Martin, I I’m skeptical that a Saudi Arabia with women’s suffrage would be worse than what they have now…but that is highly speculative.
I have however heard quite a different narrative about Cuba. Namely, that the pre-revolutionary society was extremely racist, but that the revolution really evened things out. This is what is said to explain the relative dearth of black Cubans on the boats that come to Florida, even though blacks are the majority on the island. The white Cubans are said to be butthurt about their loss of hegemony, while the black Cubans are down with the revolution.
I don’t think Castro has that much of a reputation for horrible treatment of blacks. I know he takes a hardline on even bringing up racial politics but he was never friendly to any political speech. In fact, if a Black American is going to know anything about Castro’s stance on race he’d probably remember him giving sanctuary to some Black power type fugitives in the 60’s.
This is the first American generation that will do worse than their parents. The recovery from the world economic collapse caused by the financial sector has been something of a phantom recovery. The ownership class has recovered their wealth and prospered, but it has actually accelerated the widening gap of income inequality. Unrestricted globalization has devalued American labor.
That’s what’s driving the sudden resonance of Sanders’ message. Trying to turn this into some sort of racial issue is absurd. What requests of the black community is Sanders supposedly ignoring? I’ve asked this multiple times and no one has answered it.
The fact that you, without irony, used the term “whitesplain” is disgusting. I have no idea you belonged on TumblrInAction.
White liberal millenials are the least prejudiced and least racist demographic this country has ever seen. There are candidates out there who are attracting the xenophobic and racist votes. The idea that Bernie’s ideas are the most attractive to those who want to maintain their white privilege is absurd. “I was going to vote for Trump, cuz he hates them Mexicans as much as I do, but man, Bernie has got the real fucking deal when it comes to racism, he’s got my vote”
But oh, Hillary is the better politician. She made a stunt where she asked some black people what they wanted from her. So, obviously she’s going to heal racism in this country, and because Bernie’s principled stance towards improving the lives of the lower classes without any sort of racial favoritism was told to them, instead of asked, he clearly doesn’t give a fuck about them. Hillary truly cares, though. Elect her, and we can build upon all of those victories for minorities we had in the 90s under Clinton, like … … something. Probably.
I think you’re smart enough to do this, so I implore you to take a step back and look at what you’re saying. There are valid reasons for support for Hillary or to oppose Bernie, but your categorization of his support is so off base that it’s perplexing.
Which Saudi Arabia did I outline that suggested they’d have women’s suffrage? I see two replacements to the Sauds–a popular government, which will be far more religious conservative than the Sauds, and thus will remove the limited women’s suffrage and women’s rights that Saudi women have today (voting in local elections just happened for the first time recently for women, among a few other minor increases in privilege.) Under a popular government those are gone.
The alternative would be similar to what we have in Egypt or used to have in Iraq under Saddam–a military dictatorship supported by some parts of the West, and that would have to probably kill many thousands of people to establish themselves at first, and then maintain pretty repressive policies to maintain power. This regime would likely have more secular laws which would benefit women–but no one would have actual suffrage in such a government, military dictatorships and voting (voting in free/open elections) don’t tend to go together.
That isn’t how I’ve understood it, this is a good write up about it.
I think the dearth of black Cubans on the boat is largely because the first major wave of Cuban emigres were the wealthier middle and upper class who fled as it was obvious the old regime was falling. A large portion of those who have come over since on dangerous boat crossings have had relatives in Florida, and since few of the lower income/lower class black Cubans were part of the first large exodus and most people who have fled Cuba since have done so to meet up with family/extended family in Florida there’s sort of a pipeline effect there.
The intro to “Racial Politics in Post-Revolutonary Cuba”
Think you are a little off base here, Martin. Kinda going down a rabbit hole here though, as I agree that 50 years ago is way to far back to give a crap about as far as these candidates go.
People said this exact same thing in the late '70’s and early '80s. Then they said it again in the late '80’s and early '90s. I will believe it when I see it actually happen. A lot of people are just naturally bellyachers, that’s all. And Bernie is the king of the bellyachers, hence the appeal.
I’m unsure what you’re confused about–because a popular government in Saudi Arabia would represent extremely conservative Islamic values, which do not believe in equality between men and women in things like the political sphere.
You’re assuming popular means everyone gets a fair say–but that isn’t what popular means. The “popular government” of Germany in the 1930s was one of Nazism, and it had a support of a large portion of the population (clearly a plurality in the last legal/free election, and probably an outright majority of Germans who were cool with it in the good early days.) Popular governments reflect the culture, if that culture is gravely illiberal then the government will have gravely illiberal policies. In an extremely patriarchal society like Saudi Arabia, women would not be allowed to participate in the organs of government and whatever new constitution was drafted up to replace family rule by the Sauds would explicitly hardcode in a lack of political rights for women.
tldr: Saudi Arabia isn’t horrible repressive to women because of the Sauds. Saudi Arabia practices a very repressive to women form of Sunni Islam (or at least a majority of Saudis do), the lion’s share of the Saudi populace is more conservative than the Sauds themselves, and consider the Sauds too Westernized and cosmopolitan. Many of the major religious leaders of Saudi Arabia only refrain from preaching directly against the Sauds because they have a scheme where these religious leaders receive payments from the government. But they still speak out openly against things like the recent law that let women vote in local elections–this was something deeply unpopular with the conservatives in Saudi Arabia, and all evidence suggests these people outnumber more liberal leaning reformers by a wide margin.
From my perception, Bernie has focused far more on corporate malfeasance and political kowtowing to the rich as an explanation for black poverty, while Hillary has focused more on institutional and societal racism. I think it’s possible that many black voters have the same perception.
SB, do you in fact not understand the difference between explicit and implicit/innate bias?
Again, Millennials rate very high on the rejection of explicit bias on the basis of race. But are equally prone to implicit biases and of course to being most concerned when their own well being is threatened.
They are however more likely to be in denial of it as it is so dissonant with what they explicitly believe they believe.
“Whitesplaining” captures this. It is dismissing and excusing racist impacts because such was not explicitly the conscious intent.
That you consider actually listening to be “a stunt” is frankly sad. It reminds me of a conversation I once had with a CEO who had been criticized for poor communication with the rank and file partners. “I tell then we are going to turn right and then we turn right. How is that not good communication?” “That’s not communicating. That’s talking. Communicating has to include the listening part too.” Funny how often that part gets missed.
Do you think that fear resonates as much with the Black and Hispanic demographics as it does with the white middle class ones?
Fact is that the non-White demographics are more optimistic than White ones are. They are more likely to believe they can and will get ahead relative to where their parents were.
Such a great point. This also underlines how fervid support for Bernie really can represent the other side of the coin from the Drumpf phenomenon: young white men feeling like they are losing pace relative to everyone else. I see it, unfortunately, in my own sixteen year old son. He is as hardcore a Bernie Sanders supporter as you’ll find, but he has more than once lamented in considering his future college and career prospects, “I wish I were black–I’d have it made”. :smack:
Martin, rather than split hairs over what a “popular government” means (although I definitely disagree with your definition), let me bring it back to the topic of U.S. electoral politics. I lament the fact that neither Bernie nor Hillary nor anyone else that I see wants to treat Saudi Arabia (whether ruled by the Sauds or anyone else) the way South Africa was increasingly treated in the '80s, thanks in this country to the leadership of progressive Democrats. South Africa was made a pariah, and they ultimately caved under the pressure and adopted universal suffrage. I want Saudi Arabia to be treated as a pariah until they too adopt universal suffrage, including women.
Such a government would not be perfect, just as South Africa’s is not perfect, but could hardly be worse than what they have now. And it’s just the right thing to do, but everyone in U.S. politics turns a blind eye or provides nothing but weak rhetorical support for change without backing it up with anything. If Bernie broke out of this rotten consensus, I would seriously consider supporting him, I really would.
Alright–I will just point out when I say popular government I mean one elected by a majority of the population and supported by it. The current House of Saud is not either of those things. You seem to define it as requiring full suffrage, while I do not. In fact many popular governments denied women suffrage–and some women even opposed the passage of laws granting their sex suffrage, believe it or not a lot of hardline Saudi women, would actually advocate against voting. Most importantly their husbands would–and in the ultra patriarchal Saudi society a husband declining to give permission for her wife to go vote would have force largely akin to the force of law itself. So if a democracy took over in Saudi Arabia probably one of the first things it’d do is pass laws rolling back the limited suffrage women there were just granted, and probably proscribing far harsher penalties for apostasy and heresy, and more draconian measures against minority Muslim sects in the country.
Edit: Unlike South Africa people really want Saudi oil, and there’s just far too many countries that would not join in on treating Saudi Arabia as a pariah. Saudi Arabia is also far richer, and a majority of its people are against what you want for their country, which is also very different from South Africa where a very small white elite controlled a much larger black population.
Also–and I won’t post about Saudi Arabia or Cuba again as they are off topic here, Saudi Arabia largely has no meaningful suffrage for anyone. They granted women suffrage over local municipal elections, positions that hold little power. These are essentially the only elections that happen in Saudi Arabia. The King obviously is not elected, and he appoints all important Government ministers by fiat. The Consultative Assembly (the closest thing Saudi Arabia has to a national legislature), all 150 members are appointed by the King, and the assembly can only suggest laws for the King to pass, he passes most laws on his own initiative and there is no societal or legal expectation that he pass laws suggested to him by the assembly.
So Saudi Arabia is essentially a non-free state, if we treated every such state as a pariah we’d be doing so to roughly half the world–China, several countries in Central Asia, several countries throughout Africa, Cuba also would go back on the pariah list because they also don’t allow meaningful political participation by their citizens. I’m not sure why Saudi Arabia is the target of particular ire, we can either wall off the entire world with “bad” governments or we can engage with them, and I think the lessons of the Cold War, comparing our relationship with Russia then and now, and China, show that engagement is far better for everyone involved.
This post has really given me food for thought, and I’ve been sharing it with others on social media. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Bernheads in my feed have dismissed it outright, often with eyerolling “yeah, young people are into Bernie because they are racist…now I’ve heard it all”. But I couldn’t help but think there was something there, and now I’ve found some polling data which, if it doesn’t prove the thesis, is at least very consistent with it:
This striking disparity in outlooks certainly is not inconsistent with the observation that Drumpf and Sanders appeal more to whites, while Hillary and her message of “America never stopped being great” seems to appeal more to minorities.
I just wonder if learning this makes any young white Bernheads a little sheepish. Not that their political affiliation is anything like Drumpf in terms of racial resentment and nativism, but maybe, just maybe, if African Americans can be so optimistic about the future, Bernheads are being overly whiny to be such dour Chicken Littles by comparison.
Well, is your point we should make much of the world pariah states? I think South Africa was a lot different from Saudi Arabia or other unfree states? I think South Africa was a unique situation where the West could act and did, but the West can’t declare some half of the world’s countries to be closed off from it until they fix their political system–that’s nothing more than cultural imperialism and just doesn’t work.
