Why the Race Problem Bedevils the Right

More than any other issue, racial militancy shows how the Left still sets the agenda, and the Right just tags along.

In a recent 2-hour interview with Tucker Carlson, Steve Sailer, an “expert” on America’s persistent racial problem, addresses every aspect of the race issue except the important one. Obviously intelligent, articulate, and an able researcher, Sailer discusses many features of the problem thoughtfully and thoroughly. The omission therefore is not an oversight. He ignores it intentionally because he is afraid. He knows that the wrath of powerful people will come down on his head, and he will be cancelled and ostracized from polite political company in no time.

The continued degradation of black America (which is real, as Sailer reluctantly acknowledges) is not caused by racism, as the Left wants us to believe. But neither is it caused by — well, the Right does not really know what it is caused by; they do not bother to provide any explanation of their own, except to say — over and over — that it is not racism. Just look at all the generous social programs we provide, from which people of color benefit more than anyone.

The Right could provide a very plausible and powerful explanation, one that would put them on the moral high ground and give them a strong political advantage over the Left. For in fact, everyone knows full well why black America continues in a perennial state of immiseration: the systematic destruction of the black family. There is no debate about this. And that is precisely the problem: there is zero discussion about what causes it or what can be done about it.

Tucker Carlson, who is no shrinking violent, also knows this is true, and I believe he would like to discuss it openly. Over the years, I have heard him slip in little asides about the black family and fatherlessness into his commentaries on crime and urban decay,¹ even before he was canned at Fox News. Years ago, he invited me onto his show to discuss my book, Taken Into Custody, but that was just before he was canned at PBS. So he too is well aware of the dangers. That is why the little asides never become extended commentaries, let alone thorough investigations.

I have explained elsewhere how radical Left groups like Black Lives Matter use inflammatory racial rhetoric as a diversionary tactic to deflect attention from their real agenda which is sexual and aims quite deliberately to further decimate the American family, starting with the African-American family — starting, above all, with the African-American male. And for their part, the Right is quite happy to have their attention diverted.

Why is this so dangerous to discuss? Because the black family has been systematically eviscerated, and the black community degraded and impoverished, not by segregation or slavery but by welfare — that is to say, by government officials with a self-interest in eviscerating them. In other words, it is caused — not alleviated — by those generous social programs for which we pat ourselves on the back.

That degradation and impoverishment is rapidly spreading outward to the American family generally. The welfare machinery that is responsible — in many ways the first “deep state” and the blueprint for imitation elsewhere — has expanded and sunk its talons into middle-class families by the radical subterfuge of unilateral and involuntary (“no-fault”) divorce.

And here you are venturing into dangerous territory indeed. Challenge this and you will come up against very powerful people: the divorce industry, the bar associations, prosecutors, the welfare lobby, the single-motherhood lobby, and politically mobilized women on the Right as well as the Left — all the people with a pecuniary interest in family breakdown and its attendant plethora of social pathologies. Both the bloated welfare machinery and the lucrative divorce regime are owned and operated, first and foremost, by feminists and quasi-feminists.

If you want to know why, you will find the answer in my new book, Who Lost America? Why the United States Went “Communist” and What to Do about It. And you will also find more: You will come to understand not only why this persistent, apparently intractable problem of American society never improves but only becomes worse, decade-after-decade. You will also learn how it played a decisive role in the ascent of the radical Democratic Party junta to power.

---

Stephen Baskerville is Professor of Politics at the Collegium Intermarium in Warsaw.  His books and recent articles are available at www.StephenBaskerville.com.

1. In one commentary, after blaming leftist mayors and Soros-bankrolled prosecutors for the explosion in violent crimes, Carlson adds that “disintegrating families, that’s the real reason”.  And later, “Maybe these people need a father at home, the nuclear family.”  But that is the end of it.  No further discussion.  Subject changed. No follow-up videos – ever.  But if that is “the real reason,” why does Fox News not explore that and what to do about it?  (Carlson’s subsequent dismissal may answer that question.)

Likewise, Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute in May 2020, explains why “Savagery is spreading with lightning speed across the United States, with murderous assaults on police officers and civilians and the ecstatic annihilation of businesses and symbols of the state.”  Keen to exculpate police from unfair accusations of racism, she asks,  “Why are the Minneapolis police in black neighborhoods?” in the first place.  “Because that`s where violent crime is happening,” adding: “and the breakdown of the black family that drives it.”  But having identified the central cause, does MacDonald then pursue it?  No, she too abruptly changes the subject.  But if that is what “drives it,” why are we not discussing that?  MacDonald’s Manhattan Institute, which claims to specialize in urban social problems, studiously ignores what she herself identifies as the principal problem.

Numerous similar examples could be cited.