PrintAugust 20, 2010
The Nexus between Liberals and Racists
Until the second half of the last century, one of the reasons that institutional racism persisted was because throughout our society, racists were protected from ridicule by an accommodating press and popular culture.
Racists did not have to justify their discrimination against minorities; they were granted the assumption of superiority. Racists never had to debate fair-minded people, and they could always count on the press not to hold them accountable. The media considered racism a part of American culture, like baseball and apple pie. They were perfectly comfortable relegating blacks to second-class citizenship.
Prior to the civil rights movement, the press did not challenge Jim Crow; it did not demean organizations that were clearly discriminating on the basis of race. Instead, it depicted the victims of racism as deserving no better.
There was a "good old boy" network that provided aid and comfort to racists. There were no conspiracies, no smoke-filled rooms, just like-minded bigots who were always ready to oppress any black who left his place.
Any challenger to this entrenched network had a long row to hoe because the good old boys were everywhere, and they helped their own kind. No winks or nods were necessary, only the shared belief in bigotry.
A policeman who brutalized a black man knew that if the man complained at the precinct, he was likely to get in worse trouble. The policeman knew that the press would not touch such a story. He also knew that any white who defended the man would be labeled "a lover of those not of his race." Minorities were at the bottom of the totem pole, and the system aimed to keep it that way.
Now, institutional racism is dead, although we still suffer from veiled allusions to black inferiority in the media, as depicted in modern "blacksploitation" movies set in the inner city. Racism is now for the most part confined to the hearts of men. Open acts of racism are roundly condemned.
But the media has set its sights on different targets: conservatives, theists, patriots, and traditionalists. Now, there is a different double standard. Personal attacks, disingenuous arguments, unjustified indignation, and character assassination directed at conservatives are many and close together. The media now institutionalize discrimination against conservatives, and like the bigots of the past, they see nothing wrong with that because they feel that conservatives deserve it.
Don't get me wrong -- the media bias against conservatives is by no means equal to the racism and oppression that blacks have suffered through, but the similarity in the media's role in regard to both movements is instructive. It sheds light on the core motivations of the liberal movement.
The media overemphasize the faults of conservatives and discount their virtues. They claim objectivity while they are actively pushing an agenda. In the past, the media would dwell on the shortcomings of a small number of blacks until they became stereotypical. Now the same thing is done against conservatives.
The continued portrayal of conservatives in a bad light builds a bank of ill will with the public. After a while, just the mention that something or someone is conservative will raise eyebrows.
Anyone who disparages traditionalists or conservatives will find aid and comfort freely offered by the mainstream media, and the opposite is also true. The liberals are now the good old boys. They sit at the same table of power that the racists used to occupy, and they can count on the media to run interference for them.
It appears that liberalism and the mainstream media never really wanted equality; they just wanted to gain and maintain power. Fifty years ago, the media finally began to expose racism for what appear to be pragmatic reasons -- it was a good way to gain credibility, and it increased their power, even though they had been instrumental in sustaining racism. It was like the successful leader of a criminal gang who had ruled for decades becoming the successful sheriff who cleans up that same crime.
The liberals targeted racism because it was weak. Liberals knew that racism could not be defended. They knew that the more racism was exposed, the weaker it would be. Therefore, they automatically had the moral high ground. By attacking racism, liberals gained the credibility that they would desperately need later when they sought to become the moral barometer for the nation.
They said that the good old boy network must be destroyed. They disparaged the concentration of power in the hands of a few; they bemoaned the injustice and the double standards that that oligarchical system fostered.
But it appears that liberalism's indignation about the arrogance and abuse of power of the good old boy network is better described as envy. As soon as the racists' table of power was overturned, the liberals, with the full support of the mainstream media, righted the table and began to hold court. Now that the liberals sit at the head of the table, they impose their will just as the racists did.
Conservatives are disparaged, insulted, belittled, and denied the public pulpit, just as blacks once were. The common denominator in each travesty is the mainstream media.
Whatever happened to fighting the system on behalf of the downtrodden and speaking truth to power? Whatever happened to the plan to seize power from those who would oppress the powerless and return it to the people? What about changing the world from one where backroom deals by those in power controlled the freedom of the masses to one where no person had the ability to silence "the little guy" when he spoke out? Where is the world liberals proposed, where truth would always prevail? Turns out it was all just empty rhetoric, no different from the promises of a stuffed-shirt politician near election day.
One day, the liberals may be thrown over by the media in favor of their next vehicle to power, but they won't be able to say they didn't have their time in the sun. Maybe the conservatives are up next. But like a stockbroker who charges for every trade, the media always profit. They still remain blameless; they assign blame, but they don't own any.
What is the nexus between racists and liberals? They were both the recipients of aid and comfort from the mainstream media. Neither movement could have survived without it.
Chris W. Bell is a freelance writer; he can be reached here.
