Yup.

The Washington Post has a long article about “colorism” and Michael Jackson by DeNeen L. Brown.

Through the Past, Darkly
The Legacy of Colorism Reflects Wounds of Racism That Are More Than Skin-Deep…

Here’s an interesting (although hardly unexpected) factual excerpt:

The most provocative research, he says, is related to marriage. Among black women younger than 30, there is “a premium associated with light-skinned complexion,” Hamilton says.

“There is a well-established literature of colorism, a preference for lighter-skinned individuals,” according to a report called “Shedding ‘Light’ on Marriage,” which was co-written by Hamilton; Arthur H. Goldsmith, a professor at Washington and Lee University; and William A. Darity Jr., a professor at Duke University. “We find that the light-skin shade as measured by survey interviewers is associated with about a 15 percent greater probability of marriage for young black women, and light-skin shade as measured by self-reported biracial status is associated with the presence of better educated and higher-earning spouses for married black females.”

But the rest is just the usual, with the now traditional ending: a celebration of Michelle Obama’s skin tone. As I’ve mentioned before, a remarkable fraction of female journalistic output, at least the most heartfelt stuff, consists of demands for society to change so that that particular female journalist would be considered hotter looking.

What’s striking is how humorless these demands for social revolution in the service of enhanced personal hotness have been since feminism came along. I don’t think it was always like this. In 1937, for example, Dorothy Parker lamented, “Men seldom make passes / At girls who wear glasses.”

The Economist has an editorial comparing California and Texas combining its usual unthinking prejudices with some actual insights (likely drawn from my stuff).

It’s not surprising that a lot of the politicians most responsible for the Minority Mortgage Meltdown in California — such as George W. Bush, Karl Rove, and Clinton’s HUD Secretary (and later Countrywide director and frontman on its trillion dollar pledge of lending to the “underserved”) Henry Cisneros — are Texans. Their policies weren’t incredibly harmful in Texas, which they understood fairly well, but were in California, which they didn’t.

Do keep in mind that California was much more impacted by immigration over the last generation than Texas: in the 2000 Census, 26% of California’s residents were foreign-born versus only 14% of Texas’s.

AMERICA’S recent history has been a relentless tilt to the West—of people, ideas, commerce and even political power. California and Texas, the nation’s two biggest states, are the twin poles of the West, but very different ones. For most of the 20th century the home of Silicon Valley and Hollywood has been the brainier, sexier, trendier of the two: its suburbs and freeways, its fads and foibles, its marvellous miscegenation have spread around the world. Texas, once a part of the Confederacy, has trailed behind: its cliché has been a conservative Christian in cowboy boots, much like a certain recent president. But twins can change places. Is that happening now?

(more…)

Although 18.7 percent of congressional staffers are now black, as opposed to 12.3 percent of the population, more black staffers are necessary, in order to better shake down the predominantly white tax base.

I keep saying we need shorter blogs. This is one, copied in its entirety,  from Kathy Shaidle, who’s good at being shorter:

City invaded by Marxists and Mexican lawbreakers turns into banana republic

Nope, didn’t see that coming.

But I can’t resist pointing out that the story she’s linking to, in which the founder of Creator’s Syndicate explains that he’s leaving Los Angeles because it’s suddenly gone all anti-business, (almost as if were some kind of  resentful Third World dictatorship) is being published in…the Wall Street Journal!

Here at VDARE.com we don’t do a lot of bilingualism ourselves, and neither does Gaston Phebus, a French blogger who we link to because he’s a kindred spirit. But a French kindred spirit, so his blog posts look like this

Régulariser 1 clandestin coûte 1 million d’euros
By gastonphebus

Selon l’institut anglais Migrationwatch, le coût total pour le contribuable à chaque fois qu’un seul immigré clandestin est régularisé est de 893 000 livres sterling, soit 1 044 000 euros. Ce chiffre représente la somme des diverses prestations sociales reçues (moins les impôts payés) par un immigré moyen de 25 ans qui se mariera, aura 2 enfants, prendra sa retraite à 65 ans et mourra à 80 ans. [More, but still in French| More, electronically translated ]

You see the problem–in the words of Steve Martin “Boy, those French: They have a different word for everything!” But I studied this in school many years ago, and I can tell what the basic drift is–legalizing illegals is a money-losing proposition, because illegals are mostly the poor, and cost more than they pay in taxes.

Here, courtesy of Google’s service de traduction automatique, or whatever you call it, is roughly what M’Sieu Phebus is saying:

During his lifetime, the average illegal immigrant will receive a total of 1 106 000 in benefits if it is corrected.This includes his housing subsidized by the state, children’s education, medical treatment, family allowances, retirement he will receive after 65 years, and so on. In return, he will pay 62 000 euros in taxes and social contributions. The difference is 1 106 000 - 62 000 = 1 044 000.

This cost is entirely borne by the taxpayer. The new report was published at the time the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, a Conservative, said that it would be “morally correct” to regularize 725 000 illegal immigrants in the capital.

The report, The Potential Lifetime Costs of an Amnesty, is all from Migrationwatch.uk, and is all in English.

The same financial considerations apply with illegal immigrants to the United States from south of the border, of course. While they may be making a profit for themselves, and for their employers, they’re costing the rest of the taxpayers a bundle.