Jesse jackson Involved in Duke case-good or Bad?

[E-Sabbath]

After reading more… woah, we really got into it. And no, you were not ‘on my side’. That said, I think I defended my thesis that Sharpton is not a ‘decent man’. He may have matured, but I will never trust that slick-talking sumbitch.

In re: Cosby, what I was referring to was his attitude in the 60s. I read a Playboy interview… yes… no, I’m not joking… that blew me away. His doctoral dissertation was equally mindblowing. That man could have done stuff. He did do stuff, mind you, just different stuff. I don’t know if it was any less valuable. At the very least, he showed a generation of kids that black people were just like them. Fat Albert, honest to god, has a lot of educational programming design behind it. He provided a strong positive role model in the public view… (okay, until recently), and that’s no small thing. I’d like, personally, to ask him about why and when he changed.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7806414/site/newsweek/ (Minor link to a review of a book covering said interview.)
And remember, brickbacon, half the reason I think Farrakahn should be strung up is his connection to the murder of Malcom X. Malcom X wouldn’t have stood for this ‘gangbanger’ crap either. He knew what a revolution was. And how to make one.

… the other half is because he was rather positive on, as I recall, holocaust denial and generally in favor of exterminating jews. Go figure.

[E-Sabbath]

… You know, that was a harsh thread, man. It might have been a lot calmer if Bob Loblaw (Who is NO relation to bob_loblaw) hadn’t been such a… well.

No wonder I still get upset over it. Very personal.

Sorry for the hijack, folks, but wow. Even half a year later it pegged my blood pressure meter all the way to the right.

[tomndebb]

@brickbacon

Are you fucking kidding? Leaning left has nothing to do with it. People around here shut off their brains whenever a handful of issues come up, and unfortunately, many of them are black issues. It doesn’t take long for any of the threads discussing the aforementioned issues to degrade into name calling and thinly veiled racism.

However, until you have demonstrated that the participants on the side that you oppose make up a majority of the posters, here, you have demonstrated nothing more than selection bias and confirmation bias. The claim that people who oppose Jackson are “overrepresented on the board” is utterly silly unless you can demonstrate that some huge number of people in the American public simply love him. Note that of the people who have knocked Jackson in this thread, several have expressed support for his stated goals and several have even expressed admiration for his actions–up until the point where it appears to a large number of people, on this board and in the public at large, that Jackson began using his publicity to promote Jackson alone and in ways that are actually harmful to the black community.

You then took a sample of threads in which in your opinion, posters were displaying racist views. OK. So, in how many of those threads were the racist views cheered on by some large number of Dopers, as opposed to how many of those threads indicate one or two posters whom you would call racist being opposed by some larger number of posters? Shall we look?

One thread on Al Sharpton. Sorry. Sharpton had to have known that Brawley was lying months before he was into the whole process of libeling people whom he had never met (and who had no connection with the case before he began his campaign). Sharpton made a number of vile attacks on the victim of the 1989 rape case. Yes, he was correct that the kids were unfairly tried and his comparison to the Scottsboro Boys was apt–which simply does not excuse him for publicly revealing the name of the victim and accusing her of complicity with her boyfriend in being raped and nearly killed. He was also pretty much a proximate cause of the rioting in Crown Heights.
If you want to pretend that he is “decent” because he happens to have been right on one occasion and because he has toned down the rhetoric in recent years, you go ahead. But if you want to claim that it is “racist” to think ill of a man who has used race to promote himself at the expense of innocent people, then you have failed to persuade me, at all.

One thread on AAVE, where the overwhelming number of posters argued for pages against a small number of people who wanted to sneer at AAVE. This is clearly a sign that the board marches in lock step to oppose black views on society.

And one thread mocking Jess Jackson for wandering down to Florida to get in on the Terry Schiavo publicity (at a time when Jackson had already established a decades old reputation as a glory hound, the point that nearly everyone poked fun at)–and where most of the posts were simply dumb humor jokes. The ebonics quip was dumb, bit it hardly became a rif through the whole thread (of only 26 posts).

Of the threads you cited, only one dealt with “black issues” (unless you really want to call Sharpton and Jackson “black issues”). Two threads were devoted to bashing the men in question and neither really resorted to racism as a theme. Some racist comments made it into a couple of posts, but the majority of the posts were focused on the lack of personal integrity of the people Pitted.
The third thread was clearly a “black issue” and the overwhemling number of respondents were defensive of the black community and the few actual racist comments were either rebuked or ignored as not worth the effort.

Now,

Race pimp? What the fuck does this even mean, and why is the ____ pimp term only used for Black leaders? This is the type of despicable comment that rarely gets challenged in threads like these, and it’s about time someone points this out.

this may actually be a legitimate observation. Since I do not recall seeing “pimp” used with any regularity, it may or may not be true that it is used more frequently of men from the black community. Of course, you seem to be saying that no one has called out posters for this offense–which I presume includes you. So if you, who will probably notice this association more quickly than others, have never raised the issue, why are you dragging it out as an example of “black issues” for which others appear to have a “block”? (And, of course, this presumes that it is a “common” term for black leaders as opposed to a specific term used in regard to Jackson and Sharpton and that it is used by multiple posters rather than one poster a few times.)

[brickbacon]

@E-Sabbath

So, for the sake of clarity, please state that you don’t consider me a ‘racist or intolerant asshole’, as I’m the one being pitted there.

For the record, I don’t consider you a racist or an asshole. I wasn’t calling anyone a racist, I was just making an observation.

@tomndebb

However, until you have demonstrated that the participants on the side that you oppose make up a majority of the posters, here, you have demonstrated nothing more than selection bias and confirmation bias. The claim that people who oppose Jackson are “overrepresented on the board” is utterly silly unless you can demonstrate that some huge number of people in the American public simply love him. Note that of the people who have knocked Jackson in this thread, several have expressed support for his stated goals and several have even expressed admiration for his actions–up until the point where it appears to a large number of people, on this board and in the public at large, that Jackson began using his publicity to promote Jackson alone and in ways that are actually harmful to the black community.

I really wasn’t attempting to make a factual claim, just an observation. I would hope that was obvious, seeing as most of the people here don’t even post in threads like the ones I linked to.

@tomndebb

You then took a sample of threads in which in your opinion, posters were displaying racist views.

I don’t necessarily think they are racist views.

@tomndebb

OK. So, in how many of those threads were the racist views cheered on by some large number of Dopers, as opposed to how many of those threads indicate one or two posters whom you would call racist being opposed by some larger number of posters?

That wasn’t a conclusive list. That took me 30 seconds to search for. Just the fact that it’s that common is disconcerting enough.

@tomndebb

One thread on Al Sharpton. Sorry. Sharpton had to have known that Brawley was lying months before he was into the whole process of libeling people whom he had never met (and who had no connection with the case before he began his campaign). Sharpton made a number of vile attacks on the victim of the 1989 rape case. Yes, he was correct that the kids were unfairly tried and his comparison to the Scottsboro Boys was apt–which simply does not excuse him for publicly revealing the name of the victim and accusing her of complicity with her boyfriend in being raped and nearly killed. He was also pretty much a proximate cause of the rioting in Crown Heights.

I’m not out to try to convince anyone Al Sharpton is a good guy. What I was pointing out is that his name can’t even come up without people moaning about what a scumbag he is. You can think whatever you want about him, but when it gets to a point where people can’t function properly when his name is mentioned, I think there’s a larger issue at play.

@tomndebb

If you want to pretend that he is “decent” because he happens to have been right on one occasion and because he has toned down the rhetoric in recent years, you go ahead. But if you want to claim that it is “racist” to think ill of a man who has used race to promote himself at the expense of innocent people, then you have failed to persuade me, at all.

Please tell me when I said anyone who has “thinks ill” of Al Sharpton is a racist? I specifically went out of my way to explicitly state that I didn’t think that in this thread and the threads I linked to (ones in which I posted). For example:

@brickbacon

Maybe it was over the top as a blanket statement, but I think there’s a lot of truth to it. When his name comes up, there is rarely a time that someone doesn’t go into a tirade about what a jerk he is. It’s completely disproportional to the “crimes” he’s committed, and usually not germane to the debate. Yes, we can all agree that he’s far from perfect, and has made plenty of mistakes, but the hatred for the guy is amazing. It’s like he was a dog killing child molester. Does anyone really think there is a politician, or public figure, who has been in the spotlight for as long as he has that hasn’t fucked up a number of times? You can’t even debate something he’s involved in because people are so quick to scream that the well is poisoned. Why?

Surely some people hate him, and others of his ilk, for non-racist reasons. However, I think many, if not most, hate him for those reasons. I think it’s because he presents one of the more authentic viewpoints of a segment of blacks in this country. Whether it’s in his distrust of police officers, his anti-semitism, or his opinion of the role racism plays in society, you can be sure a lot of people agree with him. Unfortunately for him, the viewpoint is one white people typically don’t want to hear, and find hard to actually dismiss when it is presented by an articulate, and intelligent person. That’s why people choose to focus on his fuck-ups rather than the good stuff, or the points he’s making. It’s also why most discussion on this board about blacks, is typically unproductive. Try to find a thread on AAVE (Ebonics) that doesn’t have some asshole doing his/her best impression. Try to find one on reparations without multiple people claiming that slavery isn’t a problem today, because they never owned slaves, mistreated blacks, etc. It’s fucking pathetic.

The question is why does this happen. Especially when you consider that board (IMHO) is typically more intelligent, rational, and liberal than the general population? I have no idea, but the correlation between people abandoning logical reasoning, and threads about black people/issues is astonishing to me. I’m not necessarily arguing that racism is the only culprit. I think much of it is that many blacks people in this country have a dramatically different way of looking that world. They see a world where people being framed by the LAPD , and having drugs planted on them. A world where NJ troopers pull blacks over for no reason. Stuff that white America dismissed for long periods of time. It’s not that every white person should believe everything they hear, or that every conspiracy theory in the minds of black people is correct. It’s that this worldview is completely dismissed, and disrespected by many white people. It’s inconceivable to them that any reasonable person could see the situation as many blacks do, and as a result, they think it’s the blacks that are delusional. So when Al Sharpton states his beliefs, as his did in the Central Park jogger case (when he was right), or with Tawana Brawley (when he was wrong), it all sounds the same to much of the American public because it’'s borne from an outlook they don’t respect.

Please don’t accuse me of saying things I haven’t said or implied.

@tomndebb

One thread on AAVE, where the overwhelming number of posters argued for pages against a small number of people who wanted to sneer at AAVE. This is clearly a sign that the board marches in lock step to oppose black views on society.

How many threads do you want?

@tomndebb

And one thread mocking Jess Jackson for wandering down to Florida to get in on the Terry Schiavo publicity (at a time when Jackson had already established a decades old reputation as a glory hound, the point that nearly everyone poked fun at)–and where most of the posts were simply dumb humor jokes. The Ebonics quip was dumb, bit it hardly became a rif through the whole thread (of only 26 posts).

Do you need more examples of this? You, of all people, should know this is a relatively common occurrence.

@tomndebb

Of the threads you cited, only one dealt with “black issues” (unless you really want to call Sharpton and Jackson “black issues”). Two threads were devoted to bashing the men in question and neither really resorted to racism as a theme. Some racist comments made it into a couple of posts, but the majority of the posts were focused on the lack of personal integrity of the people Pitted.

Which is an outlook that is often times irrational.

@tomndebb

Now, this may actually be a legitimate observation. Since I do not recall seeing “pimp” used with any regularity, it may or may not be true that it is used more frequently of men from the black community. Of course, you seem to be saying that no one has called out posters for this offense–which I presume includes you.

I have called people out before, but it’s often pointless. I don’t feel like I need to be a referee, nor do I need to challenge every ridiculous statement made in one of these threads. Like most people, I get tired of fighting the same fight ad infinitum.

[E-Sabbath]

@brickbacon

How about this thread that posits that Al Sharpton is a decent man. Notice it doesn’t say perfect or even good, yet every closet racist and/or irrational asshole comes into the thread to shit all over him.

This thread, brickbacon, was made to flame me. You note that ‘every closet racist and/or irrational asshole’ comes into the thread to shit all over him.’

Him could have been Bob Loblaw or Al Sharpton. (Note, Bob Loblaw is not bob_loblaw) Either way, considering the thread was flaming me, I really had to ask who the ‘closet racist and irrational asshole’ ‘closet racist’ or ‘irrational asshole’ was, as the only ones I saw in the thread were either defending Sharpton or defending Louis Farrakahn. (Bob Loblaw, from his ‘two days left’ comments, at one point identfied himself as an asshole, and I have to say Fearless Reader showed some racist bigotry by insisting Farrakahn should be excused because his oppression was ‘different’. On the other hand, it seems by the end of the thread, Fearless Reader was changing her mind. I consider these factual statements thanks to the clear behavior of Fearless Reader, and the self-professed assholeness of Bob Loblaw.)

[Airman_Doors_USAF]

@brickbacon

I’m not out to try to convince anyone Al Sharpton is a good guy. What I was pointing out is that his name can’t even come up without people moaning about what a scumbag he is. You can think whatever you want about him, but when it gets to a point where people can’t function properly when his name is mentioned, I think there’s a larger issue at play.

…and when you mention Ted Kennedy Chappaquidick inevitably comes up. Why? Because he’s a scumbag. Sharpton did wrong and never, ever came clean about it, and as a result he continues to pay for it. It has nothing to do with race or anything other than his blatant opportunism and totally unethical behavior, just like it is with Teddy.

[E-Sabbath]

A note: The thread came about because people were questioning why Rosa Parks was a true hero. I made the point, that if it had been someone who wanted to take advantage of the cause for their own gain, like Al Sharpton, we might still have Jim Crow issues today, as any advancement in racial harmony would have gotten bogged down in sleaze issues. At which point, Bob started the thread claiming Al was a decent man. Someone else in the starting thread suggested Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakahn were more worthy of lying in state than Rosa Parks were, that they’d done more for civil rights.

I begged to differ. Rosa Parks was an educated woman who knew what she was getting into. She was an ACLU member, certainly. (NAACP or ACLU? I forget.) But she still took that seat, she still could have wound up being beaten to death… but no. Once in our history, everyone operated with at least human dignity. And from that fulcrum point, history shifted, and civil rights became a movement. Without her, there would have been no “I have a Dream.” Without her, there would have been no million man marches, there would have been no bus rides. Without her… who knows? She did other things in her lifetime. But that one day, and the following weeks changed generations to come.

That is why she was worthy of lying in state.

And that is something Al Sharpton would never have accomplished.

From there, we created that horrid thread. Which got me a bit peeved at times, because, well, frankly, history says there’s only one good way out of the ghetto, and that’s education. It worked for my people on both sides of the family.
Today, I work with the homeless, the drug addicts, the sick and wounded, mentally and physically. The criminals and the caught in the system. And a lot of them… honestly don’t understand that they can get out. School is ‘not for them’. When one of them gets a GED… when some of them learn to read… and these are thirty, forty year old men… the world changes for them. They have a chance to get somewhere. And that’s the thing that hurts me, personally. When the ‘victim culture’, the popularization of the gangbangers and the hood life, the media messages, the social circles themselves, feed into the daily lives of people who wind up telling themselves they have no hope… and then turning to the people below them in age or power and telling them that they have no hope… eventually, they believe it.

And that’s as close to evil as I can mark in this world of ours. Destroying hope.

Yeah, there may be obstacles. Yes, they may be worse for some people than others. Yes, some of those obstacles shouldn’t damn well be there. But the Man isn’t keeping you down. He can’t. He doesn’t care about any one person, anyhow. If you work hard, and keep your eye open… you’ll get out. You just may have to work double hard. Triple hard. Which sucks… but it’ll make life better for everyone.

yeah, anyhow. Jesse. I dunno. I just don’t know about Jesse anymore. I think he believes in some way… I just don’t know what.

[tomndebb]

@brickbacon

Please tell me when I said anyone who has “thinks ill” of Al Sharpton is a racist? I specifically went out of my way to explicitly state that I didn’t think that in this thread and the threads I linked to (ones in which I posted).

I’m sorry. You have confused me. So what did you mean by posting as a refutation of my comment that a lot of people view Jackson with disdain, the statement

It doesn’t take long for any of the threads discussing the aforementioned issues to degrade into name calling and thinly veiled racism.

??

Sharpton is widely considered a scumbag and Jackson is widely considered a genius of self-promotion. Why make a comment claiming that people “shut off their brains” on certain issues, particularly black issues, and end up with a claim that many threads “degrade into name calling and thinly veiled racism” if you meant something else? Particularly when two of the threads do not even support your claim, in that they did not fall into mere name calling, but continued debating the issue with logic and references throughout and were not dominated by racist claims, and the third thread pretty much ignored the issue of race, completely, with the exception of a single off-hand remark?

[brickbacon]

@E-Sabbath

This thread, brickbacon, was made to flame me. You note that ‘every closet racist and/or irrational asshole’ comes into the thread to shit all over him.’

I apologize. I was venting, and didn’t mean to call you out.

@Airman Doors

…and when you mention Ted Kennedy Chappaquidick inevitably comes up. Why? Because he’s a scumbag.

Those incidents come up for two entirely different reasons.

@E-Sabbath

I begged to differ. Rosa Parks was an educated woman who knew what she was getting into. She was an ACLU member, certainly. (NAACP or ACLU? I forget.) But she still took that seat, she still could have wound up being beaten to death… but no. Once in our history, everyone operated with at least human dignity. And from that fulcrum point, history shifted, and civil rights became a movement. Without her, there would have been no “I have a Dream.” Without her, there would have been no million man marches, there would have been no bus rides. Without her… who knows? She did other things in her lifetime. But that one day, and the following weeks changed generations to come.

You do realize that Louis Farrakahn organized the Million Man March? Not to take anything away from Rosa Parks, but your understanding of the bus boycott is way off. She was chosen to be the face for this particular issue because she was a respectable woman who could handle the role. Very admirable, but not anything like you describe. She was in no physical danger, nor was she the first to do what she did. They had already overturned Jim Crow laws regarding interstate bus travel and had already had cases challenged the other bus segregation laws, but hadn’t found a plaintiff that was suitable. Rosa Parks deserves the credit for being the person to assist in getting the job done, but let’s not pretend that she was integral to the civil rights movement.

@E-Sabbath

And that’s the thing that hurts me, personally. When the ‘victim culture’…

You have a good point, but spare me the talking points. “Victim culture” is just another buzz word that tries to make poor feel worse for not being able to succeed.

@tomndebb

I’m sorry. You have confused me. So what did you mean by posting as a refutation of my comment that a lot of people view Jackson with disdain, the statement??

Where’s the confusion? Saying many threads dealing with these issues contain thinly veiled racism doesn’t mean Al Sharpton haters=racist, nor does it mean the people making the comments are necessarily racists.

@tomndebb

Sharpton is widely considered a scumbag and Jackson is widely considered a genius of self-promotion. Why make a comment claiming that people “shut off their brains” on certain issues, particularly black issues, and end up with a claim that many threads “degrade into name calling and thinly veiled racism” if you meant something else?

I didn’t mean something else. At no time did I say disliking Al Sharpton means you are a racist. I went out of my way to state the opposite.

@tomndebb

Particularly when two of the threads do not even support your claim, in that they did not fall into mere name calling, but continued debating the issue with logic and references throughout and were not dominated by racist claims, and the third thread pretty much ignored the issue of race, completely, with the exception of a single off-hand remark?

I disagree. I’m not gonna pour over each comment in those threads and relate them to the point I’m making, but if that is not enough for you, I can show you plenty of other threads where similar attitudes are espoused.

[tomndebb]

Where’s the confusion? Saying many threads dealing with these issues contain thinly veiled racism doesn’t mean Al Sharpton haters=racist, nor does it mean the people making the comments are necessarily racists.

The confusion comes because I do not even know what point you were trying to make.

Pizzabrat claimed that Jesse Jackson “haters” were overrepresented on the SDMB.

I noted that many people across the political spectrum dislike Jesse Jackson for a variety of reasons and that (despite a leftward tilt, which is where one would expect to find the majority of Jackson supporters) this board pretty much matched public perception–that would indicate Jackson bashers were not “overrepresented” here.

You objected to my comment and went on to make an issue of racism permeating the SDMB. Now, I would agree that there are racists who post here, (the SDMB draws posters from a broad spectrum of society). I would also note that there are probably different perceptions of what constitutes “racism,” (although no post that you cited would rise to the level of racism as defined by Askia in a recent thread). So, I am confused as to the actual point you were making in which you claimed that I had posted an error of fact and yet your response does not demonstrate (that I can see) my error, (particularly since I had not linked antipathy to Jackson to support of, opposition to, or even tolerance of racism).

[Guinastasia]

@brickbacon

Rosa Parks deserves the credit for being the person to assist in getting the job done, but let’s not pretend that she was integral to the civil rights movement.

Considering that she had been a secretary to the NAACP and worked behind the scenes for the movement, I would certainly say she was indeed important.

:dubious: