August 05, 2015
Colin Quinn
Quinn particularly likes Puerto Ricans, although his depiction of their accelerated life history might explain a little about why their test scores are so low:
Puerto Ricans are walking contradictions. On the one hand, they”re religious and family oriented. On the other hand, they are hypersexualized from the age of about eleven…. Puerto Ricans would have full-fledged relationships in sixth grade. We would go on a class trip, and while I was looking at some dinosaur they”d be furiously making out inside a prehistoric turtle shell…. They would be arguing over infidelity at thirteen, living together at fourteen, and parents by fifteen.
And then there are the Arabs, who aren”t big on observational humor:
Arabs are the most intense people on earth…. If you start a joke, “You ever notice when people do X?” and mention something annoying, you don”t hear laughter. You hear stony silence, and then, “Why would you allow that impudence to go unpunished?”
Quinn’s chapter on Jews is particularly worth reading. It begins:
I”m cautious with this section, because I know that Jews are the only ones who are actually going to read this book.
In his view, Jews dominate the media today because “They”re the only ones who care.” Granted, sometimes Jewish control of the culture gets out of hand and becomes bad for art.
If you kill a guy like [Mel Gibson] over a couple of anti-Semitic remarks, you reinforce all the beliefs that the Jews control the business and will take you down if you mess with them. I mean, even if it’s true, you don”t want to make it that obvious.
On the other hand:
Without them the whole country would be like Branson, Missouri. Go to a cultural center anywhere in the country, no matter where, and even if there are no Jews it’s the Maurice and Florence Rosenthal Center for Art of Wyoming, the Herman and Lillian Tannenbaum Historical Museum of NASCAR of Rural Arkansas.
The Jewish critical attitude is key. Jews encourage each other to offer well-considered judgments on quality:
Jews only listen to other Jews anyway, so this is falling on deaf ears, I realize that…. Their big word with each other is “recommendation.” Do you recommend we go see that show? You say it was a good resort but would you recommend it?
The urge to ask questions helps drive Jewish business success as well:
They have to understand how the system is set up. To get anywhere you have to incessantly ask for explanations…. Jews are here to remind us that it’s okay to ask Why? How much? Who owns this? How come he owns it? How hard could it be? You do the paperwork, you get the loan, you get the license, you get the documentation, you find a manufacturer and a shipping company, and you open up a store, what?
In contrast to Coates” overt antiwhite animus and covert negrophobia“the poor soul grew up terrified by black bodies, whose bad behavior he publicly blames upon people who believe they are white”the worldly Quinn is confident that we can learn from each other’s strong points (and even from each other’s mistakes). Of course, as the success of Coates demonstrates, Quinn’s pro-diversity optimism is falling ever further out of fashion.
