Enter the dusky types.. As far as a propaganda polemic, Mercer’s book, Into the Cannibal's Pot, is good. Even
the cover art is masterful- behold the tender white maiden, symbol of Western
civilization. She seems drawn up in a protective huddle- fearful, sad, vulnerable,
symbolic of “beleaguered” white culture.. And lo, clouds of dread- on her body-
dark, grasping hands play on tender white flesh.. Cue rhythmic soundtrack
.. Now a looming shadow.. Now
cometh the huge, primitive negro, his powerful thighs ominously ratcheting the
quivering white maiden forward for.. well, you get the picture. Flee friends, flee! Mercer knows
all the right buttons to push for her white readers. It is no accident that
rapes of white women form a distinct section in the book, reported on in lurid
detail. Its good red meat stuff… What white reader can fail to hear the anxious
call to the colors, as the dusky cannibals close in…
Cover stories.. Mercer also has certain advantages as a writer on this
subject, that make her, like “honorary white” righ-wing polemicist Dinesh Dzouza, a
seemingly fearless reporter “saying what no one else dare say.” Indeed the
Indian Dsouza specifically touts his background as giving him some sort of
"special insight" into racial matters, he, the Johnny-come-lately immigrant having
arrived on American shores in 1978 when the bulk of the hard civil rights work
was done, and from which he benefited. He didn’t have to attend segregate
schools for example and could marry his white wife
Dixie without the insult of denial in public accommodations or government police
breaking down their door in the middle of the night to stamp out “miscegenation.”
Yet honorary white Dsouza (
who later apparently cheated on and split from his white wife) calls for a
rollback of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as “unneeded.”
Mercer likewise claims special insight into racial matters-
touting her father’s activism against apartheid. Being a white woman and Jewish
she can command twofold cover- harsher critics can be portrayed as beating up
on a female, or anti-Semitism can be insinuated. Not surprisingly, the larger
part of the negative reviews of Mercer’s book on Amazon do not address her
claims in detail but get sidetracked over things like her Jewish background, Israelis,
and other similar matters- diversionary strawman that conveniently, do not touch her
arguments. But Mercer, like Dsouza, reveals how little she knows about the
American scene.
Mercer's package is not as it seems
upon closer examination and the purported “lessons for America”
aren’t all they seem either. Now let’s get down to bidniss and examine some claims
made by Mercer:
1-- Any Claim Of “Founding”
Populations" Cannot Exclude Blacks.
Mercer downplays that part of the “founding” package was the
backs and lives of millions of black slaves (as in the US)
and indigenous peoples, as in South Africa.
Like many a white right-winger, Mercer breezily presumes that mainly or only white
people count on this score- as if blacks are merely miscellaneous extras in the
noble white movie. They aren’t. And they, as “sons of the soil” – cannot be
whitewashed away so easily. In the case of South
Africa it is more obvious but it is thus
also in the US.
Depending on the era examined blacks made up 40-50% of the population of
several southern states- a majority in some years. And they were the labor
force that produced a great part of the astounding wealth that was a key part
of the American economy. The book "Complicity" by Farrow, Lang and Frank 2005 details this including the deep
complicity of the supposedly more “liberal” white north in profiting from
slavery.
2-- White South Africa Did Not Relinquish Power In The Name Of
“Justice” And “Liberty”
But From Calculated Self-Interest.
Are we really supposed to buy Mercer’s claim or insinuation
that white people are really “yielding” their dominance in the “interests” of
“justice and liberty?” It sounds suspiciously pious, a bit too good to be true.
In fact, white South Africa
preserved the core of its dominance with the deal cut in the 1990s. The
commanding heights of the economy (and a significant swathe of the middle
range), most of the productive land, most of the finances, most of the
technology control, most of the key pillars of the economy- from diamonds, to
agriculture, to mining, to manufacturing, to the essential military formations and
hardware, etc etc remain firmly in white hands.
The deal was cut because (a) maintaining the burdensome apartheid system
became too expensive, (b) the system was too embarrassing internationally, and
(c) economic changes made rigid application of numerous system controls
untenable.
By the 1990s white leaders in SA had to ask some hard
questions. Why deploy an expensive, massive security establishment to do such things as beat in
the heads of people trying to bathe at some beach, or ejecting poor people and their dismal shacks and shanties on the fringes of some area arbitrarily deemed “white”? Why does
a black maid live with whites in the intimate circumstances- suckling white
babies, cleaning the white old and infirm etc etc but becomes a discriminated
against non-person when she simply wants a cup of coffee in some restaurant? Why
try to maintain artificial and inefficient “color bars” when economic pressures
caused employers to begin to flout them in a widespread way?
De Klerck and Co looked hard at the landscape
and saw the absurdity of it all. What worked in the 1950s was by 1990
untenable. But if it could still have worked, white
South
Africa would have kept right on with
apartheid. There was scant regard for “justice and liberty” on many counts back
in apartheid days. Mercer would have us believe that white people piously had a
“change of heart”? Such a noble narrative no doubt plays well with the naïve “white
faithful” but the reality is less flattering.
3—Likewise White America Did Not Eliminate Its Apartheid System
Merely In The Name Of “Justice” Or “Liberty.”
Mercer applies her narrative of noble white people to America-
ever so pious white people giving away stuff in the name of “justice.” Really?
Such narratives play well with both white liberals (it makes them feel good)
and white right-wingers (who seize on it to pump up a picture of white goodness
and generosity to the “ungrateful” coloreds). But the reality is a lot less
flattering to the white propaganda narrative. White America largely eliminated
its own OUTWARD apartheid system because:
(a) economic changes made rigid application of numerous
system controls untenable- the labor shortage and economic expansion of WW2 for
example undermined racist barriers in some ways
(b) the system became too embarrassing internationally in
the face of stinging Soviet exposure during the Cold War (the Soviets often
pointed out American hypocrisy to talk about “democracy” while denying an
important slice of the population full voting rights). America
also was embarrassed by her apartheid policies when dealing with Third
World nations she wished to get resources, trade, military basing
rights and other things from. For example, historical documents shows Sec of
State Dean Rusk lamenting how Jim Crow hurt the US internationally, and US
President Eisenhower inviting African diplomats to the White House in apology
because they were treated insultingly in segregated Washington, or even the
leader of the “Free World” President John F. Kennedy urging DC/Maryland white
realtors to ease up on their racist practices which were creating ugly
diplomatic incidents (Klarman 1994).
(c) The system became too costly, not simply as regards the
inefficiency of maintaining separate white and “colored” facilities (though the
“colored” ones were markedly inferior and seldom “equal”), but that the
political climate after WW2 brought new demands, lawsuits, strikes, boycotts,
sit-ins etc that raised the costs of the US apartheid system. Another part of
this also was the growing importance of the black vote to Democrats in certain
areas- which added further pressure for concessions, and raised the costs of
American apartheid to a level where whites were forced to make concessions.
The combination of these factors was much more potent than
pious white “heart changes.” SOME White liberals in the US
like to pat themselves on the back for noble action on civil rights but the
reality may not be so noble. It was economic pressure brought on by changes
before and after WW2, and continual embarrassment and exposure of white
hypocrisy internally and internationally, that made the most impact. This does
not deny that SOME whites were interested in dismantling outward American
apartheid in the name of “justice”- there were such honorable whites, but the
majority didn’t give a damn about black people, except as they were exposed, inconvenienced,
embarrassed, and/or could gain some advantage in the marketplace from blacks
(such as through cheap labor, or blacks as buyers of white goods and services).
Fact is that in America
large segments of white people, including white people in the supposedly more
“enlightened” North, fought tooth and nail for decades to deny black people
basic civil rights, and basic access to free markets. They fought tooth and
nail to block blacks from getting jobs, moving up in the economy, obtaining
housing, etc etc. As in South Africa,
many white American unions worked mightily to blockade blacks and other
minorities - from cleverly written discriminatory contracts, to hate strikes,
to outright murder when blacks sought so-called “reserved” jobs. The pattern
repeats itself with other non-whites such as Asians, as the mass pogroms,
murders and discriminatory laws against Chinese and Japanese on the West Coast
attest. In many cases, white America had to be exposed and embarrassed to make
even minimal concessions, or as also in South Africa, saw the edifice of white
greed crumble due to economic change and market pressures (WW2 in the US for
example). Much more could be said, but the bottom line is that Mercer’s pious
narrative of noble white people, when measured against the brutal facts of
history, is on some counts sheer nonsense.
4—Contrary To A
Barrage Of Self-Serving rightist/libertarian Propaganda, White People Have Not Been “Swamped”
By “Affirmative Action” And Furthermore The Main Beneficiaries Of “Affirmative
Action” Quotas Are White.
Mercer demonstrates that she knows little about the United
States situation, though she presumes to be
delivering “lessons for America.”
Five points are applicable:
4a—Whites The Main AA Gainers-
4b—Aa Programs Began
With White Unionists Not Blacks
Second, AA quotas in
America (lets not even count “white only” privilege for 2 centuries above and
beyond that) originated as a benefit for WHITE union members in the 1930s
discriminated against for belonging to a union. US Courts recognized that
merely pleading with discriminators to “please stop” was meaningless and
implemented “cease and desist” procedures with teeth, including making people
who had been denied promotions next in line when promotions opened up. White
unions, some of the most bitterest opponents of black opportunity, had no
problem with such supposedly “unjust” court procedures when the beneficiaries
where white. But when a black man denied promotion showed up for legal remedies
then such things became “unfair” and “reverse discrimination.” Ironically
unions have been leaders in systematically denying black people job
opportunities in the
US AND in
South Africa.
They are a telling demonstration of white
hypocrisy and double standards.
4c—Aa Quotas Not
Responsible For Black Gains-
Third, if Mercer knew anything about the
US,
she would know that AA quotas are not responsible significantly for black
economic advance. As CONSERVATiVE scholar Thomas Sowell repeatedly shows, most
US blacks had ALREADY pulled themselves above the poverty line, BEFORE quotas
in the 1970s. Before AA quotas there was a rising trend of black income, and
growth in managerial and technical jobs- with the post-WW2 expansion of the
economy lifting all boats. Black college gains are primarily a result of things
like the post-war GI Bill which allowed tens of thousands to go to colleges
(despite opposition and sandbagging by white southern regimes) not AA quotas of
universities. Such quotas exist but they are minor factors to black advances in
education. Equal opportunity laws and court decisions certainly greatly helped along
these rising trends for blacks, (particularly in the South- see scholar Gavin Wright's book Sharing the Prize-2013- as one example), but equal opportunity laws like the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 are not, and did not mandate sweeping quotas (quite the contrary actually), and such
trends were ALREADY in place before the laws, and long before AA quota
“remedies” in the late 1960s- like Nixon’s 1969 “Philadelphia Plan.”
4d—AA Policies Weakly
Enforced, Contradicting Claims Of Massive White “Persecution”
- Fourth, aside from quotas even enforcement of non-quota
equal opportunity laws has been hampered by deliberately low budgets and
staffing imposed by assorted politicians, as under the Reagan regime. The EEOC
for example has a
2 year plus backlog of cases- hardly the express vehicle of employer "oppression" claimed by white
propagandists in some quarters. And as for contract monitoring, one study found
most companies not in compliance, and that it would take 38 YEARS for
ONE inspection/audit cycle to get around to a company as far as EEO compliance.
4e- - “Reverse
Discrimination A Minor Problem For Whites-
Reverse discrimination against whites in the workplace has
occurred but it is minor according to credible studies of the issue. See for
example the detailed analyses of Blumrosen (1996) . And the biggest cause of
“reverse discrimination” lawsuits are not whites against blacks but- wait for
it- white men against white women. But of course, few would know this from the
white propaganda barrage against those “colored” supposedly “swamping” white
people, and “taking white jobs” via “quotas.” Detailed audits of employment
discrimination show blacks were much more likely to be discriminated against
than white men and likewise national surveys, and exhaustive reviews of
discrimination complaints show relatively few whites have experienced reverse
discrimination. (Ore 2005, Blumrosen 1996)
4f—Blacks Do Not Rely
On “Quotas” To Much Extent For Higher Education- whites use them frequently via "legacy" and other special preference college admissions
One of the first things to note about this issue is the little publicized use by whites of "legacy" or other "special" admissions in higher education- children of alumni or white kids playing sports with less popularity get preferential treatment, sometimes amounting to 15-30% admission rates outside "normal" channels. Books such as Affirmative Action for the Rich: Legacy Preferences in College Admissions and Color and Money by Schmidt 2007, detail the facts. Yet many whites only seem to get upset when minorities weighing in at 2-4% of admission quotas show up. This observation is not a justification for quotas but a point about the type of hypocrisy Mercer and other right-wingers specialize in. "Quotas" in “politically correct” places like universities has in
SOME cases discriminated against whites. But the fact is that blacks do not
rely to any significant degree on AA quotas for access to higher education. As
already noted above, the GI Bill has been a much more significant factor in opening
up such access. In addition the alleged numbers of
blacks “swamping” white people are rather minor.
4g- "Quotas" actually are helpful to whites in keeping out Asian competition as detailed in some blog posts. A 2018 class-action lawsuit representing some 16,000 Asian students for example charges that Harvard University used a semi-secret "rating" system that pegged Asian students lower on desirable personality traits. Apparently those durn Asians were not sufficiently high on "likability", and "positive personality" among other things. These lower ratings decreased Asian chances at admission to the elite school. Less Asian admissions of course means more whites. Sweet! Even more interesting, an earlier internal review of its admissions conducted by Harvard found anti-Asian bias, but Harvard swept the findings under the rug and did not act on them. Note the graph below- at top braniac school CalTech, which goes strictly by merit, Asian enrollments rise steadily, but in the socially prestigious Ivy League universities, they keep dropping. This lawsuit confirms the suspicions of many - that white people have been, and are using "informal" or hidden quotas and "caps" to keep out Asian competition, and at the same time, pushing blacks out front as scapegoats and propaganda diversions on long hollowed-out policies of "affirmative action." But the specific white quotas are only the tip of the iceberg. While lecturing about "merit," whites lock in further advantage by the widespread use of "legacy", "specialty" and "cash-connection" admissions- sons and daughters of white alumni, or those with enough cash connections, get special preferences- including a lower bar for admissions. Its another great way of keeping out those hard-working Asians who rely precisely on "merit" and not "likability" and "personality" to build up admission points.
https://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2018/06/asiarate-lawsuit-against-harvard-shows.html
Low Impact of AA- One
study from 1982 to 1996, a "hot" period of AA before California's
Prop 209 ban, found that black enrollments in college were a mere 9.7% and this
climbed to a whopping 11.5% by 1996- a "massive" 1.5% increase that
was comfortably outpaced by Asians and even Hispanics. The same study found
that contrary to propaganda claims, black student enrollments at top-tier
universities remained relatively flat- with "affirmative use of race in
this [top-level] sector" not making much impact in enrollments. (Chang et
al. 2000. Compelling Interest. Monograph: University
of Stanford). In short, the much
derided "quotas for blacks" had little impact on black enrollment in
higher education overall- which remained flat. Again, the data shows that
blacks do not depend significantly on "quotas" for their college
access.
AA primarily a force
on elite campuses with small numbers of minorities- Yet another review
(Gurin et al 2003. How does Racial/Ethnic Diversity Promote Education? WJBS.
27:1) found that affirmative action exists primarily in highly selective
colleges that barely have more than 8-10% black students. Such campuses are not
where the vast majority, the OTHER 90-92% of black students attend. As far as
college access, affirmative action is a minor player for blacks. Yet to hear
the howling propaganda narrative, college campuses are swamped with
"unqualified" blacks "taking slots" from "deserving
white students." This is simply not the case. Again, keep in mind that all
black attendees to the top tier schools do NOT need any quota arrangements-
although the barrage of white propaganda makes it seem so.
AA closely limited by
whites from very early on- hardly the wild “reverse discrimination” force
claimed - And where is are these alleged legions of white people being
“hurt” by AA? In fact, AA from very early on was narrowly limited by whites-
from its very beginning it was under attack. The continual narrowing of AA
programs, was long underway. In recent years it is seen in such Court cases as
Grutter, etc has been causing a drop in admissions of black students. One
review example (Gurin et al 2003) found that the liquidation or narrowing of AA
due to court and legislative actions did cause a drop in minority admissions at
higher ranked schools. But the numbers before and after show that “quotas” were
hardly evil mechanism causing all these white “sufferahs.” The AA reduction leaves smaller numbers of
blacks in place, but the numbers were not that high to begin with.
AA opponents admit
its limited impact - Even some academic OPPONENTS of Affirmative Action
note its limited scope- in contrast to the right-wing propaganda narrative of
its vast reach and influence. Richard Sander, a prominent opponent for example
estimates that ending affirmative action would only curtail African-American
law school enrollments by 14 percent. Whoa… Law school quotas in other words
"increased the pool of black students admitted to the nation's law schools
as a group by only 14 percent." (Sander and Taylor, 2012. Mismatch: How
Affirmative Action Hurts Students It's Intended to help.) Note that- a mere 14
percent. So, if 100 black guys get into Berkeley Law schools, 14 vanished
because quotas ended. But that still leaves 86 who DIDN’T need quotas. So where
is this mass wave of white “suffering” due to quotas? Indeed Sanders holds that
the end of AA quotas means that the WEAKER, less prepared minority candidates
get eliminated. This is fair enough- they were not that many to begin with,
contrary to the flood of white propaganda.
In federal contracting the same pattern again challenges the
rightist/libertarian propaganda barrage: where are the piteous legions of white people
allegedly being "hurt" by "quotas for blacks"? In fact
since the 1980s, courts have sharply limited the use of "quotas" in
contracting as demonstrated in the Croson case (1989) which ruled against minority-only
contract awards, and the Adarand case (1990). In short, while courts have not
entirely killed Affirmative Action or "diversity", from the 1980s
they have sharply limited its applicability. And this was over 2 decades ago. California's
famous Proposition 209 which outlawed was in 1996, almost 20 years ago. Cynical propaganda claims about
white “sufferahs” are not only mostly bogus but woefully out of date as well.
Court ordered remedies...
5—Rape Is A Serious
Issue But Black Women Are Much More Victims Than White Ones. Mercer detail several
cases of rape of white women in South Africa. These cases
are heart-rending, and one rape case is one too many. It is noted that black women are at much more risk of rape than white women,
either in South Africa
and the United States,
and white on black rapes were common until relatively recently.
Mercer also does a service in exposing the disgraceful behavior of some blacks in South Africa as regards rape of their own women. A common complaint is that rapes of white women are taken more seriously than rapes of black women. This cuts both ways. Black female rape victims who are much more victims in South Africa are not taken seriously enough EITHER by certain blacks. Mercer exposes the callous treatment accorded these women. Even as regards SA president Zuma, the black victim's sexual history was deemed fair game, but Zuma's previous sexual history was treated much more gently. Mercer exposes this black hypocrisy. Mercer is also correct in noting that rapes of white women have gone up in SA but these are still far below what black women suffer on a daily basis. White women are the best protected of all women in SA. Still, one raped woman, is one too many, and the disproportionate appearance of blacks of a certain age in rape statistics is well known from crime reports and news stories. Few "deny" such statistics, as claimed by right-wing propagandists.
Rape of “native
girls” was widespread by white South African males. They had relatively
little to fear in the way of punishment. The laws of the apartheid state, and
the pre-apartheid regime made the "rape of black women less of a crime,
less punishable, and of less consequence than the rape of white women."
(Graham 2012, State of Peril). South Africa has a high number of reported rape cases according to some reports but relatively few of
the victims of these assaults are white. Rape levels in SA remain high, but one historian argues that there has
been no statistical evidence of any
"epidemic" of rape against white women, who are the best protected of
all women in SA. Rape was a major but hidden social problem under apartheid.
That social problem, which afflicts mostly black women cannot be hidden any longer.
As far as the US a similar situation prevailed. Tens of
thousands of white on black rapes in the US for example occurred prior to the
FBI investigations and civil rights protections of the 1960s, according to author
Danielle McGuire. The horrific gang rape of Recy Taylor which many white
newspapers declined to even report, is merely one example of white "role models" at work. White law enforcement
authorities knew who the attackers were based on Taylor's
description, but avoided doing an official police lineup, ensuring that Taylor
would not be able to point them out in open court.
The white authorities claimed they had the men on bond,
"pending trial", but court records show that they issued bond after Taylor's
hearing, backdating their supposed "arrest." An all-white
jury declined to indict the attackers, who did not even bother to show up in
court.
Meanwhile, the black victim's house was firebombed by whites
because she reported the rape. A detailed analysis of the case is in At the
Dark End of the Street, 2011, by Danielle McGuire
Such cases are not
unique. "Open season" white on black rape was widespread, even after
the Civil War. As regards the history of rapes of black women, historians
note:
"Virtually every known nineteenth-century female slave
narrative contains a reference to, at some juncture, the ever present threat
and reality of rape. Two works come immediately to mind: Hariet Jacob's
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) and Elizabeth Jeckley's Behind the
Scenes or Thirty Years a Slave (1868).."
--Beverly Guy-Sheftall. 1995. Words of Fire
"After the Civil Ear, the widespread rape of Black
women by white men persisted. Black women were vulnerable to rape in several
ways that white women were not. First the rape of Black women was used
as a weapon of group terror by white mobs and by the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction. Second, because Black women worked outside
the home, they were exposed to employers; sexual aggression as white women who worked inside the home were not... [One white judge said to
a black victim] 'This court will never take the word of a nigger against the
word of a white man.'
-- Karen J. Maschke. 1997 The Legal Response to Violence
Against Women
6—“Multiculturalism”
And “Diversity” Has Actually Been Profitable For White People Despite Some
Abuses.
6a—“The West” Had
Multi-Cultural Problems Long Before Any Black People Showed Up.
Mercer suggests that “multiculturalism” is a dire threat to
Western civilization. Really now? Diversity of race, language, religion etc is
a source of tension EVERYWHERE ON EARTH not only in America
or South Africa. “Tension" does not need non-whites to
happen. In America
and Europe “diversity” has also caused
"tension" WHERE THERE ARE MOSTLY
WHITE PEOPLE- just ask the white Irish and almost everyone else, or the
millions of dead Europeans fighting wars over religion and ethnicity. When has
“the West” NOT known “problems” over “diversity”?
And in many cases it is WHITE people who instigated, created
and pushed tension, sometimes with murderous results, as the numerous
lynchings, riots and mass murders against black, brown and yellow Americans
attest. WHITE America and WHITE South Africa are supreme examples of forces
creating "tension" and "conflict." But to “the white
faithful, only those troublesome cullud minorities are to blame in their simplistic racial fantasy world..
6b-"Diversity"
And "Multicultural" Oft Serves To Make White People Feel Noble And
Enlightened Not Guilty.
Multicultural initiatives are not necessarily anti-white- in
fact some have been very useful in creating a more accurate narrative of
history and policy- much better than previous segregationist, slavery-apologist or "manifest
destiny" propaganda in various places and school textbooks well into the
1960s.
And "multiculturalism" does not necessarily create
"white guilt." To the contrary- some "multicultural"
initiatives promote white self-esteem and self-congratulation. Whites feel
noble for "progressive" measures that removed the Jim Crow apartheid
system, and other measures to help blacks get a stake in the system, like
opening up democracy via gasp- actually allowing black people to vote! Imagine
that!
6c—“Multiculturalism”
Is A Good
Way For
White People To Fob Off Restive Minorities With Chump Change while The Core Of
White Hegemony Is Preserved.
Another benefit of "multi-culturalism" to whites
is that it allows questioning minorities to be fobbed off with chump change- a
small grant here, a "diversity coordinator" job there. "Beads
for the natives" if you will.. that warm the hearts of the colored
gullible.. This keeps them quiescent and
ensures that more fundamental questions about the power structure, and the
systematic networks of embedded white privilege are not effectively raised. This is an
old pattern going back to some of the "War on Poverty" programs when
small-potatoes grants, jobs and programs were dispersed, "cooling
off" unrest and/or criticism of discriminatory white privilege. In some
cases it even helped split minority coalitions into petty recipients squabbling
with one another over petty funding that ultimately served as a more effective
lever of control than snarling dogs, ranting racists and blasting firehoses.
6d—Multiculturalism
Has Enabled A Lot Of White People To Get Paid And Is Good
Cover For Continuing Policies With Discriminatory Intent Or Impact.
Numerous so-called
“diversity” initiatives have not really touched the core of white power or
dominance. In fact whites have moved to profit from them: including assorted
funding and jobs for white coordinators, bureaucrats and miscellaneous
processors of paper. Hoods and robes are not needed for white people to enhance
their control and profit. They are accomplishing the same by more subtle means-
with a veneer of cool “multiculturalism” even seeming anti-racism these
days. Whites have figured out numerous
ways to get paid using "multiculturalism." On top of material rewards
is the “psychic remuneration.” White people get to feel good about themselves
in the process.
Likewise white liberals who think “diversity” is cool are
busy implementing seemingly non-racial barriers that HURT “diversity.” The
numerous zoning laws and other restrictions that suppress the supply of housing
for example has been very effective in “ethnically cleansing” assorted white
neighborhoods (and associated things like schools) of “undesirable” minorities.
Who needs dynamite or fire hoses anymore? Whites can create “black free” zones,
all the while appearing cool, progressive, and into “diversity.”
7—Whites Have Not
Been Unfairly “Muzzled” From “Speaking Out” About Race, Or Indeed Whatever Is
On Their Minds. To The Contrary, There Is No Shortage Of White People
Venting, Ranting And “Speaking Out.”
Mercer insinuates that white people are no longer able to
“speak out” due to “political correctness” and a media “blackout” that
“muzzles” them, or covers up black misdeeds. But this insinuation is dubious.
7C- White People Are
Not Being “Muzzled.” In Fact They Waste No Time Expressing Themselves In The
Media- Internet, Blogs, Books, Web Forums, Etc, Including Giving Free Rein To
Racist Sentiments.
The Internet is awash with white racism in countless venues-
from discussion forums, to blogs, to Youtube videos maintained by whites. Where
is this so-called “muzzling”? White
South Africa has for decades manipulated media with unending propaganda to
picture themselves as virtuous upholders of “civilization” as compared to the
backward darkies. That has never stopped and South African media has no
shortage of white “free expression.”
7b—Far From
“Favoring” Blacks The White Media Has
Often Been Slanted In Its Coverage To Portray The Most Negative Aspects
Involving Blacks.
And in older media like print books and magazine articles,
white people have not been “muzzled” at all. In the US,
the 1980s and 1990s for example saw a vast outpouring of books and articles
against “political correctness” “liberals” and the pathologies afflicting
blacks. Black crime, out of wedlock births, etc. etc. were, and have been well
reported, and sneeringly commented on. None of it is “hidden” by “the media.”
In fact, credible scholars of “the media” have noted how it continually plays
on white fears and double standards- showing whites engaged in similar activity
as blacks in a more sympathetic or neutral light for example.
Time and time again, white media have seized on the most
sensationalist black imagery to reinforce the image of the feckless,
threatening, primitive negro-- like the bogus, but suitably lurid “stories” of
“baby rapes” during 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. Books like: Welfare: Race, Media,
and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy. 2007.
By Martin Gilens) and The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race
in America,
Robert M. Entman, Andrew Rojecki – 2010 expose much of this detail. Blacks
have received little special treatment from “the media”- to the contrary. All
this continues today, in more muted and coded form than in the past, but still
in place. Where is this mysterious “muzzling” of white people the faithful cry
so piteously about?
7c—White Right
Wingers Have Themselves For Years Been Playing “The Race Card” In The Media And
Milking Racial Tension And Imagery.
And white right-wingers for decades have been milking
anti-black sentiment among whites often using “coded” references and campaigns.
Yes there was a “southern strategy” and it was based on race as detailed works
on the Nixon era show. This is but one example. The “coded” references of the
Reagan regime on a number of fronts are another example. White right-wingers
hypocritically cry about how the “liberals” are playing race cards, when they
themselves have been milking “race cards” about “the culluds” profitably for
years.
7d—The Media Often
Focus On The Most Sensational Aspect Of A Story And Have Not Been “Covering” Up
Where Blacks Are Concerned.
And “the media” is not engaged in wholesale “cover-ups” of
black misdeeds or crime. In SOME cases, SOME national news outlets have not
given full coverage of minority crime vis a vis white crime against a minority.
Yes, and we all know they SOMETIMES do this because a white on black “racial”
story will get more attention in a nation obsessed with race- like the infamous Twana Brawley hoax. That needs to
stop- agreed. But OTHER crimes that have a sensational angle, including a
racial angle, have not been “covered up” at all. The Central Park Jogger case
was a media sensation- there was your brutish “cullud” criminals raping sweet innocent white woman. There was no “coverup” and no lack of commentary on the
racial subtext. The white media played it for all it was worth. Likewise the OJ
case. The white media had a field day, including the nationals. What cover-up?
What “blackout”? And local media has usually reported crimes involving
“minorities” including giving descriptions, details etc. If someone gets raped
and killed and the local media has descriptions or pics or mugshots, those are
almost always published regardless of race.
Likewise the misdeeds of prominent black figures like singer
R. Kelly, mayor Barry of Washing ton DC, Al Sharpton, or Detroit’s
Kilpatrick are well known and have been extensively covered by the liberal
white media. The alleged media “coverup” charged in white racist lore, is sheer
fantasy and outright hypocrisy.
In SOME venues, like white politically correct ones, and
non-white ones as well, anti-white sentiments have been expressed. Sure. Likewise in various white venues,anti-black sentiments flow freely. But is
this some vast conspiracy by “the media” that is “muzzling” white people,
supposedly “shutting down “free expression”? Not at all.
8—Is “Diversity”
Really A Vast Oppression Of Economic Oppression Against White People? Mercer’s
Broad Brush Claim Is Dubious. To The Contrary, Well-Armed Whites Control Most
Of The Levers Of Wealth In South Africa And Are Comfortably Off Relative To Blacks.
Mercer claims that `Diversity' is a euphemism for racial
retribution administered mostly by guilty white liberals in universities,
corporations, and government. It is a thoroughly collectivist notion that
condones punishing the current generation of white males for the sins of the
past. It's most extreme form is practiced in post-Apartheid South
Africa. Under the new feckless negro rule, racist labor laws have created
`The world's most extreme affirmative action program'. Sounds dire, but is it
really the vale of tears Mercer makes out?
8a. Whites
Comfortably Situated Overall. And Are Not Facing “Genocide” or dire unemployment.
For one thing whites are very comfortably situated in South
Africa. They control most of the wealth,
dominate finance, technology and the most lucrative economic sectors, and are
among the best armed civilians per capita in the world. It is true that some
lower tier whites have lost their long privileged places in the economy- places
they secured because their “color bar” locked out free market black
competition. But overall, whites are fairly well situated. No Zimbabwe will happen in SA. Whites are too rich, too important to the economy, and
crucially, too well armed. Mercer is upset that whites have lost their PUBLICLY
privileged positions of old, but said whites still retain a comfortable
position and are not facing the hysterical “genocide” claimed in some quarters.
8B. The allegedly “Extreme”
Affirmative Action Is Partially Normal
Political Spoils, Partly The Removal Of Less Productive Or Competitive Whites
Who Were Sheltered By Apartheid Color Bars.
The “extreme affirmative action” lament by Mercer is also
questionable. First some of what she claims to be “unjust” affirmative action
is simply what happens when another political party takes office- it
distributes SOME spoils to supporters. White people in the US
do it all the time-just read about the white political machines in urban America.
This is old fashioned politics. For someone who styles herself as bringing "lessons for America," Mercer seems strangely clueless to this basic fact of US life.Second a substantial proportion of less
competitive, less productive whites were sheltered with privileged “color bar”
sinecures under apartheid. With the end of that artificial shelter, it is
inevitable that black alternatives fill the gap- whether in terms of less
expensive labor, or more productive labor. Why should a company keep paying
inflated white union benefits and wages when cheaper, more productive or
motivated black labor can get the same job done? What is a libertarian like Mercer complaining about? Isn't this how the much touted "free market" is supposed to work? Or does that much hailed shiny model suddenly change when a black man shows up?
Mercer is careful to avoid discussing such issues in detail.
In fact the removal of apartheid revealed South
Africa’s dirty little secret. Mercer paints
a picture of virtuous, productive white people, but the end of the Apartheid color-bar
showed that many whites were not all the virtuous workers she touts, but too
often, a sheltered, protected pampered class. In the US there are now numerous white South African immigrants and one sees them
hustling on the job or to find work. Some Americans have little sympathy. Their
response is: “You are no longer in your little sheltered race cocoon. Get out there and
hustle like the rest of us Yanks. Welcome to the club.”
8c. Short-Sighted
Black Quotaism Will Harm Long Term Prospects If The *Most Productive* Whites
Go, But Normal Democratic Spoils And Normal Use Of Cheaper More Productive Black
Labor Meant SOME Whites Would Inevitably Be Losers.
Does this mean that SA’s “affirmative action” policies above
and beyond the 2 factors above are the best ones? No. There is a level beyond
normal political spoils and economic efficiency where “quotas” are
counterproductive. SA will find this out as more skilled workers leave. For now
leaders are short-sighted about the need to retain the most productive whites.
SA will pay the price in future years, but Mercer’s claim that massive white job losses
are due to sweeping “affirmative action quotas” is dubious.
Even if there were no black animosity in today’s South
Africa and blacks loved all white people, that still would not mean that (a)
politicians would not reward their supporters as in any democracy and (b)
economic efficiencies would not cause the use of cheaper, more productive black
labor. There two things are inevitable. It does not all boil down to Mercer’s
simplistic complaint about “affirmative action.”
8d. South African whites got a sweet job-protection racial quota deal in the transition to black majority rule, circa 1994. As the price for white cooperation, Mandela and his people had to agree to a 10-year job protection plan for whites in the civil service and military. Since 40% of the white Boer population worked in government, this racial quota was a massive benefit for them. The quota also mean that normal spoils employment, which is the prerogative of every political party, was hindered where blacks were concerned. In addition, as discussed below, whites got to keep all the land they had unjustly appropriated from blacks, as in the Native Land Act and other similar legislation and executive action. Such special privileges carved out for whites, on top of their already massive benefits in every significant area, such as land ownership, exposes Mercer's dishonest narrative of white suffering and disadvantage.
9) Far from being woeful victims pushed off their land like 19th and 20th century blacks, South Africa's whites get to keep all the land they expropriated in the past. Blacks by contrast get little to no compensation. To be sure, one can appreciate the sensitivity of the land issue and the cynical political realities that needed to be covered to ensure a transition to black government. It will take more decades for the land issue to be sorted, but the point is to expose the propaganda drumbeat of Mercer and others regarding so called white suffering and "genocide." Really? How much can you be suffering, and where is this so-called "genocide," when you get to keep almost all of the land you stole in the past, and if you decide to part with any of it, you get paid full price, while black folk mostly get nothing or pittances? This is "suffering"?
When African tribes were defeated, or simply, when greedy whites coveted the land, cattle and other resources of peaceful black tribal people, both Briton and Boer decreed and implemented massive land confiscations, forcing blacks to become a rootless, landless, rightless proletariat- strangers on their own land, permitted only by sufferance of the new white overlords and landlords. On top of that they piled on various coercive measures to get black labor as cheaply as possible- from wage fixing at the mines, to so-called "tax collection' sweeps that amounted to little more than large-scale armed white thuggery and robbery of poor black people, seizing what little cattle they had left. Indeed it was common practice for Boers to keep black children seized in various wars in conditions of semi-slavery, the so-called "black apprentices."
And when blacks attempted to develop a "free market" peasant class of farmers using sharecropped or rented land, greedy whites moved to shut down even that, via numerous measures, including the so-called "Native Land Act" which reserved 87% of the land for whites while fobbing off the remaining 13% (much of it marginal) to blacks. See Colin Bundy's classic 1972 study: The Emergence and Decline of A South African Peasantry. African Affairs, Vol. 71, No. 285 (Oct., 1972), pp. 369-388.
And the final insult: even after their defeat by the white British during the Boer war, the white South Africans got their lands and overlordships restored to them. Tens of thousands of blacks who aided the British cause were betrayed by white perfidy. On top of that, almost as many blacks as Boers died in the British "relocation" camps, but their stories receive comparatively little attention. When blacks were defeated massive amounts of their land was confiscated and turned over to whites. When the Boer whites were defeated, they got most of the land and rights handed back to them. The treacherous white British even disarmed blacks after the war, while making sure the white Boers kept their weapons. As one detailed academic history notes, many blacks who aided their "white friends," the British against the Boers during the war were betrayed, and got nothing for the assistance they rendered. QUOTE:
"Meanwhile across the Protectorate’s southern border in the settler state of the Cape Colony the Tshidi-Barolong were unable to gain any advantages of substance from their assistance to the British. Although their support for Baden-Powell’s force was crucial to the British army’s success in holding Mafeking against all odds, they received almost nothing in return. They lost property, cattle and their firearms, hundreds of Barolong lost their lives, they received only minimal compensation, and were never granted land or any other tangible economic rewards for their participation in the struggle. After the war ordinary members of the Barolong community were less able than before to withstand pressures to work for white farmers or to enlist as migrant labourers on the Rand...
As soon as local military forces [Boer] were withdrawn the system of social control in the Rustenburg-Marico region collapsed, enabling the Kgatla to entrench themselves on white farms and effectively closing down the land area over which the guerrillas could operate and safely draw supplies. Once the war was over, however, the power of the new British-controlled state in the Transvaal was put behind the Boer farming community in re-establishing families on their former lands. Kgatla hopes were dashed of permanently securing more land by right of conquest to cultivate on their own behalf."
--Peter Warwick. 1983. Black People and the South African War 1899-1902
But that's not all. As credible histories show, not only did the white Boers get back their land and overlordship, but the white British supplied them with millions of pounds in financial assistance to rebuild. Says one modern textbook:
"Thus the Africans were the real losers in the war. In rural areas the British relocated Afrikaner farmers to their prewar farms, pushing aside Africans who had worked the land during the war. The British also provided white farmers with millions of pounds sterling in financial assistance and set about modernizing agricultural production. Little was done to aid African farmers."
--Roger Beck 2013. The History of South Africa: 2nd ed. p. 106
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Free markets for me negro, but not for thee. Oh, and did we mention the massive bounties for white benefit in the mining industry, including black wages fixed at low levels, forced labor regimes and "pass laws" designed to keep blacks corralled in "native reserves" as a cheap pool or exploited migrant labor for white benefit? Then there is white manipulation of "free markets" to blockade black progress. As Bundy's classic study shows, in several areas black farmers were adapting quite well to the "free market"- and were sometimes more competitive with white farmers. What was the primary white response to "free markets"? The 1913 "Native Land Act" that reserved almost 90% of the land for white people. Other measures included raising taxes on blacks such as the 1908 "Natives tax Act" and heavy-handed white regime policies forcing out, or discouraging black farmers from getting land. White greed reduced much of the rising black peasant class to that of landless migrant laborer. Part of the white benefit package included such things as the Identification of Native Servants Act (1901), its amendment (1904), the amended Masters and Servants Act (1901), the amended Squatters' Rent Act (1903), etc etc- all designed to suppress black progress and increase white profits and wealth.
Yes, white people have been doing well, very, very very well in South Africa for a long time, rigging the game repeatedly for their own benefit over centuries. And they get to keep all those accumulated locked in advantages in wealth, land and other things, even after the Mandela transition. In the matter of land for example, Section 25 of the 1994 Mandela/DeKlerk constitution confirmed whites in full possession of all their previously claimed property, no matter how dubiously some of it might have been attained. In exchange blacks and others were "promised" land reform. Fast forward 20 years and little has changed. Land reform moves at a glacial pace for blacks.
As on authoritative publication puts it:
"In the process of trying to remedy inequality, the ANC has instead
exacerbated it. The apartheid government often took land from black
communities without just compensation and transferred it at nominal cost
to white farmers. If the anc decides to return a particular parcel of
land to a dispossessed black community while the white farmer to whom
the apartheid government sold it is still alive, the state is
constitutionally mandated to pay the farmer just compensation, despite
the unfair circumstances under which the farmer acquired the land in the
first place.Yet blacks do not get just compensation for land previous
governments stole from them. The constitution states that South Africans
whose property was dispossessed after 1913 as a result of racially
discriminatory business practices are entitled "either to restitution of
that property or to equitable redress." By 2008, however, 70 percent of
the beneficiaries of the land restitution program had received no land
at all, only small, symbolic financial awards that bore no relation to
the past or current market value of their confiscated property. This is
not equitable redress.
For instance, the Land Restitution Commission paid each dispossessed
landowner in Paarl, a scenic town in the Western Cape's wine country,
40,000 rand (about $5,700), whereas it paid six current landowners in
the same province 14.5 million rand (about $2 million) for about 250
acres of land. From its inception in 1995 through March 2008, the
commission spent 7.8 billion rand (about $1.1 billion) to acquire
property for land reform, which was paid mostly to white farmers, but
only 4.9 billion rand (approximately $700 million) to distribute as
financial compensation, which was paid primarily to dispossessed blacks...
The example of the Popela community in the northern Limpopo Province is a
case in point. The Popela community is resource poor, and its land
rights were progressively eroded under colonialism and apartheid. The
community had full rights to use its ancestral land until 1889, when the
British expropriated it and gave title to a white settler who forced
community members to provide free labor if they wanted to remain there.
In 1969, the community was stripped of all its formal rights to use the
land. In a landmark decision delivered in June 2007, the South African
Constitutional Court ruled that certain community members were entitled
to restitution of their land rights. Four years later, however, the Land
Restitution Commission, which was charged with implementing the court's
decision, has yet to purchase the land as mandated by the court.
"
--SOURCE: Atuahene, Bernadette. 2011. South Africa's Land Reform Crisis: Eliminating the Legacy of Apartheid. Foreign Affairs 90.4 (Jul/Aug 2011): 121-129.
^^Note above the foot-dragging of the ANC in funding land reform efforts and accelerating them. It is not savage segregationists sandbagging the effort, but the entrenched ANC party bosses and hacks, who while trading on their "revo creds" from 30 years ago, pay little price for their inaction. Again the issue may take decades to sort and cynical compromises had to be made 20 years ago to do a deal, but stop with the dishonest propaganda about all this "suffering and genocide."
Another interesting irony: the end of apartheid has also achieved one of the major objectives of apartheid- that of raising white Boer economic status relative to English background whites.
After the 1994 Mandela deal, big white SA companies were overjoyed in that it freed them from the currency controls imposed by the apartheid regime, and international sanctions. They promptly took advantage of this to sell off less profitable enterprises and invest in more lucrative opportunities overseas. They was much self-serving publicity regarding "black empowerment" but what the big boys were doing was unloading their LESS PROFITABLE, NON CORE operations into black hands. The "empowered" blacks had to struggle to get financing to keep these unbundled enterprises afloat, while the white big boys walked away with the freed up cash. In in some cases, they later turned around and parlayed the more lucrative out-of-country investments back into South Africa to BUY BACK the assets they unloaded, at a nice discount. Sweet!
As many Anglo dominated corporations unbundled and divested under the Mandela deal that freed up their cash, white Boer South Africans also were able to buy up a number of assets, and thus make relative gains, in comparison to English South Africans. Hence the dismantling of apartheid actually helped along one of the aims of apartheid- to increase white Boer wealth. As one detailed scholarly study notes:
"Afrikaner businessmen with pre-existing capital were less exposed to the consequences of rising interest rates.Consequently, their ownership share of the JSE rose from 24 to 36 percent from 1996–1999 as large-scale Anglophone capital divested.87 Thus, paradoxically, one of the objectives of apartheid – raising Afrikaners to a position of economic parity with English-speaking whites – is being furthered by its demise."
--SOURCE: Padraig Carmody. 2002. Between Globalisation and (Post Apartheid: the Political Economy of Restructuring in South Africa. Journal of Southern African Studies, Volume 28, Number 2, June 2002
BOTTOM LINE
Mercer says some true things about today’s South
Africa and rightly condemns the corruption
and incompetence in some black quarters, And yes there has been a Western media
spin re a pious “Mandelaism.” But her narrative is also stretched, distorted
and dubious in other places. It mirrors similar “white virtue” narratives
in the United States,
much of them also distorted and sometimes outright bogus. Read with a shovel full of
salt. She has few lessons for America, save as an example of how the well funded cross-continental networks of racalist distortion and hypocrisy.
Her “undeserving blacks” narrative on “affirmative action”
is a case in point. Given the loss of the artificially protected “color bar”
economy in SA, it was inevitably that a significant slice of whites would see
job losses as cheaper, more productive black labor filled the long suppressed
free market. This has noting to do with “political correctness” or “reverse
discrimination.” It is plain Economics 101. Read Tom Sowell's
"Economics" series. Similar things happened in the US in the southern textile industry. Civil Rights laws pried open the cosy job
protection rackets of whites, and black employment made significant gains, as
mill owners discovered cheaper, similar or more productive black labor could
get the job done without paying any “white tax.” White job losses thus are not
all due to the simplistically claimed “quotas” or “reverse” discrimination.
South Africa's government run "white socialism" in favor of whites - a huge racial wealth transfer.White libertarians and right wingers oft rail against "socialism", but have little to say when its whites who are profiting from it vis a vis blacks. In apartheid South Africa, the highest rate of nationalization of industries anywhere outside the Communists' bloc was instituted. Why all this government control? To provide jobs for the white Boer population, with said whites having a government employment rate of about 40%. QUOTE:
"The origins of apartheid go back to the early years of the twentieth century, when large numbers of white farmers began moving into South Africa’s growing cities. There they discovered, to their horror, that they did not automatically earn higher wages than other races. But they had the right to vote—and non-whites did not. And so the South African government instituted “job-reservation” laws designed to ensure that only whites got jobs that paid well. The government also set about creating jobs for whites in government-owned industries. As Allister Sparks notes in The Mind of South Africa (1990), in its efforts to provide high-paying jobs for whites, the country “eventually acquired the largest amount of nationalized industry of any country outside the Communist bloc.”
--FROM: Ray and Anderson. 2011. Krugman's Economics for AP. pp. 715
So-called "black government socialism" is chump change compared to WHITE socialism under apartheid, which employed 40% of the white population.
It is interesting that Ayn Rand lovers [like Mercer], who
tout “free markets” start to complain and whine when unleashed ”free markets”
take away the cosy, coddled white protections. Suddenly, things become “unfair”
when black people begin to get a piece of the “free market.” Now here have we
seen such hypocrisy befo children? Consider these and other points dear reader,
before you jump hook, line and sinker into Mercer’s polemical "cannibal's pot.".
Enjoying his quota of white meat...
LINKS TO OTHER POSTS:
Trump properties discriminated against black tenants lawsuit finds
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2016/07/trump-properties-discriminated-against.html
Stealing credibility- Dinesh D'souza has prison epiphany- after hanging with the homies- Hallelujah Hilary!
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2016/05/straining-credibility-dinesh-dsouza-has.html
Two rules for being "really" black- no white wimmen, no Republican
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/01/to-be-really-black-you-cant-have-white.html
The Axial age reconsidered
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-axial-age-reconsidered.html
Cannibal seasonings: dark meat on white
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/12/i.html
"Affirmative Action" in the form of court remedies has been around a long time- since the 1930s- benefiting white union workers against discrimination by employers
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/09/affirmative-action-as-term-appears-in.html
Mugged by reality 1: White quotas, special preferences and government jobs
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/06/mugged-by-reality-1-white-quotas.html
Lightweight enforcement of EEO laws contradicts claims of "flood" of minorities "taking jobs"
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/06/blog-post.html
Railroaded 3: white violence and intimidation imposed quotas
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/06/railroaded-3-white-violence-and.html
Railroaded 2: how white quotas and special preferences blockade black progress...
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/06/railroaded-2-thow-white-quotas-and.html
Railroaded 1: How white affirmative action and white special preferences destroyed black railroad employment...
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/06/railroaded-how-white-affirmative-action.html
Affirmative action: primary beneficiaries are white women...
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2011/04/quick-regime-kill-hopes-in-libya.html
7 reasons certain libertarians and right-wingers are wrong about the Civil Right Act
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2012/05/7-reasons-libertarians-may-be-wrong.html
Social philosophy of Thomas Sowell
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2011/07/social-philosophy-of-thomas-sowell.html
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2010/04/blog-post_1818.html
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/03/playing-greek-defence-review-of-thornton.html
OTHER NOTES
ADDITIONAL DATA- AND DISCUSSION
Mercer Fails To Tell The Full Story- Actually White Wealth Has
INCREASED Since The Advent Of Black Rule And the Requirement For Black Rule was
Dismantling The Statist Structures and Government Programs That Whites
Benefited From For Decades, Including Measures So Whites Can Extract Their
Wealth Easily
Whites in SA today, overall, are well positioned to take advantage
of economic changes- including the decline of manufacturing and the rise of
finance, insurance and real estate, as well as communications and commerce, due
to speculative and trade-related activity.
The neo-liberal policy put in place under Mandela and then Mbeki was
guided and dominated by white corporate and financial elites, working in
collaboration with the World Bank, including a loosening of financial controls
that facilitated the huge exit of capital from SA. Whites could get their
apartheid era wealth out if, and many did.
In 1993-94 the IMF floated an $850million loan to SA, ostensibly
for "drought relief" but the worse of the drought had ended over a
year earlier. The loan which included such requirements as cuts in state
spending an public sector wages. In 1994 Mandela's "government of national
unity" incorporated whites as 20% of legislative representation via the National
Party, blocking a decisive two-thirds majority for the ANC, a majority Mandela
himself said would be counterproductive since it might dent investor confidence
about the stability of the new Constitution. Once a new neo-liberal regime was
established in SA under ANC cover (but with white control behind the scenes)
Deklerk's National Party showing or "coalition" was no longer needed.
Whites also moved to restructure the state pension funds to benefit old-guard
civil servants- mostly white.
As one South African scholar has pointed out, (Patrick Bond -professor at the University of
KwaZulu-Natal School of Development Studies) "class apartheid" has
replaced open racial apartheid- and class privilege can be more easily hidden
and justified.
In short, far from the vale of tears, whites, on balance, are
doing fairly well in the new South Africa, or if they left, many have been able to extract their apartheid
era wealth, True, whites have suffered losses, but this is not primarily due to
“black malice or incompetence. SOME whites have lost due to (a) the decline of
the artificial color bar, (b) loss of the bloated job protection rackets, (c)
opening up of once sheltered apartheid internal market and state monopolism
rackets. And as part of the deal for a new South Africa, whites demanded and
got a reduction of the state largesse that they enjoyed for decades- government
programs for example such as help with electrification that have long benefited
whites were cut for example once blacks appeared to get a piece of the
action. In addition, whites can now pocket the profits from a shift to service
industries and financial manipulation and trading. And their old power base,
land ownership, still remains intact. All in all, not a bad deal. Indeed,
according to scholars like Patrick Bond, professor at the
University of KwaZulu-Natal
School of Development Studies, on some measures, white
wealth in SA has actually gone UP since the Mandela era’s black takeover.
Even in the realm of politics, white dominance or significant
influence remains, but Mercer is careful not to tell her readers much about this.
White, Indian and “coloured” councillors in local elections are overrepresented
due to ward-based voting. Under the Interim Constitution of November 1993, 50
percent of the municipal council seats were allocated to the
white-Indian-"Colored" combination, while 50 percent went to African
townships, serving to break the unity of combined “black” politics. Moreover,
the Interim Constitution permitted veto power over planning and budgeting with
just a third of a council’s seats, again reinforcing residual white power and
making rapid change impossible. But the reader would not know such things under
the "vale of tears" theme spun by Mercer.
In other words, when whites could deploy state power they
vigorously used that power to created sheltered, protected privileges and
sinecures for themselves, and were hardly the paragons of "merit" and
"free markets" Mercer touts or implies in her complaint about how "productive people" and suffering under the
dead hand of statism. It was the very same alleged "productive
people" that did not hesitate to employ statism to secure and protect
their own cozy privilege. Indeed, as one mainstream textbook notes:
"The origins of apartheid go back to the early years of the twentieth century, when large numbers of white farmers began moving into South Africa’s growing cities. There they discovered, to their horror, that they did not automatically earn higher wages than other races. But they had the right to vote—and non-whites did not. And so the South African government instituted “job-reservation” laws designed to ensure that only whites got jobs that paid well.
The government also set about creating jobs for whites in government-owned industries. As Allister Sparks notes in The Mind of South Africa (1990), in its efforts to provide high-paying jobs for whites, the country “eventually acquired the largest amount of nationalized industry of any country outside the Communist bloc.” In other words, racial discrimination was possible because it was backed by the power of the government, which prevented markets from following their natural course."
--FROM: Ray and Anderson. 2011. Krugman's Economics for AP. pp. 715
When blacks took power, part of the deal was that the
same statist power that benefited whites for so long be dismantled or scaled
back after a period where white job security provisions were locked in (remember some 40% of white Boers were employed by the public sector)- and this the new ANC servitors of SA have done. The requirements for
black rule ensured that the statism that benefited whites would be removed-
including cuts in state spending, lowering of primary corporate taxes, and
measures that made capital flight much easier.
================
BLOG COMMENTARY
Mercer says:
<b>The idea that culture is benign and harmonious if not
disrupted is a delusion, argues anthropologist Robert B. Edgerton, who also
believes that in Africa, “traditional cultural values are at the root of poverty,
authoritarianism, and injustice.” </b>
But this is a bit of a strawman. Very few people, including the PC
legions, believe that culture is always "benign and harmonious." Nor
do they believe that some cultural elements do not need "disruption."
In fact, "disrupting" culture has been a standard modus operandi of
"the liberals," in numerous parts of the world, whether it be in
stopping the Indian "sutee" or burning of widows, to the
"structural adjustment" policies of international neoliberal elites,
to the stopping of murders or beatings of black people attempting to vote in
the white culture of the Jim Crow south.
Likewise the notion that “traditional cultural values are at the
root of poverty, authoritarianism, and injustice” is only partially true. There are other
factors in the mix. It may be true that traditionally racist or anti-Semitic
values in pre and WW2 era Germany may have been responsible for that terrible
injustice and authoritarianism inflicted on Jews, but economic pressures,
crumbling economies, rampant inflation etc etc also played a part in bringing
about "the Final Solution" in terms of setting the stage for various
crises, whereby one manifestation of traditionally anti-Semitic values was able
to gain power to carry out its program.
Mercer says:
<b>Etounga-Manguelle was referring to what he perceives to
be the culture of envy—the kind of all-consuming envy that, in the Rwanda of
1994, caused certain Africans (Hutus) to attempt to kill off other, frequently
more industrious, better-looking brethren (Tutsis). The culture of envy makes
it hard for Africa as a whole to rejoice in the success of its exceptional sons and
daughters. </b>
But this too is rather dubious as a blanket description for the
diverse continent of Africa, and Mercer's having the black libertarian say it
does not disguise a second pattern of her argumentation- namely sweeping
stereotypes of Africans and Africa, often stretched. If we are to apply Etounga's approach across the board, then
white Europe is similarly afflicted with "a culture of envy" since
it has frequently attempted to kill off the most industrious folk, etc- like those familiar
whipping boys called Jews.
In like manner, the white Boers of South Africa, and whites in
many parts of the US again and again has displayed a "culture of
envy" in attempting to shut down productive Black or Asian farmers,
merchants, skilled tradesmen etc etc, through not only their "colour
bar" laws, or confiscatory "White Land Reservation" policies but
outright murder. Thus a "culture of envy" using the same Mercer
approach, is "typical" of white culture. Just ask the productive Chinese of
California who were massacred wholesale and driven out of numerous venues by
whites who envied their acumen, hard work and productivity.
Same for Japanese immigrants, who coming with their intensive
farming culture and internal Japanese organization intact, and enjoying the
advantage of an initial environment that allowed them liberty to do business, rose
from laborers to independent farm and horticultural operators that began to dominate certain categories
of fresh fruit, flowers and other fresh farm produce of California's burgeoning
truck farming industry. Envious whites used a variety of deceptions and laws to
shut them down, as scholars like Thomas Sowell has clearly documented.
Mercer says:
<b>In this context, the systematic “expulsion and slaughter
of productive minorities,” at the behest of the people, not necessarily their
leaders, deserves scrutiny, too. This has been a factor in Zimbabwe’s demise and in South Africa’s increasing economic insecurity. In both countries, life for the
productive European minority is perilous." </b>
I agree with Mercer in part here, and as Sowell shows, killing and driving
out productive minorities is a typical pattern with white cultures, from America, to Germany, to South
Africa. It also has
occurred with INTERNAL non-immigrant minorities, Some thriving black business districts in the United States for example were looted and burned to the ground by envious
whites. Likewise acculturated "civilized" Indians like the Cherokee
fell foul of white envy in various venues and suffered expropriation and
dispossession. With OUTSIDE migrants of course such things was often par for
the course, as rampaging white mobs drove out productive Chinese whom they did
not give "a Chinaman's chance."
<b>The
plight of “witch children” across
Africa—amplified
in Nigeria, a country touted by the anti-Trump media as fertile recruiting
grounds for future Americans—comports with Etounga-Manguelle’s paradigm. In Nigeria, this designated class of kids is blamed for every pestilence
to plague the community. </b>
Mercer has a point here about certain
negative practices in certain places. The plight of "witch children"
is indeed a bad one, but it in no way characterizes the vast African continent
as a whole. And once again if the "oh how terrible" approach is
applied evenly, and the plight of badly treated children is the rule, then
white Europe is easily in the dock for even worse judgment. The case is easily made as
regards the tens of thousands of abandoned white children in white countries
fairly recently in history (such as the thousands of Irish abandoned in 19th
century New York, Boston) or a similar pattern in Britain, to various
"witchcraft trials" in white nations, to the routine sacrifice of white
children to various. Brutal Infanticide is a typical characteristic of white
culture, and when continents are compared, Africa actually has the lowest
incidence of infanticide as credible scholars show- see for example Milner,
L.S. (2000). Hardness of Heart / Hardness of Life: the stain of infanticide.
University Press. p. 160)
As regards dastardly "witchcraft", serious studies
such as "The European Witch-Hunt" by Julian
Goodare details plenty of evidence as to how white Europe also persecuted
and killed "witch" children, including killings during the supposedly
more "humane" Reformation era.
In white Scotland for example, several cases of brutal child abuse are recorded
as the righteous attempted to "beat the devil" out of
"bewitched" white children. One "treatment" of a young
child, along with "scourging" involved obtaining "three haires
of his sister's privities." (Goodare, 2008). But of course in the
hypocritical approach of assorted white right-wingers and racialists, only black Africans do such terrible
things.
<b> In static cultures,
individuals tend to be fatalistic rather than future-oriented; live for the
present or past; work only because they need to; diminish or dismiss the value
of education, frugality, and philanthropy; are often mired in nepotism and
corruption; and promote individuals based on clan and connections, rather than
capabilities. </b>
But fatalism and such is hardly an African monopoly. Such
patterns appear among white "role models" in white Ireland,
and white southern Italy
as Thomas Sowell has shown in his numerous books such as 1981's "Ethnic
America." And ironically, the same fatalism has been frequently observed
among white South African Boers -migrants from Europe. Distinguished author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and
others commented on unproductive, blinkered Boer fundamentalism, along with
laziness and slackness especially since they had so much cheap, oft coerced
African labor to do the heavy lifting. Conan- Doyle criticized white Boer
venality and incompetence, saying in one writing:
".. while to their corruption they added such crass
ignorance that they argue in the published reports of the Volksraad debates
that using dynamite bombs to bring down rain was firing at God, that it is
impious to destroy locusts, that the word 'participate' should not be used
because it is not in the Bible, and that postal pillar boxes are extravagant
and effeminate."
--Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1902.
As one biography puts it,
"in the Boer
Republics he found a whole culture,
from its political leadership to the education if its children, in the grip of
a 'dour fatalistic Old Testament religion' that held it stubbornly in the past:
this 'ancient theology', armed with 'inconveniently modern rifles..'"
--Douglas Kerr. 2013. Conan Doyle: Writing, Profession, and
Practice
<b> The paucity of planning and future preparation in African life,
Etounga-Manguelle puts down to a suspended sense of time. The
reverence for the “strongman of the moment” he roots in the sincerely held
belief that these men harbor magical powers. Magic
wins out over reason; community over individual; communal ownership over
private property; force and coercion over rights and responsibilities; wealth
distribution over its accumulation. </b>
Sounds dire indeed, but the alleged
'African" pattern is easily found among white people, such as the
aforementioned white Boers with the rigid claims of their mystical Old
Testament theology, and white communal ownership over African ownership-
individual or collective. White force and coercion is a typical white pattern, with white wealth distribution and accumulation by force or deception over Africans. Throw in the white-created philosophies of Marxism and
socialism, and the "African pattern" actually seems to be very white.
<b> Africans
inhabit stratified societies in which “strength prevails over law,”</b>
The only thing wrong with this claim is
that it pretty much characterizes almost every white society, including white
Europeans in South
Africa.
<b> Be it Africa or Arabia, the Left labors under the
romantic delusion that the effects of millennia of development-resistant,
self-defeating, fatalistic, atavistic, superstition-infused, unfathomably cruel
cultures can be cured by an infusion of foreign aid, by the removal of tyrants
such as Robert Mugabe or Jacob Zuma, or by bringing the underdeveloped world to
America. (Left-libertarian Katherine
Mangu-Ward actually told
Tucker Carlson that, “If we had a billion people in America, America would be unstoppable. That would be amazing.”)</b>
Mercer has a point as
to SOME PC leftist types particularly on college campuses. But
it is doubtful whether this scenario characterizes all of the Left or even a
majority. For one thing, very few
credible people who can be described as "left" hold any such
"delusion" that foreign-aid is a cure-all. Matter of fact you hear
condemnations of foreign aid as a tool of imperialist control all the time from
the LEft. How many are credibly making
any such "cure all" argument as Mercer suggests?
Second, Mangu-Ward,
who is actually a libertarian (editor of the libertarian magazine Reason)
opposed to many leftist redistribution notions, was not talking about importing
massive numbers of violent Third World illiterates, but the power the US would
have if it could join its productive capacity with a larger population engaged
in that production. This is an old argument actually advanced by whites,
including conservatives, when they imported huge numbers of African slaves to
build up the "unstoppable" economic power of the American south, as
well as the millions of white immigrants to the north and elsewhere. White
conservatives, from captains of industry, to local civil boosters advanced a
similar argument as Mangu-Ward.
And " development-resistant,
self-defeating, fatalistic, atavistic, superstition-infused, unfathomably cruel
cultures" pretty much describes numerous white cultures, whether it be the
turbulent white Irish, to the turbulent whites of the Balkans, to the violent and fatalistic "white trash" of the US south and Appalachia, to the white
Boers of South Africa.
<b>
What precisely, then, accounts for the unequal “civilizing
potential,” as James Burnham called it, that groups display? Why have some
people produced Confucian and Anglo-Protestant ethics—with their mutual
emphasis on graft and delayed gratification—while others have midwifed Islamic
and animistic values, emphasizing conformity, consensus, and control?
</b>
But as Thomas Sowell has shown, white
groups have manifested plenty of dubious “civilizing potential." In fact
this is one of the main criticisms of white Boers in South Africa until relatively recently by more advanced British settlers.
And Anglo-Protestant goodness can be sketchy on several counts. For one thing
white Catholics have long "done" the so-called "ethics"
without needing any Anglo-Protestant or Asian "role models." So have
Africans, as indeed numerous white travelers to Africa before the
devastating Atlantic trade era commented
favorably on Africa productivity, cleanliness and wealth in comparison to that of
contemporary Europe. See for example respected historian John Thornton's detailed
analysis in: <i>John Thornton. 1991. Precolonial African Industry and the
Atlantic Trade, 1500-1800. (African Economic Hlstory, No. 19 (1990) 1)
</i>
Nor have white people produced these paragons
of virtue and thrift in consistent fashion, as Thomas Sowell details so well in
his many books, such as "Black Rednecks, White liberals." Just the history of the
white Irish puts paid to notions of virtuous white "role models." as
does the history of the white Protestant types that settled the south- such as
those from the "redneck" and "cracker" country of the
English and Northern
Ireland borderlands.
But it need not be the northern
European Irish, or Italians, or various Balkanites. Within advanced
"Anglo-Protestant" Britain, entire classes of white natives have long
disqualified themselves from any "civilizing potential" - a charge
made not merely by angry Leftists or black nationalists, but by good,
conservative respectable Englishmen of who in modern incarnation, like conservative Theodore Dalrymple, still
lament the demoralized and disgusting
condition of today's white British. To this picture can be added the religious
critique of discreditable white British character and behavior- manifested time
and again by Anglo-Protestant" religious movements. Such searing
judgments were long ongoing before significant non-white immigrants showed up in the
1950s.
And "conformity, consensus and
control" are hardly "Islamic" values. They are very much white European ones, as the dismal record from the Jim Crow south, to
Hitler's Germany, to the "Herrenvok democracy" of white South Africa shows.
<b>Overall,
American society remains superior to assorted African and Caribbean societies because the tipping point has not yet been
reached. A preponderance of American such individuals makes possible a thriving
civil society. </b>
But this is an easy
statement to make when American society is built heavily in part on the
suppression and exploitation of those African and Caribbean societies and peoples, by naked power, not would be
sweetness and moral virtue. And the "thriving civil society" was only
for some whites, (Blacks were of course openly excluded until very recently,
and on some counts still are albeit along more subtle racial lines). Whites on
the lower end of the scale were oft read-out of the "thriving civil society" along class lines, hence the long struggle via such mechanisms as labor unions
to claw their way into standing with "the better class of people."
<b> The individual creates the
collective, not the other way round. The Man makes the country what it is.
</b>
This is only so partially. As numerous
credible scholars have shown it is the collective that creates and shapes the
individual as well. Few individuals stand alone- most are a product of some
collective aggregation. Mercer questions her own argument somewhat, for
she earlier asserted the goodness of the North European collective and its
alleged values, and how important they were in forming the good white society.
Individuals often turn out the way they do, because of the collective that
created them. The collective that was the Third Reich or Bismarkian Germany
for example turned out plenty of distinct individuals, shaped to do certain horrible things, as did Boer religious and "Herrenvolk" collective formats.
On top of that no country is only what individuals make it.
Other factors are at play, including geography, as Sowell, Kaplan and others
have long demonstrated. As Sowell notes in his book 'Geography and Culture'
geography can have a definite hand in shaping collective cultures which in turn
shapes individuals. Mercer's simplistic pronouncements betray a shallow understanding of basic history, geography and sociology.
<b>Those aspects of African cultures which are socially
positive (at the same time do not inhibit economic progress) and helpful should
be kept and preserved but those aspects which are destructive such as certain
aspects of witchcraft for example, should be removed. </b>
Agreed and this is not only a one-way process. Those aspects
of European culture which are destructive such as racism, should also be
removed.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<b>At the same time those aspects of Western or other
cultures (cultures which evolved during the Industrial are such as pre WW2
Victorian era culture) which are beneficial to progress should be inculcated in
the population without destroying cultural identity. If you want economic
progress, stubbornly sticking with every aspect of your culture however harmful
will never give you good results at the same time sweeping your culture away is
a deep loss too. </b>
This is true to some extent. I would say that the process of
modernization has destroyed many cultural elements in Europe
that hindered forward progress. The seizure and confiscation of land and from
white peasants for example in various enclosure movements in the British
Isles is an example. Dispossession forced the white rural folk
into the industrial slums where they could serve as a readily exploited and
cheaply paid proletariat for burgeoning capitalism, and its profiteers and financiers. Likewise in the Americas, massive slave
imports, combined with massive imports of cheap white labor, which in some
respects had nowhere else to go (think the Irish and their famine, landless
English masses, or landless southern Italians)
generated significant economic growth and enriched white elites who held the
levers of power.
One thing to keep in mind is that this future is not readily
embraced by other non-European peoples, who may be unwilling to pay the price
in terms of cultural destruction. "Dark, satanic mills" received
significant opposition by the white masses in Europe- hence the growth of
strong white push-back against white elites, via trade unions, and political movements
such as socialism. Mercer's simplistic pablum that only Africans have this penchant for
resisting "progress" is contradicted by history.
What Mercer also skips over is that "progress"
will involve disruption to white hegemony, and sometimes its decline. Many are
glad to bash Africans are being "resistant to change" but whites
themselves are resistant to the very same changes that spring from the
"progress" they tout- hence massive white opposition to their own touted "democracy" models where blacks were concerned, in both the Jim Crowed south and north, and South African apartheid.
For example, Mercer laments elsewhere as to how white South
Africans have been dethroned from some of their power and privilege. But the
same engine of growth and productivity she touts makes this necessary and
desirable. For example, in many cases, black workers can do a job more cheaply
with just as much skill as white ones, or when given the chance, produce as
much in various sectors such as agriculture.
But, as numerous scholars such as Sowell, whites time and time again intervened to STOP
and HINDER black progress, acculturation and productivity. Whites were not at
all happy to see some to the things they tout, if the people making progress
were black. Then they sing/sung a different tune.
When black farmers in early SA began to adapt to markets and
produce in significant quantities, whites brought in such things as the Native
Land Act that squashed black progress and reserved most of the best land for
whites, relegating blacks to the worse. The same pattern occurred in numerous
skilled trades- whites imposed "colour bars" to shut down or hinder
black progress. The same scenario occurs in the United
States. Despite a lot of glowing talk about
"free markets," and the need for blacks to advance themselves
therein, when put to the test, whites hypocritically again and again fail to practice what
they preach. Too often its "free markets for me, but not for thee"
when a black man shows up. .
<b>This is true for all cultures in the world, even
that of Europe. However I feel the modern post WW2
cultural world poses a bigger problem to traditional cultures around the world than
European Empires ever did. </b>
How so?
Well it could also be argued that "modernist"
values not traditional ones, are also responsible for "poverty,
authoritarianism, and injustice” at the root. Hence white rural folk in Britain
and elsewhere in Europe were brutally evicted or forced
from their ancestral lands so that white elites could "enclose" and
convert said lands to "more rational use." The evicted whites then
became a rootless, landless proletariat, forced into fetid slums to be easily exploited to enhance the
profits of the elites under capitalism.
But the same for communism as well on several counts. In white Russia for example, millions of white peasants were murdered in Stalin's drive
for modernization and industrialization- oft with justifications similar to the
ones some bandy about re Africans- that they were "backward" and
"resistant to change" and needed to come into the modern "era of
production." Stalin's Holodomor wreaked havoc on whites, some ten million
body count. And yet, this bloody cost helped Stalin's industrialization
project, and laid the basis for the later defeat of another European dictator-
Hitler.
Various apologists for white elites try to make out as if its
all nice equal opportunity, merit, and nice free markets ruled by nice
impartial people, with equality under the law for all. But for most of white
history this has not been the case. Whites are not at all anxious to see black
progress and acculturation, and only made concessions under continual and
embarrassing pressure, as the US Civil Rights movement demonstrates.
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