Stereotypes Are So Old School
I was born in 1954 and personally observed how the civil rights and feminist movements changed America’s public conscience (Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Roe v. Wade) and America's private conscience (old-fashioned stereotypes declined with successive generations). Millions of ethnic minorities and women now own successful businesses, and millions more have climbed pay-and-power ladders in the private and public sector. This is true and wonderful, but seems lost upon left-leaning cynics, who fearfully imagine Adolph Hitler's reincarnation at any minute.
This explains why The Resistance has attacked black rapper Kanye West's support for Donald Trump and possession of a MAGA cap: they are so busy demonizing a black Trump supporter, they have not bothered to really hear Kanye, who is no stereotypic Uncle Tom. His political views are cogent and consequential: “Right now we’re choosing to be enslaved. The mob tries to make all blacks be Democrats for food stamps and stuff. This reality has been forced upon us, [but] it is a choice. I said 'slavery' is a choice [and] we can make our own reality [because] we can only talk about history [for so] long. We need to talk about our now, because we can fix [it] and start loving each other now.”
Isn’t Mr. West making a reasonable case for self-determination and personal responsibility? He advocates a new approach to elevate black Americans (a reasonable suggestion after America's 50-year-war on poverty created more wards of the state - not fewer). Talk about inconvenient truths: West criticized Obama as “the opioid to our pain [because] he pacified us. We talk about race so much we don’t even talk about class. There’s a class war happening right now, and the class war is one of the reasons why Trump won – because Obama was so high class that [he] stopped speaking to the lower and middle class." Obviously, Kanye did not get the DNC talking points memo.
Kellyanne Conway, the victorious female electioneer, has repeatedly explained the Trump campaign was based on situational politics because working-class Americans were turned off by identity politics. Ms. Conway triumphed, but self-proclaimed progressives ooze with contempt for her because she does not fit their stereotype of the woman that would mastermind the first successful presidential campaign. Sadly, leftist cynics proclaim female Trump employees as feminist sell-outs. To wit, Michelle Wolf disparaged Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ womanhood at a televised dinner party: “What do you call white women who disappoint other white women?”
Nothing could be more illiberal than progressive attacks on a black man (West) and white woman (Conway) for focusing on the situations – and not the identities – of lower and middle-class Americans. West knows best his race has not prevented him from competing with white musicians for audience and sales. Conway knows best her gender did not prevent her from running a conservative candidate’s campaign based on situational politics to defeat a liberal candidate’s campaign based on identity politics. Two super-successful Americans refuse to be stereotyped: so-called progressives should listen to them with genuine curiosity. Perhaps Kanye and Kellyanne are the face of real American racial and gender progress.
Is it just me, but wasn't racial and gender liberation supposed to end stereotypes? The Voting Rights Act protects a black man to support the candidate of his choice; therefore, Kanye West is free to not be pro-Democrat. The Roe v. Wade decision protects a woman's right to choose; therefore, Kellyanne Conway is free to support a pro-life candidate. Was it really progressive when The Resistance publicly urged Kanye West's Twitter followers to drop him because of his election decision? How is this any different than Dixiecrat business owners holding black employees at work until the polls closed (blacks could either vote or get a day's wages)? Mr. West is being pressured to vote a stereotypic way and he should resent the attack upon "his" voting rights.
I remember the days when a black man could not grasp an NFL playbook and lead a championship team. This stereotype was shattered by Doug Williams, who set NFL passing records in Super Bowl XXII (1988) when his Washington Redskins trounced John Elway’s Denver Broncos 42-10. I also remember the days when a woman lacked the intestinal fortitude to command armies and lead a great nation to military victory. Maggie Thatcher dispelled this myth by holding fast and defeating Argentina’s general and president, Leopoldo Galtieri, who surrendered to Great Britain. This is how stereotypes die: when great individuals shatter the stereotype by achieving success that exposes bias and prejudice as ridiculous.
Liberal pundits have correctly reported that white-supremacist Richard Spencer hosted a party after Donald Trump’s election, but does that amount to proof of overwhelming whitelash in November 2106? I believe white supremacists exist, but they don't disprove Martin Luther King’s seminal observation: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” In spite of Hillary Clinton’s claim of defeat by a conspiracy of racists, sexists, homophobes, xenophobes, and Islamophobes, America is far more just in 2018 than it was in 1968. Back in 1968, black teens were forced into combat by the draft and women could not attend West Point. Today, black teens enter an all-volunteer military and a woman is cadet captain (leader) of the West Point student body. That is real and consequential progress - and it cannot be disputed.
Kanye West and Kellyanne Conway are iconic Americans and the result of civilization's leading edge, where an economy and culture is driven by liberty (being free to do something) and opportunity (abundant economic possibilities). Equality is the outcome of liberty and opportunity working on such a grand scale that a rising tide lifts all boats. President Kennedy’s words are true, and Kanye West adds we must all paddle our own canoes because poor Americans (of every race) cannot food-stamp and welfare-check their way to the American dream. Mr. West wants equal liberty and opportunity and, as a self-made man, he knows there is no such thing as equality of outcomes.
It is a most illiberal politician or pundit that would restrain Kanye West’s freedom of thought or Kellyanne Conway’s freedom of behavior. If the moral arc is to continue bending toward justice, then a black man must be free to criticize the welfare state and a white woman must be free to work for an imperfect president. If the stereotypes of the past were wrong, then new stereotypes cannot take their place.