@gjohnsit point you are trying to make but the linked article, to me anyway, doesn't really make much of proving that point except to say that somehow those to the left of Bernie or Biden et al are the cause of that racist pandering - which I for one do not believe, at all. The deliberate points made by that author, that somehow the CBC, etc should have truly Left credibility (The Black Agenda Report is an excellent source on the sell out of the CBC, et al, so one doesn't have to believe me to read up on that.) or that moderation and pragmatism is again the "only way to beat Trump" is to me a tell - divide and conquer, get anyone on the supposed left who will in any way denounce white culture as part of the problem to be seen as a "self hating" white elitist without providing any details to document said self hate or to even bother to show how that vaunted moderation has gotten us exactly where we are today. To me, in MY OPINION, its one more pathetic psy op to denounce the left, and yes, the fact it comes from an MSM source does indeed get my cynicism going.

So in that respect I don't think you see my point here at all - I am in no way saying there isn't racism in white elitist positions, but I am saying the spin of this particular article is doing the same damned thing in a different way by painting anyone who doesn't see moderation as the answer as a racist extremist elitist.

As for celebrating white deaths, I for one have never done that ONCE and if that's meant specifically for me I resent the implication.

#3

And I'm sorry, but to pin all of the racist pandering on to the "left of the left" smells like one more call to centrism and bad mouthing us "pie in the sky liberals," IMHO. So we all just need to be more pragmatic and make defeating Trump our litmus test?

I'm a socialist, so I'm to the left of liberals on most issues.
And Repubs are generally more racist than Dems by any measure.

That being said, self-hatred is nor normal and its not healthy and it's not a virtue.
Seeing any skin color as a negative is problematic, and seeing your own skin color as a negative is just sick.

This makes me think of how liberals reacted to this news.

“Today, you know, I saw a thing, and it said a lot of men — white men — are committing suicide,” he said. “I almost thought, ‘Yeah, great!’”
This caused the Democrats in attendance to begin laughing .

And this.

“Middle-aged American whites are dropping like flies,” Maher said before Jay Leno pretended to collapse next to him to audience laughter. But what is killing the old guard? Drugs, alcohol, suicide and “possibly trying to fit into skinny jeans” the report finds (excluding that last bit).
The findings also include suicide rates for whites are now four times that of black Americans and due to a rise in heroin use among whites, the death rate from it is also up. But, no fear, Maher has some advice, “You’re white! Cheer the fuck up!”

Self-hatred is ugly.

@Snode

the more conservative the better, just like they can't do without Trump.

Without those people to hate or despise, where would they be?

#5 White elite "liberals" can't stand the idea of poor whites. The poor whites are an embarrassment, tatted up, overweight, under educated Walmart shoppers. How can white people let themselves go that way? The white liberals believe in affirmative action, but if little Suzy fails to win that award, of coveted spot and a POC gets it....well, affirmative action. They say the right words for racial equality, but the scholarship brown kids, well they deserve this scholarship, but they don't really believe it's on merit. Seeing that scholarship kids in an on campus job (because it's never a full boat scholarship that puts them on an equal footing) slinging burgers, working grounds crew, shuffling papers or receptionist work affirms the identity of the brown kids they expect to see. Seeing those scholarship kids make white liberals so satisfied with themselves.

@Mark from Queens @Mark from Queens
I am more kaputt than I thought, sorry.

#9

“I saw a slogan on a guys car that said "Proud to be an American" and I thought "What the fuck does that mean?"

I'm fully Irish, and when I was a kid I would go to the St Patrick's Day parade and they sold a button that said, Proud to be Irish, but I knew that on Columbus day they sold the same button only it said, "Proud to be Italian, then came Black Pride, and Puerto Rican Pride.

I could never understand national or ethnic pride, because to me Pride should be reserved for something you achieve on your own. Being Irish isn't a skill, it's a fucking genetic accident.

You wouldn't be proud to be 5'11. You wouldn't be proud to have a pre-disposition for colon cancer.

Here's another slogan you run into all the time, 'God Bless America.'

Once again, respectfully, I say to myself 'What the Fuck Does that Mean?'

'God Bless America,' Is that a request? Is that a demand? Is that a suggestion? Politicians say it at the end of every speech, as if it was some sort of verbal tick that they can't get rid of.

I guess they figure if they leave it out someone is going to think they're "bad Americans". Let me tell you something folks, God does not give a flying fuck about America, ok? He doesn't care. He never cared about this country. He never has. He never will. He doesn't care about this country any more than he cares about Mongolia, Transylvania, Pittsburgh, the Suez Canal or the North Pole. He simply doesn't care, ok.

Listen, there are 200 countries in the world, do these people honestly think God is sitting around picking out his favorites?

Why would he do that?

Why would God have a favorite country? And why would it be America of all the countries? Because we have the most money? Because he likes our national anthem? Maybe it's because he heard we have 18 delicious flavors of classic Rice-O-Roni?

It's delusional thinking.

If these people believe in God, they must have heard that God Loves Everyone, and he loves them equally. So why would these people ask God to do something that goes against his own teaching? Maybe they ought to check with that Jesus fella. They're always talking about 'What would Jesus do'?

They don't want to know so they can do it.

They just want to know so they can tell other people to do it.”

America is and always has been, as a country, completely full of shit. Elected Bill Clinton, who said, "hi, I'm completely full of shit, and haddaya like that?"

Because you do know, folks, living in this country you're bound to know, that every time you're exposed to advertising you realize once again that America's leading industry, America's most profitable business, is still the Manufacture, Packaging, Distribution and Marketing of Bullshit. High quality, grade A, prime cut, pure American bullshit.

And the sad part is is that most people seem to have been indoctrinated to believe that bullshit only comes from certain places, certain sources: advertising, politics, salesman. Not true. Bullshit is everywhere.

Bullshit is rampant. Parents are full of shit, teachers are full-of-shit, clergymen full of shit and law enforcement people are full of shit. This entire country is completely full of shit, and always has been from the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution to the Star-Spangled Banner. It's still nothing more than one big steaming pile of red white and blue All-American bullshit.

Think of how we started: this country was founded by a group of slave owners who told us
all men are created equal; except for Indians and niggers and women, right? Always like to use that authentic American language. This was a small group of un-elected white, male, land-holding slave owners who also suggested their class be the only one allowed to vote. Now that is what's known as being stunningly and embarrassingly full of shit.

The guiding light of his incandescent sagacity still scorches today.

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
“Say it loud / I’m Black and I’m Proud”
Was intended to be, and succeeded at, destroying the shuffling Negro clown that was a stereotype held by whites and internalized by many Blacks, or at least made people feel ashamed to be Black. And other groupings followed JB’s lead, as you say.

Today... I can’t help noticing that the Mother of Identity Politics is White Supremacy. Which calls to mind “the acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

#9

to be black, white, brown, or whatever. Female, male, what have you.

The fact that you can make that critique shows exactly how debased the discourses of racial justice, gender justice, and other forms of anti-bigotry have become.

What people called "Black Pride" was, as far as I remember, about pushing back against the overwhelming cultural opinion that black people were worthless gutter garbage: the men automatically criminals, the women automatically sluts--or worse, not even sluts, but just a sexual object for the taking, apparently without sentience.

It was about contesting that set of assumptions--and about standing in solidarity with other black people as they contested them.

Gay Pride was similar, with an additional dollop of emerging defiantly into visibility in a culture that had rendered us invisible (even when some of us were literally dying of a plague).

I think I was born a little too late for Woman Pride; maybe somebody else could speak to that. I found it in books and in private little pagan groups, but not much of anywhere else. There was plenty of feminism, better feminism than we have today, but not of the Woman Pride variety, not by the time I was in my late teens.

These forms of identity politics were about standing in solidarity with one another against entrenched cultural conditions that hurt us. Our assumptions and actions were based in an examination of the ideas which created those entrenched conditions. This analysis was, in turn, based in history both past and current.

All this has been debased to the level of "If you're Black, you're right; if you're white you're wrong (unless your name is Cornell West or Glen Ford). "If you're female, you're right; if you're male, you're wrong" (unless your name is Susan Sarandon or Jill Stein). "If you're gay, you're right; if you're straight, you're wrong (unless your name is Glenn Greenwald).

@gjohnsit
to be clear, I believe that all human creatures have the same virtues and failures independent of their pigmentation. So, what do you mean by 'barring an evolutionary jump'? And what is true? My English comprehension is not very fancy when it comes to short answers. Sorry.

#12

Why do people believe that people with different skin pigmentation and ideological pretenses are different human beings with all the same virtues and weaknesses?

Because barring an evolutionary jump, it's true. On average.