This is going to be one long post LOL
[quote=Faithful1]
You may be correct that some of the racism has been brought to the surface. In the case of Obama, when racial slurs are used about him it is more personal because of his policies, not because he's part of a despised group. (I'm not defending, just explaining based on what I see.)
Disagreeing with a policy might evoke anger or even profanity but when slurs start being tossed around it's clear that the disagreement goes way beyond his policies. And while most youtube commenters/internet racists are teen trolls, the slurs about Obama I'm referring to are from adults..sometimes using work email accounts..basically not giving a F.
Sad but true. I sometimes debate the internet racists, but more often I mock them since most don't listen to reason. Quite a few are from other parts of the world, and a lot of Arab Muslim posters use the "N-word" I have noticed. Often the same ones make anti-Jewish remarks too, but that's to be expected.
Have to disagree with you here. If you actually read what they write it's clear that they have no enjoyment in seeing "lazy or criminal" blacks. Just the opposite. Moreover, I see the greatest hatred toward successful blacks coming from other blacks. The label "Uncle Tom" is thrown around all the time, as is "token" and "Sambo." To me, these are hateful terms. White people don't attack other whites this way, it's a legacy from slavery where one group of blacks was set up to attack another. It's a form of fascist though-policing that forces independent thinkers to have conform to a viewpoint they don't agree with. Go read the comments under videos put out by black conservatives and the hate will be obvious. The language is often as bad as any white Neo-Nazi.
Racists love to see the groups they despise living up or down to expectations. Look at the tv ratings for some of the "ethnic" themed reality shows and you'll note that there aren't enough members of said group to explain the high ratings. There are Black ones and ones for other ethnic groups. Outsiders are watching and laughing.There's a website that I won't name that basically shows Black people in the worst light imaginable routinely, owned by a Haitian American actually.not enough black teens in america to explain the tremendous web traffic.Outsiders watching in droves and laughing.
As the example with the Haitian American, many of the people who buy into the negative stereotypes are black Americans. One of the most popular shows on TV right now is Empire, about a black drug kingpin. If it were up to me there'd be more positive role models on TV, but not sure how they would do in the ratings. The same could be said for gangsta rap, which is followed by blacks, whites, and other ethnic and racial groups. When an entertainer goes public any member of the public is free to like that person, and often that celebrity goes after the lowest common denominator.
Go look up ANY negative video about blacks on youtube...and I'd bet money that it attracts, like flies to dog ish, lot of comments from people who are outsiders.....they can't stay away....they love it.
You don't think a Harvard educated Black president invokes more hatred in the heart of a racist than a Black gangbanger who lives 5 states away?????
Are you saying that Blacks reserve hatred for "successful" blacks or for politically conservative Blacks?
There are surely elements of the Black community that resent both groups, and I can speak about that but those are separate factions of people. please clarify.
While a black president of Harvard may provoke anger for some white racists, my observation from reading their posts tells me that the most racist remarks are reserved for the gangbangers, the thugs, and the single mothers.
Yes, I am saying that there are many blacks who target conservative blacks for abuse. They call them the most horrible names, names that would make a klansman proud. Go to YouTube and look at some of the posts for Alfonzo Rachel, or just do a search for "black" and "conservative."
Again, the claim was that he was a Muslim, not an Arab. I never once read a claim by someone that said he was an Arab. I don't think there's been any doubts about his racial ancestry: he's biracial, half black and half white. He considers himself black and downplays his white heritage.
The famous radio host who I quoted as saying "He's(Obama) an arab, from Arab parts of Africa" was Limbaugh. The audio and transcript exists on line for sure.As you know Limbaugh is pretty influential so I'm sure you can find comments or clips of people honestly stating that they think he is an Arab......from the first election probably up to now. The McCain clip shows a woman repeating the sentiment and McCain being embarrassed for her.
Downplays his white heritage??? Are you familiar with the history of what race means in this country and the "one drop rule"? I alluded to race mixing and the law in the great migration thread. Pretty complex discussion but unlike say in Latin American countries where there were legal and social stratification of people based on % of Black,White, and Indigenous blood, in America there was White and there was Black....defined by the law.
I did a search and found where Limbaugh said it, on Sept. 22, 2008. I didn't see the original transcript, the oldest one I saw is from Media Matters. I also saw it on a site called American Conservative. Both sites criticized him for it, but the American Conservative one really mocked him for it. I was unaware of it. I can guess that when he said "Arab" he meant "Muslim," because I've heard others make that same mistake (there are still a large number of Arab Christians). I remember talking with an older person a few years ago, don't remember who it was, but she said "Arab" when she meant "Muslim" in this same exact way and I corrected her. I don't know if Limbaugh ever corrected himself, but it's not important enough for me to spend my money to find out. While searching this I think there was someone else who made this same mistake, maybe Monica Crowley, but didn't go back to read the article.
As for the "one-drop" rule, that wasn't some federal law but a state law from Virginia. Other states, almost all in the South, had similar laws: "
Among them were hypodescent laws, defining as black anyone with any black ancestry, or with a very small portion of black ancestry. Tennessee adopted such a "one-drop" statute in 1910, and Louisiana soon followed. Then Texas and Arkansas in 1911, Mississippi in 1917, North Carolina in 1923, Virginia in 1924, Alabama and Georgia in 1927, and Oklahoma in 1931. During this same period, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Utah retained their old "blood fraction" statutes de jure, but amended these fractions (one-sixteenth, one-thirty-second) to be equivalent to one-drop de facto."
I'm not sure if I'd qualify since I'm less than 1/8th black, but it's a stupid racist law that has since been removed. I think the funniest ironic moment happened when a white racist had DNA testing done and found out he had black ancestry. Hilariousness ensues:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/20/living/white-supremacist-one-drop-identity/At any rate, my opinion is that Obama should have called himself biracial and role modeled the fact that the USA is becoming more racially mixed. In a couple hundred years we'll all be some shade of brown and hopefully we can put this stupidity behind us. We need to get to the point that we all belong to the human race and that's the only race there is.
As for anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment, yes, I agree that it increased after 9/11, but I think that most of the anti-Muslim sentiment is toward Muslim extremists. Again, it needs to be contextualized. Most of the claims of anti-Muslim sentiment comes from CAIR, which is connected to the Muslim Brotherhood so their claims have to be taken with a grain of salt. Second, many American Muslims in fact do want Shari'a in this country, do want a worldwide caliphate, are against Israel, and support apostates being put to death. Considering that, anti-Muslim sentiment, at least for those who believe in the above, is not unreasonable. I myself attended a mosque in Southern California years ago before 9/11, and the imam preached the destruction of Jews and Israel. I heard it myself.
Do you think the woman in the McCain video knows anything about Islam other than what she was told by Limbaugh,etc. Do you think the people who beat up Sikhs after 911 know or care to know the difference between Islam and Sikhism?
Do you think the average person ,makes a distinction between ANY of the branches of Islam or any organization rooted in Islam?
Average person doesn't read and formulate their own opinion..not about sports and definitely not about politics.
ever have sports debate with person who just repeats what espn shows say?
certain that you've read comments or had debates with people where you can hear other people's words coming out of their mouths.
I don't know which woman talking with McCain you're talking about. Could you post a link? I don't disagree with the rest of what you wrote. A lot of people just aren't all that bright, or they fail to research the facts before embarrassing themselves.
I know that you believe that they're codes, but if his political positions actually ARE socialistic, then the complaints are true. As for hating America, the only well-known person who said that, as far as I know, is Giuliani. I don't agree with him, but I do agree that he wants to transform America from free market to a statist, progressive Democrat economy, and progressive is, historically speaking, socialistic. That's not a code, that's a fact based on his policies and his ideology.
I came of age during the latter part of the Cold War. Heard a lot of adults speak dismissively of pinko commie bastards,etc without the faintest idea about what communism was or why they were opposed to it .they just knew that "dem Ruskies" were communists and that it was "wrong"
Today...you can find clips of people from 2008 election spouting Obama is a socialist rhetoric without a clue about why that would be something they are opposed to.
Rush Limbaugh was under fire years ago for being a "racist" and you had people on camera who were fed false limbaugh quotes and who had never listened to the show just repeating the line.
Lot of people are puppets.
just give people simple narratives....code words and point them in the direction you want them to go.
Rudy is the latest to use the "hates America line" but variations of the same line have been used by limbaugh, other talk show hosts and celebs. trust me. i can search and list.
Agreed.
Again, disagree. They don't need to have personally experienced persecution. It could be a historic memory of persecution. Compare this to Obama's Selma speech. He used "we" this and "we" that, yet not a single person present personally experienced slavery, and the young people present didn't experience Jim Crow. There's no indication that Obama himself ever experienced discrimination; to the contrary, he seems to have experienced only privilege. The original civil rights marches from the 1960s included Jews, Catholics and Protestants, blacks and whites, Democrats and Republicans. One of the most conservative Republicans in Congress until the 1990s was Representative Bob Dornan. He was there in his Air Force uniform in the crowd for King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Yet Obama created his own historical memory that included gay marriage, an issue that wasn't there in the 1950s and 60s.
I said specifically that I think your point would ring true if the majority of Americans at the time of the Irish immigration descended from areas where the incidents you cited occurred . Not if they personally experienced it but if it was part of their cultural/regional/family history.If America was primarily made up of Protestants from Spain, for example, your point about deeply entrenched resentment for Catholics would ring true because of the horrors of the Inquisition and what kind of feeling would linger with Spanish protestants even centuries later.
Jews worldwide celebrate Passover for example..because the meaning of it/story behind it is part of their cultural history and identity.The Protestant denominations scattered across Europe weren't cohesive enough as a group for the legacy of oppression at the hands of Catholics to have the same effect.
About the Selma speech.
To a group of Americans in Alabama, Black and White..slavery segregation civil rights and modern era of living/working together as Americans is part of all of their cultural and regional history.
Obama never experienced discrimination? ??? Do you think that Obama or any person has a special lotion that makes them immune from discrimination for their entire life?
If you have any close friends who grew up in America and are not visibly "White"..ask them if they have ever experienced discrimination/prejudice/profiling?
Dr. Condoleeza Rice mentions instances of experiencing discrimination growing up in one of her books . Harvard professor Dr.Henry Louis Gates was famously arrested when a longtime neighbor called the cops on him for "breaking into his own house".Cops showed up....immediately saw pictures of the "culprit" all over the house...demanded id anyway...prof. got indignant and was arrested.
Obama probably mentions incidents involving discrimination in his books.
I wonder what would make you conclude that Obama had lived a life of privilege and hadn't encountered discrimination.
Privileged people don't graduate from law school tens of thousands of dollars in debt from undergrad and law school loans..
And discrimination didn't go away when Civil Rights legislation was passed.
On Catholic discrimination, again, they didn't have to personally experience it but through historic memory. One of the most popular Christian books, maybe until the 1980s, was "Foxe's Book of Martyrs" by John Foxe. It was written in the 1500s and vividly described Catholic persecutions against Protestants. Just like watch a film like "12 Years A Slave" can ignite anger today, this book did the same thing among Protestants.
On Selma and Obama, Condoleeza Rice grew up in the South and personally experience murderous racism as a child. Obama grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia and did not have those experiences. He even received private tutoring paid for by his wealthy white grandparents. He went to Occidental College, transferred to Columbia, then to Harvard. Yes, he had debts, but so do most students. It took me about 20 years to pay off my student debts.
In the Henry Louis Gates case there's no evidence of racism. The cop was called by a neighbor to investigate and Gates resisted. I've been stopped by the police before myself, but I was quiet, respectful and polite. Gates brought it on himself, and I speak as a longtime fan of Gates who has several of his books. Following the incident Obama stuck his nose in it, made a statement he later retracted, then said, "Hey guys, let's get a beer!" He spoke first when he should have let local justice take its course. As the President, he's also the highest law enforcement officer in the country, over the Attorney General. He should have done his homework instead of undermining the cop. I was pretty disappointed in Gates because I had high regard for him.
And I know discrimination hasn't gone away because of legislation, but on the other hand we shouldn't deny the progress that has been made. There are no racist laws on the books anymore and racism is generally considered shameful.