[Newsbot]

Title: Obama seeks to 'reconnect'.....
Category: Business
Posted By: ManifestDestiny
Date: 2010-04-28 08:34:59
Canadian

[ManifestDestiny]

Imagine for a second a white male politician saying we have to get out the White male vote?

[BartSimpson]

ManifestDestiny ManifestDestiny:

Imagine for a second a white male politician saying we have to get out the White male vote?

Don't you know that only white people, and in particular, fundamentalist Christians, can be racist?

[xerxes]

ManifestDestiny ManifestDestiny:

Imagine for a second a white male politician saying we have to get out the White male vote?

They do it all the time when they talk about "real America".

And besides, how can this even remotely be construed as "race baiting". Visible minorities have been a significant part of the Democratic base some some time now and even moreso now, seeing as the GOp is effectivle the Confederacy of old.

[andyt]

Funny, when I extract a part of a story and use that as the title, I get moderated. In this case, the title is just the opinion of the poster - I don't see the term race baiting anywhere in the story.

$1:

Obama speaks with unusual demographic frankness about his coalition in his appeal to "young people, African-Americans, Latinos, and women who powered our victory in 2008 [to] stand together once again."

How is this race baiting? Republicans appeal to white men, you don't think they go for their base? And Repubs would love to have back the Latino appeal of GWB - with Lations becoming an ever larger part of the electorate, the Repubs are basically hooped unless they can appeal to this demographic.

Race baiting

[Public_Domain]

[BartSimpson]

xerxes xerxes:

ManifestDestiny ManifestDestiny:

Imagine for a second a white male politician saying we have to get out the White male vote?

They do it all the time when they talk about "real America".

And besides, how can this even remotely be construed as "race baiting". Visible minorities have been a significant part of the Democratic base some some time now and even moreso now, seeing as the GOp is effectivle the Confederacy of old.

Except that the Confederacy was primarily Democrat.

[xerxes]

Very true, but I'm sure you know that the two parties have largely switched constituencies since then. Back then, the Republican party represented mainly northern industrial elites and the Democratic party represented the southern industry and interests.

[xerxes]

And just to belabour my point a bit: here's map of the 2008 election result state by state compared with the map of the Confederate States.

[Thanos]

Found this gem today. Imagine the reaction from the "real Americans" if black people behaved like this:

$1:

Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead of envisioning white people as the main actors in the scenes we’ll conjure - the ones who are driving the action - we’ll envision black folks or other people of color instead. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were of color, rather than white. Whoever gains the most insight into the workings of race in America, at the end of the game, wins.

So let’s begin.

Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.

Imagine that white members of Congress, while walking to work, were surrounded by thousands of angry black people, one of whom proceeded to spit on one of those congressmen for not voting the way the black demonstrators desired. Would the protesters be seen as merely patriotic Americans voicing their opinions, or as an angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionary mob? After all, this is what white Tea Party protesters did recently in Washington.

Imagine that a rap artist were to say, in reference to a white president: “He’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on my machine gun.” Because that’s what rocker Ted Nugent said recently about President Obama.

Imagine that a prominent mainstream black political commentator had long employed an overt bigot as Executive Director of his organization, and that this bigot regularly participated in black separatist conferences, and once assaulted a white person while calling them by a racial slur. When that prominent black commentator and his sister — who also works for the organization — defended the bigot as a good guy who was misunderstood and “going through a tough time in his life” would anyone accept their excuse-making? Would that commentator still have a place on a mainstream network? Because that’s what happened in the real world, when Pat Buchanan employed as Executive Director of his group, America’s Cause, a blatant racist who did all these things, or at least their white equivalents: attending white separatist conferences and attacking a black woman while calling her the n-word.

Imagine that a black radio host were to suggest that the only way to get promoted in the administration of a white president is by “hating black people,” or that a prominent white person had only endorsed a white presidential candidate as an act of racial bonding, or blamed a white president for a fight on a school bus in which a black kid was jumped by two white kids, or said that he wouldn’t want to kill all conservatives, but rather, would like to leave just enough—“living fossils” as he called them—“so we will never forget what these people stood for.” After all, these are things that Rush Limbaugh has said, about Barack Obama’s administration, Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama, a fight on a school bus in Belleville, Illinois in which two black kids beat up a white kid, and about liberals, generally.

Imagine that a black pastor, formerly a member of the U.S. military, were to declare, as part of his opposition to a white president’s policies, that he was ready to “suit up, get my gun, go to Washington, and do what they trained me to do.” This is, after all, what Pastor Stan Craig said recently at a Tea Party rally in Greenville, South Carolina.

Imagine a black radio talk show host gleefully predicting a revolution by people of color if the government continues to be dominated by the rich white men who have been “destroying” the country, or if said radio personality were to call Christians or Jews non-humans, or say that when it came to conservatives, the best solution would be to “hang ‘em high.” And what would happen to any congressional representative who praised that commentator for “speaking common sense” and likened his hate talk to “American values?” After all, those are among the things said by radio host and best-selling author Michael Savage, predicting white revolution in the face of multiculturalism, or said by Savage about Muslims and liberals, respectively. And it was Congressman Culbertson, from Texas, who praised Savage in that way, despite his hateful rhetoric.

Imagine a black political commentator suggesting that the only thing the guy who flew his plane into the Austin, Texas IRS building did wrong was not blowing up Fox News instead. This is, after all, what Anne Coulter said about Tim McVeigh, when she noted that his only mistake was not blowing up the New York Times.

Imagine that a popular black liberal website posted comments about the daughter of a white president, calling her “typical redneck trash,” or a “whore” whose mother entertains her by “making monkey sounds.” After all that’s comparable to what conservatives posted about Malia Obama on freerepublic.com last year, when they referred to her as “ghetto trash.”

Imagine that black protesters at a large political rally were walking around with signs calling for the lynching of their congressional enemies. Because that’s what white conservatives did last year, in reference to Democratic party leaders in Congress.

In other words, imagine that even one-third of the anger and vitriol currently being hurled at President Obama, by folks who are almost exclusively white, were being aimed, instead, at a white president, by people of color. How many whites viewing the anger, the hatred, the contempt for that white president would then wax eloquent about free speech, and the glories of democracy? And how many would be calling for further crackdowns on thuggish behavior, and investigations into the radical agendas of those same people of color?

To ask any of these questions is to answer them. Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.

And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis.

Game Over.

[Lemmy]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Except that the Confederacy was primarily Democrat.

Democrats and Republicans in 1860 have NOTHING TO with those parties today.

[xerxes]

$1:

Found this gem today. Imagine the reaction from the "real Americans" if black people behaved like this:

I thiink it would actually be beneficial because every hack on FOX news and every hatemonger on radio would have an aneurism at the same time.

[Thanos]

Given how they've historically and criminally been treated by the minority I'd say that white Americans have been very lucky that their black population has been as patient and as willing to turn the other cheek as they have been up to now. Minorities that have been oppressed in other parts of the world usually haven't shown the same willingness for maintaining societal peace when confronted with the majority's brutality and total lack of magnanimity*.

*Magnanimity - an ancient British concept, which in an of itself is enough to explain why it has zero traction whatsoever in modern American white supremacist and retrograde nativist politics.

[ManifestDestiny]

$1:

Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government?

They did it was called "the million man march" And a racist, Louis Farrakhan was the leader of the event. Obama atteneded this event. So we dont have to "imagine"

[ManifestDestiny]

Thanos Thanos:

Given how they've historically and criminally been treated by the minority I'd say that white Americans have been very lucky that their black population has been as patient and as willing to turn the other cheek as they have been up to now. .

Let them. I will be like Korean store owner.