Musings Of An Indie Writer| « | Two States |
»
|
|
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Coin Of The Realm
By now, everyone has heard of University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, and his "borrowed" American Indian heritage. This thoroughly detestable figure is at once a symptom of several social maladies. Your Curmudgeon will leave the others -- reflexive anti-Americanism among activist minorities; the radicalization of the universities; the incomprehensible acceptance of hate-filled rhetoric from the Left that would be denounced without restraint if it were to emerge from the Right -- for another time, and concentrate for now on that "borrowed" Indian lineage. As it happens, it has a parallel half a world away.
As is generally known, the Indian subcontinent has for centuries been dominated by a system of castes:
- Varnas (the four "higher castes"):
- Brahmanas (priests)
- Kshatryas (warriors and rulers)
- Vaishyas (artists, merchants, farmers, peasants)
- Shudras (unskilled laborers and servants)
- Jatis (sub-castes): a great number and variety of castes depending upon one's profession, which is hereditary.
- Untouchables: people with professions regarded as "polluting" (hair-dressers, janitors, tanners, butchers, undertakers) because they make contact with such "pollutants" as blood, dirt, dung, hair, leather, menstrual flow, saliva, etc. Sometimes called Dalits ("the oppressed") or Harijans ("Children of God").
During the reform of the Indian political system some years ago, the nation adopted a constitutional rule that set aside a certain number of seats in Parliament for representatives of the Untouchable class. One could only stand for such a seat if one were officially a member of the Untouchable caste. Within just a few years after this rule was adopted, Indians from other castes were contriving to be reclassified as Untouchables, specifically to have access to those reserved seats.
Untouchability had been given a value in the political market. It was inevitable that some among the politically ambitious should pursue it.
Similar developments, albeit not formalized in any law or constitutional provision, have recently occurred in the West, most particularly in the United States. The engine was much the same: guilt over the travails of human categories that had come to be seen as oppressed or historically badly treated. Blacks and American Indians, in particular, were singled out for special treatment, and special accommodations, due to their victim status.
Strictly speaking, no black or American Indian of our time has a valid claim to having been politically mistreated, at least not due to his race or lineage. But Caucasian guilt, valid or not, over the treatment our ancestors visited upon theirs has made their inheritance a form of political valuta. It can be used to purchase all manner of special accommodations not available to whites.
In particular, he who represents himself as black or Amerind can get away with some pretty outrageous accusations and exhortations without incurring condemnation. Those "historical victim" statuses act as both sword and shield: they provide a pretext for a claim that one is owed, and can simultaneously be used to deflect criticism of one's own excesses.
Ward Churchill, who has recently been revealed as no more an Amerind than George W. Bush, has exploited that status to the hilt. Only recently did he go so far that offended whites decided to deal with him. They succeeded in debunking his claim of Amerind status. The very tribes in which he's claimed membership have disowned him. Presently we will hear no more from this socialist firebrand.
But don't expect Churchill to be the last to try this gambit. Reflexive guilt over white displacement of the American Indian during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries will automatically protect such claims from scrutiny, unless the claimant goes overboard as far as Churchill has done. Membership in an officially designated victim class such as the Amerind is a coin of the realm: it will buy much for which a white politician would have to spend far more heavily, if he could buy it at all.
Your Curmudgeon will not speak of solutions. The sort of hard-headedness required to dispel such nonsense is not something one can don like an overcoat. Several generations of Americans have been infected with the ideon of assumed racial guilt and assumed racial desert. The detoxification process will require generations as well, assuming it occurs at all.
Comments
http://blog.lewrockwell.com/lewrw/archives/007369.html
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/09/2005 at 06:39 PMHi Francis, I live on a very small island off the east coast and have seen this very same ploy used by a person to get himself admitted to an Amerind tribe in order to partake of the gambling money trough.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/09/2005 at 09:17 PM
Comment Form
Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.
