The Atlantic - Latest Comments in A great stroke for racial equality

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

CB — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:19:11 -0000

Mr. Coates,

Dont let that guy give you a hard time!

I dont let any group box me in...I am a female Mexican-American, so people try to put me into some idiotic categories...

So here is a loaded question for you: Do you believe whites can teach African-American history or Mexican-American history and be taken seriously by academia?

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

ML — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:19:34 -0000

He's right--you can't tell white people what to think. BUT you can tell white people what you think they think. And white people are free to tell you that you're wrong. It's called an exchange of ideas. And it's exactly why I come here every day.

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

imatworkcantgivemynamepleasedo — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:38:02 -0000

Beautiful. I love it. (I'm Caucasian, not that it matters.) Your blog has quickly become my favorite among the Atlantic writers, save for Sullivan's.

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

Rich — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 08:44:12 -0000

TC: Your comment about sitting on your couch with awesome power reminded me of something I once heard from Franklin Knight, the great Caribbean historian, more or less as follows: "I think nuclear proliferation is great--I think it's lovely that some fellow can sit on the beach in Antigua and threaten to blow up the world!"

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

Nquest — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:24:21 -0000

I'm with Chauncey "Why Retreat?" unless there was something particularly horrible and sloppy in Ta-Nehisi's remark.

Mention Reparations and the supposed diversity of White opinion is exposed. We can do that with the general and majority of White views on the Iraq war prior to and when it first started.

I'd like to believe in this diversity of thought idea but I keep hearing a lot of the same stuff over and over on these "race" issues, especially, no matter how much I wished I didn't or how surprised I am not to see the diversity people want to say is there.

And evidence is really lacking when people use the "diversity" line but conveniently fail to lay out the diversity of thought on the actual topic being discussed. So all we typically get is some vague statement presented as a relevant truism with not even a little shred of evidence, let alone any thorough treatment of the issue to show where the diversity of thought exists on the issue.

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

Josh — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:07:01 -0000

Just wanted to say that contra reg, I don't need you to tell me to think. Feel free to keep telling us what you think, though.

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

Stewie — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:11:44 -0000

"--and then shut off all comments if I choose too"

Come on, I know you wouldn't do that...I can sense from just the few days I have been reading (and enjoying) your blog that you are a bigger and better and stronger man than Douthat!!

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

Les Brunswick — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:39:00 -0000

I just ran across your wonderful post from yesterday, The False Nobility of victimhood and wanted to make a comment. But comments were locked so I am going to bend the rules and put it here.

You mentioned that you learned about humanity from reading Jarod Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel. The key thing about that book is how it explains what happens in history, and in particular how societies gain power. Too often this is done through simplistic group moral stereotypes. In one version of this, group A is said to be powerful because it is clever and power-hungry, group B is weak and oppressed because it is pure and innocent.

The problem with this sort of explanation is that it tends to close off the possibility of real reform. You try to tell the oppressors they should become good, and that generally fails, and then you are left with either using force, or, if you lack that, just putting up with things as they are.

Diamond instead looks at power and domination as due to a universal human nature plus the particular perceived material practicalities of situations. But expand that sort of explanation in terms of universal human nature and perceived practicalities to behavior in general, including why people behave in good or bad ways, and you have the general view of liberalism -- in the broadest sense of the political philosophy that advocates democracy and more-or-less regulated free market economics.

This matters because in the liberal view prejudice and inequality can be considerably reduced if material circumstances make it possible. In particular, slavery has been the norm over much of the world for thousands of years because it is profitable in agrarian societies. But with industrialization it became unprofitable, and hence was eliminated throughout the West starting two centuries ago. The implication is that racial equality is achievable, and the solution is for blacks to see that the route is to follow the path for success in a modern industrial society, and for whites to see this will benefit them and society as a whole, rather than looking at as a win-lose game. I think an increasing number of blacks and whites are indeed seeing things this way.

Alas, for many decades most black leaders have stuck with a racially-based form of group moral stereotyping to explain why slavery occured, and what should be done about inequality (or else they said the problem was capitalism and the solution leftist economics). New Deal-type liberals have gone along with this, and conservatives, who as the great supporters of free market industrialization really should know better, have coverty supported Southern white agrarian-based racial prejudice. What I like about Obama is that he realizes how blacks and whites can get beyond all these problems in a modern, liberal, industrial society.

One more point: if you got a lot out of Guns, Germs, and Steel, then I am sure you would also find very useful Andrew Bard Schmookler's, The Parable of the Tribes: the Problem of Power in Social Evolution, as it uses a similar view of the causes of behavior to explain much of what has gone wrong in history.

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

reg — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:47:31 -0000

"We" may not need you to tell us what to think, but lots of "us" need somebody to suggest that we DO make an effort to think. I can tell you from experience living in the Land of White Folk that lots of "my people" are totally clueless - childish even - when it comes to issues related to race and can use the occasional kick in the seat of the pants.

Go ahead on, bro...

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

cleek — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:15:43 -0000

Thanks Mr. Coates, but white people don't need you to tell us what we think.

i do.

and i'm white.

why are you trying to speak for me?

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

Ingvy — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:52:39 -0000

Oh please. As I said before, you’re probably correct in that, as a very broad generalization, it’s true that a lot of blacks almost certainly know more about white culture than vice-a-versa (this generally holds true for any minority group within a dominant culture); however, to say that this translates into being experts on white people is just a touch absurd. Nobody is an expert on white people – or any other ethnicity for that matter. Just as it is absurd to take the statements/actions/opinions/etc of a few African Americans and say they represent all Blacks as if they’re some monolithic, borg-like group with no divergent personalities; it is equally absurd to state that you’re an “expert” on white people, as it implies either: A) Caucasians are also a monolithic group B) You’re somehow privy to the inner-workings and psyches of a billion + (or however the hell many of us there are) whites.

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

Chauncey DeVega — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:31:49 -0000

An expected response, and unfortunate. When whiteness and its myopia are confronted--the idea that it is but one perspective and not a universal one there is a visceral response. And your reaction proves my thesis, and I thank you for that! And to boot, on the macro level you admitted I was likely correct, so that itself is progress.

To respond by anecdote, some of my favorite stories of slavery revolve around the utter surprise that whites had when their human property either left the plantation or reappropriated the land. These white folk, so wise in the ways of the world were utterly shocked by how their slaves behaved, not unable to comprehend why they would leave, or turn violently on their masters in an act of justice, not happy on the old plantation.

In the present the dynamic holds true, you seem bright, if not rude, would you not concede that as a matter of history, course, and survival that the less powerful must, and in fact do, know more about the more powerful? That the Other, because they are in fact "the Other" no more of the mainstream than the mainstream knows about periphery?

Now, feel free to disagree with me, but Baldwin, DuBois, and Ellison...now there you (or I) may not have the chops to do so effectively.

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

Chauncey DeVega — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:31:04 -0000

An expected response, and unfortunate. When whiteness and its myopia are confronted--the idea that it is but one perspective and not a universal one there is a visceral response. And you reaction proves my thesis, and I thank you for that! And to boot, on the macro level you admitted I was likely correct, so that itself is progress.

Now, feel free to disagree with me, but Baldwin, DuBois, and Ellison...now there you (or I) may not have the chops to do so effectively.

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

Ingvy — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:21:36 -0000

Slight apology to CD: "Idiotic" was a poor choice of words. I'll try to keep in more civilized in the future.

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

Ingvy — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:19:19 -0000

Why retreat?

As Baldwin, DuBois, Ellison and other giants reflected, as a survival mechanism, blacks are indeed experts on the ways of white people. We have to be experts on the ways of white folk, to borrow the phrase, precisely because those with less power almost always know more about the inner lives of the powerful (their ways, secrets, habits, and thoughts) than the other way around.

When I stop laughing at this idiotic statement, I'll write a proper response. Knowing more about whites than the other way around? Sure, as a very broad statement, that probably holds true. Experts on the ways of white people and our inner lives? Well, I can't write anymore because I'm laughing too hard again.

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

Chauncey DeVega — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:00:12 -0000

Why retreat?

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

MoeLarryAndJesus — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:59:52 -0000

cfpete writes: "The shots were called Zipperhead.

I tried to explain to the woman behind the counter (the owner’s wife, straight out of Mumbai) that the product might be offensive to some people. She had no idea what the Hell I was talking about, nor did her husband. (My wife is from Goa , before you throw the race card.)

So the question: What is the average half-life of racial epitaphs?

It is interesting that a prejudice dating back to the Korean War is now almost completely forgotten."

I don't think that one made it to the 70s, at least where I was growing up - and I thought I'd heard all of the racial epithets growing up. When I first started playing around on message boards I used zipperhead as an insult a few times - with the meaning being that the target must have had a lobotomy. I had no idea it had a racial connotation, and I thought I was well-read about such things. Once a Korean board-pal informed me about it I stopped using it. Too bad such a great insult had to be ruined for everyone.

Any idea what the genesis of it as a racial slur was?

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

laborlibert — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:58:41 -0000

I believe I was the commenter quoted by Mr. Coates. And yes I was being a bit cheeky as someone has noted.

The purpose of my statement was to show that he was engaging in the same sort of projection of another race's thinking that he had criticized Toby Keith for (for the record I don't reject out of hand these sort of judgments since I think they are sometimes necessary to the conversation). In fact, I tried to use the same language Coates used. I think he understood my point and I am very happy to have made his day.

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

cfpete — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:29:48 -0000

This is just a strange anecdote that I thought some people might find interesting. Just now, I went to my local liquor store to get a six pack of Sam Adams. I am a middle aged guy with kids, so it is rare I get the chance to drink a beer and relax. The kids and the wife are visiting family in Vancouver.

I live in a college town, but in an area populated by graduate students and newly hired PhDs’.

We don’t yet have the money of the long time professors.

Anyway, the store had those test-tube shots sitting on the counter. Out of curiosity, I picked one up and was very surprised at the name.

The shots were called Zipperhead.

I tried to explain to the woman behind the counter (the owner’s wife, straight out of Mumbai) that the product might be offensive to some people. She had no idea what the Hell I was talking about, nor did her husband. (My wife is from Goa , before you throw the race card.)

So the question: What is the average half-life of racial epitaphs?

It is interesting that a prejudice dating back to the Korean War is now almost completely forgotten.

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

tricstmr — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:27:39 -0000

nice touch. There's amazing power in noting one's own mistakes, learning from them and moving on.

I try to do so myself, with middling success.

In any case, I think this has become my favorite Atlantic Blog quite quickly. I came first because of Sullivan and became a Matt fan also.. (Douthat, if he weren't so self-righteous and judgmental would be so much better...), but with Matt's departure, I'm happy there's at least one real liberal here..

anyway..

to add a bit to the discussion--following up the previous thread.. what's interesting to me is that I, perhaps out of my privelege of being all blond and blue eyed--do not spend much time thinking about my whiteness.. I can say that I grew up in Evanston, ILL with a high school that was around 50% white, 40% black, 10% other.. and I did notice when I went off to college in Champaign, just how fucking white it was.. (and it was like 80-20 in my rough estimate..).. That made me consider race a bit.. but not really my own whiteness..

however.. I do often have thoughts about maleness vs femaleness.. i.e. Gender.. I see such discrepancies quite easily.. Is this just because I'm trapped in super white Wisconsin and don't really have much of a chance to deal with race on a pragmatic level all that often.. but the sexism is just so obvious most of the time.. I wonder..

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

Stuart — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:18:26 -0000

Thank you for that post, Mr. Coates. You are a classy, intellectually honest guy. I disagree with you pretty often, but I admire honesty and non-hackery. You are honest and not a hack. Far too many bloggers "pick a side" and then turn blind. Thank you for not doing that.

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

Daniel Litt — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:06:39 -0000

Perhaps this is a bit facile, but: It seems silly to say that "white people" or "black people" think *anything*, in general. Presumably, this is at the heart of the complaint--any large group thinks many different things.

That's why your qualifier, "a lot of," is rather important.

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

Whitey — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:49:20 -0000

"Obviously the commenter quoted above is way out of bounds, but why is it that when even Peter Beinart can recognize that Barack Obama doesn't want the election be about race, every blogger in my RSS reader decides, "Hey, great! Here's my chance to talk about race!" It just seems like if we were less interested in feeling like we're right and more interested in winning there are more useful topics to blogging about this election cycle, even though it's August."

Obama doesn't want the election to be about race because then he becomes The Black Candidate. That doesn't necessarily mean that he wouldn't want the campaign to address deep seated racial issues. Just because Barack desperately wants to avoid making race a major issue doesn't mean that Ta-Nehisi should stop talking about it. It's always easy to say that this discussion can wait, as there are always going to be more immediate crises to deal with than the long-standing problem of race in America, but if you keep pushing race under the rug we'll never get anywhere.

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

MoeLarryAndJesus — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:44:38 -0000

"This is how I know we will reach the Promised Land. I now have the ability to sit on my living room couch and define millions of people--and then shut off all comments if I choose too."

Don't Douthat.

Re: A great stroke for racial equality

Ingvy — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:41:01 -0000

And yes, Stacy is probably correct in that the commenter was probably being a little cheeky with that quip. Unfortunately, there are likely others who read it and said, "Amen."