Speaking of the party line, American Thinker is another right wing website. And a site endorsed by Michelle Malkin too. With fans like her I would take anything on there with a bit of salt.
Here is a page from Sourcewatch on American Thinker.

Would I be right in assuming you assign more cred to this site than, say, the New York Time or the Washington Post?

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

Since when has America been a meritocracy. What's the first lesson of business school? Form relationships, learn to play golf, be able to handle a cocktail or two. Why? Because huge amounts of success in business comes from social interaction and personal relationships. Why else do people join well connected fraternities. Why is it that family members/friends of company management have a leg up for open positions. Because relationships matter. For both women and racial minorities, no matter how qualified, this aspect of business was essentially shut out for many, obvious reasons. It's one thing to have laws that force you to hire someone, you can not, however, force people to hang out with those with whom they might have little in common due to gender or being raised in very different social circumstances. And because the leadership, i.e. promoters, within business are overwhelmingly white men, "quotas" as you describe is meant to balance out the social advantages others receive just by virtue of being white men. Remember, Affirmative action is much more to the benefit of WHITE WOMEN. You keep ignoring that. Hmmm, wonder why. So no. Now if you respond to this can you please not just repeat the claim "but it assumes they are inferior." Cause I've actually responded to that reasnoning. Can you respond to mine?

40 years. Systematic racism in this country began in the 1600s. Hmmm, which trend has a longer more embedded history in American culture. I'll let you do the math all your own. You claim it was "false" that there was an extensive history of these kinds of things happening. I suggest you brush up on your American history. Specifically you can check out a spectacular book from your local library
Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans From Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet Washington.
Now before you scream "revisionist history!" remember that this is a book about medical experimentation and one of the first rules of the scientific method is record keeping and documentation. Washington merely uses the records of the thousands of doctors who performed experiments on African American subjects to develop cures for white populations. Here's just a sampler of some of the things she excavates in her book.
In case you were just thinking it was the 19th century? Wrong.

The book goes on and on and on. And again, the records speak for themselves. Unless you are going to claim she manufactured government records despite the fact that her book was reviewed by every major press and won quite a few awards for its painstaking attentiont o detail.

Now, I bring ALL of that up to suggest that Rev Wright's suspicions on HIV-AIDS are actually based on his knowledge of the history. He's wrong, but his conclusions are neither illogical, nor unreasonable considering the legacy.
I'm not sure how exactly that proves any dismiliarity between Wright and King. If your issue with Wright is ONLY that you perceive he judges those who don't believe what he believes then...OK. But if you have any critique of Wrights ideas about American racism, then you must have a critic for MLK as well. Have you READ Kings Letter from Birmingham Jail? Have you READ King's speeches about the Vietnam War and about poverty in the United States? He draws from the same liberationist theology tradition that preaches American racism is a sin against god and that America will have to pay for her sins. You are savvy so I know you can track down a copy of the Letter from Birmingham Jail and King's various statements on the Vietnam War. Why don't you do that before you come here claiming you have some knowledge of the "true" king. I suspect you don't know anything about King's history or writings outside of "I Have a Dream." That was one moment in a lifetime of radical activism.

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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

Except for Rev. Wright being his spiritual mentor for nearly twenty years, officiating at his wedding and baptizing his children, and being a member of a church that promotes that hateful racist anti-Sematic Marxism in Christian drag doctrine, your right not much of link.

Not a very good one. Try something with a little more substance.

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?

I nominate this for Most Obvious Racebaiting thread of the month.

Fortunately for you, I have loads of time on my hands...

I read Kyle-Anne Shiver's essay Obama, Black Liberation Theology, and Karl Marx. I have to admit, she is incredibly clever. Had she not mentioned at the beginning of her essay...

...I would have wondered how someone like her could have slipped through an educational system that often requires logic, reason and critical-thinking skills.

First, she makes the ridiculous mistake of assuming that the parts of something bad must be as bad as the thing itself. In this case, she assumes that because Marxism is, as a whole, a flawed and down-right bad ideology, and that Marx was, himself, quite the asshole, that every statement that Marx makes is also guilty of these same criticisms.

Then, as though that weren't bad enough, she argues that because Marx and Hitler both harbored resentment toward Jewish people, that they are equitable. This is a truly fascinating line of reasoning. It's also horrific. By this line of reasoning, George W. Bush saying, "We will find you and bring you to justice," and Nikita Kruschev saying, "We will crush you," are evidence that the two men stem from the same ideological base.

Interestingly, quite early in the first part of her essay, she displays a quote from Adolf Hitler:

Now, the author obviously intends for this quote to be a criticism of, what she regards to be, Obama's message. Somehow, she tries to argue that Obama has suggested that speeches are all that is needed to motivate the people to action. What's hilarious, however, is that Hitler's quote is virtually identical to the criticism that many have laid against Obama and his supporters. Obama's opponents adopt Hitler's argument as a way to cut down Obama's message. They say, "the people are organizing merely on the basis of his words and speeches."

The author goes on to equate liberation theology to Marxism. However, this thesis is based entirely on two things: (1) The coincidence of a few words - "class," "oppression," "struggle." And (2) A few quotes from Pope Benedict written over 20 years ago which, the author argues, refer to liberation theology. The author doesn't provide any evidence to back up her claims that fighting for a just society is wrong, or that defending the poor is Marxism at its epitome. She just assumes that her readers will make this absurd assumption because, after all, she certainly has.

The reason why I say, "The author argues," regarding the Pope's quotes, is because Shiver consistently places parentheses around the term "liberation theology" when she quotes the Pope, leading one to conclude that those were not the exact words of the Pope. Considering the author's complete lack of respect for context or accuracy throughout the rest of the essay, she asks quite a bit of her reader to giv her the benefit of the doubt in her quotations. Of course, anyone who would buy into the bullshit espoused by The American Thinker wouldn't think twice about accepting said bullshit as gospel.

Shiver uses quotes like "Fight for freedom" and "Power to the people" to argue that liberation theology is warped and radical. Then she does what every white person does when they argue against a religion that is adopted by black people...

...she quotes James H. Cone as saying, "White devil." Of course, the author expects us to be outraged at the fact that the quote comes from an author whose books are sold in the church bookstore of Trinity United Church of Christ, which...oh, wait for it...is Obama's former church! Ipso facto, Obama is a radical, white-hating Marxist, right? You'll buy that, right?

But, the author also makes reference to Cone's use of the phrase, "White Jesus." See if you notice something strange about Shiver's paragraph here...

Did you notice that? Who needs context, right? The author takes two phrases, inserts them into a sentence that she has concocted, and assumes that her readers won't ask for context. She doesn't provide anything about Cone's definition of "White Jesus." She just assumes that Cone's "White Jesus" is a reference to the exact same commonly held perception of Jesus of whom Christians are familiar. This, explicitly, is the conclusion she reaches...

This deep into the essay, Shiver still has not made mention of any quote that could reasonably serve as evidence that Barack Obama shares any of the same views as James H. Cone. She assumes not only that Senator Obama has read Cone's book, but that Senator Obama agrees with Cone's book. After all, we all know that every bookstore that carries, to borrow the examples from the author, Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto is run by Nazi Communists, right? You see where this line of reasoning takes us?

Then, immediately after arguing that Barack Obama is a radical adopter of the beliefs of Cone and, yes, even Farahkan, she oddly asserts...

Someone should tell Shiver that a decision has to be made. Is Obama a subservient, radical Liberation theologist? Or a deceitful faith-faker? He can't be both.

She then goes on to show two quotes...

...and tries to argue that they suggest the same thing. At this point, I had to re-read each quote several times to see if I was missing something. I wasn't. Marx's quote says, for a lack of a better explanation, "religion is bad." Obama's quote says, for a lack of a better explanation, "all faiths must come together to better America." How dare he, right?

In yet another instance of horrible irony, the author quotes Pope Benedict as saying...

Believe it or not, she uses this quote to argue that Obama's speech at Wesleyan College where he stated...

...represents an attempt, by Obama, to do exactly that to which the Pope was referring. To do this, the author makes the mistake of narrowing the definition of salvation to mean only exactly what she wants it to mean. If Kyle-Anne Shiver possessed half of the intellectual capacity of Senator Obama, she would have realized that the word salvation does not possess a single, precise, pigeon-holed definition.

However, what is more trouble than that blatant inability to understand the meaning of a word, is her final statement:

She praises her own religion, demeans Obama's religion, and then uses these characterizations to argue that this, in fact, is what the election is all about. She uses the Pope's quote, arguing against using religion for political purposes, then betrays the message by doing just that.

I can't say this kind of "Christian elitism" is particularly surprising. After all, these are the same kind of people that claimed John McCain wasn't a "true conservative." These people seem to argue that their version of Christianity, or at least whatever version is convenient to their argument that day, is superior to any other form of Christianity. Essentially, they are Christian supremacists.

What Kyle-Anne Shiver has done, to borrow from the author's theme, is adopt a Mein Kampf-ian strategy of connecting unrelated things, using the most convoluted associations, in an attempt to exploit the ignorance of her readership. She assumes that her readers won't ask for evidence. She assumes her readers won't mind if he provides no context. She assumes that the coincidence of words like "class," "struggle" and "oppression" will be enough to provide proof that, not only are Liberation theology and Marxism virtually one-and-the-same, but, by virtue of this pathetic attempt at logic, Barack Obama must, himself, be a Marxist. She has, to use her own words, bamboozled and hoodwinked her readers.

tashi deleks,

RFK1968

__________________
"The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.”
- George Will

Although the complete package of liberation theology is not something I buy into (revolutionary violence being given a wink and a nudge and walking around in sandals and rags, for example), I like the tenets of it. I don't see being associated with an appreciation of liberation theology as all that bad.

Is it all that different from the "1000 Points of Light" idea?

More ipso-facto associations, really lame.

__________________
"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."

-Thomas Jefferson

Hello CMSux,
Pretty much from its beginning, though it is cyclical. John Adams, remember him, one of those founding fathers and an early presidents? How about old Ben Franklin? Neither of them were from a well connected family. Also, with nearly all things American, our founding fathers began with an ideal above the reality and with each generation we have moved closer to fulfilling that ideal. At the beginning America was much more of a meritocracy than Britain with its strict class structure. When I say its cyclical what I mean is that a power elite does come into establishment, in the beginning it was the agrarian land holders. But once the industrial age got going that elite establishment falls away to be replaced by a new elite. The robber barons of industry become the new elite. For an example of merit within those circles, how about Andrew Carnegie. What about now ... Bill Gates, even Rush -- neither of them graduated from the "right school." Yea, but that's just a bunch of white guys! Okay, Frederick W. Douglass, Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, Jesse Owens, Jackie, Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Alvin Ailey, Marian Anderson, Benjamin Banneker, Guion Stewart Bluford, Jr., Ralph J. Bunche, Charles Drew, Dr. Mae C. Jemison, Percy Julian, Lewis Howard Latimer, Jan Ernst Matzeliger, Elijah McCoy, Garrett A. Morgan, and hundreds of others. Each made their mark through merit in spite of the obstacles they faced.

What happens if an individual cannot meet the bottom line? What happens if an individual cannot deliver the goods in a timely manner? What happens if they lose? Will it matter what school or frat they belonged or went to? Will anyone care who their family happens to be? Does it matter who they play golf with or the cocktail parties they go? Not one bit. Sure who you know or who your family happens to be may help you get in the door, but once your in you got to prove your merit. The first lesson of business school is learning the importance of meeting the bottom line and making a profit. Even if Dad owns the corporation, if the son cannot deliver the goods he will be moved into a job with perks, but no power to harm the company. If such a person does gain control then the company goes out of business.

Quotas do not "balance out" the social advantages of others for all time. It can't do that. What percentage of the different races must be accepted, for all to be satisfied that the social wrongs of the past have been corrected? It creates resentment and too often, especially with education, it places individuals in institutions which they are not qualified to attained. This is a recipe for failure. Quotas rest on the ideal that there is some kind of cosmic justice that society can reach. Read the book by Thomas Sowell Cosmic Justice to gain a little understanding of the fallacy of such an ideal. Oh, I should add to the list above Thomas Sowell and Bill Cosby, both grew up in the same projects and through merit achieved success.

So, since it is such a benefit for WHITE WOMEN it should be easier to accept? Wrong is wrong. Period.

Affirmative action assumes that race is a determining factor that overshadows all other qualities. It is based on the idea that due to your race alone you have automatically received either inferior or superior opportunities in life.
Since the Civil Rights Amendment became law it has been illegal for the U.S. government to engage in racism of any kind. With the signing of that law minorities have clear legal procedures to redress any wrongs done to them. Racism as we have come to know it in the twentieth century was essentially nonexistent until after the Civil War when more than 4 million African-Americans became free and became direct economic competitors to poor whites in the South. Prior to that "race" as an issue that divided Americans had nothing to do with race and everything to do with the injustice of slavery. Slavery was a sin that was paid by the blood of 600,000 Americans. Affirmative action cannot pay for the sins of segregation, or Jim Crow, or the lynchings of African-Americans and in fact drives a wedge between the races. Identity politics does not lead to a colorblind society where all are judged by their character rather than the color of their skin.
That's right. There is not an extensive history of infecting African-Americans with fatal diseases to commit genocide against African-Americans. Again, the Tuskegee experiment did not entail African-Americans being infected with syphilis.

There are a few problems with this premise. There are just as many cases, if not more given the percentages of the population, of experiments on other groups and on whites in the medical literature. I'll pick up your book the next time I am at the library. You should take a look at War against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race by Edwin Black. Yes, it does show the inherent racism of eugenics, but it also shows how those who believed in its tenets were more than willing to eliminate anyone they deemed less than worthy regardless of race.

Let's not forget the tests with military servicemen who were exposed to the fallout of nuclear blasts during the 1950s to see if our boys could still fight. Most of whom were white. The LSD tests were done with all races. The medical literature is full of such cases that have nothing to do with singling out any one race. There is not one case that comes even close to what Rev. Wright claims and when he brings up Tuskegee he lies about the facts of that case.

He is wrong about his conclusions and he lies about Tuskegee in his attempt to prove them.
Martin Luther King, Jr., worked to end segregation to integrate the races. Rev. Wright promotes a separatist doctrine along with his compatriot Louis Farrakhan. At their best they both follow the discredited idea of separate but equal (even though the white man is uniquely guilty of the sin of racism and oppression) as a way to attain racial harmony.

Martin Luther King, Jr., believed that segregation was a sin, a social injustice worth fighting for through nonviolent means. He believed in nonviolent Civil Disobedience and did not use or condoned the angry rhetoric of the militant who wished to undermine the social order. It has been twenty years since I read Letter from Birmingham Jail. In many ways I agreed with MLK's stance on the Vietnam War, but at the same time if I had been old enough I would have gone. When America turned its back on South Vietnam, because the Democrats ended funding for the South, it basically condemned millions to die.

One of the sadder aspects of identity politics is the segregation of our education system into separate study groups. We see this in literature, the arts, the humanities, and in history. We read and learn in American literature a bunch of white guys, but if I want to read any of the African-American authors I have to take a Black literature course. If I want to learn about the contributions of African-Americans I have to take a Black History course. But what about women or Latinos or fill-in-blank, I must take a course in feminist writers or Latino literature. The hyphened-American is the worst thing that happened for race (or ethnic or sex) relations. I understand framing a course around "American History," or "English History," "Russian History" or "Asian History," or "African History," or European History" -- they are separate geographical spheres and individual nations. I understand framing a course around specific time periods or events "Middle Ages," or "WW I" or "Vietnam War." But when you separate the histories of the races, or ethnic groups, or of the sexes at the undergraduate level you create the impression that these events or these works of art happened within a vacuum and encourages the identity politics of separation. It ends up doing a disservice for each individual group and does harm to the whole of society. How many white people (how many any people) know the profound thanks we owe to Charles Drew and the sad irony of his tragic death?

MLK did not draw from the same Black Liberation Theology that Rev. Wright promotes. Black Theology and Black Power by James Cone was not published until 1969. "In this new formulation, Christian theology is a theology of liberation -- 'a rational study of the being of God in the world in light of the existential situation of an oppressed community, relating the forces of liberation to the essence of the gospel, which is Jesus Christ,' writes Cone. Black consciousness and the black experience of oppression orient black liberation theology -- i.e., one of victimization from white oppression."
Black liberation theology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rev. Wright asserts that the African-American community is still oppressed by whites and has embraced victimhood. MLK would not do that today and there is nothing in his writings that I have come across that even hints that he would.

Your attempt to elevate Rev. Wright to the stature of MLK by attempting to assert that they are cut from the same cloth is insulting to the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., and all he stood for.

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?

What's so lame is your failure to even attempt to present a rational argument. I guess I'll ignore your posts until you at least try.

"You are judged by the company you keep." "Birds of a feather stick together." There are reasons those became cliches.

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?

Well, unfortunately I don't have loads of time so I'll have to ask you for some patience. I'll try to reply in the next couple of, maybe a few, days.

thank you and 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?

Don't worry about it. I'm not even looking for a debate. I just wanted to point out the flaws in the essay.

__________________
"The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.”
- George Will

Hello Mr. Scribbler,

Personally I'd rather judge things with my own eyes. Too often when someone has said, "Oh that's so fill-in-the-blank." or "They are fill-in-the-blank." -- It isn't so and they aren't.

Hey, now she's a hot babe and often on the mark. Like Ann Coulter much of her rhetoric is specifically designed to get a raise out of the opposition. Then again who out there do I agree with on all things?

It depends on the article, the subject matter, and the writer. The New York Times does not have a good track record over the past few years. Still, it is one of the better written papers.

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?

And the moment in American history when the "new elite" were not white men is...when again?
Um, I'm sorry. Did you just put Frederick Douglass, a man born into bondage, in the same catagory as Rush Limbaugh as people who "made it on merit despite the obstacles." Please bring that back. And while I'm pleased you know some African American history I don't know what this list of extraordinary people is meant to prove. To me, the proof of America being a meritocracy is not that spectacularly gifted and talented African Americans were able to force whites to acknowledge (in limited ways) their abilites to acheive. The evidence of America NOT being a meritocracy is that they had to be overwhelmingly, spectacularly gifted and talented in order to acheive what they did. It's not a coincidence that many of your examples are athletes or entertainers. You can't really deny such visibly public gifts and talents and therefore white society really had not choice BUT to accept Jackie Robinson and Marian Anderson. And even then, we all know that Jackie was chosen to integrate baseball because he wouldn't respond to the virulent racism he was subjected to day, after day, after day. It's a common theme in American history. If you're black and successful, you have to suffer racism silently, quietly and with dignity. Actually showing anger or responding is somehow unacceptable, no matter how violent or brutal the attack on you actually is. As we know, Jackie was physically abused by opposing players and received constant death threats from baseball "fans." In fact even articulating a principle of black self defense gets you labelled a "militant" who wants to "disrupt the social order." Yes a social order built upon the premise that white on black violence is acceptable and black on white violence is unnacceptable. You seem to have this hilarious sense that 400 years of cultural history and ingrained ideas about white supremacy were somehow immediately overturned between 1964-1965. Could a set of laws undermine capitalism? Do away with representative government? Destroy Christianity? Make you a vegetarian? Then why on earth do you imagine that white supremacy, something people fought and struggled and KILLED to maintain, would be wiped away?

Let's also think about Marian Anderson. A spectacular mezzo soprano who didn't make her debut as Ulrica in Ballo in Maschera until well past her vocal prime. Perhaps Leontyne Price would have been a better example.



Well yes, if you decide you only want to talk about class inequality then you can sort of make that claim (more on that later). Is there more to your decision to discuss structural inequality only in terms of class structure other than it makes it easier for you to claim that America is a meritocracy. But you and I know that early American society was not just divided along class lines, it was divided along race and gender lines and while you conveniently frame that as an "identity issue" we know that, in early America it was much more than that. Racial and gendered hierarchy was, very clearly, built into early American legal codes. Here's just one example of what you would describe as early American "meritocracy." In the case of African Americans, the british colonies and early American states reversed centuries of western european tradition and stripped African Americans of the rights of male inheritance. Because African American men were much more likely to be free than women (because women were often unwilling to leave their children behind and escape, also because there were a variety of trades African men could learn and eventually use to purchase their freedom) slave status was passed from mother to child, rather than father to child. A spectacularly ingenious bit of law that meant that the very few African American men who were able to acheive freedom were only able to pass on property or land to their offspring if they first bought their wife AND the kids from bondage. Was that an economic hurdle faced by any white yeoman farmer before 1865? Compare the children of white indentured servants for example. While not from wealthy families, they were born with the assumption of freedom and often had access to either an apprenticeship or had the freedom to strike out and start a small family farm. What "meritous" act did those individuals do to deserve their freedom the children of black slaves did not? If you can answer that I'll concede that early America was a meritocracy.



And like, I'm just talking about ONE of the restrictions on black economic success for the minority of Africans who were able to free themselves before 1865. As you know, the franchise was denied, employment in most skilled trades was denied, travel from state to state was denied, property ownership in many states was denied and often contested, black men were subject to lynching and violence if they attempted to horn in on "white jobs" and had zero redress with the courts or local law enforcement even in the northern states. The list goes on and on and on. And I say all that because your rather lame attempt to list successful African Americans does nothing to speak to the systematic way economic success was limited for the vast majority of African Americans in ways that it wasn't limited for white yeoman farmers in the 18th and 19th centuries. Let alone getting into the 20th.
I don't know what fantasy land you live in, but unproductive well connected white businessmen are everywhere in the businessworld. I really can't "prove" it to you. I can only speak from the personal stories I know of friends and family members in the business world. One thing, however, must be said. Affirmative Action doesn't ensure you KEEP your job. It only opens the initial door. In fact, in my experience, it RAISES scrutiny of women and minority employees to prove they "deserve" it. Another example of "access" that's begrudging and highly contested and something white men who "make it" don't have to be concerned with. But it's a "meritocracy" right?

OK. Must try and not blow my stack. The reason you have “ethnic” and “gender studies” is because white academics fought against expanding their narratives of American cultural, intellectual and social history Tooth. And. Nail. If your issue is that you don’t hear about non-white authors in “American literature” classes, shouldn’t you be taking up that issue with the people who TEACH “American literature” classes. And ask them why they don’t integrate more non-white voices/narratives into their courses. How exactly do you propose this be solved? Make every course give “equal weight” to non-white history/literature, etc. Isn’t that a “quota”? Isn’t that academic affirmative action? You can’t have it both ways. Frankly, what your describing is a problem that white students have with signing up for a course entitled “African American x” or male students have with signing up for a course in “women’s history.” African Americans and women, yeah we HAVE to take American history so we get the white, male narrative. It’s compulsory. But far be it from us to dare to have a course focused on other contributions to the American legacy.

More to the point. Have you ever tried to construct one of these courses? Speaking from experience it is NOT easy. Every professor of “American history” would love to have a truly integrated and enmeshed narrative that included everyon’s contributions. This is impossible. What’s actually spectacular about going over the same period in history/literature in a class exclusively devoted to some other group, is that you get to see the way they interpreted that moment. While some people were super excited about Revolution, others were like “yeah…I’m still a slave.” While some people mourned the loss of the south, others created a holiday around emancipation. While some people cheered the white vigilante soldiers who protected southern femininity, others feared the KKK and cross burnings. The very point of the other courses is to open you up to those perspectives. If you chose not to take them, that’s on the student isn’t it?

I'll get to MLK and Wright tomorrow.

__________________
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

If anyone is going to attempt to start a race war, it's going to be the right-wing crazies who have been brainwashed by Rush Limbaugh and conservative talk radio for so long...and whose anger and frustration will only intensify if Obama is elected president. Just like during the 1990s: Timothy McVeigh, The Unabomber, Eric Robert Rudolph, Ruby Ridge, etc....except this time, with a more racial element and found more in the South.

However, the vast majority of Americans will continue to live their lives happily under the peace and prosperity of the Obama years.

Hello CMSux,

Oh, I see you won't be happy until all evil white men are removed from any kind of power. This attitude, this mental segregation, only encourages the identity politics that continues to divide America. 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.
You had made the claim that only those who belonged to the "right family," went to the "right schools," joined the golf club with the "right people" became successful and made it into the "power elite." I was giving a list of people who did not come from or go to or belong to the "right" family/school/club and yet still achieved success in their chosen field. You may disagree with Rush, but you cannot claim that he has not succeeded in his chosen field.

It proves that people of merit achieve success, in spite of the odds against them.

If America was, as you claim, not a meritocracy in nature and that only those with the right connections (family/school/club) could succeed, then no one who did not have those connections would ever succeed. It would not matter how gifted or talented an individual was, they would not have been given an opportunity to show off, cultivate, or express those gifts and talents.

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.

Yes, Jackie experienced the worst of abuse, but he understood the times and that the better way to fight racists was to achieve success on the field. The social order of today does not accept or condone white on black violence as acceptable. Unfortunately today, for the African-American community the problem is black on black violence.

And you seem to think, like Rev. Wright, that nothing has changed since 1964-1965. It appears that you refuse to accept any of the great achievements of the Civil Rights movement. It appears that as far as you, and Rev. Wright, are concerned that America is still that country of white supremacists oppressing the African-Americans.

Perhaps Price would have been a better example. The point is that those of talent who were willing to face the obstacles life threw at them achieved success.
You forgot a question mark for your question. Please stop trying to imply some hidden (possibly unconscious) agenda underlying my choice of words. There is no there there.

I am sorry I did not make myself clear enough. I am well aware of the structure of early American society and how it was divided along class (economics), ethnicity (and to a degree race) and gender lines. We are talking about, largely, the 1600s and 1700s.

As I said, to quote myself: "Also, with nearly all things American, our founding fathers began with an ideal above the reality and with each generation we have moved closer to fulfilling that ideal. At the beginning America was much more of a meritocracy than Britain with its strict class structure. When I say its cyclical what I mean is that a power elite does come into establishment, in the beginning it was the agrarian land holders."

"...all men are created equal." It took a while for all men (all humanity) to be accepted as equal. But the ideal was built into the system, hidden within the system. And it nagged and gnawed until it was realized. Each generation got a little closer to the mark of that ideal. You seem to think that since America was not, 400 years ago, this perfected place where and when all peoples of the world regardless of class, ethnicity, race, or gender lived happy idilic lives it proves that America was not a meritocracy. What it proves is that America, 400 years ago, was an agrarian culture with all its flaws of slavery and inequality, just like every where else at that time in the world. Within that circle of land holders (yes, they happened to be white, just as during the time of the Roman Republic the citizens of the Roman Republic happened to be Roman) America was still a meritocracy. As time and our culture developed and progressed that circle expanded to include more and more until today when an African-American will very likely become the next president of the United States. You apparently do not want to acknowledge the profound cultural development that has taken place since then and since the 1960s.

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?