Seriously, there are black people who think electing the first black president is some kind of step backwards for civil rights? I question the sanity of anyone who even thinks that for a second.
Breaking News
Oprah Quitting TV Show In 2011
Oliver Willis
Like Kryptonite To Stupid
-
-
Breaking News
- Tila Tequila Live Streaming Mental Meltdown
- 31 Die In Chinese Mine Blast In Heilongjiang Province, 82 Trapped
- Victoria Justice Stars In New Nickeloden Show “Victorious”
- CERN’s Large Hadron Collider Back Up And Running
- Megan Fox Alive For Transformers 3
- Maryna Linchuk @ 2009 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show
- Madison Parker Works Out
- Sony Reveals Lame Attempt To Fight iTunes
- Brian Thomas: UK Man Gets Away With Killing Wife In His Sleep
- Olivia Wilde @ US Weekly Hot Hollywood 2009 Party
Live News
I understand their point, though. There are enough idiots out there already swearing that racism is dead and buried (and that the people who point it out are the TRUE racists — I’ve noticed a few of those right here in your comments section) — President Obama will give them something to point to as “proof”.
Obviously Obama has already done a lot to deliver on the promise of racial equality in America, and, in the hopeful event that he attains the Presidency, will create a watershed moment in American history. I think the problem that people are trying to point out is that there are those who will then dust their hands and declare the battle for equality to be over.
They might be right. There’s only one way to find out.
The people who will claim that racism is dead have been doing so for years without needing anything to point to whatsoever.
You’ve got to love contemporary media. If there’s some idiot on the outer fringes who can be used to reinforce a right-wing talking point, they are assured of getting column inches “for balance”.
If the Mercury Program were happening today, we’d be barraged with quotes from members of the Flat Earth Society.
Almost every time I watch C-Span, someone calls in and says that America can’t afford the reparations Obama promised to Blacks and then someone else calls in to say that Obama is a Muslim and he is lying to the American public. Is it any surprise that people with race bias will hold on to any lie, regardless of tons of evidence to the contrary, because it supports their beliefs and fears?
I was in South Africa for the 1997 New Year almost two years after Nelson Mandela became President. During that time the Truth and Reconciliation hearings were taken place and many Black South Africans were concerned about that process. But every Black South African, even in the poor tribal areas that I visited, total outward appearance would change with the mention of Nelson Mandela. I think I would have been run out of South Africa if I asked a Black South African how they felt Nelson Mandela has harmed their fight for equality.
Look at the history of African Americans in this country. Why are many Whites terrified with Obama becoming the President of the United States? They know that when a door is opened — it’s a like a flood gate for all the qualified educated and prepared Blacks to follow.
Obama is the future not the past. Obama’s campaign was historic because he did not win following the old playbook. He did the math and he knew he could win delegates in small state caucuses and developing a national grassroots movement led by young people and the internet. By the time the Clinton campaign realized what he had done, it was too late in the campaign for them to counter his movement. He did his; He has inspired me and I’m getting ready to do mine.
One other thought, on my 1997 South African trip, I was on Signal Mountain looking at the red beacon light from Robbins Island where Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years. While I was speaking a Black South African minister touring with his church choir heard my voice and said “You’re American!” I said “Yes.” And then he said “Welcome Home.” I have never felt more wanted and accepted in my life. This minister gathered his choir and sang a praise song to me. The song had only one word other than Amen. That word was “Hallelujah!” I had an out of body experience that I felt would never be duplicated but it will — when Barack Obama is sworned in as President of the United States as his beautiful wife Michelle and his daughters stand at his side.
Obama is a new song to sing. We love our oldies and we will sing them too, but there are new songs to sing and new songs be written and there is no need to be afraid.
“Look at the history of African Americans in this country. Why are many Whites terrified with Obama becoming the President of the United States? They know that when a door is opened — it’s a like a flood gate for all the qualified educated and prepared Blacks to follow.”
That’s right.
Of course racism won’t be magically solved when Obama becomes president, however having a black president will undoubtedly change this country.
What exactly will be the goalpost in the whole “America is Racist” meme?
If having a black president, or heck, just having a black democratic contender, doesn’t demonstrate that as a society racial barriers have been removed, what does?
There will always be people who “hate” someone: You pick the flavor for the hatred. But they are fringe elements, not the society as a whole.
Sigh. Even with a black president we are doomed to hear more from the race pimps and hustlers telling that “The Man” is keeping them down….?
See Exhibit 1- Duh’s post.
Duh, I don’t think having a black president necessarily means that “racial barriers have been removed.” I don’t think that will ever really happen until we start seeding the atmosphere with Paxil, but what it does mean is that those barriers are eroding, a process that usually takes quite a bit of time.
Duh, what Duros said. Look at Jackie Robinson: had to be both the best ballplayer around and live practically like a saint just to compete in the white-only baseball leagues. Fifty years later, Black ballplayers are permitted to be mediocre ballplayers or to be mediocre people, because we have managed to eliminate racial barriers in sport, at least at the athlete level (as opposed to coaching, managing, etcetera). Anyone who looked at Jackie Robinson halfway through his first season and said “racism is dead in America” would rightly be condemned as a blithering idiot. Similarly anyone who looks at the partial success Obama is enjoying thus far as an exceptionally talented politician displaying unbelievable self-discipline and concludes that there are no racial barriers to political success, or other success, in America.
duh’s comment (GREAT screen name, by the way), is spoken like someone who wishes to excuse himself.
It wasn’t until Affimative Action came along that guys like duh discovered racism. All of a sudden, not being color-blind was WRONG!
They were shocked, shocked, I tell you, to find that racial quotas were being used! That totally wiped out the previous 350 years!
Now, see, racism was over, and black people should “get over it” and “get that chip off their shoulder”, because, nowadays, White Christian Males and their “values” were the real victims. Damn liberal media.
Actually affirmative action as it stands today is the BEST example of a racist society that I can think of.
I asked a simple question: When will the race pimps and hustlers who make a living on racial “inequality” finally be quiet? when will they be satisfied?
For those of you paying attention, Jackie Robinson was a baseball player, not president of the united states. Obama being a front-running contender for POTUS or being elected is substantially different than Robinson.
There is racism, sexism, religionism, etc, etc. No question. But it isn’t acceptable on a government or societal level. Guys like Bruce here like to get their dander up and be all sarcastic, but can’t answer the simple question:
When can we agree that we have to get beyond race? When will it be totally unacceptable to give people jobs or places in college based upon skin color?
Actually affirmative action as it stands today is the BEST example of a racist society that I can think of.
Yeah, duh, it’s getting so a white man can’t find a decent job these days.
the smarm does great job in masking your inability to justify preferential treatment based on the color of a persons skin. I don’t blame you though, when you come to the realization that it can be justified for “good reasons” you recognize that you have just entered down the alleyway of “The ends justifies the means”.
And of course completely ignore MLK’s exhortation to “judge me by the content of my character and not the color of my skin…”
But hey, as long as it assuages YOUR White Christian Guilt, I am ok with it Quaker
“Whenever this issue of compensatory or preferential treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree; but he should ask for nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic. For it is obvious that if a man is entering the starting line in a race 300 years after another man, the first would have to perform some impossible feat in order to catch up with his fellow runner.”
MLK Why We Can’t Wait, 1964
Actually, the segregated South of yesteryear was a much better example, duh. Duh! You know, the way things would STILL BE if conservatives had had their way!
I don’t know how old you are, duh, but I’m old enough to remember “White Only” water fountains, etc. I’m not so sure you would have been so outraged by that as much as you are by affirmative action. Because, when the state denies you the right to vote, condones lynching, and sends your kids to inferior schools, that’s equivalent to getting spotted 50 points on a Civil Service exam. Obviously.
I’m not old enough to remember that, only seen pictures.
so how many years of affirmative action is enough?
At what point do you say to people they are going to have to make it or not on their own steam.
My daughter doesn’t really even recognize “race”. People I went to school with got full scholarships to graduate school because of the color of their skin, and lived in the richest neighborhoods in this country, sons and daughters of wealthy african-americans. Those kids never saw white only water fountains, or went to substandard schools…
You want affirmative action, ok. Base it on economics. But don’t pretend that the current affirmative action is not, by its very definition, racist.
And Hick, which of the MLK quotes do you want to believe and live by?
Duh,
Sorry, don’t have time for a detailed answer. But I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive. I’ve read liberal commentators who are pushing for class based affirmative action over race based.
Those people you claim you went to school with that got full scholarships–are they the sons and daughters of St Ronald Reagan’s mythical Welfare Queen? You know, the one who bought T-bones with food stamps while your hardworkin’ twofisted Dad bought hamburger with cash?
We will reach that point you ask about sometime, and I think pretty soon. But we ain’t there yet, son.
So now Mr. Duh is the keeper of Dr. King’s true legacy?
The irony is deep and rich. At least I think it’s irony…
duh, this sentence here…
…tells us that you don’t even know what the word racist means. So just give up trying to lecture us on what it is or isn’t, OK?
Well here is the dictionary definition of racism:
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.
So tell me again how selecting someone with lesser qualifications over someone with superior qualifications based entirely upon skin color doesn’t meet this criteria.
You know Quaker, if you can’t actually address the issue, just don’t respond. You aren’t that witty, and it makes it completely obvious that you can’t intelligently address the issue.
And no they were the sons and daughters of doctors, architects and engineers, living in hillside mansions in Sausalito CA
Obama being a front-running contender for POTUS or being elected is substantially different than Robinson.
Bullshit. In the context of history, they are almost identical.
tell me again how selecting someone with lesser qualifications over someone with superior qualifications based entirely upon skin color doesn’t meet this criteria.
You’re not doing it right. and can you prove this still happens or is this all anecdotal?
I’ve read liberal commentators who are pushing for class based affirmative action over race based.
I’d consider Eric Alterman the foremost, and the smartest. The relevant chapter from ‘Why we’re Liberals’ had me convinced. Class is really what we’re talking about anyway – nobody is trying to provide affirmative action help to the children of middle class-to-wealthy minorities. Americans have a problem with the word ‘class,’ though. Perhaps ‘economic quintile’ affirmative action…?
Duros, what do you think affirmative action does? I won’t even bother addressing why a baseball player isn’t equivalent to the elected president of the united states.
Parth, I think you are probably right that what we would like to do is to help people succeed that haven’t caught any breaks. I saw a great study once demonstrating the difference in college entrance and the number of books in a family home.
I think we should throw all of our efforts at identifying kids when they first enter school, who need affirmative action, regardless of race. The idea being that we level the playing field well before anyone is applying for colleges.
“The idea being that we level the playing field well before anyone is applying for colleges.”
Maybe you should tell that to McCain:
http://thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/2008/07/16/mccain-naacp-education/
Farf, always read the primary source, not the crap from the libtard “think tank”.
McCain completely supports what I have suggested. School vouchers for kids to get out of failing public schools, federal support for home tutoring programs, etc.
Unfortunately The Obama, fully in the pocket of the teachers unions is against all those things.
“People I went to school with got full scholarships to graduate school because of the color of their skin, and lived in the richest neighborhoods in this country, sons and daughters of wealthy african-americans.”
As someone who has a masters and phd from two tier-one schools, I can say with the greatest sarcasm that our graduate schools are SO full of african americans on full fellowship. Simply overflowing.
Duh, save the crybaby act for someone not living in the real world. It is quite obvious who has the advantages in our society.
What crybaby? I have a doctorate and BSc from tier one schools too, but the color of my skin didn’t help me get there.
Not sure what your point is though. Do you know any white kids that didn’t get into your schools but had better grades? How do you feel about that?
One of my black friends once told me that was the biggest problem: He could never tell if his acheivements were really his, or a product of his skin color. To me that sounds like a living hell.
But the simple question goes back to you Professor LIon….when does it stop? When are we all equal enough?
I am fascinated to see the answers that you all have for this question, cause no one has answered me yet. At what point do we take off our hipocrite goggles and point out that selecting people out for jobs or education by the color of their skin is wrong?
I’m sure being white never helped you in any of your fields. Mediocre whites are never given any unfair benefits in our institutions of higher learning. Give me a break (scoff).
You obviously have deep issues since you can’t stop whining about a handful of blacks at your institutions, even after you graduated. What about the mediocre whites at those institutions? You didn’t see any? Maybe you should look in the mirror. I ran/run across people like you all the time, folks that want to scapegoat black folks for their failures.
And you are a loser. In the real world, successful people don’t whine obsessively about affirmative action. For one, they don’t have the time.
And I’m sure you’re taking out your perceived injustices on every minority around you.
duh, YOU are the reason for affirmative action.
When prejudiced people like you with huge chips on their shoulder are gone, then we can end it. (there’s your answer)
Oh, and if that was your black friend’s biggest problem, he must have immigrated from Sweden for grad school.
At what point do we take off our hipocrite goggles and point out that selecting people out for jobs or education by the color of their skin is wrong?
First of all I support class-based A.A., but I think the theory behind race-based A.A. would be as follows–
1) It will cease to exist when it is no longer necessary.
2) It will no longer be necessary when the demographics of every position of employment in the United States roughly reflects the demographics of the applicants to the position, based on their respective merits. This will happen naturally after a time, because the generation after the one given a head start for certain positions will have grown up in a better economic (and thus likely better social) environment, and will be at last be on a level playing field as their caucasian counterparts, and will no longer need the head start (which isn’t even really a head start, because minorities are behind whites economically due not to any failing of their own, but rather to previous discrimination against them).
What I’m suggesting is that duh is making shit up.
Someone who has two degrees from tier one schools should know how to spell “hypocrite” whether with goggles or not.
I don’t believe he has a black friend who confided his insecurity.
I don’t believe his story about knowing all these people who benefitted from affirmative action.
I don’t believe that his daughter, if he has one, “doesn’t see race.” I’m pretty sure, if she doesn’t, that duh will enlighten her soon.
It’s like those urban legends about “welcome to the world of AIDS”. It always happened to a friend of a friend, not to anyone you can really point to.
Of course he’s making shit up. He’s hitting every “angry white male” cliche in the playbook.
“I asked a simple question: When will the race pimps and hustlers who make a living on racial “inequality” finally be quiet? when will they be satisfied?”
Well, those black activists will be satisfied and quiet when anti-black discrimination is no longer a problem. It’s that simple. Until then, they won’t be quiet, and won’t be bullied into being quiet.
Same old story.
shoot the messenger.
Pretend it never happened
Ad hominem attack
Attack my veracity without ever addressing the issue.
Straight denials, then you never have to address the question
Lion does give us some insight though when he says “Mediocre whites are never given any unfair benefits in our institutions…” which at least infers that he understands that affirmative action as it stands now is wrong or “unfair”.
The folks with the chip on their shoulders are pretty obvious.
Parth at least answers the question. I guess I would say that the second graph of your answer has been met substantially. That is why in my mind, race based affirmative action should come to an end, allowing us to head toward a much more race neutral society.
You know Quaker, if you can’t actually address the issue, just don’t respond. You aren’t that witty, and it makes it completely obvious that you can’t intelligently address the issue.
Somehow I’m managing to respond to your comment without responding to the issue. Either I’m freakin’ brilliant or you’re moving the goalposts.
In your initial blunder…um, comment, you said something about a “racist society.” A racist society is one that determines inclusion an exclusion on the basis of race, where skin color determines your opportunities for education, housing, and employment, where your ability to exercise your rights is constrained by your ethnicity.
Now if you’re imagining that the goal of affirmative action is to create a minority-dominant America where white people are relegated to second-class status, you might have an argument. You might also have an emotional disorder.
Go away.
One of my black friends once told me that was the biggest problem: He could never tell if his acheivements were really his, or a product of his skin color.
Even he can’t tell? About his own accomplishments?
That’s remarkable.
Years ago, I had an arrogant blowhard mediocrity of a boss, and he held monthly staff meetings. At one meeting, he told an anecdote that began, “When I was a young sergeant in the Army, I was aide to a captain…”. A few months later, he re-told the anecdote, only this time he was “a young lietenant, aide to colonel…”. About a year after that he was a young captain who was aide to a 4-star general.
I believe my old boss is posting here, using the screen name of duh.
He supposedly had a lot of minority friends, too.
I’m getting a distinct whiff of “Dr” Pee from duh.
School vouchers for kids to get out of failing public schools, federal support for home tutoring programs, etc.
How about fixing the failing schools first? You know for the lower class of people who can’t afford private schools, even with a “voucher”?
I guess I would say that the second graph of your answer has been met substantially.
I don’t honestly know whether it has. I read some stats a few years ago about how the median minority family’s wealth was drastically lower than that of the median white family. That’s as close as I can get.
Well here is the dictionary definition of racism:
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.
Definition #2? What happened to the first entry? Why didn’t you include it?
Because these guys like to cherry-pick facts. You know, like in 2002-2003.
Psst. Bruce…it’s like many prosecutors say: Never ask a question unless you already know the answer. I know exactly what Mr. Duh has omitted. He can’t give us definition #1 because it undermines his argument.
You the man, Quaker.
Instead of discussing what Oliver wants you to discuss, why not discuss a slightly different question: If a black Presidential candidate can be nominated and /or possibly win; and , still, institutionalized racism, as well as personal racial animosity still exists, then by what standard can any Governmental “anti-racism” program, policy or legislation be said to be successful?
A black man is almost President, and two black teenagers can’t walk down the street without being stopped and frisked by the police …
The number of black men in prison continues to slowly, but surely, to increase each year …
Black on black crime continues to increase …
It should be clear, by now, over 140 years after the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendment; and over 40 years after two “Civil Rights Acts” , the Government has failed to stop racism.
No surprise to me …
Hey, the famous Frank is back.
So what’s your point? Kinda cryptic, arntcha?
My point is that Barack Obama is not a symbol that racism is dead == agreed.
But he is a symbol that government programs to “end racism” are complete and utter failures …
IF was not clearer than that before , I apologize …
I reread.
The 13th amendment ended SLAVERY.
The 14th and 15th amendments made former slaves CITIZENS and supposedly LEGAL EQUALITY.
The Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts outlawed DISCRIMINATION.
I don’t think any of those measures were supposed to outlaw RACISM. But if you lived in the Old South before they were enacted, they sure as hell helped.
I grew up in the Old South. My high school wasn’t integrated until my sophomore year. The two Civil Rights acts, and so-called “forced busing”, were the best things to ever happen to this country.
Are a lot of people still racist in this country? Hell, yes. Are FEWER people racists than would be the case if those laws had not been enacted? Also, hell yes. That should be obvious to any observer.
Frank! MY BUDDY!
What governmental programs are you talking about?
Also, I don’t think that Obama’s a symbol in the way that you mean.
Minority set asides … Busing for integration … affirmative action in College …
Law enforcement sensitivity and “multicultural” training …
I am not sure what you think Obama’s symbolism is…
I think he was considered a worthy and valuable candidate for people of the “liberal persuasion” , and that his candidacy , as a black man, per se, was never questioned…
I think only a handful of pundits think he can’t win simple because he is black [if you remember, may more thought this was case during Jesse Jackson's ill fated run].
TV’s Frank is in the hizzouse!!!
I’ll just say what I said upthread. No one believes that electing Obama is going to end racism, but it shows that racism as an institution is eroding, slowly and with the force of rivers. Perhaps America is ready to grow up.
“Also, hell yes. That should be obvious to any observer.”
Sorry, but it is simply “Yes” and it is not obvious to this observer that yanking kids of one race out of a school, and substituting kids of another race — whichever race you choose — has substantially enhanced either the educational achievements or there employment prospects …
Maybe some of the affirmative action programs go a little too far, but I gotta quibble about the “busing for integration” thing. Throughout my elementary and junior-high years in the Old South, it was common to hear the N-word on a daily basis, even from teachers. This in all-white schools.
Then came “forced busing.”
My little brother, 12 years younger, despite going to school alongside black children, NEVER HEARD THE WORD until the 4th grade.He never used it himself, even in anger, because he didn’t see the world that way.
Anecdotal, I know, but I think illustrative.
Law enforcement sensitivity and “multicultural” training …
Do you think we don’t need those things anymore?
Also, my point was that those legal measures had the effect, intended or not, of lessening the number of people who are racists. They were not the sole cause of progress on that front, but they helped.
speaking of educational achievement — “there”, above , should be “their”
-;-}
Law enforcement sensitivity and “multicultural” training
Do you think we don’t need those things anymore?
They may have their uses,but they have not ended “selective enforcement by race” or, for example, being stopped for “driving while black”
Math courses have not ended arithmetic mistakes, either. We should probably just forget it and stop trying.
I believe that any institutional effort to end racism is helpful, whether it be led by the Churches , any level of government , or corporations
That is why I was careful to exclude “affirmative action” in hiring which can, and often does :
1) Give blacks a chance to work alongside whites, indicating that they are competent;
2) Does tend to make stereotypes fuzzy; and
3) Will increase, in one way or another, black – white socialization.
I am not so sure that this transfers to school corridors , anywhere beyond Middle School …
You, sir, are a reasonable man.
Thank you, Bruce.. You might be kidding about Math courses, but didn’t we all sit in geometry and think “What in the hell am I gonna do with a hypotenuse?”
=;-}