him, try to get him released? Probably not.
I assume you mean Jonathan Pollard. And, no, I consider espionage a serious crime, and espionage for money to be particularly damnable.
I consider myself an American, first of all. I am not going to align with someone, or defend someone, because they share this or that aspect of my ethnic or cultural heritage, or the color of my skin. I also am not going to fall for the notion that people who share some particularity of heritage with me are somehow my “allies.” I will however, defend an American as an American.
“My group” — which I assume you mean “white people” is not my group. They are a part of the group of Americans, and some are good, some are bad, and most of us are just average.
You make a very interesting and profound point here.
On two occasions while living in Chicago, I took cabs driven by AA males who had obvious recent facial bruising and cuts. I could not help but noticing. Each were highly sociable and I enjoyed our conversation. After a while they confessed to have been mugged several times over the years. Both mentioned the general low esteem that cab drivers are held to by the black community, including, if not especially black cabbies.
My gut feeling is that Asian, Indian, Middle Eastern and at least some African cabbies had it easier in that in their communities there was greater support for how they made their living. Mess with lets say a Somali, Korean or Pakistani cabbie and the perp might find himself at the receiving end of vigilante justice. No such hope for a AA driver.
It always struck me as telling that on Chicago's near south side, where numerous cab and delivery depots are located there are numerous billboards advertising for paternity testing and legal counseling. The tag lines are like "Think before signing that birth certificate!" Here is where there are some black men working long honest hours and night shifts at prole jobs, only to be faced with the concerns that they also must be wary of being potential cuckolds. They got to be concerned that while they are up all night working their girlfriends may be hitting the clubs and sticking them with some hip hopper's cuckoo's egg.
By comparison for the white working class there are sitcoms like the King of Queens where the male protagonist and bread winner is a "IPS" delivery driver with a loving and supportive wife.
Can you supply some actual examples, by address on Google Maps Street View? I’d like to archive them for a future article. Thanks.
I assume you mean Jonathan Pollard. And, no, I consider espionage a serious crime, and espionage for money to be particularly damnable.
I consider myself an American, first of all. I am not going to align with someone, or defend someone, because they share this or that aspect of my ethnic or cultural heritage, or the color of my skin. I also am not going to fall for the notion that people who share some particularity of heritage with me are somehow my "allies." I will however, defend an American as an American.
"My group" -- which I assume you mean "white people" is not my group. They are a part of the group of Americans, and some are good, some are bad, and most of us are just average.
As for this, I really don’t think you get it. I would rather smoke bongs in the car with the worst of my kind than mix it with the likes of TNC and associated royalty in high society. Racial loyalty isn’t primarily intellectual; I feel it emotionally, in a way that you apparently do not, have not, and never will. And I do not believe you are living better for it.
Now, that would seem to exclude uppity types such as TNC, but not to one who's expert in putting them in their place.
I'm intrigued as to why you're willing to confine yourself in a motor vehicle with someone who scammed you out of money, raped your sister, donated to the Clintons, teaches at a university, etc…
You can’t be a true Southerner, then– they seem to prefer the company of blacks to that of almost any white person from anywhere outside their homeland, whom they find deficient in one way or another. (Or, in Fred Reed’s case, the company of Mexicans.)
Now, that would seem to exclude uppity types such as TNC, but not to one who’s expert in putting them in their place.
I’m intrigued as to why you’re willing to confine yourself in a motor vehicle with someone who scammed you out of money, raped your sister, donated to the Clintons, teaches at a university, etc…
TNC is putting himself in a hopeless position. There might be "something wrong" with some blacks, but it's only someone who feels he has to identify and defend everyone in his group who's going to tie himself into knots when someone in his group breaks bad. It's like his rejection of "Bell Curve" always comes down to his belief that if that book is true, it means that black are non-humans. Uh, no, TNC.
I mean, I'm white. I can tell you for sure that there are large numbers of white people who are cognitively challenged, prone to criminal activity, prone to activities that most sane bourgeois types would condemn, have low impulse control, low sexual control, low breeding control, and who are dishonest, deceitful, and even prone to abuse, sadism, and violence. But I don't feel any need to defend them.
Ditto the black community: The only issue is the extent to which their percentages of the above categories are greater than among whites (probably, but I don't really know.) Why TNC wastes his arguments while attempting to defend black people en masse is just another quixotic element in his career as most foremost public intellectual du jour.
I don’t read him this way. He doesn’t really condemn violence or crime, he just gives some descriptions of certain specific instances. The point is that blacks committing violence against other blacks is the fault of white structural racism. Blacks being killed by other blacks in their neighborhood is because whites have forced blacks into segregated areas and their neighbors are black. If the housing was not segregated then they would be killing a lot of whites. They don’t kill blacks or whites; they kill neighbors. White structural racism causes their neighbors to be black therefore whites are the cause of blacks killing blacks.
Look at the Texas Ten Most Wanted. Do those “Whites” look White to you? All of them? Look at New Mexico’s Ten Most Wanted? All of them “White Hispanic”?
Also a solid third of African counties are rich in at least one resource, which can be traded for food.
I don't know about the 4.5 billion by 2100 estimate, but I do think the 2 billion in the near future will happen without famines making any real dent.
What happens when the Western technicians leave? Can Blacks manage a nitrogen-fixing plant?
Only two famines in the last ten years? Good job, Africa. And how many would there be without Western aid?