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The Undeniable Power Of Whitey

imageStar Parker opines that black people vote for Democrats because they need each other - for some reason, despite being one of the poorest subgroups of any stripe in America, black people are the invariant recipients of handouts that guarantee the hardest decision they have to make in life is Navigator or Escalade. 

What got me, though, was this part:

Blacks, in fact, have the highest church attendance in the country. Seventy-six percent of black Democrats attend church at least monthly. Sixty-seven perce nt of Republicans do and 50 percent of white Democrats do.

A recent Gallup poll shows blacks more aligned with Republicans than Democrats on social issues—moral acceptability of homosexuality, abortion, and sexual promiscuity.

Earlier this year, Parker wrote on the disproportionately high abortion rate in the black community, making the predictable accusations of genocide on the part of Margaret Sanger’s shameful, shambling corpse.  So we’re asked to believe two things: the first is that black people not only hate abortion, but they probably hate it more than good, Christian white people do.  The second is that black women, because they’re dependent on Democrats to give them money and that drizzank, go out and have abortions like crazy anyway.

The basic economic theory of black dependence on the Democratic Party as laid out by Star Parker doesn’t help to resolve this puzzling riddle of a quandary, either:

So where’s the common ground? Income redistribution. A recent Zogby poll shows 80 percent of Democrats, 90 percent of liberals, and 76 percent of blacks supporting taxing the weal thy to give money back to low-income Americans.

Despite everything else, blacks vote to stay on the liberal plantation. Pop psychologists would call the relationship between wealthy liberals and blacks co-dependence.

Now, the major way that “wealthy liberals” redistribute money to low-income blacks, per popular conservative mythology, is through welfare.  Welfare benefits increase with the number of babies you have.  So, the real question becomes - if the major determinant of political behavior in the black community is getting that cash money, then why would you abort 18 years of guaranteed government gwap?  It’s almost like a collection of poorly thought-out rationalizations of behavior based on a narrow and contradictory worldview can’t stand up to even the most remote scrutiny!  What’s actually going on here, then?
The first potential explanation is that the disconnect between the social views of most African Americans and those of the Democratic Party doesn’t really matter, because African Americans just don’t give a shit about them.  However, this also presumes that the black religious experience is fundamentally meaningless, and that black moral beliefs are easily bought out by the highest bidder.  However, black people don’t vote Republican, so…no.

The second potential explanation, per Ms. Parker, is that American blacks by and large are still bound by the plantation mentality of 150 years ago and have yet to break Massa’s terrible hold on them, except for the select few Negroes who’ve managed to see the light and become Republican.  This would be a great explanation, except someone is going to have to explain how you’re fucking kidding me.  Because you’re kidding me, right?  This is so racist it makes The Bell Curve look like it was written by W.E.B. DuBois.  It not only infantilizes black people in a way that makes them constant and unremitting pawns of white people (and unable and unwilling to escape Whitey’s clutches), but presumes at its core that black people, other than the select few lucky enough to be conservative pundits, are totally incapable of anything but the most base and greedy reaction to the world around them.  It’s not an argument to free black people, it’s an argument to transfer them to more benevolent masters in order to salvage what’s left of the race as a whole.  Declaring en masse that black culture as a whole has chosen to remain enslaved simply because you don’t like the culture isn’t speaking truth to ignorance, it’s just damning the entire culture because you’re too ignorant to engage it.

The third explanation is that despite moral objections to abortion, the black community still realizes that abortion is a necessary and rational out for women faced with raising a child they simply can’t raise (often on their own), and that rather than the dessicated ghost of Margaret Sanger leading black women into spiritual bondage through the neutral decor and inoffensive magazines available in the Planned Parenthood waiting lounge, women are making decisions based on what’s best for them.  The discussion of abortion in the black community almost entirely revolves around accusations of mass murder being visited upon generations of teensy black fetuses, with absolutely no effort made to understand why these abortions are happening, other than speaking to the white overlords who must be the ones making the decisions.  They are white, after all.

I’ve long searched for the explanation for why the Republican approach to the black community is so terribly counterproductive.  Mainly, it focused on the idea that conservatives simply thought that black people were terribly immoral and corrupted decision makers.  I was wrong, however; the issue is that conservatives tend not to think black people are decision makers at all, and are instead simply being made to do things by the real actors in society: white people.  The Republican offer to black America isn’t a different set of values and priorities, it’s providing a different group of white people to dominate them. Dutiful black conservative emissaries toil away in well-compensated futility, letting the rest of us know just how great it feels to have given yourself over to Ronald Reagan and to be self-sufficient in a way that only pure tokenism allows you to be.

 

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Posted by Jesse Taylor on 10:59 PM • (63) Comments

Their are such anti-black screeds everywheres in the the conservative blogosphere.  What makes Star Parker so special?  His screed is similar to what racist populists like Vardaman have said 80 years ago.  Just ho-hum black people have no souls or agency, because otherwise they’d be people and we’re bad bad people for what we wanna do rhetoric.

I say it takes somethin’ special, like Confederate Yankee’s posts over the last year.  Pajamasmedia is where it’s at!  Not some pansy Townhall whiners.

Comment #1: shah8  on  12/29  at  11:20 PM

Well said.  I think you’ve said it all right there.

The “how dare people actually act in their own self-interest?” point of view is psychotic, but oh so prevalent on the right.

Comment #2: JupiterPluvius  on  12/29  at  11:21 PM

“...black women, because they’re dependent on Democrats to give them money and that drizzank, go out and have abortions like crazy anyway.”

This ties back into that “liberals sacrifice infants” thing somehow, doesn’t it?  Is it because Ted Kennedy is Baal?

Comment #3: preying mantis  on  12/29  at  11:29 PM

Asking conservatives to display any kind of awareness or consistency is like asking cats to become vegans.

Comment #4: DrDick  on  12/29  at  11:37 PM

Meanwhile, it’s a-okay for white conservatives’ sole mission in life to be to cut taxes on themselves.

Comment #5: keshmeshi  on  12/30  at  12:15 AM

it all drives me crazy. my guy is black, so i hear both sides of this conversation (the one fed to white people about how “shiftless” black people are, and the one fed to black people about how oppressed they are and the way to end that oppression is to act more like white people). it’s dishonest through and through.

argh!!!!!

Comment #6: denelian  on  12/30  at  12:20 AM

So African Americans, who had no political allegiance to any party before the Civil War (for obvious reasons), became Republicans after the war, because Republicans cared more (not much more, but more) for Black folk than the Democrats of the age.

This allegiance continues until the Civil Rights marches, the Great Society, and the Southern Strategy, when Black Americans predominately switch allegiance to the Democratic Party, because the Democrats of the age (in general - with major exceptions of course) cared more (not much more, but more) for Black folk than the Republicans of the age — who ironically in large part used to be Democrats, but picked up their dearly loved racism and took it with them when they became Republicans.

So this compels Star Parker to say a bunch of really nasty stuff about the vast majority of
African Americans because she thinks they should be Republicans.

Given the utter reversal of racial attitudes between the Republican and Democratic Parties over the last 140-years, which shows no signs of reversing back anytime soon, why exactly should otherwise intelligent Black folk pretend that the current Republican Party offers them anything other than 2nd-Class (3rd-Class, 4th-Class…) status?

I could be wrong (probably not), but it occurs to me that our new President could not possibly have come up through the ranks of the Republican Party, especially as it has operated for the last 40-years.  This would seem to indicate why it makes sense for African Americans to continue to work within the Democratic Party.  But what do I know, I’m just a white guy…

Comment #7: MikeEss  on  12/30  at  12:24 AM

why exactly should otherwise intelligent Black folk pretend that the current Republican Party offers them anything

Because she demands that they be as stupid and self-defeating as working class Southern whites.

Comment #8: DrDick  on  12/30  at  12:29 AM

Goodness, isn’t it bewildering when people set aside ideals(in the more original sense of something that exists in a theoretical plane rather than reality) to vote based on their interests in the real world? Why, when people start to notice the difference between the world as it is and the world as it “should be”, they start to notice that corporations don’t voluntarily stop polluting, trickle-down economics haven’t improved their wages, and Republican religious leaders are kinksters.

Comment #9: Samantha Vimes  on  12/30  at  02:49 AM

Isn’t Star Parker the crazy bitch who compared Social Security to slavery a few years ago? If so, doesn’t that tell you all that can be said about her?

Comment #10: Brian J  on  12/30  at  03:32 AM

Star Parker!  My favorite.  I just had to comment before I even read the rest of your post.  Good old Star.  (eeee!)

Comment #11: Lisa KS  on  12/30  at  05:08 AM

“Pop psychologists would call the relationship between wealthy liberals and blacks co-dependence.”

And since we all know that pop psychologists are overwhelmingly full of crap, hence the perjorative “pop” reference…what exactly is she trying to say, again..?

Comment #12: Lisa KS  on  12/30  at  05:11 AM

why exactly should otherwise intelligent Black folk pretend that the current Republican Party offers them anything other than 2nd-Class (3rd-Class, 4th-Class…) status?

Chip Saltsman will explain why, as soon as he stops making fun of black folk.

Comment #13: Big Bad Bald Bastard  on  12/30  at  05:54 AM

Shorter Star Parker:

Fine, we didn’t want the black peoples vote, anyway. They’re icky.

Comment #14: K. Mac  on  12/30  at  06:15 AM

Is it because Ted Kennedy is Baal?

Ssssshhhh!! A Republican might accidentally stumble upon this blog and read your comment. Then our cover would be blown!

Comment #15: Lauren O  on  12/30  at  06:36 AM

I will tell you what’s going on - the Republicans have done a lousy job of communicating with African-American voters for the last 40 years and the result is now over 90 percent of African-Americans reflexibly vote Democratic.

Of course, it does’t help when jackasses like Chip Saltsman sends a Christmas (sorry Pandagon readers, I meant “Holiday”) greeting with a CD entitled “Barack The Magic Negro”.

We Republicans are so inept you could have the Democratic dean of the US Senate be a former Klan official and we still won’t figure out what to do.

“President Barack Obama” - proudly brought to you by Republicans George W. Bush, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.

Comment #16: UglyFace  on  12/30  at  06:46 AM

“the Democratic dean of the US Senate be a former Klan official “

Who actually renounced his past views and made amends not only in the eyes of civil rights organizations but in the eyes of his black voters. That’s the thing Republicans fail to grasp the bigots on the Democrat side at least know that when they say they are sorry tend to back it up by gasp passing legaslation that makes amends rather then vote against MLK holidays like the Republicans do.

Comment #17: tootiredoftheright  on  12/30  at  08:59 AM

“Who actually renounced his past views and made amends not only in the eyes of civil rights organizations but in the eyes of his black voters.”

And who was, at the very least, willing to share a political party with large numbers of black people. There were plenty of Democrats in the 50s and 60s who weren’t willing to do that and switched parties.

Comment #18: witless chum  on  12/30  at  11:33 AM

Like my sister always says: If this were a liberal plantation, our lattes would be free.

Comment #19: BetsyD  on  12/30  at  11:39 AM

Wow! Google, how could you? I clicked on every link with a seemingly non-negative association between “black” and “abortion” (hoping this would somehow change the rankings…does it? Or was I spitting in the wind?). It was still a good 7 pages in until I got to the one reputable, unambiguous source,
[url=“http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ170798&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ170798”]
this academic paper
[/url].

Comment #20: outlier  on  12/30  at  12:06 PM

Is there no (obvious) way to put links in comments?

Comment #21: outlier  on  12/30  at  12:07 PM

I will tell you what’s going on - the Republicans have done a lousy job of communicating with African-American voters for the last 40 years

No, really, y’all have done an excellent job of communicating with African-American voters. The Republicans have made it inescapably, crystal clear that they support racism and racists. You can’t blame folks for voting for the party that doesn’t hate them.

Comment #22: Scott  on  12/30  at  12:08 PM

Outlier, use the pointy brackets instead of the square ones. “<”, not “[”.

Comment #23: Scott  on  12/30  at  12:09 PM

Scott, I did use the pointy brackets, but they get automatically changed to square brackets on preview/blasheme. Don’t know how to fix it.

Comment #24: outlier  on  12/30  at  12:25 PM

The only person who was ever able to keep both Southern racists and African Americans happy simultaneously was FDR and that was because he was handing out the sweet milk of New Deal cash to both groups and never appealed to racists, although he rarely challenged them. After him both groups flirted with leaving the Democratic Party until the 1960s when the racist wing, at least in the South, left for good.
Republicans don’t get how blacks can be soooooo stuuuuuupiddddd as to vote for their self-interest. Of course the problem is always with the black community, never with the Republican courting of racists. The supposed shared values of African Americans and Republicans will never amount to anything so long as unrepentant racists remain in the party. Even if there were some great purge of the racists (how I have no idea), economic issues, tradition, and the greater profile of African Americans at all levels of the Democratic Party would still be an issue. Same holds true for most other non-white groups.

Comment #25: histrogeek  on  12/30  at  12:39 PM

I will tell you what’s going on - the Republicans have done a lousy job of communicating with African-American voters for the last 40 years and the result is now over 90 percent of African-Americans reflexibly vote Democratic.

For forty years, the Republicans have actively opposed the civil rights of black people, as well as those of anybody who’s not a straight white rich guy. Exactly what kind of communication would erase this unpleasant little triviality?

Comment #26: ginmar  on  12/30  at  12:44 PM

Outlier, try using HTML instead of UBB. <a href=“address”> text </a>

Comment #27: Sarcastro  on  12/30  at  12:45 PM

The Republicans have made it inescapably, crystal clear that they support racism and racists. You can’t blame folks for voting for the party that doesn’t hate them.

You say that.  But aren’t the real racists the people that call other people racists?  Therefore, isn’t it appropriate that I use this logic to proclaim that you are, in fact, a racist?

:-p

Honestly, I just want to know what has made black people so reliably immune to Republican bullshit for the last 40 years while white people have fallen like dominoes?  Did someone spike all our white bread and mayo with stupid pills when we weren’t looking?  Is Dick Clark sending out hypno-beams every New Years Eve?  What are white people doing wrong that makes us such easy marks?

Comment #28: Zifnab25  on  12/30  at  12:46 PM

The democrats still have many blacks where they want them; dependant on government and poor. Otherwise, what would the democrats have to stand for?  they need to keep people downtrodden.

Have you ever notice how liberals treat a black person who leaves the plantation?  See Clarence Thomas.


which is the real racist party here?

Comment #29: James  on  12/30  at  12:56 PM

Have you ever notice how liberals treat a black person who leaves the plantation?  See Clarence Thomas.

Have you ever noticed that black people didn’t particularly like slavery, and so don’t really like being accused of being slaves because they don’t like a guy who stuck his pubic hair on soda cans?

Comment #30: Jesse Taylor  on  12/30  at  01:01 PM

“I will tell you what’s going on - the Republicans have done a lousy job of communicating with African-American voters for the last 40 years and the result is now over 90 percent of African-Americans reflexibly vote Democratic.”

Actually, the Republican Party of The Southern Strategy did a remarkable job of getting its new message out: “We know how upset you are that Lyndon betrayed his Southern roots by embracing civil rights for Negroes and signing Great Society legislation.  So we’re now the party of racism, come join us!” 

And it worked!  At least for bigoted white politicians and their bigoted supporters. 

For Black people?  Not so much…

”“President Barack Obama” - proudly brought to you by Republicans George W. Bush, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.”

...don’t forget Richard Nixon and Kevin Phillips, Trent Lott, George Wallace, Strom Thurmond, etc.

Special thanks must be given to Dr. Martin Luther King, Thurgood Marshall, Malcolm X, and the thousands of people who where part of the Civil Rights Movement.  Let us not forget that many died because they fought to secure a more equal standing for Black folk in the country that supposedly was founded on the idea that “all men are created equal.”

Thanks must also be given to Lyndon Johnson, who despite being a despicable person on many levels, overcame his personal background to push for and sign critical civil rights legislation, despite knowing it would fuck up the Democratic Party for at least a generation…

I also tend to strongly believe that a really bright and driven man by the name of Barack Hussein Obama had a lot to do with the coming arrival of President Obama…

Comment #31: MikeEss  on  12/30  at  01:02 PM

Have you ever noticed that black people didn’t particularly like slavery, and so don’t really like being accused of being slaves because they don’t like a guy who stuck his pubic hair on soda cans?

I assure you, Jesse, that James has never noticed thing one about black people, or any people for that matter, ever in his life.

Comment #32: Well, what?  on  12/30  at  01:31 PM

I also tend to strongly believe that a really bright and driven man by the name of Barack Hussein Obama had a lot to do with the coming arrival of President Obama…

Not possible. He’s black, remember? He can only do what Whitey tells him to do. /sarcasm.

Comment #33: Well, what?  on  12/30  at  01:32 PM

What’s actually going on here, then?

One word answer: Hatred.

Six word answer: Frustration wrought into anger and hatred.

One paragraph answer: Those who levy accusations against entire populations as “lazy” or “dependent” or whatever today’s word is are just terribly insecure people, their personhood is defined almost entirely by their insecurity, both emotionally and (right now) financially, and they are (kind of understandably) frustrated at their own lack of security, and so they relieve themselves by taking the hateful piss on any target they can get away with, socially-speaking. They genuinely believe there is essential truth in their attacks, because it’s the only explanation they have trained their minds to accept, they’ve bent themselves completely around it, with copious assistance and cover from media parties (and here’s co-dependency in full fruition, with media types sensing opportunity and feeding the sentiments, and everyday folk feeling they have adequate cover from notable media types who are publicly taking the piss). It’s hate. Hate, when actively expressed, is cathartic. Expressing hate specifically relieves the feeling of insecurity in the human mind.

So, next question?

Comment #34: salient  on  12/30  at  01:36 PM

Honestly, I just want to know what has made black people so reliably immune to Republican bullshit for the last 40 years while white people have fallen like dominoes?  Did someone spike all our white bread and mayo with stupid pills when we weren’t looking?  Is Dick Clark sending out hypno-beams every New Years Eve?  What are white people doing wrong that makes us such easy marks?

When they’re dealing with white people, there are an endless parade of different varieties of brown people who can be scapegoated to distract from the rich people and corporations who are really responsible for their problems (or for “small-government” conservatives’ failure to have government try to deal with problems that are nobody’s fault.) Not surprisingly, having been on the receiving end of that frequently confers immunity when they try to convince you that some other group of brown people should be the scapegoat.

Comment #35: Redshift  on  12/30  at  01:41 PM

Have you ever notice how liberals treat a black person who leaves the plantation?

Well, you know you’re only speaking for yourself, given that some of us actually ARE black or non-white.

Comment #36: gwangung  on  12/30  at  01:43 PM

Because Star Jones isn’t speaking in terms of race, but in terms of class and privilege. And she cannot see it, so therefore all other black people must of course see things through her (rich) eyes.

We’ve gotten to the point where we can call BS on rich white guys pontificating in sweeping terms about poor white people, but we don’t seem to be quite there with other folks. (Log Cabin Republicans aside, because, please.)

But it’s a good sign.

Still, why do I suspect that Star Jones is a Republican because she is rich and influential (why is that again?) rather than having experienced that being a black Republican opened all the doors to her dreams?

Comment #37: Lymis  on  12/30  at  01:49 PM

Another entertaining failure of rational thought in this piece is the idea that any person who has socially conservative views must automatically agree with the Republican political response to those issues. It’s no surprise that a conservative can’t conceive of “being morally opposed to abortion” meaning anything other than “wants to outlaw abortion.” But it would not surprise me at all if African American churchgoers are morally opposed to abortion, but also smart enough to recognize that outlawing it is not the best way to act on that belief (especially since, unlike wealthier white people, they are less likely to have the option of being able to quietly arrange an abortion for their daughters who of course aren’t like those sluts who just want an abortion for convenience.)

Comment #38: Redshift  on  12/30  at  01:53 PM

“Have you ever notice how liberals treat a black person who leaves the plantation?”
Yeah, and we saw the terrible attacks against Condi Rice and Colin Powell when they were up for… oh wait that never happened. Thomas was 17!!! years ago and Democrats were totally going to let him coast through until the Hill revelations/accusations were leaked by an underpaid staffer.
Since then we have an impeachment of an off-the-plantation Southern Democratic president on the flimsiest of charges and accusations that the first African-American president(-elect) is a secret Muslim-socialist (which are meant to be insults, although they shouldn’t be) and ineligible to be president.

Comment #39: histrogeek  on  12/30  at  01:57 PM

“Have you ever noticed that black people didn’t particularly like slavery, and so don’t really like being accused of being slaves because they don’t like a guy who stuck his pubic hair on soda cans? “

Jesse, thanks for proving my point.

Comment #40: James  on  12/30  at  02:35 PM

Jesse, thanks for proving my point.

Only if your point was that you’re a nincompoop, but you prove that with every comment.

Comment #41: Matt T.  on  12/30  at  02:46 PM

“Jesse, thanks for proving my point.”

...um, would that be the point on the top of your head?

James, I would seriously ask you if you are completely clueless, but your comments here have proven that beyond all shadow of a doubt.

Maybe you should try to read and understand posts and comment threads, instead of just showing up and making yourself look like an ass…

Comment #42: MikeEss  on  12/30  at  02:46 PM

Outlier, try using HTML instead of UBB. text

Sarcastro, that is EXACTLY what I used, as clarified in my second comment.

(But I guess it only works if I cut-and-paste a pointy bracket, instead of actually typing it in. Anyone else have this problem? I’m using Firefox 2.something on Mac.)

Comment #43: outlier  on  12/30  at  02:46 PM

Jesus Christ, people!  STAR PARKER AND STAR JONES ARE TWO DIFFERENT BLACK WOMEN!  Star Parker is not a wealthy celebrity.  Star Jones is a Democrat. 

Also, outlier, I’m using a Firefox on a Mac, and I have no trouble with the html.

Comment #44: JupiterPluvius  on  12/30  at  02:52 PM

James,
Stop living in the past! The “high-tech lynching” of St. Clarence was so long ago that the “high-tech” referred to was 24-hour cable news shows, Unix account e-mails, and beepers. And poor Clarence barely escaped from it with a life-time appointment to an unappealable court. Now THAT is racism.

Try for an example from THIS century

Comment #45: histrogeek  on  12/30  at  02:58 PM

Pop psychologists would call the relationship between wealthy liberals and blacks co-dependence.

What would real psychologists call it?

How about evo-psych Nice Guys (tm)?

James, you’re stupid.  But keep telling the black people here what black people are really like.  It’s funny, in a sad, sad pathetic way.

Comment #46: Caren-Sun-blocking Creator of Animorphic Pancakes  on  12/30  at  03:07 PM

wow, did not know Star Parker was black.

/me hangs head in shame…

Comment #47: shah8  on  12/30  at  03:22 PM

Ooh.  When I nominated Thomas Sowell as one of the most annoying wingnuts, I totally forgot about Star Parker; she’s a former “welfare queen”, and is much less coy about comparing things to slavery, so she’s an even better Republican mouthpiece than Sowell.

Comment #48: N.C.  on  12/30  at  03:27 PM

Also, easily confused with Star Jones if you’re not being careful.  Another plus in the propaganda game.

Comment #49: N.C.  on  12/30  at  03:28 PM

outlier are you using a non-english keyboard? It could be the ascii codes are different.

Comment #50: banisteriopsis  on  12/30  at  06:08 PM

I’m using a regular US-English (AFAIK) wireless kybd. But now, I know that copying the tags from elsewhere and pasting them will work, so it’s all good. (I’ll just leave it to more tech-inclined people to wonder why.)

Comment #51: outlier  on  12/30  at  07:30 PM

The Republicans hopped on Johnson’s passage of the Civil Rights act to court the disaffected white southerners.  The black folks, not being stupid, took note of it.  The rest is history.  The Repugs have been in thrall to the Southern Strategy and it’s little bastard brother Bible Beltism since 1968.  It’s finally come home to roost; they’ve become a regional party.  That is what doomed the Federalists and the Whigs and—my it please God—now the Repugs.  They sold their birth right as the emancipation party for a mess of pottage. 

It has nothing to do with anything else.  While liberals and blacks in general just happen to have a commonality of interests.  There is no connecting tissue in this deal.

Comment #52: Magis  on  12/30  at  07:46 PM

While liberals and blacks in general just happen to have a commonality of interests.  There is no connecting tissue in this deal.

Some might argue that “commonality of interest” is connecting tissue.

Comment #53: Seraph  on  12/30  at  07:49 PM

I’ve been saying it for years:  as soon as the more overtly racist elements of the Right die off, we can fully expect the heavily religious Black and Hispanic voting blocks to jump ship to their side and leave the Left.

Comment #54: Duh  on  12/30  at  08:06 PM

I’ve been saying it for years:  as soon as the more overtly racist elements of the Right die off, we can fully expect the heavily religious Black and Hispanic voting blocks to jump ship to their side and leave the Left.

The Left put a black man in the White House and has People of Color at all levels of power and influence (if not quite at the proportion they should be).  The Right has a few tokens who spend most of their time explaining why the rest of the Right is not racist. 

The Right spends four years at a time treating every African-American (except their tokens) like a welfare-cheating criminal and every Hispanic like an illegal immigrant, then try to win their votes at election time by running on the “you know you hate fags too” ticket.  The Left actually incorporates blacks and hispanics into their organizations and works toward their interests.

And even if none of this was the case, the “overtly racist elements” are quite hale and hearty.  Those weren’t old men calling Obama “boy” and “uppity” during the presidential campaign.  And even if that weren’t the case, the younger elements of the right are merely covertly racist (that is to say, they’re the ones who argue that “welfare queens” doesn’t necessarily mean black people).  Racism infects the Right root and branch.

I think the Right has a long time to wait.

Comment #55: Seraph  on  12/30  at  08:40 PM

Clearly, Parker doesn’t know the meaning of the term, “social issues.” Watch closely.  First:

more aligned with Republicans than Democrats on social issues—moral acceptability of homosexuality, abortion, and sexual promiscuity.

Then:

So where’s the common ground? Income redistribution.

When I was little, things like welfare, housing assistance, and health care were social issues.  The “social issues” listed above would have been called claptrap.

Comment #56: realityfighter  on  12/30  at  08:42 PM

“So, the real question becomes - if the major determinant of political behavior in the black community is getting that cash money…”

Conservatives are wrong (at least to an extent) with regards to welfare and babies.  Do some in the black community pop out kids for welfare checks & food stamps?  Sure, but it’s not the major factor.  It’s a cultural and socioeconomic problem more than anything else.

Comment #57: mike w.  on  12/30  at  10:10 PM

“as soon as the more overtly racist elements of the Right die off”

...so there’s at least another 80 years to go?  I mean, it’s not even largely senior citizens running around committing violent hate crimes against non-whites or planning race-war terror-rampages in response to GOP baiting.  Today’s foot-soldiers are tomorrow’s open Klansman refusing to resign a party post he won fair and square.

Comment #58: preying mantis  on  12/30  at  10:12 PM

During the week prior to the election, I heard TWO separate stories on NPR in which a Republican at a McCain/Palin rally was interviewed. Immediately after talking about how “Barack Obama’s going to redistribute the wealth” it was revealed in some way by the reporter that each of these individuals, unrelated, different states, different rallies, was receiving social security disability benefits.  A welfare program,. as it were.  The fact that these fucknuckles didn’t see the complete and total illogic of their point of view given their circumstances literally made me scream at my radio.

Comment #59: Ruth  on  12/31  at  12:42 AM

Lyndon Johnson will come to be judged as the perfect president for his times. I believe the struggles of the Civil Rights era were more important than Vietnam, and I say this understanding that tens of thousands of Americans lost their lives there, and horrible damage was done to Vietnam itself. I do not take these losses lightly and honor the dead on all sides. Furthermore, any other president, Kennedy included, would have got us into just as bad a mess there anyway.

Blowing the civil rights era could have broken our nation. Johnson was able to apply just the right amount of force to get the job done. He understood the culture he was working against, spoke his opponents’ language, and knew the fears of their hearts. When it came to the civil rights struggle, Johnson “knew both the enemy and himself” to quote Sun Tzu. And as master Sun recommended, Johnson relied more on deception and intimidation than direct combat.

Byrd was in the Klan. He did not abandon his party for the Dixiecrats. He stood firm with Johnson and admitted his mistakes. He learned, changed, and grew. The ability to do these things are virtues, but in politics they are presented as vices.

I end with a quote from Willard Quine: “The desire to be right and the desire to have been right are two different things.”

Comment #60: Bacopa  on  12/31  at  02:39 AM

James:

Have you ever notice how liberals treat a black person who leaves the plantation? See Clarence Thomas.

I find it simultaneously hilarious and horrifying that it simply does not occur to James that it’s even possible to object to Clarence Thomas for reasons that have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with his race.

It’s almost as if James, when looking at Clarence Thomas, can’t see anything but his race.

But like James keeps saying, we’re the real racists.

Sure. And I just got done fucking Emily Deschanel.

Comment #61: Dan, Grand High Emperor of Bananas Foster  on  12/31  at  05:20 AM

Have you ever notice how liberals treat a black person who leaves the plantation?  See Clarence Thomas.

Oh, fer f*ck’s sake!

Even if you could ignore Clarence Thomas’ conservative views, which always seems to run counter to the best interests of blacks as a whole, and the whole pubic hair thing (and all the other blatant mysogynistic things that he did), wasn’t one of the major reason blacks were against him was because he sold his sister down the river during his confirmation hearings? If I recall, he denounced her as a lazy and shiftless welfare queen, even though the reason she was on welfare in the first place was due to the fact the she had to quit her job in order to take care of a sick relative.

And [people like] you keep using the word ‘plantation’ as if it’s supposed to make us all rise up and say, “we is not slaves! Ah’s refused to be treated like I’s picking cotton! I is gonna be a Republican now!”

Epic Fail on the reverse psychology.

Comment #62: Tonybrown74  on  01/01  at  03:33 PM

Who or what is “Whitey”?

Is this a politically correct derogatory term for white people?

Comment #63: Ramon  on  01/01  at  08:41 PM
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