Oh, come on, Ogged, quote the other fun parts of the post:
On the other hand, I am sick to death of black people as a group. The truth. That is part of the conversation Obama is asking for, isn't it? I live in an eastern state almost exactly on the fabled Mason-Dixon line. Every day I see young black males wearing tee shirts down to their knees -- and jeans belted just above their knees. I'm an old guy. I want to smack them. All of them. They are egregious stereotypes. It's impossible not to think the unthinkable N-Word when they roll up beside you at a stoplight in their trashed old Hondas with 19-inch spinner wheels and rap recordings that shake the foundations of the buildings. It's like a broadcast dare: Go ahead! Call me a nigger! And then I'll cap your ass.
Here's the dirty secret all of us know and no one will admit to. There ARE niggers. Black people know it. White people know it. And only black people are allowed to notice and pronounce the truth of it. Which would be fine. Except that black people are not a community but a political party. They can squabble with each other in caucus but they absolutely refuse to speak the truth in public. And this is the single biggest obstacle to healing the racial divide in this country. The dammed-up flood of good will in this nation for black people who want to work for their own American Dream is absolutely enormous. The biggest impediment is the doubt created in each and every non-black American by the clannish, tribalist, irrational defense of every low act committed by any black person. If you're offended when Republicans defend Richard Nixon or when Democrats defend Chuck Schumer, imagine what it's like when black people swarm the streets to defend Jeremiah Wright.
Also note that Instant Pundit doesn't link to this guy but to another guy who also contributes to the blog.
How ridiculous. I'm thinking, "man, we'll have to put that on the agenda up at the next meeting of Black People, as a point of order. Motion: concede that Wright is a nigger."
Adjourn your asses, right?
Hey, Cala, are you sort of surprised in the way I am about how more is not made of the jeremiad and all that in talking about Wright?
Is it wrong that I'm most offended for Iverson?
Also, this , on crime and sentencing (among other things) seems important.
That's really charming about Tim Russert. I know its a lefty blog commonplace to call him the most overrated "journalist" in America, but wow is it true.
I'm most offended for Iverson
And he spelled "Allen" wrong.
8: "Allen" is not the standard spelling, though, right?
But it seems like someone with more patience could get through to this kind of racist.
And I have no idea what the above is supposed to mean. He isn't confused about concepts; he's just got a standard litany of Bad Black People.
NPR has been ALL OVER the jeremiad as prophetic and rhetorical form. It's like they have what's-his-face Bercovitch on staff or something.
Plan B needs to go into effect tonight.
You see, you've just given life to the suspicion that black people in America are, and have long been, a fifth column -- unanimously hating the very country that has afforded the highest standard of living ever achieved by black people in human history. We're teetering at the edge of believing that you're a secret society, a massive collection of sleeper cells....
Ogged's vaunted skimming skills did him wrong. But this is not the only reason why he's going to hell.
Apropos of nothing, the 80+-year-old lady next door (not a Republican) started talking about Communists and the Book of Revelation vis-a-vis the Iraq War. It was like having a specimen exhibit of not-clinically-insane political paranoia right there in front of you: "There are things going on that they're not telling us about."
it seems like someone with more patience could get through to this kind of racist.
Are you running for sainthood?
"There are things going on that they're not telling us about."
That's what's so awesome about these people. There ARE things going on that they're not telling us about! I agree with you, sage and aged lady!
... oh. Just not THOSE things. Never mind!
Someone with more patience than I have...
19: I think that understates it. I think (subject to correction by baa or Ideal) that conservatives are more likely to see people as unchanging, either because of the existence of an essential nature or because the factors forming them are so deep and many that it amounts to the same. Which means people are either just good or bad. Liberals, or even just Dems, are more likely to credit people as being a result of changeable social factors, and whatever the patience, the explanation you want to foist off on him needs that underlying belief.
So you'd have to make him a Democrat first, and if patience were all that were needed to do that....
Also note that Instant Pundit doesn't link to this guy but to another guy who also contributes to the blog.
And one person on a blog is blameless for what the other moron writes? In the context of this post, I can see why you'd be interested in advancing that argument.
I actually think that the guy is less racist than confused
No. The guy is definitely more racist than confused. His thinking is very clear, and fits neatly with the long American intellectual tradition.
I think Tim's right -- the amount of groundwork you'd need to put in place to cure him of his racism is pretty intimidating. He's fundamentally blind in a huge number of areas, to the point where I think that his (more characteristically contemporary) form of racism is actually more difficult to combat than classical 18th/19th-century racism. (Though maybe the persistence of The Bell Curve theory means I'm naive about the appeal of vulgar or, for lack of a better term, "race-based" racism.)
unanimously hating the very country that has afforded the highest standard of living ever achieved by black people in human history.
The problem is that they're JUST NOT GRATEFUL enough, dammit.
What's really scary, though, is realizing that things that I truly do take more-or-less for granted as clear and obvious truths--like, e.g., that asking Obama to account for Belafonte is OBVIOUSLY RACIST--are things that 95% of Americans just do. not. get.
Also this morning my dad called to wish me a happy Easter and then told me all about this book he's been reading and that by the by, did you know that Kennedy campaigned on the missle gap--using the same scare tactics the Republicans use!!--and that under his administration our ICBMs grew from (some small number I don't remember) to (some large number I don't remember). And that was under a Democrat, B! Etc.
I love my father, and his heart is in the right place. But it is so hard during conversations like that not to say things like, "well, no shit, Dad."
Wait, trashed old Hondas are a black thing?
I don't really understand the hatred of the spinner wheels, either. Spinner wheels are really kind of awesome, in a hilarious conspicuous consumption sort of way. It's kind of like hating Vegas, or the Mall of America, or silicone boobs.
Why are conservatives so humorless?
"Why are you throwing your money away on spinner wheels when you could be saving for a nice Buick?"
B, The Mall of the Americas is a sacred shrine. Spinner wheels are a symptom of fifth column tendencies.
I bet if a young black man pulled up next to the guy in a car that was nicer than his, he'd have a stroke about that too.
23: Ugh. What to do with family? My sister and brother-in-law's son is stateside in the Army, and he has a pretty secure position as long as the war doesn't go on too long. They are stereotypical swing voters who have voted for Republicans and Democrats (the B-in-L is a union member).
They tell me they are going to vote McCain because Republicans treat the military better than Democrats.
I talked at length on the phone to my brother - a lifelong Republican who just arrived in Karbala after having volunteered to serve in Iraq. We ultimately had to settle our debate with a bet - I put $100 on Obama.
I spoke to my brother about politics before I spoke to my sister and her husband. I'm reconsidering the wisdom of my wager.
Republicans treat the military better than Democrats.
By cutting VA benefits?
26: these days you need the Buick and the spinner wheels.
27: Exactly. I saw a black man in a Cadillac which proves welfare is wrong. He wasn't wearing those hippity hop clothes so they're invading. He was wearing those hippity hop clothes which is why my tax dollars are paying for his Cadillac. Etc.
29: Not to mention starting ill-conceived wars of choice?
31.1: Well, I assume that that's a non-starter if at this point they're planning on voting for McCain.
(I posted this spinner wheels video in the other thread, but it's so delightful that I had to put it in this one too. Seriously, how can anyone hate this kind of thing?)
I bet those spinners increase drag, thereby reducing fuel efficiency. For shame!
Black people don't like the environment.
Last year a New York State Senator introduced a bill to make them illegal. I assume it went nowhere.
I don't think black people should be illegal.
So, they keep spinning after the car is no longer moving? Huh.
I love that one of the YouTube commenters claims that the reason spinners are cool is because the chicks dig 'em.
Maybe the spinning wheels are how black people hypnotize us into voting for Obama.
But it would solve so many problems! Spinners, rap music, oppressing me by making me feel weird about saying the N word....
40 to 37.
38: They often spin opposite to the way the wheels are moving, too. Basically they're independently powered.
37: That's mighty Aryan of you Ogged.
The blue and green Dodge Magnum!!!!! makes me so happy. I want one! In those exact colors!
Basically they're independently powered.
Wow.
Is there like a joystick to control them?
Sorry, that was assholish.
Spinners are completely unpowered, and have a good but not perfect bearing between them and the wheel. So their speed slowly approaches that of the wheel on which they are mounted. If you speed up, they spin slower, and if you slow down, they spin faster.
What you really need, though, are the PimpStars.
46: From an article about the product: The wheels are connected wirelessly to your laptop for image synchronization.
That would offer some amusing hacking possibilities.
What you really need, though, are the PimpStars.
WANT. We will have the first PimpStarred Prius in town.
46: Huh, okay, my bad. What can I say, I've only admired them from afar.
Of course, the fact that they basically work on inertia makes them that much cooler.
(Now someone come along to tell me that that's not inertia at all.)
7, 23: Yes, Tim Russert may not have joined some of his brethren at Fox in the real gutter*, but between the Belafonte stuff and his absurd grilling of Obama on Farrakhan at the debate, he is clearly a noteworthy practitioner of the mainstreaming of racial fears and narratives. I don't know for sure the best way to call this behavior out for what it is that will make people see it, but I think Obama made a good start at it last week. It seems to have at least given some of the more thoughtful in the media (so not Russert) pause. (But I bet they will all absolutely ignore the part of the speech that into some of the economic and corporate-favoritism roots that contribute to ongoing racial issues.)
*Check out this little gem, Hal Turner talking about his friendship with Hannity.
Suffice it to say that my recollection is that when Sean and I spoke by phone, while no one else was listening, he and I exchanged the kinds of views that most White, Irish-Catholic guys hold, but won't speak in public.
he and I exchanged the kinds of views that most White, Irish-Catholic guys hold, but won't speak in public.
Oh awesome. Now, what's this bullshit about Belafonte? Do he and Obama even know each other at all?
Also, I am impressed that Fox News is willing to give the New Black Panther Party a media hearing. I don't think I would have heard of them were it not for Fox News.
Do he and Obama even know each other at all?
Well, JM, come *on*. There aren't *that* many famous black people; *obviously* they all know each other.
They must have some awesome parties, then, Charlie Rangel and Harry Belafonte and Snoop Dogg and Venus Williams and Barack Obama and Aretha Franklin and Kofi Annan and Lil Kim and Jeremiah Wright!
They must have some awesome parties
Racist.
51: Speak for yourself, Turner. The majority of Irish-Catholics don't have their heads that far up their asses.
Did anyone else see this? (You can't link directly to the individual entries, but scroll down to "Walk-off of the Week".) I don't know who the walker-off is, but it's sort of cool the way peoples mouths keep moving while their eyes say "God are we assholes."
You know, I keep trying to construct a response to the sentiments voiced by this InstaPunk (or one of his/her cobloggers, whatever), and I cannot, but it would seem that the first Update in the linked article is right:
Don't be fooled into thinking that this applies only to African-Americans. The sense of threatened tribalism is at the root of movement conservatism, and always has been.
That's all quoting fifth-hand or something at this point. Regardless, it seems obvious. But maybe it's not.
58: Make sure and watch this followup. I LOVE how the blond Fox bimbo makes a big fucking stink about how Obama's trying to "turn the story onto what *other people* do" in your clip contrasted with the hostile defensive asshole expressions on the faces of all three of the jackasses having their racism pointed out to them.
59: I had a hard time with that "threatened tribalism" thing, actually. Because so many of the examples cited *aren't* about threats, at all. It's more like the only thing being "threatened" is people's "right" not to have to think about others. Like, at all. I think it's *perceived* as a threat, but that what's really happening is simply that someone's arrogant overcompensation over some perceived inadequacy is being challenged. It's more sort of like the surly anger you get from students, sometimes, when they find out they're not getting an A in your class--they *don't* actually think that they're really doing A work, but for some reason they become irrationally angry at having *you* notice that.
60.2: Hm. "Threatened tribalism" is an easy answer, no doubt. Yet the substitutability of muslim for black, or communist for whatever, or gay for whatever, seems right.
The threats aren't real, but the need to locate a threatening other is. (God, this feels so cliched.) Honestly, I don't know what to do with this sort of thing; we're challenged to exercise tolerance, and we seem to go into a rather extreme fight mode in the face of it.
I will say: put a people in financial straits, make them afraid for their livelihoods, control the food and the mechanics of the entire enterprise, and you will produce a people jumpy enough to find an enemy.
61: But a lot of people who are like that *aren't* in financial straits or afraid for their livelihoods. At all. I know what you mean, but I just don't think that's the answer.
Wait, what is Chris Wallace doing telling Fox & Friends to quit Obama bashing? The last clip I've seen of him, he was starting an "Obama Watch," counting up the time since Obama promised to come onto Fox News and hasn't, and investigating Obama's suspicious mysteries.
Was someone on Fox News actually convinced by the speech?
I will say: put a people in financial straits, make them afraid for their livelihoods, control the food and the mechanics of the entire enterprise, and you will produce a people jumpy enough to find an enemy.
Nice to know why it's happening, but that doesn't change the obvious solution: beat 'em at the ballot box, and then do what you can to limit their influence in the future.
62: I think it's related to American exceptionalism--an inability to entertain, even for a moment, the notion that they might not be the heroes of this movie. Must crush all other versions of the story.
62: Right.
Some say it's a habit, a (Western, say) habit of mind: there is an enemy, always. And the enemy isn't a problematic frame of mind, but rather an identifiable set of persons. This allows dissociation from any problem in oneself.
I'm trying not to be overly glib, which is hard with respect to this topic. Going with the above, the cultural narrative must still be maintained, so even if you're not financially strained, you participate.
64: It's not just about race, Tim. Who are we beating at the ballot box?
63: Was someone on Fox News actually convinced by the speech?
Possibly, but I am more inclined to think that the racism* on Fox the last two weeks was just not coded enough for Chris (who as you point out has had his little Obama snit going). Wallace and Hume are in some ways worse than the full blown wackos on Fox, they are considered "respectable" journalists within the Washington press establishment and provide Fox with an unwarranted credibility. Hume the worst of the two, a truly corrupt and evil man. But both understand the need for not letting it all hang out, they understand the need for people like Tim Russert to regard them as peers.
*Yes Fox has been pushing the New Black Panther Party, the day after the speech their main new story on Obama on the news site was that the NBPP had endorsed Obama on some endorseobama website along with 700,000 other people, but top story of the day in Foxnews eyes. Very similar to the so-called MoveOn anti-Bush Hitler ad.
I actually think it's just a combination of gross entitlement (another American tradition) combined, perhaps, with an unacknowledged inferiority complex about something or other. Probably parental disapproval or insensitivity or some such.
(I'm actually not joking; I really do think that hard-ass parenting breeds precisely that kind of resentful chip-on-shoulderness.)
It's not just about race, Tim. Who are we beating at the ballot box?
Our enemy, whom we must crush!
Say what you will about all these unbelievably ra ist cocksuckers, they are actually having a frank (one-sided, self-congratulatory, horrific) discussion about race. If only they weren't just talking to each other.
Also, per my coblogger, this "working class whites" thing as code for "stone racists" just has to fucking stop.
this "working class whites" thing as code for "stone racists" just has to fucking stop.
??
Everyone knows that working-class whites just hate metamorphic stone.
71: see every cable news talking head, and the post on my blog I would link if I wasn't on my phone.
68: I'm trying to avoid armchair psychologizing, despite the fact that it sounds like that's exactly what I'm doing. It's not good enough to suggest that America had a bad relationship with its parents.
This is not just an American thing, though we enact it well.
Or rather, at this point we've built the attitude into our political and economic structures. (OMFG, the entire global economy is a giant exercise in acting out! You see what's wrong with this framing?) No, I'd want to go with a variant on a master/slave narrative.
73: Ah, gotcha. Agreed. I was wondering if there was something in the specific linked posts here or whatever that I'd missed.
I don't disagree with 61 as a partial explanation, but I think this is really important:
It's more like the only thing being "threatened" is people's "right" not to have to think about others.
It's really, really hard not to give that up. And I say that as a person who was born with enough privilege that a lot of the time I don't have to, and as a person who has witnessed an absolute tidal wave of resentment from male and white friends and colleagues in the last few months, mostly upset because they're being confronted with the responsibility of imagining the world from another person (group)'s perspective.
Which is hard for any human being, but especially hard if you reached adulthood without having to do it in any substantive way. There is a tendency to think that conscious malicious intent is the only legitimate measure for whether a remark was inappropriate:
Sometimes, readers project bias onto the newspaper that is not there. One was furious at a Reporter's Notebook column that she said portrayed Clinton as a "demonic, castrating female." The column said Obama gave Clinton "a glance that appeared half-friendly and half-wondering whether a sharp object was about to be inserted in a vital organ."
I do not think there was anything suggesting that it was that organ, and the reporter, Michael Powell, was startled at the thought. "Castration did not cross my mind," he said.
Dude. It's not about you.
Yeah, I think that the "right to not have to think about other people" is a huge part of it. At least, on an inchoate gut-level way, it seems to me that the link between that and the "resentful student" thing reads (and maybe this is entirely personal, but I'm thinking too of GWB who is, after all, the current leader of resentful Americans everywhere) as a basic sense of grievance over being asked to *think*. It's as though you're insulting someone by suggesting that maybe there's something in the world that they don't already know.
Have you all appreciated this onion article yet? It's topical.
Oh gosh, you're all talking about freedom from versus freedom to. We think we're supposed to be free from the encroachments of others. A perspective that trashes the notion of responsibility.
Comity.
Oh, gosh, heebie, that's funny-horrible. I hadn't seen it. Thanks.
76: But... but... you don't insert a sharp object into a vital organ to castrate!
To bring our nation together across the racial divide, we need nothing less than the most inspirational song of all time. Awww, yeah.
82: Okay, you win. "We are the river of hope / that runs through the valley of peace!" is the most hilarious lyric I've ever heard.
Sorry, I missed this whole thing, but:
I bet if a young black man pulled up next to the guy in a car that was nicer than his, he'd have a stroke about that too.
My good friend says, about the standard white-guy complaint that "'They' live in the ghetto but 'they' all drive nice cars," sounds like fine priorities to me. What's wrong with having a nice car?
It proves "we" give "them" too much money in welfare, obviously. Duh.
There's actually a very interesting point to be made about how thoroughly consumerism penetrates even the lower classes, messing with their priorities as effectively as it does everyone else's, only to a much more devastating effect.
It's a good thing Obama opened the conversation.
There's actually a very interesting point to be made about how thoroughly consumerism penetrates even the lower classes, messing with their priorities as effectively as it does everyone else's, only to a much more devastating effect.
As always in matters of black social criticism, Chris Rock said it first.
The list in the main post curiously omits Terrell Owens. And 50 Cent.
The link in 88 leaves me...speechless.
I was especially intrigued by the references to "untold trillions" and "40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago". Since cumulative GDP over the period 1967-2007 was about $226 trillion nominal dollars, we must have been spending 18% of GDP on Those People. No wonder hard working white folks are full of resentment!
I'm a little perplexed by the numbers, though, because "Welfare" (AFDC) in it's peak funding year absorbed only 0.3% of GDP. Maybe Those People just stole the rest. That would be just like them, wouldn't it?
Also, per my coblogger, this "working class whites" thing as code for "stone racists" just has to fucking stop.
Seriously. "Lunch pail Democrats," too.
The link in 88 leaves me...speechless.
You and me both. Oh how the Fear of a Black Planet prospect of a black president makes the barely hidden racism come bubbling forth into plain sight.
92: To be fair, the album is much overpraised.
Also, per my coblogger, this "working class whites" thing as code for "stone racists" just has to fucking stop.
That's why I reverted to the classic 1950s locution "hard working white folks" in 90. "Law-abiding citizens" works well in this context as well. Either one contrasts nicely with "outside agitators" or "race mixers" "the multicultural Left" or "coastal elites".
Where's the gratitude, Black America?
No better than the fucking Iraqis, in that regard.
'Round and 'round it goes. You could write this stuff and hand out the scripts, really, and it wouldn't sound much different from what actually comes out of people's mouths. Whether it's the racial dialogue or the Iraqi one, or the one between the sexes.
I don't really understand the hatred of the spinner wheels, either. Spinner wheels are really kind of awesome, in a hilarious conspicuous consumption sort of way. It's kind of like hating Vegas, or the Mall of America, or silicone boobs.
Oh shit, I'm in trouble.
Also, I'm pretty sure the only thing preventing those "working class whites" from developing a better understanding of race in America is that they haven't had the right Iranian from San Francisco to explain things to them.
At my immigration site, they were insisting that Buchanan was just telling it like it is, because 'they' take all of 'our' money and should join the military if they couldn't make it.
.3%?? Jesus Christ we're a bunch of penny-wise, pound-foolish asswipes.
98: Yeah, I didn't really get that part either.
"Obama is unlikely to become president unless he can explain Malcolm X"
If I were rich, I would PAY PEOPLE MONEY to never talk about jeremiah wright again.
103: Proving once again that whitey's ultimate goal is keeping a black man down.
Admit it, Apo. You'd totally contribute money to my cause.
Btw, have you seen today's RSU yet?
I haven't yet. But I did like their bit on Wright.
Having just scanned through the comments I'm amazed no one has accused you of being a racist for using the N-word. Try using 'nigger' to describe a black, *cough* coloured, person in the UK and you'll end up in court faster than you can fart.
loved the post btw.
Yeah, really great post man, way to speak truth to power, woohoo!
Anyway, random thought:
The racist trolls at Saiselgy's blog have been ranting for months about how you really have to read Obama's autobiography because it's really revealing and damning. I haven't read the book, but I've always been puzzled by this, because Obama's book sold a lot of copies and received a lot of praise. After seeing the Wright speech, it dawned on me what they probably mean by this: simply speaking, Obama identifies as black (as opposed to, say, a white man trapped in a black person's body).
Political correctness has been such a powerful force that racists are seriously curtailed in their ability to articulate themselves. One suspects that the stigmatization of overt racism is so strong that racists are unable to even be fully honest with themselves.
Heavy-handedness is sometimes a very good thing.