It doesn’t seem like you read all of my replies, I addressed a lot of your “points” already.
Oh, and don’t worry, I’ve been deliberately leaving democrat party uncapitalized and without the “ic.”
What is the “democrat party”? There is a Democratic Party, that currently has Biden as its nominee for President. Or are you just pointlessly trying to slur the party for giggles or to own the libs?
It is a cultural problem within the black community itself, encouraged by a number of outside and internal factors that is left unaddressed because in the current political climate questioning it would be considered racist.
Don’t worry about it.
I think not voting at all does plenty to express the ae message.
I disagree. If a large segment of the population does not vote, campaign strategists see those votes and make adjustments to try and capture them in later election cycles. In a sense you might say you are voting in next years election.
If you vote every election no matter the candidates, and in a relatively predictable fashion, parties and candidates understand they don’t need to do much to secure your vote and can basically run anyone they like…
I think the options in our current election reflect that pretty well.
Lastly, can’t you see how comments like “surely a black person living in America can understand this more than anyone” smack of the exact type of arrogance and condescension I’ve described throughout this thread? How about Joe’s “if you don’t vote for me, you ain’t black!”
To be fair, I have certainly seen a lot of arrogance and condescension in this thread.
What is equally likely - if not more so - is that a political minority that has no intention of behaving democratically claims an election majority and then uses its power to make sure that it stays in power by rigging the system in their favor.
I didn’t say you weren’t black; I’m saying that I would expect black people to recognize the role that institutionalized racism has had in hurting communities of color. None of that excuses a black individual who commits a crime, drops out of school, gets pregnant three times before the age of 19, or whatever else that puts them at a disadvantage. Stated another way, I guess what I’m saying is that if you subjected white people or others to the exact same circumstances that black Americans have endured, we’d probably see similar results for the population as a whole. There is nothing Barack Obama could have done to improve the lives of black individuals or to improve black communities as a whole beyond what he did, which was to be a faithful and credible public servant, even if he sometimes failed.
I didn’t say that you said I wasn’t black in any part of the quote you highlighted.
I’m curious, why is it that democrats often claim that what Trump says impacts the behavior of his electorate (for example, encouraging and emboldening racism), but claim that a politician like Obama could not impact the behavior of his?
Well, if you see it as a problem, as a member of that community, I think you have every right to express your views. If we’re going to have a conversation about race and culture, then we can’t be too squeamish to have the uncomfortable conversation. Please feel free to share your thoughts, given your own experiences.
I feel like this is bordering on the disingenuous. Trump didn’t create tens of millions of bigots or those who are perfectly fine with bigotry as long as it isn’t aimed against them. That is why he is credited with emboldening the bigots. It was a short walk for him and they were eager to support him.
To comment on what effect Obama might have, you’ll have to provide some examples of what he might say. You’ve not done so. All you’ve done is suggest that he could have done more. What is the substance of that “more” you would have him say or do? Please be specific so we can have an actual conversation about it.
Naturally. Many of these people, when faced with the idea that Mueller might be investigating Trump for some very serious matters, squared this circle by embracing a conspiracy theory that would make Occam cry. They’ll look at John Kasich and say that he’s merely pretending to be anti-Trump to troll the media, or to feather his own nest, or that he’s a small unrepresentative fraction that can be safely ignored.
Just because someone is an authoritarian doesn’t mean they’ll follow anyone who claims to be an authority. They must also correctly rule out every competing claim to the hegemony.
When one takes into account the right wing media power and the asinine push-back that the Republicans made at the congress and state levels it is a wonder that Obama could do something. Birtherism (that was very racist in the open really) was made a sport also by the Republicans.
One can argue that Obama’s hands were tied from the very beginning. This country is still a vexed mess when it comes to race. Even during the first campaign, Obama’s advisers were painfully aware of the electorate’s misgivings. They were hard to miss, if you were in the polling business. The Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg tells an illustrative tale: When his firm surveyed hundreds of likely voters in Macomb County, Michigan (fabled for its dense concentration of Reagan Democrats), “they were acutely conscious that Obama was African-American. What they said was, ‘Is he going to govern for everybody? Or is he going to govern for his people?’ That was the critical, pivotal question for them.” These crucial voters wanted to see Obama as a symbol of progress, of how far we’d come. Yes, we can. They didn’t want to see him as a symbol of disaffection, of how far we had to go. “I am sure the campaign was conscious of it,” says Greenberg, “and he had to deal with it if he was going to sustain their support — governing not for a particular group, but for everybody.”
These same reservations were evident — maybe even intensified — in the immediate aftermath of the election. That Gallup survey that trumpeted our optimism? It also found deep streaks of pessimism. Only 32 percent of McCain voters felt proud of Obama. More than half, 56 percent, felt “afraid.” By 2010, the tea party was ascendant, peddling racist imagery. “No one expected the pictures of him eating watermelon, the pictures making him look like a monkey, the Sambos,” says Arnwine. “The racism was so base .”
I did say what he could have done (and still could do) in an earlier reply, but I will restate it here.
He could have had, as you just described it, the “uncomfortable conversation.” It is the elephant in the room that everyone dances around for fear of being called a bigot. As a black man and POTUS, he was (and still is to some extent) one of the only people in the world in a position to engage the country and specifically the black community at large, in an honest (and yes uncomfortable) conversation about the cultural problems plaguing the black community.
I often feel like this kind of conversation is akin to standing in aisle 33 of the Home Depot, holding up a single lag bolt, and then proclaiming that you now understand how a shopping mall is built.
I have that bolt. There’s a world of pieces to this construction that I’m woefully ignorant to and will never truly understand.
But I do have a sense of its enormity and depth.
Race, poverty, and all that go along with those issues are tightly coupled, deeply entrenched, and are mountains to be moved.
Poor means poor. Poor means privation. Poor means dangerous neighborhoods, sub-standard schools, a paucity of role models, a surfeit of bad holes in which to fall, drugs, substandard housing, food deserts, difficult access to questionable and unaffordable health care, and on and on and on.
Educational deficits are probably the most highly correlated factor with poverty, and it cares not a whit what color you are.
But …
One thing I want to add … because I think it puts things in stark relief … is this:
Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination ?
And I presume that Emily and Greg would fare equally well in comparison to Manuel and Rosa,
This resume study is/was pretty clean. The results probably wouldn’t vary much if it were repeated today.
Think about it: the only thing that was different was the name. That’s pretty benign stuff. The name even blunted the effects of strengthening the resume.
Imagine the tendency for what happens when you actually walk in the door for an interview.
That’s the legacy. That’s “what’s left” after 400 years of repugnant abuse, oppression, and exploitation.
And that clearly isn’t all that’s left. Vestiges of the worst still smolder like hot spots in these wildfires, threatening to become execrable conflagrations with just a hint of the right breeze – now available in iodine orange !
There’s a cliche that has power: “white privilege doesn’t mean that you don’t have any problems. It just means the color of your skin doesn’t tend to be one of them.”
Right, but to your point of condescension, you made the comparison, so one could be forgiven for assuming that’s essentially what you were accusing me of - I digress, that’s not really important.
There are two responses that immediately come to mind: One is that Trump is deliberately using race as an attempt to divide the country. Let’s start with his referring to torch-carrying anti-semites and neo-Nazis as “very fine people,” and deliberately using federal law enforcement to confront and provoke BLM/anti-racist protestors - that’s a pretty obvious dog whistle. By contrast, while Barack Obama’s behavior might have impacted Black people, I don’t recall a time in which he encouraged racial divisions. He encouraged racial empathy, to which some people reacted anyway. There’s a difference.
The other is, Barack Obama wasn’t completely “Black.” He was multiracial. He was worldly. He was someone who had a lot of exposure to a wide range of cultural influences. I never saw Obama as just a Black president or president of Black America, which I think explains why he was popular at a time when not many politicians are.
I obviously don’t pretend to speak for white people, but I think what I am writing is in line with how many African Americans I know of and have listened to feel about these issues. You are not obligated to agree, and I would never submit that you are. I agree that it’s arrogant for anyone who isn’t black to define what “Black” behavior is and should be. On that we agree.
We’re still talking past each other.
Look, I’m a white guy, living a white life, work a white collar job, living in a white suburb of a blue state. That said, the majority of people I work with and interact with daily are black. Every single one of my customer side bosses are black. All the way up through director and Deputy Assistant Secretary. I have good working relationships with them and some of them have become work friends. I’m a consultant so they are cautious about outside of work interactions. It’s not prohibited, nor is it encouraged. That said, I’m not living in a completely white bubble and I try to maintain an open perspective and sensitivity to various issues in my daily interactions.
I’m ready for that conversation. But I don’t want to be presumptive. So can you give some examples of the “uncomfortable conversation” we ought to be having?
Thing is that I see you ignoring that a lot has to change regarding aid to the parents of the black kids. Many discussions before showed me that a lot of the problems we see are coming from demanding families or single parents with problems to change when the evidence shows that a lot can be done to counter the bad effects of some pushers of defeatist culture by concentrating on minimizing the debilitating effects of poverty on the less well to do, the “culture” can be a factor indeed, but the effects of poverty are very important as some have showed.
A quick snap from the city’s tourist engine, this neighborhood of small, once-charming houses seemed a world away from theme park pleasures as its leaders tried to beat back drugs, crime and too many shuttered homes. Nearly half its students had dropped out of school.
Twenty-one years later, with an infusion of $11 million of Mr. Rosen’s money so far, Tangelo Park is a striking success story. Nearly all its seniors graduate from high school, and most go on to college on full scholarships Mr. Rosen has financed.
Young children head for kindergarten primed for learning, or already reading, because of the free day care centers and a prekindergarten program Mr. Rosen provides. Property values have climbed. Houses and lawns, with few exceptions, are welcoming. Crime has plummeted.
One other thing I hear in your argument that rings familiar …
I think we’re all pretty aware of the relatively high rates of substance abuse, depression, and suicide in the LGBTQ population.
What we’re finding out is … the more we can beat into pacifism the bigotry, ignorance, and intolerance of the binary thinkers who can’t imagine how complex human sexuality really is … the more we chip away at those issues in the LGBTQ population.
We really do have to “get the boots off of people’s necks” before we can ask (or order) them to be better.
It could be argued that Obama was among the least well-suited to have that kind of conversation – the kind that I would imagine we really need to be having.
I’ve worked in some of the worst highschools in my city. I’ve had black teenage students flat out tell me they planned to get pregnant and collect welfare when asked what they were going to do for work. I actually saw those same students carry pregnancies to term later on.
There is a segment of the black community that sees nothing wrong with this behavior. They represent a minority of the black community as a whole, but their impact on it is disproportionately large. These are the same people you see looting amid an otherwise peaceful protest. They are the the minority of students in a classroom who make it impossible for the majority of students to be productive.
They will also be among the first to claim racism when held accountable for their own behavior, for choices entirely within their control. They make those choices because the majority of the time they are not challenged by anyone. No one can challenge them because we have emboldened a culture that’s so politically correct and tolerant of poor behavior we consider it racist to be hesitant to hire Lakisha who has 2 kids at 17 years old and showed up 10 minutes late to interview.