Leftists certainly know a lot about “racism” via personal experience — but it’s not generally through being its target. A case in point is Representative Bettie Cook Scott (D-Detroit), who used racial slurs in referencing primary election opponent Representative Stephanie Chang (D-Detroit) last Tuesday. As the Detroit MetroTimes reports:
Scott … referred to Chang as “ching-chang” and “the ching-chong” to multiple voters outside polling precincts during last Tuesday’s election. She’s also said to have called one of Chang’s campaign volunteers an “immigrant,” saying “you don’t belong here” and “I want you out of my country.”
Chang and Scott were running in the Democratic primary for state Sen. District 1. Chang won the election with 49 percent of the vote; Scott came in third with 11 percent of the vote.
… The various off-color remarks were heard by multiple people connected with Chang, including Chang’s husband, who spoke with Metro Times. Sean Gray says after overhearing Cook disparage Chang outside a precinct on the east side of Detroit, “I … asked her not to speak about my wife in that manner. At that time she said to the voter that ‘these immigrants from China are coming over and taking our community from us.’ Further, she said it ‘disgusts her seeing black people holding signs for these Asians and not supporting their own people.’”
Gray, who is black, says Scott then went on to call him a “fool” for marrying Chang.
(Scott has since issued an apology.)
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The latter sentiment is actually not unusual. As Black AmericaWeb.com wrote last year, quoting ESPN anchor Sage Steele, “‘The worst racism that I have received [as a biracial woman married to white man], and I mean thousands and thousands over the years, is from black people…’ the anchor explained. ‘But even as recent as the last couple of weeks, the words that I have had thrown at me I can’t repeat here and it’s 99 percent from people with my skin color. But if a white person said those words to me, what would happen?”
In reality, racial patriotism is a very powerful force in the black community, translating into social pressure dictating whom you should marry, support politically, etc. Moreover, having grown up in the Bronx, I can tell you that political correctness is largely a phenomenon of mostly white pseudo-elites. Epithets and pejorative terms that have ended white public figures’ careers are regularly used by non-whites in the streets (and in rap songs).
Another place bigotry is well represented has been in Democrats’ mouths. It’s not just that they were the party of slavery and segregation but what they’ve said, during unguarded moments, in more recent times.
For example, Democrat mayor James Dodd of Dover, New Jersey, was accused in July of calling a black alderwoman a f*****g n****r.” In 2014, Marie Strumolo Burke, then Belleville city council chairman and mayoral candidate, was caught on audio complaining that her city was “gonna be a f*****g n****r town!” Note that her story got limited exposure and virtually all media outlets refused to identify her as a Democrat.
Then there was the reaction to California’s Proposition 8, the pro-marriage (one man, one woman) measure that passed in 2008. Enraged that 70 percent of Golden State blacks supported the effort, leftist homosexual protesters hurled the n-word at black passersby at a Los Angeles rally.
Next, National Review provided a good short list of Democrat Archie Bunker talk in 2001 (all quotations are the magazine’s):
• Late senator Robert Byrd (D-W.V.), once a Ku Klux Klan member, appeared on the March 4, 2001 edition of Fox News Sunday. “Asked about race relations, Byrd told host Tony Snow: ‘There are white niggers. I’ve seen a lot of white niggers in my time. I’m going to use that word.’”
• “At a February 9, 2001 speech to the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, California’s Democratic Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante said ‘nigger’ when, he apologetically explained, he wanted to say “Negro” in the title of a black labor organization.”
• Ex-Newark, New Jersey, mayor Sharpe James reportedly “dismissed the light-skinned [then-city councilman Cory] Booker as ‘the faggot white boy.’”
• Race hustler Al Sharpton once impugned Jews as “diamond merchants.”
Given that Democrats have disgorged “white privilege” and “deconstructing whiteness” propaganda and are defined by identity politics, none of the above is surprising. Just as leftist French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre was an ardent death penalty foe until the moment he gained power and killed thousands in the Reign of Terror, pseudo-elite Democrats’ opposition to Racism™ is not principle but ploy. It’s operative only until peddling prejudice becomes the best strategy for gaining power.
Having said this, it’s not fair to define a person’s life and destroy him based on a loose word during a weak moment (though this is never considered with conservatives). This is also a good opportunity to discuss prejudice, which is often unrecognized because it’s misunderstood.
Dictionary.com defines “prejudice” as “an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.” Having a prejudice doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a bad person, but it does mean that, in the least, you’re not in touch with reality in the matter in question. Here are some examples of prejudice:
• Believing that religion has caused most wars. Most conflicts have actually been sparked by a desire for land, resources, power, or glory.
• Believing that all white people benefit from privilege despite evidence to the contrary.
• Believing that Western civilization has been uniquely oppressive. In reality, it ended slavery, liberated the world, and birthed prosperity previously unknown in the annals of man.
• Believing that the “patriarchy” oppresses women in America, when, in truth, Western women are highly privileged.
• Believing that Christianity unfairly stigmatizes homosexuality, when the prohibition against it is simply one of many (e.g., polygamy, adultery, fornication, self-gratification) in the promulgation of a comprehensive godly model for man’s sexuality.
Leftists are in the grip of all of the above prejudices and more, and it’s no surprise. A prerequisite for avoiding prejudice is seeking Truth in all things and operating on principle, not feelings. But not believing in Truth (leftists deny its existence and instead are “relativists”), leftists can’t use it as a yardstick when formulating their opinions, so instead they “follow their hearts” and are led by emotion. Hence their credo “If it feels good, do it.”
And prejudice often feels good — especially when it’s convenient for demonizing others and gaining power.
The bottom line is that prejudice is largely if not completely a phenomenon of the emotions. Thus, it characterizes the emotion-driven — whatever they may be called in a given time or place.
