Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

The willow is too close to the house.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

You cannot shame the shameless.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

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

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / Post-racial America / So Cute and Special

So Cute and Special

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Some background:

Juneteenth, also known as Juneteenth Independence Day or Freedom Day, is a holiday that commemorates the announcement of the abolition of slavery in Texas in June 1865, and more generally the emancipation of African-American slaves throughout the Confederate South. Celebrated on June 19, the term is a portmanteau of June and nineteenthand is recognized as a state holiday or special day of observance in most states.

The holiday is observed primarily in local celebrations. Traditions include public readings of the Emancipation Proclamation, singing traditional songs such as “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, and readings by noted African-American writers such as Ralph Ellison and Maya Angelou. Celebrations may include parades, rodeos, street fairs, cookouts, family reunions, park parties, historical reenactments, or Miss Juneteenth contests.

Some fail:

This is why diversity in organizations and society matters- because when you have people of diverse backgrounds and diverse experiences in your campaign, your office, your faculty, one of them might come up to you and say “HEY YOU FUCKING MORON MAYBE NOT POST A GROUP OF LILY WHITE SUPPORTERS FOR YOUR FUCKING JUNETEENTH CELEBRATION.”

This is also why the Clinton campaign cleaned the Sanders campaigns clock.

Reader Interactions

85Comments

  3. 3.

    geg6

    I swear, the white far left are as delusional as any Teahadist. Makes me glad to be one of those establishment whores.

  4. 4.

    ? Martin

    And what exactly should they do differently? They aren’t going to get supporters until they get results, and 3rd parties are effectively shut out of US politics, preventing them from getting results. They could ignore the occasion, and then get slammed by someone else for ignoring it as the reason why they have no diversity. They pretty much can’t win here.

    Granted, I can’t tell much difference from Stein and Sanders out there, so I’m not exactly a fan, but I don’t really see what else they can do better other than not exist.

  6. 6.

    Shelley

    Her Twitter comments are mostly unimpressed. One:

    I have a higher number of teeth in my mouth than the number of people in that room.

  9. 9.

    gwangung

    @? Martin:

    And what exactly should they do differently? T

    You would think you’d get more than a few black folks for a Juneteenth celebration. Sorta like getting more than one Asian-type person for a Lunar New Year celebration.

    This is not hard.

  11. 11.

    Mnemosyne

    I’m assuming these are people who are supposed to be gathering signatures at tomorrow’s Juneteenth event and not an actual event.

    The guy with the still camera could not look more bored.

  12. 12.

    ? Martin

    @Baud: Well, I don’t see anything in the Green party that is even remotely hostile to minorities, so I think they are welcoming. I think the problem is why would you put your political capital on a party that can’t deliver, mainly because we have an electoral system designed to shut out 3rd parties? That’s hardly their fault as well.

    Sorry, but this just feels like punching down to me.

  15. 15.

    daves09

    One of the reasons I stopped doing local party offices-other than the agony of a lot of party activists-was meeting in places like that, it’s SSS-sordid, squalid, sad.

  17. 17.

    ? Martin

    @gwangung: Should they kidnap them? Maybe just hire some actors? Black people aren’t props that you just hire out for your event. We beat up on the GOP for their lack of diversity because they actively seek that. The Green party doesn’t. So why hassle them?

    The Vermont Democratic party won’t look any different from that photo. Hell, do even 30 black people live in Vermont? Should they import a few from NYC for their photos just to spice things up a bit?

    A better use of our time would be to ask why the GOP ignores Juneteenth entirely. Let’s punch up instead. This is not hard.

  18. 18.

    Phoenix Woman

    Wow. Just – wow.

    Tells you how non-diverse the BS campaign is and has always been.

  19. 19.

    Yutsano

    @? Martin:

    And what exactly should they do differently?

    Maybe, oh I dunno, put something in your platform about addressing systemic racism? Actually TRY starting with local and state races to build a platform of support? Every year the Greens try for one thing and one thing only: President. I’ve never seen a green try to go for anything lower than that ever. That’s not how you build a party. It takes work, getting to know your communities, getting down and dirty with people, learning about THEIR issues and not dictating from above. It’s what irritated me about Sanders and it’s what’s always turned me off from the Greens. If they could just focus on getting a race in ONE SEAT in ONE STATE that isn’t President, they might be worthy of a look. One thing we minorities know: how to smell someone who isn’t willing to work for us and with us.

  21. 21.

    hellslittlestangel

    Wasn’t able to attend. I had to go to the Juneteenth White Sale at BB&B. Savings! Savings! Savings!

  22. 22.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    Interesting that she was shut out of the People’s Summit, also too. Maybe it’s not just the Millionaires and Billionaires and the Corrupt System™ that is keeping her from getting a seat on the stage.

    I don’t understand why the GPUSA doesn’t seem to do what they seem to do in Europe – namely compete at the state and local level before aiming for the national seats. It’s hopeless to think that tens of millions of people are going to vote for them when they have no voting record and no history in elective office. It’s all vanity unless they build an actual organization that can win seats.

    Yes, the county is a two-party system in many ways. But the parties have changed and it’s not impossible for the Greens to chip away at existing support for the Ds and Rs, and there’s the ~ 50% of eligible voters who don’t bother to vote (for whatever reason). It’s not all the system’s fault that the Greens aren’t getting anywhere.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  24. 24.

    Donut

    @? Martin:

    Uh, yeah. This is, like, politics, so I don’t think there are rules about not punching down and stuff, and uh, like, I’m a Democrat, so, like, I don’t give two shits about the Greens and this asshole Stein whose Twitter feed is constantly full of bullshit about how Trump = Clinton and Republicans = Democrats. So, yeah, I’m okay in this case with the punch “down” because she pisses me off and she’s full of shit.

  26. 26.

    Joel

    @? Martin: maybe the Green Party should build from the ground up. Start with local elections. Cities like Flint, where their message means more.

  29. 29.

    Baud

    Aside from winner take all elections and the presidency, what unfair* structural barriers are there to a multi-party system?

    * The need to persuade people is not unfair.

  31. 31.

    Baud

    Some people were speculating about Stein and Sanders joining forces after Sanders lost the nomination. I never thought that was a realistic possibility, but I wonder who would have gotten top billing on the ticket.

  32. 32.

    trollhattan

    @Betty Cracker:
    Lots of folded arms, do we know it’s not a timeshare pitch?

    “You’ll get the Walkman at the end, sir, please stop asking.”

  33. 33.

    ? Martin

    @Yutsano: They do. The CA green party is reasonably active. In fact, they have almost as much political power in CA as the GOP does (it’s a very low bar). They have candidates for governor, senate, a number of house races, mayor, city councils, etc. They’ve won a number of mayoral elections out here. They’re trying. And they do have issues like systemic racism on their platform.

    I just don’t see how acting like an asshole is effective at getting liberals to vote for Democrats. You’re just driving votes away. Feel free to ignore them, but why attack them when you have the whole fucking GOP out there?

  36. 36.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @? Martin:

    They do. The CA green party is reasonably active. In fact, they have almost as much political power in CA as the GOP does (it’s a very low bar). They have candidates for governor, senate, a number of house races, mayor, city councils, etc. They’ve won a number of mayoral elections out here. They’re trying.

    In California. There are 49 other states.

  37. 37.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Posted this comment by mistake on another thread. I meant it for here.

    Part of my daily morning ritual (once I have checked to make sure that all my joints still bend properly) is to do a quick solving of about half a dozen fairly simple games on the iPad — two or three kinds of solitaire, a word game or two, maybe a logic puzzle and a round of sudoku. The specifics vary from one day to the next, but the principles are always the same. Gets my brain cranked up.

    Anyhow, one of the games that comes up in rotation pretty frequently is a fairly lame, very simple thing called 4 Pics 1 Word, and it is exactly what it sounds like — they show you an array of four different (stock) photos which all have something in common, and you have to figure out what that commonality is. But at some time in the recent past, I realised that of all the hundreds of photos on that site, Every. Single. One of them is of white people. There is not an African American to be found, literally. Maybe at a stretch one or two that might arguably be Hispanic. One photo with some Asian folks. Otherwise, every picture with people in it (including close-ups of hands or legs or ears or whatever) are ALL WHITE. It’s got to the point that it’s distracting for me, because instead of wanting to figure out the puzzle I am obsessed with trying to find some indication that there are actually people of color in this world. They keep asking me to rate the app with stars, and I am tempted to do so and give it a low rating because of the total absence of diversity and inclusion.

  38. 38.

    Betty Cracker

    @trollhattan: My mom and her boyfriend once jumped off a loading dock platform and squirmed through a hole in a fence to escape a timeshare pitch. They were in their late 50s at the time!

  41. 41.

    Germy

    @Betty Cracker:

    People aside, what a sad room.

    It looks depressingly institutional. The exposed pipe, the clock way up by the ceiling (so no one will try to claw it down?), the cheap ceiling. The half-hearted attempt to be cheery with the festive, small curtain. And what is that red thing on the wall? Did someone trip the fire alarm?

    If this was a movie or a TV show, they’d be in an oak-paneled room with stained-glass windows. The real world is so much uglier than what directors and set-designers show us.

  45. 45.

    Roger Moore

    @? Martin:

    The CA green party is reasonably active. In fact, they have almost as much political power in CA as the GOP does (it’s a very low bar).

    Nonsense. The Republicans may not be able to elect anyone at the statewide level these days, but they do have enough representation in the state legislature to block tax increases and sustain vetoes. They can get people elected to Congress, too. The Greens haven’t managed to win a single legislative seat.

  46. 46.

    redshirt

    The Greens will have power in America at about the same time fusion power is commercially viable.

    Perpetually 30 years from now.

  47. 47.

    ? Martin

    @aimai: Well, I know a few Greens and they’re pretty reliable Dem voters for national offices, and vote Green for lower seats as everyone here has been suggesting. Not sure why we’d want to piss them off, but whatever.

  48. 48.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    My first thought on that pic was to cringe at the amount of whitesplaining that that crew will probably indulge in tomorrow.

    The room looks a lot like a Sunday School classroom to me.

  49. 49.

    MikeBoyScout

    With that crew Dr Stein is well on her way to collecting 2000 signatures then winning 4 million votes in Pennsylvania

  51. 51.

    magurakurin

    I agree with Martin. Hell I’m guessing that more than half of all white peoople don’t even know what Juneteenth is. Maybe less. Jill isn’t worthless because there are no black people there…she is worthless because she is a fucking moron that embodies all the false stereotypes of the Left that the Right spreads. But slamming her because she doesn’t black support. No. All that shows is that when it comes to politics African- Americans have good instincts.

  52. 52.

    father pussbucket

    @Baud:

    One option. A tweet without a photo. Another. Find some black friends.

    Still another. Don’t mention Juneteenth while tweeting about something that has nothing fucking to do with Juneteenth.

  56. 56.

    maya

    Waaaay back in the early days of the tea party outdoor rallies I remember seeing a black dude who, apparently, was charging $5 a photo appearing with white dudes who held hand made signs (that the black dude made up, most likely) saying: “I’m not a racist” with arrows pointed to the black dude.. Usually he was in the middle with white dudes on either side. The one photo that cracked me up had one of the white dudes about as far away from the black dude as he could get without actually not being in the photo. All, including the black dude, had their serious faces on. Now there was a perfect example of free enterprise.
    I’ve searched google for them but no luck.

  60. 60.

    Mike R

    @magurakurin:

    No. All that shows is that when it comes to politics African- Americans have good instincts.

    When you are getting your ass kicked symbolism doesn’t mean shit. Jill Stein’s quixotic quest for fame or whatever she wants isn’t really helping the swamp get cleared. Her heart is in the right place, I think, but it sure would help if all lefties pulled to gather when it is time for the rubber to meet the road. We may not get all we want, but we could get something.

  62. 62.

    germy

    Nice comment at LGM:

    Mudge says:
    June 18, 2016 at 9:21 pm
    There is at least one maroon in the room. At least one.

  63. 63.

    guachi

    I grew up in Montana, least black state in America (0.5%), and Juneteenth was never a thing.

    I currently live in Augusta, GA, a majority black city (55%) and Juneteenth is barely celebrated, if at all this year.

    I previously lived in Laurel, MD in Prince George’s county, the wealthiest black majority county (63%) in America and the county that gave Obama his highest vote % in the nation (90%), and they do have a celebration, though it’s fairly low key and recent. The first celebration occurred the year I moved there, 2007.

    Where is Juneteenth a big event?

  64. 64.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @daves09:

    One of the reasons I stopped doing local party offices-other than the agony of a lot of party activists-was meeting in places like that, it’s SSS-sordid, squalid, sad.

    That’s sort of what I talked about the other day. Rallies are great, parades are great, but a lot of the stuff that makes the rallies and the parades worthwhile happens in sad off-white rooms, and you don’t take photos of the sad rooms, you take photos of the productive stuff that comes from getting out of those rooms and knocking on doors and making phone calls.

  65. 65.

    Jay C

    @Mike R:

    Her heart is in the right place, I think, but it sure would help if all lefties pulled to gather when it is time for the rubber to meet the road. We may not get all we want, but we could get something.

    Quite right in principle, but butts up against the BIG problem with the bulk of the “left” in this country*: “all we want” is the ONLY acceptable option: settling for just “something” -i.e. any diminution of “everything” – is an unconscionable compromise with Holy Purity Of Purpose, and thus utterly Out Of The Question.

    * most of its online manifestations, anyway…

  66. 66.

    Amaranthine RBG

    @? Martin: Yeah, fuck that broad and fuck that old jewish dude, too. It’s time for moderate to conservative democrats to finally get their day in the sun!!!

  67. 67.

    Jeffro

    @? Martin:

    Well, I don’t see anything in the Green party that is even remotely hostile to minorities, so I think they are welcoming. I think the problem is why would you put your political capital on a party that can’t deliver, mainly because we have an electoral system designed to shut out 3rd parties? That’s hardly their fault as well.

    Sorry, but this just feels like punching down to me.

    Designed to shut out 3rd parties? The system itself is neutral in regards to however many parties the American people choose to organize themselves.

    The present-day reality, however, is quite different. A 3rd party has two ways to go – as a drag on its closest ideological neighbor, or as a boost to it. The ‘drag’ occurs when the 3rd party pretends that there’s no difference between the parties, or that the 2nd party won’t miss your vote if you take a lark in the next election. The ‘boost’ could occur in a million different ways and really, it’s a shame that Greens and Bernistas can’t figure out how to work towards that. They could totally co-opt today’s Dem Party (which is already doing a good job, btw) and lead it well to the left if they could just quit the sniping and “both sides do it/both sides suck” argument.

  68. 68.

    Feathers

    @? Martin: This is more of an own goal than punching down. Black twitter (or at least the corner that overlaps with my feed) has been laughing its collective ass off at this ever since it was sent out. Doing anything for Juneteenth with an all white crowd is just weird. There was another city trying to make Juneteenth a “multicultural” celebration, which is a fail as well.

  69. 69.

    Jeffro

    @Jay C:

    Quite right in principle, but butts up against the BIG problem with the bulk of the “left” in this country*: “all we want” is the ONLY acceptable option: settling for just “something” -i.e. any diminution of “everything” – is an unconscionable compromise with Holy Purity Of Purpose, and thus utterly Out Of The Question.

    I swear, if I had a couple mil (maybe hit the Powerball tonight?) I’d love to sponsor a PSA-type ad out that notes how governing is a) what we do in a high-functioning country, and b) that requires (OMG!) compromise and common sense. This whole purity stuff on either side is repellent. Americans need to ‘get it’ that when you elect someone to represent the interests of more than…you…they may have to balance more than 1 interest.

  70. 70.

    Snoopy

    @guachi:
    Texas.
    The celebration (if I may call it that) is really about when the news regarding the abolition of slavery reached Texas. Here in Austin it’s *really* a big deal.

  71. 71.

    dmsilev

    Our political system is set up to favor two parties; winner-take-all elections tend to do that. So, the options for a third party are two-fold. You can either supplant one of the existing parties or you can subvert one. Supplanting is hard. Really really hard. The last time it happened was in the 1850s when the Whigs imploded and were replaced with the Republicans in the run-up to the Civil War. The easier approach is to subvert a party, which is to say that you push your ideological agenda via things like primary challenges to incumbents and so forth. This has happened several times, most recently the Tea Party push to move the GOP even further towards the ideological extreme, and it’s much much easier to pull off than flat-out replacing one of the parties.

  74. 74.

    ruemara

    @? Martin: punching down? Dude, this is straight up appropriation by people who spend hours patting themselves on the back for being über lefty. This is not a Juneteenth gathering. This is a group of white people using a bitter day of remembrance for African Americans as if it was an eagle feather headdress at Coachella. That’s them punching down. Mocking them for being that fucking tone deaf, that’s necessary.

  75. 75.

    SciNY

    @? Martin: This tweet is a failure on two levels. First and foremost, it’s utterly tone-deaf and ahistorical in its appropriation of Juneteenth, tearing it away from its significance and connection to the African American community. This blindness and disconnection from communities of color is eerily similar to religious conservatives who are trying to erase the LGBT identity of the Orlando shooting victims. Second, we are reminded that the event is being held in PHILADELPHIA. While important as “the birthplace of Liberty” for white citizens, today’s Philadelphia is a far more diverse place, and includes many people of color who would not be citizens in 1776. So why are they showing a photo that looks more like the Philadelphia of 1776 than 2016? And whose fault is that?

  79. 79.

    Gravie

    In regard to trying to build up a base in local elections rather than shooting for the moon in presidential elections: A number of years back, I was on a DC to NY Amtrak train, and my colleagues and I encountered a guy who worked for AmericansElect, or whatever that org was called. If you remember, they were trying to run a “centrist” candidate as an alternative to the Democratic & Republican nominees. After some conversation, I asked him why they didn’t try for more local elections instead of plunging right into the presidential campaign. After a really long pause, he rather sheepishly replied, “Well, because it’s easier, I guess.” Anecdotal, of course, but I thought it was pretty telling.

  80. 80.

    gorram

    @Baud: So, the relationship is that this (seemingly exclusively) White group of people wanted Juneteenth to benefit them and their politics? Yikes.

    Reminds me of how libertarians/pro-Israel groups/etc canvass me and other LGBT people at Pride. It demonstrates why communities like ours are permitted to have public celebrations like these: because the weakest support of them is seen as a great thing to mix into marketing in general and at the event itself they can tailor the marketing to us (often with a built in guilt-trip – “Buy our product – we’re here supporting you, so do the same for us!”).

  81. 81.

    gorram

    @guachi: The origins of it are in Texas, and my (non-Black!) understanding is that that’s where it’s consistently the biggest deal – in Black communities in Texas and to a lesser extent the “western” South. There’s other places that also celebrate it too, of course.

  82. 82.

    Plantsmantx

    @gorram:

    Celebrating “Juneteenth” had fallen out of favor until the late Seventies, when a push to revive the widespread celebration of it was started. Growing up as a black Texan, I was only vaguely aware of it. I remember hearing people talk about it as something country people did, and I never heard the term “Juneteenth” until revival push. It was always referred to as “the Nineteenth of June”.

  83. 83.

    Comrade Carter

    This is also why the Clinton campaign cleaned the Sanders campaigns clock.

    You can’t name anyone who worked with and SPOKE for the Sanders Campiagn that was black. You must be the only one.

  84. 84.

    Jonathan Holland Becnel

    @JohnCole

    Instead of fucking with Stein because she’s actually celebrating Juneteenth, care to tell us where Clinton is?

    Remind me again who called African-Americans “SUPERPREDATORS”?

    Clinton hates poor people, and the NEOCONS can’t wait to throw their support behind her.

    FWIW, the lack of diversity does look bad to the Clinton camp who sees everyone not supporting Clinton as a Caucasian Male asshole.

    GEAUX CAVS!

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