Historical Guilt

Historical guilt is an interesting phenomenon, as is the related question of how long — and how much and what kinds of penance — it takes for it to wear off. This reflection on historical guilt is induced by a long series of increasingly vituperative comments on an interesting post by Joanne Jacobs, many of which debate the degree of Republican guilt, and subsequent hypocrisy, for creating majority/minority voting districts, i.e., racial gerrymandering.

I believe that it is right to point a finger of blame at the Republicans for their leading role in creating majority/minority districts, but it is wrong to imply that critics of racial gerrymandering and racial preferences in general have given them a pass for their atrocious behavior. I’ve written about his a number of times, most recently here, which cites earlier posts as well. But, as that post demonstrates, Roger Sweeney and others are also right to emphasize that the Democrats are more than complicit in this travesty of principle (although one could certainly argue that the Democrats, having abandoned the principle of treating individuals without regard to race, were not behaving in an unprincipled manner, which the Republicans certainly were).

But it ill behooves a controversialist to point fingers and shout “You started it!” when the party he defends not only went along with the “it” in the first place but still endorses it while the responsible party has (for the most part, but not completely) abandoned the practice and its defense.

Why not, for that matter, blame the Republicans today for starting racial preferences? It is perfectly clear that the first major federal support of race-based hiring was President Nixon’s “Philadelphia Plan,” (implemented by Secretary of Labor George Shultz) just as it is perfectly clear that one of Nixon’s overriding motives was the partisan goal of driving a wedge between blacks and unions. Liberal Democrats such as Rep. Edith Green of Oregon, one of the staunchest civil rights supporters in Congress, were aghast at this program and a vociferous and perceptive critics of it.

I regard the “Philadelphia Plan,” and especially the defense of race-based action that it engendered, a tragedy, but equally if not more tragic was the Democratic Party’s quick abandonment of the colorblind principle articulated in that debate by its own liberals like Edith Green.

History certainly deserves its due, but after a certain point it also deserves to be regarded as, well, history. Otherwise we would still be denouncing the Democrats as the party that gave us slavery, secession, segregation, lynching, and the poll tax and praising the Republicans for freeing the slaves.

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  1. Richard Nieporent July 13, 2004 at 11:14 pm | | Reply

    And the Republicans (Bush I) are responsible for the American Disabilities Act. You would think that the Republicans would have learned by now about the law of unintended consequences.

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