What is the difference between the philosopher’s stone and racism?
No matter how hard you search or where, you will never find the philosopher’s stone, while people of a certain political persuasion will find racism everywhere, whether it exists or not. Ditto paid hacks.
When Donald Trump was asked by a dumb belle masquerading as a reporter why he alluded to Covid-19 as the Chinese virus, he replied simply “Because it comes from China”. Stupidly she persisted, and he added that the Chinese (Government) had tried to blame the outbreak on American soldiers.
The photograph at the top of this page is sadly not unique. Politically correct airheads have been out in force pushing the same stupid message. So…
The childhood infection rubella is also known as German measles because it was first described clinically by a German physician. German measles is far from unique, though very often a disease is named after the doctor who discovers or is the first to describe it. Parkinson’s disease is named after James Parkinson (1755-1824). Should he be flattered or insulted that a horrible disease is named after him? The English veterinary surgeon Arnold Leese was the author of a book on the diseases of the one-humped camel that was a standard work in India for half a century, and he was positively thrilled when the camel parasite thelazia leesie was named after him.
Racism, so-called, is often in the eye of the beholder, more often than not. It is also not infrequently a total invention, as in the case of Jussie Smollett and many others before him.
It is notable that just as some women – feminists – find misogyny and sexism everywhere – so do persons of a particular political orientation find racism everywhere. The easiest way to make the charge is to pick out some real or perceived statistical anomaly. In the 1980s, law professor David Baldus was commissioned, ostensibly, to investigate alleged disparities in those sentenced to death for murder, in particular to ascertain if blacks were more likely to be sentenced to death than whites. The real purpose of this study had nothing to do with race, it was a rather obvious attack on capital punishment.
The Baldus study was of necessity flawed because not all states have the death penalty. Michigan abolished it for all crimes except treason way back in 1847. In 1851, Wisconsin executed John McCaffary for the murder of his wife the previous year. His public hanging was a gruesome event that is said to have led to abolition being signed into law in July 1853. So in Michigan and Wisconsin, a black serial killer cannot be executed, while a white man convicted of a single murder in Texas can be. Is that not discriminatory? Is it not unfair?
Furthermore, even if the death penalty did discriminate against blacks, it definitely discriminates against men. Only 16 women have been executed in the United States since 1976. Last year, all 22 people executed there were men. While men do commit many more murders than women, the disparity is not that great, and, it should be added, there are some people who believe a woman should never be convicted of murder, no matter what the circumstances.
Added to this are the ever expanding categories of racism, some of which beggar belief. How about benign racism – people are nasty by being nice? Or systemic racism, which is said to be a reflection of disparities in wealth between various racial groups, blacks being at the bottom, as ever? Curiously though, this form of racism is very selective, because some of the wealthiest people in the United States are black. Most of these appear to be concentrated in the entertainments industry and sports. This isn’t due to stereotyping or any such absurd rationalisation. As Thomas Sowell and others have pointed out, if you compare any two population groups – by sex, race, nationality, religion, etc – there will be at times marked dissimilarities in income, crime rates, disease patterns, and everything else.
The cry of discrimination is used overwhelmingly by those of a leftist persuasion, and it is always accompanied by calls for more laws to combat this perceived discrimination, be it racial, religious, sexual…And anyone who doesn’t go along with this must be a bigot, right? Or maybe to slightly misquote Donald Trump, sometimes a Chinese virus is just a Chinese virus.
One final thought concerning a real affront to a Chinese-American. In 2014, the American-born Ming Tong Liu decided to buy a restaurant in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Many ethnic Chinese, many Asians, prefer whenever possible to deal in cash, including Mr Liu. Driving through Alabama, he was stopped for travelling 10mph over the speed limit. The police searched his vehicle and seized $75,195 under America’s Draconian civil asset forfeiture laws. The money belonged not only to Mr Liu but to three other people including his two daughters. He had to fight for ten months to get it back, which not only lost him the restaurant deal but left him thousands of dollars out of pocket. Where were all these journalists and social justice warriors who are so offended by mere words when men like him are being treated worse than China treats its citizens?
The post The Racism Hunters appeared first on The Duran.
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