Jason Whitlock is a giant in the field of sports broadcasting. Because he is a Black Man with a conservative point of view, he was fired from Fox Sports. He has now become the head of his own broadcasting company and is more successful than ever. Last night in an interview on his former employer’s news channel he described from the perspective that only a Black person could have, some ideas that I have been struggling with for a lifetime.
Conservatives are often thought of as being closed minded. It doesn’t matter if we are in discussions with progressives about Medicaid Expansion, BLM, or ANTIFA. Affirmative action, or voting rights, the implication is always “We care and you don’t”. In my last article, I described the differences between empathy, sympathy, and compassion. Mr. Whitlock in his interviews and writings describes the differences between affinity (affection) and respect. Words are so important because they are antecedent to our actions.
Equality and freedom are positioned at the center of arguments about race, gender equity, LGBT rights, etc. It is important from the beginning to respect the advice from Milton Friedman—advice that has been proven true over the past 60 years “that placing equality before freedom will give you neither”—look at the French Revolution or any revolution to follow. Look at the promises of Polpott and Mao and Castro, or the Bolsheviks. Freedom then equality then you have both. What really is in play is the issue of POWER, race, gender and any other cause is the means to an end—control.
Blacks like Mr. Whitlock, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, and Clarence Thomas who disobey conventional white liberal progressive thinking make themselves more powerful and independent. Many white liberals are threatened by the independent self-determined Black person. In the end, they believe that Blacks can’t advance on their own. This basic argument describes the same discussions that were held at the beginning of the 20th century between Booker T. Washington and W. E. E. B. Dubois. Graduates of historically Black Colleges like Hampton Institute and Tuskegee became physicians, lawyers, sat on State Supreme Courts, developed banks and networks of finance—read Black Titan about A.G. Gaston and Black Fortunes—describing Black men who created their own fortunes. These men came from the Booker T, Washington school “that believed in growing from within”.
On the other hand, the Dubois progressive Black movement—he went to Yale, developed a system of dependency that exists through today. These ideas have slowed the economic advances in the Black community. They led to the Great Society programs that have hurt and not helped all people living on the margins and have in fact created a class (not race) of dependency. They have destroyed the Black family, Black Churches, Black cotillions. Prior to 1965 70% of Black Children were raised in a home with 2 parents. Today that number is 30%. From 1947 ’til the end of the Korean War Black wages increased much faster than whites, and Black homeownership tripled. Black employment and income have increased faster today than at any time since 1952—thank you, Mr. Trump.
My epiphany came at the end of the interview when Mr. Whitlock said this: The people who jump up and down the most and say they care the most about Black people are expressing an affinity (affection) based on feelings of themselves being superior. Affection pleases the giver as much or more as the receiver. Liberal progressives are pleasing themselves by their affection for a community or a cause, but like empathy and sympathy, this affinity is not an action. It is not reciprocated by the receiver. On the other hand, what is required on the part of White people is RESPECT. “Respect honors the receiver and reveals the character of the giver”—Jason Whitlock. What the show of affinity really means is that they like the pleasure they receive from their own show of affection.
One other point made by the famous football coach Knute Rockne is that respect is something that one earns for themselves, and because of that it can never be taken away from you will never be dependent on another if you have earned your own self-respect. Any person of character no matter their gender, color, sexual orientation refuses to be a victim. Those who decide to place others in a position of victimhood are placing those same people in a position of subservience. It takes a person with a superiority complex to do that. Liberal progressives think they are superior and that is precisely why they are dangerous.
C.S. Lewis opined on this very issue:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
Respect before Affect
Freedom before Equality
