to take a more extreme example, if a jewish person wrote that the jews were "whining about the holocast, would you all the writer an honest person?

I think you should apply uniform yardstics across races instead of calling the convenient argument an honest one.

How on earth is speaking out against entitlements the same as downplaying the holocaust?

I will explain to you the difference between self-hating white liberals and black conservatives. White liberals treat white people like they are inherently evil or untrustworthy. They are all about double standards. They say only whites can be racist, and take whites to task for anything slightly racist that they do, meanwhile they are apologists for any racist actions people of color do. They are all about giving blacks of all walks of life entitlement, not just poor ones. Even blacks who attend the same middle class and upper crust schools as they do receive affirmative action, not just the poor inner city ones. What's the implication there if a black person receives the exact same education as a white person and has no different financial obstacles than the white person but is still deemed unable to properly compete to the point that he needs affirmative action? The implication is that the black person, even with all the same opportunities as a white person, must have some natural mental inferiority. An asian immigrant with English as a second language is deemed sufficiently smart enough to get by with no need of affirmative action, but a black middle class person with generations of ancestors born in this country (meaning no culture shock) and English as a first language is deemed incapable of competing without help. How is it "self-hate" for me to claim that my race, if challenged, can do just as good as white people and succeed on its own merits. How is it "self-love" for me to claim that despite slavery ending over 100 years ago, my people still can't compete with foreigners who don't even know American culture or American language, many of whom are poorer than me?

The white liberal asks for special treatment for people, double standards, lowered expectations for others, it's all very condescending. A black conservative, at least the good ones, just asked for blacks to be held to the same standards as everyone else and allowed to fail or succeed on their own merits. If black conservatives were to have a different, harsher set of standards for blacks yet give white people a pass for the same behavior all the time, then you'd have a case for saying they are like white liberals. I'm against entitlements for every race under the sun, I'm against racist behavior from ANY race, etc. There is nothing I take black people to task for that I excuse from white people. The difference is, you always deal with the problems under your OWN roof first.

In the words of ex-slave Frederick Douglass:

Everybody has asked the question, and they learned to ask it early of the abolitionists, "What shall we do with the Negro?" I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature's plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! If you see him on his way to school, let him alone, don't disturb him! If you see him going to the dinner table at a hotel, let him go! If you see him going to the ballot- box, let him alone, don't disturb him! If you see him going into a work-shop, just let him alone,--your interference is doing him a positive injury. Gen. Banks' "preparation" is of a piece with this attempt to prop up the Negro. Let him fall if he cannot stand alone! If the Negro cannot live by the line of eternal justice, so beautifully pictured to you in the illustration used by Mr. Phillips, the fault will not be yours, it will be his who made the Negro, and established that line for his government. Let him live or die by that. If you will only untie his hands, and give him a chance, I think he will live. He will work as readily for himself as the white man. A great many delusions have been swept away by this war. One was, that the Negro would not work; he has proved his ability to work. Another was, that the Negro would not fight; that he possessed only the most sheepish attributes of humanity; was a perfect lamb, or an "Uncle Tom;" disposed to take off his coat whenever required, fold his hands, and be whipped by anybody who wanted to whip him. But the war has proved that there is a great deal of human nature in the Negro, and that "he will fight," as Mr. Quincy, our President, said, in earlier days than these, "when there is reasonable probability of his whipping anybody."

Is that self-hate?

Posted by: T. AKA Ricky Raw on October 10, 2008 9:37 AM

Let me just add in summation, white liberals argue for double standards and being extra hard on white people because of their inherent bad character and evil history. Black conservatives argue for equal standards and treatment across the board because of their belief that blacks have just as much achievable potential as whites. That's the difference in "nuance" as Sister Wolf put it.

Posted by: T. AKA Ricky Raw on October 10, 2008 9:46 AM

I don't think there's anything more wrong or distorted about ethnic guilt (even self-loathing) than there is about ethnic pride. Ethnicity is real, even if you take a purely cultural view of what it is. My heritage is significantly Irish, and I have what might be called a love/hate relationship with Irishness.

I think many ethnic stereotypes are valid, and are derived from experience of a culture by those not in it. The Irish have a reputation as drinking fighting charmers with perhaps (I'm speaking of the men here) more than a touch of immaturity and outright foolishness about them.

Well, so what? WHAT IF IT'S TRUE? I can feel enormous shame about the behaviour of groups of which I am a member, no matter how much we go on about judging people as individuals...as if recognizing the influence on people of the culture in which they're raised is somehow "judging" them. If I can feel pride in my Irishness, then I do not see how I can rule out a priori the mere possiblity of being ashamed of it too.

Our culture is so feminized that classic female conversational control techniques such as pretend ignorance of the meaning of generalizations, including stereotyping ones, are used to prevent any serious discussion of ethnicity, race, culture, and the genuine differences between people they cause. If those conversations illuminate negative aspects of one ethnicity or another, well then so be it.

Self-loathing is fine, if it's directed at something about yourself that's loathsome. Guilt is fine too, if you've done something to be guilty about. I'm even a fan of bigotry! If the people you're bigoted against really do exhibit the things you don't like.

Sometimes foreigners really do smell funny. Stop pretending otherwise. Believe me, they're not shy about holding their noses at YOU when your back is turned.

CELEBRATE DIVERSITY.

Posted by: PatrickH on October 10, 2008 10:33 AM

Before i read the rest of your post,

"How on earth is speaking out against entitlements the same as downplaying the holocaust?"

on this earth? some people feel ,sometimes that entitlements are there for a reason...and that reason has to do with the hole some black people were pushed into from a few generations of enslavement and the dehumanizing effects of a social system that treated them as underclass withut really thinking seriously abt it.

These same people seem to think that there are fates worse than genocide, such as the holocast and that the black decensdents of many slaves sufferred it in the US...

Now I'm going back to read the rest of your post.

Posted by: Ramesh on October 10, 2008 10:37 AM

"White liberals treat white people like they are inherently evil or untrustworthy. "

and the black middle class buys in to steriotypes about other black people

"They say only whites can be racist, and take whites to task for anything slightly racist that they do, meanwhile they are apologists for any racist actions people of color do."

To play devil's advocate, they are trying to (quite unnecessarily) be the police on behalf of their community, which they are quite ashamed of . for all the bad behaveour. they don't represent black people, in their mind, so they don't react so sharply to black people behaving badly.

"The implication is that the black person, even with all the same opportunities as a white person, must have some natural mental inferiority. "

Not necessarily , at all. it can also mean that the people recommending the entitlement dont fully understand all the disadvantages suffered by the minority in question.They are just not so ready to declare racism over so easily. Sitting on top of all that white achievement, its easy for you to think that just because someone works in wall street and maked money, his social challenges are over (and perhaps they are, for some). Not so fast. is my opinion. (not that I need someone to give me a leg up. what I want, I take)

"An asian immigrant with English as a second language is deemed sufficiently smart enough to get by with no need of affirmative action,"

You're mistaken if you think an overperformer asian Immigrant doesn't suffer social disadvantages. He just works harder for less to keep his place in this world. that is no different than intellectual sweatshop labor cheerfully entered into by the asian immigrant. It doesn't take away the fact that some skin colors ...basically get paid to fuck and produce babies that look pale, while others produce kids that grow old early from studying and working 18 hours a day. I'm saying that the latter is a form of modern day indentured labor.

" If black conservatives were to have a different, harsher set of standards for blacks yet give white people a pass..."

If black conservatives DIDNT give white people a pass, they wouldn't be given so much importance.

theyre just gaming the system by being harsh on their own race, and going easy on similar sins committed by white people. Black man speaks with a forked tongue.

one day a black conservative will come out with a 200 word tirade (gasp!!) about welfare fraud among meth addicted rural white single mothers in the deep south, and then I'll go Ice skating in hell.

I'm ignoring fredic douglass' quote on the count of his being dead before I was born, so I can safely ignore him without the chicks thinking me stupid.

Posted by: Ramesh on October 10, 2008 10:58 AM

T, Hear Hear!

It seems to me that many of these discussions that go round and round are not about what they purport to be about. I think that self-hating whites aren't so much concerned about conflict between races as with conflicts between groups of whites, and status within their own factions. They say all whites are evil, even themselves, in order to claim the superior virtues of self-knowledge and honesty. When some lefty undergraduate claims that he too is racist. What he's really saying, is "We are better than those ignorant rednecks."

Our modern antirace-baiters want to turn racism into a thoughtcrime or a sexcrime like pedophilia. Some want to ban drawings (!) of child sex as if they were the same as child rape. Others want to make Randy Weaver, a racist who lived a secluded life on his own land, to be the equivalent of Bull Connor.

We all suffer from in-group bias, but the group at hand changes according to context.

Posted by: Alex J. on October 10, 2008 11:49 AM

Hey Ricky, I think you're characterization of white liberals is a bit out of date. I am a, and know plenty of, white liberals who are nuanced enough to know the difference between a black person who needs a leg up and a middle class black person who doesn't. Same goes for the racism seen in some black (and brown, etc.) circles.

We're all more complicated than we think. I think.

Posted by: JV on October 10, 2008 12:03 PM

JV: I am a, and know plenty of, white liberals who are nuanced enough to know the difference between a black person who needs a leg up and a middle class black person who doesn't.

My understanding of T's comment was that he was criticizing white liberals for not recognizing that there are blacks who need a leg up...and who don't deserve one. T (if I understand him correctly) was criticizing liberals for viewing the black man as being distinguished only by needing help (from white people) or not, with the question of standards, moral worth, personal responsibility not being ascribed to the black man...as if black people cannot possibly be the authors of their own misfortunes.

Frederic Douglass' brilliant point was that it's the wrong question to ask, "What is to be done about the Negro?" Notice: the wrong question to ASK. That you answer the question at all (help the blacks who "need a leg up") indicates you don't get Douglass' point.

T does. You seem to me to exhibit exactly the white liberal blindness Douglass is lambasting.

Sorry, JV but it does seem that way to me.

Posted by: PatrickH on October 10, 2008 1:01 PM

But here's the thought provoking question..is antiracism the same as racism, only a standardizing paint with a broad brush reversal of racism..

in other words, if it turns out that black(or white) people were really lower in the evolutionarly ladder , should I interbreed away my evolutionary superiority brought about by six hundered generations of selective brahmin breeding, or should I retain it ...strictly on its merits?

Posted by: Ramesh on October 10, 2008 1:11 PM

By the way, were Sneetches born with stars on their bellies, or did they buy them?

Posted by: lordsomber on October 10, 2008 2:14 PM

Patrick, I should add that I believe there are people of all races who sometimes need a leg up, and there are people of all races who don't need one, and so should not get one. That was my point, although I admit my previous comment made it seem as if I was singling out black people. I don't want to turn this into a discussion on welfare or whatever, but I'm all for temporary safety nets available to people who need them, regardless of race. Again, it comes back to class.

With that in mind, I do not believe I fit into the stereotypical, and in my view, archaic role of a "white guilt" liberal.

Posted by: JV on October 10, 2008 2:28 PM

Douglass said "Don't try to pull up blacks. You will hurt them. They can pull themselves up." Implicit in this is "Don't push blacks down, either!" This is an important distinction that many liberals just don't get. I say, "Leave blacks alone (and everyone else too)." They say, "You want to push blacks down." Ugh.

I believe that this is not especially about race. It's about do-gooders trying to improve their own status, no matter what harm befalls the supposed beneficiaries of their "help".

For a good laugh check out this analogous case.

Posted by: Alex J. on October 10, 2008 2:30 PM

Ramesh, maybe people just care more about ideals and principles than just knee-jerk rooting for their own race, which I would argue is actually more racist than identifying yourself with a consistent ideology. For me, all I care about is conservative ideological principles, and I don't care who is espounsing those principles, if they are black, white, martian, whatever. I, and most other black conservatives, criticize radical egalitarianism no matter where it comes from, whether it be whites, or blacks or whoever. Your claim that black conservatives never criticize whites and only criticize blacks is blatantly untrue, because they spend a lot of time criticizing white liberals, and are probably even harsher on them than they are on lower class blacks. Name me any major black conservative and I'll find you tons of articles by them with scathing critiques of white liberals. They are putting content of character and an individual's ideas over the color of the person's skins. You on the other hand seem to be saying they should be primarily concerned with whether or not their target is black or white and THEN worry about what their ideology is. I'd argue such a viewpoint is even MORE narrow-minded and racist than that of the black conservatives you criticize.

Also, some of your other points:

and the black middle class buys in to steriotypes about other black people

Sorry, unlike the "Stuff White People Like" crowd and other middle class intellectuals, we blacks don't have the same isolating bubbles and total disconnect with our lower class brethren. We don't have the same rigid caste systems separating us that other cultures do. Unlike the white liberals, we don't get our images of black people from NPR and PBS specials or NY Times sob story profiles, the "other blacks" you speak of are our families, our childhood friends, our distant and sometimes close relatives, our neighbors, and our schoolmates. Go to any middle class black person's family reunion and I can guarantee you'll see ghetto and country people there too.

The idea that you know more about what sterotypes about poor black people are true and untrue better than a middle class black person is highly doubtful. We middle class black people "buy into" untrue stereotypes about our friends and family members of our race and culture, while the all-seeing, all-knowing nonblack liberal knows the truth? Beyond condescending.

Posted by: T. AKA Ricky Raw on October 10, 2008 2:38 PM

PatrickH, yes, that is what I mean.

Posted by: T. AKA Ricky Raw on October 10, 2008 2:41 PM

PS: Everyone should read Frederick Douglass' autobiography, "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave". It's fantastic, and short too.

Some takeaways:
1) In addition to the obvious harm to the slaves, the institution of slavery corrupts the owners.

2) For few holidays a year, the slaves would be encouraged to eat too much and drink too much. The idea was to get them to believe that they couldn't handle their own freedom.

3) When he becomes a tradesman, the white workers physically threaten him because he is low wage competition. The parallels to modern issues should be obvious.

4) Proximity to the free North was a big help in his escape. This is evidence in support of an abolitionist idea that slavery would not long survive in an independent South.

5) After being taught the basics, Douglass eventually trained himself to read and write at the highest levels. While still in bondage, he secretly taught other slaves to read, a serious and sometimes capital offense. In contrast our modern public schools do as much as they can to grind out the desire to learn.

Posted by: Alex J. on October 10, 2008 2:49 PM

"maybe people just care more about ideals and principles than just knee-jerk rooting for their own race, which I would argue is actually more racist than identifying yourself with a consistent ideology. "

this is possibly true about one in six times which is the rough proportion of plain unracial idealogs there are in the world in my experience(about half of those are communist, so go figure) . The world is communitarian in nature. youre lucky if people can look past their underbelly (race/community) and to their toes(the real issues).

"Your claim that black conservatives never criticize whites and only criticize blacks is blatantly untrue, because they spend a lot of time criticizing white liberals, and are probably even harsher on them than they are on lower class blacks."

My claim is that they pretend they're all Pat Buchanan and imitate idealogical positions of a good old white boy because they are useful to good old white boys who see them as a useful(if sometimes insincere) addition to the good old white boy set of voices , just in black.

"...seem to be saying they should be ..."

Im saying they ARENT ignoring race. Im saying they are switching race (maybe on the inside). theyre behaving, for all practical purposes like white conservatives, complete with racism (towards black people) and hatred (towards liberal points of view)...Im attributing a motive for this, and the motive is that its smart marketing for a person of color to appeal to the gap in white conservative points of view that there are few people of color espousing it.

"we blacks don't have the same isolating bubbles and total disconnect with our lower class brethren."

No you only fly to the 'burbs, and adopt suburban attitudes..which accidentaly puts you or your kids in a position alienating yourself from the needs of the poorer sections of your race,instead treating them like theyre a third party.
And I AM sorry, but if your from the 'burbs the most uncruel steriotypes imposed upon your own race, usually , is on your relatives.

Also, you cannot on one hand claim, like you did in the beginning of your posting, that youre colorblind, as a black intellectual to race, and in the end express that you do have empathy on these very same issues with your race bretheren (if not your literal bretheren).

This attempt to seperate uncle barnie in the bronx barbershop from the handouts he's getting, maybe with charles wrangle's(sp?) help is the very problem in the black intellectual Im addressing.

Posted by: Ramesh on October 10, 2008 5:22 PM

And Ive read plenty of dead people's writings. I will probably read fredrick douglass' writings one day, but the person that recommends it must first sleep with me. I'm sorry but that is the absolute prerequisite for me to get book recommendations at this stage in my life. :)

Posted by: Ramesh on October 10, 2008 5:26 PM

One person uttered the words you've quoted, Steve, not a Republican mob.

In the past three months, America has seen two terrorist incidents where right-wing ideologues, fanned by talk radio propaganda, targeted and killed liberals simply for being liberal.

Posted by: MQ on October 10, 2008 6:15 PM

Come on MQ tell us which radio hosts were the catalyst for these murders -- what was said. Give us details, and tell us where we evil conservatives can turn ourselves in for re-education. I guess I don't have to ask you to ban our free speech, too.

sN

Posted by: sN on October 10, 2008 10:50 PM

FWIW, I liked Fredrick Douglass' autobio a lot too ...

I've mentioned before on the blog that Western (actually Central-Western) NY State was, back in the day, a roaring and fascinating place. Yet more proof is the fact that Frederick Douglass lived in Rochester from 1843 to 1872. He published an anti-slavery newspaper there, was a popular speaker, and is buried in Rochester's Mt. Hope Cemetary. There's that unfortunate bit about how his home was burned in 1872 and he broke ties with Rochester, but still ... Something for Western NY to be proud of, mostly.

Link

Hey, Mormonism founder Joseph Smith supposedly unearthed the Golden Tablets about 20 miles outside Rochester near the town of Palmyra.

Link

Like I say, a rootin'-tootin' part of the world. It was once known as the "Burned Over District" because crazy kinds of revivals and waves of enthusiasm would sweep through it so regularly.

What's happened to it since? Since WWII Central-Western NY has been a deferential shadow of its former self. Still beautiful, still idyllic, and full of awfully nice people. But meek.

Why?

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on October 10, 2008 11:10 PM

I didn't answer Steve's "racism still exists" fart because... it's an empty statement. Racism will always exist. Water will always remain wet.

Steve sounds as though he's fresh from indoctrination in one of our colleges. Obviously, he's been indoctrinated that we must all spend our lives ever on the alert for racism, and we must fight racism in all its forms.

Bullshit.

Racism will always exist because it's part of the human condition, and because it serves useful as well as destructive purposes. Racism is one of the ways we distinguish between friend and foe, and one of the ways we know who is in our tribe. Disregard these things and you'll soon be dead.

I have no fucking obligation to be ever on the alert for manifestations of racism, or to be involved in the great crusade to eradicate racism, Steve. Screw you if you think that I do.

You are apparently too young and naive, Steve, to know that trying to eradicate things about people that you consider negative is a very dangerous thing to do. Perhaps you missed the 20th century. The dangers of trying to perfect humans were illustrated in stark detail in the attempts of the Nazis, Soviets and the Chinese, among others. Attempting to eradicate racism is just as dangerous as tolerating the extreme negatives of racism. This is a lesson we'd better learn in a hurry. I'm not holding my breath until we do.

That little sanctimonious thrill you get out of cursing others as racists is the reason why, Steve. And that obvious pleasure you get out of it is the reason I know that you are the very racist that you profess to hate.

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on October 11, 2008 8:47 AM

This is for shouting thomas..

When I was younger, I used to hate whole races for their being racist. then I matured . I started disliking individuals who were ignorant (say calling me an ayrab..or something) and focussed my hatered like a laser beam on them. then after i did many things and people, I now hate specific things about people. for some, it may be a badly placed birthmark. for others it may be the way they slupie their soda(I have decided that Im against the raspberry icee at seven eleven, for instance)...

The lesson in all this is , hatered is a precious commodity. don't waste it on entire races. there are moles on people's faces that deserve it more.

People should fight for and earn a "fuck you..."

Posted by: Ramesh on October 11, 2008 10:28 AM

Ramesh, how would you feel about 10 million Nigerians moving to India? dating all the cute Brahmin girls?

But why stop at Africans? How about 5 million Arabs too? And Chinese? All settling around your family's hometown?

Yeah, it's so much fun to have been invited to live in a Western country, and then walk around judging the people here. There is not a goddamned thing you can teach any of us. Go chase away some Untouchables. Fuck you.

Posted by: PA on October 11, 2008 1:22 PM

"Ramesh, how would you feel about 10 million Nigerians moving to India? dating all the cute Brahmin girls? "

Happy, as long as i get a crack at all those heavenly nigerian girls too..

the women (brahmin or not) are hardly my sheep that I can corall and molest at my convenience.

if a brahmin girl wants to date a nigerian guy theres nothing i can do to stop it, i aint poisoning my well of sweet water because i wanted others not to drink from it.

"But why stop at Africans? How about 5 million Arabs too? And Chinese? All settling around your family's hometown?"

I'd probably feel like an indian.....

"it's so much fun to have been invited to live in a Western country, and then walk around judging the people here. There is not a goddamned thing you can teach any of us. "

Im happy i came of my own free will. this kind of thing happens in the world.or you'd still be in africa, fighting off other nigerians looking at your women...or sheep...

I do not judge you or anyone else, but a spade be a spade you fucking hick!

Im not trying to teach you anything either...what am I a guru? But then you do exhibit signs of not wanting to learn...less power to you, I guess...

Posted by: Ramesh on October 11, 2008 3:20 PM

I think the approaching prospect of President Barack Hussein Obama is causing the haters to become even more unhinged, bitter, and vicious than usual. sN, here you go . The Gwatney killer apparently enjoyed surfing the net for news that prominent liberals had died...maybe an anon commenter somewhere?

Since WWII Central-Western NY has been a deferential shadow of its former self. Still beautiful, still idyllic, and full of awfully nice people. But meek.

In the 19th century, Central-Western NY was the frontier, full of young and vital people. Gradually, that energy has ebbed away as frontier moved west and the artistic and cultural centers established themselves elsewhere. Generally, America has lost energy and richness in its local regions as ambitious young people move either to urban centers of wealth and power, or else to the outdoor paradises of the far West. I grew up in upstate NY and very few to none of the young people I went to HS with are still in upstate. The ones who stayed are generally rather staid and unenergetic types.

I hope that the new regionalism among intellectuals (McKibben, Larison, Pollan, Dreher, etc.) contributes to a reverse "back to the land" type movement. Helps inspire young people to build something small-scale and interesting in a region they love, rather than spending their energies in the service of these giant institutions of American finance, empire, and mass entertainment. And I hope that movement keeps its distance from the rancid mix of bitterness, sense of victimization, and resentment on the Republican right these days.

Posted by: MQ on October 11, 2008 4:14 PM

Ramesh, you miss my point. Black middle class people are less likely to "impose" stereotypes on their lower-class brethren than a white liberal is because they are usually speaking from firsthand experience. Or at least from more firsthand experience than someone like you. The idea that you have more insight to what black stereotypes are true and untrue than an actual black middle class person whose family is likely from poor roots or who may have risen up from poverty himself is simply laughable.

Posted by: T. AKA Ricky Raw on October 11, 2008 4:15 PM

"The idea that you have more insight to what black stereotypes are true and untrue than an actual black middle class person whose family is likely from poor roots or who may have risen up from poverty himself is simply laughable. "

The idea that every one in the "actual" black class would have more first hand insight about all things black than i would is a completely laughable notion.

I mean skin color = heritage/race memory? what a racist concept.

Some in the alinated black middle class would know more than me about the issues of your race, and some others less...this is true, and is no laughing matter.

even you who claims knowlege,if only for an argument wold know more about , say black people of your neighborhood and less about the plight of say poor wisconsin blacks....so laugh less. ...your complacent certitude is not a laughing matter.

Posted by: Ramesh on October 11, 2008 6:02 PM

I mean skin color = heritage/race memory? what a racist concept.

That is racist, you are right. Who claimed that? I sure didn't. Great strawman attempt though.

What I claimed is that someone who has a shared racial heritage, history and culture with another person probably is a better judge of that person's heritage, history and culture than the outsider who is using political correct notions, NPR and PBS specials and textbooks.

For example I can read all the politically correct viewpoints and accounts of the Irish immigrant working class culture I can get my hands on and fancy myself an expert on what stereotypes are true and which are not, but chances are an Irish middle class person that directly grew up in that working class culture and still interacts with their Irish family members that are still working class will be a better expert on the topic than me.

Where this "racial memory" nonsense comes from is beyond me. I never claimed any such thing. I'm talking about the memory that comes from firsthand experience. But its telling that you have to keep rephrasing and misrepresenting my viewpoints in order to refute them.

Posted by: T. AKA Ricky Raw on October 11, 2008 6:26 PM

even you who claims knowlege,if only for an argument wold know more about , say black people of your neighborhood and less about the plight of say poor wisconsin blacks

Yes, I would know less about the plight of Wisconsin blacks than about the blacks in my neighborhood, which is Bedford-Stuyvesant. That being said, I'd still probably know more about their culture and mindset than your average limousine liberal who has only a handful of black friends. My point WAS not that all blacks know EVERYTHING about ALL other blacks from EVERY area. Another strawman. My point was that blacks who grew up in black families and lived among other blacks in black communities ON AVERAGE know more about what is and isn't stereotypical about other blacks and their struggles than a nonblack liberal who has little to no firsthand knowledge of growing up in black culture.

Take the most prominent black conservative today, Thomas Sowell. He grew up as a black orphan in the Jim Crow South during the Great Depression in deep poverty in a family of little education. At 9 years old he moved to Harlem, NY, considered at the time the "capital" of Black America. When he reached 7th grade he was officially more educated than anyone else in his family. Then he dropped out of high school and left home at 17 years old.

Yet this man is a pampered surburbanite who has no firsthand knowledge of poor, black urban culture? That has to rely on "stereotypes" to evaluate poor black culture (as opposed to nonblack liberals who know better than anyone else about poor blacks)? Based on the pampered, insulated surburban background you imagine for black conservatives like Sowell, who is really more guilty of stereotyping?

But please, convince me somehow that your background qualifies you to declare that you have more knowledge of the authentic urban, poor black experience than a hih school dropout who experienced Jim Crow South, the great northern migration and the Harlem Renaissance in his lifetime. The arrogance of all-knowing liberals in regards to how much they supposedly know about poor blacks and black culture blows my mind.

Posted by: T. AKA Ricky Raw on October 11, 2008 7:22 PM

Michael B. -

Should ST be allowed to write "Fuck you!" when he disagrees with someone here? What kind of comment is considered out of order here, if any?

Posted by: Sister Wolf on October 11, 2008 7:53 PM

"is a better judge of that person's heritage, history and culture than the outsider who is using political correct notions, NPR and PBS specials and textbooks."

conceded

"My point was that blacks who grew up in black families and lived among other blacks in black communities ON AVERAGE know more about what is and isn't stereotypical about other blacks and their struggles than a nonblack liberal who has little to no firsthand knowledge of growing up in black culture."

Conceded,lue about my living reading or TV watching habits.

But who the fuck is this pbs watching liberal youre talking about? I hope its not me....cuz you have no c

"Yet this man is a pampered surburbanite who has no firsthand knowledge of poor, black urban culture? "

no, his audience is.He informs black suburbanites who for a generation or two, have very little touch with the poor urban experience black or othervice.

"But please, convince me somehow that your background qualifies you to declare that you have more knowledge of the authentic urban, poor black experience than a hih school dropout who experienced Jim Crow South, the great northern migration and the Harlem Renaissance in his lifetime."

No .

I dont need to compare penises with other people to find my opinions or experiences to be valid. Im not entering some black version of socila darwinism just because you don't know any better.

"The arrogance of all-knowing liberals in regards to how much they supposedly know about poor blacks and black culture blows my mind."

Its that fucking liberal again! there should be a law against him.

Death to the PBS watching all knowing liberal. Good luck finding him.

Posted by: Ramesh on October 11, 2008 11:44 PM

and ricky raw,

it is true that on an average black people know more than average non black people about black issues, but applying your averages to individuals has to be done at your own peril.

Also, on the average, educated people know more than people without an education...and on an average, people who read news and analysis (liberal or not) have a better grasp of issues than people who do not...

That tells me nothing about you, though..

Posted by: Ramesh on October 12, 2008 12:21 AM

Yeah, Ramesh, and the cute Brahmin girl's parents will be setting fire to the Nigeria guy in short order...

Posted by: Brutus on October 13, 2008 3:17 PM

depends on which cute brahmin girl...i guess, like anywhere else...lynch mobs everywhere are the same.

Whats it with you and brahmin girls anyway? did one give you amazing head and then disappeared to get arranged married to a brahmin guy?

;)

Posted by: Ramesh on October 13, 2008 4:44 PM






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