Race relations are difficult, sometimes agonizing

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Race relations are difficult, sometimes agonizing. The harmony for which the country yearns is not at hand, and may never be achieved. Because whites are generally blamed for making race into such an enduring problem, white racism has become not just a moral failing but the worst moral failing. Our society forgives sexual misconduct, abuse of office, dishonesty, and incompetence far more readily than it does any action by whites that could be described as “racism.”
At the same time, promoting diversity is a way for whites to demonstrate virtue. Diversity policies benefit non-whites by encouraging their immigration, employment, promotion, or admission to university, and to support diversity is the most readily recognizable way of demonstrating opposition to racism. For whites, diversity therefore has moral rather than practical goals, and this is why it does not require justification in ordinary terms. Americans attribute unrealistic, exaggerated benefits to diversity because they support it for emotional rather than rational reasons. They call it “America’s greatest strength” not because they have weighed all of America’s strengths and come to a rational conclusion about which is greatest. They are expressing an emotional commitment to something they feel they must support in order to prove they are not racists.

Jared Taylor

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