Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

After roe, women are no longer free.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

Let’s finish the job.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Bark louder, little dog.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

No one could have predicted…

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

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60Comments

  1. 1.

    MJ

    Anybody remember this:

    ‘Some Things You Never Forget’
    Thirty years ago, gunmen stormed three D.C. buildings, taking 150 hostages and one life. link

    I don’t but I was only 14 years old and I was more concerned about slot car racing then what was going on in the world.

  2. 2.

    ThymeZone

    Deep thought of the day: any honest discussion of race will inevitably reveal that some people are honestly racist morons. This is not a bad thing.

    Quite true, and this is why I think that the Obama-Wright “controversy” is good for our side in the long run. It draws out the morons and exposes them for what they really are. Obama takes the high ground, and basically leaves the morons to the swamp of stupidity. Fine with me.

  3. 3.

    ThymeZone

    America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

    Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

    Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.

    Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks — with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas — to advance black applicants over white applicants.

    Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.

    We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?

    Just in case anyone needed an example of what I meant by “drawing out the morons.”

    The quote above is Pat Buchanan from his recent blog.

    Bring it, morons. Really, just bring it.

  5. 5.

    Zifnab

    White Man’s Burden Lulz.

    “If we hadn’t dragged those damn ignorant savages out of Africa and made them pick cotton for 150 years, then given them hand-outs to supplement their poverty for another 100 after that, they’d still be back in Africa. I hate Africa. Ergo, we did them a favor.”

    The man is brilliant. Remind me again why he’s not our President?

  6. 6.

    Jake

    Yep. Lure them out in the open, tag ’em and release them back into the wild for observation.

    I don’t but I was only 14 years old and I was more concerned about slot car racing then what was going on in the world.

    I would have been 9 but I’m from DC so I remember it being on TV and radio 24/7 and being scared. The place where this happened:

    They wanted the government to hand over a group of men who had been convicted of killing seven relatives — mostly children — of takeover leader Hamaas Abdul Khaalis.

    was a couple of miles from where I lived. I also went to a school that some of these bat-shit converts regularly targeted for bomb threats. Good times.

    But for what it’s worth, the average African-American radical Muslim: Islam as Rev. Phred Phelch::Christianity.

  7. 7.

    louisms

    I just read an interview with DailyKos Exec Editor Susan Gardner in which she confesses a “blog crush” on BJ’s John Cole. John’s come a long way in the last couple of years, from right wing lemming to darling of the left. Congrats, John!

  8. 8.

    The Other Steve

    Just in case anyone needed an example of what I meant by “drawing out the morons.”

    The quote above is Pat Buchanan from his recent blog.

    Pat Buchanan is a bigot and a racist. We’ve all known that.

    What’s interesting is that I once got into a little debate at Althouse and what is moderate. The republicans there claimed the Republican party was the moderate bullwork, protecting us from the Liberals and Pat Buchanan.

  9. 9.

    mrmobi

    The man is brilliant.

    Actually, he’s one brown shirt short of being a full-blown Nazi.

    That said, I have a certain affection for the old xenophobe. I also have read articles of his at AntiWar.com which I pretty much completely agree with!

    I think TZ is spot-on about this being a good discussion for Democrats. We’ve got some crazy people in our party, but nothing like the insane, science-hating, misogynistic, racist crackpots of the religious right, at least not in numbers.

    In a truly amazing turn, after making the comment TZ excerpts here, Buchanan was asked to be co-host for the absent Joe Scarborough on “Morning Joe” today.

    So I guess we know where MSNBC is on the whole race thing, eh?

  10. 10.

    Jake

    It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation

    Because Christian salvation could not be administered to free brown people in the comfort of their own homes. They kept skipping off into the jungles to worship pagan idols and the well meaning Caucasians didn’t like being bitten by exotic bugs so they just had to drag them on to boats and after all that time and money spent it was only fair that they do a little work around the place.

    Jesus fucking Christ on a cracker. The man has taken a running jump over the edge, let’s hope he splatters all over the GOP. But I want to see people use “Desperately Seeking Salvation” as a quick route to US citizenship. “Yo, pagan over here. Pat Pukecannon said to let me in and teach me to love God.”

  11. 11.

    TheFountainHead

    Upon return from my business trip to Houston I read through 5 days of John Cole, 5 days of The Corner, 5 days of teh GoS, and 5 days of Sully (what can I say, I didn’t like all those unread messages sitting there on my RSS feed, and I felt guilty deleting them unread) and I have to say I’ve come to the following conclusion: Obama’s speech was great, but the only conversation it’s sparked is whether or not it’s okay for white people to use the N word now.

  14. 14.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    It’s important to remember there’s a continuum of racism, at least if my family was anything to go by. We had our hard-core racists, who referred to former NFL quarterback Warren Moon as “Coon Moon, the Bayou Bullet”; we had my paternal grandmother, who was all for affirmative action, but drew the line at interracial dating; we had my mother, who grew up playing with the black kids from the neighboring farm, and who could never understand why those kids couldn’t go all the same places she could.

    If I’ve learned anything over the last 43 years, it’s that all of us are prejudiced to some degree; it’s part of the human condition. The trick is not to eliminate prejudice; the trick is to recognize our prejudices, realize when they’re exerting undue influence on our decisions, then step back and reassess.

  15. 15.

    ThymeZone

    Untold trillions

    I really love that reference. Untold trillions.

    Well, if we took all the money spent on welfare and related costs since the Civil Rights act, what would we have?

    In 1965, the United States ranked twenty-first out of twenty-two Western nations in per capita welfare expenditures. Even in the 1970s, after the expansion of welfare via President Johnson’s War on Poverty, the United States still lagged far behind most of the West. In the late 1970s, the United States spent about 14 percent of the total federal budget on welfare, compared to 24 percent for comparable nations in the West. By 1995, U.S. public social expenditures represented about 17.1 percent of the gross national product, the lowest of ten comparable nations and a little more than half the other nations’ average level.6

    The google returns on such subjects are infuriating bowls of data spaghetti, but even at 14 percent of the budget for all those years, for about forty years’ time I get …

    A very very ballpark figure of $6 trillion. Six, as opposed to “untold.” But hey, what’s infinity, between friends?

    Meanwhile …

    According to the Children’s Defense Fund, the number of black American children who live in extreme poverty—defined as a family of three living on $7,060 or less annually—has increased to one million, the highest level since the government began collecting data in 1980. In California, one in five children in California is growing up poor, with the child poverty rate higher today than it was twenty years ago. The number of working poor families in California reached a new high of two million in 2001, with Latinos carrying the heaviest burden.29

    But not to worry, fat cats, because ….

    according to Princeton economist Paul Krugman, “We are now living in a new Gilded Age….Income inequality has now returned to the levels of the 1920s.” The United States has more poverty and economic inequality, and lower life expectancy than most developed capitalist nations (it rates just above Portugal in life expectancy). By 1998, the thirteen thousand richest families had almost as much income as earned by the twenty million poorest households. The number of Americans with million-dollar incomes doubled from 1995 to 1999, while the percentage of their income that went to federal taxes dropped by 11 percent. Cuts in capital gains, income, and estate taxes enabled the wealthiest Americans to increase their after-tax income. According to New York University economist Edward N. Wolff, wealth is more concentrated in fewer hands today than at any time since 1929.28

    These blurbs are from this webpage.

  16. 16.

    ThymeZone

    Pat Buchanan is a bigot and a racist. We’ve all known that.

    What’s interesting

    No, I disagree. My point was, and is, that the current dustup over Wright draws these people out and gives them what they think is license to expose their moronic views in full regalia.

    This is important, because it is probably the single major effect of the controversy. And the beauty part is, they brought this PR disaster upon themselves. Obama wins this contest of ideas, and the longer it goes on the more he wins it.

    To believe otherwise, you’d have to think that a huge voting bloc out there was thinking, yeah I could vote for that black buck … but wait, he’s really black? Oh, never mind.

    The idea that a voter shift of real relevance in November takes Obama down in the Nov vote count because people find out he is really black and not just well tanned is just bunk. I think what happens is that the morons come out to play, and the anti-morons come out in even greater numbers as time goes along. Obama was never getting the moron vote. Kiss it off, forget it.

    The question is, does the people who can be persuaded to vote moron outnumber the people who can be persuaded to GOTV among young and non-moron blocs in November? No, I think non-moron wins. I think the turnouts in the primaries show that there is a non-moron effect at work.

    I also do not buy the recent polls supposedly showing that Clintonites wont vote for Barack and vice versa. That’s horseshit peddled by the news media who have a vested interest in churn, turmoil, and confusion, the things that draw viewers to tv sets. In November, I think you are going to see Dems vote Dem, and win, no matter who the nominee is. I just happen to think that this effect is bigger for Obama than for Clinton, meaning that he draws out more new and heretofore reluctant voters than she does.

  18. 18.

    AkaDad

    I like how all three candidates for President make this an historical election.

    Obama will be the first African-American to be President. Hillary will be the first woman. John McCain will be the first to be inaugurated while wearing Depends undergarments.

  19. 19.

    joe

    Something I learned in college is that there is a class of conservatives – generally white men from the suburbs – who genuinely cannot tell the difference between a racist comment and a non-racist comment whose subject is race.

    They’re at a party, and in a group talking about something that touches on the issue of race. Everyone else has their say, and they they pipe in with something that, to their ears, sounds exactly like what everyone else is saying.

    And then the music stops, everyone stops talking at the same time, and Johnny just doesn’t understand why everyone is staring at him with their jaws on the floor.

    So he goes back to his all white, all male circle of friends and complains that everyone is being unfair to him because he’s a white guy. “And how come Chris Rock can say…” blah blah blah.

    We’re seein an awful lot of that, writ large.

  20. 20.

    Jake

    Since this is an OT: 50′ radioactive chickens coming home to roost in Pakistan.

    “Mr. Gilani is a man who suffered from Musharraf’s martial law,” said Ahsan Iqbal, a lawmaker for one of the four parties that agreed to form a new coalition government. “He understands well that getting rid of dictatorship is important.”

    No one let the Chimperor near the big red button.

  21. 21.

    Brachiator

    Dulcie Says:

    Shorter Pat Buchanan: Those ungrateful Negroes (coloreds).

    Even Shorter Pat Buchanan: Randy Newman’s “Sail Away”

    In America you’ll get food to eat
    Won’t have to run through the jungle
    And scuff up your feet
    You’ll just sing about Jesus and drink wine all day
    It’s great to be an American

    Ain’t no lions or tigers ain’t no mamba snake
    Just the sweet watermelon and the buckwheat cake
    Ev’rybody is as happy as a man can be
    Climb aboard little wog sail away with me

    CHORUS
    Sail away sail away
    We will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay
    Sail away-sail away
    We will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay

    On the other hand, I don’t agree with Grumpy Code Monkey that there is any kind of “continuum of racism.” Is this like Senator Clinton’s mystical commander-in-chief threshold?

    If I’ve learned anything over the last 43 years, it’s that all of us are prejudiced to some degree; it’s part of the human condition.

    I grew up in a household that was free from the need to belittle or disparage anyone because of race, gender or other meaningless attributes. And even though I don’t recall much discussion about gays when I was growing up, some years back, my Aged Ma was reading something in the paper about some proposed anti-gay regulations, and just said, “Why doesn’t the government just leave these people alone?”

    I was never so proud to be my mother’s son.

    Or to take a page from the Wisdom of Captain Kirk:

    “All right. [Racism is] instinctive. But the instinct can be fought. We’re human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands… But we can stop it! We can admit that we’re… racists. But we’re not going to be racist today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to be racist… today!

  23. 23.

    joe

    Brachiator,

    I grew up in such a household, too. Nonetheless, it didn’t me a whole lotta good when I went to college in a majority-black city, and found myself having an inexplicable sense of discomfort when I went to the bank or a local business.

    I remember the day I zoned out and missed 30 seconds of what Dr. William Horton, one of the most brilliant historians in America, had to say in AmHist lecture, because he dared to pronounce the word “provide” as “puh-vide.” What is this guy, an idiot? I thought. He doesn’t even know how to use the English language!

    Like my Pahk the Cah ass needs to be looking down on someone for having an accent. But it was unfamiliar to me, because I grew up in a lily-white suburb. After a moment, I caught myself, realized what I was doing, and had an insight. I count that as a very important day in my education.

    An ideology of equality and anti-racism is a very, very good thing – but it isn’t the same thing as the experience of living and working in an integrated society. I’m just glad I learned that at 19, and didn’t walk into a Harlem restaurant at age 60, only to be stunned by the fact that it’s just like any other restaurant.

  24. 24.

    The Other Steve

    Something I learned in college is that there is a class of conservatives – generally white men from the suburbs – who genuinely cannot tell the difference between a racist comment and a non-racist comment whose subject is race.

    Yeah, and the thing is. The guy isn’t purposefully racist. He just doesn’t know any better.

    But there’s a lot of them out there.

  25. 25.

    ThymeZone

    Something I learned in college is that there is a class of conservatives – generally white men from the suburbs – who genuinely cannot tell the difference between a racist comment and a non-racist comment whose subject is race.

    This is true of anyone who is afraid to talk frankly about his own racial views. Anything about race opens the door to their being exposed. Therefore, the drill is to preemptively call “racism” before the thing gets out of hand. That assertion typically shuts everyone up and puts the conversation back on the Why Aren’t The Darkies More Grateful track.

  26. 26.

    Dennis - SGMM

    Strange Bedfellows Department:

    On Easter Sunday morning, the Clinton campaign sent out a “must-read” email forwarding a blog posting, “In Bill’s Defense,” by NRO The Corner blogger Kathleen Parker.

    The thrust of the blog post was that Bill didn’t really disparage Obama’s patriotism at a recent campaign event in Charlotte.

    I have to hand it to the canny Clintons: if anyone knows about disparaging one’s patriotism it’s the bloggers of The Corner.

  27. 27.

    joe

    Yeah, and the thing is. The guy isn’t purposefully racist. He just doesn’t know any better.

    Right. We’re not talking about hateful people, or people with a white supremacist ideology here. Such people have the initial reaction of insisting on that point, and it’s best (and fair, and truthful) to grant them that.

  28. 28.

    joe

    Anything about race opens the door to their being exposed.

    If we can take one lesson from Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech, it should be that being “exposed” as having baggage from one’s upbringing shouldn’t render one a pariah.

    Such a stance doesn’t get us anywhere.

  29. 29.

    John S.

    I think Hills just jumped the shark:

    We need a president who is ready on day one to be Commander-in-Chief of our economy.

    Anyone else find this to be a mind-numbingly stupid remark?

  30. 30.

    Jake

    Anyone else find this to be a mind-numbingly stupid remark?

    Mind … numbed by … stupidity … can’t … respond … [drools]

  32. 32.

    Dennis - SGMM

    I think Hills just jumped the shark:

    Aw, you’re just angry because Clinton has now crossed two Ready to be Commander-in-Chief on Day One Thresholds before Obama has crossed any.

    Nothing can stand before this pants suited juggernaut of Commander-in-Chiefness.

    My only concern is that she may be inadvertently setting up a successful run for a Laura Bush/Barbara Bush ticket in 2012.
    Think of it:
    “Twelve years of White House experience,” or “Our place settings defeated Saddam twice!”

  33. 33.

    Zifnab

    We need a president who is ready on day one to be Commander-in-Chief of our economy.

    Good. She can run for “President of the United Economy of America” right after she’s done losing her Presidential bid. I’ll vote for that if it gets her to pack it up and go home already.

  34. 34.

    myiq2xu

    Aw, you’re just angry because Clinton has now crossed two Ready to be Commander-in-Chief on Day One Thresholds before Obama has crossed any.

    Apparently there is no sack to “up”

  35. 35.

    Brachiator

    John S. Says:

    I think Hills just jumped the shark:

    We need a president who is ready on day one to be Commander-in-Chief of our economy.

    Anyone else find this to be a mind-numbingly stupid remark?

    I liked the part where she talked about ducking sniper fire from insurgent mortgage bankers.

    Of course, her speech is also an exercise in political opportunism. Let’s see, what primary is coming up next? And so,

    The third part of my plan is a new housing stimulus package to provide $30 billion directly to states and localities, like Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, hard hit by this crisis.

    Other parts of her proposal, which shows signs of a late-night session with a bunch of different advisers, is just nonsense:

    This money [the $30 billion fund] could be used to purchase foreclosed or distressed properties, which cities and states could then resell to low-income families or convert into affordable rental housing.

    Shorter version: you lose your house anyway, but somebody else might get a nice apartment.

  36. 36.

    barkley

    I watched Lou Dobbs for 5 minutes this Sunday. My favorite(?) statement in that 5 minutes was when Lou said that he “doubts that 1% of whites in the whole country are racist against blacks. Had to immediately hit the toilet and puke, before I could get back the the t.v. and Change the channel!
    My snide question is what country was he talking about? I think the South itself has enough white racists to get to 5-10% of America’s total white population all on its own.

  37. 37.

    Jake

    Seriously, they should find the ignorant ape who thought it was a good idea to add Moar Woar Talk to HRC’s campaign and take away his bannanas. The only people who haven’t figured out that war isn’t a lot of fun are:

    1. Brown Squirts who are for it because they don’t have to fight in it.

    2. People making money from it.

    And that’s it and that’s not enough people to get you an election. She’s supposedly got a big plan to fix healthcare, she could have said she’ll heal the economy but instead … WTF?

    I don’t get it.

    And myiqplucku will explain with lots and lots of stats in 5 … 4 … 3 …

  38. 38.

    Dennis - SGMM

    In a speech today before the American Shrubbery Association, Bill Clinton declared that he is ready on day one to be Commander-in-Chief of the White House gardening staff.

    Now, Clinton haters, tell me that Michelle Obama can say as much.

  39. 39.

    PaulB

    Quite true, and this is why I think that the Obama-Wright “controversy” is good for our side in the long run. It draws out the morons and exposes them for what they really are.

    I’m not sure this is correct. In particular, what I’m seeing is that it’s assumed, a priori, that Wright is somehow “bad”, a “racist”, an “America-hater”, and that Obama’s connection to him is problematic. People aren’t being asked to defend, or even think about, those assertions, which means that the morons aren’t truly getting exposed.

  40. 40.

    joe

    Lou said that he “doubts that 1% of whites in the whole country are racist against blacks.

    That’s in Loud Dobbs numbers, like his estimate of leprosy cases.

  41. 41.

    ThymeZone

    the morons aren’t truly getting exposed.

    I think the last week pretty well proves my point.

    The morons leapt to the microphones to shriek about Wright.

    A week later, they look pretty much … moronic.

    QED.

  42. 42.

    Asti

    So I guess we know where MSNBC is on the whole race thing, eh?

    Not really. It means you know where Joe Scarborough stands. MSNBC also gives us Keith Olbermann who wouldn’t be caught dead near this type of thing. MSNBC is trying to be “fair and balanced”, while it sucks that they are pushing the race thing, they are at least not being “fair and balanced” the way Faux News is “fair and balanced”.

  43. 43.

    ThymeZone

    It means you know where Joe Scarborough stands.

    Speaking of Joe Scare-boro, he was on Bill Maher and said that the Dems are going to win the White Houses and major seat gains in both houses of Congress this year.

    Said this in a matter of fact way with a straight face.

  44. 44.

    Asti

    Speaking of Joe Scare-boro, he was on Bill Maher and said that the Dems are going to win the White Houses and major seat gains in both houses of Congress this year.

    Ummm, TZ? Are you wearing the wrong glasses? Last time I looked there was only one “Casa Blanca” ;)

    I am j/k ::547737::

  45. 45.

    ThymeZone

    Are you wearing the wrong glasses?

    Yes I am squinting through the bottom of a Snapple bottle.

    My thoughts were running to 426, actually.

  46. 46.

    Asti

    My thoughts were running to 426, actually.

    “I see” said the blind man with the deaf dog and the dumb kid! ;)

  47. 47.

    Soylent Green

    It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation

    If the Nazis hadn’t murdered most of my family members, I would never have been born in America.

    Thank you, Nazis.

  49. 49.

    barkleyg

    “f the Nazis hadn’t murdered most of my family members, I would never have been born in America.

    Thank you, Nazis”

    Someone should mention this analogy the next time Pat or his sister Bay bring up how many Afro-Americans just don’t appreciate us whities enough!
    This is the proper response when the Buchannons spew their racist shit. Just like: think Andrea Markus when Bill O’Shithead tries to get in your face with stupid questions, or more probably, stupid minions doing his dirty work, asking stupid questions.

  52. 52.

    Paul L.

    John C did comment – found this response:

    Yes, because Obama and I are still responsible for crafting and enforcing Ohio election laws. Paul L., still an idiot.

    Then why you did you call the Republicans NAZIs over the Loyalty oath in Virginia. But a Loyalty oath in Ohio for Democrats is not a cause for any outrage.

    Always the victim, aren’t we GOP? Since Obama is presumably the one who suffered and since Obama has taught voter-rights law, why don’t we just wait and see if he presses the matter. The only people that seem to be raising the specter of prosecution are Rush and Malkin and company.

    Does that include the progressive website Truthout.org?

  54. 54.

    joe

    Speaking of Joe Scare-boro, he was on Bill Maher and said that the Dems are going to win the White Houses and major seat gains in both houses of Congress this year.

    Said this in a matter of fact way with a straight face.

    Joe is a conservative – it’s what he believes – but he is also a top-notch political observer.

    I saw him recently, when he was one of four talking heads on Matthews’ show. The other Republican said something about Obama’s speech being a mistake, and Joe comes back with, “Well, if anyone wants to second-guess Barack Obama’s political instincts in this race, you’re a lot braver than I am.”

  55. 55.

    OriGuy

    If it hadn’t been for the potato famine, Buchanan would still be in Ireland, but I don’t see him asking God to bless Phytophthora infestans.

  56. 56.

    capelza

    Joe Scarborough is someone I will listen to..I may not agree with him all that often, but he seems like a straight shooter in the pundit world.

    I, too have had a blog crush on Cole for a long time.

    Thoiugh, I’ve not been reading as much, politics this year depress the livin’ bejeesus out of me.

    And because this is an open thread…

    “Vaiyo A-O.
    A Home Va Ya Ray.
    Vaiyo A-Rah.
    Jerhume Brunnen-G!”

  57. 57.

    mere mortal

    Deep thought of the day: any honest discussion of race will inevitably reveal that some people are honestly racist morons. This is not a bad thing.

    Deeper thought of the day:

    It is possible to honestly, but mistakenly, ascribe differences of opinion or policy position to racism instead of the actual reasons for those differences.

    This is more likely among partisans, who hold some opinions so stongly that they simply cannot believe a person could hold the opposite position in an honest, intelligent, and moral way.

    Yet deeper thought of the day:

    Having labeled an opponent a racist, any honest debate thereafter is not possible. Especially if that label was applied incorrectly.

  58. 58.

    Brachiator

    joe Says:

    Brachiator,

    I grew up in such a household, too. Nonetheless, it didn’t me a whole lotta good when I went to college in a majority-black city, and found myself having an inexplicable sense of discomfort when I went to the bank or a local business.

    The first principles talked about within my household made it possible for me to go out into the world without needing to work through any discomfort. Maybe it’s a matter of individual psyche. I did not know any openly gay people growing up, but when I worked in an office with gay folk, I did not suddenly develop any heebee jeebies.

    Oddly enough, a co-worker and friend grew up in a blatantly anti-semitic and casually racist environment in Pittsburgh. He slightly resisted some of this growing up, but it was only when he moved to California as an adult that the rejected all this aspect of his upbringing and never looked back.

    Some people are “different from me.” Whoop De Friggin’ Do.

    An ideology of equality and anti-racism is a very, very good thing – but it isn’t the same thing as the experience of living and working in an integrated society. I’m just glad I learned that at 19, and didn’t walk into a Harlem restaurant at age 60, only to be stunned by the fact that it’s just like any other restaurant.

    I know some people who live in an integrated society and yet still find a way to view people in terms of ignorant stereotypes, even while patting themselves on the back for their tolerance. Go figure.

  59. 59.

    joe

    I did not know any openly gay people growing up, but when I worked in an office with gay folk, I did not suddenly develop any heebee jeebies.

    Ditto. Race is different from sexual orientation. Gay people, regardless of one’s ideology, are not an outsider group, segregated from mainstream white society.

    but it was only when he moved to California as an adult that the rejected all this aspect of his upbringing and never looked back This is what I’m talking about – the actual, lived experience of multicultural, multi-racial society is what matters.

    I know some people who live in an integrated society and yet still find a way to view people in terms of ignorant stereotypes, even while patting themselves on the back for their tolerance. Sounds like people in transition between two ways of relating to a multi-racial society.

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