Um, if there were people of color there and no one listened to them or allowed them to speak you might have a point about tokenism. But first, you know, you have to actually have them sitting at the table. The organizers of this event couldn’t even get that far.

Update: No other black bloggers in America available.

Thank you for the being an apologist for White Folk Mr. “I was invited to go”.

I agree with you most of the time, but on this one your on pluto.

the sad part about peter douauaou’s near-sightedness (color-blindness?) is that most democrats i know do care much more about race disparities in our society than republicans.

Me, I don’t see anything racist in the picture. Maybe the real question is: why aren’t there more blacks out here doing political blogging?

By which, of course, you obviously meant to imply that Jimmy Carter was a better president than Clinton?

It can’t be a secret that I wouldn’t put Clinton atop any list of presidents that includes Ronald Reagan, unless it was ordered by number of sexual improprieties.

But even I can’t stand silently by while anyone even implies that Carter was, by an oceanic margin, anything shy of the worst president of the past 50 years.

That’s just idiotic…

Now, if instead of saying “best president of the last 25 years,” you had said “only Democratic president of the last 25 years,” then you’d have a point. And some factual basis for making it, too.

Dude, it’s kind of odd that you see this meeting as being somehow beyond race when only one race was represented. That to you is a triumph of diversity or should go without comment? How about if there were no women at the meeting, just a bunch of white guys. Could we complain then? Or would that be focussing too much on gender when we’ve all moved passed feminsism (even though women still don’t earn as much as men in the work place).

When you arrange a meeting with a former president who’s wife will soon be running for president herself and you don’t have any people of color there, you are still seeing everything through the kaleidoscope of race. Only it ain’t a kaleidoscope. It’s more like a telescope. Focussed on one race. Quite a narrower view don’t you think?

It’s kind of odd that you see this meeting as being somehow beyond race when only one race was represented. That to you is a triumph of diversity or should go without comment? How about if there were no women at the meeting, just a bunch of white guys. Could we complain then?

Nice speech Chuck but while I’d love to live in the kind of world you describe getting there requires an acknowledgement of race not overlooking it. We are all human beings but we also all have different social, cultural, experiences that are shaped by race. We have to work harder to reduce the negative aspects of that experience, that is, racism, while promoting the positive aspects of that experience, that is diversity. To respect and above all learn from that diversity is what’s all about. It’s how we all grow as human beings. Too often in the past the desire to universalize human experience at the expense of this diversity has been part and parcel of Western, colonial racism. It says, “Hey, you’re unique perspective as a black person or as a chinese person isn’t valid because we’re all so supposed to be one.” Only it just so happens that it’s the white folks in power deciding what that “universal” means.

Oliver, if this weren’t a symptom of something larger, I’d be agreeing with you. How many more all white conferences, meetings, strategy sessions etc before we’re supposed to raise the issue?

Yes, I know you were invited, and Kos was too. Is that the extent of diversity in Daou’s rolodex? Did he ask you to recommend someone to go? He didn’t even ask Steve Gilliard who lives in NYC. He says it’s because he knows Steve would have declined, but I suspect it’s CYA since he said it after he read Steve’s post on the subject. He still could have asked, convinced Steve to show up only for the on the record part, or asked if Steve could recommend some blacks/latinos/asians etc to be heard at the session.

The point is not to have a ethnic rally ala Felix Macaca for show, but to listen to diverse opinions.

The point is not to only invite the A-listers, or we can stop complaining about the Dems only allowing access to the powerful. A-listers are more powerful than some of the smaller minority run blogs; but Washington political pundits can get out the message to anyone with a tv, newspaper, magazine, or internet access as opposed to bloggers who are only online. If minority bloggers don’t deserve representation compared to A-listers, maybe A-listers don’t deserve representation compared to Washington pundits. Is that really what we want, only the most powerful to have any say?

If this is the way it is supposed to be then we really should stop making fun of Republicans and their all white gatherings and country clubs.

Whites who don’t listen to us aren’t really good for us, whether they are Republican or Democratic. I guess we are supposed to pick from the best of two bad options and be happy with it and hopefully one day a month, a year, a decade from now maybe then we will get a seat at the table, any table.

You know, the fuss over this one event probably would have died down by now if the liberal face of racism didn’t pop up it’s ugly head over at FDL. A white man, TRex, telling a black woman, Liza, to stop assailing her betters isn’t exactly conducive to the discussion.

Yes, it’s only one lunch. I’d say that the fact that all the white folks, in Harlem, eating soul food, not even noticing that there were no blacks in attendance is a symptom of something larger.

Um, guys, we don’t yet live in this harmonious racial wonderland you all keep talking about. I don’t think we have to go any further than George Allen’s “macaca” bullshit to see that. Or Pat Buchanan’s latest book length racist screed. At the same time, we aren’t going to get to that wonderland by simply and suddenly ignoring race and the role that it plays in shaping the world today.