Racism

UncleBob

UncleBob

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If someone was to say "Man, this country is going downhill - we elected a black man as president!" - a large majority of people (including myself) would take that as a racist statement, correct?

How come it's perfectly okay to so many people to make comments about how this country has "progressed" by electing a black man as president? Does that not inherently imply that our country is better because a black man is leading it? Meaning that the black president is better than any potential white president that could have been elected - based solely on the fact that he's black: i.e.: his race?
 
They mean we have progressed in the sense that we leaped a giant hurdle. Having never elected a black president we overcame what everyone thought would be overhwhelming prejudice against voting for a black man and elected one. This wouldn't have happened a mere 40 years ago and this shows we have progressed racially as a country.

Not that he's better because he's black.
 
The progress would be that he wasn't refused support and voted against because of his race.

Good job trying to turn it around though, you'll have to try making it more abstract. Something like "Isn't it racist to discuss race at all?!"
 
I can see that.

However, the implication that we've progressed simply because we've elected a black man seems a bit off to me.

Would anyone say that we've "progressed" if we elected a woman? What if that woman was Sarah Palin?
 
[quote name='UncleBob']I can see that.

However, the implication that we've progressed simply because we've elected a black man seems a bit off to me.

Would anyone say that we've "progressed" if we elected a woman? What if that woman was Sarah Palin?[/QUOTE]

It would be still be progressive for the fact that we have never had a woman president. Absolutely.

However, it wouldn't be as progressive because women were never disciminated against the way blacks were.
 
[quote name='UncleBob']I can see that.

However, the implication that we've progressed simply because we've elected a black man seems a bit off to me.

Would anyone say that we've "progressed" if we elected a woman? What if that woman was Sarah Palin?[/QUOTE]

well that would be sexist then.

I think, like others, say that you'd have to phrase it like this: "We didn't let racism be a factor in not voting in a black president."

Similarly saying that Cold air isn't because its substance is of cold, but because there was a lack of heat(energy).
 
[quote name='HowStern']It would be still be progressive for the fact that we have never had a woman president. Absolutely.

However, it wouldn't be as progressive because women were never disciminated against the way blacks were.[/QUOTE]

Women were guaranteed the right to vote after black men...
 
I'm just not sure I agree with this. I mean, who's to say we couldn't have had a black man as president in 2000, if the right person had ran? Could the fact that we have a black man as president now have less to do with the general population accepting his race and more to do with the general population accepting his political platform (or turning away from his opponent's)?

Perhaps the reason that we hadn't had a black man as president was because there has been no black candidate that appealed to enough people politically - independent of his race?
 
[quote name='UncleBob']I'm just not sure I agree with this. I mean, who's to say we couldn't have had a black man as president in 2000, if the right person had ran? Could the fact that we have a black man as president now have less to do with the general population accepting his race and more to do with the general population accepting his political platform (or turning away from his opponent's)?

Perhaps the reason that we hadn't had a black man as president was because there has been no black candidate that appealed to enough people politically - independent of his race?[/QUOTE]

Perhaps I've become very cynical toward presidential candidates lately but it would seem the presidential race is based much more on likeability these days than political platform.
 
[quote name='RedvsBlue']Women were guaranteed the right to vote after black men...[/QUOTE]

He's right though - black people were defiantly discriminated against differently than women. Black people were slaves on farms, while women were (and, in some situations, still are) sex slaves. Women didn't get to vote until after black men, but they also didn't have the lynching and such. Unless you count things like the Salem Witch Trials - which were a bit more isolated.
 
[quote name='UncleBob']He's right though - black people were defiantly discriminated against differently than women. Black people were slaves on farms, while women were (and, in some situations, still are) sex slaves. Women didn't get to vote until after black men, but they also didn't have the lynching and such. Unless you count things like the Salem Witch Trials - which were a bit more isolated.[/QUOTE]

My point is more to the fact that we can't quantify who had it worse, women or black people. Women have had a long history of discrimination and formal slavery may not have occurred but women have certainly been treated basically as property in the past with regard to marriage.
 
Racism also obviously plays a role in who gets through the primaries and even gets a chance at getting elected. But your abstract questions are getting better, although not relevant to the original post. Could a black man have been elected president in 2000? Maybe. All progress isn't limited to the year 2008. Obviously there had to have been some progress over time and at some point or other there would be a president elected to symbolize that.

Or do you really think a black man could have been elected president in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, etc. if only they had the same political platform as the person who won?
 
[quote name='RedvsBlue']Women were guaranteed the right to vote after black men...[/QUOTE]

That's small beans compared to the shit black people went through. Women weren't sprayed with fire hoses in the streets because they were women. Women weren't beat by cops because they were women. You really need to brush up on your civil rights history if you think women were discriminated against the way black people were.

Even master manipulator unclebob had to resort to witch trials to try compare the two. Witch trials happened in the 1600s. Blacks were being firehosed just 40 years ago. Get a clue, Bob.

His sex slave analogy is equally ridiculous and really shows what level his thinking(or lack of) is on. For a good while it was socially considered all right and LEGAL to own a black person as a slave. It was never legal or considered ok to own a woman as a sex slave(unless she was black.)
 
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[quote name='SpazX']Could a black man have been elected president in 2000? [/QUOTE]

That reminded me of Dave Chappelle's How can black people rise up.
 
Progressing to me in this sense just means that there's a kind of arc of social accomplishment in our society that many groups have yet to reach. Things like the presidency. I don't see how it's inherently anti-establishment (or white, I guess) to note these achievements. There's still a raft of groups unable to take the next step in politics for a variety of reasons.

I find her distasteful sure, but Palin as president would mark an occasion of social accomplishment on the arc of women.
 
[quote name='HowStern']His sex slave analogy is equally ridiculous and really shows what level his thinking(or lack of) is on. For a good while it was socially considered all right and LEGAL to own a black person as a slave. It was never legal or considered ok to own a woman as a sex slave(unless she was black.)[/QUOTE]

Obviously does not enjoy the benefits of marriage.
 
Woah, woah, woah Howie... calm down.
I was agreeing with the idea behind your statement. Black opression is/was different than the opression of women.

Geesh.

I'll address some of the other points later (when I'm not on my phone). This has been a good discussion thiugh.
 
[quote name='perdition(troy']Obviously does not enjoy the benefits of marriage.[/QUOTE]

hehe =P Isn't it the opposite?
Pre-marriage: crazy sex 7 nights a week.
post-marriage: "eh, i'm too tired and I have a headache"
 
[quote name='HowStern']That's small beans compared to the shit black people went through. Women weren't sprayed with fire hoses in the streets because they were women. Women weren't beat by cops because they were women. You really need to brush up on your civil rights history if you think women were discriminated against the way black people were.

Even master manipulator unclebob had to resort to witch trials to try compare the two. Witch trials happened in the 1600s. Blacks were being firehosed just 40 years ago. Get a clue, Bob.

His sex slave analogy is equally ridiculous and really shows what level his thinking(or lack of) is on. For a good while it was socially considered all right and LEGAL to own a black person as a slave. It was never legal or considered ok to own a woman as a sex slave(unless she was black.)[/QUOTE]

TRUTH. You also forgot to add Jim Crow laws, the "seperate but equal" bullshit or the laws in the past where if a black man "eyeballed" a white woman, he would get lynched for committing a "crime"

Women saying they suffered as much as black people make me fucking laugh out out. The fact that they claim to have suffered anything as bad as any minority group makes me laugh. Feminists have never really endured true oppression in the sense of being murdered for being a different color, being brutally beaten just for eying someone of a different race. Their struggle makes me laugh how they compare it to the horrible attrocities that many minorities have endured.
 
[quote name='perdition(troy']Obviously does not enjoy the benefits of marriage.[/QUOTE]


Benefits of marriage? Let's call a spade a spade and call it for what it really is. In America the benefits of marriage are for WOMEN only. For men it's basically a form of indentured servitude. fuck those benefits and fuck the cunt who thinks she's going to live on my labor.
 
So would it be better for you if people just pretend that electing the first black president in a historically white dominated nation isn't a big deal?

Come on, let's be realistic now.
 
[quote name='HowStern']hehe =P Isn't it the opposite?
Pre-marriage: crazy sex 7 nights a week.
post-marriage: "eh, i'm too tired and I have a headache"[/QUOTE]

lol, though true for many guys i lucked out and found an exception to the rule. that and the fact that we still have no kids makes that marriage prophecy still not apply to my marriage. *knocks on wood*
 
[quote name='perdition(troy']He's not black. Many people voted for his white half.[/QUOTE]

There's a good argument to be made about that playing a part in the vote, but I'm sure you agree it's still quite a drastic change from what America's accustomed to.
 
This discussion has gotten to be downright laughable. Not once but twice now I have pointed out the fact that there is no practical comparison between discrimination toward women and blacks yet everyone keeps implying that I'm saying women had it worse than blacks.

The stereotypes that both groups face are still very present, hell look at how Hillary Clinton was portrayed roughly a year ago. One particular incident stands out in my mind when she broke down crying at one of her campaign stops. Immediately the critics painted 2 pictures from this-1. She was a cold hearted manipulative bitch who was crying just for sympathy (something that she has been sadled with since her husband was president) or 2. She was too weak and just couldn't handle the stress of campaigning. You'd be kidding yourself if you would try to say attitudes toward women didn't play a part in those attitudes.
 
[quote name='UncleBob']If someone was to say "Man, this country is going downhill - we elected a black man as president!" - a large majority of people (including myself) would take that as a racist statement, correct?

How come it's perfectly okay to so many people to make comments about how this country has "progressed" by electing a black man as president? Does that not inherently imply that our country is better because a black man is leading it? Meaning that the black president is better than any potential white president that could have been elected - based solely on the fact that he's black: i.e.: his race?[/QUOTE]

I think it's less that we elected a black man (half black, really; strange how our society still classifies someone who is anywhere from 1/8 to 100% black as black...really strange) president than that it is possible for a black man to be elected president. Before Obama's election, many Americans thought that couldn't happen. Now that they have been proven wrong, I'd also say we have progressed -- not because Obama was elected, but due to the fact that he could be elected. I guess what I'm saying is Obama's election has opened many eyes among naysayers who would tell you that racism is all pervasive and determinative in this country, and that's what I call progress (not perfection, but yes, progress).
 
I agree with HowStern's first post; we've progressed in the sense that we chose a black person as the princeps to guide our nation, something unheard of prior to civil rights.

However, while I won't deny that black people had it rough, I will add to this discussion that women have had it pretty bad for a lot longer than 400 years. I'm talking thousands of years. Rape and pillage by ye olde raiding parties kind of thing - prior to notions of racism. That being said, there was no America prior to racist slavery, so I'll keep my timeline in that constraint.

In summation, in the age of our nation I would say that electing a woman and black person would be equally an index of our social progress (i.e., progressive) -- they've been oppressed roughly as long as each other on this soil.
 
Of course the fact that he's black doesn't mean he'd be any better than a white candidate. It just shows that the country has come to the point that we can see past race and elect the person we think is best for the job. In the past it wouldn't have mattered who was the better candidate, no way would a black man have been elected.
 
[quote name='JolietJake']Of course the fact that he's black doesn't mean he'd be any better than a white candidate. It just shows that the country has come to the point that we can see past race and elect the person we think is best for the job. In the past it wouldn't have mattered who was the better candidate, no way would a black man have been elected.[/QUOTE]

You say "in the past" - and I do agree that, say, 1960, 'we' (as in the country, not as in us here, since I figure a lot of us weren't around to vote then) wouldn't have elected a black man as president. But what about in 2004? 2000?

Obama isn't proof that we've finally reached the point we would elect a black man. That's purely speculation.
 
And how do you know that the country would elect a black person until they have elected a black person? Or that they would have a chance until winning the primaries, etc. and their race isn't used as a major factor (at least not usually)?

I guess I just don't understand your complaint, obviously it's a gradual thing, and obviously in the past it wouldn't have happened. In the very immediate past could it have happened? In the 80s I'd say no, in the 90s I'd say maybe there was a chance, and in 2008 apparently so. Why are you complaining about perhaps a 10 year period where you think it could have happened and so now certainly isn't special?
 
[quote name='UncleBob']You say "in the past" - and I do agree that, say, 1960, 'we' (as in the country, not as in us here, since I figure a lot of us weren't around to vote then) wouldn't have elected a black man as president. But what about in 2004? 2000?

Obama isn't proof that we've finally reached the point we would elect a black man. That's purely speculation.[/QUOTE]
Well i would like to think it could have happened in 2000 or 2004, but it didn't so none of us can say for certain.

Obama is the only proof we have, anything else is speculation of whether it may have happened earlier.

edit- Oh please, anyone who looks back far enough probably has an ancestor of another race. Jefferson was no more black than i am.
 
I'll say that Lincoln allegedly having a black father is pretty interesting. I like the nickname Abraham Africanus the First. Reminds me of Scipio ...Africanus.

Anyways, UncleBob, you're not really arguing anything that can be either disproved or proven. Sure, it could have happened. We don't know, we'll never know. Who knows, maybe if Obama were less biracial and darker he may have not been elected? This hypothetical situation you pose is grounded in imaginary-land.
 
Man, this country is going downhill - we elected an unapologetic Socialist as president.

And worse than any implied label of racism based on his being elected, is the overt accusation of racism leveled against those who oppose Obama's policies.
 
[quote name='UncleBob']How come it's perfectly okay to so many people to make comments about how this country has "progressed" by electing a black man as president? Does that not inherently imply that our country is better because a black man is leading it? Meaning that the black president is better than any potential white president that could have been elected - based solely on the fact that he's black: i.e.: his race?[/QUOTE]

What it acknowledges is that our collective populace has changed its attitude remarkably enough towards racial minorities that we were able to elect a black president in spite of our personal history and the legacy of it that remains in its wake (the legacy of racism that still persists).

The idea that praising minority entre into areas previously occupied in large part by white males is wholly progressive.

You think it's comparable racism because you believe in that peculiar cognitive state that seems to think that "not noticing or acknowledging race" is the ideal and ultimate goal, yet you've never lived you life, for a single second, in a world that worked like that. It's a false sense of nobility and a false sense of equality.
 
Don't you understand mykevermin? UncleBob is actually Stephen Colbert, who doesn't see race. He is told he's a white man and he believes it.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']You think it's comparable racism because you believe in that peculiar cognitive state that seems to think that "not noticing or acknowledging race" is the ideal and ultimate goal, yet you've never lived you life, for a single second, in a world that worked like that. It's a false sense of nobility and a false sense of equality.[/QUOTE]

"I'm glad we elected a _____ man as president!"

If I say one race, it's racist. If I say any other race, it's progressive. Would you agree with that?
 
The answer is hegemony.

The answer is that racism implies hierarchical ordering where one is dominant and others less so.

What's so hard to see about that?
 
[quote name='SpazX']UncleBob is a context-free zone. Or a joke.[/QUOTE]

I wonder what context someone could say "Yay! I'm glad we elected the white guy for president!" and not be considered racist?
 
[quote name='UncleBob']I wonder what context someone could say "Yay! I'm glad we elected the white guy for president!" and not be considered racist?[/QUOTE]

If only white guys existed? If it was between "white guy" and "Damien, spawn of Satan"? If there was a country with a history of domination by black guys that oppressed white guys and only recently white guys had the ability to vote, let alone run for president, and then a white guy was elected president and people said "This shows that the nation has progressed to the point that they can look past race when electing a president" rather than a purposely-simplified-to-imply-a-different-meaning "Yay! I'm glad we elected a white guy for president!"?

You're not very creative.
 
Oh, get off it, IRHari. It's not like this is a race issue at all. Just take a look at the comments.

"Call it for what it is...a thug losing control. Professor or not, this guy is an uneducated animal who gets drunk and sucker punches women. No doubt he'll be hiding behind his color and race stereotypes."

That's post-racial America, yo.
 
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