Who Is Racist?

By Dennis Prager

Tuesday, June 03, 2014

No day passes without a Democratic politician, a left-wing commentator, or, if I may be excused a redundancy, a left-wing academic’s labeling Republicans and conservatives racist.

Given the power of repetition, one consequence is that many Americans, especially young ones, believe that one side of the political spectrum — the Right — is racist.

Having been involved with conservatives for about 30 years, I have long known that this isn’t true. In fact, the charge of conservative racism is so easily refuted that it is difficult to imagine how anyone without a vested interest in libeling conservatives could believe it. How, for example, does one explain that the most conservative Republicans were the ones who most supported Herman Cain, the one black running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012?

Left-wing commentators offer this response: Conservative support of Cain was essentially a ruse to fool people into believing that conservatives are not the racists we liberals know them to be.

The absurdity of this response only proves that there is no good response to the question. The fact is that, compared with a person’s values, conservatives couldn’t care less about a person’s color. I have actually asked large conservative audiences if they would prefer a Supreme Court composed of nine white male Christians who were liberal or nine black secular lesbians who were conservative. I have never encountered a single vote for the former.

But while I’ve never associated conservatives with racism, I also never used to associate liberals with racism. I was naïve in this matter. While there are liberals and leftists who are not racist, I have come to understand that many are — considerably more than conservatives.

Here are some proofs:

First, white liberals repeatedly state that America is a racist country, and that all whites are racist. The latter doctrine is taught at virtually every American university. The only difference among whites, liberal professors teach their students, is not that some are racist and some are not; it is that some acknowledge their racism and some do not.

But isn’t that an admission that liberals are racist? When a person says, “We are all racists,” isn’t he saying that he is a racist?

A second proof that racism has a home on the left is the Left’s primary argument against requiring all citizens to show identification when they vote. The liberal-left-Democratic argument, repeated by almost every editorial page, columnist, and news outlet, and by every Democrat, is that such a requirement would greatly suppress the black vote. Thus, voter ID is racist. This is said so often and with such conviction that few people ask whether it is true: Will requiring ID really suppress the black vote?

The answer, shown in study after study, is no. Therefore, people who assume that voter ID would suppress the black vote have to believe that millions of blacks are uniquely incompetent citizens. Few things in civic life are simpler than obtaining an ID, and identification is needed almost everywhere in society. One has to believe in widespread black incompetence in order to believe that obtaining an ID is too difficult for a vast number of blacks.

And is virtually every democracy in the world racist for requiring voter ID? Again, the answer is no. The idea is absurd.

So there are only two possibilities here. Either Democrats and the Left make this argument for political gain — to reinforce their hold on black voters by scaring them into believing that Republicans are racist — or the Left really believes that blacks are less competent than other groups are.

It is probable that both reasons — political opportunism and liberals’ belief in black inferiority — are at work here. Most liberals, after all, do not believe that whites — even those who didn’t graduate from high school — have any difficulty obtaining an ID, but they are certain that millions of blacks find this too onerous. This insult to black intelligence is as obvious as it is ignored.

Third is the liberal and left-wing advocacy for lowering standards for blacks — what is known as affirmative action. How is it not plain as daylight that whites (and other non-blacks) who argue for the continued lowering of standards for blacks have a low view of blacks? White liberals never advocate lowering professional or academic standards for, let us say, Asian immigrants who recently arrived in America, often without money or any knowledge of English.

Why not? Because white liberals think that Asians are bright.

Finally, there is the Democratic and liberal opposition to school vouchers that would enable many black parents to send their children to schools superior to the awful ones that the (liberal-run) educational establishment has provided black children.

Most blacks want school vouchers, but most liberals vehemently oppose them. Why? Because what is good for teachers’ unions is of more importance to the Left than what is good for blacks.

Who, then, is racist? By their own admission, and by the policies they pursue, the answer is the people who call themselves progressive.