here is no substitute for excellence.  Not love; not equality.  Of course, there are lots of tasks that do not call for great intellectual dexterity.  Sometimes all that is needed is simple determination and faithfulness.  Perhaps the sanitation worker is a case in point.  Perhaps the mail carrier is a case in point.  There are unmistakably valuable tasks that cannot be defined in terms of extraordinary excellence as such.  If you asked me—and it is obvious that you didn’t—an automobile mechanic exhibits more ability than the typical sanitation worker or mail carrier.  I could easily enough perform the tasks of a mail carrier, but being a good mechanic is utterly beyond me. 

Unfortunately, the self-esteem movement has made a mockery out of things—turning everything into an incredible form of excellence.  There are even graduate ceremonies nowadays for leaving kindergarten as if this were some sort of excellence on the child’s part. 

In a most interesting New York Times' article entitled “How Not to Talk to Your Kids,” there is the sudden recognition of what commonsense has told us all along, namely that the belief that one is naturally of considerable talent is no substitute for hard work.  Accordingly, while it is wonderful for parents to praise their children, doing so can in fact be counter productive when it seems that parents are more interested in their children having the label of being smart than actually being productive. 

I have never known any extremely successful person who did note work tirelessly, whether we are talking about scholarship or entertainment.  Being smart is no substitute for the aspiration to excel.

The explanation for this is quite simple.  To excel one must be able to overcome various impediments and roadblocks that one encounters along the way.  One must be able stare down disappointments.  These are traits that have nothing whatsoever to do with being smart as such, but an awful lot to do with sheer determination. 

Thus, parents who are pre-occupied with their children having the label smart in fact do their children more harm than good.  Likewise a society that places more emphasis upon “affirming” everyone than actual raw determination itself does its citizens more harm than good. 

In passing, it is worth noting in this regard that the goal of racial equality admits of considerable distortion, in that people are more in search of the label “smart” than in fact doing something excellent. 

There is no appellation that can replace the experience of succeeding.  There is no affirmation quite like the affirmation that only success can bring.  A nation of people looking for affirmation shorn of blood, sweat, and tears is a nation of people setting themselves up for a fall.

Most derailments in life can be offset if only people should be determined enough.  But when all that we have to underwrite our sense of worth is none other than an appellation shorn of the experience of success than derailments seem rather like immutable objects rather than merely the challenge that they often are to find another route. 

As I pen the words to this blog, I am considering the people whom I deeply admire.  Strikingly, it is true of every single one of them that their determination is one of the deep reasons for why I admire them so—and not just their accomplishments.  For it is their accomplishments in the face of so many obstacles that gives their accomplishments a certain luster. 

Increasingly, it is supposed that love and acceptance means lavishing a person with praise.  So it is only if we are talking about love gone awry.  This is because love at its best does not just make it possible for a person to believe that he can go on, but it gives the individual the strength so to act. 

Love is steadfast.  It is long suffering.  To love another deeply is to be committed to standing by and with that person through thick and thin.  Self-love, then, is to have the wherewithal to nourish oneself through thick and thin—to have the wherewithal to find a way to make a way out of no way. 

For precisely this reason, love at its best necessarily involves constructive criticism and restraint when it comes to praise.  Love at its best is both encouraging and demanding.  Nay, it encourages by being demanding.  After all, one of the most remarkable signs that a person can have that another believes that he is capable of an excellence is none other than that he is asked by the other to produce that excellence.  Thus, far from being incompatible with love, demands often stand as an enduring sign of love—the evidence that those who love us see in us the gifts that we do not quite see in ourselves. 

Surely, this is what parenting and teaching at their best are both about.  Neither is about endless and so meaningless affirmation. 

How did we ever come to think that?  The answer I suspect is that we have mistakenly supposed that we could speed things up, and so that we could pass over the actual experience of excellence by simply reiterating over and over again that we think well of a person.  Alas, good development is rather like good cooking, in that they both take time.  Shortcuts invariably give us inferior results. 

It is striking how much wisdom the past continues to serve up.  A key precept from an era gone by was that praise should be used sparingly.  Following that precept produced a nation of people who found the will to do their job under the most horrendous of circumstances.  

Excellence needs a foundation if it is to have durable and stable place in our lives.  Praise at its best enabels us to harvest those experiences that will nourish us for a lifetime.   Surely love that misses the mark in this regard leaves much to be desired.  Perhaps even love itself.

uoi de neuf?  L’antisémitisme en France.  On peut très bien dire que l’antisémitisme fait partie de la vie en France.  C'est-à-dire tout simple qu’un juif doit être attentif.  Il ne peut pas se mettre complètement à l’aise.  La raison ?  Une hostilité sans fin parmi les Musulmans contre les juifs.  Pas tout Musulmans, bien sûr.  Ce n’est jamais tout qui fait quelque chose.  En France, le juif doit être conscient d’être juif.  Alors, Jean-Paul Sartre avait raison lorsqu’il a dit qu’il est l’antisémite qui fait le juif. 

D’une part, un juif ne sait jamais quand cette hostilité va se déclencher.  D’autre part, il ne sait jamais si les Français seront là pour lui—même s’ils vont reconnaitre telle ou telle acte d’agression contre lui.  D’une certaine manière, j’ai l’impression que la France pour les juifs aujourd’hui est devenue comme l’Amérique était pour les noirs pendant les années 50.  À vrai dire, c’est mieux pour les juifs en France.  Mais pas assez mieux.  Donc, celui qui peut faire un allez et retour da sa domicile, même s’il le fait en pleine ville, sans devenir une cible de l’antisémitisme peut très bien dire « Bénit soit son Nom ». 

~    ~     ~

In the space of just a few days, there have been two quite horrendous antisemtic attacks: one against a female in Marseille, the other against a rabbi in Paris itself.  These attacks took place in broad days light.  And that is, in part, precisely what makes French antisemitism so worrisome. 

Nowadays, we all have the commonsense to be careful in moving about at night.  This is especially so if we are alone.  However, there is that we have difficulty abandoning the idea that broad day light provides a measure of protection because no one would really be so bold as to do that which is horrendous when it would be readily visible to the naked-eye.  That is the thought that anyone naturally has in the United States.  That is the thought that anyone naturally has in France. 

Alas, it would seem that in both countries the thought needs to be abandoned.   And in France this holds more so for Jews than for any other group of individuals. 

Thus, it is particularly significant that a rabbi was attacked at a major train station.  Gare de Nord in Paris is roughly the equivalent of Grand Central in New York City.  If a rabbi, no less, is not safe walking about in Paris’s Gare de Nord during the middle of the day, then France has a major problem.  After all, even little old ladies, if you will permit me a stereotype, typically suppose that it is safe for them given that social context. 

But rabbis are not little old ladies.  And that, painfully, is just the point.  In all likelihood, a little old lady would be safe, whereas a rabbi has to wonder.  The rabbi’s attacker is a black man.

The woman in Marseille, in addition to having her Star of David necklace ripped from her neck, had a swastika painted on her stomach.  This should explain my remark in French (paragraph 2) that life that for Jews in France nowadays reminds me of what life was like for blacks in the United States during the 50s. 

Together, the present hostilities in France and the United States point to something extremely terrible and frightening, namely the fact that victims of oppression seem to have no qualms whatsoever about oppressing others.  And this truth, in turn, raises very deep questions about the moral psychology of human beings.

It was once thought that being a victim of suffering pretty much insured that one would stay one’s hand against harming others, precisely because one was so utterly repulsed by gratuitous suffering.  Hence, one would never want one’s own body to be an instrument of such violence.

Unfortunately, this would appear not to be the case.  Most of the horrendous acts of violence perpetrated in major cities nowadays is perpetrated by individuals who have themselves in one way or another known suffering.  It is this reality that I cannot fathom.

here is snitching and there is snitching.  To live well is, among things, to know the difference.  Alas, it would appear that rapper Cameron Giles aka “Killa Cam” aka “Cam’ron” does not know the difference.  And his not knowing the difference, coupled with his promoting an ideology of not snitching no matter what, is doing more damage to the black community in America than anything that Don Imus might say about black people.  As I shall argue, Mr. Cameron is guilty of confusing the virtue of constructive self-criticism with the vice of self-deprecation.  What is more, I shall show that what we have with Cameron’s ideology, embraced by many rappers, is none other than a form of black-on-black genocide.

Now, he explains that his embracing of an ideology of not snitching no matter what is owing to how he was raised.  To this, I can only offer a measure of immutable commonsense.

Whether we should embrace the way in which we were raised surely depends on the character of the moral training that we were taught.  Our upbringing does not constitute an automatic excusing condition.  Otherwise, we would have to excuse Nazis and slaveowners and KKK folks so on.  And I am rather certain that Cam’ron, bless his heart, thinks that folks of this ilk have no excuse whatsoever for their attitudes.  Either that or he is an imbecile. 

It has gotten to be a little tiresome hearing blacks continually excusing, if not justifying, behavior obviously destructive to the black community by reference to tradition, as if tradition is to be automatically countenanced as something that is holy.  But, of course, no sane black thinks that.  And good thing, too, since slavery has had a long tradition throughout the world: Arabs enslaved black people in Africa and then whites enslaved black people in Africa.  Moreover, black people have enslaved black people in Africa.  So the tradition of enslaving black people has in fact been around longer than the tradition of not enslaving black people.

There is a difference between self-criticism and self-deprecation.  And it seems to me that blacks are quickly losing sight of this difference.  The self-deprecating person denies the virtues and talents and skills that she or he has.  Or, in any, case the individual discounts these gifts in various ways.  It is a painful reality that there are, indeed, those who are given to self-deprecation. 

Self-deprecation is a vice.  The absence of self-deprecation, however, is not the absence of self-criticism.  Absolutely not.  With self-criticism, we examine our behavior and engage in a kind of self-pruning where necessary.  On the small assumption that no one is perfect, including rappers extolling the virtue of blackness, then what surely has to follow is that rappers cannot maintain that any all things that they say and do are perfectly acceptable.  They cannot maintain that any and all things that they say and do are good for the black community.  This they cannot say even if they are making millions of dollars off the blacks of black people.  Crack dealers make millions, too, but they help no one, perhaps not even themselves in the final analysis.

I would be weary of any mindset according which it it is held that what So-and-So said is good because So-and-So said it.  Black rappers do not make this assertion as such, but what they do say is the functional equivalent of precisely that assertion.

Worse, black leaders seem to affirm this mindset, chastising anyone who should dare criticize the lyrics of rappers for being too salacious.  Do so and one is told immediately that one doesn’t understand blackness (if one is white) or that one is an Uncle Tom (if one is black).  Why, one would think that blacks engaged in sexual intimacy with different body parts.  An analogous claim holds for the criticism that the lyrics of rappers are too violent.

I have even heard that all of this is permitted in the name of poetic license.  

In any event, the relevance of all of this to snitching is this.  Nothing makes the black community more fertile soil for violence than the thesis advanced by Cam’ron and other rappers that snitching in all instances is wrong.  Indeed, it amounts to none other than a form of black-on-black genocide.  Let me explain.

Genocide is none other than willfully doing that which will bring about the destruction of a people.  Typically, the genocide of a people is defended on bogus grounds such as the people in question are inferior or they will contribute to the complete moral corruption of humanity.  But genocide can stem from plain indifference to the consequences of one’s behavior; for there is a level of indifference that bespeaks none other than a crass callousness to the humanity of the other. 

Suppose that I am in a hurry to get to my lecture.  It is next to impossible for that truth to explain why I stepped upon the body of a child who was just murdered.  My doing so can only be seen as an instance of crass indifference.  So it is even if it would have taken me an extra 2 minutes to arrive at my lecture. 

On the assumption that Cam’ron and other rappers are not intellectually bereft, what they surely know is that if an ideology of not snitching envelopes the black community, then black-on-black crime can rise to untold heights.  So to embrace and encourage this ideology is to advance a view that is completely detrimental to the well-being of blacks.  Indeed, it is a view that is more detrimental to blacks than racism itself.  After all, a black is no less dead merely because she or he was killed by another black

A rap song that said “C’mon on in the hood cracker commit a crime on the dime” would be perceived by every white who had an ounce of intelligence as a dumb thing to do because it would understood in no uncertain terms that going into the hood to commit a crime would be suicidal. 

An ideology of no snitching among blacks is suicidal for blacks.  It is the moral equivalent of putting a noose around the neck of young black folks and tightening it, precisely because the ideology gives violence free reign against innocent and handicaps all who would aim to protect the innocent from it.

This last consideration underscores laying the charge of genocide against rappers who embrace an ideology of not snitching.  There is no greater wrong than viciously harming the innocent.  Hearing the words "no snitching" may produce quite a thrill in a song and occasion quite an emotional charge, but in the end it insures the destruction of the innocent. 

As I finish this blog-entry, I find myself experiencing a depth of anger that perhaps suprises even me.  Let me just say this.  There can no justification or excuse for anyone supporting the ideology of not snitching that Cam’ron and other rappers advance.  Anyone who has found a way of excusing her or his doing so is also contributing to black-on-black genocide. 

Equality ain’t nothing if it does not first begin with respect for the humanity of all.  And to support the ideology of not snitching embraced by Cam’ron and other rappers is to make it unequivocally clear that the innocent of black people does not matter.  That is genocide by any other name. 

It does not matter to me that lots and lots of blacks do not concur.  Nor, again, does it matter to me that lots and lots of non-blacks feel “cool” or “hip” or whatever by listening to this kind of music.  Why?  Because truth is not, nor has it ever been, a function of the number of people who adhere to a view.  For that I can only say: Thank God.

ho among us can judge Alec Baldwin?  This is the title of a blog entry by Stacey Parker AAB, at the Huffington Post, that I ran across.  She intones that we should refrain from making a negative assessment of Baldwin given that all we have to go on is a two-minute diatribe by Baldwin against his 11-year old daughter.  The general line of argument of the entry reminds me of a kind of Jerry Springer scenario where someone sleeping with, say, her daughter’s 16-year old son exclaims “Don’t judge me unless you have walked in my shoes”.  As it turns out, some of AAB’s commentators agree with her, which surprises me to no end.  Their agreement is what prompted this entry.  As I point at the end, there is a respect in which I have an ounce of sympathy for Mr. Baldwin.

Now, the spirit of AAB’s point, and the point of several commentaries, is very interesting on two accounts.  One pertains to the issue of context; the other pertains to the issue of not judging without having enough of the facts. 

It is true enough that background and context makes all the difference in the world.  What might be a belittling expression between Mary and John may very well be a term of endearment between Susan and Opidopo.  It is, surely, part of the very richness of humanity that two human beings can take a term that has one set of connotations in the general public and give it a completely different set of connotations between them.  “You are my sweet damn whore” uttered by John to Mary can work if in fact what Mary understands John to mean is that she is the love his life.  This would be surprising, no doubt.  But if that is what Mary understands John to be saying, then there really isn’t anything else to for the rest of us say.  

Yet, things are not quite as open-ended as Stacey Parker AAB and company would have us to believe.  For surely “You are my damn sweet whore” cannot be uttered with any tone of voice whatsoever and with any cadence whatsoever and still convey “You are the love of my life”. 

AAB is right in noting that context makes all the difference in the world, which is precisely why there is all the difference in the world between a single denigrating remark and a two-minute diatribe.

“You are my damn sweet whore” can perhaps work when said in the right way and surrounded on either side by lots of other affectionate remarks.  Not so, however, if John’s utterance to Mary is part of a sustained outburst of utterly vicious remarks:

You are nothing to me.  You have no value; no importance.  You are my damn sweet whore.  And you are a fool to take yourself to have any more significance than that in my life.  You are not worth anything, you stupid fool.  

No one hearing that utterance could seriously wonder whether John is really warming Mary up for a nice evening of intimate sex.  

Now, what counts as judging a person in the pejorative sense in which it is typically used these days?  The answer is simple: Not having enough of the facts?  And not having enough of the facts is not to be confused with not having all the facts.  Oftentimes, one does not need all of the facts in order to make an accurate assessment of things. 

Suppose that Sue and Opidopo have had a most tumultuous marriage, in that each has falsely accused one another in quite vicious ways.  Nonetheless, as I look out my window, I see that Opidopo has Sue on the ground hitting her and forcing her to have sex with him as she violently screams and resists him at every turn.  Well, if anything is true, it is true that I hardly need to know the history of their tumultuous relationship in order to know that what Opidopo is doing right now constitutes an egregious moral wrong. 

Everything we know about the divorce between Alec Baldwin and Kim basinger—and I must confess to not knowing much—suggests that it was a very bitter one.  I concede for the sake of argument that Basinger has falsely accused him of one thing and then another; and that Baldwin has returned the compliment.  And let me also assume that Basinger has in various ways used their daughter, Ireland, as a weapon against Baldwin.  Thus, I want to assume, if only for the sake of argument, that Baldwin has reason to be angry and outraged.  But at whom?  Ireland or Basinger?   

The trick, of course, is getting from the foregoing truths to excusing or justifying the 2-minute vitriolic attack by Baldwin in a phone message to their daughter, Ireland, whose is only 11-years old.  This is particularly so since what Baldwin is lambasting her for is not being there to answer the phone when he calls at the agreed upon time—not some fulsome bit of immoral behavior: skinning a baby alive or putting rat poison in the milk or cutting off the legs of dogs or spilling goat blood upon little old ladies or some such horrendously ignoble deed.  Had Ireland done something of this sort I could at least make sense of utter outrage on his part.  I would still think the outburst neither excusable nor justified.  All the same, I could at least understand how it could come about.  

But what we have is a war between two titans (Baldwin and Basinger) with an innocent child being used as the main weapon in the arsenal.  And what we also have is a 2-minute uninterrupted diatribe.  Given the circumstances, going on two minutes at that level of hostility towards an 11-year old is despicable.  I fail to see how AAB and various of the commentators could possibly have thought otherwise.  

We know all that we need to know in order to make the judgment that Baldwin’s remarks were woefully inappropriate.  We most certainly do not need to know the details of the hostilities between Baldwin and Basinger.  Precisely the same would be true had it been Basinger rather than Baldwin leaving such a hostile message.

Joe Galuski of radio station 570 WSYR (Syracuse NY) suggests that the whole thing was some sort of set up.  Perhaps.  But this truth, if it is a truth, does not excuse or justify anything about Baldwin’s diatribe.  

For what it is worth, there is one respect in which I actually have an ounce of sympathy of Alec Baldwin.  Several people commenting on AAB’s essay suggested that Baldwin’s diatribe would not scar Ireland for life.  And some noted that they had experienced worse.  Unfortunately, this speaks to one of the drawbacks of technology.  Time was when a horrific utterance could easily enough fade into the past precisely because there was no easy technological way for the typical person to hold on to the message containing the words, let alone to arrange for all the world to have access to it.  Alas, technology now permits anger and hurts to be nursed because we can read/play and re-read/re-play and re-read/re-play and forward here and there the message (email or voice recording) containing the words that pained us so. 

Without a doubt, Mr. Alec Baldwin is unfortunate in this regard.  But there is a silver lining:  Perhaps this bad luck for him could be Ireland’s good luck if it should happen that owing to this extraordinary embarrassment Alec Baldwin should vow to become a better father and to not let the hostility between him and Basinger ever again spill over upon their child.  

o state the obvious: If moral criticism is morally permissible only if the person making the criticism is morally flawless, then no human being has ever been in the position to criticize another on moral grounds.  Accordingly, it might seem to some that when morally flawed people criticize morally flawed people, then what we have is none other than sheer hypocrisy.  But surely that cannot be quite right.  Surely, I do not have be without fault—without moral blemish, if you will—in order to justified in criticizing the rapist for his act of rape or the pedophile for his sexual abuse of a child.  Besides, a wrong committed by another is no less that just because we ourselves have committed that wrong.  You have not committed murder any less just because I have also done so. 

Thus, surely I can justifiably call you a moral bastard for murdering someone even if it was only a day or so earlier that I did the exact same thing.  What follows, if anything, is that I, too, am a moral bastard. 

In this vein, one radio commentator—Mr. George Kilpatrick of radio station WSYR 570, Syracuse (NY)—exclaimed regarding the Don Imus affair that Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson do not have to be without moral flaw in order to draw attention the racism exhibited by Imus. 

I want, in what follows, to make some sense of the tension that one might rightly feel in all of this. 

Does a person have to be perfect in order to level a moral criticism against another?  Obviously not.  Just so, there is the issue of hypocrisy.  And one form of hypocrisy consists in deliberately and repeatedly and freely doing precisely what one blames others for doing.  If it is wrong to slander the moral character of another and one takes others to task for doing so, then one’s behavior is downright hypocritical if precisely what one does time and time again is slander one person and then another. 

Sharpton and Jackson claim to be committed to racial equality.  And we can concede for the sake of argument that, in America, blacks have faired poorly in this regard.  But from the truth that blacks have faired poorly in this regard, what surely cannot be justified is either treating whites unjustly or ignoring unjust behavior on the part of blacks.  Thus, insofar as Sharpton and Jackson can only see the flaws of whites—and nothing wrong that black folks do, then their criticisms of white racism count as being manifestly hypocritical. 

No one is perfect.  However, there can be moral aspirations.  And there is no reason whatsoever to believe that justice is truly among the moral aspirations of Sharpton and Jackson. 

It may be perfectly understandable that both men are more concerned with the injustices visited upon blacks than the injustices that others suffer.  After all, no one can do everything.  All of us have to leave some important things aside.  Yet, to be concerned primarily with the injustices visited upon blacks cannot possibly be an excuse to wrong a white or to ignore the injustices that blacks commit. 

The reason why Martin Luther King, Jr. stands as such a symbol of justice is that, whatever else is true, he gave the impression that he was committed to justice for all human beings.  So, even as no one doubted that injustices visited upon black people counted as his first moral charge, it was manifestly clear to all that he did not condone injustices on the part of blacks against white.  More generally, he never countenanced being a victim of wrongdoing as an excuse to commit wrongdoing. 

Perhaps in their heart of hearts both Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are deeply disturbed by the wrongdoings committed by blacks against whites.  But if such a sentiment does lie within their hearts, it must surely have taken up hiding in a most inaccessible crevice of their very being.  We know this because we know that each of them has quite publicly supported black women who have damaged the lives of white men by falsely accusing the whites of rape.  There has never been even the appearance of regret on the part of either Sharpton or Jackson.  If their behavior here does not constitute the very embodiment of hypocrisy, then the idea of hypocrisy is utterly devoid of meaning.

There is no less hypocrisy on the part of Jackson and Sharpton than there is on the part of evangelicals, who like Ted Haggard, preach about the vileness and sinfulness of homosexuality all the while regularly engaging in homosexual behavior. 

We all know that Haggard was not perfect.  But it is he who chose to preach so vehemently against homosexuality.  Either he should have kept his mouth shut or refrained from the very behavior that he was preaching against.  One does not have to be perfect in every way in order to make that choice, as I am sure Mr. Kilpatrick would agree.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, the issue here is not whether homosexuality is wrong.  I am not at all supposing that.  Rather, the point is that evangelicals are hypocritical when they engage in the very same behavior that, in front of one audience after another, they roundly condemn.

The only difference between, on the one hand, Ted Haggard, and on the other, Sharpton and Jackson, is that strong sentiment among evangelicals required Haggard to step down, where this is not so among blacks.  I would that in a like manner there were widespread sentiment among blacks requiring Sharpton and Jackson to step down. 

Sharpton and Jackson are moral profiteers who have made using the language of racial injustice an art-form.  They recognize that “white guilt” gives them a leverage that they would not have otherwise and drawing upon their oratory skills they manipulate the public among blacks.  Sharpton and Jackson have turned themselves into so-called heroes for the downtrodden among blacks.  But the legacy that they leave behind makes it abundantly clear what their real motives are, and so the depth of their hypocrisy.

What in the end will really transform the lives of blacks in America?  Not the belief that all whites are racist nor, again, is it the belief that blacks can do no wrong.  Alas, and most unfortunately, these two set of beliefs embody what the legacy of Jackson and Sharpton amount to; and these two beliefs cannot serve as a rock upon which a people can flourish.  For flourishing at its best is not about finding fault with others or ignoring one’s own faults.  As to the first, flourishing requires that a people find the creativity to surmount the roadblocks and detours occasioned by the faults of others.  As to the second, flourishing requires that a people not let the faults of the enemy becomes a stumbling block to their own successes, something which is not possible in the absence of self-criticism. 

To both of these criteria for flourishing, the contributions of Jackson and Sharpton are both astonishingly small.  What is the pay-off of their public stances?  Not much for blacks as a people, but a whole lot of power for each of these two men, who claim an unwavering commitment to racial equality for blacks.  If the word hypocrisy did not already exist, it would need to be invented in order to give expression to the kind of corruption that is characteristic of the moral timbre of their lives.  The only thing that makes this particularly despicable is that blacks are pawns in the hypocrisy of these two men. 

George Kilpatrick is right: One does not have to be perfect in order to point out wrongdoing.  Alas, it helps enormously if one is not a hypocrite.  An upright person is not perfect, but she or he sure as hell ain’t a hypocrite.  Except in the eyes of the corrupt or the morally blind or the radically misguided: Jackson and Sharpton have no chance whatsoever of being considered upright. 

Ain’t nobody perfect.  True enough.  But not nearly true enough to excuse hypocrisy in our lives.

e shall have true equality only when the following social reality has come about: It shall be true that a black yells racism only to have other blacks roundly call the person on her or his credibility, because doing so is warranted by the circumstances.  Or, it shall be true that a white person says something utterly bigoted and, before the minorities offended have even had a chance to express their outrage, whites themselves have made the mutterer of those bigoted words the object of their unrestrained disapprobation.  We shall have racial equality only when blind loyalty along racial lines or grand-standing for the media no longer animates our behavior in matters of injustice involving more than one ethnic group.  By this measure, then, we yet have a long ways to go.  This is poignant truth is brought out by the rape charge against the 3 members of the Duke University lacrosse team and the quite tasteless remarks by Don Imus.  As I proceed with my assessment, I shall no doubt say something to surprise (read: offend) everyone.  There are lots of sharp turns in what follows.

To begin, I hold a very simple view: For any ethnic group or sex or gender or whatever, not all of its members are right and not all of them are wrong.  Being a member of this or that ethnic group should not carry a presumption in this regard one way or the other.  Only the circumstances surrounding matters can create a presumption one way or the other, and such circumstances can sometimes include the person’s character as well. 

I understand, all too well, the legacy of racism that has plagued the United States.  But that legacy, as deplorable as it is, should not be an excuse to create another malicious legacy, namely the legacy of false accusations against whites.  Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are the grand-marshals of this second legacy.  Let a charge of racism be made that gains publicity and one can count on Sharpton and Jackson to show up in support of the accuser, even though each is woefully uninformed about the situation. 

In the case of the woman who accused the three white lacrosse players of rape, Jackson pledged, within days of her accusation, to pay for her college education.  This he did, though, he knew absolutely nothing about her credibility.  Nothing at all.  And there is the famous Tawana Brawley case where a 15 year old black female teenager falsely accused several white men of raping her.  We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was lying.  And things were suspicious from the outset.  But that sort of thing did not bother Al Sharpton; and to this day he seems to have not an ounce of regret for the damage that he did to the lives of those white men. 

Behold the formation of a different kind of legacy.  It might seem to some that this is none other than a proper form of comeuppance for the legacy of racism.  Alas, fighting wrong with wrong never makes for a better world.  No, doing so serves only to cheapen justice and thus to weaken its hold upon our lives, with the result being that we are all made worse off. 

Blacks were a little too eager to prosecute the three lacrosse players from Duke University. 

“Nappy-headed hoes” are the words that came out of the mouth of Don Imus during his radio program in reference the black women on the women basketball team from Rutgers.  I understand, of course, that being provocative is part of Imus’s shtick.  That is what he does.  Indeed, I am, myself, quite the provocateur in the classroom.  Yet, even for a masterful provocateur some things are beyond the pale. 

Imus’s remarks were entirely out of place for several reasons.  For one thing, the remarks showed a profound indifference to the contribution that athletes make to a school.  For another, the remarks were a strident form of disrespect for women and, in particular, women in the context of representing their institution.  To invoke “nappy-headed” was to add insult to injury.  It was to invoke a history between blacks and whites, especially females in both cases, that has been long and ugly.  And if only blacks can see all of this, then America has not made the progress that one might have hoped for. 

Now, the uproar over Imus’s remarks point to a very deep asymmetry in America.  Black comedians make jokes about whites all the time and whites in the audience fall all over themselves laughing.  If this is right, then there could very well be a third sign of true equality in America, namely when whites are able to make fun of blacks and blacks enjoy it.  Equality is a two-way street.  Hypocrisy, on the other hand, is not.  It is a fact about humor that it often has a double-edge sword. 

When a black comedian says “It is not Al-Quaida that worries me, but al-cracker” should whites infer that the black comedian hates or mistrusts all whites, including those whites in the audience laughing?  Presumably, this is not a hostile moment, but a moment of humorously playing with history.  We will never have true equality in America if whites cannot from time to time do precisely the same thing with respect to blacks. 

Imus has now been fired; and it is my view that the powers that be went too far in doing that.  A substantial suspension without pay coupled with some requirement of charitable work or sensitivity training would been more in order.  And in a world of true equality, this sanction would have been imposed whether blacks had raised a single voice or not. 

You will notice that I have not much accused Imus of racism.  My reason for this is that language has acquired a fluidity to it nowadays that permits people to be mean-spirited in all sorts of ways without being racist in the true sense of that term.  There is simply not the rigidity to language that there once was; and the use of words nowadays does not necessarily have all the connotations and visceral force that the use of the very same words once did.  For example, the word ‘shit’ used to have only negative connotations.  Nowadays, there is a positive way in which to use it.  Rap artists use the word “ho” all the time.  What is more, the use of the word “nigger” has made quite a come back.  Whether it means what it used to mean depends on how and when one uses it and who uses it.  But one thing is certain “What’s up my nigger?” was not a possible greeting a few decades ago. 

Racism is typically about inferiority and separation.  There is no reason to believe that Imus is committed to any of that.  This, though, is compatible with him being utterly irresponsible in what he said.  And that is precisely my view.  One does not have to be a racist or a sexist to say foolish, tasteless things about another ethnic group or even one’s own, or to say foolish things about women.  Not only that, a person’s behavior can be downright despicable, although the person is not a racist or a sexist.  The time has come for all to acknowledge this moral space.

What happened to Don Imus was not an instance of justice but an expression of pure vindictiveness—a form of lynching on the part of blacks—an exercise of raw hostile power.  Blacks are ignoring an ever so simple truth forged by moral and social progress, namely this: The legacy of racism in American does not entail that every significant mistake made by a white regarding matters of race stems from the bowels of racist sentiment.  50 or 100 years ago, it would have been reasonable to see any such mistake as a sign of racism, but not any more. 

Notwithstanding the truth that much moral progress remains, it is also true that much moral progress has been made.  And to deny this in the name of furthering moral progress is to in fact impede moral progress. 

The preceding claim points to why I so despise Sharpton and Jackson.  In the end, their behavior reeks of maliciousness—the malicious exploitation of the present moral force of the charge of racism.  I have seen no judiciousness or thoughtfulness or circumspection on their part with regard to those who make the charge of racism.  Most importantly, there has never been a willingness on their part to criticize those who have wrongly made the charge of racism, to chastise those who use the charge of racism as none other than a form of social lynching.  They have shown themselves to be interested in the exercise of brute social power masquerading as justice—and not justice in and of itself. 

Does it even occur to Sharpton that he did a wrong in supporting a woman who falsely accused whites of raping her?  Not in the least.  Does it even occur to Jackson that he did a wrong in supporting a woman who falsely accused whites of raping her?  Again: not in the least.  Alas, if this does not make them grand-marshals of a legacy of viciousness, then what does? 

It would seem, then, Jackson and Sharpton are ineluctably committed to the view that when it comes to advancing the cause of black people it is acceptable to be arbitrary and capricious with respect to white people.  If this is right, then the only thing that distinguishes them from white racists is the color of their skin—not the quality of their moral character.  And that is a difference without moral validity whatsoever.  Blind loyalty along racial lines is a vice and none other than a vice.  This is so whether we have blind loyalty among KKK folks or Nazis or minorities, including blacks. 

It is this truth that has been highlighted by the cases of the rape accusations against the three Duke University lacrosse players and the vicious uproar over the remarks of Don Imus.  Not to see this is to be morally blind; and moral blindness is always and invariably a most profound impediment to moral progress.