The French are the ethnic group from whom the rioters and their relatives are “alienated.” Logically, they must be distinguishable from the alienated aliens or the latter’s grievances against the former make no sense. For one is not French merely because one speaks French and obeys French laws, like paying taxes to the French central government—not if “French” is to retain its distinction-respecting meaning. That is because “France” does not refer merely to land amidst the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Mediterranean, the Bay of Biscay, etc. Nor by one’s uninvited presence and the passage of time does one build up the cultural equivalent of “equity” in French or any other society.

The non-French in France now demand more than standing room in the country into which their parents and grandparents barged without specific invitations from individual French citizens (who at least could be held accountable for their guests’ behavior). That is, the French are guilty of nothing more than generally having treated the non-French among them the way a reluctant dinner party host treats uninvited guests.

Unfortunately many, perhaps most, of the accused have pathologically embraced their guilt and now wallow in a toxic mixture of anger and shame. In expiation for their sins and in attempted appeasement of the aggrieved, they will soon democratically subject themselves to an utterly wasteful transfer payment from French pockets to non-French, replete with such delights as affirmative action programs. Utterly wasteful because futile: money spent to appease envy only buys more of it. (Paris “recently granted Clichy-sous-Bois, where the riots began on Oct. 27, 330 million euros for renovating its worst housing projects.”)

The non-French in France are now forcibly denying the French the luxury of postponing what to do about them. Tragically, they do not know what to do, at least not in accord with their sense of identity and justice, not any more than do other descendants of those who were Roman Catholics in 1500, be they in Europe or America.

As at dinner parties, so in countries: the non-invited rarely get the message and leave. They have to be thrown out, but the probability of that happening is nil. After all, France is not Israel circa 1948. Should expulsion happen, it will almost certainly be done imperfectly, which will result in new grievances. But it hasn’t entered French minds -– except those in the service of Jean Marie Le Pen’s minority party –- even to ask them to leave, let alone to cause them to. (Only convicted vandals will face that consequence.) After all, there’s a welfare state to keep afloat, and the French, unlike the non-French, have been noticeably lax in reproducing themselves.

It goes without saying that the French state will not only not acknowledge the right to discriminate—-to decide with whom one will and will not associate—-but will rather vigorously enforce existing edicts that prohibit its exercise. Compounding this social surd is the fallacious notion of “public property,” specifically “public land,” land owned by all and none, for which all pay taxes but whose usage only a few determine.

Now maybe those who refuse to relinquish that fuzzy idea can escape its tragic consequences.

And maybe Mohamed of Aulnay is French.

Mainstream coverage of the recent riot in Toledo, Ohio makes my point. Are we surprised when no one overturns stones looking for “underlying root causes” that make some people neo-Nazis? No, for the reigning assumption is that the latter are “simply haters” who are responsible for their hating. That is, hatred signals a moral failing, and those who emote it habitually are moral defectives.

Predictably, however, various news media suggested that if the rioters were not blameless, they were nevertheless provoked. Understandably, one gathers, they “couldn’t help themselves.” The (cancelled) neo-Nazi rally “triggered” the rioting, a local story mechanically put it. “Poverty is the reason” for the altercations with police, a North Toledo resident explained at a town hall meeting. “Hands off our young, black men,” demanded one Washington Muhammed.

Apparently, nothing “triggers” neo-Nazi rallies which, one must assume, express pure voluntarism. Poverty or other challenging conditions are never invoked to explain neo-Nazi affiliation, which is simply a culpable exercise of free will. Hands off neo-Nazi exercisers of First Amendment rights? Hell no!, is the common wisdom. If anything, such exercise may “trigger” the righteous propulsion of beer cans in the direction of marchers.

The tacit lesson? Whites are responsible for their actions and “get what they deserve” when they morally fall short; blacks are not. This is not what I learned about civil rights marchers and those who rallied against them fifty years ago.

No, the degenerates you excoriated are not victims of external forces like “general disinvestment in urban public schools in the decades of white suburban flight.” In Rosa Parks’s day, when both proximity to whites and access to their tax dollars were much less than they are today, Black Americans did not distinguish themselves in the entertainment world by glorifying thuggery.

Indeed, if the urban newsstand is a reliable barometer, the dominant image of young black adults in America, 2005, is that of loutish men and whorish women. From his grave, George Lincoln Rockwell – the “original neo-Nazi” – is not taunting us with “I told you so!” because, even at his most outrageous, he never fantasized that so many Black Americans would effectively embrace his view of them, or that so many whites would ratify that image, thinking they thereby earned anti-racist “creds.”

Perhaps one day I’ll read a column that cogently explains why so many (a majority of?) Black American youth today indulge their libido for things criminal and rationalize that indulgence in the name of “art.” Such an explanation would be an excellent way to honor what Rosa Parks sat down to stand up for.

Yours truly,

Anthony Flood
www.AnthonyFlood.com

P.S.: I’m only looking for genuine engagement, not necessarily publication. I’m not opposed to the latter, but my letter’s length makes that improbable, at least in the Globe. Alternatively, however, I could post it on my site and invite your reply, of any length, there. Thanks for stimulating my own thinking on this vexing topic.– Tony