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The Vanderbilt Hustler

The official student newspaper of Vanderbilt University.
Since 1888
The official student newspaper of Vanderbilt University

The Vanderbilt Hustler

The official student newspaper of Vanderbilt University.
The official student newspaper of Vanderbilt University

The Vanderbilt Hustler

The official student newspaper of Vanderbilt University.

Matt’s Traditional American Values: What the left gets wrong on race

Matt+Colleran
Matt's Traditional American Values

The left has no room to talk when it predictably tries to sully the reputation of principled conservatives by calling us names and trying to tie us to disgusting movements such as the “alt-right,” which I consider to be part of the left and which true conservatives denounce.  The irony in those statements is that it is the left that is keeping racism alive in this country through two avenues.  First, several of the modern left’s policies directly harm the lives of minorities. Second, the left becomes explicitly racist with its desire to engage in “identity politics,” which is an effort to divide us into “identities” (just a fancy word for ‘demographics’). They then capitalize on a divided society for political gain.

We need to move past race, not further ingrain it into our lives.  I do not deny that some on the right have said things that have played into this division.  I am also not claiming that every individual on the left has racist motives for supporting their views.  What I am saying is that the modern left’s policies are disproportionately hurting minorities and stopping us from moving past race as a society.  

The most obvious example of the left’s policies being racist is their support for abortion.  Today, in New York City, a black baby is more likely to be aborted than born.  Nationally, black babies are aborted at three times the rate of white babies, and Hispanic babies at 150% the rate of white babies.  Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, was a believer in eugenics and told a confidant in 1939 that “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.”  

To this day, Planned Parenthood continues to live out Sanger’s legacy by locating most of its clinics in neighborhoods with high minority populations.  In 2017, an official Planned Parenthood Twitter account specifically encouraged black women to have abortions, claiming it was “safer” than having a baby. Certainly, this is not true for the baby.   If the Black Lives Matter movement truly cared about protecting black lives, they would be protesting outside of every abortion clinic in this country.

However, abortion is not the only issue where the left’s policies are hurting minorities.  Unfortunately, the black and Hispanic poverty rates are more than double those of whites, and roughly double the rates for Asians.  So, minorities have more invested in seeing an end to poverty.  In the 1960s, poverty rates were in freefall, dropping from near 23% in 1960 to 12% by the end of the decade.  Projecting out the trendline of the poverty rate falling by one percentage point annually, poverty was on track to be extinct by the early 1980s.  

However, President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who also appointed several justices who ruled for abortion in Roe v. Wade, felt the need to interfere in an economy that was eradicating poverty without government intervention.  In the late 1960s, he introduced the “Great Society,” an attempt to eradicate poverty entirely.  However, all it did was create a cycle of poverty in which people, regardless of race or ethnicity, become dependent on the government, and therefore on the Democratic Party.  Today, the poverty rate is 13%, which is somehow higher than it was 50 years ago despite taxpayers spending $22 trillion on fighting poverty.  As minorities were more likely to be living in poverty in the late 1960s, when the “War on Poverty” was launched, they hurt more from the government creating a cycle of dependence.  In a parallel universe, in which a Republican had won in 1964, it is likely that free enterprise and economic freedom would have lifted 13% of the American population– and 22% of the African-American population– out of poverty.  Instead, we were stuck with Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” which, once the economy fully absorbed it by 1970, stopped the eradication of poverty in its tracks.  This harms people of all races, as does the abortion example, but it harms minorities at far greater rates than whites.

The other way in which the left is racist is through their love of “identity politics.”  Essentially, many on the left feel that a winning strategy is to divide people up by demographics, such as race, class, gender, location and sexual preference, and label them “identities,” each with their own unique concerns.  From there, they attempt to convince enough “identities” that Democrats  will protect their interests better than the Republicans will.  Isn’t saying that a black person should care about different issues or think differently than a white person the very definition of racism?  

This strategy has worked for the Democrats, as they win the vast majority of the minority vote despite minorities being more religious than the country as a whole, which should suggest conservative voting habits (President Trump and House Republicans both won regular churchgoers comfortably in 2016).  Some who claim to be the right have certainly tried to use identity politics as well.  One example of this is the so-called “alt-right,” which, as mentioned above, actually aligns with the left on many issues.

Any and all policy based on race is racist, by the simplest definition of the term.  That also means that supporting race-based affirmative action, as the left does, is racist.  Our society is not perfect, but it is easily the most racially tolerant society in human history.  The goal cannot merely be racial tolerance, but racial indifference.  

When Barack Obama was elected, as much as I disagree with his policies, I thought we had finally arrived at the day when race would simply go away and we could live in a post-racial society.  However, a decade later, that has not happened, and our society seems, in some ways, more fraught with racial tension than it was a decade ago.  

Two statements that have risen in recent years have particularly bothered me: “it’s okay to be white” and “black lives matter.”  While I believe that both of those statements’ literal meanings are true, “it’s okay to be any race” and “all lives matter” would be less divisive phrases. As Martin Luther King said, hopefully, one day, people “will be judged not for the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

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About the Contributor
Matt Colleran, Former Author

Comments (8)

The Vanderbilt Hustler welcomes and encourages readers to engage with content and express opinions through the comment sections on our website and social media platforms. The Hustler reserves the right to remove comments that contain vulgarity, hate speech, personal attacks or that appear to be spam, commercial promotion or impersonation. The comment sections are moderated by our Editor-in-Chief, Rachael Perrotta, and our Social Media Director, Chloe Postlewaite. You can reach them at [email protected] and [email protected].
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Micheal Hoffman
3 years ago

The author has since expressed guilt regarding his point on a post-racial America, disavowing this view on a public forum. This change of heart has occurred in the light of the recent events in Georgia and Minneapolis.

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=375890.0

He maintains his staunch pro-life and fiscally conservative views.

M
Matt Colleran
6 years ago

To the anonymous student above, the article fairly clearly states that Spencer IS a racist, but using it too often makes it less effective when it actually needs to be used (such as with Spencer, who we should all agree is racist). I also believe that my portion of Sanger’s quote accurately reflects the overall sentiment of the letter.

V
vandy student
6 years ago

Think whichever editor gave this the thumbs-up to be posted might want to double-check before green-lighting an article like this again. I’ve got no big problems with Colleran’s writing, as they’re an interesting read into how a deep red conservative feels around his (presumably liberal) peers. However, I think the Hustler neglected to realize that the example Colleran uses about how liberals falsely and unfairly accuse conservatives of racism is Richard Spencer. Richard Spencer believes in peaceful ethnic cleansing in order to promote a all-white nation. He is not an example of a conservative whose reputation has been “sullied” by an unfair allegation of being racist. That the Hustler would put out an opinion article that endorses the opinion that Spencer isn’t a racist is antithetical to the values that Vanderbilt espouses. It’s ignorant and short-sighted that whoever let this slide through couldn’t click the first link in his article to find this out. It’s even more ignorant (not to mention ridiculous) that the hazing article has been swiped away while this one stays.

Colleran’s article also brings the Hustler’s academic integrity into question. I have always suspected that the Hustler valued itself on journalistic integrity and trying to remain factual. Why has the Hustler allowed Colleran to link to an article that misquotes Margaret Sanger? While I am no fan of Sanger, this is not an innocent misquote – the entire context behind what she said is missing. In fact, the misquote goes so far as to chop a sentence halfway to cast Sanger in the most despicable light possible. The actual quote from her letter is:

“Miss Rose sent me a copy of your letter of December 5th and I note that you doubt it worthwhile to employ a full time Negro physician. It seems to me from my experience where I have been in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Texas, that while the colored Negroes have great respect for white doctors they can get closer to their own members and more or less lay their cards on the table which means their ignorance, superstitions and doubts. They do not do this with the white people and if we can train the Negro doctor at the Clinic he can go among them with enthusiasm and with knowledge, which, I believe, will have far-reaching results among the colored people. His work in my opinion should be entirely with the Negro profession and the nurses, hospital, social workers, as well as the County’s white doctors. His success will depend upon his personality and his training by us

The ministers work is also important and also he should be trained, perhaps by the Federation as to our ideals and the goal that we hope to reach. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”

And re: bringing birth control to black communities, she spoke,”To give them the means of helping themselves is perhaps the richest gift of all. We believe birth control knowledge brought to this group, is the most direct, constructive aid that can be given them to improve their immediate situation.”

Annoying paternalistic but a far cry from trying to exterminate a group of people.

I’m not trying to be overly mean to the Hustler staff, but something like this takes five minutes to google. It’s a stain the paper that there’s an opinion article tacitly supporting a Nazi and misquoting people to score political points.

A
Alexander Young
6 years ago

I do see a problem citing Johnson’s victory in 1964 as a setback for minorities given that his opponent, Barry Goldwater, was opposed to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, one of the most important pieces of civil rights legislation in American history. I fail to see how electing a president opposing federal desegregation could ever be considered a win for minorities.

A
Alexander Young
6 years ago

I do see a problem citing Johnson’s victory in 1964 as a setback for minorities given that his opponent, Barry Goldwater, campaigned on a platform opposing the 1964 Civil Rights Act, one of the most important pieces of civil rights legislation in American history. I fail to see how electing a president opposing federal desegregation could ever be considered a win for minorities.

A
Alexander Young
6 years ago

I do have a problem with citing Johnson’s victory in 1964 as a major setback for minorities given that his opponent, Barry Goldwater, campaigned on a platform opposing the 1964 civil rights act, one of the most important piece of civil rights legislation in American history. I fail to see how electing a president opposing desegregation could be considered a win for minorities.

M
Maeva Makendi
6 years ago

Uhhh, there is nothing more ignorant than a white people than does not see race. Please, do us all a favor and never quote MLK again. And to think it’s Black History Month too.

V
Vanderbilt Student
6 years ago

Further examples of identity politics include generalizing large and diverse groups into a single terms such as “the left” and claiming that an individual’s narrow perspective represents “traditional American values.”