New Year Reflections, Part III (The Political Circus)

Today, I had the opportunity to watch some of the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearings on immigration. Testifying was Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. It was quite the spectacle. Some questions were about immigration, some about cyber security. Then, it was Senator Patrick Leahy's (Dem-Vt) turn. Leahy decide that the most important issue of the day facing the USA was whether Trump really referred to certain countries as "shitholes." As Nielsen was present during the meeting in question, he wanted her answer. She testified that she did not hear Trump use that word, but that he was passionate about his point of view.

Leahy said this: "Now last week in the oval office, President Trump reportedly said the most vulgar and racist things I've ever heard a President of either party utter. In fact, I've never heard any President, Republican or Democrat, utter anything even similar." And I am shocked, shocked, that there's gambling going on. Rather an odd comment for a nearly 77 year old Senator. Democratic President Lyndon Johnson frequently used the "N" word when referring to blacks. Republican President Richard Nixon called Mexicans "dishonest," said blacks lived "like a bunch of dogs," and that San Francisco was full of "fags." Italians didn't "have their heads screwed on right." The Irish? "Virtually every Irish I've known gets mean when he drinks." As for my people: "The Jews are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality." In other words, Nixon did not like anyone.

Although Senator Leahy claims that he never heard the vulgar language from these other Presidents, I wonder if he ever heard of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I do not know what language Roosevelt used, but I do know that he ordered the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II - something not done to German or Italian Americans. How would the good Senator Leahy compare that to Trump's alleged description of third world countries? Speaking of which, Senator Lindsay Graham, also shocked by Trump's alleged comment, once referred to Mexico and other Latin American countries as "hellholes."

Additionally, Democrats cannot fathom Trump's apparent hostility to immigration. Trump: "All Americans, not only in the states most heavily affected but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large number of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public service they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. That's why our Administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards, deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens."

And this from Trump: "We are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it." Okay, the above two quotes are actual quotes - but not from Trump. Bill Clinton made both of the above comments. And former Democratic Senator Harry Reid introduced a bill in 1993 to revoke so-called birthright citizenship. His concern was that there was an "incentive for pregnant alien women to enter the United States illegally, often at risk to mother and child, for the purpose of acquiring citizenship for the child and accompanying federal financial benefits. And: "unless changes are made, our dinner table eventually will collapse, and no one will have security and opportunity."

I suppose we may claim that Leahy and others like him are hypocrites. We might claim that Leahy's assertions that he has never heard such bad words from other Presidents is simply not believable. Or, we can rely on that old standby: how can you tell that a politician is lying? His lips are moving.

New Year Reflections, Part II (Race in America - A Tale of Two Perspectives)

Perhaps it's a result of age difference. Perhaps its a consequence of political differences. But two articles in major papers this Martin Luther KIng, Jr. weekend could not have more diametrically opposing viewpoints. One, by Ibram X. Kendi, a 35 year old professor at American University, has a theme of how racist America is and has always been, and that whites of all political persuasions, left and right, are in denial of their racism. (Op-Ed in the Sunday, January 14, 2018 New York Times) The other, by Shelby Steele, a 72 year old senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, has as its theme that blacks in America no longer suffer from the oppression of racism, because that oppression is over with. (Op-Ed in the 1/13-14 weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal) Both men are black.

Kendi: "Begin with the eight presidents who held slaves while in the oval office. Then consider how Abraham Lincoln urged black people to leave the United States." "Thomas Jefferson was not a founding father of equality. He was a founding father of the heartbeat of denial that lives through both Mr. Trump's denials and the assertion that his racial views are abnormal for America and its presidents."

Steele refers to "a simple truth that is both obvious and unutterable: The oppression of black people is over with. This is politically incorrect news, but it is true nonetheless." After acknowledging that there is still racism - "racism is endemic to the human condition" - Steele states that racism is now "recognized as a scourge, as the crowning immorality of our age and our history." Steele says that blacks then were "confronted with a new problem: the shock of freedom." Steele: "Freedom holds us accountable no matter the disadvantages we inherit from the past."

After discussing how Nixon developed a new strategy to get support from voters who would not have to admit to their racism, Kendi says: "A new vocabulary emerged, allowing users to evade admissions of racism. It still holds fast after all these years. The vocabulary list includes these: law and order. War on drugs. Model minority. Reverse discrimination. Race-neutral. Welfare queen. Handout. Tough on crime. Personal responsibility. Black-on-black crime. Achievement gap. No excuses. Race card. Colorblind. Post-racial. Illegal immigrant. Obamacare. War on Cops. Blue Lives Matter. All Lives Matter. Entitlements. Voter fraud. Economic anxiety. The denials using these phrases come from both conservatives and white liberals."

Steele: "For any formerly oppressed group, there will be an expectation that the past will somehow be an excuse for difficulties in the present." "We end up giving victimization the charisma of black authenticity. Suffering, poverty and underdevelopment are the things that make you 'truly black.' Success and achievement throw your authenticity into question." "The near-hysteria around the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray and others is also a hunger for the excuse of racial victimization, a determination to keep it alive."

Steele: "And you would feel this abstract, fabricated oppression as if it were your personal truth, the truth around which your character is formed. Watching the antics of Black Lives Matter is like watching people literally aspiring to black victimization, longing for it as for a consummation." Kendi: "Only racists say they are not racist. Only the racist lives by the heartbeat of denial."

The Truth-Uncensored: I chose to allow these two black scholars to present their viewpoints without any intervening commentary by me. Ultimately, the reader will decide which one makes the most sense, and states the most truth. From my viewpoint, I go by how I lived my own life. Looking forward, not backward. Doing the best that you can given whatever your circumstances may be. Telling young people that they can achieve whatever they want if they work hard enough. Substantial gains and changes have occurred in American society over the last nearly 70 years. By focusing on those positive changes, instead of the negative history, we give an uplifting message. That does not mean we forget the past. No, we learn from it and go forward - with an attitude of optimism, not victimization. And, we judge others as my mother taught me, and as Martin Luther King told all of us, by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.