Black conservative applauds blacks’ response to O.J. Simpson verdict

John McWhorter, one of the, oh, six black conservatives in America (he’s currently ensconced at the Manhattan Institute), supports the racial teams on the “Survivor” tv show. He writes in the New York Sun:

Black America should just take the “Survivor” occasion to cheer in jolly fashion for our own. We used to do it for the Negro Leagues. Then ten years ago it was for O.J. An all-black “Survivor” team says better things about America than either of those cases.

My jaw drops. McWhorter has made his career among the neoconservatives by opposing race preferences, black racialism, and lower standards for blacks. And now he turns around and approves the absolute nadir of black America, when blacks across the country barbarously danced in joy over the acquittal of a black double murderer of two whites, solely because he was black? And he puts this barbaric—correction, savage—behavior in the same category as cheering for a black baseball team?

When a friend read the above passage from McWhorter’s article to me on the phone, I replied by quoting John Barrymore’s line from Twentieth Century, “I close the iron door on him.”

But you know what? I’ll bet the neoconservatives won’t care a hang that McWhorter has said this. Their supposed race-blind universalism has long since mutated into an embrace of the diversity and multiculturalism that are the inevitable outcome of race-blind universalism. Consider their support, in the name of “universal democracy,” for the sharia regimes of Afghanistan and Iraq. Consider their support for a president who openly seeks to Hispanicize America.

In connection with which, McWhorter was among the 33 “conservatives” who signed the statement promoting the “comprehensive” open-borders immigration bill passed by the Senate last spring.

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Jake F. writes:

The funny thing is, if McWhorter hadn’t mentioned O.J., I would have agreed with him completely.

We are conscious of our race, even though I’m not sure how precisely to define it. I see it at the train station, at work, and many other places where blacks tend to treat other blacks differently than they treat whites. I also see it with different ethnicities, different income levels, different religions. People congregate into groups, and we should just acknowledge that and figure out how to do so civilly rather than act like it’s always bad.

So I think it would be good for blacks to be able to cheer on other blacks as blacks in baseball, on Survivor, in politics, and anywhere else, and for whites to cheer on whites as whites. Not for everything—I don’t want only “white leagues” and “black leagues” because I think we can get better teams and better games if we recruit for talent rather than race—but I think a friendly rivalry among blacks and whites on a so-called reality show is, in general, a good thing.

McWhorter misses the boat because he implies that race is the only determinant of what we should root for.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 02, 2006 11:49 AM | Send