Everybody knows that all Republicans are racist (except for the few that are black; those are instead "sell-outs" and "uncle toms"). So why are enough Republican former Bush supporters switching to Obama as to prompt this story? They include at least one prominent neocon who helped cheer along Bush's Iraq invasion, and others who still support that effort.
Some "racist" country. No wonder so many black immigrants move here and stay forever, and so few native blacks ever leave.
2007-05-06
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This is a joke, right Hue?
2 GOP campaign operatives jump on the Obama bandwagon and that indicates some sort of "trend".
And why is that the only way for liberals to appeal to conservatives is by beating up on blacks?
The article states that Obama's appeal to conservatives is based on his preaching to blacks to support two parent households and marriages (a novel idea, I'll be sure to mention it to my wife and kids) and to attacking smart black kids for "acting white".
I attend my wife's neice's graduation from NCCU in Durham, NC on Saturday. She graduated summa cum laude with a double major in criminal justice and education. She received a full scholarship to NCCU's law school.
I asked her if she felt as if she and her 800 fellow graduates were "acting white".
She laughed.
"Some "racist" country. No wonder so many black immigrants move here and stay forever, and so few native blacks ever leave."
You have any figures on this Hue?
I bet you have no idea what you're talking about.
You have no idea how many American blacks have expatriated to the Caribbean or to Africa.
And who particularly is saying America is a "racist nation"?
Any names or are you just building a strawman?
There is plenty of racism and plenty of racists in America.
That's just a fact.
That doesn't mean that there isn't also great freedom and opportunity that most black people are taking full advantage of.
He's a very impressive character. As far as his public persona and the way he handles himself he's light years beyond any of the other candidates, Rep or Dem. Based on his performance so far I won't be a bit surprised he's our next President.
Personality-wise he's everything that Hillary isn't - he actually has one (a personality).
What's the reason for you censoring me this time Hue?
Yeah, you're a free speech advocate alright!
What a joke.
Six: Hillary shocked me in the first demo debate the other day. She came accross as the most natural, and her answers were the most clear of all those with a chance to win. (The guy from Alaska and Kuccinich were clear, and I appreciated their candor and passion, though I know in the US most people will regard them as kooks.) Of course I disagree with Hillary on most points, especially socializing health care and removing tax cuts. But her statements on those and other issues were refreshingly clear, and made sense withing their ideological paradigm.
Even on the issue of the war -- where I hypothetically support forcing Iraq from the Hussein tyranny into a civilization, though I do not regard that course as the only possible constructive one -- her statements made sense to me, again within the anti-war perspective. I reject the pro-war folks who spot a problem in her and others who supported Bush initially. They have a claim which is logical, though not entirely accurate, that they voted in favor of Bush based on a bunch of lies, and that had Bush made a truthful case, they would have voted against him. I think that position makes sense (though I think factually it doesn't quite hold up).
So I left that debate shocked that Hillary comes accross well in some important areas: public presentation, and having clear and comprehendable positions.
Obama surprised me in not making a better impression with me than Hillary. However, these debates are very silly, with lots of silly interview-type questions. What should matter to sensible people most is where these candidates stand on issues relevant to the powers of the office in contest, which is the president.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18507722/site/newsweek/page/2/
Another article about republicans switching to democrats. The reasons cited are consistent: opposition to "spreading democracy" via war, over-expansion of government spending, and social issues such as advocating christianity and banning abortion. I have for a while stated that the Bush / Rove repos over-estimate how much of the repo vote comes from people who want prayer in school and bans on abortion. Some big fraction of repo voters are non-religious, support abortion, and vote repo only because they want low, flat tax rates and small govt. I don't understand how these repos switching to demo are going to obtain these vital objectives, though. Voting demo will get the US out of Iraq and end the possibility of future massive military adventures, and end the govt alignment with christianity and abortion bans.
But what about a healthy economy, as can only be obtained via sensible tax system and restrained spending?
Just explain to me WHY you're censoring me Hue.
I just want to hear the reason then I promise you I won't come back to your blog.
Steve: I'm not censoring you. I haven't checked my blog since Friday. If you keep posting the way that you have, I may remove the moderation requirement, because I can't remember the last time that I rejected one of your posts.
Steve: I attended two HBCUs (PVAM & FAMU) for a total of six years. I am aware that at HBCUs there exists no phenomenon of black idiots accusing black scholars of "acting white". Such a phenomenon also does not exist at non-HBCUs. Nor does it exist at very excellent k-12 schools.
However, it does exist in many schools were academic achievement is not the norm. And it even exists for black kids attending schools where this phenomenon doesn't exist, when those kids get into a situation where they are interacting with black kids who are not academic-minded.
Steve: I know that your family and countless other black families constituted married, working, affluent couples with high-achieving children. Such families represent the vast majority of the people in my personal life, so I am well aware of their existence.
However, this does not invalidate the averages. 50% of all black kids (including my own!) are born outside of wedlock, and this average is much higher than that of whites, and the average for whites is much higher than that for Asian immigrants.
Steve: You are correct, I have no data to support my contention that there exists today in the US a major phenomenon of black folks from other nations moving here and staying forever, and no detectable phenomenon of black folks moving from the US to other nations to live permanently.
I am basing my conclusion on many articles that I come accross depicting black immigrants in the US, my meeting many people who are black immigrants living here with no intention of leaving, and my failure to come accross articles about blacks emigrating from the US, and my failure to notice any of my thousand or so black friends and acquaintances over the years emigrating from the US.
If you produce any data showing that my conclusion is wrong -- that every year tens of thousands of black folks emigrate from the US, that 40% or so of black immigrants to the US eventually leave the US, that less than 100,000 blacks immigrate to the US annually -- then I will be shocked, and I will concede to your point.
However, you yourself insist that black folks in the US are doing as well as anybody else, that they are typically affluent scholars. So why would such people emigrate, and why wouldn't black folks elsewhere immigrate?
By the way, I spent this weekend with some very, very rich black folks from Durham, NC. They are related to each other, and some of them long ago moved to Detroit. They had a family reunion in Detroit for a wedding, in which I was a groomsman. Somehow the family owns an operating tobacco farm in NC. Some of the older members of the family are very, very light-skinned. Some look like white folks, including the matriarch, who has great-great grandchildren. One of the women visiting, from Atlanta, was Miss NC and participated in the Miss America contest the year that Vanessa Williams won.
The family members who live in the Detroit area have homes in the wealthiest neighborhoods of the wealthiest suburbs. A very remarkable family.
Paul,
I am sorry to have made a false accusation.
Really.
"However, this does not invalidate the averages. 50% of all black kids (including my own!) are born outside of wedlock, and this average is much higher than that of whites, and the average for whites is much higher than that for Asian immigrants."
SO WHAT???
Being born out of wedlock is not a ticket to dysfunction.
May I remind you that Oprah Winfrey, Jesse Jackson and Kwiese Mfumer among many luminaries were born out of wedlock.
And most of your school shooters were born into two parent nuclear families.
It does not mean that the parents will not eventually get married.
Nor does it mean that the parents aren't merely co-habitating and choose not to marry.
Nor does it allow for the fact that many blacks are raised in extended families as is the case with my wife and I who are raising her brother's son.
He was born out of wedlock but he is a very middle class suburban kid with the same sensibilities, expectations, and desires of any other spoiled middle class child.
BTW Paul, a member of our niece's graduating class at NCCU was the Duke accuser. I won't mention her name although being a frequenter of rightwing sites, you already know it.
The young lady graduated Summa Cum Laude from the Business school.
The photographers were everywhere.
"However, it does exist in many schools were academic achievement is not the norm. And it even exists for black kids attending schools where this phenomenon doesn't exist, when those kids get into a situation where they are interacting with black kids who are not academic-minded."
I don't believe this.
I've heard the term "acting white" all my life and it had nothing to do with being "smart" but everything to do with certain blacks who felt they were better than other blacks.
Or who consciously made an effort to hang out with whites, socialize and date exclusively whites and to run away from everything that they were.
The Black JFK: Republican Support for Obama Raises Red Flags
When NeoConservatives start issuing accolades for a Democratic candidate, it's time to take notice.
Check out this post on Blues Talkin
Steve: The fact that black men commit about half the murders in the US despite comprising only 6% of the US population does not in any way necessarily indicate a racial predisposition to violence, or even that black men in general are more violent. Only people ignorant of statistics and genetics would make such a conclusion.
As an example, white folks comprise about 60% of the US population, but about 95% of US auto racing fans. This fact does not in any way necessarily indicate that white folks have a genetic predisposition to auto racing, or that the average white person is likely to be an auto race fan.
This is so tiresome.
If you drill down on the average auto racing fan you will find many other factors of commonality in which race is probably the most insignificant.
They are generally working to lower middle class, predominately Southern or Western and have not finished college.
If you drill down on the average murderer of ANY HUE, you will find that they are generally male, uneducated, poor and a drug user.
If a Prince Georges County detective is looking for the perp in a random street killing they are not going to start their investigation in tony upper middle class neighborhoods of Croom, Woodmere, Northbrook or Longleaf.
They are far more likely to be looking in Dodge Park, Eastover or Kent Village.
All of the areas I mentioned are predominately black but the aforementioned Croom etc.... are relatively street crime free and the others are high crime public housing.
Is any of this sinking in Paul?
"However, you yourself insist that black folks in the US are doing as well as anybody else, that they are typically affluent scholars."
That's not exactly what I said.
Every place I've ever been or every experience I've ever had confirms my belief that when blacks, whites and anybody else start from the same place, blacks do as well as everyone else.
We have a stagnant, relatively isolated inner city underclass predominately black and latino which bring average achievement statistics down when categorized by race.
"So why would such people emigrate, and why wouldn't black folks elsewhere immigrate?"
Maybe because they are afraid of the unknown. Because they don't want to leave their families and friends.
If I could afford it, I would move to St. Marrten's island in the Caribbean and live on the beach tomorrow.
Believe me Paul, the majority of black people in America don't stay here because they can't bear to be too far from you white folks.
You have to consider certain realities, emotional, societal and economic.
No, Steve, none of these lessons from you are "sinking in" as I already understand and advocate them. The race-crime statistics do not suggest to any intelligent, knowledgeable person that the answer to any murder or car-jacking will be found in the many affluent black areas in which such crimes rarely occur, but rather among the residents of the areas in which they occur, which is usually poor, and of these poor areas, disproportionately black.
Only a very ignorant person would conclude that because blacks account for half of all US murders that police should seek murder suspects in affluent black areas.
Steve writes: "...my belief that when blacks, whites and anybody else start from the same place, blacks do as well as everyone else. We have a stagnant, relatively isolated inner city underclass predominately black and latino which bring average achievement statistics down when categorized by race."
=======================
I agree, but with the following addition: people making the same choices obtain the same average result, regardless of "race". Whites who decide not to attend college to to study in school and avoid unwed pregnancies do not, on average, obtain the same measures of success as do black folks who make the opposite set of choices.
"The race-crime statistics do not suggest to any intelligent, knowledgeable person that the answer to any murder or car-jacking will be found in the many affluent black areas in which such crimes rarely occur, but rather among the residents of the areas in which they occur, which is usually poor, and of these poor areas, disproportionately black."
I defy anyone to prove that in cities with large hispanic barrios, that the rate of crime is any different than urban black ghettoes.
Here is PG County, the area with the highest rate of violent crime is the Langley Park area.
Predominately hispanic and Caribbean immigrants.
I also found a link which chronicles the experience of Jews and Southern Europeans in urban America during the early 20th century.
They were at the time a minority of the cities population (the author mainly focused on NYC and Chicago) but were over half of the prison population and well represented in the perpetrators of street crime....prostitution, muggings, shakedowns, bootlegging and murder.
Many in the Brahmin and Irish establishment looked down on the "immorality" of the new immigrants and attributed their struggles to genetic inferiority.
The more enlightened attributed it to "culture".
Sound familiar?
"Only a very ignorant person would conclude that because blacks account for half of all US murders that police should seek murder suspects in affluent black areas."
And only a racist would keep stressing that BLACKS account for half of all US murders when it is 1% of the black population engaged in this behavior.
Criminals commit murder.
Steve: You keep repeating points that I have made myself, as if I do not already share your views on these matters. I have stressed before that in previous generations, various groups of honkies have dominated the crime statistics.
I also readily understand that although today blacks dominate certain crime statistics, 99+% of blacks commit no crimes, just as whites dominate serial killing and mass murder stats, but only a tinsey fraction of crackers commit these crimes.
I also understand that areas of poor hispanics, whites, or Asians contain the same crimes and crime rates as poor black areas. All such areas are marked by people making poor choices; the people making smart choices eventually succeed enough to leave.
"I also readily understand that although today blacks dominate certain crime statistics, 99+% of blacks commit no crimes, just as whites dominate serial killing and mass murder stats, but only a tinsey fraction of crackers commit these crimes."
So why is race such an important element for you when DISCUSSING crime?
And don't say that it isn't.
Hmm. I think I'm missing the point now. I don't think that I blame black folks for crime, but rather in any low income, high crime area I blame the residents for their own problems, whatever "race" you may assign those residents. I agree that areas of any "race" with the same income profile the same crime rates and types of crimes manifest. The people who wish to extract themselves from poverty and earn themselves a safe home and affluence have a very high likelihood by making a few smart choices each day.
How can you blame the residents of high crime areas when most of them are not criminals?
Most street crimes are perpetuated by young poor uneducated men.
"The people who wish to extract themselves from poverty and earn themselves a safe home and affluence have a very high likelihood by making a few smart choices each day."
This is just silly simplistic rightwing up by the bootstraps bull$hit.
What do you suggest to today's urban poor to remove themselves from their situation specifically?
Let's hear some real detailed answers.
And are these corporate pilferers like Ken Lay, Dennis Kozloski, and Bernard Ebbers any less criminal than a street mugger?
They're all thieves only the technique is different.
I believe that given a "choice" the street mugger would have chosen to play the corporate criminal game.
That way you don't get your hands dirty.
In poor neighborhoods with high crime rates, the people responsible live there. Though only a minority commit the crimes that cause the majority to live in fear, lose property value, and pay high insurance rates, this does not change the fact that the people responsible for these problems are themselves residents.
Others in such neighborhoods who have enough dignity, self-respect, and intelligence to not commit crimes make other poor choices, such as choosing not to read books and study, to mark themselves with tattoos, and produce babies prior to marriage and economic self-sufficiency.
The way out is clear for both an individual and for entire neighborhoods: smart personal choices.
This is utter nonsense.
The fact of the matter is that the US Government financed the white urban ethnic and southern whites ascension into the middle class.
Read Ira Katznelson's wonderful chronicle "When Affirmative Action was White".
If you're interested in truth, that is.
After WWII, the government offered housing loans with zero interest to white veterans to move into newly built (with government subsidies) suburban housing in metroplitan areas all across the nation.
Today those homes are worth in excess of $250,000. That is generational wealth that was denied to black Americans.
Segregated housing forced blacks right back into the neighborhoods they left before the war and they had to depend on the low skill industrial and factory jobs tom earn a livable paycheck.
The same low skill industrial jobs that attracted MILLIONS of white European immigrants to America to earn a livable paycheck, feed their families and escape the depravity and oppression of their native lands.
The GI Bill offered veterans a college education but since most colleges were segregated at the time very few blacks got to take advantage of it.
Also in the South the government largesse was placed in the hands of white racist bureacrats who totally ignored black veterans.
The deindustrialization of America left the urban centers who housed industry and factories with large swaths of poverty and unemployment.
What friggin choices do these people have??
What people like you will never admit is that what is needed to revive the urban inner city and transform the underclass is a Marshall Plan.
The same kind offered to white ethnics and white southerners after WW2.
The same kind offered to white folks in the Rust Belt with the New Homestead Act.
The same thing that will be offered to Iraq after we finish leveling it.
Black folks don't want anything special.
Just what white folks got.
We've been paying taxes and dying in American wars for a long time.
And we're the only ones who worked for free for two hundred years.
I think that you make some good points about all the govt assistance available during the times of black subjugation, which is unavailable now.
However, a different set of opportunities and govt resources exist today than existed back in those days, and the question is: to what extent are people availing themselves? As you and I agree, a huge fraction of black folks today are performing excellently and reaping commensurate dividends from this. Meanwhile, whereas in those bad-old-days, white public schools received much more funding than black public schools, today that has at the very least equalized, and in many cases -- such as Detroit and DC -- reversed, but with negative results.
One of the people at the wedding I mentioned is a former president of both Howard U and Morgan State. He attended U of Chi with Tom Sowell, as a fellow Economics Phd under the direction of Milton Friedman. This guy and I spent a great deal of time talking, and his son and I lined up next to each other in the wedding party, and his daughter was my match from the bride's maid line.
I asked him about Sowell. He said he likes him as a friend, and that he didn't deserve all the enmity that he gets as a sell-out/uncle tom. But this guy himself sympathizes with socialism/communism, saying that it has never been given a proper chance to prove itself.
Just an interesting fact...
"However, a different set of opportunities and govt resources exist today than existed back in those days,"
Like what?
New opportunities:
No legal or de facto Jim Crow, in housing, education, and employment
New resources:
Welfare and social services programs;
Explosion of spending on government schools, including in many areas such as DC and Detroit where poor black districts receive as much per student funding as wealthy white districts.
Welfare and social service programs have been cut drastically over the last 12 years and these programs don't provide JOBS which are essential to keeping families together and people productive.
Why doesn't the Congress propose a Homestead Act for the inner city?
Low interest loans for entrepenuers and home builders who will operate in the inner city.
You and I both know why they won't but will offer it to the Rust Belt residents.
You keep ranting about how much funding some inner city schools get but you don't factor in that the government has to increase funding because of the loss of revenue from the local tax base due to flight of the middle class and businesses from the inner city.
You rightwingers always wave stats which only tell part of the story and rarely the one that actually matters..
And have you ever been to an inner city school?
If Detroit is anything like DC they have crumbling infrastructure (sometimes lacking heat, air conditioning, clean water) as well as old and wornout books and supplies.
Steve: I am not saying that black folks today have as much help overall from the government as honkies did in the 50s and 60s, merely that there exists today a different set of resources. And in many regards, blacks today certainly have more resources available to them than they did back in the 50s an 60s. The question I have: of the black folks living in poverty, to what extent are they availing themselves of these opportunities?
Yes, I have "been inside an inner city school". I attended and graduated from Austin, Tx's LBJ high school, as did my eldest daughter. Go look up the stats on that school.
Also, as part of my efforts with the program that I run with Nadir, I have spoken over 20 times at over 10 of Detroit's high school, all over 90% black, and all which would qualify as "inner city."
I support your proposals for things like an inner city Homestead Act, but the most import changes to the "inner city" that would help is the personal choices of the people living there. This includes students in those "inner city" schools choosing to study, and the administrators choosing to efficiently and ethically administer funds and to focus school activities on academic matters.
Of course many students in these schools choose to student and conduct themselves constructively, but their efforts get undermined by the poor choices of their classmates, and also their administrators.
"Of course many students in these schools choose to student and conduct themselves constructively, but their efforts get undermined by the poor choices of their classmates, and also their administrators."
I went to an inner city high school.
DeWitt Clinton HS in the Bronx, NYC. An all boys school when I attended. Went co-ed in 1985.
I graduated 77th in grade rank in a class of 1000.
We had all types at Clinton.
Nerds, jocks, thugs, dopeheads, hippies, militants, you name it.
What separated those of us who got decent grades, stayed out of trouble and went on to productive lives were strong parental influences.
Adults who made us accountable for our actions.
We ate regularly. Had decent clothes on our backs. Had a warm bed to sleep in at night. Stable homes.
When I turned 15 my father took me to the NY State Department of Labor to get my working papers.
I had a partime job throughout my high school years.
I worked as a counselor at a summer camp through my 4 years of high school so I was off the streets during the idle summer.
Many inner city kids have none of those things.
Their mothers are often 16 years older than them and didn't finish school themselves.
They don't eat regularly and their home lives are chaotic.
They have no adult supervision and specifically no positive male role models.
These people don't think long term.
They are living day to day.
What choices do these kids have?
Children aren't capable of making reasoned decisions. They need adults and we have three generations of children making children in the inner city.
We can argue back and forth about whose "fault" this is but if we are serious about dealing with the problem we better damn sure realize that it's going to take more than demanding they make good "choices".
Even these kids have the power to make certain choices, such as to study, to behave in school, to read, to refrain from harming the property and persons of others, etc. I suppose you would have them do whatever they like until you can convince congress to pass massive legislation that will .... what?
"Give them jobs"? "Give them money"?
I don't understand what you can "give" to somebody who already fails to make the most of what little he or she already has.
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