From "Does Anyone Have a Clue About How to Fight Back Against Trump’s Racism?/Moderates and progressives have a lot to lose by ignoring each other on this crucial question" by Thomas Edsall (in the NYT).
Edsall quotes lawprof Ian Haney López, who has recommended "cross-racial solidarity as the key to both racial justice and economic fairness" and received pushback from progressives, who tend to be "wary of any alliance with working and middle class whites." Haney López says that "racial justice activists" resist "the race-class approach" because they don't like the way the Democratic Party elite always seem to be telling them to "subordinate their concerns to larger goals."
Here's a highly rated comment from over there:
It boils down to this. Racial resentment IS American politics. America was born of racial resentment, built from racial resentment and is still divided by racial resentment.Which side is full of resentment — the left or the right? The people who think in terms of economics or the people who think in terms of race? Reading that comment, I wasn't really sure, but I presume the commenter is perceiving resentment as a quality possessed by the side he's not on. Isn't that how it always goes?
Framing the resentment along economic lines gives people an excuse to view the resentment as being nonracial. But is just that, an excuse. The core motivation is race, more specifically white privilege. No one want to be called a racist.
The whole package is then wrapped in the flag as a patriotic position. Actually, it is because America has always been about race.
I looked up "resentment" and got halfway down a rathole labeled "ressentiment." I'll just point it out. Just so you know I know it's there.
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Deplorable vs. Persuadable. Compare and contrast.
"America was born of racial resentment, built from racial resentment and is still divided by racial resentment."
That NYT idiot commenter doesn't know history and facts. America was born because a bunch of brave and wise white people wanted their freedom from a white British royal. Race had nothing to do with it.
We conservatives embrace freedom and the rule of law. The Left wants control, no law and leveling everyone to an equal place of misery.
Fuck them. They're all idiots.
College students are being taught lies. They seem not able to recognize BS.
Gramsci would be so proud.
Appartement is the new word for our times and it was inspired by my reading about ressentiment.
according the report, should say 'our opponents point the finger for our hard times at blacks
I've no doubt that someone will correct me if I'm wrong here, but in recent years I can't recall any GOP politician specifically blaming "blacks" for supposed "hard times". That seems like a pretty dishonest mischaracterization. This is why Democrats have so much trouble with the so called "persuadables", they imply too many things that just don't ring true.
Trump. Is. Not. Racist.
They can't get their heads around this. They have conflated anything that doesn't worship the ground minorities walk on and true equality with racism. The word no longer has any meaning.
They are putting bad data into their cerebral calculator and wondering why they're getting bad data out. They hypothesis - their entire premise - is wrong. The first slave-owner in American history was a freed black slave.
They're paying fortunes to get dumber.
The issue is that there are levels of white privilege. The middle and lower cast whites have been lorded over by the white coastal elites and therefore ipso facto take it out on POC. The Asians scare the shit out of them, so they are nice to those folks.
From "Does Anyone Have a Clue About How to Fight Back Against Trump’s Racism?/Moderates and progressives have a lot to lose by ignoring each other on this crucial question" by Thomas Edsall (in the NYT).
Objection your honor! Arguing facts not in evidence!
Just more Dem/lefty/liberal projection.
Todd: Objection.
Court: Sustained.
Trump is the least Racist of the bunch. I still haven't heard a valid reason WHY the Media still repeats that lie, other than, they have NOTHING else.
"On the plus side for Democrats, persuadables agree 'on ending racial discrimination, on the negative impact of divide and conquer tactics, on the value of working together, on the reality that African Americans face greater obstacles than whites.'"
Two of these are not pluses for Democrats since Dems support divide and conquer tactics and oppose working together.
I don't think the others help Dems much. Since they don't represent a difference between parties only hardcore partisans (so... not persuadables) think these are advantages.
In a certain way, I sort of agree with the New York Times's "1619 project," just not in the way they think. The decision to important thousands of sub-Saharan Africans into the country to work as chattel slaves was a fateful one. In a society that promotes egalitarianism and meritocracy, blacks will always lag behind whites. And hence, there will always be calls to "do something" about this situation, one which has hitherto proven quite impervious to social interventionism. Even if the political will existed to do some kind of large-scale "reparations," blacks will continue to lag behind, and hidden "systemic" forces will continue to be blamed for the gap with calls for even more to be done. Look at areas where social justice warriors predominate. There the answers to black criminality have included "solutions" like not releasing surveillance footage, not describing the ethnicity of the criminal, forcing storeowners to remove bulletproof glass separating themselves from customers, and simply not arresting people for certain crimes (e.g. shoplifting).
We are all racist.
Maybe it's an adaptive response.
Someday soon, The Left is going to convince White people that race matters, and then the shit is going to hit the fan.
@Howard:
We are all racist. Ending the effects of racism are like getting sober. The first step is admitting you have a problem.
The problem with "ending the effects of racism" is that the truth is racist.
False premise.
Remember when it was Trump's anti Semitism we heard about endlessly? Or Russia Russia Russia?
Trump haters make stuff up rather than looking at the real problems with Trump.
100 years ago if you thought all races should be treated equally, you would have been considered a Left-wing extremist.
50 years ago if you thought all races should be treated equally, you would have been considered a moderate.
Today if you think all races should be treated equally, you're considered a right-wing extremist.
"Racial resentment" is not equivalent to racism.
Resentment comes in response to endless complaints about how Americans are evil, racist, born-in-racism, etc.
When you keep getting insulted like this, don't be surprised if people resent it.
Farmer
I remember the bullet proof glass but forget the “reasoning” given for it. There was some cover story.
Howard said...
We are all racist. Ending the effects of racism are like getting sober. The first step is admitting you have a problem.
2/26/20, 9:41 AM
So it is sort of like original sin?
You can get absolved of original sin but have yet to hear anyone say how you get absolved of "original racism". Is everyone born with it or just whites?
I treat it like wargames, "the only move is not to play" and I don't, so don't include me in your "we", thank you very much.
Racism:
1) Destroying the African-American family over the last 60 years
2) Removing Fathers as a functional part of the family and them with gov’t run programs.
3) Feeding Democrat Political Power from the perpetually poor.
4) As Scalia suggested, admitting inner city kids into college programs they will not complete, but will leave with the debt.
5) Calling anyone and “Uncle Tom” who doesn’t fall in line with liberal thought police (Candice Owens???).
6) Preaching that “everyone” is racist, even though they are not (i.e. TRUMP)
7) Uncontrolled Immigration to increase Democrat entitlement voter rolls to try and turn Texas Blue, while leaving the problems in the African-American Community unaddressed.
8) Monopolizing public education in the inner cities while vilifying “school –choice” for the pretend benefit of the students.
Or….more simply put regarding the race-baiters, “he who smelt it, dealt it”.
I think the Pilgrims, the other colonists who came to the Massachusetts Bay, and the colonists at Jamestown and Roanoke would have been surprised to learn they came to America because of their resentment for "people of color."
We are all racist. Ending the effects of racism are like getting sober. The first step is admitting you have a problem.
BULLSHIT
Grow a fucking brain before you die, Howard. The space between your ears is for brain matter. It's not a floatation device.
The soft bigotry of low expectations for NYT columnists.
Are you ready for it? I'm going to lay it all out there. This is going to be huge. I am about to lay out the 'universal field theory' of what is actually going on:
The global focus on racism is in fact a global resentment over the last 600 years of Western Civilizational model's domination. It is resentment over a system that has been so utterly successful, there are few nations (accept aboriginal ones) that do not use some form of Western civilizational structure as the baseline for their operation. They resent that their civilizations didn't think of it first or 'get there' first. They resent that it was us who managed to sail and stay in the places we went and not Zheng He. They resent that it was us who transplanted people from all around the planet to other places - as was customary for all peoples at that time - and not them. They resent our institutions and our science building on things they might have known but never developed further. They resent:
- Individual property rights
- Individualism
- Freedom of innovation and right to innovation
- Competition instead of rent-seeking
- Work ethic
- Free markets and price discovery of goods and services (aka consumption)
In essence, the only resentment is the resentment against us that they live is a Western civilization. They do not like that we discovered a true 'unified field theory' for what humans actually do and what they want and how so many humans (8 billion of us...thanks to Western medicine) have more aspirational power to reach their goals than they would've under their systems...because they sucked, and many of them still do suck, but at least they're still traditional.
This I think is what's really going on. Luckily they're extremely lucky they can learn about all these things to be resentful at Western style Academies which under Western style Democracy may soon be free for them, as opposed to dying while building the 8th Great wall of China or being sacrificed on the 24th iteration of the pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan.
"On the plus side for Democrats, persuadables agree 'on ending racial discrimination, on the negative impact of divide and conquer tactics, on the value of working together, on the reality that African Americans face greater obstacles than whites.'"
It must be hard when the things that "persuadables" agree on, conservatives agree on too.
Let's go a little further: Is there anything on that list that progressives actually agree on? Maybe the last one... "The value of working together" - don't make me laugh.
Howard
Everyone has prejudices. That’s not the same as everyone is racist. There is a deliberate attempt to elide and obfuscate the difference.
No one can be persuaded by those screaming nuts.
Thomas Edsall, who I'm sure would tell you that he is brilliant and I am an ant, once again starts from a flawed premise. I'll simply say that me focusing on my life and that of my family, to the exclusion of all others, does not make me racist. And when you stomp your foot and get in my face that I should kowtow to your desired behavior in me, it's not persuading me to do anything other than have disregard for your opinion.
To understand just how far apart we are as a country, you'll need to leave Manhattan and Washington DC. He was born in Cambridge, MA, attended Brown and Boston U, and has spent his life in NYC and Washington DC.
He's telling us about how we should think about things.
Most people aren't racist. They're tribal. Huge difference.
In "Frankenstein, Part II" I wrote, "As a man of science, I'm convinced that tribalism is hardwired into human nature."
I then realized there were no wires in 1795 and had to rewrite.
Everyone is colored -or else you couldn't see them.
Don Van Vliet, 1969
When people as despicable as Shaun King, Rachel Dolezal, and Elizabeth Warren — and no doubt others who haven’t been outed yet — can get a huge advantage in their careers by falsely claiming to be POC, then something is seriously wrong.
When I hear the phrase 'racial justice activist' I know that the goal is for someone, somewhere to get a reckoning. That is their goal. "Someone's got to pay for how I'm feeling". Anything less is considered appeasement. And if there's one thing a real activist cannot stand for, it's appeasement. Just ask Che.
It could not be a more wrong approach.
It boils down to this. Racial resentment IS American politics. America was born of racial resentment, built from racial resentment and is still divided by racial resentment.
That is certainly true, but the author misses the obvious point that racial resentment is now being directed against Whites.
The whole point of the White Privilege meme is to deflect from the fact that Blacks, despite several decade of social intervention to improve their lot, continue to lag behind Whites (as a group) in almost every indicator of social success.
Inner city Black culture does not promote achievement but to make that criticism is racist. Any attempt to get to the core of what is going on in the Black inner city is racist and cannot be discussed. The problem cannot be solved because ... White privilege.
The collective left cannot "end" racism. Business is booming and the benefits of eternal victim-hood keep resentments alive. Ya gotta keep em separated.
The Holy trinity of the Left: Racism, Sexism, Classism.
We're way past "the boy who cried wolf" territory. Normal, friendly, inclusive folks are tired of being called "Racist!" all the time.
Most same folks have a live and let live attitude.
Take the racial views of a Mississippi sharecropper from 1900. Multiply by 10. That's what Russians today think of Central Asians.
The US has more races and less racism than any other country on Earth.
"On the plus side for Democrats, persuadables agree 'on ending racial discrimination, on the negative impact of divide and conquer tactics, on the value of working together.'"
Which is to say, they prefer the Republican position over the Democrat one on every single one of those issues.
"On the negative side of the ledger, according to the report, these middle ground voters 'have concerns about "reverse racism" and discrimination against whites;'
Which is to say, they oppose racial discrimination
a sizable majority agree 'focusing on race doesn’t fix anything and may even make things worse;
IOW, they oppose divide and conquer tactics
' and 'persuadable adults believe that people of color who cannot get ahead are mostly responsible for their own condition.' In other words, these persuadable voters provide fertile ground for conservative appeals to racial resentment
No, IOW these persuadable voters understand taht the core of the Democrats approach, "Identity politics", is pure racism, divide and conquer, and racial resentment, and like all good people, they're opposed to it.
Which side is full of resentment — the left or the right? The people who think in terms of economics or the people who think in terms of race?
Correct. The phrase "white privilege" is inherently racist. It divides us by our skin color, and demands we always be judged by it. "Racism now, racism tomorrow, racism always." It's the Democrat way
Dust blows forward, dust blows back, rightguy.
We are all racist. Ending the effects of racism are like getting sober. The first step is admitting you have a problem.
One of the side effects of the 12-Step Program is that one's denial is taken as proof of that which one denies.
[Democratic p]oliticians, according the report, should say 'our opponents point the finger for our hard times...
Aren't the Republicans framing a referendum on "good times" delivered across racial lines, and that the only threat of "hard times" is electing Democrats?
Aren't Democrats the ones who are using the theme of "hard times" to point the finger of racial resentment?
The huge increase in mixed race children, a population far larger than any other “group” one can point to as being “discriminated against,” tends to support the theory that we all do get along pretty well day to day. Openly racist acts and people are so rare that the Media routinely pounce on fake hate crimes just to fill the void in their evil hearts. The American people are not racist in word or deed generally and nearly universally. Only self-appointed “leaders” of specific grievous groups are true racists, along with the “progressives” who make up the establishment polity and head the DNC-Education complex. For example Harvard is clearly racist, currently spinning wildly to defend their practice of excluding Asians, while tweaking their “process” to let in unqualified black and Latin students. A normal business couldn’t operate this way, only one safely ensconced in a progressive cocoon could act so lawlessly and blatantly racist.
The people aren’t racist. The people battling each other to lead the people are race obsessed, which leads to racists acts. Less racial obsession on the part of the Elite would go a long way to letting America heal from this 100-year progressive attack on our character. Woodrow Wilson would win the next Dem debate because he still perfectly exemplifies his party’s race obsession.
And the NYT continues down Suck Road...
White privilege is simply a Marxist excuse for the toxic and failed policies of the welfare state. The only white privilege that exists is that whites weren't as targeted for the beneficence of the Democrat policies of the War on Poverty that blew up the family and social structures of black America.
The left preached racial resentment for so long that it created something in 2016 we’d never seen before in America - a white working class ethnic group voting in a block. And, while a white, working class voting block doesn’t hold a clear majority, it is a huge voting block that seems be be locked in for Trump.
In 2020, I think we’re seeing something even weirder. A large chunk of working class Blacks and Hispanics are joining forces with the white working class block. Oddly, these workers are siding with republicans.
Isn’t it ironic that when the worker revolution began in America, it began in support of domestic free enterprise and against globalism and socialism?
The most obvious and overt racial resentment today is against Asians by African-Americans.
My Korean stepson experiences this resentment in college as he did in HS. He has been in athletics with Blacks, but does not associate with them because of their overt hostility to him.
I then realized there were no wires in 1795 and had to rewrite.
Sure there were. People drew wires to make decorations, e.g., to be soldered onto plate mail. But if they couldn’t draw wires back in Toman times the. How could they make chain mail? Of course, wires being used to transmit electrical signals would have to wait until Samuel F. B. Morse invented telegraphy.
The most racist organizations in the US today are the federal government and academia. They are the groups using skin color to determine everything from eligibility to obtain a government contract to ability to gain admission to a university.
IF the government & schools would simply cease and desist with skin color designations that control how citizens are treated, and treat everyone as individuals, something like 95% of actual racism in the US would disappear immediately.
The concept of equal treatment under the law should mean the government takes zero cognizance of one's skin color and treats all citizens without regard to melanin content.
"In a society that promotes egalitarianism and meritocracy, blacks will always lag behind whites"
You mean how the Irish, Italians, and Asians have?
Democrats have been playing the race card since Jackson invented the Party. Appeals to race or genetic "identity" have always generated the kind of primal solidarity that rational politics can't compete with. (Hence the "Solid South".)
As pointed out in the Age of Entitlement, the Democrat Party has simply flipped the values of White and Black in playing the race card,transforming the Civil Rights laws into an extended revenge fantasy. Equal under the law don't enter into it.
It makes no sense after a careful reading. Probably because it ignores a fact, that blacks have a much lower average IQ than whites, after which the nuance that must be in the argument, is it racism or class, no longer works at all. The problem is there because of IQ.
Stop identifying as black and start identifying as American and you'll fit in like everybody fits in, wherever you fit.
Lucid-Ideas said...
The first slave-owner in American history was a freed black slave.
**************
Wouldn't the slave owner who freed him have priority?
Or was the black slave freed before he came to America?
Help us out here.
I don't like Trump, didn't vote for him, and probably won't vote for him in this election (pending the Dem nomination). But I haven't seen any racism out of him. And what's weird is that it's portrayed in the media as if it's a proven fact. You'd think there would be one or two examples. I mean other than the "very fine people" lie.
The democrats on stage last night spoke of the blacks as if they were commodities brokers, buying and selling.
I ressent that.
@Lucid-Ideas:
Agree with a good deal of what you wrote there. Nothing breeds resentment like success, and it's also why most racial resentment comes from sub-Saharan Africans and Indigenous Americans. East Asians are much less likely to harbor the same kind of racial resentments, though there is a small group in America who are incentivized by the "people of color" moniker to get in on the action.
However, one part of your analysis that you have not considered is that within western civilization itself are the seeds of its own self-destruction, specifically "individualism" and "free markets." Free markets abhor the restrictions on capital and labor movement presented by national borders and works tirelessly to undermine and erase them. Free markets love the free movement of people and capital, whether it's making use of Bangladeshi labor to do factory work or imports Guatemalan migrants to be nannies, cooks, and field workers. These are great from the perspective of the "free market" but have been disastrous for the western countries. The free market merely sees them as profit-maximizing cogs in a larger machine. Of course, these are exactly the groups of people who want more regulation and more redistribution.
The NYTimes lives in a different universe, we can only laugh at it. You be you, NYTimes.
Nonapod said...
according the report, should say 'our opponents point the finger for our hard times at blacks
I've no doubt that someone will correct me if I'm wrong here, but in recent years I can't recall any GOP politician specifically blaming "blacks" for supposed "hard times". That seems like a pretty dishonest mischaracterization.
You just don't understand. To the Left, all "blacks" are the same. The GOP blamed the crappy Obama economy on Obama, a "black". Therefore, all republicans are blaming the Obama hard times on "all blacks".
It's easy, when you're a moron
Still waiting for any examples of pdjt's racism. I keep asking and nobody gives me examples.
Chuck did try once but massively beshitted himself. His best example was the so called "Muslim ban" which banned everyone from 7 countries, only 5 of them Muslim and those making up about 10%of the world's Muslims. (and he didn't even seem to realize that Muslim is a religion, not a race)
I don't recall him trying a 2nd time.
C'mon,people.give us some examples.
@Jersey Fled:
You mean how the Irish, Italians, and Asians have?
Well, "Asians" is a big category. Assuming you mean Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, none of these groups have IQ's a standard deviation below Europeans. Look at a map of the UN's human development index. Blacks and indigenous Americans lag behind Europeans and Northeast Asians. And this is true regardless of where on the planet they are currently living and even countries that did not have the same kind of homegrown racial problems as the United States. That's why you can open up a copy of the Financial Times and see headlines like Ethnic minority pay gap in UK still stubbornly wide, which include quotes like, "Only employees of Chinese and Indian background were paid more than white British ones, in contrast with large pay penalties for those of black African, Pakistani and Bangladeshi background."
Still waiting for any examples of pdjt's racism.
It's the fallacy of the Undistributed Middle, i.e.
I hate racists
I hate Trump
Ergo Trump is a racist
QED
@Howard notes "We are all racist. Ending the effects of racism are like getting sober. The first step is admitting you have a problem." What he fails to mention is that in the orthodox thinking about race and racism, The second step is admitting you have a problem. The third step is to repeat the second step. The forth step is to repeat the third step. We've been trying this approach my entire life, and it has not been an effective strategy to end the effects of racism.
Racism ends the day individuals cease seeing skin color in each other. That is what DJT does. And it is an existential threat to the Racists in both political parties. In the southern states most people have reached that freedom. Not so much in the northern areas that project their secret hates on an imaginary southern place. When will they ever learn?
Cucks believe it's bootstraps, not the wealth, education and infrastructure she was born into. How hard is it to realize it's a privilege not a right to stand on the shoulders of giants and punishing to stand on the shoulders of slaves?
To whom much is given, much is expected. That's the minimum standard of decency.
"[Democratic p]oliticians, according the report, should say 'our opponents point the finger for our hard times at blacks, new immigrants and Muslims'"
On what basis would they say that?
Their actual opponents, including Trump, say 1. that times are better, not "as "hard" as they were previously--we're making America great again; 2. many of the causes of "hard times" have to do with bad prog policy--and will get worse if progs get at it again -- Green New Deal, Medicare for All, you name it; 3. nothing about blacks, new immigrants, or Muslims being responsible for "hard times" --I mean really: who on the right said such a thing? The closest is the notion that illegal immigration hurts blacks, and of course even that doesn't point the finger at blacks.
"It boils down to this. Racial resentment IS American politics"
Yes: stoked by Dems, for Dem purposes. If you resent the politics of resentment, come on over to the right.
Why bother critiquing or commenting on an article when it's built on a un-examined and patently unjustified premise? Edsall takes it as a given that Trump is "racist." Countless others have pointed out why that accusation is B.S.
Toss it in the dustbin.
H All I see is denial and scorn from Trumpian philosophy.
Wouldn't the slave owner who freed him have priority?
Or was the black slave freed before he came to America?
Help us out here.
First legal slave owner, pursuant to a legal finding by the court.
Howard said...
The issue is that there are levels of white privilege. The middle and lower cast whites have been lorded over by the white coastal elites and therefore ipso facto take it out on POC. The Asians scare the shit out of them, so they are nice to those folks.
We are all racist. Ending the effects of racism are like getting sober. The first step is admitting you have a problem.
Yes Howard, all American leftists are racists. And the first step is you admitting your problem. Take you first post.
There are levels of privilege. Not "white privilege". Just privilege. The child of two "black" doctors living in NYC is far more privileged than the child of a poor "white" single mom. This is why Republicans trash that "coastal elite", NOT "POC" (I love how you racists went from "colored people" to "people of color", and feel so morally superior about the meaningless change).
I'm willing to accept that you're honestly sharing with us the deluded crap that goes on in your head. What you need to understand is that, no matter how honestly you're portraying what's happening with people on your side of the aisle, that's not what's happening over here.
For a simple example: What % of the NeverTrump fake Republicans are not "white"? 0% . When GOPers have problems with the "costal elite" NeverTrump morons, what do they do? Do they go out and attack POC? No? Why, how about that! They go out and attack those "costal elite" NeverTrump losers!
Because that's what decent people do. We attack our actual enemies
READ THIS. It is very very connected to what we're discussing here.
https://fakenous.net/?p=1354 - "The Social Function of Intersectionality"
@J. Farmer
The above link is very related to your reply, so yes, I agree somewhat with the 'victims of own success' argument, but not entirely.
Trump's racism?
Premise rejected.
Verdict? Another false narrative from the No-Borders-No-Wall-No-America-At-All Left.
I will agree that the left panders and patronizes too much.
Glad to hear they still haven't got a clue.
Dave Begley said...
"America was born of racial resentment, built from racial resentment and is still divided by racial resentment."
That NYT idiot commenter doesn't know history and facts. America was born because a bunch of brave and wise white people wanted their freedom from a white British royal. Race had nothing to do with it.
We conservatives embrace freedom and the rule of law. The Left wants control, no law and leveling everyone to an equal place of misery.
Fuck them. They're all idiots."
Guess that Begley Rule had an expiration date.
"Trump. Is. Not. Racist."
Well, no, not by the old definition. But he was elected in part by working-class whites who don't quite see why they should have to pay for the sins of their ancestors. And by at least a few white males who are fed up with being scapegoated everywhere for everything bad that has ever happened to anyone. And who therefore refuse to respect and salute intersectionality's virtue stack, on which they must always be placed on the 'untouchable' level.
And by the new definition, unwillingness to be treated like crap for things other, possibly-related people did in the past can only be called out as: racist!
It boils down to this. Racial resentment IS American politics. America was born of racial resentment...
This commenter was influenced by the NYT "1619 Project." That's the language.
BREAKING NEWS: Republicans are now Right on Race. Most Americans, of all colors, believe we should try to be color blind. Most believe America is a melting pot. The Democratic base does not believe that anymore, and will tell you if you ask.
I blame the GOP at this point. They're letting the party of Al Sharpton make them play defense on race. In politics, if you're playing defense, you're losing. If you can't win on a race issue by adopting the oft-repeated belief of Martin Luther King, you suck at politics.
The whole, well, meme really that "Trump is racist" is hogwash, invented by the Left in order to be able to blame their own failures on people they neither like nor understand. What evidence is there other than the say-so (and mangled quotations) of the NYT, WaPo, and CNN?
The American left's references to racism today are the perfect Motte-and-Bailey game. Depending on what they need it to mean, it's either any form of prejudice, defined at the microaggression threshold; or it is racially based hatred and support/nostalgia for overt discrimination.
What it comes down to is, we're all sinners, and the only redemption is to adopt and support uncritically the left's agenda.
Gotta link to a legitimate study CJinAlabamcylvania?
We are all racist. Ending the effects of racism are like getting sober. The first step is admitting you have a problem.
Speak for yourself, Howard. Because you don't speak for me. The only racists are the ones who think minorities are incapable of correcting their own course. There are some of those on the right, but the bulk are on the left - they're the ones creating government programs aimed at minorities to "help" them.
The Great Society is probably the most racist set of federal law ever to be put on the books.
Todd: Objection.
Court: Sustained
Mark has much more faith in the court system than I.
Todd: Objection.
Court: resist!
The real, deep-in-their-bones racists keep calling everyone else "racist." And the beat goes on...
As others have already stated, the premise is wrong.
Here are some facts:
Allowing large numbers of low-skilled workers to flood the job market depresses wages.
Stopping large numbers of low-skilled workers from flooding the job market allows wages to increase.
Renegotiating 30-40 year old trade treaties to be more advantageous to the US and encouraging industrial growth by lowering taxes and scaling back regulation increases the number of jobs in the US, further increasing wage growth.
Encouraging energy production lowers the cost of doing business in the US, further encouraging industrial growth in the US, which increases employment, which increases wages.
And so on. Trump's main focus in office has been on improving the economy for the working and middle classes. The left's definition of racism is now "anything that causes us to lose power." More and more people are not buying into it.
I'm reminded of the woman's studies professor who confronted some road workers over the sexism of a sign that said "Men Working." She was very upset and really let into the men working on that road over it. A great success for women's equality. Except, nobody on that road crew had anything to do with that sign except getting it out of the truck an putting it up per regulations. They did not design the sign, they did not select the sign, they had zero input on the sign. So I'm guessing they went home that day and told their wife or girl friend about the crazy bitch that gave them crap that day. What do you think those road crew workers are thinking when someone lectures them about there white privilege?
Howard said...We are all racist.
I actually agree with this part. Racism is just an ugly word to describe ethnic pride, which is a pretty word to describe tribalism. It's all aspects of the same thing--we are social animals and, historically, our personal survival has depended on the survival of our group. Supporting our group, right or wrong, is a biological imperative.
The first step to ending the effects might be admitting we have a problem, but we did this long ago. The second step is admitting that we will never get over our racism. Racism is hard wired into us. It cannot be eradicated. But while it may have corrosive effects, it also has vitally important effects. We can't end racism and don't want to. Not really. What we want to end is discrimination. Which we mostly have.
But But But Bernie Says;
That when Fidel Castro was elected in Cuba, back in 1959; he worked to eliminate illiteracy!
Surely, we want to emulate Cuba; Don't We? Just LOOK at how Successful they are!!
Do you Realize; that their voter participation numbers are in the Very high 99% range?
We Can Have That HERE!
If we Just Elect Bernie; and cast aside our dead 'paper' constitution, for a Living Constitution!!
America! Don't Like being RED? Then You Are DEAD!
I Callahan: Racism is hard-wired in the brain. It's like the drive to breathe, drink, eat, fuck...
“White privilege is simply a Marxist excuse for the toxic and failed policies of the welfare state. The only white privilege that exists is that whites weren't as targeted for the beneficence of the Democrat policies of the War on Poverty that blew up the family and social structures of black America.”
Which is funny, because Marx, Lenin, etc, were all lily White.
Rationally, Blacks should be reflexively Republicans, because Democrats were the slave holders, Klan members, and enacted the welfare programs in their War on Poverty, that destroyed the Black family, to the extent that since its implementation, black children born in wedlock have dropped from 3/4 to 1/4 in a half century. They have been the ones oppressing Blacks for 200 years now. And the destruction of the nuclear family throughout much of Black America is the real cause for most of the problems facing Blacks today. Yet they are tribally Democrats, led by leaders who sell them as a voting block to the Democrats, often in exchange for personal wealth and power. And that, of course, is why Democrats constantly blame Republicans for racism against Black - because it enforces and accentuates the tribalism that keeps Blacks voting Democratic. No doubt psychologists have a term for this sort of self defeating behavior. Pretty much everyone of any true intelligence knows this, but the Democrats in power, including the MSM, have to keep screaming that Republicans are racists, or order to keep Blacks on the reservation, reflexively voting Democrat, in order to keep Democrats in power. And, yes, that is extremely racist on their part, but no one is really surprised, since Democrats have been the real racists for 200 years now.
@I Callahan:
Speak for yourself, Howard. Because you don't speak for me. The only racists are the ones who think minorities are incapable of correcting their own course.
If human beings were blank slates, that would be correct. But the dark secret, though, is that that argument may be correct. What if blacks were to do everything right, culturally speaking, in terms of family structure, education, and being law-abiding and the gap still persists? Is IQ an important variable in explaining varying life outcomes? If so, what is the likely outcome for a population where half the members have an IQ below 85? I do not see anyway our society, in its current configuration, will ever accept explanations of innate differences to explain the differences. And thus, there will always be calls to "do something" about the black-white gap.
We are all racist. Ending the effects of racism are like getting sober. The first step is admitting you have a problem.
2/26/20, 9:41 AM
This is what you call projection. Fuck you, you fucking pussy.
tcrosse said...
One of the side effects of the 12-Step Program is that one's denial is taken as proof of that which one denies.
The point of the 12 Step Program is the Steps are carried out by the individual with the problem, NOT by "concerned" outsiders.
So it is a "side effect", but only that is only displayed by those who have no clue what they're talking about.
In the above case, Howard is correctly identifying that HE has a problem.
The rest is defensive projection by him
Does Anyone Have a Clue About How to Fight Back Against Trump’s Racism
Step One: Identify it.
...
"On the plus side for Democrats, persuadables agree 'on ending racial discrimination,
They're against affirmative action.
the reality that African Americans face greater obstacles than whites.'
They're in favor of affirmative action.
H All I see is denial and scorn from Trumpian philosophy.
As for scorn, physician, heal thyself. 98% of your comments are scorn.
I've said this before, and I shall repeat it. I served in the Army with blacks, and worked in a factory with blacks, and blacks are the most racist people I've ever met, and yes, blacks hate Asians the most.
One group of people who cannot stand being around American blacks (African Americans) are those Africans actually from Africa. They don't like the shucking and jiving, and the poor usage of English, and they will let them know about.
Blogger wholelottasplainin' said...
Lucid-Ideas said...
The first slave-owner in American history was a freed black slave.
**************
Wouldn't the slave owner who freed him have priority?
Or was the black slave freed before he came to America?
Help us out here.
Originally blacks came to America as indentured servants, not slaves. You worked off the "indenture" to "pay for your trip here", then you were just as free as anyone else.
A freed former indentured servant from Africa paid for another person from Africa to be brought out, and sued in court to keep that person's indenture from ever ending.
Unfortunately, he won his court case.
The people delivered in 1619 were indentured servants, but the NYT refers to them as "slaves". (THey're the NYT. They have to get things wrong. It's in their contracts.) . Thus the guy who went to court to get actual slavery started was someone the 1619 project refers to as a slave.
Dopey article: Does Anyone Have a Clue About How to Fight Back Against Trump’s Racism
Step One: Identify it.
I think Trump's "racism" consists of not mentioning race or being obsessed with race.
As near as I can tell, for a Democrat a non-racist statement is something along the lines of "white people are bad", e.g. "African Americans face greater obstacles than whites".
Howard the Nitschke scholar of course has no problem indulging in the blanket, tiresome stereotypes about Southern Whites being knuckle dragging rubes. Typical behavior from an insecure mediocrity.
"Who is Ian Haney Lopez and when did he add his mother’s name Lopez to his name Ian Haney? From Wikipedia:"
Get ready for it - the ethnic oppression of this poor latinks man is hard to fathom:
"Ian Haney López is the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Public Law[1] at the University of California, Berkeley."
Howard said...
Gotta link to a legitimate study CJinAlabamcylvania?
--
"Study" of what?
Cucks believe it's bootstraps, not the wealth, education and infrastructure she was born into. How hard is it to realize it's a privilege not a right to stand on the shoulders of giants and punishing to stand on the shoulders of slaves?
I'll ignore the irony that you ignored regarding the education infrastructure in inner cities, created by corrupt local governments. That said - all Americans - black and white - have that same "privilege". There isn't a single person alive today who was a slave, nor is there a single person alive who's owned a slave.
To whom much is given, much is expected. That's the minimum standard of decency.
Which they've done, in spades, by creating companies, jobs, increasing the market, etc.
"Racial resentment IS American politics."
I think not.
... about it.
Racism is hard-wired in the brain. It's like the drive to breathe, drink, eat, fuck
No. Racism is NOT tribalism, which IS hard wired in the brain. You used the term "racism", so define it so we can at least see where you're coming from.
Projection!
Lopez calls his own projection "dog whistles" at the link I posted above.
What if blacks were to do everything right, culturally speaking, in terms of family structure, education, and being law-abiding and the gap still persists? Is IQ an important variable in explaining varying life outcomes? If so, what is the likely outcome for a population where half the members have an IQ below 85? I do not see anyway our society, in its current configuration, will ever accept explanations of innate differences to explain the differences. And thus, there will always be calls to "do something" about the black-white gap.
The problem with this argument is that we won't know this until that actually happens, and of course, it won't, as long as government is giving people excuses NOT to make the right decisions when it comes to race, etc.
That said - the results would be way better under that scenario than they are now, and that's good enough. If blacks were 12% of the population and only 15% of the prison population (instead of close to 50% now), don't you think that would be a good thing?
Want to end Trump's racism? Convince Trump to switch from Republican to Democrat.
He need make no other change to become one of our country's greatest presidents, smart, erudite, great economy, and not a hint of racism in him.
Greg the class traitor said...
Originally blacks came to America as indentured servants, not slaves. You worked off the "indenture" to "pay for your trip here", then you were just as free as anyone else.
***********
Please offer some sources.
A quick look on Google show that the Spanish brought African slaves here as early as 1525.
https://www.sciway.net/afam/slavery/indexs.html
"Does Anyone Have a Clue About How to Fight Back Against Trump’s Racism?"
Asserts "facts" not in evidence.
Now do an article about the *real* racism - purposefully constructing "races," assigning properties and membership to each category. Remind you of anyone?
Howard: "I Callahan: Racism is hard-wired in the brain. It's like the drive to breathe, drink, eat, f***..."
False.
Tribalism is hardwired. My crew/your crew.
Crews can be of the same race. Obviously.
No, what is really going on here is simply a continuation of the 5 decade campaign by the dems to transfer their historical record of racism onto republicans.
Stop identifying as black and start identifying as American and you'll fit in like everybody fits in, wherever you fit.
Oh rhhardin,
Has it ever occurred to you that the affected people may not consider that your proposed solution is optimal for them? Perhaps they don't want to be Gammas even if they are in fact Gammas. Perhaps they don't know their place, know that they have a place, or accept the purported knowledge that they have a place.
Places are for Europeans.
Do the children of LeBron James and Barack Obama 'face greater obstacles' than the kids of a (white) West Virginia coal miner?
Here’s the U. of Minnesota telling professors not to say America is a melting pot.
Does the Left reject the unifying color blind ideal?
Google “Color Blind Racism” and find this:
* Why Color-Blindness Is a Counterproductive Ideology – The Atlantic
* White parents teach their children to be colorblind. Here’s why that’s bad for everyone. – Washington Post
* Colorblind Ideology Is a Form of Racism - Psychology Today
Yup. The Right is now more closely aligned with mainstream opinions on race than the Left. It’s going to get interesting.
There isn't a single person alive today who was a slave, nor is there a single person alive who's owned a slave.
True dat. But it wasn't really that long ago when our Peculiar Institution was alive&kicking in America. There are still people alive today whose grandparents were slaves (as was their family before then) and thus were unable to accumulate & pass down wealth. Lots of folks scoff when that is pointed out, but having to start from complete scratch does have a major effect for several generations. Add to the fact that institutionalized racism and Jim Crow laws didn't just magically go away once slavery was banned and ya can see that things weren't anywhere near "fair&balanced" for blacks in America as some people like to imagine it was.
"White Privilege" is still a very real thing now-a-days...as noted before, practically every white person who pokes smot has a tale about the police letting 'em go when caught by the police with a small amount of it, while non-whites are astonished to hear such tales 'cause it never happened to them that way.
To claim that there is no racism in America 'cause slavery has been banned for over 150 years ago is pretty shallow thinking.
tim maguire said...
"Want to end Trump's racism? Convince Trump to switch from Republican to Democrat."
No, at this point the derangement is so strong that nothing would change the output of the media, meme factories, and SJWs. Even if by an unlikely turn of events Bloomberg were to be elected President, he would be tarred with the same brush by the faithful left even while he implemented some of their favorite policies.
Big Mike,
Of course, wires being used to transmit electrical signals would have to wait until Samuel F. B. Morse invented telegraphy.
2/26/20, 10:13 AM
Volta 1799? Franklin 1752?
@Drago:
False.
Tribalism is hardwired. My crew/your crew.
Crews can be of the same race. Obviously.
It is true that tribalism can express itself in many forms (e.g. linguistic, ethnic, religious, sectarian, class, etc.). But race is one of the most obvious fault lines for tribalism because (a) it is based in biology; and (b) it is the most evident. We can tell people of different races just by looking at them. Consider Robert Putnam's landmark study, E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty‐first Century, where he finds: "In the short run, however, immigration and ethnic diversity tend to reduce social solidarity and social capital. New evidence from the US suggests that in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down’. Trust (even of one's own race) is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friends fewer."
The problem with this argument is that we won't know this until that actually happens, and of course, it won't,
Here's you test case: how well do white people with IQs of 85 and below function in a modern (and white or mostly white) society?
Answer: not very well.
The military uses IQ about 85 as a cutoff for most enlistment because people who score below that tend have no net usefulness in a modern military and can't be trained out of it.
Please offer some sources
That is a common refrain in some circles. I first heard "Blacks weren't slaves, they were indentured servants" when David Duke was running for office in the 90's.
Howard the Nitschke scholar of course has no problem indulging in the blanket, tiresome stereotypes about Southern Whites being knuckle dragging rubes
Chicago Bears fans like me think that Ray Nitschke was a knuckle dragging rube.
To claim that there is no racism in America 'cause slavery has been banned for over 150 years ago is pretty shallow thinking.
Define racism.
Then name the people who "claimed" what you said they claimed, deep thinker.
@Nichevo, I yield to your examples.
purplepenquin said...having to start from complete scratch does have a major effect for several generations
Tell that to the millions of people who started from complete scratch and made it in one generation or less. My inheritance from all my grandparents together consists of a cabinet that my wife would prefer to throw out.
I do not see anyway our society, in its current configuration, will ever accept explanations of innate differences to explain the differences. And thus, there will always be calls to "do something" about the black-white gap.
Farmer,
If you taught Psychology classes and IQ testing came up, you would be immediately fired for that point of view.
The many decades of empirical evidence that I am aware of support your position, but I have been trained to say that it is inconclusive because we are not as informed about nature-nurture difference as we could be.
Chicago Bears fans like me think that Ray Nitschke was a knuckle dragging rube
And yet he still managed to win twice as many Super Bowls as the Bears-as-a-whole have.
Jokes aside - what does sports in general and specifically supporting the "local team" say about tribalism in America?
@I Callahan:
The problem with this argument is that we won't know this until that actually happens, and of course, it won't, as long as government is giving people excuses NOT to make the right decisions when it comes to race, etc.
The government "giving people excuses" doesn't really explain the black-white IQ gap, which persists on a global scale, not just in the US. This society is never going to accept that part of the black-white gap can be partially explained by innate differences.
purplepenquin said...having to start from complete scratch does have a major effect for several generations
Actually it strongly takes effect within one person's lifetime.
"IQ is a much stronger predictor variable than race for escaping the bottom quintile of income"
"Individuals with higher test scores in adolescence are more likely to move out of the bottom quintile, and test scores can explain virtually the entire black-white mobility gap."
J. Farmer said...New evidence from the US suggests that in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down’.
In his autobiography, Malcolm X talks about his pilgrimage to Mecca, where he found complete fraternity and equality, where race mattered not at all because they were all one with Allah. And yet, even there, with no pressures at all to segregate by race, whites tended to gather with whites, blacks tended to gather with blacks, Arabs with Arabs, etc.
It is so easy to fight Trump's racism, because he is not a racist. Period!
Tell that to the millions of people who started from complete scratch and made it in one generation or less
I ain't sayin' nobody can start from zero and not make it. But do you really beleive those "millions" whose families had nothing for several generations have the same odds of making it then those who families were legally able to accumulate their wealth & pass it on to their children & grandchildren? Ain't sayin' it is impossible to hit a homerun, rather it is a lot easier getting to the homeplate when you're born on third base.
White folks are a lil' over 60% of the American population, yet make up 76% of millionaires in our country. Blacks are 12% of the population, yet are 8% of the millionaires.
*shrug*
“ If human beings were blank slates, that would be correct. But the dark secret, though, is that that argument may be correct. What if blacks were to do everything right, culturally speaking, in terms of family structure, education, and being law-abiding and the gap still persists? Is IQ an important variable in explaining varying life outcomes? If so, what is the likely outcome for a population where half the members have an IQ below 85? I do not see anyway our society, in its current configuration, will ever accept explanations of innate differences to explain the differences. And thus, there will always be calls to "do something" about the black-white gap.”
I don’t think that there would be much of a problem. Not everyone has the mental horsepower to be a nuclear physicist, a lawyer, or even, heaven forbid, a doctor. I wouldn’t have wanted to go to Medical School, because of the memorization and physical stress. Plenty of other jobs I wouldn’t have been happy with. My kid had been looking at PhD physics programs (Summa cum Laude with honors in Physics and Math), but went a different direction in grad school, and is much happier. They, like their mother, is much more hands on than I am, has a small lab at work, and gets trips out of the town to actually see their work put into operation (when we were married, I couldn’t buy their mother anything for the kitchen, but power tools were fine). They would never be happy with spending their work life behind a desk, mostly working alone on a computer, as I very happily did for 40 years, thinking for a living. There are plenty of jobs that I would have hated. Most of them, probably. I look at what others do, or did, for work, and are constantly thankful that I got to do what I did, though looking back, I think that I made a mistake switching from a CS grad program to an MBA. I think that it was a combination of greed and parental pressure (my grandmother had a Masters in Business, and taught at a B School).
In this country at least, many, if not most, people I have met were relatively happy with where they were in terms of jobs. Maybe not financially, of course. But in jobs that they could physically and intellectually accomplish. Affirmative Action in academia seems to have put a lot of Blacks and Native Americans in well over their heads, significantly raising their failure rate. And I have heard more than one doctor tell me that they wouldn’t trust a Black doctor practicing on them or their loved ones, as patients, without knowing them and seeing them work, knowing that they were very likely there through AA. Indeed, I remember the resentment that Clarence Thomas had during his SC confirmation, from the constant claim by the Dems that his Yale JD was because of AA, and not his hard work. AA leads to all sorts of pernicious results.
So, I talk to an older Black man (about my age) every couple days at Walmart where he is a greeter. I’ve asked him about his job, and he claims it is the best job he ever had. He spent much of his work life on an assembly line, or in the military, and this job allows him to talk to everyone who walks by. He didn’t mind the assembly line, did like the military, but this job is his favorite. I couldn’t handle the boredom. It isn’t a problem for him, because he is never bored. It seems like he knows something about half the people who walk by, checking up with them about their kids, or their spouse, etc.
Holding everything the same, opportunities, family structure, etc, my guess is that a lot of those pushed ahead by AA would be happier to have found their own level. Of course, illegal immigration has put pressure on those who do better at more physical, and less intellectual, jobs, due to the importation of millions of essentially illiterate peasants, who can’t really do anything else in our economy (try being a patent attorney or a physician with a sixth grade education).
How many race riots during the Trump administration vs during the Obama administration? Is that a usable metric for the present state of race relations?
I have become completely unconcerned with racism. No longer care about it in the least. Every single person on the planet generally prefers their own group amd harbors to some degree negative thoughts about other groups. Look at wise Latina Sotomayor and her affinity for her ethnic group over adherence to law. Look at all black riots over black people killed in the middle of doing something illegal or violent. Its never about 'justice' or accepting that people engaging in shitty behavior face greater odds of being dealt with. There is never any consideration of context, only color. We are always expected to go along with the raycisss!!! narrative rather than examining the actions of the players when different races are involved. I truly believe the increased "racism" of the Trump era is simply people no longer willing to put up with the bullshit of Trayvon and Gentle Giant and Jussie and thousand person caravans matching to our border and becoming willing to push back ala Jim Carrey in 'Liar Liar' yelling into the phone "STOP BREAKING THE LAW, ASSHOLE!". Of colored peop...I mean, "people of color" aren't allowed to hide behind their color anymore, well then, they might have to start looking at some uncomfortable truths.
So if white people start to identify as a group and start to look out for their group's interests, so be it. Colored peop...I mean, 'people of color' have no room to talk. After all, globally speaking, they are the majority of people and nations. They can leave the West and head back to entire continents dominated by their ethnic cohorts. Whites, not so much.
@tim maguire:
And yet, even there, with no pressures at all to segregate by race, whites tended to gather with whites, blacks tended to gather with blacks, Arabs with Arabs, etc.
Indeed. Two areas in America where this is most prevalent are school lunchrooms and churches. While classes are integrated, when students are left to their own devices (e.g. in the cafeteria), they largely self-segregate by race. Similarly, the vast majority of churches are majority one race. MLK himself said that, "Eleven o'clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of America."
From my perspective, there is nothing wrong with this. It is perfectly natural for people to prefer to be around people who look like themselves. Trying to use the force of the state to make people integrate is a recipe for friction and should be abandoned.
“Well, no, not by the old definition. But he was elected in part by working-class whites who don't quite see why they should have to pay for the sins of their ancestors”
Not unless their ancestors were Democrats.
@purplepenquin:
White folks are a lil' over 60% of the American population, yet make up 76% of millionaires in our country. Blacks are 12% of the population, yet are 8% of the millionaires.
*shrug*
Jews are 0.2% of the world's population but 35% of the Forbes 400. Jewish privilege?
Jews are 0.2% of the world's population but 35% of the Forbes 400. Jewish privilege?
Of course. Yahweh smiles upon his Chosen People.
Of course. Yahweh smiles upon his Chosen People.
Ha. Can’t argue against something unfalsifiable. That’s for sure ;)
A quick look on Google show that the Spanish brought African slaves here as early as 1525.
So, illegal immigrants should pay reparations? Seems kind of harsh.
J. Farmer,
It is perfectly natural for people to prefer to be around people who look like themselves.
Fact: White liberals are the *only* racial/ideological group with an out-group preference.
White liberals are now less likely than African Americans to say that black people should be able to get ahead without any special help.
White liberals also have warmer feelings about immigrants than Hispanics do.
White liberals are much more enthusiastic about the idea that diversity makes the United States a better place to live than are blacks or Latinos.
White liberals are now less likely than African Americans to say that black people should be able to get ahead without any special help.
- The Great Awokening
When looking for causes of the growing racial divide, don't just look at changing demographics.
I agree with Lucid Ideas up to a point.
It is all about the European conquest of the world since 1492, and the continuing dominance of European civilization, directly or indirectly, ever since.
But none of the ideas or traits he lists are or were essential to the conquest.
Nor are they missing from many of the conquered civilizations. A lot of these things are purely theoretical, or even simply rhetorical.
The plain truth is that Europeans were superior in war, and conflict, including diplomacy and strategic manipulation of the game, that is the ancient routine of divide and conquer. This superiority goes down to the very basic matter of hand-to-hand fighting.
This was out of proportion to their numbers. Technological superiority does not account for this, especially prior to the mid-19th century. Examining the details of the early days of the European conquest it is plain that the European man, or small group, armed with sword and spear, fought better on average than almost any similar group anywhere similarly armed. It did always come down to that, if you get down to details.
Add to that the superiority of their leaders. It helps a lot to do a deep dive into the game-play of people like Cortes, Abuquerque, Clive.
The deep reasons for European superiority in this very basic matter have not been properly examined, from the individual swordsman to his general.
An interesting detail here is that those non-Euro groups closest to Europe, the Maghrebis, Moroccans, Arabs, Turks, Central Asians and the like, were the last to fall to European domination (or in the case of the Turks they escaped it by the skin of their teeth) up to the 19th-early 20th century, the last gasps of European expansion before the disaster of WWI. Their eventual fall was by that time clearly a matter of technological-economic inferiority. But back when it was a matter of swordsmen and generals they held their own.
“Originally blacks came to America as indentured servants, not slaves. You worked off the "indenture" to "pay for your trip here", then you were just as free as anyone else.”
Most of the White Haydens in this country are descended from two brothers who came over here from England as indentured servants, a bit over a decade after the first Black came over as such. They worked off their indenture, and then were free to follow their destiny (though that apparently meant that some got stuck in the mountains of western VA, interbreeding for the next 3 centuries - luckily not my branch of the family, though my branch did go through there). The funny thing is that the grandfather of these two brothers supposedly was a cousin of QE1 (through the Bolyns), and likely through those connections was rich enough to have built the last private castle ever built in England (before they were made illegal).
I qualified that because when I was at Census as a programmer, I told that story a bit. My mentor also had family coming over in the 30s - until we discovered that they were 300 years apart. In any case when I left, I was replaced by Brenda Hayden. She sat at my old desk and reused my old user ID. Then I met her, and she was very Black. Quite embarrassing, after the stories about my ancestry. But even more, I found it hilarious. Finding myself hilarious, in my foibles, is one of those things that my partner, despite 20 years together, still doesn’t get about me.
@CJinPA:
Fact: White liberals are the *only* racial/ideological group with an out-group preference.
When looking for causes of the growing racial divide, don't just look at changing demographics.
That is certainly true. White liberals also publish articles gleefully pointing at the demographic demise of whites, as if it will be a glorious thing for this country, since "conservative" to them basically means "straight white men." It is a kind of ethnic self-loathing. What used to be referred to colloquially as "white guilt." But there is also a kind of cognitive dissonance between what they say they believe and how they behave. Those same white liberals also tend to live in highly segregated communities and send their kids to highly segregated school. It's diversity for thee but not for me.
But do you really beleive those "millions" whose families had nothing for several generations have the same odds of making it then those who families were legally able to accumulate their wealth & pass it on to their children & grandchildren?
That doesn't really happen that much. Most people worked subsistence jobs that kept them and their family fed. They didn't accumulate a lot of capitol. If they did pass anything on to their children it was land if they were farmers, and quite often a lot of debt, and some chattel goods. Not saying that it never happened. But plenty of people migrated to the US from Europe with nothing and within a generation or two were in the middle and upper classes. It still happens today. Why do you suppose all those people are trying to come to the US? Because its a horrible, racist place with little economic opportunity?
purplepenquin said...
having to start from complete scratch does have a major effect for several generations.
Note the justification for racial preferences is economic. But if this justification were the true motivation supporters would focus on the poor rather than the racial group. In reality we see the exact opposite with elite / wealthy blacks claiming the right of preference far more than the poor. So in fact this economic argument is not the modern political issue.
To claim that there is no racism in America 'cause slavery has been banned for over 150 years ago is pretty shallow thinking.
And because it's a discussion on race in America we have to end with an idiotic strawman.
One other interesting point about the European explosion, their conquest of the world, was that the main causes of delay in the process of conquest wasn't native resistance, but biology in the sense of disease-resistance plus intra-European rivalry, wars abroad and back in Europe.
The Spanish in East Asia for instance, during their expansion period, worried mainly about the Portuguese and the Dutch.
The modern Left is obsessed with racism because racism has come to be seen, in the aftermath of the failure of Marxist class analysis, as the "motive force of history". Just as for Hegel history is the unfolding in time & space of Spirit & for Marx history is the cultural epiphenomenon of the forces of production, for the modern Left racism is the driving force of history.
For the Modern Left, race determines Consciousness. Just as for Marx, for whom the Master/Slave Dialectic produced a proletarian Consciousness that saw reality for what it truly was, the post-Marxist Left sees the Consciousness produced by "systems of oppression" such as race, gender, sexuality, etc, as Consciousnesses that see the true reality of existence. This is why privileged individuals, e.g. white heterosexual males, cannot ever accurately report on the lived experiences of minorities. Such privileged individuals, like the bourgeoisie for Marxists before them, have "defective" Consciousnesses and cannot see reality for what it is by definition.
This is the ideological underpinning of the modern Left. It's pretty thin gruel compared to the heyday of the various competing Marxisms of a hundred years ago, but it's all they have left.
“White Privilege" is still a very real thing now-a-days...as noted before, practically every white person who pokes smot has a tale about the police letting 'em go when caught by the police with a small amount of it
Back in teh Day, I had a friend who was caught holding a pound of smot and the white motherfucker skated.
@buwaya:
This was out of proportion to their numbers. Technological superiority does not account for this, especially prior to the mid-19th century. Examining the details of the early days of the European conquest it is plain that the European man, or small group, armed with sword and spear, fought better on average than almost any similar group anywhere similarly armed. It did always come down to that, if you get down to details.
I agree with a lot of your comment but do take some issue with this quoted passage. I think technological superiority does account, at least to a degree, the success of Spanish armies in the Americas. For one, indigenous Americans did not have swords, and their best spears were tipped with natural glass. The Spanish had armor, which effectively defended them against such weapons, while the indigenous population had cloth and leather armor. Also, the Spaniard's ocean-going vessels were far and above the simpler watercraft the indigenous population had, and the Spanish could make use of cavalry.
haven't seen any racism out of him. And what's weird is that it's portrayed in the media as if it's a proven fact. You'd think there would be one or two examples.
Usually the portrayal is just in the headline, so yeah, you'd think the article itself would contain at least one or two examples. The closest argument is Trump enforcing immigration laws and the border, but that's no more racial than a person locking their front door at night.
Any granular examination of history should result in the rejection of racism as a cause for the subjection of the natives. They had to be beaten into submission first.
Racism is a consequence of victory/defeat, an aspect of vae victis, not a reason for defeat at a time when the issue was in doubt.
Racism is a consequence of victory/defeat, an aspect of vae victis, not a reason for defeat at a time when the issue was in doubt.
Very true. It was one of the reasons that the western world was stunned when Meji Japan was able to defeat the Russians in the early 20th century.
Apparently Howard has made a fearless and searching moral inventory of himself...and acknowledged he is powerless over racism and his life has become unmanageable.
Of course,para phrasing what the 12 step programs preach "You are a racist if you say you are".
Continue to take that personal moral inventory, Howard, it works if you work it!
To claim that there is no racism in America 'cause slavery has been banned for over 150 years ago is pretty shallow thinking.
No, everyone can plainly see that there is racism in America. The problem is that to claim that the root cause is due to slavery (ended 1865, 175 years ago) and Jim Crow laws (ended 1965, 75 years ago) is hopelessly naive. The problem before us now has a name: “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” And the people who need to be educated and have their behaviors changed are hard core liberals. I’m thinking of the Madison school board, as described by Althouse in posts from last year. And the Montgomery, MD school board of thirty years ago. And damned near every teacher who graduated any time in the past forty or fifty years. That’s for starters. Any reasonable list of the need for re-education would have to include the sort of people who abuse statistics by saying “White folks are a lil' over 60% of the American population, yet make up 76% of millionaires in our country. Blacks are 12% of the population, yet are 8% of the millionaires” as though it actually meant anything significant.
I totally agree with ending racism.
Starting with eliminating affirmative action and racial setasides for government contracts.
And a few other color blind things
To the race discrimination industry, being in favor of color blind policies makes one racist.
To me, the advantage summed up in "white (male) privilege" comes from two sources. First, I have seen a phenomenon where a black or a woman gets crosswise with their boss and immediately assumes that they're a victim of racism or sexism and goes into the "Oh! Woe is me!" routine that they've been taught by white liberals. And, just to be fair, sometimes (though not very often) they're right. But a white male cannot assume victimhood and thus must consider two possibilities: the boss is an asshole or I'm doing something wrong. Sometimes it's the former, and sometimes it's both, but often enough the employee shapes up and recovers their footing with their manager. Now that may not seem like much of an advantage to the white male employee, but actually it's very powerful.
Secondly, affirmative action has been pervasive for so long, and has resulted in so many individuals of dark skin color or female gender being promoted way past their Peter Principle level, that the first question anyone asks when dealing with a black person or a woman in a senior position is whether they are for real, or whether they are an affirmative action quota satisfier. Unfair? Not really. Unsatisfactory for the blacks and women who would have gotten to the same level in color blind and gender blind society? Sorry 'bout that.
Big Mike is 20 years ahead of us.
Got any stock picks?
J Farmer”. Those same white liberals also tend to live in highly segregated communities and send their kids to highly segregated school. It's diversity for thee but not for me.”
Yankees moving to Atlanta choose to live, for the most part, in the northern suburbs far from the majority black center city. They love blacks n the abstract but are scared shitless of them.
e. I think technological superiority does account, at least to a degree, the success of Spanish armies in the Americas.
Partially, but there was also the fact that in Mexico the Aztec were hated by their neighbors and gleefully allied with the Spaniards. Also, there was the whole disease thing.
@Buwaya
Two books my premise is drawn from, both in compliment to your critique and in opposition are:
Carnage and Culture - Victor Davis Hanson (the swordsman to his general aspect)
Civilization: The West and the Rest - Niall Ferguson (the fact that it's not having one of the 'Killer Apps' of Western Civ, but having them all at the same time)
"Does Anyone Have a Clue About How to Fight Back Against Trump’s Racism?"
When that old, black, anti-white warrior Jim Brown says Trump is OK, I believe him.
A man who gave up fame and fortune to work with black gangsters and young people in the projects carries a little bit more weight than a bunch of liberal assholes or guilt ridden white people.
If you are white and feel too privileged because you inherited some money or something, give it all away, or at least give most of it away. This really bugs me about rich people talking about inequality. Give your money away. And, not talking about billionaires and multi-multi millionaires. You got 3 mil, spend two and help some poor black people get training for a good job. Put your money where your big mouth is.
And, billionaires donating to this program and that program? Fuck that. Go into the projects and take some particular families out and give them a start.
Also, anybody who talks inequality and is against school choice is a lying sack of liberal shit.
When someone accuses me of racism/transphobia I know I am doing something right for a change.
Few of the Spanish wore armor. Most weren't soldiers at all, in the first place, and most of the others abandoned what armor they had for the native quilted cotton.
Cortes had few horsemen, only a couple of dozen at Otumba. They were critical to the victory there, but the Mexica opposed them with thousands. They SHOULD have anticipated horsemen, they had a good look at them in Tenochtitlan, for months.
Cortes had no working cannon or other firearms at Otumba. His crossbowmen were also very few and had little ammunition. They were used mainly as "snipers".
Otumba was the critical point in his expedition, where the Mexica had an excellent chance to finish them off.
@Ralph L., only twenty? You optimist! At least one whole generation, probably a bit more than that.
There's a company that'll be founded by a couple guys in a garage and you want to buy it right after the IPO. For an extra thousand dollars I'll tell you the name.
Oops. That'd be Apple and Hewlett-Packard, except the current laws in Silicon Valley prevent a company from being started in someone's garage anymore.
@Ron Winkleheimer:
Partially, but there was also the fact that in Mexico the Aztec were hated by their neighbors and gleefully allied with the Spaniards. Also, there was the whole disease thing.
Certainly true. I was merely confining my remarks to the technological advantages and taking issue with Bawaya's claim that "technological superiority does not account for this."
The opponents/victims of the Mexica had hundreds of years to organize an alliance against them. But it took Cortes to actually do it. Why?
@buwaya:
Cortes had no working cannon or other firearms at Otumba. His crossbowmen were also very few and had little ammunition. They were used mainly as "snipers".
It is certainly true that firearms were not a major factor in the Spanish conquests. Nonetheless, the Spanish had steel or iron tipped spears and swords. This gave them a great advantage on the battlefield.
Anyway, in any case, racism, to the degree it matters, is a consequence, not a cause.
The cause was inferiority (of whatever quality or virtue that matters), consequent defeat, and the consequent submission to the conquerors.
Totally Not A Dem At All And Dont You Say Otherwise purplepenguin: "“White folks are a lil' over 60% of the American population, yet make up 76% of millionaires in our country. Blacks are 12% of the population, yet are 8% of the millionaires”
LOL
Now do Asians!
5.6% of the population, but make up 8% of the millionaires.
Let me guess: they are "white asians" and hispanic millionaires are "white hispanics", like George Zimmerman.
Exit questions: why do the crazy racist whites allow any non-white millionaires?
Why does absolute dictator and literal Hitler Trump allow dissent?
The opponents/victims of the Mexica had hundreds of years to organize an alliance against them. But it took Cortes to actually do it. Why?
That is a good point. Basically because Cortes was beating them as well.
@buwaya:
Anyway, in any case, racism, to the degree it matters, is a consequence, not a cause.
The cause was inferiority (of whatever quality or virtue that matters), consequent defeat, and the consequent submission to the conquerors.
That is absolutely correct. Though that did start a feedback loop which did create an idea that can legitimately be called "white supremacism." And that was used to justify domination and subjugation of non-white peoples. This was expressed in some ways more liberally (eg the British Empire) and in some ways more brutally (e.g. Belgian Congo).
It was only really with ideas of national self-determination and the destruction of old empires that this ideology began to recede and the resultant decolonization occurred. However, as the natives demonstrate their inability to maintain the level of civilization that existed prior, the blame is placed on the colonizer and not on their "victims." When you look at the world, more northerly people (ie North Europe and Northeast Asia) are doing much better than more southerly people (ie the Native Americans and sub-Saharan Africans), with gradations between. In many people's minds, this is the result of the malevolent actions of European (ie white) conquerors. And retribution for this injustice is the justification for mass immigration of these people into European (ie white) countries.
J. Farmer,
It is a kind of ethnic self-loathing. What used to be referred to colloquially as "white guilt."
Is it? Or is it good politics? They see that white voters are the last barrier to progressive dominance and they target them. They see that white Americans are more likely to defend traditional values, which leftists want to replace, so they target those white Americans.
I guess millennials might be genuinely self-loathing, or do it for appearance, but I have to think most of this is tactical.
@CJinPA:
Is it? Or is it good politics? They see that white voters are the last barrier to progressive dominance and they target them. They see that white Americans are more likely to defend traditional values, which leftists want to replace, so they target those white Americans.
I guess millennials might be genuinely self-loathing, or do it for appearance, but I have to think most of this is tactical.
I suspect that some of it is certainly cynical self-motivation and some of it is bleeding heart true belief. How much of one or the other is pretty much unanswerable. But I am certain it does not begin with "millenials." It was in Partisan Review in 1967 that Susan Sontage wrote, "The white race is the cancer of human history." Emphasis in the original. I don't think that was merely tactical; I think she really believed that.
And the people who need to be educated and have their behaviors changed are hard core liberals.M
Big Mike,
The hardcore liberals that I have known use "racist" as an epithet to end discussion. For example, "Why would I listen to Rush Limbaugh? He's a racist." Racism is the fairy dust of American politics. Sprinkle it in a conversation when you cannot support your positions and it turns your bullshit into gold.
Normal liberals (not insane SJWs) are not concerned about racism. They only know about it through history lessons. It provides them with a simple answer to complex questions they cannot grasp. In academia, they are not allowed to even explore those complexities.
Decolonization in the 20th century was a consequence of economics.
By the late 19th century most European colonies, nearly all really, were net liabilities. WWI and WWII stressed the home countries of most of the colonizers and made most of them willing to stop supporting white elephants.
The French arguments are interesting. The anti-colonial economic case was pretty clear by @ the 1880's. Indeed, France had an early flirtation with rationality back in the 17th-18th centuries, when it was understood that Canada was a money-sink. Spain did too, re East Asia. There were proposals to sell out to the British, the chumps. But in both cases it was the Church that twisted more worldly arms, into holding on.
Very accessible books are by Douglas Porch. Conquest of Morocco and Conquest of the Sahara. Some of the French colonies argument is there.
@Francisco D., point taken.
Dems want to end racial discrimination? That's news to me.
What happens if a Trump gets a huge percentage of the Black and Latino vote?
And in his 2nd term forces the GOP to actually successfully target the Black and Latino vote.
If Trump can make the Democrats be seen as the real racists, it will have a huge cultural impact.
Now do Asians!
5.6% of the population, but make up 8% of the millionaires
Makes sense. While treated badly at some points in our history, they weren't actually enslaved and thus weren't hit nearly as hard as those who were.
why do the crazy racist whites allow any non-white millionaires?
I disagree with your basic premise. Crazy racist whites (or even whites in general) have little-to-nothing to do with who becomes a millionaire or not.
Why does absolute dictator and literal Hitler Trump allow dissent?
I disagree with your basic premise, and the additional one as well. Trump ain't an absolute dictator nor literally Hitler, and he seems to "allow" dissent about as much as any other President has.
Am surprised to hear you say such things about our President - forgot which account you were logged in with, eh?
There is a brittle Overton window The Democrats have created that includes White privilege, multiculturalism, Voluntary college segregation. Discrimination against Asians, college vouchers, Latino (a recent term) just waiting to be smashed.
Anyone know somebody, major politician, that seems to delight in smashing Overton windows?
Diversity breeds adversity. They need to lose their Pro-Choice religion ("ethics").
'It boils down to this. Racial resentment IS American politics. America was born of racial resentment, built from racial resentment and is still divided by racial resentment.' If I were the devils advocate, I'd say Ok, you are right. Everything is as you describe it. I'm white, and I'm very happy with things as they are thanks. I will fight tooth and claw to keep it that way, including using lethal force. What have you got? What moral force have you got to deploy to change my mind? I can tell from what you say that you would like to reverse the roles, so blacks have the upper hand. Of course you'd like that, you are black. But what's in it for me? I like having the upper hand, thanks.
I personally judge people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.
Anyone see a problem with that?
Blogger J. Farmer said...
@Lucid-Ideas:
Agree with a good deal of what you wrote there. Nothing breeds resentment like success, and it's also why most racial resentment comes from sub-Saharan Africans and Indigenous Americans. East Asians are much less likely to harbor the same kind of racial resentments, though there is a small group in America who are incentivized by the "people of color" moniker to get in on the action.
2/26/20, 10:19 AM
There is at least one group that is insanely outraged at being denied entry to country clubs, along with being a subject of certain fringe religious philosophies like Rapture doctrine or blood libels, decades and even centuries after the specific grievances had long since faded out. In fact, I'd say their resentment is far more long-standing and savage than that of both Africans and native tribals, despite the latter having vastly more reason to be dissatisfied than the former.
@doctrev:
I'd say their resentment is far more long-standing and savage than that of both Africans and native tribals, despite the latter having vastly more reason to be dissatisfied than the former.
Good point. And in case he’s be too subtle, he’s talking about Jews.
The millionaire numbers are interesting, and seem to indicate that things are reasonably fair overall. You're never going to get to the point where each subcategory of everything is split up exactly according to overall demographic percentage of the country as a whole.
Ian Haney López
Did the Times label him a "White Hispanic"?
His father, Terrence Haney, is from Washington. His mother, Maria López Haney, is from El Salvador. Ian changed his surname from Haney to Haney López while a graduate student at Princeton University to honor the Latino tradition of using both his parents' names, though also to resist the "honorary whiteness" that is sometimes offered to accomplished people of color. Wikipedia
Dude, if you were concerned about privilege you should have stayed away from Princeton.
And no, you aren't a "person of color."
Haney has gone on to build an entire career based on the fact that his mother was Latina. Nice work if you can get it.
Sorry i don't take lessons on "racism" from 79 y/o well-to-do white guys.
As a 79 year old white man journalist, who's spent most of his life in DC and Manhattan, here are my thoughts on class and race in America...
LOL! No Sale. Go back to the old folks home.
I was struck by the hidden imperative in the article's title: Fight Back Against Trump's Racism.
Howard said...
H All I see is denial and scorn from Trumpian philosophy.
That is because you are stupid.
We see record employment, and decreasing wage gaps under Trump.
We saw record food stamp usage and stagnant wages and high unemployment under Obama, who apparently couldn't find the same magic wand Trump has.
But carry on with the contrived idiocy. It is hard to admit you are racist.
It is harder to admit you are wrong and Trump/We are right.
That is very reassuring, that a certain number of Democrats want to move away from the historical posture of the slavery party.
Sorry, just another mordant joke there. They're not fooling anybody. The new deal is that everybody gets to be a slave, not just the blacks.
J. Farmer said...
I agree with a lot of your comment but do take some issue with this quoted passage. I think technological superiority does account, at least to a degree, the success of Spanish armies in the Americas. For one, indigenous Americans did not have swords, and their best spears were tipped with natural glass. The Spanish had armor, which effectively defended them against such weapons, while the indigenous population had cloth and leather armor. Also, the Spaniard's ocean-going vessels were far and above the simpler watercraft the indigenous population had, and the Spanish could make use of cavalry.
In actual combat there has to be more than the presence of steel vs. glass if the numerical imbalance is great. There has to be a way to create standoff. Else a bunch of naked people could just overwhelm them.
When US infantry fights we do not lose in general for one reason. When we take contact we are trained to immediately shoot back. Everyone we fight seeks cover first. Animal instinct leads you to jump behind something. It takes more than just training to overcome that.
Without being on the battlefield and seeing it first hand my guess is a small organized group attained fire superiority. You can see it on an individual level in boxing matches or MMA fights where one fighter has their vision open over the other fighter who is covering up.
Technological superiority helps a lot, but it is not necessary.
It was in Partisan Review in 1967 that Susan Sontage wrote, "The white race is the cancer of human history." Emphasis in the original. I don't think that was merely tactical; I think she really believed that.
She later said: “Imagine, if you will, someone who read only Reader’s Digest between 1950 and 1970, and someone in the same period who read only The Nation or The New Statesman. Which reader would have been better informed about the realities of Communism? The answer, I think, should give us pause. Can it be that our enemies were right?”
- And in case he’s be too subtle, he’s talking about Jews.
He wasn’t too subtle.
But to the best of my knowledge, I’ve never met anyone at all that was worked up about country clubs. Not saying those people don’t exist, just that I’ve never seen it.
I did know some people that were unhappy about their time in Auschwitz.
@Pookie Number 2:
But to the best of my knowledge, I’ve never met anyone at all that was worked up about country clubs. Not saying those people don’t exist, just that I’ve never seen it.
I’ve never met such a person either, but I’ve certainly read it many many times. I don’t happen to find it particularly scandalous that WASPs and Jews would prefer their own spaces. Matthew Weiner, creator of Mad Men, sad that restrictive country clubs in LA partially inspired him to create the show. John Landis’ 80s Eddie Murphy comedy Trading Places is larded up with anti-WASP resentments.
I did know some people that were unhappy about their time in Auschwitz.
There’s no business like Shoah business.
Gee. it's almost as if a rising economy and full employment has a lot to with mitigating racism.
There’s no business like Shoah business.
I’m not sure I understand your point here. I don’t think my grandparents ever actually profited from the trauma of being imprisoned and seeing their family members murdered.
I suspect that some people abuse that history (bad apples in every crowd), but I also suggest that this experience probably creates some legitimate uncertainty about what could happen.
I don’t happen to find it particularly scandalous that WASPs and Jews would prefer their own spaces.
Me neither. But I also wouldn’t assume that popular culture is an accurate representation of the prevalence of certain sentiments. The people disturbed by such phenomena are far more likely to make noise than the people who don’t care, so there’s an inherent over-representation of the unhappy.
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