Near as I can figure, LonsomePolecat seems to be applying the label of “forced integration” to situations where the government prevents the residents of a given neighborhood from keeping persons of a different perceived race out of their neighborhood (as used to be a widespread practice, embodied in deed covenants forbidding the sale of a given property to nonwhites). One could make a case that that is a form of “forced integration,” but first any obfuscation or confusion on the point should be dispelled.
I “inferred” no such thing. Exactly the opposite is true - I stated quite explicitly that this happened on the right as well.
You mentioned that you didn’t bother reading the whole thread before you responded. Would it have done any good if you did? Even the parts you quote don’t seem to have sunk in.
Regards,
Shodan
Miss the gem below, did you?
Boston spends >$75 million/year, hauling kids from one end of the city to another. This, years after the clowns who thought school bussing was a good idea, have admitted it was unproductive.
The really weird thing-the Boston schools are more segregated than ever (most affluent people send their kids to private schools).
Can the hijack perhaps move to a NEW thread? I was rather enjoying the discourse before this became about integration, forced busing, and such…
Is that cool?
Say something about the original topic. I’m lurking to see if it gets back around to it.
The Obama link you posted for me was interesting. BrickBacon I have to say has been owning this thread with some of the best postings to date.
What brought this on for me was a discussion on a more right wing forum about how white America is suddenly waking up to what Black America thinks politically. I am a bit surprised at quite how ignorant it was. I know a little bit about Black Nationalism, and have been surprised to find out how much I know in comparison to the average person.
I’d love to be as passionate and informed as Brickbacon but, alas, I’m not.
What I know is rather simple. But it’s anecdote and therefore… just another story. I’ll relate it briefly to explain why I think this matters.
My ex-wife is black, and I’m caucasian. We have three kids. I’m a rather involved dad and have primary custody of the kids. I try to make sure they have a sense of what to expect in life and have the ability to see both sides of most arguments…
The story:
We married young - too young - and making ends meet proved too challenging so we spent some years living with her parents (her dad did quite nicely at what he did). During that time I was working for the US Postal Service - an employer that is VERY pro-minority and so… the work force was more than a little disproportionate. OJ was on trial.
I knew what I thought. I knew what my parents thought. I knew what everyone thought. What surprised me was the sheer elation throughout everyone of the black people I knew… everyone was relieved, happy. Even if they thought he did it.
I still mull over that process. The trial where an ignorant officer is outed as likely being racist and stuff like that…
And I put myself in their shoes. For years, nay… for decades, they had been put on trial for things they didn’t do - and convicted. For decades they could get killed and their murderer might not even see the inside of a courtroom. For decades there had been a MAJOR disparity in justice. And a disparity in injustice. There’s something there… finally the injustice felt more balanced.
I’m not saying it’s good. I’m not saying it’s noble. I’m saying I can understand that. I’d be mad too.
Over and over again, my deeper exposure to the black community (12 years of functional marriage) has caused me to see events differently. And to know that we REALLY need to keep talking.
Without the ongoing conversation, things too easily sink into an Us vs. Them dynamic. And I hate that. And sometimes, few people are willing to look at ALL the dynamics that make things what they are.
It isn’t all racism that keeps the inner city schools poor. It isn’t all bad parenting that keeps kids from a good education. It isn’t all any one thing or any one people’s fault. We need an honest discourse on race.
Not a spot light, then another topic. Not an ongoing over fascination. Just a regular exposure and honesty with peoples of all colors. It just… helps. As humans we are wired to think in “in group” and “out group” and without something to mitigate that… we end up there a bit more easily than we care to think.
Them’s my two cents…
Thank you. As one raised in a near-totally-white Northeastern suburb, whose family circle never expressed racism, yet who is painfully aware of having lurking in the darkest recesses of my mind a nasty slew of ugly stereotypes (Where the hell did they come from? And yet there they are), every insight into how others from vastly different backgrounds and experiences see the world is a gift. How can a white like me ever hope to meet people operating from Rev. Wright’s perspective halfway if I can’t even comprehend how big the gulf is, let alone what forces are working still at widening the rift?
It’s been difficult to confront the biases imbibed unconsciously from the society I grew up in, that belie all I hold true intellectually. It’s a bitch trying not to feel defensive when confronted with the angry rhetoric of the oppressed. It would be easy, so very easy, so comfortingly easy to push it aside as a rant from a past that no longer is relevant. But you’re right, so very right:
God help this country if we turn away from the hard work of confronting the demons that drive us – all of us.
Actually, LonesomePolecat has done exactly that. But then, I am not surprised you pretend that you are not defending that position.
You just said it happens much more often on the left than the right, and the left is more likely to go ‘anti-American’
I have read the whole thread now. You’re still wrong.
Elucidate me please… whoever Hagee and Parsley are, how often does McCain sit in their pews?
How often does McCain socialize with their parishioners?
That’s what being a member of a church is about and why this is different. Or did Obama join up just to gain some Southside Street cred?
What lies? What urban legends? According to this report, Wright is not saying 9/11 was a U.S. gummint conspiracy; he’s only saying the U.S. brought it on itself by its own “terrorism.” You might debate that, but it is neither lie nor UL.
I think, and I’m certainly not defending anyone here, that the lies / UL is referring to the US Government inventing HIV / AIDS to kill black people and gays, which was the subject of another Wright sermon.
This is, of course, quite false. I have stated clearly that I am not. But then, I am not surprised that you are pretending otherwise. One has to stick to a straw man if it is going to assist you.
In other words, I did not say what you claimed I did, and your statement was false.
So, both of you have been shown to be wrong. On to the next -
You call this hysterical rant from Wright “honest, reasoned dissent”?
Lies are not honest. Calling on God to damn America is not dissent.
You have got to be kidding. Did you even read this cite - it’s as bad as the anti-vaccination sites that claim MMR vaccines cause autism, or anti-abortion sites that claim abortion causes breast cancer!
Your “cite” claims that vacuum aspiration is being done as an experiment on black women. This is so far from the truth that it is not even in the same zip code. Vacuum aspiration is used because it is safer than D&C.
Cite - pdf.
Cite.
Cite.
Cite.
The allegations of your “cite” is wrong, and ridiculously so.
Because they are factually inaccurate, and dummies like Wright are using lies to attack his country.
And Obama sat there for twenty years and drank it all in. Now he wants to claim that he never knew anything about what his mentor was preaching.
Suuuuuure he didn’t.
If the government wants to use AIDS to kill black people, then why the fuck are we spending tens of billions of dollars on AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa? Aren’t they black?
No, it’s not debateable. There is no cure for AIDS.
Could we make up our minds here? Earlier you claimed that black people were being used as guinea pigs, and that was horrible. Now you are claiming that it is horrible that they are not being used in experiments. Which is it?
That’s exactly what we are talking about. Wright is a racist, spreading unfounded rumors.
Regards,
Shodan
I’ll grant the latter but not the former. How is accusing the government of being hostile to blacks (above and beyond the extent that it was and arguably still is) racist towards whites in general?
Because the accusations are founded on falsehoods. Plus Wright explicitly condemns all of ”white America” — as “the U.S. of KKK A.”
All white citizens of America are members of the KKK? Sounds rather racist to me.
Regards,
Shodan
I never claimed to quote you. Your bias is well-known and thoroughly shown on this board; if the search function was working, I have no doubt I could find dozens of instances of your statements to the effect that the left was full of moonbats but the Right were paragons of honest debate.
Wow, you’re really piling on with the profound statements now. Is water still wet?
Because you dislike the sentiment does not mean it is not legitimate dissent.
Now you’re lying. Obama has flatly denounced Wright’s statements, and even Fox News has shown that Obama was not present when Wright made some of his more controversial statement. Do you believe every single thing your Pastor believes? Do you follow every single tenet of your religion without fail every single day? Didn’t think so.
As I stated before - when the Right denounces Falwell, Robertson, Hagee, etc… then I will agree there is a disparity or even a controversy. Until then, you’ve not a leg to stand on with your ridiculously overblown and hypocritical outrage.
Wow. NRO. They’re surely unbiased towards a Democratic frontrunner in an election year.
But be that as it may - NRO is wrong. Wright didn’t call all of white America part of the US of KKK A, and the NRO ‘article’ is cherry-picking sound bites from various sermons over many years to cast Obama and Wright in the worst possible light. Gee, I wonder what their agenda is?
Back to the actual OP - I think Rev Wright’s stance / statements are somewhat more common among African Americans than among white people.
But that would also be because Rev Wright’s church is one that focuses on black issues, and all of the statements are related to black issues.
LonesomePolecat has claimed* that the government has tried to force people to live together.
You have defended his position, referring to one badly thought out experiment in social engineering that was intended to allow black kids access to schools of the same quality as schools white kids attended (thus ensuring that the kids of all schools would be treated equally) as though it was the same thing as forcing people to live together. That is pretending and that is what you have done.
(It would be interesting to see what you claim you have not done, since you have simply thrown out cryptic remarks without much substance. Clearly, your links to articles decrying foced busing were efforts to equate that to the “integration” that LonesomePolecat and I were discussing.)
*
No, I have not - if you care to read a little more closely, you will note that post #47 says this quite clearly.
On the other hand, you have stated that integration actually means being compelled to live near anyone else. Could you please cite a dictionary or other authoritative source for this assertion?
And while we’re here, did you have a comment on the following?
Falwell is dead. Robertson endorsed somebody else, and McCain has stated -
So, now McCain has done as you suggested. Now you will agree that there is a controversy.
Is your next approach going to be to explain why Obama gets to distance himself from the statements of his mentor of the last twenty years, but McCain does not?
Yes, he did.
A pattern seems to be developing here. Obama supporters are misrepresenting the statements of others, and denying what is printed in front of them in black and white.
So much for a new mode of politics.
Regards,
Shodan