Well, he falls in the cracks, doesn’t he? Everybody isn’t easily categorized. I would say that he is not, strictly ethnically “black” in the sense which that word is used in the US. He is not a slave descendant, but I also think that distinction is all but academic since his social designation has always been “black” regardless of his genetic heritage (or even his familial upbringing).
Lemur866 was not excusing bigoted behaviour (for any reason). Lemur was denying your characterisation of such behaviour as ‘bigoted’. I know you can see the difference, even if you’d rather not. And he gave a detailed explanation of his position. Just because you snipped it doesn’t mean it wasn’t made.
I’ve seen this tactic plenty of times before, Shodan, and it disgusts me every time. Whenever someone points out why historical context makes a situation asymmetric, insinuate that they’re crypto-racist… Stop it.
No, NOT based on the colour of their skin. Based on the historical context behind what a ‘black church’ is and what a ‘white church’ is.
You seem fairly smart, and I think it’s time for you to stop pretending that you don’t ‘get’ what point Dio and others are making. You damn well do. Address it and refute it if you can, but don’t accuse people who make it of being condescending to black people.
It’s not (excuse the expression) black and white. It’s not a dichotomy between “tit for tat” and “clean slate like nobody got hurt”. The history has to be considered, is all I’m saying. You appear to be saying “Yeah, the United States, as a nation, enslaved you, then oppressed you, then refused you your rights, completely ignored lynching for decades, looked the other way while you were relegated to inferior schools, neighborhoods, jobs, and civic involvement, beat you and turned hoses on you when you got fed up with this, all in the name of keeping you in your ‘place’, but we can call it all even now, right?” I don’t think that’s going to happen. The history must be considered. You can’t just ignore it.
Nothing hypocritical about it. He was consistent in his positions (not necessarily his behavior ) to the extent consistency was logically possible. He believed slavery was wrong, for all the reasons you mention, plus, I’m sure, at least some degree of sympathy for the slaves’ plight. He also believed blacks to be an inferior breed – “created equal” to others in a strictly ethical sense, having the same unalienable [sic] rights, but equal not in their abilities or characters – who could never be full members of the same political community as whites. He wanted them eventually freed, and then shipped out, to find homes elsewhere – the exact same position Lincoln held to almost to the end of his life.
Jefferson’s one real hypocrisy was in not even freeing his own slaves in his will.
Do you know there were establishments refusing to serve black people into the 1970s? Do you realize just how much of your life is made easier by white privilege? You didn’t personally do any of that, but the nation you are a member of did. If you belonged to an organization that your parents and grandparents and great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents belonged to in their lifetimes, that (say theoretically) raped six-year-old girls as part of a ritual, but stopped doing that in 1981…you wouldn’t feel any shame? No guilt at all, that your direct ancestors had a part in that?
I don’t know how anyone of European descent whose ancestry was in this country for more than 30 years at this point can NOT feel “white guilt”. I really don’t. What this nation did to blacks (and Native Americans, for that matter) is shameful. I don’t know when the upper time limit on that will be reached. I just know it’s not been reached yet for me.
I would agree that most people (indeed, almost everyone) consider him “Black” (whether “socially” or not) even though he is descended from Kenyans on one side (not sure on the other). No slave ancestors at all.
Does this not then undermine your point? If a person who is not in fact a “slave descendant” can be universally considered “Black” (and indeed arguably the most talked about and famous “Black” American of all - certainly if he becomes President), the category “Black” is not a homogeneous ethnicity any more than “White” is.
Mr. Obama (who is after all the subject of this thread) does not fit your definition:
Of course most people in the US who self-identify or who are identified as “Black” descend from slaves (at least in part). But then, most people who self-idenify or who are identified as “White” are descended from Europeans. Why is it okay to celebrate African origin, but not European?
It all strikes me as arbitrary, and I see no good reason to conclude that self-identity based on skin colour is more, or less, “racist” depending on what colour that skin happens to be. It could of course be the case that both forms of self-identity are inherently “racist”. I take the opposite view, and believe that neither are - and indeed, that “racism” lies not in how one identifies oneself, but in how one treats others.
Who said you should feel guilty? I never understand this question. Pointing out that everything isn’t yet equal and can’t just be considered to be rebooted because you say so isn’t the same as saying you should feel guilty. That’s a red herring. I hear it all the time on right wing radio and the like. Why do conservatives see every dry-eyed, analytical assessment of the state of the Union as a judgement on their personal character?
So let me know what the pennance should be? How many lifetimes should I suffer for what I had no control over? I’m willing to elect a black man to be President, because I think he is the most qualified candidate afield. He is saying a lot of what I want to hear from a candidate black or white. That’s not enough? How much shame should I feel? How much trauma is sufficient?
This is politics, and evidence matters less than perceptions. I’m not deciding whether Wright is technically guilty of something, I’m deciding how much influence he’s had in Barack Obama’s life, and whether that influence has been helpful.
Perhaps that isn’t fair - I’ve said as much about Obama. I’m trying to be fair to him and understand him. But you yourself pointed out the Trent Lott situation, so you understand how perceptions play a role here.
If Obama gets elected, he is promising a greater union, and yet you are arguing for more of the same division. “This is why you should accept the division.” Either both sides work on fixing it or not. The argument you are making is not that he’s not racist, but that his racism is justified. Two different arguments.
Nobody said anything about penance. And no one said you HAD to feel guilty about anything. Acknowledging the history is not penance, it’s common sense. The history isn’t something that can be ignored and let’s all pretend everything’s A-OK.
I went too far afield with the white guilt part. Okay, I acknowledge that…it’s a personal thing that shouldn’t have entered into the debate here. And that’s illustrative of the situation…the history probably isn’t about YOU, but it’s something that has happened to THEM and it’s something that still causes problems and raises ripples down through time to today. YOU don’t have to feel guilty, but you have to acknowledge that THEY are going to feel angry and frustrated, and justifiably so. If you don’t think race still plays a huge part in how someone is treated today, you’re blind.
You know, this isn’t exactly the best argument to get people to vote for Obama.
I’m Canadian, and race matters less to me than (say) positions on NAFTA … but if I was in a position to do so, I would be really, really reluctant to vote for someone if I truly believed that they were likely to be “angry and frustrated” because of their race, even if “…justifiably so”.
I think you’re trying to use an exception to bust a rule, but the reality remains that “black” has a cultural meaning in theUS and “white” does not. I’m not interested in pursuing lawyerly games about it. We all know I’m right.
Who says you can’t celebrate European origin? We do it all the time. We have parades for it. What do you call "St. Patrick’s Day? My point is that “white” is not itself an ethnicity (neither is “European,” for that matter).
In much of the world, cultural identification based on dark skin color is meaningless (the entire continent of Africa, for instnace), but in the US, it has a specific context and historicity. Perhaps we could find a better word for it than “black,” since it does not include all people who are literally “black” in terms of skin color (“African-American slave descendants” seems a little unwieldy), but to deny that it is a real cultural group is ridiculous.
And you just summed up the position of most conservatives I know after hearing Rev. Wright speak.
Diogenes We don’t know you’re right, I know you’re wrong. There is a meaningful cultural relevance for ‘White’ and ‘European’, every bit as much as there is for Black. That’s just pure nonsense.
) to the extent consistency was logically possible. He believed slavery was wrong, for all the reasons you mention, plus, I’m sure, at least some degree of sympathy for the slaves’ plight. He also believed blacks to be an inferior breed – “created equal” to others in a strictly ethical sense, having the same unalienable [sic] rights, but equal not in their abilities or characters – who could never be full members of the same political community as whites. He wanted them eventually freed, and then shipped out, to find homes elsewhere – the exact same position Lincoln held to almost to the end of his life.