{"id":455,"date":"2006-06-22T19:19:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-22T19:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/2006\/06\/22\/455\/"},"modified":"2011-07-17T14:04:24","modified_gmt":"2011-07-17T19:04:24","slug":"455","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=455","title":{"rendered":"Race Matters … In Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Race Matters . . . . In Politics Anyway:<\/span> Working in a prosecutor’s office, I get to see pictures of people convicted of murder. Since my county has a significant black population, a lot of its convicted murders are black. Very black. I haven’t done a controlled study, but it looks to me as though many African-American males convicted of murder have very dark skin tones and prominent African facial features. <\/p>\n

Compare that with the present-day African-American movers and shakers on the political scene. I can think of Barak Obama, Condi Rice, Corry Booker, and Harold Ford. And not so long ago, Colin Powell. All of these people have fairly light complexions and noticeable European facial features. If you did a controlled, objective study, I think you would find a significant difference in tone and facial structure between black homicide convicts and successful black politicians (at least on the state or national level).<\/p>\n

So, the winners from the African-American culture arguably look somewhat Caucasian, while the losers look more like their ancestors from Africa. You could come up with two theories about that. The first one, based on the Hernstein-Murray “Bell Curve” rationale, is that African genetics don’t foster the intellectual capabilities that are critical to success in America today, at least not to the degree that European (and Asian) genetics do. The other rationale is that American culture is still not color blind. People who look more European are received better than people who look African. (And perhaps people who are very black are more subject to police attention and arrest — although many of the police who arrest black murder suspects and the juries who convict them are also black). Despite banishing overt racism, America is still covertly, perhaps unconsciously, racist. <\/p>\n

I myself think that the second rationale makes more sense. America likes to think of itself as an open society, welcoming all comers without stuffy European attitudes about class. But as most any sociologist will tell you, no human society can completely purify itself of its unspoken assumptions; it hardly knows that it has any! Subtle notions get passed from generation to generation without ever being put into words. If you happen to be on the wrong side of those unspoken assumptions — well, then, good luck. <\/p>\n

Unfortunately, America and Americans have more yet to do on the topic of racism. And Euro-Americans have to do the heavy lifting here. But there is a footnote to that, too. Black counter-racism against whites also exists. Perhaps it can be sympathized with, given the history of racial relationships over the past 500 years; but it still isn’t right, either. We all have some growing up to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Race Matters . . . . In Politics Anyway: Working in a prosecutor’s office, I get to see pictures of people convicted of murder. Since my county has a significant black population, a lot of its convicted murders are black. Very black. I haven’t done a controlled study, but it looks to me as though […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=455"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2224,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions\/2224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}