PERSPECTIVErnEquality or PrivilegernGored on the Horns of the American Dilemmarnby Thomas Flemingrn^^ L | ‘ verything in American politics always comes down tornJ /the race question,” says one of our collaborators. Schoolrnchoice plans, for example, are either condemned for enablingrnthe white middle classes to liberate their children from the hellrnof public schools or praised for giving black families thernprospect of sending their children to the suburbs. The war onrndrugs is undertaken to save “inner-city youth” from the consequencesrnof their misbehavior and criticized for targeting minorities.rnWhen the police beef up patrols in black neighborhoodsrnthey are accused of harassment and, when they slack off,rnof neglect. (Throw in the homosexual rights question, and therncops are in an impossible bind, as in the Jeffrey Dahmer case,rnwhere one sensitivity blunted another.)rnThe race question is most pernicious in anything relating tornfederalism. Trying to make a case for states’ rights or local control,rnI am always asked how I would prevent one group (byrnwhich they always mean whites) from oppressing another (thatrnis, blacks). At the Ludwig von Mises Institute’s superb Mayrnconference on the “Costs of War,” the panelists more or lessrnagreed that the War Between the States was a just war assertingrnthe South’s independence. Inevitably, someone in thernaudience played the race card: If you believe in national liberation,rndoes that mean you would support a slave revolt?rnDifferent people gave different answers, all of them good,rnbut as I tried to explain, the question is irrelevant, if not entirelyrnfatuous. My response would depend entirely on which side Irnwas on. If I were a slave, the son and husband and father ofrnslaves who were revolting, I should inevitably side with my ownrnpeople, but if I were a master, I should have no choice but torndefend my wife and children against a mob that, if it did notrnkill them, would make them long for death.rnConsider for a moment the history of Haiti. Admittedly,rnFrench rule was nothing so benignant as plantation slavery inrnthe Old South, but the butchery of women and children thatrnattended Haitian liberation was only the prelude to nearly tworncenturies of repression and murder, which, by comparison,rnmakes Cabrini Green seem like Wilmette. In retrospect, thernwisest and most humane political leader in Haitian history wasrnPapa Doc Duvalier, who employed both physical and metaphvsicalrnterrorism in a disciplined campaign to keep his tur-rn12/CHRONICLESrnrnrn