NATTERING NABOBS OF NEGROTIVITY. Not to belabor the white-conservatives-and-race thing, but Jonah Goldberg made a fascinating statement at NRO the other day:

Derb - You ask if anyone dreams of a colorblind America?

Well, I do. As do — I think — a lot of people. That they're often called racist or insensitive and that such a goal is probably an unachievable ideal shouldn't sully the ideal.

This was followed up by many correspondences from Goldberg fans who are either mad at black people or clearly wounded by their lack of cooperation with right-wing Whitey.

Here is one who sighs that he expected "that black Americans would stop voting monolithically Democratic as they became more educated and successful," but has been sadly disappointed. (Goldberg says hey, tell me about it, I get the same thing from Jews!) Another goes into a long, dreamy reverie about race-mixing (the author says he is/was married to a "[black] African" -- what an exciting relationship that must be/have been!) Yet another is "sure there are many blacks who feel the least they can do to maintain their authentic blackness is vote Democratic. You avoid an awful lot of arguments with your family if you do." (Why not just vote Republican and lie to your family, if you feel that strongly about it?)

Finally we get a "black republican" (why weren't they all black? The NRO letter-"receiving" team is getting sloppy) who's totally down with fighting the real enemy ("a white liberal can say really racist things about a conservative black," etc). Maybe that's why Goldberg decided to quit:

Lots of interesting email has come in, but I've got to run to a meeting. Either later today or tomorrow morning I'll post some follow-ups to some — I think fair —  complaints from liberal readers (some of whom happen to be black, Jewish etc).

In the Goldberg universe, of course, "Got to run to a meeting" means "Smell ya later, oh look a donut, score."

It may be due to my many years as a sharecropper on the liberal plantation, but I am struck, not to say thunderstruck, that this conversation is still going on -- let alone led, in this instance, by a guy whose obsession with black folk has always been a little creepy (read here under "Bye Bye Marion" for some real cold chills -- and imagine Goldberg and whatever sort of people would go out drinking with him making that request to a bartender).

That Goldberg would portray his bizarre attitude as nobly "colorblind" -- for which greatness of spirit the poor honkeys are called racist! -- suggests a slight but significant change in the race consciousness of white conservatives. While they were cheerfully winning elections with just a few percentage-points' worth of African-American support, the "how come they don't like us?" thing was just an idle bagatelle, like calling for a "Marion Barry" at the bar. But now that they have no majority, nor any immediate hope of one, I see this topic taking up much more of their ample free time.

Maybe at the next NRO Symposium, the Negro Problem will be discussed by Goldberg, John Derbyshire, Bill Bennett, etc. Maybe Deroy Murdock or Robert George will be there, but I doubt their contributions will be given any more weight than anyone else's -- that would be racist, right?

It gets clearer all the time that today American conservatism, as evinced by its most popular web avatars, is about displacement and projection -- they fuck up a war, then complain loudly that long-powerless liberals fucked it up; they lack black support, and lament at length the dysfunctions suffered, in their view, by black Americans -- because why else wouldn't they vote for the Party of the Southern Strategy? As Doghouse Riley is fond of saying, they really seem to be in their Ghost Dance phase.