I read an article yesterday morning that I can not stop thinking about. It was called Racism: America's New Best Friend by Norman Liebmann and I am not going to link it because it is utterly vile. There are a few things about this article that are haunting me. The first is Liebmann's use of the word Negro. I generally use the term "negro" when I am angry with black folks for doing something which I perceive to be utterly ridiculous like applauding Van Jone's declaration that "Barack Obama is going to save the whole wide world" or applauding and saying "Amen" when Jeremiah Wright declares "that black children process information differently". I'm thinking that Liebmann is doing the same but his article is peppered with sooooo many other racial offensive epitaphs that I can't give him the benefit of the doubt.
I am most troubled by the fact that if Liebmann's article weren't polluted with unbridled racism it would have been such a good article. Much of what he said about the Obama administration is true -- hell, much of what he said about the "racial over-sensitivity" of black folks is true too (and that too is troubling to me personally). Sometimes it's a curse to be a lover of the truth, because I lack the ability to deny the truth even if the truth is unpleasant and if the bearer of the truth is vile.
Welcome to post-racial America...
13 comments:
What I don't get, is though you seem to be able to recognize and critisize the oversensativity of African Americans in regard of the race issue (which I can see); you seem to be indiifferent to the undersensativity that the right seems to have regarding the issue? Why is that?
DJBA~If that's true then I'm not sure why. I think if it is true then that's problematic and I also think our discussion\thread about this very issue a few weeks ago has certainly heightened my sensitivity which is why Liebmann's article has haunted me.
I think I am more aware of the "over-sensitivity" by us because I don't think it serves us well and changes nothing. I would rather we focus on what we can do to make things better rather that what others are "saying" or "thinking" and giving legs to that sort of energy.
@CBW:
"I would rather we focus on what we can do to make things better rather that what others are "saying" or "thinking" and giving legs to that sort of energy."
I can understand what you are saying, at the end of any day all one can do is control how THEY respond and what THEY do in life. How do you not understand why some of the racially charged imagery and language the GOP and by mutual implication the Conservative Right uses might make even those most socially conservative people choose not to identify with the Right? Heck, even Secretary Powell acknowlegde that it is there and disturbing to him.
"How do you not understand why some of the racially charged imagery and language the GOP and by mutual implication the Conservative Right uses might make even those most socially conservative people choose not to identify with the Right?"
Well, actually now that I've had dicussions with you I totally understand it. It just isn't enough for me personally to jump ship and side with the liberal left because I don't believe that they are any less racist. However, I do see the left being much more hypocritical, irrational and illogical in their ideology.
I could say I'm independent but I'm not-- I'm a conservative.
@CBW:
"It just isn't enough for me personally to jump ship and side with the liberal left because I don't believe that they are any less racist."
That's why you should become (or admit that you already are) an aristocratic elitist ! COme on, join the club, we have cool "secret handshakes" (I know from your other post you love them)
lololololol
Seriously. Ican't join or be part of the left either, albiet for different (and some similar) reasons.
I have to weigh things a carefully as I can.
Unfortunately a broken clock is right twice daily.
The crappy white supremacist websites love to post articles on racial attack hoaxes, like some blacks sending racial insults to themselves or making nooses and blaming someone else. If it is true, it is true. We cannot say it is our "dirty laundry" and we should not discuss it. The dirty laundry is already all over the internet. If they say that some blacks say that Obama will make them "rich" or pay their gas and mortgage, we cannot say that did not happen (much like Democrats like to revise history to hide their anti-civil rights past).
http://canyouhandletruth.blogspot.com
@Robert:
What's your point? Some people are idiots regardless of "ethnicity"? I don't follow, break it down for me.
@Robert:
"You and I don't care but many others out their love to stir "stupidity sugar" in their coffee."
I have come to find, there is more willful ignorance than real stupidity, in other words, people will gravitate to what the WANT to hear, regardless of how many facts or how much TRUTH you show to the contrary.
I heard a wise man ONCE say: "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." John 3.19 KJV
DJ:
That is quite true. God cannot change the truth.
Perfect example: Rev. Wayne Perryman (www.wayneperryman.com) did a lecture on the history of the Democratic and the Republican Parties. He demonstrated that the Democratic Party used to support slavery and the Republican Party was anti-slavery, even mentioning in its own writings that slavery was a "crime against humanity." There were people in his audience who stood up and called Perryman a liar.
If it was, it was. Who can change history?
@Robert:
Kinda what I was saying, I guess the folks in the audience weren't articulate or learned enough to inform the speaker, that after the dixiecrats (Strom Thurmond @ Co.) came to the GOP, they took their brand of racism with them as well.
Seems like the current racist and white supremacist leanings of the GOP seem to escape the "historians" who can remember Abe Lincoln's GOP, which in my opinion ENDED with Eisenhower.
But, there seems to be more than enough WILFULL IGNORANCE on these matters to go around...
DJ:
You should read Perryman's (www.wayneperryman.com) books "Unfounded Loyalty" and "The Drama of Obama Regarding Racism." You can look them up on Amazon.com. He details the pre- and post-Eisenhower eras of the GOP, including history of the Dixiecrats.
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