Race To The Bottom

James Taranto at Opinion Journal makes an important point about one aspect (of many) of the liberal worldview about race that is damaging to blacks.

Here's an interesting story from News 14 Carolina, a local cable channel in Raleigh, N.C.:

Smart black students being accused of "acting too white" is an issue Triangle educators are debating at a youth and race conference this week. Students say the stigma is keeping some of their peers from doing well in school. Tenth grader Anais Guzman is on the honor roll. She says some of her peers see the achievement as acting too "white."

"They can get high grades but they don't want to because they'll be considered as acting white, so they put white people down," Guzman said.

This problem illuminates why the liberal worldview on race, while not entirely false, is several decades out of date. The idea that achievement is "white" and lack thereof is "black" is an ugly stereotype that no doubt originated in white racism. But the problem today isn't that whites believe it; it is that many blacks have internalized it and recast it as a point of pride.

As we noted yesterday, black adults are subjected to the trope of "acting white" as well--for espousing conservative political positions or joining the Republican Party. Thus the Democratic Party, which routinely racks up 85% to 90% of the black vote, has an interest in encouraging blacks to think of themselves as separate from the broader American population--a separateness that rests on pernicious notions of black inferiority.

This is essentially the same argument that Bill Cosby made last year. Mr. Cosby, an icon in the black entertainment world, was pilloried by black leftists for having the gall to point out the obvious. These people would rather eat their own than face facts.