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December 19, 2002
The importance of defining terms
Not that I should expect much from TownHall.com: Conservative Columnists: David Limbaugh
People point to a similar statement Lott made in the eighties to prove that he must have intended a racial slur, but I'm skeptical. Regardless of my numerous political disagreements with Lott, he strikes me as a decent person who wouldn't harbor such repugnant views. Plus, racism requires a degree of passion. I see no passion in Lott about anything, except, perhaps, retaining the leadership position. And as I survey his tenure in office I don't see a record of racism.
Addition of emphasis, as per usual.
Ginger, being all voice-of-reasony, mentioned in a comment that people seem to be using different definitions of racism in this discussion. I'd toss in Affirmative Action as well -- not sure that term means the same thing to everyone, either -- but who needs rational debate, anyway?
Those of us who fought the struggle for equal rights for all people regardless of skin color in the early 60's have come to realize that the party of race, the party of racism, is the modern liberal party (the Democratic Party) that glorifies skin color (and gender and social class) over all things including freedom, right and wrong, and equal protection under the law. These modern liberals, (these Democrats) mock the truth when they label conservatives and Republicans who decry reparations, quotas, and the racism of "lower expectations" as "racists" rather than "liberators."
They got David Horowitz.
Shame, really, given that recent oft-reprinted Reuters article detailing how Race not reflected in genes, study says:
The idea of race is not reflected in a person's genes, Brazilian researchers said, confirming what scientists have long said -- that race has no meaning genetically.The Brazilian researchers looked at one of the most racially mixed populations in the world for their study, which found there is no way to look at someone's genes and determine his or her race. Brazilians include people of European, African and Indian, or Amerindian, descent.
"There is wide agreement among anthropologists and human geneticists that, from a biological standpoint, human races do not exist," Sergio Pena and colleagues at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais in Brazil and the University of Porto in Portugal wrote in their report, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Yet races do exist as social constructs," they said.
I'd be interested in what they have to say about that.
Wait, no I wouldn't.
Update: Why do I do this to myself?
TRENT LOTT'S ENDORSEMENT OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION wasn't an abandonment of his racist past, of course. It was just an endorsement of racism in a different guise. [. . .] Lott has sold out everyone -- from his own party to black schoolchildren who are ill-served by pork-obsessed interest groups -- to save his skin. And he hasn't abandoned racism, but has endorsed it out of opportunism and cowardice.
That's Glenn Reynolds, giving us the condescending het white boy 'net pundit perspective.
Sorry, giving us the One Objective Truth, from his position above the fray.
Posted by Aaron at December 19, 2002 09:31 AM
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