There’s a popular quote from Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, where one character asks another character how he went bankrupt. The response is “Gradually and then suddenly.” It’s funny because it is true. The great upheavals in human affairs seldom happen without warning. They are always part of a long process that was plain to see, but people preferred not to notice it so it rolled along until a crash or revolution.
A generation or two from now, people will look back at America and wonder how racial conflict broke out after what many thought were years of social progress. After all, the good whites had atoned for all the bad things done by bad whites. In reality, those years of “progress” were just accumulating bad habits and bad decisions, disguising an underlying rot. American society is headed for a bad place and you can see it here in this story.
Outrage has grown at Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, as the school faces layoffs and increased class sizes due to a law limiting funds for schools with a higher white student body.
The Los Angeles Unified School District provides more funding for schools where the white population is below 30 percent.
In a letter to parents, the district noted the highly regarded middle school had been above the percentage for the past couple years.
The racial formula was a condition imposed by court decisions dealing with desegregation in the 1970s.
Los Angeles has a form of misery sharing in their school system. Since people vote with their feet, they naturally tend toward self-segregation. This means the schools tend to reflect this as kids go to the schools closest to where they live. To remedy this, the good schools are punished as a way to “even the playing field.” It’s an insane effort to implement the Kurt Vonnegut story Harrison Bergeron.
A look at the makeup of this particular school offers a glimpse of the future. The first thing you see is the school is 47% Hispanic, which in Los Angeles is going to mean Mexican, with a sizable chunk of Central Americans. It is roughly 30% white, 11% Asian and 7% black. The test scores, across all races, are above average for the city. This means the school can have a decent basketball team, but still do well in the math bowl.
The North Hollywood area is not a slum, but it is slightly downscale. The demographics, as of 2000, were Hispanics 57.7%, whites 27%, Asians 5.7%, blacks 5.6%, and others at 4%. Gentrification is underway so those numbers will begin to change as the renters are priced out of the market. In other words, the local schools will either have to import diversity or build private schools. Otherwise, they will be de-funded by the city.
The sound you hear is the ratchet clicking. As these sorts of incidents happen, everyone begins to think in terms of race. The honkies can accept writing checks to the blacks, maybe, but the Hispanics? The Asians, of course, see no reason for cutting checks to anyone. The Hispanics are in a bind as they try to work out whether it is better to be on Team Honky or Team Black, but they are not going to cut checks to the blacks.
The Cloud People imagine a world built like a sports league. The rich successful teams write checks to the poor, unsuccessful teams. That works in baseball as the Yankees and Red Sox need opponents for their games, so they agree to pay Tampa to field a team. In real life, people don’t think that way. The Asians are never going to think they need a really good hoops team, so they will hate writing checks to Team Black.
As the racial spoils system settles into society, new types of response develop for each group to maximize their slice of the pie. One example is gentrification. This is where rich white liberals buy up parts of the ghetto and then drive the hues away with high rents and heavy policing. This way they can have nice urban playgrounds for their kids to enjoy the cosmopolitan lifestyle, without being stabbed by a junkie.
What we have going on is a racial undertow, where the current at the top appears to be flowing in, but underneath, a stronger current is flowing out. In a society with one defined minority group, the majority will go along with helping the minority. When you have nothing but minority groups, which is where America is headed and where LA is now, you end up with the skins game and that is always a zero sum game with winners and losers.
A popular quote in the hate-think community is from this interview with the Lee Kuan Yew. “In multiracial societies, you don’t vote in accordance with your economic interests and social interests, you vote in accordance with race and religion.” That is the example of history and it is why Singapore has always been an authoritarian society. It is the only way to keep peace. Men with guns have to supervise the skins game.
It is why humans across the globe instinctively reject multiculturalism and diversity. Even the lunatics preaching this nonsense avoid diversity and multiculturalism. They always live in rich white neighborhoods and send their kids to private schools. They like diversity and multiculturalism from a safe distance. Humans know another thing that is popular in the hate-think community. That is, Diversity + Proximity = Violence.
I’m Chinese; forget the Danish relatives and the red hair, I’m Chinese. Hey! If Liz Warren can be an Indian then I can be Chinese. The local paper was big on multiculturalism and diversity (strangely now all but defunct) and years ago had a headline “South Shore too white!”. The story that followed bemoaned the bleak whiteness of the region; a mix of old Yankees, Irish and Italian families fleeing the city during desegregation. I dropped that paper that day and never bought another issue. Oddly enough, the same paper had had a story on car theft including a map… Read more »
Maybe the parents of these white kids should lobby to have their children counted as 3/5ths of a black, latino, indian or polynesian (BLIP h/t Sailer) kid. Then the school could get funding.
The Austro-Hungarian empire destroyed itself, and then the rest of Europe, as an enlightened model of diversity. And all of its people, with perhaps a quibble or two around the edges, were of the same race. And say what you like about the Hapsburgs, their policy of benign neglect and inertia is looking preferable to our current system that consists of a dead-letter constitution overrun by bureaucrats enamored of social engineering.
I sometimes wonder if this rot killed my mother.
I do not know.
I think it had started to creep out of Hill Street to the schools and I think that is why she quit. Then Dad’s deterioration drove her back to part time and subbing.
But knowing what used to be makes what is intolerable.
I don’t think you need a conscious conspiracy by one particular ethnic group to explain what’s happening. We have a ruling class consisting of progressive college educated leftists, who populate the professional and bureaucratic job spaces, and who hate the near enemy, which is us. And is happy to import as many votes as needed to bury us. They ain’t that smart, and the thought that they might bury themselves doesn’t compute. That they would do this is not surprising…they are among the most incompetent and selfish ruling classes in history, ranking right there with French aristocrats. Tim
The arc of recent history from nationalist, ethnic, nation-state, reality facing outlook to an amorphous one-world, one-human, one-culture, unreal ideology (aka progressivism) does not need conscious conspiracy of the joos (although Jews are overwhelmingly internationalist of outlook). Rather it is societal shift from male dominated politics to female dominated politics (as commented on previously on this blog). Two events likely put us on this path: WWI killed Christianity in Europe and women’s suffrage sealed the deal. Changing this unfortunate path is akin to pushing a planet out of it’s orbit. Only a real disaster will cut the crap.
The social dynamic that you mention is even more primal than you realize, and ultimately is based upon tribal affiliation. Turn back the clock a hundred years and teleport yourself into sub-Saharan Africa or New Guinea and you will find that members of the same race (but of different tribes, e.g. strangers to each other) may promptly enter into mortal combat simply because of a chance encounter on a neutral territory trail. This behavior is encoded in our genes and exists because it helped our ancient ancestors survive in a world of routine existential hardship. We are the descendants of… Read more »
Up here in Canada, that translates into the traditional two solitudes morphing into a multitude of solitudes. As you know, our embarrassing Prime Minister has celebrated this transformation by declaring us the world’s first post-national state with no core identity. It is seen as a great civilizational achievement. People in the Anglo provinces have been fairly docile and accommodating so far towards this program of population displacement and have been peacefully herded out of major urban centers like Toronto and Vancouver which are now majoritarily Asian and African. Less accommodating are the French Canadians who are much more accustomed to… Read more »
I am guessing that those who preach multiculturism from gated communities have some sort of guilt complex combined with a twisted idea that their opinion matters. Something about the Internet and the confirmation it can give to one’s opinions makes people think what they post matters. It does not. Postings are generally only slightly more broadly disseminated than something said at a bar or a party. Moreover, your statement, in all its profundity or stupidity, sits on the net and stares back at you. If you have made a fool of yourself, it is not going away. You get a… Read more »
Your last paragraph perfectly described my richest and most leftist relatives. They preach multiculturalism likes it’s the new gospel, while their kids have literally never stepped foot in a public school.
It is quite amazing. It is a corollary to Moynihan’s Law of the Canadian Border. The further away from diversity you get, the louder they preach diversity. When I moved to Boston from the South, I was surprised by the whiteness. I was also shocked at how little the locals knew about the outer world. They though we still had plantations in the South. The real shocker was just how ignorant they were about blacks and black culture. It’s why blacks think Boston is a racist city. Being a black guy in Boston is like being a black guy in… Read more »
Millenial Woes did an rather exceptional video after the most recent attack in London. Here’s the link if you care to dip in: https://youtu.be/6XjZH6sqMA0 After this many interations of attack….press goes into action to minimize, warn of a backlash….meaningless virtue signaling from leftists (faceberg banners, hashtags, false equivalencies made) ….rinse…. repeat; Woes thinks even the most strindently open borders Boomers in the media are having doubts creep into their minds, but will find it too damaging to their egos to admit that their belief systems, held over decades, is not only false, but threatens to destroy society. Woes continued that… Read more »
“It is why humans across the globe instinctively reject multiculturalism and diversity. Even the lunatics preaching this nonsense avoid diversity and multiculturalism. They always live in rich white neighborhoods and send their kids to private schools. They like diversity and multiculturalism from a safe distance.” And this is the crux of the matter. We have a ruling class in Western Europe, the US, Canada, and Australia that actively promotes multiculturalism. What is motivating them to do so? It’s a relatively recent phenomenon, dating from the mid-1960s (Hart-Cellar in 1965 in the US). No ethnic or cultural group in the history… Read more »
Buck; I think you are mistaken about the Communists being gone or a spent force. They just shape-shifted into Cultural Marxism, often with the same players. The problem with Communism was that it was too specific about things ordinary folk could judge for themselves, such as being better off economically. And it was too intellectual/theoretical at the same time, occupying itself with abstruse arguments over whether this group or that was an economic oppressor. Besides, it made specific, objective, economic predictions that could be, and were, falsified by events. In the ’60’s. Feminism, the center pole of Cultural Marxism, made… Read more »
“Elite women are the most oppressed of all”. Talk about going right to the people with the time, money, and sense of self-importance to further the cause. Hillarys and Chelseas all around!
I don’t disagree with your observations about Cultural Marxism; my point is that pre-1991, Communism was an organized and coherent force with state-level funding behind it. But now that I think about it, you could argue that the Chinese Communists still represent that coherent, funded force. The ChiComs have shape-shifted and adopted some free-market behaviors in order to rationalize their economy, but at their core they still adhere to Marxist/Communist cultural principles, and could be the force that has suborned and turned western leaders against their own people. So I’ll modify the short list to include Jews, Muslims, and the… Read more »
BB, Jews aren’t “highly coherent”. The black-hatters in Boro Park, just east of me, don’t hang out with the modern, irreligious professionals in Park Slope, just north of me, and the Park Slopers don’t hang out with the Upper-East-Siders (if that’s where the Wall Street guys live; I’m just guessing — I’ve never met a Wall Street guy).
Highly religious Jews like the ones you refer to are outliers. When I talk about Jews, I’m referring to the vast majority of Jews, who are non-religious (to the point of atheism), and who identify and cohere with each other strictly on a racial/ethnic/cultural basis.
(1) “Highly religious Jews” are certainly not “outliers” in Brooklyn. Adjacent districts of “highly religious” Jews cover several square miles. There must be a quarter of a million of them in Brooklyn alone.
(2) Non-religious Jews certainly do not “identify and cohere with each other, etc.”; I’ve known hundreds if not thousands of them, and can testify that this is simply not the case.
“There must be a quarter of a million of them in Brooklyn alone.”
In fact, they are outliers. There are over 1.5 million Jews in NYC. Even if every single Jew in Brooklyn was orthodox (which they are not), that would make them a small minority of Jews.
“I’ve known hundreds if not thousands of them”
So, you’re saying you are Jewish, then? Because there is literally no goy on the planet who knows “hundreds if not thousands” of Jews.
Hmmmm.
Of course he’s a Jew. Just look how he spins for his tribe. Sorry (((Garr))), but da goyim know!!
BB, obviously I’m Jewish — half-Jewish on my father’s side by birth, and a lapsed Orthodox convert as well. “Hmmm”, as you say. There are populous religious-Jewish areas that I’m aware of in Queens and Manhattan, as well — Yeshiva University’s in Washington Heights — and there’s even a religious-Jewish neighborhood in Staten Island that I’ve walked through. I don’t know about the Bronx. I’ll bet the total number of Orthodox Jews in NYC is at least half a million. Then there are lots of OJs in New Jersey (Lakewood, etc) and Westchester (Monsey, etc.) as well. So your “small… Read more »
“Gentrifiers” aren’t rich, though: for example, young Whites are moving into Sunset Park (Brooklyn) because they can’t afford to live in Park Slope, while the professionals who live in Park Slope do so because they can’t afford to live in downtown Brooklyn, while those who live in downtown Brooklyn do so because they can’t afford to live in Manhattan.
The people who own the properties are rich, though. The game is to figure out how to limit the supply of housing to drive up rents, which drives the hues away. That makes the neighborhood even more desirable. It is a lesson learned from urban blight in the 70’s where the reverse happened. Yes, there is a spill over, but those “urban pioneers” are really just the shock troops. When the rich of Manhattan decided they had enough and instituted tough on crime policies and had the city condemn slumlord properties, housing prices went up in Manhattan, forcing people into… Read more »
Sometimes they are even more explicit than simply limiting the price of housing:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/grim-racist-methods-of-one-brooklyn-landlord.html
As Instapundit would say . . . read the whole thing.
There is the skim component to it too.
I’ll never forget what Shaheen and her accomplice lawyer husband did with the Claremont Case in NH.
At some point the diverse society has to take authority away from one culturally dominant group and give it to another which has an entirely different outlook. This is often facilitated by the — temporarily — dominant group, which has elected itself the time and wealth to push for the “right and fair thing to do” (though the hidden persuaders in this are often a minority group, anxious to seize power under any pretext) The new controlling interest, suddenly and perhaps without any culturally self-imposed brakes, can now accelerate a rise to the top. This includes taking anything, as and… Read more »