The civil rights sophistry

Shelby Steele has an excellent piece on the difference between civil rights and gay/feminist/obese/etc. "rights." Barry Goldwater turned blacks against the Republican Party when he opposed the civil rights laws in the 1960s. These laws needed to be passed, but Goldwater was right on a number of points. No law can make other people respect someone they don't like, whether that dislike is racist or just based on idiosyncrasies. I remember thinking that a lot of blacks had unrealistic expectations for these laws, because even when you have full civil rights, you aren't guaranteed success and popularity. The successs of the black civil rights movement has also enabled a number of charlatans, like Jesse Jackson, who started as an activist but turned into an extortionist. A lot of blacks who received the benefit of affirmative action seemed to have more rage toward American society during the next three decades than their parents did in the 60s.

Perhaps the biggest negative fallout from the civil rights movement is that everybody else who could imagine themselves as victims has tried to jump on the bandwagon. That belittles the crimes that this country has committed against Negroes, and perpetuates a pernicious misunderstanding of the whole concept of civil rights. Read Steele's piece.