"I stole this head, these limbs, this body from my master and ran off with them."
A Frederick Douglass quote that appears in a Ta-Nehesi Coates piece subtitled "Black people: America's premier outlaw class."
October 16, 2014
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52 comments:
Do people ever tire of being somebody else's victim?
America has always viewed its black population as a kind of sleeper cell—either criminals in fact, or criminals in waiting
Does the irony of this sentence escape the author? I wonder.
I'd go with Sheryl Crow not Jim.
Blacks as criminals is coded as "youths," which does not mean blacks in general.
It means young unsupervised males.
The corresponding female is a welfare client.
Moynahan had the explanation long ago.
Shocking. Interracial marriages are so common today, and back then was criminalized. A struggle for survival. Interesting how many American companies now are owned by Blacks. It's almost become reversed discrimination, against White Caucasians fighting for employment. When will they start reassessing the Population Statistics, especially in Big Cities, and stop calling the immigrant populations as minorities when they are reaching majority status ? Minorities are getting preferred hiring treatment which I believe is unfair.
I am generally unsympathathetic to Negro sob stories and Coates as a purveyor of them, but I can't find anything objectionable in this piece.
I will not read the article. But it is rather boring and tiresome that these people have to talk about it endlessly. What is wrong with them?
I am waiting to hear the word count.
Is the Rev. Jesse Jackson quoted?
Executive Summary:
An ironic title, "The New Jim Crow," is followed by paragraphs of examples, none of which are newer than the 1960's. The article ends with an obligatory link to the author's piece "The Case For Reparations."
I'd say that the author's style and a certain beloved Althouse commenter's style are predictably similar.
Laws are not synonyms for justice.
I agree with this.
The rest is a litany of bad things, of course, but bad things that happened in the past that just about everyone agrees were bad which is why they are not longer allowed. If he wants to link the past to the present, I think he should actually make an argument.
America has always viewed its black population as a kind of sleeper cell—either criminals in fact, or criminals in waiting
More like wards of the Democrat party. Enslaved to the State through dependency.
Even African nations have woken up and realized how 1st World Aid damages their people.
The prisons are filled with men who should not be in them, non-violent drug users and small time dealers. We should fix this or create new facilities built especially for this category where young men could be taught life skills, trades. It is absurd to have this many people incarcerated for these reasons.
Coates is precious. He is not a great writer but he will be a bad one if he doesn't demonstrate some interest in another topic.
Read in good faith, this is an article and an idea that small-government conservatives could get behind. Coates doesn't describe the current scene in any detail (and faults the The New Jim Crow. for the same), but he clearly makes reference to drug laws:
...criminalizing the behavior of black humans, punishing black humans under harsher terms...
The crackdown on the culture of casual drug use has turned the law into a conduit by which millions of people are cycled into prison at their earliest adulthood. This is an utter disaster in both cultural and legal terms.
This disaster is paralleled by a culture of prosecutorial overreach, abetted by politicians of both parties ready to win votes by criminalizing ever more behaviors.
I consider Bill Clinton one of our better presidents (as president) but in one way he may have done more damage than almost any other in my lifetime. It is Clinton who abandoned the Democratic party's affiliation with liberalism's concern fro the rights of the accused. Clinton happily stole the law-and-order crutch from the Republican party to beat them with it. The outcome -- from the war on drugs, through the war on terror; from the militarization of police forces to Yes means Yes -- is an abandonment of due process and procedural safeguards at almost every level of society.
In Georgia the last ditch Dem hope is the Senate seat vacated by Chambliss.The crafty Dems have recruited a Ford Foundation type Chicago liberal young white lady and brought her back to Georgia to use her maiden name of Nunn as their legacy candidate. She is seen smiling in videos out walking farm land somewhere.
Her dad, Sam Nunn, once enjoyed had popularity as a Senator who was himself elected a legacy candidate from an old 1930s to 1970s Senator who had mentored his nephew Sam Nunn.
That older Senator believed in and fought for Segregation because he truly believed that all black people were born inferior to all white people forever and ever, and forever, period.
But his name is on more DC Buildings and Military places and ships than you can count. His name was Richard B. Russell.
Russell won 6 terms and its accompaning seniority in the senate because up to 1966 Georgia had a County Unit System of vote counting that craftily shifted political power to the small town Aristocrats like Russell and kept it from the intergrationist enemy territory called Atlanta.
Will the old Russell/Nunn racist clan trick the Georgia voters again? We will see.
“They have been taught to labor. They have been taught Christian civilization, and to speak the noble English language instead of some African gibberish. The account is square with the ex‑slaves.”
- The Chicago Tribune, 1891
I thought I'd cut to the chase, here, of white's "logical" responses
I live with a truly sick and evil people,...
Fred had a good line, of course it was a few years ago.
The Vagina as Fascist State has dutifully taken the cause against racism under its umbrella. However, there are only so many issues that can be addressed at once. Currently the list is as follows: electing a woman (lesbian?) President, abortion, free birth control, female pay inequality, gay marriage, transgender issues, lesbian obesity, frozen eggs and welcoming Hispanics into the fold.
This is not to say that The Vagina as Fascist State is not serious about racism: soon they will be addressing the particular problems inherent to black lesbians, and then perhaps domestic violence. The Vagina as Fascist State wants it to be clear that 'domestic violence' is not a 'race' issue by itself, but it does often involve black women, and any black men involved will surely benefit from The Vagina as Fascist State's teachings on the matter.
There is only so much that The Vagina as Fascist State can accomplish at one time: please be patient.
Scott,
"Do people ever tire of being somebody else's victim?"
Do whites ever tire of pretending they never hurt anyone?
MadisonMan,
"Does the irony of this sentence escape the author? I wonder."
You're a regular Cliven Bundy,...
rhhardin,
"Blacks as criminals is coded as "youths," which does not mean blacks in general."
How to tell who didn't read the article,...
Coconuss Network,
"Shocking. Interracial marriages are so common today, and back then was criminalized. A struggle for survival."
Another one who didn't read it - the point is our very lives are criminalized - and always have been.
"Interesting how many American companies now are owned by Blacks. It's almost become reversed discrimination, against White Caucasians fighting for employment."
Black owned businesses only make up 7% of all U.S firms. How that tiny number damages whites is a tragedy.
"When will they start reassessing the Population Statistics, especially in Big Cities, and stop calling the immigrant populations as minorities when they are reaching majority status ?"
63.7% of the U.S. population are white. Or whiners - take your pick.
"Minorities are getting preferred hiring treatment which I believe is unfair."
Because fairness has exemplified this nation's attitude towards blacks since slavery.
Just clueless.
As Coates has said, whites are the only people in America who think to finally stop stabbing someone is administering medical care,...
chickelit,
"An ironic title, "The New Jim Crow," is followed by paragraphs of examples, none of which are newer than the 1960's."
Shanna,
"I agree with this.
The rest is a litany of bad things, of course, but bad things that happened in the past that just about everyone agrees were bad which is why they are not longer allowed."
Here are two, supposedly-intelligent, people. Both kinda have it in their heads that those euphemistically named "bad things" (rape, murder, theft, and terrorism on a national level) happened to blacks from 1609 to 1960, but - since "they are not longer allowed" - the two, supposedly-intelligent, people blithely assume it's all good now and blacks, I guess, have fully recovered from those 400 years of abuse because,...that's what they choose to think.
Is television to blame?
Legal slavery (Except for some by Muslims)ended in the USA a very, very, long time ago.
Self-enslavement by Blacks to the DNC and the "Nanny State" continues.
Scott said...
Do people ever tire of being somebody else's victim?
Frederick Douglass certainly did. And he acted on it. You should actually read his autobiography (the first one). It's an amazing book. You also might try Darkwater: Voices from Within The Veil by W.E.B. Dubois.
You might learn something.
Coates is very tiresome, I stopped reading him several years ago.
Here are two, supposedly-intelligent, people. Both kinda have it in their heads that those euphemistically named "bad things" (rape, murder, theft, and terrorism on a national level) happened to blacks from 1609 to 1960, but - since "they are not longer allowed" - the two, supposedly-intelligent, people blithely assume it's all good now
I don't assume it's 'all good now', but I also don't think it's the same. You do. Coates does, maybe. My issue is that he mostly didn't make the argument at all.
He listed bad things, terrible things yes, I don't know how long you want me to go on to prove that I know that they were terrible. They were.
But society has changed the laws, and I would certainly argue tried to make things better. They have not completely succeeded but I will not agree that it is still exactly the same. Coates tries to say it's the same, but he never really digs in and makes a full argument. We are just supposed to know I guess. He even makes the point that they don't make the argument properly in the book he read. So what was the point of his article?
Michael said...
Coates is precious. He is not a great writer but he will be a bad one if he doesn't demonstrate some interest in another topic.
I used to watch C-span's "Book TV". Every black author I saw except Sowell was peddling a book about how horrible it is to be black. Poor oppressed college profs on national TV.
Except they're not the premier outlaw class. That title used to belong to the Italians. Now, it's a toss up between the Russians and the Hispanics.
Hey, we Irish did pretty good by getting discriminated at, for the first few generations we were here in large numbers. Don't forget that we started organized crime here, before the Italians.
Stoking the fire for riots and profit.
You're a regular Cliven Bundy,...
Not quite. Haven't slipped into full paranoia mode.
You must see, though, that to tar an entire race because members of that race tarred* a different race is silly. Makes for good hyperbole, I guess, but that's it.
(Not speaking literally)
I don't read bigots.
The problem with Coates' argument is that it ascribes to whites, as a people, an immense amount of power, and a continuing intent to perpetuate injustice. After all no race could be so subjugated, oppressed, abused, etc by another race as Coates claims blacks are by whites, unless the abusing race had far reaching power over the lives of the oppressed, and the intent to exercise that power towards unjust ends.
I don't know if it is even possible for a race, made up of individuals, to have such consolidated power, acting together with one purpose, but I do know that very few whites perceive themselves as having that much power or desire to perpetuate injustice. I'd venture that many whites feel rather powerless against the "system" in their own personal lives and, I think even Crack would admit, don't want to see themselves as bigots.
Racism does exist and there continues to be very real and unconscionable injustices that have a disproportionately negative affect on blacks in this country. There is undeniably something amiss when a sizeable segment of a nations’ population perceives that they are continuously being victimized (and not just with those doing the perceiving). But, adamantly assigning to whites, as a race, an unrealistic, if not impossible level of consolidated power and malicious intent to victimize strikes me as an extremely counterproductive way to address the issue.
At some point there has to be a meeting of minds. Repeated cries of “You’re all racists” followed by the reflexive response “No we’re not.” isn’t working.
Bias is a product of nature. While prejudice is a product of nurture or circumstance. The degenerate religion has generational and, in fact, progressive consequences.
As far as what blacks today suffer on account of their race, most of it is not in the form of blatant racism--e.g., a boss telling his HR director to "hire someone for this job, just no blacks!" I mean sure, that may happen from time to time, but bosses who do that don't last long. There are though more subtle ways racial bias can harm blacks, without it ever being intended or even known about (e.g., an all-white hiring panel identifying with and having better rapport with white candidates than black ones, who as a result will be more nervous and blow the interview). There's also the case where the shopkeeper or cop will be more nervous around young black men than they would with young white men, maybe not even noticing the difference, but having it change the entire interaction in a way that ultimately has the black person driven from the store, or arrested.
The problem is that these biases can't be easily fixed with legislation--it was one thing to say to a bus company that they couldn't make blacks sit in one section of the bus, or prosecute a company with "whites only" in their want ad. But what about unconscious, unprovable cases where the black candidate has to do more to overcome hidden biases?
Affirmative action for a few generations has been the preferred solution of the Left--require the hiring or admission into college of more black people, and poof, problem solved! But it (a) often puts people in positions they're not really qualified for and will fail at, making it worse for them, (b) creates the stigma that they didn't really earn what they got, which may be true, (c) is unjust towards the qualified person who got shafted, and (d) perpetuates the classification of race above other qualities, even promoting well-off blacks over impoverished whites and Asians. Moreover, affirmative action does NOTHING to address unconscious biases, which is the primary racial obstacle facing blacks today.
I live with a truly sick and evil people,...
By choice, one should note. If I voluntarily live on a busy street and spend all day complaining about how much traffic there is, should others feel continued sympathy towards my argument that cars are evil and should be traded for bicycles?
Any walls keepin' you in?
Shanna,
"I don't assume it's 'all good now', but I also don't think it's the same. You do. Coates does, maybe. My issue is that he mostly didn't make the argument at all."
Because nobody's ever argued it's "still the same" - like it's blacks who are ignorant to what we did to free ourselves - why do you insist on "still the same" to be the only metric for abuse?
If whites don't hang us, but still rip us off and shoot us down in the street, that's not "still the same" but is it good? And what makes up for all the taxes blacks were forced to pay for facilities we couldn't use? You deciding things aren't "still the same" so no harm done and forget about it?
"He listed bad things, terrible things yes, I don't know how long you want me to go on to prove that I know that they were terrible. They were."
You just think blacks shouldn't be able to talk about it, without facing white ridicule, and don't even consider compensation because it's "still the same" - that makes it all better, right?
"Society has changed the laws, and I would certainly argue tried to make things better."
No - blacks changed the laws and society agreed with our arguments - but how that makes up for the wealth stolen as black men were murdered, and the psychological damage as black women raped, you'll have to explain - since you "know that they were terrible" and think that's enough for us to respect you, as fellow citizens, after 400 years of whites doing "terrible" things to us with our government's approval.
"They have not completely succeeded but I will not agree that it is still exactly the same."
Not completely succeeded? Man, you love the euphemisms, don't you? The reality a little too meager for you to speak?
And "still not the same" again - is that really your out? Whites were forced to pull the knife out of our back and now we're all healed, are we? No first aid. No blood transfusion. No return of stolen goods - just the acknowledgement you're not stabbing anymore - which you think makes us even steven - while we suffer from a thousand "terrible" white-inflicted wounds.
Incredible.
"Coates tries to say it's the same, but he never really digs in and makes a full argument."
Because you're addressing the topic in your head and not the topic of the article - it's not whether or not things are "still the same" but whether they are so radically different. Blacks say "no" - you don't care as long as it's not "still the same".
"We are just supposed to know I guess."
Yeah - that recent string of blacks being murdered is no hint things are wrong - just like that black kid who got pepper sprayed by the cops, at home, last week. That's just a good ol' fashioned normal American life - happened to you lately? Anyone you know? Is it even remotely possible?
"He even makes the point that they don't make the argument properly in the book he read."
He showed you multiple ways black lives have been criminalized since the beginning of our history for no reason other than we're black - just as there are multiple ways whites have tried to keep us from voting - and you don't get the point? Oh yeah:
Multiple ways to kill people and disenfranchise the living aren't "still the same" - and apparently inflict no damage on anyone - which is why whites keep compulsively doing it. No harm done.
"So what was the point of his article?"
Keep wondering, Sister, I'm sure it's really, really hard to grasp simply because we're "still" not slaves anymore,...
Mike Findlay,
"The problem with Coates' argument is that it ascribes to whites, as a people, an immense amount of power, and a continuing intent to perpetuate injustice."
Yeah, history tells us nothing about that - it's just an "argument" crazy blacks make. Wow, you guys are incredible.
"After all no race could be so subjugated, oppressed, abused, etc by another race as Coates claims blacks are by whites, unless the abusing race had far reaching power over the lives of the oppressed, and the intent to exercise that power towards unjust ends."
Like making blacks move off the sidewalk when whites - any white person - walked down the street? Or restricting where we could go - or taking our taxes while not letting us into the facilities we paid for - and with whites having no intention of returning it? Nah, none of that happened.
That Coates is such a fabulist.
"I don't know if it is even possible for a race, made up of individuals, to have such consolidated power, acting together with one purpose, but I do know that very few whites perceive themselves as having that much power or desire to perpetuate injustice."
And that's all it takes - whites agreeing they didn't do what every history book says they indeed did - and it's not white supremacy that allows them to determine what's real that way, damn the facts.
Wild.
"I'd venture that many whites feel rather powerless against the "system" in their own personal lives and, I think even Crack would admit, don't want to see themselves as bigots."
You didn't see the quote I put a few days ago, by U.S. Grant, where he said poor whites need emancipation as bad as blacks - being pawns of the powerful themselves? Unfortunately, there's many people - including some here - who are so filled with racial resentment THEY don't want to see that happen. You have to ask yourself:
Who does it serve to keep blacks from receiving justice? It's not like reparations is coming out of your paycheck. And if it's not for racists, but you're against government intrusion in American lives, who does it help to stand against the government's comeuppance when it comes to blacks?
I say whites are fighting the wrong people when they attack blacks - we've been bringing freedom to everybody in this country.
"Racism does exist and there continues to be very real and unconscionable injustices that have a disproportionately negative affect on blacks in this country."
Iincluding all the dead - blacks just don't deserve compensation for enduring it all, right? That would be wrong.
"There is undeniably something amiss when a sizeable segment of a nations’ population perceives that they are continuously being victimized (and not just with those doing the perceiving)."
Again with white's distancing - you admit to racism but forget that: it's just that blacks have a perception problem - we just imagine the abuses you admit white's commit. What a fucking pretzel your mind must become under this topic.
"But, adamantly assigning to whites, as a race, an unrealistic, if not impossible level of consolidated power and malicious intent to victimize strikes me as an extremely counterproductive way to address the issue."
Because "White Power" wasn't the long-standing rule in this country? Really? You speak too well to be this ignorant. Are you Mormon?
"At some point there has to be a meeting of minds."
How? You can't even bow to 400 years of documented history - the facts - and you expect us to agree with you? I'm asking everyone:
Is giving whites direct financial transfusions under duress - through slavery, jim crow taxes, and unfair housing policies - a reparational harm to blacks or not?
"Repeated cries of “You’re all racists” followed by the reflexive response “No we’re not.” isn’t working."
Then quit trying to wiggle out of it - it would go a long way to convincing everyone you've changed,...
HoodlumDoodlum,
"By choice, one should note."
Oh yeah, because - in our financial situation - blacks are just flying here and there willy-nilly.
Leavingg the US is as easy as pie - and, my, it's so nice things aren't "still the same" - like whites encouraging us to go back to Africa, or just leave the country, rather than whites trying to make it a better nation.
It's not white supremacy when whites think they make these decisions either.
It's "still not the same"...
Oh, ok, so it's just a financial deal then, but you're saving up? You should add that, something like "I can't wait until I can afford to move away from these sick & evil people."
Bill O'Reilly conceded that white privege exists and is "a factor" in determining black outcomes on The Daily Show.
Sorry, Kids, but when you've lost Papa Bear,...
The Crack* Strategy:
1. Offend as many strangers as possible.
2. Get depressed and pout then go away when realization dawns.
3. Come back and whine about self to get sympathy (usually from white females).
4. Collect donations.
5. Rinse, repeat.
__________________
I've seen a lot people who utterly fail to see genus/species relationships, but Crack takes the cake. So much so that I can't help but wonder if it's a put-on.
Crack:
How stupid can you really get? Of course there is white privilege. So what? Who in their right mind would argue otherwise?
There is no victory in getting someone to agree that white privilege exists. That is like getting someone to say that the sun rises in the East. Ok, cool. Good job.
Now what? White people are not going to go: oh, shit, white privilege!! Here, have mine. That isn't going to happen.
I'm against cash reparations on prinicple, but I might support land grants. There are hundreds of millions of acres of federal lands. Israelis have cultivated a wasteland, why couldn't American blacks? They could own the mineral rights and whatnot. The sticky issue is who gets it. Our commenter probably qualifies as a squeaky wheel.
Crack fills a market niche. Dumb White Americans who feel "White Privilege". Aka The same SWPL types that read TNC.
I'm waiting for some Althouse commentator to write a 1,000 word essay on why Crack is almost right.
Hey Brando, do you think anyone actually reads your "War and Peace" essays?
I mean except for Crack.
Just for the record:
Some of the most racist people I know are Black.
Just for the record, there's something called The White People Project y'all should check out:
You're all over it,...
Re: "
I'm waiting for some Althouse commentator to write a 1,000 word essay on why Crack is almost right."
Can't picture it.
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