Racism

Star Parker takes on racism in her latest article. Apparently over racism is boring to her.

Somehow, I couldn't keep from looking at my watch and thinking about my laundry, despite the revelation of such bombshells as: there are still white-supremacist Ku Klux Klanners in America; there's a little town in Texas with a racist past where those feelings may still be harbored; in association tests, psychologists show that people tend to be more positively disposed toward white faces than black faces; real estate agents can sometimes tell a black voice on the phone and decline to show a property.

I should note at this point that Parker is black, lest you get the wrong idea.

So if whites screwing blacks over is boring, what kind of racism does Parker find interesting and troubling? Whites trying to help blacks.

. . . there is indeed racism under the surface in our country today that we're neither really aware of nor willing to admit.

It's a racism of diminished expectations. A racism that says blacks still need special treatment in education and job placement, that we can't give black parents freedom to choose where to send their kids to school, that we can't let low-income black workers build wealth through a personal retirement account, instead of paying Social Security taxes, because they won't know what to do.

This is the racism that will keep this community disproportionately in trouble.

These are three different issues; affirmative action, school vouchers, and Social Security "reform." The first one is directly related to race, the later two do not. It's nice to note that Ms. Parkers position on affirmative action is more or less the same as those Ku Klux Klanners, albeit for different reasons.

Star Parker may be sincere on how school vouchers will help Black Americans - but on Social Security she is being a bit disingenuous. She's on record as being opposed to social security entirely - so this talk about personal retirement accounts is, at best, Parker settling for half a loaf.