The story has followed the sad trajectory usually followed in incidents involving race and claims of 'racism' or victimhood: the club's directors apologize profusely and grovel, conceding to the 'victims'. This is tiresome, and shameful. Rarely if ever does anyone so accused refuse to kowtow. They all fold in the face of the 'r-word.'
Sailer's blog entry is titled 'Postjudice', which is an apt word. The modern liberal idea of 'prejudice' wrongly (and I believe purposely) implies that White people pre-judge nonwhites, without ever giving them a chance to prove themselves 'just the same as everyone else'. This, of course, implies that Whitey is innately prone to judge others not like himself unfairly, and wrongly. 'Stereotypes' are condemned categorically by liberals and leftists, who claim that all stereotypes are fictitious caricatures created in the imagination of mean-spirited Whites who misrepresent nonwhites all the time.
In order to keep up this pretense, the media and liberals/leftists everywhere must constantly try to disprove the stereotype by means of presenting sugar-coated, and (dare I say it?) whitewashed images of nonwhites, most particularly blacks, as exemplary people, wise, funny, hip, cool, generally savvy and 'street-smart', unlike White men who are shown as bumblers, inept dunces, awkward, clumsy, and out of shape. Oddly, liberals don't object to these stereotypes.
I understand that it must be hard work and a constant challenge to counter the 'stereotypes' stemming from Whitey's malevolent imagination with the vision of blacks as either long-suffering victims or noble saviors. This explains why the propaganda is nonstop in the media.
Unfortunately though the multicultists and minorities can project the image they prefer in the media, reality is not so easily managed. Unfortunately, some people's lives put them right in the middle of mandatory diversity, and the media image tends to lose its convincing quality when you come up against the real-life facts.
I, too, was once prejudiced, as I confessed before on this blog. I had had little contact with blacks, having attended elementary school and junior high in areas where the races were separated, in the bad old pre-PC days. Even in the North where I went to high school, there were virtually no blacks in the school I attended. By that time, I believed the liberal 'only one race, the human race' slogan, not having had experience to contradict it, and having been taught by idealistic liberal teachers in high school.
I wrote of how I was prejudiced enough to allow a black fellow student in college to cheat from my test papers, because I felt bad for her struggles with the coursework. I was prejudiced enough to keep my liberal views despite having many unpleasant and dangerous experiences in the diverse big city.
I think this is the case for many people who grow up with little direct contact with many nonwhites; they know no better than the propaganda in the media, and the illusions are stubborn.
Any negative perceptions that develop only after real-life experiences, and based on honest observation, are not properly described as ''prejudice'', whatever else may be said about them.
Postjudice is a half-jocular term, a term coined off the word 'prejudice', but it should be more widely used as a way of making people think about the idea of 'prejudice.' In our politically correct society, most people ARE prejudiced regarding nonwhites, but prejudiced in favor of them. Just watch how quickly and excitedly many White people will jump to the defense of minorites, against their own racial brethren. That's prejudice. In any dispute, Whites do not get the benefit of the doubt, even from their fellow Whites. It's a given that in cases like this pool controversy, the club administrators are tried and convicted in the media, and they are guilty by default. That's the script from which the media works, and no exceptions are to be allowed.
One of the commenters on the Sailer discussion thread makes an interesting observation:
jimbo said...
Reminds me of a friend of mine - grew up in a lily-white suburb of D.C., very SWPL. He moved down to New Orleans, in the middle of a black neighborhood. He told me how releived he was to get out of there (oddly enough, Katrina helped him tremendously, since his neighborhood was one of the few not inundated, and his house thus went up in value and he was able to sell at a profit), since he felt himself becomeing more racist every day he actually had to interact with lower-class blacks. He fled to a nice suburb up north, where he can pretend to himself that the few middle class black people he sees are "normal"...
This rings true, from what I know, and it would certainly explain why so many liberal Whites seem to prefer to live in majority White areas, despite their professed adulation of nonwhites.
It's often claimed that all White liberals live in 'lily-white' areas, which is not actually true; many live in mixed neighborhoods, often in rather run-down but 'hip' urban neighborhoods, bordering on ghetto areas. They are not 'racist' in the sense that most conservatives claim, in the sense of being unfriendly toward blacks or other minorities. However, they implicitly recognize that a lot of the amenities and conveniences they find important in the city are available only in neighborhoods with a certain percentage of Whites. Liberals are often fond of bookstores, coffeehouses, trendy boutiques, etc., and you just don't find those in majority black areas. But liberals are not closet haters of nonwhites as many Republicans like to think. However, I think that, even if only unconsciously, they know that blacks are not 'just like Whites', and they sense that perhaps their glowing image of nonwhites would lose some of that glow and gloss if they lived in a majority nonwhite neighborhood. They prefer to keep their self-righteous illusions about race, and go on feeling good about themselves.
So yes, they are prejudiced, but only favorably, towards nonwhites. It seems to be essential to their self-image, to use their favorite psychological jargon. And they want to cling to their fond illusions.
If they have any negative prejudices towards anyone, it's toward Whites who don't share their peculiar political and social dogmas.
Will reality ever break through their prejudices and illusions? It seems doubtful, given their talent for being delusional and stubborn. But we can always hope. A society that is as rife with delusion and a refusal to acknowledge the obvious is a society that will not cope well with the increasing instability of our situation.
