June 20, 2017

Source: Bigstock

For generations, leftists have tried to sell the concept of the “€œdictatorship of the proletariat”€ as a necessary “€œcorrection”€ to achieve a more just society. Let the blue-collar slobs be the bosses for a while, and soon society will become fair and equal. Of course, what we”€™ve seen in practice, time and again, is that the resulting dictatorships unleash a frenzy of bloodlust, as the disenfranchised (or those who self-pityingly see themselves as such) indulge their basest desires for revenge against those they fairly or unfairly hold responsible for every setback or slight they”€™ve ever faced. And of course, in every communist dictatorship, what we eventually find is that the “€œrevolutionary”€ leaders who emerge are rarely actual long-suffering peasants. What you end up with is a new elite made up of new exploiters. And now that the left has tweaked the dictatorship plan, replacing “€œproletariat”€ with “€œpeople of color,”€ we already see a new elite taking shape. Who leads the fight for the re-folding? Privileged middle-class elitists, people of “€œair-quote”€ color like Shaun King, Ivy League students, pampered actors. At least when retributive discrimination was employed during Radical Reconstruction, the black folks who benefited had been genuinely wronged by the old system they were trying to bury. But today’s re-folders? They”€™ve lived privileged lives. Read their list of grievances: “€œa white woman looked at me funny when I stepped on her yoga mat,”€ “€œa professor told me I was late to class,”€ “€œa white person told me “€˜everything’s going to be okay.”€™”€ These bozos are anything but oppressed. What they want is not justice, but the right to abuse and control.

Last year, when a black student at San Francisco State University harassed and assaulted a white student for sporting a “€œracially offensive”€ haircut, the first thing that came to my mind was a story that groundbreaking (and racist) filmmaker D.W. Griffith loved to tell about his father, “€œRoaring Jake”€ Griffith, an embittered former Confederate colonel. Feeling humiliated and victimized by the loss of his “€œlost cause,”€ “€œRoaring Jake”€ would sometimes take his aggression out on his former slaves. In D.W.’s favorite anecdote, a former “€œhouse nigger”€ who, after the war, worked as a barber made the grievous error of cutting a Griffith family member’s hair “€œNorthern style”€ (short-cropped, as opposed to the longer locks favored by Southern dandies at the time). Enraged at this “€œculturally inappropriate”€ haircut, Roaring Dad chased the “€œerring nigger”€ around with a sword until he was “€œscared pale.”€

SJWs would argue that there’s no comparing the two stories. The barber, they”€™d assert, was powerless, whereas today’s whites, like the kid who got a whuppin”€™ for his “€œinsensitive”€ hairdo, are not totally disenfranchised. And indeed, they are not totally disenfranchised…yet. That’s my point. The re-folders are starting where they can”€”college campuses, classrooms, the workplace, the newsroom”€”and they”€™ll expand their efforts to whatever degree the law and public (white) forbearance allow. The eventual goal of the re-folders is to be able to wield the exact same power, and exhibit the exact same sadism, as D.W. Griffith’s dad. It’s a long-term goal, but not necessarily an unattainable one.

The future the re-folders envision is poisonous, and back in 1986, I”€™d have laughed at anybody who suggested that large numbers of Americans would one day seriously pursue it.

I”€™m certainly not laughing now.

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