June 6, 2008

A Historic Moment

It must bring deep joy to African-Americans that the first black Presidential nominee turns out to be an exotic who grew up quarantined off from African-American culture except for what he could glean from watching "Soul Train" on TV.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

"quarantined off from African-American culture" is a necessary but not a sufficient condition. Though I suppose that I could be proved wrong if someoene came along who had grown up in that pathalogical slum culture and rejected it in its entirety. I take it that neither Miss Rice nor General Powell grew up in it?

Anonymous said...

He's black? I thought he was white.

Grumpy Old Man said...

Our best affirmative action candidates are West Indians and Africans, for the reasons you describe.

Hunsdon said...

Eh, Wren, it's one of those fifty-fifty calls. Genetically, that is. In terms of self-identification, it's, umm, a slam dunk.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps it will clue them into the fact that it's much more culture than race that holds African-Americans back.

Condoleezza Rice definitely grew up in African-American culture.

Anonymous said...

Don't think for a moment that blacks would see the disconnect. They claim anything with a non-white skin as fully representative of themselves. I doubt though that many non-whites are keen to be associated with blacks. Indians come to mind. Ghandi said some things about blacks which would be termed racist nowadays. His big complaint about Apartheid was not the pecking order per se, but that Indians were lumped in with blacks as non-white. He found that this was an insult to Indians.

Jewish Atheist said...

This must be driving you nuts, Steve. :-) I love it.

Anonymous said...

How to provoke a PC liberal.

Tell them that the best pop singer of the twenieth century was Irish. At this point they look confused. Then you say Ella Fitzgerald. Her father was Irish. The liberal at will smile indulgently.

Then you say that it was the Irish part that made her such a good singer.

Outrage and indignation.

Comment on how articulate Obama is. Then say that that must be from the white part.

Apoplexy.

Anonymous said...

I wonder if Barack knows the lyrics to the Good Times theme? The last part of the song describes what the Chinese might call The 4 Sufferings,the indignities of ghetto life. Anyone can get the 1st two,some get the 3rd,but few know the 4th. Interesting to see how Barack would do...You recall:A) Temporary layoffs (good times),easy credit rip-offs(good times),--A LITTLE MORE OBSCURE--scratchin' an' survivin'(good times) and finally:"hangin' in a chow line(good times!). Well with Barry in charge,can "good times' be far off??

Anonymous said...

Rice is 100% African-American; Powell is Jamaican I believe.

Anonymous said...

I'm not American, but haven't the courts set parameters making fundamental reform of the education system impossible, and therefore any debate on how to improve it merely academic?

It's like those "if I were Prime Minister" contests; the courts have so constrained our so-called liberal democracies that I'd pretty much do what every other Prime Minister does, i.e. the possible. At least we can theoretically override our constitution in Canada; in the US, if a court decides a literacy test for voters is racist, that's the final word. And then there is the media, who can make or break any policy proposal.

I'd like to see more attention paid to the gifted, but there is some evidence that gifted programs and skipping grades may actually be harmful to the gifted.

One idea: we seriously need more male teachers. I grew up in a single mom family, did zero homework until grade 4, when I got my first male teacher, who scared the hell out of me, with his mustache and Old Spice and all, and I wasn't the only kid in that class who felt that way. Others' mileage may vary.

Anonymous said...

My question wasn't whether Miss Rice is African-American, but whether she grew up in a "pathological slum culture"?

Steve Sailer said...

Not at all. Rice was raised at the puritanical peak of southern black respectable society, with rigorous training in classical music.

"Ms. Rice is an accomplished pianist. At 15 she performed Mozart's Piano Concerto in D minor with the Denver Symphony Orchestra, her prize for winning a student competition. Until college she intended to pursue music professionally. Now 51, she plays as often as every other week with this [chamber music] group, which convened three years ago."

Anonymous said...

Rice plays Brahms, who grew up (according to latest research) not exactly in a slum as previously thought but in a tattered lower-middle class area. It ain't economics that makes a slum person. Though Rice was given every advantage, Brahms had the way out inside him.

Anonymous said...

How many times do I have to explain this?

His wife is an authentic, Chicago bred, basketball-playing, dark-kinned black girl.

Most black voters are women - for reasons that Sailer knows quite well.

As long as Obama doesn't get caught cheating on her w/ a white woman, he's golden.

Anonymous said...

Any thoughts on which African-American has been the most successful governor or mayor?

Anonymous said...

Travis, that would Be Denvers Wellington Webb.

As Steve notes, Rice grew up in the Segregationist Southern Black Culture which valued achievement, hard work, respectability, diligence, etc.

Culture matters. Black America of forty years ago produced her. Could it today? Doubtful.

Anonymous said...

Travis, that would Be Denvers Wellington Webb.

That's not saying much, is it? Webb did a reasonably good job, I suppose. I suspect that one reason why is: The racial make up of [Denver], as of 2005, is 50.3% White, 10.6% Black, 3.1% Asian American, 1.4% Native American, 0.2% Pacific Islander, and 1.9% from two or more races. 34.7% of the population is Hispanic or Latino of any race

Webb wasn't tring to suckle a large black base. He had to work with the white community to get re-elected.

tom barnes said...

Obama is THE Affirmative Action hire writ large. He gets admitted to the Presidency despite his anti-American baggage but I would vote for him if he got a divorce. I think he could pull a Nixon in China and surprise everyone and really be for racial unity(get rid of 13 CFR 124.103, set-asides etc.), if he got a divorce. But Michelle will hold his feet to the fire and, in the end he will be a race-man.
I think he is a nice guy and that comes across on the television. Most people vote for the personality not policy, however the Republicans could run Jesus Christ for President and Moses as Vice President this election cycle and they would still lose.

Unknown said...

According to a preponderance of the evidences in most of the comments listed above, I am yet at a loss as to how if whites are culturally ‘above’ race as a factor, then how can race be continually ‘zero-ed’ in upon, through the same tiny intellectual prism that blacks are accused of ‘failing’ to overcome?

Apoplexy.

Btw Mr. Sailer, what blacks are you refering to?

Anonymous said...

"jewish atheist said...
This must be driving you nuts, Steve. :-) I love it."

Yea, South African Jews were also loving it when Mandela was inaugurated, in no small part due to their undermining of the Afrikaner state which was stupidly a staunch ally of Israel during the Cold War. Now they are hurriedly packing their bags after they found out the black masses don't like them either. But don't expect them to learn anything from it. That hatred of the white goy seems to trump everything else.