"After Shirley Sherrod, we all need to slow down and listen" Washpost

 "Racial inequality is perpetuated less by individuals than by structural racism and implicit bias. Evidence of structural inequality is everywhere: in the grossly disproportionate numbers of young black men and women in prison; in the color of students shunted into remedial and special education tracks; in the stubborn segregation of our neighborhoods and schools; in the lack of recreational and academic opportunities for children of color in poor communities; in the inferior medical treatment that people of color receive; and in the still appallingly small numbers of men and women of color in law firms, corporations and government. It is evident, too, in the history of blatant discrimination against black farmers practiced by the Agricultural Department."  Washpost

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"We need a national dialog on race."  This is the unending mantra of Black people on television.  Is it true what they say or do they really want an audience for their diatribes and monologues on the need for greater economic concessions and groveling on the part of white men.  I was counseled here a few days ago by a fellow Southron that I should be careful of what I say because I can easily be thought a racist as the Ziocons consider me to be an anti-Semite.  Well,  I would have been as insistent in the 19th Century as I am now that people must be treated with dignity and respect.

Nevertheless, it makes me feel good that Andrew McWhorter admits that what Black people want is basically MORE.  It makes me sad to hear Jesse Jackson say that what was said about that basketball player makes him think of "Dred Scott."  The reason he gives for that is "my cultural background."  Fair enough. but he is as much a dinosaur as I am.

Hispanics don't whine.  They just work.  pl  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/23/AR2010072304583.html

Comments

[confusedponderer]

At the very least America is advised to slow down whenever someone like Andrew Breitbart puts out a video 'exposing' a supposed scandal before it turns out to be yet another a faked hit job.

The so-called 'ACORN pimp' was a fake, and the videos were edited to produce a greatly misleading impression. Despite that fraud, ACORN is destroyed - a, to be charitable, ill willed and rashly enacted bill deprived it of federal funding and wrecked its damaged reputation further - and people lost their job, while the malicious frauds who cooked up the thing, O'Keefe and Breitbart, not only walked free, but were lauded as heroes of the conservative cause and given plenty airtime on conservative media.

The video of Shirley Sherrod was selected as to portait her as a 'reverse racist' - actually the complete opposite of what she actually said (overcoming racism) - and that was likewise a hit job aimed at discrediting an organisation and at destroying a person by Breitbart et Cie.

This is disgusting and a reason to triple check carefully the next so-called scandal, before the next Shirley Sherrod is fired prematurely, without reason, just to avoid conservative Flak. Whitehouse cowardice in the Sherrod affair is appealing.

[confusedponderer]

... well advised it was

[rjj]

"We need a national dialog on race." This is the unending mantra of Black people on television.

That is the mantra of people who are selected to appear on the TeeVee. It is chum. As sowing the seeds has already been done - maybe call it "hoeing the row of dissension?"

[Mark Logan]

My opinion is a bit different Pat. I saw on CNN last night three blacks state that "Obama is afraid of white people". This is nothing less than calling him a coward. Oh my....

I see this as rage. Rage at the cable and internet RW race-baiting. They are now demanding that Obama loudly take up the cause against this garbage. What their rage has blinded them to is that this is precisely what Obama must not to if he is to be a successful president. Race must not dominate the "news", which they would be wise to remember is a far cry from journalism these days.

[John Badalian]

Colonel Patrick - I'm flummoxed. Black Leadership (i.e., the Reverends Al, Jesse, the NAACP) will zealously confront people who employ bigoted language or signage. But, the "Gangs of New York" (e.g., the Goldmans, Citis, assorted Hedge Funds) who were instrumental in the wholesale devastation of Black wealth are seldom mentioned, much less confronted?
Than you. John

[optimax]

I use to enjoy listening to a conservative radio host, Ken Hamblin, who called himself The Black Avenger. He disappeared from radio in Portland but I found his current wegpage with the following essay of his. He also sent a me, and anyone who asked, a Certificate of Absolution from White Guilt, signed by Mr. Hamblin, an African American. Sowel might have one on his website.

http://web.archive.org/web/20021208011314/www.hamblin.com/articles/excuse.html

[Patrick Lang]

JB

Yes, and fishmongers in New Zealand are undoubtedly responsible for black failures as well. pl

[Patrick Lang]

Mark

IMO Obama was badly damaged politically with white people by the Gates incident in which it is thought that he sided with a powerful, famous black Harvard professor against a powerless white Irish cop.

This new incident would have been thought to be merely an evidence of his administration's ineptitude until idiots like Matthews and the "rage filled" black talking heads decided that it was a teaching moment about white America. This is a another nail in Obama's political coffin.

BTW I much admire Gates' work on race.

You do know, don't you that politics is about winning elections? pl

[John]

" Well, I would have been as insistent in the 19th Century as I am now that people must be treated with dignity and respect."

I'm sure Thomas Jefferson and the Lee Family treated their slaves with dignity and respect.
Not so sure what their overseers were doing when they weren't around. Especially to slaves who were inclined to 'talk back'.
Sometimes there is no good answer but the passage of a lot of time.

[Patrick Lang]

John

Mere ad hominem insult. For shame. pl

[MRW.]

You're right. Hispanics (the term is Latinos) don't whine. But they talk at home.

My friends are American born of Mexican background. In 2006, my friends' three children were aged six to 12 when the John Tanton anti-immigration groups (FAIR, NumbersUSA, CIS, etc) and fueled by far-right Jewish fear of being overrun by Latinos (http://www.forward.com/articles/785/) started their campaigns to demonize Hispanics.

The father, third or fourth generation American, was born in TX. The mother is American, but was raised in Mexico because her father was the Managing Director of a US company there. Their children never knew prejudice until the anti-immigration campaign started in 2006.

The oldest, a boy, now aged 16, has hardened the most. Watching his father demonized and shamed, and his mother spit upon, because they are Mexican-American and sometimes assumed to be illegals, has etched his soul with a hatred that only a teenage boy can conjure up with a certain purity.

My friend, the father, told me that his kid's rage is almost limitless at the presumption of white Americans that Latino-Americans are not good enough to be Americans, to be here, much less born here. My friend is teaching him that his anger is best solved at the voting booth. Now, his son can hardly wait until he can vote. And he is quietly and surreptitiously organizing his fellow students to do the same. These old white farts who despise The Other have completely missed the necessity of family pride in Mexican culture, and its consequences.
=============

And as for blacks piling on? If we have to endure endless stories about Jewish persecution to the point where people lose their jobs, careers, or reputations for not genuflecting enough to the past, and foreign policy is designed around their paranoid fears extrapolated around the world, then we can damn well listen when a black woman has it done to her under the color of a lie. And ask ourselves why.

[Nancy K]

We live in a very divided country, we are divided not only by race but by politics and religion also. I know this has been true in the past but we have become a very mean spirited country, and sometimes what is torn apart can never be put back togather. It is a sad time in the US. As you have mentioned before Col Lang, we are all tribal.

[Patrick Lang]

Mrw

Hablo castellano, y estoy feliz con la informacion cerca la palabra preferida. pl

[Norbert M. Salamon]

OFF TOPIC:

See the Guardian today:
Afghanistan the War Logs:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/series/afghanistan-the-war-logs

Interestingly, here in Alberta [Canada] the interview with Julian Assage is blocked - A New twist on FREEEDOM OF INFORMATION =-part of Canada's Constitution.

[confusedponderer]

MRW,
the link to the forward doesn't work.

[William R. Cumming]

Leadership in my opinion is about uniting not dividing. The political class in America, the economnic leadership, and the MSM is all about dividing. Why is that?
Who really benefits from that division? Is it profitable? Does MAMMON rule?

[Arun]

" Is it true what they say or do they really want an audience for their diatribes and monologues on the need for greater economic concessions and groveling on the part of white men."

Part of the problem; not part of the solution.

[somebody]

http://www.forward.com/articles/785/

that's the link. it is a tribal classic.

I suggest it was no accident that the so called United St. voted for a community organizer this time.
He is definitely needed. And of course he cannot be part of a tribe if he wants to be effective.

I would also suggest that you do not arrest a citizen in his own home after you find out that you have wrongly accused him of burgling that same own home. Even if you feel that his reaction to your understandable error is slightly insulting. I assume any normal person would understand that having called him a burglar might have come across as slightly insulting, too. Even if you do not like the guy. I would expect a professional to keep his cool and politeness throughout the encounter, quite frankly.

[optimax]

I saw the Sherrod video and anybody with a brain could tell she was talking about her realization that the farm foreclosure problem was about income level and not race. That is if you heard the last sentence before the cut. The first part was about her racism that was based on her experience growing up in the south and, though it wasn't mentioned in the video, her father being murdered by a white man. Her last sentence was, to paraphrase, "This isn't about race but the haves and the have-nots."

This is a case of her boss jumping the gun and firing her without knowing context. Film is not a truthful recording of reality. It is a perception determined by framing (what don't you see), angles and cutting. But I don't understand the stupidity of her boss not taking into account the last sentence being transitional and the sudden ending of the video. There was obviously more to it. But then I think our managerial elite are mostly scared rabbits looking for a hole to dive into.

[Patrick Lang]

somebody

What are you talking about? pl

[Patrick Lang]

All

Most of the comments today are meaningless gibberish resulting I suppose from the paucity of your thought processes. pl

[Mark Logan]

Pat,

Oh, yes. Should have written "slightly different", because I feel Sherrods' story and status changes the dynamic a bit,
but that is beside your central point that the talking heads are really screwing the pooch here.

She is "country", and I do not feel it is white grovelling and handouts she seeks.

I would hope they come to their senses quickly, and this is Breitbarts "have you no decency, sir" moment.

[Nancy K]

Col Lang. what in your opinion would not be gibberish?
I ask this with complete respect, I really do want to know what you feel would be a meaningful comment.
I am well educated, and feel that I am fairly insightful yet do feel I am open to learning more.

[walter]

The military beats the compassion and empathy out of men like yourself, pl. You are a man comfortable with thinking, but not feeling empathy for others. It is not enough to be a Warrior and a Thinker; to achieve authentic masculinity, a man must help the downtrodden as Jesus taught us to do.

I come to your blog to learn about foreign policy, and I have come to realize that your views lack compassion for the "havenots". But that is OK, no one is perfect.

[MRW.]

Yeah, I learned castellano too, grathias. :-) I was actually fluent in it at one time, and could read and write. No mas.

I should have elaborated: it was my friends who rammed the term down my throat. I wasn't saying it to you. "They prefer" would have cleared that up.
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confusedponderer:

A closing paren ")" got included at the end. I should have left a space.
Here it is. http://www.forward.com/articles/785