Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I've always been a big fan of the Jay Smooth method of calling out racist acts/actions without necessarily calling the person a racist. That way they're more likely to get them to think about it rather than react to a label*. I think that's ultimately what Tlaib did, with the lovely parting shot of allowing people to draw their own conclusions:

Also, I own the book, but I have not finished it yet.


*'course, I can think whatever the hell I want to about someone, but in engagement and usually in discussion, I am going to hold off calling someone a racist piece of shit unless it's a pretty big thing or a pretty clear pattern of smaller things.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I really wish everyone else had been as good at this as AOC (she credits her ability to ask good questions to being a bartender). Direct questions that gave good background and resulted in actionable information.

Re: I bet She's Colorblind
 

Never heard that phrase but it seems completely fabricated. The fact that he said it around you makes me think he wanted to alpha you.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

They can't help themselves. The terminal narcissism that leads one to politics compels them to make speeches.

As I listened to the highlight reel on MSNBC in the car, it was, "hot air, hot air, emote, hot air, emote, emote, emote, throw out political bromides for voters, blah, blah, blah, self righteous indignation, hot air, emote... and then suddenly AOC gets the mic and surgically elicits three tight admissions of bank fraud and insurance fraud*... and then it went back to emote, hot air, emote, argue amongst selves."

But I have to correct something. I blamed Tlaib for asking Cohen a silly opinion question about his view of what constitutes racism. I couldn't see who was doing what as I only heard the highlights on satellite radio. The person who asked that hypothetical of Cohen was someone names Pressley.

Tlaib, OTOH, was justified in addressing Meadows' idiotic use of a black Trump employee to disprove racism.

But again, asking Cohen's view of anything is an asinine exercise. The guy's only valid usefulness is as a fact witness. He's utterly unqualified to give an informed opinion on any complex subject.

____
* It's not fraud to misrepresent r/e value to get lower assessments. If you can find an appraiser who'll give you a lowball value, and the municipality doesn't succeed in proving it's wrong, and the assessment board grants it, you're just doing what every developer does. If you can lower an assessment, it's business malpractice not to do so.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

This video is a tremendous oversimplification. But it still prioritizes the feelings of the person at fault over all else. I get that it is a pragmatic approach to a difficult topic. But this shit does not work in all contexts. And it's a perfect example of how people of color have to completely contort their reactions to protect other people's feelings.

Telling a woman who casually drops "nigger" in conversation without flinching or stuttering that what she said is racist lets her off the hook for being a racist. You may think it to be a practical approach to get her thinking about why she shouldn't be using that word, but the simple fact is, she's a fucking racist. And she should be told she's a racist. People should treat her like she's a fucking racist.

Contrast that with someone who is ignorant of certain racial issues. I met a college friend's dad once out on his farm in the middle of fucking nowhere. Nice guy. He asked me if black people's bodies mature faster than white people's. He's not a racist. He's just ignorant. His only exposure to black people was the few times he went to see his son play against urban teams. I would say that actions that have a racist effect fall into this category as well. If a partner gives all his work to people he identifies with, that will have a racist effect. There's obviously no point in calling him racist. Serves no purpose and will be counter-productive.

In short, I am no longer interested in suppressing or muting criticism when it comes to actual, intentional racism in order to protect the feelings of a racist. Tlaib very carefully walked the line between calling Meadows a racist and describing his act as a racist one--presumably to stay on the right side of the rules of decorum. (As an aside, how can truth not be a defense to the rules of decorum? "Racist" can be purely descriptive depending on what the target has said and done.)

You absolutely have to hold off calling even a clear racist a racist because white people have set it up such that calling someone a racist is more offensive than actual racism. That's the point we are discussing and the point of the book.

TM

Re: I bet She's Colorblind
 

Nah. Not this dude. If there were ever anyone who desperately wanted to be my friend,* it's this guy. And he ain't no alpha. He was practically weeping to my buddy about it.

TM

*I know, right?

This article?
 

Gets it right.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/o...imes&smtyp=cur

TM

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I wonder if Cohen and Lanny Davis would have been better off leaving the racism out of his testimony, as it gives half of the country an easy exit point to dismiss what Cohen is saying and, unfortunately, isn't likely to be relevant to his fitness to serve.

Which has me sort of recalling a congressman introducing articles of impeachment that started with "he's a racist." Like, true and all, but that is not going anywhere.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

More college ridiculousness - https://www.sfgate.com/news/educatio...d-13654926.php

Re: This article?
 

Meadows was there to make a mess of the hearing. To slow things down, cause parliamentary procedure disputes, etc. And if lucky, maybe defend Trump substantively, if such an occasion arose.

That article gives Meadows the benefit of assuming he's genuinely aggrieved. I didn't see his face, but when I heard him engage Tlaib on that point, my first thought was, "smart way to eat up the clock."

The author of the article notes that Meadows only flipped out about race issues, and not fraud allegations. Uh, yeah? Because no Trump defender in his right mind wants to extend testimony on that stuff. OTOH, there's little to almost nor risk in starting a lengthy battle about whether someone just called you a racist.

This is why I liked AOC's questioning so much. She didn't give any opening to Trump defenders. She covered more ground in 2 minutes than anybody else the whole day. And she got off stage quickly after drawing blood.

If I'm a GOP strategist at this moment, I might consider telling candidates to actively seek to get into debates about racism and inequality. The GOP has no policy points (nor do the Democrats really, but that's another issue), but if it can engage Progressives in arguments about #metoo, inequality, or racism, it can avoid having someone like AOC ask really tight questions that expose its lack of useful policies the way she exposed bank and insurance fraud while Meadows, Tlaib, Pressley, and Cohen pondered what exactly constitutes racism.

Doing what AOC did can win elections. It can get Trump not only impeached but indicted. Doing what the rest of that panel did, and what a lot of Democrats did in or around the Kavanaugh hearings, can grab defeat from the jaws of victory for the party in 2020.

Re: I bet She's Colorblind
 

For starters, I think what you are describing is a universal condition. But people who aren't white appreciate it in a different way. Whites can think that other people have an ethnic identity but that they don't, that racism is something incidental to their lives.

Also, there are the people who are racist and proud of it -- not many of them, but they exist. If you ask someone to think of a racist, most will think of someone who is unabashed about it. So the word fits a little uncomfortably (I mean that two ways) for other people who carry levels of it.

There is some guilt, there is denial, but delusion doesn't sound right. Because a delusion that many other people share and perpetuate is more like another word for culture.

That's all about how people actually think. The point I started with, which I may not have put well, is that even if one is interested in understanding how people think, that doesn't mean that every episode helps you get there. What I was thinking, but did not say, is that I feel similarly fascinated with the question of why so many people still support Trump, but I also feel enormously frustrated with so much of what is written on the subject, because I don't feel like it's moving the needle of comprehension. And at some point, one has to just accept that we share the country with a large number of people with terrible beliefs, and we have to figure out how to mobilize so that they don't ruin people's lives. I do want to understand what makes the other side tick, but I also worry about a denialism that assumes that our problems are all about Trump, and not about all the people who elected him and continue to support him. Not to hijack the topic of racism to make it about Trump, but just to say that it feels necessary to understand the fucked-up ways that people think, but also exhausted and sometimes a diversion from what else needs to be done.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

They can't help themselves. The Democrats overthink and seem insecure about their hand.

If they asked dozens more questions regarding specifics of Trump's business frauds, this hearing would have been catastrophic for Trump. But they didn't, partly because I don't think a lot of them understood how those crimes work. (Congresspeople are not the most sophisticated lot.) But also because they were more interested in eliciting a soundbite on an issue they think will reach the broadest coalition of their voters. So they gave speeches, we heard a grand debate on racism, they lauded Cohen, and the American people came away with this:

Donald Trump has horrible personal character and a lot of Democrats think he's a racist and a bunch of Congresspeople argued about whether one of them was a racist.

In other news, the sun rose this morning.

And in 48 hours, its all erased in the media cycle, AOC's questions meriting a thimble's worth of ink in the press, while the Meadows debacle gets an oil tanker's worth.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Good. Cause I object to the suggestion on May 5 that tequila is anything other than the devil's poison.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Read this about a note of grace.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

As I noted at the start of my comments on this hearing, Cummings carried almost all of the dignity in that room.

I think he gave Meadows too much credit. Meadows was despicable. But Cummings did the right thing, and the smart thing, to blunt Meadows’ faux indignation.

Agreed. We need more Cummingses in govt. Sadly, I think he’s a soon extinct decent human in a House of idiot opportunists.