The Living Consequences

In the aftermath of the terrible shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and others at a constituent event in Tucson this weekend, there’s been a great deal of heated rhetoric about … well, heated rhetoric.

What do we actually know about whether incendiary political rhetoric can inspire violent acts?

Even before anything was known about the shooter, many people reacted to the news by arguing that whatever the motives of this particular shooter, the tone of our political discourse is at least partly to blame. Those making this argument cite the extreme and polarizing tone used by many politicians and media commentators; the especially troubling use of  the rhetoric of violence in some quarters; and the heated tone invoked to discuss certain topics that Rep. Giffords was prominently involved in, including immigration and health care reform.

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“Quick Takes” offers a mix of news, opinion, and research related to race, privilege, and inequality.

Today’s “Quick Takes” includes the costs of immigration measures, the evolving nature of marriage, black farmers poised to receive long-overdue justice, and Sarah Palin on racism and racial justice.

Readers are encouraged to share these stories and to offer their thoughts at the end of the post.

Sarah Palin on racism and President Obama. In her new book, America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin comes out strongly against charges that the Tea Party movement and other conservative groups are racist. She argues that the Tea Party only appears racist to those who mistakenly believe that the United States is still “a fundamentally unjust and unequal country.” As holders of this view, she singles out President Obama, Michelle Obama, and Attorney General Eric Holder (because he called us “a nation of cowards” for failing to discuss race honestly). Palin does not acknowledge the fact that the U.S. does remain in some ways “unjust and unequal” in terms of race, if arguably not “fundamentally” so, or explain what that fact says about how to evaluate the attitudes of the Tea Party and the First Family.

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“Quick Takes” offers a mix of interesting news, opinion, and research related to race, privilege, and inequality.

Today’s “Quick Takes” includes discussion of Europe and reparations for slavery, Native American team mascots, the contributions of immigrants to Arizona’s economy, questions about the Tea Party and race, and the media’s negative portrayal of single black women.

Readers are encouraged to share these stories and to comment at the end of the post.

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“Quick Takes” features brief summaries of recent news, opinion, and research related to race, privilege, and inequality, with a special focus on the history and legacy of slavery and race, which are at the heart of The Living Consequences.

Today’s “Quick Takes” includes items on remembering the Civil War, immigration laws in Arizona and New York, voting by felons, single black women, college debt and U.S. poverty.

Readers are encouraged to share these stories and to comment at the end of the post.

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“Quick Takes” offers brief summaries of recent news, opinion, and research related to race, privilege, and inequality, with a special focus on the history and legacy of slavery and race, which are at the heart of The Living Consequences.

Today’s “Quick Takes” features items on race and intelligence, Arizona’s approach to immigration, trans-racial adoption, memorializing the transatlantic slave trade, and research on racial prejudice and the spread of misinformation in our society.

Readers are encouraged to share these stories, and to comment at the end of the post.

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It was announced overnight that Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts has died at the age of 77.

Much has been said about the legacy of Senator Kennedy, the “liberal lion of the Senate,” and much more will be said today and in the the future. As President Obama said in a statement released during the night, during his career “virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts.”

Here, I want to briefly highlight some of the ways in which Senator Kennedy has been a leading voice on civil rights for the last 45 years, repeatedly helping to redefine our understanding of the meaning of equality in areas such as race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, and disabilities.

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The news is now official: Samuel Huntington, the eminent political scientist best known for his views on the “clash of civilizations,” died on Christmas Eve at the age of 81.

I knew Sam well, and worked closely with him until his retirement from Harvard last year.

Sam was a towering figure in political science, having written landmark works in civil-military relations, political development, global politics, culture and identity politics.

Henry Kissinger described him several years ago as “one of the West’s most eminent political scientists,” while Robert Putnam, the Harvard professor who wrote Bowling Alone, lauded Sam yesterday as “one of the giants of American intellectual life of the last half century.”

In the public arena, Samuel Huntington would typically offer unconventional scholarly conclusions in stark and unflinching terms which revealed little about his personal opinions. As a result, his views attracted a great deal of attention, in the U.S. and especially abroad, but were frequently controversial and widely misunderstood. I will have a bit more to say later about those controversies, and their significance for the main theme of this blog.

In person, Sam was a kind and gentle man. As a scholar, teacher, and mentor, he was typically fierce in his articulation of his own views but always eager to hear and consider the views of others. His expectations for scholarly discourse were high, but he was modest about what he did not know and unfailingly respectful and encouraging of the work of others. Perhaps the strongest indication of these qualities was the deep respect and abiding loyalty which he consistently inspired in those around him—particularly in those who, like me, often disagreed with him so strongly.

Roger Kimball, at Pajamas Media, has an extended essay today arguing against affirmative action, hyphenated Americans, immigration, and multiculturalism.

Kimball’s essay, which draws heavily on arguments from Sam Huntington, offers many of the usual objections to the preceding elements of progressive politics, as well as to such related concepts as arguments by philosophers and social scientists against the use of nationalism as the basis of identity.

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I ran across an interesting post today, on the question of who might give or receive compensation for the history of their ancestors:

should the govt pay reparations to Irish families who lost loved ones during the civil war?

after all they are the only true victims, thousands of Irish got off the boat in New York, and were carrying a gun for the US, fighting to end a slavery cause they had nothing to do with. … not to say the slaves were a guilty party, but I think that if you give reparations to blacks, and reservations to native americans, you should give reparations to Irish descendent’s that honorably fought to end a slavery cause they had no part in making.

I think this position isn’t at all unusual among many whites in this country, and I believe it illustrates several important issues.

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