I did make an assumption there you were replying to me. My bad. wagonmound has crawled way out on a limb of his own into some alternate reality. That’s for sure
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I’ve been having trouble with my “replies” not going under the correct post - might be a temp TPM glitch. And yes on Wagonmound.
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If you want to tell us the truth, please proceed.
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Yes, that is the reason he is saying that there is no racism in America, if he does Uncle Tim would get primaries in a minute.
Ooh! That does hurt. Hurt me again!
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Tim Scott argues that offering loans to black and other minority-group farmers is racist because white farmers are excluded. For one thing, this is not original with Scott but is a current Republican talking point. I think it became one in just the last few days as Republicans were trying to undercut the president’s successes in the First 100 Days. For another, this program, or one very much like it, is already being offered by the Dept. of Agriculture in response to years of criticism that black farmers could not reliably get loans because of discrimination in lending. That he would present this argument during his rebuttal to the president’s speech is a rather good indication of how far a black Republican politician would go to obscure the relationship between race and power in this country. Perhaps it was not his choice, but that of other Republican leaders, but that he of all people would offer it seems like a sort of betrayal of blacks in general and black farmers in particular.
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Tim wants us to forget the tearful Senate speech he gave in 2016 about the impacts of racist policing and how he has been the repeated target of racist harassment at the hands of the police. Let’s not forget.
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Tim is a lot like the doctors , movie stars and athletes in the 1930’s 40’s, 50’s who happily took big $$ to say cigarettes were good for you, made you look cool, and made you a better athlete.
As the old joke goes … we have established what they are … now we are just haggling over the price.
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So the question of “how large the problem of racism still is” is the problem itself. Plenty of people do not admit that racism exists, even when they see it. They will use any number of excuses for why something happened, even going so far as to make up facts to support saying what happened wasn’t racist.
We have to agree on some basic concepts:
- racism requires power
- racism requires prejudice
- racism requires someone in power to act on their prejudices
I think we can all agree that enslaving Black people was racism. So to that end, America was as racist as England, France and other countries that allowed people to enslave, trade (buy and sell) and exploit people. Think about this, the English engaged in indentured servitude along side enslavement, which said this person is under contract with me for a limited period and will be treated as a human being and citizen, while that slave over there is my property to do with as I please until die or decide to sell them.
America was racist during and after the Civil War. Many Northerners didn’t fight to end slavery, they fought to preserve the Union. During the Draft Riots in NYC, there were savage attacks on Black people, because they were seem as the reason for the war. After the Civil War, well, Black Republicans were threatened and killed for voting (voter intimidation started early). Black people were run out of entire counties because White people couldn’t stand the idea of living near freed Blacks. Then came Jim Crow…
The Red Summer was a really racist time in America. Look it up. I learned about the race riots of the time, but they weren’t so much riots as they were targeted violence towards Black people. To call it a summer implies it was a season, but more like several years of racial violence in Chicago, St. Louis, Tulsa and many other cities, towns and counties across America. I’ll remind you that in Tulsa, the violence was so bad that the Governor called out the National Guard, and instead of ended the attacks, they joined in. At that time, Tulsa was the only US city to be bombed by air (but only the Greenwood Section of town). There wouldn’t be another governments-sponsored bombing until the Philadelphia Police used a bomb on the MOVE house in 1985, and set two blocks of the city on fire.
After WWI and WWII, Black men were lynched simply for not removing their military uniforms fast enough. Black men were pulled off trains and buses on their way home from the wars. Black people were lynched for wearing uniforms during Veteran’s Day parades.
During WWII, German POWs in America were often given work release- they worked on farms and whatnot during the day, but had to return to the bases or camps that housed them at night. Some of the same German POWs returned to America after the war and settled here because they were treated so well during the war. Meanwhile, Black solders were still forced to follow segregation rules- going into the back door of a store, riding on the back of buses, and etc. Jackie Robinson was court-marshalled for refusing to ride on the back on a bus on a military base in Texas. Japanese-Americans were interred in prison camps as punishment for the bombing of Pearl Harbor. We even imprisoned Japanese citizens from Central and South American countries in the US during the war.
GI Bill? What was that? The same White bankers and college administrators that refused service to Black people before WWII were in positions to deny Black Veterans access to the GI Bill after, thus denying Black people access to generational wealth through building businesses, and professional education.
Post WWII America started integrating, but still built communities with deed restrictions and defended others with violence. As Black people moved into neighborhoods, Whites fled. This is a news special about the neighborhood I grew up in. Because of redlining (a Depression-era federal practice), many Black people had to buy houses on contract, because the banks either would not lend money or couldn’t because of redlining. As a child, I read about the practice, and spent a day or two trying to see that redline as we drove through the city.
In America today, I am likely to make 80% of what my White co-workers in spite of my education and work experience. I am more likely to not get a job interview, let alone the job. I am more likely to pay higher interest on loans, given a similar credit history. I am more likely to have lower property values, in spite of living in the same neighborhood. I am more likely to be stopped, searched arrested, convicted and sentenced to longer jail time for the same offense and the same criminal history. I am less likely to have my medical condition addressed effectively. I am more likely to be seen as drug seeking. I am also going to be viewed as not feeling pain.
Last Summer, we saw both violent and peaceful protests of police violence. Ironically, no matter how peaceful, many protests were met with police violence, tear gas, riot police, pepper spray and arrests using kettling techniques.
January 6th came and we are still arresting people who were involved in insurrection. They were mainly White Republicans, and in spite of the violence, disruption to Congress and deaths, they are still being defended by a major political party.
We know all this, but Tim Scott still says American is not racist. Fuck him.
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From several articles on the subject of aid, or subsides to farmers paid by the USDA they not getting the percentage of the pie that is equal to the percentage of black farmers in the US. And in fact the majority of the money/aid given to farmers only went to the top 10 % of all farmers.
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The Democrats are hacking the voting machines? 
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Another thing I’m in favor of is systemic support to overcome where folks are starting from because of the systemic racism or other structural prejudices. My campus had a variety of programs to do this. As one example, there is a program to support incoming students who are the first generation in their family to attend university. There are also a variety of clubs and student activities to acclimatize newcomers and make them feel welcome by bringing them together with folks with similar backgrounds (and yes, this is not just based on race, but also gender, language, sexual orientation, etc). There’s lots of evidence that this sort of support goes a long way to help make up for the systemic lack of support in their earlier years.
Race plays a huge part in this sort of support infrastructure, although it’s not the only factor. It also helps gay students to find themselves, and I’m currently still helping out with a program to encourage more women to participate in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) programs with a specific focus on Cyber Security. I also mentored a K-12 student a couple of years ago from a local high school that has established a very extensive cybersecurity program, which helps get underserved groups exposed way before they have to start thinking about college majors and help them realize that “they can do this”.
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Definition of a masochist: “Beat me! Beat me!”
Definition of a sadist: “No…”
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I’d suggest that you re-read my post, paying particular attention to the “as it stands today” part. But having seen your stuff before, I have no real expectation of it making any difference.
I know that, in some parts of the Left, it is a matter of received doctrine that the United States was in the beginning, is now, and always will be, inherently racist, saecula saeculorum amen. That’s why the rhetorical trap works so well.
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Keep up the good work.
My partner is an indigenous woman who has blazed quite a trail in the academe and has recently been “absorbed” by the administration to be an advisor to the Provost. She’s a wonk, very knowledgeable in her field of study in indigenous matters and human rights in general. But her blind spot is, well, White man’s institutional behaviour.
She comes from a community that traditionally favours consensus based decisions. The dog-eat-dog mentality of the White man’s world often has her beyond perplexed. That is, until I remind her that what’s going on is fear based, then she gets it completely and reorients her thoughts and approach towards the weaker instincts of the room by bringing healing to the agenda. And it works!
We laugh about it because while we both struggle to learn her ancestral language, I am her translator - not of language - but of White people’s fears.
Her cousin is an influential indigenous activist and called her out on Facebook (which is an influential platform in Indigenous circles in Canada) for having a non-Indigenous partner. Her short, profound reply of “I am at home with him” ended the stream of comments because, to be home for Indigenous people is to be safe. Which is the one thing they have always wanted.
To be safe.
Accordingly…
BLM!
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“Like” 
doesn’t quite seem adequate for this one. Where’s the “profound wisdom” button?
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For all you constitutional originalists out there in search of purity: The constitution originally recognized slavery (at least euphemistically) and counted Blacks as 3/5 of a person.
Test, this is a racist nation.
Don’t believe a single word.
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Set and baited without disguise. They yell squirrel and everybody grabs their rhetorical scattergun.
The very smart rat in my compost pile would be laughing.
So do you agree 9r did agree that the United States was racist in the beginning?