AND ANOTHER THING
Gone is the time when Americans led the world in saying what they thought
PAUL JOHNSON
The editor of The Spectator was right to draw attention to the censorship of race discussion being imposed on Americans (`Taboo or not taboo, that is the question', November 19). It is not only wrong and unnatural in itself, being contrary to Amer- ica's tradition of outspoken debate, and the letter and spirit of the First Amendment, it is also dangerous because behind the wall of silence an explosion of race hatred is in train. Unless Americans start discussing their race problems frankly and truthfully, drastic solutions will emerge, and the vic- tims will be precisely those the silence is intended to protect: the blacks. There was a time when Americans led the world in saying what they thought. That is how they are portrayed by Dickens, Trol- lope and Thackeray. That is one reason why the squeamish Henry James fled from them to seek refuge in European reticence. Their archetypal journalist, H.L. Mencken, set new world standards in vituperation and persiflage. Now educated Americans, espe- cially the ruling class of businessmen, politicians, academics and media people, are terrified of opening their mouths on any topic even vaguely connected with race. The effect is often ludicrous. Recently I was a member of a panel holding a public debate in New York on the teaching of American history. The question, 'How do you define an American?' came up and immediately everyone became nervous. A black man got up and said, 'I am telling you this not as a matter for debate but just as an assertion. A few years ago, I called myself an American. Then I called myself a black American. Then I called myself an African-American. Now I call myself an African.' This absurd remark was received in reverent silence. I almost felt like retort- ing, 'Well, why don't you go and live in Africa and see how you like it, old man?' but I did not wish to get my hosts into trouble.
And trouble, big trouble, would have been the result. The penalties for stepping outside the agreed codes for racial refer- ences are severe. Some time ago, drunken black women caused a small-hours rumpus in the residential quarter of the University of Pennsylvania. An Israeli student poked his head out and told them to pipe down and 'stop behaving like water buffalo' — a mild term of Hebrew abuse, it seems. In a sane society the women would have been disciplined for being drunk and disorderly. In today's America it was the Israeli who had to go through hell.
A few radio phone-in hosts, like Rush Limbaugh and Bob Grant, break the taboos and let ordinary Americans speak. Terrific efforts are made by the ruling intellectual establishment to silence them. Limbaugh has 20 million listeners and so far has sur- vived. Grant is more vulnerable: it remains to be seen whether a campaign led by New York magazine to force advertisers to with- draw their sponsorship will take him off the air. (New York does not exactly smell of roses: a major source of its revenue is explicit advertising by the City's prostitutes. But then there are no taboos on sex, espe- cially of the perverted variety.) Censorship of speech does not, needless to say, apply to blacks themselves, who seem to be allowed to say anything they please. Jesse Jackson has never been penalised for calling New York 'Hyrnie- town'. Louis Farrakhan, an anti-Semite in the Goebbels class, continues to rant unscathed. One of his disciples, head of `Afro-American Studies' at a New York university, was suspended following public protest against his anti-Semitic outbursts. He has now been vindicated in the courts, reinstated and awarded huge damages. In universities and media establishments, in the public sector and in any workplace where state or federal contracts are sought, blacks are a privileged caste. To meet a quota of employment of minorities, they must be hired, whatever their qualifica- tions; and it is increasingly difficult to disci- pline or fire them.
Black privilege is now undermining America's judicial system too. If a black kills a white, even in front of witnesses, it is becoming difficult to secure a conviction. Some black jurymen and women will not vote against a fellow-black for murdering a white, whatever the weight of proof. And, since the affair of the three Los Angeles cops, the unspoken threat of a black mass- riot hangs over all controversial big city tri- als. It is increasingly improbable that justice will be done in the O.J. Simpson case because California does not want another multi-billion-dollar uprising by black loot- ers. Now Simpson is likely to walk free. It is an odious commentary on the damage race taboos are inflicting on America that its colossally expensive courts are now less likely to produce a fair verdict than the lynch law of the old South.
I believe, however, that a change may be coming. The publication of Charles Mur- ray's The Bell Curve marks a turning-point in the race debate. The book's prime focus is not on race, but it does discuss such for- bidden topics as relative scoring by differ- ent races in I0 tests and, in particular, the consistently poor performance of blacks. For this reason, various efforts were made to suppress the book. Murray was dropped by the Manhattan Institute, and it was only through the courage of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC that the book came out at all. It has been sav- agely and repeatedly attacked in establish- ment newspapers like the New York Times (its Book Review was a brave exception, publishing a fair notice). Attacks on Mur- ray have been highly personal, mendacious and directed to making him unemployable. Nonetheless, the debate has begun and will continue. For the first time in over a generation America has an opportunity to learn again how to talk about race openly and sensibly. The change comes none too soon. Under the regime of no debate, ordi- nary whites were, indeed still are, building up resentments against blacks which could eventually acquire overwhelming force. If they get angry enough, Americans are capable of thinking the unthinkable and voting the impossible. There are obvious lessons here for Britain too.
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