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elfsWilliam F. Buckley died today. I, for one, have strongly mixed feelings about Buckley. His classism was, well, first-class, and his attitude towards those with whom he disagreed was always devestatingly polite and politely devastating. Buckley meant what he said more than most, and said what he meant better than anyone.
But Buckley was not a racist, and he has not been one for damn near the past forty years. When Lisa Schiffrin opened her big fat mouth on National Review's The Corner (Buckley founded the magazine National Review in 1956) to portray Obama as the product of a Jewish-Black Communist Conspiracy (I'm not kidding about this, really), Belle (whose blog that link goes to, where she quotes Schiffrin's whole damn missive), wrote, "It's music to WFB's ears. His trembling hand hoists a generous 7:30am brandy and milk to you, Lisa!" My reaction was that Belle was being damnably unfair.
Buckley denounced racism and repudiated his own in the mid-1960s. He became disgusted at the terroist tactics used by Southern whites. More importantly, his Catholicsm and his brilliance led him to understand that the bigotry with which he had been raised had no rational basis or moral standing. He reached out to Black intellectuals and found them worthy of his time and attention. You might find that arrogant, but it was a remarkable and remarkably decent act for a man who mas born racist and classist, and at a time when he, personally, had no reason to do so. He lost a lot of allies who took a decade to catch up with him. His position on race became a firm and liberated race-blindedness: there should not be a group identity, nor official recognition of a group, based upon the color of his skin. He came to support the civil rights act of 1964, and oppose affirmative action and school busing. In a perfect world, his position would have made sense. At the time, the right hated him for giving up his racism; the left have always hated him for his refusal to tolerate less than ideal moral conditions.
I can think of no better obituary for Buckley than the "white culture" rag American Renaissance's article, The Decline Of National Review, in which the writer bitterly complains that "National Review was once a voice for whites." But not anymore.
Buckley's once said that if he were a black man living in South Africa, he'd probably have joined the ANC. Last year his critics dismissed him as "senile" for his statement that invading Iraq was "a ghastly mistake." The man did keep his own opinions, and learn from his mistakes.
Buckley did come to view the people around him as admirable for their minds, not for the color of their skin. He wanted de facto race-blindness, not merely the hodge-podge de jure system we have in place today. Even more to the point, he believed that the price of not hiring the merited for irrational reasons was a drag on corporate economies, and they'd come around eventually without creating deep-seated resentment. (This has actually worked for gays and lesbians; Buckley was right in that respect.)
For that, he was pilloried on all sides. The magazine he hasn't helmed for eleven years, and the website he never had any direct responsibity over, have drifted further and futher into moonbat insanity. Jonah Goldberg (Buckley's hand-picked successor as Editor at Large) is making a laughingstock of himself by claiming that Mussolini was a "librul," and was labeled a facist after the fact by "libruls" who want to dismiss him; Victor Davis Hanson has descended into shrill martial madness, his mind a replay of 300 every night; Ramesh Ponnoru makes the case that the only way the Islamic Teruhrists will stop hatin' on America is if we become more like them and kill all the libruls; D'Souza is a weird Intelligent Design advocate; and you've met Ms. Schiffrin.
But Buckley was a different kind of man, manufactured from a different time and space. He was not "warm and fuzzy." He was hard, he wanted to stand up and be counted. He wanted you to stand up and be counted, too, and he had the decency to cease caring about your melanin production and your epicanthic fold. In death, you could at least give him his fair due on that account.
But Buckley was not a racist, and he has not been one for damn near the past forty years. When Lisa Schiffrin opened her big fat mouth on National Review's The Corner (Buckley founded the magazine National Review in 1956) to portray Obama as the product of a Jewish-Black Communist Conspiracy (I'm not kidding about this, really), Belle (whose blog that link goes to, where she quotes Schiffrin's whole damn missive), wrote, "It's music to WFB's ears. His trembling hand hoists a generous 7:30am brandy and milk to you, Lisa!" My reaction was that Belle was being damnably unfair.
Buckley denounced racism and repudiated his own in the mid-1960s. He became disgusted at the terroist tactics used by Southern whites. More importantly, his Catholicsm and his brilliance led him to understand that the bigotry with which he had been raised had no rational basis or moral standing. He reached out to Black intellectuals and found them worthy of his time and attention. You might find that arrogant, but it was a remarkable and remarkably decent act for a man who mas born racist and classist, and at a time when he, personally, had no reason to do so. He lost a lot of allies who took a decade to catch up with him. His position on race became a firm and liberated race-blindedness: there should not be a group identity, nor official recognition of a group, based upon the color of his skin. He came to support the civil rights act of 1964, and oppose affirmative action and school busing. In a perfect world, his position would have made sense. At the time, the right hated him for giving up his racism; the left have always hated him for his refusal to tolerate less than ideal moral conditions.
I can think of no better obituary for Buckley than the "white culture" rag American Renaissance's article, The Decline Of National Review, in which the writer bitterly complains that "National Review was once a voice for whites." But not anymore.
Buckley's once said that if he were a black man living in South Africa, he'd probably have joined the ANC. Last year his critics dismissed him as "senile" for his statement that invading Iraq was "a ghastly mistake." The man did keep his own opinions, and learn from his mistakes.
Buckley did come to view the people around him as admirable for their minds, not for the color of their skin. He wanted de facto race-blindness, not merely the hodge-podge de jure system we have in place today. Even more to the point, he believed that the price of not hiring the merited for irrational reasons was a drag on corporate economies, and they'd come around eventually without creating deep-seated resentment. (This has actually worked for gays and lesbians; Buckley was right in that respect.)
For that, he was pilloried on all sides. The magazine he hasn't helmed for eleven years, and the website he never had any direct responsibity over, have drifted further and futher into moonbat insanity. Jonah Goldberg (Buckley's hand-picked successor as Editor at Large) is making a laughingstock of himself by claiming that Mussolini was a "librul," and was labeled a facist after the fact by "libruls" who want to dismiss him; Victor Davis Hanson has descended into shrill martial madness, his mind a replay of 300 every night; Ramesh Ponnoru makes the case that the only way the Islamic Teruhrists will stop hatin' on America is if we become more like them and kill all the libruls; D'Souza is a weird Intelligent Design advocate; and you've met Ms. Schiffrin.
But Buckley was a different kind of man, manufactured from a different time and space. He was not "warm and fuzzy." He was hard, he wanted to stand up and be counted. He wanted you to stand up and be counted, too, and he had the decency to cease caring about your melanin production and your epicanthic fold. In death, you could at least give him his fair due on that account.
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Date: 2008-02-28 12:58 pm (UTC)During my adulthood, I've often and repeatedly said, "Why can't we hear from members of the political right who have a brain in their head? Like William F. Buckley. Instead of the drooling idiots we hear from now exclusively."