Kathleen Parker tries hard to reframe King’s remarks as an expression of reasonable concern.
King’s comment came in the form of a tweet, apparently in support of Geert Wilders, the Dutch nationalist politician hoping to become prime minister of the Netherlands following Wednesday’s election.
Both Wilders — who once called Moroccans “scum” — and King do seem cut from the same cloth. Both men are apparently concerned that immigrant encroachment is posing a danger to civilization as we know it, especially among certain recurring arrivals, including: (1) Muslims, whose faith is sometimes used by certain fanatics to justify murdering the rest of us; (2) people from a variety of nations who, importantly, do not have white skin, or, inferentially, Western values coursing through their veins.
To the Kings and Wilderses (and Trumps?), the problems are obvious and undeniable. Even to the less knee-jerk, the fast-changing demographic landscape has created at least some level of discomfort and uncertainty. Suddenly, the majority has to ponder the imponderable: Who, me, a minority?
She goes on to explain that he’s stupid and careless, but gosh, he’s not an extremist. He is literally and explicitly reciting far-right racist RaHoWa rhetoric, but he’s just being rude — we have to remember that the real problem is that our white majority is currently experiencing discomfort and uncertainty. Steve King’s were repugnantly stated, but what we need is someone who can express those sentiments more craftily.
What is needed are new voices to articulate these fundamental concerns, recognize them with respect and work toward solutions that don’t require that our neighbors be marginalized. This would seem especially compelling to those now considering what it might be like to become a minority in their “own” country.
Oh, fuck that noise.
In a few years, people of European descent will no longer be a majority in this country. That should mean nothing — demographic shifts like that happen all the time, and they don’t necessarily disrupt the political continuity of a country. The USA does not have the same demographic makeup that it did at its founding; there was a dearth of Italians and Swedes and Irish signing the Declaration of Independence, you know, and even worse, no black Americans were asked to join the revolutionary committee.
What’s making some white people uncomfortable is that they’re used to shitting on minorities, and they’re thinking that minority status equals being treated like dirt, from their own example. And they, and columnists like Parker, are trying to normalize that feeling as being perfectly normal. It isn’t. It shouldn’t be.
You don’t need someone capable of gently and wittily articulating your racist backbrain as something justifiable. You need to grow the fuck up and recognize brown and black Americans as your brothers and sisters, and slap down these racist assholes who can’t recognize this true, instead of making excuses for them.
The problem with being an asshole when you’re on top, is paybacks when you’re not. White America would do better working for a “soft landing” rather than doubling down but some people just won’t figure that out until it’s too late.
It was just a matter of time.
The headline of the article is fucking ridiculous too.
But he didn’t speak stupidly and he’s not particularly ineloquent. His sentences were perfectly fine and understandable. He certainly wasn’t careless. He said exactly what he meant and later confirmed it. He hasn’t issued an apology asking people to pardon him for speaking carelessly.
People like her just love to be apologists for racism by telling us the person just spoke carelessly. What a coward. Just say what you’re really thinking.
Oh, the tragedy!
@1: “The problem with being an asshole when you’re on top, is paybacks when you’re not. ”
True, although that’s avoidable, to some extent. I just think that creating a national dialog about white privilege and white fragility is not going to happen, because privilege and fragility, of course. The most we can hope for is that local communities that aren’t captive of the racists will start that dialog locally. Maybe it can spread.
Parker is still around? I thought she got kicked out of the right-wing club for daring to question a man. Is she trying to get back in? Still considering what she said about Atheists after 9/11, I don’t care much what she says (except for how some people believe her claims).
So the underlying argument here is that Steve King makes a few minor mistakes in proper grammar, and that obviously means that he’s totally ineffective in communicating and so the statements should be contorted until they’re reasonable. Also, it’s totally reasonable that white people see the country as belonging to them specifically and extrapolate the bad action of one minority to all of them, that doesn’t make them white supremacists.
Clearly the Washington Post’s standards aren’t up to what they used to be.
Oh yes, that’s exactly what Wilders does. Express some legitimate concerns of the common people. That have been ignored by the leftist elite for far too long. You know the concern, that “our” country is not “ours” anymore. That’s all. It’s not racist. Nosir.
I don’t feel any more culturally connected to King than he does to me, and I’m a privileged white guy. What scares me more than the ‘immigrant hoard’, is the Republicans I’m surrounded by. What binds us as a country isn’t what we look like or what we believe. It should be an ideal,- which requires effort of thought, not just habit and ritual.
If history is any indication, white people will never be a minority in America.
Whenever white people are about to become a minority, the definition of “white people” is changed to be slightly more expansive, guaranteeing that a majority of Americans are considered white.
First, the Irish were reclassified as “white.” Then the Germans and Swedes. Then the Italians. Eventually, even the Greeks and Russians became “white.” So who wants to take bets on which group will be reclassified as white next?
@1, Marcus Ranum:
When have white people ever not been on top?
Even if the definition isn’t changed to preserve white-majority status, it’s not like white people dipping to 49% of the population will suddenly dismantle the many institutions built entirely on white supremacy. Given a preexisting larely-white right-wing government to enact gerrymandering and voter suppression, white people can dip well below half the population and still cast a majority of the counted votes and that’s before you consider the institutional and cultural inertia that we’d need to overcome even if the government were controlled entirely by non-white liberals.
What I’ve been saying for a long time.
I have nothing in common with Steve King and his backward western Iowa culture and civilization.
It’s a dim relict of our past, more similar to the anti-German and anti-Catholic Nativist movements of the 1800’s.
And it is already a small minority of the USA. White fundies only make up 18% of the population.
And…I already live in a white minority civilization. It’s called California. Nine states including Texas are already white minority.
Big deal. The world hasn’t ended.
The people who are refusing to assimilate and join the 21st century are…Steve King, the fundies, and those racist pig and corn farmers in western Iowa.
Great Zimbabwe, Angkor Wat, precolumbian Americas, and other civilizations, cultures, places, and times immediately come to mind.
It’s a minor point since I agree with your overall argument, but
This isn’t true. You see Census projections that white folks won’t be a majority in the US by 2050, but that’s because the Census essentially uses the “one drop” rule when it comes to defining “white people”. If you’re a person born to someone who identifies exclusively white and another person who identifies as something else (even if it’s both “hispanic” and “white”), you get counted as a non-white birth even if you personally grow up and identify as “white”.
brett I cannot read his mind, but I am quite sure that King fully agrees with the one drop rule. You’re only white when you’re pure white. Better watch those birth rates!
we have to remember that the real problem is that our white majority is currently experiencing discomfort and uncertainty.
I might be slightly more sympathetic if it weren’t for the fact that the people who are most worried about becoming a racial minority are the very same ones who have most strenuously denied the existence of systemic racial discrimination in this country.
It will be longer than that.
The US is 62% white.
The US census projects that to go below 50% in 2043.
Studies show the main driver of Trumpism was sexism and racism.
It wasn’t to Make America Great Again.
It was to Make America White Again.
It isn’t going to work.
Even if you deport a few million Hispanics and limit nonwhite immigration, that just slows it down very slightly.
Steve King keeps saying we (meaning someone else) needs to get the white birth rate up.
That isn’t going to work either.
Who in the hell would want to reproduce in Steve King’s cartoon version of America anyway?
Even in his district, young white kids grow up, look at Steve King, look at the adults, and move to Los Angeles. His district is losing population due to refugees running away.
Harban:
I’m torn between Arabs and Latinos getting invited in first.
Steve King is so busy freaking out that nonwhites live in the USA, that he has missed another danger.
A danger to his tiny, fearful mind anyway.
14% of new marriages are interracial and that percentage is going up.
While his kind are sending the goon squads around to arrest Hispanics, their kids are marrying them.
There is a large hole in his Make America White Again bucket.
And it is no big deal.
In a century or two, most people will be mixes of one group or another.
Don’t forget, Obama is…half white.
Any day, I’m expecting the neandrathals in a GOP-dominated legislatures in one of the southern cracker states to propose the reintroduction of miscgenation laws.
“Western civilization” and “western values” include basic freedoms like freedom of speech, religious freedom, and freedom of expression, all of which Wilders opposes. So no, he might claim to be “concerned” about those things, but he certainly isn’t, in fact he is a danger to those very freedoms.
That boat sailed quite a few millennia ago; in fact, I’m not sure there was ever a time when the entire human race wasn’t “mixes of one group or another.” “Race” is sufficiently ill-defined that saying “Obama is half white” is meaningless. His mother was not 100% white and his father was not 100% black.
Given that we’re all descended from people who lived only on the African continent, I’d say the USA is already majority black. The problem is people who self-identify as “white” and cling desperately to that definition.
Bigots in this position always come to the wrong conclusion because the start from the wrong place.
In this case, King is looking at the way he treats people who are different from him, I.E. Minorities, and thinking :”Wow! Minorities get treated horribly by the Majority. I better never let myself end up in the Minority.” Which is, of course, immoral and wrong.
If you begin with the position that you will pursue a policy of equality and fairness to all then you really don’t need to pursue a bigoted policy of racial exclusion.
The problem with white supremacists: their own pathetic nature negates their premise.
Various people here have already made points against this actually meaning anything, but there is something else – as I understand it, what this actually means is that the racial grouping of ‘caucasian’ will no longer be larger than every other racial group of the myriad of racial groups that make up Americans combined. It does not mean that white people will be a ‘minority’, per se, it simply means it won’t be a very, very, very clear majority. It will still be the largest single racial group in America by quite some margin. So, even if there was any real cause for concern about white folks becoming a minority in America (which, as far as I can see, there isn’t), there still wouldn’t be cause for concern here.
@11, blf:
Clarification: When have white people occupied a non-privileged position in a society?
I thought that was obvious in context.
@16, numerobis:
Both of those are broad categories on par with “Europeans.” It’s unlikely either will be reclassified as white in one go.
@20, bobmunck:
Race is sufficiently well-defined that we can say Obama’s mother was white, Obama’s father was black, and Obama was black.
Race isn’t defined by ancestry; it’s at most loosely connected to it. Race is pretty much entirely a function of how society treats you— you’re not “black” because you’re descended from people who lived in Africa; you’re black because you’re far more likely to be arrested for driving in a “nice” neighborhood (even if you live there), denied a job in favor of someone manifestly less qualified, shot by a cop who presumes you’re dangerous, and a million other little things that mark you as an “other” who lives in society but doesn’t really belong in it.
That’s true of the layman definition, but this is a science blog, at least the parts that PZ writes (and others), and I was talking about the impossibility of a scientific definition. It’s quite true that most people define it the way you describe, but they generally think that they’re defining it by ancestry.
It is this part of the current argument that I find so irritating
Oh man! I really fucked that blockquote thing up that time sorry
uncle frogy
I’m very disappointed with Kathleen Parker’s attempt to defend Steve King given the fact that this is not the first time he’s made racist comments. This is a Confederate-flag waving, White Supremacist.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/steve-king-nearer-the-throne/519336/
The whole notion that white people no longer outnumbering everyone else will be some kind of turning point in race relations is a silly one. Racism and hierarchical oppression are not issues of numbers. In Apartheid South Africa there were far fewer whites than blacks, but divisive racist policies abounded. There is no reason to presume that the same would not be true of a United States with a different demographic make-up in coming decades.
Likewise, an area with very little ethnic diversity is not necessarily going to be full of racists and bigotry. It’s a question of historical attitudes and the development of cultures of power and oppression. The US has those in abundance, and progress is only going to be made by dismantling and replacing them.
So basically the virulent racism in South Africa before 1994 should give Trump supporters reason for optimism. Super.
Jessie Harban @ 24
Al-Andalus, maybe? Though they weren’t necessarily at the bottom of the social ladder either.
Of course, people living in Iberia between the 8th and 15th centuries CE constructed race differently to the way we do now.
like say…. Scott Roeder.
and I’ve got another name for Kathleen Parker to remember…
Anders Behring
now tell me. who has killed more people in Scandinavia?
muslims, or right wing tighty whities?
amazing how Roeder isn’t even being mentioned any more. and by amazing I mean, disgusting, dishonest, wanna rip my hair out…