No moment in the 2016 presidential campaign has cried out more for a unifying candidate than the police shootings of two black men last week and the ensuing national uproar, followed by the shocking sniper ambush that killed five police officers in Dallas.Neither Trump nor Clinton, it seems, has what it takes to do what, it seems, America needs now. Clinton "lacks the public emotion, oratorical skills and reputation for honesty to persuade large numbers of Americans to see things her way." And Trump is "sowing division and hatred" and "electrif[ying]crowds... through provocations."
And no other moment has revealed more starkly how hard it is for Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton to become that candidate....
What's missing? Why is racial discord the problem of the summer of 2016? If anyone has what it takes to unify the country over race it is Barack Obama, who is President right now and who has been President for 7 1/2 years. If it makes any sense to be deciding the current presidential election on this issue, if this longed-for capacity is something that can possibly exist, then Barack Obama would be doing it now and would have been doing it for years.
Before you push us to judge whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump would do better in bringing us together in racial harmony, Mr. Healy, please say a few words about why President Obama has failed. Of course, neither Clinton nor Trump inspires hope for a new opportunity at racial harmony. That's what Obama did in 2008. He was ideal for that issue and we voted for the hope. Now, so many years later, things seem even worse. Can you analyze how that happened? Because that did happen. I don't see how we can begin to think about what more Trump or Clinton could do unless we understand why President Obama failed.
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413 comments:
1 – 200 of 413 Newer› Newest»What we all like about the Obama years is all the racial healing that's gone on. ROTFLMAO
On that issue, Obama is no better than the old street hustlers asking you to identify which walnut shell the pea is under. He's the master of okey doke, and we are all the worse off for having fallen for the old con.
Obama outsourced race relations to a racial pimp, Al Sharpton, one of the most frequent visitors to the WH. Obama is conflicted on race. He is embarrassed by inner city blacks. He has hurt race relations because of his personal conflict.
Hmm....how did we fail? Could it be that further ass-kissing of the most cosseted negroes on the planet not only didn't improve things in the least, but in fact heightened their already lofty sense of entitlement?
If your political srategy is to divide us up into groups and then push group grievances it is going to he tough to bring us together. Obama Never tried to bring us together.
Obama failed because he never tried. His first noteworthy racial incidents were to have his Attorney General pass on prosecuting the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation, and taking the side of a black college professor against a cop, necessitating a "beer summit" to resolve. Obama has been about fomenting division, not harmony.
AA, "Now, so many years later, things seem even worse."
Seem even worse? Things are way worse.
Obama has done NOTHING to unify. In fact, he has made things worse.
Obama wants to keep 95% of Blacks voting Dem. To do that he must keep them angry against The Man. Obama refused to debunk the Travyon Martin narrative. Zimmerman was getting the hell beaten out of him. Michael Brown did not have his hands up in surrender. If Obama would have told the truth he would have offended his base.
Obama is very risk averse. But he could have taken a risk early in his Administration and made a major speech with the following points: 1. Stop using drugs. 2. Stop committing crimes. 3. Stop having babies out of wedlock. 4. Take school seriously and graduate from high school.
How about: "lacks the public emotion, oratorical skills and reputation for honesty to persuade large numbers of Americans to see things [his] way" and "sowing division and hatred" and "electrif[ying]crowds... through provocations."
"Can you analyze how that happened?"
I don't know about analysis, but what I do know is that the better angels in a lot of people got hoodwinked by a catchy bumper sticker slogan and once captivated they refused to analyze the man that brought that bumper sticker to market.
People are gullible. And fallible. And lazy. A great many of them wanted the reward without the work and effort.
The country is more racially divided now than it was in 2008 because of Obama's policies.
He has endorsed, through rules set by his education department and his housing department, the idea of disparate impact. This is the the theory that illegal racial discrimination can can occur (and is prevalent) with no person actually committing an act of racial discrimination. It instructs minorities that the actions that they take or fail to take that result in poor outcomes are the fault of white people, and it tells white people that they are racists and must answer for their racist offenses, though the offense can not be identified.
Don't look at what Obama says (though that is bad enough), look at what he and his minions do.
Maybe part of the problem is that people don't agree on what "racial harmony" and "unity" are supposed to mean. My own interpretation is along the lines of Martin Luther King's statement about living in a country where people are judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin but I'm pretty confident that a whole lot of other people don't agree with me that this is the goal.
Obama may have failed because if he ever had a destination in mind when it comes to "racial harmony" he's done a really poor job convincing us what that destination looks like and what the journey to get there would require from the rest of us.
And maybe unity is overrated. Maybe we should just settle for not killing each other.
Obama was a test for political correctness. Guess what, it made it worse.
Trump goes the other way. PC will die, is the hope. Unity will follow when what's true can again be spoken.
Obama's presidency is turning out pretty much like conservatives said it would in 2008 and 2012: slow growth - no growth, an ever more distant and demanding federal bureaucracy, and perceived weakness abroad. This is what you get when you elect a man who thinks that America's greatest enemies are within its borders and are American citizens.
Stuff from Obama's stash ran out.
Good post.
This president-as-savior stuff makes me want to puke.
Grow the fuck up.
He was ideal for that issue and we voted for the hope. Now, so many years later, things seem even worse.
"Seem worse"? Things are "actually" much worse.
There was a time in America when we celebrated the things we hold in common. Under Obama we have celebrated the things that divide us. We now have festering conflicts with blacks, hispanics and Muslims, and a hopeless divide between conservatives and liberals. Those groups were once united as Americans while being wary of each other. Wariness has been replaced with hatred.
Obama lectures white America vaguely saying "that's not who we are". He can't come out and explictly tell us who we are because that would destroy his false narrative. That would open the door to talk about common values when his narative demands diversity.
Results matter. The results of Obama's tenure are plain to see.
To paraphrase the Geico commercial: If you're the New York Times, you don't want your readers to think about who's been president for the past seven years. It's what you do.
To Democrats it is always 1968. The Obama-loving cohort of the media thus runs their stories with the most racially-tinged aspects imaginable, even if the facts are unknown or in doubt. They want to keep race as a cudgel with which to bludgeon Republicans.
Obama has definitely made some statements where he sounded like the second coming of Al Sharpton. But I think he's also been done a little bit of a disservice by his media pals. Obama has made statements, and I've read them or heard them, where he places what I wouldn't characterize as blame, but more of a need for accountability upon members of the black community to start pulling themselves up out of the literal and figurative holes they find themselves in. The media, however, don't give these statements much play and pigeonhole them almost immediately upon release. These kinds of statements don't lend themselves to the narrative the left uses to keep the outrage ginned up.
And Trump is "sowing division and hatred" and "electrif[ying]crowds... through provocations."
Not a Trump fan, but can we start with the fact that this is the purest ray of bullshit? Trump visibly does not buy into the happy-crappy pabulum that the economy is great, all of humanity wants the same things, and there are no consequences to making such fantasies public policy. That is not "sowing division and hatred" (that would be Obama's "Justice" department) or "electrif[ying] crowds... through provocations" (that would be La Raza and others rioting at Trump rallies).
Democrats, in general, win elections by setting groups against each other. Jews against Christians. Latinos vs working class whites. Blacks against everybody. Obama "failed" because he succeeded spectacularly at the opposite goal.
I totally disagree with Healy's assessment of Donald Trump. What is needed to bring us back together is someone genuinely oblivious to race. Not everyone will like it, but it's our only chance.
Cornel West thinks Obama hasn't been divisive enough:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/07/10/cornel-west-blasts-obama-for-weak-response-to-police-shootings/
Barry failed because he lives by the Big Lie on every issue that we face. And Trump has exposed him for what he is.
Barry is a smiling man who loves Iranian Muslims even more than he loves World Government, but not by much. Instead he is dedicated to destroying the hard won strength of the USA in the world because that is what is in the way of his two Loves. So he smiles as he lies and destroys us.
Blogger Joe Schmoe said...
But I think he's also been done a little bit of a disservice by his media pals. Obama has made statements, and I've read them or heard them, where he places what I wouldn't characterize as blame, but more of a need for accountability upon members of the black community to start pulling themselves up out of the literal and figurative holes they find themselves in.
Look at what he has actually done. Obama goes to a university and talks about about the need to respect the opinions of people with whom they disagree, while his education department uses title 9 to force universities to persecute professors who say things that make some students feel uncomfortable. His HUD secretary has just announced rules that would make it more difficult for landlords to refuse to rent to felons. His EEOC wants employers to disregard job applicants criminal convictions.
What David Begley said...
The best way for Dems (including the old white lady), to get elected is to drive black turn-out up via race baiting.
Like Mark Dayton did last week without any facts.
I wonder where the blame lies for getting us to this point.
A whole lot of talk about the patent flaws of Clinton (and the asserted flaws of Trump) won't find an answer to my query.
Why did Democrats stop looking for "root causes" all of a sudden?
And why did Althouse cast a vote in favor of this circumstance in 2008?
In 2007, Obama had the most liberal record of any US senator. When he ran for prez in 2008, the media assured us that he was a moderate.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/01/31/study-obama-most-liberal-senator-last-year/
Lamar Gonna Set You Straight....
I'm Lamar, and I'm a Young Black Man, Proud and prone to Anger Issues. I can't help it: living amongst all these White People with their Little White Problems just makes me Angry. Try MY Problems, Bitches...
You all white people elected Obama like he was able to pull some AbraCaDabra Shit on Race in America. I've told you people: it ain't never gonna be solved. Race in America is like Herpes: it flares up, it calms down, but you ALWAYS got the Herpes...
What kind of Black Man is Obama? The kind of Black Man most of you White People pretend to like. What makes you think us Hardcore Blacks are gonna be all excited about YOUR idea of a Good Black Man? Like we should be all Happy with you 'cause you gave us free watermelon at your barbeque...
You all elected The Man so you could preen about how Enlightened you are. Then the Man gets to be President and you start calling him Urkel and Shit: just laughing at another Black Man who tries too hard to live up to White Standards, but you'll never even let him be good enough for THAT, will you? You're not happy with a Monkey until you can make the Monkey DANCE...
When you all was wearing those HOPE shirts I wanted to straight-up beat you Motherfuckers SO Bad. Your HOPE was that he'd make Uppity Blacks go away, don't even front about it being anything else. I could fuck up a White Boy right now, just thinking about it...
Us blacks didn't need a Barack, we needed a Samuel L. Jackson
who'd get these motherfucking whites off our motherfucking plane, you feel me?
You think you got Problems? Fuck You.
I am Laslo.
Obama is the Ivy League slickster who duped white Liberals with his rhetoric. And all Blacks voted for him based upon race loyalty.
Obama's failure can be summed up in one word: tribalism. He never left his Dem/prog tribe and instead taunted Rep/cons from day one. Remember when he tried to divide conservative pundits (like Charles Krauthammer) from other conservatives (Rush Limbaugh) by inviting the less cons to his new house for din-din? It's been a tribal assault on Republicans ever since, in every speech, every gesture.
Most of the Trump crowd is just as tribal and that's why I steer clear of them. All of Hillary's crowd is tribal. Trump has the potential to help heal racial and other differences because he's not as Republican as say, Ted Cruz. Hillary has zero potential.
That's what Obama did in 2008. He was ideal for that issue and we voted for the hope
Obama was ideal because he's a half-black race whiner? No, that's the problem, not the solution.
Professor, I too am mystified as to why the "ideal" Obama failed at healing the nation of our racial divide. His very close association with the Great Healer, Rev. Jeremiah Wright convinced me that he was the one to work miracles. He was endorced by Louis Farakhan, another great voice of tolerance and love in Chicago. Obama had a great friendship and respect for Rashid Khalidi. What could go wrong? Of course, I did ignore the fact that he failed at community organizing (by his own admission, I read the book) in Chiraq. Lots of people fail at their first job. I ignored the angry Black woman wife, she of "not proud of my country" infamy, after all we weren't voting for her. She of Princeton and Harvard!
I really started to worry when he appointed Eric The Red Holder. Mr Holder wasn't noted for being a healer. He said something about a need to conversate about race. "Nation of cowards..." and all! Then Obama embraced Bobble-Head Sharpton. Houston, we got a problem!
Gotta say, if it was just the Smile, I think all that bullshit about hope and change would have really convinced me that he could be a healer. But, I saw through the Smile.
I didn't even mention The Radical, Bill Ayers, because of course Ayers just wanted a "fundamental transformation," not racial healing.
My Mom used to say you judge a person by the company they keep.
Democrats: The cause of and the solution to all of Black life's problems.
Zero has succeeded. Con man.
Who is the mark?
The needs of the Democrats are overtaking the ne ed s of the country. Remember when people were cocerned with colorblind issues no-knock raids, militarization of the police, killing dogs, swatting, etc.? All those got swept away for the political benefit of presenting a question of discrimination against blacks.
Also, the problem has worsened due to the frustrations of "narrative collapse" in the Trayvon Martin and Ferguson cases.
I also havd another question. I did not understand the outrage concerning the father's letter in the Stanford swimmer's case. Of course, he is going to see his son in the most favorable light. I doubt they knew the sentence would be so light - I assume he could have gotten a lengthy prison term.
In the Bayon Rouge case, I saw the mother and son of the dead man carrying on about how wonderful he was. The man was, inter alia, a convicted sex offender. I understand that the family will see the man in the best light, but these displays of utter nonsense should not be in the news. Where are those who criticized the father in the swimmer's case?
As everyone knows, rights are not for the strong or popular, who don't need them, but for the biggest assholes. Stop insulting everyone's intelligence with the testimonials that can't be squared with the record.
Well said. Obama failed spectacularly in this regard having promised the same, no less. He has made race relations worse.
Makes sense to me!!!
I'm trying to remember when Smiley called his grandmother a "typical white person"? Was that before or after we called upon him to transform America? Oh yeah, that was when he was the "ideal" candidate.
By the way, that would be the noble grandmother (like so many noble grandmothers) who took young Barack in when his Mother didn't want him anymore. Typical White Racist Grandmother.
What, is Patrick Healy trying to imbue his words with historical significance by sounding like Neil Armstrong?
What's missing from "Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton Struggle to Be Unifying Voice for [a?] Nation" by Patrick Healy in the NYT.
pm317:
Perhaps you will be perpetually surprised as Democrats fail in their publicly professed goals and succeed spectacularly at accumulating power to themselves.
Life is hard when you are constantly mugged by reality, I warn you.
Althouse:
'We' did not vote for Obama.
You voted for Obama and all the claims of some of us - about the failings so easily perceived that have led to the predicted failures - were ignored.
You are the dupe.
the police shootings of two black men last week and the ensuing national uproar,
"National" meaning a few nutty activist groups which get way too much attention.
Obama’s Biggest Failure
"The president has substantially set back race relations in the United States."
In 2008 democrats went for the low hanging fruit and had the game to win. Nothing has come about since to change the fact that is was nothing but wishful thinking. Nothing.
Now with that failure staring us in the face, we are supposed to trust the same folks -- including much of the media -- to inform us about what we should do now.
Are we that stupid? If Obama could not be a unifying force I suppose its the republicans fault.
"...please say a few words about why President Obama has failed"
Obama didn't "fail", he lied. He could have been a uniter, but it was never in his political interest to be one. He gained much more by being a great divider.
I wonder whether calling Obama an affirmative action hire or constantly questioning whether he was an American citizen made any contribution to the problem?
@terry, elegantly phrased truth to power.
I wonder whether anonymous internet posters have power to influence national affairs just like President Obama too, "AReasonableMan".
The logical flaws in that one question are brilliant.
ARM falls right in line.
Obama failed because he wanted to fail. His goal was never to unite this country or help racial healing.
Birkel said...
I wonder whether anonymous internet posters have power to influence national affairs just like President Obama too, "AReasonableMan".
I concede your point that no one cares about the rantings of fools like you but I was referring to the behavior of Republicans in congress.
ARM wrote:
Blogger AReasonableMan said...
I wonder whether calling Obama an affirmative action hire or constantly questioning whether he was an American citizen made any contribution to the problem?
The answer is no. Republicans did not riot when Democrats said mean things about GW Bush and called him names.
According to politifact, a 2015 poll showed that 43% of Republicans thought that Obama was a Muslim.
So did 29% of independents and 15% of democrats. Yes, one out of six democrats thought Obama was a Muslim.
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/nov/23/arsalan-iftikhar/do-59-percent-americans-believe-barack-obama-musli/
Achilles:
I would like to agree but I cannot place my finger on Obama's goals.
Some sets of goals, consistent with events, would appear to have been wildly successful. The major goal of a collectivist like Obama is to accummulate power to the federal government. Obama counts that a success, I would argue.
All else is tactics, I submit.
Terry, your point is that there are a lot of really stupid people in this country?
Over the weekend, watching the posts on twitter under #WhitePrivilegeMeans led me to realize that the progressives have pinned all their hope on getting whites to admit guilt. Obama's presidential effort is based on the notion that if whites can judge themselves as the problem, then our racial healing can begin.
If Obama can't make this method work, no one can.
The alt-right now calls this approach insanity. America's tried it for 50 years and the results are the same or worse. Time for a new direction.
Search as you will, "AReasonableMan", but you will find no ranting by me about the two alleged issues you identified above.
You voted for these results. I did not.
We both have clean consciences. Mine is clean because I resist failed visions from politicians. Yours due to an apparent lack of one.
Anyone who is not a complete idiot would have recognized that the election of a black man to the presidency was likely to exacerbate racial tensions in the short term. I wonder why Althouse cannot see this?
The trouble today is unconscious racism, I read.
"Anyone who is not a complete idiot would have recognized that the election of a..." collectivist would have resulted in lower employment and a slowed rate of economic growth.
"He was ideal for that issue and we voted for the hope"
He appeared that way to you because in spite of your education and native intelligence you are still at certain junctures a dumb blond. Sorry. Things that are crystal clear, or should be, are invisible to you because of your female rationalizations. It's not that you're stupid, it's the mixing of "feelings" and convoluted "reasoning" that renders you as such in some circumstances. What Obama was and would do in office could be easily seen at the time. How could you have missed the boat by such a wide margin unless there is a fundamental flaw in your thinking?
Actually, my point was that people saying mean things about Obama did not cause the deterioration in race relations we have seen since Obama was sworn in. Look at all the nice things that are said about him in the media, in college campuses, and by Democrats!
I believe that Obama promoted division with his policies and rhetoric. Going back to Andy Jackson, the Democrat's policy has been to use the power of government to privilege some groups at the expense of other groups.
There are a lot of really stupid people in every country. The US has one of the most most highly educated populations in the world. You would have to ask people why they thought Obama was a Muslim to find if their belief was stupid.
ARM misses the mark again.
Electing "a" Black man did not exacerbate racial tensions. Electing this Black man exacerbates racial tension.
Pre-Obama Colin Powell would have been a very different situation.
Anyone who is not a complete idiot would have recognized that the election of a black man to the presidency was likely to exacerbate racial tensions in the short term. I wonder why Althouse cannot see this?"
Bullshit. The fault lies squarely with Obama himself. He is proponent of critical theory and an agitator for racial grievance. What other outcome could you expect? I'm not suggesting that Ben Carson would necessarily make a good president, but do you really think that his personality, demeanor, and belief system would produce the same racial disharmony as Obama has simply because he's black?
I agree with Glenn Reynolds that we have the worst ruling class in our history.
Think about it for a moment. In the early 1800s, most had had some military experience and had earned a living from the soil. That was similar to most citizens.
Slavery was a wild card there but by 1865 it was gone. From 1865 to 1900 nearly all had been soldiers in the Civil War. The late 1800s were the "Gilded Age" when there was a good deal of corruption, mostly around railroads, but the government was small and we were able to absorb a huge number of immigrants from Europe.
The Progressives introduced a sort pf Fascism with Wilson and, to some degree, Roosevelt. Harding and Coolidge rolled most of that back and we were prosperous until manipulation of interest rates led to 1929 and the crash.
In 1932, the rule of law lost badly to the new progressives under Roosevelt. Things were getting worse but the Germans and Japanese created a world wide crisis and Roosevelt turned from economic experiments to the business community which won the war for him.
American production won the war.
After the war, we were alone in the world as an intact economy and we had a run of 20 years from 1945 to Lyndon Johnson with a pretty pragmatic ruling class.
Vietnam changed all that and the draft evaders took over as ruling class for the next 40 years. Their children followed and were even less concerned with our history. It was as though the world had begun in 1965.
They don't know history. We have a wonderful technical class that studied Math but the financial people who went to Harvard and Yale and learned nothing but "Getting to Yes" a negotiating Bible for liberal arts majors who go to Lw School and know nothing about things are made or grown.
They think food comes from "Whole Foods" and clothing from "Bloomingdales."
In the 1960s, Ford Motor Company nearly went under when it was taken over by lawyers and accountants and engineers relegated to the shop floor and told to shut up and let the adults run the company.
Now, we have a bunch of Harvard and Yale lawyers running things and The Post Office could do better.
Blaming Obama for the rise of Black Lives Matter group is equally odd. Clearly the main factor here is the sudden availability of cheap compact video recorders and the rise of social media. Without these elements the behavior of a small subset of cops towards black citizens would be as opaque now as it has been for the last 100 years.
"if this longed-for capacity is something that can possibly exist, then Barack Obama would be doing it now and would have been doing it for years." Not following the logic here: if x exists, it must exist in O? A few premises missing, at least.
"Of course, neither Clinton nor Trump inspires hope for a new opportunity at racial harmony. That's what Obama did in 2008. He was ideal for that issue and we voted for the hope." Wait, what? A progressive community organizer from Chicago, whose very MO was race baiting, who attended Jeremiah Wright's anti-Amerikkkan church for decades, was the ideal man to bring about racial healing? Speak for yourself, ma'am. "We" had him figured out long before.
"Can you analyze how that happened? Because that did happen. I don't see how we can begin to think about what more Trump or Clinton could do unless we understand why President Obama failed." What do you mean, failure? Fanning the flames helps Progs. Any "incident" confirms the narrative that America is a racist society infected by White Privilege. It's not failure, it's what they want.
I'm going to guess that the key element of Getting to Yes is giving up other people's principles.
Paul said...
I'm not suggesting that Ben Carson would necessarily make a good president, but do you really think that his personality, demeanor, and belief system would produce the same racial disharmony as Obama has simply because he's black?
Carson does not, in any meaningful way, represent the majority of African Americans in this country, who would have voted solidly against him. Obama clearly is a representative of that group, they voted almost unanimously for his election.
"AReasonableMan" cannot blame guns so he instead blames another inanimate object: cameras.
Human agency must be denied by all good collectivists.
jacksonjay said...
Pre-Obama Colin Powell would have been a very different situation.
I very much doubt this based on the vitriol directed at Powell in recent years.
Big Mike is right. democrats use racism--need racism--to win elections. They fan the flames. Obama could not be a peacemaker because peace would end the division that carried him into office.
Democrats have fanned the flames for a year to set up Hillary to run against "racist" Trump, and the press has played along,reporting the narrative she dictates. Can you imagine if a Republican group marched through the streets chanting about killing people? But Democrats do it and it's a legitimate cry of pain. And it would have worked, too, if some nut in Dallas hadn't heard the chants to and taken them literally.
New Collectivist Dictionary
Vitriol: having the temerity to disagree with your leaders (READ: betters) on a substantive matter of public policy
Kate has nailed it. The white population, and in particular the white working class, will never come around to the belief that they have been "privileged" all their lives because they are white. Much less will they believe that their "White Privilege" is the cause of all those black-on-black murders in the inner cities.
The guilt trip worked for a while, but not anymore.
IT's larger than President Obama. President Obama is the end of the road, as Jesse Jackson used to say, "from the outhouse, to the courthouse, to the State House, to the White House." From Jackie Robinson to Adam Clayton Powell to Thurgood MArshall to Colin Powell with many others along the way...to President Obama. President Obama is the last First Black [Anything] of any consequence. There is no higher height to aspire to--we are over the mountaintop, this IS the promised land. And the promised land still has big problems. I think that's why we're seeing Black Lives MAtter, and Trump at the same time, #MakeAmericaGreatAgain vs #AmericaWasNeverGreat
The pivotal moment of Obama's candidacy was the (lily-white) crowd in South Carolina chanting "race doesn't matter." That was the dream. That was the promise of the Obama candidacy, part of the reason that the first halfway plausible black candidate to run won the Presidency. "Race doesn't matter"--the end of race as a topic in America. That's not happening.
The integrationist schema of race relations was that as the shackles of discrimination fall away, blacks will naturally move toward parity with whites, climbing the ladders of success until the racial millenium is reached. Sandra Day O'Connor's estimate was that affirmative action would no longer be required in (2003 + 25 years =) 2028, 12 years from now. That doesn't seem to be happening.
One family of explanations is what I've seen on racist/"race realist" websites described as "Ptolematic epicycles of racism", invisible knapsacks of intersectional privilege and stereotype threat and disparate impact and the toxic atmosphere of racism etc etc. The other family of explanations is, more or less, racism--racially disparate outcomes are the result of racial differences, in behavior or biology or inherited cultural patterns.
President Obama may not have done everything (or maybe even much) right, in terms of solving our racial dilemnas. But we was elected more for what he WAS (and is) racially, than what he would DO. Half-white, half-black; half-American, half-foreign; half-Hawaii, half-Chicago; half-Harvard, half-"community organizer"; using the cadences of the black (Christian) church in his 2004 keynote speech, with the middle name Hussein, etc. Obama is the incarnation of the idea of transcending differences, of "both-and" rather than "either-or."
Birkel said...
Human agency must be denied by all good collectivists.
No. Clearly the cops caught on film should be judged based on their individual actions. What has changed is the ability of others to judge those actions.
Cops are public servants, just like the people down at the DMV. They should be treated with the respect due any human, not obsequiousness.
"Carson does not, in any meaningful way, represent the majority of African Americans in this country, who would have voted solidly against him. Obama clearly is a representative of that group, they voted almost unanimously for his election."
No, I know black people and if Carson ran in Obama's place in 2008 they would have supported electing the first black president with equal fervor regardless of his politics. But that's not the point. The point is it isn't Obama's skin color that is responsible for the increase in racial tensions over the past 7.5 years, it's his beliefs, rhetoric, and policies.
Save everybody time, "AReasonableMan", and type "insert non sequitur here" whenever you feel the need to comment.
...cops caught on film..."
Nothing like assuming your conclusion.
Trump lovers are tribal. It is an open membership tribe to all men and women who are tolerant, intelligent and strong fighters for neighbors against European World Empires.
Paul said...
I know black people and if Carson ran in Obama's place in 2008 they would have supported electing the first black president with equal fervor regardless of his politics.
Just like they have embraced Clarence Thomas?
"Pre-Obama Colin Powell would have been a very different situation.
I very much doubt this based on the vitriol directed at Powell in recent years."
No, because Powell had real achievements. He had a history that Obama did not have. Obama is a creature of Emil Jones, a black Illinois legislative boss.
I called Kelley last week and he recollected the private conversation as follows:
“He said, ‘Cliff, I’m gonna make me a U.S. Senator.'”
“Oh, you are? Who might that be?”
“Barack Obama.”
Jones appointed Obama sponsor of virtually every high-profile piece of legislation, angering many rank-and-file state legislators who had more seniority than Obama and had spent years championing the bills.
Obama had no real legitimacy. Powell would have. It's a shame that the first black president was devoid of real accomplishment. Even the alleged "Constitutional Law Professor" is fake. He was adjunct and "taught" one seminar on race.
AReasonableMan said...
"Carson does not, in any meaningful way, represent the majority of African Americans in this country, who would have voted solidly against him. Obama clearly is a representative of that group, they voted almost unanimously for his election."
Thousands of black men are shot by other black men for every black man shot by a cop. But Obama peddles the fiction that shooting cops will solve their problems. Obama tells black people all of their problems are the white man's fault knowing black people will be angry and poor if they follow him.
Obama and the progressives need black people angry and poor. It keeps them on the reservation. The GOPe is a stalking horse for the oligarchs and has been a great foil for this ruse. The GOPe is just as culpable.
"He was ideal for that issue and we voted for the hope." We? I sure as hell didn't, and neither did almost half the people who voted.
I know black people and if Carson ran in Obama's place in 2008 they would have supported electing the first black president with equal fervor regardless of his politics.
Just like they have embraced Clarence Thomas?
Good point. They did not embrace Obama at first until he looked like a winner in 2008.
ARM
"Blaming Obama for the rise of Black Lives Matter group is equally odd. "
Actually, no. He has the pulpit from which he could have loudly and repeatedly disabused those that believe "hands up don't shoot" came out of the mouth of Michael Brown. It did not. He knows it did not. That phrase, the bumper sticker thinking so loved by progressives, was the fuel of BLM.
Note also his reflexive sympathies with all anti-police rhetoric.
ARM,
The GOP made Colin Powell a very rich, famous and beloved Black man. He could have been their candidate in 2000. In 2008, he turned his back on them and endorsed Obama. Instead of supporting his teammate (party and Vietnam) he supported the opponent. OK, fine. But then, he began to condemn the GOP as racist when they opposed Obama. Surely you know this is the reason for the vitriol directed toward Powell.
jacksonjay:
Bill shit! There has been no vitriol toward Powell. (Internet loudmouths do not count.)
There has been policy disagreement.
Never allow a charlatan like "AReasonableMan" get away with his deceptions.
Michael K said...
Obama had no real legitimacy.
Other than being the representative of all the people who voted for him. To quote a GOP pundit on Trump, 'all he has is votes'. But no 'legitimacy'.
To ask why Obama has failed would be to bring up some uncomfortable truths about the president. The president throughout his term has acted in ways to divide the country rather than bring it together, whether along racial, political, religious, gender, or other lines. People on the other side of the line from Obama don't matter to him and he makes no effort to seek common cause or compromise with them.
Reverend Wright should have been the clue that Obama wasn't all that big into racial harmony. Obama's big success was convincing people to ignore the evidence and buy into a bunch of empty but nice sounding words that inspired hope. People forgot that actions speak louder than words, and Obama should be the poster child for the truth of this saying.
Lamar Gonna Set You Straight....
I'm Lamar, and I'm a Young Black Man, Proud and prone to Anger Issues. I can't help it: living amongst all these White People with their Little White Problems just makes me Angry. Try MY Problems, Bitches...
So I'm standing on the Ave, just taking in the day, when I ask a young white dude if he can spare a cigarette.
He shakes his head and says 'No': I can deal with that, it's not like I'm gonna beat someone down for a smoke. Now, my ancestors slaved over Tobacco to get white men their cigarettes, and you think a White Boy could spare one on Principle, but I'm not going to rectify all this right now, all's good...
But then he gets that look in his eye: that 'All You Blacks Are Beggars' look. You know the Look: you white people all do That Look, don't think we don't get it...
"What you lookin' at," I say, side-stepping in front of him with a bit of Lean...
He changes his eyes real quick, stammers that he only has a few left...
"White Boy," I say, "I can smell them: they're fucking Menthols. You smoking the Black Man's cigarette and you can't even give one up FOR a Black Man...?"
"Sure, sure," he says, and gives me a smoke.
Was that so Hard? If he had just given me the cigarette in the first place there'd be no Race involved, just a dude helping a brother out...
And Dude was wearing a Bernie shirt: how White is that? Are there even any Brothers in Vermont? Black people drinking Maple Syrup and Shit? Let's face it: Bernie is for the White Liberals who voted for Obama and don't want to admit they think made a Mistake electing a Black Man...
At least Obama smokes from time to time, I hear, although I bet the Brother don't smoke no menthols: he gotta keep it White in his Hood.
Maybe Camel Lights. But I know he wants a Newport.
You think you got Problems? Fuck You.
I am Laslo.
But Obama peddles the fiction that shooting cops will solve their problems. Obama tells black people all of their problems are the white man's fault knowing black people will be angry and poor if they follow him.
You peddle bullshit like this (and you no doubt believe it), and others on this thread and on the right in general peddle lies about Obama, yet poor little Althouse can't figure out why Obama failed to improve race relations.
Can you imagine if a Republican group marched through the streets chanting about killing people?
What about Cliven Bundy and all the other idiots who believe that just because they live near Federal land it belongs to them?
Legitimacy comes in many forms. Obama proves his collectivist legitimacy by bringing all things into the state.
Witness the lawsuits against Sisters of Mercy, religious schools, churches and people of faith.
If Trump loses this election it will because too many people think he is a racist. But where's the proof of his racism?
Birkel,
Of course you are right. I was speaking of my own internet loudmouth vitriol toward Gen. Powell. Not sure about Condi either. She refuses to say who she voted for in 2008.
So the Cliven Bundy misstep proves Freder Frederson has no example with which to counter.
Obama peddles the fiction that the federal government can solve problems. All collectivists do.
Dupes everywhere, rejoice.
Althouse! You astonish. At time so perceptive, yet other times so obtuse.
If anyone has what it takes to unify the country over race it is Barack Obama...
Obama, being President, is well "positioned" to proclaim a message of unity and commonality among all of humankind. Unfortunately Obama is temperamentlly particularly ill suited for such a task.
Obama is a divider. His vision is to classify and define humanity into different groups. His vision of Government is as the conveyor of special privilege or penalty to particular of these groups.
This is most unfortunate in a Government functionary, where trust of the People that the Laws be few, easily understood, and APPLIED EQUALLY TO ALL is essential to success of Government.
You can begin your study with the the Obama DOJ treatment of the 2008 New Black Panther voter intimidation incident. You can conclude your study with the Obama FBI treatment of Hillary Clinton. Comey describes behavior which should unfit any actor for access to special national security information; yet no action is taken regarding Hillary's security clearance.
I encourage you, Althouse, to study the Obama administration and Obama's personal actions as well. Look carefully for a predisposition to divide and classify into groups, to designated some as deserving of special treatment.
Consider also Obama's campaign speeches. Do you see any proposals for how the power of Government should be directed particularly and unequally - either for privilege or censure - to groups such as the poor, the wealthy, the old, the young, students, the sick? Who is to pay for proposed benificences?
Of course, neither Clinton nor Trump inspires hope for a new opportunity at racial harmony.
Hillary seems no less committed than Obama to Government as the conveyor of special privilege and censure.
As to Trump...
Race? Do you mean the "Mexican Race?" The "Moslem Race?" I know many people of Mexican heritage - the majority of the County in which I live. Indeed, I know many of Mexican heritage who are without legal documentation in the Country. I know several individuals who profess the Moslem faith. But I know none who profess to be of Mexican Race or Moslem Race.
I have heard Trump speak against persons who break our laws, as does anyone who enters the country "illegally." I have heard Trump speak particularly against persons who illegally enter the Country and then go on to commit crimes of violence.
I have heard Trump suggest that persons of Moslem faith be given particular scrutiny before being permitted legal entry. Designating particular religious or heritage groups for special immigration treatment is neither novel nor illegal. They are not, after all, either citizens nor legal residents until such status is granted.
Frankly, I hear from Trump a subdued message of equal treatment of all citizens before the law. That is after all the major virtue - in theory, at least - of What Makes America Great.
jacksonjay:
Powell disappointed when he revealed himself less conservative than many, myself included, had hoped. But the expressions of frustration I saw were nothing compared to the spittle-flecked reactions by collectivists at Justice Thomas, for example.
We cannot be distracted by the poor arguments of collectivists. On that I am glad we agree.
So is Althouse, for the record, regretting her vote(s) for Barack Obama, Democrat for President?
"To quote a GOP pundit on Trump, 'all he has is votes'. But no 'legitimacy'."
Trump would never be a factor without Obama. I'm a little surprised you can't seem to see this.
Before Obama, and Hillary for that matter, presidential candidates had to have a record of accomplishment.
Even Bill Clinton had been a governor.
Hillary had been "first lady" then got a free pass on Senator for New York, kind of like Bobby Kennedy did.
As Senator, she did nothing.
Obama did even less.
"Just like they have embraced Clarence Thomas?"
Pretty sure he never was on the ticket as a presidential candidate but nice deflection there. What you always do when you can't refute a point. And again the point is it that it isn't Obama's skin color that is responsible for the increase in racial tensions over the past 7.5 years, it's his beliefs, rhetoric, and policies. Keep squirming away from this self evident truth that puts paid to your original statement that the act of electing a black man would in itself cause racial tension in the short term, and thus putting the blame squarely on white racism.
Obama's problem is that he was (and is) so wedded to the black half of his identity that he threw his white half under the bus. Started in Philadelphia with his grandmother, continued in Cambridge, MA (Gates incident), in Florida (Trayvon Martin), Ferguson, MO (Michael Brown), Baltimore, and continues to this very day. He can't bridge the divide in his own soul, let alone the nation. In the words of Ray Charles, it's sad, sad, . . . sad, sad, sad.
The underlying reason for why things are worse now is captured by a single metric, median household income, 1980-2014.
A rising tide lifts all boats, people can deal with all sorts of outrages as long as things seem to be going better and the future seems hopeful.
Since 2007, and arguably since 2000, median household income has been effectively flat. Everything is starting to look like a zero sum game, where any improvement for a person or group has to come at someones expense.
I suspect that all sorts of phenomena are reactions to the underlying economic situation.
“What's missing? Why is racial discord the problem of the summer 2016? If anyone has what it takes to unify the country over race it is Barack Obama”
Did Obama ever have what it takes to unify the country over race? This president wholeheartedly embraced the lies by the media and race agitators about Ferguson. He has been propagandist in chief fanning the idea that laws are routinely applied in a discriminatory way by the police and courts. When was he ever even once about unifying the country over race?
But Obama peddles the fiction that shooting cops will solve their problems. Obama tells black people all of their problems are the white man's fault knowing black people will be angry and poor if they follow him.
---------
"You peddle bullshit like this (and you no doubt believe it), and others on this thread and on the right in general peddle lies about Obama, yet poor little Althouse can't figure out why Obama failed to improve race relations."
---------
Can you imagine if a Republican group marched through the streets chanting about killing people?
"What about Cliven Bundy and all the other idiots who believe that just because they live near Federal land it belongs to them?"
Funny how Althouse can't figure out why Obama didn't bring about racial harmony.
Funny how they always forget about the white militias calling for a race war. What about those fools who planned to assassinate cops in order to start a race war a few years back? Every last one of them white.
As for blaming Obama, to the extent that he is responsible for the economic situation, then it is correct to blame him.
The root of the trouble isnt something he created, the process is well understood, and is always operating, well described by a host of analysts from Schumpeter on, and well elaborated in recent years. This is the bureaucratic-corporatist sclerosis of the economy.
Obama, and much more so the clique that came in with him, did much to worsen the problem and increase the rate of degeneration.
Obama is the Author of Chaos.
"What about those fools who planned to assassinate cops in order to start a race war a few years back? Every last one of them white."
What in the world are you blathering about ? The Manson family ?
Paul said...
Pretty sure he never was on the ticket as a presidential candidate
Did not say he was. But he is the highest ranking Republican African American. He remains as unloved as ever.
Rancor aside, can any Obama defenders point to something - anything - that he's done to repair race relations?
Militia Charged With Plotting to Murder Officers
In an indictment against the nine unsealed on Monday, the Justice Department said they were part of a group of apocalyptic Christian militants who were plotting to kill law enforcement officers in hopes of inciting an antigovernment uprising, the latest in a recent surge in right-wing militia activity.
The court filing said the group, which called itself the Hutaree, planned to kill an unidentified law enforcement officer and then bomb the funeral caravan using improvised explosive devices based on designs used against American troops by insurgents in Iraq.
“This is an example of radical and extremist fringe groups which can be found throughout our society,” Andrew Arena, the F.B.I. special agent in charge in Detroit, said in a statement. “The F.B.I. takes such extremist groups seriously, especially those who would target innocent citizens and the law enforcement officers who protect the citizens of the United States.”
The Hutaree — a word Mr. Stone apparently made up to mean Christian warriors — saw the local police as “foot soldiers” for the federal government, which the group viewed as its enemy, along with other participants in what the group’s members deemed to be a “New World Order” working on behalf of the Antichrist, the indictment said.
Eight defendants were arrested over the weekend in raids in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana, the Justice Department said. The authorities arrested the Stones’ eldest son, Joshua M. Stone, 21, shortly before 9 p.m. Monday in Pittsford, Mich., about 20 miles west of his family’s home, an F.B.I. spokeswoman, Sandra Berchtold, said.
The "rancher" problem is a case in point. This is a (very small) manifestation of frustration with an overbearing government, which has been increasingly, actively oppressing rural people for decades, adding piles of rules and restrictions, and suppressing local economies.
For no particular reason, frankly, that seems justifiable outside of insider bureaucratic games. It is a very Schumpeterian sclerotic process. Each rule change is itself plausibly justified within its own frame, but not within a larger one that takes costs into account, both opportunity costs and cumulative costs.
The system is by its nature utterly blind to the havoc they create, or rather the resulting human wasteland.
And then some are surprised when an angry reaction manifests.
White supremacists accused of planning for 'race war' in Florida.
Members of a white supremacist skinhead group called American Front trained with AK-47s, shotguns and explosives at a fortified compound in central Florida to prepare for what its reputed leader believed to be an “inevitable race war,” prosecutors said Tuesday.
According to court documents, members of American Front discussed acts of violence that included causing “a disturbance” at City Hall in Orlando, shooting at a house and attacking an anti-racist skinhead group.
At least 10 members of the group, which authorities described as a militia-styled, anti-Semitic domestic terrorist organization, have been arrested in Florida since the weekend, including at least three people on Tuesday.
Hillary is supporting BLM and expressing contempt for White policeman. The idea that she will bring the country together is absurd. Like Obama, she's made it quite clear she will be the president of the 51% who elected her.
And the White middle and working class should just go off and die.
Pookie Number 2 said...
Rancor aside, can any Obama defenders point to something - anything - that he's done to repair race relations?
His response to the Charleston church shooting.
Once a community organizer, always a community organizer..
It is noteworthy to mention that nearly as soon as Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President, calls for a race war began ramping up among many in the conservative movement because no small number of Americans could comport an African American man sitting in the Oval Office. Any idea that America had turned the corner on blatant racism because a Black man was elected by the people was dispelled with hateful comments about the President’s race that Republicans never condemned. In fact, Republicans at all levels of government have spent the past eight years perpetuating white racial angst by disparaging African Americans as surrogates for President Obama.
Regardless of what anyone thinks about Hillary Clinton, she made a very prescient observation that white America should heed before they claim a fed-up African American man started a “race war.” She called on white Americans to put themselves in the shoes of African Americans “who fear every time their children go somewhere; who have to have the talk about how to really protect themselves when they’re the ones who should be expecting protection from encounters with the police. I’m going to be talking to white people – I think we’re the ones who have to start listening to the legitimate cries that are coming from our African American fellow citizens.”
Schumpeter is required reading.
On Public Choice economics, there is a huge literature examining all sorts of matters relating to political-economic failure, bureaucracy, regulation, rent seeking, political corruption, monopolistic effects, you name it. The Wiki is actually a good guide to further reading in many sub-fields.
If anyone has what it takes to unify the country over race it is Barack Obama, who is President right now and who had been President for 7 1/2 years
Im on my phone and cant read the thread but I second whowever mentioned Fox Butterfield...
Look, we all knew Obama was Affirmative action President. Had he been 100% white, instead of 50%, he'd still be an Illinois Senator. However, even I have been shocked at what an incompetent left-wing ideologue he is.
Sadly, the MSM will make him the official "Spokesman for the Black race" in Jan 2017, so we'll hearing from the clown for a long time.
Unknown/ Inga making a fool of herself again with five and ten year old stories about minuscule groups that never did anything but talk.
Following his reelection in 2012, Obama's super pac became "Organizing For Action / OFA." OFA has and continues to train up an army of community agitators. This Obama army is now spread across the country. These agitators are behind the race protests on college campuses. They are a driving force behind BLM, helping coordinate and find funding to spread the BLM message of hate. Will Obama realize that things may be spinning out of control and attempt to reign in his army. Doubtful. Somehow Obama just never sounds quite as mournful when discussing dead cops as he does when talking about his fictional son who would have looked like Trayvon.
KKK:The fight for white supremacy.
America's most infamous supremacist group - the Ku Klux Klan - says they are in the midst of a revival, with a surge in membership and cross burnings across the Deep South.
Film-maker Dan Murdoch meets the leaders of the Loyal White Knights, who claim to be the largest Klan chapter, to witness first-hand their secretive rituals and hear about why their members choose to wear the infamous hood.
The Klan says they are not violent. But when a 21-year-old white man walks into a church in Charleston, South Carolina, and massacres nine black worshippers saying he wants to start a race war, the danger of the white supremacist ideology becomes a terrifying reality.
The film follows events as protests erupt and Black Power groups, including the New Black Panthers, take to the streets to preach their own agenda of black supremacy. And when the Ku Klux Klan and the New Black Panthers organise rival protests in the South Carolina capital, the two extreme visions of America violently come face to face.
Watch the film.
but I was referring to the behavior of Republicans in congress.
FTR it was the Clinton '08 campaign who started the birther stuff, like it was the Gore '88 campaign who premiered Willie Horton.
https://www.barackobama.com/get-involved/training/
rcocean said...
we all knew Obama was Affirmative action President
And the Republicans in congress behaved as one might expect given this belief.
Trump's Facebook fans call for race war.
Obama, frankly, did a bait and switch job from 2006-2009.
He promised an open mind and a practical approach, but its clear this was merely rhetorical. There was never a review of regulatory systems and processes, nor was there ever more than lip service done for the sake of the economic interests of the general public. The entire administration has been devoted to bureaucratic expansion, rent seeking, vote buying, suppression of competitive markets, preferential treatment of politically aligned companies, and every sort of legal corruption. This was not new with this administration, but the blatant nature and suppressed reaction to its numerous failures have increased the rate of decline. Previous administrations have backed off or reformed when things failed too egregiously, this one persists through failure into greater failure.
That this, eventually, got the public riled up is no surprise.
The terrible conditions have even managed to suppress the economic impact of huge technological advances, such as in energy production, that otherwise should have led the US into a boom.
@rcocean, you are dead wrong! If Obsma had been 100% white he wouldn't even have made it to the Illinois state senate, much less the U.S. Senate.
Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman from Illinois, “This is now war. Watch out Obama. Watch out black lives matter punks. Real America is coming after you.”
What, if anything, has improved due to Obama's leadership/presidency for the Nation as a whole? Genuine question; not trying to be smug.
Besides Laslo's opportunities for fantastically unique/creative commentary, of course.
Black Lives Matter is a racist militant group whose stated goal is a new Black Liberation Movement. Anyone who recalls the bombings, murder and robberies of the BLA during the 1970's should be appalled. Instead Democrats have offered BLM a chance to help write the party platform.
"Black Lives Matter is a unique contribution that goes beyond extrajudicial killings of Black people by police and vigilantes. It goes beyond the narrow nationalism that can be prevalent within some Black communities, which merely call on Black people to love Black, live Black and buy Black..........................It is a tactic to (re)build the Black liberation movement."
http://blacklivesmatter.com/
Race issues are the weak crack along which the US social structure breaks when the system is stressed. Its where you see the symptoms of other illnesses. This week, at least, you are all caught up with symptoms and not the disease.
The President showed his true colors when he slagged dem '08 primary voters in Penna who chose Hillary* as "bitter clingers". You can tell a lot about a person by what they say when they don't think they're being recorded.
* Now being hailed as voting for "America's first woman president".
I am surprised that the general anger has not, yet, led to more violence in every direction.
His response to the Charleston church shooting.
How so?
The day after the massacre of police officers, the BLM people are out on the streets throwing rocks at cops. The day after. Such actions are self indulgent, self righteous, and stupid beyond the normal measure of stupidity. It is worthy of note that these actions are nowhere crticized by anyone in the media. Or, God forbid, by Hillary or Obama.
White supremacists talk of race war after Dallas police shootings.
Andrew Anglin, an infamous white supremacist who runs the notoriously racist Daily Stormer blog, published an article on Thursday with the headline “Another Good Boy Shot by Chinese Nazi Cop! Race War Imminent!” Since the shootings in Dallas, racists—and even a former congressman—have been fanning the flames of violence on social media.
“This is now war,” former Illinois Congressman Joe Walsh posted on Twitter shortly after the shooting. “Watch out Obama. Watch out black lives matter punks. Real America is coming after you.” He later deleted the tweet.
Others urged people to be “prepared” and discussed the importance of having ammunition. “3 Police officers shot dead and 10 wounded in Dallas today,” a self-described “proud white American” posted on Twitter. “Things are heating up, hope you’re all prepared.”
The statements continued a pattern of bellicose rhetoric from white supremacists. In April, nearly a dozen white supremacist groups met at an out-of-the-way bar and restaurant in Georgia to unite in what they believed would be an upcoming battle between races. The groups blame organizations like Black Lives Matter and other African American advocacy groups for what they believe will be an upcoming fight. The meeting, organizers told Vocativ at the time, was the beginning of an alliance of white supremacist organizations required to fight the “race war” with a unified front.
The so-called “race war” is the cornerstone of a lot of white supremacist ideology. It’s spelled out in the Turner Diaries, a fictional novel written by William Pierce, the deceased founder of the National Alliance, a white supremacist organization that was labeled a hate group by several civil rights advocacy groups. A copy of the book was found in the vehicle driven by Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. It’s often considered the Bible of anti-government racists who see a violent race war as the ultimate conclusion of the integration of races.
TwilightofLiberty.com said...
What, if anything, has improved due to Obama's leadership/presidency for the Nation as a whole?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average.
What, if anything, has improved due to Obama's leadership/presidency for the Nation as a whole?
Well..for starters, Russia reclaimed the Crimea by force and now has a warm water port on the Med.
Oh, you meant our nation!
If I'm on the ground wrestling with an armed felon who outweighs me by forty pounds, I might lose my poise. The killing was not a calculated act of racial malice. To claim it was is itself a calculated act of racial malice.
Forget President Three-Putt if you want unifying voices right now look to the Mayor and Police Chief of Dallas.
ARM
LOL. The DJIA hasn't been of much help to the 90 plus million people out of the workforce and the vast middle class that has no assets and who cannot scrape together $400 cash in the event of an emergency. The Obama economy has been an abject disaster
Obama was elected on the class diversity vote. The refutation of class diversity schemes will begin the reconciliation that was interrupted when he revived hope for class diversity activists.
"What, if anything, has improved due to Obama's leadership/presidency for the Nation as a whole?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average."
Zero interest rates do that. See 1928-29 for example.
We call them "bubbles" sort of like the Credit Mobilier bubble.
To that end, Union Pacific purchased a bankrupt lending institution in 1864 and renamed it after a well-known and prestigious French firm, Crédit Mobilier. The new holding/construction company accepted stock and bonds from Union Pacific at face value, but sold them to investors at rates under par. To make up for the loss, Credit Mobilier overcharged for constructing the railroad. Since the Union Pacific’s board of directors ran Credit Mobilier, they were able to make an estimated $16.5 million in profits, and by the time of the railroad’s completion in 1869 the value of Union Pacific stock had risen 750%.
Many of these controversial incidents have involved officers of black, Asian, and Hispanic descent. This would seem to indicate that the underlying dynamic is not white racism but the tension that exists between police officers and the black community. If some police, on occasion, give blacks a hard time, it can also be noted that some blacks are not especially reticent about giving cops a hard time.
Why is racial discord the problem of the summer 2016?
It isn't. But the MSM would have us believe it is and we, predictably, will buy into it.
And among the symptoms of general stress, gun purchases.
This has exploded since 2000. This is I think largely an unconscious reaction to anxiety about economic and social breakdown. The people really are preparing for war.
To persist in policies and rhetoric, on the part of the administration, that only increases anxieties, such as those that blame the general public, that demonize the general public, merely increases the sale of arms and radicalizes them.
This rhetorical beating on the head, which our friend Inga/Unknown is happy to do, has been going on uninterrupted for, oh, 70 years now, in every venue from schools to silly internet posts. The public has got the message, and the message is that it hates the message. The more the message goes on, in this atmosphere of economic trouble, the more they will hate. It is still amazing that there is so little killing.
Michael said...
The DJIA hasn't been of much help to the 90 plus million people out of the workforce and the vast middle class that has no assets and who cannot scrape together $400 cash in the event of an emergency.
Middle class people have retirement packages that invest in the stock market.
mockturtle said...
It isn't.
Do you ever listen to right wing radio?
Did you watch Donald Trump's statement on the shootings? If people hadn't been poisoned towards him by the news media, they would be watching it and they would be comforted that at least someone knows how to talk about this.
You know, I just don't have time to worry about the KKK killing people when there are so many mass murdering Muslims and Black Power people. I guess that makes me a bad person.
Pookie Number 2 said...
His response to the Charleston church shooting.
How so?
You should watch the speech in full, it is a master class in acknowledging a great wrong and then pouring oil on troubled waters, greatly aided by the grace of the victims and their families.
"Once it became clear that Barack Obama would be the next President of the United States, white supremacists rushed to extremist online discussion forums to express their rage and disbelief that voters, particularly white voters, chose an African-American as their leader. An avalanche of comments from white supremacists appeared on numerous online discussion forums as they learned that the presidential race was over.
Although white supremacists have often expressed fear that minorities are "taking over" the country, they didn't think they would actually see the day that Americans of all kinds would elect an African-American president.
From their own racist perspective, they saw Obama's rise to the highest office in the country as evidence that things have gone incredibly wrong and that whites had lost their place in America. The most popular white supremacist Internet forum, Stormfront, was so overloaded with people trying to access the site to post comments that it actually crashed.
Other white supremacists, despite their anger, felt that Obama's win might be a catalyst that would help them recruit members to their cause. These extremists blamed a variety of people for Obama's rise--the Jews, white "traitors," or a Republican Party out of touch with the needs of white people. While some proclaimed that Obama's victory was the start of a race war in the U.S. and declared a willingness to pick up their guns, others claimed that America was heading toward disaster as it became a more diverse nation."
http://archive.adl.org/nr/exeres/69409564-c74d-41ea-b44b-3a805692a0e8,db7611a2-02cd-43af-8147-649e26813571,frameless.html
@Unknown, so there are white people who are as batshit crazy as Al Sharpton or Ta-Nahisi Coates. I'm stunned. Come back to us when they, like Sharpton, are regular invitees to the White House or write for once-respected magazines.
Blogger AReasonableMan said...
His response to the Charleston church shooting.
How about the part where Obama said racism was in America's DNA? Ironic, since racists believe that traits like thievery and greed are in people's DNA. But maybe he wasn't being ironic.
Obama is a racist asshole. That is why he can't "bring us together".
Terry said...
How about the part where Obama said racism was in America's DNA?
Here is the transcript of the speech, could you point to the line where he says this?
Boom!
Smack!
Althouse wins
Sure, ARM!
discrimination in almost every institution of our lives — you know, that casts a long shadow. And that's still part of our DNA that's passed on. We're not cured of it.
Maron: Racism.
Obama: Racism. We are not cured of it. And it's not just a matter of it not being polite to say 'nigger' in public. That's not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It's not just a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don't overnight completely erase everything that happened 200-300 years prior.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/22/416476377/we-are-not-cured-obama-discusses-racism-in-america-with-marc-maron
You must have run across this vile, racist quote from Obama before, ARM. You being so well informed and all.
@ARM:Do you ever listen to right wing radio?
No. I don't listen to radio of any wing other than baseball games.
Terry, why not just admit you were wrong?
"An expanding body of research by psychologists, economists and political scientists suggests that voters' racial biases help the GOP win elections, and critics say the party is capitalizing on that fact. Though researchers haven't settled how successful dog-whistle politics are at tapping into those prejudices, some believe that race will become more, not less important in the party's future campaigns.
"There's a good deal of evidence that white resentment of minorities is linked to support for Republican candidates, their policies and conservative ideology in America," said Robb Willer, a political psychologist at Stanford University.
the campaign trail, reporters frequently bring up Trump's rhetoric and ask the other candidates to make their positions clear at a time when white Americans are a rapidly declining portion of the population. Bruce Bartlett, who served as a senior economic official under Reagan and George H.W. Bush but now describes himself as independent, said Trump is giving Republicans a crucial opportunity to win over a larger, more diverse electorate by repudiating prejudice.
"Trump is forcing Republicans, at long long last, to finally decide, 'Are we going to be the party of racism and lose the White House forever?' " Bartlett said."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/11/what-social-science-tells-us-about-racism-in-the-republican-party/
Hey, y'know, if you were a Muslim terrorist group, you might see what happened in Dallas Thursday night and decide that you could maybe hook up with violent American Black Power types and share intelligence and logistics, and maybe even pull off a joint operation.
And then you would fall into Obama's trap, wasting resources when everyone knows that there are no Muslim terrorists, and the Dallas shooter's motive for his attack remains an unfathomable mystery
@AReasonableMan said...
Pookie Number 2 said...
His response to the Charleston church shooting.
How so?
You should watch the speech in full, it is a master class in acknowledging a great wrong and then pouring oil on troubled waters, greatly aided by the grace of the victims and their families.h
Seriously - After 7 1/2 years how could anyone, canted red or blue, watch an Obama lie-filled speech (and they all are) for more than a minute?
ARM
So all those people who can't scrape together $400 are sitting on big 401Ks that have been beefed up by the "Obama Boom?"
You have a good idea of the net worth of the average American there sport?
It would seem that a lot of Unknown bloggers here frequent white supremacist websites. They may end up on an FBI 'watch list'.
AReasonableMan said...
Birkel said...
Human agency must be denied by all good collectivists.
No. Clearly the cops caught on film should be judged based on their individual actions. What has changed is the ability of others to judge those actions.
Cops are public servants, just like the people down at the DMV. They should be treated with the respect due any human, not obsequiousness.
7/10/16, 9:45 AM"
It's nice to know that you aren't voting for Clinton.
Friday at Breitbart: Hillary Clinton Blames Whites, Cops for Deaths of Young Black Men
Hillary Clinton used a CNN interview on Friday to completely embrace the Democrats’ claim that white people and cops must change to help reduce the number of African-Americans killed in tense exchanges with cops.
“I will call for white people, like myself, to put ourselves in the shoes of those African-American families who fear every time their children go somewhere, who have to have ‘The Talk,’ about, you now, how to really protect themselves [from police], when they’re the ones who should be expecting protection from encounters with police,” Clinton told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
Sorry Hillary. You are the hater, and your party is the primary cause of the plight of blacks in this country. Republicans didn't cause black males to commit roughly half the violent crimes in this country, despite being 6% of the population. If you want to look for fault, look no further than in a mirror. For the first half century of its existence, the Dem party was the party of slavery. Then, for the next century, after losing the Civil War, it was the party of Jim Crow and the KKK. And for the last half century, it has been the party that has actively replaced fathers in the lives of black children with the government, starting with LBJ's War on Poverty. The obvious and proximate cause of so much of the violence in this country being perpetuated by those young violent black men and adolescents is that the Dem party has deprived them of the civilizing effects of being raised by their fathers. We are now in the third or fourth generation of this, and are reaping what we sown. Notably though black communities are hurt worse by this because they were the ones subjected to sovereign and Jim Crow.
And the absurdity of her statement should be obvious. The primary victims of this black violence are other blacks. As police have pulled back from protecting black communities in the face of BLM and the assassination of cops, the death toll has skyrocketed among blacks.
I'm not sure conservatives want to make the point that having a black President is the reason there is an increase in expressed racism in the public. Obviously, by definition, racist folks are very bothered by a black president. And, this seething anger is destructive to our county's cohesion.
Of course it follows that racists will be less riled up if they get our country back to a white President. While this may bring us together because racists will have less to fuss about, I wouldn't say that restoring the proper order as determined by racists is a good thing.
ARM alert: Here is an NPR interview with Maron in which Obama clearly states that racism is in America's DNA.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/22/416476377/we-are-not-cured-obama-discusses-racism-in-america-with-marc-maron
Wrong about what, ARM? You didn't specify. A man is allowed to know what he is accused of.
Mockturtle, name one of the links above by myself and others that come form white supremacist sites. Maybe this discussion is above your comprehension level?
Interestingly, looking at private pensions using the prevailing actuarial rules pre-2012, nearly all private retirement defined benefit funds are underwater, funded at a bit over 80% of liabilities. This is worse than public pensions. Officially, they are fully funded. But this little trick came about by playing games with the lookback period on realized interest rates and ROI.
DJIA is as stated above, the result of artificially low interest rates. There is nowhere else to park savings. In part they are so low because there is very little worthwhile to fund. Also why companies have been sitting on piles of retained earnings for the last decade, or buying back stock.
buwaya, that is interesting. In your opinion, would this not be a good time to sell stock back to the company?
Blogger AReasonableMan said...
TwilightofLiberty.com said...
What, if anything, has improved due to Obama's leadership/presidency for the Nation as a whole?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average.
7/10/16, 11:38 AM"
Obama had nothing to do with it. The Federal Reserve had and has (until the bubble bursts) everything to do with it. Put them on your Christmas card list.
If the "racist" proportion is at 40% or greater of the population, and these both angry and well armed, then it is definitely prudent to respectfully address their complaints, in matters other than the blackness of the president.
Obviously this has not been done, and their various complaints, especially those with economic effects, have been exacerbated.
This is a terrible failure on the part of the ruling class.
Bruce Hayden is 100% correct. And. . . no one has the least idea how to fix it. If it could be fixed, any such fix with be characterized as blaming the victim and resisted by progressives. No matter how tolerant or PC the rest of society acts, it will not make any difference if the cultural rot is not reversed. BO might have had a small chance at improving things - maybe start nudging things in a different direction - but he is and was a small man. Instead of becoming a leader like MLK, Obama just promised to hand out more free stuff (Obama phones) while encouraging the same illegal immigration that causes so many young AA men to be unable to find even entry level jobs. There is a unified voice on the left and the right, but it is unspoken - that both sides have essentially given up on black America.
No idea about whether its a good time for x.
Timing this is extremely iffy.
Michael said...
You have a good idea of the net worth of the average American?
You are changing the terms, you initially stated middle class. Pretty much by definition middle class people have retirement funds.
It would be silly to reason "things have gotten worse, therefore Obama made them worse". However, when you look at Obama's performances, where he preaches to the black-grievance white-guilt choir and hectors those outside it, it's fair to say that his actions *after* being elected greatly contributed (I would say that the resounding adoration he received from whites leading up to the 08 coronation *did* momentarily improve the climate. admit it: you smiled at a black person that year!)
@PB&J
Cute. Nice little straw argument. Except that the seething anger is primarily in the black communities, and has been blatantly and extensively stoked in recent years by Dem politicians, most notably, from the White House, but Crooked Hillary is falling in line. And, they are doing it to keep black voters in line and to keep them from questioning why their lives and their communities are so disfunctional - because if they ever did ask that question, the obvious answer is two hundred years of Dem party exploitation.
Median retirement savings for near-retirement households are around $12,000. Median is "middle class", with annual income of @$55,000.
Households with much more are much further up the income quintiles. There is "middle class" and there is "middle class".
I am "middle class" but Im in the top 5%, not the top 50-95.
Terry, it is revealing that you truncated the quote:
Obama: I always tell young people in particular: 'Do not say that nothing's changed when it comes to race in America — unless you've lived through being a black man in the 1950s, or '60s, or '70s. It is incontrovertible that race relations have improved significantly during my lifetime and yours, and that opportunities have opened up, and that attitudes have changed. That is a fact.
What is also true is that the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination in almost every institution of our lives — you know, that casts a long shadow. And that's still part of our DNA that's passed on. We're not cured of it.
In the full quote, Obama is obviously hopeful about change and advancement. Equally obviously, to anyone other than the most dim-witted, he is talking metaphorically about DNA, as cultural heritage not the actual substance deoxyribonucleic acid.
@Unknown,
"There's a good deal of evidence that white resentment of minorities is linked to support for Republican candidates, their policies and conservative ideology in America," said Robb Willer, a political psychologist at Stanford University.
Oh, please. "A political psychologist". WTF is that except some guy who wants to dress up his political prejudices in social scientific garb? Do you think he could make tenure at Stanford if he ever said that it's the Dems who are racist?
Speaking of which, ya ever wonder, Unknown, why it is no social scientist ever goes into the minority communities looking for these racial, sexist, homophobic, etc tendencies? It's because the answers won't help the narrative. Unless, of course, you live in some LaLa land where you think e.g. Latinos & Blacks like each other.
As for the White Supremacists, well, yes, they're out there. But, they've been out there a long time, just humming along in the background with actually precious little societal influence of any sort. For example, the Turner Diaries was published in 1978. Unless it's someone who just happens to know the ideologies of white supremacists groups, most people have never heard of the "Turner Diaries", & that subset would be even smaller if the book hadn't been mentioned in the Timothy McVeigh trial.
I'll tell ya what, Unknown: we'll start talking equivalent social impact between extreme left & right when an ex-member of a white supremacist group gets appointed to a sub-cabinet level position in a new administration through the machinations of one of the president's most trusted advisors, then gets fired for his past racist associations, & then ends up a commentator on a highly rated news network.
Because this has already happened on the Left.
The dysfunction seen in black families didn't start three or four generations ago. It began when slave 'families' were torn asunder by the slave owners. Fathers and mothers and children separated and sold off. It took hundreds of years to create the dysfunction, it will take hundreds more to mitigate the damage that has been done to Americans descended from slaves.
Ooops,
Damn cut & paste! Corrected second link.
"One of the sweetest sounds in the world, is the sound of the New Black Panther Party screaming for the blood of white policemen."
"If I had a son, he'd be beating your dirty cracker skull in with a length of pipe right now!"
"The future must not belong to those whose skin looks like my mother's."
@Unknown,
The dysfunction seen in black families didn't start three or four generations ago. It began when slave 'families' were torn asunder by the slave owners.
The Caribbean blacks were brought there as slaves, too, & suffered under much worse conditions than American slaves did. Yet, somehow, black Caribbean immigrants to the US have poverty & crime rates equal or better than native born whites.
Howzzat possible under your thesis?
The needs of the Democrats are overtaking the ne ed s of the country. Remember when people were cocerned with colorblind issues no-knock raids, militarization of the police, killing dogs, swatting, etc.? All those got swept away for the political benefit of presenting a question of discrimination against blacks.
Also, the problem has worsened due to the frustrations of "narrative collapse" in the Trayvon Martin and Ferguson cases.
I also havd another question. I did not understand the outrage concerning the father's letter in the Stanford swimmer's case. Of course, he is going to see his son in the most favorable light. I doubt they knew the sentence would be so light - I assume he could have gotten a lengthy prison term.
In the Bayon Rouge case, I saw the mother and son of the dead man carrying on about how wonderful he was. The man was, inter alia, a convicted sex offender. I understand that the family will see the man in the best light, but these displays of utter nonsense should not be in the news. Where are those who criticized the father in the swimmer's case?
As everyone knows, rights are not for the strong or popular, who don't need them, but for the biggest assholes. Stop insulting everyone's intelligence with the testimonials that can't be squared with the record.
It took hundreds of years to create the disfunction, it will take hundreds more to mitigate the damage that has been done to Americans descended from slaves.
In general, in the first half of the twentieth century, and through the 1950s the black family was more stable and the incidence of violence in inner city urban neighborhoods -- in the misnamed "ghetto" -- was considerably lower than in the succeeding years. In Chicago there was a thriving and growing black middle class. Which is to say the dysfunction that you attribute to the legacy of slavery was on the wane, markedly so. How do you account for that?
The solution to plight of blacks in our society is deceptively simple, yet extremely hard to implement. They, and the rest of society, need to be educated and convinced that children should only be born in wedlock. No more "baby daddies", etc. Girls need to know, deep down, that if they have boy children out of edlck, they are very likely to either bury them before they are fully adult, and/or will have to plan on visiting them in prison. And their girl children will face that with their own boy children. The other part of this is to wean the black community (and the rest of society) off of government assistance and welfare. It is only because of government support for fatherless child rearing that it has been able to flourish. The Gingrich/Clinton Welfare Reform was a step in the right direction, but that progress was not only discarded by Obama and the Pelosi Dems, but we seem to have moved significantly in the opposite direction. They know that they are buying black votes with every additional govt subsidy and benefit they provide, but the intoxication of the power bought by their provision of public largess has been impossible for Dem politicians to resist. As has been the case for a century and a half, the best thing that anyone can do for the plight of blacks is to vote Republican. Anything else is band aids and make up to hide the problems as they continue to get worse.
"The dysfunction seen in black families didn't start three or four generations ago. It began when slave 'families' were torn asunder by the slave owners."
Unknown/Inga doesn't know that black families were largely intact until about 1965 and the "Great Society" began its destruction.
It's really sad that so many on the left know no history, Even black literature knows what happened to black families.
In 1950, 17 percent of African-American children lived in a home with their mother but not their father. By 2010 that had increased to 50 percent. In 1965, only eight percent of childbirths in the Black community occurred out-of-wedlock. In 2010 that figure was 41 percent; and today, the out-of-wedlock childbirth in the Black community sits at an astonishing 72 percent. The number of African-American women married and living with their spouse was recorded as 53 percent in 1950. By 2010, it had dropped to 25 percent.
My black medical students do not understand American blacks as most of them are from other countries.
The condition of the black family was far better in say 1960. The modern problems began in the 1960s and Moynihan described its early degeneration. Its interesting that the black family was better off in terms of stability and order than the white family is today. The modern disaster is, though affected by ancient roots, very much the result of modern causes.
That is still worth reading btw, and its online and very well written. Look for "The Negro Family", Moynihan.
NYTimes is very selective about allowing commenting on articles. I think they know what the commentary would look like but they are happiest ignoring the truth
We will never probably know why the Black communities were hurt so much worse by the climate of welfare issued in by LBJ and his Dem Congress. But my guess is that it was partially a result of black family structure in this country being more fragile, as a result of slavery that ended a century before. And maybe more their poverty, in relation to the rest of society, which can also be a partial result of their slavery past. Part of why I think that black family structure being more fragile (since it was newer) is that Hispanics share much of their poverty, but have avoided the problem of fatherless child rearing better, and as a result have not seen nearly the level of violence seen in our inner city black communities. And part of that may be their Roman Catholic heritage (I say this as a Protestant). Interestingly, Catholic Blacks do not seem to have nearly the problems that their non-Catholic brethren have.
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