The Atlantic - Latest Comments in The Tough Thing About Racism...

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

jim braiden — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:54:54 -0000

I do beg you pardon.

That should be article.

Butterfingers.

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

jim braiden — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:20:49 -0000

Dear Mr. Coates,

Very interesting atricle.

One thing puzzles me.

The email you quote describes:

"Signs of Obama hung in effigy, racial slurs on signs, people chanting negative words ( too many to list) and outright screaming at Obama supporters"

Now I have had a good search on this and looked at still and video photography and read reports from local and national sources.

But I cannot find a single photo or piece of video or indeed a report which mentions effigies of the president or racial slurs on signs.

I know you are of course a busy chap but do you think you could direct me to some of the sites and images you used to check the veracity of the email you quoted?

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

NaveenM — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:46:59 -0000

Strange. Just from reading that email, I assumed it was a woman.

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 06:35:33 -0000

Thus, you can't really take for granted that people naturally understand you when you talk about how racial motivations may underlie a particular movement. There are a lot more people than you realize who will automatically react as though you're accusing all the anti-Obamites of consciously and intentionally furthering white supremacist ideas. Some have even appeared in this comments section. And even though you may not wish to be directly addressing such people, your nuanced understanding of race is not as well-absorbed by our culture as you seem to think. It should go without saying, but the simple fact is that a lot of the time it doesn't.

Fair enough. It may well not go without saying. I make certain assumptions. They aren't always right.

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 06:33:15 -0000

Banned.

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 06:30:08 -0000

I think that's enough...

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

Tadatsune — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 01:10:18 -0000

I will agree that the "conservative feedback loop" as you call it does seem to have been... institutionalized on a scale that the liberal equivalent has not.

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

Sorn — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 23:49:31 -0000

One could I think, also probably write a post about the self-referencing feedback loop among any community of activists. I'm reading Theodore H. White's America in Search of Itself: The Making of the President 1956-1980 and he talks a considerable amount about the emergence of the new politics of cause and image as opposed to the old machine politics of ethnicity and identity. For someone born during the Reagan Administration who doesn't remember what the old system of affairs was like this book has been a fascinating insight.

However, and this is important I think, I would venture an unscientific WAG (wild ass guess) that there are far more books being published, and far more money being made from the conservative media feedback loop than from the "Liberal" media feedback loop. The talking heads aren't stupid they know that there is far more money to be made by telling people what they want to hear and stirring up emotions than by investigating what is going on, being resonable, fair minded, and more importantly showing people how they are being manipulated. Not to quote George Seldes again, but someone has to "Tell the Truth and Run." (If I ever start a blog that's going to be the title or the caption.)

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

Miles Ellison — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 23:00:55 -0000

You do know, don't you, that it was a Democratic President (Harry Truman) that issued an executive order to desegregate the armed and civil services. And that it was a Democratic President (Lyndon Johnson) that pushed through the Civil Rights Act by twisting arms in Congress. You also should know that prominent southern Democrats left the party because of these initiatives and became Republicans. I'm sure that you also know that the Republican Party of Lincoln bears no ideological relationship to the Republican Party of Goldwater, Nixon, and Reagan. And I'm sure you know, (but won't admit) that since 1964, the Republican party has used racist resentment against black equality to win elections for at least the last 30 years.

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

Tadatsune — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 23:00:38 -0000

"that liberals not only hate America, they also hate you as a conservative"

To be fair, there are quite a lot of liberals that *do* hate people for noting more than being "conservative" or Republican; I've had the pleasure of working with some of them. Of course it works the other way around as well... (and has most likely intensified on the right wing now that the Republicans have foundered.)

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

Sorn — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 21:58:47 -0000

I wish TNC had an edit button. I feel like an Idiot.

The same type of self-referential feedback loop is what convinced the people at Waco that Joseph Smith was the Son of God, or the Posse Commitatus Justus Township people in Jordan Montana that they didn't have to pay taxes

Should Read:

The same type of self-referential feedback loop is what convinced the people at Waco that David Koresh was the Son of God, or the Posse Commitatus Justus Township people in Jordan Montana that they didn't have to pay taxes.

I meant no disrespect towards anyone of the Mormon Faith. Forgiveness for the typo.

Now, lest anyone think I'm playing favorites the same type of circular reasoning, but the same degree and distinctions of degree matter a great deal, underlies the belief that the PATRIOT ACT gives Ameican Intelligence agencies to power to employ satellites to collect and use information on American Tourists traveling abroad without probable cause.

should read

Now, lest anyone think I'm playing favorites the same type of circular reasoning, but not the same degree and distinctions of degree matter a great deal, underlies the belief that the PATRIOT ACT gives Ameican Intelligence agencies to power to employ satellites to collect and use information on American Tourists traveling abroad without probable cause.

If a person is a committed enough ideologue one live entirely in a feedback loop that constantly re-enforces one's pre-existing view of the world until those who present information that is outside of the loop are viewed as crazy.

should read

If a person is a committed enough ideologue one may live entirely in a feedback loop that constantly re-enforces one's pre-existing view of the world until those who present information that is outside of the loop are viewed as crazy.

As I said many apologies for the typos/omissions/errors.

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

meabea — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 20:09:59 -0000

To All.....you all do KNOW, don't you....that it was the DEMOCRATS who created and operated the KU KLUX KLAN....and that is was the DEMOCRATS who instituted Jim Crow Laws.....and that it was the DEMOCRATS who fought against EVERY Civil Rights law from the 1860's thru 1964, when Al Gore Sr had his RECORD breaking FILIBUSTER AGAINST the Civil Rights Act of 1964....which the Republican's got passed. Read "UNFOUNDED LOYALTY" by Wayne Perryman (a Black American). You really all are showing your ignorance. Or, you've been lied to....you figure it out. The Democrats want you to stay on their PLANTATION!

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

Philosimphy — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 20:01:18 -0000

It's not treason. It's Sedition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition

""Sedition is a term of law which refers to overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority as tending toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent (or resistance) to lawful authority. Sedition may include any commotion, though not aimed at direct and open violence against the laws. Seditious words in writing are seditious libel. A seditionist is one who engages in or promotes the interests of sedition.""

Birthers

Tea-Partiers

Town Hall Disrupters

They are all part of the same group (I call them Soros-haters) and they are all Seditionists.

For comparison: "Laura Berg, a nurse at a United States Department of Veterans Affairs-run hospital in New Mexico was investigated for sedition in September 2005 after writing a letter to the editor of a local newspaper, accusing several national leaders of criminal negligence. Though their action was later deemed unwarranted by the director of Veteran Affairs, local human resources personnel took it upon themselves to request an FBI investigation. Ms Berg was represented by the ACLU. Charges were dropped in 2006."

Just a letter to the editor, and yet here and now we have genuine disruption, genuine threats, actual shootings and killings (thus far no politicians) and NOTHING is done.

I can't help but wonder why not.

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

Philosimphy — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 19:46:02 -0000

It's not "motivated" by racism, but racism is the tool being used to disrupt. The opposition to healthcare is profit motivated, racism is just a way to keep us all busy discussing the outrage of the racism while the deals are made.

It's Class Warfare 101.

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

Sorn — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 19:37:18 -0000

People have an inherent capacity for self-delusion. Whatever our political affiliations we must constantly be on-guard against our baser instincts, for we can if we so desire convince ourselves that down is up or left is right. People aren't rational, in fact most of the time we rationalize. We believe we know what the answer is and then we go looking for facts to back up our assertions. Our educational system backs this up, students are taught from middle school onward to develop a thesis statement and then to provide evidence that supports the argument, instead of the other way round. Now I don't wish to debate the merits of deductive vs inductive reasoning an intelligent person knows that sometimes our lives require us to use one, and sometimes to use the other. However I will say that in my opinion the capacity for self delusion is made much worse when one uses a certain type of deductive reasoning.

Currently, the media climate in which we live has more in common with the nineteenth century than it does with the middle 20th. Lyndon Johnson's words that "If I've lost Walter Cronkite I've lost the American People" no longer apply. Indeed, the current information climate would be far more recognizable to Will Irwin or Upton Sinclair than it would be to my grandfather. At present our information climate resembles nothing more than one giant feedback loop. A person starts with the assumption or more accurately the erroneous thesis statement that "liberals are out to destroy America"

and then after a steady diet of Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Coulter, Savage, and Hannity one becomes convinced that Obama is peddling "socialized" medicine, that liberals not only hate America, they also hate you as a conservative, and given if given the chance they will over-run this country with ill-legal immigrants who will take your job --and this doesn't matter if you are a lawyer, a construction worker, or a member of the military-- and make it impossible for your kids to go to college.

Now, just like it says on a bottle of shampoo, lather, rinse, repeat. Say the same thing over and over until people forget all about the erroneous thesis statement that you started with, and instead are willing to argue about your supporting evidence. Stir in the first attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. Add in an unsuccessful war with ill-defined objectives and no clear exit strategy. Remember to keep harping on how not only liberals but now anyone who disagrees with you also "hates america." Finally add in the first Black President --the first realization of the dream upon which this country was founded-- who happens to be a Democrat, because Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson cared more than any republican since Lincoln, and watch things explode.

This is the same type of logic behind how cults form. The same type of self-referential feedback loop is what convinced the people at Waco that Joseph Smith was the Son of God, or the Posse Commitatus Justus Township people in Jordan Montana that they didn't have to pay taxes. In order to be successful, a person merely has to start with a feeling of general discontent, an erroneous thesis statement, and a climate of circular information that feeds back upon itself, until burning the president in effigy doesn't seem like that far of a step outside the ordinary. In fact, this whole climate of information and circular reasoning was described almost perfectly by Upton Sinclair in The Brass Check we only have to change a few words in his description to update this sentiment for the modern age:

Also there were the Liberals. The little boy had never seen a Liberal, he had never been given an opportunity to read a Liberal Platform, but he knew all about the Liberals from the funny editorials of Anne Coulter. The Liberals were long-haired and wild-eyed animals whose habitat was the universities of California. The boy knew the names of a lot of them, or rather the nick-names which Coulter gave them; he had a whole portrait-gallery of them in his mind.

Now, lest anyone think I'm playing favorites the same type of circular reasoning, but the same degree and distinctions of degree matter a great deal, underlies the belief that the PATRIOT ACT gives Ameican Intelligence agencies to power to employ satellites to collect and use information on American Tourists traveling abroad without probable cause. If a person is a committed enough ideologue one live entirely in a feedback loop that constantly re-enforces one's pre-existing view of the world until those who present information that is outside of the loop are viewed as crazy.

Personally it is my belief that the current craziness caused by birthers, T-baggers, town-hall disrupters, and the yet-to-be-revealed-others-who-will-follow, is, in part, caused by the circular nature of the conservative media. Are there racist manifestations? Yes. Are there sexist manifestations? Undeniably. Are there homophobes? Without doubt. Is there a good deal of resentment at the root of all of this that may be traced back to Nixon's silent majority? For sure. However, the structure that undergirds, supports, and informs the entire movement is one big self-referencing loop with a biased premise, namely that there are person's unkown who for reasons that will be explained to you by the talking heads, hate America, hate Conservatives, and therefore want to destroy everything that is good in the land of the free and the home of the braves.

The idea that someone is out to get you is never true. It holds no more truth than the idea that aliens in spaceships built the pyramids. Yet when a person is locked into an informational system that constantly self-references and does not allow for the possibility of outside objective truth it becomes increasingly easy to believe that aliens built the pyramids, or liberals hate america, or that Obama was born in Kenya. Individually countering such allegations can be done. However in order for any real progress to be made one first has to tear down the superstructure that supports such faulty circular reasoning. Unfortunately almost to a man the current crop of conservatives is against the re-introduction of the fairness doctrine. Apparently they are also afraid of the words of Mr. Lincoln who said:

I am a firm believer in the people if given the truth they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point it to bring them the real facts.

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

Stacy — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:50:42 -0000

"than that"

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

Stacy — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:50:04 -0000

Is this satire? You're going to have to bring much more that. Yikes.

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

beans&greens — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:34:39 -0000

This is all about racism. Consider: how many teabaggers have you seen wail that, "they want their country back!"?

But what has changed in 6 months? Nothing, really, except that we have a black man as President.

I see no other compelling cause for the insanity of the teabaggers except that, as old Southerners who grew up in the white supremacist South, they were born into a society that told them that black people were inferior to white people.

America will not change until the white generations born in the segregationist South finally die off.

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

Kylopod — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:20:27 -0000

I'm sorry I have taken two days to respond. Friday night was the beginning of Shabbat for me, then I got off track. I don't know if you're still reading, but I'll post a response anyway.

You're a nuanced thinker, and so are many of the people who post here. But many on the left are not, and tend to imagine that all the anti-Obamites are just a bunch of walking Archie Bunkers. Maybe I've been hanging around Daily Kos too often, but this is the kind of attitude I see in many liberals, and it only fans the flames of those conservatives who imagine the left is using the "racist" label to suppress dissent.

A common theme in many of your posts is how people in our society react defensively when accused of harboring a racial bias--to them, it is tantamount to saying they might as well wear a white hood. Exploring prejudice in ordinary folks who aren't crude bigots is not even in the average person's vocabulary. I didn't understand the concept myself until I was in my late teens, and numerous people I encounter go through their entire lives without ever getting it.

This handicap can be found on both the right and the left--the right, from people who think racism is dead, and the left, from people who see nothing but racism (the rude, crude kind) everywhere. It's a cruel cycle that permits little dialogue, because each side imagines the world in a particular way and has made racism into such a mortal sin that few have the courage to own up to harboring racial prejudices. When such admissions do surface, it is usually by anonymous commenters on Internet forums. Famous people rarely have the luxury of admitting it, because their careers may hang on the line, and a statement like "Yes, I'm a racist, but I want to learn to overcome my prejudices" may not be greeted as positively as it ought to be. That's why all the actors, politicians, athletes, and other public figures caught saying something stupid always have to resort to the "I'm not a racist" game. You can complain that it's silly and betrays a lack of understanding, but it's something that the entire media culture practically forces them to do.

Thus, you can't really take for granted that people naturally understand you when you talk about how racial motivations may underlie a particular movement. There are a lot more people than you realize who will automatically react as though you're accusing all the anti-Obamites of consciously and intentionally furthering white supremacist ideas. Some have even appeared in this comments section. And even though you may not wish to be directly addressing such people, your nuanced understanding of race is not as well-absorbed by our culture as you seem to think. It should go without saying, but the simple fact is that a lot of the time it doesn't.

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

GloryB — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 17:59:34 -0000

How do you feel about the word "cracker" and it's use? Shouldn't you be outraged by that word? The fact that you are not and the word "nigger" can only be used by blacks in this country shows me you are very ignorant yourself. Are you one of those guilty white people who is "brain-washed" by the liberal media into thinking we have something to be ashamed of? I am not ashamed of being white, I love being white! In fact the last time I said "white is beautiful", someone answered with, why don't you say brown and black are also beautiful? My response to that person was, when a black person says "black is beautiful" nobody says that you should also add that white and brown and yellow are also beautiful! Do you see what I am driving at? Wake up stupid! Everyone is beautiful, but if you want honesty, the blacks in this country have to be honest too and they are not. I hear it all the time about they want a "real" discussion about racism but when you start to ask questions about why the fathers leave their families to welfare and why they won't acknowledge the AIDs among their population they want to blame it all on slavery and the truth about slavery is that it was mostly blacks selling blacks into slavery. And one more thing, I have yet to hear a black person say thank you for the hundreds of thousands of young men who died freeing the slaves. Think about that, just think about that.

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

GloryB — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 17:43:50 -0000

"I don't think everyone who opposes Obama or his programs are racists, but I know that all racists oppose Obama and his programs". You totally contradict yourself here Anna! You are the racist and the "taker" who drains this country and refuses to become American. I'll bet you have never even read the Constitution of the United States! You are an idiot if you believe anything the Nazi-Democrats have to say! Barrack Hussein is the Anti-Christ! I would think you would realize that if you are Catholic!

What? You don't even make sense! The reason why so many people are up in arms about the issue of health care is because it takes away our freedom of choice and although you may be used to somebody taking care of you, some people like myself may choose to take care of themselves. Take your Anchor-babies back to Mexico and straighten out your own country and then come back with a few good ideas as to how to fix America. We see our freedoms being taken away and maybe in Mexico that does not matter much since the whole country is corrupt anyway, but it matters to alot of people here. By the way, I don't have health insurance myself but I would rather take my chances than to have someone dictate to me how I should handle my health and life choices.

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

mike — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 17:36:26 -0000

"For the most part, the protesters appear to be genuinely angry. "

Genuinely angry? Really?

How would we know? What is genuine anger?

Can you be genuinely angry about something that you know to be false? Probably not.

Can you be genuinely angry when you simply don't know the facts one way or the other? Debatable, isn't it?

In some sense this is falsified anger, not genuine anger, because it is not based on anything these people know from personal experience, but rather on things they have been told, and that were manufactured to generate anger.

I'd say "genuine anger" has some kind of connection to first hand knowledge and experience.... doesn't it?

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

apulrang — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 16:55:56 -0000

I'm sure racism is a factor here ... but I think there are plenty of other atavistic fears in the mix. As a person with a disability, I can tell you that the fear and concern among at least some people about possible connections between euthanasia and health care economics is real. I don't mean the connection is real, but that drawing a link there isn't as crazy as it sounds. All of us with disabilities and chronic illnesses have low moments in our lives when we ponder how much money and trouble we're causing ... to our families and community at large. And most of us have also experienced scary conversations with doctors and other experts who just don't seem to "get us" and yet seem to have power over us. It's not such a long leap for us to imagine a more organized government health care system trying to persuade us to forego treatment in order to save money.

I don't for a moment believe this or anything like it is part of anyone's plan, but the fear and concern come from very real places. Its just that they are being used and exploited by insurance companies who don't give a damn about us and in fact do more to make the above scenario real than anyone else.

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

Upsidedownpoint — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 13:54:30 -0000

You know, one of the main reasons we never saw stuff like this under Bush II is that he thoroughly controlled any town hall under his rule. If you didn't agree with him, you weren't allowed in.

I don't care if their rage is being expressed through race or class or any other number of irrational things: they key here is "irrational", just like it was when McCain and Palin whipped up their crowds with "terrorist", "muslim", "socialist" defamation.

It is incumbent on the MSM to denounce these people as literally mindless and crazy. It is incumbent on everyone to denounce them as truly, clinically insane, non-institutionalized individuals. They hijacked the country for 8 years; we can't let them have it back.

Re: The Tough Thing About Racism...

anna perez — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 18:50:10 -0000

GG, I've said it before, given the 300 years of American history during which every social, economic, legal, political and cultural lever in this country supported the notion of White supremacy, I am always delighted to find White Americans who have either not bought into, escaped or are trying to escape this rigorous form of mental oppression. And remember, ignorance can be fixed but as Ron White says, "you can't fix stupid."

And Josh, White racism against Black people, is in fact all about the White people. Not the effects, mind you, but its existence is all about the White people who still believe this shit.