Reacting to Spree Killings, Progressively

[Please excuse this brief detour; we are still hard at work on our 'Re-colonization' series.]

Of the many things Progressives are known for, number one is being on the right side of history.

So in the wake of this latest U.S. spree killing, we turn to our leading leftist voices to help us make sense of the madness.

Having studied their recent corpus on the question of the spree-killer-for-a-cause, we believe we've found some progressive principles to light our way.


I. Do not make generalizations about his group

Why Re-Colonization? Future Orientation

Mongongo tree and fruit

Each day, the Kung San walked long distances to the mongongo groves to collect their fruits.  

Once he asked a tribesman why nobody had ever made an attempt to grow mongongo trees near some of the permanent water holes where the tribe resided.  "You could do that if you wanted to," he replied, "but by the time the trees bore fruit, you would be long dead." --Anthropologist Richard Lee

(part I of two)

At independence, 50 years ago, optimism for the tropics was high. No one could have dreamed that half a century later, a massive movement for re-colonization would be afoot--led not by Africa's leaders but by her masses.

1960: Demanding Europeans leave Africa; 2014: Africans demanding to be let into Europe

We have looked at some of the reasons that the global South wants into Teutonic countries.  But the real appeal is broader.  Globally, tropical peoples are trying to migrate to lands run by temperate peoples.

Image source 

Like a baby trying to crawl back into the womb, the formerly colonized are coming back to their old foreign masters and begging (or demanding) to be ruled by them again.

One year of African boat people = a city the size of Venice. Can Europe absorb them all?

Why?

We propose two major reasons: Future orientation and Commonweal orientation.  These two qualities, we argue, are plentiful in the North but in short supply in the South, where their opposites (Short-Sightedness and Clannishness) can be found in abundance.

Today we shall focus on the former: Future orientation. We argue that the shortage of this trait in warmer climes has prevented these societies from developing the way they wish to. This is why, two generations after independence, millions are voting with their feet to place themselves back under Euro rule.

We also argue these traits follow tropical peoples long-term, which is why North America's centuries-old African population has never assimilated. This too, we shall show, should be a cautionary tale for European deciders on immigration.

So what is the evidence to back up our assertions?

The New Face of Colonialism

'Take up the White Man's burden--

The savage wars of peace--

Fill full the mouth of Famine

And bid the sickness cease;

And when your goal is nearest

The end for others sought,

Watch sloth and heathen Folly

Bring all your hopes to nought.'

--Rudyard Kipling, 1899

The colonial era, we are told, is over. The imperialists have retreated to their shores and the third world now happily governs itself.

For much of the planet, this is true. India and China, two great colonial occupations of the 19th century, have wrested control of their economy and food security. It is largely sub-Saharan Africa, home to 1/6 of humanity, which remains the red-headed stepchild of international relations.

These rich lands were coveted by right-wing industrialists, and their people's uplift coveted by left-wing do-gooders. The footprint left by the former? Ports, canals, roads, railways, and a functioning government (their own). By the latter? Churches, missions, schools, hospitals.

What both camps agreed upon, though, was that the colonized were not able to provide these things for themselves.

Upon which they still agree today.

While many believe we live in a 'post-colonial' world, we here at Those Who Can See argue that we do not.  'We're all equal,' sing both the right and the left. But their actions do not match their words.  We believe the colonial project is, on the contrary, roaring along as full-steam as it ever did. What is the evidence?

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 Blind Leading the Blind

Image source

Detroit, the largest city in Michigan, is about to join its sisters Flint, Pontiac, Benton Harbor, and Ecorse in being stripped of its municipal authority and ceded to an 'emergency manager.' Well-covered by commentators who can see, the story has also attracted observations such as:

“How come all of the jurisdictions put under emergency management are majority African American? Has anybody noticed that?” asked Rep. John Conyers (D), who has represented Detroit for 47 years.

How come indeed.

As Congressman Conyers implies, majority-Afro cities tend to elect majority-Afro city governments.  As the average Afro is less well-endowed than other ethnies in future-time orientation, commonweal-orientation, industriousness, and logical aptitude, majority-Afro governments tend to govern poorly.

.             .            .

Haiti, the world's first Black Republic, stunned the planet in 1804 by driving out her European masters and embarking upon true self-government.  A century later, adventurer and journalist Hesketh Prichard ambled from one end of the island to the other, to report on what one hundred years of freedom had wrought.

On the capital city: