Why Collective Rights are Wrong

What makes one black? I have always labored under the apparent delusion that it was black skin, which is to say that blackness makes one black. This, however, was before I was informed by the likes of Jesse Jackson and Harry Belafonte that Condoleeza Rice is not black. This led to me realize that it is not just blackness that makes one black, but blackness combined with an unflinching and unquestioning support of the dominant liberal paradigms of the late 20th century.

Since Condoleeza Rice is not a Democrat or a liberal, she is not sufficiently black. Condoleeza Rice, who grew up in the segregated south and had friends murdered in terrorist attacks because of their blackness, is not sufficiently black. One wonders what the verdict on Condoleeza's blackness might have been if she had been murdered in the basement of that church. Or did the bombers only target liberal 10 year old black girls? Has Condoleeza been spared racial slurs and slights throughout her life due to her conservative leanings?

The unmitigated bigotry of today's "civil rights" movement is evident in the treatment of black conservatives. Colin Powell is not really black. Condoleeza Rice is not really black. George Bush is a racist, even though he appointed Powell and Rice as the first black secretaries of state and has the most racially diverse cabinet in American history.

In some ways, the liberal black consensus treats its dissidents much as Muslim extremists treat theirs; they arrogate to themselves the authority to define who is "truly" one of them, as well as the authority to castigate and exile all perceived apostates.

Can one imagine a more fundamental betrayal of Martin Luther King and John Lewis and the other civil rights leaders of the recent American past, including, it must be said, Jesse Jackson? These are the moral heroes of American history, the men and women who orchestrated the most peaceful and successful reckoning with and reordering of the American system in its history. These men and women were giants, their accomplishments earth-shattering, and their strength and courage inconceivable. They accomplished great things. And their successors ignore their victories.

For the past 6 years, the secretary of state has been black. The most dominant nation in human history has been represented in the global community by a black man and a black woman. A black woman speaks for the world's superpower. A black woman is America's face and voice in international affairs. How do Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton treat this woman? As a sniveling and submissive cracker lover.

The leaders of the civil rights movement orchestrated a revolution that, within their lifetimes, has seen black American men and women ascend to the very pinnacle of global power. But, since these "leaders" disagree with the political leanings of these specific black people, they deny their very blackness. In this, they deny the very fact that blacks have arrived as an enfranchised element of American power. And, in this, they deny the very victories that Dr. King and so many others realized.

What would Martin Luther King say about Condoleeza Rice? I can't pretend to know, of course, but here's what I believe a real leader, of whom Dr. King was an ultimate example, would say. "While I strongly disagree with Dr. Rice's and General Powell's policy positions, as well as that of the president, I can not help but feel immense pride in the fact that African-Americans are not only legally and politically enfranchised, but they are at the very helm of the ship of state. So, while I would not vote for Dr. Rice or General Powell, I respect them immeasurably for serving as examples to every black child that they are empowered and that they can achieve things that would have been utterly inconceivable to our grandparents".

What would be so hard about black liberals taking this approach? Do they say to their constituents, "thanks to our predecessors we are finally in a position to realize the American dream"? No, they say, "this is a racist society and you will be left behind and held down unless you vote for us." If you say to them "how racist could this country be if the secretary of state, its face to the world, is black"?, they will counter, "she's not really black".

Jesse Jackson, the man who was literally bathed in the martyr's blood in 1968, refuses to acknowledge the shocking success of the revolution he was a part of. Condoleeza Rice is the most accessible and unambiguous symbol of that success. But she's not liberal. So, to Jesse, there has been no real success, because we still live in a racist country where only fake black people are elevated to positions of awesome power and influence.

Not to patronize the reader, but I must make clear that I readily acknowledge that racism exists. This is one of the most obvious truths imaginable. But racism is a manifestation of the hearts of men, not of law. African-Americans achieved total political and civil equality by 1965. This is where the path split, and that oft-ignored split has defined the "civil rights movement" ever since.

I put quotes around the term civil rights movement not to disparage or condescend, but to imply that it is a very unfitting term. The civil rights movement ended in the 1960's as a total and comprehensive victory. African-Americans received, with guarantee of federal enforcement, total equality under the law; they won their civil rights.

However, a significant part of the civil rights movement did not fully acknowledge their victory; they demanded to continue the push for "civil rights" by inventing new civil rights out of thin air. Affirmative action is just one example of this misguided strategy. The urge to guarantee a "level playing field" is very understandable; it is indicative of human charity and empathy. It is also, however, utterly impossible.

Here emerges the divergence between civil rights, which have been achieved, and collective rights, which are a horrible idea for any nation, and especially for the United States. Civil rights are granted to citizens, not to individual subsets of the citizenry. As soon as a society starts defining citizens differently, this is inherently racist and destabilizing. This is exactly why slavery and later segregation were so morally and legally unjustifiable; the institutions of legalized racism were all structured on the premise that blacks did not have the same rights as whites.

The corrective to this injustice is to demand that all people have fully and blindly equal civil rights. This is what Dr. King demanded and won. To then assert that African-Americans or anyone else have other, separate rights due solely to their blackness is inherently wrong. No matter how benevolent the intentions, the underlying premise is the same as slavery; all people are not legally equal.

The temptation for collective rights is the force that has destabilized Lebanon. In Lebanon, people do not see themselves as Lebanese, but as Maronite, Shi'a, Sunni, or Druze. When the French created this farce of a "nation", the constitution called for representation in the government to reflect the demographics of Lebanon. In other words, if Sunni were 30% of the population, they would have 30% of the seats.

What mentality does this incentivize and reinforce? The mentality of exclusionary groups. People living in Lebanon were not granted individual civil rights; they were granteded collective rights for their communities. When the demographics changed, as they always must, the flaw became evident. Shi'a Muslims had increased exponentially as a percentage of the population, but the power was still divided on the basis of a decades-old census. With this mentality in ascendance, civil war was inevitable.

The results of the misguided push for collective rights have obviously been more drastic in Lebanon than in the United States, but the fundamental flaw is self-evident. We all realize that the ideal government is one which guarantees the utter and disinterested legal equality of all of its citizens on the basis of the inalienable rights and inherent dignity of each individual. The civil rights movement succeeded because it insisted on an end to collective rights (for whites) and the guarantee of civil rights. The civil rights movement then failed because, as it vainly sought to compensate for historic crimes, it adopted the very framework, although in a more appealing manner, that it had just smashed.