Cartoon for September 1
This was inspired by several NYT articles asking whether the Obama candidacy spells the end of the civil rights struggle...sounds like wishful thinking by The Man.
This was inspired by several NYT articles asking whether the Obama candidacy spells the end of the civil rights struggle...sounds like wishful thinking by The Man.
posted by Ted Rall at
12:01 AM
25 Comments:
Fat white guy? What about Taft?
My favorite type of cartoon is the kind where a lamo surface issue is devoured by a real issue.
Great clip, I was thinking the same thing when I saw those articles. It's a fairly racist notion that this will somehow sweep the slate clean, because it treats an entire group based on spokespeople for the group. So from Jesse Jackson to Barack Obama.
Two observations; Barack is only partially black, so his election only wipes clean the Dredd Scott issue. Second, in classic fashion, where are the native Americans? They've been forgotten again.
Genocide is an ugly business, it depends on even the best of the population disenfranchising the victims.
The civil rights movement will never be over. It's a profit center for race hustlers targeting guilt-ridden white liberals.
As long as groups of people are different, there will be different outcomes between them.
As long as there are different outcomes, there will be envy. Along with envy comes demands for preferential treatment, double-standards, set-asides, quotas, guilt for the "white oppressor", etc.
Obviously the "civil rights" redistribution program isn't going to end. Obviously, white people are going to have to pay for black people's shortcomings until the empire collapses.
Ted-
I am very impressed that you continually allow Edward to post his moronic drivel here! Seriously!
You certainly put your money where your mouth is in terms of censorship, but perhaps you should consider QUALITY of comments too, not just outrageousness- i.e. just because some uber-right wing retard wants to spew venom here, it doesn't mean (by default) that his comments are worth publishing
And if you can't make it, it's your own fault. Look at Obama and Michael Jordan. You can do anything in life if you work hard enough.
Edward, you are a hard person to like. Are you serious? Do you genuinely believe that no serious civil rights issues persist? For instance, the way that our broken funding model for public schools has made African American schools (and poor white schools) ridiculously bad? It's not a black/white thing as much as a rich/poor thing, but it's a serious problem. Or that 1 in 9 African American men are IN JAIL right now? It's so statistically aberrant that you have to either say they are different or that social factors are making them more likely to be incarcerated. That's just the opener.
I think the fat white guy angle has been covered a few times over.
Obama is Half Kenyan.
I think that in this country, the term "black" refers to decedents of people forced into American slavery.
Calling Obama black (even half black) insults Kenyans and American blacks by lumping them together because of their skin color.
Angelo: Excellent point on him being half Kenyan.
Edward: you're such a moron that I'm not going to dignify your pathetic race-baiting comment.
Anon 3:55 PM: "As long as groups of people are different, there will be different outcomes between them."
The key is to define "different" in this context, and examine what differences matter socio-economically and what differences don't. Country of origin? Hair color? Eye color? Facial bone structure? What is it about the physical characteristics of darker skin color that matter when other physical characteristics don't, to the point that you refer to a segment of the population as "different" from the rest, and attribute their social status in the country to that "difference"?
This is the difference between racism and bigotry. America is a racialized society, which means if you grew up here (Jesse Jackson has made this point very eloquently in the past), you can't help being scarred racially. It's THAT ingrained in American discourse.
Choosing to embrace those artificial claims of people, and then act on the assumptions that spew hence, is being a bigot.
Incitatus, are you reading this? Look at Edward's and Anon 3:55's comments and tell me honestly if you think my characterization of bigots in America is THAT far off?
I am very impressed that you continually allow Edward to post his moronic drivel here! Seriously!
One of the things I like most about you Marxists is you no longer give the false impression of being tolerant and open-minded to others with opinions different from you.
I'll leave you all to your bitterness and hatred of others not like you. Try to enjoy your lives!
This is a good idea. I look forward to one day seeing homelessness solved by the major-party nomination of our first homeless presidential candidate.
Edward,
May I introduce you to the kettle. You are a half-wit, but I think it may be intentional.
Kurt
Oh hold up, here, at my last Marxist-Leninist blog commenter orderer meeting we were ordered to continue to pretend we were tolerant and stuff.
Only after Comrade Obama dissolves Congress can we start putting those who express independent, patriotic opinions in gulags and parcel out their women.
Edward is totally jumping the gun!
Aggie,
I am curious (genuinely, I don't mean to pick up a fight) as to how a naive opinion or an inaccurate comment can be construed as fairly racist? Methinks this term is abused for political reasons, but this does not justify it.
Angelo has a fair point: Obama's ancestors were never chattel, at least not in the US. What makes him so qualified to represent people whose ancestors suffered enslavement, prejudice and repression?
Lastly SDS is dead on the money: one in nine male blacks in the US are touring the prison system, most for non-violent offenses, i.e., crimes with no victims. This is due to the heinous and dysfunctional war on drugs, but the Left, or rather the Democratic party, is not willing to touch that bugaboo with a ten-feet yardstick.
Quoth Aggie Dude:
Incitatus, are you reading this? Look at Edward's and Anon 3:55's comments and tell me honestly if you think my characterization of bigots in America is THAT far off?
Yeah, Dude, I think Edward's comments were unkind and don't do justice to people that gave up their lives for a noble cause. That said, I don't really think that Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton are of the same breed as Martin Luther King Jr, Medgar Evers or Andrew Goodman. And I don't think the fight for civil rights has to be intertwined with socialism. It's a fundamentally liberal (in the Classical sense) cause and it's basic human decency.
I have to observe too, apropos your comment:
"America is a racialized society, which means if you grew up here (Jesse Jackson has made this point very eloquently in the past), you can't help being scarred racially. It's THAT ingrained in American discourse."
The US is far from being the only, or even the most, racialized society in existence. Take a trip to India, and talk to earnest folks there. Go to Japan, which an Australian acquaintance described as the most racist society he knew (this was a well-travelled guy, and he elaborated on the scale by which the Japanese see themselves and the rest of us Earthlings). And look to Africa, where the horrible events in Rwanda and the less severe, but equally appaling incidents in South Africa remind us that bigotry is spread even across the globe.
You don't need to venture that far, though. If you look down South, you'll find lots of countries where many races (and every mixture thereof) coexist in a seemingly graceful manner, but where, in spite of the replacement of a colour line for a colour continuum, the racial divide is even steeper than in the US. Try this experiment on: walk into a fancy restaurant in Venezuela, Brazil or Peru.
Look at the people being served.
Look at the people doing the serving.
Look at the people working in a nice office.
Look at the people doing menial jobs.
You might conclude that the US still has a long ways to go in terms of race relations, but it sure is lightyears ahead of its Southern neighbours. Notice also that the racial thinking is as ingrained, if not more so than in the USA. There is no discourse, though: there's no need to spell out what "everybody knows".
Incitatus,
Not a problem. I'm trying (albeit may not be doing a good job) to distinguish between racism and bigotry. I agree wholeheartedly that 'racist' is a charge that is grossly misused and therefore overused, and it's because of that, that I try to explain the distinction.
Racism is a socialized process by which one is systematically conditioned to recognize a phenotyical characteristic about others that is deemed important (in the sense of conveyed meanings, generally negative). Using this definition, even African Americans have been demonstrated to favor Caucasians as more trust worthy and preferable. This has been demonstrated in numerous studies one can search for.
Bigotry, on the other hand, is acting on those preconceived notions negatively toward anyone of that group, and doing so deliberately.
We all react in some ways (some not noticeable) toward groups, often subconsciously. This makes us racist but not bigots. It's easy to modify bigoted behavior, it's probably impossible to decondition racialized attitudes.
That's the difference, I didn't take it out of a textbook (Edward!!) so it might not be that good. I think the words are sorely misused and on that you and I agree.
incitatus said
"The US is far from being the only, or even the most, racialized society in existence."
I think it is funny when people compare the US to third world countries. It is a tacit admission that we suck ass, and we know it.
Now, with Japan, I think you are onto something. If Japan is having trouble passing civil rights legislation, doesn't that just meant that there are conservatives blocking it. You are saying that these countries suffer from lack of progressiveness.
I think it is much more useful to look at countries that have a higher standard of living than the US, and simply copy them.
Angelo,
Wow, great point dude. The problem is that most countries are pluralist, in that there are a lot of interests at work. It's not that "Americans" are 'more racist,' it's that conservatives are better positioned politically to block progressiveness.
By the same token, the reason we don't have universal healthcare isn't because it's 'socialist' and that's bad. All those countries that do have universal healthcare systems have conservatives that fight against it saying the same things.
It's about political process and political environment. The American public won't call conservatives out for their silliness and laugh at them.
Sarah Palin as VP? That is LAUGHABLE.
Maybe one could say the same for Obama or McCain or Biden, but it's not AS laughable.
Let's just put soccer moms in charge of everything.
"All those countries that do have universal healthcare systems have conservatives that fight against it saying the same things."
thanks ag.
Sadly, to the extent that conservatism is anti-progress, we can probably also say the constitution must me a conservative document since it is all about preventing meaningful national legislation from happening.
Angelo,
Does Japan have a lower standard of living than the US?
Do you think there are no so-called conservatives in, say, Germany? Or do you think the political discourse in there is entirely monopolized by so-called progressives?
Sadly, to the extent that conservatism is anti-progress, we can probably also say the constitution must me a conservative document since it is all about preventing meaningful national legislation from happening.
Yes, the constitution is a conservative document. It was written at a time when most governments were monarchist and also a time when a substantial portion of the American population was fairly self sufficient.
It made sense at the time. The problem was that we refused to change it much with changing times. France has had 5 constitutions, which allows them to adapt in ways Americans have trouble with.
Incitatus: You've commented both that other countries are racialized, and that other countries have conservatives.
I agree to both points, but evaluating the racialization and the conservative political machine in the United States does not discount this in any way. I think what Angelo and I are trying to say is that it appears there is more pluralism in a parliamentary system. The structure of the election system in the US right now most closely reflects that of Germany in the late 19th Century, where an overwhelming bias toward rural influence leads to a perpetual lunging to the right.
We need the kind of reform in the United States that allows us to call ignorant and unsophisticated political arguments out in the open and ridicule them forcefully.
Incitatus & Aggie...
Interesting exchange...
Incitatus, a general problem in the US has to do with the vocabulary of political discourse. It seems very clear that you know the "classical" definitions of words like "liberal." That's not the case here. All these labels tend to be more like epithets or forms of self-identification.
My point is not to get picky about terminology but I know from conversations with friends in Europe that the general understanding of political life and the capacity to discuss politics is quite different. A friend in Germany once said that you could have a good conversation with "the last person in line," meaning that while there might be sharp disagreement, at least it was an actual discussion. Here political issues are not really discussed. You can see it in many blog comments. There is very little actual dialog... or what I would think of as dialog.
As far as comparing economic conditions in developed countries, I think that is not so easy to do and I'm not sure that turns out to be useful. What we do know here is that our health care system is screwed up, our pension system is screwed up and that we have a real problem with the size and political and economic influence of our military. I think the latter is something that you have expressed concern about.
There are real problems with our government here. Not that every country does not have problems with government but, as you seem to know, one of the side-effects are these "little" military adventures we keep having. As Aggie points out, we do not have a system that accommodates the pluralism that is rampant here. Very large groups cannot form a meaningful party and affect the legislative process. We have two parties and the parties are now really part of the government. Military spending gives the central government and legislature a huge pot of money which keeps things as they are. They need the wars to justify all this.
It's not a good situation. There is also a long history of obedience to the government and nationalism. We didn't have a revolution. We had a war of independence. The founding fathers were liberal in the sense that you use the word although there is a certain amount of civic republicanism reflected in the constitution. It is very difficult to change our constitution and we have a very large public (300,000,000) that really would not know how to go about it. Right now, folks seem to think politics is some kind of winner takes all game. It's unstable.
Other places certainly have problems with respect to class and race. However, I think the problem is different here. How different is certainly a good question but, when it comes to issues like this, I think local history and culture is what counts, i.e., those involved have to find a solution. Europe certainly has problems given all the recent immigration. We've been having massive immigrations for the last 150 years. Only 2/3 of the US is self-identified as "white" now. I think that scares a lot of people because they are afraid of losing privileges. I'm not sure that the issue really is about socialism as much as it is about social position. If "minorities" get power, won't they do exactly what the "majority" has been doing for the past few hundred years? I think it is this fear that has been manipulated by the Republican Party for the past four decades. That has allowed some very corrupt elites to take over the government. We have had something like revolution and the people of this country have lost quite a bit.
What I'd like to know is why folks in other countries just don't file war crime charges against various members of the current administration. We haven't signed the treaty that would force us to arrest them but it would be helpful if there were warrants out in the world so they they could not travel freely. I don't understand why the UK and Europe puts up with our foreign policy. All I mean by this is that I think this problem is bigger than the USA. It is unrealistic to think that we are going to clean up this mess by ourselves. Just look at what is going on in this election and you should be able understand how little you can expect things to change here, including our foreign policy.
It's not Slovenian it's Slovene, bub. Slovenian is the language, not individuals belonging to the group.
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