From the WSJ Opinion Archives
The
Spirit of Virginia Tech
"On September 6, Virginia's own Dave Matthews Band along with John Mayer,
Phil Vassar, and Nas will join together in 'A Concert For Virginia Tech' at
the university's Lane Stadium," declares a press release from the institute:
"We're extremely grateful for the compassion and generosity of these artists who wished to create a very special event where our students, faculty, and staff can come together to celebrate the spirit and resiliency of our university community as we begin a new academic year," said Charles Steger, President of Virginia Tech. . . .
"While we obviously will never forget those lost or affected by the events of April 16, this concert will help us to honor Virginia Tech's enduring Hokie Spirit," said Scott Cheatham, president of Hokies United. Hokies United is a student-driven volunteer effort organized to respond to local, national and international tragedies that may impact the Virginia Tech community.
"Nas," whose full name is Nasir Jones, is, according to the press release, "hip hop's foremost lyricist and thinker. And, some would argue, hip hop's conscience." Here is a sample of hip hop's conscience's oeuvre, a 1999 work called "Shoot 'Em Up" (warning: unredacted obscenities at link):
One 44, two 45's
3 loaded clips, 4 niggas roll, one nigga drives
500 Benz, 6 reasons why
This kid should die
We shootin every m-----f---er outside
Pulled on his block, jumped out the car, guns in our hand
At the same time everybody ran
There that nigga go, hiding in the crowd
Let the trigger blow, 7 shots now he lying on the ground
Hip hop's conscience is helping the Virginia Tech community come together to celebrate its spirit and resiliency and ensure that we never forget those lost or affected by the events of April 16. Doesn't that make you feel warm all over?
Dating
and Double Standards
From the Associated Press:
For years, Toinetta Jones played the dating game by her mom's strict rule.
"Mom always told me, 'Don't you ever bring a white man home,' "
recalled Jones, echoing an edict issued by many Southern, black mothers.But at 37, the Alexandria [Va.] divorcee has shifted to dating "anyone who asks me out," regardless of race.
"I don't sit around dreaming about the perfect black man I'm going to marry," Jones said.
Black women around the country also are reconsidering deep-seated reservations toward interracial relationships, reservations rooted in America's history of slavery and segregation.
Let's try a little thought experiment, shall we? Imagine the story with the races switched:
For years, Muffy Smith played the dating game by her mom's strict rule.
"Mom always told me, 'Don't you ever bring a black man home,' " recalled Smith, echoing an edict issued by many Southern, white mothers.
But at 37, the Alexandria divorcee has shifted to dating "anyone who asks me out," regardless of race.
"I don't sit around dreaming about the perfect white man I'm going to marry," Smith said.
White women around the country also are reconsidering deep-seated reservations toward interracial relationships, reservations rooted in America's history of slavery and segregation.
It is impossible to imagine a reporter treating a white woman's prejudices against black men with the sort of indulgence the AP shows a black woman's prejudices against white men. The reasons for this double standard are obvious and understandable: Inasmuch as each race's misgivings about the other are, in the AP's words, "rooted in America's history of slavery and segregation," they implicate white guilt and black victimization and thus can be morally differentiated.
But they are also different in terms of their consequences. Antiwhite prejudice of the sort the AP describes is much more harmful to blacks than antiblack prejudice is to whites. This is so for reasons of simple arithmetic. If we assume that the pool of eligible men reflects the racial proportions of the country as a whole, a white woman who refuses to date black men thereby reduces her prospects by about 13%. A black woman who dates only black men reduces hers by 87%.
If Toinetta Jones's former attitude is widespread among black women, that has broader social consequences as well. As the AP reports:
[Jones] reflects many black women frustrated as the field of marriageable black men narrows: They're nearly seven times more likely to be incarcerated than white men and more than twice as likely to be unemployed.
What the AP misses is that the unmarriageability of black men is an effect as well as a cause of black women's attitudes. Competition for mates is an important incentive for young men to succeed in the economic marketplace, to be willing to make romantic commitments, and otherwise to behave responsibly. If a large number of black women are unwilling to consider dating or marrying nonblack men, this competitive pressure on black men is vastly reduced, and with it the incentive to succeed.
Compounding this effect, interracial romance does not seem to carry the same stigma for black men as it does for black women. As the AP describes it:
[Romantic opportunities are] made even slimmer, grumble many black women, by high rates of successful black men choosing blondes. For some, they argue, white wives are the ultimate status symbol.
"They don't want a dark chocolate sister laying around their swimming pool," [blogress Evia] Moore said.
Nearly three quarters of the 403,000 black-white couples in 2006 involved black husbands.
Moore's blog advocates marriage between black women and white men; it's sad that she views black men who marry white women as prejudiced against black women rather than simply as willing to broaden their own romantic horizons.
Which brings us back to our Muffy Smith hypothetical. Such a story would never appear, not only because the reporter wouldn't write it, but because it is socially unacceptable for whites to express antiblack sentiments. Stigmatizing prejudice does not cause it to disappear immediately, but surely diminishes it enormously over time. To the extent that black prejudice against whites is a self-defeating impulse, our culture's willingness to countenance it is harmful to blacks.
Yankee
Ingenuity
Fox News reports on a nifty new weapon:
It looks like a big flashlight--but it's really a nonlethal weapon designed to make you sick.
Intelligent Optical Systems, Inc., of Torrance, Calif., has been granted a contract by the Department of Homeland Security to develop what it calls the "LED Incapacitator," according to a DHS online newsletter.
The handheld device using light-emitting diodes to emit super-bright pulses of light at rapidly changing wavelengths, causing disorientation, nausea and even vomiting in whomever it's pointed at.
"There's one wavelength that gets everybody," says IOS President Bob Lieberman. "Vlad [IOS top scientist Vladimir Rubtsov] calls it 'the evil color.' "
It looks a little like one of those "Star Wars" light sabers: Use the Force, Puke--uh, Luke.
'Private
Second Glass'
That's Mark Steyn's appellation for Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp, a soldier in
Iraq who wrote a series of articles for The New Republic in which he described
various piggish behavior he claimed he and other soldiers had engaged in. TNR
claimed that the story had checked out, and is standing
by that claim--just as its former editor Michael
Kinsley did with the famous "monkeyfishing" story--even though
The
Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb reports that "a military source
close to the investigation" says Beachamp "signed a sworn statement
admitting that all three articles he published in the New Republic were exaggerations
and falsehoods--fabrications containing only "a smidgen of truth," in the words
of our source":
Separately, we received this statement from Major Steven F. Lamb, the deputy Public Affairs Officer for Multi National Division-Baghdad:
An investigation has been completed and the allegations made by PVT Beauchamp were found to be false. His platoon and company were interviewed and no one could substantiate the claims.
According to the military source, Beauchamp's recantation was volunteered on the first day of the military's investigation. So as Beauchamp was in Iraq signing an affidavit denying the truth of his stories, the New Republic was publishing a statement from him on its website on July 26, in which Beauchamp said, "I'm willing to stand by the entirety of my articles for the New Republic using my real name."
Observes Steyn:
If that Weekly Standard story is correct, it moves Private Beauchamp into full-blown Stephen Glass territory. In essence, they [TNR's editors] made the same mistakes all over again--falling for pat cinematic vividness, pseudo-novelistic dialogue, all designed to confirm prejudices so ingrained the editors didn't even recognize they were being pandered to. But this time they did it in war, which is worse.
This puts into perspective Andrew Sullivan's defense of Beauchamp last week:
Read TNR's accounting. It is as I predicted: honorable and, except for one small inaccuracy, it checks out. All the aspects aggressively challenged by the usual propaganda organs have been verified and corroborated. The military is now conducting its own investigation. Given the record of such formal investigations, I'm not as confident in the Pentagon as I am in TNR. Can we now expect apologies from the people who smeared and maligned the magazine and its soldier-reporter? I doubt it. The attackers are not the kind to acknowledge their own errors.
Sullivan, of course, was the TNR editor who hired Stephen Glass. More recently, like TNR, he switched from militant support for the Iraq war to hysterical opposition. In 2003, when Glass published a widely panned novel that was a thinly disguised work of nonfiction, Slate's Jack Shafer wrote that "Sullivan, Glass' former New Republic boss, pummeled him for profiting from his many lies and deceptions by writing The Fabulist and told Glass the only honorable thing he could do at this point was 'go away.' "
Which is exactly what Sullivan has done--though, alas, he left himself a loophole by not adding "and don't come back."
As for Beauchamp, maybe he should have learned from John Kerry and waited until after being discharged before slandering American servicemen.
Homelessness Rediscovery Watch
- "If George W. Bush becomes president, the armies of the homeless, hundreds
of thousands strong, will once again be used to illustrate the opposition's
arguments about welfare, the economy, and taxation."--Mark
Helprin, Oct. 31, 2000
- "Kevin's tailspin encapsulates a little-researched consequence of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As more troops return from deployments, social workers and advocates expect the number of the homeless to increase, flooding the nation's veterans' shelters, which are already overwhelmed by homeless veterans from other wars."--Boston Globe, Aug. 7
Breaking
News From 2003
"U.S. 'Loses Track' of Iraqi Weapons"--headline, BBC Web site, Aug. 6
'Take
My Wife, Please'
"Taliban Offer Women in Hostage Swap"--headline, Agence France-Presse,
Aug. 7
Too Bad They
Stopped Before Beijing
"Olympics Used to Highlight Abuse in China"--headline, New York Sun,
Aug. 7
That
Way They'll Last Longer
"Edwards: Freeze Harmful Imports"--headline, Chicago Tribune, Aug. 6
OK,
'Art Heist on the French Riviera'
"Repeat Art Heist on the French Riviera"--headline, Associated Press,
Aug. 6
She
Ditched the Groom at the Chapel
"Usher, Foster Wed at Lawyer's Office"--headline, USA Today, Aug. 6
If
Looks Could Kill
"Parole Board to Rule on Kevorkian Appearance"--headline, CitizenLink.org,
Aug. 6
Blood
Isn't the Only Thing You Can't Get From a Stone
"Lawyer: Rock Cleared in Paternity Case"--headline, Associated Press,
Aug. 7
At
Least They Weren't 'Amateurs'
"Report: Minnesota Cops Seek 'Professionals' Who Removed Man's Testicles"--headline,
FoxNews.com, Aug. 7
Hmm,
Maybe We'll Leave Our Old 401(k) Alone
"Police: 1 Dead, 12 Injured in Rollover"--headline, Associated Press,
Aug. 6
News You Can Use
- "Cassette Tapes Linger Long After Their Reported Demise"--headline,
Associated
Press, Aug. 6
- "Speeding, Mushrooms a Bad Combination"--headline, Oregonian, Aug. 6
Bottom Stories of the Day
- "Storms Causing Delays at Airports"--headline, Chicago
Sun-Times, Aug. 6
- "GVRD Rebranded as Metro Vancouver"--headline, CBC.ca,
Aug. 3
- "Mail Carrier Shaken by Dog Attack"--headline, InsideBayArea.com, Aug. 7
Everything
You've Always Wanted in a Blog. And Less.
Angry Left heartthrob Markos "Kos" Moulitsas, fresh from his YearlyKos
convention in Chicago, turns out to be a beer snob:
Sunday night, our little group decided to hit the Hyatt's M/X bar one last time for a nightcap before saying our goodbyes.
A couple of us wanting a beer, we asked what they had on tap. There was nothing left but Miller Light [sic]. "They cleaned us out last night," said the bartender.
So not only am I proud that we drank the convention center dry, but I'm also proud that we left the Miller Light behind.
Accompanying this is a photo of the hotel's draft beer dispenser, which has only two taps: one for Miller Lite and one for Guinness. Kos quotes a reader who explains, "The only reason the Guinness Tap is still there is that they can't just unscrew it."
This goes to show the disconnect between Angry Left elitists and traditional Democrats. The former shun the union label in favor of a brew with labor woes.
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Harry Kriz, Mark Parsons, Jim Wrenn, Dan Shifrin, Brian O'Rourke, Evan Slates, Drew Anderson, Rosanne Klass, Tom Linehan, Thomas Dillon, Christopher Anderson, Rod Pennington, Robert Elworth, Kyle Kyllan, Mike Walsh, Bruce Goldman, Gary Petersen, Don Hubschman, Doug Black, Eric Carter, John Williamson, Cris Simpson, Daniel Foty, Steve Karass and Andrew Mollen. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Ion Pacepa: Take it from this old KGB hand: The left is abetting America's enemies with its intemperate attacks on President Bush.
- Bret Stephens: Selling weapons to the Saudis is logical. But is it wise?
- John Fund: The GOP's Alaska delegation could become the new poster boys for corruption.
