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On September 12 2017 06:53 GreenHorizons wrote:
EDIT: rofl, didn't see the conclusion that Coats is a "racist piece of shit" that's especially hilarious coming from xDaunt.
I know my audience.
EDIT2: Also, I know people will hate me for this, but I need to understand under what definition of "racism" is this claim founded?
I like the good, old-fashioned definition of racism: intentional discrimination based upon race with discriminatory animus.
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On September 12 2017 06:53 GreenHorizons wrote:
I know this seems counter-intuitive, but there's nothing wrong with attacking "whiteness". It's literally a racist construct designed to dehumanize others and distract from the underlying economic issues.
EDIT: rofl, didn't see the conclusion that Coats is a "racist piece of shit" that's especially hilarious coming from xDaunt.
EDIT2: Also, I know people will hate me for this, but I need to understand under what definition of "racism" is this claim founded?
You have to clarify here: When you say "attacking whiteness", you mean attacking the idea that being white is a defining part of people's existence, not attacking people for being white?
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On September 12 2017 06:44 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2017 06:43 Plansix wrote:
My bet is on Xdaunt not understanding a Coates article. I think the odds makers would be with me on this one. Feel free to spell out where my post above is all wet. I think I nailed it pretty well.
Nah, this one is all on you to explain yourself. I'm not playing the Xdaunt "You misunderstood the point of my vague ass post, now explain it to me," game.
On September 12 2017 07:03 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2017 06:53 GreenHorizons wrote:
I know this seems counter-intuitive, but there's nothing wrong with attacking "whiteness". It's literally a racist construct designed to dehumanize others and distract from the underlying economic issues.
EDIT: rofl, didn't see the conclusion that Coats is a "racist piece of shit" that's especially hilarious coming from xDaunt.
EDIT2: Also, I know people will hate me for this, but I need to understand under what definition of "racism" is this claim founded? You have to clarify here: When you say "attacking whiteness", you mean attacking the idea that being white is a defining part of people's existence, not attacking people for being white?
Pretty much. The idea that white is not the "default" person. Objecting to the concept of whiteness is how people make the argument that anyone who talks about race is using identity politics. Because "race" is anyone who is not white.
Though I am not sure how it is being attacked here.
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On September 12 2017 07:02 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2017 06:53 GreenHorizons wrote:
EDIT: rofl, didn't see the conclusion that Coats is a "racist piece of shit" that's especially hilarious coming from xDaunt. I know my audience. Show nested quote +EDIT2: Also, I know people will hate me for this, but I need to understand under what definition of "racism" is this claim founded? I like the good, old-fashioned definition of racism: intentional discrimination based upon race with discriminatory animus.
Is that the old fashion definition? I thought that was
The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
So you're saying your idea of racism doesn't need any superiority, and requires active and intentional discrimination. So something like thinking black people are sub-human but not discriminating against them wouldn't be racism to you?
What are you imagining as the discriminatory actions Coats is taking and against who?
EDIT: On "whiteness", I feel like we've been through this before, but I like you guys so I'll entertain it.
Whiteness was a recent social construction. No one here had any "white" family 600 or so years ago. I know this is going to make people uncomfortable, but whiteness is like a gang. The idea that there is such thing as "white" people is based off of a racist idea. That these "white" people share some distinguishing characteristic making them a "race".
Your first clue this "whiteness" was a farce should probably be how entire groups can go from the "not-white" to "white group". Iraqi people would technically be considered "Caucasian" on a census.
I'm with Bladwin on White history week.
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On September 12 2017 06:56 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2017 06:51 IgnE wrote:On September 12 2017 05:52 xDaunt wrote:On September 11 2017 15:13 IgnE wrote:On September 10 2017 21:09 farvacola wrote:
Haha, GH the incrementalist Coates fan, that's a nice title. I don't see a problem with symbolic reparations and think that his article on reparations is mostly unobjectionable. What is your problem with it? @ xDaunt and LL I don't really see very much that's objectionable in his essay on Trump as first White President. These seem to be his main actionable items, and might form a "platform" for his "black identity politics" but I just don't see anything positively articulated here that is objectionable: Few national liberal politicians have shown any recognition that there is something systemic and particular in the relationship between black people and their country that might require specific policy solutions.
[...]
Resistance to the monstrous incarceration of legions of black men, resistance to the destruction of health providers for poor women, resistance to the effort to deport parents, resistance to a policing whose sole legitimacy is rooted in brute force, resistance to a theory of education that preaches “no excuses” to black and brown children, even as excuses are proffered for mendacious corporate executives “too big to jail.” Coates goes in on everyone, Hillary included. I don't think it's necessarily any more Anti-Bernie than it is Anti-Clinton(s). He even criticizes Bill for playing at "white identity" politics in Arkansas. The main objections I have are negative ones. He is of course right that blacks have been excluded by a racist regime from what Jameson would call "guaranteed life" provided by the Welfare State. But there is perhaps an overall failure to see that white supremacy as code (in the Deleuzian sense, as the unconscious investment of a social field) serves the purposes of capital by dissecting and resecting a laboring class, ensuring a reserve army of laborers, and a permanent underclass. And simply resecting it is not enough. In other words, it seems that he doesn't seem to recognize that racial equality amongst inequality is simply not enough. That replacing some blacks in the ghetto with whites and some whites in the suburbs with blacks, to effect penguinized ghettos and gated communites, is not enough. But that is only a problem if you present the situation as either this or that, rather than this and this and … I think you have it backwards -- the real question is what is not objectionable about Coates' article. I think you are ill-advised to focus on the "action items." That's not the purpose of this article, which is why there really aren't any in the article. Instead, Coates is very clearly attacking whiteness through a radical and hyperbolic racial polarization of politics, which he makes explicit in the opening paragraph of the article: IT IS INSUFFICIENT TO STATE the obvious of Donald Trump: that he is a white man who would not be president were it not for this fact. With one immediate exception, Trump’s predecessors made their way to high office through the passive power of whiteness—that bloody heirloom which cannot ensure mastery of all events but can conjure a tailwind for most of them. Land theft and human plunder cleared the grounds for Trump’s forefathers and barred others from it. Once upon the field, these men became soldiers, statesmen, and scholars; held court in Paris; presided at Princeton; advanced into the Wilderness and then into the White House. Their individual triumphs made this exclusive party seem above America’s founding sins, and it was forgotten that the former was in fact bound to the latter, that all their victories had transpired on cleared grounds. No such elegant detachment can be attributed to Donald Trump—a president who, more than any other, has made the awful inheritance explicit. And in case there's any doubt as to his intentions in the article, Coates makes it explicitly clear later on in the article when he discusses the arguments of liberals such as Mark Lilla and Bernie Sanders as to why Hillary lost to Trump: The focus on one subsector of Trump voters—the white working class—is puzzling, given the breadth of his white coalition. Indeed, there is a kind of theater at work in which Trump’s presidency is pawned off as a product of the white working class as opposed to a product of an entire whiteness that includes the very authors doing the pawning. The motive is clear: escapism. To accept that the bloody heirloom remains potent even now, some five decades after Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down on a Memphis balcony—even after a black president; indeed, strengthened by the fact of that black president—is to accept that racism remains, as it has since 1776, at the heart of this country’s political life. The idea of acceptance frustrates the left. The left would much rather have a discussion about class struggles, which might entice the white working masses, instead of about the racist struggles that those same masses have historically been the agents and beneficiaries of. Moreover, to accept that whiteness brought us Donald Trump is to accept whiteness as an existential danger to the country and the world. But if the broad and remarkable white support for Donald Trump can be reduced to the righteous anger of a noble class of smallville firefighters and evangelicals, mocked by Brooklyn hipsters and womanist professors into voting against their interests, then the threat of racism and whiteness, the threat of the heirloom, can be dismissed. Consciences can be eased; no deeper existential reckoning is required. To put it bluntly, Coates' article is an exercise in identity politics at its worst. When it comes to his deconstructing any political or societal issue, all roads lead to racism. I've already talked at length about why I have a problem with using "institutional racism" as a term to apply to incidents of disparate impact, so I'm not going to repeat myself here. But what Coates does in this article is far worse. He essentially is arguing that race is the primary driver of conflict as opposed to economics, class, or other potential dividers. In this way, his arguments are indistinguishable from the Alt Right. That alone should give pause to everyone on the Left who purports to like his racial arguments. And if you think Coates' motives are more benign than those on the Alt Right, take another look at the quote above where Coates posits that "whiteness is an existential danger to the country and the world." Coates is a racist piece of shit. End of story. maybe you are misreading "whiteness." it doesn't seem like coates is advocating for "blackness" so much as "black people" What do you think the response would be if someone wrote an article in National Review in 2009 that contained the statement that "Barack Obama's blackness poses an existential threat to the country and to the world."? How do you think that statement would be construed?
ill answer that question if you read this article and tell me you agree that there were significant, qualitative differences between obama's campaign and trump's campaign
mobile.nytimes.com
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On September 12 2017 07:09 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2017 07:02 xDaunt wrote:On September 12 2017 06:53 GreenHorizons wrote:
EDIT: rofl, didn't see the conclusion that Coats is a "racist piece of shit" that's especially hilarious coming from xDaunt. I know my audience. EDIT2: Also, I know people will hate me for this, but I need to understand under what definition of "racism" is this claim founded? I like the good, old-fashioned definition of racism: intentional discrimination based upon race with discriminatory animus. Is that the old fashion definition? I thought that was Show nested quote +The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
So you're saying your idea of racism doesn't need any superiority, and requires active and intentional discrimination. So something like thinking black people are sub-human but not discriminating against them wouldn't be racism to you? What are you imagining as the discriminatory actions Coats is taking and against who?
I think that racism and racial supremacism are distinct concepts, but correct , I do not believe that racism requires racial supremacism as an element. However, racial supremacism is a subset of racism under my definition.
As for Coates, I don't really know what action he recommends (aside from what he has previously written on reparations). However, once he frames the problems as racial problems, he inevitably is going to be looking to racial solutions. And given his vitriolic framing of the issue, I would expect the solutions to be very bad.
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On September 12 2017 07:13 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2017 06:56 xDaunt wrote:On September 12 2017 06:51 IgnE wrote:On September 12 2017 05:52 xDaunt wrote:On September 11 2017 15:13 IgnE wrote:On September 10 2017 21:09 farvacola wrote:
Haha, GH the incrementalist Coates fan, that's a nice title. I don't see a problem with symbolic reparations and think that his article on reparations is mostly unobjectionable. What is your problem with it? @ xDaunt and LL I don't really see very much that's objectionable in his essay on Trump as first White President. These seem to be his main actionable items, and might form a "platform" for his "black identity politics" but I just don't see anything positively articulated here that is objectionable: Few national liberal politicians have shown any recognition that there is something systemic and particular in the relationship between black people and their country that might require specific policy solutions.
[...]
Resistance to the monstrous incarceration of legions of black men, resistance to the destruction of health providers for poor women, resistance to the effort to deport parents, resistance to a policing whose sole legitimacy is rooted in brute force, resistance to a theory of education that preaches “no excuses” to black and brown children, even as excuses are proffered for mendacious corporate executives “too big to jail.” Coates goes in on everyone, Hillary included. I don't think it's necessarily any more Anti-Bernie than it is Anti-Clinton(s). He even criticizes Bill for playing at "white identity" politics in Arkansas. The main objections I have are negative ones. He is of course right that blacks have been excluded by a racist regime from what Jameson would call "guaranteed life" provided by the Welfare State. But there is perhaps an overall failure to see that white supremacy as code (in the Deleuzian sense, as the unconscious investment of a social field) serves the purposes of capital by dissecting and resecting a laboring class, ensuring a reserve army of laborers, and a permanent underclass. And simply resecting it is not enough. In other words, it seems that he doesn't seem to recognize that racial equality amongst inequality is simply not enough. That replacing some blacks in the ghetto with whites and some whites in the suburbs with blacks, to effect penguinized ghettos and gated communites, is not enough. But that is only a problem if you present the situation as either this or that, rather than this and this and … I think you have it backwards -- the real question is what is not objectionable about Coates' article. I think you are ill-advised to focus on the "action items." That's not the purpose of this article, which is why there really aren't any in the article. Instead, Coates is very clearly attacking whiteness through a radical and hyperbolic racial polarization of politics, which he makes explicit in the opening paragraph of the article: IT IS INSUFFICIENT TO STATE the obvious of Donald Trump: that he is a white man who would not be president were it not for this fact. With one immediate exception, Trump’s predecessors made their way to high office through the passive power of whiteness—that bloody heirloom which cannot ensure mastery of all events but can conjure a tailwind for most of them. Land theft and human plunder cleared the grounds for Trump’s forefathers and barred others from it. Once upon the field, these men became soldiers, statesmen, and scholars; held court in Paris; presided at Princeton; advanced into the Wilderness and then into the White House. Their individual triumphs made this exclusive party seem above America’s founding sins, and it was forgotten that the former was in fact bound to the latter, that all their victories had transpired on cleared grounds. No such elegant detachment can be attributed to Donald Trump—a president who, more than any other, has made the awful inheritance explicit. And in case there's any doubt as to his intentions in the article, Coates makes it explicitly clear later on in the article when he discusses the arguments of liberals such as Mark Lilla and Bernie Sanders as to why Hillary lost to Trump: The focus on one subsector of Trump voters—the white working class—is puzzling, given the breadth of his white coalition. Indeed, there is a kind of theater at work in which Trump’s presidency is pawned off as a product of the white working class as opposed to a product of an entire whiteness that includes the very authors doing the pawning. The motive is clear: escapism. To accept that the bloody heirloom remains potent even now, some five decades after Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down on a Memphis balcony—even after a black president; indeed, strengthened by the fact of that black president—is to accept that racism remains, as it has since 1776, at the heart of this country’s political life. The idea of acceptance frustrates the left. The left would much rather have a discussion about class struggles, which might entice the white working masses, instead of about the racist struggles that those same masses have historically been the agents and beneficiaries of. Moreover, to accept that whiteness brought us Donald Trump is to accept whiteness as an existential danger to the country and the world. But if the broad and remarkable white support for Donald Trump can be reduced to the righteous anger of a noble class of smallville firefighters and evangelicals, mocked by Brooklyn hipsters and womanist professors into voting against their interests, then the threat of racism and whiteness, the threat of the heirloom, can be dismissed. Consciences can be eased; no deeper existential reckoning is required. To put it bluntly, Coates' article is an exercise in identity politics at its worst. When it comes to his deconstructing any political or societal issue, all roads lead to racism. I've already talked at length about why I have a problem with using "institutional racism" as a term to apply to incidents of disparate impact, so I'm not going to repeat myself here. But what Coates does in this article is far worse. He essentially is arguing that race is the primary driver of conflict as opposed to economics, class, or other potential dividers. In this way, his arguments are indistinguishable from the Alt Right. That alone should give pause to everyone on the Left who purports to like his racial arguments. And if you think Coates' motives are more benign than those on the Alt Right, take another look at the quote above where Coates posits that "whiteness is an existential danger to the country and the world." Coates is a racist piece of shit. End of story. maybe you are misreading "whiteness." it doesn't seem like coates is advocating for "blackness" so much as "black people" What do you think the response would be if someone wrote an article in National Review in 2009 that contained the statement that "Barack Obama's blackness poses an existential threat to the country and to the world."? How do you think that statement would be construed? ill answer that question if you read this article and tell me you agree that there were significant, qualitative differences between obama's campaign and trump's campaign mobile.nytimes.com
Yes, there were significant, qualitative differences between Obama's campaign and Trump's campaign.
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On September 12 2017 07:18 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2017 07:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On September 12 2017 07:02 xDaunt wrote:On September 12 2017 06:53 GreenHorizons wrote:
EDIT: rofl, didn't see the conclusion that Coats is a "racist piece of shit" that's especially hilarious coming from xDaunt. I know my audience. EDIT2: Also, I know people will hate me for this, but I need to understand under what definition of "racism" is this claim founded? I like the good, old-fashioned definition of racism: intentional discrimination based upon race with discriminatory animus. Is that the old fashion definition? I thought that was The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
So you're saying your idea of racism doesn't need any superiority, and requires active and intentional discrimination. So something like thinking black people are sub-human but not discriminating against them wouldn't be racism to you? What are you imagining as the discriminatory actions Coats is taking and against who? I think that racism and racial supremacism are distinct concepts, but correct , I do not believe that racism requires racial supremacism as an element. However, racial supremacism is a subset of racism under my definition. As for Coates, I don't really know what action he recommends (aside from what he has previously written on reparations). However, once he frames the problems as racial problems, he inevitably is going to be looking to racial solutions. And given his vitriolic framing of the issue, I would expect the solutions to be very bad.
So are you charging him as a "racist piece of shit" without him meeting your definition of racism on purpose?
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so... these solutions which he hasn't proposed but you make the assumption must be very bad are why he's racist? your argument that coates is racist/bad is predicated on you putting words in his mouth essentially.
and what you call vitriol (i call it uncomfortable truth with a dramatic/ literary flair) unfounded with the way that african americans have been treated historically and continued to be treated today?
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On September 12 2017 07:23 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2017 07:18 xDaunt wrote:On September 12 2017 07:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On September 12 2017 07:02 xDaunt wrote:On September 12 2017 06:53 GreenHorizons wrote:
EDIT: rofl, didn't see the conclusion that Coats is a "racist piece of shit" that's especially hilarious coming from xDaunt. I know my audience. EDIT2: Also, I know people will hate me for this, but I need to understand under what definition of "racism" is this claim founded? I like the good, old-fashioned definition of racism: intentional discrimination based upon race with discriminatory animus. Is that the old fashion definition? I thought that was The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
So you're saying your idea of racism doesn't need any superiority, and requires active and intentional discrimination. So something like thinking black people are sub-human but not discriminating against them wouldn't be racism to you? What are you imagining as the discriminatory actions Coats is taking and against who? I think that racism and racial supremacism are distinct concepts, but correct , I do not believe that racism requires racial supremacism as an element. However, racial supremacism is a subset of racism under my definition. As for Coates, I don't really know what action he recommends (aside from what he has previously written on reparations). However, once he frames the problems as racial problems, he inevitably is going to be looking to racial solutions. And given his vitriolic framing of the issue, I would expect the solutions to be very bad. So are you charging him as a "racist piece of shit" without him meeting your definition of racism on purpose?
How does he not fit within my definition? In his article, he is clearly discriminating against white people on the basis of their being white.
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On September 12 2017 07:29 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2017 07:23 GreenHorizons wrote:On September 12 2017 07:18 xDaunt wrote:On September 12 2017 07:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On September 12 2017 07:02 xDaunt wrote:On September 12 2017 06:53 GreenHorizons wrote:
EDIT: rofl, didn't see the conclusion that Coats is a "racist piece of shit" that's especially hilarious coming from xDaunt. I know my audience. EDIT2: Also, I know people will hate me for this, but I need to understand under what definition of "racism" is this claim founded? I like the good, old-fashioned definition of racism: intentional discrimination based upon race with discriminatory animus. Is that the old fashion definition? I thought that was The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
So you're saying your idea of racism doesn't need any superiority, and requires active and intentional discrimination. So something like thinking black people are sub-human but not discriminating against them wouldn't be racism to you? What are you imagining as the discriminatory actions Coats is taking and against who? I think that racism and racial supremacism are distinct concepts, but correct , I do not believe that racism requires racial supremacism as an element. However, racial supremacism is a subset of racism under my definition. As for Coates, I don't really know what action he recommends (aside from what he has previously written on reparations). However, once he frames the problems as racial problems, he inevitably is going to be looking to racial solutions. And given his vitriolic framing of the issue, I would expect the solutions to be very bad. So are you charging him as a "racist piece of shit" without him meeting your definition of racism on purpose? How does he not fit within my definition? In his article, he is clearly discriminating against white people on the basis of their being white.
I feel like we're using different meanings for words so I just want to be clear. Can you give me an example of his discriminating against white people for their being white?
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On September 12 2017 07:32 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2017 07:29 xDaunt wrote:On September 12 2017 07:23 GreenHorizons wrote:On September 12 2017 07:18 xDaunt wrote:On September 12 2017 07:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On September 12 2017 07:02 xDaunt wrote:On September 12 2017 06:53 GreenHorizons wrote:
EDIT: rofl, didn't see the conclusion that Coats is a "racist piece of shit" that's especially hilarious coming from xDaunt. I know my audience. EDIT2: Also, I know people will hate me for this, but I need to understand under what definition of "racism" is this claim founded? I like the good, old-fashioned definition of racism: intentional discrimination based upon race with discriminatory animus. Is that the old fashion definition? I thought that was The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
So you're saying your idea of racism doesn't need any superiority, and requires active and intentional discrimination. So something like thinking black people are sub-human but not discriminating against them wouldn't be racism to you? What are you imagining as the discriminatory actions Coats is taking and against who? I think that racism and racial supremacism are distinct concepts, but correct , I do not believe that racism requires racial supremacism as an element. However, racial supremacism is a subset of racism under my definition. As for Coates, I don't really know what action he recommends (aside from what he has previously written on reparations). However, once he frames the problems as racial problems, he inevitably is going to be looking to racial solutions. And given his vitriolic framing of the issue, I would expect the solutions to be very bad. So are you charging him as a "racist piece of shit" without him meeting your definition of racism on purpose? How does he not fit within my definition? In his article, he is clearly discriminating against white people on the basis of their being white. I feel like we're using different meanings for words so I just want to be clear. Can you give me an example of his discriminating against white people for their being white?
I'm a little bit confused by this question, because the entire premise of the Coates article is that Trump was elected by a bunch of racist white people and that their politics are indistinguishable from their race, which he then takes a step father by declaring that this whiteness is a threat to the world. That looks pretty racist to me.
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On September 12 2017 07:22 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2017 07:13 IgnE wrote:On September 12 2017 06:56 xDaunt wrote:On September 12 2017 06:51 IgnE wrote:On September 12 2017 05:52 xDaunt wrote:On September 11 2017 15:13 IgnE wrote:On September 10 2017 21:09 farvacola wrote:
Haha, GH the incrementalist Coates fan, that's a nice title. I don't see a problem with symbolic reparations and think that his article on reparations is mostly unobjectionable. What is your problem with it? @ xDaunt and LL I don't really see very much that's objectionable in his essay on Trump as first White President. These seem to be his main actionable items, and might form a "platform" for his "black identity politics" but I just don't see anything positively articulated here that is objectionable: Few national liberal politicians have shown any recognition that there is something systemic and particular in the relationship between black people and their country that might require specific policy solutions.
[...]
Resistance to the monstrous incarceration of legions of black men, resistance to the destruction of health providers for poor women, resistance to the effort to deport parents, resistance to a policing whose sole legitimacy is rooted in brute force, resistance to a theory of education that preaches “no excuses” to black and brown children, even as excuses are proffered for mendacious corporate executives “too big to jail.” Coates goes in on everyone, Hillary included. I don't think it's necessarily any more Anti-Bernie than it is Anti-Clinton(s). He even criticizes Bill for playing at "white identity" politics in Arkansas. The main objections I have are negative ones. He is of course right that blacks have been excluded by a racist regime from what Jameson would call "guaranteed life" provided by the Welfare State. But there is perhaps an overall failure to see that white supremacy as code (in the Deleuzian sense, as the unconscious investment of a social field) serves the purposes of capital by dissecting and resecting a laboring class, ensuring a reserve army of laborers, and a permanent underclass. And simply resecting it is not enough. In other words, it seems that he doesn't seem to recognize that racial equality amongst inequality is simply not enough. That replacing some blacks in the ghetto with whites and some whites in the suburbs with blacks, to effect penguinized ghettos and gated communites, is not enough. But that is only a problem if you present the situation as either this or that, rather than this and this and … I think you have it backwards -- the real question is what is not objectionable about Coates' article. I think you are ill-advised to focus on the "action items." That's not the purpose of this article, which is why there really aren't any in the article. Instead, Coates is very clearly attacking whiteness through a radical and hyperbolic racial polarization of politics, which he makes explicit in the opening paragraph of the article: IT IS INSUFFICIENT TO STATE the obvious of Donald Trump: that he is a white man who would not be president were it not for this fact. With one immediate exception, Trump’s predecessors made their way to high office through the passive power of whiteness—that bloody heirloom which cannot ensure mastery of all events but can conjure a tailwind for most of them. Land theft and human plunder cleared the grounds for Trump’s forefathers and barred others from it. Once upon the field, these men became soldiers, statesmen, and scholars; held court in Paris; presided at Princeton; advanced into the Wilderness and then into the White House. Their individual triumphs made this exclusive party seem above America’s founding sins, and it was forgotten that the former was in fact bound to the latter, that all their victories had transpired on cleared grounds. No such elegant detachment can be attributed to Donald Trump—a president who, more than any other, has made the awful inheritance explicit. And in case there's any doubt as to his intentions in the article, Coates makes it explicitly clear later on in the article when he discusses the arguments of liberals such as Mark Lilla and Bernie Sanders as to why Hillary lost to Trump: The focus on one subsector of Trump voters—the white working class—is puzzling, given the breadth of his white coalition. Indeed, there is a kind of theater at work in which Trump’s presidency is pawned off as a product of the white working class as opposed to a product of an entire whiteness that includes the very authors doing the pawning. The motive is clear: escapism. To accept that the bloody heirloom remains potent even now, some five decades after Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down on a Memphis balcony—even after a black president; indeed, strengthened by the fact of that black president—is to accept that racism remains, as it has since 1776, at the heart of this country’s political life. The idea of acceptance frustrates the left. The left would much rather have a discussion about class struggles, which might entice the white working masses, instead of about the racist struggles that those same masses have historically been the agents and beneficiaries of. Moreover, to accept that whiteness brought us Donald Trump is to accept whiteness as an existential danger to the country and the world. But if the broad and remarkable white support for Donald Trump can be reduced to the righteous anger of a noble class of smallville firefighters and evangelicals, mocked by Brooklyn hipsters and womanist professors into voting against their interests, then the threat of racism and whiteness, the threat of the heirloom, can be dismissed. Consciences can be eased; no deeper existential reckoning is required. To put it bluntly, Coates' article is an exercise in identity politics at its worst. When it comes to his deconstructing any political or societal issue, all roads lead to racism. I've already talked at length about why I have a problem with using "institutional racism" as a term to apply to incidents of disparate impact, so I'm not going to repeat myself here. But what Coates does in this article is far worse. He essentially is arguing that race is the primary driver of conflict as opposed to economics, class, or other potential dividers. In this way, his arguments are indistinguishable from the Alt Right. That alone should give pause to everyone on the Left who purports to like his racial arguments. And if you think Coates' motives are more benign than those on the Alt Right, take another look at the quote above where Coates posits that "whiteness is an existential danger to the country and the world." Coates is a racist piece of shit. End of story. maybe you are misreading "whiteness." it doesn't seem like coates is advocating for "blackness" so much as "black people" What do you think the response would be if someone wrote an article in National Review in 2009 that contained the statement that "Barack Obama's blackness poses an existential threat to the country and to the world."? How do you think that statement would be construed? ill answer that question if you read this article and tell me you agree that there were significant, qualitative differences between obama's campaign and trump's campaign mobile.nytimes.com Yes, there were significant, qualitative differences between Obama's campaign and Trump's campaign.
well lets parse what "whiteness is an existential threat" means. i think it has a twofold meaning: one is that trump as a singularly incompetent and stupid individual won because of the coincidence of a number of factors, perhaps foremost among them was his appeal to male chauvinism and a peculiarly white protestant americanism set apart from the secular, coloured world. an american isolationism defined not exclusively, but primarily in terms of god and skin color. the second threat is the threat of civil war precipitated by ignoring the plight of black people in this country and cursorily summarized in his "programme" or "plan of action points"
it is of course true that obama got almost every black voter and for the simple reason he was black. but in comparing obama to trump, and on the reaction a "obama's blackness presents an existential threat" article would receive i have a couple points
1. obama didnt run on blackness. he was a half black ivy leaguge graduate who deliberately shied away from racial politics and tried to court white votes. he distances himself from reverend wright and if anything was a raceless picture of constitutional order and respect for american pageantry (except of course to racists who couldnt get past his skin color)
2. existential threat is an indictment of trump specifically and the two parties generally because there are significant black-specific issues undermining faith in the republic amongst that population: see his action list i cited. i cannot think of any specifically "white issues" that obama opposed or ignored
3. if obama had run on a marcus garvey platform of "blackness" such an article may well have had a good point.
4. i dont think you would argue in good faith that trump has made repeated, serious efforts to listen to the black community and to serve their needs. identitarian politics is not the same as community representation. he on the contrary won on a campaign that alternately ignored and shamed everyone who claimed to speak about discrimination, and which turned "black lives matter" into some bogeyman
i would define "whiteness" in part as a conscious or unconscious investment in the social belief that you, personally, are under attack when a minority group speaks up and says "hey we are being treated unfairly. here's what its like to be defined as non-white, abnormal, in this society."
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On September 12 2017 07:49 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2017 07:32 GreenHorizons wrote:On September 12 2017 07:29 xDaunt wrote:On September 12 2017 07:23 GreenHorizons wrote:On September 12 2017 07:18 xDaunt wrote:On September 12 2017 07:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On September 12 2017 07:02 xDaunt wrote:On September 12 2017 06:53 GreenHorizons wrote:
EDIT: rofl, didn't see the conclusion that Coats is a "racist piece of shit" that's especially hilarious coming from xDaunt. I know my audience. EDIT2: Also, I know people will hate me for this, but I need to understand under what definition of "racism" is this claim founded? I like the good, old-fashioned definition of racism: intentional discrimination based upon race with discriminatory animus. Is that the old fashion definition? I thought that was The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
So you're saying your idea of racism doesn't need any superiority, and requires active and intentional discrimination. So something like thinking black people are sub-human but not discriminating against them wouldn't be racism to you? What are you imagining as the discriminatory actions Coats is taking and against who? I think that racism and racial supremacism are distinct concepts, but correct , I do not believe that racism requires racial supremacism as an element. However, racial supremacism is a subset of racism under my definition. As for Coates, I don't really know what action he recommends (aside from what he has previously written on reparations). However, once he frames the problems as racial problems, he inevitably is going to be looking to racial solutions. And given his vitriolic framing of the issue, I would expect the solutions to be very bad. So are you charging him as a "racist piece of shit" without him meeting your definition of racism on purpose? How does he not fit within my definition? In his article, he is clearly discriminating against white people on the basis of their being white. I feel like we're using different meanings for words so I just want to be clear. Can you give me an example of his discriminating against white people for their being white? I'm a little bit confused by this question, because the entire premise of the Coates article is that Trump was elected by a bunch of racist white people and that their politics are indistinguishable from their race, which he then takes a step father by declaring that this whiteness is a threat to the world. That looks pretty racist to me.
So you're saying you personally feel discriminated against because of the article? In you're eyes Coats has discriminated against you and all (most?) white people with the content of his article?
EDIT: Based on this article and I presume other writings, you feel confident in you're assessment that he's a "racist piece of shit"?
With consideration for your advocacy for the limited usage of the term "racist", I'm curious as to who you would compare Coats to in regards to both his racism and his generally "piece of shit" nature (from the other side of the political/social coin of course)?
Like more or less racist than say a David Duke, or maybe a Jeff Sessions, or Trump and POS like Bill Kristol or Trump?
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"whiteness" is a racialized ressentiment
in all seriousness the alt right seems to fancy itself a pack of blonde beasts but better resembles a den of mewling mole rats
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Late on Sunday, immediately after an “alt-right” Patriot Prayer rally in Vancouver, Washington, a man aggressively reversed a truck towards a crowd of people who had been counter-protesting. Later, the same driver was apprehended by police.
The incident came less than a month after the car attack that killed Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Virginia, after an alt-right rally which she had protested against.
Video from local journalists showed the truck reversing down the street towards counter-protesters, blaring the Confederate battle song Dixie on a novelty airhorn. The truck, which had been circling the town, was reportedly pelted with water bottles and other missiles.
When the truck, which sported a Confederate battle flag decal as well as American flags, sped through the intersection of West 6th and Washington Streets, it was followed by a motorcyclist who had been seen leaving the Patriot Prayer rally. Both were stopped by police.
The motorcyclist tore off his protective gear and made for counter-protesters before he was stopped. The driver of the truck was apprehended and cuffed. Vancouver police reported two arrests.
Protesters claimed that a second truck, white and carrying four passengers – one wearing the black polo-shirt uniform of the “Proud Boys” group, another wearing a Donald Trump cap – was also driving at high speed through the streets, reversing and veering dangerously close to protesters.
Greg Liascos, who attended the event, said he saw occupants of the second vehicle “throwing things from the truck” at counter-protesters. Occupants reportedly also used pepper spray. When a plastic bottle and a tennis ball were thrown back, the driver reportedly commenced revving the vehicle and “driving up and reversing down streets” at up to 40mph.
Later, a white truck with four occupants matching the eyewitness description was seen being protected by police until it was able to attempt a safe exit. It struck a police vehicle as it pulled away. That truck also carried a Confederate flag decal.
Those incidents were the culmination of protests in Vancouver and just across the Columbia river in Portland, Oregon, which Patriot Prayer organizer Joey Gibson had billed as “peaceful”.
In Portland, from about 1pm, a token contingent of 10 Patriot Prayer supporters, minus Gibson, paraded inside a barricaded area protected by dozens of riot police. They were outnumbered about 40 to one by antifascist counter-protesters, some wearing masks and black clothing, who ringed the park on its north and west sides. A pushed-over barricade led to an arrest and a police deployment of gas weapons.
As a larger contingent of counter-protesters marched on the park from nearby Schrunk Plaza, under the banner of Portland Stands United Against Hate, the Patriot Prayer group left under police escort.
As counter-protesters converged on a park further into the downtown area, several were arrested and police deployed “flash bang” stun grenades and gas weapons.
In a statement, Portland police said they made seven arrests.
After advertising the Portland rally for months, Gibson announced late on Saturday that the main part of his event would move to his home city of Vancouver. He cited concern for the safety of his supporters.
The second rally went ahead at Vancouver Landing Ampitheater from 2pm, and a large contingent of police kept apart approximately 100 members of Gibson’s contingent and a group of counter-protesters whose numbers reached around 300.
Confrontations began as Gibson’s contingent left the venue around 4pm. They continued intermittently for the next hour as police officers from Vancouver and Portland struggled to contain them.
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It is stunning how terrible they are at everything.
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Start your clocks, when will Clinton attack this or simply try and take credit for this idea while on her book tour?
The Senate Democratic hell-no caucus is saying yes to single-payer health care.
Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) are planning to cosponsor Bernie Sanders' proposed "Medicare for All" bill when the Vermont Independent releases it on Wednesday. They join Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) as backers of Sanders' plan — making single-payer six for six among the party's most active opponents of Donald Trump's nominees.
Sanders and his five fellow frequent Trump antagonists are not the only supporters of a single-payer health insurance system. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who is working on his own legislation to allow individuals to buy into Medicaid, said last week that he and Sanders would be signing onto each other's proposals to advance the Democrats' health care debate.
But the Sanders and the other five Democratic senators who have cast the most votes against Trump's nominees are also at the top of the party's short list to challenge the president in 2020, making their official support for single-payer legislation a key turning point for an idea that's also believed to be politically impossible in the short term.
"This is something that’s got to happen," Booker told NJTV News in his home state as he announced he would cosponsor the Sanders bill. "Obamacare was a first step in advancing this country, but I won’t rest until every American has a basic security that comes with having access to affordable health care."
A spokeswoman for Gillibrand, whose forthcoming support for the Sanders bill was first reported by Mic, did not return a request for comment.
Both Booker and Gillibrand have previously spoken positively about single-payer health care, as has Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), another potential 2020 contender working on a separate plan to let the general public buy into Medicare. Murphy told POLITICO last week that he is looking at whether to cosponsor the Sanders bill, describing his proposal as a major step toward a single-payer system.
But Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who could vault higher in the party's 2020 sweepstakes if he wins a tough reelection battle next year, is not signing onto Sanders' bill. Instead, he is turning his attention to legislation that would let individuals 55 and older buy into Medicare.
“I have always been supportive of Medicare for all," Brown said in a Monday statement. "Right now, I’m focused on building bipartisan support for my bill to allow people to buy into the Medicare program at age 55, which will cut costs and expand choices for Ohioans.”
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EPT
