“Black People: The Republican User’s Guide” (2009, 3rd edition) has, so far as I know, never been written, but it is not hard to guess some of what would be in it:
Introduction:
The purpose of the Republican Party is to pass laws that favour the rich and block those that do them harm. This is done mainly by:
- Keeping taxes low
- Slowing change in society
To achieve this requires the votes of millions of Americans on election day who will be harmed by such policies. Fortunately, most voters are white racists. Take advantage of that:
Chapter 1: Divide and conquer:
The main trick is to get Americans to think race is more important than class so that they vote against their class interests.
The only thing that most voters have in common with the rich is a white skin colour. Use that to make them feel like they are on the same side as the rich. Strengthen that feeling by telling them that they too can be rich one day (even though most never will).
This divides the working- and middle-class vote, weakening it as a serious threat to Republican policy.
Chapter 2: At least I’m not black:
Paint black people as completely screwed up: poverty, drugs, crime, broken homes, bad manners, low morals, etc. Since most whites already look down on blacks and since most know so few of them, this will be easy.
You want them to feel that no matter how bad things get, “at least I’m not black”. This allows them to accept things the way they are and not demand policies that would hurt the rich.
Chapter 3: Racialize social problems:
Crime, gun violence, drugs, poverty, failing schools, absent fathers and all the other ills of American society must either be blamed on blacks or be seen as mainly affecting blacks. That way little will be done about them, keeping taxes low.
Chapter 4: Black pathologies:
Blacks must be blamed for their own troubles.
This is extremely important. It goes beyond excusing government inaction and keeping taxes low: Blacks are the single biggest threat to keeping American society the way it is, as shown by the civil war and the civil rights movement.
Therefore black leaders must be killed, imprisoned, driven out of the country or made to look laughable.
Chapter 5: Rented Negroes:
Right-wing think tanks and news organizations should hire articulate, well-dressed blacks who are willing to:
- Make white people feel glad that at least they are not black.
- Racialize social problems.
- Push the idea of black pathologies.
A black face makes these much more believable and harder to argue against.
Chapter 6: Fear of a black president:
If the president is black paint him as a enemy who is out to destroy the country. Even if you have to destroy the country to do it.
Appendix:
Here put all those twisted numbers and misleading charts from right-wing think tank “studies”.
I leave “Black People: The White Liberal User’s Guide” as an exercise for the reader.
– Abagond, 2011.
Update (August 5th 2015): I did “Black People: The White Liberal User’s Guide” as a post.
See also:
- other user’s guides
- Republican
- Southern Strategy
- Rented Negroes
- black pathology
- How Jesus became a Republican – Republicans also use religion, not just race, to get people to vote against their class interests
- How racism helps and hurts white people
- Fred Hampton
Pretty much nailed it in regards to the GOP.
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“Crime, gun violence, drugs, poverty, failing schools, absent fathers and all the other ills of American society must either be blamed on blacks or be seen as mainly affecting blacks. That way little will be done about them, keeping taxes low.”
Right on the money. I don’t know if this is a republican thing or just a white thing but I think that’s why we don’t really take this stuff seriously in the US. We see these issues as black problems so we just shrug our shoulders and think “not our problem” I haven’t traveled much but I think this othering of the poor might be what separates us from monoracial European countries.
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When it comes to politics, I think race ought to be treated like religion. Politicians and pundits shouldn’t even mention it. Racial issues should be looked at as more of a personal/non-political civil(there must be a better term for this…) matter.
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jas0nburns,
1. How do you propose that Republicans are responsible for absentee fathers, and what exactly could the Democrats / progressives do to improve that situation?
I think one could reasonably argue that it was actually LBJ’s “Great Society” programs which contributed materially to the breakdown of poor families, disproportionately affecting black communities.
2. Don’t you think that the mistrust which appears to manifest to a greater degree in multicultural societies might have something to do with the differences between the US and more monoracial European countries?
From Robert Putnam’s book “Bowling Alone”:
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Abagond does it AGAIN! Brilliant post!!!
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“Class interests” is nothing but a euphemism for the aggressive and never-ending expansion of state power.
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“1. How do you propose that Republicans are responsible for absentee fathers, ”
Um, When did I say that?
I actually agree with you about multiculturalism. I think that the point of culture is to bind people together and to facilitate trust, cooperation etc. In order for that to work everyone has to share the same culture. That’s a big part of my problem with racism. Racism created separate black and white cultures. I’m actually quite passionate about this point in particular. What we need is not a bunch of little separate isolated cultural groups but one larger one. We need to start assimilating each others positive cultural traits and start weeding out the negative ones as fast as possible.
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jas0nburns:
Makes sense, but how would you implement this transition in real life? How would you go about requiring that established peoples change their culture?
Further, some could argue that such a program is inherently antithetical to the concept of “diversity”, which seems to be a sacred cow amongst the progressive set.
I advocate for a similar paradigm with immigrants, but that’s an easier sell since you have a small number of emigrants who are petitioning to join an established society, and are thus subject to fulfilling the requirements that a host country wishes to set.
However among existing US citizens, you have groups who have been present for over 400 years.
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Black people are not a drain on government, if all the Black people were taken off any government help, the so called Black pathologies still will exist in the white community. The government “handout” will still stress the budget.
The Republicans count on their voters not doing the math or believing government data or knowing how to calculate percentages.
Somehow 20% of 10 is larger than 20% of 100.
If they say that only 13% of whites have babies out of wedlock that is more than the entire population of Black people.
The founders thought to have a democracy, that the citizenry needed to educated. It is a benefit to the power brokers that the poor stay ignorant, thus the lack of success in the rural and urban systems.
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Great post!
@randy: Oh, grow up, man.
@theages: Oh, wake up, man! You are the state and you and only you the people give it the powers it holds.
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“Makes sense, but how would you implement this transition in real life? How would you go about requiring that established peoples change their culture?”
It’s ironic but first and foremost you have to accept multiculturalism. If that could be done you would instantly make multiculturalism irrelevant. The lines would blur and people would assimilate. Unfortunately you can’t “require” that people not be as*holes. That’s why it takes a really long time. As*holes hold up the process.
It’s like you get more bees with honey as the saying goes. For example, my family was Christan but I’m not. I just don’t really care about religion. Now let’s say I grew up in a place and time where Christians were persecuted and marginalized. Guss what, I would probably be a devout christian. It would probably be super important to me because it would be the thing that everyone focused on. It would become a huge important part of my identity specifically because others were against that part of my identity. But when you take all that opposition away, none of it really matters. I’m just some guy and so is the next guy. Black, Jewish, Muslim whatever. I know that here in the states if WP stopped being racist than “black culture” and “white culture” as we see it would cease to exist. We would just rub off on each other until there was no way to draw a line.
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Damn, Abagond! You are GOOD!
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No need for a Tea Party User’s Guide…that’s a “whites only” group!
I’m curious as to why none of those fascist sociopaths have been charged with treason yet – after all, when one plots to destroy the government, that’s pretty much what they’re doing…
http://crooksandliars.com/tina-dupuy/column-if-tea-party-were-liberal
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@ sepultura13
Ha… not exactly!
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@bulanik: I think it suits for the racists and politicians too. In Finland the populist anti-immigrant party has been able to influence almost all parties who have taken their rethoric among their own. Also politicians neet scapegoats for their own tricks. It is easier to let people to hate immigrants than let them vent their frustration on those who have actually caused majority of social ills.
For some reason we live in an age where people really do not understand that the “enemy” is not the poor immigrant, but the investment banker who stole few dozen million fo the tax money and does not pay taxes almost at all, or the politicians who hike their own salaries and benefits up while cutting them from the people.
I think Hathor up the thred is correct: it is convinient for the politicians that the masses are illiterate in many sense and do not understand how the society works. Many do not seem to even realise that ALL those politicians, presidents. senators and members of parliament, all the army personel, police, goverment officials and workers are working FOR US, the tax payers. It is their job to make our lives as good as possible. Not to represent the banks or multinational giant corporations and companies.
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Jas0n,
I was with you until this line:
I think you’re being a bit naive here. Resistance against multiculturalism appears to be an ingrained trait across all groups. Sub-Saharan Africa isn’t an Eden of peace and tranquility despite a large degree of racial homogeneity, and neither was pre-colonial North and Central America, to cite but two examples.
Further, there are a number of groups which owe their very existence to a longstanding tradition of resistance to assimilation, such as the Jews.
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@ Randy
Very few places have ever been anything but “multicultural.” They have almost ALL been.
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Bulanik:
The terms “good” and “bad” are value judgments, so I won’t use them. However, if you substitute “more stable” and “less stable” respectively, then I do think your equation is reasonably accurate.
Bulanik:
Are they truly unfounded worries? Or are we witnessing these long-run situations playing out?
Bulanik:
You raise very interesting points here. I’d say the 3 countries you mention are relatively monocultural, although one can witness the turbulence of UK multiculturalism in the form of the Troubles.
Can different cultures build a community? Great question. I think we’re dealing with a continuum rather than a binary situation, and one with many dimensions, so maybe it might be more precise to examine to what degree that mono vs. multi-cultural communities differ in terms of trust, stability, community participation, community satisfaction, and other similar factors.
Running through a cursory cultural inventory off the top of my head, I’d suggest that mono-cultural communities do seem to rank higher on those factors than multi-cultural ones.
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“Sub-Saharan Africa isn’t an Eden of peace and tranquility despite a large degree of racial homogeneity, and neither was pre-colonial North and Central America,”
This isn’t sub Saharan Africa or pre-colonial America though. There are plenty of examples of racially homogenous war zones throughout history. We all know this and that wasn’t the basis of my statement. Nor was “an Eden of peace and tranquility” haha. What makes you think that was what I envisioned? Bit of a Straw man there.
When I said “I know that here in the states if WP stopped being racist than “black culture” and “white culture” as we see it would cease to exist.” What I had in mind was more like how Irish, German, or Italian Americans are seen. There are some remnants of those distinct cultures in America but not much. Most WP are a mix now but that wasn’t always the case. I don’t even really know what I am ethnically and I don’t much care.
Surely Irish American culture is not what people have in mind when they speak of multiculturalism here. And at any rate, the fact that those groups have largely assimilated into generalized white America as we know it does not in any way mean that there is some sort of white utopia. There are still plenty of divisions among WP, just not when it comes to our ethnicity of origin. In the US white immigrants all blurred together after a few generations as is the natural order of things. It happens automatically. I think it’s safe to assume that without anti-black racism things would have played out in a similar fashion with black folks. Racism put an unnatural barrier between blacks and whites. Eden doesn’t factor in.
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Great post Abagond!
The multiculturalism discussion here is interesting. IMO the handwringing going in the US and many European countries concerning the evils of multiculturalism can either be seen as the chickens coming home to roost or the natural progression of things.
Many long gone or almost gone cultures didn’t have the option of discussing, debating, or determining whether the newly arrived English, French, Dutch, etc. “immigrants” would be forced to assimilate or allowed to retain their cultures did they? The newcomers came in and drove off, murdered and/or enslaved already established peoples and installed their own cultures. In 2011 consider it progress that while there is tension and even some violence, we’ve all managed to be more civilized about living among people who are different from us. It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out.
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@jas0nburns – DIdn’t Irish, German, and Italians HAVE to assimilate to survive? They were demonized when they first arrived. They were clustered in poverty-stricken, violence ridden ghettos and I’m certain wouldn’t have been welcome among their more civilized White brethren. They were legally DENIED opportunities that other Americans (well the White ones anyway) routinely enjoyed.
Have you seen some of the hateful cartoons depicting these early immigrants? That treatment probably existed for a couple of generations before they were ALLOWED to blend into White American society. Even though I hear many Europeans claiming that they don’t have the race problems that we have in the US, I don’t doubt for one minute that the immigrants in those countries are experiencing similar treatment.
You’d have thought we in American would have learned by now how this immigrant thing works.
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ONE WHITE MAN’S THEORY
I’ve read comments on this blog on a few occasions and I know many of you believe the white man is trying to keep the black man down. I’m Amerasian and have to agree. It is obvious to me that the white man is trying to keep the black man down and they are succeeding in my humble, but most accurate opinion.
It hit me today who the “white man” really was. I can explain why, but a random thought popped in my head; and I was thinking how I would go about taking control of a group of people. I guess that is the “white gene” in me. Jk I don’t know why it popped up, it just did.
Through my limited studies of slavery(K-12), a few things stuck with me. First, slave owners did not allow education(in general). I think we all know why. Second, slave owners provided for the slaves just enough to keep them from becoming desperate. Again, we should all know why. Third, slave owners recruited “Uncle Toms” as liaisons to propagandize the “white man’s” agenda. Now, there were probably more tricks up their sleeves, but those three are pretty major.
So the “white man” were the slave owners and those that embraced slavery. In today’s society the “white man” are the liberal Democrats, follow me here, don’t quit on me now. Open your minds for a moment and walk with me. What is the left wing liberal agenda? In the name of equality and social justice, there agenda is to provide for those that do not provide for themselves. Do you see the relation yet? Well let me get down to it.
How many white Democratic senators are their? None. Save your breath if you want to defend that fact. I’m not interested. I will concede that many Republicans can fall into the “white man” category. But the truly conservative politicians are the ones that would rather empower the black man versus enslave them; and not because they are black, but because they are human. Save your breath if you want to dispute that fact, because I am truly conservative.
Education. Now this is a Bush baby, but it was passed with a democratic controlled congress. NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND. This act was co-authored by Ted Kennedy(D) and I honestly think ole Ted was smarter than George W, so he was able to manipulate Bush into thinking this was a good thing. This may be a stretch, but it’s my stretch. It has resulted in so many “push outs” in our school system, which is mostly run by my definition, and in my opinion, of “white men”(left wing liberals) This in-turn results in uneducated graduates which consists of a high percentage of young black kids. This is how the “white man” is limiting education of many black people. I can’t prove this, but I would bet a high percentage of black people, just like white people and most other races for that matter get their education from the television. I know you can’t comprehend this, but the media is dominated by left wing liberals, aka “white men”. The media is responsible for minimizing and demonizing the truly conservatives. And I see from this blog, many black people have also assumed this view.
Entitlements. Now this is the big one. As I previously stated the agenda of the left wing liberals is to provide for those that do not provide for themselves. And they are doing this in the name of social justice and equality. But in doing so they are stating that those that do not provide for themselves cannot provide for themselves. Because we should not do for those that could and should do for themselves. The left wing liberals don’t think black people can do for themselves. The sad part is that many black people have accepted the handouts because they have been convinced they shouldn’t have to do for themselves and some go as far as to believe the cannot do for themselves. It is called the entitlement attitude. This relates to the second point that stuck with me regarding slavery. If you can make someone dependent, you have their vote.
Uncle Tom’s for lack of a better word, are the Al Sharptons, the Jesse Jacksons, the Van Jones and the NAACPs. They are doing a fine job of convincing the black people that the conservatives are the “white man” when the liberals are the real “white man” Trust me, they are not hurting even during this recession, yep I’m calling it a recession because I want to. Who defined recession anyway? The “white man”. They are like the tax collectors(from the New Testament). They raise money for the “white man” and keep a chunk for themselves. If they believed that we should take from the rich and give to the poor then why don’t they give most of what they have to the poor? Money where your mouth is. Obama is an Uncle Tom. Sorry if that offends anyone, but he is the best Uncle Tom. He’s got 99% of black people in his pocket supporting the “white man’s” agenda.
So all of you black people that support the left wing liberal agenda which includes most of the Democratic party you are supporting your own demise. The more you become dependent on the government the more they will have control over you. The more entitlements you accept and the more you support race based programs, the more they have control over you. If they can keep you poor by removing any incentive to work harder or squash any belief that “you can make it” and become successful(by any standards) Even so, how many well educated black people did it without receiving any kind of assistance based on race? Please take EOEE into consideration. If you support EOEE, then you have also fallen into the paradigm of “I’m not good enough” But you probably are blind to reason and disagree with me on that.
I hate to break it to ya, but the “white man” already has control over many if not most black people. In fact they have convinced you to give towards their cause. Most black people are even for Planned Parenthood. Did you know that Planned Parenthood was born from the evil idea that providing abortions would control the growth of the black population? You better check yourself. It hurts me to think of all of the beautiful black lives that are being squashed each and every day. Only the truly conservative politicians are in favor of defunding this program. And you go along and minimize and demonize the very people that are in favor of bringing more black lives into this world. Hah, really?
I just want to call all of you black people that are not too far gone into thinking the “white man” has your best interest at heart. Stop voting for those that preach social justice and equality. Don’t you know that equality cannot be mandated. Now laws against discrimination can be mandated. There is a difference. WAKE UP!!
I feel I have the right to this theory because I am truly conservative and identify with the white race more than the Asian race. And you will have to take my word on this, but if we ever crossed paths and had the opportunity to chat, you would know that race has nothing to do with how I develop my perceptions. Peace in the Middle East
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Please excuse any mispellings. Please
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“DIdn’t Irish, German, and Italians HAVE to assimilate to survive? They were demonized when they first arrived. ”
Probably not to survive. But yeah I know what you mean. I was just saying it’s no longer an issue today because the special treatment just isn’t there.
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@ Jallen
Open your eyes, it’s BOTH parties that are screwing black people, not just the liberals,
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OT–
I know you’ll be very interested in a study that was published on Tuesday in a peer reviewed journal. It finds that at least 51% of fluid (problem solving) IQ is due to the additive effects of a lot of different genes. It’s a very large study with a sample size of more than 3500 person’s DNA being analyzed and IQ tested. Although there have been many suggestive genetics research hints about genetic variance effects on intelligence this is the first comprensive direct genomics research proof. Although Steve Sailer and Mangan talk about it and link it, I’m linking you to the Guardian science section article on it since the Guardian can hardly be dismissed by the left as a right wing blog.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/aug/09/genetic-differences-intelligence
The article links the research paper.
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King,
True, both parties are kinda screwing everybody (not just Black people) but if I had to pick which one was doing the screwing harder, I’d pick the GOP. The Dems do it with a rubber dildo, and the GOP does it with a stone dildo affixed with steel spikes.
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@Doug1
I already posted that Guardian link in the open thead. Just so you know that adds nothing to your HDB arguments. Please, go look up what heritability(variation among people) means. Something tells me that you misunderstand that concept…
Here, I think this article would be of use to you
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-barry-kaufman/nature-vs-nurture_b_837915.html
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@ Doug1 & The Cynic:
Please continue the HBD discussion on the Open Thread or the HDB post itself:
Any further comments on it on this thread will be deleted.
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Dumb seeing people talk about which party is good for a race. The political party that creates the best atmosphere for education and job creation is the best party for ALL of us.
Race is like religion in America. People get too emotional about it and that often leads to ILLOGICAL thinking. This is why race talk doesn’t belong in the political realm(on either side).
@abagond
Sorry. I just didn’t know how else he’d see my comment if I didn’t reply here.
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It seems to me that Randy is one of these so-called race realists, meaning civilized racists whose texts and ideas were the inspiration for the actions of the norwegian mass murderer. These guys try so hard to appear civilized and educated but can’t help slip out their true colors every now and then. It is very funny.
Randy seems to belive that USA has been monocultural at some point. It never was nor it never will be. Anybody who makes such claim is a damn liar or an absolute ignoramus. There has been blacks in USA almost as long as there has been so called whites. But the thing is, well before that there were various nations and peoples now called native americans. So America was not monocultural even BEFORE the white men stepped on those shores. So Randys dream and idea of a monocultural white America is in the same category as Narnia or the Oz.
He also implies that sub Saharan Africa is “largely racially” homogenious. And doing so he also reveals how little he knows. Africa is genetically the most diverse continent on earth. Why? Because Randys very own genes come from there too, just like mine or anybody elses.
I wonder what kind of mind twists one has to do in order to belive the myriad of lies that constitute the ideology of so called race/culture realists. And once again, before he starts to blabber about muslims etc., all the so called religions of Book have the same friggin god. 😀
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LOL, I knew it. Some black people still defend and justify the “white man”. (left wing liberals)
Update: Cops Say Attacks at Wis. State Fair Won‘t Be Prosecuted as ’Hate Crimes’
Equality?
At first it bothered me when blacks defended the Left Wing Liberal agenda, but now it makes me laugh. Again, I say you better check yourself. Research what color most aborted babies are. Research what percentage of black people live in “poverty”. Research what percentage of black people are in prison. Research how many black people receive Govt aid.
It’s all there, right before your eyes. You say the group that wants to provide for me for nothing is the group that really wants to help me. They got you right where they want you.
And if you vote for Obama again, like you did in waves in 08, then you will vote for the biggest “Uncle Tom” in history. He is for aborting more black babies. ARE YOU? I’m not. I’m more for the black race, as a white person, than most black people. Most black people just want entitlements.
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Oh the voting record among blacks for Obama prove which race is the most racist. You are just too blind or emasculated to even know.
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@Jallen:
Um, someone needs to keep his stories straight.
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How is this multi-culti convo not considered off-topic???
@jallen
How can you insinuate that blacks are more racist for voting for Obama when ALL Democratic politicians get a high share of the “black vote”? Do you think many blacks would have voted for Barack if he was on the right? What if it was a white democrat vs a black repub?
I’m not saying his race didnt influence the vote, but it clearly was not the primary factor.
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“Randy seems to belive that USA has been monocultural at some point. It never was nor it never will be. Anybody who makes such claim is a damn liar or an absolute ignoramus.”
African people have been here right from the beginning. (Post Columbus) It was African hands that originally built the cities we live in today. Without Africans and their descendants the USA wouldn’t exist.
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This new debate about the pathology “black culture” is simple rhetorical twist on the All American idea that black people are morally, biologically and intellectually inferior. American ideology has always defined blacks as less than human, we have had brief periods of progress, but the hegemony is always retained.
America has never been a totally white country and multiculturalism is American.
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Jallen,
You need to learn more about the history of Blacks and the Republican party. The Republican Party ran from the Blacks and later assimilated the most vicious racist politicians. You see many Blacks after slavery were conservative and loyal to the party of Lincoln, up to the mid-fifties, but in the first half if the 20th century the Republican betrayed the loyalty.
There was no room for Strom Thurmond and Edward Brooke. States Rights became the Republican mantra for trying to defeat Civil Rights.
Obama’s administration recognized Brooke not Reagan’s or Bush’s. When Brooke was senator most Black people were proud regardless of party affiliation.
I am going to take a leap here, but this an observation from my childhood. Even though there were some Black folk who were not effected to badly by the depression, they still thought the Democrats were doing the right thing. I think that being involved in their churches they didn’t object to their taxes feeding and clothing the poor. As for Black people voting to stay on the dole, read my earlier comment.
I think the type of conservatives that are in the Republican party now should start another party. They will never be able to walk in Goldwater’s shadow. Although I never liked his Civil Rights view, I appreciated, when he questioned why a fighter jet cost 3 million dollars and the cost overruns in the military contracts. His ideas didn’t include slash and burn budget management, but controlling cost as you spent. This was a time when congress started to give contractors anything they wanted.
You also need to look at how conservative the Blackwater and Haliburton contracts were and why the Regular Army wasn’t redeployed to prevent the need for Blackwater or any civilian doing a military function or why a few military bureaucrats could not hire the local people and American contractors to rebuild Iraq.
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Hathor’s Republican history ignores the Southern Strategy and cannot resist modern Republican impulse to call black people lazy and dependent. Typical
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America is multicultural, but many African and other influences have been transformed into white origins or assumed to be.
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@ Cynic
I think The multi-culti debate is relevant because Race and culture are easy differences for the rich to exploit, and republicans protect the rich.
“Chapter 1: Divide and conquer:
The main trick is to get Americans to think race is more important than class so that they vote against their class interests.
The only thing that most voters have in common with the rich is a white skin colour. Use that to make them feel like they are on the same side as the rich. Strengthen that feeling by telling them that they too can be rich one day (even though most never will).
This divides the working- and middle-class vote, weakening it as a serious threat to Republican policy.”
If the working and middle class vote wasn’t divided as it is now, We could actually focus on strengthening our country instead of culture warfare. The white working class needs to understand that it isn’t “multiculturalism” read (blacks, Hispanics, Asians) that’s screwing them. It’s rich people. We are letting them get away with waaaay to much sh*t. We need to come together and put the breaks on them before they run us into the ground and flee with all the money they made at our expense. Culture warfare and “the evils of multiculturalism” is a tool they use to keep us divided while they pick our pockets.
A rich man, a working class white man, and a black man are sitting around a table with a dozen doughnuts. The rich man takes 11 doughnuts for himself then whispers to the working class white man “That black guy is gonna steal your doughnut.”
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eshowoman,
I am completely aware of the southern strategy, but for his lesson I wanted to stress other factors. You cannot argue when semantics is the major culprit. The States Rights issue, welfare queen, law and order; on the face of it there is nothing to indicate race and from Jallen’s comment I believe he thinks it is all innocent. Especially since he believes only Black people voted for Obama because he was Black. I am sure many black people didn’t vote because they were Hillary Clinton supporters. With Palin on the ticket I would have voted for Mickey Mouse if he were on the Democratic ticket.
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@Jas0nburns
I’m aware of it’s relevance. I just feel like the focus of the topic has deviated from the post. “Whether multiculturalism works or not” is a topic all by itself.
Your comment is relevant bc it is an example of tying both topics together.
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It seems to me that many of you equate race and culture. It’s not the same: a country can be monoracial, but multicultural. So when you talk about African countries, for example, or Native Americans, you can say they are/were multicultural, even though there’s only one race.
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“Blacks are the single biggest threat to keeping American society the way it is”
I made a comment on Brothawolf’s blog about this…
“Black people are not net drains on American society.
1)Most violent crimes that black people commit are against other blacks, not whites.
2)When it comes to welfare(the Medicaid, Section 8, food stamps kind)
-Only a minority of welfare recipients are black
-A minority of blacks, as a whole, are welfare recipients
-A minority of blacks are even eligible(poor enough) for welfare
-A minority of U.S. public expenditure is spent on welfare
-Over representation is irrelevant when discussing how much blacks “drain”
the system. The numbers just don’t support the black “parasite” stereotype.
3)The only people that suffer from high black unemployment and low black incomes are BLACK PEOPLE! That’s like saying the wealthy are hurt by the poor’s poverty!
Most black people don’t have any freaking affect on your personal white life, so focus on your own damn self. If anything white society is the one that has the affect on every other race.
Lol it’s a shame that someone who comes from a group of people who have stolen countless land, enslaved, raped, killed, tortured, and generally oppressed millions of POC around the entire world(not to mention the fact that modern 3rd world exploitation is mostly done by white dominated corporations/institutions against majority non-white nations) has the nerve to call any other group “drains” on society. If hating the ‘other’ because of group parasitism is your logic, would you agree that POC are justified in hating you?
Lol yeah right.”
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“Most black people don’t have any freaking affect on your personal white life, so focus on your own damn self.’
lol nice 1
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@ Mira,
That’s what I was getting at with my comment to Randy. He thinks that all of Africa and the pre-Columbian Americas were monocultural.
What he really means is that they looked, more or less, alike.
@ Cynic
Cosign
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@ Mira
I was gonna mention the same thing, but it felt like splitting hairs. I couldn’t think of any multi-racial and also mono-cultural societies. If there is such a thing as a mono-cultural society.
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@bulanik: Sorry, I have no words on this one 😀
But it is very funny that Randy who most likely has never been near war, let alone knows that much about OUR wars agiants Soviet Union (other than what he picks up from wikipedia), tries to use the name of one of our biggest war heroes in his race hate mongering. What he does not know, because he is an ignoramus like racist usually are (for some reason), is this: Häyhä was carelian and after the Winter war there were 400 000 carelian refugees in mainland Finland!
Carelians were distinct group in finnish family tree, THEY HAD THEIR VERY OWN CULTURE AND DIALECT!!! So if we would have toed Randys line, we should have started our refugee/immigrant/monocultural crusade by killing Simo Häyhä. It would have been easy, since he was in hospital after being shot in the face. I bet Randy would have been brave enough to finish him off, in the name of monoculturalism.
And just so that anybody here does not get the wrong idea: carelian language consists various sub dialects out of which few are almost foreign for other finns. A lot of carelians were also fluent in russian. Many of them were orthodox christians. So in Randys thinking they should have been wiped off.
And I would also like to ad that my own mother is one of those carelian refugees. 😀
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@ Bulanik
Hehe.. I saw, and totally agree.
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King,
That’s what I was getting at with my comment to Randy. He thinks that all of Africa and the pre-Columbian Americas were monocultural.
What he really means is that they looked, more or less, alike.
While I’m not eager to assign race to people and time periods that didn’t have a concept of race in today’s sense of the word, let’s just do it, for the sake of an argument. But belonging to the same race doesn’t mean to be of the same culture.
I’m not sure what Randy thinks, but obviously, to him, all (black) Africans and all (white) Europeans share the same culture. Tell that to millions of people and various ethnic groups that conflicted throughout history.
Sharing a race doesn’t equal to sharing a culture. Or even seeing someone as “one of your own”. Maybe in the US. Not in the rest of the world.
jas0nburns,
I was gonna mention the same thing, but it felt like splitting hairs. I couldn’t think of any multi-racial and also mono-cultural societies. If there is such a thing as a mono-cultural society.
It is sure difficult to find a monocultural society because, well, we don’t really know what culture is. There’s no consensus on it in anthropology. Some even argue that each person has a culture of her/his own. So no, in this sense, no country is monocultural; it’s easier to find a monoracial country.
Before races as we know it were invented people of various phenotypes (no other way to put it) sometimes lived together and shared a culture. But it’s not a common thing, because different phenotypes often mean there were no mixing or contacts, which, in return, means people in question belong to different cultures (which is always the problem).
And on the other hand, things might be different based on who’s looking at them. One can argue black and white and all Americans do share a common culture, even if they belong to different races. It sure seems like that, from a foreigner’s POV.
I talked about it in my guestpost How black and white Americans seem alike:
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The “black people voted for him because he is white rhetoric” can be parsed as “black people are simple, childlike and gullible”, ‘Obama is a race hustler” or the all time favorite “blacks are more racist than whites.”
It is totally ahistorial in the manner in which it ignores the centuries that blacks fought for voting rights and the fact that do to institutional racism and population demographics, blacks usually do end up voting for whites. The ignorance and arrogance of Obama age white supremacy is really astounding.
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I’m inclined to agree. I think that culture becomes a convenient synonym for race when one really wishes to argue against race. It just gets too complicated having to address the large and diverse segments of culture because it makes it so much more difficult to say that people who don’t look alike should stay away from each other.
The fact that people who look, more or less alike, have their own long histories of hatred and mutual bloodshed seems to escape those who make the “multiculturalism has never worked” argument.
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Black culture is not monolithic. I am a British born JAmerican, New Yorker. I spend waaaaay to much time explaining who I am to whites and blacks.
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Anyone of you heard of Albert Kahn?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Kahn_(banker)
To claim that European countries were monocultural is bullshit. Kahn was a philantrhopist, who wanted to record the the diversity of human culture by hiring photographers and cinematographers to travel across Europe and the rest of the world. It becomes clear that in France alone there were many diverse, regional unique cultures that varied from village to village. These distinct cultures were forced byt he government to fit the ideal of unified French culture. To create a cohesive, nationalistic state to satisy the ambitions of the higher echelons of the nation. The same thing has happened and is happening all over the gobe. Smaller cultures are assimilated for the sake of creating more powerful, nationalistic states.
So much beaty has been viped out for the sake of conformity and unity.
There is a beutiful BBC documentary of Kahn’s collection, which is concidered one of the most valuable collection of not only the earliest color photographs, but also the earliest color movies of the fascinating diversity of the beauty of the global culture that is us. Seeing those images almost brought me to tears. So much has been lost.
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“The only thing that most voters have in common with the rich is a white skin colour. Use that to make them feel like they are on the same side as the rich. Strengthen that feeling by telling them that they too can be rich one day (even though most never will).
This divides the working- and middle-class vote, weakening it as a serious threat to Republican policy.”
So i’ve spent a lot of time around other WP obviously and am one myself. I think that one of the ways racism manifests itself on a personal level is through perceived cultural differences. I think this is also what leads to the common refrain of “I’m not racist but” followed by a racist comment. One reason WP don’t see ourselves as racist is that it’s not the other race itself we feel we have a problem with but rather certain aspects of the other race’s culture. This is a distinction WP make in our own minds that seems to be meaningless to POC, probably for good reason. Also working class whites feel that they share certain cultural values with rich whites more so than skin color. Race may in fact be a bigger factor but they don’t see it that way consciously.
I really do think that most whites who are lead to feel superior to non-whites are working with a lot of misinformation and false assumptions about non-whites. Most of those WP would be rational enough to change their views if they had better information. Not all but most. However, thanks to the extremely segregated society we live in there is rarely an opportunity to have those views challenged.
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What is happening in my home country Finland (and all over Europe), most ‘immigration critics’ (ie racists), have defined our enemies not based on their undesirable skin colour (because that would be blatantly racist, and even a racist knows it sounds bad an irrational), but replaced it with the more vague concept of foreign, unadaptable ‘culture’. That there are cultural values these immigrant, mongol hordes posess that threaten and aim to destroy our nordic values. Cultural values that will destroy and transform our domestic, totally original and virginal, hermetically sealed, holy culture in to savage, mongrel cultural chaos of uncotrollably mushrooming minarets, based of crime, rape, burkhas, misogyny and not bathing in saunas every saturday!
But of course it is obvious that it is simply trickery. Nobody wants to be called a racist, because it cannot be rationally justified. But cultural differencies somehow can! Racists just ‘forget’ to mention that the cultural influences they so fear are the cultures of BLACK AFRICANS! Especially muslims!
Many racists in Finland claim that there would be no racism, if there were no immigrants! So it’s all the victims fault! How about thinking that ‘If I personally didn’t treat immigrants racistically, there would be less racism? Hmm? Catch 22.
Honestly, I thought that Nordic countries were the most democratic, free and open minded societies. Unfortunately the uneducated masses are gettin louder and louder. I am ashamed.
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To Abagond:
The main trick is to get Americans to think race is more important than class so that they vote against their class interests…
Which means…? What..? I can make a guess but Whites who make over $100,000 are more likely to support Obama than Whites who make less than $30,000. By the way the same applies to Blacks. (Albeit the support among Blacks for Obama is much higher…) So it would appear that Obama has more support among the upper class of all races than the lower class. The majority of Wall Street Bankers also supported him and were big donors to his election campaign. (markedly more so than the support for McCain..)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/14/943178/-dKos-Poll:The-Relationship-Between-Income-and-Obama-Approval
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@ Uncle Milton:
The Republicans have pushed through and maintained huge tax cuts the country can ill afford and which benefit only the rich.That was made possible by Republicans using race and religion to get millions of votes from white Christians, very few of whom are rich or even anywhere close to it. If they are not voting against their class interests then no one is.
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The GOP will continue to become more extremist and divisive when they continue to embrace the tea party with open arms.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/tea_party_rep_bank_should_have_known_i_wouldnt_be_able_to_repay_22_million_loan.php?ref=fpa
Former Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield (dec.) was the type of Republican I would have voted for. As an independent, I have cast my vote for Ds or Rs – unfortunately, I usually have had to hold my nose whilst doing so!
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My big problem with the GOP is that the only ‘American’ people are white christians. Nothing is really encompassing for all races and religions, it always somehow alienates a certain group of people. The extremists of the GOP especially seem to think the US is some Nordic country with a strictly Nordic history, with blacks as a minor and rare group with horrendous acts and ills and all Latinos as illegals tainting the ‘purity’ and workforce of this country.
Take Sarah Palin or Bachman or Rick Perry or Romney, none of them confront any issue for blacks, latinos, jews, muslims, gays, etc. It is obvious what ‘American’ is to them.
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This is priceless! It’s funny because it’s true…
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/08/11/100-things-you-can-say-to-irritate-a-republican/
😎
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Finally, for the ‘flat earth’ society and unthinking creationists:
Have an awesome weekend, everyone!
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@Jallen, don’t you love when white people show up to scold black people, using reverse psychology, about their voting habits, because you know, black people don’t know what they’re voting for.
Rolleyes
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http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201108030013
http://www.frumforum.com/glenn-beck-wants-a-whiter-spider-man
I think you can get a feel for how republicans feel about the “intrusion” of POC into their lily white worlds from the tone of beck’s commentary here.
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Right-wing politics from the other side of the globe…the riots in London are extraordinary, yet fools still insist on making things racially-based and not looking at the classism factor:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14513517
Yes, race DOES play a part; the riots were incited by the police shooting of a young black man, and they claimed that he had shot at them – which was a lie. Thoughts?
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@phoenix: Same old same old. That is what they have alwaus said and done. Remember Brixton or Totxteth back in late 1970’s? Same shit. And the tone was the same: immigrants, blacks, these or those and yet, just like today, if you look at the pictures there are white kids too. They will try to divide the best they can, just like they have done in USA always. Divide the poor by race so that they shall fight amongst themselves and leave the rich alone.
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I just love how these people try to tell me that I have the right to vote (which they “graciously provided” for me) but only if I vote the way they want. My thoughts and needs should always be focused around their wants or else they are clearly not valid and need to be fixed. I have a lot of white friends with conservative views (I hate to mention their race but it provides context) and they usually hint this stuff. Like I should be grateful for the crap Republicans say and do to people like me. They also don’t seem to realize that they have very little in common with the “rich” they tend to identify with (a lack of funds and lack of pedigree being some ways in which they’re lacking), and more in common with the non-whites they blame everything on. Funny thing, going by my family’s money and military background we should be voting Republican since their fiscal policies would likely benefit us XD
Odd thing, some young Republicans were campaigning for Prop 107 (i think that was the name) and tried to tell my friend that I STOLE his education by just being in college lol. Therefore I owed white people for the education I paid for and worked through all the way to graduation. And yet, many Republicans are so offended when you accuse the party of blatant racism.
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http://www.theonion.com/articles/somebodys-got-to-save-this-country-from-certain-do,21135/
This is why I find it so hard to take the GOP seriously. Bachman really things that America is supposed to be lily white.
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^ I’m assuming that you know that The Onion is online parody, and not a real newspaper, right?
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http://i379.photobucket.com/albums/oo238/Py-rah/aaaaahhhhh2.gif?t=1292207581
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Great article on The Root:
http://www.theroot.com/views/its-great-time-be-racist
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To Jallen:
Oh the voting record among blacks for Obama prove which race is the most racist. You are just too blind or emasculated to even know.
Emasculated…? Black women…? Ummm. Also the percentage of Black voters going for Bill Clinton in 1996 almost matched those that went for Obama in 2008.
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To sepultura13:
Great article on The Root:
http://www.theroot.com/views/its-great-time-be-racist
Basically it’s recycling a number of articles that have appeared since Obama’s election… eg nothing new. Clinton was basically attacked for 8 years and accused of murder, drug running, and rape:
Murder:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/bodycount.asp
http://www.slate.com/id/1002023/
http://www.dangerouslogic.com/ron_brown.html
http://www.realchange.org/clinton.htm
Rape:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/broaddrick022599.htm
Drug running:
http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/ARCHIVE/CLINTON_CHRONICLES.html
Oh yes.. and Hillary was accused of being a Lesbian many times:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2007/09/21/2007-09-21_hillary_clinton_im_not_a_lesbian.html
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Commentary with some good questions:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/08/16/granderson.cain.racism/index.html?hpt=hp_bn9
@UM:
If you don’t like my comments, that’s fine. If you have an issue with links I add, that’s fine too. Don’t expect me to look at your myriad link-grabs, though; I’m quite capable of doing my own research and reading, and do so regularly. Argue with someone else if you’re itching for a scrap. I prefer to debate face-to-face.
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To Sepultura13:
If you don’t like my comments, that’s fine.
It’s not a matter of liking them or not.. personally I see attacks on Obama as a continuum of the attacks on Clinton and the swift boating of John Kerry. Perhaps you are younger (I’ll be turning 50 this year..) but the antics against Clinton very well. After all, the Right Wing almost succeeded in removing him from office.
There was a movie distributed by Jerry Falwell’s organization that basically accused Clinton of mass murder and high level drug dealing. There were mainstream reports accusing him of rape.. and of course he was impeached because of investigation of Whitewater (which found nothing about Whitewater..) which started the first year he was in office. Several people who gave depositions against Clinton received direct or indirect (extensive plastic surgery in the case of Paula Jones…) financial compensation by Right Wing organizations.
“The Paula Jones case precipitated Bill Clinton’s impeachment. Charges of perjury and obstruction of justice charges were brought based on statements he made during the depositions for the Paula Jones lawsuit. The specific statements were about the nature of his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, with whom he denied having a sexual relationship.”
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So does anyone on here know what the current unemployment rate is among black citizens?
I hope you know it’s the “White Man’s”(Liberal Dems) fault. Charles Rangel is an Uncle Tom. He’s paid to keep the black’s in his district down. Wake up!!!
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@ Jallen,
I believe the current projections are around 16% A.A. unemployment. However, all unemployment figures are skewing lower than actual since they are only taking into account those who are actively looking for work and not including those who have given up looking, are working part-time because they can’t find a full time job, or the underemployed.
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This is a dead-on assessment of black Republicans. I am neither Republican or Democrat and I find attempts by both sides to dig up dirt on each other to prove that one party is better than the other useless. A politician is a politician is a politician. The nature of politics does not lend itself to honesty, goodness or benevolence.
Black people are not a monolith. Our opinions are as diverse as those of any other group of people who just happen to be categorized by skin color, ethnicity or gender. Black Republicans aren’t any more enlightened than black Democrats.
I am using this post in my blog.Thank you.
blackhead.blogspot.com
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To Abagond:
The Republicans have pushed through and maintained huge tax cuts the country can ill afford and which benefit only the rich.That was made possible by Republicans using race and religion to get millions of votes from white Christians, very few of whom are rich or even anywhere close to it. If they are not voting against their class interests then no one is.
I’ve seen this notion tossed around a little bit, which got me thinking:
Conservatives tend to heavily support military spending… Given that the Soviet Union threw in the towel 20 years ago and Canada and Mexico don’t seem like they will be invading the US any time soon and the spending on the US military exceeds every other nation combined.. why continue..? This led me to consider that the US military is a jobs program for White conservatives. So in essence lower income Whites who vote conservative are supporting their class interests, because a high percentage of them (or their relatives and friends..) were or are dependent upon military spending. That at least has been my experience with many lower income conservative Whites.
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[…] Black People: The Republican User’s Guide […]
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[…] Republican – Republican Guide to Black People […]
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