I think that’s a nice euphemism for politically belligerent posters.
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dbentley666 — 5 years ago(November 26, 2020 05:49 PM)
None of that matters. America is, of all countries in the world, most obsessed with visual symbols (partly because of the immense role that advertising plays in American life, partly because verbal intelligence has been steadily diminishing). Symbolically, she's black. and if she's willing to take the burden of being black (and it's still a burden, whatever anti-affirmative-action whites might say), then she's black. What would happen if she were to espouse "white" causes? She'd be seen as a race traitor. So she's as trapped by the symbolism as anyone else, and that's in some ways a good thing.
Your point is interesting, but not for the reasons you think it is. Critical Race Theory has made a huge difference in American politics, and one of their key arguments (made by Derrick Bell) is that racial change in America comes only when white people want it to come (which is, of course, a variant of Marx's idea that the proletariat cannot achieve their destiny without help from a disenchanted fraction of the bourgeois, who become vanguardist intellectuals). So Obama and Harris are as close as whitey will get to endorsing blackness (they're safish quasi-blacks) but their symbolic triumph over old-style racist whites is significant. Even a safe black like Obama almost drove the Republicans crazy!
You want Malcolm X in the White House? Ain't gonna happen. Maybe in a half-century. -
Platonic_Caveman — 5 years ago(November 26, 2020 08:26 PM)
The hell it don't matter. This is simply about political representation. One group, African-Americans, the descendants of American slaves, have been systematically denied full representation in government. It's great for a liberal white Democrat to address their concerns. But there is still the real issue of political representation by a historical underclass.
And I was unaware of the Critical Race Theory. But my argument is fully consistent with that. How is it not? Wow, I'm good. I address the issue as raised by Bell and Marx exactly, and I did it with my own rational process of political logic.
The white power structure places these tokens in power and still deprives real African-American of full participation in government. But it looks good, right?
It is not a matter of chance that the Democratic power establishment chose Harris over a real African-American candidate like Maxine Waters, Al Sharpton, Cory Booker. There are many qualified candidates. But no, Biden chose the daughter of a mixed blood Jamaican immigrant and an Asian immigrant. It's smoke and mirrors.
Administrator
"filmboards is a bold experiment in free speech and anarchy"
I GameBoy -
dbentley666 — 5 years ago(November 26, 2020 08:35 PM)
It may be true that Harris was chosen because she's a tractable candidate, but the optics are still the most important thing. Also, once you open the floodgates of "true" ethnic identity there'll be no end to it. Soon guys like you will be asking: "Who has suffered most? Can you prove it? Where's the documentation to show your ancestors were slaves?"
Critical race Theorists would agree that Harris getting in is a sign of white accommodation, but they'd still see it as a plus. It's a foot in the door. You'd have black voters reject her till they got an authentically suffering, slavey black, into the White House? That's the quick route to no power at all, fast. -
Platonic_Caveman — 5 years ago(November 26, 2020 08:52 PM)
Barack Obama was a plus even if he was raised by white women and had an African not an African-American father. I can't deny that.
But this lady with a history of corruption? The pressure was on to choose a real African-American and the white power structure deftly avoided that.
But again, the issue is not "Who has suffered most?" It's a very straight forward matter of representation by a historical underclass.
Administrator
"filmboards is a bold experiment in free speech and anarchy"
I GameBoy -
dbentley666 — 5 years ago(November 26, 2020 08:58 PM)
The next time around they'll get a woman whose ancestors suffered so much that she died in childbirth. Whitey will be sufficiently softened up by then to accept a black Muslim transvestite who wants America to melt all her guns into one enormous ploughshare (with which to harvest organically grown vegetables).
