Krugman: Politics in Black and White
The controversy surrounding recent events in Jena, La., and the criminal charges against the Jena Six, stems in part from the shocking qualities of the story. Most decent people across the country look at the systemic and ugly bigotry, and wonder how these conditions can still exist in the 21st century.
Paul Krugman makes the case today that racial tensions, especially in the South, haven’t improved as much as most of us would like to believe, and in politics, race remains “one of the defining factors."
Consider voting in last year’s Congressional elections. Republicans, as President Bush conceded, received a “thumping,” with almost every major demographic group turning against them. The one big exception was Southern whites, 62 percent of whom voted Republican in House races.
And yes, Southern white exceptionalism is about race, much more than it is about moral values, religion, support for the military or other explanations sometimes offered. There’s a large statistical literature on the subject, whose conclusion is summed up by the political scientist Thomas F. Schaller in his book “Whistling Past Dixie”: “Despite the best efforts of Republican spinmeisters to depict American conservatism as a nonracial phenomenon, the partisan impact of racial attitudes in the South is stronger today than in the past.”
The national Republican Party is acutely aware of all of this — as it has been for decades — and acts accordingly. In 1980, this meant Ronald Reagan making one of his first presidential campaign appearances just outside Philadelphia, Miss., to endorse states’ rights.
In 2007, GOP leaders aren’t nearly as blatant, but they’re no more progressive, either.
the south is full of rednecks... what did you expect?
Its not 'generalization' to state the South is still racist....
Just take a field trip to the Rural areas....where they're still fighting the civil war
Republicans will always win the south, as racism, sexism, & stupidity flow like the Amazon in this part of the country...as long as the Republicans whistle dixie, call taxes evil, and not ever do anything for minorities...it will be hook, line, and sinker for these moron magic bean buyers down here...
Which is why I'm out of here, the first chance I get...if you're planning on moving down here...bring a hazmat suit (because down here 'global warming doesn't exist...its too expensive to do anything about...too many morons so little time), Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones, more patience than Mother Theresa, and a sense of humor....because you're going to need it...every single day.
great, but let's not EVER lose sight of the fact that one kid was beaten by a group of six kids, including having his head kicked and stomped on while he was down. that's how kids end up dead. So sure, let's take care of the potential disparity in charges that are filed in different cases, but let's NEVER forget that this kid could easily have been killed during that beating. One kick to the right spot in the head and he would have been dead.
And just imagine the outcry had the tables been turned, 6 white kids beat a black kid and kicked him in the head and NO CHARGES were filed. Hey, it's just a "schoolyard fight", right? Cracker, please.
Question: if you, as parents, had the choice between your children seeing a noose in a tree, or being beaten and stomped by a group of 6 other kids, what would you choose? Right, you'd obviously choose the first experience.
Perhaps a small silver lining here can be salvaged by reminding our society that while, yes, fights happen, there ARE RULES involved that proper functioning societies pass onto their youth designed to limit the damage that happens when the fights break out. Remember the phrase "kicking is for sissies"... yeah, SOME segments of society understand that, others are either too stupid, too backwards, or simply too violent to embrace the idea.
Still waiting to see SOMEONE comment that, among all the horrendous aspects of this episode, the fact that a black child/person felt the need to ASK PERMISSION to sit under a damn shade tree at their own school says much about racism in this country (or at least in Jena (we're not racists), LA)!!! ANYONE, ANYONE??????
Look, I'm a rural white southerner. It's about race, certainly. It's also a form of identity politics, and that doesn't exist in a vacuum. The southern Democrats have been so weak and willing to be pawns of the Right that they have made the Democrats a minority (and racial Minority) party.
The South has been the subject of a false history, the fake 'moonlight/magnolias/cavilier/happyslaves' nonsense (most ably purveyed by Mrs. Margaret Mitchell's romance novel and its Movie version, Gone with the Wind) that has papered over the real history of brother against brother and the long sellout by the rest of the country of the freed blacks.
In my own weird little county (Fannin Co. GA) they named the football team the Rebels. In fact, Fannin was a hot bed of Unionism and opposition to the Confederacy, common with much of the Southern Appalachians. This is according to real historians.
This will change, but merely calling us rednecks and adding to the grievance politics that makes us, your fellow Americans, enemies, is not going to work.
The south is not so red as you would think, and need a progressive leadership.
Not insults, no matter how deserved. Help southern Progressives. We need you.
People of African descent have been saying this all along.
I say the next time the South wants to secede, we let 'em.
I sympathise with Mr. Bill. I would hate to have to live with the unbelievably FAT and ignorant suckas who apparently....
Infest the whole region.
Maybe an epidemic of heart attacks will thin the ranks of the mouthbreathers.
One can only hope.
Yeah, let's not forget that kicking a kid while down is far more dangerous than brandishing a loaded shotgun ...
And while we're at it, let's not give the District Attorney a free pass. He's all over the tube saying this isn't racism, it's all being exaggerated ... but he's also quoted as telling the Six, "I can make your lives disappear with the stroke of a pen."
John Samsonite @ 3:
While we are busy reminding children that there are rules why don't we remind our District Attorneys that threatening the entire black population of a high school with "ending their lives with a stroke of a pen," is illegal?
Why don't we remind the police that when a white man pulls a gun on black kids you are not supposed to arrest the victim?
Why don't we remind you that the TABLES WERE TURNED EARLIER and nothing happened?
John Samsonite @ 3:
No, the truth is that none of the six has pled guilty and one of them has witnesses that say he did nothing because he was merely a bystander too far away to do anything except watch!
John Samsonite @ 3:
It's not potential disparity, it is absolute disparity.
John Samsonite @ 3:
There was no outcry when multiple instances (at least two) of groups of white men went into neighborhoods in Brooklyn and beat Black men with baseball bats just last year. No outcry, no charges.
John Samsonite @ 3:
Unfortunately, one of the Jena 6 experienced BOTH the threat with the noose and a beating by multiple white youths.
I'm following this case, The Logan 6, closely.
It needs just as much attention, if not more than the Jena 6 case.
Makes me wonder how many other Pulp Fiction gimp/Deliverance scenes get played out everyday in this country that we never hear about, and how many have happened over the course of the last decade.
Racism, and hate, runs deep throughout the United States, and it's not just the Deep South.
Want proof?
Try this experiment:
Go to Craigslist, pick any major US city, go to their "Rants and Raves" section and do a field search for any, or all, of these following terms, either in singular or plural form:
Guarantee you that you'll come up with pages and pages of vile and repulsive material, written in real time, it's Craigslist's dirty little libertarian secret.
Shit's endemic here, and it's not just in Louisiana, it's the whole damn country.
What I find utterly ironic is when I talk to black guys that were stationed in Germany, (a country that went down this "Master Race" path a couple generations ago, with lousy results), when they were in the Army, they all tell me the same thing, that kind of racism simply doesn't exist over there.
Strange Fruit that we grow here in The United States Of America.
~Nyc
John Samsonite @ 3:
And then you can imagine if some white kids pulled a shotgun on some black kids who wrestled the gun away, and not only were no charges filed against the white kid, but the black kid was charged with stealing the white kids gun. Oh wait, that actually happened.
While any fight can end up with someone getting killed, the likelihood of that occurring is very low, nor is intention of unarmed to actually kill your opponent. Charging solely the blacks in this single fight with attempted murder is like charging someone who jaywalks with attempted suicide. Sure, some misdemeanor charges should have laid on everyone participating in these fights, but when participants of one race who break the law are charged with attempted murder while participants of the other race get off Scott free, then we are looking at a form of institutional racism here.
This is what happens when kids grow up hearing about the good old days when it was OK to hang a n*****. It's also a symptom of how people isolate themselves from those they are different. Even when they are in school, people stay away from each other who are different and just join cliques of similar minded individuals.
I think all these bigots need to be all drafted. It might not teach them to like arabs at all, but at some point there life is probably going to depend on a black soldier. I'd like to see them try to maintain their bigoted attitudes after that.
While in the Army, I was stationed at Ft Rucker. This was during the mid-60's. My mother's folks were from Norway, so minority status wasn't the problem. In 1967 I volunteered for Viet Nam to get out of Alabama. As bad as things went there, it was still better than one more day spent in that pit of bigotry and ignorance.
Back then, the Civil War wasn't over. As noted by a previous post, apparently it still isn't. My apologies to the few sane residents of Dixie, but... fuckthesouth.com
You know, the private "Christain" school movement got its start when white parents decided to pull their children out of public schools during court ordered segregation. They didn't want their white children being forced to sit in class with black children.
As time went by, "free market" fundamentalists saw a chance to weaken public schools and jumped on the private school movement. Using a combination of fear and selfishness, the free market people would argue that the private schools were much more safer and more competent than those underfunded and "racially and ethnically" integrated public schools. The evolution of this racial and market fundamentalist attack has morphed into the "charter school" and "home school" movements.
Just take a look at present state of the New Orleans public school system and all those fired unionized school teachers.
You must have never heard about the racial tensions in the military during the war in Vietnam.
Besides the fact that there is NO EXCUSE for a draft your "solution" is not the answer.
Isome,
Every time this discusion opens i feel as though we have to go back and discuss the alphabet before people can grasp the grammar.
The embarrassing southern counterparts of northeastern and western civilized Americans.
timmy_d11 @ 19:
Oh yeah! Thank goodness there is no racism in Boston, New York or Chicaoga, eh?
In 2002 I was living in Eastern TN which is home turf for my husband and his family.
One Sunday we happened to be driving through one of the small towns that circle Knoxville.
There on the side of the road were three men dressed in their Klan sunday best [the full uniform with hoods and all] They had set up two large signs and a booth for the MEMBERSHIP DRIVE they were having.
Racism in the south isn't below the surface at all. It's still very much part of life as they know it.
Half of the inlaws think that I grew up "communist" [I'm Canadian] and that's why I don't understand "how things work" [that was the way it put to me] any excuse to justify it I guess.
*Chicago (first cup of coffee...)
timmy_d11 @ 19:
Oh yeah, like how about those Native American Indians in South Dakota, or the Japanese and Chinese in California during the 1940s/1950s, or all those migrant Mexicans in the rural countryside or any Muslim in any U.S. airport. We don't want to get "too" civilized so as counterbalance the bad old South.
Racism is as American as apple pie.
xoites defends Constitution @ 17:
Actually, I'm not too read up on the subject, do you have any links detailing the problem a little more? I do know how the military operates now, and there isn't institutional racism in the organization that I've ever seen or heard about as of when I was in a few years ago. Some people may bring there own racists beliefs in them in the military, but you are in a system that will quickly smack down any trouble caused by racism with a whole range of possible punishment. If they were left back home in the south, these same people would never have to confront their own racist beliefs or deal with blacks enough to have more a one dimensional view of a large segment of US.
As for the draft, theoretically there is nothing wrong with it (However, there are legitimate practical arguments that can made against a draft). As long as there is a war going on though, a draft is a fairer way to distribute risk and involve the whole of the society in the war then the current volunteer system. What there really is no excuse for is the current war, which to many people seem disinterested in to really put pressure on to stop it.
A draft is only one possible solution though. Any system that is institutionally fair and requires people to work together from different regions and races is going to by it's nature decrease racism. Possibly a mandated volunteer corp after a certain age might have the same effect for example.
Isome @ 12:
Two thumbs up. Thank you again for your commentary here on this topic. It is much appreciated.
Ok, this gay single parent of Southern Appalachian heritage has actually been to Boston and Chicago and New York and San Fran.. (never made it to So. Calif, but have relatives in Washington state). Racism is endemic in this country. The faultlines in the South, especially in the more rural and insular areas, are probably more pronounced.
But the circumstances of Jena happen all over. I used to do Craft Fairs (the American Craft council Shows, e.g.) around the US. I could always count on some guy (generally poorly dressed, never a woman) who would find out I was from Georgia and want to talk racist smack. It was tiresome.
And it's slowly changing. Twenty years ago, the idiocy of the Jena Prosecutor would not be heard of. A little 'sunset' town (where blacks were told to leave town by sunset) has black, hispanic (heh), mixed race, oriental people. The Buddhists have opened a retreat close by.
Lookup the NattyLoveJoys, a regge group, via google. They hold Camp Reggee just down the road.
The racism that happens here is slowly dying. The collapse of the conservative bubble will speed it. Help us out in the South. You need us as much as we need you.
Here's an odd fact. South Carolina's most radical-right conservatives are from the upstate and other very-majority white areas. I think its because in other parts of the state, the race mix is such that a less extreme modus vivendi has developed. But, oh, yes in a big way, the red-necks headed straight to the Repukes, klan robes and all in the 60's-70's and that's where they are still.
Lord of Karma @ 24:
Links?
Sorry, this happened before home computers, the internet had not yet been concieved. Most things written and said about this happened then and have not been annotated on the internet.
And when the Klan held a rally in nearby Ellijay GA, anti Klan protesters out numbered the Klan guys 10 to one. It was hilarious...
Racism in the United States Army during the Vietnam War
Click to play video
http://openvault.wgbh.org/saybrother/MLA001094/index.html
SteveinSC @ 27:
Steve, this is the pattern in GA. Fannin Co. had 12 Slaves on census at the inception of the Civil War. This county has never had a large black population, but was/is profoundly racist.
Now we have a larger minority population, approaching 15%. The Black kids in school seem to be doing ok, just like the gay kids I know. Rap sells big in the local record stores...
Doesn't Jena have something like 12% black population?
Aye, Aye!
http://OsiSpeaks.com or http://OsiSpeaks.org
MR. Bill @ 5:
Mr. Bill,
Thank you for so eloquently stating what needed to be said. I'm not a southerner but I have spent time and lived in the south.
A dismissive broad brush that paints an over simplification helps no one. I have quite a few friends that are southern progressives. Despite what some may say, this could have happened anywhere 20 miles outside of any major city in the US. Regards and kudos. You are correct, we need to stand together, regardless of our geographic location. Keep fighting the good fight, there's more of us than many think. I live in one of the most racially divided cities in the US, and it's not in the south.
xoites defends Constitution @ 20:
OK
Read 'em and weep:
Boston
New York
Chicago
Try "Gay" or "Mexican" or "Illegal" as a search term in any of these cities and you'll also see the hate also goes past color, here in America.
~Nyc
We moved to Savannah to escape 9/11, my divorce, & to raise the bar in our field in an area that is years behind.
What kills me is Savannah ranges between a 50 to 65% black population, & it's STILL as segregated as 1957! We didn't expect that, we were expecting such a large majority to be running the show more, maybe have a bit of flavor like Harlem. Georgia is also second to last in education scores in the country.
The kids here are raised rather blindly; they fall in step with southern double standards, like being raised hardcore home schooled Christian, but its also OK to be a racist, a womanizer, a drunk, & meth & crack are somehow cool too. Few leave, or see the world, or back pack across Europe or Asia, & they grow up fighting the same stupid inbred high school fights we all did as kids. By the time they're 20, they're their fathers already, racing around town in giant pick ups with bumper stickers that read 'Annoy a Liberal' & 'Fighting Terrorism since 1864'.
They're all pro-America, pro-guns, & Pro-Bush, but when I ask them WHY, seeing as how anti-Christian & anti-America a guy Bush is, they cannot postulate an answer to save their lives.
Bush's bumper sticker campaign slogans, like his insidious 'Wrong war wrong place wrong time' mantra he'd spew during debates with Kerry, goes a LONG way in reaching people who have basically brought up to spend little time thinking.
NYC Al is right too. The biggest racist NYC ever saw was Giuliani.
He used race to 'clean up' NYC, citing 'Fixing Broken Windows', a Manhattan Institute book on eugenics. This is why I've been so weirded out that he's running; if he's elected, he'll be Bush with a BRAIN. Microchips, papers, random police stops, eminent domain, all the fascist programs he was rather successful pushing through in the city. 'Giuliani Time' coast to coast.
I highly recommend "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by James Loewen. It's an excellent study on America's long history of racism and how little most Americans know about our history.
According to the GOP and the activist rightwingers on the Supreme Court, we're supposed to pretend there is no inequality, and that will make it so.
I do not want to dismiss racial inequality and or discrimination but let it not be forgotten that America is now a very discriminatory country. If you don't look right, talk right and act right, someone in authority defining right, you ain't with us as our decider says. The entire USA discriminates profusely along the lines of not only race but gender, disability , social status, etc. ALL DAY LONG EVERY DAY>
it's not right, it's not what we say we believe, but sadly it is where we have all been led........
kudos to Krugman for always speaking truth to power
Sad situation it is when people are unable to define themselves except by their differences with others and other groups...
Paul Krugman makes the case today that racial tensions, especially in the South, haven’t improved as much as most of us would like to believe
You can take the "especially in the south" part out. Northern metropolitan areas are racially polarized, and the only thing that seems to get public funding in black neighborhoods is police brutality. Check out this account of police misconduct in Minneapolis:
http://www.buzz.mn/?q=node/2568
This kind of stuff is commonplace.
sundog @ 23:
I'm sorry, racism is far from distributed equally in the US.
And the south HAS managed to fuck up our country politically and always keep us further behind than we should have been - had it NOT been for them.
great, but let’s not EVER lose sight of the fact that one kid was beaten by a group of six kids, including having his head kicked and stomped on while he was down. that’s how kids end up dead. So sure, let’s take care of the potential disparity in charges that are filed in different cases, but let’s NEVER forget that this kid could easily have been killed during that beating. One kick to the right spot in the head and he would have been dead.
I'd have more sympathy for that kid if he hadn't provoked the situation to where he got his ass kicked as a result of said provocation.
Additionally, I'd have more sympathy if I hadn't been confronted with a picture of Emmitt Till after his bloated body was pulled from the Tehachipie River with a cotton gin tied around his neck, after he was pulled from his relatives' house in the middle of the night by some "good ol' boys" and promptly lynched for allegedly whistling at a woman so homely, she probably wished some young guys would whistle at her because her husband stopped paying attention to her ass.
I was six years old, when I saw that picture and it was by accident, because my parents didn't want me to know that America contained people so ignorant that their virulent racism resulted in the death of a 14 year old boy for something seemingly innocent. Emmitt Till died six years before I was born. When I saw it and asked my father about it, his face became like stone as he muttered "cracker bastards" under his breath, before trying to explain to me, a six year old, about bigotry.
Even in the 21st Century, you still have those fighting the Civil War and still waiting for slave ships to come in, so there's no reasoning with them, and why the ReThugs as well as the Democrats wish to cater to this dying breed, I'll never know.
Don't bother responding to Samsonite. He's already back Free Republic, enjoying a julep with his fellow good ol' boys.
As for the persistence of racism, all one need do is look at Harold Ford's campaign last year. His opponent appealed to racism, and it worked.
xoites defends Constitution @ 18:
It seems that way doesn't it? ...and I feel compelled to respond every time. ;-)
Jena is a race-riot-inducing setup by the CIA (who by the way have a major office in Jena) here's how they win more power: DISTRACT, DIVIDE AND CONQUER. Blacks blues grays reds are not your enemy. This is all a SETUP and youre falling hook line and sinker.
its too bad isnt it @ 46:
Thanks for showing us how blind we all are! Do you think your parents would mind if we all came over and hid out in your basement with you?
Political_Junkie, thank you for conveying your experience. However, your description of the kid getting his ass kicked as a result of provocation discredits the rest of your argument. Please rephrase that section, in a more mature manner, and we'll go from there.
Here's a hint, if I laugh at you and say "hahahaha!!!" that does not give you and your friends the right to pummel me. It may give you the opportunity to respond verbally, sure, and it may even give you the right to challenge me, one on one, to a fight like a man.
WHITE KIDS who fight 6 on 1 are THUGS who need to be taken off the streets until they realize how to fight like a man, with their fists, one on one.
and BLACK KIDS who fight 6 on 1 are THUGS who need to be taken off the streets until they realize how to fight like a man, with their fists, one on one.
Someone who insults another person is a better person than someone who kicks someone in the head when they're down, especially when participating in a modern day lynching where the situation is six on one.
Deal with this reality, accept that the kids deserve CRIMINAL CHARGES for what they did, and only then can the dialogue go anywhere. Until that point, what you have is "YOUR SIDE SUCKS!!" and "NO WAY MAN!! YOUR SIDE SUCKS!!"
It must be some part of the human genome that makes people want to feel superior over others. You have to be richer or better looking or smarter or more athletic or whiter or more whatever . Why is this? Why are we so insecure or so self-centered that this is true? One thing is for sure however that this country cannot permit two separate justice systems, a fairer system for one set of people than for others. What kind of school has a tree on its school grounds that only lets white kids use it for shade? Didn't anybody in the town speak out about this before the black students had to ask for permission to sit uder the tree? I knowr that Jena, LA is only an example and not an isolated incident of racism. It is however the one that is in the news and needs to be fixed. Where are the legislators from the state? Where is the federal government? The Republican Party and its fearless leader have allowed this to occur. Appointing one hundred Condeleeza's and two hundred Colin Powell's doesn't make up for abandoning the poor in New Orleans and standing up the NAACP and the Urban League meetings/debate. I realize that Bush doesn't like diplomacy in foreign matters. He prefers targeted bombing to talking as a means to solve a problem. However, why can't we sit down and talk things out in our own country? Let Mychel Bell out of jail. Really, does anybody think that a pair of tennis shoes is a lethal weapon?
Oh, people, be careful here. What are we doing? Look at what has been said.
Crooks_and_Liars_Blocked_Me @ 1:
"Its not ‘generalization’ to state the South is still racist…."
"Cracker, please."
" would hate to have to live with the unbelievably FAT and ignorant suckas who apparently….
Infest the whole region. Maybe an epidemic of heart attacks will thin the ranks of the mouthbreathers."
"The embarrassing southern counterparts of northeastern and western civilized Americans."
Not contrustive. My impulsive response is to tell you all to fuck off, but that is not constructive either.
Wherever you live in the US, you have seen racism. (I liked the comment above that suggests you go to Craigslist Rants in any major northern city and see what you get). It's there. You don't have to look too hard.
Racial prejudice is a dark but inherent part of human nature. Prejudice begets prejudice. To suggest that the South has a patent on prejudice is to engage in the very mentality you are criticizing - you just made a nasty generalization about a broad group of people you don't really know.
Solving the problem involves utilizing more enlightenment, and NOT engaging in more prejudice.
Did you ever hear MLK say "Yeah, the South is nothing but a bunch of damn rednecks - what are you gonna do? I wish everything was just like Boston."
Aim higher, people. Aim higher.
Sailor Art,
I voted for Howard Dean, John Kerry, and straight Dem ticket in 2006, and have contributed to Barack Obama's campaign.
Lose the racist victimization angle on every single issue and we'll have a chance to move forward.
Every time the race pimps overreach it hurts their (and all of our) cause to eliminate racism in general.
You either believe in human nature and the power of enlightenment, or you don't.
Looking down your noses at the South suggests that you don't.
Tug, the MLK reference is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS the right one. Well done.
Perhaps you didn't fully grasp the meaning of the 'Cracker, please' comment, but that's fine. Just an FYI, I'm white so it's ok. Isn't that how it works?
cleo @ 49:
The need to feel superiority over others is always the pathological opposite of deep insecurity. GWB could be the poster child for stunted juvenile development, soulless psyche, and insecurity overlapping profound sadism.
Tug @ 50:
Hey, hey, hey....we're falling right into "The Divider's" hands when we use prejudice and discrimination as our mantra. The larger, more inclusive picture is how every american is getting the shaft by this government. We all know that stupidity and ignorance is not regional. When we degrade ourselves by gross generalization, we degrade the similarity of our needs. This Napoleonic mindset of "divide and conquer" is used by the Bushitcos and when we indulge in disgustingly bigoted discourse, we are allowing them to push our buttons. We are giving our personal power away.
NanaT @ 36:
Great book NanaT! I've read it and actually use it as a reference guide of sorts. James Loewen also wrote Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. I recommend that one highly for anyone under the impression that inner-cities across the country are overwhelmingly populated by Black people by choice, as opposed to truth that they were run out of smaller towns by violent white mobs.
Attacking our differences and not becoming united by our similarities (our oneness as human beings) is falling right into the hands of this twisted neo-fascist regime.
Isome @ 56:
Everone knows that the Bush Regime has done more to up the tempo of racism in this country and has undone decades of progress by it's tactics employed in New Orleans. This was an up-close and personal view of the Bush racist mentality. This book sounds like a "must read" so thanks Nana for this.
No one wants to talk about the first injustice that was robert bailey getting beat up and a bottle broken over his head at a barn party by a couple of white guys and nothing happened so when 6 blacks beat up a white kid and they try to put on a facade that this kid who got beat up is a victim when he was an antagonist at the party that robert bailey got beat up at and at the school just before he took that ass whipping i just laugh at how people omit facts to serve their agenda!
Thanks, Mr. Krugman, for pointing out the fucking obvious.
everybody
can see how the
republican candidates are
flocking to the black sponsored
debates
heh...
Doesn't the district attorney prosecuting the six thugs (aka the "Jena Six") know that the six thugs are entitled to assault anyone they want to assault provided their assaults are racially motivated? Maybe Krugman can provide his "thoughts" to the DA and school him on "justice" Krugman style.
orion @ 58:
The fish rots from the head down.
oh, one more thing. I heard the other day that the one kid still in jail had FOUR PRIOR CRIMINAL OFFENSES. perhaps, in the interest of race "equality", we should ignore priors from young black men, because all those priors are also the white man's fault.
makes sense to me.
John Samsonite @ 64:
You're missing the point of Krugman's article.
"You’re missing the point of Krugman’s article".
Obfuscating would be more like it.
Unfortunately, Krugman's article (and I normally enjoy his take on things) glosses over the specifics of the case and deals strictly with rather obvious generalities.
I'm not sure
A: how that would relate to my statement about priors and
B: why anyone would view this specific article as being especially useful in any sense
John Samsonite:
Not only have you missed the entire point of Krugman's article, you keep looking for reasons to justify the State of Lousiana's imbalance in applying the law.
Now, drink your mint julep and pack yourself into your namesake, go back to Instapundit and tell him your invasion of Crooks and Liars didn't work.
political_junkie, fresh off a misguided original post of his own, tries to piggyback onto someone else's angle.
nicely done. it indicates you understand your limitations.
now back to instapundit, whatever the hell that is!
Curious to know if Ron Paul's support is greater in the South than in other parts of the country.
Paul is the last supporter of pure states' rights (cut all functions out of the federal gov't not specifically mandated in the Constitution, and hand them over to the states). That means civil rights, voting rights, equal opportunity laws - the whole anti-racist federal legal structure created from 1954 on. Paul says, get rid of it, and hand it over to
Paul himself may not be a racist. But his agenda is indistinguishable from that of Southern racists. Makes sense that his base would be Southern.
NanaT @ 37:
Consider that instead of learning in school that entire segments of the American population were subjugated, debased, exploited, and denied a history, we instead learn that George Washinton Carver liked peanuts! A black guy invented the golf tee!
Learning facts without a context doesn't prepare us to be citizens in a modern world.
John Samsonite @ 3:
that's a great collection of david duke talking points
John Samsonite @ 68:
That's because it isn't about the specifics of the case. It IS about obvious generalities. It's not fair to criticize him for failing to address to your satisfaction a subject that he apparently does not consider crucial to his point.
MR. Bill @ 5:
Thank you for that. sometimes progressives don't remember recent history, wherein gwb used to have a 72% approval rating and the country was over 80% for any war of revenge after 9/11. We can change the numbers in the south, just as you say. and as you say, insults are not a way of endearing anyone or swaying them to your point of view.
Sailor Art Thomas Jr. @ 45:
in Al Gore's home state, no less, which itself was won outright by gwb. go figure!
John Samsonite @ 52:
So you'd rather ignore it like you're doing now...
despite your claims, you're using all the codewords.
Tom @ 63:
excellent regurgitation of codewords. you sound like guiliani.
Rusty Shackleford @ 66:
that "kid" also has a witness (who was NOT ALLOWED TO TESTIFY) that he was not near the altercation. check your facts. nevermind, it's YOU again...
As someone who moved from the North to the South, I can say that racism is alive and well here in the South. But please don't paint us with a broad stroke. Some of us down here (not many) are sane and decent.
I just listened to someone on NPR who was in school in Little Rock 50 years ago when Eisenhower had to send in the military to let the nine black kids go to school. I only caught the tail end. I think she was one of the nine but not sure.
This comment hit me, paraphrased: 'The worse thing was the spitting. I still get nauseous thinking about it.'
Spitting. Arrgghh.
Just 50 years ago.
Spitting.
They're actually trying to celebrate the integration of Little Rock High School 50 years ago. I say "trying" because this is coming on the heels of the Jena 6 and Louisiana and Arkansas are neighboring states with virulent histories of bigotry, so of course, if you had to actually live that shyt (being escorted to school by the National Guard so you didn't get lynched at lunch time), you'd toss your lunch everytime you thought about that time in your life, too.
Albatross @ 8:
You mean they've tried before and SOMEBODY STOPPED THEM???? Why?
If you go to YouTube and read comments about any video with blacks in it, you'll see that racism is very much alive and well. It still shocks me too (as a I scroll down).
Tug at 51:
"Racial prejudice is a dark but inherent part of human nature." This is patently untrue. Racism and bigotry are learned from your parents, family and community. It doesn't exist in young children, until they become "socilaized."
13 Nyc W. Alberts Says:
I agree. I've never seen a country that produces such hatred and division amongst it's own citizens. The USA is almost unique there.
(I say almost becasue Asian countries tend to be very nationalistic and racist too. No one knows that yet, but wait till Asia plays out its hand this century. I know, I live here. I'm "OK" cuz I'm white, a wasp even, but if your skin is darker... Some people here think blacks came straight from the jungle and eat bananas, almost exclusively. I tell ya, racism is IGNORANCE!!! And learned; passed on.)
What is it about skin colour? Do you like white cats/dogs/horses more than brown cats/dogs/horses? Never thought about it? You weren't "programmed" to (like you have been with people).
Samsonite: Question: if you, as parents, had the choice between your children seeing a noose in a tree, or being beaten and stomped by a group of 6 other kids, what would you choose? Right, you’d obviously choose the first experience.
Why would you presume to know which option I might choose? If that noose were in a tree known to be for whites only, and it indicated to me that racism and bigotry were alive and well, I'd want my kid to stand up for what's right, even if that meant it's a hard road. Sometimes we need to take a bloody nose to effect change. I know, I'm gay, I've done it! Canada now has gay marriage. I thank, in part, myself.
Krugman is just being picky with his statistics. Just a few years ago a majority of white voters chose the Democratic candidate for president. Well, the Democrat carried every state except AZ, LA, MS, AL,GA, and SC. Yes, the Republican was a senator from Arizona and the other five states were from the Deep South. There will be those who complain that since LBJ won in 1964, there has NEVER been a majority of whites to support any Democrat for the presidency. Now, what's 43-years between friends? Next, they'll want to nitpick that no northern Democrat since Kennedy in 1960 has won the presidency. This doesn't reflect racism on the part of the majority of whites. So, it's been 47-years. Think how old the Rockies are. The all white male line-up of Republican candidates merely supports a mild trend of 43-white males as president in a row. A couple centuries is no big deal. The Universe is must older.
Comments are closed on this entry