September 29, 2021

"When I see those Black bodies at the border, I am unable to separate them from myself, or my family, or my friends. They are us."

"There is a collective consciousness in blackness, born of the white supremacist erasure of our individuality. Your accomplishment is never your own, but a credit to the race. Your sins are never your own, but a stain on the race. In America, and throughout the diaspora, all Black people are linked together like a chain of paper dolls."

Writes Charles Blow in "The Mendacity of Joe Biden" (NYT).

51 comments:

John Borell said...

They are not us, they are Haitians.

I’m pro-immigration, but open borders would be the end of the United States.

daskol said...

He sounds racist

Mark O said...

Blow is aptly named.

gilbar said...

how sad, to have NO self; to ONLY be one, in a chain of paper dolls

Y'all DO Know what causes this; don't you? SURE YOU DO
it's Caused By Critical Race Theory

Critical Race Theory steals men's souls, and replaces them with NOTHING
THIS Is Systemic Racism

Jamie said...

Well, good heavens, if you feel your individuality is being erased, first try not referring to your fellow black people as "bodies" instead of people!

Lucien said...

What a crock of racist BullShit, complete with blaming black tribalism on White Supremacy. This guy’s a natural for the “paper of record”.

rcocean said...

For a second, I thought you were quoting Mitt Romney or George Bush.

Narr said...

Test. Lots of "Whoops" today.

Mea Sententia said...

I live by the quote from Terence: "I am human. Nothing human is alien to me." Haitian refugees are human; I am human. They are me, they are everyone, regardless of race. That's what makes their plight so poignant. So Blow is partly right, but woefully incomplete. Terence, by the way, was African.

MadTownGuy said...

Socialism erases individuality.

Mary Beth said...

Your sins are never your own, but a stain on the race.

What about the inverse, where the sins of your race are yours by default?

Making it a racial issue instead of just pro or anti-illegal immigration gives ammunition to the conspiracy people who say there's something behind the recent decision of all these people to try to enter the US after spending years in South America.

Tom T. said...

I know it's a trendy locution on the left, but referring to these people as "bodies" always sounds dehumanizing. It strikes me as the language of a slaveowner.

gspencer said...

Another AA hire by the NYT. And his writing (such as it might be called) shows it.

madAsHell said...

Wow!! The preference cascade is shifting.

Unfortunately, Joe doesn't have melanin, or a pussy to protect him from criticism.

rehajm said...

He's envisioning himself in a future America that's much like Haiti. We're on our way...

Michael K said...

Never knew Blow was a Haitian refugee.

Earnest Prole said...

I appreciate when people speak honestly and say the quiet part out loud, especially when it’s something as toxic and dehumanizing as racial essentialism.

Narr said...

What a baby.

Gahrie said...

@Mr.Blow:

Why do so many Black people around the world want to leave their Black governed countries, free of the evils of racism, to come to a nation where they will be oppressed by the systematic racism?

Gahrie said...

In America, and throughout the diaspora, all Black people are linked together like a chain of paper dolls."

Isn't the central thesis of CRT and race hustlers like Blow that all white people are linked together like a chain of paper dolls by the unforgivable and eternal sins of White privilege and systematic racism?

So what's he bitching about? He should be down on the border telling the Haitians to go back home in order to save them from the systematic racism they would face in the United States.

Temujin said...

The great collectivist is using collectivism to decry collectivism.

Blow is today as he has ever been- angry and full of crap. Not a good way to go through life.

Drago said...

rcocean: "For a second, I thought you were quoting Mitt Romney or George Bush."

That is very unfair.

Blow is more conservative than LLR's Romney and Bush.

Fernandinande said...

The horror of all those black bodies trying to sneak into the US so their individuality can be erased by white supremacists.

Heh - individuality is erased by the stupid phrase "black bodies".

cassandra lite said...

Clarence Thomas will be very surprised to hear of Blow's empathy for all black people.

Jeff said...

Let us hope, for Mr Blow's sake, that he never has to find out the hard way in a dark alley that there are an awful lot of dark-skinned criminals, some of them Haitian, who don't feel the same way about him.

cf said...

Lefties and totalitarians and Marxists feel out our Good, encourage it, coax it, groom it all pretty, and then oh so slowly turn and turn it, our own Goodness, against ourselves. g-dspeed, america.

Skeptical Voter said...

Blow--as always--blows chunks.

Blow talks black solidarity. But my own experience is a little different. In the early 80s I travelled frequently to Lagos Nigeria. My company was trying to set up a solar panel subsidiary in Nigeria. We had local counsel. He was the son of a Yoruba gentleman who'd sat on the highest court in colonial Western Nigeria in the 1950s. This was all pre the Brits release of the various Nigerian colonies and independence. Local counsel had gone to a not particularly distinguished red brick university in England and had come back to Nigeria to practice law. His office was in one of the few high rise buildings (all of 14 stories) in downtown Lagos. He, along with several other successful Nigerian businessmen, government officials etc had set up a restaurant on the top floor of the building.

I had lunch there a few times and cringed every time he called one of the waiters "Boy"--an act that, where he a white man in Chicago, and had spoken to a black waiter in Chicago, would have resulted in a well deserved steak knife stuck in his throat.

And Charles could have gone with me to a street market in Lagos--the terns people hurled at each other at the market would put paid to Charles's fantasy of "we are all one beautiful black person together". Tribalism exist in the world--both among Blacks and whites. So spare me the "chunks" Mr. Blow,

Assistant Village Idiot said...

When I see the phrase "black bodies"...

I stop reading right there.

AlbertAnonymous said...

A. It’s Charles Blow. His name leading to an unfortunate irony because he sucks.

B. What a sad way to live life. Always believing in your perpetual victimhood and oppression (where you have no control over anything). That’s a self imposed, sad, lifestyle. He holds the keys to his own self imposed prison cell and doesn’t even realize it.

Tom said...

Step back far enough and you’ll likely see that that the arguments for and against vaccines, the arguments regarding critical race theory, and the arguments for global warming are designed to divide and weaken our culture. Almost everyone is anti death from CoVID and we all want to take death off the table in regard to this virus. Almost everyone is against discrimination based on race, gender, etc. Almost no one wants a polluted planet and we all have a stake in preparing for changes in climate - whether natural or man-made or some combo of both.

But we can’t seem to unite around solving these issues because the way these issues are framed is designed divides us and keeps us at each other’s throats. Meanwhile, 28 trillion in debt has been created and transferred to the cronies (some with state sponsors) that control our politicians.

Sadly, becoming “woke” to the real game is darn near a lock to get someone canceled. I think I’d like to get my canceling over with.

walter said...

So where are the usual race hustlers to wrap themselves in bloody Tuskeegee banners and scream raaaaaacist!?

Phil 314 said...

They fled a nation founded after a slave rebellion that has been black led for 2 centuries.

And they fled to that white racist Amerikka.

History is HARD!

Chris N said...

What kind of fucking moron can’t manage that?

Ah, a race-hustling, writing-for-money at the Times moron.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Who is responsible for this "bodies" nonsense? I first started seeing it in grad school 30 years ago, from people like Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault. Has it any source apart from recent-ish French thought? If not, why are we taking our bearings from the French? I mean, not to piss on the French, but they really are not the entire planet.

Sebastian said...

"They are us."

Then join them in Haiti. Don't let them come to racist, white-supremacist Amerikkka.

Mr. T. said...

A Charles Blow...

The NYT successor to Jayson Blair.

William said...

All this black solidarity only seems to happen in the presence of white people. As Blow points out, the good people of Haiti are murdering each other at a brisk pace in Haiti. That's one reason why the people are fleeing that country. Are the people in Haiti in any way responsible for any of the problems--exclusive of earthquakes--for the problems of Haiti? It's quite a stretch to claim that the activities of the Border Patrol agents are worse than the activities of the law enforcement officials in Haiti, never mind the criminals there.

jcr said...

There is nothing of value in the Duranty News, and there hasn't been for at least a century. Charles Blow is simply stirring shit for attention.

Cornfed said...

Please! Blow has as much in common with a Haitian immigrant as I have with a Russian ballerina.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

No trigger warnings. That trigger word is so close to the n word.

wendybar said...

Them against us?? Who is the one dividing people by color?? Open borders are bringing all kinds of people from all kinds of places here. Too bad Charles only see's color. Typical of Progressives who are bringing back racism to levels not seen since before the 60's. Congratulations!! Barack did his job well. The Divider in Chief got the desired Progressive outcome to start the Cloward and Piven strategy to make us a Socialist utopia.

Tank said...

As Dennis Prager would say, Blow is the most ungrateful, angry man in America.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

Hard to follow an article so lacking in logic and filled with unsupported assertions.

dbp said...

If Blow feels greater attachment to "blackness" than to being an American, maybe instead of turning the US into Haiti, the simpler option would be for Blow to move to Haiti.

Amadeus 48 said...

The Met Opera opened on Monday with "Fire Shut Up in My Bones", which is based on a memoir by Charles Blow, who took a bow on stage on opening night. There is a review in today's WSJ. I didn't see it, but from the review, Blow has had a tough life, as have many prominent black Americans. The reviewer said that there was prolonged, earsplitting applause for the Met's first-ever performance of an opera by a black composer, Terence Blanchard.

Everything old is new again. I remember similar rapturous reactions to various black "firsts" in the 19060s and 1970s.

retail lawyer said...

Your stupid writings are never your own, but a stain on your race.

Leora said...

I judge people based on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. I do not regard an accountant I work with as related to a low life thug because he's black any more than the tattooed mouth breathing shoplifter is related to me because she's white.

Gypsy Jenni said...

Newsreels of the Hindenburg disaster refer to those poor souls”.

Narayanan said...

Cornfed said...
Please! Blow has as much in common with a Haitian immigrant as I have with a Russian ballerina...
-----------
how about spy-flick-worthy secret weapon salsa and bachata dancer

I would love to have something in common with

Ceciliahere said...

Charles Blow is a RACIST!

Bunkypotatohead said...

Bodies are what's left when there is no brain or soul.