Expressing The Obvious Amid Cries Of Rage And Dismay

     I wrote, some years ago:

     In our modern lexicon, a taboo is a legally or socially enforced prohibition against speaking openly of certain things: usually, particular topics considered offensive by a politically privileged group....One must ask why some subjects are tabooed. The answer is simple, but enormously daunting: to speak of it is to invite inquiry, which threatens the perquisites of the group behind the taboo.

     The most important examples relevant to contemporary American life pertain to groups that have been accorded “victim status.” Such groups sometimes wangle privileges from the law. Others are granted a degree of forbearance for antisocial or illegal behavior that persons outside the group would not receive. In either case, the rest of us are enjoined by social mechanisms – usually denunciation as an “–ist” – from speaking of the privilege and its consequences.

     Allow me a penetrating (if vulgar) quote from the late Florence King:

     Did your Congressman fuck a Doberman on the steps of the Capitol? He’s guilty of bad judgment, not dog-fucking. Who said anything about dog-fucking? Where in the world did you get that idea? Dog-fucking has nothing to do with dog-fucking. It’s a question of bad judgment, and if you don’t agree, you’re not only an –ist, you’re a –phobe.

     And of course, the screaming will double if it was a male Doberman.

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     In light of the tabooing mechanism mentioned above, consider this story reported by Paul Kersey:

     What does social capital look like in a 92 percent black community? This… [Enclosed aisles of goods at Kroger angers Metro Atlanta customers, CBS46.com, September 25, 2019]:

     COLLEGE PARK, Ga. (CBS46) — Stereotyped, intimidated, racism, and uncomfortable, all words used by shoppers to describe their shopping experience at a Kroger in South Fulton.

     “I think it’s kind of racist you definitely see that here on Old National,” said a mother of three who had just finished shopping.

     College Park Kroger shoppers are upset over a new security installation leaving them to feel stereotyped.

     “You won’t see that in Fayetteville or maybe Cobb County anywhere, doubt it,” said the mother.

     The security installation only has one entrance.

     Many took to social media to voice their anger at what they say feels like shopping in a prison just to buy toiletries or laundry detergent.

     We asked the City of South Fulton for crime rates at the store but did not get an answer in time for this report. However, shoppers were more than happy to tell us about the amount of theft at the store.

     Please read it all.

     A great deal of theft in that Kroger’s moved the franchisee to create extra security around the most frequently stolen items. You or I might have done exactly the same. But in College Park, Georgia, it’s “racist.” What makes it racist? The surrounding community is black – meaning that its adults, who are probably mostly law-abiding, neglected the upbringings of their progeny and don’t trouble to discipline them when they go bad. And that must never, ever be expressed, whether by word or by deed.

     Yet the same consideration had forced two Kroger’s stores in Memphis to close completely. The same conditions applied there, too. And once again, there were cries of outrage:

     Memphis City Councilwoman Jamita Swearengen is claiming Kroger pointed to theft as a reason for closing one of its stores.

     At a news conference Friday afternoon, Swearengen recounted a phone call said she had with a Kroger representative on Tuesday.

     She said the representative cited millions of dollars in losses over a three-year period at the Lamar Avenue Kroger as the reason for closing it.

     “I then asked, ‘What was the contributing factor?’ She shared, ‘Mostly theft,'” Swearengen said. “I was in disbelief because this is the community that I live in and this is the Kroger where I shop.”

Jamita Swearengen:

     I’ve written about this on many other occasions. It’s one of the unspeakable truths about “diversity.” It propels more relocations and geographic reshufflings – legal, sotto voce segregation, really – than any “respectable” analyst is willing to admit.

     But I’m an unimportant Web essayist. What candidate for public office would be willing to say any of this? What “respectable” social analyst would say it from behind a lectern in a public forum?

     And what future has race relations in these United States if it isn’t addressed with appropriate clarity and vigor?

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     To the best of my knowledge, only one generally respected black analyst of cultural affairs, the great Walter Williams, has dared to address the fatuity of shouting “racism!” over entirely reasonable efforts by white Americans to defend themselves against predation by (mostly) young blacks. Professor Williams was shouted down for it. He was called a “race traitor” – what else? – for speaking a forbidden thought. But worse, he dared to state that real racism is about differences in rights and privileges granted by law. In his view, racism is in force if one race is allowed to do what others are not, and nowhere else.

     Under the Williams formulation – with which I agree, just in case you were in any doubt – where does racism function in these United States, and in which race’s favor?

     Paul Kersey could tell you.