Research Period

Those Who Can See will regretfully be closing up shop for a period of research.  We hope to be back online as soon as possible.  Happy New Year to those who can see, to those who cannot, and to those whose eyes are just beginning to open.

Whence Housing Segregation?

 

White Detroiters protest new federal housing project, 1942 

There is a widespread feeling that the segregationists of yesteryear (in both North and South) were profoundly different than us: immoral, misguided, perhaps even brainwashed.  We are unable to imagine what could have possibly pushed them to embrace these discriminatory policies.  But it need it not be so: They wrote their reasons down in books.  Let us then look more closely, and see

1) if their beliefs were based on fact or fantasy, and

2) if they are truly as alien to us today as we have been led to believe.


The first place we'll look at is the one closest to us--our neighborhoods.

Florida family leaving for New Jersey

After Emancipation and especially in the lead-up to WWI, Afro migration to cities (both North and South) exploded.  Those Whites who had fought hard to end slavery sang a different tune when the objects of their affection moved in next door.  A 1919 Chicago study found that:

No single factor has complicated the relations of Negroes and whites in Chicago more than the widespread feeling of white people that the presence of Negroes in a neighborhood is a cause of serious depreciation of property. When a Negro family moves into a block in which all other families are white, the neighbors object. This objection may express itself in studied aloofness, in taunts, warnings, slurs, threats, or even the bombing of their homes.' White neighbors who can do so are likely to move away at the first opportunity.

[...] A leading real estate dealer said that "when a Negro moves into a block the value of the properties on both sides of the street is depreciated all the way from $100,000 to $500,000 [$1,300,000 to $6,500,000 today], depending upon the value of the property in the block"; that it was a fact and that there was no escaping it.   (1)

Chicago South Side deli, 1941

Highly desirable neighbors should send property values up; undesirable ones bring them down.  Whence this negative reaction to Afros as neighbors?  An irrational fear of dark skin?  Or something else?



I. Neighborhood upkeep

Afros and Transport, Today and Yesterday

The host at Chateau Heartiste kindly shares with us the above schoolwork on White Oppression from our neighbors to the north.

One is led to believe, from this anecdote, that Canada's public transport system is in the throes of a white-on-black harassment wave.  Were this true, we would do well to educate ourselves about it.

But is it true?  While data on Canada is sparse, for the U.S., where the vast majority of North America's Euros and Afros live, it is plentiful.  What can it tell us of these two groups' relations while riding mass transit, today and yesterday?

New York City subway

I. Afros and Transport, Today


1) CITY BUSES

Old San Francisco Muni bus

How are white-black relations our nation's city buses?

Back online soon

Please forgive our inability to post; seasonal health annoyances have severely limited our time and energy.  We shall be back to normal posting the first week of November. Until then, Happy Halloween et Bonne fête de la Toussaint!

Please stand by...

The double whammy of human and canine illness has laid us low at Chez M.G. Please excuse our late posting; we shall be back on line as soon as possible.  Thank you for your patience.

Meritocracy and Its Discontents

Jewish pogrom in Prague, 1744 

We've considered the dangers inherent in a multi-ethnic society.  One of them is a policy that deserves special attention, because it (1) is getting ever more popular, (2) can lead to disastrous outcomes, and (3) has actual merit from a race-realist perspective.  That policy is affirmative action.

We've looked before at its history.  Though unpopular amongst conservatives, there are two plausible arguments that could be made in its favor:

I. Natives should restrict foreign immigrant groups' ability to dominate certain institutions.

II. It is a social good to 'insert' members of lower-perfoming groups into roles where they can feel productive.


Our first argument is one for which there is much evidence, both for and against.

When the Melting Pot Reaches a Boil

'The Face of Tomorrow'

As we have seen, some are hoping fervently for a 'post-racial' West in which we all blend to a mocha color and harmony comes at last.  In such a world, so it's thought, we'll see no more prejudice, exclusion, oppression, micro-aggressions, or 'other-ing.'  There isn't a social problem, it appears, that cannot be righted by us all becoming beige.

But where is the evidence that tossing diverse ethnies in a pot leads to a happy racial purée?  To those who insist it is coming, we at Those Who Can See offer three counter-hypotheses:

(1)  No multi-ethnic society will blend smoothly down to one race.

(2)  Multi-ethnic societies will always breed inequality, and the more disparate the groups, the more inequality there will be.

(3)  The resentments that spring from this can only weaken, not strengthen, society.


For these reasons, we propose that the ideal society is not ethnically diverse, but ethnically homogenous.

*     *     *

The prophets of a Beige Future are everywhere.  Being colored is trendy; being white is bland:

'Ours! ... It was our people!  ... Everywhere you saw nothing but this superb brown color that only the loveliest human beings have... [...]  Personally, I don't want to be Western. I don't want to be a white Catholic; I'd rather be a black atheist.'

--French Socialist MP (and white Catholic) Jean-Luc Melenchon, describing a political rally full of immigrants

'Look at all the beautiful colours the women here are wearing. Within ten years this is what it is going to look like all over Europe. Back home it’s so bleak and dreary, the colours are devoid of life. ...' 

--Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg, appreciating the aesthetics of Lagos, Nigeria

We see echoes of the 'exoticism' of 18th and 19th century colonialism, where displaying a Chinese painted screen or an Ashanti mask in your drawing room was a sign of status. Today, appropriating not the possessions but the very identity of these 'exotics' has become à la mode.

La Japonaise (Monet's wife in Japanese costume), 1876

But let us not be fooled:  The light-skinned elite may preach 'marrying out' to the masses, but they avoid it scrupulously among themselves.  At the same time, it is rare that high-status men of color have children as dark as or darker than themselves.

 Black legends and their wives: Music greats Herbie Hancock and James Brown, sports icons Michael Jordan and Pele, acting legends Sidney Poitier and James Earl Jones (Courtesy of A Field Negro)

Which leads us to the two great color systems the colonial world has known:  The one-drop rule and the pigmentocracy. Is there evidence that either one can lead to post-racial paradise?
 

The Madonna or the Whore?

A summer day at the Englischer Garten in Munich

Cheerleaders of mass immigration from the South to the North have a number of arguments:

1) They spice up our lives:

'Silly' Midsummer Festival, 'Vibrant' honor killing

'I think that's what makes many Swedes jealous of immigrant groups. You have a culture, an identity, a history, something that brings you together. And what do we have? We have Midsummer's Eve and such silly things.'

---Swedish Social Democrat MP Mona Sahlin, in a speech to the Turkish youth organization Euroturk, March, 2002.

2) They boost our standard of living:

The prosperous, innovative future of England

'Various surveys of [London] employers come to the predictable conclusion that migrants are better employees: they are more highly skilled, work harder and are prepared to do jobs that locals disdain. They may also be more innovative. In America they are disproportionately responsible for tech start-ups; similarly, they are over-represented in Silicon Roundabout, the tech hub east of the City, ... firms set up or managed by migrants are more innovative.'

---The Economist, opinion leader since 1843 for the elite and those who strive to join them

3) Diversity is a religious principle the Gods of Equalitarianism want us to uphold:

This man's hurt feelings are worth more than 13 American lives.

'I'm concerned that this increased speculation could cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers ... Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.'

--George W. Casey, highest-ranking general in the U.S. Army, reacting to the Fort Hood army base shooting, in which a Palestinian army major cried 'Allahu Akbar!' while killing 13 and wounding 30.

One of the oddest things about such cheerleaders, especially in Europe, is their avid support of 'women's rights.'  Odd, because the peoples with which they long to fill up their countries share no such notion.  The proof is starting to bubble to the surface.  Besides the honor killings, child marriages, genital mutilation, polygamy, and gender segregation these neo-colonists have brought to the West, they are starting to act out against the native populations.  The results give pause.


I. Foreign Predation in the West


Belgium:

A college student, hoping to raise awareness about street harassment in Brussels, secretly filmed one of her strolls through the capital and unwittingly showed the world that her country's catcalling epidemic is not a man problem but a Muslim one:

'Sexy ass.' 'Tramp.' 'Whore.' 'You turn me on.'  'Let's have a drink...at my place...or in a hotel, directly.'  Without stopping once nor looking anyone in the eye, modestly-dressed student Sophie Peeters fields a barrage of sexual propositions on her afternoon stroll through Brussels.  As the hidden camera shows, every single one clearly comes from the mouth of a foreigner.