Levin: Do I Owe the Virginia Flaggers an Apology?
Following my comment, Patrick Young responded to me -- or rather, about my comment. He said:
BTW, I live in a black community and work in another black community. I’m guessing the folks who discern “a very real, observable obsession with SHOES in the black community” are the same ones who order up a nice big watermelon when a black family comes for dinner.This is a perfect example of floggerette deliberate misunderstanding in order to denigrate that ends up making their own intellect look less than stellar. (I posted about that pheonomenon here: Shrinking and Shriveling Intelligence and Integrity )
I'm certain -- or fairly certain -- a man of his intelligence and education knows there are multiple definitions of the word "community." He is pretending I meant it this way --
1. a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage....when, in fact (as I'm sure a man of his intelligence knows), I meant it this way--
3. a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists (usually preceded by the).He also commented --
"I love the fact that in denouncing fatherless homes, Connie uses stats from an organization of divorced men."First, I didn't denounce fatherless homes; I lamented them. I denounced the circumstances that have led to the existence of so many of them.
Second, I guess his "loving" it is supposed to convey scorn, as if there's something wrong with divorced men being concerned about fatherlessness in this country. If he knew anything about this subject, he would know that the stats on fatherlessness come from from an organization of divorced men because they are the ones who most often have their children ripped from their lives by divorce.
Perhaps Mr. Young also doesn't know that 65% to 70% of divorces in the US are instigated by WOMEN. The men's rights movement grew out of the fathers' rights movement. I would suggest that he Google "fathers rights movement" and start acquainting himself with this ... ah ... community.
I also recommend the following--
by Stephen Baskerville
http://www.amazon.com/Taken-Into-Custody-Against-Marriage/dp/1581825943
Mr. Baskerville's Website
Perhaps before again attempting to ridicule somebody with a subject he seems to know little to nothing about, Mr. Young will educate himself first....
I've learned never to make presumptions about the intelligence or lack of it from the Flogger's peanut gallery. My default setting with them is the simply accept that they are either willingly, or morally, obtuse.
ReplyDeleteMs. Chastain, you wrote:
ReplyDelete"I'm certain -- or fairly certain -- a man of his intelligence and education knows there are multiple definitions of the word "community." He is pretending I meant it this way --
1. a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage.
...when, in fact (as I'm sure a man of his intelligence knows), I meant it this way--
3. a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists (usually preceded by the)."
In fact, in my answer I assumed that you referred to "3. a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists (usually preceded by the)."
It never entered my mind to think that you were referring to Westbury or Hempstead, N.Y., where my home and office are. I understood your comments to be directed against black people generally, and not only against blacks in my villages.
Thanks for allowing me to clarify and thank you for your kind assessment of my intelligence and education.
Thank you for that explanation, Mr. Young. I assumed you were talking about two different black communities because you identified two, one where you live and one where you work.
ReplyDeleteWhen I said the black community, I meant the black population of the United States. Although I probably should have noted that, rather than the whole black community, a segment or part of it -- younger folks -- are the ones observably obsessed with Air Jordans.
Pat Young:
ReplyDelete"I live in a black community and work in another black community."
Rare exception. Floggers typically live and work in all-white environments and show a great deal of contempt for any black person who cuts against their line of thought - Karen Cooper, Ann Dewitt, Earl Ijames, &c (to name a few). How do you manage?
Very well.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy living in a diverse community. At the time my son was attending public school here his school was 9% white. It was an amazingly welcoming environment for him and as an adult he thanks me for letting him have a level of comfort with people of all cultures that few of his peers who lived elsewhere have.
Its a great way to live.
Mr. Young, I'm glad you get to live in the kind of community you enjoy. Would that everyone could....
ReplyDeleteMay I ask you to consider answering a few questions for me? I mean, since you've stopped by my blog comments...
The diversity you appreciate... Is it cultural? racial? something else?
And do you consider it superior, morally or otherwise, to prefer dissimilarity over similarity? That a group of people who are diverse is better -- in some ways, in all ways? -- than a group of people who are alike? I'm sure you've heard the meme, "Diversity is our strength." Would you say that diversity is always strength, and homogeneity is always a liability?
Would you advise me how important it is -- compared to other important things in life -- to have a level of comfort with people of all cultures?
I don't really expect you to answer, but these are things I've always wanted to ask a champion of diversity, but never had the opportunity to.
Ms. Chastain, you wrote:
ReplyDelete[1] "The diversity you appreciate... Is it cultural? racial? something else?
[2] And do you consider it superior, morally or otherwise, to prefer dissimilarity over similarity? That a group of people who are diverse is better -- in some ways, in all ways? -- than a group of people who are alike? I'm sure you've heard the meme, "Diversity is our strength." Would you say that diversity is always strength, and homogeneity is always a liability?
[3]Would you advise me how important it is -- compared to other important things in life -- to have a level of comfort with people of all cultures?
I don't really expect you to answer, but these are things I've always wanted to ask a champion of diversity, but never had the opportunity to."
You flatter me by calling me a "champion". I agree with you that I probably won't "answer", but I will respond [Note: Numbers in brackets above were inserted by me for your convenience]:
[1.] In the last year I've been the official host of the largest charitable function in the Korean community in Flushing, Queens. Just 20 minutes from my home in Westbury, I can visit that community and see literally hundreds of friends and colleagues, enjoy dinner at a variety of Korean restaurants, and pray at a Korean church. The culture is not at all the same as my own Irish American culture, but it is welcoming, loving and supportive. And lots of fun to be part of.
Many of my neighbors in Westbury are immigrants. Abutting my property are families from El Salvador, Mexico, and West Africa. A few blocks away is an Italian community of 1,500 people. Within three blocks of my home I can go to two first class Italian restaurants, a real Mexican restaurant, a Salvadoran pupuseria, two Chinese restaurants, a Turkish restaurant, a bagel shop, a Korean grocer, and a Latin Market stuffed with vegetables and baked goods that you won't find at a Piggly Wiggly. I can attend Mass in English, Spanish, Creole, and Italian at my local church
Is this racial diversity, etc., etc.? I call it enjoying differences.
[2] I am a Catholic, so my views on morality were formed by my religious upbringing. I believe that openness to all of God's children is a mandate we receive from God, if we believe in God.
Acceptance of other people is a strength. Sowing divisiveness, walling ourselves off from those who appear different, weakens a society.
America is a strong country because we have worked at ways to incorporate folks from very different backgrounds.
[3] If you live in the 21st Century and you are uncomfortable with diversity, you are going to get a lot more uncomfortable real soon.
You're right. You didn't answer. I seem to remember seeing on your blog that you're a lawyer....
ReplyDeleteMs. Chastain,
ReplyDeleteHow would you answer your own questions?
Here's how I would answer the first question:
ReplyDeleteI think there is a big difference between (a) an individual preference for varied ethnic cuisine, etc., and (b) the doctrine of multiculturalism that says all cultures are good except ours (which is primarily a derivative of western European culture, which is also not good), and the effort made by political and educational elites based on that doctrine to weaken, dilute, and eventually eradicate our culture.
This is primarily the doctrine and effort of the left, which I believe despises U.S. culture for its whiteness, its success and its wealth, and wishes to destroy all three via means such as massive dissimilar immigration and non-assimilation, and instilling in American youth a loathing for, and rejection of, their culture (Rob Baker is a great example of this) -- the desired result being the reduction of the US to third world status, and the inevitable wretchednses of its people (except, of course, for the leftist elites, who will continue to enjoy a much higher standard of living).
I think it is telling that these leftist cultural elites do not make the same effort to "diversify" cultures that are not European or European-derived, regardless of how monolithic they may be.
Answer #2:
ReplyDeleteOn an individual basis, I don't think it is morally superior to prefer either similarity or dissimilarity, they are simply personal preferences. IOW, an east- or west- coaster, or upper midwesterner, who prefers living in areas with large foreign or ethnic subcultures, enjoys a variety of ethnic cuisine, a population that speaks different languages, enjoys different music and entertainment, and accepts varied religious expression, is no better than a Southerner who prefers to live in the South, enjoys his Southern friends and neighbors, loves Southern food, speaks Southern language (yes, we have our own English down here), enjoys Southern music and entertainment, and reveres Southern religious expression, which is overwhelmingly Christian and largely protestant.
Can any cheerleader for diversity explain to me why a enjoyment of Turkish lamb by a New Yorker is superior, for some reason, to a Southerner's enjoyment of barbecued pork and ham sammiches?
I don't believe America is strong because we have worked at ways to incorporate folks from very different backgrounds. In fact, large immigrant groups from other cultures are increasingly not "incorporated" into America. They are in fact encouraged to retain their cultural identities and reject American identity, to scorn their host culture as oppressive, and to try to supplant it with their own imported culture. This diversity is the second greatest cause of the weakening of America; the greatest is the internal moral rot, which is also largely the handiwork of the left and is accomplished mostly by the popular culture, centered around turning children against church and other religious traditions of previous generations.
And #3:
ReplyDelete"If you live in the 21st Century and you are uncomfortable with diversity, you are going to get a lot more uncomfortable real soon."
Yes, considering what "diversity" is being used to bring about in the USA, most people here are going to get extremely uncomfortable and worse -- miserable, wretched ... all those adjectives we used to describe the unfortunate inhabitants of impoverished, repressive, third world countries, which is what we will become in the 21st Century.
I don't think leftists who are engineering this change in western culture really care about other cultures or their people. Oh, some good hearted followers may be thus concerned, but they are either uniformed about, or unbelieving of, the elite's ultimate aims.
I sincerely believe many cultural elites in leadership positions -- such as the anti-Confederate bloggers I call floggers -- are not motivated so much by concern for the unfortunates, but by hostility toward what they perceive to be American whiteness, success and wealth. Never mind that many of them are white, successful and wealthy -- they exempt themselves.
I truly believe, based on what I see and know of Simpson, Levin, et.al., that they are far less concerned about blacks, past and present, than they are with demonizing white people, especially Southerners -- with exceptions for themselves and their followers. Otherwise, why do they choose to live and work in such white, basically un-multicultural areas and teach at such white, basically un-multicultural institutions? They talk a good diversity-talk. They don't much walk a diversity-walk.
Ms. Chastain,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your response. I am running out for bagels now as it is morning here on Long Island. When I get back I'll mull over your answers. I appreciate you taking the time to prepare them.
Just FYI...
ReplyDeleteAs you as aware, I've done "background checks" (google searches) of a few of the floggers and their followers.
And out of curiosity did a search of "Sundown towns" (found an actual database of such places).
And what do you know...
...a certain flogger and a certain flogger-follower live in places with a reputaition of being "Sundown towns."
Amazing what you can find on the 'net.
Ms. Chastain:
ReplyDeleteIn reading your response to your own questions, I was struck by this:
” I think there is a big difference between (a) an individual preference for varied ethnic cuisine, etc., and (b) the doctrine of multiculturalism that says all cultures are good except ours (which is primarily a derivative of western European culture, which is also not good), and the effort made by political and educational elites based on that doctrine to weaken, dilute, and eventually eradicate our culture.”
I wonder if you understand that the culture of the United States is not merely some “derivative of Western European culture.” For nearly 100 years American cultural products have been admired and emulated, and sometimes criticized and condemned, but they have been impossible for the world to ignore. Our vibrant American culture has fused together disparate cultures brought by immigrants, and preserved underground by African Americans, into a new synthesis.
We are not simply English, or French culture moved West.
It is true that in 1860, Northerners worried that their culture was but a dim reflection of Europe's. Southerners despaired that their own writing and art was European as reflected by Boston.
They wondered if America would ever develop its own culture. They needn't have worried. Within a half century, the immigrants arriving on the docks and the blacks freed from slavery, would combine native American materials into a new world culture that the rest of the world is constantly trying to keep up with.
Mr. Young,
ReplyDeletePerhaps I didn't make it clear. It is the doctrine of multiculturalism or those who promote it that see our culture as a derivative of western European culture (which they also don't think much of).
My own view? I really haven't sat down and minutely formulated it. We were certainly taught in school that America and its culture were created by Europeans. Based on what I've observed and learned since then, I think the country is western European at its core, or foundation, but we all know, or should know, that the core, or the foundation, is hardly the whole.
I certainly don't believe we are English, or French, culture moved west. The very act of moving would create subtle differences from what was left behind. The climate, topography, flora, fauna, existing inhabitants, and countless other differences, would have the effect of making subtle or marked changes on the imported culture. Moreover, the settlers chose not to bring some components of the culture they left behind to their new one, f'rinstance, monarchy and nobility/peerage.
But they were Europeans, and they could not totally shed their ... Europeanness, if you please ... and it was evident in the culture, primarily the the governments they set up (which, in some ways, were created from a "lessons learned" mentality re: European government) and religion -- Christianity expressed in ... shall I say it? ... diverse denominations. Also architecture (which also exhibited "diversity" based on the region they were built in -- tall, steep roofs up north to shed snow, dog-trot hallways in the South to catch the breezes, just two of many examples.
You said, "It is true that in 1860, Northerners worried that their culture was but a dim reflection of Europe's. Southerners despaired that their own writing and art was European as reflected by Boston They wondered if America would ever develop its own culture. They needn't have worried. Within a half century, the immigrants arriving on the docks and the blacks freed from slavery, would combine native American materials into a new world culture that the rest of the world is constantly trying to keep up with."
As if until 1900 or so, when freed blacks and new immigrants "combined into a new world culture," America was basically nothing, and would have remained nothing, but for the explosion of creativity by these groups. This is precisely the "multicultural" attitude that I find extremely objectionable and that, in fact, I reject.
First, I've never encountered the information that Americans, north and South, thought these things in 1860, though perhaps some did, and second, I disagree that America was cultural pablum before 1900. However, I would note that these folks who so uplifted American culture after 1900 did so after others -- primarily western European settlers -- did the hard work learning, mapping, taming and settling the continent, expanding trade and business, and creating communities and cities for the new "culture creators" to live in....
In response to your Answer #2 Ms. Chastain:
ReplyDeleteI don’t know if you recognizes this, but countries and regions that welcome diversity are stronger in many ways because of it. As Alabama found out when it passed laws viewed as hostile to immigrants, multinational businesses and research projects started avoiding the state because job creators, particularly those in the creative sector, don’t want to invest in diversity-resistant places.
Perhaps there was a day when a small white community could prosper in isolation from the world’s variety. That day is over.
Mr. Young, you're right. I don't recognize that countries and regions that welcome diversity are stronger in many ways because of it. I know that some people say they are. I know that other people say they aren't.
ReplyDeleteJapan is often described as a very homogeneous culture, and I don't often hear Japan described as weak. In fact, now that I think about it, I don't ever recall hearing Japan described as weak.
Alabama's law was viewed as hostile to immigrants? As I recall, it was about illegal immigration and employers who wish to hire them for cheap labor. So how does it help Alabama for "job creators" to give jobs to illegal aliens instead of Alabamians? Also, I seem to remember reading that after the law was passed unemployment fell from 9.8 percent to 7.2 percent in that state. So I guess it depends on who you ask and what "strong" means to you.
As far as I remember this discussion, nobody has claimed a small white community can prosper in isolation from the world’s variety, or even mentioned it, or implied or hinted at it. I would think any small community isolated from the world would not prosper, whatever its color. I admit to being mystified about what this is supposed to refer to.