The March of the Hoodies

“The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well as speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to cooperate for their common good.” — James Madison, Federalist Paper No. 10, November 22, 1787

In Federalist Paper 10 Madison wrote of the danger factions (or as we call them today special interests) posed to the formation of the new republic. Madison wrote:

“Among the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it. The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished, as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations. The valuable improvements made by the American constitutions on the popular models, both ancient and modern, cannot certainly be too much admired; but it would be an unwarrantable partiality to contend that they have as effectually obviated the danger on this side, as was wished and expected. Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true. It will be found, indeed, on a candid review of our situation, that some of the distresses under which we labor have been erroneously charged on the operation of our governments; but it will be found, at the same time, that other causes will not alone account for many of our heaviest misfortunes; and, particularly, for that prevailing and increasing distrust of public engagements and alarm for private rights which are echoed from one end of the continent to the other. These must be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice with which a factious spirit has tainted our public administration.”

Madison feared that factions would be extremely dangerous to a democratic form of government and argued for a compound republic where the rights and interests of all the people would be protected.

Today we live in an era where factions rule our republic. We have the factions of race, sex, women, corporations, environmentalists, farmers, immigration, and a score of others all posing a clear and present danger to our liberties.

This is evident in the case of the shooting of Trayvon Martin. We are being bombarded by the traditional and factional race baiters, such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, to take a stand for Martin and demand the arrest of his shooter even though the evidence in the case points in another direction. We have members of the Black Panthers raising money and threatening a bounty on Zimmerman’s head and possible vigilante action. It was Mikhail Muhammad of The New Black Panther Party who stated:

“You tell our justice department and Eric Holder and our President Obama to get off up their ass and do the work and the rest is done!” Muhammad went on to say. When pressed by Cooper on the legality, he responded that he could make a citizen’s arrest of Zimmerman, who has not yet been charged for anything, because the New Black Panther Party member doesn’t “obey the white man’s law,” but rather the “street people’s law.”

All of this while the mainstream media fuels the fires of this race hatred with incomplete and inaccurate reports and opinion columns. We also have the left-wing politicians using this case to feather their nests for reelection. This is what they do, they use the issue of race to control their constituents and remain in power. It is a tyranny of the minority.

The roots of this are found in something called the Critical Race Theory. When asked by CNN's Soledad O'Brien about the definition of critical race theory (CRT), Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown offered the following: "Critical race theory seeks to explain judicial decisions by asking the question, what does race have to do with it?" CRT simply "looks at race in America," professor Brown stated. That's a bit like saying that a religious zealot just "looks at" theology.

Critical race theorists do not merely look at racial questions. Like zealots, they give answers; they preach a doctrine, seek converts, and condemn nonbelievers. Indeed, CRT is the primary source of Orwellian "hate speech" proposals.

On CNN, O'Brien next asked Professor Brown whether CRT is "all about white supremacy," as Joel Pollak of Breitbart.com asserted previously. Brown replied, "No, it's nothing about white supremacy."

Yet Professor Brown should know precisely what role white supremacy plays in CRT. In her own published work on CRT, Brown wrote that CRT "seeks to highlight the ways in which the law is not neutral and objective, but designed to support White supremacy and the subordination of people of color". She then cites Emily Houh, who defined CRT thusly:

“First, critical race theory seeks to expose the entrenchment of White supremacy and the reality of the continued subordination of people of color in the United States (and throughout the world).”

CRT, as Prof. Brown wrote and cited, certainly does have something to do with white supremacy.

According to the Derrick Bell Reader, edited by CRT proponent Richard Delgado, CRT's "founding members" are professors Delgado, Derrick Bell, Kimberle Crenshaw, Mari Matsuda, Charles Lawrence, and Patricia Williams3. Following is just a flavor of the doctrine they transmit to countless students every day. Keep in mind that these are relatively tame assertions, by CRT standards, and are all taken from assigned readings.

The late Derrick Bell, a Harvard and NYU law professor tied to President Obama, wrote that CRT "goes well beyond civil rights, integration, affirmative action, and other liberal measures". What is "beyond" those measures? Specifically, Bell calls for a "commitment to radical emancipation by the law". He describes the unifying theme of CRT: "We use a number of different voices, but all recognize that racial subordination maintains and perpetuates the American social order". Bell proudly writes that CRT is characterized by "an orientation around race that seeks to attack a legal system which disempowers people of color". What does it mean to "disempower people of color"? If an institution does not provide for explicit racial preferences and favoritism, it will be deemed to "disempower people of color." [Source American Thinker]

Kimberle Crenshaw, a UCLA law professor, provides the much-needed feminist branch of CRT, because focusing on race alone neglects the "multidimensionality of Black women's experiences". Black women are "multiply-burdened" since patriarchy is yet "another source of domination to which Black women are vulnerable". Of course, "the social experience of race creates both a primary group identity as well as a shared sense of being under collective assault". In response to the awful "collective assault" of living in America, Crenshaw has a policy recommendation at the ready: she calls for "economic or social reorganization that directly empowers and supports" her most favored group: "single Black mothers". Not just mothers, not just single mothers, but single black mothers. [Source American Thinker]

Mari Matsuda, Georgetown law professor, also insists that "part of the special harm of racist speech is that it works in concert with other racist tools to keep victim groups in an inferior position". Matsuda postulates "three identifying characteristics" of hate speech which she proposes to regulate: the "message is of racial inferiority," the fact that said message is "directed against a historically oppressed group," and the fact that said message "is persecutorial, hateful, and degrading". Just what kind of speech will be considered racist? One clue comes from Matsuda herself, who claims that "righteous indignation against diversity and reverse discrimination" is one of the "implements of racism" for upper-class whites. [Source American Thinker]

The nightmarish possibilities of hate speech codes are obvious to anyone with the slightest grasp of human nature and politics, yet such codes are seriously considered as a legal reform in universities and particularly law schools

Finally, Columbia law professor Patricia Williams offers a disturbing glimpse into the logic of CRT. Williams recounts the story of a hypothetical question that she was once asked to consider, where X and Y apply for a job with firm Z, which is all white. X and Y are equally qualified. One is black; the other is white. The questions asked: Who should get the job? Williams' answer is worth repeating at length, as a window into an ideology that is not taken as seriously as it should be: [Source American Thinker]

“The black person should get the job. If the modem white man, innocently or not, is the inheritor of another's due, then it must be returned.”

Williams continues:

“If a thief steals so that his children may live in luxury and the law returns his ill-gotten gain to its rightful owner, the children cannot complain that they have been deprived of what they did not own. Blacks have earned a place in this society; they have earned a share of its enormous wealth, with physical labor and intellectual sacrifice, as wages and as royalties. Blacks deserve their inheritance as much as family wealth passed from parent to child over the generations is a "deserved" inheritance. It is deserved as child support and alimony.”

So whites should collectively be treated as the children of thieves, and blacks collectively deserve to have returned to them what was stolen from their black forebears by those white thieves. This is the seething, irrational ideology at the foundation of CRT.

While in law school, Barack Obama told an audience, "Open up your hearts and your minds to the words of Professor Derrick Bell." Bell is the same man who famously said, in a recorded television interview, "I live to harass white folks," and proudly advocated what he called a "radical" ideology. Even if Bell exerted no influence on Obama's thinking, which is unlikely, it should be a national scandal that critical race theory is so widely sermonized at American colleges.

The racist flames licking at the political discourse in the Trayvon Martin shooting needed no fanning, but President Barack Obama fanned them anyway when he waded in and claimed: “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”

Perhaps his racist white half was saying all blacks look alike to him. After all, his grandmother, according to Obama, “once confessed her fear of black men who passed her on the street and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made [Obama] cringe.” Or perhaps, it was just another rush to judgment, much like when he waded into the Henry Louis Gates Jr. incident and claimed police in Cambridge, Mass., “acted stupidly.”

Make no mistake. Neither Obama nor his fellow race hucksters Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson care one wit about justice or Martin. If they did, they wouldn’t have convicted George Zimmerman without first knowing the facts. But the facts aren’t interesting unless they promote a certain narrative. We all seem to forget want John Adams said in defense of the British soldiers on trial for the Boston Massacre — “Fact are stubborn things.” They also don’t give tinkers damn about the Sixth Amendment.

Now the facts are beginning to trickle out. Far from the media’s initial portrayal of Martin as an innocent, hoodie-wearing candy snacker, Martin’s Twitter account — his handle was “NO_LIMIT_NIGGA” — reveals he was probably a promiscuous, dope-smoking thug who had been suspended from school and caught with a burglary tool and a bag of women’s jewelry, and who may have recently attacked a bus driver.

I don’t know exactly what happened that night, so I’m not ready to blame Zimmerman or Martin. But there are enough agencies investigating it now that I’m sure the truth will eventually come out. I just hope it happens before the New Black Panther Party is able to pay out its $10,000 bounty on Zimmerman’s carcass.

Obama is not interested in justice. If he were, he’d tamp down the vitriol, denounce the talk of bounties and encourage the justice system to run its course. On average, 30 homicides with a gun occur in the United States each day. Almost two-thirds of them are either black on black or black on white. If Obama were interested in justice, he might say something about those.

No, Obama is interested only in ginning up his base and diverting your attention. After all, there’s an election coming up. And even if the mainstream media have to come up with a new ethnic group for Zimmerman — white Hispanic — this one fits the correct narrative. (I wonder when the MSM is going to refer to Obama by his true ethnicity: white black?)

And keeping attention focused on the Martin/Zimmerman affair keeps the people’s attention focused on an ancillary issue rather than important ones. Those would be issues like ObamaCare before the U.S. Supreme Court, crony capitalism benefiting bankrupt green energy companies, rising gas prices and the EPA’s latest power grab that will put onerous and costly regulations on new coal-fired electrical plants, drive up the cost of electricity and put more people out of work.

The Cirque du Soleil-style media coverage and over-the-top racial rhetoric being spewed by family supporters about the shooting death of Trayvon Martin hides a more disturbing problem that continues to grow in our urban centers across America: the crime rate within the African-American community.

In Chicago, like other major urban centers across the nation, you can't turn on the nightly news without hearing either about a child being gunned down by a stray bullet from some gang-banger or about other young adults caught up in violent crimes. From the president to African-American church and community leaders, the statistics of African-American crime and its causes are well-known. And yet, crime continues unabated and innocent children continue to die.

The president was in Chicago for a re-election fundraiser March 16. The weekend that followed, 49 shootings were recorded. Of the 49 people recorded shot, 10 died, including one 6-year-old girl. Granted, not all shooting victims were African-American — others were Latino — but the most recent Chicago Police Department 2010 Annual Report paints a grim picture nonetheless.

The report breaks down crime by type and race. According to this report, the African-American community suffers most frequently from violent crimes committed (62.8%). Of these violent crimes citywide, for murders, 26.5% of victims are between the ages of 11 and 20, 40.2% between 21 and 30. For the offenders, 31.6% are between the ages of 11 and 20, 46.1% between 21 and 30 (Exhibits 8b and 8c of the report, respectively).

More disturbing is the racial breakdown of total crime citywide, as shown in Exhibit 12b, "Arrests by Offense Classification, Race and Gender, 2010." Of the 165,541 recorded arrests, 120,189 (almost 71.7%) were African-American

As more information comes out about the shooting, we learn that the victim was not just a normal teenager as his parents have claimed, unless normal is defined by multiple school suspensions, marijuana possession, and possible burglary, as recently reported in the Daily Mail. At the same time his parents are crying that the press is now "demonizing" their son's reputation, we learn his mother has applied for trademarks on "digital materials, namely, CDs and DVDs featuring Trayvon Martin," and other products. When reading the aforementioned statistics and articles, is there any wonder how and why George Zimmermans come to be created.

I live in a middle class neighborhood of relatively new single family homes. Several years ago, when the housing bubble burst some of the houses became vacant and vandalism began to occur. I and my neighbors establish a neighborhood watch with the sanction, advice, and support of the county sheriff department. We had monthly meetings with deputies briefing us on what to watch for. One of the things they always told us was to keep an eye on people walking the streets, especially at night, wearing dark hoodies hiding their features. It is very difficult to determine the race or ethnicity of a person wearing a hoodie at night. We were not profiling race, we were profiling the actions of people with hoodies. I guess the elites who live in upscale gated communities do not have such problems, but thousands of neighborhoods similar to mine across the nation do.

Last week, when asked to comment on the Trayvon Martin tragedy, President Obama remarked, "If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon." With all due respect, Mr. President, your son would not look like Trayvon. Instead, he would look like the other African-American students attending Sidwell Friends with Sasha and Malia.

Early in his presidency, Mr. Obama made a remark about white police officers who "acted stupidly" when they arrested Harvard professor Henry Gates, Jr. In response to the outcry over his comments, he invited the professor and the arresting officer to a meeting, which would become known as the "beer summit." Perhaps we need a bratwurst summit for the shootings in his old neighborhood.

President Obama's achievement as the first African-American president is not to be discounted for its significance. However, he has wasted the opportunities and the bully pulpit his office provides in not calling for another summit to address the issues that are facing his people. Taking all his recent comments and actions in context, it appears that the president is interested in the African-American community only because he needs to shore up his base for re-election, and not because he's interested, or ever has been, in addressing the root causes — single parents, education, unemployment — that are responsible for the continuing problems that produce Trayvon Martins and similar tragedies. Consider that Illinois has the highest high school drop-out rate in the country.

The president went to Columbia and Harvard. He's an educated man and should be a role model for African-American parents and children alike. In the three years of his presidency, that he's chosen not to act, not to speak, not to rally African-American leaders and challenge them to act, is why the silent tragedy behind Trayvon Martin and the continuing crime in the urban black neighborhoods is Barack Obama. The march of the hoodies will go on and the race baiters will continue to pimp race to maintain their factional power.