The following applies mainly to the US.
Terms:
- OGP is short for out-group person. In the US the current groups are Asians, Blacks, Latinos, Muslims, Natives and Whites. Those who belong to a group you do not are OGPs.
- Racism means you think one race is naturally better than another. For those who define racism as prejudice + power, I mean the prejudice part.
You are probably racist if:
- If you do not notice that James Bond is always White.
- If you are afraid of OGPs.
- If you are against reparations.
- If you compare OGPs to animals.
- If you date only OGPs.
- If you do not mind if people are purple.
- If you do not see race.
- If you do not take what OGPs say seriously.
- If you do not want OGPs moving to “your” country or “your” neighbourhood.
- If you fly the Confederate flag.
- If you have to put down OGPs to feel good about yourself.
- If you know only one Martin Luther King quote.
- If you like OGP culture but not, you know, actual OGPs.
- If you liked “The Blind Side”.
- If you make fun of OGP food, music, dress, hair, names, language, accents, etc.
- If you make jokes about OGPs.
- If you practise or excuse violence against defenceless OGPs.
- If you remain silent when your group is unfair to OGPs – or, worse, make excuses for it.
- If you say, “All Lives Matter” in answer to “Black Lives Matter.”
- If you say, “ching chong”.
- If you say, “I’m not racist, but…”
- If you say, “No problemo”.
- If you say, “Some of my best friends are OGPs.”
- If you say, “You are pretty for an OGP.”
- If you say, “you people”.
- If you think affirmative action is reverse racism.
- If you think Fox News is “fair and balanced”. Or CNN, for that matter.
- If you think OGP men are naturally violent or criminal.
- If you think OGP women are loose or good in bed.
- If you think OGPs are naturally good at certain things.
- If you think OGPs have only themselves to blame.
- If you think OGPs should “go back to where they came from”, even those born in the US.
- If you think a US-born OGP speaks good English.
- If you think it is class, not race.
- If you think it is so unfair that you cannot use the N-word.
- If you think only other people are racist, but, magically, not you.
- If you think pointing out racism is racist.
- If you think racism is part of the human condition.
- If you think the US is not all that racist.
- If you think the Washington Redskins should keep their name.
- If you try to make yourself look like an OGP for Halloween – or Hollywood.
- If you use slurs for OGPs.
- If you vote for Trump.
- If you wonder why there is no White Entertainment Television.
- If you wonder why there is no White History Month.
– Abagond, 2016.
See also:
- racism
- I am racist
- The term “racist”
- How to tell if a White person is racist
- How to tell if a White person is a recovering racist
- How to help end racism
536
I’ve heard plenty of white people, well, the ones I’ve come across, say this all the time. (How is talking or having a conversation about racism is ‘racist’ in itself? Ridiculous. Yes, pointing out racism is racist. *sarcasm*
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Abagond
You described American White people to the fullest.
LikeLike
Pretty much all of them describes the dominant culture in the world.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reparations can be in the form of:
1. A pay check (of 1 million dollars)
2. Tax-free employment money
3. Land
Blacks who believe in and/or practice group economics can pick monetary reparations. Blacks who enjoy working for their White or non-White employer(s) can pick regular tax exemption. Blacks who believe in and/or practice group real-estate can pick land allotments.
Personally, I would pick monetary reparations because I believe in creating jobs for Black people, particularly young ambitious Black people.
LikeLike
@ Lord of Mirkwood
“Also #36. Now this starts to acquire the characteristics of the Salem Witch Trials. Protestation of innocence means admission of guilt. That is pretty screwed up.”
No, it means the individual in question refuses to do deep self-examination because they cling to an either/or good/bad mindset.
LikeLike
@ LoM
#34 and #36 are two of your biggest stumbling blocks.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah! The same way that pointing out hunger causes famine, talking about climate change causes heatwaves or discussing poverty causes poor people.
At least that is the level of logic you’re working with when talking to such people.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Not to derail but what do you think of :
View at Medium.com
LikeLiked by 2 people
@Ikeke35: 👍🏿👌🏿
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s obvious that Whites are AGAINST Black Americans receiving reparations (in any form). In a recent conversation (at the UFC gym in Torrance CA), a White guy and I were discussing reparations for Black people. He said that reparations for Blacks would cause Whites to go into an uproar. He also said that it would probably cause a race riot between the two groups. The guy was being honest with me – because in most situations Whites would lie in a Black person’s face to prevent a sour or disagreeable dialogue. I asked him were Whites in an uproar when President Reagan signed a bill that allowed groups in the Japanese-American community to receive monetary reparations of $20,000? I also asked him were there any race riots between Whites and Japanese-Americans after Japanese-Americans received reparations? The guy was dumbfounded. He had NO response other than to look at me with a stupid face.
Civil Rights and Civil Liberties – There is a clear difference.
(Below) President Johnson signs the Civil Rights bill of 1964. Basically, it allowed Black Americans to share public restrooms, drinking fountains, hotels, and schools with White Americans. The bill did not give Black Americans monetary reparations for the anti-Black laws that not only succeeded slavery but helped increase the wealth gap between White and Black Americans.
(Below) President Reagan signs the Civil Liberties bill of 1988. It granted monetary reparations to Japanese-Americans who had been imprisoned by the United States government during World War II. Survivors of the Japanese-American prison camps received $20,000 each.
http://img.hipwee.com/cdn/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/counting-money.jpg?8aff98
LikeLiked by 1 person
know what abagond? you are a great writer and stuff and i respect you 100%
LikeLiked by 3 people
> You described American White people to the fullest.
@Michael Cooper
Your words are racist, too.
LikeLike
Poor George. You must fall somewhere on the list. I do.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@michaeljonbarker Indeed, I fail many of the Abagond’s 45 criteria (not all, though), and I’m proud of it.
LikeLike
“Your words are racist, too.”
Is this another white privilege, poor proud racist George?
Would you care to explain here how his words “are racist, too” ??
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Raimanet.
LikeLike
@Fan Gladly. When you say the “A describes the B group of people to the fullest”, you generalize the B group of people. When the group B is a race of people and you apply generalizations to it, this automatically makes you racist. By the way, don’t be so sure that I’m white. You’re correct that I’m a proud racist, though.
LikeLike
Don’t be so shy poor George. If you are not white, say what you are.
“When the group B is a race of people and you apply generalizations to it, this automatically makes you racist.”
When the slave ship captains and their crews were bringing chained kidnapped Africans from Africa across the Atlantic to the New World, were those chained Africans automatically deemed racists because they made certain generalizations about the slave-ships’ white captains and crews?
LikeLike
@Fan Your reading capabilities (or logical reasoning) seem somewhat impaired. Since when are the “slave ships’ white captains and crews” a race of people? About me, I don’t think it’s important, but anyway: if I come to the USA I would most probably be considered white… today, but not 100 years ago.
LikeLike
@Abagond By the way, is it proper to include Muslims as one of your “out-groups”? Muslims are followers of an ideology, not a race. By that logic, Communists are such an “out-group” as well, and the McCarthyists of the 1950’s are among the most vile racists.
LikeLike
I don’t see anything racist about James Bond always being White. The character in the novels is White. I write and I would be insulted if the race of my characters were changed just to make one group happy. Some of these sound silly too – you are racist if you only date OGPs and if you say “No problemo”?!?
LikeLike
@Queen of Mean
Speaking of that, I can’t wait to see a film where Shaka Zulu is portrayed by a White actor.
LikeLike
@ George
I was careful not to call Muslims a race, but much of the racist thinking that has been applied to Blacks and Natives in the past is now being applied to Muslims, at least in the US since 9/11. So those who think that way about Muslims probably are racist.
LikeLike
@ Solitaire
I agree.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Queen of Mean
How do you know James Bond is White? Can you provide a quote? As far as I know he is “British”, which can be any race.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Queen of Mean @ Lord of Mirkwood
A super important word in the post is “probably”. It is in the title and in italics in the post. Any single one of the 45 items can probably be defended on non-racist grounds. But together, the more of them you that apply to you, the more likely you are racist – because it shows a certain pattern of thought that is in fact racist.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ George
Shaka Zulu was real, James Bond is not.
LikeLiked by 1 person
LOM, what has informed your opinion on reparations and affirmative action?
Which black writers and/or pieces have you read on these topics?
LikeLiked by 2 people
I was gonna say on this thread last nite but it was exigent circumstances it was explained to me by a couple different people that out of group thing is always going to happen to someone kinda like that old story from the 50s: the lottery?
LikeLike
And ogp is kind of an overlay more like what i’d classically refer to as xenophobia… i guess if you look at it like a chart or something, it doesn’t necessarily completely enclose racism (internalized) or is that just general self hate and depression?
LikeLike
“When you say the “A describes the B group of people to the fullest”, you generalize the B group of people. When the group B is a race of people and you apply generalizations to it, this automatically makes you racist.”
George. Not a way to make an entrance. You admitted that you ARE a proud racist! Next you implied that you may not be white.
Then you stated that you wouldn’t have been considered white a hundred years ago, but you are viewed as a white person today.
Moreover, you said that my reading is impaired and my logic is faulty, and to prove that you said that slave ships’ white captains and crews are NOT a race. By your own logic and reasoning, kidnapped and chained Africans aren’t a race, either. Yet you stated the gibberish above about “group B” being a race … You said all of this nonsense to explain why Michael Cooper’s words
are racist, too.
There are already more than enough dumb/confounded racist white people in Amerika.
Please do Black folks in the US a favor and stay wherever you are.
LikeLiked by 2 people
leigh204,
“I’ve heard plenty of white people, well, the ones I’ve come across, say this all the time. (How is talking or having a conversation about racism is ‘racist’ in itself? Ridiculous. Yes, pointing out racism is racist. *sarcasm*”
It’s probably because it clashes with the idea to “not see color” and “we’re all one human race!!!111”
LikeLike
I loved the Blind Side and as a Black woman, I’m certainly not racist (or anti-Black).
Good to see you still writing, Abagond. Used to read you all the time a few years ago. You always have something interesting to say (although I don’t always agree with you).
LikeLike
I’m all for reparations. My great great grandfather fought in the civil war, was wounded but survived at the cost of one arm.
How much will black America pay to my family for our service in freeing them from their bonds?
LikeLike
@ Riverside_Rob
Your grandfather was fighting to preserve the Union and to punish “Souther Nationalism.” He and his White Northern comrades in arms (er…no pun intended) were not fighting because they felt that their lives should be given in order that Black slaves should have fairness and freedom. That is readily apparent based on how Blacks were treated in the North after the Civil War.
LikeLiked by 2 people
To Abagond:
How do you know James Bond is White? Can you provide a quote? As far as I know he is “British”, which can be any race.
I am not aware that the James Bond character as imagined by Ian Fleming is described exactly as white but Fleming did create a sketch of “Bond”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bond
And from Wikipedia:
“In the novels (notably From Russia, with Love), Bond’s physical description has generally been consistent: slim build; a three-inch long, thin vertical scar on his right cheek; blue-grey eyes; a “cruel” mouth; short, black hair, a comma of which falls on his forehead. Physically he is described as 183 centimeters (6 feet) in height and 76 kilograms (168 lb) in weight.”
“In Casino Royale Vesper Lynd remarks, “Bond reminds me rather of Hoagy Carmichael, but there is something cold and ruthless.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoagy_Carmichael (Carmichael was white).
This of course does not necessarily mean futures Bonds have to be white as only one the actors who have played Bond came close to matching Fleming’s original description. Fleming initially thought that Sean Connery, a working class Scotsman, was too big and unrefined for the role but was subsequently pleased with his portrayal and subsequently created a Scottish/Swiss background for Bond (Scottish father / Swiss mother) in later novels.
LikeLiked by 1 person
LOM,
What did you get from that piece that informed your opinion on reparations?
LikeLike
@Leigh204
Right, it’s like talking about crime or what happened last night on CSI makes you a criminal.
@Riverside_Rob
That just goes to show just how terrible American schools are. You never even learned that your Civil War wasn’t fought to nor did it free blacks from slavery.
LikeLike
@ Lord of Mirkwood
I have not read James McPherson’s “For Cause and Comrades.” But when I get a chance I will put it on my list.
Since I have not read the book, I cannot speak to the tenor or authenticity of it’s research. I see that it was published in April of 1997, which means that it was likely penned with the more modern and popular view that Abraham Lincoln and the Union in general had an affinity for the “Colored Man” and were more than willing to spill the blood of tens of thousands in each battle in order to save him from his ghastly plight under the whip of their Southern brethren.
I’m certainly not saying that there were not abolitionists among the ranks of the great Union juggernaut, but I would have to be convinced that these represented the majority of those who fought. This is because before the blood was yet dry from the Battle of Palmito Ranch, these same men were home drafted laws that excluded Blacks from integrating into their society. They prohibited Blacks to vote, to have equal education, they banned them from working in unions, they refused them to attend their churches. Were these the champions of freedom who were want to lay down their lives that the Negro might be free???
Give me a break.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating, sir. There is no logical explanation as to why these ‘legions of liberators’ could so swiftly transform into the demons of oppression which they clearly did become in their northern cities after the war.
LikeLike
@ Riverside_Rob
Did your ancestor receive a soldier’s pension from the federal government? If so, that’s his reparation. If not, your family needs to take the matter up with the federal government that sent him to war.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Lord of Mirkwood
Do you agree with Riverside_Rob that King should pay him reparations?
If not, why did you just give Riverside_Rob a bunch of ammunition?
There may well be truth to what you posted, but there is also such a thing as an appropriate time and place. You are so concerned with proving your own ancestor’s moral purity vis-a-vis racism
that you gave Riverside_Rob support for his racist argument that blacks should pay him money for his ancestor’s arm.
This is not the way to be a good ally.
LikeLike
racism has to have power… bigotry is “means you think one race is naturally better than another.” … any group or person can be a bigot ….. Only the group with power can be racist ..
Black folk mad & bigoted against whites ain’t doing shit to the ticker tape on Wall Street ..
Institutionalized racism has Black communities in perpetual war zones ,, both criminally & environmentally
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Riverside_Rob
My great-great-grandfather also fought in the Civil War. He escaped slavery and joined the Union forces. He never received a pension for his service.
I would be happy to pay you AFTER you pay for:
*My ancestor’s stolen labor and pension.
*His ancestors stolen labor.
*The times my mother was denied entry to a public library partly supported by my grandfather’s business taxes.
*Reimbursement for the outdated textbooks, lower pay for Black teachers and the ramshackle state of the public schools my parents and I attended.
*The reduced value of my grandmother’s property (artificially reduced due to racist red-lining by banks).
Riverside_Rob, this is just the short list. I can provide more…just take a number, get in line and sip some refreshing Flint River water while you wait.
LikeLiked by 5 people
no way riverside rob? alrighty then, i wsa just thinking about reparations… it would probably start a real civil war here.
black people could say, “hey man, just get over it, it’s over something that happened before you were here even”
and @RR that’s not the point
@queen of mean, i looked at your blog or whatever, i don’t get you, are you goth or something? into vampires? I date i was gonna say, ‘ogp’ — i’m married to a black woman who is ogp from my family’s perspective and not from the community we live in, so that boundary is the classic moving goalpost, fungible, if you will… membership in the ‘in group’ set
LikeLike
@ Fan Well, I must say that I lost my cool for a moment and threw an insult; I sincerely apologize for that. I assure you that I have no plans of moving to America, so I’ll spare you the need to deal with one more racist. But how should I make an entrance? I fail more than half of the Abagond’s list, so I MUST be a racist and I can’t help it 🙂
LikeLike
Actually our mixed marriage is igp in our mixed neighboorhood!
LikeLike
“I must say that I lost my cool for a moment and threw an insult; I sincerely apologize for that. I assure you that I have no plans of moving to America,”
.
George, your apology is noted. Maybe I’ve developed an extra layer of tough skin after a lifetime of enduring what some refer to as micro (and larger) tiresome aggressions.
Snarky comments are kind of regular around here. Those who give them usually get them back. You are a bit more tolerable than the white person who is a racist, but cannot admit to it – like our resident (stuck on clueless) white person, Mirkwood, who amusingly sees himself as an ally. He’s quite the entertainer around here!!
At least you realize that you’re a proud racist!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m all for reparations. My great great grandfather fought in the civil war, was wounded but survived at the cost of one arm.
Yeah? I want a share of of your portion for having to read your bullsh*te
Fun fact: my great-great-great grandfather was killed at Gettysburg.
That’s hilarious! It’s a good thing he sired some kids before he went off to war. Someone had to bring up the Civil War didn’t they?
What did you get from that piece that informed your opinion on reparations?
Knowing him, probably zilch but he probably loved the part about the Civil War and white men dying for the slaves.
The Civil War was about slavery. It was always about slavery. It was never about anything but slavery.
Folks, he was living back then(he must have been in ecstasy), listen to him!
At least you realize that you’re a proud racist!
It’s about time he realized this!
You are probably a racist if you are a white person whose lips are moving!
LikeLike
So what?
This country was built by White people, for White people.
Everyone would rather live with their own kind.
My great-great-great-grandfather served in the Civil War, and my family never owned Slaves, so have we not paid our dues yet, huh?
If we let an unlimited number of people into this country, we will lose our national character and distinctiveness.
LikeLike
@ LoM
If you don’t support RR’s argument, then why did you jump in to give him a bunch of material supporting the claim that white soldiers fought solely (or even primarily) to free black slaves? Everything you wrote, he could take and run with as bolstering his argument.
I’ll tell you what my theory is: You “had to set the historical record straight” because you cannot bear the cognitive dissonance that any of your family and kin — or yourself — may have the least tiny particle of racism in your psyche.
Even though growing up in a society of institutionalized systematic racism, there is no way to avoid internalizing some.
Again I say: this is not what an ally does. More than once on this blog, you have fretted about not being accepted as an ally. If you are sincere about this, you need to examine your own actions to find the cause. This is a perfect example.
It’s also #36, btw.
LikeLike
@ Lord of Mirkwood
Perhaps you need to ask yourself why it is so important to you that you defend yourself and your family (including your distant ancestors who you didn’t even know personally and have the barest idea of who they were in daily life) from even the slightest implication of racism.
Seriously, what’s the worse thing that would happen if you let one of those allegations slide?
And for that matter, why did you take King’s reply to RR as an allegation directed at yourself and your ancestors when you weren’t even involved in that discussion? Why did you immediately assume that your integrity had been questioned and that you needed to defend your family from allegations of racism?
Why is this such a kneejerk response in you, to the point that you’ll throw King under the bus in your rush to prove your anti-racist credentials?
LikeLike
To put it more succinctly: For a white person to be a true ally, sometimes you’ve got to let yourself take a hit in support of the larger cause.
White fragility does the anti-racist cause no good.
LikeLike
Messed up the formatting above. Should be:
“Why did you immediately assume that your integrity had been questioned and that you needed to defend your family from allegations of racism?”
LikeLike
@ Lord of Mirkwood
“Straw man, because I never said King had accused my family of anything.”
Yet you argued against him as if he had.
“He was arguing that the North was not fighting to free the slaves.”
No, he was countering Riverside_Rob’s argument that black people owed his white family reparations due to his white ancestor’s Civil War service.
Yes, King used the thesis that the North was not fighting to free the slaves, but his intent was to knock the legs out from under Riverside_Rob’s racist argument concerning reparations.
“It had nothing to do with Riverside Rob and nothing to do with the reparations issue.”
It had everything to do with that, as stated above. King was arguing that black people didn’t owe any reparations for white people’s Civil War service or for the end of slavery. You undermined him.
“I have my opinion on that, but it is irrelevant for the time being.”
No, I think it’s extremely relevant.
“I will defend my honor and that of my family against anyone who attacks it: you, Riverside Rob, the British Empire, the neo-Confederates.”
And apparently you’ll also defend your family’s honor against any black folks like King, even when it means tying their hands in the presence of a white racist bully.
“I mean, if you’re wrongly accused of first-degree murder, you’re going to defend yourself, right?”
Apples and oranges. The consequences of not defending myself in that case could lead to my imprisonment and execution. But I ask you, what is the worse thing that could have happened if you’d declined to counter King’s argument?
All you had to do was say to yourself, “Hmm. I very much disagree with King’s premise, but I see the larger point he’s trying to make here about reparations, so I’m just going to let it go without comment.”
If you had done that, if you had allowed the North’s honor to take that hit, what is the worst thing that could have happened?
I seriously want to know your answer to this. What is the worst-case result in that scenario?
LikeLike
LOM,
“From Ta-Nehisi Coates’s piece, I learned that he has no specific plan for implementing reparations (like who gets them? Who pays?) and that he doesn’t seem to give a damn about the poor Scots-Irish Appalachian coal miner who wouldn’t benefit from this proposal, while Oprah Winfrey might.”
What did TC say about your concern?
LikeLike
“As a leftist and a Northerner, I can’t let that happen.”
But as a leftist and a Northerner, you tied King’s hands behind his back and handed Riverside_Rob a pair of boxing gloves.
“If I had allowed the North’s honor to take that hit, it seriously changes the story of what happened between 1861 and 1865.”
Dude, no. What I’m asking is the worst-case scenario to you personally. So you feel uncomfortable about letting the North take that hit, but isn’t it in the name of a greater cause?
What is the greater cause in your eyes: the honor of the white North or the equal rights and dignity of black Americans? (That isn’t rhetorical. I really want to know.)
LikeLike
@lom i think you are trapped somewhat philosophically speaking because of that dialectic materialism angle, and you love rhetoric and are completely obsessed with the american civil war. That conflict may have catalyzed and completely obviated slave labor as it was geared up and operating? for the most part, I would posit, to wit cotton production, by the industrial revolution and mass production of machined parts. plus electricity, don’t forget. so, i think the takeaways is the people control skills of the slave labor era in the us was replicated or ‘flowed into’ the police apparatus of even the north and then big business, this and this only i will concede to you, became the inheritor of the traditions of controlling the money and the policies of the country at large.
LikeLike
the civil war should show you in purely marxist terns of dialectic materialism
LikeLike
like textbook
LikeLike
so what was moving the chess pieces i’m not into all that adam weishaupt stuff
LikeLike
LOM,
White people already received an FDR style new deal. It was called the New Deal. Black people were systematically excluded from it.
If poor white people get a second New Deal, would you be OK with black people receiving reparations for being excluded from the first one plus participate in the second one?
LikeLike
And can we just stop it with the Oprah Winfrey schtick. Her ancestors’ labor was stolen. They didn’t receive the wages they should have. She has every right to receive reparations for that wrong, regardless of whether she needs the money. She might turn around and donate it all to the NAACP or another worthy cause since she doesn’t need it. But it’s her right to receive it and her right to do with it as she wills.
That’s if reparations even takes the form of monetary payouts to individuals. There are other suggested ways of doing it.
LikeLike
Lincoln was anti-slavery but was not exactly an abolishionist and the emancipation proclaimation itself is strong evidence that the civil war was not fought to end slavery but to reunite the union. Consider that the emancipation proclaimation did not actually free a single slave because states that remained in the union were exempted from it. Even areas of the confederacy that where under union control at the time the proclaimation was made were exempted. If the civil war was to end slavery, why wait until 1862 to free the slaves? Why exempted states and areas that were either Union states or under Union control?
http://www.history.com/news/5-things-you-may-not-know-about-lincoln-slavery-and-emancipation
LikeLike
LOM,
“I support the same economic New Deal for all of the poor, whether they’re from Montana or Southside Chicago. Raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. Make public colleges tuition-free. Create millions of decent-paying jobs and simultaneously build national infrastructure. Switch to universal healthcare.”
OK, then would you agree with reparations? We will even exclude Oprah.
LikeLike
Question:
What is the greater cause in your eyes: the honor of the white North or the equal rights and dignity of black Americans?
Response:
Huge historical inaccuracies, intentional or not, can’t be allowed to stand.
@LOM
That’s only a partial response. I get you enough to know that you are compelled to respond to matters of historical accuracy, particularly on a few specific topics. To expect otherwise of you would be a pretty tall ask. However, are you equally quick to respond to inaccurate racial portrayals? The answer to that will be your answer of which is more important to you.
Question:
If poor white people get a second New Deal, would you be OK with black people receiving reparations for being excluded from the first one plus participate in the second one?
Previous Response:
Since you want to know my opinion on reparations, I think that it’s a bad idea, because in some cases it will end up giving money to the rich (Oprah Winfrey) and not to the poor (European-American trailer park denizen of eastern Tennessee).
Reiteration:
I support the same economic New Deal for all of the poor, whether they’re from Montana or Southside Chicago.
@LOM
I think, if you wanted to, you could find a workaround to your “Oprah” hangup. If your socialist ideals meet your social justice ideals in the middle, the obvious solution is to tax Oprah (and the rest of the very rich) out of millions/billions and only return a tiny portion to “the Oprahs” in the form of reparations. The net effect of which is your desired goal. It’s just math. You want to give out a couple hundred thousand but not to Oprah, then simply raise taxes on the rich simultaneously to get it back along with a crapload more of her money. Socialist LOM gets to tax the rich down to a reasonable level while providing New Deal 2.0 benefits to ALL poor while ally LOM gets to pay reparations without socialist LOM getting bent out of shape about Oprah getting money she “didn’t need”. I think of you as smart enough to have figured that out on your own. The answer to why you haven’t might be a clue as to what’s more important to you here too.
LikeLike
@LOM
The question wasn’t “Are you equally quick to respond to inaccurate racial portrayals in this thread?” Also, I wasn’t implying that you aren’t responsive. I was implying that you need to ask yourself if you are equally quick to respond when it’s race and not your understanding of history that is under attack. If it turns out that you feel more obligated to respond to perceived historical inaccuracies 100% of the time and are willing to let racial inaccuracies slide occasionally… This is not a specific allegation, it’s an effort to get you to do the introspection necessary to answer the question of Which is more important to you? that was asked upthread.
Right now, your stated opinion is that reparations are bad because Oprah would get paid. I provided you with an methodology that would allow you to support reparations while imposing a net decrease in Oprah’s overall cash pile. Can you not appreciate the bigger picture or is your stated objection not entirely accurate? Do you really mean “the Oprahs” or do you mean “all Black people” do not deserve reparations? That’s the thing, I think you strongly wish to uplift the poor, regardless of race. However, I also think you feel that independent, Black only, race-based, reparations are no longer relevant or warranted and that you’re using “the Oprah excuse” because it plays nicer in public.
LikeLike
LOM,
You are definitely a racist.
LikeLike
@LOM
So, to be clear, even if reparations are tied to a socialist tax bill that causes the Oprahs to lose wealth, you remain opposed. Because, on principle, slavery, Jim Crow, racism, systemic oppression, etc… do not outweigh the tragedy of a rich person receiving money they don’t need.
No. Precisely because you cannot be everywhere at once. How am I supposed to know what you’ve seen, here and elsewhere, and how you reacted to it. I suppose the question might be confusing if you’re coming at it thinking that I’m insinuating you’ve missed something. I’m not. You claim to be an ally. You claim to not have a racist bone in your body. So, I have to believe that when you read something racist, your gut turns over, your pulse quickens, and your fingers rush to the keyboard with the same urgency as if it were a historical inaccuracy about the Civil War. Is that a fair assumption? OR When you look deep down, do you think, “nah, this can wait” when it’s matters of race and “OMG, I gotta set the record straight” when it’s matters of history?
LikeLike
@lom wow
LikeLike
@ Lord of Mirkwood
“If it’s a choice between helping Oprah or helping that man, I’ll go with that man.”
You’re using that man as an excuse to refuse to help his poor black neighbors, who have every disadvantage he does plus the added disadvantages of racism and the legacy of slavery.
What if we put an income gap on reparations so people like Oprah don’t receive any? What if reparations take a different form than individual monetary payouts?
Would you use the existence of a few tribes that have gotten rich through casinos to refuse reparations to all Native Americans?
“Notice that Riverside Rob hasn’t been on this thread since King refuted him.”
Correlation is not causation. Had RR returned to this thread, he could have used your “correction of historical facts” against King. You’re aiding the enemy, LoM.
“Question:
What is the greater cause in your eyes: the honor of the white North or the equal rights and dignity of black Americans?
Response:
Huge historical inaccuracies, intentional or not, can’t be allowed to stand.”
What about huge historical injustices like slavery? Are they to be allowed to stand unremedied by reparations?
Also, you didn’t answer the question as worded. Kindly stop weaseling and answer it.
“I can’t be everywhere at once and respond to everything everyone ever writes on this blog. So could you give an example of an inaccurate racial portrayal to which you think I should have responded?”
How about racist remarks? Because as I have pointed out to you repeatedly, not only did you not respond to RR’s racist remark, you undermined King’s response to RR.
If you don’t respond to racist trolls because you feel others do it better, could you at least keep your hypocritical Yankee mouth shut when they’re doing it?
LikeLike
LOM,
Too bad anger doesn’t cure racism.
LikeLike
@ Lord of Mirkwood
“For your reading pleasure, I’ll respond to Riverside Rob’s comment here.”
Why didn’t you do that when it actually would have meant something? Not for my reading pleasure, but to put a racist in his place like a good ally should?
“OK, now you’ve just invited me to fight the Civil War with you.”
No, sir, I have not. I have, however, impugned your honor. I shall continue to do so. You, sir, are a low-down filthy varmint, a wolf in the sheepfold, the worst kind of back-stabbing, double-crossing, untrustworthy, hypocritical, racist Yankee.
LikeLike
@ Lord of Mirkwood
“You, my girl, are one of those Southern belles who cracked the whip on the slaves when her boyfriend went off to fight in the traitors’ army.”
Which one of us stabbed a black man in the back on this very thread?
You give liberals a bad name, Mirkwood, with your mealy-mouthed dishwater Judasing anti-racism.
And as someone who has been a communitarian anarchist longer than you’ve been alive, I believe I do have the right to call you out on this as one liberal to another. Your behavior on this thread shames the very name of liberal.
LikeLike
Oh, and this?
“with the blood of the oppressed Irish and the blood of the liberating Union Army running through my veins.”
So what. I have both of those types of blood running through my veins, too. It says nothing about who you are and how you comport yourself here and now.
LikeLike
“I viewed it as an opportunity to have a discussion about history.”
Thereby derailing the thread and subverting King’s attempt at countering RR’s racist statement.
Because the Civil War is more alive to you than your fellow Americans of color in the present day.
I’m not saying you dislike King. That’s even worse, actually. You betrayed someone you like and you don’t even see it.
LikeLike
@ Lord of Mirkwood
“White privilege theorists would argue that your blood says a lot about you.”
If you truly believe that, you don’t understand white privilege theory.
.
.
.
FFS, this wall is bloody from where I’ve been bashing my head against it…
LikeLike
I’m a racist in spite of my well intentions.
I think hispanic workers out work white workers and therfore so I pay them more money.
I also have a variation of the perpetual foreiners stereo type. If somebody I work for has an Asian last name their Asain. I never ask people where their from because as a salesman you want people to be comfortable with you and asking them questions “Where are you from” makes people feel that somehow they are different then you.
I never know if im working for Chinese and Koreans because I never ask and it’s not something that really matters anyway.
I realized the other day that I have been working for Filipinos for years but presumed their were Hispanic because of their last names.
If i work for Black professionals and they work for the State and are in a public service union then they generally vote Democrat. If they work for themselves, have a business, they vote Republican, because they believe the Republican lie about being the party for lower taxes. One of my wife’s best friends votes Republican because she’s an Evengelical Christian and pro life. (She’s also in a public service union) What I’ve never run into are Blacks that have opinions like Don Lemon or Stacey Dash. I think they get paid to reenforce white sterotypes.
My observation about the Blacks I’ve done business with and who are part of my family is they are far more politically independent. The white media presumes that all Blacks vote and see the world through a singular lense. That hasn’t been my experience.
I also work for Armenians as California has the highest concentration then anywhere else in the U.S. they are from everywhere from Russia to Iraq. Some identify as Persian and some as Arab.
LikeLike
I also think white people are more likely to call the police, file a law suit or do workers comp fraud.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I also discriminate against hiring white people. Every time time I hired one they pulled a bogus workers comp claim or just were plain lazy. White people have this sense of entitlement and get all worked up once they find out that they get paid less them Mexicans.
LikeLike
@ Lord of Mirkwood
“So if someone tries to blame me for racism because of my European ancestry, I will counter.”
I didn’t try to blame you for racism because of your European ancestry.
I called you a racist because of your actions and your expressed opinions.
LikeLike
@ Open Minded Observer
“OR When you look deep down, do you think, “nah, this can wait” when it’s matters of race and “OMG, I gotta set the record straight” when it’s matters of history?”
Nailed. Especially when it’s a matter of history that might upset his security blanket of #36.
LikeLike
@lom you mentioned it, how do you ‘get paid’ via the american civil war? I can only assume you write about it, or work in a museum? Do you have to wear a union soldier’s uniform at work?
LikeLike
I think this list just about covers everyone. I think I’ve said, “No problemo” a few times in the past, but now I like to say “si”, “hola!” and
“me gusta la cabeza; se siente muy bien”.
I do see race on the other hand. I just make a conscious decision not to let it affect how I treat others. It’s the only thing I feel I have any control of. Everything else about this crazy world is beyond my ability to influence for reasons I won’t go into.
BTW, my white privilege is largely cancelled out by all of the other disadvantages that were bestowed upon me at birth; so, in a way, my personal net gain is approximately zero. It might actually be negative if there were ever a way to properly quantify it.
Humans have an endless imagination when it comes to creating ways to exclude, stomp on, and exploit those who are different than they. I feel no connection/kinship with any white people – especially the types most of those on this blog are no doubt picturing in their minds when they say “white people”.
The only way to save ourselves from emotional anguish is to try to let go of the anger. Don’t give in to hate. That leads to the dark side.
LikeLike
ok my whole family is teachers not me i cant be bothered cars and computers
LikeLike
gtfooh its all public
LikeLiked by 1 person
i get that
LikeLike
@ Lord of Mirkwood
What’s the breakdown of the racial demographics of your school’s student population?
LikeLike
ok mirkwood so how bout in the latter half of the 19th century the whites that lived down south but didn’t own a plantation? maybe rented a room in atlanta or something? how did sherman help them out you are like tying yourself in knots
LikeLike
ah jesus lom i am getting on at this time, i was just kind of taking potshots call a truce for a minute
LikeLike
i got like ground zero right around me all day
LikeLike
@ v8driver
I think I understood you just fine. Sherman didn’t stop to ask about income level, slave ownership, opinion on slavery, or attitude towards secession before he burned someone’s home down around their ears. Plenty of poor whites suffered from his tactics (and probably some free blacks, too). He wasn’t just torching the wealthy plantations.
@ Lord of Mirkwood
“The same whites who had been in the Heroes of America during the war now clamored for the confiscation of wealthy Rebels’ property, formed alliances with former slaves to create a Radical government in 1867, and denounced slavery as hurting the poor whites just as badly as it did black people.”
Now imagine how much that frightened the rich Northern industrialists — the ones who had children as young as five working 12 to 16 hours a day in the textile mills for pennies. That’s one reason Northern support for Radical Reconstruction dried up real quick.
But your class concentrates on the Civil War, so I guess they don’t get to read about the atrocities happening to poor people up North.
LikeLiked by 2 people
@ LoM
One other point: Are you familiar with the Exodusters? Perhaps you ought to tell us about the reception they got from the fine white folks in the free state of Kansas.
LikeLike
@ Kiwi
What LoM seems to be missing here (among other things) is that reparations for slavery aren’t just about lifting poor people out of poverty. It’s about righting a historic wrong. And in some sense it would be a largely symbolic gesture, because the actual monetary debt of stolen wages, not to mention stolen lives, would be astronomical.
If repartions are about righting a wrong, about recompensing a crime, then Oprah Winfrey has a right to be recompensed. When judges make decisions in court, they don’t say to a victim, for example, that the doctor who committed malpractice should by all rights pay the victim x amount “but you’re already rich anyway so you don’t really need it.”
I find his continual use of Oprah as an example highly suspect, as this is a common argument used by covert racists.
LikeLiked by 2 people
@ Kiwi
I used to think he was mildly amusing, but after the things he’s said and done on this thread, I’m thoroughly disgusted.
It does serve, however, as an excellent example of why so many PoC distrust white liberals.
LikeLike
[…] saved the best for last! Here is an absolutely hilarious way of determining whether you are racist. It’s the funniest thing on Earth, check it […]
LikeLike
LOM
Their is no moral obligation of the rich to take care of the poor. A person has a right to be a miser.
It is moral to feed, clothe and help the poor whether one is rich or broke. The parable of the widow whose offering to help the poor, though a “mite” has moral value and demonstrated that it is the community, not the Federal goverment, where that moral obligation lies.
The issue is righting a historical atrocity directed at the Federal government since it sanctioned the legal right to own an individuale. Whether one fought for or against slavery isn’t the issue.
The U.S. goverment and whites increased considerable wealth through the business of slavery. It would have continued because it was profitable. White suprememcy maintained an economic monopoly during slavery and after slavery was abolished, through Jim Crow.
The economic power within the Black community today reflects hundreds of years of atrocity and discrimination.
That needs to be rectified through a plan that replaces the economic loss caused because of white suprememcy.
It is not a conservative issue verses liberal issue. It is not a class issue. Black billionaires are just as deserving of restitution as arpoor Blacks.
It is paying restitution that satisfies a moral obligation to fufill the sactioned theft of life, liberty and property, the very things this country was founded on.
If reparations are ignored then the wound continues and white society rots from moral bankruptcy. White supremecy is already cannabalizing itself and that is directly related
LikeLike
(Sorry.my.post.got.seperated)
And that is directly related to denying reparations and not following through with reconciliation.
This current course of inaction will come back and haunt the white community in the future. The sins of their fathers will be seen hanging from trees.
But it’s business as usual within the Empire. Propagating stereotypes, deflection, community interference and blaming the Blacks for crime and want. The media deliberately ignores the Black middle class, and focuses on “news worthy stories” that confirm white attitudes towards Blacks.
Anybody who thinks any presidential canidate will change the current status quo is delusional.
LikeLike
“But it’s business as usual within the Empire. Propagating stereotypes, deflection, community interference and blaming the Blacks for crime and want. The media deliberately ignores the Black middle class, and focuses on “news worthy stories” that confirm white attitudes towards Blacks.
Anybody who thinks any presidential canidate will change the current status quo is delusional.”
.
@MJBarker
I could not have said that better! If Prof Derrick Bell is looking down on us from a better place, I wonder if the esteemed former instructor still believes that racism is a permanent condition? (Maybe some Space Traders will show up, for real!!)
Short of some major cataclysmic event occurring that will eradicate the DEFECT (whatever that is!) that causes RACISM/White Supremacy, it will be here to stay.
No bunch of politicians are ever going to go against their monied interests… or, the absolute Zero Sum Game that white people LOVE to play when & where Black people are involved. Especially when one happens to a billionaire.
Isn’t that right, You-Know-Who??
LikeLike
@ Michael Jon Barker
+100
The thing is, normally when it comes to basic class issues, I would agree with LoM about there needing to be a more equitable distribution of wealth.
But as you said, this is about restitution and reconciliation.
Oprah’s ancestors suffered under the federal government’s policy of legally codifying slavery. She is entitled to restitution on her ancestors’ behalf.
We could exclude her, but this is probably a slippery slope argument. If we agreed to exclude the one African American billionaire, that wouldn’t make LoM happy. He’d want the black millionaires excluded, too.
I wonder how far down we’d have to get into the black middle class before we reached an income level where LoM felt that reparations are acceptable.
Of course, the answer is probably that he’s just using income level as a dodge to avoid admitting that he is completely against the federal government providing restitution for slavery to anyone.
LikeLike
@ Lord of Mirkwood
I have told you repeatedly what you did in this thread. At first I was simply trying to point out to you what I thought may have been a blind spot, where you didn’t realize how you had failed to be an ally. However, you have dug in your heels and defended your behavior.
You can claim to be a perfect saint until you turn blue. It doesn’t matter. You have demonstrated that you cannot walk the walk.
LikeLike
@ Lord of Mirkwood
Of course you have a right to say whatever you want. I have an equal right to express my displeasure with what you say.
What really disgusts me is how you place yourself on a pedestal by saying that you don’t have one racist bone in your body, you haven’t had a racist thought since conception, etc. Lording it over everyone else. You can describe yourself in those terms all you want, but that doesn’t (a) make it true (b) mean that I can’t express my disgust with such self-aggrandizing and patently false conceits.
LikeLike
@LOM “Food for thought: Karl Marx said that one fruit of the Civil War was the establishment of he 8-hour workweek.”
omg dude you started talking about the northern industrialists and totally ignored my few posts about the labor union movement, and that is surely inaccurate pretty sure it was industrial workers getting their heads cracked open by the strikebreakers in the early 1900s ish?
which also ties into another diamat exercise writ large of american history
then woman suffrage even i’m seeing things a little different lately
cuz next is wwi then the tsarists’ demise and of course, balfour
LikeLike
history, technically speaking, is a system of hegelian style dialectic events otherwise nothing would be different!
LikeLike
actually female suffrage was 1919, i should check my facts first, so it goes last in that list
LikeLike
‘how the weekend was won’ tres apropos
http://www.pbs.org/livelyhood/workday/weekend/8hourday.html
LikeLike
@lom how is your students’ averages on standardized testing in your subject?
LikeLiked by 1 person