Tag: race

We’ll Tell You If You’re Black Or Not – National – The Atlantic

His response is a caricature of the worst stereotypes of white liberalism. Note the invocation of a “Marxist View Of Race.” Note the sense that blackness is strictly the work of “Southern Whites.” Note the arrogance of assuming that “blackness” is defined by 17th century racists, and that the people being defined have no agency. In one fell column, Judis anoints himself High Arbiter of Blackness, and then dismisses Obama’s complicated and arduous process as the president simply doing “what was expected of him.”

The only appropriate response to this sentiment is to regrettably resort to the language of my folks and ask the following–Who the fuck is John Judis?

via We’ll Tell You If You’re Black Or Not – National – The Atlantic.

But seriously, who the f— is he?

It’s Kanye’s Fault – Ta-Nehisi Coates

It’s Kanye’s Fault – Ta-Nehisi Coates:

“This is history through the veil, again. It’s virtually impossible to be a black person and believe that Americans were somehow more humble in the past. Our very exists springs from an act of immodesty.”

(Via Ta-Nehisi Coates.)

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How To Represent – Ta-Nehisi Coates

How To Represent – Ta-Nehisi Coates:

“But the portion that always amazed were the black kids (a significant number of them biracial) who hailed from these nice suburbs (River Forest, Walnut Creek etc.), excelled in school, but came to Howard, almost out of a kind of fatigue. The fatigue is exactly what Andrew describes here–the pressure to be a representative, to explain your groups ‘position,’ the stifling inability to, say, be an asshole and not have it say something about your folks. “

(Via Ta-Nehisi Coates.)

Experienced that for a long time in school.

Race Is A Factor But… – Ta-Nehisi Coates

Race Is A Factor But… – Ta-Nehisi Coates:

“There’s a tendency to lump anti-black racism in with all the serious problems presented when you try to make a democracy work. There is always a danger of becoming single-minded, of bringing to bear a myopic analysis which sees one thing in everything. Moreover, watermelon jokes are a long way from red-lining, and in seeing how far we’ve come, the temptation is to dismiss how far we have to go.But from a black perspective, it’s a temptation you can ill-afford. Racism cost us dollars a half-century ago. Today it costs us quarters–but it still costs.”

(Via Ta-Nehisi Coates.)

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Powell Has Praise for Obama

Powell Has Praise for Obama – New York Times:

“‘I thought that Senator Obama handled the issue well,’ Mr. Powell told ABC’s ‘Good Morning America.’ ‘He didn’t abandon the minister that brought him closer to his faith, but at the same time he deplored the kinds of statements that the Reverend Wright had made.’”

(Via NY Times.)

I wonder with the hit job on Rev. Wright and his church, if Powell’s statement will have an effect.

Colmes makes a Wright

Colmes speaks to a mixed-race couple about Rev. Wright and the media smear of Obama.

Race Talk

What Politicians Say When They Talk About Race – New York Times:

“[Obama] spoke of black anger and white resentment and the significance of race in American history; his purpose was political but he spoke with seriousness and gravity and at length. Whether the speech helped or hurt him remains to be seen. But the moment was unlike virtually any in the more than 40 years since the triumphs of the civil rights struggle tore up party alignments of the past and tamped down explicit discussion of race by presidents and major-party candidates addressing the American people.”

(Via The NY Times.)

Good overview of the speech. What’s truly sad is the fact that, predictably, the conservative scream machine revels in it’s own ignorance, i.e. racism simply doesn’t exist. They hold to willful ignorance despite empirical evidence. Ah well, lets hope that saner minds prevail.

Race and Reason

Here’s Obama’s speech in response to the “firestorm” over Rev. Wright. Wow.

A MORE PERFECT UNION
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008/ 10:17:53 ET
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk – to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.
Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.
This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.
And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.
On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

Continue reading “Race and Reason”

A Disgrace of Governmental Proportions

heraldsun.com: 3 Duke students tell of ‘disgraceful scene’

“Anyone who knows that area, if you had a bus, it would take you no more than 20 minutes to drive in with a bus and get these people out,” Buder said. “They sat there for four or five days with no food, no water, babies getting raped in the bathrooms, there were murders, nobody was doing anything for these people. And we just drove right in, really disgraceful. I don’t want to get too fired up with the rhetoric, but some blame needs to be placed somewhere.”

I am beyond livid at this point. Kanye must be right. Bush must not really care about black people, poor people, etc. If three students can make it and take people out in a Hyundai, why not the world’s most powerful nation’s government?!??!?!! In a CNN interview, they reported EMPTY BUSES LEAVING as they made their way to the Superdome. Words fail me to describe this as anything but monstrous racism, elitism, or incompetence. Take your pick. It’s just as ugly.