... and that in addition to his book "Some of My Best Friends Are Black: The Strange Story of Integration in America," he's written biographies of 2 white male comedians, John Belushi and Chris Farley. Here's a HuffPo piece that had him going on about how he has no black friends, even though he's totally liberal and lives in NYC. He's "never even been inside a black person's house." So that's his background. Why he's the person to declare and explain the failure of affirmative action and to propose a solution, I do not know.
Does Slate know? Obviously, Slate's publishing the article boosts Colby's stature as an expert on this topic. It's why I'm reading Colby's piece. But I can see the reasons why Slate would publish this. It knows its readers are mostly white liberals, and it's easy to guess that they're susceptible to the narcissistic question: Where are my black friends? (Obama counts as one friend, but he's always so busy.) And Slate's headline is one of the most egregious pleas for traffic I have ever seen: "Massive Liberal Failure on Race: Affirmative action doesn’t work...." Massive! Liberal! Failure! Race! The righties will not be able not to link to this, I can hear them chuckling. And maybe, oozing in around their self-loving liberalism, they believe that plenty of their regular readers, the good liberals, feel secretly aggrieved about affirmative action.
I don't care about Colby's version of history. ("That Richard Nixon was racist is well beyond dispute....") I just want to examine the "new solution" part:
Racial preferences may have taken black America into a socioeconomic cul de sac, but you can’t just tear up the road and leave people with no way to get out. Fortunately, the one thing the left does have is the leverage and the political capital to end affirmative action in the right way. Right now, the Democratic party and the racial justice movement are sitting on a junk heap of racial preference programs that aren’t doing anyone much good, and they lack the substantive programs they need: a true, New Deal-style reformation that repairs the infrastructure of our cities, ends mass incarceration, provides access to early education and paid family leave and job training and other programs that put all of black America on more solid footing. Since Republicans seem to want affirmative action gone so badly, if it were me, I’d be out horse trading.Do Republicans want out of affirmative action? I know some conservatives like to talk about wanting to arrive at colorblindness, but much of that is political rhetoric. The GOP is not a unified entity, but even if it were and that entity were hungry to end affirmative action, it would be ludicrous to see that goal as equivalent to a giant liberal wish list that entails lavish spending and letting lots of convicted criminals out of prison.
And that assumes that there is a unified entity on the other side that has the power to deliver an end to affirmative action. There isn't! Affirmative action is dispersed throughout many institutions, at many levels of government and private enterprise. But Colby says:
Just as the Obama administration is letting Washington and Colorado opt out of federal marijuana prohibition, let state and local governments opt out of affirmative action mandates, but only in exchange for opting in on universal pre-K and other things that working families actually need.Affirmative action doesn't exist because of top-down mandates! This isn't horse trading. It's unicorn trading.
If conservative politicians and judges are allowed to end affirmative action for the wrong reasons — a very real and immediate possibility — it’s safe to say that race relations in our great land will not improve.The "wrong reasons" — in Colby's world — are legal reasons. He's afraid of a Supreme Court decision killing affirmative action on Equal Protection grounds.
The onus falls on liberals to end it for the right reasons...The "right reasons" — in his view — are that it doesn't produce racial progress.
... and to use that opportunity to replace it with something meaningful.The opportunity to be used is the liberals' political willingness to end affirmative action, which he imagines puts them in a powerful bargaining position to extract big concessions from those Republicans with their contemptible fixation on color-blindness.
There's one more sentence, some pettishness about how we'll never make it to "the Promised Land" unless we fulfill his grandiose left-wing dreams.
Posts
255 comments:
1 – 200 of 255 Newer› Newest»When you see the phrase "Job Training" in a wish list, you know it's a bunch of useless crap. We have literally hundreds of "Job Training" programs, so many that the government can't begin to keep track of them. It's been standard practice to lard every big spending initiative with lots of "Job Training," all to no useful result.
It's not like we haven't tried massive government intervention to reduce poverty for the last half-century. At least it's made a nice living for the people who dole out the goodies.
Liberalism has never found a way to decide which of its nostrums don't work and should be ended. As a result, even bad ideas that harm the intended beneficiaries go on and on like the living dead, almost impossible to kill. Too many--as hawkeyedjb points out--have to protect their iron rice bowl, their unbreakable source of income and wealth.
I have an idea. Let's elect some progressive mayors to some of America's largest cities where no Republican opposition exists and let them solve this problem.
Obama counts as one friend, but he's always so busy.
Touché.
I have no idea why we're supposed to engage in this ritual of public hand wringing over black people. Let blacks take care of themselves. Forget about fixing them. This sounds cruel, but it does have the advantage of actually responding to the reality of human nature. People who are left to do for themselves figure out a way to do things.
There is no "affirmative action." There is a "quota system." Trying to disguise that truth is a waste of time. Nobody is fooled.
The quota system puts blacks into positions in which they are doomed to fail. I saw and experienced this numerous times during my working career. The cycle of sticking blacks into schools or jobs for which they are unqualified only increases the anger and scapegoating that now dominates the thinking of dependent blacks.
No, we don't need a new solution. We need for all the race hustlers to shut up and go home. What this crap is really all about is patronage jobs for people without tangible job skills, and that includes the doofus "reporters" who make their living shilling this crap.
Unfortunately we are all shackled by Government. Maybe we need to listen to MLK again:
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!3
"Nixon was a racist" is not "beyond dispute". This is a man who supported civil rights legislation in the '50s and '60s; that he made bigoted offhand comments no more makes him a racist "beyond dispute" than it would make LBJ (or any number of previous presidents) a racist "beyond dispute".
And why is "law and order" necessarily a ploy to reassure whites that blacks are kept in line? Nixon made it pretty clear in his speeches that reducing crime and lawlessness benefits the urban poor most of all (they're the ones who can't afford to live in safe, gated suburban communities).
And however misguided racial quotas were, why is it taken for a given that Nixon's embrace of affirmative action was automatically a cynical ploy to bribe black people into not rioting, yet Kennedy and LBJ's similar embrace of AA was sincere and decent?
All the article reveals is the author's hard core liberal bias, which distorts his vision of history. Which is too bad, because it would otherwise be a useful criticism of racial preferences from the left.
The biggest problem with private and public AA is also the simplest--it categorizes people by race and values them accordingly. Abolish it completely, and find better ways to reduce disparities in opportunities between the rich and the poor. The author seems to be getting close to that, but then devolves into a progressive wish list that sounds like warmed over Great Society.
It's too late for Colby's analysis. The political science is settled.
Shouting Thomas, most of the "race hustlers" are not people like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. On their own they could not get anywhere. They are people like our hostess: nice, white middle aged women, middle and upper class, with jobs in academia or the press and access to the internet who know what "black folk" need.
Now that I'm retired, I spend a lot of my time babysitting my 8 month old granddaughter. Her parents and I are in agreement that we want her to be an action oriented person, a person who does things, and not a person who is a dependent or a spectator in life.
So, I turn off the TV and use my time with the baby to encourage her to move, to explore, to experiment... to be active.
I don't want my granddaughter to be a person who looks to people or institutions outside herself for permission to do things. I want her to see herself as capable of grabbing the reins of her own life.
If you are looking to other people to do for you or to fix your life, you are, basically, screwed. You are a dependent. The key to being an optimistic, independent, happy and productive person is believing you have the ability to control and change your own existence.
Has anyone noted that the Obamas also seem to have friends who are mostly of the same race [black like the Obamas]? It is not unusual, rare or a crime.
AJ Lynch, but that's proper, because America needs changing in the direction of lifting blacks, and only blacks can understand what it's like to be black in America. Similarly, it's not OK for white people like Colby not to have any black friends, because that way they fail to even try to understand what it's like and what needs to be done.
I apologize for over-posting, but the "let's get hold of black kids and put them into pre-school" is a strategy that the Australians tried with aborigine kids.
What this amounts to is an admission that the home environment of a lot of black kids is toxic. The solution offered by liberals amounts to taking the kids away from their parents as much as possible and putting them into the care of "nice white ladies" with college degrees.
In Australia, this strategy is now remembered as the worst exercise in vile white racism in history. If it is tried in the U.S., you can expect the same outcome decades hence.
I know some conservatives like to talk about wanting to arrive at colorblindness, but much of that is political rhetoric.
The color of your skin should be no more important than the color of your hair. How is that "political rhetoric" ? And who are you to say so?
This is an interesting topic, no? The color of people.
This is the liberalism on race. Liberal white people writing about racism on a lily-white blog written in a lily-white neighborhood in a lily-white city, and making fun of the lily-white author of an article in lily-white Slate magazine.
Affirmative action won't be needed when blacks discover that they're withholding dignity from themselves.
Thanks to MSM-appointed black leaders.
Let blacks take up a collection for poor whites and see what the world looks like to them then.
It wasn't whites withholding dignity from them after all.
"How is that "political rhetoric" ?"
I think a lot of conservative politicians enjoy the power they get from invoking the ideal of colorblindness, but they're not really interested in expending political capital to get to that goal, they don't think there really is a way to get there, and/or they like the practical benefits of the pragmatic (though not abstractly satisfying) policies of affirmative action that have been relied on to ameliorate (or appear to ameliorate) conditions that they don't want to do anything else about. Affirmative action works in real politics, as a semi-solution, and part of what it does is to continue the politics of race, within which they get points in some quarters for saying "colorblindness." Do they really want that game to end?
It's like abortion politics. I think many conservative politicians benefit from the continuing situation where there is a right to abortion and they can talk about how terrible that is. If abortion were ended, they'd have a very different game to play.
Shouting Thomas said...
"I apologize for over-posting,"
Take a little action. Affirmative action. Delete your posts and I'll forgive you for over posting.
I have no problem with affirmative action for descendants of slaves and the descendants of the country's original inhabitants - historically based reparations rather than race based affirmative action. Serious wrongs were done in the past that reverberate into the present. We still have a responsibility to address these issues.
After I left Rwanda I learned that the government categorized people by tribe and gave them cards. This government sponsored categorization of people by tribe undoubtedly contributed to the hatred which led to the genocide. The United States government is doing much the same thing and it is dangerous.
When conservatives ask the government to stop categorizing people by race that is not conservative political rhetoric, it is asking the government to do the right thing and to stop promoting racism.
Professor, no doubt you're right about some cynical righties who advocate color-blindness and oppose abortion. But I like to think that most conservatives have thoughtful and reasoned positions on most issues. Even if the reasoning is very simple-- abortion is murder!-- it's at least grounded in something more substantial than typical lefty thinking like AReasonableMan's-- we must repay blacks are descended from other blacks who were done wrong!
@Meade,
An amusing reality is that I've actually spent a whole lot of my life living among black people.
I lived for years in black neighborhoods in Chicago, San Francisco and Brooklyn. I didn't do this out of altruism. I wanted to live near musicians and a music scene that interested and engaged me.
I've been playing music with black musicians since I was a kid. Still do.
For a few years, I was house organist for a black Baptist church in Jersey.
My extended family is now half Filipino, and Filipinos routinely associate with and marry blacks, particularly blacks who were in the military. Family parties always include black people, and I mean successful black people.
You live in lily white world. You're just a gasbag when it comes to this shit. And you have the predictably stupid and destructive opinions of the gasbags who prattle on about this shit.
It's like abortion politics. I think many conservative politicians benefit from the continuing situation where there is a right to abortion and they can talk about how terrible that is. If abortion were ended, they'd have a very different game to play
I think you have it backwards. As Illuninati said, the Left promotes racist things like affirmative action to keep racial identity politics alive. Instead of realizing King's dream of a color-blind society, we are headed toward a race war.
Affirmative action is simply another way of taking up the white man's burden.
"Take up the White Man's burden, The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly Bring all your hopes to nought.
Take up the White Man's burden, No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper, The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter, The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living, And mark them with your dead.
Take up the White Man's burden And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour (Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage, Our loved Egyptian night?""
I say "we"... the blacks are already targeting whites for violence because of our skin color. Whites really haven't struck back.
Shouting Thomas said...
I apologize for over-posting, but the "let's get hold of black kids and put them into pre-school" is a strategy that the Australians tried with aborigine kids.
Predictably, ST has no clue what he is talking about. He should provide documentation of this or withdraw his post.
Shouting Thomas said...
@Meade,
An amusing reality is that I've actually spent a whole lot of my life living among black people.
For insight into ST's views on African Americans it is worthwhile reading his posts on Crack Emcee's blog. Not exactly an uplifting experience.
@ARM,
I welcome anybody to view my postings at Crack's site.
Crack is a virulent black racist.
I have no regrets about telling him so. It's a waste of time, so I've cease doing it.
@ARM,
You can easily do the research yourself.
Google "The Stolen Generations" and you'll find the whole story.
Bob Ellison said...
Even if the reasoning is very simple-- abortion is murder!-- it's at least grounded in something more substantial than typical lefty thinking like AReasonableMan's
No actual reasoned argument here, only ad hominem. Fail.
You'll notice that ARM represents a particularly toxic line of thinking....
The belief that a virulent black racist like Crack represents all black people.
The racist here is ARM.
Shouting Thomas said...
@Meade,
"You live in lily white world."
Interesting and revealing choice of words. Look up the term "Lily-White Movement" and educate yourself in the history of black Americans and the Republican party.
AReasonableMan, perhaps I was too hasty in assuming that you are advocating that citizens today should pay descendants of slaves for the sins of the past. Do I have that right? In any case, I'd like to know how you arrive at a positive view of reparations as policy.
Crack has recently (today, I believe) been delisted from LEM's site referrals.
His postings to that site were so rabidly racist and unrelated to anything in discussion at that site that he became a complete liability.
His comments were repeatedly deleted by the site administrator, so Crack began a new strategy a couple of days ago of sticking the word "nigger" in his own weblog postings.
Until yesterday, the title of those postings appeared automatically in the links prominently posted on LEM's site. Crack was clearly hoping to smear that site by giving readers who were not familiar with his tactics the belief that LEM had posted the word "nigger."
Greaseball tactics from a virulent black racist.
Shouting Thomas said:
"I welcome anybody to view my postings at Crack's site.
Crack is a virulent black racist."
Personally, I have seen no evidence that Shouting Thomas is lying about his family. I'm sure that people will question whether I grew up in Africa, but that is also OK since I know that it is true.
I admire Crack's honesty when he admitted to me that he is a racist. Personally I think most of the lefties who go around accusing people on the right of racism are just projecting their own racism on other people. I much prefer an honest racist to a racist who pretends he/she is not.
@Meade
You're not very bright.
You're recent comments on various sites have been deplorably stupid.
There's no point in discussing anything with you, particularly given the vanity of the White Knight role you are playing.
We still have a responsibility to address these issues.
We've been trying for half a century. It's not working. The political reality of the matter is that whites will never be able to deal with this because they are just as hamstrung by "historical" issues trying to fix it as you say blacks are suffering because of past injustices.
Affirmative Action for blacks will be ended by latino politicians, activists, and influence peddlers. They suffer none of the problems blacks and whites do over the issue and the nanosecond they perceive they have enough political gravitas to make hay about blacks receiving benefits over latino workers in the same spheres, it will end one way or another.
Shouting Thomas said...
Google "The Stolen Generations" and you'll find the whole story.
The Stolen Generations had nothing to do with pre-school. You have completely misunderstood the issue. In this particular case it was religious based do-gooders who were the problem.
I think a lot of conservative politicians enjoy the power they get from invoking the ideal of colorblindness
I'd love for you to elaborate on this "power" because I'm not really seeing the political benefits at all of advocating for color-blindness.
I'm a die-hard individualist. Individualism is incompatible with racism by design. I don't even describe people by the color of their skin. I refuse to lump people together in arbitrary groups and I would hope others would do the same. However, there is too much power and profit in creating identity groups to play off one another.
So, now, this discussion lays out for all to see what this crap of hand wringing about black people is all about.
It's a status war among white people.
Thanks, commenters, for making this clear.
It's about your vanity, your sanctimony, your need to feel you are exempt from the Evil Eye.
You could not have made this any more clear.
The Stolen Generations had nothing to do with pre-school. You have completely misunderstood the issue. In this particular case it was religious based do-gooders who were the problem.
Who happened to use the power of the government, ARM.
Tribalism and racism are just two different versions of the same Darwinian trait which is built into the human genome. In my experience, competition between tribes is often much more lethal than competition between racists because the tribes are usually competing over the same resources whereas actual subspecies of humans, races, are usually separated geographically and are less likely to be in lethal conflict.
Scott M said...
We've been trying for half a century. It's not working.
Who says? There has been progress. Progress has been slow but each generation has fewer Shouting Thomas's and more Michelle Obama's. I am optimistic for the future.
Shhh!!! The Wisconsinites are talking about race!
This should be funny! :-)
"There has been progress. Progress has been slow but each generation has fewer Shouting Thomas's and more Michelle Obama's. I am optimistic for the future."
Have we really made progress?
Bob Ellison said...
AReasonableMan, perhaps I was too hasty in assuming that you are advocating that citizens today should pay descendants of slaves for the sins of the past. Do I have that right? In any case, I'd like to know how you arrive at a positive view of reparations as policy.
As I said I am comfortable with affirmative action continuing for descendants of slaves and native americans.
I lived in Australia for some time and knew aboriginals, the equivalent of our native americans, including those of the Stolen Generation. The sudden imposition of a completely alien culture on a population with its own ancient culture was devastating. To claim that these people should just suck it up and immediately assimilate to white culture is ridiculous. Ultimate the military victor's culture will prevail, nothing will stop this, but an ethical response to an appalling situation is to act to ameliorate the effects of past actions.
AReasonableMan, that's a good example of the simplistic thinking to which I referred above. My wife, born a German citizen but naturalized several years ago, pays taxes. Should her taxes go to black Americans, some of whom are also recent immigrants? Or only to those who are descended from slaves?
"Henry said...
I have an idea. Let's elect some progressive mayors to some of America's largest cities where no Republican opposition exists and let them solve this problem."
It's called the City of Chicago.
Progress has been slow but each generation has fewer Shouting Thomas's and more Michelle Obama's.
I agree, Illuminati. Michelle Obama is not an example of progress.
Of course, neither is Barack, who has proven only one positive: urban poor blacks are the most damaged social group by quasi-intellectual progressive presidents who happen to have black skin.
I'm amazed Afro and Native Americans have managed to feed themselves all these years.
Oh. Wait.
A Reasonable Man wrote: For insight into...views on African Americans it is worthwhile reading...posts on Crack Emcee's blog. Not exactly an uplifting experience.
Bob Ellison said...
AReasonableMan, that's a good example of the simplistic thinking to which I referred above. My wife, born a German citizen but naturalized several years ago, pays taxes. Should her taxes go to black Americans, some of whom are also recent immigrants? Or only to those who are descended from slaves?
If you had bothered to read my post with comprehension, rather than make a knee-jerk response, my position is perfectly clear.
Pogo evokes something I've always thought. Modern liberals are exactly like the moralizing, ham-handed Victorians that they love to mock. And, like so many with a blind belief in their moral superiority, they rain destruction on those they profess to help.
Ooh, ad hominem. And from a lefty!
AReasonableMan actually said said...
...each generation has fewer Shouting Thomas's and more Michelle Obama's. I am optimistic for the future.
LOL!
There will always be losers in historical clashes of cultures. What I find particularly weird is the whininess of white males. You are the victors. Man up!
gerry said...
"I agree, Illuminati. Michelle Obama is not an example of progress."
I am happy that public spaces are integrated. A black president is OK although we have had black politicians for years. In many ways they are cosmetic. Beyond those small signs of progress, by what metric can we state that the black community is better off now than they were 30 years ago?
Lefties can't see the trees for the forest.
AReasonableMan said...
Bob Ellison said...
AReasonableMan, perhaps I was too hasty in assuming that you are advocating that citizens today should pay descendants of slaves for the sins of the past. Do I have that right? In any case, I'd like to know how you arrive at a positive view of reparations as policy.
As I said I am comfortable with affirmative action continuing for descendants of slaves and native americans.
You have it backwards. Descendants of slaves should thank God that their ancestors were brought over here as slaves so that they now can grow up in America instead of some hellhole.
My grandparents came here (with nothing) in the early 1900's. Why should my kids be discriminated against in favor of descendants of slaves?
Hawkeyedjb said...
It's not like we haven't tried massive government intervention to reduce poverty for the last half-century.
In another thread we talked about LBJ and someone recommended Dallek's bio.
I bought it and am about 1/3 of the way through. Very good.
The book talks at length about LBJ's "Great Society" and "War on Poverty" programs. LBJ himself had no idea what, if anything, either program was supposed to accomplish.
His stated purpose was to give everyone warm fuzzy feelings about him and how much he cared(tm).
It was never about actually accomplishing anything to make people's lives better. Just about making liberals like him.
The Great Society and the War on Poverty have both been about as successful as one might have expected.
John Henry
I read about half the article the other day when it showed up on my Kindle.
What a load of codswallop!
He kind of lost me at the point where he said that the Republicans "letting" Herman Cain run was racist.
As are a whole bunch of other things.
He sounded quite racist himself, BTW. Sounded like he went out of his way to avoid those icky black people.
John Henry
We have a permanent black and native american underclass. Is that because Affirmative Action isn't working?
Is it time for another National Conversation on race?
@Fen, if blacks are targeting whites, then why are most black murders actually of other blacks? Practice?
Affirmative action is probably the worst thing that ever happened to black people besides slavery.
Ditto women and any other AA's group.
What it tells everyone is that this person was not good enough to get the job (into school or whatever) on their merits. It tells everyone that they will never be good enough to be judged on their merits.
Worst of all is its corrosive effect on the mind of the person in the group. They can never know whether they got the job because they are good or because they are black.
Think about that. Think how you would feel going through life never knowing for sure if you are good at what you do. (or smart, talented etc)
AA relegates all blacks to 2nd class status forever.
Perhaps if we could make all blacks and others who got AA preferences wear a tattoo or something.
(Just kidding about that)
John Henry
A Reasonable Man wrote: What I find particularly weird is the whininess of white males. You are the victors. Man up!
If you wish to see the very essence of whininess, go to the very blog you recommended earlier. For you, whininess is allowed or disallowed according to color.
Try being a little colorblind and maybe you get some respect -- from me at least.
You are the victors. Man up!
Something tells me you don't wish to see that sentiment taking to it's logical conclusion.
Is Dahlia Lithwick still running Slate?
This is crackerjack stuff.
I would be very interested to hear a progressive explain why they think that another massive spending initiative is going to fix black dysfunctionality when the last X massive spending initiatives did not.
Seriously, I don't understand why progressives think that. They're not stupid people. Presumably they are aware that there have been big government spendings in the past on these same issues. Yet their prescription for their previous failed efforts is always an even bigger effort. A "New Deal"-sized effort.
How can they keep coming back to that? It's been done. I remember some years back a federal judge appointed himself the manager of the Kansas City school district in order to deal with what he considered disparate impact in the quality of facilities available to blacks and whites in the city's schools. He required that the city build a billion-dollar super-school with every possible amenity you can imagine, including TV studio, computerized classrooms, the whole liberal fantasy wish list. Result: the facilities were abused and unused and the money wasted and the outcomes the same. Why couldn't progressives learn from that? Why do we have to have a trillion or quadrillion or whatever dollar program to do the exact same f***ing things that the previous failed programs did?
They just don't have any ideas about what to do...except spend. I had this argument with a liberal woman friend once and she agreed that none of the programs seemed to work..and then said, in a pleading voice, "but we have to try anyway." That's what it comes down to: we have to spend billions on programs we know won't work...we just HAVE to. No logic, no reason, we just have to.
Scott M said...
Something tells me you don't wish to see that sentiment taking to it's logical conclusion.
No. A lot fewer whiny white men would be a big advance from my point of view. I find them an embarrassment to my race and my gender. Most white men have had every advantage in life. If life didn't work out for them the way they expected they only have themselves to blame.
Progress has been slow but each generation has fewer Shouting Thomas's and more Michelle Obama's. I am optimistic for the future.
Note how consistently this racist bastard ARM assumes that agreeing with his opinions is the determining factor in whether blacks succeed or fail.
ARM. You are a horrific racist.
Talking about life not working out for them, ST is back.
@ARM
Since you like to play the idiot "scholarship" game so frequently, point to a single statement by a white man on this thread that amounts to "whining."
You can't, can you, idiot? You've been engaged in a dialogue with a voice in your head. Your statements don't even attempt to respond to what people actually write.
As I said, you're one of those odd critters who imagines himself to be quite an intellect.
All the evidence, by which I mean your writings, points to the opposite conclusion.
I suggest silence. It would reflect better upon you.
Take my advice. It will help you out a lot.
That's what it comes down to: we have to spend billions on programs we know won't work...we just HAVE to. No logic, no reason, we just have to.
1) Something must be done.
2) This is something.
3) This must be done.
Shelby Steele, in "The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race In America" does a better job of explaining why affirmative action- which supposedly was designed to help minorities, but really exists to assuage white guilt (and create political advantage) has, in fact, been a disaster- than anyone I've read.
Of course, you should buy it thru the Althouse portal.
This is amusing, ARM.
You still haven't explained how telling an obvious and self-proclaimed black racist like Crack that he's a black racist amounts to expressing my opinion on an entire race.
That's kinda racist, isn't it?
I'll tie one hand behind my back, metaphorically speaking, if it will help you out.
The purpose of the "whining" jibe is obvious. The tacit suggestion is that white men are complaining about the quota system because it takes something away from them.
Not in my experience.
Three times in my professional career, I was hired as second in command on a contract basis behind a quota black manager who was clearly unfit and unqualified for the job.
I learned to bide my time.
In each case, the incompetence of that black manager doomed him to failure. It took somewhere between six months and a year before this played out.
The incompetents ultimately had to be fired. Businesses really can't afford failure, even for the purpose of advancing racial comity.
So, I just learned to wait it out. Problem solved.
@Shouting Thomas: It seems obvious to me that ARM and Meade are playing a cynical game here wrt Crack's blog. They both laud the rhetorical artistry of Crack, yet even a cursory glance over there is enough to embarrass any decent person. The intent is to get people to comment here and they have succeeded.
@Meade: Well played.
No. A lot fewer whiny white men would be a big advance from my point of view. I find them an embarrassment to my race and my gender. Most white men have had every advantage in life. If life didn't work out for them the way they expected they only have themselves to blame.
The mind reels and I don't have the time nor the inclination today.
CAFFEINE! You're on the bench. Alcohol...get in there.
Meade wrote. "Interesting and revealing choice of words. Look up the term "Lily-White Movement" and educate yourself in the history of black Americans and the Republican party."
How could this choice of words be "revealing" if the author has to research their meaning? Are you asserting that there is some repressed knowledge of historical racist movements shared by all racists or were these merely stupidly typed words prefacing a recent history lesson provided by a search engine? The phrase is in common usage unlinked to 19th century Texas racial politics.
Do Republicans want out of affirmative action? I know some conservatives like to talk about wanting to arrive at colorblindness, but much of that is political rhetoric.
I think that you are still too cozy in your progressive echo chamber of Madison, Wisconsin. What you have to keep in mind is that the Republican Party was essentially founded to counter the abject racism of the then-preeminent Democratic Party. Much of it was intensely Christian - based on Jesus treating all as equal, with the strongest and wealthiest having the biggest burdens to overcome. The New Testament is essentially color blind, as all good Christians should be. The party, too, has been avowedly color blind since its founding. Sure, the common perceptions of the times have colored this a bit through time. But, since winning its first election, the Republican party has been far more color blind than the Democratic party, which was the party of white supremacy, slavery, and Jim Crow for the first 5/6 of its history, and now racial quotas for the last 1/6.
The way affirmative action plays out, the kids of DeBlasio and Obama get preference over the kids of ARM for admission to Harvard. So there's a plus side of affirmative action.......I have never known a time in my life when learned people weren't saying race relations were getting worse, but demonstrably that's just not true. When you consider the way that the Serbs and the Croats, the Sunnis and the Shiites, and the Bantus and Watusi are at each other's throats, we haven't done so bad. We only kill each other at the retail level. With the exception of the Civil War, Americans have never murdered each other on a who,sealed basis.
The "wrong reasons" will expose the exploitation and corruption of affirmative action, which has sabotaged the majority of its intended beneficiaries and delayed integration.
Who, sealed basis should read wholesale.
It's a moral imperative that the group keep trying, as is clear, and it's an unsurprising journey from the relatively fewer white Freedom Riders acting against the injustices they saw amidst higher moral claims to the progressive identity politics of today.
That seems to be a high point.
Where the policies meet reality, we're treated to far too many heads in the sand, in-group identity tests and poo-flinging appeals to emotion and authority against the opposition, preening and often unearned moral superiority etc.
This is where Slate has headed under Lithwick's leadership, and this kind of Lefty race and identity politics will be one of Obama's clear legacies.
It's sad to watch aged boomers, trendy hipsters and in-group liberal scribblers seeking a name and some fame hop-on the Civil Rights train, especially when they hardly know any black folks. May they enjoy an awkward ride alongside Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, and I truly hope they don't get chucked should it become expedient to throw a white boy or two out at the next stop.
Living life with a changing mind and getting to know other people: You're doing it wrong if the personal is political, if liberation theology is your only guide, if you see race everywhere and don't let your guard down sometimes and focus on bettering yourself and working hard., if you have to activate in order to belong.
Much progressive moral identity flows from the principles, like folks at The Nation gathered around John Brown's body. They are the ones doing right in this fallen world.
Get a good look at where these ideas lead, and the politicians they tend to produce.
I like the phrase "who, sealed". It sounds like a disposition for sensitive, unsolved crime cases.
@chickenlittle
You might be right with ARM.
Meade is a true believer. He believes that the problems of blacks, gays and women will be fixed if he plays out the guilt ridden white man role to its limit, and he demands the same from other men. He's a White Knight.
I know that this is unbelievably stupid, but it's pretty common in liberal venues.
In fact, Meade believes in a theory called stereotype threat.
Read it and weep, or laugh out loud, whichever seems best to you.
I think a lot of conservative politicians enjoy the power they get from invoking the ideal of colorblindness, but they're not really interested in expending political capital to get to that goal, they don't think there really is a way to get there, and/or they like the practical benefits of the pragmatic (though not abstractly satisfying) policies of affirmative action that have been relied on to ameliorate (or appear to ameliorate) conditions that they don't want to do anything else about. Affirmative action works in real politics, as a semi-solution, and part of what it does is to continue the politics of race, within which they get points in some quarters for saying "colorblindness." Do they really want that game to end?
It's not conservatives. Progressives get guaranteed votes from ZERO info voters because they wish to keep them permanently enslaved to them.
They have zero interest in not keeping a constant low-key race war going.
The Republican Party has actually been quite consistent about blacks. From start to finish. They just have been ambushed by pop culture becoming completely left and the media abandoning any semblance of impartiality while demanding praise for being impartial.
I have no problem with affirmative action for descendants of slaves and the descendants of the country's original inhabitants - historically based reparations rather than race based affirmative action. Serious wrongs were done in the past that reverberate into the present. We still have a responsibility to address these issues.
...at the expense of whites who had no part in that one way or the other?
And what about the blacks who have zero ties to slaves? Or the few whose families owned slaves themselves?
If life didn't work out for them the way they expected they only have themselves to blame.
Nice that only white males have that.
Literally, NO OTHER GROUP.
We still have a responsibility to address these issues.
Bullshit. You cannot assign me responsibility for the actions of a group I have made no active effort to join or support that is or was committing some offense against some other group. Its no different than telling me that if my great uncle killed some fellow in a bar fight in the Klondike it makes me responsible to subsidize the dead guy's grand kids' college tuition because he may have struck it rich.
All I am responsible for as an adult citizen is my own actions, whether independently or as part of a group I willfully subscribe to. I am not responsible for the actions of a group I do not subscribe to simply because that group's members or some other jokers say I must be included in that group by default since I may have benefited in some way from their policies.
But if you want to carry a guilt trip for what other people have done, now or 200 years ago, knock yourself out.
Bruce,
The Republican Party was founded as a sectional northern party by out-of work American Whig politicians after the Whigs collapsed as a national party when it became hazardous to one's health to be suspected of being a Whig in the South, and perhaps "soft" on slavery, as racial attitudes hardened in the 1840's.
The founders were not particularly excited about ending slavery, but as a start-up party welcomed anybody that had any kind of an issue with the existing Democrat Party in their state, which made for a kind of motley collection. Even the choice of the name, Republican Party, was a poke in the eye to the Democrats as reminder of the name of their antecedent faction under Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe.
It is true that the energy of the party came to be supplied by the "abolitionists" and "free-soilers" in time as they joined up with the new "Republicans", but that was not the moving spirit of the founders. They just wanted office, but preferably not as "Democrats," Jacksonian or otherwise.
The "Black community" became the Democratic Party's life raft after the "Solid South" collapsed after LBJ's Civil Rights Acts.
They, and the nation, would have been better off with Pat Moynihan's proposed policy of "benign neglect."
Black people do not want white friends.
The "Black community" became the Democratic Party's life raft after the "Solid South" collapsed after LBJ's Civil Rights Acts.
Evidence does not back this up. Segregationists kept getting re-elected and the Dems did exceptionally well in the South for years.
It was when the Progressives started gaining control and they began to attack conservatives that they lost the South.
Michael said...
"The phrase ["lily white"] is in common usage unlinked to 19th century Texas racial politics."
Unlinked? Only unlinked out of ignorance. The unexamined usage is exactly what is revealing.
"Black people do not want white friends."
Who does? Why should anyone want friends who self-identify as "white"?
ARM might be on to something. Pay the reparations and call it day by ending the welfare state and the quota system.
I ask for consent to revise and extend my description of history.
Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and '65. By 1972 when Trent Lott asked for advice about entering politics, Mississippi's preminent "seg" told him to run as Republican.
And this was not about Republicans being secret segregationists, they never have been, but about being financial conservative, which the agricultural South has traditionally been, and once "the Lost Cause" was really lost, they would hold their noses and vote for the "blue-coated invader.'
@Meade
Jesus Christ!
What in the fuck do you think you're doing?
You are completely out of your depth here.
Stop.
This was a weak article. The author seems to think there is no one out there (who matters) except for white and African American males.
His treatment of technological industries was especially risible. First, he seems blind to the heavy participation and great success that South-Asian and East-Asian immigrants have in tech companies. Second, he shows classic liberal bigotry of low expectations. His laments is that no African-Americans are likely to be rooming with the next Steve Jobs, and hence will not have ground-floor opportunities to tag along. He doesn't even see the possibility that African-Americans might have the talents and skills to start their own companies. A free market conservative would say that because the start-up economy favors those who create a develop good ideas, it provides great opportunities to everyone.
AA works - it just doesn't accomplish anything other than creating a never ending stream of tax money to it's beneficiaries.
Meade. You clearly didnt Google Lily White Flour A staple of southern cooking for generations and a source of the phrase. Did you fail to link this out of ignorance?
Unexamined usage indeed. Hilarious.
It is indeed very noticeable that in this country, just about any conversation that starts about "race" as a general subject, almost immediately becomes about "black" vs. "white," and then not just about "white," but "old white men."
which just happens to be the most majority Republican voting "demographic."
ARM: The Stolen Generations had nothing to do with pre-school. You have completely misunderstood the issue. In this particular case it was religious based do-gooders who were the problem.
Yeah, the Australian policy wasn't literally a pre-school program, therefore it has nothing to tell us about the foolishness, arrogance, and inability to learn from experience of Nice White People on their perennial utopian benders.
If you actually knew anything about the history of "early intervention" programs, this wouldn't have to be explained to you.
which just happens to be the most majority Republican voting "demographic."
You don't like old white men?
Some of my best friends are old white men.
Know what I mean?
Scott M: Affirmative Action for blacks will be ended by latino politicians, activists, and influence peddlers. They suffer none of the problems blacks and whites do over the issue and the nanosecond they perceive they have enough political gravitas to make hay about blacks receiving benefits over latino workers in the same spheres, it will end one way or another.
Agree that latino pols don't do racial guilt, but you're dreaming if you think they want to end a program that benefits them. "Latinos" have long since had enough "political gravitas", if that's what you want to call it, to get AA and scream for more. And they don't have any trouble pushing blacks out of the way. The only people who want to get rid of AA are the people who are disadvantaged by it.
I think it was Frederick Douglass who said, upon being asked what should be done with the newly freed slaves, (paraphrasing) Why, do nothing with them. Leave them alone. Haven't you done enough with them?
ST,
My point is that this is about voting blocs and elections, not about who likes whom.
The idea is to corral votes on matters irrelevant to "government" and if possible get people to vote against their own "policy" interests in order to show solidarity with some group or other.
And I am an "old, white man."
I think a lot of conservative politicians enjoy the power they get from invoking the ideal of colorblindness, but they're not really interested in expending political capital to get to that goal
That is a very leftwing and cynical view...do you have any evidence for it?
How about democrats expending political capital to keep minorities dependent and on the Liberal plantation?
It's like abortion politics. I think many conservative politicians benefit from the continuing situation where there is a right to abortion and they can talk about how terrible that is. If abortion were ended, they'd have a very different game to play.
Again Liberal projection. Not only do conservatives want to save innocent lives, but if the abortion issue was finally dealt with perhaps we could get away from the whole "war on women" incivility bullshit.
"Race" has become a political construct.
In fact, Meade believes in a theory called stereotype threat.
Eh it might be real. I know I get nervous whenever I am near a dance floor or a basketball court....
To claim that these people should just suck it up and immediately assimilate to white culture is ridiculous.
Perhaps. But it has been a couple of centuries in both Australia nd the United States now. How much longer shoud it take?
And I would counter that it is not so much White culture, as it is Western Civilization that they need to assimilate.
My recording session got cancelled today because of a huge impending snow storm.
What excuse do the rest of you have for wasting your time here today?
Fen, if blacks are targeting whites, then why are most black murders actually of other blacks? Practice?
Nice strawman. Now go back and compare Black on White violence to White on Black violence and see which has higher numbers both in raw numbers and adjusted for population.
Althouse: ...and/or they like the practical benefits of the pragmatic (though not abstractly satisfying) policies of affirmative action that have been relied on to ameliorate (or appear to ameliorate) conditions that they don't want to do anything else about.
Like what? What's the efficacious "else" here that these conservatives don't want to do to "ameliorate conditions"?
Like what? What's the efficacious "else" here that these conservatives don't want to do to "ameliorate conditions"?
Yet more transfer payments of course.
Gahrie: Eh [stereotype threat] might be real. I know I get nervous whenever I am near a dance floor or a basketball court....
Depends on what you mean by "real". Can it make you perform worse than you would have under better psychological conditions? Yes. Does removing it erase the difference in performance between you, a mediocre or poor dancer or basketball player, and better dancers and basketball players? No. (IOW, those dreaded group differences in testing have not been explained away by "stereotype threat".)
The difference between "left" and "right" is that the "left" always thinks the government should "do something" about whatever the subject is, and the "right" thinks that anything the government "does" is going to make the situation worse.
Which it usually does.
ARM: I lived in Australia for some time and knew aboriginals, the equivalent of our native americans, including those of the Stolen Generation. The sudden imposition of a completely alien culture on a population with its own ancient culture was devastating.
Indeed it was. A tragedy which has been visited on an untold number of cultures throughout human history.
To claim that these people should just suck it up and immediately assimilate to white culture is ridiculous.
I agree. It's natural for peoples to fight like hell to keep their culture and territory intact, and resist the onslaught of foreign ways. To claim that any people "should just suck it up and immediately assimilate" to any imposed alien culture is inhuman. (Unlike refusing to assimilate to the culture of a country into which one has voluntarily immigrated, and insisting that the majority assimilate to your ways, which just makes you an asshole.)
What obligations, moral or otherwise, the ascendant culture has to "losers" is a thornier question. Forced assimilation is bad. "Exclusion" is bad. Benign neglect in the service of gradual assimilation is bad. Bankrolling the maintenance of "reservations" of native cultures has had pernicious outcomes everywhere. And, strangely enough, brow-beating and vilifying the majority or members of most recent "winner" group isn't having the lollipops and sunshine effect on civic culture that all right-thinking people expected. (Bizarrely, some people get their panties in a twist about utterly innocuous concepts like "collective guilt". I mean, when have the bad guys ever used that one?)
Ultimate the military victor's culture will prevail, nothing will stop this, but an ethical response to an appalling situation is to act to ameliorate the effects of past actions.
That's exactly what the "religious-based do-gooders" who promulgated the policies that ended in the "stolen generations" thought they were doing, too.
Anglelyne said...
Unlike refusing to assimilate to the culture of a country into which one has voluntarily immigrated, and insisting that the majority assimilate to your ways, which just makes you an asshole.
I largely agree with this and do not favor affirmative action for voluntary immigrants. The US remains somewhat racist (although arguably better than any other country) and non-whites remain at some disadvantage but recent immigrants knew what they were getting into and weighed the pluses and minuses of their decision. The one caveat here is that there are some strengths to be gained from a pluralistic society. I favor a one-size-fits-all approach to language, the ability to speak English should be non-negotiable, language subgroups are a recipe for conflict. This being said I otherwise see a lot of value in a wide diversity of cultural groups. The mix of cultures in the US has created a culture that is clearly different and more vibrant than other anglophone cultures. Much of that difference comes from African Americans. So, I see the advantages in tolerating a broad range of cultures within the country.
Anglelyne said...
That's exactly what the "religious-based do-gooders" who promulgated the policies that ended in the "stolen generations" thought they were doing, too.
Not really. It was largely a religious quest to save the souls of heathens - a prosetylizing impulse of a religiously motivated minority. At that time the average non-religious Australian, which was the large majority of people, could have cared less about the fate of aboriginals. Complete neglect, rather than benign neglect, was the majority view.
Shouting Thomas is winning this thread.
I thought Crack was a smarter guy than he is until a recent thread. He's got some issues.
Lyle said...
Shouting Thomas is winning this thread.
I am sure he is if the goal is to be the dumbest prick on the internet.
@ARM
You still haven't explained how it is that Crack, a virulent and self-confessed black racist, represents all black people.
We're still waiting.
I'm sure you have a brilliant explanation.
AReasonableMan,
No, Thomas isn't the dumbest prick on the internet.
His perspective is very reasonable.
It's funny to look at liberals twisting and turning to avoid noticing that teachers unions / Democrats are keeping bad teachers in bad schools and keeping anyone from escaping from the schools. And then the liberals start wondering and wondering why the African-Americans from those schools don't do better even with affirmative action.
Here's my proposal. School vouchers to let anyone escape from failing schools and call it affirmative action.
Lyle said...
No, Thomas isn't the dumbest prick on the internet.
Well I am glad that you agree this issue is open for discussion. ST is certainly in the mix and is my personal favorite for the title.
His perspective is very reasonable.
That had to hurt, eh, ARM?
Now, I'm still waiting for your explanation for why Crack is representative of all blacks.
Shall I take your refusal to answer as an admission of failure?
So, let's recount ARM's racist ravings in this thread.
- He insists that his opinions about stuff are what's really the determining factor in the success of failure of blacks.
- He insists that Crack represents all blacks, and that deference to Crack's racist rants is required of whites.
Not good, ARM. Not good.
The sudden imposition of a completely alien culture on a population with its own ancient culture was devastating.
Happens continuously throughout history and it is not the responsibility of descendents of the folks involved to make good for what happened. Especially if the conditions and considerations of the problems have already been mitigated.
This is true whether its blacks or Native Americans in the US or Aborigines in Australia. We are responsible at this point for addressing whatever inequities still exist, not buying into some reparations guilt trip. If that is the case, then find me a Neanderthal and tell me how much I owe him. I'll write a check.
B said...
If that is the case, then find me a Neanderthal and tell me how much I owe him
Assuming you are of european extraction, you are part Neanderthal and you can keep the money.
The problem that white bourgeois progressives have with Black people is that Black people are sentient beings who live their own lives and do what they want.
And no matter what white bourgeois progressives do, they can never earn the love and gratitude they feel they're entitled to from Black people.
And I see from this Slate article that in order for liberals to say that a program is wrong they have to say that it was all part of an evil Republican plan.
Abortion: The Republicans brought it in to reduce the number of poor voters for the Democrats.
The deficit: The Republicans secretly want a deficit because they hold the debt through their plutocratic control of banks and live on the interest.
Family. The Republicans want to destroy the African-American family because the final consequence will be to eliminate the African-Americans. So they are saying that marriage and family are a white thing. There's some books on that.
Calculus. Republicans are deliberately trying to keep African-Americans out of good STEM jobs by saying mathematics is a white thing taught by old white men. It's European behavior pattern, they say.
More later. I need a drink.
@Scott
A good description of ARM's paternalistic condescension.
He clearly believes that if only all white people professed the correct opinions about black people, i.e., his own, that the problems of black people would be solved.
It's all about ARM. And his vanity.
@Fen, if blacks are targeting whites, then why are most black murders actually of other blacks? Practice?
Thats fallacy. Compare number of whites that blacks target vs the reverse.
@Fen, if blacks are targeting whites, then why are most black murders actually of other blacks? Practice?
Thats fallacy. Compare number of whites that blacks target vs the reverse.
Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and '65.
Fully aware of that.
The reason he was recommended to run in 72 as a Republican was that the hippies, at that point, had gained control of the Dem Party (shall we mention their Presidential candidate in 1972?)
The Civil Rights Act isn't why the Dems lost the South. The Dems running hard left beginning in the late 60's is why they lost the South.
Blogger FleetUSA said...
Unfortunately we are all shackled by Government. Maybe we need to listen to MLK again:
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
2/12/14, 6:40 AM
MLK plagiarized the ending to his "I Have a Dream" speech - so it is difficult for me to believe he believed.
"That's exactly what we mean -- from every mountain side, let freedom ring. Not only from the Green Mountains and White Mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire; not only from the Catskills of New York; but from the Ozarks in Arkansas, from the Stone Mountain in Georgia, from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia -- let it ring not only for the minorities of the United States but for . . . the disinherited of all the earth -- may the Republican Party, under God, from every mountainside, LET FREEDOM RING!" ~ Archibald Carey
AReasonableMan said...
Lyle said...
No, Thomas isn't the dumbest prick on the internet.
This raises an interesting question. What would be the criteria for the dumbest prick on the internet? At a minimum they have to be somewhat literate and have amassed the resources to buy a computer or at least belong to a library. So, we are not talking about a literal moron, but rather someone more in line with ST's cognitive abilities. In this context literate implies nothing more than a limited comprehension, an ability to vaguely deduce the topic under discussion despite having no actual knowledge or thoughtful opinions on the topic.
So ST meets these minimal criteria, but does he bring anything else to the table? Not as far as I can see. In my opinion, he certainly should receive strong consideration for this accolade. I am unaware of anyone who posts so broadly with such enthusiastic cluelessness combined with crass prejudice and complete lack of self-knowledge. For me, he is the complete package.
Jason, I'm still laughing at your 8:15 AM comment. It's a slow laugh that just keeps building. I'll try to shut up and get some popcorn now, per your advice.
ARM: This being said I otherwise see a lot of value in a wide diversity of cultural groups.
How wide? How diverse? The problem with modern "diversity" and multicultural dogma is that it is an utterly mindless promotion of these things as ends in themselves. Some kinds of cultural diversity have good effects. Some have bad effects. Some have really, really bad effects.
The mix of cultures in the US has created a culture that is clearly different and more vibrant than other anglophone cultures.
Haven't been to London (or Birmingham or Manchester or Dublin or Cork or Sydney or Yougetthepicture) lately, have you?
Much of that difference comes from African Americans.
Yes. My countrymen. Been here since forever. Part of the founding population of my homeland. Whatever the fraught history of race in my country, I was unaware that I was supposed to look at them as exotic foreigners with an alien culture.
So, I see the advantages in tolerating a broad range of cultures within the country.
Meaning what? Who gets to decide how broad is too broad? Who gets to say, "no, this is incompatible with our culture"? (Not that I wouldn't happily take the job, if it were on offer.) Because frankly, I ain't gonna consider polygamists or FGM practitioners or burka-wearers my countrymen, no matter where they come from or what color they are, no matter how many pious lectures about tolerance and enrichment I get from Multi-Kult crackpots.
At some point "all diversity" means no distinctive and particular culture at all. Or meaningful civic life. In the end just Davos Man's wet dream of a cultureless flophouse/labor exchange. For a brief period, anyway. Because human beings can't bear living forever in Nowheresville, and there will be a struggle that ends in the strongest group imposing its own culture. Hope your great-grandchildren don't end up as a Stolen Generation.
"This raises an interesting question. What would be the criteria for the dumbest prick on the internet?"
Grab a mirror ARM! You make this too easy.
Don't know the dumbest person on the internet but know some very dumb ones. Pretty clear on the most sanctimonious.
Anglelyne said...
Haven't been to London ... lately, have you?
As you point out it takes a long time for different cultures to combine into something coherent. Mainstream Brit culture seems largely unaffected by either the empire, other than the US, or the recent wave of immigration. It remains of itself, alone, and largely irrelevant
@ARM
Speaking of self-awareness.
You seem totally unaware that the tone of your writing is that of a pompous twit.
This is a fucking thread on a weblog.
Have you noticed?
ARM: Not really. It was largely a religious quest to save the souls of heathens - a prosetylizing impulse of a religiously motivated minority. At that time the average non-religious Australian, which was the large majority of people, could have cared less about the fate of aboriginals. Complete neglect, rather than benign neglect, was the majority view.
Yes, really. Trying to distinguish the "religious do-gooders" of that era from the latest progressive thought of that era is ahistorical at best and disingenuous at worst. Progressives did a lot of stuff that they now like to pretend was all the work of RacistNaziConservatives.
The majority of liberal whites in the West today don't really care about ghetto blacks or reservation Indians, either. What they will do is vote to throw lots of money at programs that essentially get "at risk" children away from their own dysfunctional culture and into the hands of professionals (mostly Nice White People) for as much of their lives as possible. So now pre-K or pre-pre-K where hopefully the cultural influence of the families of the disadvantaged kids will be lessened, and they'll pick up the cultural traits of more successful groups. Plus ça change.
Btw, what's the functional difference between "complete neglect" and "benign neglect"
@ARM
I gonna try again. I believe in attempting to teach even the damnedest fools.
Blacks exist outside your head, independent of your opinions. Your opinions about blacks don't determine whether blacks succeed or fail.
Your vanity and sanctimonious, condescending paternalism toward blacks is somewhere between laughable and disgusting.
It's quite obvious that what is at stake here is your vanity and your belief in your superior morality.
Your a damned fool. The damnedest part of your foolishness is your delusion that you are wise.
It's all pretty funny.
Anglelyne said...
Btw, what's the functional difference between "complete neglect" and "benign neglect"
Under the new improved benign neglect regime they pretend to care, while still doing nothing useful. Everyone feels much better about themselves, other than the benighted souls who are the unfortunate recipients of this concern.
And I do apologize profusely, ARM, for the depth and breadth of my life experience.
I didn't acquire that experience just to embarrass you, although it must seem that way to you.
Shouting Thomas said...
And I do apologize profusely, ARM, for the depth and breadth of my life experience.
I didn't acquire that experience just to embarrass you, although it must seem that way to you.
No, please don't apologize. I stand in awe. As I have already conceded, you are truly the complete package. Rarely does one get to experience such perfection in human form. As I traverse this vale of tears I will always treasure our time together.
from TFA:
let state and local governments opt out of affirmative action mandates, but only in exchange for opting in on universal pre-K and other things that working families actually need.
Since universal pre-K has been shown scientifically to be ineffective, does that mean that he is anti-science?
Exchanging one ineffective program for another that is known to be ineffective before it even begins: a perfect Democrat.
Exchanging one ineffective program for another that is known to be ineffective before it even begins: a perfect Democrat.
On the plus side, these tactics do provide a plethora of patronage jobs for the Democrats' constituency.
ARM: As you point out it takes a long time for different cultures to combine into something coherent.
I'm glad we can agree about the folly of our current mad rush to incoherence.
Mainstream Brit culture seems largely unaffected by either the empire, other than the US, or the recent wave of immigration. It remains of itself, alone, and largely irrelevant
Usually Americans of the modern liberal persuasion pride themselves on not sounding like ignorant parochial rubes (even when they are) when talking about other countries. But I guess it's the first thing to get dropped in the panic that ensues when the multicult platitudes don't seem to be doing the job anymore.
Anglelyne said...
Usually Americans of the modern liberal persuasion pride themselves on not sounding like ignorant parochial rubes (even when they are) when talking about other countries. But I guess it's the first thing to get dropped in the panic that ensues when the multicult platitudes don't seem to be doing the job anymore.
In your haste to engage in snark you forgot to make a coherent point.
Anglelyne
"Usually Americans of the modern liberal persuasion pride themselves on not sounding like ignorant parochial rubes (even when they are) when talking about other countries. But I guess it's the first thing to get dropped in the panic that ensues when the multicult platitudes don't seem to be doing the job anymore."
Thread winner. England is, of course, completely unrecognizable from even twenty years ago.
Me: Btw, what's the functional difference between "complete neglect" and "benign neglect"?
ARM: Under the new improved benign neglect regime they pretend to care, while still doing nothing useful. Everyone feels much better about themselves, other than the benighted souls who are the unfortunate recipients of this concern...
That's nice, but what's the difference between "complete neglect" and "benign neglect"?
Michael said...
England is, of course, completely unrecognizable from even twenty years ago.
Maybe you should consider getting some glasses. You're not getting any younger. For those of us with functioning eyesight it remains the same class-obsessed ossified relic. Even the Scots want to leave now. They would rather live in fucking Scotland than be part of little Britain.
ARM: In your haste to engage in snark you forgot to make a coherent point.
You must have really sucked at dodge ball when you were a kid.
Anglelyne said...
You must have really sucked at dodge ball when you were a kid.
This is projection on your part. Sorry your childhood didn't work out. I am sure you are very successful now.
MnMark,
"Seriously, I don't understand why progressives think that. They're not stupid people.."
OBJECTION! Citing facts not in evidence.
"I had this argument with a liberal woman friend once and she agreed that none of the programs seemed to work..and then said, in a pleading voice, 'But we have to try anyway.'"
People like that need to go spend a year in rural Kenya, Uganda, or Botswana, and see how much education is accomplished for pennies, if not mills, on the dollar of our expenditures. Equally valuable is seeing how much those rural poor people value education!
Assuming you are of european extraction, you are part Neanderthal and you can keep the money.
Well that's a relief. And I have some Native American in me too so I can ignore any sanctimonious dipshit telling me I need to make reparation payments to them also.
For the record, I simply said I had no problem with affirmative action continuing for descendants of slaves and the country's original inhabitants. This doesn't seem a particularly controversial position.
AReasonableMan, it's probably true that among many people your position is not controversial. Why not pay people for past wrongs, and try to make things right?
But it's disgusting to me. Your position at best ignores, and at worst advocates, stealing from guiltless taxpayers in a multi-generational class action. It's a racket.
I hope this makes sense. I try to be concise and sometimes sacrifice clarity thereby.
"I have no problem with" is no defense. Some righties have no problem with capital punishment, because the perps are probably bad guys who have it coming. Some lefties have no problem with Marx because communism hasn't really been tried yet. You must think it through. If you abide it, you support it.
The biggest problem with your position, though, runs throughout the discussions on this thread: confusing the group with the individual. As a matter of morality, that's an awful sin. Am I responsible for another man's evil deeds?
As a matter of politics, alas, it works. I am responsible for the white man's evil deeds, because I am a white man. (Sorry, Meade.) That makes me guilty. Color and gender.
That works for leftists.
ARM: You were humiliated by Anglelyne, dude. She is a much better writer and thinker. Plus she made you look like a fool. All and all a good thread.
Michael said...
ARM: You were humiliated by Anglelyne, dude. She is a much better writer and thinker. Plus she made you look like a fool. All and all a good thread.
You are wrong. She completely failed to defend her last position, because it was indefensible and she had backed herself into a corner.
I happen to like visiting Britain, it reminds me of a past great era, much like visiting Venice.
ARM So where do you stand on the Scotland vote? How about that EU, eh? And the GBP. Should be hilarious to observe. Should they succeed there will not be another Labour win for a thousand years in England. All the lefties cornered up there in the north voting themselves stuff. A leftie paradise.
Where do you stay in London, ARM?
Was a pleasure to read Anglelyne's takedown of AReasonableMan. That's going to leave a mark.
ARM:This doesn't seem a particularly controversial position.
For bonus points, ARM admits his principles are determined by popular opinion, nothing contraversial. This means his worldview is determined by the Jon Stewart Show and People Magazine.
ARM, I remember you from the Legal Insurrection blog. You posted some really stupid shit during coverage of the Trayvon Martin trial. I thought you were just trolling us there, I think you are here too.
Fen said...
ARM, I remember you from the Legal Insurrection blog. You posted some really stupid shit during coverage of the Trayvon Martin trial.
You really are a complete fool if you are still defending the shit that was posted here during the Trayvon Martin trial. Zimmerman really turned out to be a great guy didn't he? Stable, well adjusted, comfortable with authority, just the kind of person we want shooting unarmed people on the streets.
Michael or Fen, why don't you summarize Angeldyne's argument in a concise coherent form for me since it was so devastating? Good luck with that.
She doesn't like affirmative action or multiculturalism. These are preferences, not arguments. You happen to share her prejudices.
Michael said...
Should be hilarious to observe. Should they succeed there will not be another Labour win for a thousand years in England. All the lefties cornered up there in the north voting themselves stuff. A leftie paradise.
I'm guess you are English and resent the rats leaving a sinking ship. Remind me again what Britain makes these days. All the talent left years ago to live in Australia, better climate, more multi-cultural.
ARM: She brilliantly mocked your inane characterization of "Brit culture" with such precision that you missed, and continue, to miss her incision.
Bob Ellison said...
The biggest problem with your position, though, runs throughout the discussions on this thread: confusing the group with the individual. As a matter of morality, that's an awful sin. Am I responsible for another man's evil deeds?
I don't feel personally responsible but neither do I feel like ignoring the fact that I have privileges in this world simply because of an accident of birth. Not every one has it as easy as I or most of the posters on this blog did.
ARM: Not a Brit though I am there and Scotland quite a lot. Remind me, is Scotland going to have their own currency, the Euro or the GBP.
And why would rats leaving a sinking ship ask for lifeboats, rigging, foodstuffs and candle wax before they depart?
And the good Brits are leaving for more multi-culti? You are barking stupid, dude.
Michael said...
ARM: She brilliantly mocked your inane characterization of "Brit culture" with such precision that you missed, and continue, to miss her incision.
No I rejected the premise. Britain remains class obsessed and ossified, impermeant to change. The talent left years ago to live here or in Australia. The Germans, of all people, have shown much more flexibility in our modern world, deftly winning the financial war. Remind me again what Britain makes?
Michael said...
You are barking stupid, dude.
You seem a little over invested in a declining state. The Scots are probably fucked but apparently that is preferable to having to deal with the English.
ARM You have waded into the deep end. The world financial capital is located in London. Scotland will not and cannot be independent. There is probably no more multi-culti place on earth than London. There is no more PC culture than the UK.
You can read the Telegraph and the Guardian and Independent and others for free using links on Drudge. You can subscribe to the FT and the Times. I recommend reading all of them if you have an interest in appearing to know what you are talking about.
"Why he's the person to declare and explain the failure of affirmative action and to propose a solution, I do not know."
'Cause Soledad O'Brien.
Michael said...
The world financial capital is located in London. Scotland will not and cannot be independent. There is probably no more multi-culti place on earth than London.
Financial services can move easily and this is all that is left now. Not a recipe for long-term survival.
If your point is now reduced to saying that there are a lot of foreigners living in London then yes there really are a lot of foreigners living in London. But they haven't made the country any less ossified. The rich ones will move when the going gets tough. They are residents, not citizens.
ARM Statement 1 - 8:20pm: "Britain remains class obsessed and ossified, impermeant to change. The talent left years ago to live here or in Australia. The Germans, of all people, have shown much more flexibility in our modern world, deftly winning the financial war"
Michael 8:27pm: "The world financial capital is located in London."
ARM Statement 2- 8:39pm: "Financial services can move easily and this is all that is left now."
If "the talent" (London) "left years ago" and "financial services can move easily" and the world capital of finance is in London...
Then. Why. Hasn't. It. Moved?
ARM's Statement 1 shows that he has fully internalized his inner Marx and simply cannot conceive of a London where his caricatures don't prance down the street.
Despite ARM's hilariously out of date viewpoint and laughable assertions,London's preeminence in finance is only growing.
ARM: You really should bone up on England/Scotland.
Good to know that foreigners living in England don't count on the multi-culti front as do foreigners living in Australia, that magnet for smart Englanders searching for multi-culti.
You should visit England and Scotland as well.
Anglelyne's 4:33 comment is great writing. Ouch.
Drago said...
Then. Why. Hasn't. It. Moved?
It is. London's position is being steadily eroded by Hong Kong and Singapore. But here I admit a prejudice, I don't view financial professionals as talent. The things that made Britain great, its science and industry are largely gone. It's sad. Venice was also once a great financial capitol. They invented double entry book-keeping and imaginary numbers.
Bob Ellison said...
Anglelyne's 4:33 comment is great writing.
Oh Bullshit.
Lets take one example.
Anglelyne said...
Haven't been to London (or Birmingham or Manchester or Dublin or Cork or Sydney or Yougetthepicture) lately, have you?
This was in response to my argument that US culture was more vibrant than other anglophone countries. Does anyone seriously believe that the US culture is not a vastly more vibrant culture than either of these examples? It is a ridiculous argument. The US is the world leader in the sciences and in industrial design. US popular culture dominates the world. The US is where smart people come to make their mark on the world. Britain is Venice in decline and Australia has a nice climate.
ARM.
I"London's position is being steadily eroded by Hong Kong and Singapore"
Wrong. Totally and laughably wrong.
ARM
Actually her question was in response to your absurd statement that the US was uniquely diverse. She laughed in your face with her accurate recitation of a number of very diverse cities indeed.
Michael said...
Wrong. Totally and laughably wrong.
The weight of the world is shifting back to Asia. While it is true that there is a lot of inertia in financial services this is the beginning of the end for London. Live in denial all you like, British politicians are scared and are looking for other means to bolster their economy. Futilely at this late stage, having killed off the productive parts of their economy.
Michael said...
ARM
Actually her question was in response to your absurd statement that the US was uniquely diverse. She laughed in your face with her accurate recitation of a number of very diverse cities indeed.
I was referring to anglophone countries. As simple commonsense would dictate, Britain and Australia are two of the least ethnically diverse countries on the planet. You guys believe what you want to believe, which is largely unrelated to reality.
I thought the article though having the benefit of being civil was 'malarky' (ref.: middle range worked up relative). 'The reason integration didn't work in Kansas City was that it didn't include everybody around Kansas City in a five county area.' The reason integration didn't work was that black activists didn't accept black kids who wanted to going to white schools. They insisted on the biggest 'gotcha' blender they could get to.
At 7:21, ARM wrote:
"I have no problem with affirmative action for descendants of slaves and the descendants of the country's original inhabitants ..."
Can we truly and precisely know who were the country's original inhabitants??
Shouting Thomas: "I apologize for over-posting, but the "let's get hold of black kids and put them into pre-school" is a strategy that the Australians tried with aborigine kids.
What this amounts to is an admission that the home environment of a lot of black kids is toxic. The solution offered by liberals amounts to taking the kids away from their parents as much as possible and putting them into the care of "nice white ladies" with college degrees.
In Australia, this strategy is now remembered as the worst exercise in vile white racism in history. If it is tried in the U.S., you can expect the same outcome decades hence.
2/12/14, 7:07 AM"
We did it here as well. Indian kids were sent to boarding schools and had their native languages beat out of them. A member of my family was sent away with her brother. Somehow they thought they were twins, though several years apart. Made to sleep on floors and beaten when they didn't speak English. All those siblings are English-only now.
So, yeah, pre-K is needed to beat the black out of them.
A J Lynch said: "At 7:21, ARM wrote:
"I have no problem with affirmative action for descendants of slaves and the descendants of the country's original inhabitants ..."
Can we truly and precisely know who were the country's original inhabitants??"
Let's just go with the federally recognized tribes - sovereign political entities.
Dumbass.
2/12/14, 11:11 PM
What do we do about the descendants of Jefferson and Sally Hemmings?. Isn't it kind of arbitrary to ask the ones who look white to pay reparations to the ones who look black? And if the perks are sufficient, expect the white ones to go to tanning salons.
"Does anyone seriously believe that the US culture is not a vastly more vibrant culture"
What does this mean? How do you measure "vibrancy"? What is the resonant frequency of US culture? Or are you simply using "vibrant" as a murky synonym for "multi-cultural"?
What do we do about the descendants of Jefferson and Sally Hemmings?. Isn't it kind of arbitrary to ask the ones who look white to pay reparations to the ones who look black? And if the perks are sufficient, expect the white ones to go to tanning salons.
Isn't the obvious solution to collect and analyze everyone's DNA? That way we could conclusively identify every native American and slave descendant, and also descendants of actual slave owners who could then be garnished.
The US Census could do the grunt work, going door-to-door and getting people to spit into sample cups.
Fen, Michael - Aw shucks, guys.
But don't be too hard on ARM (Alternative Reality Media). Where else can I learn that Brits are emigrating because their cities just aren't vibrant(tm) enough for them?
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