# Donald Trump: The First White President \[article in The Atlantic by Ta-Nehisi Coates\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 7, 2017, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725 "2017-09-07T13:01:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 26
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/501 "2017-09-21T16:58:02Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Wow, thanks for putting the effort into laying this out like this. If it’s okay with you, can I use it in discussions elsewhere (with attribution unless you’d prefer I didn’t)? Of course. No need for attribution. [I should say: this isn’t my field. If you want me to give you a discourse on First Amendment law, I’m much more comfortable! I welcome correction from people who know better. My intent was just to lay out the basic history as I understand it, and as I think it is generally understood by people like Coates.] ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/502 "2017-09-21T17:00:35Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Coates would rather the Black community devote itself to political action than their preferred entrepreneurial action. If they follow his lead, they will fall further behind. Ethnic minorities do not prosper from political maneuvering but from entrepreneurial ingenuity. See the Japanese, Italians, and Jews of the past and all modern immigrant communities in the US today. Hispanics have gained a foothold in American society through courageous economic civil disobedience. It is curious that you’ve chosen this argument to make, as if 1) political action and entrepreneurship are orthogonal rather than complementary forces (the most successful juggle both) 2)black Americans are somehow misguided for seeing value in political action (I guess we’re not supposed to take advantage of the perks that come with living in a democracy like white folks do, alrighty then), and 3) you are in position of authority to advise black people better that someone who clearly has an informed historical and personal perspective on this subject. The ironic thing is that Coates is a world-renowned writer and is unlikely to be hurting for any money. I’m thinking he knows a thing or two about entrepreneurship and where it can take a person. Probably better than us schmoes. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/503 "2017-09-21T17:03:17Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Of course. No need for attribution. > > [I should say: this isn’t my field. If you want me to give you a discourse on First Amendment law, I’m much more comfortable! I welcome correction from people who know better. My intent was just to lay out the basic history as I understand it, and as I think it is generally understood by people like Coates.] Thanks. It matches my understanding as well, even if I probably couldn’t have put it together like you did from the top of my head. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/504 "2017-09-21T17:48:01Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > It is curious that you’ve chosen this argument to make, as if 1) political action and entrepreneurship are orthogonal rather than complementary forces (the most successful juggle both) In the case of Black history, political action has hampered entrepreneurial action, and has caused prosperity to stagnate, with some indicators showing regression. > [@](#): > > 2)black Americans are somehow misguided for seeing value in political action (I guess we’re not supposed to take advantage of the perks that come with living in a democracy like white folks do, alrighty then), No, I simply stated that to emphasize the one over the other will cause stagnation or worse. This has been true since the Great Society. > [@](#): > > and 3) you are in position of authority to advise black people better that someone who clearly has an informed historical and personal perspective on this subject. I have come to my conclusions from my own historical and personal perspective as well as listening to many arguments from Black Americans that are in direct opposition to Coates’. Maybe you thought Coates speaks for all Black Americans. > [@](#): > > The ironic thing is that Coates is a world-renowned writer and is unlikely to be hurting for any money. I’m thinking he knows a thing or two about entrepreneurship and where it can take a person. Probably better than us schmoes. The irony is that he doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/505 "2017-09-21T17:59:41Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > In the case of Black history, political action has hampered entrepreneurial action, and has caused prosperity to stagnate, with some indicators showing regression. The Civil Rights movement harmed black small businesses and the economy in general? I hadn’t heard that one before. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/506 "2017-09-21T18:46:04Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Nothing, which is why it is pointless for you to have brought it up.Correct. “Entrepreneurial ingenuity” didn’t end slavery. It is, however, much of the reason that Jewish people and Chinese people are disproportionately well-off and black people are not. > > So, we eliminate legal discrimination against Chinese people and Jewish people and black people. No more slavery, no more Jim Crow, no more restrictive covenants, etc. Jewish people and Chinese rise to the top; blacks sink to the bottom, relatively speaking. IOW removing legal discrimination and so forth is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a group to succeed. Therefore, there must be another factor or set of factors. > > Getting politicians elected who are the same ethnicity as me doesn’t seem to be that factor. Blacks did that, and they’re poor. Asians and Jews didn’t, and they aren’t. So it must be something else. > > Regards, > Shodan Culture has a lot to do with it. The difference between Jewish/Confucian cultures (just so we’re clear its not ALL Asian cultures that have this sort of emphasis on education) that are thousands of years old that have a reverence for education and respect for elders vs. a culture that only recently got its legs underneath it after slavery was ended and Jim Crow was repealed are immense. I speculate that if you handed the whites in this country the black culture at birth combined that with poverty, violence and background racism, whites would be in almost exactly the same place as blacks are today. Same with Asians and Jews. Give blacks a better culture and you end up with a demographic socioeconomic profile that looks a lot more like African immigrants and to some extent Caribbean blacks. I generally agree that the fastest way for the black community to improve their situation is to actively try to improve their situation rather than wait for whites to reduce the headwind they face in improving their situation. On the other hand, whites need to at least fucking acknowledge that shit is unfair for blacks rather than say stupid retarded shit like “all lives matter” when blacks try to highlight specific situations where society seemingly hasn’t leveled the playing field. Even after accounting for socioeconomic variables, unarmed blacks get shot and killed at much higher rates than unarmed whites. Its one thing to tell Asians to shut up and sit down when they are less likely to be accepted at good schools because they’re Asian. That’s just plain old racism that any reasonable racist can expect minorities to have to overcome in order to succeed. Its another thing to tell blacks to shut up and sit down when they are more likely to be shot and killed because they are black. That sort of injustice is harder to shove into the back of your mind while you are trying to make good long term choices for your future. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/507 "2017-09-21T18:50:46Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > The difference in our opinions is that I don’t believe that legal discrimination (and I’d include systemic and institutional discrimination in that “legal” category) against black people has ended. Therefore, I don’t believe that “necessary condition” has been met, in general. OK so what law would you pass that would get rid of this “legal” discrimination? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/508 "2017-09-21T18:57:49Z")
Booker T. Washington, reborn. Although, he had a lot better excuses than you do. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I generally agree that the fastest way for the black community to improve their situation is to actively try to improve their situation rather than wait for whites to reduce the headwind they face in improving their situation. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/509 "2017-09-21T19:01:27Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Even on its own terms, this classic model minority argument has the timelines wrong. If it were the case that Jewish household wealth, Chinese household wealth, and Black household wealth were equal in 1975, and then in the intervening decades Jews and Chinese suddenly achieved much higher levels of household wealth, then I’d think you at least have a _prima facie_ argument that racist laws were not the primary cause of the disparity. But, of course, that’s not at all what happened. So you don’t even have that prima facie case. > > Like all of this discourse, your “model minority” attack on black antiracism arguments has a long and dark [history](http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/04/19/524571669/model-minority-myth-again-used-as-a-racial-wedge-between-asians-and-blacks). It is quite wrong. I see how your cite shows how white America uses model minorities to drive a wedge between Asians and blacks. I don’t see how it undermines the relative success Asians and Jews have achieved compared to blacks. Take Vietnamese Americans. This is almost entirely a refugee population subject to racism not only from white but also from other Asians and blacks. They have achieved relative success over the last 50 years that blacks have not. Or are we going to posit that the Vietnamese refugees that came here on rafts and shit had some hidden advantage over blacks that allowed them to succeed relative to blacks (but still not doing as well as the children of whites because frankly the racism against the Vietnamese is still there). ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/510 "2017-09-21T19:04:32Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I don’t offer that account because I expect conservative critics to agree with it. But it seems to me that if you want to critique it, you have to _understand_ it. When you say things like, “well the Jews did fine,” you betray an ignorance of this history. Well, then don’t you have to provide at least SOME explanation of how the Jews were able to do it? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/511 "2017-09-21T19:05:22Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > OK so what law would you pass that would get rid of this “legal” discrimination? I don’t have all the answers, but I think legal remedies should be considered for the modern forms of segregation (largely educational and neighborhood, even if they’re not the same kind of segregation of the past) including access to facilities and services like banks, grocery stores, etc. I think predatory businesses like payday loans should be made illegal (and either private banks should be induced into those neighborhoods, or public banks established). I think the justice system needs drastic reforms, from police (no more for-profit policing with fines and confiscated property going to the local PD, for example) to the bail system to courts (sentencing, for example) to prisons (private for-profit prisons should be illegal, for example). I think reparations for recent forms of discrimination like redlining should be explored. Voting rights should be protected per the original VRA, with preclearance restored. Off the top of my head. I’m sure there are others. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/512 "2017-09-21T19:07:12Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Or are we going to posit that the Vietnamese refugees that came here on rafts and shit had some hidden advantage over blacks that allowed them to succeed relative to blacks (but still not doing as well as the children of whites because frankly the racism against the Vietnamese is still there). They had the advantage of not being black, and thus not being seen by as large a segment of society as mortal threats to their neighborhoods, schools, and womenfolk. Which is not to say that there wasn’t and isn’t racism against Vietnamese Americans, just that it’s different in character and in vehemence from racism against black people. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/513 "2017-09-21T19:07:50Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Therefore the removal of racist laws are not the reason that blacks underperform whites, Jews, and Asians. I think you expect too much. I doubt white America would do much better given a similar history. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/514 "2017-09-21T19:08:57Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > It is curious that you’ve chosen this argument to make, as if 1) political action and entrepreneurship are orthogonal rather than complementary forces (the most successful juggle both) Jews may have, I don’t think anyone really thinks Asians leveraged political action particularly well. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/515 "2017-09-21T19:10:10Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Booker T. Washington, reborn. Although, he had a lot better excuses than you do. Do you have an argument you want to make here in great debates? Or would you prefer just sneering at anyone that doesn’t agree with you hard enough? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/516 "2017-09-21T19:10:48Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Jews may have, I don’t think anyone really thinks Asians leveraged political action particularly well. Japanese Americans did get reparations for being interned in WWII. That was a pretty big deal. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/517 "2017-09-21T19:15:05Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I see how your cite shows how white America uses model minorities to drive a wedge between Asians and blacks. I don’t see how it undermines the relative success Asians and Jews have achieved compared to blacks. > > Take Vietnamese Americans. This is almost entirely a refugee population subject to racism not only from white but also from other Asians and blacks. They have achieved relative success over the last 50 years that blacks have not. Or are we going to posit that the Vietnamese refugees that came here on rafts and shit had some hidden advantage over blacks that allowed them to succeed relative to blacks (but still not doing as well as the children of whites because frankly the racism against the Vietnamese is still there). I once saw a documentary where a south Vietnamese air force guy ditched his helicopter after he dropped relatives and friends on an American Aircraft carrier (no space was left for the helicopter), he was lucky to come out alive and commented to his rescuers that he had put a couple of gold bars in his pants. But to avoid drowning he had to dump them to get out of the sinking helicopter. Point being that many of the people that did escape from Vietnam were of the kind that would had their lives engendered or limited by the communist regime that was coming. And others did manage to successfully get their wealth into America to start with advantages that no former slave ever had. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/518 "2017-09-21T19:15:06Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I don’t have all the answers, but I think legal remedies should be considered for the modern forms of segregation (largely educational and neighborhood, even if they’re not the same kind of segregation of the past) including access to facilities and services like banks, grocery stores, etc. I think predatory businesses like payday loans should be made illegal (and either private banks should be induced into those neighborhoods, or public banks established). I think the justice system needs drastic reforms, from police (no more for-profit policing with fines and confiscated property going to the local PD, for example) to the bail system to courts (sentencing, for example) to prisons (private for-profit prisons should be illegal, for example). I think reparations for recent forms of discrimination like redlining should be explored. Voting rights should be protected per the original VRA, with preclearance restored. > > Off the top of my head. I’m sure there are others. The segregation you talk about is largely economic and poor blacks are in the same situation as poor white and rich blacks are in the same situation as rich whites, neh? So then aren’t you simply saying we should make things easier for poor people? how much does race really play into this compared to wealth? The VRA is fine, the old warhorses at the DOJ Civil Rights Division needs to sack up and start identifying discriminatory intent where they can. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/519 "2017-09-21T19:19:27Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > They had the advantage of not being black, and thus not being seen by as large a segment of society as mortal threats to their neighborhoods, schools, and womenfolk. Which is not to say that there wasn’t and isn’t racism against Vietnamese Americans, just that it’s different in character and in vehemence from racism against black people. And how do you legislate white people into liking black people as much as they like the Vietnamese people (that we just got through losing a war to? The Vietnamese people who handed us our ass on a plate and drove us out of their country? With tens of thousands dead and hundreds of thousands American soldiers wounded?) ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2017, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/520 "2017-09-21T19:20:59Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Japanese Americans did get reparations for being interned in WWII. That was a pretty big deal. Yeah that happened when I was in college long after we saw the divergence of socioeconomic status between Asians and blacks. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725.md?page=25) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725.md?page=27)