I’ve spent a lot of energy on this site detailing how underlying ideological assumptions — which I believe are necessarily driven by certain linguistic ideas (some of which have become so entrenched in our institutional rhetoric that they are difficult to discern, and even more difficult to weed out) — manifest themselves, in most cases, in predictable political affiliations.
On a more concrete level, this idea is fleshed out by attitudes toward such things as race and identity — and what one perceives is the government’s role or “obligation” with respect to the problems that arise from taking a particular view on such things — be that the classical liberal view, in which individualism is foregrounded, and government is to play a mediating role; or the multiculturalist view, in which group identity is paramount, and social engineering designed to “fix” perceived disparities by way of jerry-rigging outcomes by way of special dispensation to “underrepresented” groups is a sign of “progress” and progressivism.
From America In Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible, by Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom:
In 1994, on the issue of government assistance to blacks, 74 percent of African Americans but only 16 percent of whites said too little was being spent. There is also a marked racial divide on questions such as: Would you rather have the federal government provide more services, even if it means more taxes? Is it the responsibility of government to reduce the differences in income between people> And, do you agree that the government has an obligation to help people when they’re in trouble? The affirmative action issues likewise splits blacks and whites — to different degrees, depending on how the question is asked.
A high degree of commitment to an expansive, protective federal government clearly separates blacks from whites. The historic sense of vulnerability continues to affect black political attitudes. Even the middle class views its hard-won status as fragile, with the consequence that individual blacks see their own fate as tied to that of race, the political scientist Michael Dawson has persuasively argued. In believing that the fate of the race depends on the helping hand of government — that only its forceful presence keeps the enemies of racial justice at bay — most blacks remain in the Democratic camp. Whites are all over the political map; blacks disagree among themselves, but generally vote left. “The perceived economic domination of blacks by whites became intertwined with a sense of political domination as well,” Dawson has suggested.
Perhaps it is the status of anxiety of African Americans and their unshakable commitment to big government and the Democratic Party that frees black elected officials (to an unusual degree) from concern about the views of their constituents. In the jockeying over the 1994 crime bill, when the CBC was working hard to soften hard-line provisions like mandatory minimum sentences, at least one member admitted that his “soft on crime” approach wasn’t necessarily that of his constituents. On the other hand, he said, “I would no more go to my constituents and ask how I would wage a war on crime than I would ask how I should wage a war internationally.”
It was a refreshingly candid admission. White liberals who need black votes assiduously court them; black liberals need to worry less about taking stands their constituents agree with.
Here, it becomes obvious, I think, that a sense of perceived “commonality” based almost entirely on skin color and the requisite party affiliation that marks one as “authentic” is what is, unfortunately, driving the voting habits of many blacks.
The Thernstroms, along with Michael Dawson, suggest that the reason for such an overwhelming degree of what amounts to political tribalism is tied to the belief that racial gains are fragile and tenuous, and that a big, active government is the necessary stopgap between tenuous protection and the wilds of racist America.
But the question that needs to be asked is, how, exactly, have blacks (to an unusual degree) come to believe such a thing?
I have argued that the foregrounding of racial issues is an oftentimes cynical and intentional strategy, on behalf of those invested in coalition politics, to keep particular identity groups on the political plantation. This is not always the case of course: many of those who agitate for racial justice do so out of pure compassion — the problem being, in my estimation, that their emotions run far ahead of their willingness to view the racial landscape dispassionately and decide upon a strategy for ending racial tensions that actually works.
To my way of thinking, foregrounding “race” — bad science that we should (and have) recognized as such — simply because, well, “race” has long been foregrounded, is precisely the wrong tack to take. In fact, in doing so, one is forced — given that “racial” breakdowns ensure division of the population into identity groups that are then tied to political movements — to adopt the kind of identity politics that sits well with leftist and progressive political thought, and that rubs uncomfortably against the classical liberalism that this country was founded on.
Which is why, I think, we find identity politics so often tied to the progressive movement, and ideas of individualism tied to the “right wing” (be those classified as such classical liberals, libertarians, or economic and legal conservatives).
To tackle the “problem” of racial tension in a way that might actually alleviate some of those tensions, we would have to, as a culture, decide to remove the bad science of race from the political equation. Which is not to say we need to forget about how important a role race has played to this point, but rather to acknowledge that part of the reason race has played so important a role is that we have given it a power it has never deserved. From there, it is a short step to deciding that in order best to push back against that history, we go forward with a project of delegitimizing “race” as it is currently understood.
Unfortunately, too much of party politics — and so, power — is tied up in these outmoded ideas of race. And there is no shortage of politicians willing to stoke fears of racial backsliding in order to keep their voting coalitions intact.
Thus, it is unsurprising, really, that those with leftist tendencies — those, that is, who rely upon a certain type of grievance identity politics to build their coalitions — are constantly trying to “remind” us how racist we still are, as a society, and how necessary, therefore, is government protection against the institutional racism that permeates every avenue of American life.
A move back toward individualism — a move back toward the founding principles of this country — is therefore anathema to progressive politics, particularly insofar as such a movement would weaken established coalitions; and this is why the most damage being done by progressivism takes place in the schools, where certain underlying principles and ideas are drilled into the very processes of thinking, making it not only difficult to identify those principles as one of many competing sets, but also making it difficult for those who’ve been indoctrinated thus to break free of the structural imperatives of the ideology in order to reason outside of its dubious truisms.
Discuss
The divergent views are interesting, and it does point one thing out. Those that are fearful of the future tend to gather together into an identity group in order to defend, while those who are not fearful are less likely to do so, heading off in all sorts of directions. To allow individuality to flourish, the fear that forces people to band to gether must be relieved. How is that to be done? I don’t know.
Is the fear a realistic perception, or is it unrealistic and fostered by those who profit from the fear? I think it is an unrealistic perception and the fear is kept artificially high by those who profit by doing so.
So, by what authority, then? Majority politics, I guess.
Further, how is any of this different — in its fundamental mental practice — from religion?
Save the Constitution!
Unfortunately, too much of party politics  and so, power  is tied up in these outmoded ideas of race. And there is no shortage of politicians willing to stoke fears of racial backsliding in order to keep their voting coalitions intact.
It isn’t just politicians who are invested in keeping race in the foreground. There are entire industries now that are built around diversity training and sensitivity re-education. Where would Professor Caric be without racism? He would be standing in front of a cash register asking us, “Do you want fries with that?” If racism didn’t exist the Left would have to invent it.
I doubt that Michelle Obama would be able to pull down a six-figure salary doing some kind of nebulous “community outreach” in the world you would like to construct Jeff.
Sometimes I think it’s only about power. If I can’t be a leader of all the people, let’s separate people into smaller groups so that I can be a leader of my sub-group. Then I’ll get my followers to believe in the “issues” our group has, but I’m only in it for the power/patronage/money.
Any ‘ism’ would do, Aldo. and this isn’t something new, stirring up fears over the presence of some ‘outsider’ or ‘other’ goes back a long, long, way. Longer than this country has been in existence.
Question: How does one prove that the fear is baseless? How does one counter this?
But Democrats are the party of rich white fags like Warren Buffet and Michael Bloomberg and Barbra Streisand and Jay Rockefeller and Bill Gates and George Soros and Nancy Pelosi. Black people should rethink blind allegiance to the rich white fag party I think. They look silly.
And don’t tell me Queen Michael is a Republican cause that’s just stoopid.
Might as well
un-ring a bell…
As long as someone can vote money into their pockets and out of yours, they will do it every time, unless a better incentive (not bloody likely) or a more painful outcome comes along.
It’s hard to imagine a better incentive than money for nothing, status for nothing, and free guarantees of job, tenure, or placement. If you’re a politician, there are no better incentives than the job and powerful influence. The symbiosis of the two are the death-knell of Democracy.
The fatal flaw of our freedom.
You do realize that you are not allowed to discuss this unless you proscribe to the correct political philosphy or you have the proper parentage don’t you? I think you can talk about it if you are European though, they are sure an enlightened bunch when it comes to matters of race relations.
Well, naturally. I think I point that out when I talk about identity politics being a condition of progressive thought — and that education is an important factor in inculcating this particular worldview.
Here, though, the Thernstroms were talking about political affiliation and party politics, so that’s where I concentrated my energy.
Rational fear may have nothing to do with it, Mikey NTH — witness 30 seconds of Thee Revruuun Jaxsuuun or Sharpton.
As with all govt programs, it exacts more cost than it delivers benefit — what Aldo said.
The questions to me are from where does it derive its authority and given that it flies in the face of originalism, how to defeat it.
How does one counter this?
Cut off the money. Support politicians who are against pork of any kind. Vote to lower taxes.
Besides fear, economics too is at work here.
“…That year [1936] Roosevelt won because he created a new kind of interest group politics. The idea that Americans might form a political group that demanded something from the government was well known and thoroughly reported a century earlier by A. de Tocqueville. … But Roosevelt systematized interest-group politics more generally to include many constituencies—labor, senior citizens, farmers, union workers. The president made groups where only individual citizens or isolated cranks had stood before, ministered to those groups, and was rewarded with votes. It is no coincidence that the first peacetime year in American history in which federal spending outpaced the total spending of the states and towns was the election year of 1936. … Roosevelt’s move was so profound that it changed the English language. Before the 1930s, the word “liberal” stood for the individual: afterward, the phrase increasingly stood for groups. …”
Amity Schlaes, The Forgotten Man, Introduction, pp.10-11
“If racism didn’t exist the Left would have to invent it.”
To a large degree, they do. They do this by somehow “thinning the skin” of various ethnic and social groupings, so that almost any random comment can be taken as an insult.
Forty years ago, I would have never dreamed, nor would I have believed, that I would have to vet my own words before saying something out loud. It is a very good illustration of how the proggs are slowly strangling the Constitution, and wedging themselves securely into the heart of personal freedom. They are slowly eating away at our self determination, and fewer and fewer people are noticing, because too many of us who remember the government’s true and constitutionally mandated role took too long in speaking up.
And now, when we do speak up, we are often just shouted down. That’s the “living constitution” for you.
Jeff has perfectly described how these people are eating this country alive.
The problem, MamaAJ, is that we are creating a situation where less than half the population is paying all the taxes. At that point, what restraint is left?
The authority is derived from our consent. If enough people objected it would stop. The problem is that most people are content to just keep doing their own thing. That isn’t necessarily bad, but it does help to create the pre-conditions for our current situation. The only thing that held it in check before was the strong sense of personal responsibility that used to permeate our culture. Once people started blaming others for their lot in life on a wholesale basis, the likely result was what we have now. Getting out of it will take a lot of will on the part of a lot of people. That isn’t likely to happen as the people only bestir themselves infrequently.
Any ‘ism’ would do, Aldo. and this isn’t something new, stirring up fears over the presence of some ‘outsider’ or ‘other’ goes back a long, long, way. Longer than this country has been in existence.
It’s like the cold fusion of politics: en energy source that never becomes scarce. As the Peter Wood exceprt from Provocateurism 7 pointed out the new twist that the Left has added to this age-old politics of grievance and retribution is slapping a smiley face on it and telling the kids that’s it’s all about Teh Unity!
But the question that needs to be asked is, how, exactly, have blacks (to an unusual degree) come to believe such a thing?
That they need protection against all us hateful racists who would string ’em all up given half the chance?
It’s what they’ve been hearing from the race hustlers and from their own community for years, that’s why. I once knew a young black girl from Toronto who started attending BYU a few years ago. She was culturally “white” because of her Canadian upbringing, but when she got to the U.S., other black students took her under their wing and began telling her what it’s like to be black here.
And she told me about all of the racism she’d been experiencing since arriving at BYU, and I tried to explain to her that all of those very same snubs and slights and disses had happened to me, the racial and cultural insider.
But I don’t think she bought it. And I don’t know what to do about that. Because you really can tell when someone looks down on you, but how do you know it’s because of your skin color? How do you know the person isn’t an insufferable snob or a total jerk to begin with?
And that’s the problem: we can’t actually occupy each others’ shoes and see what it’s really like.
SDN, are you talking about federal income tax? Because of course there’s sales, state, local, etc. Not to mention the indirect costs in everything we buy.
I’m not trying to say it would be easy, just pointing to a place to start.
Another part of the problem is what happens to you psychologically when you live off the dole.
I lived on long-term disability (private, not SSA) for about 2 years, until they decided I wasn’t sick enough to NOT work, so they cut me off.
And man, that was traumatic. Not just because I was still suffering from the same relentless fatigue as before, but also because the emotional inertia that had built up from two years of sitting home, waiting for the check, was tremendous. And I had decades of good work ethic under my belt, too. I can only imagine what it’s like for someone who’s never had to work and who wasn’t raised in an environment where people got up early and worked all day, every day.
The dependence that welfare breeds is really hard to break. It’s not just a matter of dumping people on the street (some would land on their feet but most wouldn’t) but of helping them develop the attitudes and habits that permit one to function in society.
And telling people day after day that the deck is irrevocably stacked against them because of something they can neither control nor hide is a good way to keep people hopelessly paralyzed and terrified of losing that monthly lifeline.
SDN: “The problem, MamaAJ, is that we are creating a situation where less than half the population is paying all the taxes. At that point, what restraint is left?”
That is, in part, because we have liberals who give “tax rebates” to leeches who pay no tax.
Ah, but dicentra, think of the psychological damage done by being so self-respecting, so proud, as to refuse to go on the dole in the first place, preferring to suffer whatever traumas of poverty may come. We used to have a name for such towering egos. Suckas, we called ’em, self mortifying dupes! Horrors!
The authority is derived from our consent.
Yup. And at least in this excerpt the Thernstroms are barking up the wrong tree I think. Predictable political affiliations are a lot more probably derived not from a sense of economic domination or some warm fuzzies about government but from the general segregateyness of America. Without detailing all that the Thernstroms should take the church as its starting point I think. White people don’t go to church with black people. And black people don’t go to church with white people. And I don’t mean just those bigoty Evangelical peoples I mean Episcopalians. And also Methodists. And Lutherans, and of course Jews, and also other ones. Also what else is very segregatey is sitting down to watch tv. So what I think is that getting rid of churches and tv would go a long way towards fixing this problem, as defined above.
Hmmm. On further thought, this may go back to Moses at least.
The Olympics are a racist plot in other words. But you knew that.
I’m not sure you can convince “blacks” they have a choice in opting out of being considered “black,” Jeff. A conservative “black” blogger once chewed me out for suggesting something similar. I hope they chime in here and engage you.
I believe Obama’s success proves he could have chosen to be a post-racial politician. It’s our and his tragedy that he chose the alternative path he did. He could have moved us an incredible distance down the path you and others like Shelby Steele propose.
hf — actually, there’s lots of integrated churches down here in the South. You just have to take a long Sunday drive to see it. ‘Course that’s probably against the law in California.
Why must we wait for Sen. Obama, Salt Lick? Can’t we move ourselves?
Interesting review of Shelby Steele’s ideas for those who care.
Sfderr — good question. Me, I’ve tried, but nobody listens.
Well then, being moved already, you and I (with whoever chooses to join in) will just keep on trying to get others to listen. And some of our various interlocutors will listen, though they be few in number, and they then, in their turn, can attempt to persuade others.
Maybe we will be so successful the article positing the “white” majority of Americans will be outnumbered by the “other” minorities by 2042 will be made moot by the refusal of those future populations to so self-identify with a hearty “Fuck You” to the identity seekers in that future. We can dream, anyhow.
Eric Hoffer, in “The Ordeal of Change”, talks about how ethnic minorities learn to keep the majority “off balance” by using the shame and guilt they have convinced the majority it should feel to shield themselves from having to act rationally. They deflect criticism and turn their deficiencies into badges of “diversity”. It must be a triumphal feeling when you realize you can turn slovenliness, stupidity, rudeness and greediness into weapons against the Man. Unfortunately those who fall for this end up losing any sense of the realities out there, the same for everyone, that, sooner or later, punish irrational behavior.
HF,
I agree with you about TV, but not so much the churches.
As much as I love my TV, television is the single most destructive invention I can think of. Ever. Although the positive aspects are mind boggling, they are just pipe dreams.
And cable has just made it worse.
I don’t think anyone needs to — or can, even — opt out of being considered what it is they happen to be, from the point of view of our natural inclination to categorize. The point, however, is not in the opting out; it’s in the de-emphasizing, to the point where one’s blackness is on par with one’s eye color, eg. Science already has us there — there are many different genetic populations of “blackness” that belie any kind of solidarity; the next step is to take that lesson into the social sphere. Color is not determinative, so it shouldn’t demand an orthodoxy of ideology built up around it.
Dicentra, you’re right about the conditioning of the psyche. Having worked in the social services, I can attest to the learned helplessness of those who’ve been cushioned and insulated from life’s most prudent, yet hard, knocks.
So many jobs depend on the social services clientele, that to undo the Gordian knot of our predicament it will take another revolution.
…made moot by the refusal of those future populations to so self-identify…
Sdferr — For several years now I have refused to indicate my “race” on any printed form. I either check “multiracial” or “other.” Absent those choices, I draw a blank line and write “Human.”
TV is not ever helpful, but churches are very helpful. But I think they both contribute a big part of the foundational bits of otherness is all I mean. It’s just shorthand for saying that technology does a lot to retard happy identity-effacing racial comminglings, and so does church. I will try to fix these problems after lunch.
I should add, though, that given the current state of race theory, “opting out” is an option — at least, opting out from racial designations as they are currently considered. That, however, would be something of a pointed protest.
Opting out is probably a less likely option than just getting bored with all that race crap. Apathy can be a very powerful force for social change I think.
That’s where the econ. comes in, as people can be counted upon to show up when it comes to “free” goodies.
The point, however, is not in the opting out; it’s in the de-emphasizing,
My castigator’s point was that “other people” see black skin and make racist assumptions.
I’ve been told I can opt out of my “white privilege”, and fortunately there seems to be a whole industry dedicated to letting me pay to find out how.
Foregrounding of racial issues is really only salient to this discussion when it’s same as stoking grievance. I might need to think on that more, but that’s what I suspect. What the media did with Katrina was a hate crime I think.
Yes, (1) just not in a way we’d expect, and (2) in defiance of originalism. (“Our consent” calls to mind a simple majority, which shouldn’t be enough to pass these measures.)
The former includes a particularly insidious underlying legislative phenomenon, one in which virtually none of this garbage social legislation is subjected to constitutional checks. The latter is simply trampled by this phenomenon.
Let me repeat that: Laws, policies, and agencies exist because they are not subject to either significant constitutional check prior to being passed and once passed, are rarely subject to a SC decision on constitutional grounds. For these reasons jackasses like, say, LA city council members can tell local business — private entities — to provide services at their cost to illegals. Constitutional? Not likely. But rampant.
Now multiply times hundreds of thousands of such virtual edicts — whether city, county, state, or federal — nationwide. The line between private and public is simply gone. These are kings.
The solution is the familiar “constant vigilance”, because the problem works like rust and decay. In fact, the problem is an entirely predictable assault on democratic rights and freedoms, the only solution to which is not just voting, but, barring actually installing responsible representation, subjecting every legislature to constant pressure to reject every attempt to submit society to social law.
So, by no authority, really, except apathy. Which allows some idiot to start a lobby to use government to pass what amounts to life and behavior management by force. That most such attempts include all the rhetoric of a quasi-religion is not surprising.
Jhoward would like Russia. There you can smoke and drink and tell raunchy jokes just about anywhere you want.
None of that quasi-religion shhhhtuff for ’em Russians.
Russians are a lot racist though aren’t they? That never makes for a good time.
This is where the party ends and all.
Good point, thor.
#20 Dicentra,
One reason that blacks have come to believe that “a big, active government is the necessary stopgap between tenuous protection and the wilds of racist America” is the way the history of the civil rights movement played out in the 1950’s and 1060’s. The Federal government almost literally sent in the cavalry to defend Southern blacks against the segregationist states. That made a lasting impression.
Something much more insidious happened after that, though. Culturally conservative Southerners from bible-belt states were increasingly leaving a Democratic party that had become home to the counterculture in favor of a Republican party which was emphasizing culturally conservative themes and openly courting Christian voters. The academic Left and the MSM have succeeded in creating a caricature of this “Southern Strategy” that has become embedded in the conventional wisdom. The stigma of the Southern Strategy, along with (ironically) bigoted stereotypes of Southerners and Christians has helped the Democrats and the media brand the Republican party as the Racist Party for an entire generation of voters.
Hot steel burned it right into their hides. One helluva plastic surgeon it’s gonna take to get that healed up welt off-a there and not leave an ugly spot though.
…schools, where certain underlying principles and ideas are drilled into the very processes of thinking,
“Black History Month,” anyone?
“Diversity” (heh) in identity group classification in answer to the question “Is Somebody from Spain Hispanic?” found in various federal and state codes, courtesy Eugene Volokh.
Seems “it depends” is the best answer.
“Opting out” strikes me as akin to cutting water, though I cannot decide whether thats more reflection of reality or social conditioning.
Where the Hell is Elias Canetti when you need him?
Is Somebody from Spain Hispanic?
Yes. But a Spaniard is not Latino. Got it?
My castigator’s point was that “other people†see black skin and make racist assumptions.
That’s the main argument: how you look determines how you’re treated in society, and the bigotry of the majority ends up pigeonholing you into all kinds of dead ends. Hence the academic emphasis on “rooting out one’s latent racism,” thus to prevent said pigeonholing.
Then again, Dr. Phil observes every day that you teach people how to treat you. When Rosa Parks sat in the front of the bus, she was demanding to be treated with respect, as were all of the peaceful protestations of the time. Which degenerated into violence and hatreds, as human endeavors tend to do.
Don’t know where that leads us, but hey…
Aldo is right. The media is key a lot I think. Shoe-obsessed racists like Katie Couric and Anderson Cooper don’t give a shit about perpetuating racism as long as they have many many pretty shoes and also socialism.
Is Somebody from Spain Hispanic?
Yes. But a Spaniard is not Latino. Got it?
And, to further confuse matters, Irish were considered akin to Spaniards until circa 50s.
Which I guess shows how far we’ve ‘progressed’.
It’s splendid that Republicans/Conservatives have always been able to see past skin color. Four black Republicans – former Oklahoma Rep. J.C.Watts, former Massachusetts Sen. Edward Brooke, former Connecticut Rep. Gary Franks and the late Illinois Rep. Oscar Stanton De Priest – have been elected to Congress since Reconstruction. That’s about an average of one every 30 years. Stand proud.
You’re an idiot. I’ve voted for every single black Republican I’ve had a chance to vote for. Lots of people here can say the same I bet. You should take your racism elsewhere I think.
How gay are you using the word splendid like that anyway? Really a lot gay I think.
Mike Steele was rejected for office by the Democrats of Maryland, I think, not by the Republicans, who wanted to see him win.
Humn … let’s see … how many black Republicans ARE there? Aja Kong is an ass.
Believe me, if a black Republican were running for president, I’d vote for him. Or her.
And, to further confuse matters, Irish were considered akin to Spaniards until circa 50s.
Which is understandable, given that the northern coast of Spain (where the rain actually falls; the plains are bone-dry) looks like Ireland and they play Spanish bagpipes and stuff.
Oh wait. That’s Scotland. Never mind.
Mr/s. Kong:
You have unwittingly proved the point of Jeff’s post: that identity politics has kept blacks in thrall to the Democratic party, and anyone who strays off that reservation is considered to be “inauthentic” and is shunned and ridiculed.
Few people have the moral courage to endure their own friends’ and families’ disdain and scorn just to stay true to their convictions.
To prove that Republicans are more racist than Democrats, you would have to show that when a black and a white run against each other in Republican primaries, the black loses more often than when the same situation occurs in Democratic primaries.
Aja Kong’s example is like berating India for producing so few Olympic downhill skiers and figure skaters.
Is Somebody from Spain Hispanic?
Yes. But a Spaniard is not Latino. Got it?
Nor is a Cuban a Mexican. Or a Mexican a Puerto Rican, or a Costa Rican, or a Colombian.
My Colombian S-I-L gets pretty hot when someone makes that mistake.
So the forms with the check-boxes is pretty insulting all the way around. For example: Portugaul is in Europe. So is Poland. They are not alike, though they are on the same continent and each begins with the letter “P”.
I’ve never voted for a black Republican. I’ve never voted for a black Democrat. So is this where I defend myself, Aja Kong?
For refusing to be racist.
What drives me crazy is when people refer to someone as “Spanish” when they mean “Spanish-speaking” or “Hispanic.”
It’s like calling us “English” instead of “Americans.”
Mr/s. Kong unwittingly slammed home that point by regaling strangers with an inherent racism based — it is so wished and presumed — by the vaguest of perceptions.
Except for history and all.
Oh, the irony…of seeing past skin color by seeing only skin color. Among other ironies.
I’d have to agree with the majority of their views before I would do that. Just like I have no intention to vote for McCain, even though his skin color matches mine (more or less).
For a schoolish view of racism we could look to Seattle Public Schools for their definition, published, then found by Evan Coyne Maloney back in May 2006.
Here’s what S.P.S. said then:
“Cultural Racism:
Those aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value and normality to white people and Whiteness, and devalue, stereotype, and label people of color as “otherâ€Â, different, less than, or render them invisible. Examples of these norms include defining white skin tones as nude or flesh colored, having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, defining one form of English as standard, and identifying only Whites as great writers or composers.”
Here is a link to their now scrubbed and chastened website. Among other things S.P.S. now says: “…Our intention is not to put up additional barriers or develop an “us against them†mindset, nor is it to continue to hold onto unsuccessful concepts such as a melting pot or colorblind mentality. It is our hope that we can explore the work of leading scholars in the areas of race and social justice issues to help us understand the dynamics and realities of how racism permeate throughout our society and use their knowledge to help us create meaningful change. …”
(ht/eric at Classical Values)
oh. Me I’m all affirmative action when it comes to black Republicans. I a lot affirm their actions I mean. I would have even voted for Colin Powell, and he’s a big weirdo with issues.
Meaning he has issues. And a mad wife.
Meaning starkers.
#59
Historically there were few black Republicans in large part due to racism, but it requires an almost comical ignorance of history to imagine that the Republicans were the most racist of the two parties.
To insinuate that current-day won’t elect blacks due to unreconstructed racism is both stupid and begs the entire point of thie post.
Which is understandable, given that the northern coast of Spain (where the rain actually falls; the plains are bone-dry) looks like Ireland and they play Spanish bagpipes and stuff.
Actually…this is sorta correct.
Except for history and all.
“In 1920 Leonidas Dyer, a Missouri Republican from a largely black St. Louis district, introduced an anti-lynching bill, which the new Republican president, Warren Harding, endorsed. The House passed it in January 1922 (231-199, with only 17 Republicans opposing and eight Northern or border-state Democrats in support). Yet even though they controlled the Senate too, the GOP couldn’t, or wouldn’t, pull out the stops to pass the law. While Majority Leader Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts supported the bill, the powerful Idaho Republican William Borah opposed it as meddling in states’ rights and helped Southern Democrats kill it. The Borah-Lodge rift foretold a schism in the GOP between Northeastern liberals and a Midwestern and Western Old Guard that would later scramble the party’s racial politics.
Meanwhile, blacks were fleeing the South for Northern cities. There, the Democrats’ political machines delivered services and patronage to immigrants in exchange for their votes, and Democratic bosses shrewdly absorbed blacks into their system. In contrast, Republicans missed another opportunity. Their machines (yes, they existed too) reacted coolly to black voters’ demands and to black politicians’ ambitionsâ€â€leading many to leave the party.”
Except for Spanish people didn’t get famined I don’t think. Treacherous taters.
Yeah well Aja you big stupid it wasn’t a Republican that wanted to cut off the sacred nuts of Baracky. It was a big ugly Democrat is who it was. Sick sick sick.
77 –
nope. But areas of N. Spain have linguistic similarities to gaelic [eg, Galicia] and the whole Hibernia/Iberia thing is in recognition of the old close relations to each other. When passports were intro’d the two accepted each other as nationals, up til around early 50s.
1st major party to sponsor women’s suffrage, 1st major party to sponsor black suffrage, 1st major party to sponsor blacks and women in office.
Yup, that’d be us Republicans.
What did you Dems do? Oh, yeah, defend slavery.
Examples of these norms include defining white skin tones as nude or flesh colored, having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, snip ka-ka.â€Â
So, according to this, keeping a schedule and not being a Marxist are racist. How fucking stupid. I challenge any of our Obamatons and leftards to defend this, seeing as how they support those who dream this stupid shit up.
nor is it to continue to hold onto unsuccessful concepts such as a melting pot or colorblind mentality.
Yea because as the Italians, various flavors of Asians, Irish, Germans and black immigrants all know, assimilation doesn’t work. God, promoting this ignorant leftwing bigot bullshit should get people fired.
“…Democratic bosses shrewdly absorbed blacks into their system. …”
Oh. I wondered what was going on with those “ghettos” in all the Democrat controlled cities of the north, absorbing, yeah, that’s what it was.
“In 1920 Leonidas Dyer, a Missouri Republican from a largely black St. Louis district, introduced an anti-lynching bill…”
You don’t happen to have any details on the particulars of that bill, do you? Because I am pretty sure lynching was already illegal at the time.
What did you Dems do? Oh, yeah, defend slavery.
They also created the Klan. Don’t forget that accomplishment.
From The Anchoress:
The fascist is whoever is trying to shut you up, shut you down, dis-employ you, silence you, cripple you or marginalize you for the crime of daring to fall out of step with the party and the conventional wisdom. Beware of them.
Pretty well said, I think. As I have said before, the fascist is the authoritarian, the totalitarian. It is found not just in their power, it is found in their desires, their intentions, their speech.
I liked this bit SGT Ted: “…the work of leading scholars in the areas of race and social justice issues…”
Call for Mr. Obama, Mr. Obama, call for you sir.
You’re new here, right? And away we go…
“…the work of leading scholars in the areas of race and social justice issues…â€Â
They aren’t scholars, they’re bullshit artists and fraudulent liars with tenure.
Politics bores you?
Good for him. I don’t recall how my congressman voted on that, though. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t in office, but if the voting record goes back that far you might check and see how Robert Byrd voted on it.
It appears Kong isn’t gonna play with us. Tis a shame.
But, to belabor the point – I think if a black Republican were running, I would vote for him regardless- as long as he hit the major points. It’s like affirmative action for your young black would-be Republicans. They see the possibility …
I went to that SPS website. What a bunch of sickening racism tarted up as diversity. It’s the Klan with a Tan school district for guilty white liberals.
Further up in the article Aja Kong quotes without linking:
Unglory was spread around liberally, it appears.
You don’t happen to have any details on the particulars of that bill, do you? Because I am pretty sure lynching was already illegal at the time.
Details.
It wouldn’t count, because Black Republicans are by definition race traitors.
You’ve got to accentuate the negative
Eliminate the positive
Latch on to the action affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In-Between
You’ve got to split races up to the maximum
Bring whites down to the minimum
Lose faith and bring pandemonium
Liable to walk upon the scene
Actually, Aja Kong, many, many more black Republicans have been elected to office. The problem is, during and after Reconstruction, the Democrats would riot until the election was invalidated, the candidate withdrew, or the candidate was simply dead. The Democrats quite often called on their militant wing — known popularly as the Klan — to pull this off.
Slart, now you’re just depressing me. And, we’ve haven’t really even mentioned, here, about all the black Republicans crossing over to vote for O!™. Pathetic.
Thank you urthshu. I didn’t know about the Spain/Ireland thing at all. It’s just like France and Belgium it sounds like except more sincere.
“…The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. …”
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority in PARENTS INVOLVED IN COMMUNITY SCHOOLS, Petitioner v. SEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 1, ET AL
Did I mention I’m white and I’m thinking about crossing over and voting for O!. He’s such a compelling American success story. I just love an underdog that outworks the big dogs.
“The answer to the growing murderous lawlessness in this country is to place the enforcement of anti-lynching measures in the hands of the federal government. The anti-lynching measure introduced in the Senate by Senator Charles Curtis of Kansas and in the House by Representative Dyer of Missouri, provides:
1. For a $10,000 fine to be paid by any county in which a lynching occurs;
2. For prosecution of negligent state and county officers in United States Courts;
3. For trial on charges of murder in a United States court of all participants in lynchings.
And you think any opposition to a radical, unconstitutional measure such as this would have to be purely racially motivated?
Yea, that’s a great reason to vote for a man to be POTUS. You know another really inspiring story? Michael Phelps. Plus he looks good in a speedo.
The “Hispanic” show an increasing tendency to do just that. Their anti-white — U.S.-white, specificially — racial epithet of choice nowadays means “English.”
(And no, it’s not — and not analagous to — a linguistic classification like “Hispanic,” which derives none of its meaning from its extra-political usage as a slur, because there is no such usage.)
As a 100% non-English white-looking (except to New Englanders) person who hates the English (for giving us New Englanders), being called “Anglo” for the first time really pissed me off (whereas the anti-Jew stuff I first encountered at the same time merely surprised me). So I called the non-black non-white person who used it on me face-to-face a nigger. My point was not got. But I’d meant to just leave it there, in the middle of a pile of shock, so I didn’t care. It disposed of the problem.
In everyday life, the best deflector of racism is being a huge asshole. (Smell of freedom, etc.)
To the topic: Racism is indispensible to all politics — not a symptom of a diseased one, or a politically solvable problem (of which there are none, except those for which the “solution” is…metaphorical). The (half-secret) recognition of this is an insuperable tactical advantage leftists and other bare power-gamers have over Enlightenment-style liberals. Good is dumb, cheaters aways win, etc.
#70 Sdferr:
That quote is interesting. So planning for the future is a bad thing? Funny, I thought all farmers did that, at least planned for the future past the harvest and the next planting season. So teaching one form of English is bad as opposed to teaching dialects? As far as I know most languages are formally taught in one form and not in each dialect that language may have. Otherwise Marquette would be teaching Yooper-speak, and Boston would be teaching…God only knows.
More special pleading – I mean no one else speaks a dialect of the ‘standard’ language of the country they live in, do they?*
*When my little brother was enlisted there was another soldier whose parents had emigrated from Spain, and he spoke Castillian Spanish. He had the hardest time understanding what the soldiers who spoke Puerto Rican Spanish or Mexican Spanish were saying.
For real I think the next time Democrats have the temerity to nominate a nonblack person no one will be calling anything insuperable cause it will be so blatantly racist.
100 –
Whats so “crossing over” about voting for O?
And that whole “underdog” thing? You sure he isn’t a lapdog? Toy poodle, maybe.
#92 Slartibartfast:
Yeah, it is amazing how politicians then put power here and now above doing what is best for the future. Sort of how a lot act now, keeping old wounds fresh so that they can keep their little empires without challenge. ;)
And you think any opposition to a radical, unconstitutional measure such as this would have to be purely racially motivated?
Heavens, no. Just as any negative reaction to the failure of the bill on the part of blacks could never be racially motivated, because they too recognized that skin color had nothing to do with the lynchings.
Anyway, I’ve been looking for a youtube of Hillary! singing My Humps.
I drive these brothers crazy,
I do it on the daily,
They treat me really nicely,
They buy me all these icies….
You are really concerned about race above any other concerns, aren’t you thor? Me, I think that the presidency is one office where such parochial concerns are far distant. The demands of Kipling’s World* are not met by that qualification.
*Porous borders, big nations asserting themselves, pirate coasts, criminal bands taking control of territories. The post WWI-WWII settlement is dead, the bi-polar world is dead. Welcome back to the reality of the world, the reality of how nations and others act.
You all love the screw-guns. http://www.readprint.com/work-959/Rudyard-Kipling
Those lynchings are really dear to Aja’s heart, sounds like. That’s kind of disturbing.
Nothing has changed, Aja? Nothing? The USA is still the same as it was over eighty years ago?
Me, I think the changes have happened so fast it is almost unbelievable. Unbelievable, except for the evidence the cold record of history shows. And that Muse cares very little about any human.
111 –
“A hedgehog knows one thing.”
because they too recognized that skin color had nothing to do with the lynchings.
Totally irrelevant to my point. Obviously the lynchings were abhorent, and obviously they were racially motivated. That has nothing to do with the fact there was no federal agency in place to do what the bill demanded and nothing in the Constitution allowing such a thing. The backers of this legislation should have been working toward a Constitutional Amendment.
That Muse is Clio, BTW.
When I am working, and trying to get something and can’t and am totally frustrated, sometimes I get this sudden clarity when I Get It, and then I have to work and keep working, going as fast as I can so I don’t lose that sudden clarity. Sometimes I wake up at night and work until I can’t work any longer.
When that happens, I say “My Muse was speaking to me.” It gives a classical touch to those moments of total inspiration and immersion. Those moments are the greatest rushes I have ever experienced.
Too bad I can’t schedule those moments with my case schedules, but it has happened with an Appeal, and it worked out pretty good. I was walking in the basement hall of the office, and it hit me; what I had to say, how I had to arrange it, and I tore out of the basement to my office, afraid that something would upset that inspiration before I got it down and I wrote and I wrote, and I got it before it left. Exhausting, exhilarating; citations could be looked up later. I had it.
B Moe – Fourteenth Amendment and the legislation to support it. It supports the Thirteenth Amendment, amongst other things, and to deny a US citizen his or her rights (such as a fair trial) is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment made the rights guaranteed under the US Constitution the floor; states could offer more protection, but they couldn’t go lower, and any law that added more qualification to one of those rights than the US Constitution prescribed were forbidden. Hence, poll-taxes and literacy tests are forbidden, but proof of residency or identification aren’t. One is to restrict the right of a citizen to vote; the other is to determine if one is a citizen and can vote.
Your Clio reference had me going there a minute Mikey as I misinterpreted you to be suggesting that Aja Kong is a Semanticleo sock puppet, but Muse, I wondered, what the hell?
Article Three, the Sixth Amendment, and the Seventh Amendment contain the jury trial right, which the Fourteenth Amendment applied to the states. I would have to research more, but the First Amendment is also carried to the states by the Fouteenth Amendment; as the US Constitution is the Supreme Law of the land.
As I have written here before, the Supremacy Clause means that the state laws and Constitutions cannot trump the US Constitution, the laws enacted under it, or treaties authorized under the authority of the United States.
That has nothing to do with the fact there was no federal agency in place to do what the bill demanded …
Considering recent events I can understand your confusion on this matter. Let me assure you that this agency exists today just as it did in 1920.
Sdferr; as a history major, I claim Clio as my Muse. She has done well for me over the years.
It had little to do with Aja and all about me. Sorry to have to say that.
But when Clio speaks, ah…the rush.
Agreed on that, Aja. The US Dept. of Justice and US Marshalls were available to enforce US law, and if the marshalls are prevented from doing their jobs by the actions of a state…
Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock and federalized the Arkansas National Guard. Arkansas was technically in rebellion, and the executive branch will enforce the laws of the US, including federal court orders. A good lesson was taught.
“Comment by SGT Ted on 8/14 @ 4:41 pm #
What did you Dems do? Oh, yeah, defend slavery.
They also created the Klan. Don’t forget that accomplishment”
Ah, the Klan, the terrorist arm of the Democratic party.
N.B.: the Dept. of Justice will enforce US laws. The general police power lies with the states, unless there is a federal law being violated. There wasn’t a US law for the US to enforce, no US court order. The lynchings were matters for the individual states to deal with and they did by not dealing with them.
A terrible part of our history, but now – just history.
BTW – what happened under state law to those three assholes who dragged James Byrd to his death? Two got death, one natural life.
Things have changed in the USA.
Time to sign off and go do other things.
122 –
The Klan is the only one[?] that still exists in continuous form, anyway. They’ve others, but none with the same scope of l’histoire
OTOH, the only Repub one I can recall offhand was the Wideawakes
White? Possible, but irrelevant. Thinking, though…I’m going to want better evidence than you’ve presented to date.
In contrast, Republicans missed another opportunity.
Well, that’s pretty much the history of the GOP, ain’t it?
Their anti-white  U.S.-white, specifically  racial epithet of choice nowadays means “English.â€Â
“inglés”?
Never heard that one. But I seem to remember that the Amish (who spoke German) sometimes refer to non-Amish as “English.” But not as an epithet. I don’t think.
So planning for the future is a bad thing?
No, it’s something you do habitually when you live in a place where they have winter. In the tropical climes, where they only have wet and dry seasons — if that — people aren’t all that motivated by the clock. Because there’s always tomorrow: there’s always fruit on some tree, and it’s never too late or too early to plant.
On the other hand, the prospect of starving to death during the winter tends to focus the mind.
Amish folks don’t strike me as too epithety
I don’t think that Aja is S-cleo. Aja’s much sharper, and tends to actually quote things and present evidence and such.
Also, I still don’t see the point of arguing which party did the bad things in the past. They all did. They still do. Maybe not with the same labels attached, but it’s crap just the same.
Look, the non-racists are the ones who treat everybody with due respect, regardless of superficial differences. Publicly supporting or not supporting this or that politician, party, or program doesn’t cut it, because you could just be doing it to assuage your guilty racist conscience.
Or not.
So Aja, maybe you can hold off on
suggestingdeclaring that because we here are ostensibly conservative, we’re also a bunch of unreconstructed racists.You can call me a racist as soon as you see me treat “pigmenty” people worse than I treat Pallid-Americans.
I wonder if Aja knows the history of the CRA 1964?
I mean no one else speaks a dialect of the ‘standard’ language of the country they live in, do they?
Italy and Spain both have the Standard dialect (which is the dialect of the region that became dominant at one point) that is taught in schools and used on TV and such. There are also regional dialects that people speak among themselves. But it’s considered bad manners to use the dialect with people not of that region.
he spoke Castillian Spanish. He had the hardest time understanding what the soldiers who spoke Puerto Rican Spanish or Mexican Spanish were saying.
The Caribbean dialects are really hard to understand because they leave out most of the “S” sounds and talk really fast. And use lots of slang.
Mexican Spanish isn’t that hard, unless they were getting all slangy and stuff.
I wouldn’t say that the differences between the Spanishes spoken in the Americas and Castillian rise to the level of dialect. After all, the American Spanishes all descended from Castillian, hence the pronunciation of Z and C as S instead of Th.
The differences mostly arise when describing common items, especially food, where the Spanish has assimilated the words from the native tongue. I learned Colombian Spanish and had a tough time in Spain not because of the accent but because of the Lexicon. My terminology was all wrong. Kinda like England and the U.S.
Also, and this is only for language freaks: the accents in English derive mostly from varied pronunciation of the vowels (and what a variation!), but in Spanish it has more to do with how they say (or omit) the consonants. Spanish has only 5 vowels, so there’s not much to vary on.
>>Italy and Spain both have the Standard dialect (which is the dialect of the region that became dominant at one point)
Also french, which has the Parisian, of course. The stuff that Canucks and Cajuns speak is very odd to my ears. Alarmingly or no, Africans often speak superb Parisian french.
English-speaking Caribbean islanders speak Hiberno-english, like pirates. ‘Cuz of all the Irish slaves who preceded them, then the pirates who hired ’em on.
My secret for dealing with any foreign language speaker I can’t understand is to reply: “Same to you, buddy!”
dicentra,
Similar situation with Arabic. When I went through DLI in the Army, the language that we were taught is MSA (Modern Standard Arabic) which is the Arabic that is broadcast on news programs, printed in newspapers, and given in political speeches. Problem is, nobody on the streets in any Arab nation uses such language conversationally, and all of them differ by nation and then break down by regions within each nation.
Needless to say, when I first ventured into the Arab world and tried to communicate, most people were patient and listened to me, and many even were (or feigned to be) impressed that a Westerner knew something of the language. Occasionally, though, it led to some comical situations. A buddy of mine and I were in Tunis and were asking for directions from a cabbie to the ruins at Carthage. He burst out laughing, then apologized and said, “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to make fun of you. It’s just that nobody here talks like that.” Deep down, I’m sure he was thinking, “Who does this guy thinks he is? The Prophet?” It was like one of us going to Australia and speaking Shakespearean English to the locals.
When in Iraq, the language I spoke ended up being this bastardized mish mash of MSA and Iraqi gutter slang. In some cases, most of the Iraqis were just like, “Chad, just speak to us in MSA. You didn’t grow up here, so you’ll probably never be able to speak like we do. Anyway, we get what you’re trying to say.” At least they were patient with me, and I was usually able to get the point across, but sometimes it was frustrating for both parties.
My last post was eaten by the comment-monster (‘twould appear that the blog engine hates multiple hyperlinks, so if this ends up being one of many, it’s because I’m a moron.
Here are the Wikipedia entries for Madrid in the languages that are spoken in Spain. The pages aren’t translations of each other, but you can still tell that they’re different versions of a language. In Latin America, there’s only one Spanish, so you can write something in Spanish and everyone understands it equally.
Standard Spanish
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrid
Galician
gl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrid
Aragonese
an.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrid
Extremaduran
ext.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrid
Catalan
ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrid
Asturian
ast.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrid
Basque, which is one of those sui generis languages: not related to any other.
eu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrid
“Also, I still don’t see the point of arguing which party did the bad things in the past. They all did.”
Bullshit.
The Republicans fought to free the slaves.
The Democrats…..not so much.
I learned Colombian Spanish and had a tough time in Spain not because of the accent but because of the Lexicon. My terminology was all wrong. Kinda like England and the U.S.
You get a lot of that in So Cal. Before my dad retired from advertising he did a lot of local ads for autopart venders and jobbers … everything was done in English and Spanish … and two of his employees would argue, almost heatedly, on how things were to be translated into Spanish (one guy was born/raised Mexico City, the other East Los Angeles).
I’ve witnessed court appointed translators arguing with each other over the translation from Spanish to English when the witness is from a remote (more mestizo) area of Mexico.
N. O’Brain:
My point was that defending political parties is a losing game, because the GOP of today isn’t the GOP of 20, 40, 60, or whatever years ago. The parties keep realigning depending on what the general population is up to.
So the fact that you self-identify as Republican today doesn’t mean you can “inherit” whatever moral high ground the GOP might have occupied at one time. I mean, the Dems used to be rabidly pro-free speech, pro-democracy, and pro-using-our-military-to-spread-the-love.
Today? Not so much.
Barry’s personal socialist artist. Of course, there is no link between Barry’s campaign and the hard, hard left.
http://obeygiant.com/post/obama
“And you think any opposition to a radical, unconstitutional measure such as this would have to be purely racially motivated?”
It gets better.
FDR opposed anti-lynching legislation…almost 20 years later. Had to buy off Southern voters, don’t you know.
Threads like this are interesting on a meta- level. It’s interesting to see people who are ostensibly opposed to racism (Caric, Kong) pushing back so hard against people on the right who insist that we are not racists. It’s almost as if they have some tremendous need to keep us locked up against our will in the racist box.
Course, I’m guessing that if you really think someone like Kong gives a shit about the Constitution you’re going to be disappointed. Immediate ends uber alles.
“If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago, and a racist today.” – Sowell
Some people just don’t want to give up their ability to micomanage and control others. Race, income level, any opening will do.
Sorry, don’t see the big racial blindspot happening in this cosmos. Blacks are too invested in the slosh of victimhood. Non-blacks are too invested in the convenient perpetuation to back up the incendiary rhetoric. It’s always been a business proposition. If you want to attribute an evil subterfuge that needs to be rooted out, good luck.
By the way, blacks left me a voice message and told me about thier position.
Perhaps it’s simpler than that. Perhaps the overwhelming majority of African-Americans vote against the Republicans because they accurately view the Republican Party as the party of white racism.
There’s a comment from the Asshole Peanut Gallery!
Perhaps you’re a twatwaffle. And accurately viewed as such, even by your students, Perfesser Caricature. Oh, wait. You can just drop the perhaps. It’s been decided.
Ric, if everyone on Earth were the same color, what would you do for a living?
In other words, you’re a slaver, Ric. That’s repulsive.
Whether the Justice Department and Federal Marshalls of the 20s could have performed as effectively as the FBI eventually did is a debatable point, but tangential to the one I am trying to make. I agree with Dicentra that it has no bearing on today anyway, but to try to ascertain racial intent to opposition to that particular measure with all its constitutional problems is just plain wrong.
Perhaps the overwhelming majority of African-Americans vote against the Republicans because they accurately view the Republican Party as the party of white racism.
Where did they get that idea? From the Republican “sorry, no handouts” party or the Democrat “if you vote for Republicans they’ll bring back Jim Crow; oh, and here, have another freebie” party?
Caric, you do realize that if we woke up tomorrow and all our differences were erased — skin color, language, religion — that we’d find nine more ways to divide ourselves before breakfast?
I’d ask you to demonstrate what makes Republicans inherently racist, given that it is Leftists who hurl explicitly racist slurs at Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Michelle Malkin, and Clarence Thomas, whereas we on the right only manage to insult Obama with 256-bit encrypted epithets such as “Obamessiah,” “Obamanation,” “lightweight,” “arugula-eating elitist,” “crypto-Marxist” and “skinny,” but I doubt you can write a coherent argument with actual supporting evidence.
Have to cut these professors some slack, yo. All that rarefied air induces some weapons-grade stupid.
Caric
What Sean Thornton said.
It’s clearly important to Caric that there be a party of white racism. I don’t think we should take it personally that he chose the one that wasn’t his. It’s just kind of arbitrary like that.
[…] Americans who care about this country, divisive Change. We’re promised more socialism, more identity politics, more […]
Caric,
And what of the 3% that didn’t? Are they inauthentic or their opinions diminished then because they disagreed w/ the other 97%? Or are you right because your gang is bigger?
Funny, outnumbered like that we figured for sure you’d appreciate their “ truth to power” votes… dissent being the highest form of patriotism & all…
One can’t always self-identify. Ask yourself “who am I?” followed by “why?” William Golding’s Pincher Martin illuminates that reality in its subtext rather interestingly. Society labels us, much more than we’d like, anyway.
If conservatives are more racially insensitive than liberals then why am I considered moderately conservative while supporting affirmative action? I fully understand the logic of AA, understand its legal foundation, and here I smite the noses of cheap faux-intellectual denialists. Perfect, no it’s not, logical, why yes, thoroughly so, in my view.
I catch Jeff G occasionally being guilty of broad brush stroking and snaring happy dolphins in his fish net. He tosses the “pomo” label like a cat turd when, in fact, Stoppard, Golding, Kertesz, Julian Barnes are examples of writers whose works are generally apolitical narratives (Stoppard might even be considered a angry conservative based on his Coast of Utopia which is playing to sold out crowds in Moscow much to the horror and dismay of some liberals) yet all are considered in the genre of post-modern. Sure, Beckett, the icon, and the other Angela Carter-like second-rate hacks are who we normally identify as definitively post-modern but the questioners of societal norms were/are not exclusively liberal politically per se.
Perhaps the overwhelming majority of African-Americans vote against the Republicans because they accurately view the Republican Party as the party of white racism.
And this morning, while my dog was mouthing some hair tangles near her butt, she farted and scared herself so bad she ran out of the room.
#146
Only to someone as simplemined as yerself , perfesser.
“I fully understand the logic of AA, understand its legal foundation,”
Yes the same legal foundation that brought us Jim Crow and segregated bathrooms. If you see a “legal foundation” in treating people differently under the law based on their parentage or claim to a specific ethnic group then you are an idiot. If you want to help someone out why do you not just quit your job, drop out of school, and insist your job or your spot in college go to someone of a different race?
I hope you don’t teach that shit in your classroom, Caric. But, I have little faith that you don’t.
Caric — How do you get your head that low? For the self-fellating, I mean. There were slavemasters who used blacks less opportunistically than your kind. Go back to your office and stroke yourself while glowing at the diplomas on the walls.
The logic of the redress is that the United States found itself guilty of violating its own laws, both empirically and in spirit. Whether you’re incapable of discerning that or just refuse to do it I have no clue. Regardless, if you want to be painted in the denialist camp then I’m more than happy to do that to you.
The logic of the redress is that the United States found itself guilty of violating its own laws, both empirically and in spirit.
So basically your point is that since the United States WAS guilty of something in your mind, that that justifies holding PEOPLE in the United States to different standards under the law based on race? Like I said before your a freakin idiot. You can paint me as a denialist and I’ll can paint you as the racist bastard you are. Stop speaking in racist code too it is unbecoming of you.
Regardless, if you want to be painted in the denialist camp then I’m more than happy to do that to you.
Which is why you are an asshole, because you choose to use the cheap immoral tactic of painting with a lie rather than have to confront someones actual argument.
Yes, and then ended that practice. Decades ago; before my birth.
You can only do that by lying. Saying that a long-ended practice shouldn’t be the justification for an equally wrong practice today is not denying history; it’s a belief that we should struggle to improve the world not through a never-ending cycle of tit-for-tat, but by actually learning the lessons of history.
Is that the same SC that at one time counted it legal to segregate schools and permit voting rights only for white men? I guess now that the racism is directed at a different group of people you are all for it you racist bastard.
You believe a lot of things. Much of it’s wrong.
In this argument, I frankly don’t give a rip what the Supremes have decided. They may interpret the law, but they do not determine morality or what’s best policy.
Here’s a good quote:
Rotberg believes that his suit is a much-needed challenge to the current neo-McCarthyesque climate, in which “racist†has replaced “commie†as the charge, judgment, and death sentence of choice. Like “commie,†the word “racist†is so overused that its meaning is becoming lost; look at one judge’s recent assertion that “devil’s food cake†is “racist.†And, like “commie,†the word has become a source of amusement. (The blockbuster, Tony Award-winning musical Avenue Q features an upbeat song entitled “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist.â€Â) With each passing day, Peter Brimelow’s definition  “A racist is a conservative winning an argument with a liberal† seems more apt than ever.
From Pajamas media http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/fighting-back-when-called-a-%e2%80%98racist%e2%80%99/2/
Do you have Chromosome 4 kGBA affexor misalignment? Because if you don’t have Chromosome 4 kGBA affexor misalignment, how can you possibly speak to my condition?
GENIST!
I’ve seen logic, and that ain’t it. The Board of Education, for instance, is not The United States. Furthermore, the necessary redress of the Brown grievance was contained in the decision. Further yet, Oliver Brown is dead. If you’d like to further salve his wounds, feel free to join him. I’ll reserve my concern for the living.
VITALIST!!!1
Guilty as charged.
Perhaps it’s simpler than that. Perhaps the overwhelming majority of African-Americans vote against the Republicans because they accurately view the Republican Party as the party of white racism.
Caricature is nothing, if not predictable. And fat. And dummer than a roomful of chocolate starfish.
I dnounce myself.
I’m mostly interpreting their logic.
Bingo.
It’s actually quite amusing that people who write books like “What’s the Matter with Kansas” and argue in detail how the white middle class votes “against its own interests” because they’re misled by Republicans will then argue that blacks are absolutely correct and rational when they overwhelmingly vote Democrat. The possibility that blacks are voting against their own interests because they’ve been misled by Democrats doesn’t seem worthy of discussion, even though intellectual consistency would demand they at least consider the possibility.
Rob, are you suggesting that blacks are uninformed? I’m gonna have to denounce you. Only whites from middle-America can be labeled as uninformed voters. You obviously do not understand the nuance of this issue.
Although, in cities such as Detroit, the voting patterns are a bit more complicated. Although a base that elects such morons as Martha Reeves and Monica Conyers into office certainly cannot claim to be highly informed, there is also the “forgiveness” dynamic that I think is strong in current urban black culture. Like Marion Barry, people “forgave” Kwame Kilpatrick his first term major missteps. “Let’s give him one more chance.”
If he ran again, today, I’m not so sure he simply wouldn’t win again.
And, one more comment before I mop the floors or some other dull task (where DID I put that female-hip shaped laundry basket?), many blacks that I know/knew are actually pretty conservative. They still vote Democrat. But, on most every issue, we are usually in agreement. They’re Republicans and don’t know it.
From back aways in the thread
Re: #125
“OTOH, the only Repub one I can recall offhand was the Wideawakes”
And the “non-bias” in political matters of Wiki continues.
From the Wiki article on the Republican Wideawakes,
“Historians have not found any examples of their engaging in violent or threatening behavior outside of enlistment in the Union military.”
So the Wideawakes were like the Klan because the engaged in the violent, threatening and terroristic behavior of joining the Union army to fight to free the slaves? Man those Republicans were evil right from the founding.
White folks have some of that too. Buddy Cianci will one day be elected again as Mayor of Providence. If he were currently eligible, he’d currently be the Mayor. Although, in his defense, he did an outstanding job as Mayor apart from the corruption.
Carin I do not think the D’s in question need their constituents to agree with them on any issues. They just need to keep telling them that the other side is racist.
I noticed that Dr. Caric still suffers from a dearth of feedback on his blog. You’d think that at least some of his students would do some schmoozing.
BTW, just because you call that skid mark in your underpants a smear doesn’t change the fact that you didn’t wipe well enough.
They just need to keep telling them that the other side is racist.
If the right wants to attract more black voters, we will need to figure out why this slur is so easily believed, and where appropriate, correct for it.
Holy shit, thor, at this rate you’ll be sharing the very kernels of seminal leftist thought any
æonday now. You know, manifesto-grade stuff with all the logic and reason that moron Marx never brought his fat ass to visualize, much less comprehend, about the human condition.So? You go, boy.
Edu Guy – Though I agree, in theory, how does one go about doing so? Facts do not seem to work to the caricatures of the world.
Ed Guy
IMHO it is the psychology of the mob, similiar to teen peer pressure. Conspiracy theories, especially if they explain away your own disappointments and failures, attributing them to the evil Other, are very attractive. There has been, for the past 3 decades or so, a vast industry built on the “institutional racism” of White Amerikkka ™. That industry cannot survive without an attentive and scared audience. The kind of arguments racists like Prof Caric (and those that infantalize blacks and women are, indeed, the textbook definition of racist/sexist) are a subset of the larger Left argument that people are too stupid to take care of themselves or to be trusted with responsibility for themselves….so THEY (Left authoritarians) will unselfishly take the reigns of power and make sure Nannystate takes care of everything from cradle to grave.
Please sign here, ignore that there is no cancelation clause.
But fantasy works like a charm. Just this week Obama bagged another few million votes blaming poverty on McBushChimpyCo. Because of the change, you know.
Sloth ye have with ye always; Caricatures as well.
Racist is when you don’t let people make good money working on drilling oil but make Nigerians slave away to drill it for you.
JD – That’s a tough one. I see two fundamental problems. First, the assumption that blacks vote Democrat because of some sort of gullibility issue is condescending and rude and likely makes the situation even worse. Second, it’s too easy to paint the right as racist because the actual racists like Stormfront tend to share many of the same ideals as conservatives outside of the question of race. This is compounded by the new pervasive notion that to act in a colorblind way is in itself racist, so we are effectively hemmed in with no clear avenue of escape.
Wouldn’t that be, you know, racist? Better to say “If the right wants to embiggen the tent…”.
Of course, embiggen could be seen as sexist, in certain applications. I dunno; ask Puck.
EdGuy
What values would white supremacists share with Conservatives outside of race?
All racism is a form of collectivism. While white supremacists may mouth some sort of words that resemble “individualism” or “patriotism” their behavior belies those values. They are as much in want of a Nanny as any Leftist, they just define their Nanny on their racist/xenophobic terms.
Darleen
While white supremacists may mouth some sort of words that resemble “individualism†or “patriotism†their behavior belies those values.
I guess these were what I was thinking about. The idea of the rugged individualist being as important as any institution which may be set up by society. The ideas of individual responsibility being of critical importance to the larger idea of morality. That free speech and free enterprise are entwined with the whole idea of what it is to be an American.
I think you are correct that in many cases they are faking it, but then it seems that many of “our” representatives are as well.
If the right wants to attract more black voters,
EG — Bottom line is — which side gives out the most goodies? I don’t think for a minute that individual “blacks” like “white” Democrats any better than they like “white” Republicans. It’s just that the Demos deliver the goodies. If starting tomorrow, all Demo patronage and support dried up, and the Republicans stepped in and started handing out goodies, which party do you think “blacks” would flock to? Does anyone seriously think “blacks” would say, “Never! The Republicans party is the party of white racism and I won’t take anything from them. I’ll sit here with my Demo friends who respect me for who I am, but don’t give me anything. All those brothers getting the job set asides and diversity coordinator positions? — race traitors. I’m staying right here with the party that opposes affirmative action! Because they understand me. Yeah.”
Wouldn’t that be, you know, racist?
It seems as if everything is racist these days. Of course, when you have reached the point where devils food cake and black holes are tools of the white power structure, then you have reached the point where insanity has gotten the upper hand and what racism is in truth takes a back seat to what racism can mean as a tool of political advantage.
Salt Lick
To some degree you are correct. That said, it’s hard to miss the fact that the Dems are about to put the first black POTUS in the oval office.
One can’t always self-identify.
Here we are having a serious discussion about race in which no one (IMO) has taken a racist position. Along come Kong and Caric, who no doubt view themselves as opposed to racism, and the only contribution they can offer to the discussion is to tar everyone else on the thread as closet racists.
My point is that I would not expect people who are genuinely opposed to racism be so vehement about forcing people they don’t even know to wear the racist label. It’s almost as if they are struggling to create racists out of whole cloth.
Meanwhile, somewhere in Maryland, Michael Steele shakes his head wistfully.
Is it racist to insist then, as I do, that there is only one race of humans (easily proven by the fact that we can breed with one another)? I suspect it would be considered so by those invested in differences, but what would the argument sound like?
Racists
Meanwhile, somewhere in Maryland, Michael Steele shakes his head wistfully.
Another symptom. How is it that Steele is allowed to be branded as inauthentic? More gullibility?
Ok..tossed out for further consideration (hey, boss!!)
not all identity is problematic
Indeed, I would propose that some identity, even multiple, is a good and necessary thing. As long as those identities are tied voluntarily to activities or ideas, not inherent characteristics like melanin levels and eye shape
For instance, my political identification is based on my own value system, ditto my religious affiliation, then things like I’m a mom and a wife. I’ve volunteered for a whole host of groups over the years and like to be known as former Girl Scout, PTA, [sport/activities] Booster.
I’m a woman, but that doesn’t “inform my values”, so the whole “authentic woman only if you believe [fill in]” argument is wrong headed.
There is much to be said for social networking, as long as it is voluntary (and I shouldn’t have to put in this disclaimer, but will for any lurking trolls) and as long as the group espouses good values.
Such social networking, with its attendant building of “social capital” (see Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone) and multiple social “identities” really is an indication of social health.
Mayebe the reason blacks vote democrat is more social than race. For instance, “married with children†makes of a large majority of the republican vote. I would guess that the minority of black votes the republican do garner also fall into this category. Single , gay, mostly vote democrat. At this time, 70% of all black children are born out of wedlock. The classical nuclear family is diappearing from the black social structure.
People who see the republican party as the party of sexual repression (legal, moral, or otherwise) are going to vote democrat. Maybe a very large part of the black population sees the republican party in this light. It really has nothing to do with race, although the race-baiters will still ply their trade.
Some of the loudest in accusing conservatives in general of being racists will listen to “white power” types and say, “ya know, they have a point…” Largely because the arguments for racial solidarity used by black, Hispanic, and Asian activists are just as (in)valid for whites.
This is largely why the argument that the goal of a color blind society is now called “racist” — honest identification and targeting of racists would cast a wider net than many on the left wish.
EduGuy — So long as the definitions are shifted from under us, we cannot hope to gain any ground in the black community. Dealing with the issues that most effect the inner city — crime, education, jobs — involves other interests in the liberal coalition. Those interests will shift the debate in a way to disadvantage conservatives, regardless of the facts. School choice will be turned into government funding for white supremacist academies; tougher law enforcement gets turned into police “targeting young black men” — even when the primary beneficiaries of locking up criminals are themselves young black men; attempting to attract employers into cities is decried as “favoring big business”.
At some point you have to decide to just go ahead and do what you think is right, rather than trying to be popular with any given group.
party of sexual repression
bwhahahah.
Yes, the pandagons think so, because any hint of responsibility is “repression” to them. They can’t even be bothered with paying for contraception or abortions.
…makes up a large majority…
Rob
I don’t care much about popularity, but not being willing to fight because the other side doesn’t fight fair doesn’t sound like a solution to me. Sadly, I don’t have any answers about how to change things. The best I can come up with at this point is identifying where the problem areas lay.
This is largely why the argument that the goal of a color blind society is now called “racist† honest identification and targeting of racists would cast a wider net than many on the left wish.
Caric is the racism scholar. He’s the guy who gets paid the big bucks to think about these issues. It’s telling that the only thing he brings to the intellectual table is to drive by and yell “Racists!” while the people who hold real jobs are producing the substantive commentary about race.
Funny how the context people like Caric want to couch discussions on racism in, and the definitions they want to set for it, seem to benefit the political party they want everyone to vote for. I am sure that is just a HUGE coincidence.
And so goes the nature of race opportunism. It’s painful to see the guilty continually force the innocent to prove their innocence.
That said, I’ll accede to whatever subsequent point Caric may yet blindly stumble upon if he can prove that being black amounts to inherent slavery…in 2008. Because if so, I’d get that sucker to the SCOTUS pronto.
Ric –
No wonder our kids are so fucked up. It’s just hard for me to believe that a college professor could be so thick. You are calling half the country racist, even though you’ve never met them.
What a flying asshole you are. I resent being called a racist by a moron who has no fucking idea who I am, or how I live my life!
I can’t believe that our country lets a moron like you anywhere near the education of our children. No wonder an empty suit who stutters as much as Bush used to when not in front of a teleprompter, and obviously has no clue about the real world, is in contention for the presidency. I don’t give a shit what color he is! I do give a shit that he sounds like Carter to the tenth power. Maybe you don’t remember the Carter years, but I do. And they were a fucking nightmare for this country!
You are nothing but a child pretending to be an adult, and obviously have no desire to understand the constitution.
I owe no one anything for what happened 150 years before I was born. Assuage your own childish guilt, because I have none. I’m sorry that slavery existed in the distant past, but I had nothing to do with it, and think that this racism shit is exactly that – shit. You and yours are the racists for teaching blacks that they are too stupid to get by without the help of “compassionate” people like you. Compassionatr, my ass!
Go fuck yourself, you self righteous, stupid little arrogant prick.
You are not smart enough to be a college professer, little boy. Your powers of logic have been stunted by the same kind of idiot professors that you have become.
Call me a racist all you want. All it does is illustrate how stupid you really are.
Go proggs! You have no real arguments, so you have substituted the charge of racism for an argument.
Pathetic…
“Go fuck yourself, you self righteous, stupid little arrogant prick.”
One quibble TLD. He’s not little. Otherwise, spot on.
What does this guy teach anyway? Whatever it is it sounds like thor got an A in that class.
If slavery had never happened Republicans would still be the party of white racism. This is what Caric gets paid for, and lots of others. It’s like half of NPR’s budget.
And the other half of the NPR budget is wasted on advertising for books on the Bush administration or slandering United States military personnel as war criminals.
Here’s Bill Ayres, Barack Obama’s neighbor, on racism, capitalism, and education.:
“…I began teaching when I was 20 years old in a small freedom school affiliated with the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The year was 1965, and I’d been arrested in a demonstration. Jailed for ten days, I met several activists who were finding ways to link teaching and education with deep and fundamental social change. They were following Dewey and DuBois, King and Helen Keller who wrote: “We can’t have education without revolution. We have tried peace education for 1,900 years and it has failed. Let us try revolution and see what it will do now.â€Â
I walked out of jail and into my first teaching positionâ€â€and from that day until this I’ve thought of myself as a teacher, but I’ve also understood teaching as a project intimately connected with social justice. After all, the fundamental message of the teacher is this: you can change your lifeâ€â€whoever you are, wherever you’ve been, whatever you’ve done, another world is possible. As students and teachers begin to see themselves as linked to one another, as tied to history and capable of collective action, the fundamental message of teaching shifts slightly, and becomes broader, more generous: we must change ourselves as we come together to change the world. Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions small and large. La educacion es revolucion! […]
Totalitarianism demands obedience and conformity, hierarchy, command and control. Royalty requires allegiance. Capitalism promotes racism and militarism – turning people into consumers, not citizens. Participatory democracy, by contrast, requires free people coming together voluntarily as equals who are capable of both self-realization and, at the same time, full participation in a shared political and economic life. …”
Link encountered at JOM this morning.
“Capitalism promotes racism and militarism”
That sounds alot like this…..
“It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere…That’s the world! On which hope sits!”
“It’s painful to see the guilty continually force the innocent to prove their innocence.”
Bingo. Thor can shove his personal guilt up his ass. Same with the rest of the projectors.
Neither side of my family’s been in this country for more than a century. None of them were slave owners, indeed they were slaves themselves as late as 50 years ago. Both of my parents fought for black civil rights.
And even if every one of those answers was reversed, it still wouldn’t mean shit. I’ve personally got nothing to apologize or account for, simply on the basis of my skin color being white, and I expect to be treated that way.
Lemme guess, I’m going to a special hellish Commie hell someday, and it’s going to be worse than standing in line to get into Stalin’s mausoleum during the never ending Moscow winter wearing nothing but ear muffs.
OK.Thanks.Jhoward.
See comment #94.
Baracky has kooky neighbors I think. I wouldn’t move into that neighborhood but mostly cause paying property taxes to the city of Chicago sounds really gay. Even gayer than paying property taxes to the city of Los Angeles. Also I can’t afford it.
Thor do you realize your entire argument rests on the fact that you believe that anyone who disagrees with your position is inherently racist?
It saddens me that you, Mr. Pink, think such.
Not really, ha!
Of course I don’t think everyone is racist that I disagree with, goofer.
thor prefers to call that imagination, Mr. Pink, witness #221.
Or so I insist. For I am mindreader.
And yet you act that way.
Don’t hide behind a plural, Crawford.
Osmium. Osmium, or maybe iridium.
McCarthyistic behavior. Next thing you know he’ll be accusing people of being werewolves.
(From SCTV’s “I Was A Teenage Communist”.)
Baracky isn’t gonna be president. Why? Because lots of Democrats won’t vote for him. Before liberals accuse conservatives of racism they need to attend to the plank in their eye.
Don’t hide behind a pseudonym. You attacked Karl constantly, and eventually admitted that you did so because of what you believed were his motives. You’d attack him even when he said complimentary things about Obama.
You’ve done the same thing with everyone else here. If we fail in the least to bow to the bizarre fantasies you have about race, you assume it’s because we’re racists, ignorant, or both. Frankly, I don’t think you’re capable of honest disagreement with anyone — you simply haven’t got the intellectual chops. You’ve learned to parrot a few phrases, but beyond that you cannot articulate any reasons for your positions.
Maybe I articulated beyond what your pointy little head can handle. Sorry if I caught you between the eyes so many times that you’ve become nothing but a little right-wing rodent bent on insulting the intelligence of everyone here with your signatory “fuck you”-s.
Go blubber out a “fuck you” over at stormfront. You’ve been chop-fu’d intellectually and then some here.
You have articulated a lot, thor.
Just little of it goes beyond insult.
Stormfront? You go there, thor? Eww, ick!
Hmm. I toss around the pomo label like a cat turd, do I? Really?
Maybe thor is thinking of another strawman who just happens to be handsome like me.
Sometimes I catch thor dismissing me as a bit too overbroad on things I’m not too overbroad on. I’m sure he has a reason.
Top candidates are:
-Intellectual dishonesty
-Failure to pay attention
-Abject stupidity
Hmm, like, I’d never read that stuff, Jeff. Could it be that I don’t know everything. I need a drink.
Thor, you really have no clue how pathetic you appear, do you? Or that you’ve pretty much demonstrated what I was saying?
As compared to you, Mr. “Fuck Off!”?
Why don’t you try and tell me just how pathetic I appear. Dare ya.
Well, jeez, do you need some help getting started, Mr. Crawford?
How about calling me a… “Obama-fellator!” You haven’t taken that dazzling roaster out of your bag in awhile.
Impress me with the confluence of the over matched adolescent mind and adult XXX mutterings.
a move back toward the founding principles of this country”
yeah sure we all’d like to go back to powdered wigs and such and the racist slave trade.
goldstein,greedstein would sell his son for the right price in such a place.
thor, keeping up the good fight with such simple twits….maybe it’s time for a dan/thor site?
Uh, that’s founding principles, f and f, not founding principals. And of course, no need to mention how slavery was overturned from within, and how both scriptural pressure and the very founding principles I point to were important factors.
Your line about powdered wigs is only missing a bit of spit and the cliche about old white men. You are a cartoon character, f and f, and as such, your labeling of others as “simple twits” creates the perfect kind of dramatic irony. It delights me.
thor, you should perhaps begin looking closely at the supporters you seem to be attracting. This fuck, for instance, wouldn’t be able to argue his way into my pants were I a 90 year old queen with a day to live, and he was carrying specialty beads, a fistful of hundreds, and one of them big tubs of vaseline.
Oh, and incidentally? If you don’t know where I stand on something, find out. Trying to reduce me to one of your caricatures is likely to bite you in the ass. The archives, they are abundant — and I am not, despite your occasional intimations, some kind of rightwing toadie.
Dude, don’t compliment me in the same post that you say something that idiotic about Jeff. Is that a quote from someone else? If so indicate as such. Jeff doesn’t deserve that, nobody here does, least of all him.
If you disagree with someone leave it at that without resorting to that.
243 fer 241
I’m pretty much do my own thing; I think you’ve picked up on that, Jeff. Someone who’d say that about you certainly doesn’t know me well. That’s the type of crap I’ve been fed up with for a long time. Dehumanization for the sake of an imaginary ideological civil that doesn’t exist bores me, pisses me off, actually.
Yes, you’re an interesting intellect, no question. I like reading your thoughts, but then again I like renegades and spaghetti westerns too.
..civil war..
Fistful of Dollars or Django?
The Harder They Come, the darkened foreground an’ di rid’mic soundtrack and all.
“To tackle the “problem†of racial tension in a way that might actually alleviate some of those tensions, we would have to, as a culture, decide to remove the bad science of race from the political equation.”
Every public primary and secondary edifice would have to be ripped from its roots.
About government as savior to black Americans: the federal government stepped in time and again to help underscore the citizenship of Americans who are black and that’s why most trust it as protector and, therefore, the party which most identifies with gov’t. Think about it.
“Salt Lick on 8/14 @ 12:45 pm #
A conservative “black†blogger once chewed me out for suggesting something similar.”
Who would that be?
#Comment by Salt Lick on 8/14 @ 1:17 pm #
The point, however, is not in the opting out; it’s in the de-emphasizing,
My castigator’s point was that “other people†see black skin and make racist assumptions.”
Give a pair and tell us who you’re talking about! See, I remember you coming to my blog and being the one full of assumptions on the topic. Here.
Grow a pair, rather.
“Hmm, like, I’d never read that stuff, Jeff. Could it be that I don’t know everything. I need a drink.”
Whoa, thor passes the Turing Test!
must be grade inflation, or somesuch…
“Top candidates are:
-Intellectual dishonesty
-Failure to pay attention
-Abject stupidity”
More likely he’s a Kraut in his little trench and we’re Tommies in ours. BTW, he just came out to play a little futball with our CO.
Jeff knows the secret handshake. He’s in.
#
Comment by Education Guy on 8/15 @ 8:50 am #
They just need to keep telling them that the other side is racist.
If the right wants to attract more black voters, we will need to figure out why this slur is so easily believed, and where appropriate, correct for it.
This is why.
I’m for ripping things out by the roots, baldilocks.
As for The Harder They Come, I’m a big fan of indie movies featuring Jimmy Cliff and released by Criterion. I have the title track on my iPod.
How I read it is baldilocks is saying black people still aren’t free. Not really anyway. They’re just not enslaved. Freedom like what everyone else has embraces an ethos of individualism and self-reliance and nondependence. In America. It’s different in Europe.
Feets
Correct. The chains, however, are mental.
“I’m for ripping things out by the roots, baldilocks.”
Dude, I’m with ya.
If I had kids, I’d homeschool ’em. Especially after what I found out about my teenaged nephews today.
They don’t teach the periodic tables anymore?
yeah, dudes…that was quoted from the Man himself. If he wants to edit his own mispellings, so be it. Alas, consistant grammar and proper spelling isn’t the truth, just orthodoxy. His orthodoxy is anti-Progressive conservatism. Reactionary Principles, yes. thor, his minions accuse u of all that’s evil and heap columny upon you and you keep taking it. He’s proud of the abuse heaped on you. That’s why I honor your persistance.
Principles of change and improvement as evinced by only some, a minority of the old white men, our “foundedrs” is indeed part of the progressive tradition of our nation. That’s not what’s honored herein.
good luck, thor.
um…
Yeah, I was kind of giggling at that too. I may have to find a use for columny.
“The Parthenon was considered to be the apotheiosis of columny.”
Dnt wry flprsflprs wll txt u ltr
Already been done, dude.
In 2010 “white” will become a minority.
So deal.
I think that date was 2055, but thanks for playing nishi.
In 2008, white already is a minority.
Reality: it’s not just for breakfast, anymore.
Come to think of it, I’m not sure that “white” has ever been a majority “race”.
Although I’m somewhat baffled that a GNXPer is using descriptors like that.
Bad Science.
That is the apellation that conservatives give both the Hapmap and the Bellcurve, and studies showing the biological basis of homosexuality.
Or I guess anything they disagree with.
Jeff you are just attempting to bury under a torrent of PC verbage, the underlying truth of Science.
The Bellcurve exists. The 40% arent really college material, and never will be. They cannot be lifted onto the rightside of the bellcurve by any process currently availalble. Not by vouchers, not by affirmitive action.
There are significant between group differences in both race and sex.
Homosexuality is a natural variant of human sexuality.
It is ok for young girls to have protected sex.
Taboos against this are just cultural hangovers from the EEA.
First trimester abortion is not murder. Undifferentiated cell clumps are not ensouled.
There is a biological basis of behavoir for homosapiens sapiens.
Culture evolves.
That is all Science.
Everyday we know more.
the gate is just going to get straighter.
Excelsior!
Nishtoon, you still don’t even have a 50-50 chance of winning an argument with a dead thread.
Sure, it does. Who’s denying that it does? Anyone here?
I’m sure they’re drinking another toast to you in Strawhalla, nishi.
Nishi: “That is the apellation that conservatives give both the Hapmap and the Bellcurve, and studies showing the biological basis of homosexuality.”
As opposed to the utter ignorance of science that liberals present, as in the case of The Bell Curve, when the facts present a scenario they find unpalatable. Affirmative Action, statistically speaking, is a rum deal for an unhealthy percentage of those who “benefit” from it, since it pulls them to schools beyond their academic / intellectual ability, yet liberals claim that such analysis is “racist.”
Nishi: “The Bellcurve exists. The 40% arent really college material, and never will be. They cannot be lifted onto the rightside of the bellcurve by any process currently availalble. Not by vouchers, not by affirmitive action.”
You are making some dangerous assumptions, Nishi. Until and unless we can get students out of failing schools, there is no reliable methods of seperating the proverbial goats from the sheep. Likewise, you ignore the dumbing down of the University, with sub-high school level courses being presented for college credit. Alas, they are college material now.
Nishi: “Homosexuality is a natural variant of human sexuality.
It is ok for young girls to have protected sex. Taboos against this are just cultural hangovers from the EEA. First trimester abortion is not murder. Undifferentiated cell clumps are not ensouled. There is a biological basis of behavoir for homosapiens sapiens. Culture evolves. That is all Science.”
And you incontrovertable proof of *any* of these is precisely what, Nishi?
Science is provable, testable and repeatable. At best, you have a collection of theories, at worst, a liberal wish-list. Can you prove that an undifferentiate cluster of cells is not ensouled? No, you can’t. You merely discard the notion because you cannot measure it one way of the other and find it an inconvenient notion. What studies do you have demonstrating the lack of harm arising from juvenile sex? Do you account for the financial or emotional harm that arises from these trysts?
Nishi, you’re a light-weight — all mouth and no brain.
I was going to get into that, Dreads, but with nishtoon you never know when she’s just dropping comments and walking off, never to comment again.
Shorter everyone: correlation is not causation. IQ correlates to race, at least in the US, but it also correlates to poverty. And, unfortunately, poverty also correlates to race.
So, did poverty cause blackness? How about IQ, does that cause blackness?
Nishi wants cause-and-effect her way, which I think is kind of revealing that her starting assumption is that other “races” DO have built-in genetic impediments to intelligence, and that none of Those People ought to be allowed the privelege of higher education. Because it’s wasted, you see.
Best to just skim them out of the gene pool altogether, I suspect.