the Civil-Rights Establishment --- those who use skin color for an advantage are to be ignore.
On Monday, July 22, 2013 7:26:56 AM UTC-5, MJ wrote: > > > July 21, 2013, 7:38 p.m. ET > *The Decline of the Civil-Rights Establishment > **Black leaders weren't so much outraged at injustice as they were by the > disregard of their own authority. > *SHELBY STEELE > > The verdict that declared George Zimmerman not guilty of murdering Trayvon > Martin <http://topics.wsj.com/person/M/Trayvon-Martin/6906> was a > traumatic event for America's civil-rights establishment, and for many > black elites across the media, government and academia. When you have grown > used to American institutions being so intimidated by the prospect of black > wrath that they invent mushy ideas like "diversity" and "inclusiveness" > simply to escape that wrath, then the crisp reading of the law that the > Zimmerman jury displayed comes as a shock. > > On television in recent weeks you could see black leaders from every > background congealing into a chorus of umbrage and complaint. But they > weren't so much outraged at a horrible injustice as they were affronted by > the disregard of their own authority. The jury effectively said to them, > "You won't call the tune here. We will work within the law." > > Today's black leadership pretty much lives off the fumes of moral > authority that linger from its glory days in the 1950s and '60s. The > Zimmerman verdict lets us see this and feel a little embarrassed for them. > Consider the pathos of a leadership that once transformed the nation now > lusting for the conviction of the contrite and mortified George Zimmerman, > as if a stint in prison for him would somehow assure more peace and > security for black teenagers everywhere. This, despite the fact that nearly > one black teenager a day is shot dead on the South Side of Chicagoto name > only one cityby another black teenager. > > This would not be the first time that a movement begun in profound moral > clarity, and that achieved greatness, waned away into a parody of > itselfnot because it was wrong but because it was successful. Today's > civil-rights leaders have missed the obvious: The success of their > forbearers in achieving social transformation denied to them the heroism > that was inescapable for a Martin Luther King Jr. or a James Farmer or a > Nelson Mandela. Jesse Jackson and Al > Sharpton<http://topics.wsj.com/person/S/Al-Sharpton/5874>cannot write a > timeless letter to us from a Birmingham jail or walk, as > John Lewis did in 1965, across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., > into a maelstrom of police dogs and billy clubs. That America is no longer > here (which is not to say that every trace of it is gone). > > The Revs. Jackson and Sharpton have been consigned to a hard fate: They > can never be more than redundancies, echoes of the great men they emulate > because America has changed. Hard to be a King or Mandela today when your > monstrous enemy is no more than the cherubic George Zimmerman. > > Why did the civil-rights leadership use its greatly depleted moral > authority to support Trayvon Martin? This young man was, after all, no Rosa > Parksa figure of indisputable human dignity set upon by the rank evil of > white supremacy. Trayvon threw the first punch and then continued pummeling > the much smaller Zimmerman. Yes, Trayvon was a kid, but he was also > something of a menace. The larger tragedy is that his death will come to > very little. There was no important principle or coherent protest implied > in that first nose-breaking punch. It was just dumb bravado, a tough-guy > punch. > > The civil-rights leadership rallied to Trayvon's cause (and not to the > cause of those hundreds of black kids slain in America's inner cities this > very year) to keep alive a certain cultural "truth" that is the sole source > of the leadership's dwindling power. Put bluntly, this leadership rather > easily tolerates black kids killing other black kids. But it cannot abide a > white person (and Mr. Zimmerman, with his Hispanic background, was pushed > into a white identity by the media over his objections) getting away with > killing a black person without undermining the leadership's very reason for > being. > > The purpose of today's civil-rights establishment is not to seek justice, > but to seek power for blacks in American life based on the presumption that > they are still, in a thousand subtle ways, victimized by white racism. This > idea of victimization is an example of what I call a "poetic truth." Like > poetic license, it bends the actual truth in order to put forward a larger > and more essential truthone that, of course, serves one's cause. Poetic > truths succeed by casting themselves as perfectly obvious: "America is a > racist nation"; "the immigration debate is driven by racism"; "Zimmerman > racially stereotyped Trayvon." And we say, "Yes, of course," lest we seem > to be racist. Poetic truths work by moral intimidation, not reason. > > In the Zimmerman/Martin case the civil-rights establishment is fighting > for the poetic truth that white animus toward blacks is still such that a > black teenagerSkittles and ice tea in handcan be shot dead simply for > walking home. But actually this establishment is fighting to maintain its > authority to wield poetic truththe authority to tell the larger society > how it must think about blacks, how it must respond to them, what it owes > them and, then, to brook no argument. > > The Zimmerman/Martin tragedy has been explosive because it triggered a > fight over authority. Who gets to say what things meanthe supporters of > George Zimmerman, who say he acted in self-defense, or the civil-rights > establishment that says he profiled and murdered a black child? Here we > are. And where is the authority to resolve this? The six-person Florida > jury, looking carefully at the evidence, decided that Mr. Zimmerman pulled > the trigger in self-defense and not in a fury of racial hatred. > > And here, precisely at the point of this verdict, is where all of America > begins to see this hollowed-out civil-rights establishment slip into > pathos. Almost everyone saw this verdict coming. It is impossible to see > how this jury could have applied the actual law to this body of evidence > and come up with a different conclusion. The civil-rights establishment's > mistake was to get ahead of itself, to be seduced by its own poetic truth > even when there was no evidence to support it. And even now its leaders > call for a Justice Department investigation, and they long for civil > lawsuits to be filedhoping against hope that some leaf of actual racial > victimization will be turned over for all to see. This is how a once-great > social movement looks when it becomes infested with obsolescence. > > One wants to scream at all those outraged at the Zimmerman verdict: Where > is your outrage over the collapse of the black family? Today's civil-rights > leaders swat at mosquitoes like Zimmerman when they have gorillas on their > back. Seventy-three percent of all black children are born without fathers > married to their mothers. And you want to bring the nation to a standstill > over George Zimmerman? > > There are vast career opportunities, money and political power to be > gleaned from the specter of Mr. Zimmerman as a racial profiler/murderer; > but there is only hard and selfless work to be done in tackling an > illegitimacy rate that threatens to consign blacks to something like > permanent inferiority. If there is anything good to be drawn from the > Zimmerman/Martin tragedy, it is only the further revelation of the > corruption and irrelevance of today's civil-rights leadership. > > *Mr. Steele is a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover > Institution. Among his books is "White Guilt" (HarperCollins, 2007).* > > A version of this article appeared July 22, 2013, on page A17 in the U.S. > edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Decline of the > Civil-Rights Establishment. > > http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324448104578618681599902640.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop > > -- -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "PoliticalForum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
