The 100-Yard Dash and End to Hyphenated Americanism

Race?  You Mean Like the Preakness?

We were informed today of something that I have had a hard time getting my head around for, well, since someone at the Census Bureau first announced this would happen, maybe 40 years ago; namely the current birth rate for minorities now constitutes more than 50% of births.  So, the minority is the majority?  I don’t really know how that works.  So, I read on. 

Just a little further in the article I read that ‘non-Hispanic whites’ will be outnumbered in the US by the year 2042.  That makes me ask the question: what is an ‘Hispanic white?’  That would seem to be obvious, but it isn’t to me, and here’s why: just a month or so ago we were all introduced to a Mr. Zimmerman down in Florida, who is, we were told, a ‘white-Hispanic.’  In as much as there needs to be a distinction ‘white Hispanic,’ there must also be a distinction ‘non-white Hispanic,’ (not to be confused with a ‘non-Hispanic white’).

Well, if you ask me, someone with the name ‘Zimmerman’ (good, solid ‘Hispanic’ name there…  Huh?) who must then be further described as ‘white Hispanic’ so that we ‘know’ what he is (and what exactly is he?) has pretty much reached my definition of a product of the ‘melting pot.’

But that hardly fits the story line someone is trying to sell.  Someone wants to stir up the pot.  What is the point of putting a headline “RACIAL TIPPING POINT” on the front page?  Is this a plea for some group in society to start procreating at a higher rate?  Is it a call for forced sterilization of another group?  What possible sane reason exists to even track this weird information?  Particularly given the inane reality that they force themselves to identify a man named Zimmerman as a ‘white Hispanic.’  Why not call him a ‘tanned German?’

Is this of any value whatsoever?  Well, sure.  It stirs up people to perhaps buy more newspapers and news magazines, listen to another insipid news talk show populated by folks who have nothing better to do then reproach the average taxpayer, and it creates more room for discussion and regulatory action by bureaucrats and policy wonks.

See, there is the problem.  You want to know who is keeping racism alive in the US, who really works at it on a daily basis?  Two key groups: the Federal Bureaucracy (start with the Census Bureau, and then make your way to Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Education – they are all awash with figures on every possible weird brake-down of society by races and castes and shoe size and bowling scores, and when you are done with them, take a hard look at the mainstream media.

Meanwhile, I sat and asked myself this morning if I knew anyone of one race.  I also asked my self if I can define anyone as a pure color.  I did have a good friend in college who was black, his name was Azubekay and he was from Nigeria – med student, great guy, skin the color Indian ink.  Everyone else I know I would say is some tone of khaki – some are dark khaki, some are light, some very light.  So what?  What does that prove?  Everyone has some goofy mix of ancestors; me, I’m descended from Irish, Portuguese, some French and Canadian (or so I was told as a kid – never really researched it).  So what am I?  Well, I’ll tell you, I’m an American.  I’m not Irish-American, I’m not Portuguese-American, I’m not anything else, just an American.  You want to know what race I am?  I’ll stick with human.

Think about this: if the press had reported only that ‘Treyvon Martin was shot by Mr. Zimmerman,’ would we perhaps view that incident with a slightly different perspective?  Who benefited from reporting the tragedy in this manner?  (What is certain is that the nation as a whole did not.)

As for the Census Bureau, maybe they should focus on something else.  Maybe just focus on getting the basic count right. 

As for me, I really don’t care where you came from, who your great grandparents were, or how much melanin is in your skin.  (We all have melanin; in fact, with very few exceptions (spiders), all creatures have some melanin in them.)  Ancestry, besides being a fun topic of conversation at a cocktail party (“I’m the 9^th cousin of Jesse James” (I’m not, but it would make for a few minutes of interesting conversation)) and for the sake of certain specific medical conditions, tells me nothing about you.  You are who you are, irrespective of who they were.  You parents might be criminals, and you might be a great doctor or jurist or inventor.  Alternatively, your grandparents might have been geniuses and philanthropists and you are a slothful delinquent.  Does it matter if they were born in Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea Bissau or Guyana?  How?  How does it matter?  And your skin color?  Maybe we should test for it so we can determine if someone is a ‘white Hispanic’ or a ‘non-white Hispanic,’ or a test to measure melanin content.  What could that possibly prove?  What benefit to society would that provide?  I hope that sounds as insane to you as it does to me.

More than 100 years ago President Roosevelt (T.R.) called for an end to ‘hyphenated Americans.’  He called for people to stop viewing themselves as ‘Irish-American, Dutch- American, German-American and simply view themselves as ‘Americans.’’  His call is more important today then it ever was.  The wonks and clowns in Washington, and in the media, may not understand that, but it is up to us to stress it.  The next time someone asks you your race, choose ‘other’ and write in ‘American.’  If you have a chance to talk to someone, do your best to make them very uncomfortable for asking what is truly a racist question – let’s stop this foolishness right now.  It is certain that neither the government nor the media want to stop it; so it’s time we just took care of it ourselves.

(It is perhaps worth noting that if you reach back 40 generations you have more than 1 billion ancestors – more than the total population of the world 8 centuries ago – which means that, mathematically speaking, we are all 40^th cousins or less.)

Mariano Rivera - Excellence Personified

I'll begin by saying that I’m a life-long Red Sox fan, and therefore am genetically disposed to hate the Yankees.  That being said, what happened Thursday night is terrible: Rivera, out shagging flies before the start of the game, ran into the wall and tore his ACL, certainly ending his playing for the year and possibly ending his career.

For anyone who loves baseball, or sports in general, or is just a ‘student of the human condition,’ this is a sad thing, sad because Rivera is, in his chosen profession, what we should all strive to be: someone who loves what he does and does it as well as he possibly can.  That Rivera also does it as well as anyone else has ever done it is (or was) for all of us to enjoy.  Even as a Red Sox fan, who has more than once seen Rivera ‘nail the coffin shut’ on the Red Sox, watching Rivera come in and get 3 outs was watching a true master at his craft.

Whether it is sports, watching Messi nonchalantly tap in the ball with his heel, or Brady lead the Pats down the field for a score with just a minute left in the game, that kind of artistry is every bit as magical as listening to Yo Yo Ma or Itzhak Perlman (a devout Mets fan), and thus his loss for the rest of the year and perhaps permanently is a sad thing.

I have written elsewhere about the loss of Junior Seau, and obviously the death of Junior Seau is a much greater loss then a torn knee.  But Mariano Rivera and Junior Seau shared this: they were true masters at their craft, they not only played with brilliance, they loved what they did and in that lay the roots of their excellence: they loved what they did and worked as hard at mastering their craft as anyone else in their respective game (or art).  They are examples to us all in anything we do.

Here’s hoping Mariano returns to play next year, even if it is bad news for the Red Sox.

Victory In Afghanistan?

The list of ‘old saws’ about Afghanistan is long and storied (my favorite being ‘Graveyard of Empires.’)  They are of course, like many clichés, a little bit of truth but also a good deal of nonsense.  As with most clichés and pithy comments about war, they sound good, but after some simple investigation they are often found wanting.

Afghanistan has a long history of having been conquered, but, as the pundits will quickly point out, it ‘is never really conquered,’ and sooner or later ‘throws’ off its conquerors to emerge once again, unconquered, wild and free (fill in your own modifiers).  The problem with this kind of thing is that it can be said for virtually any country on earth that has been conquered, unless one thing happens – which I’ll get to shortly.  The great Prussian theorist on war (Clausewitz) had it right: in war, nothing is permanent.

Thus, we beat the snot out of Japan – but they re-emerged.  Germany was pummeled and pounded until the rubble bounced; it is now the powerhouse of Europe.  Over the last 3000 years Italy has been conquered so many times we have all lost track – still there.  How about Belgium and the Netherlands?  Virtually ground into dust twice just in the last century, but back with a vengeance.

When it comes to unlimited wars – wars in which the leadership of one country eliminates the leadership of another country – there are only a few possible ‘successful’ results:

1)                     Remove the leadership, establish a new government, and then leave.  The period following the establishment of the new government can be short or long, but once you leave, you give the country back to its original inhabitants.  We just did this in Iraq.

2)                     Remove the leadership, destroy the country, turn it into a wasteland, and depart.  If someone wants to move in, fine.  Tried by the Mongols quite successfully in several places in central Asia, and by others throughout history.  Again, once the conquering army departs the surviving locals will move back in.

3)                     Remove the leadership and then colonize the country.  This will be successful only if you bring in LOTS of colonists – the one exception I mentioned above. Of course, if you don’t bring lots of colonists you will be buried by population inequalities.  No matter when you look in history, the issue of level of effort in colonization is the key to long-term success.  For example, Persia conquered much of modern Turkey in the 5 century BC, but there was no large-scale colonization.  When the Greeks under Alexander swept out the Persians, they were gone.  And the Medes and the descendants of the Hittites returned to local power.  The British ruled India for more than 100 years, and established a British style government and culture on top of the Hindu and Mogul influences.  But the British eventually left and the Hindu culture and the Indian people have returned.  Conversely, the European conquest of both North and South America was so dominant not because of any determination to ‘wipe out’ the American Indians or Aztecs or Incas, but because millions of Europeans colonized the two continents.  The French tried to colonize Vietnam, but the numbers were against them.

4)                     Remove the leadership, but don’t eliminate them; later share power with them.  Not really unlimited warfare, it ends the war before the leadership has really been destroyed.  Once the old leadership returns to power they will re-establish themselves and their old country – as soon as the would-be conquerors are gone.  This is what the US appears to be ready to do in Afghanistan.

The point here is that every country can be ‘conquered’ if the would-be conquerors are both able and willing to commit the necessary resources.  But in the long term, which in the eyes of reporters without some historical context, is supposed to mean ‘for ever,’ ‘conquering’ (in that context) only really occurs when a nation is destroyed and its people displaced.  In this regard Afghanistan is no different then any other nation.  Its one distinction is that fewer people have really cared about the area for any extended period of time.  Genghis Khan and his sons controlled the area until their dynasty unraveled; the Moguls controlled the area for several centuries; the British paid dearly for the area, but eventually controlled it as much as they needed and wanted to.  Only to the extent that the Mogul emperors moved people in to occupy, live in, colonize and rule Afghanistan did the Moguls extend their rule in time further then the others.

But Afghanistan is no different then Fiji in this one thing: if no one colonizes it, it will revert to its origins.  So, if you want to look at it that way, you could label Fiji with all the same adjectives and adverbs that get stacked up in any wonk’s discourse on Afghanistan.  And it would be as meaningful.  (This should also be noted when the conversation of “American Empire” comes up; the term invariably is associated with the British, French, German (and a few others) efforts to grab land and establish colonies in Africa, Asia and the Americas.  The US has never attempted to establish colonies and the difference is critical.)

All this is important as we look at what our government is now trying to do in Afghanistan and whether it can succeed.  In 2001 we removed Mullah Omar and the Taliban, and their symbiotic/parasitic allies al Qaeda, from rule.  But the Taliban, and Mullah Omar, remains alive and viable.  We have now made it clear that we will negotiate with them, and though we have hedged our bets a bit on the negotiations, the Taliban have recognized that we are not trying to eliminate them.  The opportunity for their return is therefore very much alive, and if we were to place a bet on it, probably better then even odds.

As far as the US being there for another 10 or 15 years – it will be trying for the soldiers sent to Afghanistan during that decade, and their families.  But, from the perspective of a nation making an investment in its own security, which is ostensibly what the US is doing, that is more or less a minor investment.

But whether we stay for 15 years or 50 (as we did in Germany), the following will still be true: the same people live there, and the same political movement – the Taliban – will still exist, unless the people of Afghanistan eliminate it.  They – the Taliban - will certainly be willing to negotiate a power-sharing arrangement with Karzai and the government in Kabul, recognizing that once they are back in power, even if only partially, they will then have a free hand in regaining control.  And, it is worth noting that Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban, is 53 years old.  In 2024 he will be 65, certainly young enough to rule.

As for how, or whether, the US intends to continue to influence the power struggle in the region, between India on one hand and Pakistan and China on the other, it remains to be seen.  Is the US departing Afghanistan with an implicit understanding that Pakistan will do a better job of keeping Afghanistan under control in the next several decades then it did in the 1990s?  Is the US confident that political culture in Pakistan has advanced to the point that the country is stable enough to move forward, nuclear weapons and all, without the continued implied pressure from the close presences of US forces?  Is the US confident that the Chinese presence in Pakistan, which has been growing steadily over the past 10 – 15 years, will not be used to upset the political equilibrium and leave India convinced of a need to act in its own interests?  Are we comfortable with the developing strategic conundrum of three nations – India, Pakistan and Iran – that are (or will soon be in the case of Iran) nuclear powers, with each sharing an uneasy to sometimes-hostile relationship with the other two?  These and a host of other questions may or may not have been considered as the current administration hastened to sign a deal and enunciate a way forward in Afghanistan and South Asia.  But all of these issues will remain for years to come, long after the agreement penned in Kabul a few days ago is long forgotten.