Since the New York Times unlocked Times select it has become possible to once again gain some insight into the cognition of traditional liberalism. Bob Herbert can be relied upon to take the proper liberal positions on all matters related to race in America. He reliably supports all of the traditional liberal prescriptions for dealing with issues of poverty and race. Today he comments on the campaign by Bill Cosby and Dr. Alvin Poussaint, a Harvard Psychiatrist, to discuss the critical issues for Black Americans as delineated in their book, Come On, People: On the Path From Victims to Victors. Dr. Poussaint and Bill Cosby focus on the absence of the father:
... Speaking about the epidemic of fatherlessness in black families, Mr. Cosby imagined a young fatherless child thinking: “Somewhere in my life a person called my father has not shown up, and I feel very sad about this because I don’t know if I’m ugly — I don’t know what the reason is.”
Dr. Poussaint, referring to boys who get into trouble, added: “I think a lot of these males kind of have a father hunger and actually grieve that they don’t have a father. And I think later a lot of that turns into anger. ‘Why aren’t you with me? Why don’t you care about me?’ ”
The absence of fathers, and the resultant feelings of abandonment felt by boys and girls, inevitably affect the children’s sense of self-worth, he said.
This is a description of the dynamics of object hunger and externalization which underlie much Black rage. The core of one's self-identification are the internalized object representations of childhood. A child without a father often feels acutely abandoned, creates explanatory fantasies for the abandonment (he doesn't love me because I'm not lovable) and remains deeply conflicted about his own self-worth. The damaged self cannot thrive with such pain and anger directed at itself and externalizes the disappointment to the outside world. Thus it becomes the world which treats him poorly; it is the world that is racist and hateful toward him. Combined with the relentless message from our PC-infected schools that they are always wonderful no matter how poorly they do, young Black boys and men are ill equipped to accept responsibility for their short comings and cannot tolerate disappointment or rejection. Cosby elaborates:
“You can’t land a plane in Rome saying, ‘Whassup?’ to the control tower. You can’t be a doctor telling your nurse, ‘Dat tumor be nasty.’ ”
Racism is still a plague and neither Mr. Cosby nor Dr. Poussaint give it short shrift. But they also note that in past years blacks were able to progress despite the most malignant forms of racism and that many are succeeding today.
“Blaming white people,” they write, “can be a way for some black people to feel better about themselves, but it doesn’t pay the electric bills. There are more doors of opportunity open for black people today than ever before in the history of America.”
Bob Herbert's description of the authors' conclusion is clear, though it is not at all clear if he agrees with Dr. Poussaint and Bill Cosby, or if he appreciates the implications of their conclusion:
It’s a tough book. Victimhood is cast as the enemy. Defeat, failure and hopelessness are not to be tolerated.
Hard times and rough circumstances are not excuses for degrading others or allowing oneself to be degraded. In fact, they’re not excuses for anything, except to try harder. [Emphasis mine-SW]
I have written on a number of occasions about the toxic effects of victimhood on its victims. Once you see yourself as a victim and allow yourself to be defined as a victim, personal passivity, externalization, and impotent rage ensue. (See here, here, and especially here.)
The obvious conclusion to draw from this is that policies which reward victimhood and punish initiative are having, and will continue to have, deleterious effects on the very people they are designed to help. Typical liberal policies, which generally reward failure and discourage the self reflection which is a prerequisite for true change and ultimate escape from victimhood, are helping to destroy the Black community in America. A great many have escaped poverty and failure; the Black middle class is burgeoning, with Black home ownership at all time highs (though the sub-prime melt-down is likely to have a painful impact on the lowest end of the middle class), yet for the poorest and most damaged Black Americans, the repetitive message that the only thing standing between them and the success to which they are entitled is white racism and a system designed to keep them down. Such a message is a terrible disservice to both White America and Black America.
It would be interesting to see how Bob Herbert could reconcile his devotion to traditional liberalism and the message that Dr. Poussaint and Bill Cosby are conveying. One wonders if Herbert even notices the contradiction between what he espouses and what he approvingly describes in his op-ed piece today.
A couple of weeks ago I attempted to discuss affirmative action with a friend of mine who is a thoughtful liberal and a lawyer. I asked him about the possible negative impact on Black law school students and their very high failure rates, which have been provisionally attributed to affirmative action and the mismatch between students and appropriate law schools. I asked if he would be willing to support more research in this area; after all, if Blacks were actually being harmed by affirmative action, wouldn't a well meaning person want to take a second look at the idea? I further asked, if this did prove to be true, would he reconsider his support of affirmative action? This man, never at a loss for words, simply turned his back on me and began to talk to a third person at the table. He has had minimal tolerance for my political views since I turned toward support of the war in Iraq and have subsequently questioned many liberal shibboleths, but his complete inability to address my questions suggests that he has no response. To think about such things is simply impossible, so it is just not done. To quote an authority on the subject of computation, when the data are too contradictory, the only response seems to be, "This does not compute." Better to not think about the implications of reality than to question one's most deeply held beliefs.
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