Fraught and Bothered

Steve Sailer contextualizes an Atlantic Monthly blog post as "historical racism porn":

‘Dinnertimin’ and ‘No Tipping’: How Advertisers Targeted Black Consumers in the 1970s
In an attempt to reach African American customers, many U.S. businesses began integrating their commercials—often by relying on fraught stereotypes...

 

[ I call this one Kid with Big Forehead advances on Richard Pryor's Big Mac as Proud Parents look on]

SJW’s have been getting hot and bothered over this ad that ran in Ebony and Jet in August 1976 for the last three years. NPR’s CodeSwitch responded to this ad in 2014 with:

Wow. Just. Wow.

The Atlantic blog post is good but the NPR link is a better demonstration of a certain style rapidly becoming familiar, as social justice scribes chase links by providing various types of outrage porn; all confidence on one side, listing and categorizing transgressions like Tracy Flick reporting on someone in middle school, and on the other all obliviousness to anything not indulging the Narrative. The NPR blogger tries his best to put a comedic spin on the old point-and-sputter, but social justice just isn't funny.

What, McDonald's, implying they're all his kids? 

White privilege views the oppressed person of color asleep--safely inert--dreaming 

only of eating the oppressor's poisonous food before the daily exploitation of his labor!

The black ads condescend toward their black targets in pretty much the same way white ads of the time condescended toward whites, in different language; indeed, as they still do now, with more polish (and perhaps cynicism). The impression an objective observer gets looking through the ads in the NPR piece is that black ads took their audience to be confidently aspirational working class, cheerful and family-oriented. They give us an interesting glimpse of that confident time when legal barriers against blacks had all but come to an end, and it was assumed that soon blacks would be taking their rightful place in the middle class and beyond. The ads, and McDonald's seeking out of black business and franchisees, can be seen as part of a deliberate process to make that happen. To the extent black integration has failed and blacks have failed to rise to affluence on merit, these ads can also be seen as tragic artifacts of a promise unfulfilled, particularly the two above, showing young black men as hardworking and mentors of youth. NPR blowing a raspberry at them decades later doesn't seem fair at all. The earnest progressive thinks, all the while, he is providing context for the contextually challenged. Oh the collective balls on you, social justice warriors!

But the needs of supply are not the needs of demand. The writers are driven by ambition working within an echo chamber, all trying to outdo one another in advancing the always shifting progressive line. So the line gets pushed in the direction of ever more and stricter dogma, or "progress"; the incredible rapidity of the trans movement's advance is a result. There is only going forward now. Still, with little opposition left, social justice warriors charge into History like Soviet conscripts at Stalingrad with machine guns at their backs. There is a desperation there.

Perhaps some who question aspects of such as the Caitlyn Jenner farce are sublimating revulsion at the whole; it's genuinely hard to tell any more.
But what does the consumer of outrage porn need? Probably the same thing I need when I'm scrolling through my own daily outrage fixes at American Renaissance or Drudge. He needs respite from his indifference, but fears losing his faith by testing too much his premises. My hand's raised. He needs reassurance.

There are two prerequisites to a posture of respectability nowadays: outrage and indifference. The cultural weltanshauung feeds on continual outrage on behalf of a growing variety of oppressed groups; as a consequence the respectable must now accept a growing variety of behaviors and practices, some of which define the new identity groups, some of which are incidental to groups defined by ethnicity, but many of which are bad (and you would be allowed to notice if their recognition did not impugn the Narrative).

Communicating one's blithe indifference to the problems of the bigoted, incapable and uptight is a means of projecting status. Only the weak, mentally and materially, worry about immigration, or black crime, or the definition of womanhood, or whatever is coming next. But conforming to current attitudes is also a way to maintain one's self image, a necessity of vanity.
Today's worldview provides one with the conceit of a very Western sort of duality: the independent strength of your indifference, redeemed by a tender concern for the victimized. It is, sadly, heroic.

The current political tyranny suppressing dissent demands indifference at a minimum: one can be silent (still) about dogma or the latest lynch mob, but he cannot question--and he must not mock. But indifference is also a personal necessity; there is simply too much about which one should rightly be outraged. (Our ancestors before the communications revolutions were shielded from the sufferings of people on other continents, and likely had enough of their own; we, with few sufferings our ancestors would recognize, gaze out upon the present miseries of all humanity, benumbed.)

It's important to note ultimately what's being suppressed are effects of theory-driven policy. Theory arising from and policy driven by nurtured outrage. Outrage and Indifference are the yin and yang of the social justice (leaving "the" in there was an editing mistake, but I like it so I'll leave it; if I was king, "the social justice" would be its required designation).

So when the man who aspires to respectability and acceptance today is not feigning indifference he's professing outrage. But perhaps there's a more or less constant need for outrage, that actually varies little in size and nature but largely in subject.

GK Chesterton:

“Do not be proud of the fact that your grandmother was shocked at something which your are accustomed to seeing or hearing without being shocked. ... It may be that your grandmother was an extremely lively and vital animal and that you are a paralytic.”

But the raw material of humanity doesn't change that drastically, and our Janus-faced social justice warrior is probably no less or more lively and vital than grandmother. Indeed, in the current state of affairs he is continually agitated by diversity demagogy on one hand and affronted by diversity's demands on the other--demands he is continually conditioned not to think of as "demands" but debts, in arrears, out from which he can never fully repay.

He has to regard so much and much more to come which he cannot be expected to anticipate, with indifference. He is not even allowed to anticipate a point beyond which he isn't willing to go; it is eternally TBD. We should go gentle on the deluded.

But the continuing erosion of cultural potential is the sinister subplot to all this silliness. Less and less is allowed as more and more are offended; and people are celebrating that. Progress for the left is measured in prohibitions. And progress is on the march.

One of the ads that set NPR off like a Victorian granny perfectly communicates just one of the small, vital things these people are hacking away at every day in their zeal; joy:

The Fake's Progress

It's worthwhile to compare the other "iconic" Vanity Fair cover

Woman

with Caitlyn's curious spread

Man

From the ultimate image of womanhood to its ultimate caricature. 

Moore's deliberately immodest cover offered pregnancy as a feminist provocation: you can't do this.

Caitlyn's celebrants, twenty four years later, would be outraged.

In seizing immediately upon socio-political platitudes, Moore's defenders missed the point in the same way Caitlyn's evade it today. She was not, for instance, showing us a pregnant woman can still be "sexy"--quite the opposite! (The controversy is perhaps difficult to appreciate after the last quarter century of delirious Progress, but it was that a pregnant woman was striking a sexual pose--and on the cover.) Pregnant Demi was a parody of lithe and desirable pre-pregnancy Demi. The real defiance lay in the fact it's decidedly not sexy; her state stops men in their always lusting tracks. She's off limits, dammed-off, "knocked up." She's  there to thwart and mock the searching male "gaze".

Pregnant Demi is woman having conquered; having captured a man's seed and bearing a complete soul in a belly swelling like the earth.  Man's paltrier conquest is over and done, and is only complete if he escapes; otherwise, the pregnant woman represents his capture and the tyranny (and uncertainty) of paternity and domesticity. 

Woman's power lies in her possession of her children, and she never possesses them more--or suffers more by them--than when with child. Still women remain the most sympathetic audience the trans community has and I find this curious. Why are they--if indeed they are--so fully on board with redefining womanhood into oblivion?

Hoary theory about male privilege--as if patriarchy were a trick played upon the girls, rather than the obvious result of primitive necessity originating in, there it is again, pregnancy--is depressing and dull. Birth is anything but, especially for those capable of it; so maybe that explains feminism's cavalier attitude toward the co-optation of femininity. Dissuading pregnancy has become a necessity by implication for a feminist movement driven by yuppie women lobbying for greater advantages in employment. The necessity to deny biological origins for behavior, to create the illusion of imposed inequality, has taken down motherhood. The times are sinister.

Privacy is Racist

One reason political correctness has been an operative force in American politics is because it can be re-purposed to serve all manner of ends. The political component of the second Iraq War began as opportunistic hysterics, focusing the outrage created by 9/11 on Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but it wasn't long before the liberal interventionist plot was grafted onto the narrative. This one-two punch had the advantage of combining two seemingly diametrically opposed appeals: one to fear and loathing, and one to altruism.
At the group level it draws together two disparate factions united in political action, with some somewhat dishonest overlap. At the individual level it appeals to two powerful disparate impulses: fear and anger on one hand and altruism on the other. The contradiction between them seems to strengthen rather than weaken the effectiveness of this alliance; they complement more than cancel each other. If one's resolve for revenge should weaken, he can rally his spirits with the conceit he's doing "good".
As anti-racism shows no signs of letting up, we can expect seeing the anti-racism angle shoe-horned, in ever more absurd ways, into contentious debates. One I haven't heard before today is this: every one of us must sacrifice the same measure of privacy so that no one is singled out for the "wrong" reasons, such as being Muslim or otherwise statistically more likely to engage in terrorism.

Salon:

Perhaps to those like Sen. Rand Paul who’ve never had to fight assumptions based on one’s ethnicity or the color of one’s skin, the thought of cell phone data being pooled and analyzed is disconcerting. However, as someone who regularly puts up with extra scrutiny, whether it’s at an airport or a shopping mall, I welcome the leveling of the playing field that bulk data collection brings.  I urge our government not to follow the Russian method of profiling, but, instead, to use bulk data collection to arrive at objective analyses.

Because what do the Russians know about spying?

Spying is acceptable if every single one of us is under surveillance. Everybody gets dipped in shit, so no one can complain about being dipped in shit.

Of course part of this is just Salon's deep disdain for (or fear of) Rand Paul. The article is accompanied by not one but two photos selected, National Enquirer style, to make the man look ridiculous.

Hillary Clinton, Intellectual Heavyweight

Hillary Clinton is apparently channeling Eleanor Roosevelt through the idiot-lens:

At a dinner last November, Clinton mentioned that she had recently watched the Ken Burns documentary on the Roosevelt family and saw how Theodore Roosevelt worked with “imbalances that were in the economy and in society.”

It's going to be an entertaining, if profoundly depressing, summer.

Violence and Authority

From The Civil Rights Era, by Hugh Davis Graham:

Less apparent at the time was the calculated nature of the black challenge in Birmingham. On the heels of the previous fall's failed protest campaign in Albany, Georgia, where the polite discipline of Police Chief Laurie Pritchett had defeated demonstrators led by Martin Luther King, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference had repaired to Savannah for a three day review of strategy. A postmortem on strategic collapse,it quietly called into question the core of King's Christian optimism. What emerged was Project C--for Confrontation. To implement Project C, King accepted an invitation to come to Birmingham and lead the protest against [Bull] Connor's undisciplined defenders of white supremacy. By provoking a crisis that promised a flow of blood on the national television networks, King's "nonviolent" protest would force President Kennedy's hand.
The crackle of black protest and violence that spread regionally and then northward in the wake of Birmingham convinced the Kennedy White House that its cautious legislative proposals of February 28 were inadequate. The Birmingham violence threatened nationwide turmoil.

The decision was controversial within the civil rights movement, but the SCLC recklessly dared Connor to turn his dogs on children and he did:

On May 2, they set forth on the first demonstration in what becomes known as the “Children’s March.” Police arrest over 600 young people, but 1,500 more are ready to take their place the next day. Bull Connor orders in police dogs and fire hoses. Images of people pummeled and drenched by high-pressure hoses, and snarling German shepherds tearing clothes off demonstrators highlight the evening news. With Birmingham’s jails overflowing, thousands more students join the demonstrations, sparking similar protests across the country. Before long, the story is making headlines around the world.(...)On Saturday night, May 11, bombs explode at Martin Luther King Jr.’s headquarters at the Gaston Motel, and at the home of his brother, the Reverend A.D. King. Riots erupt and continue into the next morning.

Project C delivered the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and provided the movement with some of history's most enduring and effective iconography:



The civil rights movement was at its moral apex half a century ago. But times change, they do:



Since the LAPD surrendered parts of the city to the Rodney King rioters in 1992 the local response to black rioting has been to allow a period of lawlessness within a given area before reasserting control. Back then at the national political level a commitment to law and order was still tenable, and President George HW Bush could at least sound tough:

To restore order right now, there are 3,000 National Guardsmen on duty in the city of Los Angeles... I've ordered the Justice Department to dispatch 1,000 Federal riot-trained law enforcement officials to help restore order...FBI SWAT teams, special riot control units of the U.S. Marshals Service, the Border Patrol...1,000 Federal law enforcement officials are on standby alert...3,000 members of the 7th Infantry and 1,500 marines to stand by at El Toro...at the request of the Governor and the Mayor, I have committed these troops to help restore order...
What we saw last night and the night before in Los Angeles is not about civil rights. It's not about the great cause of equality that all Americans must uphold. It's not a message of protest. It's been the brutality of a mob, pure and simple. And let me assure you: I will use whatever force is necessary to restore order. What is going on in L.A. must and will stop. As your President I guarantee you this violence will end.

And that's the last time a US president was able to condemn black violence unequivocally. The rest of Bush's speech could have been written yesterday; violence accompanied by civil rights rhetoric trumps due process and the federal government stands ready to practice double jeopardy and subject police departments to federal takeover if people just break enough stuff:

I spoke this morning to many leaders of the civil rights community. And they saw the video, as we all did. For 14 months they waited patiently, hopefully. They waited for the system to work. And when the verdict came in, they felt betrayed. Viewed from outside the trial, it was hard to understand how the verdict could possibly square with the video. Those civil rights leaders with whom I met were stunned. And so was I, and so was Barbara, and so were my kids. 
 But the verdict Wednesday was not the end of the process. The Department of Justice had started its own investigation immediately after the Rodney King incident and was monitoring the State investigation and trial. And so let me tell you what actions we are taking on the Federal level to ensure that justice is served. 
 Within one hour of the verdict, I directed the Justice Department to move into high gear on its own independent criminal investigation into the case. And next, on Thursday, five Federal prosecutors were on their way to Los Angeles. Our Justice Department has consistently demonstrated its ability to investigate fully a matter like this. Since 1988, the Justice Department has successfully prosecuted over 100 law enforcement officials for excessive violence. I am confident that in this case, the Department of Justice will act as it should. Federal grand jury action is underway today in Los Angeles. Subpoenas are being issued. Evidence is being reviewed. The Federal effort in this case will be expeditious, and it will be fair. It will not be driven by mob violence but by respect for due process and the rule of law.

Needless to say, the gestalt has completed its 180-degree shift from the Bad Old Days before the civil rights movement legitimized political violence. Now the standard lament is that violence is ineffective and, yeah, unfortunate. A blatant lie--it's effectiveness is counted on--as well as a moral obscenity. The thought of violent authority still repulses the average citizen, but no one is turning fire hoses on peaceful protesters anymore. That's why the civil rights movement has turned to crime, so to speak, adapting such as Freddy Grey to the role of martyred freedom rider.

Once the movement had to provoke violence from authorities. The violent response of authorities, it seemed at the time, exposed them for what the movement said they were. But now the violence of black rioters exposes them, for what the old segregationists said they were. What goes around actually does sometimes come around. If only we were allowed to pay attention, maybe we could do something about it.

Another relic of the Sixties works against us: the assumption black rioting and anger, no matter how far out of hand it might get, originates in legitimate grievance. But what if there is no legitimate grievance, just the anger and frustration of ill-informed, intolerant people worked into a lather by demagogues?

The subject of civil rights is infantilized, and so is our thinking about it. We've romanticized the righteousness of black anger for so long we've come to take their anger as proof of their righteousness. The angrier the more righteous. Black people sense this and provide the tears and hollering. Black and white America are locked in an anger-condescension death spiral. I almost wish I was Chinese right now.

Overheard

Young progressive: "We're not going back to the bigoted past. We know better."

Curmudgeon: "You weren't even there, dumbass."