Ya know last week it was Ferraro, this weekend it was Rev. Wright.
Nancy Pelosi weighed in essentially practically endorsing Obama. All this talk of losing momentum etc…etc… it’ll go back and forth between the candidates until the convention. Plain and simple. I don’t see how Clinton can or will pull it out.
One interesting note - when the senate adjourned last week, there was a clip of Obama and Clinton getting together and chatting for a while on the senate floor. Quite cordially I might add. They knew full well those cameras were running… Perhaps it’s my overly optimistic way of life, but those two don’t appear to viscerally hate each other…
I imagine this kind of rabid anti-Americanism is more common among leftists in general. Certainly it can also appear among those on the right, and the extremes at both ends tend to blend together, but it is my experience that rabid anti-Americanism appears among those who are not as extreme on the left as compared to those who are on the right. As you move toward either end, IOW, rabid rhetoric and beliefs appear sooner on the left than the right. IYSWIM.
As to why, I would guess that a conspiracy theory is more comforting to those see themselves as losers than anything more clear-headed. It is easier to believe that your son is a crackhead, not because he hasn’t seen his bio-father in five years, but because the CIA is conspiring to keep you down, or inventing AIDS or whatever.
When those kinds of theories get repeated by an authority figure, it just reinforces it.
I think it has more to do that people who really were the victims of a conspiracy of oppression in recent history are more likely to believe that their more recent woes are also the results of such a conspiracy. Especially when there’s still ample evidence of neglect and hostility from the government and the majority, if not the actual conspiracies they imagine.
I wasn’t talking about racism, I was talking about perception of 9/11. I agree with Wright and I am white. We did reap what we had sown.
I don’t think being critical of America’s foreign policy is anti-American. This is a coup of the right wing over the past 70 years. They have managed to portray their view as the ‘American’ view, and any disagreement is anti-American. Yes, I think Rev. Wright is anti-American in his ‘God Damn America’ part, but I don’t think that placing the onus of 9/11 at the door of American foreign policy is either misplaced or anti-American. When I recognize my own faults and move forward trying to adjust for them so I don’t repeat my mistakes, I consider this an act of loving myself, not hating myself.
Now… in some small way can I cast this as a micro-OJ, mini-Rodney King event? There is a rift that still exists. A skepticism, bred through decades of mistreatment. That is, in my estimation, not unreasonable in SOME forms.
That said, I don’t think there is a “man” keeping most anyone down. No “woman” either. But… these thoughts, rumors, speculations and mistrust… it takes time and yes, COMMUNICATION across racial lines to heal some of the pain and distrust.
And let’s be honest. A black man in Mississippi will have very different opportunities from one in the suburbs of a major city. Certain thoughts and feelings exist for a reason. The sooner we can rid ourselves of kneejerk “racism” calls, the better.
It’s stoopid of both sides to be so… reflexively defensive. It’s time to just listen, understand, hear… a lot could be done with just that, I’d think.
Why? That sounds like the person being interviewed has an opinion of the other race that he wants to hide. I don’t get it.
Did Obama actually use the description “spiritual mentor”? Exactly which ideas has Wright been promoting for twenty years? He wasn’t talking about 9/11 for all that time. Is it possible there is a lot of truth to what he says?
I don’t have a problem believing that America could have been morally in the right in December of 1941. Does that mean that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor for no reason at all? That’s doubtful. And as for what Roosevelt knew and what he didn’t know, that’s not just a matter of reasoning. It’s a matter of scholarly research and debate of the evidence. Historians disagree and they aren’t just taking wild guesses.
Roosevelt was held in very, very high regard in my household. But I am also aware that he did not allow the Jews on the St. Louis – the so called “Ship of Fools” – to disembark in America. Within sight of their loved ones on the shore, they were forced to return to Europe and certain death. How moral was that?
Mr. Polecat, can you explain why you say that this thread is about “Black racism as exemplified by Rev. Wright”? What has he said that is racist?
I feel certain that you honestly believe that. I honestly believe that rabid rhetoric and beliefs appear sooner on the right than on the left. (“Extremism in the defense of virtue is no vice!” – Barry Goldwater)
Shodan, is it possible that liberals in general tend to be suspicious of conservative and/or secretive governments more because such governments are more likely to conspire against them? Can you name an administration more secretive than the current one? Can you name a liberal President who had an Enemies List made up of conservatives? Can you think of a few good reasons why the people in New Orleans might be suspicious about how Katrina was (not)handled? Which race is more likely to be convicted once charged with a crime? Which race was used for experimentation and research with sexually transmitted disease?
Zoe In all fairness. The Rev. Wright could legitimately be considered a black nationalist. One of the arguments I am hearing on another board is that the black liberation theology he espouses was built on the theology of African exceptionalism, IE that Africans are the chosen people. This of course is not unique and no worse than Mormonism in that regard, but there is a credible argument to be made that Rev. Wright is in fact a racist. I am not certain that this can be transferred to Obama though.
Or maybe it’s time to give up on forced integration and let people segregate, as they are naturally inclined to do. Maybe it’s time to admit that our fifty year experiment with forced integration has been a failure and quit trying to make people of different races and cultures live together in the same communities when obviously they don’t really want to do so. Maybe then, when we’re no longer constantly stepping on each other’s toes and when whites no longer have to come up with ridiculous subterfuges to be allowed the privilege of living among their own kind, we’ll be able to develop some real mutual trust and respect.
I understand and agree. Part of what I think I’m trying to say though… is that when one person THINKS they see racism… another sees a reasoned answer to why it’s not racism. And it stops the dialogue - at times.
It’s a chicken-egg dilemma. But… I do think we’ve made progress. Not enough. But… the trendline isn’t bad.
People segregate most at the class level, I’d think. It’s just that there’s a clear divide in terms of upward mobility for some minorities - in part self imposed.
I don’t think an end to attempts at integration and such is necessarily called for. And I’m not sure that the forced integration is really all that active anymore.
I always feel vaguely astonished when progressives refuse to recognize racism in blacks. They’re rather like bad parents who let their children run amok in restaurants, libraries and other public places and become indignant when you tell them they should control their little throwbacks.
You see all those trees, but you refuse to admit there’s a forest. If a white church gave an award to David Duke, you’d have no trouble seeing that there must be a lot of racism in that church. But a black church gives an award to Louis Farrakhan, and you claim not to see any evidence of racism.
And you wonder why working class whites won’t vote for your party.
For the record… Senator Obama has spoken to black churches about their racism - in a call to end it.
I’m not pretending you don’t have a point, what you characterize DOES happen, but… I think you are arguing in rather broad terms. To the point of being unfair. Imo.
Well, you’re wrong. People tend to segregate according to race and ethnicity. It’s one thing to say that the government shouldn’t discriminate against racial minorities. It’s another thing to say that the government should regulate the demographics of our communities.
At the end of the 1995 film Panther, about the Black Panther Party, J. Edgar Hoover personally orders the black neighborhoods flooded with drugs just to undercut the Panthers’ power base. Hoover was no better than he should be but I think that would have been too much even for him. I found myself wondering how many in the target audience were ready to believe it, or always had believed it.
It’s tough, some conspiracy theories are clearly bunk, but then you have things like the Tuskegee experiment or the actual letters from British military people advocating the spread of small-pox infected blankets.
Nice dream you have there…unfortunately it’s crammed with pipes. This “experiment” has helped non whites approach par, whether you like it or not. Society flourishes when all members are given the same opportunity to its largesse. That an embarrasing number of whites still long for the disaster that was “separate but equal”, and to this very day try to justify its application, in my opinion, screams out how far we still have to go. Of course Rev. Wright’s comments gained traction with the public. It serves to affirm their belief that not only are Blacks different, but that they will never be like “us” and gives voice to a latent desire by some to revisit the civil rights arguments of the '60s…as well as a convenient mechanism to allay their guilt for not wanting to vote for a Black man for President in the first place.
Sorry for the hijack, folks.
To the OP, I think the sentiment you expressed is held by many, not just Blacks. But yeah, it’s definitely an opinion many Black people hold for many of the reasons Brickbacon very aptly stated.