Having some fun, added some links, seeing Yo la tengo tonight, bitching about this and that ...

Racial blindness in American politics

There is an article that has been making the rounds for several months that attempts to explain the degeneration (yes, that is the appropriate word) of the French nation by pointing out its problems with North African immigrants. In a nutshell, it explains that these immigrants are a major source of social problems in France that the government has no ability to solve. Instead, the government concedes. Whole neighborhoods go without proper policing, and law and order are effectively nullified. This reality extends into foreign policy, where the Quai d'Orsay cannot make moves that would anger the Muslim population of France.

As I pointed out in my original response, this is hardly unique to France. The United States has been saddled with a racial problem that it has been unwilling to solve for several decades. There has been little help for the black America, whole sections of cities are under-policed as priorities are still shifting to protect property rather than to deal with crime, people are concentrating themselves in gated communities to keep out (racially-based) crime, and a major income gap is developing between whites and blacks. Has this affected American foreign policy? There is much evidence that says it has. On the one hand, for much of the Cold War the United States never placed an army in Africa. The prevailing concern was that, during the period of integration of the armed forces, black soldiers would not respond well to being ordered to kill African blacks who were engaged in nationalist struggles. Africa was the major theater of operation for the struggle against communism, and yet the US would not act as it did in Southeast Asia or Central America. Instead in relied on funding rebel armies, such as Savembi's Unitas, or using the white-dominated South Africa Army to conduct its policies, especially in southern Africa. On the other hand, African American political organizations and political alliances have worked to change policy toward Africa in order to prevent US intervention. (See "The influence of Black Americans on US policy toward southern Africa," in African Affairs 79.317 (Oct 1980) p. 585-598, and Wellington Nyangoni, United States and Foreign Policy in South Africa.)

Current concern about the aforementioned article is that one of its errors, among many, is that France is weighed down because race is still an issue. The implication is that it is no longer an issue in the US. If there was ever any lesson to be learned from the Holocaust it should be that he who ignores race as a political factor is a fool. Because a new generation of Americans have decided to ignore racial issues does not make them dead. I would not say that someone should choose their politics because of their race, but they cannot ignore it. Colin Powell, for one, seems able to grasp this as he maintains involvement in several African American organization that would appear to be alien to his conservatism.