Didn’t expect to post tonight but some pathologies never give me a moment’s rest. It seems – still – for many of the stuffed pheasants that pass as commentators these days every time anyone criticizes Obama they are, of course, racist. I know….I know…not this again ! Yawn
Commenting on how pathological this has become is cliché. Even I’m tired of responding to it. The “racist” dog whistle is now a joke. Everyone knows it except morons like Toure on MSNBC and Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine. Chait takes us to a new level of panicked, denial clogged, Obama constipation in his pathetic attempt at damage control on You didn’t built that:
See! The reason this is such a problem for people isn’t what Obama said at all!
Let’s set aside the totality of Obama’s rant – in which he glibly insults millions. (You are not that smart!) Obama’s nasty remarks have been, are being, and will be deconstructed and reconstructed for years to come. His snotty off teleprompter moment will live on and on. And it should.
Let’s talk about Chait’s cult based derangement instead. Watch the bit here. Listen to Obama. Remember other times you’ve heard Obama. Read Chait’s quote above again. What does not comport with reality? It’s obvious. Obama sounded like Obama during his “you didn’t build that” speech. He didn’t put on a “black dialect”. He sounded like he’s sounded a million times before. Chait also retroactively affixes a mythical “Kansas accent” on to Obama. Chait invents a black dialect and a Kansas accent. We are now 3 degrees from reality for those keeping track.
Obama’s tone and rhythms in this particular speech were similar, if not identical, to ones we’ve heard many times. He seems passionate. He gets a bit wound up. He plays off his audience. He lectures. The tone is boilerplate Obama. Obama is giving a stump speech he’s given many times – he just went off the rails in this one – with his ideas, not his tone. The difference – and people like Chait can’t abide this – is that here Obama looks bad to many of the voters he needs. Obama revealed himself deeply in that moment. Like it or not, Jonathan.
Chait invents an alternative reality. Obama went “angry black man (No. He didn’t.) Obama is – out of the blue – a soften spoken Kansan at heart. Yeah, right. Obama is Nancy Kassebaum by way of Indonesia, William Ayres’ tea room, and Tony Rezko’s garage office.
Obama said what he said. Period. Chait has nothing here to refute the “you think you’re so smart” crack and the “you didn’t build that” moment, so he must return to his calming, centering neurosis: If it makes Obama look bad, it’s racist. It’s been interesting to watch this pathology unwind. Not long ago yelling of “racist” brought things to a halt. This was a needed phase. Racism still exists. We need to be on guard. Alas, deviants like Al Sharpton realized they could use ‘racist!’ to their benefit and went whole hog with the manipulation. Schools of Resentment cropped up in universities to back the wide-spread smearing of entire groups. White guilt – which is, or was, very real – was put to good use. “Victims” appeared everywhere. Still do.
But now that party is almost over. Buffoons like Chait and Toure, (who has no substantive thoughts in his dainty head), make a living here and there barking Simon Says commands to an empty party. Next to no one is listening. Those who are find it all increasingly annoying and laughable.
Many carnival barkers like Sharpton hold to the certifiable idea that Obama is treated worse than W or Bill Clinton – because he’s black. This belief is insane. It’s hard to fathom a President getting more grief from the media than Bill Clinton. And W in term 2 was thrashed as a matter of routine. After Katrina the bottom fell out. Obama is treated with more deference because he’s black – not less. Vast segments of the media won’t even cover Fast and Furious. Many in the media want Romney to release tax returns dating back to the stone age but find any questions about Obama academic records an indicator of latent racism. And they appear to experience no cognitive dissonance. This trait is pathological. Like pedophilia, I doubt it can be cured.
I see no reason to get over the galling overuse of “Racist!” in the last four years. It’s been damaging and despicable and it’s set us all back. Those who gamed the race card for short term gain should be taken to task. People of principle ought to remind everyone just how gross it all became. People of principle ought to call out intellectual midgets like Chait, drag them out of their airless hobbit holes and shake some sense into them. Mr. Chait, the President is taking a hit for that speech because that speech was the best evidence we have for what the man truly thinks. IN CONTEXT. Many people are startled by it. Obama’s race has nothing to do with it. Grow up.
The good news is that now screaming “racist!” every time one wants to distract from the truth has become a joke. It’s a bit sad too as racism is still a reality. Here’s a plan: let’s use the word racism when it applies and let’s not when it doesn’t. Just a thought.
Related articles
- Chait: Obama’s Most Clueless Critic (drudge.com)
- WaPo columnist fears voters will think it’s okay to vote against Obama “and not be thought of as a racist” (legalinsurrection.com)
Just when you think the Progs can’t get no more stupider they go and prove you wrong.
They aren’t stupid. I’m tired of both sides calling the other ‘stupid’. They simply check their smarts at the door on these subjects, like shoes before a shrine, and let their feelings overrule logic.
Oftentimes, you’ll see intelligent but deluded people applying great feats of mental dexterity to prop up their beloved fantasy. Like many obots. Like Fred Hoyle, a brilliant astronomer who, for emotional reasons, spent the rest of his career trying to disprove his own discovery, that the Universe was expanding.
How the mighty are falling: CNN President Jim Walton is out..
These dopes will keep singing the same refrain until they feel the pinch in the wallet, and let the door hit them in the ass. ,
Love this. I can read it in your voice now that I’ve heard you rant on the radio. It adds to it.
As for people of principle speaking out, I have and I do. I like to point out in comments on the WaPo or Buzzfeed that if Obama loses this election, it’s evidence of how far the nation has come in terms of race relations, because he’ll be held to the exact same standard as Carter and H. W. Bush, for the exact same reason. That’s the definition of equal treatment.
Finally, interpersonal racism hardly exists at all anymore in the white community as far as I can tell. Public expression of it has been well-dampened at any rate. In the black community, it’s another matter, but even that is understandable, though not excusable. What’s not explicable or excusable at all is the fact that the most obvious and pervasive form of racism today is institutional racism, which Obama has done hardly anything about, even though he’s the first black person in American history to be able to make an impact there. Michelle Obama does more, quite frankly. He’s starting to make some noise about it now, because he needs to police those black voters who may be disillusioned by him, but he’s still not making any policy moves. And our academic centers are still just as guilty of it, too, even as they continue to gin up controversy over it.
*a big impact. Several congressional black politicians have done something about it, but they are limited by the willingness of the whole body. Obama has a platform for it, and he not only did nothing, he blew tons of rhetorical capital with his crying wolf about it. You won’t find Toure or any other black pundits on the left talking about that. The lack of imagination because of the confining nature of leftist thought these days is astounding.
Good comments Lola-at-Large. Great post, John. As usual.
Sure, as long as there are no blacks in the community who have the temerity to be angry and say, “racist,” whites in the white community experience hardly any interpersonal racism.
Jesus.
It’s hard to accept what’s been revealed the past few years in these “that’s racist!” outbursts but there’s truth in it and truth is opportunity to understand and learn. I don’t mean that every one of these, or even most, accusations of racism in the context John raises is actually racism; but if one is around enough African Americans in tangible life (offline) it’s clear that they’re serious about seeing these things as racism. Obama exploits this belief for his own personal gain, but most blacks who say it do truly believe it’s racism when they say, “that’s racist.” Well that shouldn’t be brushed aside because even if you think it’s overblown, the way they feel informs their choices and their choices are part of what makes our society what it is.
It seems, incredibly, you’ve learned nothing from what’s been revealed the past few years; I see more clearly every day why Romney and his gluttony-sized fortune and repressive Mormonism is so appealing to you. Just as surely as those who yell “racist” at phantom demons, the pretense that “interpersonal racism hardly exists at all anymore in the white community” is delusional and makes the problem worse.
A great many African Americans are pissed off about the racism they feel all the time all around them, and human beings who are hurt and angry and feel ripped off want it acknowledged and attended to. You and I may not like the way they’ve expressed their long simmering frustration, the past four years, but they have expressed it and the frustration is real, and if you notice hardly any “interpersonal racism” in the white community it’s either because it’s been secreted or you wouldn’t notice an elephant sitting in the middle of your living room.
And the reason this pretense that interpersonal racism hardly exists at all in the white community is so offensive is that just because some of the racism African Americans feel actually comes from inside themselves doesn’t mean whites don’t contribute to it and don’t have a responsibility to be active in dealing with it.
I hear this from whites all the time, and even though it’s true that institutionalized racism exists and needs to be dealt with, claiming that “interpersonal racism hardly exists at all anymore in the white community” but institutional racism is pervasive, is just another way to shirk responsibility. It’s saying, “sure there’s racism but it’s them, (institutions) not me, not us, we’re good and good people can’t have racist thoughts, ever, so I don’t so there. Very neat and convenient to have the problem be “institutions” rather than you and me and our neighbors and friends and family. But it is you, Lola, and it’s me, and it’s our fellow white citizens and our fellow brown and black citizens; racism, at least in thought, exists in every single one of us, even the nicest and the most enlightened and the coolest. It creeps into our thinking one time or another one way or another, then we’re vulnerable for a moment and see or hear something and there it is, it pops unexpectedly, pop goes the weasel; racism is so big, so interwoven into so much of what we see and hear from our earliest experiences, and also it’s been so exploited for nefarious purposes, it’s impossible to avoid completely if you’re a functioning socialized member of our society, it batters against our conscience like pollen through the eyes and nose and it gets in, and those who pretend it doesn’t are the ones who let it fester.
And it’s worse than it was three years ago because not only have African Americans in general not resolved their issues with it, thanks to Obama and his supporters using “that’s racist!” as a weapon to silence criticism, it’s further metastasized rather than shrunk, and it’s created more excuses for some whites to justify racism in their own private thoughts.
Save the drama for your mama Zal.
This is to zal, ummm maybe you have racists thoughts, but i don’t so stop generalizing!!! This group think that is supposedly fated as you seem to argue and so we can’t deny itthat you constantly use as an argument is maybe a reality in your world, but it isn’t in mine or probably many others here. I am of the camp that i make my own fate, my own decisions, i am not racist so stop frickin saying we all are. Your arguments are false, manipulative and frankly tired and annoying that they take up much damned slace in john’s awesome and thoughful, not to mention open minded blog. Basically not everyone and not anyone is you so stop trying to tell us we are a certain way or we automatically think a certain way just because you are the master if our thoughts and life or something. Seriously, why haven’t you moved onto another blog where people will fall for your bullshit more easily. You absolutely destroy my experience here with you constant self righteousness!!!!
They’ve cried ‘Wolf!’ way too many times, Zal.
Thanks, Senneth.
Zal, I’m curious. You seem to think that racism like any other ism is a type of spectrum: We all have it ingrained in us and can never get rid of it. Therefore, it must exist in degrees. So when does one become at the less-racist side of the spectrum? When we live with African Americans and other minorities in the same neighborhood? When our siblings marry them? When we work with them? When we are friends with them and invite them into our home and lives? When we talk to them just like we’d talk to anyone else, with respect & dignity? At what point do we become less racist? Because if we can’t acknowledge the gains that we have made in combatting our intrinsic racist nature (as you contend) then what is the point to even becoming less racist? Maybe we should just go back to “being with our own” and then everything would be okay? Because your rationale gives NO hope to anybody. And it acknowledges no gain in interpersonal relations.
I do believe that racism as a whole in interpersonal relations has decreased hugely. As a society on the whole we are at the less-racist side of the spectrum. What we are increasingly against is thuggism and ghetto behavior (much like the mafia who dominated the urban dwellings of our past). But when whole urban neighborhoods (or minority dominated rural ones) receive less funding for education, street repair, and basic services, then something is amiss. Isn’t that what we call institutional racism? Because I am seeing that on the rise. And as more educated minorities gain the education, skills, and opportunities to leave said neighborhoods to move onto something better, they are fleeing those urban dwellings with all speed and without reservation. Then they too refuse to contribute their funds or investment into the very neighborhoods they came from after they have “made it”. And I’m talking about more than the minority celebs, I’m also referring to minorities who have become professionals. They feel justified in abandoning their collective history and responsibility. Isn’t that also racism?
Love that you raise these issues, John, the way you do.
But I’m surprised you credit Chait with inventing the alternate reality you rightly point to. Obama invented it years ago.
The interesting thing to me is Chait writes, “Obama’s entire political identity: a soft-spoken, reasonable African-American with a Kansas accent” as if that doesn’t beg scrutiny. Obama’s not from Kansas and never lived in Kansas. That accent is fake. Obama’s entire political identity is fake. Chait lays it out, the truth is right there typed out with his own fingers, but he isn’t troubled at all by the fact that Obama’s very identity is deceitful. Deceitfulness is acceptable, it’s even the admirable choice, that’s the message because it’s Obama’s false identity that won him the Presidency in 2008 and that he must not deviate from if he’s to win this year.
This doesn’t bother anybody?
Of course not. The norm never bothers conformists; even if it’s outrageous –which deceitfulness as the norm is– it’s defended precisely because it’s the norm.
As for the call of “racist!”, this to me personally (yes I know I’m an old fashioned liberal), on the human interaction level of the American people, it’s the saddest part. Since 2008 it’s been clear many blacks are much angrier and bitter and victim-identified about race than was in the open before that; that was startling but okay if that’s the case, I thought, it’s better if it’s out in the open, now we can look at it and deal with it.
Especially with an African American as President.
But in the three years since, it hasn’t been dealt with or seriously discussed by Obama or any Obama supporters, it’s only been Obama critics who raise it honestly for discussion, like Cornel West or John here on this blog; if Obama or his supporters bring up race it’s for political expediency like Trayvon Martin or to protect Obama, to accusatorily claim victimization, which is meant to shut up criticism, and when you shut up critics you close off wider honest dialogue and all that’s left is echo with its ever-diminishing intelligence and reason.
So what’s happened the past three years is the victim element of those African American’s identity hasn’t been resolved or improved in the least, it’s moldered into something even ickier, stickier, stinkier, more diseased and internally corrosive, in short nothing healed and the wound is less sympathetic than prior to 2008. I was one of the snookered liberals who believed whites and blacks were a lot closer in understanding than we are, more genuine in our interaction than we were, and much farther along in valuing character over color and circumstance.
And yet I knew this was coming: I agreed with Cornel West that in our society there’s some level of racism in all of us, that it’s unavoidable because of what’s in our common history and all around us still, and that acknowledging that, and actively reminding ourselves all the time to push out the racist thought and pull in a humanist thought, is the only way to authentically move beyond racism. Turns out this was true. Pretending race issues were more solved than they were only made things worse beneath the surface and then in 2008 it burst through the surface. These people, black and white, who call out, “that’s racist!” aren’t kidding, they’re serious. They’re wrong, they’re deluded, but they’re not crying wolf for attention they’re calling wolf because they see a wolf that’s not there. That’s a big and very sad problem; and although it’s worse today than three years ago, thanks to no movement toward resolution, now it doesn’t have the power it had then, it’s just a pathetic sickened cry.
Many of us have had mothers who could make us feel guilty where no guilt was deserved. Some of us learned how not to be guilted by them anymore. We grew up to be mature adults who took charge of our own lives. Doesn’t mean we don’t love and respect our moms, but the buttons they try to push don’t work anymore. “White guilt” is something some of us have moved passed, too. We have nothing to be guilty about, and no matter how hard some people try to convince us that we do, those buttons don’t work anymore either. Time for people to move on.
Most whites say they are not racist. Most blacks say whites are racist toward blacks. The proglodyte response, parroted in the MSM, is that whites are wrong. One of them’s wrong, that’s for sure.
tamerlane, I’ve come to the conclusion that, most often, people are confusing tribalism with racism.
I’m Anonymous. For some reason my gravatar isn’t showing up.
The tribalism vs. racism differentiation is intriguing. Please elaborate, perhaps with a side-by-side comparison of the two.
Tamerlane, Anonymous was me, gxm17. The reason I didn’t respond was A) I have a bug and feel like total crap, and B) I was frustrated that my gravatar wasn’t showing up so I just left the computer for the day.
IMO, actual racism is the eugenics brand, some races are superior than other crap. I think tribalism more aptly describes the friction between different ethnic, racial, religious communities in American culture. Yes, pure racism exists, but I think tribalism is much more prevalent and is commonly mistaken for racism. It’s not based on race, it’s based on group identity.
“actively reminding ourselves all the time to push out the racist thought and pull in a humanist thought” Yes! Dr. West makes perfect sense here. It cuts through racist thought and tribalist thought. We are receding more into our own little clans with our won little group think based on social stereotypes like hipsters, steampunkers, hip hoppers, techies, etc. Then the clan begins to abhor anything outside the clan and ceases to connect with others on that humanist level.
The charge of ‘racism’ is a tactic of distraction that is effective in the media, but beneath contempt in the hearts and minds of most Americans.
The cultural issues in the underbelly of the Black community seem unwieldy and resistant to any kind of resolution. The great majority of law abiding and educated Blacks who bear injustice because of the acts of a small group, should find their voices. I doubt I would understand the rationale for their silence, even if it was explained to me. At one time, I had hopes that Black ministers would speak out, when they finally did, it was only to bash gay marriage, hardly a helpful demonstration.
The R card is maxed out everywhere except the media, and few people respect them anymore.
White guilt has been wrung dry. The only folks who don’t get this are the ones who are still squeezing it for what few dollars remain. Ignoring emotional blackmail, is the only way to render it powerless.
It’s gonna backfire this year. Every slanderous race card comment is just another GOTV appeal for the ABO movement.
Agree, Sophie.
It’s very revealing that the response from whites in this thread (and no doubt many others) about the notion that we whites have some measure of racism in our minds, and for some it’s very small but it’s there, is a defensive insistence that you never have any thought tinged with racism and that you refuse to feel guilty about racism any more. Human beings are by nature tribal, and racism is just another of the cards that our culture, American culture, slides into our brains from infancy. We can work to diminish it, and I sure do that all the time, but no fully socialized member of any human society completely erases its cultural notions of tribalism.
Whites feeling guilty about racism never did anybody any good, least of all African Americans. Though it may have seemed so because it produced all kinds of sympathetic words and programs, but none of that corrected racism, institutional or otherwise.
Don’t feel guilty, it doesn’t help. I don’t feel guilty and I never suggest anybody else should. But if we don’t recognize and admit to something there’s no possible way to fix it and improve ourselves. Aside from extreme racists like Ku Klux Klan member types, individual Americans rarely admit to racism in their own thinking; that’s the way it’s always been. People seem to believe if they simply insist their minds have no racism in there at all, that’s enough, that that makes it true. But that’s not enough.
Instituions cannot be racist any more than they can be greedy, they’re not human and don’t possess those qualities. Millions of human beings have to have racism as some element of their thought process in order for institutional racism to exist and thrive as it does. Human beings. That’s us, folks.
Zal, some of us have nothing to fix. One can recognize that there are “tribes” without harboring negative feelings about tribes one does not belong to. I am not able to join the Sons of Italy., but my sister-in-law invites me to their dinners, and I go and enjoy myself. My grandfather wasn’t fond of Italians, but I’m not him. No need for me to make amends for anything he might have said or done. His sins are not my sins. But fix yourself if you need to by all means.
Psycho-babble, Zal.
My personal & professional actions leaves me nothing to feel guilty about in this arena. I refuse to elaborate, however, as I resent being presumed racist until proven innocent.
My favorite thing is when the final word is available in a musical:
seriously, zal, i am tired of you trying to justify that you are right about your thought that everyone is a racist inside of them. maybe you are and you are reflecting your inadequecies on others, but stop saying what everyone else is just because your warped mind thinks you know it all. you are going to keep coming back trying to justify your theory, but it just isn’t true. you can’t say what other people are thinking especially when you haven’t even met them in real life. i mean seriously, do you think you are a jedi or something? please stop generalizing and open your own mind up and realize that each person especially americans have their own thoughts, motives, minds, conclusions, solutions. not everyone is you and not anyone is you. so just stop it, it is truly getting old and you only seem to be ramping it up as the election is getting near, maybe you are realizing that we won’t fall for your propaganda, so you are pushing it harder and harder?
Zal, have you listened to Dr. West on Hay House Radio?
All tribes give off clues as to their identity that their fellow tribesmen can identify. At one time this was about self preservation and it is ingrained on a primeval level, in all of us.
But fully functioning, conscious negative racism, is pretty rare, except in the worst of us, on all sides of the spectrum.
Internet 101
Perhaps, you and your family suffer from racial paranoia, and all the” family therapy sessions you engage in only enhance it. Maybe a few “sessions” of talking about all the things that happen to you every day that have nothing to do with your race would be a step on the road to recovery. It’s harder to see the bogeyman hiding under every bed and behind every door when you know he isn’t real.
I read, and I believe it was some article in the Southern poverty center, that Obama has the greatest dead threats made against him, more than any other president, in recent American history.
Don’t believe everything you read. The head of the Secret Service testified to Congress that Obama has received the same average number of death threats as Clinton and Bush.
mummax, you liked this post because you are a racist fuckwad.
Okay, I was clearly wrong. mumlawyerlettered2themax is absolutely a troll, and we are now in dangerous waters with threats of legal actions against a well known and well-liked regular who is in no way guilty of the paranoid & gratuitous accusations thrown around by said troll. Tamerlane, as myiq told me a few days ago when my twitter account was suspended, “If you’re taking flack, you’re over the target.” Let me know if there is anything I can do to assist you. I support you.
Don’t worry, Tamerlane hasn’t killed anybody recently.
Paranoid, profligate piece of trash. I rarely talk of beings composed of DNA this way, but you are a freak of the silliest variety. Medication, my friend. Seek it because you fucking need it.
“Don’t worry, Tamerlane hasn’t killed anybody recently.”
IQ and Zal are still among the quick, right? LOL.
Mum, I’m so sorry that your mind is constructed in such a way that a stranger on a blog calling you a ‘fuckwad’ seems like a tangible threat. The world must make you feel like you’re living in a Cuisinart.
Also, you seem like a genuinely horrible person. That’s not a threat, in case you’re wondering. It’s an observation.
There are two words that are banned on this blog so I can’t be more specific.
tamerlane, please don’t go away! i don’t know why certain posters are continue to escalate their agenda of what i see as trying to hijack john’s site!!! i don’t get why they are here and threatening lawsuits now. tamerlane, i am with lola, please don’t take what these people are saying on an internet post of opinion to heart. they don’t even know you in real life and this is crazy that they are threatening and manipulating this website in the way they are right now. they are trying to make it really unpleasant for us who really admire john’s insight to come here by taking up so much space with their opinions and walls of text that sometimes have nothing to do with john’s original post. these people need to go on their own blogs and right what they are thinking there and stop pushing their drivel and threats here. i myself and getting tired of this consistent and escalating hijacking that i see going on here. it is very manipulative and i wish it would stop. i feel like it is like those people at a party who weren’t invited because i knew they would cause drama and then they cause drama, they make the party all about them and then you can’t get them to leave. i am absolutely frustrated by these people and wish they would leave us be!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The problem the Obama campaign is having is that the “you didn’t earn that speech” is pure Obama. It is his hectoring, scolding, nasty, contemptuous self in all of its glory. By isolating specific clips it is jarring in its nastiness and as some polling found “disturbing”. All of the work to portray him as a caring, compassionate, intellectually gifted leader was wiped out in one cruelly delivered diatribe. This is nothing new to those who have been truly listening to this man for the past 4-5 years and not even surprising. But to those who have been sheltered from it by the press it is a revelation. It took a week to come up with the angry angle with race thrown in to be floated by Chait to see it would float. It won’t mainly because Obama is not angry, he is contemptuous and cruel, elitist and authoritarian in his speech, body language, and attitude. He wiped out all of the carefully constructed goodwill of the people he is supposed to be governing and it is his own damned fault.
“This is nothing new to those who have been truly listening to this man for the past 4-5 years and not even surprising. ”
What Boutis said.
In his fauxautobiography Obama, himself, (well – Ayers acting as Obama) describes his contempt for whites and for the part of him that is white. I’m not sure I really believe that, because I think all indications are that Obama lacks the depth to really have strong feelings about this. But, we do know that those he is most influenced by, and whose rhetoric and attitudes he adopted as a young man have openly and repeatedly expressed contempt for America. Ayers, Dorn, Rev. Crazyass Wright, etc. These people have expressed extreme contempt for this country (yet, for whatever reason, their asses remain firmly planted here). Lacking any real sense of self or any real convictions about anything, and devoid of the ability to give much of a damn about anyone but himself, he had to align himself with someone whose ideology and philosophy he could absorb and claim.
It’s no secret that Ayers and Dorn (never known for their judgment, anyway) mentored Barack, and helped him immensely as he began his ascent (through questionable means) in Chicago politics. Of course, Barack’s own wife has repeatedly made her antipathy for this country, especially for the white segment of it , very well known.
Obama’s role models taught him contempt for America. He internalized it – well, as best he could. Obama has all the traits of a sociopath, and can actually be whatever those in his presence want him to be. He has no sense of who he really is. No conscience. No ability to feel empathy. But, he knows he’s supposed to feel contempt. His friends and family told him so.
if there were a like button, i would push it for boutis comment. well said.
Boutis, you’re absolutely right. Except it’s worse than that.
Barack Obama long long ago let the good parts of himself seep away and is filled to the brim with rage and envy and wannabeism. And he’s a psychopath. One of the weird things about a wannabe is that even when they get what they want, when to all the world they appear to be what they wanted to be, they still envy and are enraged at those who have it because the psychopath cannot feel what they expected to feel, cannot feel the life they wanted.
Although that Obama clip is revealing, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Obama’s anger, his fury, is much more potent and profound than that clip shows. He’s infuriated by people who make something of their own (a business for instance) a success and can enjoy it. That last part is pivotal. Obama has made his own success, certainly as much as Mitt Romney has: he’s the first African American President of the United States, that’s a huge success; but he doesn’t enjoy it. He can’t. There’s no depth or meaning to it for him.
This campaign is far and away the toughest for Obama, psychologically. He enjoyed fighting Hillary but this one’s no fun at all, and that’s frustrating to him. Further, Obama wanted to smite Hillary, the middle class white woman who wouldn’t give up, that was a straightforward psychopathic fight against his mother and grandmother. Textbook. But Romney’s a different plate of potatoes. Part of Obama wants to raise a victory flag over Romney but at the same time something in him doesn’t want to humiliate and break Romney because he wants to be Romney, and breaking Romney will be breaking his ultimate desire. Mitt Romney is the embodiment of what Obama wanted to be: a good looking white man born to privilege, pampered and protected, raised in an intact nuclear white family, with all the particular kind of self-assured confidence a born to the manor white man gets inherently, married comfortably to an attractive blonde woman who gave him sons and is nothing but submissively supportive, and independently massively wealthy with no one to answer to for it. It all seems to have come so easily for Romney. Obama hated Hillary, she represented a source of anger from his past, but his rage at Romney, who represents Obama’s fantasy that he’s been unable to achieve despite having achieved a greater accomplishment than any black man in American history, is much more complex and could be Obama’s undoing. I’ve thought Obama would hold it together long enough to make it over the finish line before he comes undone, but there’s been a crack in the facade and who knows maybe the meltdown will happen before that. I hope it does.
Reply to mum:
1) You are not a Republican. I know Republicans. I have fought with them for decades.
2) Romney is a lot of things but contemptuous is not one of them.
3) Since I think you are a troll why should I give examples of Obama’s behavior that is found “disturbing” by all segments of the populace that his campaign should not have to pay for in their polling and focus groups. He has already switched to “nice Obama” since the “mean Obama” was hitting the skids in the polls.
4) I had to deal with Obama’s campaign operatives in 2008. The fish rots from the head.
Boutis, EXCELLENT distinction.
I don’t see Obama as angry but “contemptuous and cruel, elitist and authoritarian in his speech, body language, and attitude.” This is something beyond anger. Leave it to the psychologists to figure out why he is like that.
One thing I notice in people with a real sense of confidence is their ability to be self-deferential — to make fun of themselves — without it being a commentary on their abilities. This is a character trait that can not be learned or bought. It must be developed through hard work if one does not have it intrinsically. Clinton has this ability. Romney has this ability. Obama does not.
John, terrific post
“Yeah, right. Obama is Nancy Kassebaum by way of Indonesia, William Ayres’ tea room, and Tony Rezko’s garage office”
Hilarious
and
what boutis : said
July 28, 2012 at 10:03 am
Indeed this IS Barry… and Barry, if they” didn’t build it “, you sure as hell didn’t
Mum, Next you’ll be telling us that International Fashion Icon and Busy Mom Michelle is gorgeous and a nice, unselfish person, who dresses Really Well, and is thin ,graceful, and smart.
Disagree with any of that and you must be a hater.
As much as I dislike Obama,a little homework tells us he is not the real hack in the family, and he endures no small measure of abuse under his own roof.
,
Somehow, I don’t think you’re going to get an answer, Conner.
After all:
Can you imagine…….
No, obama’s not angry. He gets out all his anger by personally selecting people to assassinate.
Obama and his shadow puppets in media have exacerbated racial tensions. Obviously, Obama doesn’t actually believe that all people who criticize him are racist. He is attempting to incite enough anger among African American voters to motivate them to vote. vote. vote. He knows the majority of his votes will come from the African American community, and that he can get his base motivated when he yells “RACISM”. He could not care less that he is damaging race relations. He wants to be elected, and is willing to exploit the people he calls his own to accomplish that. He doesn’t care that after he has FINALLY left the WH, the aftermath of the racial divide he has so diligently worked to increase will create problems for people of both blacks and whites..
I’m a little sick of the assumption that racism is a one way street. Blacks can be racist against whites – just as whites can be racist against blacks. Racism is racism – even if you feel justified in your negative feelings and beliefs about people of another race. There’s no such thing as “reverse racism” prejudice against a group or individual based solely on race is racism. You can’t condemn it and practice it at the same time.
Oh, goody! Trollina’s back! Silly lil’ thing….
A while ago i tried to instigate a “conversation on race” a few times here – mostly because Holder offended me, and I’d been tagged racist back in 08 a zillion times. I was pretty honest about my own baggage and learning curve – about my time – 10 years ago – working in public schools with “bad kids” -and I noted becoming aware of my own internal biases – which surprised me – and saw it in other teachers as well. At times white boys who really were thuggy DID subtly get away with more than black boys who were mostly just being high school boys. It was enlightening for me personally. White “bad” kids were discussed in terms of pop psychology. Black “bad” kids tended to be discussed in terms of pop sociology which was really cover for “gang ties”.
I also became aware of how willy nilly some black kids used race for no reason other than to escape some work. Which was distressing and depressing. Many had internalized what they thought of as free pass…i get to do less because of “racism” everywhere. The kicker is we- the mostly white staff – unwittingly played our part in this game by going to global reasons for individual problems with non white students.
Anyway, the upshot of that time and seeing race used for all the wrong reason in 08 led to me where I am now about this: which is I say what I want on the topic and try to be fearless- though I’m not without fear here. The land mines are scattered hither and yon. And I am still learning.
The majority in this country ignoring the murder of black children in chicago and other places is RACIST. If a white girl had been gunned down selling lemonade this spring we’d all know her name. I don’t care who is pulling the trigger in Chicago. Our kids are being killed and the fact that they are black does not give a pass to ignore it. In fact, by ignoring it we prove that racism still exists. I blame both white and black “leaders” for this racism, but frankly, given the dynamic now Sharpton or Jackson are more to blame here because they ought to be intoning with the same fury they spewed about Treyvon Martin. White community leaders ought to be speaking with force on this as well. Why don’t we see a white community leader demanding that the girls in Chicago be remembered – bearing witness to what is happening in Chicago neighborhoods? Should it matter morally who leads on this? No. What matters is our children have value. All of them. I imagine white “leaders” are waiting for a cue from Sharpton or someone like him. Or think it’s not their problem. This is the convoluted mess racism and the later gaming of the race card has created.
White liberals quietly, unconsciously, excuse an internal mass bias against black children dying by periodically going ape shit when 1 non black kills 1 black young person. Sharpton etc also use these moments to play for more time in the spotlight and prove some victim narrative their life story depends on. It is putrid. Here’s the take away that no one can miss: Sharpton values his bully pulpit more than he values those girls. Or anyone killed in inner city violence.
Obama’s rant had nothing to do with race. Ignoring those dead girls in Chicago has everything to do with race.
The point is racism still exists – but it ain’t in the obvious places. Craven people like Torre make matters worse by misdirecting our attention. Creating faux racist moments – and smearing vast segments of the population for sport. Which, again, makes things worse. By spewing nonsense like Chait does above, more and more people see the bullshit, feel insulted as they know the reality of what Obama said, and simply go “screw it”. After the 60th person sent me an email in 08 telling me I was racist for refusing to support Obama – I know I said “screw it, you don’t get to use that canard on me. I’ve got the baggage any white guy my age has and no more. And I’m not racist based on any reasonable definition of the word….you don’t get to change the language because you’ve fallen in love with a cult leader.” This remains my attitude. Besides I can’t count how many “good” white liberals I know who would not get out of their cars in a “bad” neighborhood to lend a hand or even engage someone in small talk. Being expansive about race from mansions in brentwood is very easy indeed. I find these people more disturbing than the alleged red necks of the tea party – who don’t appear to be racist much at all, FYI.
If someone like Colin Powell endorses Obama and it is SELF EVIDENT it was only because he’s black – we get to point this out.
Anyway, I gave up on that “conversation about race” here. Oddly, the advent of Obama made it impossible for a legitimate back and forth. A few stalwart commenters ditched and I was sad about the whole damn thing.
Nevertheless people like Chait, Sharpton and Toure chap my ass no end. They are unimaginably damaging and don’t care or don’t get it. Why the F**K isn’t Sharpton ETC talking about those dead girls in Chicago? Because telling lies about Obama get them more traction, that’s why. It’s shameful. They are shameful.
This is the blogosphere, not a hothouse for delicate flowers.
Do you seriously think that every young white girl/woman who is murdered is covered on the news, John? They aren’t. The ones who are have mothers and/or fathers who know how to keep working at it until they catch the media’s eye, or because their socioeconomic class, or because some other angle of the case makes the media pay attention, such as Natalie Hollaway disappearing in the Caribbean, or Laci Petersen being upper middle-class, 8 months pregnant, and killed by husband. Actually, in both those cases their families also worked the media. Hard. That’s what gets media attention. You can tell because women of all races are killed every single day and the only media reporting it are the local media.
In my hometown of Louisville a few years ago, a little blond 4 year old white girl whose family was poor was drug into an alley and gang raped. That didn’t make national media. But that little 12 year old Hispanic girl in Texas sure did when she was gang raped. Should I feel resentment over that? No. And I don’t. I can’t do anything about children dying in Chicago, or anywhere else except where I live (which I think I’ve covered with my dedication to teaching underprivileged students), but I’m racist for being powerless in other cities? And because I have to filter my outrage to avoid being an emotional wreck 100% of the time? I don’t buy that. And I don’t think you do either.
Look, this conversation got out of control for one reason: you won’t police abusive trolls on your own property. You say you learn something from them, or maybe you feel some liberal guilt-driven inclination to treat everybody, including clearly mentally ill people the same. But your readers are less and less inclined to just tolerate them for you. They speak out in almost thread now, and I’m not talking about me. Eventually it will impact your audience. There’s a way to tolerate dissent without allowing abuse. I hope you find it, because just as you are frustrated with how this conversation turned out, I’m frustrated with being abused here, with seeing others abused and frustrated, and I am less and less inclined to come back everyday. You built this; isn’t it worth the maintenance?
My 2 cents.
Amen
“Our kids are being killed and the fact that they are black does not give a pass to ignore it. In fact, by ignoring it we prove that racism still exists.”
If the black kids were murdered by white killers, then it would make the headlines. Heck, they had to make George Zimmerman white to get the Martin case in the news. If the headline had initially read “Hispanic neighborhood watch captain guns down African American teen,” it would not have garnered national attention. We only care about black victims when a white person kills them. I’m not sure that’s racism but, whatever it is, it’s seriously fucked up.
This is the tribalism aspect I mentioned earlier. I’ll never forget sitting on a jury for a home invasion case. The victims and the defendants were Asian American. Sitting across from me, a middle-aged white man (wearing his VMI ring) announced “I don’t care what they do to each other, as long as they keep it to themselves.” It took every ounce of self control to not leap across the table and throttle him. But is that racism? Not really. It’s more like a bizarre, unspoken tribal pact that too many people seem to adhere to. It’s similar with sexual assaults that cross race. As long as a black man rapes a black woman, that’s tolerable, “within bounds,” but a white man, or vice versa, get your pitchforks out! Like I said, seriously fucked up.
You are spot on about the race issue. I appreciate your reference to your experiences that led to your conclusions about race. I have also seen white teens get away with behaviors for which black kids were given consequences. And, in my community, where the percentage of black children has risen from 10% to 40%, and the number of black teachers has increased, as well, I have seen white kids punished for behavior ignored in black kids. I have also seen kids of both races who were basically good kids, but whose appearance and beliefs did not fall within the narrow boundaries of the mainstream, punished for infractions so small they would have been barely noticed had a more mainstream kid been guilty of them. By mainstream, I mean the conformists, the football players, the kids whose parents have money, the kids who wear their Christianity on their T-shirts… the “good kids’.
This kind of injustice on the parts of both blacks and whites, especially where children are the targets – or the victims of inaction, reflects a deep character flaw, and says more about humanity, itself, than political views.
Like you, I have had an ongoing dialogue with myself regarding my own feelings and attitudes about race. And, in my younger, more immature days, I fully demonstrated my own racism (though I was oblivious to this, at the time) by NEVER finding fault with an African American. For example, If a black man robbed a bank, I might rationalize that because he was black, and had not had the opportunities that should have been afforded him, he probably needed that money to feed his family. I was very reluctant to make any negative judgment about a black person. After all, that was racist. Not until I matured a little, and ferreted out the truth about my on beliefs and motivations did I recognize how racist I had been. To hold others to a lower than acceptable standard, based solely on their race is one of the worst kinds of racism. It represents the opposite of equality. Of course, as we know, this is what the media have done with Obama since day one. They have refused to hold him accountable, because he is African American.
Being from the South, I always expected to be thought of as racist, and during the 2008 primary, when blogging or responded on forums, I always felt the need to qualify the disclosure about being Southern by immediately following it with a statement like “But, I’m not racist”. I no longer do that. I figure that anyone who makes a judgment about me, based solely on the region of the country I’m from, is as prejudiced as a racist, and lacks insight and intelligence. Their opinions don’t matter.
Like you, I’m afraid that open, honest efforts to address real racism – on both sides – has been made extremely difficult since Obama became POTUS. He and the opportunists like Sharpton and others, with their faux indignation about faux racism have made it almost impossible.
My experience teaching in a large urban school shows me that the worst racism is “the soft bigotry of low expectations”. Teachers who held all of their students equally accountable for putting forth their best everyday were more like to be labeled “racist” than those who made excuses for them based on skin color. But the solution to the problem wasn’t lowering standards. Expecting less is what gets us all of the little girls killed on the streets in Chicago.
John, this is another great thread because it’s filled with heartfelt comments that provide real insight that can be found in only very rare places. Like here.
Uncomfortable for some, sure. Honest discussions among Americans about race are uncomfortable because racism has been endemic in American culture from the start and remains solidly so. If we don’t fix it, and it can only be fixed within ourselves, it will be so until the United States is dust and memory.
Most people today are afraid of uncomfortable conversations and turn away when confronted with truth. They wail it isn’t truth but when people flail about sputtering and uncomfortable and want to leave the room, that’s because truth has come in and taken off all its clothes. How did Shakespeare write it? “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
JWS-
I’m not sure if my comment will be welcome or have any value because I’m an infrequent visitor here (except for as of late). I might be a “new face” here, but I’ve been blogging actively since 2007, and I have to say I’m more than a little concerned with what I see above.
I will admit that my own commentary can sometimes be perceived as harsh, but I will also state that I can take a punch as well as throw one. However, I will puncture my own balloons as quickly as I would anyone else’s. Case in point would be my interaction with Zaladonis. It didn’t start off well, and showed no signs of improving. My last comment to him was that I prefer to agree to disagree with his take on Romney/Obama, and continuing any back-and-forth would be fruitless for both of us. I made that decision because it would enable me to continue to participate in a discussion of a topic without wasting time or subjecting other visitors to what amounts to just another pissing match.
The recent comments by mumlawyer(ad infinitum) are more than a little disturbing. They have become increasingly hostile. At first, I pegged him/her as a troll, but then gave it more thought. After visiting his/her blog, I found it to be overtly racist, and copied/pasted a couple of selections to explain why I now believe this person to be deceptive and disingenuous. Now, he/she is posting “Cease and Desist” comments along with legal threats to both you and one of your commenters. That is intolerable. This is a public forum, and if someone is going to throw punches, they better be able to take one squarely on the chin when it comes back to them. Resorting to hysterical claims that their Constitutional rights are being threatened or suggesting that they are in fear of their life and then following it up with legal threats is bullshit. It is the surest way to suppress any kind of meaningful dialogue that this blog hopes to foster.
This may be a public forum, but you also have the right as the host to moderate, edit or ban any comments from anyone whose intentions are to clearly disrupt interaction among those who have been both loyal readers/commenters and who have contributed worthwhile and informative commentary. I am not referring to myself, as I’ve already stated that I am new(ish) here, but to others whose commentary has enlightened me and broadened my own perspectives (including those commenters that I disagree with).
Thanks for your consideration,
Anthony
“If you argue with a troll, the troll wins.”
Anthony,
I’m sure my fellow grognards at this blog are enjoying your comments as much as I am. Fresh voices and perspectives are always welcome. We are also a sometimes lonely group, being among the few sane center-left people who saw obama for what he was.
Myself, I do hope you give John’s blog & radio show an extended try-out, (and also visit the blogs that some of us maintain ourselves.)
Your initial experience may have given you a distorted impression of the lively conversation normally found here. You had some run-ins with Zal. Hey, I find Zal a pompous boor on most occasions. Sometimes I agree with him, plenty of times not. But Zal’s no troll. I suggest scrolling past his comments if he bugs you.
I’ve rubbed plenty of people the wrong way, too. They either get used to my abrasiveness, lob some choice adjectives in my direction, or scroll past my comments, too.
Mumassfakelawyer@racism is a troll. (Or, as Lola suggests, just plain mentally ill. The two are not mutually exclusive.) This is but one of dozens of blogs they visit to spew their venom. Debating a troll is always a waste of time, and only plays into their plan to disrupt constructive conversation.
My policy is to first challenge a suspected troll to present tangible arguments, as opposed to troll-speak. If they fail the test, then I continue to call them out as a troll, as an heads-up to other passers-by.
mummass has tried to silence me first with slander, then with some pseudo-legalese, which would be laughable were it not indicative of a diseased mind. You also checked out mumass, and when you called them out for their virulent racist comments, you also became the target of their invective & threats.
John is fain to censor discussion at his blog, and only rarely blocks a commenter. His policy has fostered a very lively and stimulating conversation, which has weathered periodic clashes of personalities, always coming out the better for them. But perhaps John should consider a separate policy for dealing with disruptive trolls.
You do realize Lola is a troll, has boasted of it and drawn others to join her in it.
I don’t think she should be banned.
Lola is not a troll. Stop lying about her.
“I don’t think she should be banned.”
Zal, does that mean you aren’t going to draw on your fake online law degree to issue a fake online cease & desist letter against Lola?
Tamerlane, thanks for responding as you did. I have no intention of jumping ship here. I find it way too informative. I simply stated my observation about one particular individual who has a clear agenda, and that is to disrupt, divide and frankly bore the living shit out of me (and I suspect others) with rambling (and now, threatening) gibberish.
I do believe that feeding a troll keeps it alive, which is why I directed my comment to John, with little or no expectation of a direct response. The lack of direct response would indicate responsible blog hosting on his part. My intention was also to let you know you have my support, because I do appreciate your “no bullshit” approach and acumen.
Against my better judgement, I do have one last crumb for the subversive troll to swallow – consider it a free lunch:
@mumphonytroll -
I did read your response, and thank you – in particular for the excerpt that reads:
blah blah ROFL blah LMAO blah blah!
lola is not a troll. so stfu zal! btw, i hate that you tried to manipulate the idea that if people are uncomfortable with race discussions that they must be racists! i mean what kind of bs is that? basically no matter what people here that disagree with you, you are always right!!!!!!!!! guess what? THIS IS NOT YOUR DAMNED BLOG, THIS IS JOHN’S SO SHUT UP ALREADY. SICK OF YOUR GENERALIZATIONS, SICK OF YOUR BLATHER, SICK OF YOU ASSUMING, SICK OF YOUR MANIPULATIONS!
JOHN, i love your blog! love your insights, but i think i am done here for awhile, i can’t stay in a place where certain commenters think they know it all and tells people how they are thinking, what their motives are, that they are always right and no one else is! i will always love you john, but i can’t handle this manipulation any longer by certain posters here that don’t add to the discussion at all and instead attack commenters by saying we are all racists no matter what we think. i mean that is just as bad as obama and his team blaming everything on racism i think. and sincerely, i hope you can figure this out because i feel like these people are trying to hijack your site, literally! they are wanting us to not come here as the election gets closer, that’s what i believe and it is super manipulative, but that is what i feel like is going on here.
thank you so much to tamerlane, jay, lola, etc. who have been here before these trolls came along and destroyed our discussions here and started putting up their walls of text. maybe some believe these certain people aren’t trolls and are adding to the discussion, but for me myself, i feel like they are just manipulating this sight and i don’t see it any other way. i am totally turned off at this point in discussing anything with these self righteous commenters.
You’re a liar and it’s easy to prove because Lola has been open at your blog about being a troll and you’ve responded about it.
She’s boasted about her trolling other times in TCH comments but in one blogpost she wrote at TCH a few months ago Lola “came out” as a troll [emphasis added]:
Thanks for the defense folks, I really appreciate it, but it won’t be necessary. I’m basically done here until some semblance of humanity returns. FTR, there’s plenty of disagreement here without the likes of the new crazy lady and Zal-the-faux-intellectual hypocrite. I could even live with the latter if he wasn’t such an authoritarian asswipe who dominates the conversation with his voluminous and blathering rants (my scroll finger is tired), but the crazy lady is beyond acceptability. I don’t have to play in the schoolyard with crazies, and I choose not to. Plenty of good blogs out there. Y’all enjoy, if that’s even possible here anymore.
John, I’ll still listen to your podcasts. Their great.
Final comment: My thoughts about Zaladonis are part of the permanent record now. http://peacocksandlilies.com/2012/07/08/zaladonis-the-ofa-troll/
You good folks know where to find me.
What Anthony and Lola at large said. I don’t read mum’s posts. They are long, and offer nothing of interest to me. However, I did glance at the post in which he threatened Tamerlane, a long-time blogger, whose comments are pithy, insightful, and interesting. I hope you start moderating Mum’s posts as they add nothing to the quality of the discussion at your wonderful, wonderful blog. One which I’ve been visiting since 2008.
“A weed is a flower out of place.”
Lola is not a troll. She may have engaged in trolling using alternate personas but who hasn’t? Trolling is not a physical condition or a genetic characteristic. It is an activity.
When you come here YOU are a troll.
Oops – that last comment was meant for Zalatrollis
Not to mention, myiq, I was HONEST and open about it, which actually makes me a terrible troll.
Have to add my 2 cents to the comment about Lola being a troll.
SHE IS NOT. I have been following her blog for a long time and interacted with her at many different blogs (RD’s) since 2007/2008. She is a Center-Left Dem who was initially ABO but has now become a Romney supporter for her own clearly thought-out reasons. Some I agree with, some I don’t, but I appreciate her insight and knowledgeable reasoning like I do John, Tamerlane, Anthony, PMM, et al. Lola’s guest post at TCH was almost tongue-in-cheek (have we lost our humor lately?) but serious in intent to troll at blogs like Cheeto-land and other progressive blogs that began banning us and calling us trolls just because some of us merely questioned Obama’s qualifications and now THEY are finally waking up to how they got played by Obama. They had no substantive defense to our inquiries and thoughtful remarks and so we were banned, mocked, and demonized. As some of our fellow progressive blogs (and ex PUMAs) have morphed into Obama supporters in 2012, for whatever strange convoluted logic they had developed since the Occupy movement exploded, we sought other blogs to engage with to go back to some sane thought and analysis about the Occupy Movement. I’ve been to John’s blog for a long time. Although I was a frequent commenter at TC and others, I had to find other venues for some sane discussion as well, as Lola herself stated. I suggest that a more thorough reading be done to Lola’s troll post at TCH, in which she was specifically commenting about the recent huge swell of feminist support that Obama got this spring from the fight about abortion/contraception rights vs. religious freedoms. Again, like our lack of support for Occupy, we are again being cast as demons & faux-feminsits because of our varying views of the healthcare provision. If this makes Lola a troll then I suppose I am one as well since I recently began commenting on John’s site after an extended period of lurking.
As long as overlooking crime and dysfunction helps one avoid being called ‘racist’, wth does anyone expect to change ? Tell the victims of this dysfunction, how much you sympathize with them, that will make it all better. Until the majority of those victimized revolts, how much change can we hope for ?
“Threats”….project much ?
John, were you aware of this:?
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/13958648-418/farrakhan-nation-of-islam-take-to-city-streets-again-to-curb-violence.html
“Even a stopped clock…etc etc”
funny, I read about it right after my comment last night or may be this AM…. I don’t like Farrakhan for a number of reasons. And I don’t know enough about his history in “taking to the streets” of Chicago in terms of stemming violence to get worked up one way or another. My gut says it’s indicative of a failure. If poor white areas erupt in carnage do we send in skin heads?
That said, if the place called Chicago is that bad – lives may be saved…
Also, shouldn’t the mayor be upset about Farrakhan’s stance on gay marriage? He’s furious about that chicken joint.
First, I can’t hold a candle to the intellect on this blog, as articulated in every comment. My resonator meter is on overload. Nevertheless, as one who grew up on the other side of the tracks, with all of the struggles against generational, environmental and social conditioning, I’ll weigh in a bit, at the risk of sounding like a bleeding heart “label, label, label” rebel, without a clearly identifiable social cause.
But, I too, consider myself to be “Special” – as I find it difficult to admit that there is nothing intrinsically “better” about me – for having suffered greatly, made sacrifices others haven’t, achieved certain admirable milestones – or failed miserably, harming myself and others, having taken the ‘wrong turn’ at the perpetual fork in the road on the path to hell – always paved with good and righteous intentions of achieving greater success.
I doubt that one of us here actually enjoys the human suffering we know exists, caused by inequality, unequal access to healthy, human development opportunities and indifference – where person-to-person humanity is so easily overshadowed by our “survival of the fittest” mentality – the DNA that makes us all “racist” in our most primal state, in my opinion – having learned the ability to overcome obstacles, stay the course, pick oneself up and begin again, believe, trust, make esteemed choices – despite overwhelming, negative influences in every sector of our society.
The evidence in social inequities, poverty, and the unconscionable imbalance in wealth and power is quite apparent. The vision of how a society fully committed to equality and fairness might appear is easy to imagine; but for comparing me and us to them and they.
So, how far have we really come in our “race relations” in fifty years, since the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties? Relative to what in our society “progressing” toward a more equitably viable society, as a whole?
A ten minute drive through surrounding neighborhoods in my town reveals the ongoing AFFECTS of racism. Being slightly more dignified in how we view our respective races doesn’t fix the damages done, anymore than “higher education” makes us a smarter, more CIVIL and progressively viable society.
How do “We” like it, now that “We” are seemingly incapable of challenging or defeating those so well-positioned to exploit and capitalize on disparities in power, wealth, position and access?
What will the long term effects be upon “Middle-Class America” – after a mere few years of oppression, disenfranchising and circumventing the will and rights of “average” American citizens? Bootstraps with no straps? Running the race of surviving and thriving shackled, tripped and at a horrific disadvantage?
Perhaps refusing to face, in the mirror of our society, our unwillingness to fully overcome our inhumanity – and our complacency – about these same issues for Black America is why “we” are suffering many of the same injustices of “subjugation” to the powerful and elite.
“We” had a chance to overcome racism, I believe, in furtherance of that person-to-person humanity and to the empowerment of us all – as a force against “corruption.” at the expense of the “common man.”
“White Guilt”? Nah. I am not a racist. Just “Special” that I should not suffer the fate of others, less fortunate, less privileged, less capable, less intelligent, less educated, less hard working, less powerful against the more powerful than me.
WTF happened that “We” ended up on the other side of the divide with those who insist that “We” don’t understand the Hamster Wheel of Subjugation and Oppression?!
“Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!”
Oh look – sockpuppets!
Tamer, My fourteen yr old granddaughter has spent every day this summer working on a farm, in order to get a free chance to ride, when her work is done.
How do you advise getting a burr out from under one’s saddle ?
John, I usually lurk and would prefer that you don’t censor or remove someone from your blog. I’m tired of reading borg blogs where only one opinion is allowed. One of the greatest lessons people need to learn is that it is okay to Agree to Disagree without sliming others.
Now for my other 2 cents.
1. Zal – your comments could be considered worthwhile if you weren’t denigrating someone or being condescending like you are one of the intelligentsia which only indicates a narcissistic personality. Funny how you have devolved into Mouse – yelling and stomping your feet when you disagree with someone.
2. Mum- I understand your rants. However, instead of choosing someone like Michael Nutter, Cory Booker, Stephanie Tubbs Jones (rest in peace beautiful woman) or even Doug Wilder (who I have mixed feelings about) to run for President you chose to support a man who never lived the ‘black life’, has been given just about everything without any hard work, ignores the AA community until he needs votes, uses people and throws them under the bus willy nilly, etc., etc……
Also, why is that when AAs achieve success like those in the entertainment field rarely give back to their community. Why aren’t more people screaming and hollering about what is happening in Chicago – all those precious lives snuffed out by guns and violence – you have some of the toughest gun law in the country? I dislike Farrakhan (a discussion for another time) but am glad to see that he is stepping in to stem this violence.
3. John – You have a good command of what is happening in our country which makes this blog a worthwhile read and you have the courage to admit when you are wrong.
My last comment before returning to my lurking place. Obama has created more divisiveness in this country not to better us but for his own personal gain. I know many people who answer poll questions dishonestly due to fear of being called names or having someone come after them (google a person’s phone number and you will get not only their address but a map with directions to their home which is why I pay to be unlisted). So what are his real poll numbers? After the Walker recall election which cost us the citizens big money, people were asked who they would vote for in the general responding by more than 8 %age points for Obama. Today, it’s a tie making Wisconsin a toss-up state. Also, I have only seen 1 bumper sticker for him which is so different from 2008.
Enough ranting – Wishing everyone including Zal and Mum a good day. Get out and enjoy this beautiful sunny day.
Jay, Thanks for the cuisinart metaphor, brilliant and funny. Reminds me of the time we asked a uniquely honest waiter what the soup du jour was that night. He responded,:” whatever the chef had left over from yesterday, that he could fit in the cuisinart.”
We decided on a salad.
^ Conner, I’m a thinkin’ that was a smart choice! Your bowels (and neighbors) thank you.
It’s like a soap opera around here. Sometimes I wonder if John isn’t making some of these commenters up like the “Shelby Fluffy” character, (I love Shelby btw!). Just kidding John. But sersiously, maybe you should make a Shelby video with all the assorted cast: Zal, mum, and the regulars and even not so regulars too! I could be a giant dinner party hosted by Shelby! Just an idea
I’m not a regular commenter here, though, I always enjoy reading, and post when I think I have something to relevant – not that I believe I do in this situation. At this point, I’m at a loss to fully understand at what point the African American community, as a whole, will feel that a reasonable sense of equality has been achieved. Even though I totally opposed Obama as POTUS, the country voted him in over an old white guy who had served his country, had wealth, was mainstream. Even though I question the judgment of those who voted for him (nothing to do with his race, but with his lack of experience, competence and character) the fact that he was elected should have provided some proof that America, as a whole, is trying to overcome racism.
The racial divide has worsened since Obama took office, as we have said previously, because it benefits him to keep racism alive. It will get people ,who might not have otherwise bothered to vote, into their polling places. He needs the votes. Racism – or the idea of white racism against blacks – benefits people like Rev. Al Sharpton, and others, providing them a chance to be in the public eye, waxing indignant with faux outrage about racial injustice (sometimes – not always – about something that is not really racist). The idea of racism justifies the continuing existence of a number of organizations and groups. By repeatedly making unfounded and erroneous accusations of racism, the seriousness of the issue is diminished. And Obama, in continuing to respond in this way to any and all criticism has done African Americans a grave injustice, IMO.
Condemning racism and promoting equality is something I imagine most people on this blog have done and will continue to do. Most people who were Hillary supporters are against racism. I was and am. I will have to say though, that a greater concern for me, at this point, is sexism. People can and do make extremely misogynistic, sexist remarks over the public air waves and in any other public arena, with no fall out, no repercussions, no outrage on the parts elected officials, the media, or anyone else. And, IMO it is a short step between publicly approved sexist slams, gross inequality in the work place, and general disregard about equal rights for women, to the increasing violence against women. If the general disregard for women’s rights did not exist, and there was not a basic acceptance by government and the general public that sexist slams and misogynistic rants by public figures was acceptable, the culture of violence that exists against women would be much less of an issue.
For me, though I will always do my best to promote racial equality, when I have the opportunity, as I have actively done in the past. But, my focus and my fight will be to right the wrongs committed against women in this country. Wrongs I might add, that would never be tolerated if racially, rather than sexually motivated.
Regarding above post, I did not mean to imply that there is no racism in this country – only, that laws have been passed to create equality, and I do believe progress in that area has been made. You can’t legislate feelings, however, and I think that in order for blacks and whites to feel a greater sense of harmony, a level of trust and respect – accorded just because we are all part of the human family – must be achieved. Frankly, I see mistrust and disrespect on both sides of the race issue.
mumlawyerlettered2themax, sorry I don’t think “mummax, you liked this post because you are a racist fuckwad.” is anything like illegal. I read far worse online all the time in comment sections. It’s harsh – but your job is to ignore it, respond in a way that is not based in threatening fantasy, or go away. Threatening people with legal action – which was just invented – is over my very liberal line. Know this: When you bandy about fake legal threats you are threatening my blog. I like this blog. I spend time on it. I love the people who come here, even when I don’t like them . And even with my annoyingly sanguine attitude about comments, I will defend my turf. AND the people who have been supportive and kind to me – even when they did not agree with me.
Now then I am loath to boot anyone – but that doesn’t mean I won’t. Knock off the wild faux law breaking accusations. Good lord, calling someone a racist fuckwad if hardly against the law. If someone is threatening you ( no one is here) do something about it. Somewhere else. I don’t like how over the top your comments are above. So I deleted them. That is one of my reasons – I wanted to. You go WAY over the line with 2 people that have helped me a great deal and who i value around here. So I’ve taken the offending comments down. My other reason is : I don’t have time for shit like this. Don’t threaten the way you did. Period.
My take is this: I don’t even understand how you could come to the conclusions you did based on anything on this blog. Therefore I must conclude that you’re making up shit about this blog. That is a no go. Hammer away with whatever you like, but base it in the reality of what happens here.
See Lola’s comment above for how it’s done. She reamed me about white girls being murdered. Good for her. I’m a grown up. She’s a grown up. She responded to me with force and passion.
And yes, if someone calls me a racist fuckwad I’d snort and move on. Or maybe respond with a “you’re a snot filled cur”. The end.
Note to you: you have strong opinions. If you come here to express them expect both short harsh blow back and well thought out debate and or a furious response. If the debate and/or food fight here doesn’t suit you – go away. Mean time, no more bullshit legal threats.
Don’t go away mad.
Just go away.
Good lord, you’ve been here for a few days, mumlawyerlettered2themax. These diatribes about “escalating threats” are over the top. I don’t even know where this nonsense if coming from. Keep it off my blog. I don’t have time for this type of crazy. You’re not welcome here, your comments will be deleted.
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