Book Review: If we do Nothing by Jared Taylor
Here is my favorite article written by a fellow reader and poster on American Renaissance John Engelman (originally published as an Amazon review):
By John Engelman
Since Jared Taylor founded American Renaissance in 1990, and since the publication of his Paved With Good Intentions in 1992, Jared Taylor, has made a career of drawing attention to bad results of the good intentions of the civil rights movement. It has been a dangerous occupation. When one is accused of racism truth is no defense. It is evidence for the prosecution.
The Second World War made the civil rights movement possible. After the revelations of the Holocaust fewer Americans wanted to believe that racial differences mattered, or that they even existed. Moreover, American Negroes had participated loyally to the war effort. Many Americans had difficulty understanding why a battle scared black combat veteran of the War could not dine in a restaurant that served men who had not been in uniform.
Nevertheless, it was not until the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court Decision of 1954 that the civil rights movement really began to influence American politics.
If We Do Nothing is an anthology of essays and reviews written by Jared Taylor during 25 years. In his essay “Brown vs. Board: The Real Story,” Jared Taylor draws attention to three facts about that decision that merit wide circulation.
The Brown vs. Board of Education decision was based on the Fourteenth Amendment, which states, “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.”
This might seem to include the privilege of attending nearby public schools, even if they are integrated. Nevertheless, Jared Taylor points out, “The same Congress that passed the Amendment in 1866 established segregated schools in the District of Columbia.”
Kenneth Clark, was a black psychologist who became famous with doll studies cited in the Brown decision. Dr. Clark pointed out that when he gave black girls a choice between taking a white doll and a black doll most of the girls choose the white doll.
Dr. Clark used this to argue that school segregation harms the self image of blacks. Jared Taylor points out that black girls who attended integrated schools were more likely to choose white dolls. He suggests that school integration is bad for the image of blacks, because they can see that most of the whites are more intelligent than they are.
Finally, those advocating school integration argued that it would improve academic performance of blacks. Jared Taylor points out that, “the average black 12th grader reads and does math at the level at the level of the average white 8th grader. This has been true…whether black students have no, few, or many white classmates.”
The Brown vs. Board of Education decision is probably the most famous Supreme Court Decision, and possibly the most popular. Jared Taylor points out that it was based on false assumptions, and that it has had harmful effects.
The most immediate effect was to promote white flight to school districts with small black populations and to private schools with hardly any black students in them at all. A longer term effect, although Jared Taylor does not emphasize this, has been to reduce the confidence of most whites in the government, and in liberal reform.
Race is the liberals’ weakest issue, and the issue where liberal hypocrisy has been most obvious. In his essay, “The Racial Ideology of Empire,” Jared Taylor writes, “Even today, the politicians and editorialists who bray the loudest about Southern redneck ‘racism’ live in guilded white ghettos and send their children to private schools.”
It is not “ignorant prejudice” that causes even white liberal parents to want their children to attend schools where the black population is small. Jared Taylor writes, “when blacks start enrolling in formerly white schools, race relations are best if the number of blacks is kept at no more than 15 to 25 percent. Research has confirmed…40 percent is the point at which things often go seriously wrong…
“Theft, violence, and insubordination of all kinds go up as the racial balance changes.”
The Montgomery Bus Boycott, that lasted from December 5, 1955 to December 20, 1956, turned the civil rights movement into a mass political movement that eventually changed the United States. Jared Taylor points out that it was less spontaneous than often believed. Rosa Parks was more than a humble seamstress. She was a secretary for the NAACP, which had planned the event for ten years.
Rosa Parks was selected because she was the kind of black person who would appeal to black church goers, partially Jared Taylor suggests, because she was light skinned.
For these reasons Jared Taylor calls Rosa Parks “a transparent fraud.” That seems a bit harsh to me. She was a skilled and successful political operative.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott also launched the political career of Martin Luther King, Jr., who was at the time a twenty-six year old black clergyman. Yes, as Jared Taylor says, Martin Luther King “was an adulterer, plagiarizer, and a Communist sympathizer.” He was also a leader of genius. Many people including me think his “I have a dream” speech is one of the greatest speeches in the English language.
Dr. King's promiscuity was unacceptable in a married man and a clergyman. Nevertheless, he does not seem to have been guilty of unwanted sexual advances. It is reasonable to assume that his advances, like those of John Kennedy, were wanted and often solicited. Men of King's fame and charisma face temptations most of us men do not.
Dr. King's plagiarism in his PhD. thesis is difficult to understand in one who developed his skill as a speaker and essay writer.
In his sermon, "How Should a Christian View Communism," which is published in his book Strength to Love Dr. King wrote:
Communism "enunciates movingly the theory of a classless society, but alas! its methods for achieving this noble end are all too often ignoble. Lying, violence, murder, and turture are considered to be justifiable means to achieve the millennial end."
https://www.amazon.com/gp/
Dr. King welcomed the support of members of the American Communist Party. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that he ever passed classified information to the Soviet Union. The behavior of King's enemies assisted the writers of Communist propaganda.
More than any other human being Martin Luther King made the 1960’s what they were in the United States. It would have been a different decade without him. He achieved his goals without terrorism and a successful guerrilla army. He lacked the ability to punish insubordination. He made people want to do what he wanted them to do. He skillfully projected the image of a humble man of God who was too good of a Christian to hate his enemies. He also had a gift for bringing out the worst in his enemies.
At any rate Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King have become secular saints. The admiration expressed for them by liberals and many conservatives is genuine. One achieves nothing by complaining that his opponents were unfair because they were more skillful.
In his essay, “Africa in Our Midst,” Jared Taylor describes the behavior of many blacks in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The official story from the mainstream media at the time was of President Bush’s incompetence in dealing with the disaster, and of blacks victimized by an indifferent white establishment. Jared Taylor writes, “robbery, rape and even murder became routine…200 officers just walked off the job…Young [black] men robbed and raped with impunity.”
The Southern Pacific Law Center quoted the end of this essay in a hit piece, posting, "Blacks and whites are different. When blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western civilization — any kind of civilization — disappears."
Typically, SPLC made no effort to refute Jared Taylor’s claims. An outspoken race realist is like a guest at a Georgetown dinner party who tells the person sitting next to him in a voice that carries that the hostess worked her way through Vassar as a call girl. Even if everyone knows that that is true – no, especially if everyone knows that that is true – that guest will be erased from everyone’s invite list.
In his essay, “Race and Literature: Why Is It Always Liberal?” Jared Taylor regrets the influence of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird while acknowledging, “It is a great novel.” He adds, “It would be possible to write a novel about a prominent white Democratic politician…who gradually wakes up to racial reality.”
Literature cannot change strong opinions. It can shape opinions that are inchoate. Millions of whites, and more than a few blacks are privately aware that the civil rights movement has not been the unqualified success television and Hollywood tell them. They might respond positively to a novel about a white married couple that is trying to raise their children while living and working in or near a black ghetto that they cannot move away from. Their children attend a high school where the percentage of blacks is much higher than forty percent.
Such a novel would include admirable blacks. Blacks after all are more likely to be victims of black criminals than are whites. The novel would also include black criminals. Powerful white liberals suffering from what George Orwell called, “money sheltered ignorance,” while sending their children to white private schools would be portrayed, not as proud of their villainy, but as morally conflicted people with good intentions.
Jared Taylor claims, “Diversity of race or tribe or language or religion are the main reasons people kill each other on a large scale.” Nevertheless, he acknowledges that beginning with the eighteenth century the deadliest wars have been fought in Europe by European whites against other European whites.
Civil wars by ethnically equivalent adversaries speaking the same language are often more lethal than international conflicts. During the American Civil War approximately 620,000 people died from combat and war related causes. During the Second World War, with a much larger population, the United States suffered an estimated 318,000 war related deaths.
During the First World War Russia lost an estimated 2,840,000 to 3,394,000 war dead. During the Russian Civil War, which followed the First World War, estimates are as high as eight million war dead.
Nevertheless, diversity does have costs. In his essay, “Diversity Destroys Trust,” Jared Taylor writes, “Robert Putnam of Harvard became an academic celebrity in 2000 with his book Bowling Alone.” When Professor Putnam tried to find benefits in diversity “he found that racial and ethnic diversity destroys trust in neighbors and institutions.” He also discovered to his chagrin that the more contact one has with blacks the less likely one is to have a positive opinion of them. This of course disproves the liberal belief that proximity dispels racial animosities.
Those who maintain “Diversity is our strength,” have difficulty finding tangible benefits. Even the immigration of talented and well behaving races depresses wages.
In his essay, “The Ways of Our People,” Jared Taylor claims, “It is unlikely that the concept of noblesse oblige has non-white parallels.”
Noblesse oblige permeates Confucianism. Chapter V, Section 16 of The Analects of Confucius has Confucius saying, “Kung-sun Ch’iao possessed four virtues characteristic of Great Man: humility, respect for superiors, graciousness toward dependents, and a sense of justice toward subordinates.”
Japanese CEO’s earn much less than their American counterparts. They also manage corporations that produce better cars, motorcycles, and consumer electronics than corporations managed by those better paid American CEO’s. Unlike American corporations, Japanese corporations do not regard their employees as expendable resources to be dismissed as casually as worn office furniture.
Jared Taylor knows his constituency. He knows what they want to read. Nevertheless, when he preaches to the choir he loses effectiveness as a missionary. By overstating his case he makes it easy for those who dislike what he has to say to dismiss all of it.
Two truths emerge from this anthology. First, the different races differ significantly in average qualities that are necessary for modern civilization. Second, diversity is not a source of strength, but of social discord.
Jared Taylor warns us, “If we do nothing, the nation we leave to our children and grandchildren will be a desolated, third-world failure, in which whites will be a despised minority.”
The Second World War made the civil rights movement possible. After the revelations of the Holocaust fewer Americans wanted to believe that racial differences mattered, or that they even existed. Moreover, American Negroes had participated loyally to the war effort. Many Americans had difficulty understanding why a battle scared black combat veteran of the War could not dine in a restaurant that served men who had not been in uniform.
Nevertheless, it was not until the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court Decision of 1954 that the civil rights movement really began to influence American politics.
If We Do Nothing is an anthology of essays and reviews written by Jared Taylor during 25 years. In his essay “Brown vs. Board: The Real Story,” Jared Taylor draws attention to three facts about that decision that merit wide circulation.
The Brown vs. Board of Education decision was based on the Fourteenth Amendment, which states, “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.”
This might seem to include the privilege of attending nearby public schools, even if they are integrated. Nevertheless, Jared Taylor points out, “The same Congress that passed the Amendment in 1866 established segregated schools in the District of Columbia.”
Kenneth Clark, was a black psychologist who became famous with doll studies cited in the Brown decision. Dr. Clark pointed out that when he gave black girls a choice between taking a white doll and a black doll most of the girls choose the white doll.
Dr. Clark used this to argue that school segregation harms the self image of blacks. Jared Taylor points out that black girls who attended integrated schools were more likely to choose white dolls. He suggests that school integration is bad for the image of blacks, because they can see that most of the whites are more intelligent than they are.
Finally, those advocating school integration argued that it would improve academic performance of blacks. Jared Taylor points out that, “the average black 12th grader reads and does math at the level at the level of the average white 8th grader. This has been true…whether black students have no, few, or many white classmates.”
The Brown vs. Board of Education decision is probably the most famous Supreme Court Decision, and possibly the most popular. Jared Taylor points out that it was based on false assumptions, and that it has had harmful effects.
The most immediate effect was to promote white flight to school districts with small black populations and to private schools with hardly any black students in them at all. A longer term effect, although Jared Taylor does not emphasize this, has been to reduce the confidence of most whites in the government, and in liberal reform.
Race is the liberals’ weakest issue, and the issue where liberal hypocrisy has been most obvious. In his essay, “The Racial Ideology of Empire,” Jared Taylor writes, “Even today, the politicians and editorialists who bray the loudest about Southern redneck ‘racism’ live in guilded white ghettos and send their children to private schools.”
It is not “ignorant prejudice” that causes even white liberal parents to want their children to attend schools where the black population is small. Jared Taylor writes, “when blacks start enrolling in formerly white schools, race relations are best if the number of blacks is kept at no more than 15 to 25 percent. Research has confirmed…40 percent is the point at which things often go seriously wrong…
“Theft, violence, and insubordination of all kinds go up as the racial balance changes.”
The Montgomery Bus Boycott, that lasted from December 5, 1955 to December 20, 1956, turned the civil rights movement into a mass political movement that eventually changed the United States. Jared Taylor points out that it was less spontaneous than often believed. Rosa Parks was more than a humble seamstress. She was a secretary for the NAACP, which had planned the event for ten years.
Rosa Parks was selected because she was the kind of black person who would appeal to black church goers, partially Jared Taylor suggests, because she was light skinned.
For these reasons Jared Taylor calls Rosa Parks “a transparent fraud.” That seems a bit harsh to me. She was a skilled and successful political operative.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott also launched the political career of Martin Luther King, Jr., who was at the time a twenty-six year old black clergyman. Yes, as Jared Taylor says, Martin Luther King “was an adulterer, plagiarizer, and a Communist sympathizer.” He was also a leader of genius. Many people including me think his “I have a dream” speech is one of the greatest speeches in the English language.
Dr. King's promiscuity was unacceptable in a married man and a clergyman. Nevertheless, he does not seem to have been guilty of unwanted sexual advances. It is reasonable to assume that his advances, like those of John Kennedy, were wanted and often solicited. Men of King's fame and charisma face temptations most of us men do not.
Dr. King's plagiarism in his PhD. thesis is difficult to understand in one who developed his skill as a speaker and essay writer.
In his sermon, "How Should a Christian View Communism," which is published in his book Strength to Love Dr. King wrote:
Communism "enunciates movingly the theory of a classless society, but alas! its methods for achieving this noble end are all too often ignoble. Lying, violence, murder, and turture are considered to be justifiable means to achieve the millennial end."
https://www.amazon.com/gp/
Dr. King welcomed the support of members of the American Communist Party. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that he ever passed classified information to the Soviet Union. The behavior of King's enemies assisted the writers of Communist propaganda.
More than any other human being Martin Luther King made the 1960’s what they were in the United States. It would have been a different decade without him. He achieved his goals without terrorism and a successful guerrilla army. He lacked the ability to punish insubordination. He made people want to do what he wanted them to do. He skillfully projected the image of a humble man of God who was too good of a Christian to hate his enemies. He also had a gift for bringing out the worst in his enemies.
At any rate Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King have become secular saints. The admiration expressed for them by liberals and many conservatives is genuine. One achieves nothing by complaining that his opponents were unfair because they were more skillful.
In his essay, “Africa in Our Midst,” Jared Taylor describes the behavior of many blacks in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The official story from the mainstream media at the time was of President Bush’s incompetence in dealing with the disaster, and of blacks victimized by an indifferent white establishment. Jared Taylor writes, “robbery, rape and even murder became routine…200 officers just walked off the job…Young [black] men robbed and raped with impunity.”
The Southern Pacific Law Center quoted the end of this essay in a hit piece, posting, "Blacks and whites are different. When blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western civilization — any kind of civilization — disappears."
Typically, SPLC made no effort to refute Jared Taylor’s claims. An outspoken race realist is like a guest at a Georgetown dinner party who tells the person sitting next to him in a voice that carries that the hostess worked her way through Vassar as a call girl. Even if everyone knows that that is true – no, especially if everyone knows that that is true – that guest will be erased from everyone’s invite list.
In his essay, “Race and Literature: Why Is It Always Liberal?” Jared Taylor regrets the influence of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird while acknowledging, “It is a great novel.” He adds, “It would be possible to write a novel about a prominent white Democratic politician…who gradually wakes up to racial reality.”
Literature cannot change strong opinions. It can shape opinions that are inchoate. Millions of whites, and more than a few blacks are privately aware that the civil rights movement has not been the unqualified success television and Hollywood tell them. They might respond positively to a novel about a white married couple that is trying to raise their children while living and working in or near a black ghetto that they cannot move away from. Their children attend a high school where the percentage of blacks is much higher than forty percent.
Such a novel would include admirable blacks. Blacks after all are more likely to be victims of black criminals than are whites. The novel would also include black criminals. Powerful white liberals suffering from what George Orwell called, “money sheltered ignorance,” while sending their children to white private schools would be portrayed, not as proud of their villainy, but as morally conflicted people with good intentions.
Jared Taylor claims, “Diversity of race or tribe or language or religion are the main reasons people kill each other on a large scale.” Nevertheless, he acknowledges that beginning with the eighteenth century the deadliest wars have been fought in Europe by European whites against other European whites.
Civil wars by ethnically equivalent adversaries speaking the same language are often more lethal than international conflicts. During the American Civil War approximately 620,000 people died from combat and war related causes. During the Second World War, with a much larger population, the United States suffered an estimated 318,000 war related deaths.
During the First World War Russia lost an estimated 2,840,000 to 3,394,000 war dead. During the Russian Civil War, which followed the First World War, estimates are as high as eight million war dead.
Nevertheless, diversity does have costs. In his essay, “Diversity Destroys Trust,” Jared Taylor writes, “Robert Putnam of Harvard became an academic celebrity in 2000 with his book Bowling Alone.” When Professor Putnam tried to find benefits in diversity “he found that racial and ethnic diversity destroys trust in neighbors and institutions.” He also discovered to his chagrin that the more contact one has with blacks the less likely one is to have a positive opinion of them. This of course disproves the liberal belief that proximity dispels racial animosities.
Those who maintain “Diversity is our strength,” have difficulty finding tangible benefits. Even the immigration of talented and well behaving races depresses wages.
In his essay, “The Ways of Our People,” Jared Taylor claims, “It is unlikely that the concept of noblesse oblige has non-white parallels.”
Noblesse oblige permeates Confucianism. Chapter V, Section 16 of The Analects of Confucius has Confucius saying, “Kung-sun Ch’iao possessed four virtues characteristic of Great Man: humility, respect for superiors, graciousness toward dependents, and a sense of justice toward subordinates.”
Japanese CEO’s earn much less than their American counterparts. They also manage corporations that produce better cars, motorcycles, and consumer electronics than corporations managed by those better paid American CEO’s. Unlike American corporations, Japanese corporations do not regard their employees as expendable resources to be dismissed as casually as worn office furniture.
Jared Taylor knows his constituency. He knows what they want to read. Nevertheless, when he preaches to the choir he loses effectiveness as a missionary. By overstating his case he makes it easy for those who dislike what he has to say to dismiss all of it.
Two truths emerge from this anthology. First, the different races differ significantly in average qualities that are necessary for modern civilization. Second, diversity is not a source of strength, but of social discord.
Jared Taylor warns us, “If we do nothing, the nation we leave to our children and grandchildren will be a desolated, third-world failure, in which whites will be a despised minority.”
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