Thank heavens there are less than two weeks left to this campaign. I remember, barely, going to the first of the candidates forums back in February of 2007 -- almost two years ago.
Thank heavens it's almost over because there is almost nothing original left to be said (last night I contemplated starting a poker blog).
Thank heavens because, never in my wildest dreams, would I have believed that John McCain would have so grossly insulted our collective intelligence by picking a nitwit dimwit like Sarah Palin.
Thank heavens this is near the end because I would never guessed that John McCain would have so lowered the national discourse, that at a time when we teeter on the brink of a global economic melt we get some guy called Joe The Plumber shoved up our pipes.
Thank heavens that there are only 13 days left to whip up such ugly, menacing and overtly racist crowds like the crew of white folks who stood on a North Carolina street corner to jeer and mock early black voters. Like horrible ghosts out of our darkest past, they were caught on tape by no less than a reporter from the conservative Washington Times.
Thank heavens that the calculated ugliness spewed nationwide by McCain-Palin is falling flat. The latest WSJ/NBC poll shows Obama surging ahead with a 10 point lead and reveals that Palin is a greater liability for McCain than even the unspeakable (and now invisible) George W. Bush.
Thank heavens that Ms. Palin continues her dribble of "interviews" with cherry-picked reporters. The more she talks, the more she buries herself and her running mate. Her latest blunder? Blowing a question from a third-grader and asserting that the job of the Vice-President is to be "in charge of the United States Senate."
Thank heavens for sensible suggestions like this one fromChris Hitchens: unless Palin starts giving press conferences, like every other V.P. candidate in American history (except for, yes, Dan Quayle), the national media should simply refuse to further cover her events.
Thank heavens that, last night while researching the poker blog, I stumbled upon some old news that the greatest player of all time, Doyle "Texas Dolly" Brunson -- a lifelong Republican-- had endorsedBarack Obama (as have two other of my poker heroes -- Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu).
Hello, Dolly!
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96 Responses to “Thank Heavens. The Ugliness is Almost Over.”
On that note…found this post in another forum. Unfortunately, can’t identify the town this Capra-esque event took place in but it certainly echoes your sentiments, Marc.
“…I live in Republican, ultra conservative territory…in a very wealthy town of about 53,000 people. On Sunday a rally was held, a bridge walk, that expected a huge turnout of 1,000 people. 10,000 people showed up. It was an amazing thing, to see people that i have known to be hard core republicans show up in support of Obama, “Christians for Obama”, “Veterans for Obama”…white, wealthy majority show up in a passionate throng. My old boss was there. He owns a business that caters to the wealthy Republican majority and he calls himself a closet Democrat. He came out of the closet, loud and proud, his picture in the paper and much to the surprise of his wealthy Republican clients.
…thousands of rich people who are willing to pay the price. It was just incredible and to remind myself that Obama is black and to see the black families in the crowd, feeling the inclusiveness in a town that is shamefully segregated. To see Republican’s jumping ship and behind a young black man. It’s just amazing to see this in the south. I’m so glad I have experienced this in my lifetime….how I envied those that saw the 60′s civil rights movement…Whether he wins or looses, and I think he’ll win…this is an eye opening moment…when a black man is brought to victory by white voters, many registered Republican. It changes everything”
Turns out, according to a few articles I discovered, that the reason right wing trolls cruise liberal blogs is because most right wing blogs don’t allow comments! The reason: because of the vile nature of the majority of the posts.
So–as usual the parasitic right comes for a hand out to the First Amendment abiding and patriotic left.
I agree with everything said about McCain/Palin, but to describe this film clip of the anti-Obama rally as “a ghost from our darkest past” is really a gross and unnecessary distortion. I was expecting to see hooded klansmen and burning crosses, but there was nothing of the sort. It was a raucous but peaceful rally with no hint of racism, and black, pro-Obama supporters mingled freely in the crowd and spoke with the reporter.
The intellectual dishonestly of GM is either naive or pathetic, racism is not a personal problem. If the left is guilt of hysteria the right is guilty of denial.
Give credit to where it’s due, the Southern Strategy was extremely successful, it managed to marginalize civil rights in wake of the moral power vacuum in the wake of MLK’s death.
The “wedge issue” was given a black face, Willie Horton, the fat black welfare mother, kids bussed in from far away inner city neighborhoods became the key talking points about what is wrong with liberalism. Let’s quote the master:
“You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”
McCain wants to win and given what he has been through, I don’t think it’s unfair to dismiss that might to anything to win.
My mood is good too, given Obama’s double-digit lead, and widening, putting him over 50 percent.
But still feel like chirping up against the mischaracterizations that keep going on about McCain supporters.
I watched the clip Marc embedded and there was nothing sinsiter. It simply shows some McCain supporters chanting and waving signs near a polling place. One guy says the early voting is cheating, even though he voted early himself. That’s moronic, indeed, but not sinister and certainly not threatening in any way to the people coming to vote.
To suggest that there’s something wrong with that is a little, well, unAmerican.
While a small group of bloggers have productively explored Obama’s New Party ties, discussion has often turned on the New Party’s alleged socialism.
In 2002, Micah L. Sifry, a former writer and editor with The Nation magazine, published Spoiling for a Fight: Third-Party Politics in America, a book that contains what is probably our best account of the rise and fall of the New Party. Although Sifry leaves us hanging on the socialism question, his chapter on the New Party is more than enough to raise disturbing questions about Obama’s radicalism, and about his ties to ACORN.
Chicago’s New Party was actually formed around two core elements, ACORN and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 880. Yet, as Sifry notes, SEIU 880 was itself an ACORN offshoot.
Pretty much a no-brainer that al Qaeda wants the crazy old man and Miss Half-Baked Alaska to drive us even further into the ditch than George W. Bush did.
Hitler “ran” a country. Does that make him…what? Stalin “ran” a country; Bush “runs” (and this is really stretching a point) a country…and your point about Palin’s competence being equated with her being a governor is what now? Not to mention the fact she was found guilty of abuse of power.
And, ummmm, “First Dude”? Member of a secessionist group whose leader avowedly hated America.
I guess all these attributes of hers make her your great white hope, eh? Especially comforting are the videos of her practicing her “religion”.
Ah yes…and lets not forget she bankrupted her tiny town of Wasilla and left it millions in debt. But I suppose her vigilance over the local library’s contents made up for her complete lack of judgment and administrative skills.
Imagine runnng a state that not only doesn’t have to impose an income tax or a sales tax but actually gets enough money from taxing corporations for access to collectively-owned resources to send welfare checks out to every citizen. That must be challenging…
Oh, wait…her foreign policy expertise has been honed by her ability to see Russia from her couch? And those moments when Putin Rears up and flies over Alaska?
Being elected to office, historically, is rarely synonymous with having brains, judgment, skill, intelligence or competence.
reg, it’s not a corporate tax. It’s a royalty to mine resources that belong to the state and its citizens. So, rather than “welfare,” it’s revenue from a sale of materials. Something is produced, unlike Obama’s schemes where there is nothing produced and everything is “sharing the wealth.”
Anna, your information and analysis is completely off the wall. When it comes to issues of taxes and finance, left-wingers are clueless.
Oh yeah. The old “it’s not a tax, it’s a fee.;..” Can’t believe you’re trying to pull that silly shit.
Did Alaskan citizens invest in ownership of these resources – or is it something they collectively own just because they’re residents of Alaska. If they’ve invested nothing in ownership but simply have it as a matter of right as citizens, it’s “socialism.” Sorry asshole.
MarkC — “It was a raucous but peaceful rally with no hint of racism, and black, pro-Obama supporters mingled freely in the crowd and spoke with the reporter.”
So what? You must not have gotten the memo: racism is systemic; racist activity is support for anything that strengthens this system, or goes against the objective interests of the victimized group, as determined by whomever is calling you a racist.
RssrX —
“the Southern Strategy was extremely successful, it managed to marginalize civil rights in wake of the moral power vacuum in the wake of MLK’s death.”
Southern Strategy was actually “white working class strategy” since it also successfully appealed to northern white ethnics moving to the suburbs (or not wealthy enough to move suburbs). These folks were tired of riots in respose to the generosity of the Great Society, angry at judges who sent their kids to private schools but mandated that blacks be bused to white ethnic schools, angry at crime in once safe neighborhoods, angry at the Democratic Party’s embrace of “radical chic” and mau-mauing the flak catchers.”
Anna — that extremely progressive lady in the article you post who feels that her town is “still shamefully segregated” — I just can’t understand what’s stopping her from buying a house and moving her own family to the other side of the tracks?
Pumping oil, mining coal, and cutting timber represents production. For these products, companies pay royalties–not fees, like tolls.
Companies are paying to get something that does not belong to them. It belongs to the state and the state is comprised of its citizens. The representatives of the citizens can divy it up how they want or build a bridge to nowhere if they want.
The U.S. charges lumber companies to harvest trees from our national forests. That offsets your taxes (assuming you pay any), but you could get a check, if it was arranged that way. But, that is not welfare.
However, merely taking something from one person and giving it to another does not fit within the definition of production and is a costly reallocation of private resources through the government. That is welfare and redistribution of the wealth, which is the goal of socialism.
Admit it. Obama is a socialist. We don’t have to argue tax plans, medical plans, welfare plans, etc. If someone is comfortable transforming this nation into a socialist one, then vote for Obama. I’m not, so I won’t. Just be honest about him.
Woody…so facts and reality are “off the wall” now, eh?
Oh you right wing delusional types…you just stop at nothing to try and prove a point.
…And hysterical remarks such as your being convinced an Obama presidency would put Ayers in a cabinet post—this is an ON the wall remark? Not to mention the other 99% of your paranoid ravings.
Does an Alaskan resident contribute anything to the production ? Of course not. How come the resources become “mine” and I deserve a cut from the production just because I move to Alaska. It’s a “spread the wealth” welfare scheme for Alaskans that drives up the price of gas at the pump for other consumers. If the state is going to continue to own the resources and charge taxes to exploit them, use the money to develop longterm alternative energy. Don’t just spread it around to non-taxpaying deadbeats.
If anyone needs to admit anything, Woody, it’s that conservatives are allegedly against collective ownership of the land. And that taxes – or “royalties” – should be as low as possible to encourage production. Not high enough to send money to any jerk who happens to hang in the neighborhood.
Or is there some “new” form of “conservatism” that just makes shit up as it rolls along to rationalize it’s “Messiah” personalities and wacko partisan politics ? (And you’re rolliing downhill rapidly, if you hadn’t noticed.)
For the record, I’m for taxing the oil bastards, although I’d use the money for alternative energy development. But it amazes me when some idiot like Palin – whose never had to balance a real budget the way governors who aren’t sitting on oil and natural gas royalties to fund their state do – as some sort of principled conservative who will be their savior. It’s absolutely hilarious. Total charade…and as phony as most of these posts by Woody.
Pollster’s state aggregate has Obama up 15 points in Pennsylvania. RCP has him up 11.
I hope McCain goes more negative in his last throes. I want him to go back to the Beltway with his old press buddies thinking he’s an over-the-hill old shit. No love for Johnny…
reg — the oil in the ground is owned by the citizens of Alaska. They have just as much right to the income it generates as the owner of any other piece of income-creating piece of property. Are you against the concept of landlords collecting rent?
If they democratically decide to spend more money on alternative energy, or bridges to nowhere, that is their perogative.
Actually, around 2003, there was an excellent idea for a similar rebate system in Iraq, which somehow died on the vine.
Woody is evidently a large fan of Hobbes’s imagined world prior to any government. Over the last few threads we’ve just witnessed his dismantling of any legitimate government role, since all government activity as a base condition requires they raise revenue. Since I am taxed to pay for a road other people use, we have (presto!) Socialism.
But what Woody is actually engaged in is the destruction of language. We could take any word, expand it’s meaning by fiat, and (presto! again), have what we’re looking for. It’s the sale thing lefties do with the word “fascism.”
Dan O – “’riots in respose to the generosity of the Great Society’ huh? I can’t make any sense of this.”
That’s how it was perceived by the white folks. 1950′s and early 60′s: White southern bigotry and occasional violence, and Congressional inaction on Civil Rights was met by nonviolent resistence. Post-1963: The Civil Rights Act of ’64, Economic Opportunity Act of 64, Voting Rights Act of ’65, Head Start, Model Cities Program, Fair Housing Act, food stamps, Medicaid, and so on and so forth. This imperfect but dramatic gesture of American good will and progress in redressing past wrongs was met by Black Power, riots in LA, Newark, Detroit, Washington DC, and dozens of other cities.
DanO, I would expect you to say just that, because you are a socialist. You probably are also a teacher or other union member, never go to church, support the rights of homosexuality and bestiality practitioners, and want us Republicans to support you for being an unproductive member of society. Unfortunately, you’re going to get your wish with Barack Saddam Hussein Obama Bin Tax-’em, but I promise you that Republicans will be back to put the country in order once lazy liberals like you screw it up yet again.
Jim, that is an impostor. He thinks he’s clever by attempting to mock me, but it just shows how low you liberals are willing to sink in order to insult God-fearing conservatives.
Does tap into the SPLC study that showed a lot of white supremicists
are rooting for Obama to win so they can once and for all prove their point about what will happen if a black man becomes president…i.e. that a black man will enact the same contemptuous policies that a right wing whitey will and subject the general population to the same constitution shredding shenanigans.
This type of reasoning is what happens when solipsists try to propose an idea.
cornerback – I’m not against this. It’s just not a conservative approach. Conservatives would put these resources up for sale, if they actually believed in private property/”free markets” as the best way to produce wealth. And it’s weird that someone becomes an “owner” of oil and natural gas wealth just by moving to another state. Sorry, but this is some socialistic shit.
The urban riots were in every case I’m aware a response to specific actions – usually a shooting – by the police, seen rightly or wrongly as indiscriminate violence against black people and reflective of Police-Biz-As-Usual, or by the assassination of Dr. King. The notion that people were incited to riot against food stamps – or FOR food stamps – or whatever the hell that post argues – doesn’t make any sense. You’re also forgetting to include the history of white riots in northern cities against blacks – which continued in places like Chicago and Boston into the ’60s and ’70s.
Oh, yes. I take back what I say about North Carolina. Let’s see, a group of black voters taking the time –on a Sunday– to stand in line and vote early in a state in which — in my lifetiime– they couldnt vote. And that’s the place that a 100% white crowd chooses to jeer them as they stand in line and to complain to the local cracker sheriff that there’s something illegal about voting on a SUnday. Yeah, you’re right. Nothing sinister or dark about any of that. Good clean American fun. White people mocking black people for voting. I must just be dumb ass socialist.
And P.S. to Woody: Reg is right. Im not running for VicePresident. I’m not qualified. Though I would be happy to match my personal credentials against those of dimwit Palin. I win on every count, except in my capacity to produce children at quite the rate she does.
P.S. Nor could I spend as much as she does on clothes. Heaven knows I have tried. Im actually a big fan of Nieman Marcus as I am one of those Armani radicals, you know. But to me a big shopping spree is maybe $2k dollars.. not $150K! Next time she goes she ought to take Joe The Dumber with her — he could use some new threads.
As President Bush said after the trillion dollar public ‘investment’ in failed capitalism “We are all Socialists now. Thanks to all the happy Sociopaths.”
Just a comment on taxes and roads: whether or not you personally use a road, roads are used by those who bring your food to market, products to all sorts of stores that you shop in, teachers to the schools your children attend, etc. ad infinitum.
whiteboy who can’t find his way out of rabbit hole says:
Anna — that extremely progressive lady in the article you post who feels that her town is “still shamefully segregated” — I just can’t understand what’s stopping her from buying a house and moving her own family to the other side of the tracks?
Sooooo in your pathological worldview, whiteboy, why would this woman need to move to “the other side of the tracks”? Just because you deride the anecdotal evidence that thousands of people in what, historically, has been an atavistic southern community realized a vote for McPalin was against their self interests?
And you have to do better than to post a link to another “Jewish intellectual” suffering from backlash syndrome to discredit the work of the SPLC. I would say the points this toad raised were worth red flagging. As both a Jew and someone who has had the misfortune of observing close up the metamorphosis of a very old Jewish friend feel he has “seen the light” and now become an apologist for everything and one from Giuliani to Palin to O’Reilly to offshore drilling…I can attest to knowing first hand that these defections from reality are a psychological/cultural group phenomenon. This is a guy who as a friend, is sterling, and whose livelihood as a long time geriatric social worker and whose wife is a public defender–both their professions and income are dependent on the opposition’s ability to stem the tide of their now, professed, political ideology. Neither would have their particular professions if it weren’t for forward thinking Democratic values and progressive social reform.
So please, don’t quote me some paleo toad who has deep ended and betrayed the tradition of American Jews being in the vanguard of progressivism. And I am fully aware of just how many have defected–its also, in my view, a generational thing.
Sarah Silverman addressed some of this with her hilarious Great Shlep video call to action: Tell Your Racist Jewish Grandparents to Vote for Obama.
No matter what, Jews always find whats funny in the most obtuse displays of human stupidity and depravity. Even when its coming from within their own ranks.
reg — right, no direct causation between whites voting to pass Great Society programs and black’s rioting. But there was correlation which I don’t claim to understand and mainly chalk up to the notion that no good deed ever goes unpunished in this fallen world. I’m sure white cops pulled drunk black drivers over in Watts quite a bit in prior decades, but somehow its residents didn’t respond by burning down their neighborhood. My point was that the rioting — along with a cohort of unwashed, ungrateful boomers on college campuses giving their parents generation — created great resentment on the part of many whites who had voted Democratic for many years, including (in the non-Southern states) for Johnson in 1964. Busing a few years later added fuel to the fire. I’m not sure what you’re referring to with white riots. Whites were angry about busing, and I know the famous photo of the white guy with threatening black with an American flag in Boston. Otherwise, most white resistence that I’m aware of involved voting Republican, putting their kids in parochial schools, putting metal bars on their basement windows, and taking off for the suburbs if they could afford to.
anna — As I said, I accept your apology for mistaking who I am. I’m not a racist, I’m a nationalist. Every nation ought to have a state, every state ought to have just one nation. In the USA, that means non-hypentated Americans with all deliberate speed. That in turn calls for an end to blaming whites for black pathologies, and an end to demonizing whites who know what Jesse Jackson is talking about when he says that he feels relieved when he walks in a sketchy neighborhood, turns around, and sees a white person behind him.
Dangerous white supremacist groups, bikers klansmen and so forth, are justifiably monitored by the FBI and by local law enforcement. SPLC, a group of left-wing McCarthyite lawyers, has a different agenda: shut down debate and silence legitimate scholars and political viewpoints. (People like Kevin MacDonald, subject of a recent respectful roundtable in “Jewcy” online Jewish magazine.)
And I was only apologizing to you if I had mixed up what you said with someone else. I didn’t.
Now, you are revealing your warped ideological clap trap…that of a “nationalist”. Nice try, buster. But a rose by any other name is still a rose and a neo fascist by any other name is still, usually, a “nationalist”.
I don’t blame whites for “black pathologies” I just blame white protestants, like you, for springing from a withered sensibility that tries to make the whole fucking world in its sterile image.
Get over your white self. You remind of the ding bat Klan family on Jerry Springer back in the 90′s (only time I ever saw the show). The derranged mother having tried to brain wash her poor child into become a racist like her whining that “why can’t we have American food…like potato salad”–as opposed to something as loony as FRENCH fries (tho that wasn’t the comparison–but equally goofy)
My friend,I mentioned in the last post, also has decided that America “has better values than other countries”.
You can’t make your case as some sort of revisionist declaring you aren’t a racist but do nothing but obsess about being white even calling yourself “white cornerboy”.
Why don’t we talk about what your problem is. I think your conversion from “whitey hating liberal” as you confessed you once were was because you were mugged by a black guy.
Gee, if everyone mugged, raped, ripped off and humiliated by a white man up ended with a backlash reaction the corpses of you white boys would be littering the streets. I guess the best defense is to concoct a loopy ideological umbrella under which we can all live as brothers putting a moratorium on accountability.
White people are a minority on this planet, boy. Live with it.
White cornerback has offered up some interesting comments recently, but this one is a crock of shit, “Every nation ought to have a state, every state ought to have just one nation. In the USA, that means non-hypentated Americans with all deliberate speed. That in turn calls for an end to blaming whites for black pathologies, and an end to demonizing whites…”
I can take the point that the endless sorting out of blame isn’t wise and racial politics on both sides can be fraught, but there exist actual disparities in wealth, education, safety, and standard of living between the average black American (I did it without a hyphen!) and the average white American. You can attribute that to “black pathology” if you like, but not only is that contemptuous of ordinary (if not “real”) Americans, not only does it deny any historical reality (there I go playing the blame game), but it doesn’t offer any solution other than bootstrap pulling and maybe the cliff’s notes to a Joel Osteen book.
Is it racist to decide not to care how blacks came to be the have-lesses? Or to ignore the ongoing subtle (and not-so-subtle – think Jenna 6) instances of racial bigotry in our society? Maybe, not. But whatever the exact name of such a sin, we can note that while the crew in the video above would gladly cop to sharing your willful and relatively unmalicious blindness, they are displaying something far darker.
Sorry Anna, I forgot to respond to your question:
“Sooooo in your pathological worldview, whiteboy, why would this woman need to move to “the other side of the tracks”?
If her town is too damn segregated, no one is stopping her from doing her part to end it by moving to the black part of town. Nothing, that is, except the same factors that stop non-blacks of all political stripes from moving into black majority neighborhoods throughout the USA.
…and I should add “Nothing, that is, except the same factors that stop non-blacks of all political stripes AS WELL AS LARGE NUMBERS OF MIDDLE INCOME BLACKS FRom moving into black majority neighborhoods throughout the USA.”
Mavis, thank you for your thoughtful civil reply I will think about it and respond later.
White cornerback does a good job of outlining how and why the Republican party appeals to racists.
As he he points out, the party chose to respond to and nurture caucasian resentment against the tiny minority of Afro-Americans involved in violent crime and other social pathologies.
The Republican party’s “southern strategy” was never aimed at addressing the fundamental issues driving socioeconomic problems in the ghetto, or anywhere else. As WC’s analysis suggests, it never addressed the Afro-American community at large, the vast majority of which have always been hard-working, tax-paying and law-abiding.
Rather, it focused on and helped deepen the fundamental psychological issues of downwardly mobile caucasians by blurring the distinction between the anti-social behaviors of Afro-American criminals with the Afro-American community at large.
By the 1980s, this had already begun to play out for the Republicans as successful Afro-Americans in professions from medicine to law, sports and entertainment became too numerous and popular culture began to embrace Afro-American culture in more positive ways, blunting the Republican appeals to white resentment.
By the end of the Clinton administration, the Republicans knew the race card was something like a 3 of clubs, not nearly as useful as it had been. Enter Karl Rove and the shift in resentments to religion and educational achievement.
Now, apparently, that has played out too.
Will be interesting to see what sort of resentments the Republicans try to stoke among downwardly mobile caucasions from here on out.
Thanks WC for adding that point that Southern Strategy had appeal to some working class whites. I did not mean to limit racism to just the working class white South, indeed without those sympathies Regan could not have one with such a mandate.
Also WC you just proved my argument about the power of racism. All that whining about riots and bussing has no basis in fact. For example %86 of whites are killed by whites and %94 of blacks are killed by other blacks according to the Justice Bureau, which based upon data compiled from police agencies. Their is no basis for you argument other than fear. Which was what the Republicans have can expertly exploiting for decades.
Stick to debating socialism – it seems that you have somewhat of a reasonable grasp on that subject.
Is there any other black person on this blog but me, there is something very petry dish like about this conversation between all these nice white folks.
f her town is too damn segregated, no one is stopping her from doing her part to end it by moving to the black part of town. Nothing, that is, except the same factors that stop non-blacks of all political stripes from moving into black majority neighborhoods throughout the USA.
…and I should add “Nothing, that is, except the same factors that stop non-blacks of all political stripes AS WELL AS LARGE NUMBERS OF MIDDLE INCOME BLACKS FRom moving into black majority neighborhoods throughout the USA.”
You are truly insane. In response to someone noting that her traditionally racist, white, wealthy southern community had been shocked into voting for a black man because the other option was so revolting–you in your white baiting lunacy–suggest her feeling that she was witnessing a marvel somehow makes it obligatory that she uproot, sell, relocate all to satisfy your perverse notions.
I thought the point you were trying to make was that no one should have to pander to anyone or anything, but that the playing field should be leveled.
You still refuse to acknowledge that you confessed that Balter and others would like to see you banned and banished for your point of view and that you feel you must hide your nationalist, racist specious gibber. Hide from whom? Your work colleagues? You scuttle onto a liberal blog that is dealing primarily with the election and the hysteria surrounding the probable election of a black president. You feel you have a forum where you can dump your white inferiority complex and try to sell it as some sort of intellectual Waterloo…we must all live in one nation under whitey; stop this blaming whitey. Poor whitey…everyone always blames everything on poor whitey.
Who else should we blame?
Bush 1 was in part responsible for implementing a eugenics policy that forcibly sterilized Native American women.
Go fuck yourself, whiteboy, with your boohoo and your twisted arguments about nationalism and letting yourself off the hook.
You are a coward. You admit your views are so sick that you have to hide out on forums where you can vomit them up anonymously.
You aren’t raising any intellectually sustainable arguments about how the issue of race can be laid to rest.
Mavis, there is nothing “unmalicious” about white boy’s remarks.
I love it how white Americans are so tidy about summing up the monumental crimes and soul destroying damage that has been done in this country. The “intellectual” distancing from reality and feeling.
You think because you can recite the latest academic ideological idiocy that you can just dust yourselves off and walk on.
RssrX writes: “There is something very petry dish (sic) like about this conversation between all these nice white folks.”
Firstly, where do you get off assuming skin colors for anonymous posters? White cornerback chooses to identify himself by skin color, just like you, but almost everyone else has not. How do you know Anna’s not half-Kenyan, half-Jamaican. Marc is famous and ocassionally posts pictures of himself, but not many others do.
My blood is a mixture of fine European wines, but that’s only after about 8pm on Fridays and Saturdays. The rest of the time, there’s a lot of beer, and the content of my chromosomes is utterly irrelevant to this forum.
I don’t like the word “black” to describe an entire ethnic group because it is both inaccurate, the skin tones are a range of browns, and has very deep negative connotations in the English language.
I don’t like African-American because that suggests that someone has relatively recently immigrated from Africa. Actually, that is the case for Obama’s father. He is half African. That is simple, accurate and even sort of rhymes.
But most “black” Americans are the children of many generations of Americans and have almost no cultural, social, political or economic links to Africa. Sure, almost none chose that circumstance, but it is the reality.
I think Afro-American more accurately conveys that the distinction is more general and refers mainly to cosmetic features, rather than any specific cultural traits and certainly to no biologically determined distinctions.
If we ever expect to improve discussions of racial differences, we should start by be willing to speak about them with some reasonable degree of accuracy and precision.
Will be interesting to see what sort of resentments the Republicans try to stoke among downwardly mobile caucasions from here on out.
So who stokes the resentments and racism amongst the upwardly mobile caucasians–of which there seems to be quite a few on this forum. Who stoked McCain’s. He comes from a slave owning family.
You assume a whole group of people are “stoked” and manipulated…and are all poor and uneducated.
Who “stoked” the Germans? The Mitford girls…Mosley? Were they all exploited into being anti semites and fascists?
Its a psychological problem of the individual and how that translates into a cultural collective hotbutton that can be pushed.
But the issue of the individual and character are always the problem.
And, yes, sometimes character is influenced by nuture or the lack of it.
Those that responded to Republican “strategy” are only responding to what resonated. You forget how many middle class “caucasians” and even educated “caucasians” will suspend reality to follow their fascist bliss.
Sheesh, Anna…I was about to say that no matter how appalling you find me, I just can’t help but have a soft spot in my heart for someone who writes “nice try, buster” in a reply to me. But then I read your next entry, and you go all potty mouth on me again! What a disappointment.
RssrX — “%86 of whites are killed by whites and %94 of blacks are killed by other blacks according to the Justice Bureau” I have no doubt this true, but isn’t this a result of the tremendous de facto segregation that exists in America? That is, if whites and inner city blacks interacted more, wouldn’t there be more interracial crime? I also think that other statistics might be more useful for trying to decide if, say, Ethiopian taxi drivers might have a rational reason for not picking up those two young black males who just flagged him down. How about comparing per capita violent crime rates? Or the ungodly percentage of young black men in the criminal justice system?
Mavis,
my head is spinning round and round trying to respond to your comments. For all I know you’re as white as Mavis Gallant, but something about how you wrote reminds me of black friends that have responded to my comments in the past, so I picture you as black as I write this. To begin, I know I’m being contradictory, on one hand I’m calling for a color blind unhyphenated America, on the other I’m strongly self-identifying as a white American, talking about white interests, perspectives, grievances, etc.. Also, expressing resentment at black self-assertion, black grievance. I know there is a contradiction there, and I don’t suppose it can be resolved only acknowledged. We are two people, we are also one people, we’ve been and continue to be stuck together in the same boat for a long time. And we gotta learn how to live together!
I most certainly am aware of the great disparities between black and white Americans. I don’t know if other white Americans have an obligation to know or care about these disparities or not. I know that I’m aware of them and I care about them. And I want to support efforts to reduce these disparities (by raising those on the bottom, not lowering those on the top). Was there real damage done whites towards blacks in the past? Undoubtedly yes. Is focusing on these wrongs, some of them very horrific, the way for blacks to move forward, and for black-white relations to move forward? I don’t think so. I think focusing on past wrongs has an invidious effect on motivation: why work hard and play by the rules if those rules are stacked against you? The better way to move forward is for blacks to recognize what amazing rewards there are for overcoming obstacles. Don’t disparage this by calling it “pulling itself up by your bootstraps.” For God sake, as a black student, take advantage of the fact that the same grades and test scores that will get a white student into a top state university will get a black student into the Ivies! With great financial aid! That’s just one example. For others, see Booker T. Washington, William Julius Wilson, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Bill Cosby, John McWhorter and others. Check out the what can be learned from the immigrant experience, particularly the African immigrant experience. Also, if you get really brave, check out Charles Murray too. There is SOME genetic component to success, and there are real disparities here too, primarily as a result of centuries of adaptation to different environments. Now it’s very true that there are lots of useless people with high IQ’s, but looking at the society-at-large, everything else being equal, higher is better. There is also an elegant Galtonian solution: voluntary incentives for people on the right side of the bell curve to have more babies than people on the left side! Try it…you’ll be as smart as the Jews in no time!
Finally, to cut this way, way short, you mention Jena 6. Holy moly! That was where I got off the bus, jumped off the deep end, put away my copy of Native Son and started reading the American Renaissance website. I’m not sure if it was one of the thugs posing on his MySpace site with money he got from supporters, or their rapturous embrace at the BET awards, or (most likely) the song by Johnny Couger fucking Mellancamp, who is supposed to sing for the American heartland. But I was disgusted! Those six kids beat the crap out of some kid who had nothing to do with the noose incident!
I want to conclude by stressing I’m not directing my ire at blacks. I respect blacks who say and genuinely try to better themselves and their people (and hopefully the good ole’ transracial USA as well) whether they agree with me or think I’m a pathetic racist. As for the people in the video above, you know, they’re not terribly impressive, and they don’t know squat about good public policy, but most of them would probably be decent neighbors as long as politics never came up, and I’d venture most would probably good neighbors to a black family as well.
I don’t hate ‘em.
What I hate are people who encourage WHITES to hate their own people, hate and disparage their own European heritage. That right, Anna, white Europeans are a minority on this planet! And we have the same right to survive as a distinct people as Jews, Koreans, ?Kung Bushmen and Maoris!
Bunkbuster – I made no assumptions, I just asked an honest question because I am curious. I surf black, white and Latino blogs, and find all of them to be segregated. My point being much in line with your argument, which is if we don’t find a way to speak to each other truthfully, then how can we come together as a country? I can respect WC because he at least is open about it, which is to me much more productive then hiding behind an alias (which by the way I am not assuming you are).
I’m black and believe me I know my own melange – Irish, Puerto Rican, a smidge of Native American and some unknown quantity of African. However, I won’t be shamed in calling myself black, not by anyone. By calling myself black I am by extension, connecting myself to the larger struggle of post colonialism. I certainly don’t need a patronizing lecture about my own history from you whether you are black, white or purple. And if you are uncomfortable with the term black, how about burnt sienna?
WC you make some good points, but then kind of go off of the deep end. Shelby Steele, no way, and the same for Sowell and McWhorter, who are infected by self hate.
Booker T and DuBois hell yeah. Jena 6 was a lot more complex than your recap. Personally I was disgusted with the aftermath of Jena 6 (and I say that with sincerity, not for brownie points). It’s ironic you write about the lack of black of responsibility, yet yet you want to absolve whites of theirs? Or am I reading your point wrong?
Also, if you get really brave, check out Charles Murray too. There is SOME genetic component to success, and there are real disparities here too
Sure your low IQ has made it harder for you to succeed, but so what? And check out Murray to what end? Even if it’s true that there’s a strong genetic component of the “real disparities” — the difference between the average IQ over white and black populations — so what? The existence of the gap (which is uncontroversial) has no bearing on any individual (that’s how there can be so many stupid whites and so many brilliant blacks), and whether there’s a genetic component of this difference in population averages — a very abstract matter — is even less relevant. There are only two reasons to care about this issue — intellectual curiosity, and racism. There’s no practical matter involved, as arguments (such as those promoted by Murray) that the existence of a genetic component should have some bearing on social policy are quite fallacious.
There are not one, but many, genetic links to the many varieties of intellectual capacity that contribute to success in life.
Consider Obama.
Would Charles Murray count him in the “white” or “black” column when assessing his relative success in life? Obviously, there is no scientific basis to conclude that, genetically speaking, Obama is “white” or “black.” Yet in political and social terms, Obama is clearly “black” in that he would be treated as such in most situations where the distinction mattered.
Genetic makeup, including those traits related to success, are not distributed according to the geographic, social and political categories we refer to as “race.”
One of the troubles with Murray, and the reason his racism is so plain, is that there is no genetic definition of “black.” He never accounts for that in any of his claims: rather, he looks at data on “blacks,” a self-identified social and political grouping NOT A GENETIC ONE, and concludes that underperformance versus self-identified “whites,” who ARE NOT A GENETICALLY DEFINED GROUP.
The genetic variation within the people of Africa is as wide as the variation between the people of Africa and the people of Europe. Genetically, on average, an Ethiopian is as different from a Zulu as a Pygmy is from a Dutchman.
The only reason Africans are grouped as a “race” is that their common genetic features affect their appearance, rather than other aspects, such as average intellectual capacity and, say, ear lobe length.
These are simple, uncontroversial, biological facts.
If we cannot genetically identify a “black” person, how can we even begin to test whether here is a genetic link to the relative success of people we identify as “black.”
Research also shows correlations between, for example, heighth and success and gender and success.
Does anyone really believe that those are gene-based correlations?
There was, at one time, a cockamamie theory that men had a “math gene” lacking in women. That was long ago dismissed, yet the vestiges of junk science about “race”-linked genetic variations and intelligence lingers on like intellectual syphilis — easily defeated by crude antibiotics, but ultimately a hearty virus in careless hosts.
RssrX, BB, passing through: thank you for your interesting reply. With the help of my higher power, I’m not blogging at work today, so it’ll take me about twelve hours to respond (unless I can’t get a hold of my net addiction sponsor and “slip”)
whiteboy whack job finally reveals how utterly insane he is:
Was there real damage done whites towards blacks in the past? Undoubtedly yes. Is focusing on these wrongs, some of them very horrific, the way for blacks to move forward, and for black-white relations to move forward? I don’t think so. I think focusing on past wrongs has an invidious effect on motivation: why work hard and play by the rules if those rules are stacked against you? The better way to move forward is for blacks to recognize what amazing rewards there are for overcoming obstacles. Don’t disparage this by calling it “pulling itself up by your bootstraps.” For God sake, as a black student, take advantage of the fact that the same grades and test scores that will get a white student into a top state university will get a black student into the Ivies! With great financial aid! That’s just one example. For others, see Booker T. Washington, William Julius Wilson, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Bill Cosby, John McWhorter and others. Check out the what can be learned from the immigrant experience, particularly the African immigrant experience. Also, if you get really brave, check out Charles Murray too. There is SOME genetic component to success, and there are real disparities here too, primarily as a result of centuries of adaptation to different environments. Now it’s very true that there are lots of useless people with high IQ’s, but looking at the society-at-large, everything else being equal, higher is better. There is also an elegant Galtonian solution: voluntary incentives for people on the right side of the bell curve to have more babies than people on the left side! Try it…you’ll be as smart as the Jews in no time!
———————————————————–
It gets worse as one reads further down.
I can’t even respond because that would be to dignify this filth.
This guy is worse than Woody.
I can’t believe those of you that are getting roped into debating him. It implies you take anything he says as having some sort of intellectual merit.
white boy has a form RID or Racial Identity Disorder. Its been newly classified as such in the Diagnostic Manual
All those bullshit stats and white honed academic discourses trying to objectify what has been nothing more than humans doing what they do…prey on each other until the slow painful process of awakening to living consciously takes hold.
Find your inner buddha, buddy. Stop trying to find an intellectual construct that will replace the need to just treat people with decency and compassion.
You have lost your humanity and are trying to find a replacement part.
Your whole universe collapses over an incident where black kids target white kids?
Jesus wept. So what should be the appropriate response to holocaust perpetrated against black people
My god, you are so fucking transparent.
Shame on anyone taking this poor excuse for a human being seriously.
First, while I enjoy the ambiguity of blogging as much as anybody, it’s time to reveal my pigmentation as… pasty. Of course, some of by best friends…
Second, anna, I probably agree with you on the merits of most every issue but your posts so far have only convinced me to skip your posts.
Third, I forgot that conservatives have alternate narratives for everything and that we don’t agree that Jenna 6 was an example of pure and heinous racism. That it’s so difficult to agree on even the most disturbing examples makes me wonder if we’ll ever be able to get closer on the really sticky stuff. Regardless, cornerback indicates, perhaps, a level of support for scholarships so that kids without can go to college if they earn it. Maybe we can push that into support for a wider scholarship program, even a government-funded college subsidy, that helps make sure that all eligible kids go somewhere Hey, it’s better than nothing.
Mavis, my apoplectic style is counter to the cold, smug, hubristic gibber of a bunch of white people trying to objectify what is a collective psychological problem that cannot be solved by “scholarship” programs.
The race issue is going to be organically dissolved through the collusion of events–our country’s little evolutionary slog–the worst elements of the American sensibility which fueled 8 years of Bush has now exhausted its unsustainable self. Synchronously an Obama figure arises suggesting we might do things differently. Synchronously the market crisis erupts, McCain who represents the status quo–which everyone realizes is literally and morally bankrupt–reveals he is insane along with plucking an equally insane little handmaiden to be his running mate and WOO HOO!
…Those still not permanently deranged have an epiphany born of expediency and self preservation: hmmm, they think, do I really give a shit his face his brown…he is sane, after all… or do I cling to my stupdity and vote for the crazy white motherfucker and his equally demented bitch running mate–and consign myself, the country and probably the world to hell.
These are circumstances only the gods can orchestrate.
As Dr King said: we may have all come here on different ships, but we are all in the same boat now.
Let’s hear it for those of us who have jobs in this economy!
Before I dip out to mine, to address integration.
“RssrX — “%86 of whites are killed by whites and %94 of blacks are killed by other blacks according to the Justice Bureau” I have no doubt this true, but isn’t this a result of the tremendous de facto segregation that exists in America? That is, if whites and inner city blacks interacted more, wouldn’t there be more interracial crime?”
An interesting fear based theory. I’m sure there would be more crime between blacks and whites, but it seems that you’re implying that the crime would be disproportionately be black against white.
Also WC define inner city black. I am black and live in LA, went to college and have a high paying career – so I need a little more than a generalization.
My parents were integration trailblazers, they wanted the house with the yard, the good schools etc. along with many upwardly mobile blacks in the 60′s & 70′s that was the MLK dream. One memory I have as a kid, was black kids were bussed into the elementary school I attended. At the time I was the only black child at the school and for the most part my classmates ignored me, however when these kids showed up unaccompanied by any adult, the white parents threw rocks at them. I’m not sure what effect that had on them, but I know what effect it had on myself and my family.
That is, if whites and inner city blacks interacted more, wouldn’t there be more interracial crime?”
Subsequently, we moved to a place where the developers decided to create racially integrated city with low income housing interspersed with single family homes. The idea being that if afforded the same access to public utilities, schools etc. the lower income children would be on par with upper income children, thus improving upon their ability to move into the middle class – which is the American dream right?
Due to the demographics of my home state, those in the lower income housing tended to be black (however, that has changed with a recent influx of Latinos and Asians). Crime in my town was minimal and limited to petty stuff an was not racially imbalanced.
The town has become one of the choice cities to live in America currently topping off at under 100,000 people. It is also a mecca for interracial couples seeking an environment where they and their children would not be judged.
…and you could clear your mind of that right wing fug might actually realize what I was stating was precisely that events will conspire–are conspiring–to make racial bias obsolete. Its the ol there are no racists in fox holes paradigm that will be enacted on a national scale.
Of course, always a few hold outs like you, Woody and whiteboy. As conditions may be extreme for awhile I suppose a Pale for racists may have to be created.
Finally, to cut this way, way short, you mention Jena 6. Holy moly! That was where I got off the bus, jumped off the deep end, put away my copy of Native Son and started reading the American Renaissance website. I’m not sure if it was one of the thugs posing on his MySpace site with money he got from supporters, or their rapturous embrace at the BET awards, or (most likely) the song by Johnny Couger fucking Mellancamp, who is supposed to sing for the American heartland. But I was disgusted! Those six kids beat the crap out of some kid who had nothing to do with the noose incident!
BUT IN 1981 when the Klan in Mobile set out to randomly select a black man to be lynched–and did–you felt NOTHING. NO DISGUST.
The Jena 6 were reacting to just one too many threats. It didn’t upset you that a) a black kid had to ask to sit under a tree and b) just because he asked three nooses were hung from it.
Their justifiable rage has no value or meaning in that whiteout space where your soul should be and you don’t understand the tragedy of the kid who got beaten.
So this incident sends you fleeing into the arms of your true self mirrored in the credo of some group of culture challenged maggots who call themselves American Renaissance–one doesn’t even have to look them up to know what they are.
For those who still don’t get where whiteboy is coming from just read the GOOGLE marker for American Renaissance…his gang.
His posts continuously were working up to his revealing he is part of some racist group.
whitecorner boy posts from the House of Rep–whether he just sits around the building and hijacks wifi–if thats possible–or he has official business there as some sort of wonk…it is clear he holds a professional position and he has confessed he has to hide his real views.
Anyone on the comments section who isn’t one of “them” still want to play with the whiteboy?
American Renaissance
A conservative monthly publication. Promotes a variety of white racial positions . http://www.amren.com/ – 51k – Cached – Similar pages – Note this
Why Obama Will Win
The Real Culprits in This Meltdown
Hunting Season for Whites
One Less Initiative on Hefty …
How Many Americans
Why I Don’t Want Diversity in My
The John Oakley Show
The Negro Crime Rate
Still not convinced? This is the poison white boy subscribes to and then pretends he’s all about wanting to dance the hora together with his dark skinned brothers and sisters. Did I say hora? OOps.
If you haven’t subscribed to American Renaissance, here’s what you’re missing in the November 2008 issue:
*
Sarah Palin—a Candidate We Can Vote For?: Political consultant Reilly Smith makes a case for whites to support the McCain/Palin ticket—because of Sarah Palin. Mr. Smith considers the visceral hatred toward Gov. Palin by the liberal establishment, particularly by non-whites, hatred he believes is inspired by the very qualities that entitle her to white support. [Mr. Smith also contends against the view that an Obama candidacy would lead to a white awakening.]
>>>>NOTE: THIS IS WHY WHITE BOY CLAIMS HE IS VOTING FOR OBAMA. ON SOME WHITE SITES THEIR CONTENTION IS THAT IF OBAMA GETS IN THERE WILL BE A “WHITE AWAKENING”
*
How to Avoid Future McCains discusses measures needed to make immigration reform an unavoidable national campaign issue.
*
Why Vote For McCain: Prof. Michael Hart urges readers to support McCain as the lesser of two evils, arguing that an Obama presidency would be the death knell for immigration control at the national level.
I forgot that conservatives have alternate narratives for everything and that we don’t agree that Jenna 6 was an example of pure and heinous racism. That it’s so difficult to agree on even the most disturbing examples makes me wonder if we’ll ever be able to get closer on the really sticky stuff.
There are different narratives because of confirmation bias. If you compare the claims accepted and rejected by people like WC to the actual facts, you will find that the assumptions being selectively confirmed are racist. The same holds for discussions of IQ and genetics. We can only get closer by challenging the root racism and the high level of intellectual dishonesty required to maintain it.
most of them would probably be decent neighbors as long as politics never came up, and I’d venture most would probably good neighbors to a black family as well.
You mean like they were to that black man they shouted over and poked at?
Nazis can make “decent neighbors as long as politics never came up” too.
Mavis — I’m not a conservative who supports a few “scholarship programs.” I’m a liberal Democrat Obama voter who has never voted Republican in his life. I suppose I prefer Republican rhetoric on race, but I prefer Obama in every other respect, and I actually think an Obama presidency is much more likely to move race relations forward in a more realistic direction. I want to pay more taxes to help the poor, i.e. I wanna help my black sisters and brothers.
passing through — “…then why do you say and believe what racists believe?”
A racist is someone who cannot DISCRIMINATE between individuals of a particular racial group, who perceives and judges all or most members by a single disparaging standard. To a racist, there is no meaningful, fundamental difference between the personhood of an Obama and the personhood of Fiddy Cent or whatever he’s called now. Chris Black’s definition of racism is wrong, a real racist is INCAPABLE of understanding the distinction he elucidates here so well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz6nsGZZdjE
On Murray, yes of course the Bell Curve tells us nothing about individuals. Well actually it does: we know that millions of blacks on the right side of the black curve have higher IQ’s than tens of millions of whites (or more) on the left side of the white curve. And those millions of black citizens have every legal and moral right to FULL citizenship and opportunity. The value of the Bell Curve from a policy perspective is two-fold:
1) as a partial explanation for the disparities between white and black, it lessens the blame that can be placed on whitey, and on history, for these disparities. As I said above, blaming whitey helps no one.
2) by showing there is some hereditary component to adaptive traits, illustrates need to get some groups (members of WEB du Bois’ “Talented Tenth”) to increase their fecundity, and babies to make fewer babies.
RssrX — I guess I would define “inner city black” as someone who lives in neighborhood that is both majority black, and poor.
Thanks for interesting story. I can imagine (or try to imagine) how you felt when they threw stones at the new black kids. You say before the bussing, the kids ignored you. Overall, would you say that the kids and their parents treated you and your family with respect? If they did, then doesn’t that suggest that they were ok with some blacks, good upwardly mobile neighbors like your father and his family, but they feared outsiders. Still, you said this was elementary school. Look, that sounds fucked. If I’m the lawyer for white America, I’m advising those rockthrowers to plead guilty. Discriminating against newcomers or any race who want to be good neighbors (as long as they’re citizens) is inexcusable. On the other hand, disliking rabble of any race that is moving into one’s neighborhood or is being bussed to one’s school district is something else — it is, at least, a natural impulse, for ANY group of any race — and so is fearing that a large influx of outsiders will TURN into rabble.
That’s great to hear your other story too about your current neighborhood. I’d like to hear more details actually. I hear so much depressing news, it is good to hear something positive. I worked a bit in the nineties on the Hope VI program, which attempted to convert public housing high rises into mixed-income housing. This also necessitated giving lots of people Section 8 vouchers to spread out across the whole metro area. We thought we had a pretty good program. I was very disenchanted to read this article in the Atlantic a few months ago, about how this program actually had the effect of DISPERSING crime throughout the entire metro region, through those Section 8 vouchers.
Here it is: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/memphis-crime
BB- sorry I’ll try to get to you next time.
Anna, you need to go to timeout. But FYI, I wasn’t mugged. I grew up in all-white small town America, then later went to small artsy-fartsy flaming radical left wing college. Then many years of social worker type jobs in diverse communities, including community organization stint in neighborhood transitioning from all-white to all-black, it was about 3/4′s of the way through the process when I was there. Organization was run by liberal white Catholics who didn’t want to flee like the rest of their parish was doing. Worked our asses off to provide services and help for our new neighbors, most of whom would look in our eyes and see…whitey. Later, lots of other multi-racial professional interactions, including some really amazing diversity training sessions, run self-righteous little shysters like you. Currently married to a non-white and living in nearly all-black neighborhood.
“…then why do you say and believe what racists believe?”
A racist is someone who …
You didn’t answer the question.
as a partial explanation for the disparities between white and black, it lessens the blame that can be placed on whitey, and on history, for these disparities. As I said above, blaming whitey helps no one.
You’re a racist idiot and full of shit. Regardless of whether there’s a genetic component, the effects of slavery, Jim Crow, and racism generally are real. Failing to blame those, as you do, leads to bad social policy.
P.S. That there is a genetic component to IQ does not imply that it favors whites. Since we know that there’s a strong social component, it might just as well be that blacks are genetically superior but that that’s swamped by the social component. That’s the huge flaw in the racists’ argument that we should expect genetic differences in this trait just as we do in other traits — they assume that whites are superior.
passing through — your first question is based on the premise that you and I agree on what “racism” is and what “racists” believe. I say that a racist is someone who does not believe there are any meaningful variations in traits within a single race, and by that standard I do not believe what racists believe and I do not say what racists say. Why don’t you argue with my definition if you want to take it further.
I also didn’t say that the effects of slavery and racial discrimination were not real, I said that focusing on them was not helpful in the effort to advance black achievement. We have had policies for years to address past wrongs — affirmative action and minority scholarships being just two examples. I’m not saying get rid of them, I’m saying further progress is primarily based on changes in habits of culture and fertility.
“g factor” is apparently the non-environmental component of intelligence, the debate is over whether it can be isolated and tested adequately. The issue gets awfuly technical awfully quickly, and I need to study it in more depth to respond to your last point.
It suffices to say “I disagree with you” you don’t need to say I’m full of shit. You’re obviously very emotionally invested in your religious beliefs about “equality” (Equality of what?) and have hard time carrying on a conversation without resorting to ad hominem.
Thank heavens there are less than two weeks left to this campaign. I remember, barely, going to the first of the candidates forums back in February of 2007 -- almost two years ago.
Thank heavens it's almost over because there is almost nothing original left to be said (last night I contemplated starting a poker blog).
Thank heavens because, never in my wildest dreams, would I have believed that John McCain would have so grossly insulted our collective intelligence by picking a nitwit dimwit like Sarah Palin.
Thank heavens this is near the end because I would never guessed that John McCain would have so lowered the national discourse, that at a time when we teeter on the brink of a global economic melt we get some guy called Joe The Plumber shoved up our pipes.
Thank heavens that there are only 13 days left to whip up such ugly, menacing and overtly racist crowds like the crew of white folks who stood on a North Carolina street corner to jeer and mock early black voters. Like horrible ghosts out of our darkest past, they were caught on tape by no less than a reporter from the conservative Washington Times.
Thank heavens that the calculated ugliness spewed nationwide by McCain-Palin is falling flat. The latest WSJ/NBC poll shows Obama surging ahead with a 10 point lead and reveals that Palin is a greater liability for McCain than even the unspeakable (and now invisible) George W. Bush.
Thank heavens that Ms. Palin continues her dribble of "interviews" with cherry-picked reporters. The more she talks, the more she buries herself and her running mate. Her latest blunder? Blowing a question from a third-grader and asserting that the job of the Vice-President is to be "in charge of the United States Senate."
Thank heavens for sensible suggestions like this one from Chris Hitchens: unless Palin starts giving press conferences, like every other V.P. candidate in American history (except for, yes, Dan Quayle), the national media should simply refuse to further cover her events.
Thank heavens that, last night while researching the poker blog, I stumbled upon some old news that the greatest player of all time, Doyle "Texas Dolly" Brunson -- a lifelong Republican-- had endorsed Barack Obama (as have two other of my poker heroes -- Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu).
Hello, Dolly!
October 21st, 2008 at 9:16 pm
On that note…found this post in another forum. Unfortunately, can’t identify the town this Capra-esque event took place in but it certainly echoes your sentiments, Marc.
“…I live in Republican, ultra conservative territory…in a very wealthy town of about 53,000 people. On Sunday a rally was held, a bridge walk, that expected a huge turnout of 1,000 people. 10,000 people showed up. It was an amazing thing, to see people that i have known to be hard core republicans show up in support of Obama, “Christians for Obama”, “Veterans for Obama”…white, wealthy majority show up in a passionate throng. My old boss was there. He owns a business that caters to the wealthy Republican majority and he calls himself a closet Democrat. He came out of the closet, loud and proud, his picture in the paper and much to the surprise of his wealthy Republican clients.
…thousands of rich people who are willing to pay the price. It was just incredible and to remind myself that Obama is black and to see the black families in the crowd, feeling the inclusiveness in a town that is shamefully segregated. To see Republican’s jumping ship and behind a young black man. It’s just amazing to see this in the south. I’m so glad I have experienced this in my lifetime….how I envied those that saw the 60′s civil rights movement…Whether he wins or looses, and I think he’ll win…this is an eye opening moment…when a black man is brought to victory by white voters, many registered Republican. It changes everything”
Amen
October 21st, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Woody’s people…
Here’s one I hadn’t come across yet–but apropos the theme of this thread.
From the Southern Poverty Law Center:
http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2008/06/11/president-obama-many-white-supremacists-are-celebrating/
October 21st, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Turns out, according to a few articles I discovered, that the reason right wing trolls cruise liberal blogs is because most right wing blogs don’t allow comments! The reason: because of the vile nature of the majority of the posts.
So–as usual the parasitic right comes for a hand out to the First Amendment abiding and patriotic left.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:21 pm
I agree with everything said about McCain/Palin, but to describe this film clip of the anti-Obama rally as “a ghost from our darkest past” is really a gross and unnecessary distortion. I was expecting to see hooded klansmen and burning crosses, but there was nothing of the sort. It was a raucous but peaceful rally with no hint of racism, and black, pro-Obama supporters mingled freely in the crowd and spoke with the reporter.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:36 pm
The question I have when I see that video is, what is Tony Soprano doing in North Carolina?
October 21st, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Oy!
The intellectual dishonestly of GM is either naive or pathetic, racism is not a personal problem. If the left is guilt of hysteria the right is guilty of denial.
Give credit to where it’s due, the Southern Strategy was extremely successful, it managed to marginalize civil rights in wake of the moral power vacuum in the wake of MLK’s death.
The “wedge issue” was given a black face, Willie Horton, the fat black welfare mother, kids bussed in from far away inner city neighborhoods became the key talking points about what is wrong with liberalism. Let’s quote the master:
“You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”
McCain wants to win and given what he has been through, I don’t think it’s unfair to dismiss that might to anything to win.
October 22nd, 2008 at 3:15 am
My mood is good too, given Obama’s double-digit lead, and widening, putting him over 50 percent.
But still feel like chirping up against the mischaracterizations that keep going on about McCain supporters.
I watched the clip Marc embedded and there was nothing sinsiter. It simply shows some McCain supporters chanting and waving signs near a polling place. One guy says the early voting is cheating, even though he voted early himself. That’s moronic, indeed, but not sinister and certainly not threatening in any way to the people coming to vote.
To suggest that there’s something wrong with that is a little, well, unAmerican.
October 22nd, 2008 at 4:20 am
Marc: dimwit like Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin runs a state and Marc runs a blog and a poker table.
October 22nd, 2008 at 5:20 am
There is plenty of the ugliness to go around from BOTH sides.
Republican HQ’s Vandalized, Workers Threatened
Brick Thrown Through Window Had Anarchy Symbol
http://www.wsmv.com/politics/17770884/detail.html#-
October 22nd, 2008 at 5:23 am
And I run my mouth.
October 22nd, 2008 at 5:47 am
Remember the haircuts! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/22/palin-clothes-spending-ha_n_136740.html
October 22nd, 2008 at 6:05 am
DanO – this is known as “spreading the wealth.”
October 22nd, 2008 at 6:22 am
What the liberal media and people here ignore….
October 22nd, 2008 at 6:59 am
Those who want to destroy America support John McCain:
http://tinyurl.com/55dzu6
Pretty much a no-brainer that al Qaeda wants the crazy old man and Miss Half-Baked Alaska to drive us even further into the ditch than George W. Bush did.
October 22nd, 2008 at 7:01 am
Woody,
Hitler “ran” a country. Does that make him…what? Stalin “ran” a country; Bush “runs” (and this is really stretching a point) a country…and your point about Palin’s competence being equated with her being a governor is what now? Not to mention the fact she was found guilty of abuse of power.
And, ummmm, “First Dude”? Member of a secessionist group whose leader avowedly hated America.
I guess all these attributes of hers make her your great white hope, eh? Especially comforting are the videos of her practicing her “religion”.
Ah yes…and lets not forget she bankrupted her tiny town of Wasilla and left it millions in debt. But I suppose her vigilance over the local library’s contents made up for her complete lack of judgment and administrative skills.
October 22nd, 2008 at 7:03 am
Here’s a link related to my comment above that doesn’t require registration…
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_10/015307.php
October 22nd, 2008 at 7:05 am
>>>To suggest that there’s something wrong with that is a little, well, unAmerican.
Yes, BB, it’s unAmerican for Marc to voice his opinion.
>>>Sarah Palin runs a state and Marc runs a blog and a poker table.
Last I checked only one of them’s on the ballot.
>>>a
nitwitdimwit like Sarah PalinWhat on God’s green Earth prompted the upgrade?
October 22nd, 2008 at 7:07 am
Imagine runnng a state that not only doesn’t have to impose an income tax or a sales tax but actually gets enough money from taxing corporations for access to collectively-owned resources to send welfare checks out to every citizen. That must be challenging…
October 22nd, 2008 at 7:13 am
Oh, wait…her foreign policy expertise has been honed by her ability to see Russia from her couch? And those moments when Putin Rears up and flies over Alaska?
Being elected to office, historically, is rarely synonymous with having brains, judgment, skill, intelligence or competence.
And Alaska seems to follow the trend.
October 22nd, 2008 at 7:14 am
reg, it’s not a corporate tax. It’s a royalty to mine resources that belong to the state and its citizens. So, rather than “welfare,” it’s revenue from a sale of materials. Something is produced, unlike Obama’s schemes where there is nothing produced and everything is “sharing the wealth.”
Anna, your information and analysis is completely off the wall. When it comes to issues of taxes and finance, left-wingers are clueless.
October 22nd, 2008 at 8:27 am
Prediction
October 17, 2008
1948 Headline
DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN
2008 Headline
OBAMA DEFEATS MCCAIN
From AUGUSTUS to CALIGULA in 60 short years.
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:03 am
Oh yeah. The old “it’s not a tax, it’s a fee.;..” Can’t believe you’re trying to pull that silly shit.
Did Alaskan citizens invest in ownership of these resources – or is it something they collectively own just because they’re residents of Alaska. If they’ve invested nothing in ownership but simply have it as a matter of right as citizens, it’s “socialism.” Sorry asshole.
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:04 am
“something is produced”
Is anything produced by some deadbeat Alaskan who does nothing but recieve a royalty check because he happens to have moved there ?
You’re desperate….
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:11 am
MarkC — “It was a raucous but peaceful rally with no hint of racism, and black, pro-Obama supporters mingled freely in the crowd and spoke with the reporter.”
So what? You must not have gotten the memo: racism is systemic; racist activity is support for anything that strengthens this system, or goes against the objective interests of the victimized group, as determined by whomever is calling you a racist.
RssrX —
“the Southern Strategy was extremely successful, it managed to marginalize civil rights in wake of the moral power vacuum in the wake of MLK’s death.”
Southern Strategy was actually “white working class strategy” since it also successfully appealed to northern white ethnics moving to the suburbs (or not wealthy enough to move suburbs). These folks were tired of riots in respose to the generosity of the Great Society, angry at judges who sent their kids to private schools but mandated that blacks be bused to white ethnic schools, angry at crime in once safe neighborhoods, angry at the Democratic Party’s embrace of “radical chic” and mau-mauing the flak catchers.”
Anna — that extremely progressive lady in the article you post who feels that her town is “still shamefully segregated” — I just can’t understand what’s stopping her from buying a house and moving her own family to the other side of the tracks?
Also, here’s a good expose of your favorite hate group, by a very learned Jewish intellectual:
http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/the_southern_poverty_smearbund/
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:25 am
Pumping oil, mining coal, and cutting timber represents production. For these products, companies pay royalties–not fees, like tolls.
Companies are paying to get something that does not belong to them. It belongs to the state and the state is comprised of its citizens. The representatives of the citizens can divy it up how they want or build a bridge to nowhere if they want.
The U.S. charges lumber companies to harvest trees from our national forests. That offsets your taxes (assuming you pay any), but you could get a check, if it was arranged that way. But, that is not welfare.
However, merely taking something from one person and giving it to another does not fit within the definition of production and is a costly reallocation of private resources through the government. That is welfare and redistribution of the wealth, which is the goal of socialism.
Admit it. Obama is a socialist. We don’t have to argue tax plans, medical plans, welfare plans, etc. If someone is comfortable transforming this nation into a socialist one, then vote for Obama. I’m not, so I won’t. Just be honest about him.
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:48 am
Woody…so facts and reality are “off the wall” now, eh?
Oh you right wing delusional types…you just stop at nothing to try and prove a point.
…And hysterical remarks such as your being convinced an Obama presidency would put Ayers in a cabinet post—this is an ON the wall remark? Not to mention the other 99% of your paranoid ravings.
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:49 am
Does an Alaskan resident contribute anything to the production ? Of course not. How come the resources become “mine” and I deserve a cut from the production just because I move to Alaska. It’s a “spread the wealth” welfare scheme for Alaskans that drives up the price of gas at the pump for other consumers. If the state is going to continue to own the resources and charge taxes to exploit them, use the money to develop longterm alternative energy. Don’t just spread it around to non-taxpaying deadbeats.
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:53 am
If anyone needs to admit anything, Woody, it’s that conservatives are allegedly against collective ownership of the land. And that taxes – or “royalties” – should be as low as possible to encourage production. Not high enough to send money to any jerk who happens to hang in the neighborhood.
Or is there some “new” form of “conservatism” that just makes shit up as it rolls along to rationalize it’s “Messiah” personalities and wacko partisan politics ? (And you’re rolliing downhill rapidly, if you hadn’t noticed.)
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:56 am
For the record, I’m for taxing the oil bastards, although I’d use the money for alternative energy development. But it amazes me when some idiot like Palin – whose never had to balance a real budget the way governors who aren’t sitting on oil and natural gas royalties to fund their state do – as some sort of principled conservative who will be their savior. It’s absolutely hilarious. Total charade…and as phony as most of these posts by Woody.
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:57 am
“…is put forth as some soert of principled conservative…” etc. etc.
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:02 am
cornerback- “riots in respose to the generosity of the Great Society” huh? I can’t make any sense of this.
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:04 am
Pollster’s state aggregate has Obama up 15 points in Pennsylvania. RCP has him up 11.
I hope McCain goes more negative in his last throes. I want him to go back to the Beltway with his old press buddies thinking he’s an over-the-hill old shit. No love for Johnny…
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:08 am
reg — the oil in the ground is owned by the citizens of Alaska. They have just as much right to the income it generates as the owner of any other piece of income-creating piece of property. Are you against the concept of landlords collecting rent?
If they democratically decide to spend more money on alternative energy, or bridges to nowhere, that is their perogative.
Actually, around 2003, there was an excellent idea for a similar rebate system in Iraq, which somehow died on the vine.
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:09 am
Woody is evidently a large fan of Hobbes’s imagined world prior to any government. Over the last few threads we’ve just witnessed his dismantling of any legitimate government role, since all government activity as a base condition requires they raise revenue. Since I am taxed to pay for a road other people use, we have (presto!) Socialism.
But what Woody is actually engaged in is the destruction of language. We could take any word, expand it’s meaning by fiat, and (presto! again), have what we’re looking for. It’s the sale thing lefties do with the word “fascism.”
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:22 am
Dan O – “’riots in respose to the generosity of the Great Society’ huh? I can’t make any sense of this.”
That’s how it was perceived by the white folks. 1950′s and early 60′s: White southern bigotry and occasional violence, and Congressional inaction on Civil Rights was met by nonviolent resistence. Post-1963: The Civil Rights Act of ’64, Economic Opportunity Act of 64, Voting Rights Act of ’65, Head Start, Model Cities Program, Fair Housing Act, food stamps, Medicaid, and so on and so forth. This imperfect but dramatic gesture of American good will and progress in redressing past wrongs was met by Black Power, riots in LA, Newark, Detroit, Washington DC, and dozens of other cities.
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:26 am
DanO, I would expect you to say just that, because you are a socialist. You probably are also a teacher or other union member, never go to church, support the rights of homosexuality and bestiality practitioners, and want us Republicans to support you for being an unproductive member of society. Unfortunately, you’re going to get your wish with Barack Saddam Hussein Obama Bin Tax-’em, but I promise you that Republicans will be back to put the country in order once lazy liberals like you screw it up yet again.
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:37 am
Wait…a teacher is an unproductive member of society?
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:44 am
Woody, this most recent zinger to DanO…
are you trying to write comedy?
LOL.
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:45 am
Jim, that is an impostor. He thinks he’s clever by attempting to mock me, but it just shows how low you liberals are willing to sink in order to insult God-fearing conservatives.
But yes, DanO is still a socialist.
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:46 am
Marc, is that you having a laugh?
It seemed OTT even for Woody.
Does tap into the SPLC study that showed a lot of white supremicists
are rooting for Obama to win so they can once and for all prove their point about what will happen if a black man becomes president…i.e. that a black man will enact the same contemptuous policies that a right wing whitey will and subject the general population to the same constitution shredding shenanigans.
This type of reasoning is what happens when solipsists try to propose an idea.
October 22nd, 2008 at 11:01 am
cornerback – I’m not against this. It’s just not a conservative approach. Conservatives would put these resources up for sale, if they actually believed in private property/”free markets” as the best way to produce wealth. And it’s weird that someone becomes an “owner” of oil and natural gas wealth just by moving to another state. Sorry, but this is some socialistic shit.
October 22nd, 2008 at 11:12 am
The urban riots were in every case I’m aware a response to specific actions – usually a shooting – by the police, seen rightly or wrongly as indiscriminate violence against black people and reflective of Police-Biz-As-Usual, or by the assassination of Dr. King. The notion that people were incited to riot against food stamps – or FOR food stamps – or whatever the hell that post argues – doesn’t make any sense. You’re also forgetting to include the history of white riots in northern cities against blacks – which continued in places like Chicago and Boston into the ’60s and ’70s.
October 22nd, 2008 at 11:21 am
…how low you liberals…
Oy vey.
October 22nd, 2008 at 11:25 am
Both Woody’s are pretty funny today!
October 22nd, 2008 at 11:31 am
Oh, yes. I take back what I say about North Carolina. Let’s see, a group of black voters taking the time –on a Sunday– to stand in line and vote early in a state in which — in my lifetiime– they couldnt vote. And that’s the place that a 100% white crowd chooses to jeer them as they stand in line and to complain to the local cracker sheriff that there’s something illegal about voting on a SUnday. Yeah, you’re right. Nothing sinister or dark about any of that. Good clean American fun. White people mocking black people for voting. I must just be dumb ass socialist.
And P.S. to Woody: Reg is right. Im not running for VicePresident. I’m not qualified. Though I would be happy to match my personal credentials against those of dimwit Palin. I win on every count, except in my capacity to produce children at quite the rate she does.
P.S. Nor could I spend as much as she does on clothes. Heaven knows I have tried. Im actually a big fan of Nieman Marcus as I am one of those Armani radicals, you know. But to me a big shopping spree is maybe $2k dollars.. not $150K! Next time she goes she ought to take Joe The Dumber with her — he could use some new threads.
October 22nd, 2008 at 11:34 am
“But yes, DanO is still a socialist.”
As President Bush said after the trillion dollar public ‘investment’ in failed capitalism “We are all Socialists now. Thanks to all the happy Sociopaths.”
October 22nd, 2008 at 11:46 am
Just a comment on taxes and roads: whether or not you personally use a road, roads are used by those who bring your food to market, products to all sorts of stores that you shop in, teachers to the schools your children attend, etc. ad infinitum.
October 22nd, 2008 at 11:54 am
whiteboy who can’t find his way out of rabbit hole says:
Anna — that extremely progressive lady in the article you post who feels that her town is “still shamefully segregated” — I just can’t understand what’s stopping her from buying a house and moving her own family to the other side of the tracks?
Also, here’s a good expose of your favorite hate group, by a very learned Jewish intellectual:
http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/the_southern_poverty_smearbund/
Sooooo in your pathological worldview, whiteboy, why would this woman need to move to “the other side of the tracks”? Just because you deride the anecdotal evidence that thousands of people in what, historically, has been an atavistic southern community realized a vote for McPalin was against their self interests?
And you have to do better than to post a link to another “Jewish intellectual” suffering from backlash syndrome to discredit the work of the SPLC. I would say the points this toad raised were worth red flagging. As both a Jew and someone who has had the misfortune of observing close up the metamorphosis of a very old Jewish friend feel he has “seen the light” and now become an apologist for everything and one from Giuliani to Palin to O’Reilly to offshore drilling…I can attest to knowing first hand that these defections from reality are a psychological/cultural group phenomenon. This is a guy who as a friend, is sterling, and whose livelihood as a long time geriatric social worker and whose wife is a public defender–both their professions and income are dependent on the opposition’s ability to stem the tide of their now, professed, political ideology. Neither would have their particular professions if it weren’t for forward thinking Democratic values and progressive social reform.
So please, don’t quote me some paleo toad who has deep ended and betrayed the tradition of American Jews being in the vanguard of progressivism. And I am fully aware of just how many have defected–its also, in my view, a generational thing.
Sarah Silverman addressed some of this with her hilarious Great Shlep video call to action: Tell Your Racist Jewish Grandparents to Vote for Obama.
No matter what, Jews always find whats funny in the most obtuse displays of human stupidity and depravity. Even when its coming from within their own ranks.
Take a leaf from “our” book, whiteboy.
October 22nd, 2008 at 12:53 pm
reg — right, no direct causation between whites voting to pass Great Society programs and black’s rioting. But there was correlation which I don’t claim to understand and mainly chalk up to the notion that no good deed ever goes unpunished in this fallen world. I’m sure white cops pulled drunk black drivers over in Watts quite a bit in prior decades, but somehow its residents didn’t respond by burning down their neighborhood. My point was that the rioting — along with a cohort of unwashed, ungrateful boomers on college campuses giving their parents generation — created great resentment on the part of many whites who had voted Democratic for many years, including (in the non-Southern states) for Johnson in 1964. Busing a few years later added fuel to the fire. I’m not sure what you’re referring to with white riots. Whites were angry about busing, and I know the famous photo of the white guy with threatening black with an American flag in Boston. Otherwise, most white resistence that I’m aware of involved voting Republican, putting their kids in parochial schools, putting metal bars on their basement windows, and taking off for the suburbs if they could afford to.
anna — As I said, I accept your apology for mistaking who I am. I’m not a racist, I’m a nationalist. Every nation ought to have a state, every state ought to have just one nation. In the USA, that means non-hypentated Americans with all deliberate speed. That in turn calls for an end to blaming whites for black pathologies, and an end to demonizing whites who know what Jesse Jackson is talking about when he says that he feels relieved when he walks in a sketchy neighborhood, turns around, and sees a white person behind him.
Dangerous white supremacist groups, bikers klansmen and so forth, are justifiably monitored by the FBI and by local law enforcement. SPLC, a group of left-wing McCarthyite lawyers, has a different agenda: shut down debate and silence legitimate scholars and political viewpoints. (People like Kevin MacDonald, subject of a recent respectful roundtable in “Jewcy” online Jewish magazine.)
SPLC’s other agenda? Make money off of fools like you, as this article from Harper’s Magazine points out: http://www.americanpatrol.com/SPLC/ChurchofMorrisDees001100.html
October 22nd, 2008 at 1:30 pm
SPLC hasn’t made a dime off me, fool.
And I was only apologizing to you if I had mixed up what you said with someone else. I didn’t.
Now, you are revealing your warped ideological clap trap…that of a “nationalist”. Nice try, buster. But a rose by any other name is still a rose and a neo fascist by any other name is still, usually, a “nationalist”.
I don’t blame whites for “black pathologies” I just blame white protestants, like you, for springing from a withered sensibility that tries to make the whole fucking world in its sterile image.
Get over your white self. You remind of the ding bat Klan family on Jerry Springer back in the 90′s (only time I ever saw the show). The derranged mother having tried to brain wash her poor child into become a racist like her whining that “why can’t we have American food…like potato salad”–as opposed to something as loony as FRENCH fries (tho that wasn’t the comparison–but equally goofy)
My friend,I mentioned in the last post, also has decided that America “has better values than other countries”.
You can’t make your case as some sort of revisionist declaring you aren’t a racist but do nothing but obsess about being white even calling yourself “white cornerboy”.
Why don’t we talk about what your problem is. I think your conversion from “whitey hating liberal” as you confessed you once were was because you were mugged by a black guy.
Gee, if everyone mugged, raped, ripped off and humiliated by a white man up ended with a backlash reaction the corpses of you white boys would be littering the streets. I guess the best defense is to concoct a loopy ideological umbrella under which we can all live as brothers putting a moratorium on accountability.
White people are a minority on this planet, boy. Live with it.
October 22nd, 2008 at 1:47 pm
White cornerback has offered up some interesting comments recently, but this one is a crock of shit, “Every nation ought to have a state, every state ought to have just one nation. In the USA, that means non-hypentated Americans with all deliberate speed. That in turn calls for an end to blaming whites for black pathologies, and an end to demonizing whites…”
I can take the point that the endless sorting out of blame isn’t wise and racial politics on both sides can be fraught, but there exist actual disparities in wealth, education, safety, and standard of living between the average black American (I did it without a hyphen!) and the average white American. You can attribute that to “black pathology” if you like, but not only is that contemptuous of ordinary (if not “real”) Americans, not only does it deny any historical reality (there I go playing the blame game), but it doesn’t offer any solution other than bootstrap pulling and maybe the cliff’s notes to a Joel Osteen book.
Is it racist to decide not to care how blacks came to be the have-lesses? Or to ignore the ongoing subtle (and not-so-subtle – think Jenna 6) instances of racial bigotry in our society? Maybe, not. But whatever the exact name of such a sin, we can note that while the crew in the video above would gladly cop to sharing your willful and relatively unmalicious blindness, they are displaying something far darker.
October 22nd, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Sorry Anna, I forgot to respond to your question:
“Sooooo in your pathological worldview, whiteboy, why would this woman need to move to “the other side of the tracks”?
If her town is too damn segregated, no one is stopping her from doing her part to end it by moving to the black part of town. Nothing, that is, except the same factors that stop non-blacks of all political stripes from moving into black majority neighborhoods throughout the USA.
October 22nd, 2008 at 1:55 pm
…and I should add “Nothing, that is, except the same factors that stop non-blacks of all political stripes AS WELL AS LARGE NUMBERS OF MIDDLE INCOME BLACKS FRom moving into black majority neighborhoods throughout the USA.”
Mavis, thank you for your thoughtful civil reply I will think about it and respond later.
October 22nd, 2008 at 2:03 pm
RssrX:
Well, at least the reading ability of RssrX is worse. That comment wasn’t by GM, it was by MarkC.
October 22nd, 2008 at 2:59 pm
White cornerback does a good job of outlining how and why the Republican party appeals to racists.
As he he points out, the party chose to respond to and nurture caucasian resentment against the tiny minority of Afro-Americans involved in violent crime and other social pathologies.
The Republican party’s “southern strategy” was never aimed at addressing the fundamental issues driving socioeconomic problems in the ghetto, or anywhere else. As WC’s analysis suggests, it never addressed the Afro-American community at large, the vast majority of which have always been hard-working, tax-paying and law-abiding.
Rather, it focused on and helped deepen the fundamental psychological issues of downwardly mobile caucasians by blurring the distinction between the anti-social behaviors of Afro-American criminals with the Afro-American community at large.
By the 1980s, this had already begun to play out for the Republicans as successful Afro-Americans in professions from medicine to law, sports and entertainment became too numerous and popular culture began to embrace Afro-American culture in more positive ways, blunting the Republican appeals to white resentment.
By the end of the Clinton administration, the Republicans knew the race card was something like a 3 of clubs, not nearly as useful as it had been. Enter Karl Rove and the shift in resentments to religion and educational achievement.
Now, apparently, that has played out too.
Will be interesting to see what sort of resentments the Republicans try to stoke among downwardly mobile caucasions from here on out.
October 22nd, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Thanks WC for adding that point that Southern Strategy had appeal to some working class whites. I did not mean to limit racism to just the working class white South, indeed without those sympathies Regan could not have one with such a mandate.
Also WC you just proved my argument about the power of racism. All that whining about riots and bussing has no basis in fact. For example %86 of whites are killed by whites and %94 of blacks are killed by other blacks according to the Justice Bureau, which based upon data compiled from police agencies. Their is no basis for you argument other than fear. Which was what the Republicans have can expertly exploiting for decades.
Stick to debating socialism – it seems that you have somewhat of a reasonable grasp on that subject.
October 22nd, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Also,
Is there any other black person on this blog but me, there is something very petry dish like about this conversation between all these nice white folks.
And I say that without sarcasm.
Good Lord – Bunkbuster Afro-Americans?
GM – y’all sound alike to me.
October 22nd, 2008 at 4:48 pm
whiteboy says:
#
f her town is too damn segregated, no one is stopping her from doing her part to end it by moving to the black part of town. Nothing, that is, except the same factors that stop non-blacks of all political stripes from moving into black majority neighborhoods throughout the USA.
…and I should add “Nothing, that is, except the same factors that stop non-blacks of all political stripes AS WELL AS LARGE NUMBERS OF MIDDLE INCOME BLACKS FRom moving into black majority neighborhoods throughout the USA.”
You are truly insane. In response to someone noting that her traditionally racist, white, wealthy southern community had been shocked into voting for a black man because the other option was so revolting–you in your white baiting lunacy–suggest her feeling that she was witnessing a marvel somehow makes it obligatory that she uproot, sell, relocate all to satisfy your perverse notions.
I thought the point you were trying to make was that no one should have to pander to anyone or anything, but that the playing field should be leveled.
You still refuse to acknowledge that you confessed that Balter and others would like to see you banned and banished for your point of view and that you feel you must hide your nationalist, racist specious gibber. Hide from whom? Your work colleagues? You scuttle onto a liberal blog that is dealing primarily with the election and the hysteria surrounding the probable election of a black president. You feel you have a forum where you can dump your white inferiority complex and try to sell it as some sort of intellectual Waterloo…we must all live in one nation under whitey; stop this blaming whitey. Poor whitey…everyone always blames everything on poor whitey.
Who else should we blame?
Bush 1 was in part responsible for implementing a eugenics policy that forcibly sterilized Native American women.
Go fuck yourself, whiteboy, with your boohoo and your twisted arguments about nationalism and letting yourself off the hook.
You are a coward. You admit your views are so sick that you have to hide out on forums where you can vomit them up anonymously.
You aren’t raising any intellectually sustainable arguments about how the issue of race can be laid to rest.
October 22nd, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Mavis, there is nothing “unmalicious” about white boy’s remarks.
I love it how white Americans are so tidy about summing up the monumental crimes and soul destroying damage that has been done in this country. The “intellectual” distancing from reality and feeling.
You think because you can recite the latest academic ideological idiocy that you can just dust yourselves off and walk on.
October 22nd, 2008 at 5:13 pm
By the way GM I was responding to your previous comments on the past two posts – so much for reading comprehension.
October 22nd, 2008 at 5:15 pm
“You scuttle onto a liberal blog that is dealing primarily with the election and the hysteria surrounding the probable election of a black president.”
The only hysteria here is coming from you Anna. Where and how did you accumulate such un-hinged anger.
October 22nd, 2008 at 5:18 pm
…..and blatant racism!
October 22nd, 2008 at 5:50 pm
RssrX writes: “There is something very petry dish (sic) like about this conversation between all these nice white folks.”
Firstly, where do you get off assuming skin colors for anonymous posters? White cornerback chooses to identify himself by skin color, just like you, but almost everyone else has not. How do you know Anna’s not half-Kenyan, half-Jamaican. Marc is famous and ocassionally posts pictures of himself, but not many others do.
My blood is a mixture of fine European wines, but that’s only after about 8pm on Fridays and Saturdays. The rest of the time, there’s a lot of beer, and the content of my chromosomes is utterly irrelevant to this forum.
I don’t like the word “black” to describe an entire ethnic group because it is both inaccurate, the skin tones are a range of browns, and has very deep negative connotations in the English language.
I don’t like African-American because that suggests that someone has relatively recently immigrated from Africa. Actually, that is the case for Obama’s father. He is half African. That is simple, accurate and even sort of rhymes.
But most “black” Americans are the children of many generations of Americans and have almost no cultural, social, political or economic links to Africa. Sure, almost none chose that circumstance, but it is the reality.
I think Afro-American more accurately conveys that the distinction is more general and refers mainly to cosmetic features, rather than any specific cultural traits and certainly to no biologically determined distinctions.
If we ever expect to improve discussions of racial differences, we should start by be willing to speak about them with some reasonable degree of accuracy and precision.
October 22nd, 2008 at 5:52 pm
And…
i can’t say I care at all, but for someone reason I’ve thought reg is probably Afro-American…
And who contributes more to blog than him?
October 22nd, 2008 at 8:38 pm
BB says:
Will be interesting to see what sort of resentments the Republicans try to stoke among downwardly mobile caucasions from here on out.
So who stokes the resentments and racism amongst the upwardly mobile caucasians–of which there seems to be quite a few on this forum. Who stoked McCain’s. He comes from a slave owning family.
You assume a whole group of people are “stoked” and manipulated…and are all poor and uneducated.
Who “stoked” the Germans? The Mitford girls…Mosley? Were they all exploited into being anti semites and fascists?
Its a psychological problem of the individual and how that translates into a cultural collective hotbutton that can be pushed.
But the issue of the individual and character are always the problem.
And, yes, sometimes character is influenced by nuture or the lack of it.
Those that responded to Republican “strategy” are only responding to what resonated. You forget how many middle class “caucasians” and even educated “caucasians” will suspend reality to follow their fascist bliss.
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Sheesh, Anna…I was about to say that no matter how appalling you find me, I just can’t help but have a soft spot in my heart for someone who writes “nice try, buster” in a reply to me. But then I read your next entry, and you go all potty mouth on me again! What a disappointment.
RssrX — “%86 of whites are killed by whites and %94 of blacks are killed by other blacks according to the Justice Bureau” I have no doubt this true, but isn’t this a result of the tremendous de facto segregation that exists in America? That is, if whites and inner city blacks interacted more, wouldn’t there be more interracial crime? I also think that other statistics might be more useful for trying to decide if, say, Ethiopian taxi drivers might have a rational reason for not picking up those two young black males who just flagged him down. How about comparing per capita violent crime rates? Or the ungodly percentage of young black men in the criminal justice system?
Mavis,
my head is spinning round and round trying to respond to your comments. For all I know you’re as white as Mavis Gallant, but something about how you wrote reminds me of black friends that have responded to my comments in the past, so I picture you as black as I write this. To begin, I know I’m being contradictory, on one hand I’m calling for a color blind unhyphenated America, on the other I’m strongly self-identifying as a white American, talking about white interests, perspectives, grievances, etc.. Also, expressing resentment at black self-assertion, black grievance. I know there is a contradiction there, and I don’t suppose it can be resolved only acknowledged. We are two people, we are also one people, we’ve been and continue to be stuck together in the same boat for a long time. And we gotta learn how to live together!
I most certainly am aware of the great disparities between black and white Americans. I don’t know if other white Americans have an obligation to know or care about these disparities or not. I know that I’m aware of them and I care about them. And I want to support efforts to reduce these disparities (by raising those on the bottom, not lowering those on the top). Was there real damage done whites towards blacks in the past? Undoubtedly yes. Is focusing on these wrongs, some of them very horrific, the way for blacks to move forward, and for black-white relations to move forward? I don’t think so. I think focusing on past wrongs has an invidious effect on motivation: why work hard and play by the rules if those rules are stacked against you? The better way to move forward is for blacks to recognize what amazing rewards there are for overcoming obstacles. Don’t disparage this by calling it “pulling itself up by your bootstraps.” For God sake, as a black student, take advantage of the fact that the same grades and test scores that will get a white student into a top state university will get a black student into the Ivies! With great financial aid! That’s just one example. For others, see Booker T. Washington, William Julius Wilson, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Bill Cosby, John McWhorter and others. Check out the what can be learned from the immigrant experience, particularly the African immigrant experience. Also, if you get really brave, check out Charles Murray too. There is SOME genetic component to success, and there are real disparities here too, primarily as a result of centuries of adaptation to different environments. Now it’s very true that there are lots of useless people with high IQ’s, but looking at the society-at-large, everything else being equal, higher is better. There is also an elegant Galtonian solution: voluntary incentives for people on the right side of the bell curve to have more babies than people on the left side! Try it…you’ll be as smart as the Jews in no time!
Finally, to cut this way, way short, you mention Jena 6. Holy moly! That was where I got off the bus, jumped off the deep end, put away my copy of Native Son and started reading the American Renaissance website. I’m not sure if it was one of the thugs posing on his MySpace site with money he got from supporters, or their rapturous embrace at the BET awards, or (most likely) the song by Johnny Couger fucking Mellancamp, who is supposed to sing for the American heartland. But I was disgusted! Those six kids beat the crap out of some kid who had nothing to do with the noose incident!
I want to conclude by stressing I’m not directing my ire at blacks. I respect blacks who say and genuinely try to better themselves and their people (and hopefully the good ole’ transracial USA as well) whether they agree with me or think I’m a pathetic racist. As for the people in the video above, you know, they’re not terribly impressive, and they don’t know squat about good public policy, but most of them would probably be decent neighbors as long as politics never came up, and I’d venture most would probably good neighbors to a black family as well.
I don’t hate ‘em.
What I hate are people who encourage WHITES to hate their own people, hate and disparage their own European heritage. That right, Anna, white Europeans are a minority on this planet! And we have the same right to survive as a distinct people as Jews, Koreans, ?Kung Bushmen and Maoris!
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:02 am
Bunkbuster – I made no assumptions, I just asked an honest question because I am curious. I surf black, white and Latino blogs, and find all of them to be segregated. My point being much in line with your argument, which is if we don’t find a way to speak to each other truthfully, then how can we come together as a country? I can respect WC because he at least is open about it, which is to me much more productive then hiding behind an alias (which by the way I am not assuming you are).
I’m black and believe me I know my own melange – Irish, Puerto Rican, a smidge of Native American and some unknown quantity of African. However, I won’t be shamed in calling myself black, not by anyone. By calling myself black I am by extension, connecting myself to the larger struggle of post colonialism. I certainly don’t need a patronizing lecture about my own history from you whether you are black, white or purple. And if you are uncomfortable with the term black, how about burnt sienna?
WC you make some good points, but then kind of go off of the deep end. Shelby Steele, no way, and the same for Sowell and McWhorter, who are infected by self hate.
Booker T and DuBois hell yeah. Jena 6 was a lot more complex than your recap. Personally I was disgusted with the aftermath of Jena 6 (and I say that with sincerity, not for brownie points). It’s ironic you write about the lack of black of responsibility, yet yet you want to absolve whites of theirs? Or am I reading your point wrong?
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:49 am
I’m not a racist
Then why do you say and believe what racists say and believe?
October 23rd, 2008 at 1:22 am
Also, if you get really brave, check out Charles Murray too. There is SOME genetic component to success, and there are real disparities here too
Sure your low IQ has made it harder for you to succeed, but so what? And check out Murray to what end? Even if it’s true that there’s a strong genetic component of the “real disparities” — the difference between the average IQ over white and black populations — so what? The existence of the gap (which is uncontroversial) has no bearing on any individual (that’s how there can be so many stupid whites and so many brilliant blacks), and whether there’s a genetic component of this difference in population averages — a very abstract matter — is even less relevant. There are only two reasons to care about this issue — intellectual curiosity, and racism. There’s no practical matter involved, as arguments (such as those promoted by Murray) that the existence of a genetic component should have some bearing on social policy are quite fallacious.
October 23rd, 2008 at 4:33 am
There are not one, but many, genetic links to the many varieties of intellectual capacity that contribute to success in life.
Consider Obama.
Would Charles Murray count him in the “white” or “black” column when assessing his relative success in life? Obviously, there is no scientific basis to conclude that, genetically speaking, Obama is “white” or “black.” Yet in political and social terms, Obama is clearly “black” in that he would be treated as such in most situations where the distinction mattered.
Genetic makeup, including those traits related to success, are not distributed according to the geographic, social and political categories we refer to as “race.”
One of the troubles with Murray, and the reason his racism is so plain, is that there is no genetic definition of “black.” He never accounts for that in any of his claims: rather, he looks at data on “blacks,” a self-identified social and political grouping NOT A GENETIC ONE, and concludes that underperformance versus self-identified “whites,” who ARE NOT A GENETICALLY DEFINED GROUP.
The genetic variation within the people of Africa is as wide as the variation between the people of Africa and the people of Europe. Genetically, on average, an Ethiopian is as different from a Zulu as a Pygmy is from a Dutchman.
The only reason Africans are grouped as a “race” is that their common genetic features affect their appearance, rather than other aspects, such as average intellectual capacity and, say, ear lobe length.
These are simple, uncontroversial, biological facts.
If we cannot genetically identify a “black” person, how can we even begin to test whether here is a genetic link to the relative success of people we identify as “black.”
October 23rd, 2008 at 5:30 am
Research also shows correlations between, for example, heighth and success and gender and success.
Does anyone really believe that those are gene-based correlations?
There was, at one time, a cockamamie theory that men had a “math gene” lacking in women. That was long ago dismissed, yet the vestiges of junk science about “race”-linked genetic variations and intelligence lingers on like intellectual syphilis — easily defeated by crude antibiotics, but ultimately a hearty virus in careless hosts.
October 23rd, 2008 at 6:55 am
RssrX, BB, passing through: thank you for your interesting reply. With the help of my higher power, I’m not blogging at work today, so it’ll take me about twelve hours to respond (unless I can’t get a hold of my net addiction sponsor and “slip”)
October 23rd, 2008 at 7:09 am
marc: Im not running for VicePresident. I’m not qualified. Though I would be happy to match my personal credentials against those of dimwit Palin.
Elitist.
October 23rd, 2008 at 7:41 am
Not elitist, just a sentient human being.
October 23rd, 2008 at 8:01 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg5tl87rEE4
The idiots guide to the bottom line
October 23rd, 2008 at 8:17 am
whiteboy whack job finally reveals how utterly insane he is:
Was there real damage done whites towards blacks in the past? Undoubtedly yes. Is focusing on these wrongs, some of them very horrific, the way for blacks to move forward, and for black-white relations to move forward? I don’t think so. I think focusing on past wrongs has an invidious effect on motivation: why work hard and play by the rules if those rules are stacked against you? The better way to move forward is for blacks to recognize what amazing rewards there are for overcoming obstacles. Don’t disparage this by calling it “pulling itself up by your bootstraps.” For God sake, as a black student, take advantage of the fact that the same grades and test scores that will get a white student into a top state university will get a black student into the Ivies! With great financial aid! That’s just one example. For others, see Booker T. Washington, William Julius Wilson, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Bill Cosby, John McWhorter and others. Check out the what can be learned from the immigrant experience, particularly the African immigrant experience. Also, if you get really brave, check out Charles Murray too. There is SOME genetic component to success, and there are real disparities here too, primarily as a result of centuries of adaptation to different environments. Now it’s very true that there are lots of useless people with high IQ’s, but looking at the society-at-large, everything else being equal, higher is better. There is also an elegant Galtonian solution: voluntary incentives for people on the right side of the bell curve to have more babies than people on the left side! Try it…you’ll be as smart as the Jews in no time!
———————————————————–
It gets worse as one reads further down.
I can’t even respond because that would be to dignify this filth.
This guy is worse than Woody.
I can’t believe those of you that are getting roped into debating him. It implies you take anything he says as having some sort of intellectual merit.
white boy has a form RID or Racial Identity Disorder. Its been newly classified as such in the Diagnostic Manual
There is no therapy or cure.
October 23rd, 2008 at 8:34 am
Well…there is a cure: GET OVER YOUR WHITE SELF
All those bullshit stats and white honed academic discourses trying to objectify what has been nothing more than humans doing what they do…prey on each other until the slow painful process of awakening to living consciously takes hold.
Find your inner buddha, buddy. Stop trying to find an intellectual construct that will replace the need to just treat people with decency and compassion.
You have lost your humanity and are trying to find a replacement part.
Your whole universe collapses over an incident where black kids target white kids?
Jesus wept. So what should be the appropriate response to holocaust perpetrated against black people
My god, you are so fucking transparent.
Shame on anyone taking this poor excuse for a human being seriously.
October 23rd, 2008 at 9:19 am
Just a quick response:
First, while I enjoy the ambiguity of blogging as much as anybody, it’s time to reveal my pigmentation as… pasty. Of course, some of by best friends…
Second, anna, I probably agree with you on the merits of most every issue but your posts so far have only convinced me to skip your posts.
Third, I forgot that conservatives have alternate narratives for everything and that we don’t agree that Jenna 6 was an example of pure and heinous racism. That it’s so difficult to agree on even the most disturbing examples makes me wonder if we’ll ever be able to get closer on the really sticky stuff. Regardless, cornerback indicates, perhaps, a level of support for scholarships so that kids without can go to college if they earn it. Maybe we can push that into support for a wider scholarship program, even a government-funded college subsidy, that helps make sure that all eligible kids go somewhere Hey, it’s better than nothing.
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:44 am
Final words to you, white boy: stop peddling your baroque bullshit; trawling for converts.
And to everyone else: you are being sucker punched engaging with him as if he is saying something serious and worth consideration.
I have been watching what he writes develop. This comments section has been his dark room.
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:15 am
Mavis, my apoplectic style is counter to the cold, smug, hubristic gibber of a bunch of white people trying to objectify what is a collective psychological problem that cannot be solved by “scholarship” programs.
The race issue is going to be organically dissolved through the collusion of events–our country’s little evolutionary slog–the worst elements of the American sensibility which fueled 8 years of Bush has now exhausted its unsustainable self. Synchronously an Obama figure arises suggesting we might do things differently. Synchronously the market crisis erupts, McCain who represents the status quo–which everyone realizes is literally and morally bankrupt–reveals he is insane along with plucking an equally insane little handmaiden to be his running mate and WOO HOO!
…Those still not permanently deranged have an epiphany born of expediency and self preservation: hmmm, they think, do I really give a shit his face his brown…he is sane, after all… or do I cling to my stupdity and vote for the crazy white motherfucker and his equally demented bitch running mate–and consign myself, the country and probably the world to hell.
These are circumstances only the gods can orchestrate.
As Dr King said: we may have all come here on different ships, but we are all in the same boat now.
Hallelujah!
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:50 am
“Dr King said: we may have all come here on different ships, but we are all in the same boat now.”
It’s way past time for people like you to stop rocking it and help row it.
Dr. King also pleaded for a time when men could be judged by their character. It’s way past time for people like you to stop judging by color.
It is angry people like yourself Anna that spend so much time picking at the scab, the wound is never allowed to heal.
You sound like an ethic studies grad from a William Ayers or Reverend Wright inspired curriculum.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Let’s hear it for those of us who have jobs in this economy!
Before I dip out to mine, to address integration.
“RssrX — “%86 of whites are killed by whites and %94 of blacks are killed by other blacks according to the Justice Bureau” I have no doubt this true, but isn’t this a result of the tremendous de facto segregation that exists in America? That is, if whites and inner city blacks interacted more, wouldn’t there be more interracial crime?”
An interesting fear based theory. I’m sure there would be more crime between blacks and whites, but it seems that you’re implying that the crime would be disproportionately be black against white.
Also WC define inner city black. I am black and live in LA, went to college and have a high paying career – so I need a little more than a generalization.
My parents were integration trailblazers, they wanted the house with the yard, the good schools etc. along with many upwardly mobile blacks in the 60′s & 70′s that was the MLK dream. One memory I have as a kid, was black kids were bussed into the elementary school I attended. At the time I was the only black child at the school and for the most part my classmates ignored me, however when these kids showed up unaccompanied by any adult, the white parents threw rocks at them. I’m not sure what effect that had on them, but I know what effect it had on myself and my family.
That is, if whites and inner city blacks interacted more, wouldn’t there be more interracial crime?”
Subsequently, we moved to a place where the developers decided to create racially integrated city with low income housing interspersed with single family homes. The idea being that if afforded the same access to public utilities, schools etc. the lower income children would be on par with upper income children, thus improving upon their ability to move into the middle class – which is the American dream right?
Due to the demographics of my home state, those in the lower income housing tended to be black (however, that has changed with a recent influx of Latinos and Asians). Crime in my town was minimal and limited to petty stuff an was not racially imbalanced.
The town has become one of the choice cities to live in America currently topping off at under 100,000 people. It is also a mecca for interracial couples seeking an environment where they and their children would not be judged.
Pathos and poverty are not the same thing.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:32 pm
JimR sorry to see you have a reading comprehension disability.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:40 pm
…and you could clear your mind of that right wing fug might actually realize what I was stating was precisely that events will conspire–are conspiring–to make racial bias obsolete. Its the ol there are no racists in fox holes paradigm that will be enacted on a national scale.
Of course, always a few hold outs like you, Woody and whiteboy. As conditions may be extreme for awhile I suppose a Pale for racists may have to be created.
October 23rd, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Not through with whiteboy yet…
Read carefully what this maggot says:
Finally, to cut this way, way short, you mention Jena 6. Holy moly! That was where I got off the bus, jumped off the deep end, put away my copy of Native Son and started reading the American Renaissance website. I’m not sure if it was one of the thugs posing on his MySpace site with money he got from supporters, or their rapturous embrace at the BET awards, or (most likely) the song by Johnny Couger fucking Mellancamp, who is supposed to sing for the American heartland. But I was disgusted! Those six kids beat the crap out of some kid who had nothing to do with the noose incident!
BUT IN 1981 when the Klan in Mobile set out to randomly select a black man to be lynched–and did–you felt NOTHING. NO DISGUST.
The Jena 6 were reacting to just one too many threats. It didn’t upset you that a) a black kid had to ask to sit under a tree and b) just because he asked three nooses were hung from it.
Their justifiable rage has no value or meaning in that whiteout space where your soul should be and you don’t understand the tragedy of the kid who got beaten.
So this incident sends you fleeing into the arms of your true self mirrored in the credo of some group of culture challenged maggots who call themselves American Renaissance–one doesn’t even have to look them up to know what they are.
You got some ‘splainin’ to do.
October 23rd, 2008 at 2:12 pm
For those who still don’t get where whiteboy is coming from just read the GOOGLE marker for American Renaissance…his gang.
His posts continuously were working up to his revealing he is part of some racist group.
whitecorner boy posts from the House of Rep–whether he just sits around the building and hijacks wifi–if thats possible–or he has official business there as some sort of wonk…it is clear he holds a professional position and he has confessed he has to hide his real views.
Anyone on the comments section who isn’t one of “them” still want to play with the whiteboy?
American Renaissance
A conservative monthly publication. Promotes a variety of white racial positions .
http://www.amren.com/ – 51k – Cached – Similar pages – Note this
Why Obama Will Win
The Real Culprits in This Meltdown
Hunting Season for Whites
One Less Initiative on Hefty …
How Many Americans
Why I Don’t Want Diversity in My
The John Oakley Show
The Negro Crime Rate
October 23rd, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Still not convinced? This is the poison white boy subscribes to and then pretends he’s all about wanting to dance the hora together with his dark skinned brothers and sisters. Did I say hora? OOps.
If you haven’t subscribed to American Renaissance, here’s what you’re missing in the November 2008 issue:
*
Sarah Palin—a Candidate We Can Vote For?: Political consultant Reilly Smith makes a case for whites to support the McCain/Palin ticket—because of Sarah Palin. Mr. Smith considers the visceral hatred toward Gov. Palin by the liberal establishment, particularly by non-whites, hatred he believes is inspired by the very qualities that entitle her to white support. [Mr. Smith also contends against the view that an Obama candidacy would lead to a white awakening.]
>>>>NOTE: THIS IS WHY WHITE BOY CLAIMS HE IS VOTING FOR OBAMA. ON SOME WHITE SITES THEIR CONTENTION IS THAT IF OBAMA GETS IN THERE WILL BE A “WHITE AWAKENING”
*
How to Avoid Future McCains discusses measures needed to make immigration reform an unavoidable national campaign issue.
*
Why Vote For McCain: Prof. Michael Hart urges readers to support McCain as the lesser of two evils, arguing that an Obama presidency would be the death knell for immigration control at the national level.
October 23rd, 2008 at 3:41 pm
I forgot that conservatives have alternate narratives for everything and that we don’t agree that Jenna 6 was an example of pure and heinous racism. That it’s so difficult to agree on even the most disturbing examples makes me wonder if we’ll ever be able to get closer on the really sticky stuff.
There are different narratives because of confirmation bias. If you compare the claims accepted and rejected by people like WC to the actual facts, you will find that the assumptions being selectively confirmed are racist. The same holds for discussions of IQ and genetics. We can only get closer by challenging the root racism and the high level of intellectual dishonesty required to maintain it.
October 23rd, 2008 at 3:50 pm
most of them would probably be decent neighbors as long as politics never came up, and I’d venture most would probably good neighbors to a black family as well.
You mean like they were to that black man they shouted over and poked at?
Nazis can make “decent neighbors as long as politics never came up” too.
October 23rd, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Mavis — I’m not a conservative who supports a few “scholarship programs.” I’m a liberal Democrat Obama voter who has never voted Republican in his life. I suppose I prefer Republican rhetoric on race, but I prefer Obama in every other respect, and I actually think an Obama presidency is much more likely to move race relations forward in a more realistic direction. I want to pay more taxes to help the poor, i.e. I wanna help my black sisters and brothers.
passing through — “…then why do you say and believe what racists believe?”
A racist is someone who cannot DISCRIMINATE between individuals of a particular racial group, who perceives and judges all or most members by a single disparaging standard. To a racist, there is no meaningful, fundamental difference between the personhood of an Obama and the personhood of Fiddy Cent or whatever he’s called now. Chris Black’s definition of racism is wrong, a real racist is INCAPABLE of understanding the distinction he elucidates here so well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz6nsGZZdjE
On Murray, yes of course the Bell Curve tells us nothing about individuals. Well actually it does: we know that millions of blacks on the right side of the black curve have higher IQ’s than tens of millions of whites (or more) on the left side of the white curve. And those millions of black citizens have every legal and moral right to FULL citizenship and opportunity. The value of the Bell Curve from a policy perspective is two-fold:
1) as a partial explanation for the disparities between white and black, it lessens the blame that can be placed on whitey, and on history, for these disparities. As I said above, blaming whitey helps no one.
2) by showing there is some hereditary component to adaptive traits, illustrates need to get some groups (members of WEB du Bois’ “Talented Tenth”) to increase their fecundity, and babies to make fewer babies.
RssrX — I guess I would define “inner city black” as someone who lives in neighborhood that is both majority black, and poor.
Thanks for interesting story. I can imagine (or try to imagine) how you felt when they threw stones at the new black kids. You say before the bussing, the kids ignored you. Overall, would you say that the kids and their parents treated you and your family with respect? If they did, then doesn’t that suggest that they were ok with some blacks, good upwardly mobile neighbors like your father and his family, but they feared outsiders. Still, you said this was elementary school. Look, that sounds fucked. If I’m the lawyer for white America, I’m advising those rockthrowers to plead guilty. Discriminating against newcomers or any race who want to be good neighbors (as long as they’re citizens) is inexcusable. On the other hand, disliking rabble of any race that is moving into one’s neighborhood or is being bussed to one’s school district is something else — it is, at least, a natural impulse, for ANY group of any race — and so is fearing that a large influx of outsiders will TURN into rabble.
That’s great to hear your other story too about your current neighborhood. I’d like to hear more details actually. I hear so much depressing news, it is good to hear something positive. I worked a bit in the nineties on the Hope VI program, which attempted to convert public housing high rises into mixed-income housing. This also necessitated giving lots of people Section 8 vouchers to spread out across the whole metro area. We thought we had a pretty good program. I was very disenchanted to read this article in the Atlantic a few months ago, about how this program actually had the effect of DISPERSING crime throughout the entire metro region, through those Section 8 vouchers.
Here it is:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/memphis-crime
BB- sorry I’ll try to get to you next time.
Anna, you need to go to timeout. But FYI, I wasn’t mugged. I grew up in all-white small town America, then later went to small artsy-fartsy flaming radical left wing college. Then many years of social worker type jobs in diverse communities, including community organization stint in neighborhood transitioning from all-white to all-black, it was about 3/4′s of the way through the process when I was there. Organization was run by liberal white Catholics who didn’t want to flee like the rest of their parish was doing. Worked our asses off to provide services and help for our new neighbors, most of whom would look in our eyes and see…whitey. Later, lots of other multi-racial professional interactions, including some really amazing diversity training sessions, run self-righteous little shysters like you. Currently married to a non-white and living in nearly all-black neighborhood.
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Was I dreaming when I read you were shot in the head while on your bike for riding in the wrong direction?
October 24th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
“…then why do you say and believe what racists believe?”
A racist is someone who …
You didn’t answer the question.
as a partial explanation for the disparities between white and black, it lessens the blame that can be placed on whitey, and on history, for these disparities. As I said above, blaming whitey helps no one.
You’re a racist idiot and full of shit. Regardless of whether there’s a genetic component, the effects of slavery, Jim Crow, and racism generally are real. Failing to blame those, as you do, leads to bad social policy.
October 25th, 2008 at 12:03 am
P.S. That there is a genetic component to IQ does not imply that it favors whites. Since we know that there’s a strong social component, it might just as well be that blacks are genetically superior but that that’s swamped by the social component. That’s the huge flaw in the racists’ argument that we should expect genetic differences in this trait just as we do in other traits — they assume that whites are superior.
October 25th, 2008 at 2:20 am
passing through — your first question is based on the premise that you and I agree on what “racism” is and what “racists” believe. I say that a racist is someone who does not believe there are any meaningful variations in traits within a single race, and by that standard I do not believe what racists believe and I do not say what racists say. Why don’t you argue with my definition if you want to take it further.
I also didn’t say that the effects of slavery and racial discrimination were not real, I said that focusing on them was not helpful in the effort to advance black achievement. We have had policies for years to address past wrongs — affirmative action and minority scholarships being just two examples. I’m not saying get rid of them, I’m saying further progress is primarily based on changes in habits of culture and fertility.
“g factor” is apparently the non-environmental component of intelligence, the debate is over whether it can be isolated and tested adequately. The issue gets awfuly technical awfully quickly, and I need to study it in more depth to respond to your last point.
It suffices to say “I disagree with you” you don’t need to say I’m full of shit. You’re obviously very emotionally invested in your religious beliefs about “equality” (Equality of what?) and have hard time carrying on a conversation without resorting to ad hominem.
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