Idiots and Scoundrels Everywhere

[Bando]

Jul 21, 2010 13:05:12 GMT -5 GIGAFAN99 said:

I think the problem here is Sherrod, by the modern definition of "racism" was in fact being racist.

You used to have to do something to be racist. You know, deny someone a job, refuse to work with someone of another race, promote violence or some subhuman treatment of a person based on race.

Now, you really just have to mention race and you're a racist. Or you have to disagree with someone of another race. Or you have to, god forbid, act like race exists. Immediately you can be labeled a "bad person" and "not to be taken seriously."

And in this case Sherrod and the Spooners were at different times painted as racists. The Spooners were racists when Sherrod was telling the story of how the man "acted superior" implying it was because she is black. Sherrod then became the racist when she was thought to have denied the Spooners the "full force of her help" because they were white.

And what happened? Well it looks like Sherrod actually did her job and the Spooners not only appreciated it but came to her aid when she lost it. Hmmm, so the black woman helped the old white people and the old white people helped the black woman? But how can that be? Glowing box in living room tells me red state whites are full of hate and then when I hit this button it tells me black people love to "play the race card" whenever possible.

Maybe the lesson here is most people are just living their lives and few are as (no pun intended) black-and-white racist as the media likes to dumb it down to be. Everyone is human and that includes being aware of race. But I think a lot fewer people are really, truly actionably racist than people think.

This is insane. The problem with racism is that it seeps into the minutae of daily life. That is, normal everyday people are capable of being racists, not just complete monsters. By your definition, there are no racists in America because people aren't wearing robes and lynching folk. I'm sorry, but that's setting a really high bar for racism. It's like saying that only high level Nazi party members, and only them, are anti-semites.

The last three conservative fauxrages have been about scary black men in Philly, Muslims daring to build a place of worship in New York, and now Ms. Sherrod. I'm sorry, but liberals aren't the ones who keep bringing up race all the damned time.

[theexorcist]

Jul 21, 2010 15:58:07 GMT -5 Bando said:

Jul 21, 2010 13:05:12 GMT -5 GIGAFAN99 said:

I think the problem here is Sherrod, by the modern definition of "racism" was in fact being racist.

You used to have to do something to be racist. You know, deny someone a job, refuse to work with someone of another race, promote violence or some subhuman treatment of a person based on race.

Now, you really just have to mention race and you're a racist. Or you have to disagree with someone of another race. Or you have to, god forbid, act like race exists. Immediately you can be labeled a "bad person" and "not to be taken seriously."

And in this case Sherrod and the Spooners were at different times painted as racists. The Spooners were racists when Sherrod was telling the story of how the man "acted superior" implying it was because she is black. Sherrod then became the racist when she was thought to have denied the Spooners the "full force of her help" because they were white.

And what happened? Well it looks like Sherrod actually did her job and the Spooners not only appreciated it but came to her aid when she lost it. Hmmm, so the black woman helped the old white people and the old white people helped the black woman? But how can that be? Glowing box in living room tells me red state whites are full of hate and then when I hit this button it tells me black people love to "play the race card" whenever possible.

Maybe the lesson here is most people are just living their lives and few are as (no pun intended) black-and-white racist as the media likes to dumb it down to be. Everyone is human and that includes being aware of race. But I think a lot fewer people are really, truly actionably racist than people think.

This is insane. The problem with racism is that it seeps into the minutae of daily life. That is, normal everyday people are capable of being racists, not just complete monsters. By your definition, there are no racists in America because people aren't wearing robes and lynching folk. I'm sorry, but that's setting a really high bar for racism. It's like saying that only high level Nazi party members, and only them, are anti-semites.

The last three conservative fauxrages have been about scary black men in Philly, Muslims daring to build a place of worship in New York, and now Ms. Sherrod. I'm sorry, but liberals aren't the ones who keep bringing up race all the damned time.

1. Muslim is not a "race".

2. Scary black men are still scary men. I remember all this stuff that my liberal friends on Facebook were posting reminding people of legal aid numbers if some Republican said anything. It was intimidating, and the race part doesn't matter.

3. See my previous on Ms. Sherrod, who brought up the race stuff first.

[TBird41]

Jul 21, 2010 15:58:07 GMT -5 Bando said:

Jul 21, 2010 13:05:12 GMT -5 GIGAFAN99 said:

I think the problem here is Sherrod, by the modern definition of "racism" was in fact being racist.

You used to have to do something to be racist. You know, deny someone a job, refuse to work with someone of another race, promote violence or some subhuman treatment of a person based on race.

Now, you really just have to mention race and you're a racist. Or you have to disagree with someone of another race. Or you have to, god forbid, act like race exists. Immediately you can be labeled a "bad person" and "not to be taken seriously."

And in this case Sherrod and the Spooners were at different times painted as racists. The Spooners were racists when Sherrod was telling the story of how the man "acted superior" implying it was because she is black. Sherrod then became the racist when she was thought to have denied the Spooners the "full force of her help" because they were white.

And what happened? Well it looks like Sherrod actually did her job and the Spooners not only appreciated it but came to her aid when she lost it. Hmmm, so the black woman helped the old white people and the old white people helped the black woman? But how can that be? Glowing box in living room tells me red state whites are full of hate and then when I hit this button it tells me black people love to "play the race card" whenever possible.

Maybe the lesson here is most people are just living their lives and few are as (no pun intended) black-and-white racist as the media likes to dumb it down to be. Everyone is human and that includes being aware of race. But I think a lot fewer people are really, truly actionably racist than people think.

This is insane. The problem with racism is that it seeps into the minutae of daily life. That is, normal everyday people are capable of being racists, not just complete monsters. By your definition, there are no racists in America because people aren't wearing robes and lynching folk. I'm sorry, but that's setting a really high bar for racism. It's like saying that only high level Nazi party members, and only them, are anti-semites.

The last three conservative fauxrages have been about scary black men in Philly, Muslims daring to build a place of worship in New York, and now Ms. Sherrod. I'm sorry, but liberals aren't the ones who keep bringing up race all the damned time.

You left out randomly accusing people from the other side of the aisle of racism to distract from racist remarks by people closely associated with your favored candidate

[jerseyhoya34]

Jul 21, 2010 16:04:47 GMT -5 theexorcist said:

Jul 21, 2010 15:58:07 GMT -5 Bando said:

This is insane. The problem with racism is that it seeps into the minutae of daily life. That is, normal everyday people are capable of being racists, not just complete monsters. By your definition, there are no racists in America because people aren't wearing robes and lynching folk. I'm sorry, but that's setting a really high bar for racism. It's like saying that only high level Nazi party members, and only them, are anti-semites.

The last three conservative fauxrages have been about scary black men in Philly, Muslims daring to build a place of worship in New York, and now Ms. Sherrod. I'm sorry, but liberals aren't the ones who keep bringing up race all the damned time.

1. Muslim is not a "race".

2. Scary black men are still scary men. I remember all this stuff that my liberal friends on Facebook were posting reminding people of legal aid numbers if some Republican said anything. It was intimidating, and the race part doesn't matter.

3. See my previous on Ms. Sherrod, who brought up the race stuff first.

As to #2, scared of Legal Aid? I mean, really. We can all pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and be tough, but heaven forbid someone gave us a phone number to Legal Aid. True hardship indeed. I will be presumptuous enough to apologize on their behalf for your oppression. Nobody - and I mean nobody - should have to endure, as you apparently are, such ruthlessness.

[kchoya]

Jul 21, 2010 15:21:21 GMT -5 TC said:

Jul 21, 2010 15:09:36 GMT -5 Boz said:

Here's one: the NAACP. Has the the NAACP issued a resolution condemning the "racist elements" of its own organization?

You mean like the statement yesterday issued calling Sherrod's statements shameful?

I tried to look for that statement on the NAACP website, but it's no longer in their list of press releases.

[nychoya3]

I guess they should leave it up edited and pointing to the new statement (http://www.naacp.org/press/entry/naacp-statement-on-the-resignation-of-shirley-sherrod1/), but they were forthright about retracting the statement that was issued before viewing the whole video. Obviously they bungled the whole thing, as did a lot of others.

[rosslynhoya]

Jul 21, 2010 16:22:45 GMT -5 @jerseyhoya34 said:

As to #2, scared of Legal Aid? I mean, really. We can all pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and be tough, but heaven forbid someone gave us a phone number to Legal Aid. True hardship indeed. I will be presumptuous enough to apologize on their behalf for your oppression. Nobody - and I mean nobody - should have to endure, as you apparently are, such ruthlessness.

What about the fact that liberals/Democrats refuse to allow law enforcement personnel to be present near polling places during elections? You know, because of the liberal/Democrat theory that black people won't vote if police are around.

If you can find an actual real-world example of anything more insipidly racist than that, I'll be quite impressed.

[nychoya3]

"What about the fact that liberals/Democrats refuse to allow law enforcement personnel to be present near polling places during elections?"

Source?

[jerseyhoya34]

Jul 21, 2010 16:44:51 GMT -5 rosslynhoya said:

Jul 21, 2010 16:22:45 GMT -5 @jerseyhoya34 said:

As to #2, scared of Legal Aid? I mean, really. We can all pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and be tough, but heaven forbid someone gave us a phone number to Legal Aid. True hardship indeed. I will be presumptuous enough to apologize on their behalf for your oppression. Nobody - and I mean nobody - should have to endure, as you apparently are, such ruthlessness.

What about the fact that liberals/Democrats refuse to allow law enforcement personnel to be present near polling places during elections? You know, because of the liberal/Democrat theory that black people won't vote if police are around.

If you can find an actual real-world example of anything more insipidly racist than that, I'll be quite impressed.

Link? Your hypothesis requires significant generalizations, particularly where, to my knowledge, our police departments are integrated. If that is not the case, please bring it to our attention.

Your hunches/hypothesis, if it even rises to that level, also encounters legal difficulty, particularly where many states have laws that restrict the whereabouts of police officers around polling places.

It look 48 years for the person who beat John Lewis to courageously apologize when he was otherwise unknown as the attacker. The tea party folks responsible for calling him and others disgusting names are now on the clock.

[theexorcist]

Jul 21, 2010 16:22:45 GMT -5 @jerseyhoya34 said:

Jul 21, 2010 16:04:47 GMT -5 theexorcist said:

1. Muslim is not a "race".

2. Scary black men are still scary men. I remember all this stuff that my liberal friends on Facebook were posting reminding people of legal aid numbers if some Republican said anything. It was intimidating, and the race part doesn't matter.

3. See my previous on Ms. Sherrod, who brought up the race stuff first.

As to #2, scared of Legal Aid? I mean, really. We can all pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and be tough, but heaven forbid someone gave us a phone number to Legal Aid. True hardship indeed. I will be presumptuous enough to apologize on their behalf for your oppression. Nobody - and I mean nobody - should have to endure, as you apparently are, such ruthlessness.

I was going to post that I'm not scared of Legal Aid at all, and its existence indicates that Democrats feel that polling stations can be places with threatening people.

But I want to change that. I'm becoming more and more convinced that JerseyHoya/The Ambassador is an elaborate Turing Test, designed to respond with a knee-jerk liberal response to everything while kind of missing the point.

I'd like to congratulate the computer science class or organization that did it. The fact that no one's commented on it for more than a year shows the depth of programming and understanding of artificial intelligence required.

[nychoya3]

"I was going to post that I'm not scared of Legal Aid at all, and its existence indicates that Democrats feel that polling stations can be places with threatening people."

Say again in English?

[jerseyhoya34]

You were going to post that you are not scared of Legal Aid, but you were intimidated by having their phone number? Legal Aid is a nonpartisan organization whose existence owes very little, in fact, to whatever you are trying to attribute to it. At its inception through the LSC, its mission was to provide "equal access to justice." If you have information about any voter intimidation lawsuits they've been filing, I'd like to see them.

Here is information about their civil practice:
www.legal-aid.org/en/civil/civilpractice.aspx

I won't apologize for missing whatever point you are trying to make because none can be found in fact. I feel like this board has made a detour to the true bowels of Free Republic or a crude parody that is indecipherable from the reality of the conservative movement at this time and the need to attend to the conduct of certain folks making ill-advised statements toward John Lewis and others.

[kchoya]

Jul 21, 2010 16:54:21 GMT -5 theexorcist said:

Jul 21, 2010 16:22:45 GMT -5 @jerseyhoya34 said:

As to #2, scared of Legal Aid? I mean, really. We can all pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and be tough, but heaven forbid someone gave us a phone number to Legal Aid. True hardship indeed. I will be presumptuous enough to apologize on their behalf for your oppression. Nobody - and I mean nobody - should have to endure, as you apparently are, such ruthlessness.

But I want to change that. I'm becoming more and more convinced that JerseyHoya/The Ambassador is an elaborate Turing Test, designed to respond with a knee-jerk liberal response to everything while kind of missing the point.

Yeah, but if you throw in a lot of commas, make yourself sound like a pompous ass, and make 1,000 words posts on every topic on the B&G board, you can disguise the fact of missing the point.

[Boz]

Bringing this back on topic, I can say that I'm glad Sherrod got her job back.

Or at least that they offered. If she doesn't actually need the position, it'd be pretty cool if she told Vilsack to go cram it.

As for the rest of our little squabble, my overall objective was really just to point out that there is irresponsibility and injustice when it comes to the term "racism" or "racist" (which is a different thing entirely than actual "racial injustice") across the political spectrum.

If you disagree with the particular example I selected, well, we'll disagree on that one. Hopefully you don't disagree with the overall point, unfortunate though it may be.

[kchoya]

Don't feel too sorry for Sherrod:

7:00 tonight - CNN Newsroom: The Woman behind the controversy: Who is Shirley Sherrod? Don Lemon takes an intimate look into the life of the woman.

[Boz]

Oh, I have no doubt that Shirley Shirrod probably about as far away from me ideologically as humanly possible. And I would probably disagree with her on issues 99.99% of the time.

Even in her speech that was made famous, I have serious problems with her ideas about the roots of inequity in America and in society.

But she still shouldn't have been fired.

(Yes, it's getting a little tiresome hearing about how Fox News is to blame. Particularly when the tick-tock of these events clearly shows otherwise. But whatever. People will blame Fox News for anything. So she can say what she wants. I don't really care.)


EDIT: Despite the fact that I personally don't care what she has to say, she should probably Shut up pretty soon. Like 24 hours ago soon.