How is it that people don't realize the stupidity of what they're saying... this was the money quote:
"We've always said we need a perfect, well-spoken, Harvard-educated black candidate who would prove we've transcended race," the billionaire African American businessman and supporter of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) said in an interview yesterday. "Well, now we've got him and nobody knows how to campaign against him."
You have to be stuck up somebody's crack a loooong way not to realize how far down your mouth you're shovin' your feet?
And these guys are on "our" side?
Thanks for dropping another "Sci"-Bomb LoLo. I've been all over the internetz today debating this with friends from here all the way out to the Far Left Coast. After linking through the Brown Sugar, JackandJillPolitics, What About Our Daughters, MSNBC and several other blogs that covered (MSNBC - NOT!!!) how HRC and her folks got clowned on after her appearance at Rev. Butts Playhouse (better known as the Abyssinian Baptist Church). I've been listening to my peeps bemoaning the Clintons use of Attack Negroes (Bojangles Johnson, Chuckles Rangel, Blind Lemon Patterson, cANDYass Young, etc.) to attempt to excoriate and damage Obama politically in the Black community, and their failsafe move towards splitting off the Hispanic/ethnic vote in future primaries if their NH-Nevada shenanigans blow up in their faces in S. Carolina, as most likely will be the case. My response - Fuck you, I've been telling you so for years.
Saw Rep. Jim Clyburn today on CNN with Wolf Blitzer (yeeccchh phutoooiee!!)- smart and thoughtful man who wields a lot of power in the African American community in South Carolina, and is highly respected across the board (unlike you Charlie). Waiting to see where he comes down in all this, endorsement wise, after having issued a gentlemanly warning to the Clintons about their bullshit, as well as a caution to Obama about letting his words and ideas be misconstrued (or correctly construed depending on your perspective), particularly when talking about "transformational" scumbuckets like Ronnie Raygun.
Damn.
That's really fine.
You took all my thoughts on the fight between Clinton & Obama and expressed it in writing much better than I could. I also know right now with the way that both of them are acting if the election was today I would not vote for either of them since their pettiness shows something about their character that really repels me.
Thanks for taliking about this in an intelligent & deep manner.
Another thing about all the smack they have been talking is that these fools never have the guts to throw down to the republicans or to the president but when it comes to their colleagues or progressives they can't show how enough disdain.
And these guys are on "our" side?
ceabaird
No ceabird. People like Bojangles Johnson and Chuckles Rangel are on the side with the most dollars in the hand whose Ring Of Power they so slavishly kiss. Pun intended...
I want to start out by saying that I despise and have always despised Bob Johnson and everything he stands for. He is an asshole of gargantuan proportions. He's also an idiot. But not so much of an idiot to have made a fortune on this mentality:
"I can say that—as a consumer of BET “product” from its inception,...
Excuse me, but, you don't see a contradiction here?
I can say absolutely that not only have I never been a consumer of his product, but it wasn't allowed on any tv that I happened to be in the presence of. I didn't care whose house it was.
So you see, it doesn't matter that: "but for the better part of a decade, Black folks openly and brusquely questioned the quality of just what it was he was pumping into the Black community." if black people remained consumers of the product and continued to contribute to the great wealth that he has now so that he can be a wealthy contributor to a major political campaign and speak out in public with an authorative, arrogant attitude, no matter how stupid and ignorant the statements are.
Who cares that "The network was harshly criticized for its ugly messaging insofar as its video content—a super-reliance on lowest common denominator marketing of the dopiest elements of Black music, in addition to a willful shunning of using the station to do anything culturally or intellectually challenging. Ask Black folks about BET and you'll get a lot of head-shaking and hear words to the effect of “a waste”, “lost potential”, “an embarrassment”, or worst of all, “a joke”."
Then why didn't any of these same people do what I did, not play tune into this crap on a daily basis.? If Bob Johnson had depended on my patronage, he'd be lucky to be flipping burgers at Mickey D's.
But this isn't about me trying to come off here. It's about how actions not only speak louder than words, it's the action that gives credence to your opinions. The black community did NOTHING, but posture a lot criticism of BET and Bob Johnson all the while letting the younger generation fill their fragile minds up with the filth he was airing relentlessly.
And now that Johnson is in the wrong camp, everybody basically wants to chump him off when in fact he should have been CHUMPED OFF from the gitgo and we wouldn't have this icky fly buzzing around annoyingly.
I'm shaking my head. All of this is leading down a very misguided if not ugly path.
But at least you saluted Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Nice to remember what a real, no bullshit, got-the-job done, politician was like.
Actually, I'm not surprised; though I am very disheartened at what I am seeing.
I was watching the excellent PBS documentary Citizen King last year and there was a point in the documentary when they discussed what happened to King when he decided to move to an apartment in Chicago and expand his civil rights work. There were a lot of brothers and sisters who had 'ward-heeled' themselves into powerful positions in the Black community in Chicago and they were not happy AT ALL to see Martin up there. Not happy at all...in their eyes he was interfering in a place where he had no business being; in other words, "this is our turf and YOU have no business being here". One passage mentioned someone saying that what Martin had done in the South "won't work, because he doesn't understand how things are done here".
Needless to say, his attempt to change things up North was a failure, mostly because those well placed individuals refused to help him.
There will always be those who "have theirs" and will resist any change to the status quo. It's actually more of a class war than a race war because the underlying principles behind it will always be power and money (read: the warped and twisted Republican Party, which if they actually still represented traditional conservative principles would mean that this country would not be in the financial and social mess it's in now). There will also be those who will perform the strategy of divide/distract/co-opt/destroy to insure that The Powers That Be who increasingly control this country will continue to control it.
Once upon a time I used to believe that the possiblity of either a Corporate fascist police state or a Theocratic fascist state developing in this country was remote at best. I don't think that any more. The next two years are going to be critical to the future of the Republic, and from what I see now, it's looking more like the fall of the western Roman Empire every day.
Sigh.
As a Black woman this issue gets even more sticky.
For me..Gender doesn't trump race..white privilege is as white privilege does. And for too long "feminism" to me has meant "middle class white woman."
So...
Point taken. But it just ain't that simple.
mimi:
Yes, I understand the contradiction.
Let me explain it.
When I first saw BET, it wasn't in NY. It was during a trip down south. There were large parts of NYC that weren't wired for cable and all I heard about was BET. This was in the early 80's, when Iwas in my early 20's.
I got caught up in the novelty of it all and watched for a few years—and became quite pissed with its stagnation. In the early 90's during the first wave of huge concern about Blacks not being represented in television, I actually corresponded with Bob Johnson about him using the network as a counter to the big networks' exclusionary policies. I corresponded with Peter Bart (at Variety—who was something of an asshole about the subject) and with Jesse jackson about this issue as well.
Bob probably doesn't remember me, but he probably remembers my frustration with his excuse-making. After some back and forth with him I realized that he was going to be no different than a Sumner Redstone or a Michael Eisner and gave up on dialog with him.
Conscientiousness would not be a consideration at all. It was all about the Benjamins. I continued to monitor the network quite honestly to simply clock its slide—when they turned “Teen Summit” into “Montel for Kiddies”, and the eventual killing off of the already truncated “news” programming.
I still saw a lot of BET in my local barber shop and laundromat (the laundromat especially after-hours) while just living my life.
And yes, the kids sometimes watch it at home, where I scream on them for doing so before switching to something else—anything else
When Johnson cashed out and Reggie Hudlin took over,a few of us had hopes for a change. The ancestors-grave-spinning debacle of “College Hill” killed that dream quick.
So yes, I have been a consumer for years, but a passive one for much of it, and as a TV professional, when the opportunity to make the place better with new ideas came about, I checked in then too.
I understand exactly what you mean, though. There us a creepy disconnect between what we know is good for us (Black folks) and how we apply our power to influencing product directed at us. In my house for many years, Fox News has been banned, as has the purchasing of Murdoch newspapers like the NY Post.
But here in NY, riding teh traisn every morning I choke when I see how many Black folk read his rag. Why do yhet do it? There's a tabloid war going on and they discount the paper at 25¢ and often give it away. It's a prurient, cheap read and people consume it for those reasons, while forgetting that the thing insults them every damned day. (I actually was part of CEMOTAP's organized boycott for years—as the organized boycott waned, I maintained my own)
I guess with Bob Johnson, I played Charlie Brown to his Lucy with the football until I wised up to the sad reality.
It's a battle I continue to fight with TV One to broaden their progmaiing beyond cheaply-bought reruns of “B”-level Black shows and salacious late nite fare.
So, when I say I've been a consumer for all this time, I'm being quite honest. I've been unable to avoid it in my travels and have consumed it in efforts to be conversant in discussing with people in a position to change it.
I do share your opinion though. It continues to exist and offend because of Black folks' active consumption of its awful wares.
We do that willingly. In our attempt to escape the frying pan of so-called unfreindly, racist media, we go ass-first onto the burner of BET's cut-a-brotha-some-slack.condescencion.
Ring Of Power... hey, that's not a ring of power!!
Dr bopperthp, I KNOW that these people, and the ones they suck up to, aren't on our side... or anyone's side, really. Except their own. You HEAR me Rahm-ie baby? I'm talking to YOU.
You too, "Stinky"
LM writes: "There us a creepy disconnect between what we know is good for us (Black folks) and how we apply our power to influencing product directed at us."
Not just black folks, my friend. ALL Americans, though I suspect this is more and more true the farther down the class ladder you go. Who shops at Wal-Mart? Who votes for Huckabee? It's all same shit, different neighborhood.
And Mimi, as a middle-class white woman, I'll admit to having what may be a similar squick with feminism. I was stunned when I got to college from my little hick town, and realized I had more in common culturally with my upwardly-mobile black classmates than I did with most of the suburban white kids.
We were all raised in the Methodist church, reading the same bible, singing the same hymns. We all understood about Sunday best and Sunday dinner and how to treat your elders. There was just something about the social rhythms that felt honest and familiar -- and surprising, considering I grew up in a sundown town about 170 miles from the next stoplight. I finally realized that they -- like me, but unlike the other white kids -- were only one (two, at most) generations off the farm; and that my Midwestern parents had instilled most of the same messages that theirs had. But, to both of us, the kids from Encino came from a different place entirely -- and we were all working overtime to try to understand it.
And white-lady feminism rubbed me the wrong way, for what might very well have been relate reasons. I always thought of it as an UPPER-middle-class-white-woman movement. All the leaders had advanced degrees from the best universities. They lived the kind of easy bohemian lives enjoyed by people who've always had money. And for all their talk of inclusiveness, they didn't want to hear from a rural white woman any more than they wanted to hear from a black one.
I hated the way they talked down to rural women. They had no clue at all about the ways in which their high-flying idealism needlessly threatened these women's status quo, and made it hard to get the message across. Rural whites are all about liberty and self-determination, and the women are often already tough as hell. It would have been easy to pitch them a feminism authentically based on their own cultural values, one they could have really taken to heart. Instead, they went out of their way to tell uneducated stay-at-home moms that they were stupid and backward, and that there was no place for them in the movement.
In the end, this was the one big stupid mistake that cost us the ERA. As much as I believed in the fundamental goals of the movement, I was forever astonished at the ways it inadvertently cut itself off -- not just from women of color, but even from white women of other classes. It's why I've always been a feminist -- but never been an activist.
As a working class Catholic raised by a single mother I hear what y'all are saying about the feminist movement. Frankly the class issue rears its ugly head in the LGBT community all the time.
However, we need to remember that at it's core feminism is the radical notion that women are people too. That same analysis could be applied to issues involving race, color, orientation, and (yes, even) class. I would hate to surrender that powerful analysis to the "upper-class twits" - a nod to Monty Python - that run so many of our mainstream political groups.
That's why it makes me uncomfortable when we play the hierarchies of oppression game. Do I have more privilege based on my white skin? Hell yes. Does that make up for the sexism and economic oppression I and my mother experienced? Maybe, maybe not. Like everything else it depends on context.
But ultimately that's the wrong question to be asking. As long as we fight over crumbs, those eating the whole piece of bread are laughing at us. (By the way, those "bread eaters" include plenty of straight/gay white women and racial minorities who have done very well under the current system.)
Does that mean we ignore the real issues of race and gender? No. But progressives need to direct our fire outwards instead of adopting the circular firing squad. That's hard when sometimes - hell a lot of times - you just want to strangle the condescending twit next to you. (For instance some may feel that way about me after this post.)
That's why I love this blog and its community. Like Steve, we can say shit to each other and keeping working together.
I came away from tonight's debate with some hope that maybe our big three candidates share similar feelings. (Okay; that's a bit Pollyannish.) But I still felt better our folks were debating health care reform and Iraq rather than who disbelieves evolution the most.
LM, thank you thank you thank you.
Mrs. R --- right on the money.
This piece and the comments are written so much more eloquently than I can even articulate in a tiny piece of my finger, but I will try.
The issue I've always had with the white lady feminists is that they share only with each other, they expect everyone else to bide their time and wait and make way until THEY give permission. (ex: Gloria Steinem's NYT Op-Ed where tells people to vote for Hillary -- to me it read like hey people of color wait for Ms. Daisy to get her turn. )Of course they assume that it's through their work and their role modeling that I've been educated and made clear of the ways of self sufficiency and women's liberation, when in fact these same women are always so stunned to realize uhhh NO I've got my own family history of capable women thank you very much.
Which brings me back to what I think is the real shortcoming of people like Ms. Steinem, etc. The movement she's affiliated w/gave us sayings I remember repeating as a teenager,like "a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle". But any movement that is adversarial in nature is an incomplete one. When I was a kid, I had a grade school friend who would give me grief b/c my mother stayed at home w/us since her mother worked and was a "real" feminist. (Never mind the fact that my mother had quit working to raise her kids as a choice, but whatever.)
"Feminism is the radical notion that women are people too" -- but there were some class blinders on those early feminists that made it hard for them to see the personhood of some other women. I know that my rural white sisters ended up being projection screens for their fantasies of how they thought our lives were, and should be -- they told our stories, without bothering to consult us. And I know for a fact they were doing the same thing to the black feminists, too.
The black feminists, to their credit, took their ball, went elsewhere, and figured out for themselves what their story was and what they needed to do to fix it. The rural white women mostly just shut up and pulled back. And, like I said: the loss of those voices was THE thing that killed the ERA.
This isn't about hierarchies of oppression. It's just a historical fact about how things were in the early days. And it's also about how you create solidarity within highly divisive movements even now. First hint: know that the rich white kids, having been raised to power, will try to control the discourse. (They can't help themselves, poor dears.) If they're not aware of that reflex, and refuse to work on curbing it, then you're not going anywhere anyway. I live in that world now, and I know how they get that way. I also know that the good ones will find a way to get over it.
As for the debate: Yes. Not only evolution, but also abortion, gay marriage, and re-fighting the Vietnam War. I was furious that both 2000 and 2004 were completely dominated by aging Boomer men still fighting a fucking war that was fucking over thirty fucking years ago -- as if there weren't more important things to be talking about.
That's another thing John Kerry could have said (sans the French, of course) in telling the Swifties off -- when he finally got around to telling them off. Anyway, I'm sooooo glad we're not going to ever have to waste another election cycle on that goddamned war.
We need to get past the question of Clinton versus Obama and onto the Democrats versus Republican issue. I am not happy with the way the primary conflict is going because these hard feelings need to be dropped quickly before the real campaign starts. Can we band together... no matter the outcome to defeat the Republicans?
The fact is the best ticket, right now, would be Clinton and Obama with an assured place in the administration for Edwards. This would give Clinton two terms and set up Obama for two terms in a perfect world... one I unfortunately do not live in.
And bye the bye, I like Charlie Rangel for his outspokenness and even though he is an old fashioned ward heeler. Under an Obama Administration he will be just as powerful as under a Clinton Administration.
It all comes down to GO TO YOUR CAUCUS and make sure your voice is heard. Just remember that this is a family fight and once it is over we Democrats need to hug and make up.
(God I feel like a broken record Pollyanna some times.)
@Mrs. Robinson
LOL. I meant "upper middle class" it just doesn't flow as well when writing.
Can we band together... no matter the outcome to defeat the Republicans?
No.
Hillary Clinton tore her draws with me.
Period.
I will NOT vote for her in the general election. Actually I will actively campaign to get as many other Black folk as I can to NOT vote for her.
I will NOT be taken for granted and treated like an imbecile by another "so called" democratic nominee.
She's decided to play the "Race Card" and the moment she went there she lost the vote of this Black woman.
And unfortunately;y for her I'm not the only Black person who feels this way.
Can't add much to what other commenters have already said, LM, but thanks much for this column -- remembering Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., especially. May I note as an old white guy, that Mr. Powell's works helped all Americans, black and white, as is usually the case with progressive policies. As the son of a depression survivor, may I say that 70+ years on, we seem to be on the cusp of the next one, and I don't see any Powells, kings, LBJs, FDRs or McGoverns on the horizon. Good luck to us all.
JJ -
Assuming Clinton gets the nomination -- which isn't a sure thing -- you're saying you'd rather have a Republican, all of whom are anti-choice and who will appoint Supreme Court Justices who will take this nation far, far to the right for the next half-century, rather than vote for Hillary Clinton?
Seriously?
Seriously you expect me to vote for a woman who has essentially given people who look like me their ass to kiss.
Seriously?
Look to go into the nuances of me about what a Hilary Clinton when may win...but if I remember correctly the minority party has the to screw a President out of his (or her) judicial nominees...you know like the repubs did to Clinton...and like the Dems DIDN'T do to Bush.
So the talk of right-wing courts doesn't fly with me 'cause you keep those bastards from getting out of committee.
Last I checked we still have majorities in both the house and the senate.
It's late I can't spell.
That should read:
Look don't go into the nuances with me about what a Hilary Clinton win may mean...but if I remember correctly the minority party has the power to screw a President out of his (or her) judicial nominees...you know like the repubs did to Clinton...and like the Dems DIDN'T do to Bush.
@JJ -- I think if she does get the nomination, a whole lot of other people may choose NOT to vote for her.
ex:My husband hates HRC and has decided that if it came down to a HRC/Huckabee match up he would write in Al Gore as his candidate of choice.
Re: Ass to kiss --- of course they expected that. otherwise. See: culture of fear, paternalistic fear.
My mother said she's gonna write in Mickey Mouse.
LOL.
Nose meet face...
While I do adhere to the "There is some shit I will not eat" School of Politics I cannot say that I will have even a twinge of regret pulling the full Democratic Ticket lever in November.
Nope, I'm pulling that knob even if the present candidates all eat bad chicken and die. I'll take the dumbest, shitheel populist Democrat, from whatever roadhouse they pull the drunk from before I will vote for a Republican president. Never have, never will.
May I suggest that DIETRICH BONHOEFFER, famed Lutheran Theologian and victim of the Nazis had it right...
" Politics are not the task of a Christian."
JJ -
It's late and I'm tired so I'm not going to get into it tonight.
This is probably a series of posts. And I'm no longer promising to write posts. Sara broke me of doing so. Heh.
I do take what you're saying seriously, and thank you for your candor.
Goodnight.
This morning ( midnight ) I found myself awake and unable to get back to sleep. Turned on the TV and scrolled the channel offerings to see if anything might be dull enough to send me back to nod. Toon channel on DTV had the MLK episode you mentioned above. Had it not been for your post, I would have slid past the show.
Watched it instead. Incredible, amazing, not sure what words acurately describe my response. I remember reading a diatribe by Bill Cosby some years back that offended a lot of folks; in memory, his diatribe and what I saw last night said a lot of the same things. During my scroll to find something to watch I passed BET they were showing a homage to black gangsters narrated by Ving Rhames. The juxtaposition was interesting.
Jesses. as a hispanic, and a solid member of the middle calss I side with JJ. Look we had the clinton BS for 8 years. in a lot of ways it set us backwards...more importantly it set teh table for bush. if its hillary, I set on my hands ratehr then activly set thsi counntry further down the path to destruction.
we don't need teh same old crap, more of the thrid way BS any more. third way is just compasionat conservatisam with a different lable.
More over every time that women speaks you can feel her disdane for thsoe of us who are not white, and from what I have heard, those not in the upper middle calss or higher get the same vibe from her. Sure she may condsend to throw us a bone, as lnog as we aknloadge our betters. Guess what, we are sick and fucking tired of pretending that she, or any one like her is better then us....its over. We will no longer be preached to from on high. Sara is right on, the eleitest bullshit allready killed hte feminist movement, and its killing the democrats. You can't see that yet but if hillary is the nomane the establishement dems who pushed her thourgh will be in for a shock. Huck would beat her, McCain could beat her, hell romny has a shot at it....indipendents will either sit on there hands or vote for McCain. Huck will energise the republican base, and some less wary indipendents. Hillary on the other hand will deenergise the dem base, and drive away all of the current dem allies. Face it you didn't win the house and senate off of the old school base. a lot of independts..a lot of people who where sick of the authroitarian bent of the goverment whent to the dems in the midterms...they are not stupid, they relise that things will not change under hillary, she has shown herslef as an authroitarian over and over....
Steve use to talk about this all the time, you can't work for a liberal group unless you are allready rich.....
Im jsut waiting for the next bit of racist "well some dems wont vote for obama" BS. Look if you are bigoted enough to not vote for some one due to race, you are biggoted enough to not vote for some one due to gender.
@moonglum --- disdain? jesus, I saw her speak at a grad school event when she was first running for senate. the disdain was PULSATING, in that purposeful rich white "liberal" way.
I say "liberal" b/c I remember Lani Guinier.
me: yup, every tiem she speaks its grateing. this isn't victorian england. us Po folk jsut don't aprciate when you condesend to thro us a bone.
Two things:
You have to know that a 4000 word essay is going to get skipped by an awful lot of folks. Especially us who try to read several blogs a day and contribute to one or three ourselves. At least put a 600 - 900 word version on the main page and link to the expanded version for those so inclined.
All "roads" are tough to hoe, that is why one doesn't hoe roads. One hoes rows, as in a row of corn or a row of beans.
Ok, three things counting this. You guys do good work and help fill a void that Steve left. Thanx and don't stop.
can't add much to the brilliance of the post and the considered, thoughtful comments. just want to say thank you to all. and I'll vote for the Dem in the general, whoever it is.
In the meantime, this national conversation, these honest and painful insights, are crucial to the next stage of America's growth - we're coming into our mid-teens as a nation, and the growing pains are very, very hard...but necessary if we are to bring healing, where we have caused destruction.
@Terri in Tokyo -- so true about the need for healing. We are tearing apart our greater American family and we just need to stop, think, truly acknowledge with actual sincerity, forgive and act.
Some folks only vote their own colour, "Who is better for my race is better for me." Some vote only their religion, or their gender. Problem is that a lot of folks vote their class. "Whoever is better for my class is better for me." Sometimes referred to as "It's the economy, stupid." Hillary presents a problem here as does Barack as does Edwards. None of them is perceived as good for most of the subdivisions of the american polity, but each is perceived as superb for a small part of the polity.
Ignoring for the moment the Perot phenomenom that gave the USA Bill Clinton, write-ins and 3rd party candidates are feel good pipedreams. Comes voting day you have three choices:1) Don't. You are thereby allowed to put on the "Don't blame me I didn't vote bumper sticker." This is the preferred response of approx 40% of the possible voters in the USA.
2) Vote Dem
3) Vote Repub.
Watching the Repubs pander to the hispanic underclass and the upper middle and upper white classes simultaneously is fun.
Watching the dems take for granted the unitary black vote is fun.
Watching Hillary try to split the black vote by using a wealthy man who happens to have been black is not so fun.
Here are your choices:
Obama, Clinton, Edwards, Kucinich McCain, Huckabee, Romney, Paul.
Will Gore come save the dems? Will Lieberman save McCain, Will Newt Gingrich rise from the dead to lead the Repubs to the promised land?
What is changing the game is the economic depression the USa is entering. The $1600/family, taxable rebate and the 3/4 point interest rate cut will have 0 effect on this depression. The interest rate cut puts the actual interest rate into negative territory, given that inflation is by the feds manipulated data running at 4.5% and by my personal household expenditure date inflation is running about 11%. Household incomes are falling steadily in real terms, household savings are NEGATIVE. An economy cannot be grown if their are no savings to fund investments in productive plants, tools, equipment, repairs and maintainence.
Well talk at the water cooler and cafe is nominating Clinton is sure disaster for the Democrats in November.
The independents don't like her, working class women don't like her, the African-Americans are pissed at her.
Most of the independents would vote for McCain over her. But would take Obama over McCain.
Interestingly I've met a few dyed in the wool Republicans who would vote for Clinton over McCain.
The upshot is Obama is the best chance for the Democrats and McCain is the best shot for the GOP.
Not sure how this plays out nationwide but it seems to be the CW in my social circles.
CK I hear you. It's not just black folk but it's part of the American culture.
I remember sitting first in a daze and then laughing my butt off at a similar juxtaposition.
Channel 52 here is VH1. Channel 51 is Trinity Broadcasting.
52 was showing that racist prick wannbe model wife of Chris Knight giving making out with another chick and poledancing. 51 had their usual give us money or God will strike you down programming.
The daze I was in was first because of the oddness of it all. Then I started laughing because I realized both channels were doing the same thing, pimping for the almighty dollar, women, Christianity, or sanity be damned.
This kind of bs and the fact that the economy is going down the toilet make not only seeing the Dems fight not only sad but dangerous.
With the perfect shitstorm awaiting the next president we need even more to know about where they stand because the first term is going to be about the president putting out raging fires.
baltogeek: to most of us the first term would be abotu puttign out fires...but then again most of us are not the wealthy eleite of thsi nation. there is a group that prospers from a depresion, that prospers from the rest of us getting poorer. as we lose everything some one is in position to gain it all....
I agree with JJ and moonglum on the not voting for Hillary issue.
People need to understand the seriousness of this.
It's not that black folks don't care about the Supreme Court or progressive programs but you have to understand for many blacks what the Bill Clinton has done (and yes I say Bill because this fight is more about him than Hillary IMHO and you know damn well he is behind every single nasty remark that has come out) is a betrayal first as a friend and second as a fellow Democrat.
Many of us considered the Clintons family, not me personally but I have family members and friends who loved him. Not agreed with him. Not liked his policy programs but loved the president because culturally and socially he was the first president that was close to us.
As Mrs Robinson wrote downthread, a charming smart guy who grew up poor in Arkansas raised by a single mother, tormented by a drunken father who overcomes the odds to make his way North for a better life is resembles to many of the stories of our own families. (Especially older relatives who were part of that migration of blacks from the south so many years before) We related to Bill in a way we never could to people like JFK and RFK because they were the product of rich families.
He might not have had the same skin color but superficially he was about as close as he could get. And for black folks who saw Jesse run and fail and had their hopes dashed then and assumed that they would never have anyone remotely close to them with a real sniff at the Whitehouse, Bill Clinton was a great substitute for the real thing.
The other endearing thing was he was a Democrat who many other Dems of his generation fought for our civil rights. Hell he even had a picture of is teenage self shaking JFK's hand! And maybe after years of Reagan and Bush we would have someone we could trust to continue that legacy.
Bill Clinton wasn't just a president he was family.
So we voted for him, vociferously defended him while many whites Dems were breaking ranks voting for the GOP and impeaching him not only in Congress but in the court of public opinion. And because Bill was family we also willfully ignored how he didn't deliver for us as he said he would. We stayed true to him through everything. We never even thought of straying from the party and it's ideals the way some many others had since 1980.
So to sit here and see staffers, surrogates, and Bill rip apart a black man using pages from the GOP playbook is about the worst thing politically many of us have seen not because we haven't seen it before but the source is a person that we gave unconditional trust to.
To see fellow Dems make excuses for the behavior is shocking to the system too. Read sites like Dailykos and see the real shucking and jiving some folks are doing to not only defend this crap but turn it around and say blacks in the party need to STFU. I never thought in my life I would hear the uppity nigger STFU line by another Dem. NEVER.
So yes we are pissed and we are going to stay pissed because the candidates, Howard Dean and many people in the party don't seem to give a shit.
So tell me what are my real choices? What choice to do we have but to stay home and not vote or do something more drastic like leave the party all together if Hillary wins the nomination when no one will take our concerns seriously or they pull out some argument about Supreme Court nominations changing the subject entirely?
Now I know some will think I am politically naive but what people outside the black community do not seem to understand is the first and I would argue largest reason we don't vote for the GOP is the GOP's racism. Not it's policy but simply the sickening way they choose to treat us.
I know I'm going to shock some folks here but us blacks no matter how much we like to say we are different than whites in many ways aren't. We've got homophobic religious evangelical fanatics too (thus Obama's speech on MLK day about homophobia in our community). We've got rich money grubbing assholes too (see Robert Johnson). We've got opportunistic bastards running our churches who are influential in our community who would endorse Satan in a political campaign if they thought it would get them money and political power (see all the pastors in 2004 who couldn't get on their knees fast enough to suck up to Bush).
We've got all the political diseases whites have and they are largely masked by the fact that the GOP's racism is so repellant that all these groups are FORCED to stick together for our own survival.
And the danger that LM didn't touch upon too much is what happens when that line of racial hatred between the Democrats and the GOP becomes blurred. Forget folks staying at home over Hillary on election day. Think of the total destruction of the Democratic party as blacks leave to vote for the GOP.
And yeah I know the first response to that is "The won't do that they'll be voting against they're own interest." So what? White folks have been doing that for nearly 30 years now. Like I said we aren't all that different from whites and some of are are craven and stupid enough to do it.
And yes it will be total destruction because blacks ARE the Democratic party. We ARE the left in this country. We ARE the stability of the party and have been for a long time.
And you Dems need us. To be more precise you need that 90% of our votes that we've given you in election after election.
Remember Rove's permanent majority? Part of the strategy was peeling off black votes. Just maybe 10-15 % and the Dems would never win another election again.
Think about that. Think about that as Clinton and his bullies keep pissing us off and giving younger blacks like me more and more reasons to say fuck it and stay home in Nov or do worse.
The Clintons are playing a game of racial Russian roulette. And they will keep pulling the trigger over and over again. And they don't worry about being shot because the gun isn't pointing at them but all of us.
Are you going to take a bullet for them?
IF another depression is imminent, as some people think, maybe it would be better for the Democratic Party if an Elephascist occupied the White House when it struck?
I wonder if Gore didn't run this time because he's thinking exactly that.
Balto:
Does a company reward its loyal life long customers or does it woo the new?
I have DTV, they advertize nice low rates for NEW subscribers but for those of us who have been with them for decades --- nada.
Numbers: Blacks are no longer the largest identifiable minority. Hispanics are. Blacks are approx 16% of the USA population and about 40% of the democratic party taken for granted base. Rev. Farrakhan does not have a political party establishment to join. So there is no one to spin off towards in that direction. Likewise there is no libertarian oriented black voice to spin towards in the other direction.
It's a bitch but black's votes are as taken for granted by the dems as evangelicals are taken for granted by the repubs.
Kucinich is marginalized even though he is the best the dems have. Paul likewise for the repubs. So it goes, for a long time it was the catholics and the irish that were the reliable and taken for granted dems and the milktoast protestants and small town whites that were taken for granted by the repubs. Hell for the longest time the blacks were the strongest supporters of "The party of Lincoln."
To my jaundiced eye, what we have now is what the country had back in 1850's, rigor mortis in the two major parties. In the 1850's that rigor mortis led to a realignment of the parties. But there were more than 5 media outlets then and a whole lot better educated populace too.
A nice summation of the snake pit that's developed in the Democratic Party's little coronation process, LM. Your comments about Johnson and Rangel are really quite disturbing, as they accurately peg them as the Clintons' own personal versions of Clarence Thomas, i.e. black men who can "safely" spout thinly-disguised (or not so thinly disguised) racist or psudeo-racist crap about their own people, and all for the benefit of a calculating third party. In Thomas' case, of course, that was the GOP. Here, it's to serve Bill and Hillary, who may not be racist per se, but certainly don't mind using racism to further their own selfish ends. Sadly enough.
CK, who said anything about joining a "black party"?
My mom's thinking about voting for McCain if he gets the nomination as are some of my other relatives and friends.
I have others who are just demoralized and ready not to vote for anybody.
I know my post was really long but the short of it is that if the Dems through their own infighting and failure to address the issues surrounding may be pushing some of us in the direction of the GOP or not participate at all.
And as for numbers? I'm not Latino so please someone correct me if I'm wrong but IIRC Latinos in this country have spread their vote out between the two parties with the Dems with a slight majority.
Despite the rhetoric of both parties we've had tight political races.
If the Dems need 90% of the black vote to win (or lose) by a squeeker what happens if that vote is 75 or 80% which it very well could be if Hillary wins the nomination?
Are you assuming Latinos are going to vote in those kind of numbers? They haven't so far as far as I've seen and they may not in the future.
Look, I'm not going to pretend to be a expert on Latino politics or where they stand between the GOP and the Democrats but all things staying equal the Democratic party will be fucked if blacks stop giving them their votes whether we are the largest minority or not.
It's not about ALL of us saying "We're taking our ball and going home" but enough of us to really screw things up. That's the danger I'm talking about that noone seems to understand or dismisses as being unreal.
And as for the DTV analogy, I'll give you one of my own.
I have a friend who has digital cable. He got it while they were advertising one of those specials where you pay a low rate for a few months before they jack it up to a much higher one.
Everytime he gets close to the end of that low rate they give him a call about extending his service he gives them some spiel (sp?) about how a satellite dish looks good and he saw a lower rate somewhere else and you know what? They keep him at his low rate.
Why? Because of competition. Because even in cold-hearted businessmen know that even at a lower rate it's better for them to get your money than have it go somewhere else.
The Democratic infighting may produce a competition for black votes for the first time in forever.
Do Democrats know that it's better to keep blacks rather than ignoring us and giving us reasons to leave?
I don't think anyone wants that.
I second what JJ said. Fuck Hillary.
LM,
I wish my dad was still with us. He knew Powell and I seem to recall hearing him saying that Powell made people mad because he was somewhat dismissive of MLK. Powell would say "He didn't have a dream. He had a plan."
Do you know anything about this?
I also hope you good people are looking for someone outside of the Boule crowd to run against Charlie in the next election. Fuck him too.
baltogeek has nailed it on the head.
"Latinos" are not a minority group.
50% of Latinos classify as white. There are many afo-latinos many of who classify themselves as Black.
To better get an understanding of what group of Latinos vote how you'd have to break them down nationally (Mexican, Puerto Rican, etc.) and racially (Black, White, Indian, etc.).
And last I checked Dems only had a slight edge on the Latino vote.
The other elephant in the room is this:
Latino's may not vote Black but if it comes down between a White woman and White man will they vote for a woman?
Balto: Twasn't me said anything about joining a black party. I was saying that the dems take the black vote for granted. I did point out that there are no specifically black oriented political options. I did see the Clinton's doing a whole lot to garner the hispanic vote away from Obama in Nevada and succeeding ( according to the exit polls for whatever they are worth ). How latinos will vote depends on who offers them more incentive. McCain tried to usurpt the latino vote last year and failed with his amnesty bill.
I think the point I am trying ( poorly ) to make is the same one you made. Until the taken for granted actually pick up their goods and go looking elsewhere, they will stay taken for granted. Sorta like me with DTV, I may have to give them a call and initiate a bit of rate warfare with them. ( only problem is that my alternative is comcast which has less programming for the same price as DTV). Or I could just drop TV and rehook my antenna ... yeah that's the ticket ... pick up my bags and go off and save that $99 a month.
CK, you are right about being taken for granted.
I think this year might be the one where blacks break-away to a point.
Oh and BTW the antenna idea is cool but the govt is forcing HD on everyone in 2009, which is a bitch and I'm sure with the converter boxes or whatever is going to make some Bush crony somewhere richer.
Where are the protests for that?
Cee:
The schism between Powell and MLK is a rarely discussed little bit of hateration in Black history circles.
King was the South's great preacher/activist/orator while Powell was the North's. There was a deep rivalry between the two men and supposedly they did NOT get along personally. In spite of that, they worked independent of each other very effectively as a “Mr. Inside/Mr. Outside” tandem. King as “Mr. Outside” and Powell as “Mr. Inside”.
Fortunately, their personal enmity didn't work against their both busting their asses for equality.
CK: as an equadorian...( we are not latino, jsut ask my family...we are spanish pure concuestador boold here...i self identify as an americna, thridgeneration chicagoin...my kids know more spanish from watchign dora the explorer then I do...but I still talk to the family in quito) latinos will nto vote as a block. you eill et cubans mostly cvoteign republican due to castro. mexicans poor voteing dem, mexican wealthy moslty going republican...the same is ture for most other hispanic people...msotly we self identify as white for race, with a nationality...much like irish american or italian american.....to baroow some of my tios words, "only the dirty mexicans want us to all be latino, because we raise them out of the grabage". You cannot rely on the latino vote as tehre is no latino vote.
JJ: machismo is big in a lot of hispanic comunities...the yvote for Mccain over hillary. besides we are well aware of our minority status, but unlike the black commuinty dont' feel any tie to clinton...we see how he through us and our relitives under the bus for eight years...how he quietly started teh attacks on the middle class both hee and in south america. We woke up to that scam artist a while ago
@moonglum
See that's what I was thinking but I didn't want to outright say that me not being Hispanic and all
Moonglum:
My apologies. It appears that those of Spanish heritage identify more with place of origin. It is certainly a truism that the older Cuban-Americans vote anti-castro which is usually republican.
I suspect that one of the issues driving the "illegal immigrant" issue is the economic class of the majority of them. Mexican doctors and engineers and scientists and entrepreneurs are not a large percentage of the immigrants.
Same kind of issue had a strong hold during the Clinton years regarding immigrants from India and Pakistan. The H1B's were not the issue, the family reunification immigrants who became famous for running the 7-11's and the Motel 6's were the whipping boys.
Balto: https://www.dtv2009.gov/
Send for the coupons ... the govt gives me money again.
"We've always said we need a perfect, well-spoken, Harvard-educated black candidate who would prove we've transcended race," the billionaire African American businessman and supporter of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) said in an interview yesterday. "Well, now we've got him and nobody knows how to campaign against him."
Seems like the Repugs are saying the same thing about Huckleberry.
Weird ain't it!
Maybe the Flying Spaghetti Monster got the ass and decided to give them what they asked for.
CK you are starting to get it...out side of univsion, who wants a larg audianc. and anglo americans. lation is not a race. it is an ethnicity at best...and then you need to break that down into regional and national diferances.
one of my uncles married a cuban lady, he gotdroped form the will instantly...but he was still allowed in the family, because well at least she wasn't "a dirty mexican" or one of those damm pourtoricans ("they are all neagros anyway"). Latinos can be just as bigoted and racist as any one else...and in my experience more so as its aceptable to be open. mom married a americna guy (dad's family was from hungary..they got here in time to fight the revolution) so we got mostly cut from the will purly on natinality bases. Assumeign that your are not a native or mixed (that is why mexicans are allways dirty mexicans its assumed they are mixed) nationality is far more important than race. I would not count on the hispanic vote, it will never be a major voteing block. i will devide on class lines just like any other ethnicity in this country.
No one is relying on the celtic vote, or the germanic vote.
I live overseas but stayed up for the first hour or so of the SC debates. I remember that Barack easily shot down the "slum landlord" oppo research tidbit that Hillary couldn't wait to deploy. When he returned the serve with the (to my mind) more damaging bit about her tenure as lawyer for Wal-Mart, I don't remember her trying to defend that one.
So Hilary came off as being quick to fight dirty and. She also came off as being quick to anger but not very subtle, and one way to wind her up is to take shots at Bill. If she gets the nomination, the Republicans will certainly come at her from that direction, I really think she'll lose it, publicly. Tears won't save her a second time.
Saturday is the chance for SC black voters to decide what they think of her and to lay a few caltrops in the path of her inevitability express. If they send her off without even a home version of the game, it might hearten anti-Hillary Dems preparing for Super Tuesday.
The only use I have for Hillary as President is the prospect of 4 (not 
years of vintage Wingnut Whine. If she gets the nod, I'll probably vote for her. I can understand people not wanting to vote for her. Fine. Write in Barfo The Magnetic Wonder Dog if you want. But please help those deserving Dems down the ticket. If Hillary gets in, we'll need a Congressional majority stiffened by progressive spine, just to keep her honest. If McCain, Romney or Huckabee wins, we'll need that solid majority, period.
A Democratic sweep everywhere but at the top of the ticket would be a clear message as well as a triumph of grassroots organization. It would also give political cover to progressives inside the party looking to boot the DLC Quislings out once and for all.
Mrs. R., seconded on your point about white lady feminism. My mother (in Houston) is from Honduras (*her* mother's from El Salvador) and has been repeatedly demoralized by the snobbishness of the Ladies Who Lunch running NOW, Planned Parenthood and the Texas Democratic party. I'm glad she keeps at it anyway, because she lives on a corner lot on a busy intersection, so her fence delivers thousands of dollars' worth of advertising for the price of a few signs!
bjacques hillary wasnt jsut a lawyar for walmart. she was on the board, durniogn the time that they where lieing abotu the origin of there goods (claimed made in america, when they where made in china)
MoonG:
OK
So that implies that Hillary and co will go after the Mexican immigre/mexican american vote as that is where the potential voter numbers are. That group was Rove's BIG target for the Repubs in 2002,2004 and 2006.( That target was not delivered ) Both parties however will still refer to this targeting as the latino vote.
The largest part of the republican certainty was the belief that "latino" voters are more morally conservative/catholic and that the anti-abortion crusade would resonate strongly with them. Group politics is so demeaning.
The celtic ( Scotch Irish vote ) used to be stongly in play as was the German American vote. Both groups are now happily ignorable.
CK that was anotehr big miss. a lot of the hispanic comunity is abandoning catholisism in this country and going Jahovas witness.
Hard people those Jehovah's witnesses.
They stood up to Hitler before WW2 and were exterminated for it.
"In the end, this was the one big stupid mistake that cost us the ERA. As much as I believed in the fundamental goals of the movement, I was forever astonished at the ways it inadvertently cut itself off -- not just from women of color, but even from white women of other classes. It's why I've always been a feminist -- but never been an activist."
This pretty much sums up my feelings as well. But there's more, it wasn't just a race/class thing, it was gender thing too. Much too much emphasis on men and not enough on women. This is why a whole generation of younger women rejected them too. Women had/have a lot of issues in our own community that has very little to do with men. Stuff that needed/needs to be resolved.
jj,
I hope you and all black people seriously reconsider the ramifications of such actions, because they will be HUGE. And I really hope that blacks who feel SO offended will take some time and carefully evaluate what was said without the filter and distortions of the MSM. Our emotions always defeat us and we need to stiffen up and focus on the larger picture. Supreme court nominations? You must not have any young women in your life who could be directly affected by the loss of choice. And that's just one thing.
I keep trying to get people to realize that no matter who is elected, there is going to be a certain amount of 'business as usual' on the politics side. And that includes Obama. Getting all worked up over this war of words and rhetoric is what the Republicans are counting on. It won't be the end of the world if your democratic candidate doesn't get the nomination. I can't say the same about a Republican winning the Presidency again. We have to have a Democrat this time around. We have to simmer down.
And all of this Primary mess is exactly why I haven't gotten involved. I want Bush and Cheney impeached. And I don't care how ludicrous that that may seem at this point. It's just the way I feel.
Amuseinc,
You and I are on the same page. I told my in-laws who are trying to get worked up like jj: "Let's not lose focus here. If Donald Duck is the nominee, I'm voting for him."
Well said, Mimi.
Thank you.
LM
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