There is a word in German, fremdschämen, which roughly means to be embarrassed by seeing stranger say or do something embarrassing, like be drunk in public or behave foolishly on television. The notoriously shy Finns have the word myötähäpeä that means roughly the same thing. The “second-hand shame” concept is probably something that is exclusive to northern Europeans, but I don’t know. I do know that whenever I watch good whites crash into the reality of race, I feel myötähäpeä.
That came to mind reading this story that was posted on Tyler Cowen’s blog.
Asian-Americans also have a huge advantage in building a fan base, although this is driven almost entirely by Mr. Lin, who is the 27th most popular player despite being the 80th most prolific scorer. Of the 30 most popular players, he is one of only two men who has never played in an N.B.A. All-Star game. The other is Tristan Thompson of the Cleveland Cavaliers. This initially made no sense to me: Mr. Thompson averages fewer than 10 points per game. But then a friend explained the likely reason to me: Mr. Thompson is dating Khloé Kardashian.
What should we make of the edge in support that black players get? It is of course possible that someone will find an alternative explanation for this correlation, but let’s assume that my analysis of the data holds up and that being black is a large advantage today for N.B.A. players trying to build a fan base. How should we interpret these results? Is it a bad thing or a good thing or nothing?
IF the results were reversed — if white players got a big edge in support — this would clearly be bad news. There is strong evidence that black Americans are discriminated against in many crucial areas of life — jury decisions, police stops, job interviews, dating sites, presidential elections. If African-Americans were discriminated against in building a basketball fan base as well, it would show that white privilege can even show itself in one of the arenas in American life in which blacks have had tremendous success.
But African-Americans getting a boost in support? What should we make of that? I view this phenomenon as good news in at least two ways. I think it’s great that members of minority groups who face discrimination in many aspects of their lives show strong support for other members of the group. And it is also encouraging that many white fans will give some extra support to the country’s most successful minority athletes.
Notice the line “if white players got a big edge in support — this would clearly be bad news.” Then a little later the line “I think it’s great that members of minority groups who face discrimination in many aspects of their lives show strong support for other members of the group.” The writer suddenly finds himself bobbing around like a cork on a sea of uncertainty as everything he knew about whites and blacks is now suddenly invalidated by reality. Watching the poor slob stagger to the finish filled me with fremdschämen.
The commenters on Cowen’s blog mostly sought to dodge the central issue of the story, which is that blacks shamelessly practice racial solidarity, while whites do not. That bit of reality contradicts the narrative of modern American life, which is that the great struggle is against white racism toward blacks. Obviously data that shows that whites not only harbor little animus towards blacks, but favor blacks over their own, turns the world on its head. Throw in the fact that blacks are wildly racist and suddenly life is not worth living.
Thirty years ago I worked with a black guy in Boston who was a Laker fan. He was a Laker fan for the same reason all black basketball fans were Laker fans, regardless of their home city. The Lakers were the black team opposing the white Celtics. Plenty of whites cheered for Magic Johnson and plenty of whites rooted against both teams, but blacks everywhere cheered for Magic Johnson and the Showtime Lakers because they epitomized black basketball and opposed the very white Celtics.
Before my time, blacks rallied to Mohamed Ali versus Joe Frazier mostly because Ali was flamboyantly black, but also because he was anti-white. Frazier being favored by whites only added to it. The truth is, blacks don’t really like white people very much. It’s not a Malcolm X hatred, but the consequence of ethnic solidarity. Black people prefer blacks over whites. They see whites as the rival gang, the other team, so they always root for the black guy over the white guy.This is perfectly normal.
Humans are tribal so we side with those in our tribe over those outside our tribe. It’s a basic survival strategy that worked pretty well until recent. American whites no longer seem to possess this quality. A couple of generations of propaganda against racism has made most white people so allergic to anything that resembles ethnic or racial solidarity, most whites instinctively prefer those outside their group. It’s why a black sports star will get so much support from white fans, even if he is openly hostile to while people.
Progressives are baffled by this mostly because the central narrative of their cult holds that the great struggle is against white racism directed at the noble black man. Poor Seth Stephens-Davidowitz started his project sure he would find proof of the “systemic racism” he learned about in school during story time. Instead he stumbled onto a horrible secret that may haunt his dreams forever. Or maybe not. Being in a cult means having the ability to process disconfirmation and still maintain belief in the one true faith.
Racism is a concept shared by 100% of the world’s population. I’ve been around some in 3/4 of a century, and it’s been prevalent in every country that I’ve lived in or visited. People are more comfortable living among their own. However banal that statement seems, it is the truth. My apologies ……
The notion that we should hold hands and sing “Kumbaya” with people with whom we share no common ancestry, interests, or identity with, when in fact a great many of us can’t even do the same in our own families or even our own neighbors, points to what a rediculous concept “diversity” and the other hokum is.
Trump is the new leader of the White Male tribe. The tribe that hasn’t even existed for a long time, until just recently. They had disbanded, under public and media pressure, and from a sense of guilt.
Now the White Male tribe is back. Strangely, the enemy is not other races or genders, but other white males who are seen as traitors to the cause. And membership is open to anyone, so we see women and minorities jumping on board as well. We live in interesting times.
Yup. Racism is a club for some white people to beat other white people over the head with.
I don’t know if other demographics do this nearly as much- our mistake be in that we expect them to. In fact, we expect a lot of traits that might not be prevalent, so we keep getting blindsided.
I think a lot of us get it. The fuckers, and I say that in the most sincere well deserved meaning of the word, out to destroy our great country have created racism as tool for doing so. I guess you can argue all sorts of nuances about bigotry, but no matter what you get bad apples in every society and culture. The reality of that is a few bad apples is never an indictment on an entire subset of that culture or society of good apples, nor the entire country. To do so IS the epitome of bigotry. To… Read more »
Though Trump is a transition figure, who espouses civic nationalism, he has served as a rallying point and served well. The reality is that civic nationalism is nonsense, and has never succeeded in history, because the Magic Dirt does not change the culture or DNA of immigrants….
White people have been systematically brainwashed over multiple generations. Undoing brainwashing is a difficult process and if it’s instigated by an outside source, can be met with fierce opposition. I think it’s an internal process that is extremely slow for most. I know it was for me. From starting to see the lies and contradictions to fully leaving the left wing took decades. That’s how I know that there are people who look left, say all the left things, have all liberal friends but inside have a struggle for objective truth. I wish them success.
Racism is a natural estimate; everyone is a racist. So what?
What most are NOT, is malevolent.
We can’t blame man or or animal for how God or Nature made them; that doesn’t mean we should ignore how God or Nature made them.
Bah. If they Left can’t blame you for one sin, they’ll invent another.
If racial preferences did not exist there would be no one to reproduce with black women in America.
If I’m a “rasicts” according to the cultural marxist, then I’m proud to be one!
“Racists” built this great country I live in.
“Racists” founded it and it’s ideals and principles.
Sures looks to me being a “racist” is a mighty fine thing.
False. Only whites are racists, and all whites are racists. This is intrinsic to the definition of racism.
Think about it in X instead of Y. Try a critical thinking experiment. Take the terms, the words, “Racist” and “Racism” out of the discussion. Seriously, don’t use it. Then try to discuss the so called issue of race politics in America. The incessant narrative and memes of the 5th column intelligentsia and media collapse completely. You can see why racism and racist are marxist invented terms, why they are effective weapons against self determination, individualism and the organic natural human nature of discriminating. You literally couldn’t function as a rational person if you couldn’t discriminate. The cultural marxists are… Read more »
Having to use terms like “those who prefer to be among their own kind” would make the hate mongering a lot more difficult. I agree.
I like that: “…those who prefer to be among their own kind” would make the hate mongering a lot more difficult…” Right on Doc, right on. To me that speaks of genuine “diversity” of culture, like the diverse natural order of culture and preference. I see nothing wrong with that. You mind your own business, I mind mine. You have your tribe, I have my tribe. I do not expect or want you to pay for any discomfort or conflict my decedents may have caused, and refuse to pay for the same. It’s not rocket science or mysterious social order.… Read more »
put all the anti-white whites into the urban centers, wall off the major cities. and come back in 20 years.
if the left ever succeeds in starting a race war, you will see just how much animus whites (and mexicans) hold against blacks. what you won’t see is any surviving blacks. time to repatriate them back to mother africa “for their own safety”.
but seriously, no one in this country gets along with blacks, or gives two shits about their unending complaints. fukk those savages and their chimp like ways.
This is a *MUST* read. “The ‘Talk’, the non-black version.(Think I’ve posted it before.)
This is the piece that got John exiled from the snake pit of NRO.
http://takimag.com/article/the_talk_nonblack_version_john_derbyshire/print
Also this one. The “Latinos” hate the blacks more than the whites do.
You can’t choose your enemies but you can choose your allies, at least in the short term:
http://takimag.com/article/las_dirty_little_brown_secret_david_cole/print
Race is real and pretty much everyone is racial and tribal. Which is why diversity is not a strength and is at best a waste of time. You don’t need the other races to be around in any significant number to learn how to cook their cuisines. Japan gets it. The trade for societal dis-cohesion in exchange for some exotic food courts is a bad one. Decades of Cultural Marxism has told whites that they shouldn’t get to have racial interests whilst telling everyone else that it’s the best thing ever for them to have it. Same people who insist… Read more »
Interesting subject that many if not most cannot see with open eyes. Having been partially raised in Africa I consider myself a race realist. This, however, does not mean not being able to see past race. I could have easily married a black woman. Being raised around them meant finding some of them naturally attractive later in life. But it would have had to be the right one, which I never found. My experience with American black women in college gave me the idea that all they are interested in are material things, and that they lack the ability to… Read more »
Years ago, the New England Patriots played the New Orleans Saints down in the Big Easy. The game was the Sunday of Thanksgiving so a lot of New England fans took advantage of the long weekend to go into New Orleans to party. What they did not know is that is the weekend of the Soul Bowl, the annual game between Grambling and Southern, two black colleges. That meant the city was brimming with rowdy black people looking for a good time. The horrified looks on the faces of the New England people was priceless. For the first time in… Read more »
Agreed.
The extent to which black or African culture on any continent is tolerable is proportional to the extent to which it has absorbed white European culture. Seeing it in the raw can be a real eye opener. It is not merely “quaint”.
I live in a small South American village which has a mixed white and mestizo population living and interacting cheek by jowl. The mestizos tend to be less well-to-do than the whites, less educated, but after 13 years here, I’d have to say that I’ve never seen any indication of “color” prejudice. Cliques tend to form around educational and socioeconomic divides, but there’s no hostility even among these groups: cordiality and civility rule the day. The only friction to be sensed is between the village-born and newcomers from the big city, but even that’s muted. Perhaps it’s because the village… Read more »
Introduce a few hundred blacks or Asians and see what happens.
No, thanks! The Asians might be okay, although we now have Chinese running the corner store and they’re not winning many hearts and minds. Among the reasons I chose this place is that the nearest blacks (and they’re very few) are 150 miles away and there are very few in the entire country. There’s a small Dominican colony in the capital, 600 miles away, and they’re not very popular at all. Oddly enough, however, I have a very African looking Brazilian (Bahia) friend living in the capital (she married a guy from there) who’s as nice a person as you’d… Read more »
We live in a Latin American neighborhood and all the businesses I’ve shopped in are Chinese owned and run. It seems the Chinese people usually came her by way of South America, and they tend to keep their kids separate from the locals.
I used to notice, as a kid, my parents’ racism. As I approach the golden years I’ve discovered that I have exactly the same opinion of blacks as my folks- I try to deal with any person as I would any other person, but as for blacks in general- sheesh. Without getting all entangled in a nature-nurture debate here (although I have come to believe that genetics is way more important that I used to) most people don’t object to black PEOPLE moving next door, as much as they object to black CULTURE moving next door.
I ask the same question to the Mestizos I work with or around in Nevada. The domination of Mexican Caucasians (ten percent of the population) in government, business, and media cause zero resentment and is regarded as entirely natural. We cannot over-estimate the degree to which resentment is a thing which is ginned up by our ruling class.
In fact, the outbred, outward looking Northwestern Europeans who exhibit this misguided empathy for the rest of the world are a product of manorialism and many centuries of banning consanguineous marriage. Massive amounts of research have established this fact. The rest of the world remains tribal/clannish and favors their own group ruthlessly over others. A certain such group has produced a great deal of anti-white propaganda in the last 50 years, but the propaganda wouldn’t work if there weren’t an inherent inclination toward welcoming the “other.” Remember, all behavior is at least 50% genetic…
Good summation. I try to be as brief as possible with relatives stuck in the propaganda (which is most of them). Europeans were radically out bred in the middle ages, first against their will and by law, and extending to the fifth cousin (the Church correctly spied clannishness as a threat to their primacy) then continuing over the centuries in proportions never seen before in human history. We are not the normals, we are the freaks. Do not expect others to be like you are, you are not normal, and neither blacks nor others mistake that quality in you as… Read more »
This “blacks like blacks and dislike whites” phenomenon will affect baseball batting averages in a few years.
Fewer tall white athletes are encouraged to play basketball even if they are talented.
Instead they are encouraged to become baseball pitchers.
Because of their height (and Mechanics 101) their fast balls are faster than the smaller guys’.
(I know this is true. I read it on the internet.)
The only minorities I see on the NBA courts are of the white persuasion.
Not a problem for me- the NHL is 99 44/100ths pure.
I wonder, zman, if your Lakers v. Celtics example was also influenced somewhat by the persistent belief that Boston was a truly racist city and that any black person was a potential victim of violence just by walking down Tremont Street. And every time someone attempts to refute it, ginned up examples are trotted out as proof: Dee Brown being pulled over for a traffic violation in a lily-white suburb, or the tumult that was the busing debacle of the 70s. Even now, decades later, as the Celtics and the city rolled out the red carpet to entice the biggest… Read more »
It’s not Boston, it’s the Irish. The Boston Irish are serious about their enmity for blacks except when they elect Irish politicians who support forced integration. That’s a tribal thing too, my side wrong or wrong.
I remember Judge Garrety and his forced bussing. That act of State sanctioned insanity was racism pure and simple through and through.
That was a memorable era in Boston. No greater racist ever existed anywhere than Louise Day Hicks, a Democrat. Her elected counterparts, all Dems, were Albert ‘Dapper’ O’Neill, a relation of US House Speaker “Tip” O’Neill, and State Senator Bill Bulger. US Senator Ted Kennedy was the leader of the pack, but immune from being labeled a racist b/c of all his dead brothers. We had just gotten out of the Navy and my husband was in B-School when the busing thing came crashing down. I worked at a commission at the State House so I got to see all… Read more »
I admit that my understanding of the racial undertones in Boston are not as deep as all of yours. I arrived in the city as a college student in the 80s and didn’t really begin following local politics until later. Perhaps my perspective is off because of that. But I learned quickly about Boston politics from reading Howie Carr’s columns and later from his radio show. I also got some firsthand experience in the aftermath of the Charles Stuart murder scandal. I worked with the man. Certain people in City Hall did their best Claude Rains impression up to and… Read more »
Blacks favoring blacks is not universally true. Blacks often prefer whites in bed.
all the hooha from virtual signalling whites is a way for them (the mediocre whites) to hold back more talented whites.
Sorry, have enter the fray here and defend the old town. Born and raised in Boston i can tell you the ” social engineering” preformed on my generaton scattered friends and family all over the state. Forced bussing ruined neighborhoods and the lives of people. Their only sin was being white.. Despite years of aggressive affirmative action , busing blacks into white neighborhoods ( that still continues to this day ), free college education, prep schools, etc Black neighborhoods remain crime ridden “no-go” zones at night and no amount of libraries , new schools or community centers is going to… Read more »
Joe Frazier always played second fiddle to Ali, but he was an outstanding boxer, a patriotic American, was actually something of a race-realist, and was at least as witty as Ali. After Ali called him “ugly” in one interview, Frazier quipped “I have eleven babies. Someone must have thought that I was cute…” But, as the Z-Man points out, Frazier wasn’t strongly anti-white, so he got no respect.
Just FYI:
Only a blank screen appears when visiting thezman.com, blank but with a prettier Z icon!
While going directly to thezman.com/wordpress which i had bookmarked still works fine…
It’s fixed now. I was tinkering with something and blew off the redirect.
I would keep the other fav icon tho, it was much nicer.
Same here. Typing in “www.thezman.com” as a URL comes up with nothing but a blank page. If I go to bing and type in “the zman” I get a link to “www.thezman.com” and clicking on it gets me in. This has been going on for two days. Could be nothing, could be a nefarious throttling attack. I use epic as a browser to try to reduce cookie based attacks, and have cleared my registry anyway. This still happens. Could be nothing, but being paranoid in our current police state might not be an irrational position to take.
Chinese people usually came her by way of South America, and they tend to keep their kids separate from the locals.
Only whites are racists, and all whites are racists. This is intrinsic to the definition of racism.