That whole instapunk thing
Mar. 27th, 2008 03:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumSo, Obama had a pastor, who gave him advice on religion. Said pastor has some radical views on the racial problems in the States.
For this he is pilloried. He has to denounce him, renounce him, scorn all his works and repudiate him. If, you see, he doesn't do that, he's going to fuel the racial divide in this country, because all those angry whie guys who lost their jobs will refuse to vote for him.
Right...
But Glenn Reynolds, Time Magazine's one time Blogger of the year, links to blatant racsists and no one calls him to account.
His most recent case of this has been quite the small flap. He links, regularly, to a site which claims him as their model. They have a guy who says the black need to denounce, renounce, scorn and shame, all the niggers who drag them down. You know, the basketball players, the guys with their pants down around their thighs. The ones who make him uncomfortable. The ones who don't give him the respect he feels he deserves.
Athenae, at First Draft, hits the nail on the head Your Feelings Don't Matter
Fifteen miles south of the center of Chicago is an almost entirely black town in which I spent a great deal of time as a reporter. I used to drive down and carefully stop at stop signs, only to realize I don't really need to stop at stop signs here, because a couple of years back, just about the whole entire police force was indicted for selling badges and influence, so ain't nobody there to pull you over for failing to stop at a sign so rusted it was just about ready to fall off its pole. The town's only librarian lived in a house with broken windows. The library was two rooms at a school, with donated books....
But the inability of somebody to say that young black men this needy creep saw on a street corner should pull up their pants, that's the biggest obstacle to healing the racial divide in this country.
It is long past fucking time we stopped equating things which are vastly unequal. The Chicago Tribune this morning has announced that we must all begin dealing with our feelings, and it's all very nice, that some people are going to feel better, but it is past fucking time that we cease to make feeling better our highest national objective, over, you know, DOING better. Yes, there needs to be greater understanding, tolerance and compassion. However, I don't think the way you start the process towards that is equating decades of systemic discrimination which affects every aspect of someone's life with having to see people wearing things you don't like them wearing, or playing loud music or putting shiny hubcaps on their cars.
I don't think you start a conversation towards racial healing with rewarding people who think their contrarian tendencies make them brave, who think it's some kind of sincere rebellion to spout a bunch of ignorant horseshit, by making it important that they feel better in their ignorance. There's a huge gulf between acknowledging white resentment is real, which Obama did, and putting sentiments like the above on a level of being the single most important obstacle toward healing the racial divide. Because, fucking no, okay? Fucking hell to the no, it doesn't work that way, and if we are going to have this conversation, that's where it needs to start, with telling this dude who thinks the biggest obstacle toward healing the racial divide is that he can't say the N-word without risking getting his pasty ass beat, telling that dude to take his feelings and shove them in one of the many, many places where the sun doesn't shine.
For this he is pilloried. He has to denounce him, renounce him, scorn all his works and repudiate him. If, you see, he doesn't do that, he's going to fuel the racial divide in this country, because all those angry whie guys who lost their jobs will refuse to vote for him.
Right...
But Glenn Reynolds, Time Magazine's one time Blogger of the year, links to blatant racsists and no one calls him to account.
His most recent case of this has been quite the small flap. He links, regularly, to a site which claims him as their model. They have a guy who says the black need to denounce, renounce, scorn and shame, all the niggers who drag them down. You know, the basketball players, the guys with their pants down around their thighs. The ones who make him uncomfortable. The ones who don't give him the respect he feels he deserves.
Athenae, at First Draft, hits the nail on the head Your Feelings Don't Matter
Fifteen miles south of the center of Chicago is an almost entirely black town in which I spent a great deal of time as a reporter. I used to drive down and carefully stop at stop signs, only to realize I don't really need to stop at stop signs here, because a couple of years back, just about the whole entire police force was indicted for selling badges and influence, so ain't nobody there to pull you over for failing to stop at a sign so rusted it was just about ready to fall off its pole. The town's only librarian lived in a house with broken windows. The library was two rooms at a school, with donated books....
But the inability of somebody to say that young black men this needy creep saw on a street corner should pull up their pants, that's the biggest obstacle to healing the racial divide in this country.
It is long past fucking time we stopped equating things which are vastly unequal. The Chicago Tribune this morning has announced that we must all begin dealing with our feelings, and it's all very nice, that some people are going to feel better, but it is past fucking time that we cease to make feeling better our highest national objective, over, you know, DOING better. Yes, there needs to be greater understanding, tolerance and compassion. However, I don't think the way you start the process towards that is equating decades of systemic discrimination which affects every aspect of someone's life with having to see people wearing things you don't like them wearing, or playing loud music or putting shiny hubcaps on their cars.
I don't think you start a conversation towards racial healing with rewarding people who think their contrarian tendencies make them brave, who think it's some kind of sincere rebellion to spout a bunch of ignorant horseshit, by making it important that they feel better in their ignorance. There's a huge gulf between acknowledging white resentment is real, which Obama did, and putting sentiments like the above on a level of being the single most important obstacle toward healing the racial divide. Because, fucking no, okay? Fucking hell to the no, it doesn't work that way, and if we are going to have this conversation, that's where it needs to start, with telling this dude who thinks the biggest obstacle toward healing the racial divide is that he can't say the N-word without risking getting his pasty ass beat, telling that dude to take his feelings and shove them in one of the many, many places where the sun doesn't shine.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-03-27 11:07 pm (UTC)Including one mid-level manager type complaining about how sick he was of having to 'be all PC all the time'. After all, he pointed out, plenty of black people use that kind of language even on TV. Yes, I met a real live example of the But Chris Rock Says It! Exception.
Being a) not an employee of the company and b) on my second rum and cola I gave him my best deadpan stare.
Me: Can I ask a question?
Manager Person: Absolutely.
Me: Are you seriously going to sit there and try to argue your life has somehow been blighted by the lack of opportunities to work words like nigger and bitch into everyday conversation? Because if you are I need to call a time out to go throw up.
Manager Person: ...
Manager Person's Direct Supervisor: Oh, this should be interesting. Let me get us some fresh drinks then I'm sure we'll all be just fascinated by your explanation!
Manager Person: ... errr,umm....
Manager Person flees.
Me: I'll feel bad about that. Later.
MP's Direct Supervisor: Oh, I hope not!
no subject
Date: 2008-03-27 11:15 pm (UTC)McCain seeks out the endorsement of people like Hagee, and Parsley. He attends the coronation of the Rev. Moon as the King of the United States.
The one is excoriated; for associating with a radical.
The other is a sober-minded person, reaching out to include a wide religious tolerance.
Or some such twaddle.
I love that story, btw.
TK
no subject
Date: 2008-03-28 12:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-28 12:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-28 07:47 pm (UTC)saoba, ROTFLMAO
Date: 2008-03-28 03:50 am (UTC)I actually live in what amounts to the inner city. In what used to be actually part of the deep South and had racist community issues (like white and black water fountains).
The more I learn about all the bad things in the past, the more I'm surprised that black people didn't just rise up and go "fuck you all"....
I just try to live my live being as polite and reasonable to everyone without prejudice, though I've stopped trying to be nice to the preachers and grifters that show up on my porch. I've pretty much been okay with stuff. Though the Mormon boys were puzzled that I threatened to call the police (I was on deadline, they wanted to try to argue me into a discussion through my front door... we do have a neighborhood email telegraph about people who are seriously up to no good, too.
Re: saoba, ROTFLMAO
Date: 2008-03-28 04:03 am (UTC)I recall the, subtle; but decided, shift in the cops taking the report of our house being burgled. He came to the door (I was giving my report, since I'd been the one to find the house broken into), and they stoppped caring.
I'm ever amazed at the same thing. If they were to rise up and tell us all to fuck off, I'd be hurt; because I've tried to not make things as better as I can, but I'd understand.
People coming and trying to force their religion on me... get a vicious dose of my knowing the books. When I ask the Mormons where the cities are, and what happened to the wheat, and the barley, the metal weapons and chariots....
When I ask the Fundies about the gospels of Thomas, and Peter, and the various Acts...
I've never had to call the cops; they probably leave the equivalent of hobo signs on my lawn.
TK
no subject
Date: 2008-03-28 04:55 pm (UTC)Mind you, it seems to me that Obama & Clinton are about equally-balanced in their differing strengths & weaknesses -- neither strikes me as being Perfect, or even Superb, but they're the choices we have, against McCain and another four (or more) years of government by the shadowy Powers that have brought our country to its present deplorable state. I find myself uncomfortably uncertain that the Democratic Convention will select the candidate the majority of the Democratic voters have chosen in the primaries, and terrified that there's a very real possibility that the Republicans will, somehow, triumph in the November election. There are times when I feel that I'm getting too old to cope with this kind of thing.
Interesting standard
Date: 2008-03-28 05:57 pm (UTC)Reynolds' blog entry, in its entirety, reads:
(I don't know when the update was added. When InstaPutz read it, it may have been just the one sentence.)
You then cite this as evidence that Reynolds is a "racsist".
So if a racist mails a copy of his book to you and you say anything about it, you have "promoted a racist"? People could have all kinds of fun with "logic" like that.
For the record, Reynolds has reviewed at least one other book by the same author. He trashed it (http://instapundit.com/archives/020873.php).
Maybe it's another example of how we draw lines in different places, but I think one should have to work just a little harder to acquire the stain of "racist". (Or even "rascist".)
no subject
Date: 2008-04-09 04:54 am (UTC)