I’m sure it’s entirely coincidental that this afflicts a predominately black county (Lowndes).
I think the article itself does dig into the data about class levels and support by race quite a bit. It could do more, but it did a lot in an already very long piece.
I would characterize Coates’ premise as being that the weight that white people assign to the problem of white supremacy is also, partly, a function of white supremacy.
Do you think that’s incorrect?
Bone – did you miss this question, or would you prefer not to answer?
I think that’s correct.
I think the magnitude of influence that white supremacy has on the assigned weight is one of the core disagreements, and also difficult to measure. Of course there are lots of racists in the world, but as I said in my first post to the thread, Coates doesn’t seem interested in distinguishing between those that are and those that are not. Rather, he basically says that white people are racist and will bring about armageddon.
I really do think his point about other demographic groups in other income levels breaking differently than the WWC would go along way to attacking the idea that it was economic drivers that led to a Trump win. I want to see if I can find some data.
It’s kind of a loaded question, so I skipped it. I think there are certain necessary conditions to support a given politician. Opposing gun control is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for me. That there are many other necessary conditions doesn’t speak to the level of importance, and also means I don’t support many politicians.
Hard to quantify, but easy to see, IMO.
For the benefit of people following the thread w/o reading the article, here is what Coates says on this:
I have read it. The only evidence that Donald Trump is a racist is " He fought to keep blacks out of his buildings, according to the U.S. government; called for the death penalty for the eventually exonerated Central Park Five; and railed against “lazy” black employees. “Black guys counting my money! I hate it,” Trump was once quoted as saying. “The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.” After his cabal of conspiracy theorists forced Barack Obama to present his birth certificate, Trump demanded the president’s college grades (offering $5 million in exchange for them), insisting that Obama was not intelligent enough to have gone to an Ivy League school, and that his acclaimed memoir, Dreams From My Father, had been ghostwritten by a white man, Bill Ayers."
The fought to keep blacks out of his buildings is a reference to a suit in the early 70s against his father’s company. That suit was settled with no finding of guilt by them agreeing to provide a list of vacancies to the New York Urban League.
The Central Park five were charged with gang rape, attempted murder, and numerous assault charges. Several of them confessed. They were later only exonerated of the rape but were definitely guilty of numerous assaults. It seems odd that wanting the death penalty for people convicted of gang rape and attempted murder is a sign of white supremacy.
The quotes about laziness and hating blacks counting his money come second hand from a disgruntled employee. Trump has vehemently denied ever saying anything like this.
George W Bush had his intelligence questioned and his college transcripts were leaked to the press. Other politicians who have had their intelligence questioned were Reagan, Palin, Biden, Carson, Rubio. It is just a part of politics.
If one were really uncharitable and believed the worst about all of these things you could maybe claim that Trump is a closet racist. Yet the claim is that Trump has overt and freely claimed racism.
There is nothing at all about overt and freely claimed racist, not even an attempt to ever quote Trump freely claiming racism. Trump has been a public figure for almost 40 years yet Coates has not one quote of him freely claiming racism. Because it was a lie.
I’m glad you’re prepared to engage with the arguments raised in the article instead of claiming there were no arguments.
No, they were not “definitely guilty of numerous assaults.” But putting that aside, Trump continues to maintain his position even after they were exonerated by DNA evidence.
Yes, I read this part and that’s what I think is most interesting. I think to make the point more clearly, about how Trump is different, is WHITE rather than white, a comparison to other candidates among the same demographic groups needs to be made.
I also have to remember that when Coates scoffs at 50K-99K as working class, it’s more of a national view since 50K here is like…basically destitute.
According to Coates the legacies of white supremacy have not been destroyed. They are out in the open. Yet as you say black people are returning to the South in great numbers and prospering despite it being the part of the country that supported Trump the most. You can’t have it both ways, either white supremacy is and all encompassing powerful force that it is able to hold blacks down in every part of the country, or the South has a growing, vibrant, and prospering black community.
If the problems are caused by white supremacy then why do non white minorities not have the same problems?
The data doesn’t back him up. Whites favored Trump +21 while in 2012 they favored Romney by +20. Trump actually did better amongst black and hispanic voters (-87 and -44 to -80 and -36) than Romney did.
There really wasn’t that big of a change in voting patterns from 2012 to 2016. The absolute number of WWC voters changing from Democrat to Republican isn’t that large. It was just big enough to flip key states when combined with a lower turnout of voters who had voted for Obama.
It is not. Black people are highly concentrated along the southern Mississippi river because cotton needs lots of water and hot weather to grow best. Hookworms also spread best in wet soil and hot weather.
Are you trying to imply that hookworms are racist?
That’s nowhere near a complete summary of the consent decree. They agreed to a long list of other actions they were required to take to address the issues.
Since you read it, I’m sure you can provide the examples he uses to back up his assertion of overt and freely claimed racism.
About the case according to Wikipedia “The teenagers attacked and beat people as they moved south, on the park’s East Drive and the 97th Street Transverse, between 9 pm and 10 pm.[10] Between 102nd and 105th Streets they attacked several bicyclists, hurled rocks at a cab, and attacked a man who was walking, whom they knocked to the ground, assaulted, robbed, and left unconscious.[10][29] A schoolteacher out for a run was severely beaten and kicked between 9:40 and 9:50.[10] Then, at the 97th Street Transverse at the northwest end of the Central Park Reservoir running track, at about 10 pm, they attacked another jogger, hitting him in the back of the head with a pipe and stick.[10][31] They pummeled two men into unconsciousness, hitting them with a metal pipe, stones, and punches, and kicking them in the head.[29][35] A police officer testified that one male jogger, who said he had been jumped by four or five black youths, was bleeding so badly he “looked like he was dunked in a bucket of blood”.[41] All five confessed to a number of the attacks committed in the park that night, and implicated one or more of the others”
That’s right. Some have. Some haven’t.
No, there is no contradiction there.
Different groups are different, and have different relationships to white supremacy. The history of South Asians in this country is different from Cubans which is different from Guatemalans which is different from the descendents of slaves.
White supremacy had the greatest impact on the descendents of slaves, whose ancestors were brought here and held in bondage, their families destroyed and tortured for trying to learn to read, and then targeted for terrorism and piracy in ways not comparable to any other group save perhaps the Native Americans, ending within living memory.
At a guess, the mean Trump supporter with an income 50K-99K is living somewhere where the cost of living is cheaper than the US average.
So Trump was elected in 2016 because of white backlash against Obama, who wasn’t running. But in 2012, Trump couldn’t generate enough interest even to officially run. So presumably the white backlash only works when a black person isn’t running.
Regards,
Shodan
Obviously different groups have different histories. But Coates is not talking about the history of white supremacy but rather the current amount of white supremacy. Is white supremacy hurting blacks today or did it hurt them so bad in the past that they are now unable to recover. If the problem is the current white supremacy than the solutions are very different than if the problem was the white supremacy of the past. You seem to be saying that there is something in the South Asians history that allows them to find ways to overcome the current white supremacy. If this is true why not advise blacks to copy those ways so they can likewise overcome white supremacy?
Yes, because the claim being made was that racism is the only variable that ever matters in elections. Your demonstration of the existence that other factors exist that might also matter in an election outcome is thus a perfect refutation of the thesis in question, and not just a statement of the obvious that fails to address the point.
Hmmm, no, I think you have it all confused. All of what you said there is wrong.
For an opposite perspective, this blog post by Scott Alexander is great. And unlike Coates’ piece, its actually well written. Against Murderism.