Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Quickies: The Racism Double-Bind

     Ed Driscoll calls out the Washington Post:

     From Piyush to Bobby: How does Jindal feel about his family’s past?

     .... Jindal’s status as a conservative of color helped propel his meteoric rise in the Republican Party — from an early post in the George W. Bush administration to two terms in Congress and now a second term as Louisiana governor — and donors from Indian American groups fueled his first forays into politics. Yet many see him as a man who has spent a lifetime distancing himself from his Indian roots.

     As a child, he announced he wanted to go by the name Bobby, after a character in “The Brady Bunch.” He converted from Hinduism to Christianity as a teen and was later baptized a Catholic as a student at Brown University — making his devotion to Christianity a centerpiece of his public life. He and his wife were quick to say in a “60 Minutes” interview in 2009 that they do not observe many Indian traditions — although they had two wedding ceremonies, one Hindu and one Catholic. He said recently that he wants to be known simply as an American, not an Indian American.

     “There’s not much Indian left in Bobby Jindal,” said Pearson Cross, a political science professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette who is writing a book on the governor.

     Driscoll asks: ‘HOW IS THIS NOT RACIST?’ In view of which I shall present the applicable formulae.

  1. If the candidate is a minority Democrat:
    • His race/ethnicity will be used as an asset among the relevant minority voting blocs;
    • Republicans who dare even to mention his race/ethnicity will be thunderously denounced.
  2. If the candidate is a minority Republican:
    • He will be denounced to the relevant minority voting blocs as “inauthentic;”
    • Republicans who attempt to use his heritage as an electoral asset will be condemned.

     In the case of a thoroughly Americanized Republican such as Governor Jindal, not only does case 2 above apply, but extra pressure will be brought to bear on the candidate to “acknowledge his roots.” That pressure will definitely come from his detractors, who’ll see it as a way to highlight the candidate’s “insincerity.” However, some might also come from his supporters, out of fear of a reaction against the candidate’s “rejection of his past.”

     Care to make a few casual wagers, Gentle Reader? I’ve got my two-headed coin right here...

3 comments:

Weetabix said...

Mr. Obama is correct when he says racism is everywhere. But I don't think that word means what he thinks it means...

Anonymous said...

Ahh yes, the "privileging of otherness" of the left. This is why lefties always identify as something OTHER than "American" when possible, and why conservatives, who may be proud of their heritage but firmly declare themselves "American" are called inauthentic. I hear they're trying to do away with the term "melting pot". America is turning into a stew, an awful, balkanized stew.

Pascal said...

This is a well laid out analysis Fran. I'm bookmarking it under incrementalism because it exposes one aspect of the Prog assault on America. It reveals how, with their command over the major propaganda outlets, they continue to lay claim to being the voice of the silenced minorities. Any and all minorities who are off the plantation must be silenced so on the Progs' designated minorities can provide them cover for the attacks on all Americans, the minorities included.

Side issue:

I don't mind calling the "Progressives" by the Prog label because for some reason I envision morlocks when I see it. But I hate that the Progs continue to lay illegitimate claim to labels pertaining to human attributes for which they seek to destroy in their every waking moment. Attributes that are truly progressive and liberal are anathema to Progs. Indeed, Progs are engaged in an anti-enlightenment, their object being to bring back ruling classes and subjective classes world wide.

Incrementalists (Sophistic Incrementalists to be precise) rather than their preferred progressives is a more suitable label for them. And such has an historical link too. No matter how bad the Fabian socialists were, at least they were up front about this as their strategy. It's how they managed to destroy every American institution that had been created to preserve America's protections for individual sovereignty.

I also don't think humnanity can regain what has been lost anytime in a very long time without divine intervention. The Progs have been so effective in destroying our stability that what it takes to dethrone them would trigger catastrophes so great as to bring on a dark age worse and deeper and far more deadly than the last.

All I can hope for our posterity is that should it ever manage to bring back a republic nearly so free as our has been, that they learn the lesson of the dangers of incremental destruction brought on by smiling liars.