America: Two Nations? - race relations - Brief Article

National Review, Feb 5, 2001

Benjamin Disraeli spoke of "two nations," meaning the rich and the poor of England. John Dos Passos in U.S.A. upped the ante, declaring, "All right, we are two nations." Those words have resonance in America today, not in terms of rich and poor, but of race.

The indices point to a congealing sense of separateness and resentment on the part of black Americans. This is by no means confined to the poor or underclass, but is pervasive, and given often ferocious articulation by black "leaders." Some are claiming that such as Colin Powell are Uncle Toms for cooperating with whitey. What we are seeing is a kind of black resegregation under racial and nationalist impulses. Of course, there was the 11-1 black vote against Bush. Louis Farrakhan, a hater of whites and vicious anti-Semite, speaks of a "nation" of (black) Islam. Reliable surveys indicate that his support is growing. The adoption of Arab names by many blacks, including intellectuals, is anti-Western, separatist, and alienated. The term "African-American" is not innocent, but separatist, and its widespread acceptance by the mainstream media is naive and sinister. American blacks have no African connections beyond the simply genealogical; the history of their families in America is longer than that of most whites'. The sole African institution to have had serious influence on American society is slavery. The term "Negro" was always a bit foreign. The replacement "blacks" had the merit of being symmetrical with "whites." "African-American" is separatist propaganda. Not surprisingly, it was coined, or at least popularized, by Jesse Jackson. The campaign of leading black spokesmen against George W. Bush was waged as if he were George Wallace, or even worse. The once-respectable NAACP ran a despicable ad on TV that associated Bush with the lynchers of James Byrd in Texas. When the Supreme Court ruled unfavorably to the Gore effort, Jesse Jackson compared its decision to Pearl Harbor, saying it would "go down in infamy," and also to Dred Scott. He and others waved the Brown Shirt, speaking of Gestapo tactics and Nazis. Jackson talked about "taking to the streets," and demanded an audience with the new Nazi president.

Jackson, Julian Bond, Kweisi Mfume, Al Sharpton, and others seem intent on solidifying a hard black bloc in the electorate based on race and hatred. The agenda of this bloc rejects equality before the law, a core principle of American politics. It insists on special privileges-affirmative action, hate-crime legislation-based on race. Jackson demands "expanded civil rights," despite the fact that American blacks enjoy precisely the civil rights enjoyed by other Americans. We are beginning to understand that opposition to any black appointee is "racist," an assumption that is itself racial and separatist. Echoing Jackson and other black extremists, both Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt conspicuously refused, when asked, to say that George W. Bush is a "legitimate" president. Sen. Lieberman groveled and groveled before Rep. Maxine Waters on affirmative action-Waters, an admirer of Fidel who ascribes crack cocaine in the cities to a CIA plot.

The wildly exaggerated rhetoric, the inflammatory lies, the bizarre claims-this is unmistakably the voice of race hatred, and it should be recognized for what it is. The hatred and bad faith must be relentlessly repudiated. The "African-American" bullies and thought police are making it difficult for blacks to be Americans.