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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 1, 2024

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Seems pretty stupid. It wasn't Asian empowerment that put someone like Ketanji Brown-Jackson on the Supreme Court - it was good old-fashioned American racial patronage. The idea that black Americans are so incompetent that they can't partake in political patronage is just wildly uninformed and ignores the masterful play of figures like Jim Clyburn, who is likely responsible for Biden's promise to pick a black woman for the court, regardless of merit.

Whenever I see this kind of thing I'm reminded of what was said about the Irish... or the Italians.

To be clear, these groups ran organized crime networks that caused a ton of trouble. I don't really understand the perspective that people thought the Irish and Italians were corrupt, and boy-howdy were they wrong. Irish and Italian immigrants really did cause a lot of problems.

I mostly agree with you.

that they can't partake in political patronage is just wildly uninformed

Part of the occasional optimism on the dissident right seems to be the idea that because European colonialists found subjugating large parts of the world pretty easy in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, these people are actually naturally subservient, supposedly lack white cunning or warrior spirit and so on, and are generally less competent, and therefore as soon as the West is shaken from the slumber of white guilt it will actually be pretty easy to re-establish maintain control over everyone else, just like South Africa pre-94 for example. This is pretty specific but I’ve seen it many times, including from BAP.

Irish and Italian immigrants really did cause a lot of problems.

I recall a post here that cited some extremely high homicide rates for young Italian American men at some point in the 20th century, likely similar to those for young black men today.