sane and insane conservatives on racism

Wed Jan 13 07:27:06 UTC 2010

At the risk of beating a dead horse, I though this exchange is of some
interest. I am not a fan of Somin--he's very sheltered and often
overexuberant over ideas that make very little sense. Understandably,
he's less flaky on law than on other issues, but even here his ideas are
not stable. In his comments on Reid's "gaffe" he seems to get to a
reasonable conclusion, even though the path he takes is somewhat tortuous.

But the beautiful thing about it is that Somin provides a counterpoint
to a truly asinine post that sums up the contemporary American
conservative strategy.

     VS-)

http://volokh.com/2010/01/13/harry-reid-and-the-case-against-adopting-expansive-definitions-of-racism-round-ii/

    Harry Reid and the Case Against Adopting Expansive Definitions of
    Racism, Round II
    <http://volokh.com/2010/01/13/harry-reid-and-the-case-against-adopting-expansive-definitions-of-racism-round-ii/>

Ilya Somin <http://volokh.com/author/ilya/> . January 13, 2010 12:27 am

Conservative commentator Melissa Clouthier responds to my post
<http://volokh.com/2010/01/11/harry-reid-and-the-costs-of-expanding-the-definition-of-racism/>
on the Harry Reid incident and the dangers of expanding the definition
of racism here
<http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/make-harry-reid-and-the-liberals-pay/>.
Clouthier admits that Reid's remarks were not actually racist, but she
believes that conservatives should attack them as such anyway:

    Noting that President Obama turns the jive on and off is no
    different than noting that Hillary Clinton does it. It's no
    different than noting that Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson do it. It's
    no different than noting that major sports and music celebrities
    (white and black) do it. That is not racist. That's a fact....

    We've been there for a long time --- if you're anything but a
    liberal Democrat. Republicans, conservatives ... regular Americans
    can't say what Harry Reid said without censure....

    Ilya Somin is afraid that Republicans and conservatives will be more
    harmed by focusing on Reid? Really? What do we have to lose? It's
    not like conservatives are ever, ever, ever given the benefit of the
    doubt about any matter pertaining to race. They are vilified and
    humiliated. Their political careers are ended at a hint of verbal
    stumble. That is unlikely to change, unless the left is held to the
    same impossible standard and forced to decide that maybe the whole
    racism charge doesn't serve their purposes anymore....

    When the left's assumptions and standards no longer serve their
    political purpose --- when their own side pays just as much as a
    conservatives or Republicans would --- the standards will vanish.
    Suddenly, many things too scary to discuss will become part of the
    lexicon again.

I have already responded to Clouthier in an update to my earlier post.
But I thought I'd also put it in a separate post, because the argument
Clouthier makes is a very common one, and it's important to understand
its flaws.

I have three points in reply. First, two wrongs don't make a right. The
bad behavior of various liberals on these issues should be criticized,
not imitated. Accusing a person of racism is a serious charge. It is
deeply unethical to make such an accusation if you know it to be false.
Second, Clouthier seems to ignore the fact that there is an ongoing
debate over the justification of expansive PC definitions of "racism."
Conservatives and libertarians have made some progress in that debate
over the last 15 years. Even the generally liberal media periodically
covers and criticizes PC excesses. But our credibility in this
discussion depends crucially on living up to our own standards. If we
appeal to expansive definitions of racism any time it's politically
convenient to do so, we have no justification for criticizing liberals
when they do the same thing. Finally, it's highly unlikely that liberals
will give up using these tactics merely because an occasional liberal
politician like Reid gets tripped up by them. On net, broad definitions
of racism will hurt conservatives and libertarians more than liberals
because the former more often take positions that can be caricatured as
racist under a very broad definition of that concept. Conservatives and
libertarians are the ones who struggle to avoid being condemned as
racist for criticizing affirmative action, the welfare state, cultural
relativism, and so on. If conservatives endorse such tactics by using
them against Reid, that will only encourage liberals to continue to use
them, since it will be harder for conservatives to resist such efforts
in the future.

Categories: Uncategorized <http://volokh.com/category/uncategorized/>

    Harry Reid and the Costs of Expanding the Definition of Racism
    <http://volokh.com/2010/01/11/harry-reid-and-the-costs-of-expanding-the-definition-of-racism/>

Ilya Somin <http://volokh.com/author/ilya/> . January 11, 2010 10:53 pm

Various Republican politicians and some other conservatives are calling
on Harry Reid to resign
<http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/11/reid.obama/index.html> because,
back in 2008, he said that Obama had a chance to win the presidency due
in part to the fact that he is a "light-skinned" black who doesn't speak
in "Negro dialect." For reasons outlined by senior Conspirator Eugene
Volokh
<http://volokh.com/2010/01/11/harry-reids-light-skinned-negro-dialect-comments/>,
I think these remarks were not racist, even if they did use outdated
terminology such as "Negro." In addition, I believe conservatives should
think long and hard about whether they really want to promote such an
expansive definition of racism.

Conservatives and to a lesser extent libertarians are often accused of
being racist for things like opposing affirmative action, skepticism
about broad antidiscrimination laws, claiming that intergroup
differences in income are not necessarily due to discrimination, arguing
that some cultures are better than others, and so on. If the GOP wins
this particular fight and Reid is forced to resign, there will be a new
norm in public discourse under which no prominent person can openly say
the same kinds of things as Reid without being labeled a racist. This
norm will ensnare some people of all persuasions. It will also have the
unfortunate effect of making honest discussion of racial issues even
more difficult than it often is already. But in many settings ---
especially the media and the intellectual world --- it is likely to be
used most aggressively against conservatives and libertarians. And if
conservatives complain that such attacks are unfair, their credibility
will be undermined by their own previous attacks on Reid. I realize, of
course, that it's tempting to score some political points against Reid,
especially at a time when Republicans see the Democrats' popularity
plummeting and hope to make major gains in the November elections.
However, even forcing Reid to resign probably will have only a minor,
temporary impact on the overall political balance of power. By contrast,
the effect on discourse norms will be much more permanent.

Perhaps that price would be worth paying if Reid really were a racist
who believes that blacks are inferior to whites and should be relegated
to second-class citizenship. But there simply isn't any evidence to
support that. Comparisons to Trent Lott's statements in 2002 are
misleading at best. Lott retrospectively endorsed Strom Thurmond's 1948
presidential campaign, which was explicitly based on segregationism
(Thurmond and his "Dixiecrats" had temporarily broken with the
Democratic Party because President Harry Truman had desegregated the
military and taken a few other steps to combat anti-black
discrimination). And, as conservative columnist Jeff Jacoby pointed out
<http://www.bigeye.com/jj121202.htm>, Lott had made similar remarks
before, and had a long history of association with the racist Council of
Conservative Citizens. His remarks on Thurmond weren't just a one-time
aberration. Reid doesn't have any remotely comparable history.

Despite all of the above, it's certainly possible that if Reid were a
Republican and had said the same thing, many liberals would denounce him
and there would be more of a media outcry. But that doesn't justify the
right's reaction to Reid. Imitating the bad behavior of one's political
opponents is rarely defensible. You can't justify yourself with the lame
excuse that the the other side is bad too. In this case, conservatives
themselves are likely to be the biggest long-term losers if they persist
in imitating liberal excesses.

UPDATE: Conservative commentator Melissa Clouthier responds to this post
here <http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/make-harry-reid-and-the-liberals-pay/>:

    We've been there for a long time --- if you're anything but a
    liberal Democrat. Republicans, conservatives ... regular Americans
    can't say what Harry Reid said without censure....

    Ilya Somin is afraid that Republicans and conservatives will be more
    harmed by focusing on Reid? Really? What do we have to lose? It's
    not like conservatives are ever, ever, ever given the benefit of the
    doubt about any matter pertaining to race. They are vilified and
    humiliated. Their political careers are ended at a hint of verbal
    stumble. That is unlikely to change, unless the left is held to the
    same impossible standard and forced to decide that maybe the whole
    racism charge doesn't serve their purposes anymore....

    When the left's assumptions and standards no longer serve their
    political purpose --- when their own side pays just as much as a
    conservatives or Republicans would --- the standards will vanish.
    Suddenly, many things too scary to discuss will become part of the
    lexicon again.

I have three points in response. First, two wrongs don't make a right.
The bad behavior of various liberals on these issues should be
criticized, not imitated. Second, Clouthier seems to ignore the fact
that there is an ongoing debate over the justification of expansive PC
definitions of "racism." Conservatives and libertarians have made some
progress in that debate over the last 15 years. Even the generally
liberal media periodically covers and criticizes PC excesses. But our
credibility in this discussion depends crucially on living up to our own
standards. If we appeal to expansive definitions of racism any time it's
politically convenient to do so, we have no justification for
criticizing liberals when they do the same thing. Finally, it's highly
unlikely that liberals will give up using these tactics merely because
an occasional liberal politicians like Reid gets tripped up by them. On
net, broad definitions of racism will hurt conservatives and
libertarians more often than liberals because the former more often take
positions that can be caricatured as racist under a very broad
definition of that concept. If conservatives endorse these tactics by
using them against Reid, that will only encourage liberals to continue
to use them, since it will be harder for conservatives to resist such
efforts in the future.

Tags: Harry Reid <http://volokh.com/tag/harry-reid/>

Categories: Uncategorized <http://volokh.com/category/uncategorized/>

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