But this column isn't about diminishing OWS for excluding/repelling black people. Patton is inquiring into why black people don't join up with a movement you're supposed to think they ought to want to join:
African Americans share white Americans’ anger about corporate greed and corruption, and blacks have a rich history of protesting injustice in United States. So why aren’t they Occupying?The "rich history of protesting injustice" was about racial injustice, not left-wing class warfare. Some people like to mush those 2 things together, but where a movement begins with left-wing economic ideology, why should you expect black people to join up en masse?
From America’s birthing pains to the civil rights protests of the 1960s, blacks have never been afraid to fight for economic or social justice....Afraid? People declining to "occupy Wall Street" aren't afraid. It's demagoguery to insinuate that black people have opted out because they are afraid.
In 1969, James Forman, former executive secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a civil rights organization, called on blacks to not perpetuate capitalism or contribute to the exploitation of blacks in the United States and elsewhere. He urged black workers to take over America by sabotaging U.S. factories and ports “while the brothers fight guerrilla warfare in the street.” And Huey Newton and the Black Panther Party renounced the American Dream as defective and called for the destruction of the capitalist system.This is exactly the kind of linking of racial injustice to left-wing ideology that most people reject.
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Saw this piece yesterday and the answer is a lot simpler than the author would like.
Most black people know this is nonsense. You didn't see many of them protesting the Vietnam War, either.
The Occupation is for pampered, whiny, sexist, racist, class-conscious, hypocritical middle- and upper-middle-class white kids who need somebody to blame because Mommy and Daddy can't make the world do what they want and don't mind being made Leftist tools if it helps them get what they want.
Which, this time, it won't.
IIRC, 1969 was the year that the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee changed its name to the Student National Coordinating Committee. "Non-violence" having become, er, a point of controversy.
wv: vancesso.
As the saying went at the time, they weren't students, they coordinated nothing, were anything but non-violent, and weren't a committee.
Black people don't go camping.
There is also this: Colege student left is not blue-collar labor left, and neither is like the Black left with roots in the rural South of old.
I am going to take a shot at this (why OWS is soooo white) and hopefully won't say anything that will prevent me from running for President someday....
Having lived in a couple of larger cities, I've noticed that that the welfare system is extremely generous to our African-American citizens. Those down on their luck aren't living in luxuary by any means, but neither are they hurting for basic comforts.
The OWS has little or nothing to do about "corporate greed". It is the same socialists/communists just redoing their message.
An inner city African-American doesn't care about promoting communism or socialism as a political ideology. As long as they get stuff from the government and private charities now (along with a little illegal income in many cases), they aren't going to camp outside with a bunch of smelling white hippyfreaks.
A lot of scorn was directed at Pat Robertson for asking whether "Mac & Cheese" on Thanksgiving was a "black thing"?
For those who criticized Robertson, how is this WaPo opinion piece any less invidious?
Seems to me the first four posts in the thread pretty well nail it. Most black folks I know are too busy keeping afloat than to attend protests.
Hager, that too. The OWS isn't about "inequality", its about socialism. Of my friends and co-workers who are Black and have shared their political opinions with me, most are rather liberal, but not in-your-face socialists. But then the ones I personally know all have jobs.
Roger J, that too. I mentioned that my friends who are Black (it seems weird to say that as we don't think of ourselves in racial terms) work hard. Some are donig quite well, some struggling, but none want to go outside to scream angry political opinions.
The "left" left wing of American politics has always been white. Marxism & post-marxism has never had much hold on the African-American mind. Maybe because blacks are the most religious ethnic group in an already very religious USA, and the the marxist left is hostile towards religion.
The group in Oakland that Van Jones belonged to (STORM) dealt explicitly with trying to recruit more "people of color" into the pasty white West coast lefty community.
If anyone knows of a place I can post a PDF for public availability, I'll be happy to post the groups post-mortem of their experiences in minority Marxist activism.
It also gives an idea of just how commie Van Jones was (is). And, I do mean commie.
You might try writing Zombietime or go through PJMedia.
The WaPo piece is not invidious IMHO, EDH, it's just off-track, completed only by the AA commenters so far.
Pat Robertson merely said what most people would have thought, but dared not "offend."
Robertson says what's on his mind. WaPo tiptoes.
I think there are more African-Americans who'd rather their kids became Herman Cain than want their kids to sit around city parks in tents.
Perhaps, because union were formed to block black people from having the jobs that greed corporations where giving them?
Perhpas because teachers union are the main culprits of the second class education given to poor black people?
Occam says AllenS has the best argument.
Can't wait to get Crack's input on this.
As for Robertson's comment, Lutefisk at Christmas is a Swedish "thing," us squareheads want baked ham.
Figured how out to share all on my own.
STORM's Post-morten here
It's a Marxist blast from the past for anyone who's old enough to remember the 60's
11/26/11 11:48 AM
Hagar, I think that it's a Norwegian thing too. At least around here where there are more Norwegians than Swedes.
Speaking of OWS, what happened to the jerkoffs at Occupy Madison? Are they still at that old parking lot, or did they give up and go deer hunting with their dads?
AllenS--my theory of viking invasions are based in lutefisk--They would rather go off shore in long boats and go raiding rather than get another meal of lutefisk. thus did vikings dominate europe for several centuries. Consider the alternative: staying at home and eating yet another meal of lutefisk.
(apologies to Norwegians everywhere)
And I thought swedes enjoyed bloated herring rather than lutefisk.
YoungHegelian said...
The "left" left wing of American politics has always been white.
Yes, going back to their eugenics days, of course.
They really didn't want blacks having babies and certainly didn't want blacks in their group.
Not those people...
Margarat Sanger was a white supremacist, yet feminazi literature adores her.
It would be interesting if they broke down the OWS by religion. But such thoughts are Verboten for the Left.
2) "Eugenic sterilization is an urgent need ... We must prevent multiplication of this bad stock."
Margaret Sanger, April 1933 Birth Control Review.
"Birth control must lead ultimately to a cleaner race."
Margaret Sanger. Woman, Morality, and Birth Control. New York: New York Publishing Company, 1922. Page 12.
6) "Eugenics is … the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems.Margaret Sanger. "
The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda." Birth Control Review, October 1921, page 5.
EDH,
A lot of scorn was directed at Pat Robertson for asking whether "Mac & Cheese" on Thanksgiving was a "black thing"?
Yep. Why shouldn't it be? Is turkey on Thanksgiving a "white thing"? Probably.
I did slow-roasted pork shoulder with a fairly complex marinade, roasted Brussels sprouts, roasted potatoes. You can't scale down a turkey for two people.
wv: uncoterd. Surely Shakespeare used that somewhere.
Lots of white people aren't participating in the protests either. I know this sounds crazy, but perhaps black people are avoiding the Occupy Wall Street crowd for the same reason everyone else is.
@Michelle,
You can't scale down a turkey for two people.
No, but it's delightful for two people to gnaw on for like, forever.
Multiple repeats of Thanksgiving dinner, turkey soup, turkey pot pie, turkey enchiladas (yum!), turkey tacos.
It's the best meat purchase of the year for me & the Mrs!
My late Norwegian girl friend invited me to a family get-together early in the relationship. Yep, lutefisk was served. I had never had it before, and knew something was terribly wrong when we sat down at the table and she had taken a piece of lutefisk that was the size of a quarter. Bad, bad, bad. It's served with mashed potatoes and a tremendous amount of butter. If it wasn't for the potatoes and butter, it was unedible. Bad, bad, bad.
AllenS: clearly no one smothered the lutefisk with ligonberry sauce--
Still doesnt make it edible but it does help a bit.
The Swedish meatballs were very good.
Alex,
It doesn't matter how many times anyone points out that Sanger & co. were aiming to sterilize the "unfit"; no one interested is keen on believing it, and so it's not believed.
I would recommend Chesterton's Eugenics and Other Evils, only a lot of folks reflexively shrink from anything published by Ignatius.
something about salt cod, soaked in cold water for 24 hours, and then soaked in lye water creating a gelatious fish flavored mush--yuck even with ligonberries.
Roger, have you had lutefisk? Anybody else want to confess?
WV: mistmas
It's the season.
AllenS: that why norwegians invented aquavit--to wash down the lutefish.
AllenS: indeed I have, thus the referenced to aquavit. And a good aquavit has to be transported over the equator and then frozen, like cyrogenic vodka
Roger, I noticed you typed lutefish. I did earlier and caught it. It looks like snot. Who would do such a thing to a fish?
Norwegians? why do you think there is a rich joke literature of sven and ole jokes? :)
And you are correct: its lutefisk
Maybe black people don't show up because they think these crazy white people will serve them lutefisk?
AllenS: but black folks here in Memphis would hit them with chitterlins--
I've never had chitterlins, but I've been in black people's houses when they were cooking them. Not a good smell. Bad, bad, bad.
You can't scale down a turkey for two people.
Sure you can, just not the whole bird. When my wife and I celebrated our first Thanksgiving together 28 years ago, it was just the two of us. We cooked a turkey breast. It was wonderful and there was no waste.
You people are so silly going on and on about how lutefisk scares black people away from lefty politics!
Everybody knows it's not the food! It's the damn honky music!
Jeez, don't you guys know any black people at all?!
Young Hegelian--its those damn accordians and polka music
I blame Wierd Al Yankovich--hes the cause of bad race relations.
You've got a point, YoungHegelian.
edutcher and chuck66 pretty much bracketed my thoughts: Too many Blacks, through social welfare, Affirmative Action and private do-gooder agencies, are doing alright with minimal effort*. Their getting theirs. They have become pension fund babies. Why should they protest when they're already collecting the swag? Now the pretty-pretty-princess White children are disappointed that Santa didn't leave them enough goodies.
My previous town of residence in Wisconsin used to have a vaccination clinic for young children at 8 A.M. (That's 4 hours before noon.) That way physicians and nurses from the local doctor's offices could donate their time, and collaborate with the health department, to get the important work of infant and child vaccination done. In the elementary school neighborhood with the highest percentage of African-American households, the city health clinic had to start doing immunizations at 1 P.M. The moms couldn't be bothered to drag their sorry asses out of bed to get free immunizations for their children. (At least the moms were with their children. Who knows what happened to the fathers. Or do their virgins just spontaneously become pregnant?) I was paying taxes so they could have a sleep in. My taxes support their young men fornicating with and impregnating their young women, and the children produced by their activity. When will that community clean up their act?
Ann: Is this person a friend of yours?
Một cái tên - Phải thật là ngắn gọn thì mới dễ nhớ has left a new comment on the post ""If I don't call you."":
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Allen and Roger,
My opinion of lutefisk quite parallels Rogers, my sister says because I was fed some bad stuff during the War, but I think just because I have a really live gagging reflex.
Anyway, growing up, I never heard of anyone serving lutefisk at Christmas, nor have I since read of any Norwegians doing that, but I have read of Swedes doing it.
The Swedes also do strange things with herring; they are supposed to have more than 400 dishes featuring herring - that is where the term smørgåsbord comes from; a Christmas table laden with every kind of herring dish the hostess could manage - while in Norway I have only encountered 4: Spekesild, smoked herring, fried herring, and pickled herring (for sandwiches). 5 if I count the time my cousine Bergljot babysat my sister and me and served us boiled herring, but I do not think she ever did that again after the reaction she got.
And while making "moonshine" or "white lightning" in various forms was quite common in the old days, aquavit is a Danish invention, and the "good stuff" actually is quite good.
The Norwegians make it as a byproduct of the cellulose industry with artificial flavoring, and you really do not want to drink that.
Why are black people not more demonstrative in their opposition to the fracking process?.....The OWS demonstrators are the same group that used to show up for CND rallies. They've broadened their demographics a bit to include homeless winos, but it's basically the same crowd that's been showing up at these things for the past fifty years.....In Africa, the experience with Marxism, revolution, and black nationalism has not been happy for black people. This is not part of Ms. Patton's consciousness. She has this in common with the OWS crowd who seem not to be aware of the history of the Soviet Union or Mao's China. The willful ignorance of the left is a kind of religion.
Hagar, a lot of people around here, including my late father made herring. Instead of the fish, herring, they used what is very catchable around here while ice fishing, and that is northern pike.
Stacy Patton is a classic Oreo. Lawrence Prep for god's sake. She's a slave on the liberal plantation doing exactly what her masters say.
Hagar: thanks for the information--as I recall I have had good aquavit which i recall was flavored with caraway--served frozen like vodka, it is damn good--apologies to the Danes since they invented it.
I have a theory as to why Irish and Indian food sucks. Many years of famine have given them a love-hate relationship with food. They express their hatred of this damned commodity by making it as unpalatable as possible. The Irish by blanding it beyond the reach of even the most sensitive palate,, and the Indians by hyper-spicing it in such a way as to traumitize the tastebuds for life. In such a way, during times of famine, when there was nothing to eat, people weren't too broken up about it, and the children actually rejoiced at the prospect of starving to death.
Stoughton Wisconsin has an annual Syttende Mai 20-mile race which celebrates things Norwegian. Rumor has it that Stoughton also has a store where one can scoop lutefisk right out of the barrel.
My ex-father-in-law assured me that anyone who would eat the stuff would also like snot off of a sheep's nose. I guess he didn't like it much.
Thanks for the commentary on food customs--Seems to me like lutefisk is the equivalent of the Scottish Haggis: oatmeal cooked in a sheeps stomach--I think these food preferences explain a lot about national character :)
Ok--I should apologize to the scandanvians hereon--I mentioned bloaters (basically rotten herring) which, I think is a British thing.
"As the saying went at the time, they weren't students, they coordinated nothing, were anything but non-violent, and weren't a committee."
Yup, exactly the saying at the time. SNCC or snick as one pronounced it then was a CPA front probably started by KGB. PLA also probably was involved, as they were involved, along with KGB, in promoting the "anti-war demonstrations."
It's a rule of thumb that at times of turmoil foreign pot-stirring is a factor and cause. Every flag should be suspect of falsehood. The the false ones cause uncertainty, feelings of weakness, slippage, confusion, and that is their principle "tell." They're not difficult to recognize. "Feel good" "education" is meant to suppress ability to spot false flags.
So the left's stereotype of black people goes like this: they don't know how to get ID, they want government handouts, and they should be easy to whip into a mob. Oh my. It almost makes you think that the people coming up with these stereotypes might be racist.
Well, I would not hold it past the Swedes either.
And the Norwegians and Danes both do rakørret and gravlaks which are respectively trout and salmon caught, gutted and cleaned and laid in layers with juniper branches in 1/8 barrels, and then buried and left to ferment for several months.
This is supposed to be a great delicacy, but also quite dangerous, if the fisherman is not very careful to keep the fish off the grass while preparing it. They can pick up a kind of fungus which is very toxic.
Herring is a very oily fish, even more so than mackerel, which is why you don't want to just boil it and plank it down on someone's plate.
Black is the new Kansas. (As in, "What's the matter with".)
Regardless of what the protesters write on their signs, OWS is the 5% protesting about the 1%. Maybe black people aren't there because they figure they don't have a dog in this fight.
There don't seem to be many Asian-Americans involved in OWS, either. Why single out blacks?
The real question is, what's wrong with white kids?
Getting tired of the media using the phrase "overwhelmingly white" to signify lameness. Black people can't be lame?
Racists!
Well, the "iconic" photograph is the white guy (who could be homeless. Dropping his trousers and taking a shit against a cop's car.)
Says it all!
Yeah. There were Blacks there, too. How can you tell? Another iconic photograph of a black guy with his pants so low he is exposing his underwear-ed ass. While the drum circle had a rythm all it's own.
You had a range of players in OWS. But no one who stepped forward, out of the shadows, to claim they were leading anything.
They were trying to imitate the Tea Parties that gathered. And, they didn't even come close.
Of course, there's also Pelosi's high heeled march ... carrying her Speaker's gavel. (Which she promply lost in 2010's election.)
Okay. Karl Rove is pissed off as well.
Long Live The Internet!
You know. Go back to 1968.
The democratic conention turned into a lunatic asylum. LBJ refused to run. Because he didn't want to be defeated.
That "pleasure of defeat" went to Hubert Humphrey. And, the steets in Chicago EXPLODED in rage! (Chicago!)
Norman Mailer wrote a best seller: ARMIES IN THE NIGHT
You got memories from 1968?
I saw Richard Nixon elected! How many heart attacks did that stir up?
The media? Lost its grip! Even before the Internet showed up ... The "elites" took the wrong "fork in the road."
Really, its just the bullshit that OWS pushes that turns off most everybody, regardless of skin color.
"We want a violent revolution and to summarily jail CEOs. We'll throw bricks at the cops, refuse to move off of someone elses property and when they tear gas us, we'll call them brutes for attacking us peacful protestors."
@SgtTed--Could you provide a link to that quote? I'd like to read the whole story.
Middle class blacks want to be rich. They want to be in the 1 percent.
Haha, the left cries, Why won't blacks do like we say they should do. In the 60s the left had to recruit black ex cons, because they were the only ones with the audacity to underline protest violence. Normal law abiding US blacks were much too bourgeois.
Most people do not participate in politics. Other than voting, they will continue to focus their attention on life's primary responsibilities, including family and economics. This only changed with the Tea Party because the government decided to pursue progressive involuntary exploitation without actually addressing the underlying issues they claimed as justification for their desired totalitarian order. Neither a tyranny of the majority, nor a tyranny of a minority, is desirable. The democratic process should be constrained with this in mind.
The problem with the "occupy" movement is that they protest one form, a lesser form, of corruption, fraudulent exploitation. Judging from their rhetoric and actions, we can assume they embrace the higher form of corruption represented by the combination of authoritarian interests and progressive involuntary exploitation (i.e. redistributive and retributive change) and the general denigration of individual dignity.
That said, the incidental features of the participants is entirely irrelevant. Either we respect individual dignity or we do not, and with the latter we devalue human life.
William said that blacks aren't participating in OWS because of their experience with Marxism in Africa. Balderdash. For one thing we're talking about American blacks whose knowledge of what has befallen their African cousins is as scanty as is their knowledge of every topic not relating directly to them. Which brings us to the reason they're not participating in OWS. It is not primarily about them. That simple. Blacks are down for the struggle only if there is a payoff for being down for the struggle to them. Not to mythical working families or the 99 or the fantastical oppressed. To them. Then and only then do they perk up.
The OWS people have a distinct demographic (see http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-demographic-survey-results-will-surprise-you.php).
Younger than the general population, less money (though maybe typical for their age group), fewer employed, more educated.
This is not representative cross section of America, wy would anyone expect it attract a representative slice of Black America?
Believing that a just world can be brought about by idealistic young people camping in public spaces is an affliction that seems to affect the OWS demographic: white, educated, wanna-be white-collar bourgeois youth.
Oh, and ignore TPM's insistence that the typical OWS person is a political independent. The author of the piece quotes the numbers:
70% independent
27.3 Democrat
2.4% Republicanan
That's an eleven to one ration of Democrats to Republicans. 70% may say they are independents, but Democrats are overwhelmingly more comfortable with OWS ideas than are Republicans.
An American in Finland here, and my Finnish family has never served lutefisk, they can't stand it. We love reindeer, but it is expensive. I like herring. I buy the kind in tomato sauce and use it as a condiment on boiled potatoes or with scrambled eggs. it is very salty so a little goes a long way.
Typical Finnish holiday menu
Roast pork
or Christmas stuffed turkey or goose.
carrot casserole
boiled or mashed potatoes
dark gravy, usually a pork or mushroom gravy
sweet potato casserole
turnip casserole
beet root salad (I love this)
Baltic herring in a mustard sauce(Used a condiment)
cabbage salad
Christmas bread with lingonberries
freshly salted salmon(LOX)
Liver casserole ( Finns either love it or hate it, i like it with lots of lingonberry sauce)
Karelian Pies (with potato filling)
for desserts and sweets
Christmas rice pudding
or fresh fruit with caramel and vanilla sauce
Date Cake
Gingerbread Biscuits
Caramel-Almond Candies
Drinks
White Gloggi, made with white wine and cognac
pears in hot gloggi
I can't wait for Christmas!
Wisconsin lefties won't get large turnouts needed in the Black parts of Milwaukee to oust Gov. Walker. Unless employed by government, they could care less about collective bargaining and the people the provide them crappy schools and government services.
For one thing we're talking about American blacks whose knowledge of what has befallen their African cousins is as scanty as is their knowledge of every topic not relating directly to them.
I would hope that if American Blacks had any idea of what befell their brethren who were sold into slavery in Arabia and the land of Islam, they would Never be Muslim. We, in America, have the descendents of slaves. In Muslim Arab worlds they don't. Why not? Because African babies were murdered upon delivery by the Muslims. More women went to Muslim lands than men, to supply the sex trade. Young boys were sent as well. Slaves in America were treated much better than slaves elsewhere. Those Blacks in Muslim lands were treated far worse than those in the New World.
Look at Stacy
"Left-wing" economic ideology is a bit of a loaded term, particularly when you draw in Huey Newton.
Repealing the Bush tax cuts, preventing the senior execs at too big to fail companies from abusing their position--how left wing is that--not too.
More fundamentally, the notion in this comment that the mainstream civil rights movement had no economic agenda is just A-historical. What about Martin Luther King and the multi-racial Poor People's Campaign--very much about economic justice. One of the demands in the 1963 March on Washington was for an increase in the minimum wage. What about the alliances between the Auto Workers and the civil rights movement--Walter Reuther was right next to MLK at the I Have Dream Speech. This stuff seems much more historically relevant, and impactful, than Huey Newton.
Listening to too much Limbaugh, I'd say.
Not to mention Pigford II.
I have never had lutefisk, but I have enjoyed kimchee for years, which contains fish guts according to one menu I saw in Seoul. Maybe the problem with lutefisk is it does not have any or enough garlic in it.
The problem with lutefisk is that the lye softens the fishbones and turns them into something hard to describe, but it is not pretty.
I, too, am overwhelmingly white.
And...loving it.
An inner city African-American doesn't care about promoting communism or socialism as a political ideology. As long as they get stuff from the government and private charities now (along with a little illegal income in many cases), they aren't going to camp outside with a bunch of smelling white hippyfreaks.
Yeah, you'd think the Community-Organizer-In-Chief would know that. And, actually, I suspect he does. But, never having actually spent any time amongst us white middle-class types, he still thinks we love that shit.
Bill Ayres told him so.
The Occupy Whatever movement should admit its mantra:
"Wake Up White People!"
We've seen evidence of these racist fucks several times in our prior century's history.
Also throwing a nod to compound & hyphenated identifying posters on this blog. Your racism is noted.
It is worthwhile to note that when Huey Newton was down for the struggle and advancing the cause of black liberation by all possible means, including pistol whipping a seventeen year old prostitute, Herman Cain was genuflecting in the corporate cathedrals. I'd be entertained to hear how Ms. Patton parses the difference between Newton's sexism and that of Herman Cain. I would also find it enlightening to learn how Newton's strategy was more productive of tolerance and advancement than that of Herman Cain.....Let me be clear. I think Ms. Patton is a jerk.
A guest host on Rush had a great point:
Yesterday's WaPo: "Why are there no Blacks at Tea Party rallies? Because the Tea Party is racist"
Today's Wapo: "Why are there no blacks at the OWS protests? Because blacks don't care enough to join"
I think these '60s reenactments belong on Stuff White People Like.
"Occupied" is what a public toilet says when someone's inside.
I mentioned this in my blog. I think many black people are afraid because of their (our) history of police brutality. The coverage of OWS has been superficial and constantly shows the rioting and the pepper spraying. It makes sense for many black people to been apprehensive.
I can't wait to go to Occupy Wall Street again. I've always been fairly active in civic causes but I have never felt this inspired.
http://sisterescape.blogspot.com/2011/11/occupy-wall-street-my-story.html
http://the-occupy-wall-street.blogspot.com/ TIme to Occupy the money supply for ourselves . Join to occupy the $$$ !!
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