Two pandemics

the South to make their own laws and treat black people as they choose. After 1877, the Federal Government abandoned the aspect of reconstruction which involved integrating former slaves in the South. The South used the high incarceration rate as proof that former slaves, and black people generally, were not ready for emancipation or for civil rights and were intellectually inferior. Sociologists also used the data to support the Southern premise. An entire system of racism was created in the South which discriminated against and subjugated former slaves. This involved all aspects of life — police, judge, jury, politics, private sector, housing, employment, banks, television, Hollywood, church, you name it.

This is where the second pandemic was incubated and spawned several civil right movements, including Black Lives Matter (BLM). There is a school of thought that the Ku Klux Klan has infiltrated several police precincts in the US and are killing black men with impunity. There is an intractable philosophy that BLM will have to overcome in order to make a significant difference. This philosophy was articulated in a thesis entitled ‘Why the South Must Prevail’ by William F Buckley Jr in 1965. Buckley, in arguing against civil rights, stated:

“The central question that emerges — and it is not a parliamentary question or a question that is answered by merely consulting a catalogue of the rights of American citizens, born equal — is whether the white community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is yes — the white community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the median