Oh
good. In the Washington Post [1], the
trade journal of the coming vacuum, I discover a story on
"Whiteness Studies." These, at what used to be
the University of Massachusetts, are yet more un-courses
that grow like mold on the wreckage of American education.
They endeavor to make white students ashamed of being
white. How useful.
An
implement wielded to this end, saith the Post, is the
Privilege Walk. In this the students or, more accurately,
indoctrinees, are asked to take a step forward if they can
answer "yes" to such questions as "Can you
get a bank loan whenever you want?"
The
Post: "You looked behind you and became really
uncomfortable," said Naomi Cairns, a 24-year-old
junior who stood at the front of the classroom with other
white students. Asian and black students she admired were
near the back. "We all started together," she
said, "and now were so separated."
Which
discomfort was of course intended. Whiteness is bad. In
fact anything associated with achievement is bad.
The
questions must have been carefully crafted to separate
whites from Asians, who are smarter than whites, more
industrious, less criminal, generally more successful, and
consequently wildly over-represented in the better
schools.
But
. . . embarrassment over qualifying for a loan?
"Can
you get a bank loan?" might be phrased otherwise. For
example, "Has your family, by virtue of proven
honesty, sense of responsibility, and the economic
fecundity that comes of study, competence, and hard work,
demonstrated that it would not be foolish to lend you
money?"
The
Privilege Walk is transparently designed to punish whites
for having historically been intelligent, studious, and
productive; for having contributed most of the things
enjoyed, often at the expense of white taxpayers, by the
shiftless, dull-witted, improvident, and parasitic.
Now,
I like the idea of a Privilege Walk, but I believe we
ought to make it an Earned Privilege Walk. What do you
think?
"Take
a step forward if the following statements apply to you:
You
got into the university without benefit of affirmative
action.
No
one in your family has a criminal record.
You
have read three books this year you didn't have to read.
You
have ever read any book you didn't have to read
You
have ever read any book.
You
are majoring in a hard science, mathematics, or
engineering.
You
had 600 math boards or better.
You
had 600 verbal boards or better.
You
study more than an hour a day."
Since
Whiteness Studies is explicitly aimed at segregating the
races, how about this:
"Your
racial or ethnic group invented (take one step for each):
Computational fluid dynamics. Tensor calculus. The
harpsichord. The theory of finite automata. Cardiac
surgery. Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism.
Writing. The wheel. Counting past ten. Fingers. (OK, OK,
I'll give you that one.)"
And:
"You
can spell 'polymorphism,' 'automata,' and 'ten' (one step
each)."
The
result would be an interesting electrophoretic trace.
Anyone want to try it?
Next
topic: In the Washington Times, I find this
lead: "The District's schoolchildren rank as the
worst readers in the country and only slightly better in
some grades than non-English-speaking children in the
territories of Guam, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa
. . . . Only 10 percent of D.C. fourth-and eighth-graders
last year were at or above proficient in reading
ability."
Having
lived for many years in and about Washington, I can
decrypt the foregoing story. "Children" means
"black children." The few white kids in school
in the District generally go to private schools, read
competently, and produce the Merit finalists. Whites are
uninvolved in this scholastic catastrophe: The government
of Washington is black through and through, has a high
expenditure per student ($9,650 says the Times; the
average salary of teachers is $48,651), and can therefore
have any schools it wants. This being so, the presumption
is that it is satisfied with what it has.
Newsweek
[2]: "An astonishing 47 percent of
Detroiters, nearly one out of two adults in this
predominantly black city, are functionally illiterate. (By
way of comparison, the figure for Vietnam is 6.7 percent
and 1.7 percent for Croatia.)" [1]
Do
you suppose they should have done their homework? Whites
however should be ashamed because they can get a loan from
a bank.
Black
America is a vast, hidden, changeless disaster kept afloat
by welfare and pretense. Nobody is even trying to do
anything practical about it. While this goes on, the
therapists of the University of Massachusetts beat their
breasts conspicuously and waste the time of students. Do
you sometimes suspect that some people are more useful
than others?
Next:
The stories are dying down now about Benton Harbor,
Michigan, which blacks spent two days burning. It was the
usual story: a black with a suspended license ran from the
police, wrecked his motorcycle, and killed himself. The
population began igniting things. It happens every few
years with either blacks or Latinos rioting. Cincinnati,
Miami, DC at least twice, Los Angeles, Crown Heights,
Newark, St. Pete, on and on, city after city torched, the
stories played down, no consequences to the rioters, and
the expectant wait for the next conflagration.
Racially,
things aren't working. Yet we have Privilege Walks. The
Eloi play while awaiting the Morlocks.
Next:
I saw a political talk show in which a Mexican-American
politician talked about the Latino population in Texas. He
wasn't hostile to whites. He was, however, pro-Mexican. He
said (I may have the number slightly off) that sixty-some
percent of kids under 18 in Texas were Mexican. In ten
years, he said, when they reached eighteen, and voted,
"there is going to be a huge political change."
Yes. Specifically, Mexicans will own the state. (This is
exactly what he meant.)
How
bad this will be, if at all, depends on how relations
develop. An ominous trend however is that Latino kids are
dismal students and drop out of school. Other tensions
loom. Latinos congregate in cities and, where they
outnumber blacks, will displace them in elected office.
There will be consequences.
Finally:
A friend in California, an economist, tells me that whites
begin to flee the state to avoid the taxes needed to
provide social services for immigrants. Unfortunately
Mexican doctors, engineers, shopkeepers, and taxi drivers
do not swim the river. America gets those who can't make
it at home. The ethnic cleansing of California, should it
continue, will be fascinating.
Whence
the productivity, the leadership for America's declining
years? Latinos won't provide it, blacks can't, whites are
gnawing their own veins, and there aren't enough Asians.
But we at least have Whiteness Studies.
[1]
June 19, 2003
[2]
June 20, 2003
