We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata slogan of the day A young black man can be murdered by a gang of white thugs at a bus stop1. The result? Senior politicians and police in front of the cameras; public inquiries; new phrases such as ‘institutional racism’; sweeping reforms; a trust set up to help others from ‘similarly disadvantaged backgrounds’. A young white man gets murdered by a gang of four black men and a black woman in Lewisham, South East London; it makes a one-inch high column at the bottom of page two. Why?
– Ian Wells, London E18, today in readers’ comments section of Metro newspaper (a daily distributed for free on the London Underground).
1 = Reference to the murder of Stephen Lawrence.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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erm, Wasn’t that Nigerian boy Damilola Taylor?
Yes, you are correct, the Nigerian boy was Damilola Taylor, my mistake. Stephen Lawrence was Jamaican, but I am pretty sure that the reader meant his case – the impact of his murder had a far more fundamental effect on the system than Damilola Taylor’s.
err.. the difference between the two cases is that (hopefully) the second one wasn’t bungled by police. Hopefully they didn’t arrest the victim’s best friend on suspicion. Independent review found that the police made racist assumptions in the Lawrence case, which may well have led to justice being denied.
As far as i know, none of this applies to the second one, and the police force aren’t known for their racist attitudes towards white people.
A_t
Not quite the point that is being made in the letter.
However, by ‘Independent review’, I assume you are referring to the ‘MacPherson Report’, in which case, there are serious questions about the motivation behind the alleged ‘independent findings’.
… so do you believe there was no problem with racism within the police force? or is it specific points that were raised which you take issue with?
& yes, the letter was pointing out the amount of media etc. attention received. The reason for the disparity is that the handling of the first case resulted in people suggesting a fundamental shakeup of the police force. The second is hopefully being investigated in an efficient manner already (well, or as efficient as any other investigation anyway); a routine investigation, which doesn’t call police working practices into question, hence little press/political attention. Quite rightly too, in my opinion.
Also, if a group of people are going to attack someone randomly in the street, the person is statistically likely to be white, just because that’s the majority colour in this country. If they specifically pick a black man, one has greater-than-average reason to suspect racism may have played a part in that choice, and this should probably be investigated further. On the other hand, if the person’s white, whether the attackers are black or white, it may well just be the (bad) luck of the draw. I don’t think black-on-white racism, although it exists, is a major problem in this country, which regularly holds people back in their lives, or denies them justice.
This highlights the problem of politicing crime by attaching labels such as “hate crime” or “racially motivated attack” into them. This alone attracts extra pressure on the police to allocate more resources into the investigation because of the heightend media exposure.
Not surprisingly this only happens when the perperator is white and victim is black.
When the situation is vice versa, the murder just ends up as another unsolved homicide.
For media point of view, for me it looks that BBC and mainstream media seems to be full of “white” racists… meaning white journalists who loathe their own backround which they have come from and thinking it is inferior to the others.
… from all your comments, it sounds as though you believe the police force to be free of racism, and that this country presents equal opportunities to all, regardless of skin colour. This would justify treating these cases identically.
Personally, I don’t think this is the situation, hence the highlighting of some cases, in order to expose that which is wrong in our institutions, & hopefully make moves towards something more just.
A_t,
I have absolutely no idea how much (if any) racism existed, or still exists, in state agencies but I do think that the invention of ‘institutional racism’ tarred every single member of that agency with the same brush. I have grave doubts that that is either or true.
MacPherson also introduced us to the term ‘unwitting prejudice’; a ludicrous oxymoron that I find hard to believe was the conclusion of a Law Lord.
MacPherson’s recommendations (immediately transmitted to the entire public sector by the 1998 Code of Practice) included the defintion of racism as ‘an incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person’
I cannot imagine anything more widely drafted than that. It constitutes a wholly unjust and potentially dangerous subjectivisation of otherwise perfectly innocuous conduct which has saddled us with a ‘denouncers’ charter and a culture of fear and political intimidation. Given time, this deeply balkanising policy could have severely nasty consequences for everyone in this country regardless of their racial background.
Last line of first paragraph above should read:
“I have grave doubts that that is either fair or true”
Apologies
I utterly agree with you that ‘an incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person’ is a rubbish definition, and very, very dangerous to boot.
On the other hand, i’d question your scorn for ‘unwitting prejudice’, which undoubtedly takes place; how many of us take stock of all our attitudes? One of the major American universities had an interesting online test you could take a while ago, which flashed up words & pictures, testing your associations with each one. The ones I looked at involved gender and race. Results tended to suggest people thought of men as more technical than women, and associated black people with negative terms far more easily. Within a member of the public’s mind, this is not good, but it’s their right to hold these opinions & not question them, if that is their wish. Within a police force, which is supposed to bring about justice, regardless of skin colour, it’s important that people be thinking about these things, and try to be conscious of their own prejudices.
As for tarring every policeman as racist… i guess it depends on your interpretation of his words; I’d say that suggesting an organisation is institutionally racist is suggesting that the organisation ends up operating in a way which disadvantages some because of their race. If he’d said ‘all policemen are racist’, that would have been an entirely different matter, and he should probably have made it very clear that this was not what he meant.
A_t,
In order to be ‘prejudiced’ one must be making a judgement. That is a conscious act of will that cannot be made without wit. Of course, the judgement may be egregiously wrong but the fact remains that it was still a judgement.
May I also suggest, sir, that you consider this line of reasoning very carefully. If racial bigotry is not the product of the conscious mind then it must be the product of the unconscious instinct in which case, attempts to eradicate racism are likely to have about as much success as trying to dissuade people from blinking.
This suggests that all unconscious urges are a) instinctive, and b) unchangable. I believe this is not the case.
But OK, if you insist…
Certain people make conscious decisions to act in a manner which is racist, based on ideas, whether received or self-created, which are held in their own heads, but which they may not have consciously considered for a long time.
Pointing out that, to many others, their actions are effectively racist, may make them look at the underlying assumptions & possibly alter them if they find fault. This in turn would hopefully stop them making decisions of a racist nature. This is all working on the assumption, of course, that the person in question does not consciously wish to be a racist.
Racism surely involves the conscious discrimination in favour or against a person or group of persons. If we start to say that racism can happen without any such conscious behaviour, then how can one test an institution. What criteria are one to use? The potential for abuse is surely enormous, as David Carr points out.
For example, could one believe in the existence of institutional snobbery, institutional rudeness, or institutional kindess? How is possible to ascribe acts of human behaviour and will to collective organisations?
Without some objective and testable definition, institutional racism is likely to remain a dangerously vague idea. And nothing that A_T has said suggests otherwise.
A_t,
No, sorry. Not convinced. Do carry on. I’m enjoying the sight of you tying yourself in Gordian knots
well… if you’ve not been convinced so far, I’m doubtful my lowly internet contributions will convince you, but I’d ask you this…
Have you never had your thoughts or actions questioned, realised you might be wrong, and revised underlying thoughts or assumptions as a result? If you haven’t, then fair enough. I have.
If this isn’t relevant in your opinion, then by all means explain why.
I don’t know anything at all about the specifics of either of these cases (and hence won’t comment on them).
I do know something about the specifics of a number of cases in the U.S. which have caused cries of “media bias!!!!!!!!!!!!!” from many a conservative commentator.
The first is the Matthew Shepard murder (a homosexual man who was murdered because he was homosexual). This prompted a number of conservative commentators to come up with sex crimes which were committed by homosexuals (mainly pedophiles, which are identified with homosexuals in conservative culture). The point was that the media didn’t report on how bad homosexuals are, when they did report on how one was killed. Of course everyone agrees that sex offenders and pedophiles who carry out their fantasies should be punished, but not everyone agrees that homosexuals aren’t sick weirdo perverts who are an abomination in the eyes of god. Hence there’s controversy, and hence the media covers it. (and for anyone who doesn’t think that extreme homophobia is real and even somewhat common, I suggest you click here)
The other was the death-by-being-chained-to-a-pickup-truck-and-dragged-for-several-miles murder a few years ago in Texas. This got coverage because of two things: (1) This is a really horrible and strange* way to kill someone, and (2) it showed that racism hasn’t been “solved,” nor has it gone away (claims which are frequently made).
Conservative commentators responded by citing examples of black people killing white people, and pointing out that the media didn’t report on them. It’s intentionally missing what is IMHO a fairly good point.
Note that I know nothing of the particulars of either of the two cases cited in the quote. But the quote has a very familiar sound to it…
*Strange and gruesome are fairly important. The media love the macabre.
Lucas:
This article discusses the James Byrd (chained and dragged) case and compares it with the coverage of a black-on-white crime that received less coverage:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=1912
Godhatesfags.com is a pretty extreme site. It’s quite unfair to lump it in with the suggestions by many that a straight-on-gay hate crime can be made almost into a national day of remembrance, while all the killings of straights by gays are largely ignored.
I doubt there are many “let’s get them damn straight people” killings by gays. On the other hand, there really is a whole lot of hatred against gays in mainstream culture (of which GodHatesFags.com is a symptom). The fact of the matter is that God really does hate fags (see, for example, Romans 1:26-32 and Leviticus 18:22), and there are pleanty of God-fearing Americans saying it. Maybe not as loudly or as clearly as GodHatesFags.com, but they’re there. I saw it in the dozens of letters to the editor in my local paper when my town passed an civil rights law which made it illegal to fire someone or refuse them housing because of their sexual orientation. On the other hand, I think that a national day of remembrance for Shepard would be out of hand. He was one guy who did nothing remarkable other than getting killed. Why on earth we would want to put him in the same category as Martin Luther King or all of our nation’s veterans is beyond me.
As for the Byrd killing, I think the media coverage reflects the historical reality of the oppressive relationship a largely white controlled society had on blacks. While this situation has improved immensely, stories like the James Byrd case are instructive and relevant, if only to contrast with a time when such things weren’t news because they were too common. I think Horowitz is grasping at straws here, though some attempts to show the media is horribly PC are just comical.
I’ve just came across a variant of “wanker” invented by The Onion. They’ve just made up a punk band who had taken a dislike to a local TV news presenter and had written a song about him called: “Wankorman”.
Hmm, the above post was sort of messed up (part of the post got deleted, presumably through my own inability to manipulate a mouse). I had another quote in there from Leviticus 18:something, and some more comments on racism, but I’m too tired to reconstruct it now.
Lucas,
I read the verses. Nothing about hating people, just giving up on them and leaving them to their own self-destructive devices (“God gave them up unto vile affections…God gave them over to a reprobate mind”). Godhatesfags.com is a heresy. You can tell Fred Phelps I said so.
(That wanker has his own Yahoo! search category. Grrr.)
“I doubt there are many “let’s get them damn straight people” killings by gays.”
You might be somewhat right. Although I’m sure there are examples of non-sexual beatings administered by gays on, say, a straight who says something anti-gay. If I did enough searching I might find at least a few cases.
“On the other hand, there really is a whole lot of hatred against gays in mainstream culture (of which GodHatesFags.com is a symptom).”
Supposedly, a lady who belongs to a group that likes to play dadaesque pranks was going to do something at a Fred Phelps appearance. She supposedly sent an email to them asking when he was going to show up. She was shortly after that supposedly contacted by the P.D. in the city who wanted to know whether she was a danger to Fred. The cop also supposedly said something like a main portion of their money comes from suing people who assault them and the like. So, IMHO, I put Fred in the same camp as, say, Sci*nt*…., and I would tend to think that no one outside of their church takes them that very seriously. They’re a sympton in the same way that the guys in the Nikes and the spaceship were a symptom of Millennium fears.
Switching gears, let’s talk about racial hatecrimes, and let’s try a test. Read this report, and tell me what sets off alarm bells:
http://www.planetout.com/pno/news/article.html?date=2002/10/09/3
Ready? As I pointed out here:
http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/000030.html , even if they couldn’t get them on anti-gay hate crimes, it would certainly seem that they could get them on anti-white hate crimes. Assuming that their statements can be used against them of course, or that other evidence could be obtained. It seems to be staring everyone in the face: they were targeting white people, but the only time anyone talks about hate crimes is when a “minority” is involved.
“I doubt there are many “let’s get them damn straight people” killings by gays”
Ooo! Ooo! Ooo! I’ve found one for you:
http://www.cultureandfamily.org/articledisplay.asp?id=2877&department=CFI&categoryid=cfreport
“In the three weeks since Mary Stachowicz was murdered by homosexual Nicholas Gutierrez in Chicago, some pro-homosexualists have reacted with much more sympathy for the ‘gay’ killer than for his Christian victim. In fact, several even have gone as far as saying that Mrs. Stachowicz deserved to die for questioning the man’s lifestyle…”
All blacks should die,
-Cj