Not a racist? Prof. Alan Abramowitz thinks that makes you even more of one.
By Jeff Emanuel Posted in Academia | Barack Obama | Liberals | liberals in the mist | Racism — Comments (78) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
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Tomorrow's Washington Post (h/t Adam C) will feature an op-ed by Emory University PoliSci professor Alan Abramowitz ("In These Primary Numbers, Warnings for the Fall") that seeks to turn logic and rationality on its head for the purposes of calling White America racist.
"Voting patterns in Indiana and North Carolina show that resistance to a black candidate among some white Democrats remains a serious threat to his chances in November," Abramowitz writes. "Obama continues to have particular difficulty with one segment of the Democratic electorate: white working-class voters."
His explanation of this is long on unsubstantiated, not-rationally-supportable conjecture, and his conclusions lack anything remotely resembling evidence or facts. I suppose that's the price one pays for (or the benefit of) being a political "scientist": rather than having an academic specialty that prepares one to conduct research (and draw conclusions from that research) and analysis, all a political "scientist" like Abramowitz seems to feel the need to do is obtain numbers. His analysis and conclusions drawn from those numbers are all assumption, with no explanation added as to how those conclusions were reached, or why they should be accepted as correct.
The backdoor assault on working-class whites begins with Abramowitz's declaration that, despite a dearth of "overtly racist beliefs" (which he concedes "are much less prevalent among white Americans of all classes today"), "a more subtle form of prejudice, which social scientists sometimes call symbolic racism, is still out there -- especially among working-class whites."
"Symbolic racism," he explains, "means believing that African American poverty and other problems are largely the result of lack of ambition and effort, rather than white racism and discrimination."
Read on.
So Abramowitz has set his premise: "African American poverty and other problems" are the result of "white racism and discrimination." If you don't agree, you're a racist. Further, if you don't agree with that, then there is no point in your continuing to read Abramowitz's assault-on-logic of a column, because the information he provides in the remainder of the piece for the purpose of fomenting guilt or outrage quite simply won't make sense to you -- and certainly won't provoke that intended reaction.
You see, Abramowitz doesn't bother to expand on that premise by explaining just how it is that the African American community's problems are all being caused by racist whites; he just assumes -- and wants you to assume -- that it's true, and to operate from that point of view as you read the rest of what he has to say.
The rest of the column is dedicated to showing how widespread the attitude that the African American community's problems aren't to be solely chalked up to bigoted white crackers is; you are expected to agree with him that that attitude and opinion is not only incorrect, but abhorrent. Some examples:
Almost 60 percent of white voters agreed with the statement that "blacks should try harder to succeed." A startling 43 percent of white college graduates nodded at this one, along with 71 percent of whites with no college education.
"Startling" indeed. Was that supposed to be a hard-hitting statistic?
Fully 49 percent of white voters disagreed with the statement that "history makes it more difficult for blacks to succeed." Forty percent of white college graduates disagreed with it, along with 58 percent of whites with no college education.
Wow; that's just unbelievable. "Fully 49 percent of white voters" clearly must weigh the same as a duck and be made of wood -- or whatever the racist version of that equation (which is as scientific as Abramowitz's argument) is.
Anyway, on top of those two hard-hitting statistics (and the absent logic and analysis explaining why holding those "startling" attitudes not only make one racist, but are incorrect in the first place) is...nothing. The good "science" professor from Emory University has apparently blown his wad on just those two underwhelming polling results.
What -- were you expecting more? Hey, I warned you: if you didn't buy into the initial premise -- that the belief that "African American poverty and other problems" are not the result of "white racism and discrimination" makes you a "symbolic racist" -- then there was little or no point in reading the rest of the column, as it would make little sense, and utterly fail to provoke the outrage at, and shame of, those racist working-class whites that Abramowitz was do desperately hoping to achieve.
Oh, yes, the end of the piece. Abramowitz concludes:
Of course, these results don't mean that Obama won't win over white working-class voters. ... Democrats must hope that disapproval of Bush could lead working-class voters to begrudgingly approve of a black presidential candidate.
Hm. I would argue that "Democrats must hope" that they have people in their arsenal of writers and academics who are more capable of making, and backing up, an actual argument than poor Professor Abramowitz. Then again, most high school essays are better constructed and better argued, so I don't worry that there's someone out there, from the age of fifteen up, who can serve as a sharper mind, and present a clearer and more coherent argument, than Abramowitz.
I have to say, it's definitely a good thing that this wasn't submitted to, rather then by, the good Professor, as I feel confident saying that such assumption, and such utter failure to back up both premise and argument, would surely have earned the erstwhile student who produced such poor work a less-than-stellar grade.
"The racist voters are blacks.
Whites have voted based on information available at the time."
Did you just say that?
There are various eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes: and as a result there are various truths, and as a result there is no truth.
~Friedrich Nietzsche
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
"What does that do? Does that blow your mind? That just happened!!"
Y'all and your feigned shock...LOL
I hate to disagree with my second-favorite Redstater, but I don't think that there's any reason to think that blacks are supporting Obama for anything close to racist reasons. Blacks were overwhelmingly Democrats in the first place, presumably because they support Democratic policy. Obama was always running as a purer exponent of Democratic policy than his opponents, and I think that that would be enough to explain his level of support amongst blacks, whatever his race. Any (quite innocent) preference for a candidate of one's own background is only icing on the cake. (Having grown up in Kansas, I was enthused about Brownback's candidacy for a while there. This doesn't mean I have any animosity towards non-Kansans.)
To justify imputing racial or similar animosity on the part of any group, I think that you need to jump through all the hoops I outlined in my piece yesterday. In fact, I edited out of that piece (for length!... I know, I know) a section on how blacks in particular get the short end of the stick from the anti-crypto-bigots. Just as there are all these stereotypes about how the wrong kind of white people (Southern, working class, Republican, etc.) have all these hidden bigoted opinions against various groups, the wrong sorts of black people (i.e., not Barack Obama) are presumed by the elites to have similar sorts of opinions against many of the same groups. Blacks, they say, are anti-Semitic, misogynistic, anti-Hispanic, homophobic, anti-Korean/Indian/other shopkeeper-ethnicity, and of course anti-white. I don't think that any of these stereotypes bear scrutiny in general, although there are clearly types like Jeremiah Wright who are trying to foment some of these forms of bigotry within the black community.
was to call out the vacuousness of the leftist msm claim that working class whites are
obviously voting on race when they don't vote for the messiah.
But let's look at the word racist and what it means, in essence, i.e. making decisions based on skin color instead of merit.
And when you look at the declining vote for Obama with whites vs the constant black vote for BHO despite changing evidence about who he is, then a presumption arises.
I must also factor in the following facts:
statements by numerous blacks that admit they are voting for him because he is black
blacks i know, some of whom voted for Reagan, that are in love with obama
I DO EXCUSE BLACKS TO A CERTAIN EXTENT, but really, I think that is wrong, but i guess, if we had never had a southern pres, I might cut him some slack.
Plus, we are talking about dems, and one of the main things i learned in 18 yrs a dem is that it is dems that have far more people voting on race and gender than repubs ever thought about!
fact above
re-read
The essence of the truth that disproves the msm meme
Obama nearly won the white male vote in the Peach State, with Edwards still in.
let that sink in
Georgians didn't know of rev wright, ayers, michelle and bitter
But they did know Obama was black.
Pennsylvania knew he was black AND....
see?
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
I was gonna write this up in more detail, but I have a review session to go to.
I looked at some exit polls in response to this, looked at the white vote by age (because there is a big age gap in this primary, probably second biggest after race and before gender)
These numbers are white Obama support among the following age groups: 30-44,45-59,60+ (list in chronological order)
GA : 47,39,34
LA : 32,33,26
MD : 46,44,31
RI : 38,37,30
OH : 40,32,24
PA : 42,37,32
IN : 45,38,28
NC : 45,33,29
In the 30-44 age group, with the exception of LA and RI, which came early, all results in 42-47 range, with the most recent two in the middle at 45. GA and LA were high and low outliers (esp GA, given Edwards note below).
In 45-59, with the exception of MD all in 32-39. The first two are on the high and low end of the range, as well as the last two.
In 60+, with the exception of OH all in the 26-34 range. The last two were in the middle with 28,29, and the first two were high and low at 34 and 26.
For the record, as for Edwards in GA, he got 9% in 30-44 and no more than 4% elsewhere. I have no idea how that support've broken without Edwards, but by Super Tuesday Edwards was pretty out of it.
I'd do more, but I haven't the time. I think this has a lot to do with age, not time (time as in when the primaries occurred).
Edwards was in GA, so Obama's numbers would have been even higher. NC and GA are similar in size/demo. So, Obama's loss of white votes is statistically significant.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Taking a look at older (by which I mean 60+) white voters in GA and NC:
While it is true that Edwards was in GA, according to the same exit polls in GA Edwards got 3% among white 60+ voters. Assuming that said voters would have split between Obama and Hillary same as white 60+ people in general had Edwards not been there, we get 65-35 Clinton-Obama in GA among 60+ whites.
In NC, the numbers are 69-29. That is a difference, probably even statistically significant (I have no idea how the margin of error works on these).
But Obama lost 11% from GA to NC, and only 5% among older white voters. Obama's losses were less among older white voters than among the population at large.
The difference is the number of older white voters. In GA, 45-59 whites and 60+ whites were 15% and 10% of the electorate. In NC, those numbers were 21% and 22%. The 45+ white portion of the vote went from 25% to 43%, from GA to NC. That is a HUGE difference. And, 60+ white voters' share doubled from GA to NC.
that Obama's support among whites since more info about him became known hasn't dropped significantly, but the bottom line facts defy any such interpretation.
I would say that we should keep in mind that we are dealing with a democratic primary universe, a very liberal universe. Which makes the matter all the more striking.
The fact that Obama only lost the white male vote by 2% in Georgia!!! and then bombs later among same in northern states AFTER the 20-yr pew parked butt (ayers and bitter) roared, is a huge matter.
It defies the MSM suggestion of racism among whites, based on the numbers, no matter the income level or age, etc. Georgians knew Obama was black.
That is my main point, and it is irrefutable.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
I am not trying to call anyone racist. And I do agree that Obama lost support among white voters from GA to NC. I am not making an argument as to why. I am saying that Obama's support among any one age group of white voters only went down maybe 5%.
If someone asks the question, "What was the bigger cause of Obama's loss of white support from GA (where he lost it by 2) to NC?" and the choices were a) white voters liking him less (due to any and all causes, including Wright et al) and b) white voters being older in NC, the data backs up b I think.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
I don't have any idea where this came from. If you want to explain I would listen, but I am not going to respond any further.
:Emulating Moe:
:Addressing the audience:
I have made my argument, I hope y'all will take it into consideration, or at least look at the numbers (which I got from CNN) and draw your own conclusions.
people church obama chose for 20 years, they still love him.
self loathing whites
young people are ipso facto ignorant - they are young
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Text msg 4 Obama
whites
I have seen it in many friends, and must say that I sympathize and am gentle or silent in contesting it.
I see this as a weakness on my part. I am failing my black friends.
see
http://gamecock.blogtownhall.com/2007/04/18/america_needs_the_wisdom_of_...
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
....the black community voting for the black candidate at a 9-to-1 ratio, when that candidate offers no appreciable policy difference from the white one, is a number whose most obvious explanation points to those votes being cast based on race.
It's quite possible. And I certainly don't think that, if it were established that all or most of the black support of Obama was a matter of racial solidarity, that would imply anything terribly bad, since we can presume that almost all black voters have a history of voting for non-black candidates in at least some elections, and hence that they don't take this racial solidarity to the point of not voting for members of another race.
But consider this: To have 90% of blacks vote for Obama in the Democratic primary only means that about 80% of blacks are Obama supporters, since about 10% of blacks are Republican voters in most general elections.
That's still high, but I think (wild-a$$ guessingly) that, if 50-60% of blacks were supporting a serious black presidential candidate in the party and of the ideology that the vast majority of blacks prefer, then that would be a surprisingly low figure, based on an assumption of an entirely unobjectionable root-for-the-home-team type of racial solidarity. I would guess that 70% would seem more of a "just right" number for this.
If that's the case, then there's only ten points of difference to account for, and this could be easily explained by subtle or past differences in policy, like the fact that Clinton voted for the Iraq War and hence might not be trusted, from a liberal perspective, to end it as surely as Obama would.
This is mostly guesswork, of course. But I suppose that, having thought about this recently, I've just become hyperskeptical of all my presuppositions about how identity politics is supposed to work (as well as prone to go on too long about it:)).
That might be on to something, since Obama does speak to the black experience -- in all it's complexity, in putting the negatives and positives in a non-pandering context (pandering in the usual way to the black community is something he's assiduously avoided, actually) -- in a way that Hillary Clinton simply can't.
...but I personally wish we had more lefties like you around here.
Nobody has to sing from a certain songbook to be respected and respectable; rather, simply using a little logic and trying to employ a little rationality and as much objectivity as possible is worth plenty on its own.
...I'll try to make those words as unappetizing as possible.
I'm curious what you're getting at by saying that Obama's avoided pandering in the usual way. It rings true, but it's something I hadn't thought about. Would you care to expand? (If it's not a threadjack, that is.)
...this is fundamentally a thread about race in politics, after all.
If Obama had pandered in the usual way, talking solely about how victimized blacks had been instead of the totality of the situation -- the culpability of all involved, black, white, dead people with dumb ideas of all races, whatever -- he would've been branded as the "black candidate" to a much greater degree. I also happen to think he's not a big fan, deep down, of "us versus them" thinking in any form. So, in both a self-interested and a personal way I think he concluded that talking to blacks about how the solution was wholly on the outside of the black community was nothing he was interested in doing.
leftist us v them, with them being "the rich."
A loser message in Novembers.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Come to think of it, insofar as Obama has adopted any "us vs. them" stance, his "us" is the rich and his "them" is the poor. Remember Bittergate: He was speaking to the richest people in what I presume is still the most expensive city in the country, and he was talking about the benighted Pennsylvania hillbillies don't know any better than to cling to their guns and their God and their prejudices and their stances on international trade that happen not to be in favor in Ivy League economics departments.
The Democrats are now the party of the rich. If you care about poor people, you have to vote Republican!
;)
poor and bad ole rich white corps?!
really, good point
but he is a leftist, see marxist
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Interesting take. I think there's a lot to it.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Yeah, that's true. I'm specifically talking about the presidential run (as opposed to Hillary's), not how he got to where he is.
been fighting, and that is that the MAIN problem with Black voters is that vote for democrats of any hue.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
"root for the home team" type of racial solidarity? I was under the impression that this is a kind of soft racism.
For example, what if I were voting for McCain at least partly based on male solidarity? Or if I were voting for Hillary partly because she's a woman? Wouldn't those constitute inappropriate preference based not on merit but some irrelevant factor, whether that be race, gender or class?
I would think it inappropriate and racist (albeit a soft, apparently harmless kind)...
I know this wasn't addressed to me, but FWIW--
Step back a bit and examine the voting process.
Fact Number One: You can vote for the candidate of your choice, for any reason you choose.
Fact Number Two: Nothing can (legally) countermand Fact Number One.
So what we have is a theoretical discussion of what name an outsider might give to the reason for another person's voting decision. My conclusion has been that in the end it all boils down to "we vote for the person we are most comfortable with of the two or more candidates." If that's the case, we don't call names at all.
OTOH, if a vote is cast for no reason other than to be against the skin color of the other candidate(s), that's racist. Whether soft or hard, I don't know. But it's still legal, as long as it's only a vote, and the interpretation, unless confirmed by the voter, is in the eye of the beholder.
That's my short and superficial analysis. YMMV.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.“--Jeff Cooper. From Bill Coffey's collection of military quotations
First, I'm not a legalist. Meaning, I don't really care so much whether something is legal; I care about whether it is moral and then whether it's legal. Racist voting is obviously legal, and I didn't communicate otherwise.
But just because it is legal doesn't make racist voting okay, even if we're racist only because "we are most comfortable with" people of our own skin color. Again, that doesn't make it okay and so we DO "call names" as you say. Precisely, we call it what it is: racism.
Obviously, there are different levels and kinds of racism, everything from addressing only whites politely to lynching a black person. Obviously, it's worse to murder a black person due to the color of his skin than to ignore him for the same reason. But both things are still racist.
If someone is unable to comprehend the differing heinousness of racist behaviors, that is his problem. Nonetheless, we should call something racist if it is.
Take the example I used above about my own sympathy for Brownback coming from our shared Kansas roots. I didn't support him (for the time I did) just because he was from Kansas, but it was sort of an exciting prospect that the next president might be from my neck of the woods. This probably caused me to pay a bit more attention to his words, to interpret them more charitably, to be more optimistic about his chances, and to stick with him longer than I would have if he had been from, say, Ohio. And if the race for the nomination had come down to Brownback and an ideologically similar politician from Ohio, I would probably be inclined to lean towards Brownback for these very reasons. I don't think that that would be particularly troubling. And I don't think that anyone would be shocked if, in such a race, Brownback were to win the Kansas primary by huge margins, even as the two were neck-and-neck elsewhere in the country (except for Ohio).
If blacks are kindly disposed to Obama for reasons like these, then I don't think there's anything inappropriate about that. Nor if women were kindly disposed towards Clinton out of enthusiasm at the prospect of a female president. On the other hand, it's unlikely that anyone is enthusiastic about McCain for the fact that he is a man, since all American presidents so far have been men. But if somebody, for whatever reason, is really enthusiastic about being a dude, and therefore enthusiastic about male presidential candidates in general, then I don't see any theoretical problem with that, as long as it doesn't spill over into animosity towards women.
I'm a bit conflicted, but these are my thoughts why "solidarity" can be inappropriate.
A President is different than a home team. It's appropriate and good to root for the home team, even if they're bad at the sport, because they represent the hometown against other teams from other home towns. A President, however, does not represent just the home town or home state, i.e. Kansas.
So while I understand the sentiment of identity politics, whether it be of class, race, gender, home state, similar taste in ice cream, religion, etc. I think it's wrong in so far as those things are irrelevant.
I disagree also with the idea that racism is only bad if one is negatively racist towards someone. That seems to be your position, i.e. that if I am more favorable towards a certain category of persons than others, that is okay as long as I am not hurting the other categories of people.
So if I am more favorable toward Hillary partly because she's a woman, that's okay as long as I'm not antagonistic towards men.
But that seems equally wrong to me. If you had a daughter in a classroom, and the male teacher gave all the boys in the class 10 bonus points, it doesn't directly *hurt* the girls, but it does in a sense hurt the girls and is inappropriate (even though the girls didn't deserve the extra 10 points).
Similarly, I am opposed to affirmative action for this reason as well. Making race a "bonus factor" in the evaluation of a candidate is wrong, even if I am not giving whites a negative factor, because race is irrelevant and equally meritorious whites will not have a place at the university.
Obviously, I do not mean it should be illegal for a university to have a racist admission policy, but it is nonetheless wrong.
Maybe we just see things differently.
"So while I understand the sentiment of identity politics, whether it be of class, race, gender, home state, similar taste in ice cream, religion, etc. I think it's wrong in so far as those things are irrelevant."
To begin with, those things aren't all irrelevant (except maybe the ice cream one). By evaluating any of them based on your own experience, you can come to some conclusion as to what the candidate will do in the future. Not as good as looking at what the man/woman has actually done in the past, but perhaps as good as what he says he will do. And when it comes to voting, there is no "wrong" reason to cast a vote. Mistaken reasons, maybe. Uninformed, sure. But not "wrong."
"I disagree also with the idea that racism is only bad if one is negatively racist towards someone. That seems to be your position, i.e. that if I am more favorable towards a certain category of persons than others, that is okay as long as I am not hurting the other categories of people."
Remember, we are discussing voting activities, not life in general. By definition, if you vote for one person, you are "hurting" the opponent. There's no way to get around it. It's the definition of an election. That's a completely different proposition than your examples of classroom behavior and affirmative action, upon which I agree with your statements.
Incidentally, I know you addressed this to TD, but I was the one who actually said words to the effect that "racism is only bad if one is negatively racist towards someone." Sort of, anyway, so I chose to respond, too. What I intended, and what I think I made pretty clear, is that liking people who are like you isn't bad, it's human nature. But hating people who are different isn't human nature--distrusting them might be, holding them at arm's length might be--but racial hating (racism) is a learned behavior. And of course I didn't say that racism isn't bad under all conditions. I said that pro-anybody voting wasn't racism as I saw the issue. You seem to want to call it racism if Mr. O'Hannity votes for Mr. O'Reilly for no other reason than that both of them have common ancestry (or perhaps a common worldview). As I tried to point out elsewhere on the thread, you'd call voting the Party ticket "racism" by that standard.
I revert to common sense. People will do what they think is in their own interests, if they think about it at all. If they don't think about it, they'll do it naturally. Human naturally. It's true about voting, too.
IIRC, it is "illegal" to have a racist admissions policy in any school that accepts government money. (While I'm at it, I'll point out that considering any criterion at all, of any kind, carries with it the implication that you are comfortable with making that your only criterion. You can check out the logic of that statement yourself. That's why there should logically be no points or advantage at all given for race in school or job admissions.)
Back to elections: We recognize think that some voters are going to use group memberships of many kinds as one of their selection points. See: NRA, NOW, and party affiliations. Yes, I realize that those are issue-based groups, but there's no reason to believe that people don't perceive other members of their extended social/ethnic groups as sharing unspoken issue positions with them.
Anyway, call it what you will. You can never prove "racism" by analyzing voting patterns. You have to get inside the heart based on other words and actions to do that.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.“--Jeff Cooper. From Bill Coffey's collection of military quotations
I might add this: While I think that it's generally true that we should strive to look past accidental characteristics and judge people and things on their merits alone, such utter objectivity is a difficult thing to accomplish, or else we wouldn't have to strive to attain it. And being such a difficult task, a lot of people will naturally fall short at it—all of us, probably, at one time or another.
A mere failure to live up to the highest standards—even as most of the people who fail in this way are striving, as best they can, to meet these standards (which I think is usually the case)—doesn't deserve to be lumped in with an outright, malevolent rejection of those standards under the category of, here, racism, whatever superficial similarities there might be between the two phenomena. I don't think that anybody's been meaning to conflate the two, but I just want to emphasize how far apart these phenomena are.
Thank goodness the academics have come to the aid of Hillary. And good on the Washington Post for helping them.
Poor Bill Clinton. He's been out on the hustings, all alone, trying to explain to rural America what's going on:
Hillary is in this race because of people like you and places like this and no matter what they say," Clinton said. "And no matter how much fun they make of your support of her and the fact that working people all over America have stuck with her, she thinks you're as smart as they are. She thinks you've got as much right to have your say as anybody else. And, you know, they make a lot of fun of me because I like to campaign in places like this, they say I have been exiled to rural America, as if that was a problem. I don't know about you, but I'd rather be here than listening to that stuff I have to hear on television, I'd rather be with you.
Bill Clinton is right: those fancy-pants liberal professors look down their snoots at good hard-workin' folks. In fact, as far as the Democratic Party elites are concerned — and this includes those "Obama" Democrats with their book learnin' — all the white people in flyover country are racists. Heck, if Hillary isn't the nominee, those folks won't even be welcome in the Democratic Party. They'll have to vote Republican, because the liberal professors don't even want 'em around.
Excuse me, I gotta go into the other room to laugh my guts out.
Drink Good Coffee. You can sleep when you're dead.
his very real flaws, the USA would be in much better shape!
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
We all need to shut up and submit to his superior authority on the basis of faith.
And all this time I thought religion was passé at our institutions of higher learning. Now it turns out we've all just been practicing the wrong religion.
Question authority? That's so 1968. Now we lean that Messiah has come, his name is Barack, and Alan is his prophet.
On your knees, guilty racist infidels: repent and receive your absolution at Alan's hand!
Now excuse me while I head for the porcelain throne in the next room to vomit...
was quite timely considering this steaming pile.
Check out ThomlinosnDouthat's post Notes On the Theory of Crypto Bigotry and marvel at his prescience on this matter.
Now also found at The Minority Report
And for your kind words. For this, and for your lonely (as of yesterday) recommend of my piece, you're now officially my favorite Redstater. (Gamecock's currently in second place.)
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Although that is stiff competition I face from the rooster. I'll have to keep on my game to ward off the man from the South.
Now also found at The Minority Report
http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~mdarre/4-hpoultry/anatomy.html
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Alan Abramowitz used positive responses to the following two questions as evidence that the respondent is a "symbolic racist":
1. Should blacks try harder to succeed?
2. Past history is no longer an obstacle to blacks.
To Dr. Abramowitz, if you said yes with both those statements, that makes you a "symbolic racist."
Question #1 is stupidly posed, almost a tautology: "Try harder" than what? "Try harder" than whom? Should anybody, of any race, ever not try hard to succeed? If I think Dr. Abramowitz should try harder to come up with better poll questions, does that mean I am discriminating against Dr. Abramowitz?
As for question #2, there is now empirical evidence that it's a true fact: In a poll taken of young blacks (under the age of 30), most responded that they personally had never been victimized by white racism. Demonstrating that yes, the past history of America that Reverend Wright keeps obsessing about, is fading into the history books. Young black kids growing up today don't ever meet a Bull Connor in their entire lives.
Dr. Abramowitz's methodology was so appalling that I seriously considered emailing him with this above response. Maybe we at RedState ought to put together a joint response?
..to date.
Watts as VP
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
I dunno if it's McCain, or Red State, or Little Green Footballs.
But this definitely deserves a response from somebody.
The notion that "trying harder" is "symbolically racist" is counter to everything that America has always stood for.
Every immigrant group that has come to America has faced discrimination, from "We don't want the Irish" to "No Jews Allowed." And their response was invariably: They "tried harder." They worked hard to show that they could be a part of the American experience and contribute to it. And by proving it, they became part of the American experience.
So when Americans responded that blacks should "try harder," all they were saying is that the black experience logically ought to mirror that of our own immigrant ancestors. I can easily envision some Italian-American or Irish-American or Jew thinking "Blacks should try harder, like my own great-grandparents did."
That's not a racist statement. In fact, it's an expectation of fair treatment. The new kid on the block, whether it's Irish, Italians, Jews, or blacks, always has a selling job to do.
What about slavery? Well, that debt was paid. What we owed to blacks as compensation for slavery was political freedom. They got that. But we don't owe them (or anyone else) our respect. As I've said a thousand times: Respect is not an entitlement. Respect is a reward that has to be earned.
Of African immigrants?
They compare very favorably with immigrants - better in fact.
From Wikipedia
"Africans have the highest educational attainment rates of any immigrant group in the United States with higher levels of completion than the stereotyped Asian American model minority.[2] It is not only the first generation that does well, as estimates indicate that a highly disproportionate percentage of black students at elite universities are African or the children of African immigrants. Harvard University, for example, has estimated that two-thirds of their black population is not comprised of traditional black Americans."
I think that blows away the racist argument - not that racism doesn't exist, but it's not crippling.
It also points out that something happened to the blacks who were brought to this country. As a group, they were culturally brutalized and crippled. We still see the effects.
The U.S. has pure evil in our history.
So, the question is this - do we, as a country, bear any current responsibility for this evil? Should we try to do anything to fix it? Should we pretend it never existed and evil has no long lasting consequences?
I doubt there is much that can be done. Time is the only healer of wounds this deep.
Hard questions.
I was once on a regular on the BlackVoices.net "Politrix" messageboard (somewhere around 2001 - wish I'd saved my posts - my output was immense).
I questioned how much racism could be holding black people down if guys with names like Olabode Akindele, Chukwudi Ezenwa and, yeah, Barack Obama, are routinely posting up good grades in all fields of academic endeavor (not just African American "Studies") and then making it like crazy in the working world.
I mean, from the get-go, from just their names, it's impossible not to know that these guys are African i.e. black. So why would the racist folks in HR throw "Alan James Parker's" application away and ask "Olaitan Olumide Ladeji" in for an interview?
I think that blows away the racist argument - not that racism doesn't exist, but it's not crippling.
Very true.
It also points out that something happened to the blacks who were brought to this country. As a group, they were culturally brutalized and crippled. We still see the effects.
There's a lot of truth in this statement. But at the same time, I think the root of much of what keeps the slave-descendant black community further down the ladder than other immigrant groups has its roots in the 1960s. For example, the leap in the rate of out of wedlock births from 25% in 1965 to 75% in 1975.
The dissolution of the black family, thanks largely in part due to LBJ's well-intentioned War on Poverty is culprit number one, I think. The wholesale adoption of militancy, conspiracy-theories and quasi-socialist Big Government ideology by the so-called "Black Leadership" i.e. Jesse Jackson, Julian Bond, etc. that they used their well-earned reputations to transmit and enforce as part and parcel of black identity is another thing - look no further for the origins of Jeremiah Wright's "theological" rantings than that.
The thing to remember is; the black community's destiny is in its hands, in the hands of every black individual to do right by himself and the people around him. Quite frankly, I don't think there's anything White America can do beyond having the same expectations of the black child as they have of their own children. You can't change the past.
There's no apology that can make up for it. And to be honest, the people who should receive it are dead.
Another thing is that memories are not passed through the genes. The environment in which the child is raised matters a lot more than his ancestry and unfortunately, it's a fact that if a child of slave descendants is adopted and raised by Mr. and Mrs. Sandile (immigrants who value education, hard work and see opportunity where the Wrights and Sharptons insist are only obstacles), chances are he would grow up and make something of himself than otherwise.
fully extended in 1964, and even under Jim crow blacks moved up from slavery to the 13th most wealthy people on earth. It was when welfare libs kicked the black man out the house and made Uncle Sam Daddy that arrested the progress.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
So Abramowitz has set his premise: "African American poverty and other problems" are the result of "white racism and discrimination." If you don't agree, you're a racist.
---
"Symbolic racism," he explains, "means believing that African American poverty and other problems are largely the result of lack of ambition and effort, rather than white racism and discrimination."
Sad to say, he leaves out the real causal fact: blacks, just like whites, respond logically to stimuli. That stimuli has been provided for decades by Liberal Democrats in the form of programs formulated to keep the poor poor, and the weak weak, and the uneducated uneducated, by subsidizing those conditions. As the saying goes, what gets subsidized gets multiplied.
Blacks haven't been victimized by white racism, they've been victimized by Liberal "benevolence."
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.“--Jeff Cooper. From Bill Coffey's collection of military quotations
You really believe that welfare has done more harm that slavery, rapes, the KKK, lynchings, Jim Crow laws etc.?
Blacks in this country were victims of the same kind of evil that we saw in Nazi Germany and we see today in the Middle East.
Anyone who denies this fact should pick up a history book.
Now that you mention it, yes, I do, even though that wasn't my intent to say. Of course I was referring to modern-day, living and breathing people, not to "blacks through the ages." I thought that was clear from the context of the discussion in the thread.
Anyone who doesn't believe that the biggest impediment for blacks today is the baggage of the welfare state needs to pick up a newspaper.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.“--Jeff Cooper. From Bill Coffey's collection of military quotations
For some time know I've been listening to the pundits on the various cable news outlets proclaim that the "Educated Whites" overwhelmingly support Barak Obama as their candidate. In fact they has been further defined this phenomena should the "Educated White" hold a advanced degree.
Educated = Indoctrinated
This is simply another form of behavior modification in the guise of Education.
Socialism is the child of democracy, and the mother of dictators.
think them up.
example
vote democrat
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
and Wall Street and business etc from those places of "education"
Is education really a bad word?
Strawman, meet liberalrepublican. What, you've already met? You're intimately familiar? In fact, you're practically inseparable?
Wow.
I never would have guessed.
Stupid POV from Abramowitz. And a stupid framing of what racism is, isn't, and an undervaluing of the difference between racism and judgementalism.
Just for a more rational version of an argument to the general effect: a lot of whites help racism along by not acknowledging that if anyone were brought up in the social context and economic disaster that besets much of urban and rural black America, the prognosis would not be good. You can't grow up in that situation and not have a pretty good chance of not developing a vision of your future as a rather bleak, short one, especially economically speaking. A dichotomy developed -- for various reasons, from various cultural factors -- that caused the soil of black America to not produce the fruits that it's clearly capable of.
Another problem with the Abramowitz POV is, of course, that the situation is clearly the same in white Appalachia. Or anywhere that the overall atmosphere is similar. Which is why say some whites "help racism along", because whites sometimes frame all of this as a racial issue and become racist to some degree, when it's really much more complex. It's also why some people find it necessary to mock rednecks as some "ethnic white" group that is perennially racist and backwards.
The devaluation of success in the terms most Americans recognize, as caused by a lack of opportunity to achieve said success, causes a situation that children growing up in it are molded in a way that results in "inherited" (nurture, in the nature/nurture balance) poverty.
Pointing to the exceptions and thinking that proves that the situation isn't what it clearly is, well, that's unhelpful. And sometimes it can express itself in racism.
At least that's what I've seen.
Is it like being a "non-practicing Christian"? Does a symbolic racist only go to Knal meetings on MLK day? Do they put bumper stickers on the back of their cars and send strongly-worded articles supporting racism to news magazines? Seriously, though, what is a symbolic racist? Professor Abramowitz, if you're going to invent your own term so that you can smear working class Americans as bigots, could you at least let us know what that term entails?
Your typical Spartan warrior clinging to spears and gods:
I think it's a hyper-simplified notion used to distill some very complex notion into a two-word phrase that, God willing, will be quoted and used in his friends' academic papers.
While I find Abramowitz's conclusion beyond asinine, I believe Gamecock got it 100% right,
[Obama] won the white male vote and overall white vote in many of the early primaries, even with Edwards still in the race...All BEFORE we all learned who Obama was.
If we assume Abramowitz used polling data after the impact of Rev Wright, and this is simply a first shot, however poorly done, as a first step in shutting down criticism towards Obama. I expect to see much more and of much higher caliber in the coming months.
After all, what better way to shut down debate then to use the racism stigma and we all know that debating with Obama will result in his implosion.
_____________________________
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
--Aristotle
as it will contradict the lib msm template.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
This guy is just doing his thing and being used (probly willingly) by the MSM to advance the race card to shut down debate and capitalize on the white guilt mentality.
And certainly the MSM will not present quality research to dispel the claim; but then again here in Phoenix we get the race card weekly concerning the illegal immigrant problem.
_____________________________
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
--Aristotle
Why not racism?
Because the word should be used as a rapier, not as a club.
Because the 90% black vote for Obama probably isn't a vote against the white woman, it's a vote for the brother. You may disagree, but I see a significant difference between the two situations. The votes can be race based without being racist.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.“--Jeff Cooper. From Bill Coffey's collection of military quotations
So, the logical of conclusion of this kind of indentity group philosophy (except for white or European ancestry, who are not permitted to have an identity affiliation)
blacks voting for a black = racial solidarity = good
but
whites voting for a white = racism = bad
Logical consequence, if you don't vote for Obama you're either a traitor or a racist
Conclusion, time to call off the race and coronate Obama, because there are no issues or character or qualifications to debate, it's simply a question of race, and our academic superiors have decided that a vote for any white candidate is tainted with racism, the only atonement for which is to vote for Obama regardless of anything else.
As I said, you may disagree. Please don't mischaracterize my words, however.
"blacks voting for a black = racial solidarity = good
but
whites voting for a white = racism = bad"
That's not what I said, nor is it what I meant or believe.
Consider this: If you consider "race" as only "a group of people sharing certain characteristics" (genetics not being part of the equation), you could consider political parties as different "races."
By that definition, people who vote along party lines are voting for their "brothers," and we see nothing wrong with it, even though some of the brothers are seriously flawed human beings.
Now consider a hypothetical American, one whose life experience has made him a "Whig." Imagine his joy when he finds that the Whig party has re-formed and is putting forth a candidate for President. The candidate is outwardly very appealing, and is a terrific speaker. Whigs come out of the woodwork to support him.
But now some unsavory facts start to come out about him. He has some questionable associations in his past, some in the very near past, and some allegations are made about his financial arrangements with an accused wheeler-dealer.
Still, there's no doubt in the mind of the hypothetical Whig that he shares the same Whig life experience and outlook. That Whig isn't going to change his vote for anything less than proof that Mr. Whig Candidate is not what he claims to be. That means he has to be more than touched by corruption or distasteful associations, he has to turn out to actually be a non-Whig.
I think that's where blacks are right now with Obama, although in real life I'd give them more credit. Serious proof of corruption would probably turn them off. But as it is right now, they simply don't see William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright and Tony Rezco as being the serious problems that we see. After all, they've been desensitized to political corruption by a lifetime as Democrats.
Now, from this analogy, I'd have to say that anybody who votes against the man because he's a Whig, rather than for someone else, could be called a "racist." But the Whigs who vote for him are just being Whigs.
I recognize the shortcomings of the analogy, so it's unnecessary to point them out in detail unless you really want to, primarily that accusations of party membership don't carry the same stigma as accusations of racism. But conceptually, it's the same.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.“--Jeff Cooper. From Bill Coffey's collection of military quotations
the evidence against Obama, or worse, don't see the evidence as negative, then it becomes more a distiction without a difference.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Check response to civil truth, above.
I think we see the negative evidence at a different level of seriousness than they do. Even white Democrats downplay it.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it.“--Jeff Cooper. From Bill Coffey's collection of military quotations
and won the white male vote and overall white vote in many of the early primaries, even with Edwards still in the race.
All BEFORE we all learned who Obama was. As evidence has come out about who Obama is, his share of the white vote has dropped.
Obama's share of the black vote has remained constant within less a small % of one standard deviation, statistically, around 90+%.
The racist voters are blacks.
Whites have voted based on information available at the time.
Liberal academics are lying fools.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson