THE DISCUSSION continues in the entry, “What Destroyed Detroit.” Bill R., who has eloquently held his own, responds to a reader who says Africans, when comparing themselves to American blacks, are “very glad to be in Africa.” Bill writes:

With all due respect, it is utterly the opposite. Let me begin by drawing your attention to a book review recently published in The Wall Street Journal of a book called Searching for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora by Emily Raboteau. Miss Raboteau appears by all accounts to be, in her political beliefs at least, a rather predictably liberal American black academic (or mixed race, according to the article), convinced, for example, that race is nothing but a social construct. The reviewer describes the book as “the author’s decade-long attempt to discover just where, if anywhere, an African-American might feel at home.” Suffice it to say for the present that her quest turned out to be something of a disappointment. To quote one passage from the article, “Many Ghanaians she speaks with—some of whom appear to still own slaves—concur. Most are incredulous that blacks from the U.S. should wish to come back. At one point a taxi driver mistakes her for a white woman and launches into an unchecked tirade about blacks: ‘These blacks truly expect too much. . . . Don’t they know that if tomorrow a slave ship arrived at Elmina to carry us to America, so many Ghanaians would climb on board that this ship would sink to the bed of the ocean from our weight?'”

The comment by the Ghanaian seems to have some bearing in truth. In a 2009 Gallup poll, 165 million people, or 38 percent of the sub-Saharan population, said they would migrate permanently, predominantly to white countries, if they could. However, that’s not a majority, to be sure. Obviously many Africans do prefer their own environment.

— Comments —

Steve D. writes:

In all the wrangle over what’s responsible for the chaos in Detroit, I’m surprised nobody has given any thought to using the analogy of AIDS.

Nobody dies of AIDS; they die of cancer, or pneumonia, or weird opportunistic diseases that are vanishingly rare in people with healthy immune systems.

Let’s assume that the current orthodoxy regarding HIV infection and AIDS is true. (A lot of people don’t agree, and I’d rather not get into that question…so let’s pretend.) In the political analogy, HIV is liberalism. It creates a condition in which civilization is vulnerable to a host of pathologies that do not plague healthy societies. As a civilization, we have lost our ability to respond to social pathology, because of an infection by liberalism.

Black rule is one of those pathologies. In a healthy civilization, the presence of blacks, even in large numbers, is not necessarily of any consequence, because there are still mechanisms in place that act as a check against the kind of harm they can cause. A good example of that is South Africa before apartheid was abolished: whites were but a sliver of the population, and South Africa was still the richest country on the continent. That’s because the whites ruled, majority be damned. If I remember correctly (if I don’t, I’m sure someone will correct me), blacks actually thronged to get into, rather than out of, South Africa.

Democracy is also a pathology. Liberalism mandates that the majority has the right to rule…and not only to rule, but to make the rules. Under democracy, everything is politicized; no issue exists that can’t be properly addressed by putting it to a vote. Human rights vanish; moral standards and fiscal principles disappear like healthy T cells, and Detroits pop up on the map like skin lesions. Sure, it happened quicker in Detroit because of long-term black rule. But blacks don’t rule in Greece: white Greeks do, and they exhibited the same tendency to short-sighted greed and moral blindness that brought Detroit low. That’s because those character flaws are part of the human condition; they’re found everywhere, and require moral standards to keep them in check. But liberalism is the rejection of moral standards.

Think of it this way: without liberalism, the governor of Michigan would have sent in the National Guard sometime in the middle of Coleman Young’s first term and restored order in Detroit. The city would be run by the people who know how to run it (and they’d be mostly white). The streets would be safe because the consequence of criminal behavior would be swift and effective retribution. Blacks would probably still have the same rates of legitimate births and educational attainment that they had in the 1950s…whatever those were.

So there you have it. Liberalism is HIV–a very bad thing. Black rule is Pneumocystis carinii–another very bad thing. One creates the conditions that allow the other to kill. Which is to blame? Why not acknowledge that it’s both?

Dnr writes:

I agree with Steve D’s analogy that the initial infection of liberalism creates an environment ripe for all sorts of parasitic pathologies.  The analogy is spot on.  However, I must take exception to one point – that “liberalism mandates that the majority has the right to rule…and not only to rule, but to make the rules. Under democracy, everything is politicized; no issue exists that can’t be properly addressed by putting it to a vote.”

Liberalism is a totalitarian ideology, hiding behind a happy-face mask.  The majority only thinks it is making the decisions – in fact, all decisions are orchestrated by a select few who will not readily relinquish power to the whims of the “majority”.  The fact that issues are even put to a vote is part of the smokescreen, intended to pacify the masses by thinking they actually have a say.  If the liberal elitesdon’t like the results of the vote, they merely change the results – poof!  “We found ballots in the trunk of a car!” or fraud erupts with absentee ballots, ignoring military/overseas ballots, etc.   By the way, it should be obvious that only godless liberal elites rule and make the rules under this ideology, NOT the majority of citizens, and certainly not the majority of God-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding, and hardworking citizens.  This is what makes liberalism so ultimately dangerous, it is the gateway to anarchy and resulting totalitarianism, as we see evidenced in cities across America, most notably the sad and sorry case of Detroit.

Hannon writes:

While Buck and Bill R. are engaged in a separate tangent, I must agree with Buck when he writes:

I wish that I had the time to parse Bill R.’s comments. I’m packing to leave for five days. It’ll have to smolder. …. Bill has called me out by name repeatedly, as if I personally set his hair on fire. He makes claims from my assertions that I don’t make, and connects them to things unsaid. It will take time, which I don’t have, to put his disparate thoughts in order.

I wish I were packing to leave for five days but I will give Bill’s comments my attention now, as I am able.

The problem with not qualifying comments carefully enough– and mine was a comment, not an argument– is that the reading between the lines can go in various directions. For that I apologize. Still, Bill R. made some unwarranted assumptions. I am certain that many Africans who are aware of the condition of American black culture generally would not trade theirs for such a state, even if it is accompanied by an exponential jump in opportunity for material success they could never realize in their home countries. This would not hold for all of them obviously. One must ask, how many in Africa have any more than a rudimentary awareness of “black life” in America, and what picture of this life do they hold in their minds? Color TVs regardless of income level, endless welfare benefits, the freedom of easy abortions and out-of-wedlock births (something north of 80% of U.S. black births), freedom from tribal warfare (sort of) or maybe affirmative action? I was speaking of Africans who have some realistic understanding of these issues and also the dark side of American black social dysfunction, criminality, poor health, and family disintegration. How does one anyone compare these against African river blindness, famine, tribal warfare, or fantastically corrupt governments? As in the U.S., I assume that those Africans living in large cities are worst off in many regards, while the large numbers living agrarian lifestyles and retaining their social traditions are relatively healthier and happier. Which group gets polled in questions of migration matters a lot. Citing a Ghanaian predilection– Ghanaians we can safely assume are at the bottom of their own society– to crowd onto a “slave ship” bound for America is hardly an antipode to my point here.

Bill R. has taken “successful relative to Detroit” in the wrong spirit. People generally seem to assume that African societies are all basket cases yet they do not exhibit the horrors of black bastions like Detroit (or Chicago, Memphis, etc.). They have their own horrors and these may be indigenous or post-colonial, but they are not the result of modern liberalism. The horrors of black culture in America are the result of modern liberalsim combined with native tendencies and abilities. My initial comment, “What destroyed Detroit was the combination of a localized black majority in a white-run liberal society…” restates this point.

“But that does not mean all racial groups are equally skilled at securing that order and success.” Nor are distinct groups (ethnicities, clans, tribes, etc.) within racial groups equally skilled in these things. I have not made or implied this case at all.

“But I question just how “very diverse” sub-Saharan Africa really is (socially speaking, of course).” Could the peoples of this huge area be of low diversity “socially speaking” in spite of their great racial and ethnic and cultural diversity? Somehow I doubt it. I am by no means proficient on the subject but I do know that populations of Africans from the Sahel to the Cape are most definitely diverse in many ways. West Africans, who are the antecedents to most American blacks, have been compared in their appearance and physiology to the strikingly different Masai of East Africa for instance; Ethiopians, with their ancient Christian traditions and churches are a distant relation to the pastoralists in Botswana and Namibia. The “pygmy” peoples, who a friend tells me are extraordinarily affable and friendly people, live a unique hunter-gatherer culture. No, Bill R., the statement by the Ghanaian taxi driver is not enough, not by a mile.

Bill R. makes a good point that “black dysfunction” should not be viewed only as a problem that arises when it is embedded in a dominant, higher-functioning society.  It seems to me, as it must to Bill R. also, that Africans tend to carry around their social disabilities wherever they go and they can’t shake them at home in Africa either. This stands out even on a small scale, as on the Caribbean coastal areas of various countries and in enclaves in other parts of the world. But I don’t see how leaving an impression, which is as much the reader’s responsibility as the writer’s, should be called “simply wrong”. Usually such language is employed against specific factual assertions. In this case my main assertion is that liberalism enables or enforces the worst social outcomes for people who inhabit the lowest tiers of civilization. This idea does not negate the deep social or biological problems in modern Africa.

I’ve read bits of Paul Theroux and his findings are most interesting. I don’t believe I have taken issue with anything he has written, though I may be a little less pessimistic overall regarding possibilities for the future.

Laura writes:

Perhaps the Gallup Poll I cited is more indicative of African attitudes to this country than the comment by the taxi driver, which obviously is a colorful exaggeration. While 38 percent said they would migrate permanently, over 60 percent said they would not.

Bill R. writes:

Hannon writes: “In this case my main assertion is that liberalism enables or enforces the worst social outcomes for people who inhabit the lowest tiers of civilization. This idea does not negate the deep social or biological problems in modern Africa.”

Okay, I can accept that. Once again I feel there really wasn’t as much disagreement after all with a fellow Thinking Housewife contributor. And I can also agree with Hannon’s characterization of my accusation that he was “simply wrong.” He is right. That was overstepping on my part and I apologize. We’re talking about impressions and interpretations that are assembled from many facts, information of an anecdotal nature, etc., and all from many difference sources. It’s also a matter of degree and one’s sense of how much degree in a given direction it takes to, for example, call someone else’s situation a “hell” (or a heaven). And I am certainly no expert either on Africa nor, for that matter, on race. I’m but a dabbler in the subject matter, really, and even that is fairly recent.

When I expressed my suspicion of how “very diverse” sub-Saharan Africa was I wasn’t referring to such things as local customs, tribal traditions or rituals, or things of that nature. My suspicion regards its alleged diversity as to the general level of social functioning. On that, Hannon says, “Could the peoples of this huge area be of low diversity ‘socially speaking’ in spite of their great racial and ethnic and cultural diversity? Somehow I doubt it.” Somehow I don’t. First of all, I don’t think there’s much racial diversity in sub-Saharan Africa. Ethnic and cultural, okay. We certainly know the Hutus could tell themselves apart from Tutsis. But let’s step outside race for a moment. Consider how diverse individuals can be who are nevertheless all poor, all existing within the same narrow band of annual income. Doesn’t stop people from being as different as daylight and dark even though their level of social functioning remains pretty much the same. There’s no reason not to believe that groupings of the same individuals can do likewise, especially where genetics and evolution have fixed many distinguishable traits among those groups we identify as members of different races. Now, certainly, there is a correlation between the level of social functioning, on the one hand, and the level of mental and intellectual functioning that it going to be more likely to show great individual variation, on the other. Nevertheless, people can still be simple and yet vary greatly from person to person. But, again, this is a matter of degree. It would appear Hannon thinks the correlation is greater than I do.

Nevertheless it’s hard to buck the logic of a high positive correlation between social functioning and the mental functioning that is most likely to give rise to substantial cultural diversity.  Therefore, I just don’t believe there’s as much cultural diversity in Africa as Hannon seems to think there is.

I believe that black social functioning is pretty much at the same level throughout all of sub-Saharan Africa, and that level is very low.  Furthermore, I believe that Africa’s cultural diversity, at least as we understand cultural diversity, is not all that great.  However, I confess that this is little more than a hunch on my part.  But look at the AIDS epidemic in Africa, for example.  The reason our multiculturalist, liberal-control media talk about Africa’s AIDS epidemic, and not this or that African country’s AIDS epidemic is not because they’re being deliberately insensitive to Africa’s “great cultural diversity;” it’s because there’s a uniformity of genetically, socially, and culturally determined black behavior that is consistently putting them at high risk for the disease.  And that behavior is similar enough wherever you go in Africa that it makes sense for even a liberal multiculturalist to speak of Africa’s AIDS epidemic instead of Nigeria’s or Kenya’s.

Hannon writes, “It seems to me, as it must to Bill R. also, that Africans tend to carry around their social disabilities wherever they go and they

can’t shake them at home in Africa either.”

Just so. With that, it appears, from my perspective, that we essentially agree on the main issue. That was my salient point. I thought perhaps Hannon was trying to say that, in large measure, black dysfunction was but an epiphenomenon of the corrupting influence of Western liberalism. Apparently that’s not what he was trying to say. At any rate, in articulating my position, it has been my desire to emphasize that I consider black dysfunction an unavoidable consequence of their general level of mental functioning as a race, for example the fact of an average IQ of 85 for American blacks. (For African blacks I have read it’s actually 75, which apparently presents something of an oddity for researchers because such an IQ in a white Westerner is generally associated with serious functional, if not genetic, disturbances such as Down’s Syndrome, whereas African adults with IQs of 75 are fully functional and normal within their environments, i.e., that they have no genetic disorders and are not retarded, not that they behave well.)

I also think blacks as a race, wherever they are in the world, have other traits and tendencies that are genetically determined, such as a high sex drive (in the males at least), impulsivity, proneness to violence, diminished capacity for empathy, limited abstract thinking ability (including as regards time, e.g, future planning), and a reputed high score on psychopathic scales.

And I agree with the theory that these racial characteristics (which, of course, being an average still allows for the full spectrum of variation on the individual level) evolved for the same reason all characteristics evolve, because they were best suited to their environments. If traits or advantageous social or mental skills evolved it was because they were needed in that environment. And if they didn’t evolve it was because their existence would have been unnecessary if not, indeed, an actual non-adaptive incumberence. For example, Laura noted earlier the plentifulness of food in Africa. It negated the need for greater mental ability to tackle the problem, which existed in the the colder climates of Europe, of maintaining a sufficient food supply all year, which meant needing to learn how and when to grow food, or cleverer and more efficient ways to kill it, how to preserve it after it was killed and store it, etc. Similarly with the sex drive. Africa’s great threat to its human inhabitants was not starving but being killed off unpredictably by disease. The evolutionary answer; high sex drive for high birth rates to compensate. In Europe, with the unpredictable vicissitudes of disease less prevalent than in Africa, evolution placed a premium on parents spending more time with less offspring teaching them the techniques of survival (with the corresponding tendency toward monogamy also part of that particular evolutionary strategy). This made sense since survival could be taught in Europe where what threatened it was predictable and knowable and therefore amendable to being beneficially addressed with increasing mental ability. There were no mental skills to address the unpredictability of disease anywhere near the reach of any of our species alive on earth at that time, so that was not an evolutionary option for those who lived in Africa.

Most of Africa has always been geographically and biologically (i.e, disease, animal predators) a crude, rough, and brutal place to live, at least by our modern standards, and if the traits that evolution selected as most adaptive for its human inhabitants were also in many ways crude, rough, and brutal, well, it seems to me that should hardly be surprising.

Blacks came by their social pathology if not honestly, at least naturally. (This does not let them off the hook morally because they are still rational beings with free will, not to mention it doesn’t generally improve behavior when human beings are let off the hook.) What I blame the most is the political and cultural atmosphere created by white liberals who have made it impossible to address black dysfunction in any meaningful, rational way at all, but simply to babble on pointlessly about it in the form of lies, obfuscations, elephant-in-the-room denials, and emperor’s-new-clothes euphemisms. White liberals represent an entire class of social pathology unto themselves. How, I wonder, did they manage to evolve?  And what is their excuse? They’re going to have to come up with one someday because the world will not stomach them forever and it’s going to want answers. As with a poison, it will have to either vomit them up or perish.

Good discussion. Compliments to all involved on the seriousness of their thinking and its articulate rendering and, most of all, compliments to Laura Wood on an outstanding website on which to share it.

Alex writes:

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