That's the top-rated comment — with over 1500 up-votes — on the NYT column by Charles M. Blow "Exit Polls Point to the Power of White Patriarchy/Some people who have historically been oppressed will stand with their oppressors."
Blow finds it "unsettling" that so many people voted for Trump, especially that more Hispanic and black people voted for Trump in 2020 than in 2016, which he attributes to "the power of the white patriarchy and the coattail it has of those who depend on it or aspire to it."
"Some people who have historically been oppressed will stand with the oppressors, and will aspire to power by proximity," Blow theorizes. They're susceptible to "Trump’s brash, privileged chest trumping and alpha-male dismissiveness and in-your-face rudeness."
By the way, the usual cliché about coattails is that the lead candidate is able to bring along lesser candidates. He has long coattails, and they ride in on the coattails or they grab the coattails and are pulled along. Blow's image is that "white patriarchy" "has" "the coattail... of those who depend on it." That is, the weak person is wearing the garment with long tails and the oppressors are grabbing onto them. But what kind of people wear a coat with tails?!
I'm steppin' out, my dear/To breathe an atmosphere /That simply reeks with class/And I trust that you'll excuse my dust/When I step on the gas...
Posts
139 comments:
So close to walking away, yet the woman still doesn't dare leave the Dem plantation.
She voted against the guy whose administration provided the highest Black employment rates in recorded history, the guy whose administration stood against the Democrat-run cities and their anti-Black police policies. As we say down South, God bless her heart.
Or.... OR, it could be that Trump has delivered higher wages and lower unemployment to people in these groups. I am sure that this information is available to you, but you would lose your membership in the Blind Eye Media Guild, I am sure.
Well it’s Charles Blow. So no need to read it.
Comment seems right on though.
There’s also an earlier post about “white women” and how they’re voting. Honestly, whats with the left’s fascination with race and identity politics? I can’t get my own family members to vote the same way, and yet they think an entire race should vote the same way? WTF?
My vote for Biden was to remove Trump, not because I felt the Democratic party had a vested interest in my concerns.
If you do stupid things like this how have you incentivized the Democratic party to take an interest in your concerns?
Perhaps you're the source of your own problems...
Black women suck all the oxygen out of the room. Could they just stop with that, like now?
Maybe it will stop for her when she stops voting Democrat...just a thought.
She thinks there's not ENOUGH mentions of slavery in education? Dear GOD.
You know what was never mentioned even once to me in my entire high school education during the 1980s? The Great Leap Forward. 80 million dead Chinese. I didn't learn about it until I was 23.
But maybe I was sick that day.
Maybe that commenter should ask a more fundamental question, like why if you take white people out of the equation entirely every other ethnic group in the USA also dislikes black people, even people actually from Africa?
I mean, if one was going to ask serious questions about why this phenomenon is so prevalent, why wouldn't a black American ask themselves the serious questions about how it must simply be racism and everyone else on planet earth is universally wrong and they're right. It couldn't be behavior or attitude or impulsiveness or any one of the other million reasons, now could it?
"As a mother and small business owner my my issues regarding race surround around the poor teaching of history in public education (that often skims over slavery/Indian removal),"
>> Don't worry about that, the Democrats can fix it for you!
"lack of access to capital for my business (despite black women being one of the fastest growing entrepreneur groups),"
>>Don't worry about that, the Democrats can fix it for you!
"and poor maternal/female health (black women receive worse healthcare and have worse outcomes than white women.)"
>>Don't worry about that, the Democrats can fix it for you!
"But by all means, continue to patronize and tell me that I should vote Democrat because I am a black woman. I understand that representation matters but identity politics as a complete political strategy is infantilizing and condescending and it needs to stop."
>>Shut your stupid Black mouth, you ignorant wretch. We have your vote. If we cared about your opinion, we'd have Charles Blow tell you what to think, and you'd think it.
The very identity of today's Dem party is - wait for it - identity politics.
Who the hell made Charles Blow the King of All Black People? Does Charles Blow speak for all Black People? Can Black People think just one way and vote for just one party? This is all BS.
America is about Freedom and Freedom of Thought and Freedom of Speech are two of our most prized rights. And I especially appreciate Ann Althouse for hosting a Free Speech forum even when some people are personally nasty to her. She's got a thick skin!
I left the Democrat party when the Dems (lead by Joe Biden) conducted the high tech lynching of my Creighton Law classmate's husband, Clarence Thomas.
Karens are bad, but black women are worse than Karens. Absolutely the most outsized egos per unit contribution in the USA.
I’d sure like to see Blow call a Black Trump voter an “Uncle Tom” to his face.
It sounds to me as if Blow is in denial. I don't think that Trump succeeded more with minorities because they wanted to tie themselves to the White Patriarchy. If that were true, it would have happened several elections prior to now.
I think that Trump succeeded with minorities more than the GOP candidates in the past was because they felt that he was honestly trying to make their lives better, and that he succeeded to some degree. That's by far the simpler answer, and I'm going with Occam and his Razor on this one.
CNN anchors bewildered as Biden flips Wisconsin as they are reporting
Or in other words, it's all a big lie.
(You should view this before Google censors it.)
Blow has his high-paying job at the NYT only because he is Black.
Is anyone tired of reading about NYT opinion contributors and their daffy reader-commenters?
The one thing that is clear is that the news media for the past several years have been focused on feeding their readers a story that is somewhat removed from the interests of people who are not part of the coastal elites. In this election cycle they were wrong about everything. Trump didn't trail by double digits. Demmies ware not going to take over the Senate. Demmies are not going to pick up 15 seats in the House. Graham and Cornyn and Collins were not in trouble. Texas isn't going blue. Wendy Davis and her pink sneakers have been once again sent to the showers.
This goofy top-rated comment is also nuts. This lady thinks the big problem in teaching American history is that slavery and Indian removal are glossed over? Really? Well, not lately. She wants access to capital? Where was she when Jack Kemp was making that pitch? Here's a pro-tip: if you want access to capital, come up with a business plan that makes money, but don't over-borrow.
Why read these idiots except to know what the coastal elites are thinking? And I think I know anyway. They think that my friends and I are dumb.
And as for what this woman says I don't believe her. I don't think there is anything principled about her vote. Or perhaps I am wrong. Maybe she would have supported any
left-wing candidate and racism has nothing to do with it. But then that raises the question. How can one separate being left-wing from being racist?
It's easy to imagine theoretically that someone can be left-wing without being racist. But does it actually occur in practice?
I can explore this with a simple thought experiment.
Imagine I was left-wing -- without defining precisely what that means -- but I'm intensely opposed to racism. As night follows day that would mean I would express my support for left-wing ideas that do not imply racism while simultaneously being quite critical of the abundant examples of racism on the left that I could easily see since I am in fact anti-racist.
But it's very hard to find examples of people doing this. It seems to be about as common as a blue moon.
"that often skims over slavery"
AYFKM? Slavery? That's just about all that's been talked about for the past four years, ever since Orange Man Bad was elected. And (as has been noted above) helped improve wages and lower unemployment for blacks.
But no. Let's talk some more about an institution that hasn't existed in this country for 150 freaking years.
"I'm a black woman who votes Democratic consistently...."
Reading the rest of her comment, it's clear that she will never, ever not vote Democratic consistently.
Exit Polls Point to the Power of White Patriarchy/Some people who have historically been oppressed will stand with their oppressors.
On large plantations, the person who directed the daily work of the slaves was the overseer, usually a white man but occasionally an enslaved black man—a "driver"—promoted to the position by his master
Identity politics drivers must crack their whips occasionally to keep everyone in line.
"Could we maybe just accept that identity politics isn't an effective political strategy? And could Democrats just stop with it, like now?"
Sorry, when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail...
Her perturbation is understandable. However, her assertion that identity politics “isn’t an effective political strategy” for Democrats is ridiculous. Other than voter fraud, it’s the only strategy they have and it explains her commitment to getting rid of Trump by voting for a senile old turd like Biden. She sure as hell didn’t vote against Trump on the issues!
Without identity politics and graft there would be no Democrat Party.
"As a mother and small business owner my my issues regarding race surround around the poor teaching of history in public education (that often skims over slavery/Indian removal)"
WTF? Where is that kind of history being taught? And even if it is, why should it be a factor in national races?
"I understand that representation matters but identity politics as a complete political strategy is infantilizing and condescending and it needs to stop."
Well, how are you gonna stop it? You are enabling it.
"Some people who have historically been oppressed will stand with their oppressors."
WTF? Which "oppressors"? Am I one of them? Is Trump? He oppressed minorities with the best pre-Covid economy for them in ages?
Sebastian said...
WTF? Which "oppressors"? Am I one of them? Is Trump? He oppressed minorities with the best pre-Covid economy for them in ages?
Some people will always be "oppressed", no matter how much they achieve or how much money they make. They cannot function unless they can tell themselves that they are victims of "oppressiom". Charles Blow is obviously one of those people.
She both does and does not want to engage in identity politics, it would seem.
The only group that had lower support for Trump was...white males. So I guess white males became less fascist while everyone else is getting more fascist?
not once did I hear a Democratic candidate in this election cycle speak directly to my concerns and needs as a black woman.
Identity politics defined.
So, she didn't vote "for" anything. However, if Biden wins, she will get it "good and hard"
Trump sure had the long coattails in Montana! Swept all sorts of nincompoops into office in 2016 and again this year and even added more. It was awesome.
Without him in 2018 we lost ground.
So much to unravel here.
She scours Charles Blow for playing identity politics, but then proceeds to speak in the language of a full-on collectivist. Of course the Democrats will keep playing identity politics if their audience views the world as a group of tribes.
She then states, "My vote for Biden was to remove Trump, not because I felt the Democratic party had a vested interest in my concerns." At this point I can only ask: what reality do Black Americans who blindly vote Democrat live in? Look at Detroit. Look at Baltimore. Look at Milwaukee. Look at Philadelphia. Chicago. Cleveland. Newark. St. Louis. New Orleans. San Francisco. Los Angeles. Seattle. Gary, IN. And many others. Democrats have literally run those cities for anywhere from 50- 100+ years. How can you possibly look at these cities, then turn to me and say, "I felt the Democrat party had a vested interest in my concerns?"
And Charles Blow- who continues to write from some parallel underwater world that is similar to ours but lacks reality gives us: Some people who have historically been oppressed will stand with their oppressors." See my point above regarding the reality of the cities run by Democrats for years. Milwaukee, Detroit, Philadelphia have turned out in droves to robotically vote for their Masters yet again- the DIC- the Democrats In Charge. Doesn't matter what the whip looks like, it's still a whip. Blow should be ashamed of himself. Calling free-thinking Black Americans deluded, when he is the scribe for the DIC.
The truth, which is something not allowed to be uttered at the offices of the New York Times, is that Trump was just starting to make progress for Black Americans. And even so, he did more for that community than ANY previous President since Lincoln. Not even close. He was about to establish an entire program for the Black entrepreneurship, and to create catalysts for development in the Black communities. To vote against him because the same people who have been the disease to the Black Community tell you that he's a NaziWhiteSupremacist is akin to a rapist telling you not to go home after he's done raping you, because your murderous husband will do bad things to you.
"Could we maybe just accept that identity politics isn't an effective political strategy?" she wrote, followed by
"black woman, black woman, black people, black male, black injustice, slavery, black women, black women, black woman... but identity politics as a complete political strategy is infantilizing and condescending and it needs to stop."
So stop practicing it.
BTW, here's Biden's Federal racism plan, with the extraneous words removed:
"Black, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black, Black, Black, Black and Brown, Black, Brown, and Native, Black, Brown, and Native, Black and Brown people, Black-, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black, Black, Black, Black and Brown, Black-, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, BLACK AND BROWN, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, BLACK, Black, Black, Black, Black, Black, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black, Black, Black, BLACK AND BROWN, Black, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black and Brown, Black, Brown, Black, Brown, Black, Black, Brown, Black, Brown, Black, Black and Brown, Black, Brown, Black, Brown, Black, Brown, Black, Brown, Black, Brown."
Note: Biden capitalizes "brown" but not "white" because brown people, e.g. Southwest US mestizos along with immigrants from India, share a common culture based on their brownosity.
The quoted commenter really sounds like she's against identity politics -- except when black women it.
Well, they wouldn't be identity politics if they weren't a selective, brutal power grab by way of racist scapegoating of others.
"In fact, fatal police shootings constitute a smaller fraction of black homicide deaths than they do white and Hispanic homicide deaths. Three percent of black homicide victims are killed by a cop, compared with 10 percent of white and Hispanic homicide victims killed by a cop."
It would be great if voters showed Democrats that the divisive tactics of identity politics didn't pay off, but I think it's so ingrained in their thinking that they will never abandon it unless it consistently cost them elections.
Other divisive and un-American tactics I wish voters would punish them for:
* Voter fraud (which there is never any evidence for unless you open your tightly shut eyeballs.)
* Repeating lies even though everyone already knows the truth
* Calling people Hitler
* Calling people racists
* Cancelling anyone who disagrees with you even when they agree with on 90% of other issues.
*Shoving your political beliefs into every corner of our culture and our lives.
* Going ape shit crazy just because you don't like the outcome of an election
* Refusing to accept the results of a fair honest election, which the last one was and this one isn't.
* Changing the rules anytime they don't give you an advantage over the opposition.
"black women receive worse healthcare and have worse outcomes than white women."
Hispanic women also have better healthcare outcomes (such as maternal mortality) than black women, and have no better access to it than they do. In particular hispanic women have much better infant mortality rates than black women, and for that matter than white women also.
It does not seems likely that these differences have much to do with access to or quality of health care.
Just to be sure I've got this straight: If black voters decline to support GOP candidates, it's proof that there's a white patriarchy, and blacks just aren't buying it. And if black voters do support GOP candidates, it's proof that there's a white patriarchy, and that blacks are being bamboozled into supporting it.
Am I close?
So the woman who is black who voted for Biden to get Trump out, actually voted against her own interests because the media told her the Orange Man is bad. Biden has said and done WORSE things to black people in this country...but go back to sleep, and let the media tell you how to think.
Identity politics is total leftwing bullshit. Most folks love other folks who share their values and political world viewpoints. If you're black, gay, tranny, Mexican or Eskimo, and you love the Constitution, the rule of law, free market capitalism and Judeo-Christian values, saddle up! You are welcome to ride with me!
So there's too much identity politics, but also they weren't speaking to her as a Black woman? How does a candidate navigate that set of views?
"CNN anchors bewildered as Biden flips Wisconsin as they are reporting"
I love the graphs he has that show the trajectory of votes coming in and how the relatively smooth lines suddenly jump straight vertical from losing to suddenly ahead on the Biden side while the Trump line continues the same smooth ascent.
" "the power of the white patriarchy and the coattail it has of those who depend on it or aspire to it." "
The "white patriarchy" is a fantasy beast that does not seem to have anything to do with the white ruling class, which eagerly sells the "white patriarchy" story. Or perhaps "white patriarchy" is a hate-object designed by the white upper class as a hammer-meme to use on the heads of the white middle class.
"It sounds to me as if Blow is in denial."
All of them are professionals. They write and say what they are paid to.
There is no genuine thought here, other than some cleverness, sometimes, in elaborating on the days official line.
This is all a centrally managed propaganda system after all.
That would be nice, but all the colleges are teaching now is racial and sexual resentment, and that has so permeated political (and even non-political) discussion that nobody can get away from racial and sexual conflicts for very long and still remain politically active on one side or the other.
The lady quoted in AA cut, well, I read everything she said, and she sounds like a D to me. So, as Joe B said, she confirmed her blackness by voting D.
No, Blow is saying the people who depend on it or aspire to it are the coattail of the white patriarchy’s power. The power is the coat, the people are the coattail. He is not saying they are weak. Perhaps depend implies weak but aspire does not.
Or in other words, it's all a big lie.
Too long; didn't watch.
The top comment proves Blow's point, but not in the manner that either Blow or the commenter intended. Despite recognizing she is being patronized, the top commenter remains a devoted patron to the Democrat party. I can understand her difficulty in obtaining financial capital.
If the black woman continues to vote Democrat for whatever reason, why would Democrats care about her concerns? If the black woman doesn't know Democrats are in control of public education, Republicans are pro-school choice, and keeps voting for Democrats, why should Democrats care about her kids' education? As long as you are working in the plantation, the master doesn't care that you hold a grudge against him.
Yeah, she claims she is condescended to AS A BLACK WOMAN and then the entire focus of her comment is I AM A BLACK WOMAN AND THIS IS WHAT I WANT FOR ME, AS A BLACK WOMAN.
Incoherent and infantile. This is the kind of identity crap that so many of us are sick of. Society and the government don't owe you the contents of your special wish list AS A BLACK WOMAN. Society and the government owe you (and me) equal treatment, the end. If you are unhappy with your school's curriculum, find a private school or supplement what you want your kids to know on nights and weekends. If BLACK WOMEN receive poorer health care and have poorer outcomes, volunteer for a program that provides advocates for those who need it and teaches appropriate self care. Etc.
Also, bullshit that capital is not available to her (last I checked discrimination in lending is wildly illegal) and even if it weren't, which candidate has been working with black leaders to develop even more programs aimed at her?
Blogger mandrewa said...
CNN anchors bewildered as Biden flips Wisconsin as they are reporting
Or in other words, it's all a big lie.
(You should view this before Google censors it.)
11/5/20, 9:11 AM
If anyone can see rigged elections, fraud, and life under actual fascists and dictators, it's the eastern Europeans.
Indeed, I'm currently working with a Croatian who is quite stunned how the fraud is so blatant.
"My vote for Biden was to remove Trump, not because I felt the Democratic party had a vested interest in my concerns."
What could go wrong with this responsible approach to choosing a leader?
And this voter thinks the problem is with the Democratic party's platform? She VOTED for it.
We probably dodged a bullet.
The media was expecting a Blue Wave that would create a permanent Democrat majority in both houses of Congress and a permanent Democrat POTUS. However, their polling was a reflection of their ideological biases, just like Chas. Blow.
Blow thinks no reasonably intelligent person should disagree with him. If the Blue Wave had occurred, I suspect that there would be penalties for having contrary opinions to Blow's wisdom and that of the NYT.
Diversity dogma (i.e. color judgment) is a sincerely held belief that denies individual dignity, individual conscience, intrinsic value, and normalizes color quotas, color blocs, and affirmative discrimination for social justice, social progress, and [selective] exclusion under the Twilight (i.e. penumbras and emanations) faith, ostensibly "secular" Pro-Choice, selective, opportunistic, relativistic quasi-religion (e.g. "ethics"), and liberal ideology of the Progressive Church, not limited to racism, sexism, ageism, genderism.
That said, diversity of individuals, minority of one. #HateLovesAbortion
""Could we maybe just accept that identity politics isn't an effective political strategy? And could Democrats just stop with it, like now?""
This isn't exactly true. Identity politics doesn't work in this narrow context. But the broader context where identity politics pushes people to be Dems to avoid accusations of racism is very effective. Can Dems give up the one without rendering the other ineffective?
I don't think so and their decision not to risk it seems clear.
Charles Blow has kind of a cool name. That's the nicest thing I can say about his punditry. The nastiest, and truest, is that he needs to defend rabid identity politics like it's his job, because it is his job, and without it he wouldn't have gainful employment. It's funny when he does data analysis.
Apparently, white males are the only demographic with fewer Trump votes than in 2016. Trump got more votes this year from every other group. So much for 'white patriarchy'.
I’d sure like to see Blow call a Black Trump voter an “Uncle Tom” to his face.
Yeah, a premeditated act of social distancing, in the manner of a doctor, nurse, or em-pathetic well-wisher calling a mother and father's baby a "fetus" or "Fetal-American", would be well and truly progressive... Progressive.
Mattman26: "Just to be sure I've got this straight: If black voters decline to support GOP candidates, it's proof that there's a white patriarchy, and blacks just aren't buying it. And if black voters do support GOP candidates, it's proof that there's a white patriarchy, and that blacks are being bamboozled into supporting it.
Am I close?"
Spot on.
Likewise, years with more than average number of storms/droughts is proof of AGW. Years with less than or equal to average number of storms/droughts is also proof of AGW.
Likewise, admitting you are a white racist is proof you are a white racist. Failure to admit you are a white racist is also proof you are a white racist.
This sort of logic was modeled effectively in the movie "Full Metal Jacket", where the helo door gunner shooting at everyone as the helo zorches over Vietnam explains that anyone who runs is VC, and anyone who does not run is a well disciplined VC.
When "Full Metal Jacket" was released, that scene was admired by lefties/liberals everywhere as a perfect encapsulation of something rather insane. Since that time, the lefties/liberals have decided that sort of logic is actually the appropriate way to frame any issue of value to them.
The woman's comment is confusing.
She says she doesn't like race-based identity politics, then lists a host of what she believes are race-based problems, a belief that's really only shared by...Democrat politicians.
I can understand white Democrat politicians thinking, "What the hell do you want me to say? Just tell me and I'll say it."
"black women receive worse healthcare and have worse outcomes than white women."
Buyawa responded, Hispanic women also have better healthcare outcomes (such as maternal mortality) than black women, and have no better access to it than they do. In particular hispanic women have much better infant mortality rates than black women, and for that matter than white women also.
As a point of fact it is just not true that black women receive worse healthcare than others. The reality is, or at least this was true a decade ago, that more money is spent per capita on black women than white women in the United States.
People don't want to believe that. It certainly goes against people's intuitions. But it is the truth. We have lots of data on healthcare. The federal government compels doctors and hospitals to report this.
Now what is true is that on average black people have worse health outcomes than white people. We can speculate why. But at minimum we can say there is either a genetic or a behavioral difference or both that that must be behind these health statistics. But it is not because the medical profession is spending less money on black people than on white. That is simply not true.
This is all a centrally managed propaganda system after all.
Single, central, stricly leftist regimen.
AlbertAnonymous said...
"Honestly, whats with the left’s fascination with race and identity politics? I can’t get my own family members to vote the same way, and yet they think an entire race should vote the same way? WTF?"
____________________
It all goes back to Rousseau and the doctrine of the "General Will." The Left-to-be had to promise freedom, while at the same time seeking total power, which was its real goal. This contradiction is resolved by claiming that freedom consists of doing what you want, but that everyone 'really' wants the same things. So 'real' freedom consists of doing what you are commanded by the dictator, who is in touch with the General Will that everyone 'really' wishes. Once your 'false consciousness' is resolved, you will voluntarily choose to do what the dictator wants.
Thus, properly Woke people will all act in the same ways. The failure to do so is a demonstration of how far the people are sunk in false consciousness.
This is laid out at length in THE ORIGINS OF TOTALITARIAN DEMOCRACY, by J. R. Talmon.
“I'm a black woman who votes Democratic consistently, not once did I hear a Democratic candidate in this election cycle speak directly to my concerns and needs as a black woman”. Why would they?
One commenter, bless his heart, said something about New York Times writers like Blow "in their $300 suits." There are more than a few big divides in this country.
Or perhaps "white patriarchy" is a hate-object designed by the white upper class as a hammer-meme to use on the heads of the white middle class.
A color bloc, a color quota, and target of affirmative discrimination. Is the middle class the anvil or the colorful fragments placed upon its surface to be softened and shaped for the single, central, minority's progress?
It does not seems likely that these differences have much to do with access to or quality of health care.
In fact, there was a study of maternal fetal outcomes a few years ago in Army hospitals. Identical access to care. Black babies were lower birth weight and I don't recall if maternal numbers were different. Hispanic woman had higher birth weight and I think fewer complications. Whites were in between.
I identify as a once-baby, we all do, inconvenient, deplorable, a real "burden". Here is my arm, here is my leg, here is my central nervous system... don't abort, cannibalize me for your social progress, medical progress, social justice. too.
every other ethnic group in the USA also dislikes black people, even people actually from Africa
They discern the principles that normalize Hutu/Tutsi conflicts, great leaps forward, equitable distributions, or post-apartheid Progressive South African lynching of deplorable others. The tenets of ostensibly "secular" Pro-Choice quasi-religions, their victims, and collateral damage. Never again, and again, and again.
For months on end I've been hearing a lot about systemic racism. It's usually pretty vague. No argument is made, no specifics are cited. Just a generalized, unfalsifiable explanation for black Americans remaining at a disadvantage.
If I wanted to make a concrete argument that there is systemic racism - no design, no malice, no specific intent, no one bad guy to point to; just an entrenched system that produces massive racial discrepancies - I'd focus on the public school system, even before the pandemic. In a lot of cities, kids in that system are not set up for success.
Economically secure parents can send their kids to private schools, or move to districts where the schools are better. On average black parents are a lot less likely to be able to do either.
So naturally the party that proudly fights for minorities is fighting to change that, right? Oh, wait, no - they're standing in the schoolhouse door. And this nice lady who's sick of identity politics voted for them, because she always does, and this time to get rid of that awful Trump, who favors school choice. And to get rid of his horrible Secretary of Education, a very rich woman whose kids were always going to be all set, who made it her mission to give other people's kids a better shot.
Charles Blow was having a meltdown on Twitter. Apparently, the percentage of white gays voting for Trump doubled from 2016. This reinforces in Blow's mind why "people of color don’t really trust the white gays." Blow is such a pitiful figure. A closet case who came out as "bisexual" in his mid-40's and is using activism to externalize a lot of internal conflict over his own sexuality.
"Leopold! Leopold!"
https://youtu.be/gt1V61SPI_w
“I'm a black woman who votes Democratic consistently, not once did I hear a Democratic candidate in this election cycle speak directly to my concerns and needs as a black woman
Well, why would they? If Biden wins, it’s because he won more white men than Hillary did. Weight of numbers.
"No, Blow is saying the people who depend on it or aspire to it are the coattail of the white patriarchy’s power."
Yes, the "White Patriarchy" mysteriously forced the hands of so many black and brown people to check the box next to "Trump" rather than wonderful "Biden" on their ballots.
Charles Just Blows.
Blow has Gay Black Lefty privilege.
"Blow is saying the people who depend on it or aspire to it are the coattail of the white patriarchy’s power.”
Of course he is completely ignoring the genuine self interest of these minorities, and the fact that they have enjoyed lower unemployment, record low, and higher wages under Trump’s policies of restricting cheap imported labor to take their jobs.
But as buwaya points out, it’s just business, and it doesn’t matter whether he or you believe it or not. You just need to throw the ideas out there and hope they stick or you are going to get steamrollered by the simple facts of the matter, as I laid them out above.
Pretty sure the vote wasn't about identity politics.
If the election-day polling dismayed Mr. Blow by its leaning toward Trump, that might have been because voters that day had read the little bits of reporting we were permitted to see allowed about Hunter and Joe's Foreign Policy raffles.
My impression is that voting day ballots are counted first, and those seemed to be leaning toward Trump. The tide turned when the absentee ballots were counted -- particularly the votes cast before the news of Hunter Biden's laptop and testimony of his former partner Tony Bobulinski trickled into the American consciousness.
If Trump's power is due to the white patriarchy's stranglehold, why did his support among white men DECLINE by 5% compared with 2016?
It's bullshit, whining bullshit, all the way down.
https://thepostmillennial.com/trump-makes-gains-in-every-demographic-except-white-men
buwaya said...
The "white patriarchy" is a fantasy beast that does not seem to have anything to do with the white ruling class, which eagerly sells the "white patriarchy" story. Or perhaps "white patriarchy" is a hate-object designed by the white upper class as a hammer-meme to use on the heads of the white middle class.
It is that as well as a tool for the American white upper class to virtue signal. They have always used imaginary "rich white fatcats" as an excuse for their inability to immanentize the Leftist eschaton. The rise of Big Tech has made this a dying metaphor as the Left now comprises a large portion of the One Percent.
Speaking as someone who has been employed as a professor of history for over 30 years, I can say with massive authority that slavery and indian removal are topics # 1 & 2 in most of my colleague's courses.
Okay, Im-a gonna start philosophizing here, so if you've got something interesting to do, like spraying Tidy-Bowl into that nasty toilet that needs it so badly, now's the time to do it.
I think that Identity Politics has such a hold on the collective mind of the Left because it allows them to maintain a semblance of continuity with Marxism. Remember that the 19th C pre-Marxist Left was a mishmash of all sorts of ideologies. Marxism gave the Left a banner they could all rally around in terms of the broad spectrum of Marxist thought, or, like the Anarchists, they could define themselves in opposition to. The post-Marxist Left is in real danger of reverting to that 19th C mishmash.
The modern Identity Left has taken Marxism & stripped it on what almost every classical Marxist believed were the keystones of Marxism --- the labor theory of value, dialectical materialism that saw culture as an epiphenomenon of the means of production, the direction of human affairs according to the laws of Enlightenment "Scientific Socialism", and most of all, the primacy of class consciousness/struggle as the engine of history.
What the Identity Left retains from the classic Marxist corpus is Marx's dialectic of Lordship & Bondage, except it's applied not to the Master/Worker dialectic as a process of economic oppression, but to categories such as gender, sexual identity, race, ethnicity, etc. The problem is, lacking Marxism's absolute insistence on the primacy of class struggle, there is no way to adjudicate the competing claims of victimhood among the various categories (e.g. how does one deal with black homophobia?). The theory of Intersectionality is meant to resolve these issues of competing victimhood. In political reality, however, it seems to do a poor job of it, and the victimhood kewpie doll goes to who has the most political power to claim it in situ. Or, more likely, everyone gathers around the totem of hating straight white males as the common enemy.
"And by the way, the concerns of black people (and women in particular) extend far beyond police brutality -- an overwhelmingly black male issue that has taken up all the air in the room when we speak of black injustice." I never thought about that. An important point.
"Economically secure parents can send their kids to private schools, or move to districts where the schools are better. On average black parents are a lot less likely to be able to do either."
It seems to matter very little if black kids actually go to good schools.
The classic study on this is "Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement" John Ogbu 2003
Charles Blow was having a meltdown on Twitter. Apparently, the percentage of white gays voting for Trump doubled from 2016
Gotta love Trump -- reaching out to gays! Come aboard the Trump train! You probably have good jobs and don't like high taxes or illegal immigrants or defunding the police, either.
Dan said...
One commenter, bless his heart, said something about New York Times writers like Blow "in their $300 suits." There are more than a few big divides in this country.
I bet Charles Blow would punch anyone who had the temerity to suggest that he'd wear a cheap $300 suit!
"Well it’s Charles Blow. So no need to read it."
Take pity on the poor man. Growing up with a name like that, as a young man, he was probably pressured into cocaine use a sucking dicks. Likely messed with his mind.
remember how we were all supposed to rely on the post office? 'cause they are GREAT?
“We were issued a directive this morning to collect any ballots we find in mail boxes, collection boxes—just outgoing mail in general—separate them at the end of the day so they could hand stamp them with the previous day’s date,” the whistleblower told Project Veritas’ James O’Keefe.
there is a WAR going on, wake up folks!
It seems to matter very little if black kids actually go to good schools.
actually, it works GREAT for black kids to go to good schools
if a black kid goes to a good school, he can
a) find wealthy customers for his drug dealing
b) find hot white girls to turn out (Everyone KNOWS that white hookers generate higher returns)
The "white patriarchy" is a fantasy beast that does not seem to have anything to do with the white ruling class, which eagerly sells the "white patriarchy" story.
It is a creation of brains damaged by estrogewn.
@YoungHegelian:
I think that Identity Politics has such a hold on the collective mind of the Left because it allows them to maintain a semblance of continuity with Marxism.
The contemporary Marxist left is very critical of campus identity politics. The intellectual history from Karl Marx to contemporary wokeness is muddled and circuitous. Most of its influence comes from Western Marxism's emphasis on the study of culture as a means of understanding society. Politically, Western Marxists were quite diverse. The bigger influence was on the French post-modernists who had pretty much rejected Marx totally. They agreed with the Western Marxists that culture, not mode of production, was the key to understanding society. Elements of those two traditions intermingle to produce a lot of the jargon we associate with contemporary identity politics.
But here's the twist. That jargon is being deployed in favor of activist movements, with the exception of gay rights, that have been ongoing for well over a century. The movements for black civil rights and women's rights are not primarily grounded in either Marxism or postmodernism. They emerge from the radical universalism and individualism of liberalism. The societies most concerned with gender and race equality are not collectivist societies but liberal individualist societies.
The Democrat Plantation: Come for The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations Experience.
entirely every other ethnic group in the USA also dislikes black people, even people actually from Africa?
This is true. Here in Minneapolis, Somalis look down on African Americans because Somalis can say that they have never been slaves to anyone. Even as far back as 30 years ago, immigrants from Laos who had been here less than a year would say things like "Fucking Nigger" if they saw a black man walking down the street. Maybe African Americans ought to take time to reflect on why this is.
Identity Politics has taken over all facets of our society
Serious Question
Bubba Wallace has been racing in the NASCAR Cup series for more than 3 years
During that time, (97 starts) he finished in the top 5, THREE times... (~once a year)
Once, a couple of years ago, he ALMOST won a race.
Eight times (including the 3 top fives), he finished in the top 10 (~once every 12 races)
If it were not for Identity Politics, would ANY of you, EVER had heard of him?
"the poor teaching of history in public education (that often skims over slavery/Indian removal"
A lot of people have already pointed out that slavery and Indian Removal are like number one and two in most history courses but I still want to interpret that quote for everyone.
"White people clearly don't hate themselves enough!"
Is that clear now?
Oh, and while were spending even more time on the subject of slavery from 150 years ago, let's make sure that those teachers- union educators make it clear that the Republican Party was formed at that time to fight against said slavery. That little nugget would blow the minds of many uninformed students of today's "1619-type" education.
"I'm a black woman who votes Democratic consistently, not once did I hear a Democratic candidate in this election cycle speak directly to my concerns and needs as a black woman....
But by all means, continue to patronize and tell me that I should vote Democrat because I am a black woman. I understand that representation matters but identity politics as a complete political strategy is infantilizing and condescending and it needs to stop."
Not as long as you vote Democratic consistently dumbass.
"the power of the white patriarchy and the coattail it has of those who depend on it or aspire to it."
I find myself wondering what Charles Blow considers to be the "correct" way for society to be structured. Presumably, in a just world, Charles Blow would command a much smaller set of resources, and would be unable to reproduce unless he was willing to surrender most of the little that remained to the Matriarchy. I begin to like this world very much. I think it might well be the perfect world for Charles Blow to live in.
@Skippy Tisdale
"Maybe African Americans ought to take time to reflect on why this is."
They do reflect on it and they already know. It's because the statistics about how they act criminally malevolent to every other demographic including their own don't lie. A solid 10% of the black population (and a looser, higher number...) in this country is responsible for criminally victimizing every other minority group including their own fucking communities, their own families, and their own friends.
They've done the "soul searching" and most of them have determined to deflect responsibility for being arguably the shittiest human beings on the planet. They're lucky they're here, because I know for a fact a lot of other countries would simply 'bury' this problem if they had to deal with it....
I have to wonder why she is so unintelligent as to continue to vote democrat. Every single issue she brought up is made worse by democrats, every one.
whitney said.... @12:59
...but I still want to interpret that quote for everyone.
"White people clearly don't hate themselves enough!"
Is that clear now?
Exactly. She's not asking that her children learn more about antebellum slavery, but rather all those white kids having it pounded into them day and night so that they all feel personally guilty. Just think of what your great-great grandfather's grandfather did all those years ago! (Unless of course your great-great grandfather's grandfather fought the war on the Union side at great/ultimate sacrifice to no personal gain of his own - let's just not mention anything about THAT!)
"Here in Minneapolis, Somalis look down on African Americans because Somalis can say that they have never been slaves to anyone."
There was slavery in Somalia less than a hundred years ago. More to the point a massive number of black Africans have passed through Somalia, bought by Somalian slave traders to be sold to Muslims, over the last thousand years.
Blow is an idiot.
There is one an only one reason he has the gig as professional New York Times whiner.
No identity politics?
No socialism?
What's left?
Trump met with black business owners and entrepreneurs, the result was the Platinum Plan. The Platinum Plan is designed to get capital to black business owners, address healthcare disparities, provide access to better education..... everything the black female commentator claims to care about except talk more about slavery. Yet she voted for Biden who has no plan. Gee wonder why Dems take her vote for granted.
Isn't Trump also doing a kind of identity politics? What do you make of comments like the squad should go back to the countries they came from? Or the idea that he wants men with yarmulkes counting his money? Of the constant references to I saved the suburbs (from innner city crime and low income housing? Or the idea that Kamala Harris is a monster. Or denouncing big cities for their crime rates etc. How is that not identity politics?
Charles Blow should end everyone of his pieces with:
"Did I mention I was Black!?"
Charles is saying they have
LOW IQ
Well black folk can look forward to being ignored for the next 4 years when President Har...er, Biden takes office in January. They should actually thank their lucky stars, Comma-La enjoys throwing their black asses in jail by any means necessary, and fighting to keep them in when someone discovers she's up to her tits in illegal shit.
Gonna be a fun four years folks!
I've never really understood what the problem is about Trump because the excuses I hear from local and online liberals, to the RINO's at the Lincoln Project have been based on misrepresentation and personal animus. He is not a racist or antisemite as he was accused. He's not just interested in helping the rich, he's not just in this for himself. So what is the liberal's problem?
The best understanding I have of the hatred from liberals is that on the left, the competition between people is always about who is the greatest victim. People pride themselves on their weakness rather than their strength. I live in a very liberal area so I am very experienced in the way conflicts are judged and decided. Not by adherence to honesty and integrity, but by how much more of a victim is one person versus the other. In this world people look at Trump and decide it's just not fair he gets to win. And what's worse is he never panders to the poor or makes a show like Hollywood elites and Democrat politicians do.
In this context someone like Donald Trump is obviously intolerable. And he can not be allowed to win.
@Mandrewa
"There was slavery in Somalia less than a hundred years ago. More to the point a massive number of black Africans have passed through Somalia, bought by Somalian slave traders to be sold to Muslims, over the last thousand years."
This is true. Black Americans need to look up the "Zanj" trade. If they knew what muslims have been doing in East Africa instead of being pumped daily with whitemanbad, they'd shoot Farrakhan.
Trump threw... an adjustable wrench with large jaws that has its adjusting screw contained in the handle into the works.
More links
I've never really understood what the problem is about Trump
it's really quite simple. They HATE him, for the same reason they HATED Sam Grant
He fights
Obviously they Hate ALL republicans; but ones like Romney (or Don Carlos Buell) were tolerable..
because they'd sit there and take it, and then close up shop and head home.
Trump (or Sam Grant) could take 10,000 casualties in a day; and their response would be
"Yes, but we'll whip em tomorrow".
i don't think Trump's as steadfast as Sam Grant (don't think Anyone could match Grant in that)
Colonel Theodore Lyman:
He (Grant) habitually wears an expression as if he had determined to drive his head through a brick wall, and was about to do it. I have much confidence in him
Blow--as he has in the past, and as he wil do it incessantly in the future blows chunkc of nonsense He's the resident "Black" on the NYT staff and he has to sound the appropriate notes.
When my parents were young, if you were Catholic or Southern you were probably a Democrat. If you were a Northern Protestant you were very likely to be Republican. I don't have a problem with voting based on tradition or group affiliation. But those old parties were grab-bags of varied ideologies and positions.
Now the parties are more polarized and each is more ideologically homogeneous. Politics is a much sharper ideological struggle, and subject to more moralizing. "Identity" is also a lot more pointed and ideological a concept. I have no problem with old blue dog Democrats who always vote for the party without paying too much attention to the ideology and divisive rhetoric, but we've moved far beyond that.
Charles Blow, I suspect, is big on intersectionality. He feels "the man" is keeping him down because of his color and sexuality, and that motivates his political passions, so he doesn't even get to the issues that motivate many other Americans' voting and can't conceive that others in minority groups may not see things the same way as he does.
"Some people who have historically been oppressed will stand with the oppressors, and will aspire to power by proximity," Blow theorizes. They're susceptible to "Trump’s brash, privileged chest trumping and alpha-male dismissiveness and in-your-face rudeness."
Political psychoanalysis has reached the point where it tells us more about the people who use it than the people they claim to be analyzing.
Charles Blow should end everyone of his pieces with:
"Did I mention I was Black!?"
Yes, he bears a clear and progressive risk of cancellation with every hedge, yaw, and tilt away from the consensus. He must, at every opportunity, disclose that he is a affirmed bigot of the Progressive Church operating with liberal license for the Democrat-affiliated diversity racket.
"What do you make of comments like the squad should go back to the countries they came from?"
What I make of it is that you've selectively snipped out a portion of Trump's comment in order to misrepresent what he actually said.
I am going to be a contrarian. Donald Trump put a lot effort into outreach to the black community, and I don't see that he got squat for it. In contrast to Joe Biden, who is credited (if that's the right word) with authoring the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which resulted in young black men being locked up at high rates for relatively minor offenses, Donald Trump pushed through the First Step Act, which immediately freed over 3000 young men, and will rectify many past injustices. His economic policies produced record high employment for black people. He also met with rapper Ice Cube and arranged to provide a half trillion dollars to help black businesses get back on their feet after the impact of COVID-19 coupled with the violent destruction of black-owned businesses in the name of "Black Lives Matter." What did he get for it? According to the charts produced by Matt Bruenig, Trump doubled his vote percentage among black women -- all the way from 4% to 8%. Big whoop. Trump increased his support among black men, all the way from 1% to 17%. So he got, what, about 12% - 13%? Big whoop.
For about the same effort he could get some serious support among Hispanic voters, who were already happy about his economic policies and -- it turns out -- were actually very happy with his efforts to halt illegal immigration. Amazingly, it turns out that legal immigrants do not like downward wage pressure from illegal immigrants. Who'd have thunk it?
So what I would say to the black woman who is upset at Democrats patronizing her, condescending to her, and infantilizing her, is that of course she enjoys being patronized, condescended to, and infantilized, because if she didn't like it she would not have voted for the people who do it to her.
And my message to the lady kneeling and screaming over the body of her young son, accidentally caught in the crossfire during a drive-by, is that you did that to him. You did it when you voted for the people who will not crack down on gang activity (and who plan to, sometimes have already begun to defund the police. And if you didn't vote at all, you're just as guilty because you stood by and did nothing. Now you've lost your son, and I'm sorry, but Republicans can't help you when you explicitly support Democrats with your vote or implicitly support Democrats by not voting at all. You put your faith in Democrats, and They. Do. Not. Care.
Psychiatrizing anyone who disagrees with you is a really ugly habit [some people want to stand with their oppressors]. I'd call it "projection," except that "projection" is one of that kind of person's favorite things to say about other people.
The contemporary Marxist left is very critical of campus identity politics.
I'm not so sure about that. Certainly, many of those who remain of the Old Left aren't keen on race, gender and sexuality replacing class as the left's focus. But the old class warriors are a very small part of today's left. I'd agree that today's campus left is very far from traditional Marxism, but most people who call themselves "Marxist" today are or recently were on campuses and are in tune with the race/gender/sexuality people. I don't think Marxism really describes what today's left is, but there are people out there calling themselves Marxist who are quite enthusiastically for today's campus identity politics.
Identity politics worked to turn enough white voters off Trump.
You have to hand it to Biden’s organization for getting out the Civil War veterans en masse to vote for him.
Memo to Charles Blow:
It is true we dislike you. But the reason is not because you're black and not because you're gay. The reason is because you are a fucking pussy and a moron.
Strong email to follow.
And, Charles, go Blow yourself.
I am not Laslo.
Isn't Trump also doing a kind of identity politics? What do you make of comments like the squad should go back to the countries they came from? Or the idea that he wants men with yarmulkes counting his money? Of the constant references to I saved the suburbs (from innner city crime and low income housing? Or the idea that Kamala Harris is a monster. Or denouncing big cities for their crime rates etc. How is that not identity politics? - Stephen the Yapping Dog
Each day I think you can't possibly be this dishonest and stupid. And each day, you continue to prove me wrong.
Nothing you wrote it even remotely close to the truth of what he actually said.
If Trump is as bad as you say he is, why do you feel the need to make up shit he never said?
Trump performed better with every sub-group in America with the exception of white men.
Not that I trust the polls, obviously.
And somehow Biden outperformed Obama in Milwaukee, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Atlanta.
Seems legit, right?
I believe this will lead to justifiable violence.
The only advice I have to offer female black-Americans is to stop opening their legs and creating baby daddies.
THEOLDMAN
That goes for young white girls too. Haven't noticed much in the Hispanic community. They seem to believe in families.
Back to the economic class struggle, I guess.
It's the Marxist form of "originalism".
Matt Sablan:
You sound foolish when we read every day about the unreasonable and damned near impossible voter fraud that is obvious and not even hidden from view.
The Left live in a such a state of historical and ideological ignorance that it's really pointless to argue the finer points of intellectual influence, affinity, and descent.
But powerful ideologies have afterlives, and successive groupuscules contest the mantle of Marxism as if original Marxism had some clear meaning itself; its concepts and jargon have permeated everyday life until for some people they seem real and useful for understanding the world.
Narr
I worked among them
@Lurker21:
I don't think Marxism really describes what today's left is, but there are people out there calling themselves Marxist who are quite enthusiastically for today's campus identity politics.
Marx actually describes this phenomenon in The Communist Manifesto as "conservative or bourgeois socialism" and says: "Part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances in order to secure the continued existence of bourgeois society. To this section belong economists, philanthropists, humanitarians, improvers of the condition of the working class, organisers of charity, members of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, temperance fanatics, hole-and-corner reformers of every imaginable kind. This form of socialism has, moreover, been worked out into complete systems."
He goes on to say: "Bourgeois Socialism attains adequate expression when, and only when, it becomes a mere figure of speech."
Nah. More cowbell.
"Could we maybe just accept that identity politics isn't an effective political strategy?"
Actually it has been very effective. The bulk of all the racial and sexual minorities vote Dem, for generations. Their resentments are more important to themselves than their actual wellbeing.
When the only tool you have is a hammer...
Over time, I've come to understand that self-described Marxists mostly use the term to signal a generalized Left-oppositionism, and of course to shock the bourgies.
They're not really that well versed in actual Marxist theory or Communist practice.
Narr
Or anything else for that matter
Hey, Althouse.
"the power of the white patriarchy and the coattail it has of those who depend on it or aspire to it."
That is a description of Blow's career.
If female black entrepreneurs lack capital, what is the reason for this?
If you were really going to solve for this, first you need to verify your assumptions. You have to prove that female black entrepreneurs lack capital. That is not an easy thing, and ultimately depends on a value judgment. I, for one, believe that I "lack capital."
In other words, at some point you are making a value judgment when you choose a metric.
I suppose that there is a thing you can call "systemic racism," or "systemic sexism," and they exist in the same way that "crime stories" or "hatred" exist. They aren't the ultimate cause of anything. What causes a crime story or hatred? What caused the "white patriarchy"?
The identitarians (and the "black female commenter is as much of an identitarian as Blow) choose to attack white supremacy because they see this as self-justifying their tightly held racial identities.
They identify as black because others identify as white. They embrace the black identity given them by whites.
poor maternal/female health (black women receive worse healthcare and have worse outcomes than white women.)
That was talked about a lot during the Democratic primaries. But her overall comment makes an important point that Democratic elites need to hear.
It may not be an effective political strategy but it's a hellava money-maker.
It may not be an effective political strategy but it's a hellava money-maker.
Post a Comment