My post about “African-American Liberals Know How to Love Their President” drew many comments here at RBC, and also at Washington Monthly, where it was cross-posted.
Strikingly, while most RBC readers are almost certainly white, most people who posted comments on the Washington Monthly website self-identified as African-American. If you followed this post and this debate here, you might find it interesting to compare and contrast the RBC comment thread with the thread at the Washington Monthly cross-post.
Footnote: Some other comment threads from around the web on this issue can be found at Democratic Underground, Smartypants and The Obama Diary.
Okay, Keith, let’s try this again. Two categories: Liberals. Democrats. Overlapping but not identical. Do you need someone to draw you a Venn Diagram?
Almost all African-Americans are Democrats. They are not fools and except for a few who are paid to be Republicans, they have no interest in being part of a racist political party. This doesn’t make them liberals.
Also making the argument that the portion of the population that has been most consistently supportive of liberal politicians for the past 50 years are merely partisans who don’t hold the same ideological convictions as you ever enlightened “liberals” is insulting.
Gotta agree with Bloix. Two words: Jack Kemp. Although a bog-standard Reaganite, he had very little black opposition, and some genuine black support. (IIRC, it got to about 25%.) Why? He was one of the very few white Republicans who was clearly neither a racist nor a panderer to racists.
Black voters tend to be socially conservative, although there are plenty of exceptions. (Obama, I’ve heard, deliberately sought a black church that wasn’t socially conservative.) There are some economically conservative black voters, and a lot more who are open to a conservative message. The Republicans could get a decent minority of black votes if they weren’t the party of white resentment.
Latino voters are similar (although with a Catholic, rather than Protestant social conservatism), and are increasingly going to resemble black voters. The Rs might be able to hold onto their share of Asian-American voters, but that’s about it.
This analysis holds true only if you believe that issues surrounding race are ancillary to ideology and hold no real importance to someone’s political philosophy.
Also I think you are equating religion with social conservatism. When I think of a social conservative I not only think of someone who believes abortion is wrong or is uncomfortable with gay marriage but also someone who believes that we aren’t doing enough about immigration, our criminal system doesn’t need reform but maybe even harsher penalties, muslims are taking over etc.
On some issues African Americans are more sympathetic to others they aren’t sympathetic at all.
Keith,
I looked at the comment thread over at TWM. Most of the self-identified African-Americans had no substantive point about white liberals except to castigate them (us?) for not being more supportive of Obama. One African-American commenter said liberals were questioning Obama for being an affirmative action baby and other similar personal/ethnic reasons. As even you know, that is preposterous. The commenter is the right wing attack on Obama. About the only thing the commenter said that was true was that we liberals say Obama has been weak. But that is what Cornel West and Tavis Smiley are saying, too.
Substantively, It is striking how you keep beating this horse when you have already been shown the facts in your previous folks as to why folks like me are so disappointed in Obama. Obama supports and fights for job killing corporate trade treaties, but lifted not a hand for labor unions with respect to legislation. Did Obama ever show up during a strike anywhere and show some solidarity with working people? I recall him going to hedge fund fundraisers and playing golf with a jackal like Boehner.
Obama has continued and in one situation at least expanded (killing Americans on foreign soil without a trial) the attack on civil liberties that was a hallmark of the Bush administration. He kept to Bush’s (!) promise to stay in Iraq until the end of this year (and would have stayed longer but for the Iraqis saying they will no longer give our soldiers immunity for any criminal acts they undertake). He also expanded the war in Afghanistan, the one promise he kept. He maintained Robert Gates as Sec of Defense/War. On the economy, it is impossible to say he was not weak. When faced with the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression, Obama bailed out the banks and investment houses just as Bush/Cheney were doing. He retained as his lead economic advisers bankers like Geithner and Rubin (throwing an early supporter, Robert Reich, to the sidelines. He re-appointed Ben Bernanke, and has passively watched as the middle class continues to disintegrate and the poor suffer in a silence worse than what they faced in the late 1950s when Michael Harrington began to notice another America whose cries were suppressed. Worse, Obama continues to whine that he’d have liked to have spent money on infrastructure redevelopment, but meekly claims there are not any “shovel-ready” projects, as if he couldn’t get over to some districts and embarrassed local officials into waiving procedural requirements, as if he couldn’t get over to districts where there were strikes going on. Let’s also not forget his secret, then later leaked deal with Big Pharma to give up the public option, while embracing the individual mandate-the plan of Orrin Hatch, Newt Gingrich and The Heritage Foundation.
I always thought of Obama as a Clintonoid (I recall voting for Kucinich or Edwards in the primary, hard to recall just now), but had hoped, when faced with again the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression, he would take the mantle of leadership and act like FDR. Instead, he dithered and lost his political capital in 2009 and 2010 while acting like Herbert Hoover.
Yes, I will end up voting to re-elect Obama because the Republican leaders are so crazy, reckless, mean and stupid. But to suggest that Obama is anything other than a smarter banker is to mistake the reality of the man.
Now, tell me, why is any of this racist of me to say? It is insulting for you to keep insinuating this. You’re a Republican who works for the administration and you like his policies just fine. I get that. But please stop the nonsense that I, a New Deal Democrat, am supposed to like him too.
A. Cornel West and Tavis Smiley are not some sort of magical band-aid that makes things okay to black people.
B. You’re illustrating the point that the “disappointed left” is delusional for you are truly delusional if you are arguing that Kucinich or “Honest” Edwards would have been a better choice for President than Barack Obama. Since when is it the President’s job to join worker’s on strike? It’s as silly as asking Obama to show up to march in regards to the “Jena Six”. You want a President to reaffirm all your previously held beliefs and until you join the Republican Party that’s not going to happen with ANY Democratic President. You go apoplectic at the thought that Obama held up an American commitment made by the previous President. You are outright lying when you say he hasn’t supported shovel ready projects when he just proposed to overhaul thousands of American schools immediately. With this level of discourse surrounding the President from “liberals” is it not surprising that a number of us don’t find your argument very convincing in our community?
Um, Chad, where was the president in 2009 and 2010 about shovel ready projects? He knows now it’s all rhetoric, and he knows he needs to sound populist, so that explains his sudden statements now. And why is it so ridiculous to ask a president to show up at a local area and push to start a project, as opposed to a few rhetorical statements as he’s now done, and why is it so ridiculous for him to show some worker solidarity and appear at a labor strike? It is really ridiculous for you to believe that this president deserves the support of the millions of impoverished black people who he has ignored.
I do think Kucinich would have made a better president than Obama; Edwards not at all considering what he was hiding in his personal closet. But that was not my point. My point was to anticipate someone thinking I was a Hillary Clinton supporter in 2008. I used to call her and Obama “HilObama” as they are essentially the same in their policy views and prescriptions.
Finally, you ought to be a modern US conservative to make fact free declarative statements like “You go apoplectic at the thought Obama held up an American commitment made by the previous President.” If the commitments were horribly wrong as in the Iraq War II, yes, I should go “apoplectic” when the guy supposedly ran on “change” and attacked Hillary in the 2008 primaries for her support of the Iraq War II when he opposed it. When you answer my facts I set forth, instead of petulantly calling me “delusional,” perhaps you will be more effective in your arguments.
Oh, one more thing, Chad: Your statement “Cornel West and Tavis Smiley are not some sort of magical band-aid that makes things okay to black people.”
Talk about racist. So a few commenters at TWM who self-identify as African-American means “black people” in any mass sense? I’m glad Chad that you can read the minds of the mass of “black people” in this country.
I feel this whole discussion is like what happens when a Christian or other non-Jew dares to attack a policy followed by a government in Israel. I feel really bad for non-Jewish people who are critical of Israeli policies and have always made it a point that we who are Jews in the US should not be hesitant to criticize Israeli policies when we disagree with those policies. We need to help find space for non-Jews to voice their criticism of Israel without having to suffer slings and arrows from Jews who scream “Anti-Israel means anti-Semitic.”
Here you are incoherent. When and where did I level a charge at you that is on the same level as anti-semitism? What I’m telling you is that saying Cornel West or Tavis Smiley means absolutely nothing. You are the one who brought them as a pre-emptive shield against a charge that wasn’t leveled at you.
He followed the plan for “withdrawal”. President Bush set a timeline for withdrawal which we followed. You’re acting as if he escalated the Iraq War when he’s done the exact opposite. For you to argue that President Obama has ignored millions of impoverished Americans is asinine considering he used much of his political capitol on bailouts that saved millions of jobs and providing healthcare to millions of people who otherwise would not have any. Come with a hinged view of reality and I’ll afford your arguments more respect.
Well, a bailout which saved billions of dollars for politically connected wealthy people. Saved millions of jobs? Then why are there now millions fewer jobs?
It’s real easy to “save” millions of jobs, if all you have to do to ‘prove’ it is assert that millions MORE jobs would have been lost if you hadn’t done whatever you did. And ignore that the economy is actually worse off than you’d predicted it would have been if you’d done nothing at all.
mitchel: “Now, tell me, why is any of this racist of me to say?”
Nobody is calling you racist. Keith pointed out that white and black people seem to perceive the president differently. Not because we whites are racist, but because the sum of our life experiences is different from that of a black man or woman.
For example, I’m pretty sure that you strongly disapprove of police officers pulling someone over for DWB. That doesn’t make you a racist; the opposite, in fact. But those who personally experience the practice will still have a different life experience than you. Not everyone can be John Howard Griffin.
“Did Obama ever show up during a strike anywhere and show some solidarity with working people?”
I’m an employee of the state of Wisconsin, and Scott Walker has taken a hatchet to my paycheck. But the hit hasn’t been nearly as bad as it could have been, because of the tax cut Obama negotiated last year, and that he’s working hard to extend and expand into next year. I really don’t give a flying f*** whether he holds a sign and marches on some picket line or whatever utterly symbolic gesture you’re demanding of him. I’m standing with him because he’s standing with me where it counts. A lot of “liberals” were mad at him because instead of just letting the Bush tax cuts expire, he used the massive amounts of leverage he had over the Republicans to make my life and the lives of millions of workers around the country better, instead of trying punch some banker in the face. So you can take your phony, self-righteous version of worker solidarity and shove it up your ass.
(btw, I’m not sure how much it matters for the purposes of this post, but I’m black.)
Greg, he blew the leverage he had in 2010 to let the tax cuts expire. What’s so bad, too, about paying the same federal income taxes we paid under Clinton? If he had let the tax cuts expire, there would have been more money coming into the federal government, and more money to spend for the states through grants, that would have undermined further what Walker is doing in Wisconsin. And if Obama had gone to Wisconsin and stood with you, and rallied the entire country, Walker and his ilk would have been even more scared than they were.
I’m just glad you’re not calling me a racist, though. Now, I’m just a phony and self-righteous. I guess that’s an improvement…:-)
While I think all the Bush tax cuts should be allowed to expire, I certainly understand the desire not to have it happen at the end of 2010. There is no reason to think that the increased revenue would have been turned around into increased spending of any kind, much less grants to states, especially with the deficit-mania that was going on then. I actually seem to recall explicit rejection of more money for the states. If the upper-income tax cuts get extended past 2012, I will be less forgiving, especially as Obama has said he won’t let it happen. I don’t see how we can afford any of them, but the ones for people with less income don’t bother me as much.
Um. He said the first extension wasn’t going to happen.
Who called you a racist? Answer the arguments that are made.
In 2010, Obama negotiated a defacto 2nd stimulus: extension of unemployment insurance, payroll tax cut, some other tax credits for the non-rich, and some spending on cleantech. In return he “gave” republicans an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the rich.
I say “gave” in quotes because boilerplate Keynesianism is to raise spending and cut taxes during bad economic times. While tax cuts for the rich are not the most effective stimulus program, they are still stimulative. Its just that their multiplier is low. But they still have a multiplier. Krugman & Co want them to expire in order to tackle long term debt, not to raise output.
And expire they will. Thats what Obama negotiated as part of the default budget. In short, he got a bunch of programs that stimulate the economy by helping regular folks. In return he allows republicans to keep a program that stimulates the economy by helping rich folk. And the latter expires anyway. That was a pretty good deal.
He didn’t blow his leverage. He used it to help me. Coming out to rally in Wisconsin wouldn’t have helped me. Symbolic gestures don’t fix my car, or put food on my table.
I don’t feel a need to add anything to this discussion, but I would appreciate it if posters who want me to know what commenters on another site are saying would just summarize them.
Most comments are painful to read and a waste of time, so please just give me the upshot, if you really think it’s important. I like this blog because (most) people actually take time to write things that make sense and aren’t gratuitously hate-y. I tried the first few on the TWM site and gave up. Life is short.
Btw, I’ve said it before, but while we’re on the topic of differences race makes to perception, this site needs more (any?) WOMEN. Kelly every now and then doesn’t cut it (though she’s great).
Would be happy to suggest some names.
What strikes me after reading the comment thread at Washington Monthly and then the one for this post is that if Keith intended his initial post to exacerbate polarization, he did a beautiful job. Just what we need, right?
Blaming a blog post for existing racial divisions is pretty ridiculous. You don’t have to agree with a large majority of black voters on a whole host of issues from criminal justice to perceptions of Obama but you can’t wish these divisions away by simply suggesting that we not talk about them. I doubt anything published on this blog is going to effect any epiphanies (or cause racial divisions that don’t already exist). To suggest otherwise suggests a higher degree of self-regard than is warranted. But black voters are one of the most stable and largest elements in the progressive coalition and their views are often rendered invisible in discussions among educated (white) progressive elites. I don’t expect epiphanies. I just hope for a bit more humility and self-reflection.
Thank you Anonymous, this is all exactly true. I have spent a lot of time talking with African-American friends and colleagues about the President and about their experience of his election. That has had an impact on what I think, which was reflected in what I wrote. I didn’t make it up or present it in bad faith — why would I do that? I understand that what I said and what many of the commenters said was hard for some (emphasize some) white readers to hear, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t true or didn’t exist before I posted.
There are people who read blogs and consume media entirely to be reassured that what they think is true and there are media outlets that make their living providing it. But I am comfortable speaking for everyone who blogs here at RBC saying that we don’t promise never to push people out of their comfort zone. Sometimes, you will see things here that are challenging…if you don’t ever want to be challenged there are a world of options out there on the web that will never do anything other than tell you (whatever your views) that you are 100% right about everything and that no one else disagrees with you in any respect. I wouldn’t encourage anyone to go that route, but in the interest of full disclosure I feel compelled to say that that simply isn’t what is on our offer at this site.
That’s not the issue, Keith. Disagreements are fine, challenges are fine, being pushed out of one’s comfort zone is fine. What’s not fine was your deliberately insulting remarks about white liberals who are not Obama fans and their purportedly racist reasons for not seeing him as Mr. Wonderful. A number of the self-identified African-American commenters at Washington Monthly leaped gleefully on those remarks and added to them with vitriol of their own, while quite a few of the non-Obama-fan white liberals here felt unfairly and inaccurately maligned. That’s what I meant by “polarizing.” Of course I wasn’t “blaming a blog post for existing racial divisions”; that would be pretty ridiculous. But it sure didn’t do anything to heal those divisions, and at least among those here and at Washington Monthly who read and commented on the post, it appears to have exacerbated them.
P.S.: Nor was I suggesting that we not talk about the divisions or about the black community’s view of Obama. Talk about straw men! Those are tremendously important issues. But the way to talk about them is NOT to start out by hanging the racist label on white liberals who have complaints about Obama.
For years when I was doing rape prevention work, women would say how they felt about sexism and men in the group would shout out “No one has the right to accuse me of sexism”! No one was, but the entire conversation would move to everyone reassuring the men that they were not being accused and telling them how great it was that they were even attending such a meeting. Later, the women would wonder “How did we get shut down in that conversation? What happened it there?”. The men managed to stop the women from speaking their minds while at the same time feeling righteous and high-minded about doing so. When facilitating such sessions I learned to say to the men “You are the powerful group and your feelings and imaginings may seem like the most important thing in the room, but they aren’t. You need to listen and not make yourself the focus of a conversation for once.”
If this is supposed to be a response to me, Keith, I can’t imagine you actually read anything I wrote. It was you, after all, who made white liberals who don’t care for Obama the focus of the conversation and stuffed racist words in our mouths.
KEITH REPLYING IN COMMENT BECAUSE WE ARE OUT OF “REPLY SPACE”: You are taking ostentatious umbrage at something that was never said and using it as an excuse to shut out an honest discussion that you don’t want to hear. That’s your right, but it’s also your responsibility.
Anon.,
Humility? Self-reflection?
All I see is a bunch of attacks on folks like me because we’re white. The other Mitch, Mitch Guthman, is right on. We are voting for Obama, for goodness sakes. We just don’t like voting for a guy who more often than not supports corporate interests in the Democratic Party. To make it sound, as Anon. does, that white folks like me don’t stand with the larger black community on issues of criminal (in)justice is beyond insulting. It is in fact ridiculous.
The question for the Obama lovers is to explain why it’s racist for a white progressive “elite” (funny that considering who wrote the original post; a Stanford professor who is Republican and works with the Obama administration) to point out how Obama has betrayed the poor and middle classes in most of his policies. If you tell me that “most” blacks are not upset, then I guess we have to ask Tavis and Cornel again. Oh wait, Chad said they don’t count. Not the right kind of black for Chad…
So have at me…I love giving cathartic pleasure for these Obama lovers who support the policies of appeasement of the modern Republican ideology even within the Democratic Party.
Have at it again against me. I just marvel at the way the Obama fans have been arguing in this thread. They remind me more of Hannity than anything that might be called progressive or liberal.
@anonymous,
I’m certainly not blaming Keith Humphreys for causing any sort of racial divisions, existing or new. Exacerbating them, yes. Causing them, no. It was irresponsible and petty for a man who claims to be an Obama supporter to amuse himself by pitting hippies against African-Americans to see whether he could provoke the two groups into fighting one another for his entertainment, but that wasn’t my point at all. My point was this: Why he would pick now of all times to engage in a bout of smugly gratuitous hippie punching? Is this really the best time to write a triumphalist blog post specifically designed to antagonize people whose support of Obama’s reelection is tepid, at best?
Anyone who visits lefty or center-lefty blogs (or who reads this blog) knows perfectly well that the wounds of the primary campaign of which I spoke are very real and still raw. I myself still feel them very deeply. Yet, there has lately been a real setting aside of differences and a willingness by nearly everyone who supported another candidate or who is disappointed in his performance to rally around President Obama for the good of the country. I plan on voting for him because I see no alternative. There are others, however, who may be provoked into feeling differently. It may come as a shock to Keith but hippies have feelings too. If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you bash us, do we not feel unappreciated and angry? Sometimes those hurt feelings can get the better of even good people and they act foolishly. My sense is that there’s a lot of people out there (mainly on the left) who are hurting from three years of hippie bashing and getting nothing from Obama on the issues that matter most to them. If you hurt them enough, they might just stay home.
As for humility and self-reflection, you might just want to look in the mirror, my friend.
Mitch Guthman: “It was irresponsible and petty for a man who claims to be an Obama supporter to amuse himself by pitting hippies against African-Americans to see whether he could provoke the two groups into fighting one another for his entertainment, but that wasn’t my point at all.”
Huh?
I didn’t see him pitting two groups against one another. Personally, I found the comments on the Washington Monthly to be very interesting (for the record, I’m a Caucasian woman — a natural blonde, even — who voted for Obama). I did not feel insulted in the least and fail to see where Keith is provoking a fight (unless people are looking for one).
@Katja,
If that wasn’t his purpose, then please tell me what would have prompted him to write that particular post? Especially considering the way that the comment threads on this blog have looked in response to that kind of post. My guess is that you weren’t insulted because the provocation wasn’t directed to someone in your position but I think you know that the game was to provoke some DFH’s into saying that black people only support Obama out of racial solidarity, which would naturally, in turn, provoke others to say that those who don’t appreciate Obama’s greatness are nothing but a bunch of racists. You know, for people who say that it’s really important to elect him, there are an awful lot of Obama’s “supporters” who seem to delight in antagonizing the people they defeated in the primary.
Look, I don’t think Obama’s been the worst president ever but he certainly hasn’t been the best. Far from it. He took office at a time when the Republican Party was reduced to a Southern rump and he had the largest Democratic majorities in generations. I think his approach to politics is the thing that allowed the Republicans to get back in the game and his leadership of the Democratic Party has been pathetic. I was unhappy that he never reached out to the supporters of the other candidates and couldn’t be bothered to address their issues. All of his crappy “achievements” were based on Republican proposals—none of them are worth anything and if he loses the election they’ll all be swept away like so much trash. All he cared about was punching hippies and “putting points on the board” I don’t think he cared at all if his programs were any good or if they were consistent with the values and long-term objectives of the Democratic Party. I don’t think I’m the only person who feels that way, either.
I do understand that unless by some quirk of fate Buddy Roemer happens to capture the GOP nomination, I’m probably stuck with Obama because the Republicans are crazy and dangerous. But I also saw how the homosexuals played this game and I’ve got to tell you that they did a hell of a lot better than the DFH community. For a long time Obama totally disrespected them and gave them nothing in return for their support. Then they sent him a clear message: Our agenda need to be your agenda and that needs to happen right now. They didn’t get played off against the crazy Republicans. They made it clear that if they didn’t get what they’d been promised they were going to do everything possible to scuttle Obama’s reelection. Suddenly, all things that were impossible for Obama to do became possible. Don’t ask, don’t tell—gone. Clinton just game a major speech on gay issues.
By contrast, my group didn’t get squat from Obama. On issues of importance to us like keeping people in their homes, the Bush tax cuts, standing up to the bankers, increased infrastructure/stimulus spending, consumer protection, the environment—we got table scraps. And even then when Obama would throw the base a bone like nominating somebody good, he wouldn’t fight for the nominee because he basically didn’t care. Worse, Obama offered to gut some of the most important programs of the New Deal in return for nothing except the praise of the Villagers for being the “adult in the room”. Now people like Keith are saying were unappreciative of this wonderful president—basically this is the same thing I saw after the primaries. I don’t appreciate him because I think he’s the one that’s responsible for the revival of the Republicans and he’s basically been a crappy president. If I could throw him under the bus without wreaking the country, I would do it in a New York minute.
So, again, just explain to me the point of Keith’s post?
Mitch, simply because the difference in reader response is genuinely interesting? That’s certainly how I took it and I did find it interesting.
It may also be worth remembering that Keith suddenly becoming a large scale internet troll would be very out of character. It’s not like I can imagine him saying something like:
“Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,
To set the black supporters of Obama and the white
In deadly hate the one against the other.”
Really, I cannot.
Thank you for giving me some credit Katja. I once posted here the suggestion that if people could afford to visit other countries they should, in part because it would help them encounter new perspectives and thereby learn things. The suggestion here to look at what commenters at other sites have said is no differently intended.
https://thesamefacts.com/2011/03/travel-commentary/travel-broadens-the-mind/
But credit only where credit is due. Frankly, your post didn’t strike me as simply an interesting observation that African-Americans are really, really loyal to the first African-American president. A sort of travelogue of your visit to the foreign land inhabited by African-Americans. Perhaps I’m overly sensitive but I did detect some very provocative subtext.
My impression was that you intended to pit the DFH’s who are not as impressed with Obama as you seem to be(and who feel that Obama hasn’t earned their loyalty) against African-Americans who passionately defend the first president of their own race. In which case, I think you’re basically trolling your own site. If that wasn’t your intent, then could you please eschew metaphor and simile and clarify what you meant in the sort of simple English that a simple man like me can appreciate?
Similarly, you keep saying that the differences between the two comment threads are “interesting”. Why not lay it on the line and explain in what ways you find them interesting? What are your conclusions and what is the larger meaning you claim to have found there?
@Katja,
In what way do you find it interesting?
Mitch,
It is strange to read you accusing Obama of not reaching out to other candidates when he appointed Hilary Clinton as Secretary of State (and she is doing a fine job), and staffed much of his Administration with re-treads from the Clinton era.
It would be very strange indeed had I written that. But I actually wrote about the failure to reach out to the people who supported Clinton and Edwards. Most of us supported our candidates because their positions on issues of importance best approximated our own. Indeed, one of the criticisms of the Obama camp was the degree to which it resembled a cult of personality.
Keith,
I am puzzled by your reply to Swift Loris (12/13 at 9:39 pm) because it touches on the question of what some commenters have imputed to you and what you say wasn’t said or even implied by you. Clearly, some of the commenters here (myself included) are engaging with what we understood you to be saying or implying about the relationship between white liberals and African-Americans. Also, I have specifically argued that you have appear to have a malicious or perhaps merely mischievous hidden agenda.
In what I take to be an oblique response to my criticisms that you are pouring gasoline on the smoldering embers of a bitter primary campaign, you say only that you deserve credit for taking white liberals out of their comfort zone. That might be a sage response if only I could understand it and I might if only you could speak to me in plain and simple English. Frankly, it seems like you are saying that reigniting old animosities in the middle of a political campaign is an important therapeutic device to some greater good (which you never identify). It’s a little bit like prison guards who entertain themselves by provoking inmates into fighting justifying themselves by arguing that it’s good exercise for the inmates. To me, it sounds like you’re saying that what’s needed is more gasoline for a bigger fire.
You say that Swift Loris is misrepresenting your views in order to “shut out an honest discussion” but you never seek to identify the way in which your views are being misrepresented or to justify the accusation that discussion is somehow being stifled. An honest debate requires that the terms of the debate be clearly specified and that the debaters participate honestly and in good faith. Again, I ask you to tell us what you want to debate and to participate in that debate by speaking to us openly and directly.
When you speak only obliquely, your readers have no alternative but to attempt to discover your meaning for themselves as best they can. But one who choses to hide behind such rhetorical devices loses the right to complain that he is misunderstood or misrepresented. I think that any breakdown in communication here is the result of your unwillingness to lay it on the line by telling us exactly what point you were making and you think we’re supposed to having an honest debate about.
What I and others are asking is for you to set forth the topic of the debate in plain and simple English.
Me: It was you, after all, who made white liberals who don’t care for Obama the focus of the conversation and stuffed racist words in our mouths.
KEITH REPLYING IN COMMENT BECAUSE WE ARE OUT OF “REPLY SPACE”: You are taking ostentatious umbrage at something that was never said and using it as an excuse to shut out an honest discussion that you don’t want to hear.
Something that was never said? Here’s what you wrote:
“I cringe at the white, alleged liberals who call on Obama to acknowledge that his is a failed presidency. They want the first Black President in history to, effectively, announce that he is a bumbling affirmative action baby, apologize for being so uppity as to have ever assumed otherwise and resign in disgrace so that Hillary Clinton or some other qualified (i.e. white) person can lead the party.”
That isn’t “honest discussion,” Keith. That’s incendiary, inflammatory rhetoric deliberately designed to offend. Damn right I take umbrage, as ostentatiously as I can. But not to shut out genuinely honest discussion. You’re the one who’s doing that.