Part 2

Yes, things were bad, unfair, unjust, and simply horrible back then, but prior to the Civil War it was really more of a problem of one group seeking to protect their economic security than a situation of racism as we have come to know it today.
You cannot "prove" it, because it is a myth. An unproductive businessman goes out of business. He may be able to "play" the game or the odds or cheat the system for a while, but eventually the business goes under. Remember Enron? You could not have found a better connected group of white men (connected to both Dems and Repubs), it helped them not at all.

Because of Affirmative Action the white guy will be fired due to lack of performance faster than the minority or the women. Why? Because the white guy cannot claim that he was fired because of his race or gender. On the other hand, if a minority or a women is fired due to lack of performance they can claim that it was really due to their race or gender and it is required by law to take that charge seriously. Do you think the HR and legal departments of a company take that into account when considering the hiring and firing of personel?

Yep, Affirmative Action does help create feelings of resentment. And with Affirmative Action there will always be a sense or a feeling of do they "deserve" it. Which is probably why the creators of South Park named the child of the one African-American family living in South Park, "Token." No, Affirmative Action is not a meritocracy.
And it had nothing to do with feminism, the Black Power movement, the Student's up raisings of the 60s, or the silliness of extreme postmodernism? The feminists demanded that they be allowed to teach their "Women Studies" programs without being under the thumb of the evil patriarchy of evil white men. The same happened with "Black Studies" and Latino in literature, humanities, and history. Everyone screwed it up. Most of the white academics did not fight against, they caved in. Expanding the narrative was not acceptable since then Women Studies would still be under the thumb of the evil patriarchy and Black Studies would still be under the thumb of evil white oppressors.

In American Lit. 101 class you teach the literature of America.

You don't use a quota system or some "equal weight" system. To keep courses from becoming too large you create sections based on time periods. Colonial American Lit. would be largely about the writings of a bunch of white guys. Early American Lit. would still be largely about a bunch of white guys, but it would include the writings of Frederick W. Douglass, Booker T. Washington. Also the teaching of literature, especially Colonial and Early, should included both fiction and nonfiction. When you get to Modern American Lit. or Postmodern American Lit. (even though its arguable if there has been a postmodern periodin American Lit.) there would be large sections dedicated to minority and feminists writers. I believe this would show how over time America has become much more inclusive and would raise the academic standards of all students. It would make American Lit. a much more demanding subject. I believe this should be the approach at the undergraduate level. At the graduate level it makes sense to offer courses that specialize or narrow the subject being studied. A course on one event, or in the case of Lit. one writer makes complete sense at the graduate level.

Sadly women and African-Americans also look at a white guy taking African America x or women's history with suspicion or as an oddity. Many of the gender studies or black studies courses are based on partial truths taken to the extreme. For example, your assertion that American history is only a white male narrative.

I agree with you there. The degree of sensitive needed and the scope of knowledge required would require the full Prof. to do some actual teaching rather than an assistant doing it for them.

Difficult, not impossible.

Don't you think everyone would benefit from learning about the perspectives of all of the above.

No, you are not still a slave. Some guy 200 plus years ago was a slave, not you.

No. That's on our education system. It is important for all Americans to learn the perspectives of all historical events. Since you are so keen on questioning the hidden agenda, reread your words in the above quote. Do you notice how you create a duality that is inherently based on race and the premise that white men are evil oppressors, even today?

mourned the loss of the south vs. holiday around emancipation
white vigilante soldiers protecting southern femininity vs. fear of the KKK and cross burnings

Unspoken, but implied is the premise that only a white guy of today would mourn the loss of the south and cheer the white vigilante soldiers of the KKK. Well, the great majority of white guys today are just as offended by slavery, the KKK, or of cross burnings as any black guy. Both should take such things and such events personally.

tashi deleks,

M

I'll be waiting.

tashi deleks,

M

__________________
"They haven't got Brains, any of them, only grey fluff that's blown into their heads by mistake, and they don't Think." -- Eeyore, The House At Pooh Corner

Sit like a mountain,
Breathe like the wind,
Mind like the Sky.

When all the Gods are crazy, who do you pray to?

Such comments can only be made by those who have never listened to Rush Limbaugh and only get their information from MediaMatters or other websites that present out of context statements and out right lies about Rush.

Such comments can only be made by the ignorant, the "mind numbed robots" of the left, the useful idiots or the true believers following the party line. Rush has never said anything that could even remotely encourage the actions of a McVeigh or the Unabomber. While McVeigh was to the far right of Rush, the Unabomber was to the far left of Al Gore.

It is very likely that Obama will become president. If Obama gets his way and follows through with his economic and foreign policy plans -- there will be no prosperity and there will be no peace. And none of that has anything to do with the color of Obama's skin.

Its very sad that anyone who criticizes Obama or his policies or questions his motivations is automatically labeled a racist.

tashi deleks,

M

__________________
"They haven't got Brains, any of them, only grey fluff that's blown into their heads by mistake, and they don't Think." -- Eeyore, The House At Pooh Corner

Sit like a mountain,
Breathe like the wind,
Mind like the Sky.

When all the Gods are crazy, who do you pray to?

Why do you assume that will happen in the Obama years?

Incorrect. I was merely demonstrating the limits to your “cyclical” argument regarding class and privelige within American history. You are correct that major shifts in the economy saw the fall of one elite class (say the cotton kings) for the rise of another (say the robber barons) to the rise of another (the internet giants) etc. etc. But within those cycles there is a constant. An overwhelming majority of white men.

Let me clarify then before this conversation descends into silliness. I’m not trying to prove that nothing in America is determined on merit. That is silly. I’m also uninterested in talking about these issues in absolutes. Both of us can find “exceptional” examples to any black-white claim (no pun intended) that we make. And if your only goal is to prove that merit counts for something, then we don’t have a debate. But the word “meritocracy,” to me, has a specific meaning. It suggests that merit is the first and most important factor for determining access to education, employment, political influence and quality of life generally. Indeed the word is meant to contrast with “aristocracy”, where birth right was the single most important determining factor in access to the aforementioned “rights” or “priveliges” depending on how you feel about those issues.

So in order for America to claim it was or ever has been a “meritocracy”, the test is not to prove that some people achieve based on merit. The test is to demonstrate if there was/are a standard more powerful than merit that determined/s access to citizenship rights and economic mobility. The answer, in the case of America until 1965, was yes. Whiteness and maleness, traits as “inborn” as noble birth was the first standard for access to the “American dream” for centuries. So returning to your cyclical argument. Once whiteness and maleness gained you access to land ownership, voting, industrial jobs, management, CEOness, political power etc. you could then be judged on your merit. And you very often were. But the United States has always been more than just white men. In fact, white men compared to the demographics of people who are not white men, have always represented a minority. So America was a “meritocracy” for the minority of its people until 1965.



I was offended that you equated Rush’s struggles to succeed with Frederick Douglass. I guess I just think being born into slavery in an era where your race defined you as less than human is a little more of a barrier to success than being born a white guy with not a lot of money. Call me crazy

Hopefully I’ve clarified my statements as to avoid these kinds of absolute claims.

Sorry if I’m taking things out of order, I wanted to try and go in as much a chronological order as possible.

Can you clarify further? “To a degree”? You mean in that one race was classified as property and another race was not? And we’re also talking about the 19th century and early 20th century. While slavery was abolished with the Civil War, by the 1880s the south reestablished white supremacy via Jim Crow. While there was a brief meritocracy for African Americans in the south during radical reconstruction. All of those citizenship rights were rolled back less than a decade after the election of 1876. Indeed, the post-Reconstruction era demonstrates white supremacy’s ability to reconstitute itself despite major legislation. The 14th and 15th Amendments existed before 1965, so laws, in and of themselves do not translate into a meritocracy.

It was a common theme. NOT ANY MORE! Most Americans today do not suffer racists gladly, any more than any other fool. That attitude is offensive to most Americans, regardless of race. Yes, there are still racists and there is still racism, but it is marginalized and condemned and illegal.

I thought we were talking about America’s history as a meritocracy? Not whether American racism is the same as it was in the 1600s. The reason I keep raising the issue of history is to point out that there’s a thing called tradition in this country. Would you agree? What you seem to fail to acknowledge is that American racism wasn’t just about a set of laws. It was deeply ingrained in our country’s history. While we have made progress, the notion that racism somehow became automatically delinked from American culture and society the moment LBJ signed laws in 1965 defies everything we know about how history works in a large nation. Change happens VERY slowly and the longer the ingrained culture, the more difficult the change is. Yes Hillary Clinton was able to run for president this year, but it’s still acceptable to say that you fear for your balls when she comes around on national television, because strong women castrate men right? Yes, Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee, but African American men represent the vast majority of people in jail for non-violent drug offenses despite high rates of drug use among white populations. Indeed, my logic here is very similar to your logic of “cycles” in history. One system of racism goes away, but new ones rise to take their place. And with each progression it becomes more and more difficult to openly articulate racism, it however, does not mean that racism goes away.

I didn’t say it did. If you’ll notice my main point was talking about how people who articulate principles of black self-defense are called “crazy.”

I won’t argue that this is an important issue. Doesn’t mean that anti-racist legislation is a bad thing.

How quaintly you put it. What happened was that African American resisted racism and white Americans fought to maintain white supremacy until they were, quite literally, shamed into signing a set of laws. But at what point did those white Americans who came out en masse to prevent James Meredith from entering college or who bombed black public housing residents in Chicago who moved into “white neighborhoods in the fiftes” when did those people actually change how they felt about African Americans? Can you “prove” that? Can you demonstrate some evidence of that? All I saw is that the vast majority of folks moved away from the inner city so they wouldn’t have to integrate. They began putting their kids in private schools to avoid the black and brown inner cities. Opposition to Affirmative Action isn’t new, it existed from the MOMENT those laws were put into place. Can you think of any moment in American history when the majority of whites were presented with the realities of racism and they responded with “yeah, that’s wrong, we should change that.” You happen to love MLK. I’m not sure how old you are but why don’t you go back and read the letters page in TIME magazine when they named MLK their person of the year in 1963. They devoted PAGES to the hate mail they got from all over the nation. North and south. The burden of proof is actually on you here because the vast majority of evidence suggests that American racism is systemic and deeply ingrained. Not the other way around.

Can you better explain what you mean here? I don’t want to assume you’re saying something that you are not. And I’m having a hard time wrapping my brain around that one.

Can you “prove” that anymore than I can “prove” that unproductive white men often maintain their jobs or merely get reassigned to some other job? Until you can “prove it” you’re not really any better than me on this aspect of the debate.

And again, remind me of that moment in American history when access for African Americans didn’t have to be forced down the throats of a resisting white populace? And the guys behind south park know about as much American history as you do.

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Yesterday, John McCain actually said that if he’s president he’ll take on, and I quote, 'the old boys’ network in Washington.' I’m not making this up. This is somebody been in Congress for 26 years, who put seven of the most powerful Washington lobbyists in charge of his campaign. And now he tells us that he’s the one who’s gonna take on the old boys' network,” he said. “In the McCain campaign that’s called a staff meeting!- Obama, 9/17/2008

Education discusision
And it had nothing to do with feminism, the Black Power movement, the Student's up raisings of the 60s

OK now you’re just going a little bit overboard aren’t you. How did we get to the 1960s civil rights legislation, if we didn’t have a 1960s civil rights movement? You claim America just naturally moves towards more equality. You’re wrong. People have to FIGHT for it. Often they are called “radicals” or “militants” by people like yourself.

So? If you’re not patriarchical, why should that upset you?

And again. How would you do it?

When was the last time you TOOK an American history course at a major university. I think you’ll find that most courses now do the best job they can expanding the narrative to include alternative voices. Speaking as someone who has been a teaching assistant for freshman American history surveys at a major big ten university, I can say I’m very impressed with the attempts made by professors to tell a particularly integrated narrative. Inevitably though, I have white male students who complain that they aren’t learning enough “real” history and why can’t we focus more on “the presidents” and “businessmen who made this country great.” Republicans I might add.

Which is what? You clearly have no experience putting one of these courses together. You have 13 weeks and in a 101 course that means you’ve got about 300 years of history/lit, to cover. Choices have to be made. What’s really important about the various sub-studies courses is they allow you to expand and specialize so that the things that are left out of the big survey are included. What’s the beef here?

There are dozens and dozens of African American, native American and women writers who wrote in colonial and early America. Why should they be excluded from this course you’ve proposed? Also Booker T. Washington is turn of the century so not sure why he’d be in “early America.”

It IS the approach at the undergraduate level, it’s called choosing a major. If you want to specialize in the areas you’ve proposed then you become an English major. But there have to be courses for non-specialists so they can fulfill their humanities requirements. And really in depth courses in early colonial literature are too advanced for students who are just getting out of highschool. You have to actually KNOW the history of the era in order to really delve into the literary offerings of people at the time. I might also add. You would have to greatly expand funding for humanities in higher education in order to afford all the specialists you’re planning to hire to teach the thousands upon thousands of students at any given university who need to fulfill their requirements by taking one of these specialized 101 courses you’re proposing. Currently, any number of professors can teach the early America historical survey. But if you have to offer a colonial America, early America, post civil war America history survey each semester you triple the number of professors you need to teach those classes. I LOVE the idea and, I might add, this is how its done in the Ivy League. Republicans, however, hate the idea as they continue to slash budgets for big state schools.

You are correct. Sometimes those classrooms aren’t so comfortable for white students. It’s not really comfortable being in the minority. Maybe it’s a good thing to take that experience and try and understand how minorities feel every day. But in my experience quite a few white students feel quite comfortable in those courses. Some are even more militant than my black students. So the question is WHY do you feel uncomfortable?

Wow are you sure you’re not a liberal? Teaching assistants exist because our education system refuses to hire enough full professors to teach all the students in an undergrad institution.

.
Spoken like someone who’s never had to do it. I’m sorry but as a person being trained to be professor, I just really don’t have any patience for your flippant descriptions of the education process. You really have NO idea how difficult it is and the kinds of choices that have to be made. Seriosuly..you don’t.

Pay closer attention. I was talking about the different way whites and African Americans interpreted different moments in American history. The revolutionary period, great for white men, not so great for enslaved people. Civil War, exciting time for freed slaves, less exciting time for defeated southerners. Reconstruction, an era of white KKK terror, or an era of white vigilante justice. Both were very real perspectives and both should be part of a history course. How exactly should I talk about those periods in history. Only in terms of “liberation” of the revolutionary period, that’s not the whole story. Should we only talk about the south’s defeat? That’s not the whole story. Should we only talk about the KKK as heroes to white southerners? That’s not the whole story.

Thou dost protest too much. I was only talking about them in terms of historical perspective. PHEW! This is a good conversation. You don’t let up huh. You are of course totally wrong and look forward to your response.

__________________
Yesterday, John McCain actually said that if he’s president he’ll take on, and I quote, 'the old boys’ network in Washington.' I’m not making this up. This is somebody been in Congress for 26 years, who put seven of the most powerful Washington lobbyists in charge of his campaign. And now he tells us that he’s the one who’s gonna take on the old boys' network,” he said. “In the McCain campaign that’s called a staff meeting!- Obama, 9/17/2008

I agree and applaud you for your position. My reaction was to the source you used as proof of your argument. Either a right or a left web publication is to be suspected of having an agenda
And it WAS an opinion-piece, which makes it unreliable as a source no matter WHAT side they lean towards. Since Obama is a little to smart to come out and SAY he's trying to start a race war, ANY source you choose is speculative at best. And speculation is not sufficient proof.
That was the reason I challenged your sources. Not the information itself.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trashing the website. I was even a little (pleasantly) surprised when I read the article on Bush and the Republicans. It showed a decided lack of "right-wingery".That's a highly subjective perspective. IMO, Malkin is anything BUT a "hot babe" and both her and Coulter make careers of exploiting rumors and misinformation. Malkin, for instance is only safe when her views are unchallenged.
And Ann Coulter is an emaciated skank, which is MY opinion.Point taken, and I agree. The NYT, specifically, has had a few black eyes in the last decade or so. But, having said that their track record is still pretty good.

__________________
Not a day goes by that I don't see something that reinforces my belief that people are idiots.

Well, and I know you didn't address me, I HAVE listened to Limbaugh for 15 years or more. He has indeed changed, IMO. Or at least his on-air persona has changed, and not for the better.
He USED to be a staunch conservative and had a lot of well thought and reasonable positions. Until he became, by his own description, a "water carrier" for the GOP.
He's a very smart man, but he hasn't really been a "leader" among conservatives. He has seemingly adapted to his increasingly far right audience. Of course that's where his paycheck is and I can never blame him for that. Hell, for the money he makes, I'd wear George Bush's underwear on my head in Times Square at high noon on national TV!
But in my view he is no longer the rational voice of conservatives and a foil of the left wing, and is now a mouthpiece for the far right. It sells, of course, but that doesn't make it good.

__________________
Not a day goes by that I don't see something that reinforces my belief that people are idiots.

[QUOTE=mudwhistle]Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.
- Ronald Reagan [QUOTE]

Reagan was a puppet zombie created by Hollywood. No GOP TV campaign will ever remake his image.

Piss on obama.

Ignore him like most of us ignore other race baiters like al not-so-sharpton and jessie hi-jackson.

Don't be baited into reacting to their obviously racist agenda.

Ignore 'em. Let them fade away into the nobodies they are. Sure they make a lot of noise. ANY nobody can do that. Look at Cindy Sheehan. She made a big noise too. She's still a nobody.

__________________
Something wicked this way comes.

And the overwhelming majority of the population was and is ... ? This will change as the demographics change. Before you hum and haw read the rest of the post. I am going to do a little clarifying also. As I said, "I am a member of the human race. Until more people regardless of race accept this as their true identity we will have problems with race relationships in America."

Then I need to clarify myself as well, though I thought I had. I am not suggesting that America has been a meritocracy for all classes, ethnicity, races, or genders from the beginning of time for all. I do not deny that at one time only male white land owners (most of whom descendants of ex-Brits or in the south ex-Scots, with some Dutch for seasoning) had the vote and were able to own land, enter into business or politics, but for those within that narrow group it was very much a meritocracy. America was unique in this at that time, it was a great step up compared to Britain which was structured on class, birth, and the rights of the noble. Britain is still very class conscious. And at that time, where on planet Earth was there any social system close to that ideal? As our culture developed more and more have been included, brought into the fold of that meritocracy. While we today would consider the Irish (or Italians or Spanish or fill-in-the-blank) white, the power elite of the 1700s and 1800s considered the Irish less favorably and did not included them in their meritocracy. The same happened with every ethnic group in America. During the 1800s there would have never been a Kennedy elected president, because they were descendants of Irish and worse Roman Catholic. It has been bloody at times, as the pendulum swings away for the ideal and then back toward the ideal, but there has been a constant progression of more inclusion of those who in the past who were not accepted by the elites of the past.

A short digression: America was unique for many reasons, but one was the fact that it came into being when for the first time people started to question the rights of the individual above or in relation to the state. The Enlightenment of the West brought forth the ideals of liberty, equality, and freedom for the first time. This was an evolutionary leap in consciousness. Along with this, right on its heels and because of it to a degree, arose the Industrial Revolution.

Slavery had been a human institution that dated back beyond written history. Prior to the Enlightenment of the West and the Industrial Revolution all peoples and all societal types (foraging, herding, horticultural, maritime, and agrarian) engaged in the practice of slavery. Remember the word "slavery" comes from "Slav," as in the Slavic peoples. Most would consider the Slavic people white by today's standards. Only with the emergence of the Enlightenment mentality with its demand for liberty, equality, and freedom for all and the Industrial Age is slavery eradicated. It just so happens that America was coming into being when this was all happening. Roughly between 1770-1870 is slavery ended as an institution in the industrialized West. In a short one hundred years the Enlightened industrialized West ended a human institution that had been practiced since the beginning of time.

The fight over slavery was worse in America, because while the industrialized North (and most of Europe) was coming to find slavery abhorrent, the South was becoming more dependent on its slave culture. When George Washington left office there were almost 700,000 black slaves in America. Over the next half century there was a great extension of slavery due to the increase cotton consumption world wide. There was a doubling of the American cotton crop in the 1820s and then a doubling again in the 1830s. By 1860 cotton exports were two-thirds of the total value of all American exports. This, of course, meant a huge increase in plantations and need for more labor. By 1820 there were a million and a half Negro slaves, by 1860 about four million. And slavery had become the economic foundation for the Southern way of life. The stage was set for the biggest most bloodiest fight over the ideals of the Enlightenment (liberty, equality, and freedom for all) and the ideals of agrarian culture that needed the human labor to sustain itself. 600,000 Americans died.

Except if you were Irish, or German, or Italian, or French Roman Catholic, or Russian Jew or, and the list goes on and on. All of these different ethnic groups (I did not list them in any particularly order) are considered "white" by today's standards, but were not accepted back centuries ago by those of power. As I stated at the beginning of this conversation, our founding fathers set up ideals that were beyond the reality of the times and America has slowly over time became more inclusive and come closer to living by those ideals.

Except for all those who proved themselves by merit. With each generation more were brought into the fold. Those marginalized were tolerated, then accepted (with reservations by necessity or by force) and then, finally included within the meritocracy.

I did not equate Rush's struggles to succeed with Frederick Douglass struggles.

I was not equating or comparing anyone on the list with anyone else on the list. I was simply giving examples of those who succeeded in spite of the fact that they did not come/went/belong to the "right" family/school/club.

Only if you insist, but I really don't think that's necessary.

And I hope I have clarified my point of view.

While slavery was an institution there was no real "color problem" in America. Race was not the barrier separating the overwhelming majority of blacks (there had always been a few free among them) from whites, it was their status as slaves which was upheld by legal sanction. With the emancipation of all slaves that legal framework was swept away and replaced with a framework of democratic equality for all. Suddenly millions of blacks (African-Americans) were free -- most of whom were uneducated and untrained, except for field work, and without any leadership of their own race. They were now in direct economic competition with poor whites who were not too pleased over the defeat of the Confederacy, in an economically ruined South.

Slavery had been abolished, but that did not mean the majority of Americans had evolved enough to accept it. The racism that developed after the Civil War (what we understand as racism today) was to a great degree a response to the perceived undermining of the Southern way of life. Southern politicians understood they had a convenient scapegoat with African-Americans to rally the poor whites of the South to gain power. Before the Civil War African-Americans were protected like any property and were ensured at least a minimum security and maintenance, but after the Civil War and once the Union army left the South, African-Americans had no protector. Sadly after the nation had lost 600,000 it lost the will to fight on and do what was needed to really changing things. After Emancipation the North did not want to press the issue any further -- in the minds of the Northern citizen the heavy lifting had already been done. White supremacy did not reconstitute itself -- it was born.

White supremacy (through Jim Crow segregation) of the South did not receive its death blow until 1965, when a new level of consciousness emerged (the postmodern) which acknowledged the marginalized groups as worthy of consideration and respect. Yet before 1965, African-Americans won success through merit. Little by little over the years African-Americans showed their talent and gifts and merit and with each individual success they undermined the racist rhetoric of inferiority. Jesse Owens showed the arch-racist Adolf (I know he was not an American) and the world the complete baseless of white supremacy by winning the gold. He also undermines your assertion that America was/is a nation of white supremacy. No, self-respecting nation of white supremacists would ask an African-American to represent America in the Olympics, since it contradicts the idea of the superiority of the white race.

end part 1

tashi deleks,

M

__________________
"They haven't got Brains, any of them, only grey fluff that's blown into their heads by mistake, and they don't Think." -- Eeyore, The House At Pooh Corner

Sit like a mountain,
Breathe like the wind,
Mind like the Sky.

When all the Gods are crazy, who do you pray to?

Part 2

That was not a "tradition in this country," it was a habit of consciousness in the whole world. Until the Enlightenment of the West there had not emerged in any broad sense a rational consciousness that questioned that habit of consciousness that accepted the idea of might making right, of physical strengthen determining who were the elite. The ideals of liberty, equality, and freedom for all were not even considered or contemplated in an agrarian society. In an agrarian society physical power determined who had power. The idea of sharing power in a democratic manner never came into awareness, except in a few places where it briefly rose up and then was squashed by the dominate consciousness of the times. Blacks and women were not oppressed or suppressed, they were not recognized, were not seen as equals worthy of liberty and freedom by the dominate agrarian consciousness of the times.

It was a deeply ingrained habit of consciousness on the whole planet.

To say that racism was ingrained in American culture implies that at one time it wasn't a part of human culture sometime in the past. What you are doing is projecting your moral sense, your post-Enlightenment rational consciousness onto a culture (early America) and a time that had not evolved that rational consciousness except in the few highly evolved individuals, who thankfully happened to be the founding fathers of America who laid the seeds of it unfoldment.

That is plain and simply, insulting and wrong. You are projecting your "idea" of what you believe conservatives believe. I am attracted to strong women and have no patience for the delicate subservant submissive flower. My wife is not an amazon and she has little patience for the extreme feminist, but she is not a Suzy homemaker. She is a well educated woman who happens to have a black belt in martial arts (thankfully so do I ). While she is an incredible baker, I am a chef by training and do all of the cooking in our home. Currently I am the main stay-at-home parent for our son Nathanael. Trying to pigeonhole me in a stereotype of your own making will not work.

The majority of people in jail are in jail, because they broke the law. It does not help that in the African-American community the majority of homes have no father present. Thanks to the liberal welfare programs of LBJ the African-American family was basically destroyed.

Ah ... no.

No. A rational consciousness emerged that could, for the first time, recognize the inequities of slavery. Prior to that there was no conscious system of racism. But because of identity politics and postmodern truths taken to the extreme, those on the left in their cynicism and suspicion refuse to recognize that any kind of systemic racism ended years ago. The left claims that racism has gone underground and become the hidden agenda of talk radio and the Republican Party with their subtle code words. Plain and simple --that's garbage.

Who calls anyone articulating principles of self-defense crazy? I would call someone who articulates the idea that America is a racist country founded on the ideal of white supremacy "nuts" and "wrong," but not crazy in the clinical sense.

Anti-racist legislation is dumb. Too often it is determined on the basis of hurt feelings or perceived intention. Motive should not be a factor in determining punishment, guilt and the magnitude of the crime (the act) should be. Other than solving a crime and helping to determine guilt during a trial, motivation is unimportant. Also, it has been used too often for political reasons rather than real legal considerations. A person who commits a violent crime needs to be punished for the violence, their action, their behavior -- not their motivation, their thoughts, not their ideas about the victim.

Do you deny that those who were once considered unworthy are now given legal protection and rights that were once denied them? Do you not acknowledge that this has happened over time with each generation coming closer to the ideal of liberty, equality, justice, and freedom for all?

No. What happened was a new consciousness emerged that was able to recognize the inequities of slavery and then worked and fought to change the status quo of the times. The majority of abolitionists who worked to end slavery were white. The majority of those who worked the Underground Railroad were white. The majority who fought and died for the Union in the Civil War were white. And this blame game gets us nowhere.

Most of "those people" are either dead or in the old folks home. Who protect James Meredith and enforced the law? U.S. Marshals, white guys. Why was the Civil Rights Amendment able to pass? Because the majority of Americans were offended with what they saw on TV and read in Travels with Charlie.

Or because the crime rates were raising in the inner city.



A dumb idea even if it well intentioned is still a dumb idea.

When the majority of white Americans (mostly in Northern states) watched with horror the treatment of African-Americans in the South. Watching local police use fire hoses and dogs on African-Americans during peaceful protests offended most white Americans.

Yet, TIME magazine still named MLK their person of the year. Yet, the Civil Rights Amendment became law. Yet, with every generation a greater number of people believe in the principles of liberty, equality, and freedom for ALL PEOPLES. History is my proof.

I explained this above. Hopefully your brain has grasped what I mean and my brain has articulate it better.

Experience. I have worked in the business world (mostly the restaurant business) rather than lived in the academic world and it is pretty much a standard view that affects policy in hiring and firing. This is particularly the case with corporation rather than small businesses. Affirmative Action does more harm to the Civil Rights Movement.
Affirmative Action Fraud: Can We Restore the American Civil Rights Vision?
Michigan Case Reveals Truth About Preferences
Handicapping Freedom: The Americans with Disabilities Act
Hoover Institution - Policy Review - The Quota Czars
Hoover Institution - Hoover Digest - Racial Quotas in College Admissions: A Critique of the Bowen and Bok Study
Hoover Institution - Policy Review - Smart Women, Foolish Quotas
Hoover Institution - Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson - MIND THE GAP: The Racial Gap in Education

And what group did that forcing down the throats of the resistant white populace? A white group, white individuals who believed strongly enough and had the courage to face down the screams of "N*** Lover" "Race Traitor," and the violence of those whites still stuck in the consciousness of the past. If there had not been whites who stepped forward to end slavery, slavery would not have ended. If there had not been whites who stepped forward with MLK to end segregation, segregation would not have ended.

Nice way to finish our conversation. Sad really since I am so enjoying this debate. Now on to the next long one.

tashi deleks,

M

__________________
"They haven't got Brains, any of them, only grey fluff that's blown into their heads by mistake, and they don't Think." -- Eeyore, The House At Pooh Corner

Sit like a mountain,
Breathe like the wind,
Mind like the Sky.

When all the Gods are crazy, who do you pray to?

Yes, the segregation of academia was brought about by the raise of feminism, the Black Power movement, the Student Up Raisings of the 60s, Postmodern intellectual movement and the fear and weakness of the established academia. Much of this was drive by the Postmodern movement taking their partial truths to the extreme which fed into all of the above except the established academia. Students (and a small number of Profs) demanded that they have the opportunity to learn what they want. Feminists demanded women studies. African-Americans demanded Black studies. And the teaching of the humanities, literature, and history were never the same.

Obviously people had to fight for it. We had a Civil Rights Movement, because enough people (Black and White, Jew and Christian, north, south, east, and west) had awakened to a higher level of consciousness that recognized those who had been marginalized (African-Americans, women, homosexuals) as worthy of not just of respect but of inclusion. If this awakening to a higher level of consciousness had not happened, people could have fought all they wanted and they would have been squashed by the establishment. If the majority of white Americans had not been able to feel with empathy and compassion the blight of African-Americans as they faced down the fire hoses and dogs of Southern sherifs during peaceful protests the Civil Rights legislation would have never passed. Yes, they were called "radical" and "militant" and some of them REAL were radical and militant, but the leaders (MLK) of the movement were neither. MLK did not call for rebellion and the destruction of America. He did not advocate or condone the use of violence to push the cause.

Because these different disciplines have been so segregated they have suffered from bad scholarship (such as the idea that patriarchy has been the intentional oppression of women by men and that all sex is rape) and mainstream academia has suffered since it has not integrated the real contributions of women and African-Americans.
So you do acknowledge that the segregation of the humanities, literature, and history does have to do with feminism, the Black Power movement, and the Student's Up Raisings of the 60s? Yet, above, you claimed that these social movements had nothing to do with the forced changes in higher education. Who is being contradictory?

It would require integrating the insights and truths from all of these disciplines, while dropping their extreme pronouncements (from women's studies -- all sex is rape, from cultural studies -- there are no absolute universal truths, except for the one I just stated). We need to go back to the original core purpose of a liberal education, while integrating the insights and truths of all of these disciplines. Essentially education needs to be radically restructured from K through 12, and at the undergraduate level. Our graduate, and Ph.D. levels are not as problematic. Since you are in academia it would be easy for you to look at some of the textbooks of fifty or a hundred years ago. Compare the standards then with now. Also when 1st through 12 was first developed on a national level, in many ways it was designed to produce a standardized level of education in a standardized process. I have little problem with the standardized level, but standardizing the process has been shown to be somewhat problematic. Different people learn in different ways, but that does not mean we want, from a social position, different levels of education (barring some handicap).

I admit it has been awhile. So, am I just talking out of my ass? Well, that would be physically impossible. My wife has her master's in English Literature and education which she earned 10 years ago, my nephew is in the process of finishing his college degree in History and education, my niece is currently working on her degree in English Literature, and have a few close friends who are in college working towards their own degrees (political science, environmental science, biology, and business management). I also regularly steal their textbooks and read them. Sometimes these are wonderful reads, sometimes they are give me a break reads. Both my wife and I are voracious readers, reading in a month what most Americans read in a year or two. Both my wife and I strongly believe that an education never ends. Not only is there always more to know, the depth of knowledge is almost infinite.

Are they integrating the different narratives by marginalizing the common narrative? Do they pooh pooh what your white male students "real history" or do they work at putting it all into the proper perspective?

You will have gotten it right when all students complain regardless of race, sex, creed, or sexual orientation and when all students complain that the course is too demanding.

Don't try to teach 300 years in 13 weeks. Do it in three sections of 13 weeks each. As I said above, I advocate a radical restructuring of education from K through 12 and the undergraduate level.

end part 1 of Education discussion

tashi deleks,

M

__________________
"They haven't got Brains, any of them, only grey fluff that's blown into their heads by mistake, and they don't Think." -- Eeyore, The House At Pooh Corner

Sit like a mountain,
Breathe like the wind,
Mind like the Sky.

When all the Gods are crazy, who do you pray to?

Part 2 of Education discusision

An American student should graduate from college with a foundation that highlights the commonalties of all Americans while recognizing the contributions of all the diverse perspectives, while promoting the best and the foundation of what makes America great. This means raising standards and demanding more from our students. At the same time I do not believe that college is for everyone. Trade schools and technical schools need to be expanded and reworked so they produce individuals ready for the market place in their chosen field. Everyone should have access to those trade/technical schools before they graduate from high school -- if they chose to go there.

As you said, choices have to be made. You choose the writers who influenced American history and those who influenced those who affected American history or American Literature. Joseph Campbell tells a story of how when he taught at Sara Lawrence he would give a required reading list to his students. Some time during the semester someone would eventually stand up and ask/complain that the required reading was too demanding. He would laugh and tell the student that they had their whole life to complete the required reading.

Yea, I noticed that after I posted it. I think you know where to put him.

American Literature and American History should be a requirement for graduation -- an integrated American Literature, an integrated American History. A student should be told by their teachers what they need to learn. Students should not choose the basic requirements to fulfill some humanities requirement.

American students who graduate from high school should have a strong and deep knowledge and understanding of American history. Particularly of its founding. How many American students are required to read the Federalist Papers? They should be in required in High school.

Obviously not all Republicans hate the idea, since I am a Republican. Also I do not believe that this would require more money. What it would require is actually a lot harder -- a complete restructuring of the educational system and a raising of standards. Look at the endowments of all of the top ten -- most of them have enough money to pay for all of their own students tuition from the interest of those funds with enough left over to pay for the costs of running the school. The amount paid out for the administrations of nearly all our state schools should be cut.

R i g h t all minorities feel oppressed every day by evil white guys. Again, I am a human being. Until people identify themselves as a human being rather than a hyphenated race or ethnicity there will be problems between races and ethnicity's.

White guilt does that.

Ah ... when did I say I would feel uncomfortable? There you go again, projecting your own ideas about white guys on to me. Actually I would find it very interesting and I wished I had the time and money to do take such courses. Of course, I would probably make others in the class uncomfortable if and when they start making the extremist claims found in the literature of women's studies and African-American studies.

Remove the outdated tenure structure, replacing it with a review board that insures academic freedom, and require full professors to focus on teaching rather than the writing in academic journals. I understand the need for the science to focus on research and with that writing in academic journals, but the humanities and literature, not so much.

You may be right. Then again, I do not accept "I can't," "Its too hard," "That's impossible." A negative mindset is never able to accomplish anything. To do anything, you must believe it is possible first.

What you just wrote was a better way of presenting your own perception of the different ways different people interpret different moments in American history. What you had written reflected a not so kind, inherently racist way whites interpret certain events in American history.

I completely agree with you that the whole story needs to be taught. Which is why I believe the humanities, literature and history should be desegregated.

Yes, I am enjoying this one also. I look forward to your response, even though you are totally wrong. Nothing like a short little response.

tashi deleks,

M

__________________
"They haven't got Brains, any of them, only grey fluff that's blown into their heads by mistake, and they don't Think." -- Eeyore, The House At Pooh Corner

Sit like a mountain,
Breathe like the wind,
Mind like the Sky.

When all the Gods are crazy, who do you pray to?

Hello Scribbler,

Yes, but you are not saying that Rush is a racist.

Yes, he has changed his on-air approach, but I think it is more, as he said, stopped carrying that water for the Republican Party. But your comments reminded me of an article I read several years ago. We tend to see the perspectives of others in relation to our own perspective. I cannot find a current active link, but I had saved it on my computer and here is the relevant portion.

tashi deleks,

M

__________________
"They haven't got Brains, any of them, only grey fluff that's blown into their heads by mistake, and they don't Think." -- Eeyore, The House At Pooh Corner

Sit like a mountain,
Breathe like the wind,
Mind like the Sky.

When all the Gods are crazy, who do you pray to?

He might well BE a racist. However, before I say he is I just need some concrete evidence, and random sentences from a talk show which can have more than one meaning, and that are blown up by the media isn't enough for anyone to base such a judgment on.He SAID that, but in my opinion his commentary has not changed any.
It's all audience-driven. If a bunch of radical right fools want to believe every word he says is the wisdom of the ages, Limbaugh will make sure they get all the "wisdom" they can swallow.
I just found it interesting he would actually SAY he carried water for the GOP. It must have just been a little childish petulance because the Republicans lost the majority.

__________________
Not a day goes by that I don't see something that reinforces my belief that people are idiots.