The Absolute Moral Authority of Being Black

Charles Blow

In today's column, The Genetic Fallacy, James Taranto does what Newt Gingrich did to Juan Williams in reacting to NY Times columnist Charles Blow who asserts his moral authority to call Gingrich a racist because, to quote his tweet:

"Don't need Newt 2 tell me abt blk ppl, work and food stamps. Ancestors worked 4 free, nearly starved 2 death & were branded w cattle stamps!"

This is reminiscent of Maureen Dowd’s anointing of Cindy Sheehan. Because she had a son who died in Viet Nam, Sheehan had “absolute” moral authority. In Dowd’s words:

“ …the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute.”

Today, the Left anoints black people, especially those whose ancestors were slaves with the absolute moral authority to call people racists who believe that - fifty years after the civil rights act was passed - it’s time to treat everyone equally.

Taranto reflects the views of many of us, especially the young when he says:

Nonetheless, to those whites for whom white guilt is not rooted in experience--those, including this columnist, who are too young to remember a time when full citizenship for blacks was a cruel fiction--the culture of white guilt can seem unfair and irrational, and can be a source of irritation and anger. Why is the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People respected while a National Association for the Advancement of White People would be considered racist? Why did Obama get away with calling his grandmother "a typical white person," when a white politician who made the same statement about a black person would be pilloried?

There are reasonable answers to questions like these--answers that are obvious to those who are old enough to remember Jim Crow or who have a sufficiently deep understanding of American history. What is not a reasonable answer is a hectoring assertion of one's own moral authority, either as a black person or as an enlightened white.

As with many unexamined attitudes, it may take the passing of a generation to eliminate old prejudices.

One cannot go backward. White supremacy is as good as dead, and white guilt is dying along with guilty whites of older generations. Both these developments constitute progress toward racial equality. The election of a black president was the most compelling dramatization this country has seen of the death of white supremacy. In our view, it is also hastening the demise of white guilt.

The question for people like Charles Blow is what kind of blowback the stoking of racial animosity that he specializes in will generate from a generation that doesn’t feel guilt because it isn’t guilty. The answer may be found in the reaction of the audience when they rose to their feet to applaud Newt when he said:

"I believe every American of every background has been endowed by their Creator with the right to pursue happiness, and if that makes liberals unhappy, I'm going to continue to find ways to help poor people learn how to get a job, learn how to get a better job, and learn someday to own the job."

For Blow to denounce these words that echo the promise of a better America is very, very troubling.