Editors at National Review Online critique a Texas Republican’s recent online comments about students at his state’s flagship university.
A few University of Texas at Austin students of South Asian descent cheered their football team’s dramatic comeback win against top-ranked Ohio State, and found themselves in the foreground of a picture worth a thousand tweets. Bo French, the Republican nominee for railroad commissioner (a more important position than its name might suggest, having jurisdiction over energy policy), did not like what he saw. “The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined,” he posted on X.
While other Texas Republicans criticized French — some vigorously, some tepidly — a retinue of online defenders ventured creative interpretations of what the problem was. The university catered too much to foreigners. Never mind that the picture did not disclose the citizenship or nationality of its subjects, and the law mandates that 90 percent of students be Texans. Its admissions standards are unfair to white Texans. French himself retreated to this position, but the university has no preferential standards for Indian Americans. In fact, French in the past joined the near-uniform chorus of Texas Republicans in supporting the university’s admissions system, which was designed to eliminate consideration of race and was defended for years by foes of racial preferences.
So the rationalizers had to go farther afield. Too many Indian Americans are Hindu: another trait not discoverable from the photo, and also one that appears to pose no practical difficulties for America’s republican institutions. They’re not assimilating. But the photo bears every possible visible sign of assimilation. College football is one of the most uniquely American of institutions and is unknown in India. …
… Most Americans, of all races, find their repulsion itself repulsive. And white Americans, by and large, have too much sense to believe that greater racial consciousness is the answer to any problems they have.
The commenters who object to the picture are wrong about many things, but they are right to feel that their side is losing. Those harmlessly happy young people have found their perfect counterpoint in the toxically miserable.
