Political Digression Thread -- Save UP! Move the politically focused stuff here

[elrodvt]

I really don't get the current ” angry old white guy” contingent in the conservative party. They generally will make a token effort to pretend they're not racist. But, as in Nicholas's post, the truth is pretty evident (but perhaps not to him and I really hope that's not what he meant).  I'm not sure why they bother as I believe most of them are indeed deeply prejudiced and their party leadership supports that viewpoint.

So, my question is, What exactly do these privileged people have to be angry about?? 

[TCLT]

21 minutes ago, elrodvt said:

So, my question is, What exactly do these privileged people have to be angry about?? 

The anger is an act for the rubes.

 

Quote

If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.

-Lyndon B. Johnson

Quote

Y'all don't quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, "N*****, n*****, n*****". By 1968 you can't say "n*****"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this", is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "N*****, n*****". So, any way you look at it, race is coming on the back-burner.

-Lee Atwater

There's a lot of pretty low white people in America, and we've got a solid few in our midst here. They make up the majority of the Republican party's base too. And they're easily manipulated, especially when they think minorities are undeservedly getting more than them. The pretending is because a lot of brave people have spent the last half century fighting to make overt racism unacceptable. We've unfortunately seen some backsliding in that regard over the last four years.

[Madison Parkitect]

10 minutes ago, TCLT said:

There's a lot of pretty low white people in America, and we've got a solid few in our midst here. They make up the majority of the Republican party's base too. And they're easily manipulated, especially when they think minorities are undeservedly getting more than them. The pretending is because a lot of brave people have spent the last half century fighting to make overt racism unacceptable. We've unfortunately seen some backsliding in that regard over the last four years.

The Republican Party's M.O. since at least the 80s is to cloak itself in religion and convince poor whites that non-whites are the enemy so the poor whites don't realize who's really keeping them at the lower socioeconomic level. It's all a big misdirection sleight-of-hand.

[elrodvt]

^It just seems so obvious though.

[nicholas]

15 hours ago, Durhamite said:

Well, damn.  You need to at least realize the SYSTEM is totally broken for Black people.  The education, law and order, judicial, economic system, etc....absolutely skewed. I mean if you ask the average White American what does a thug, criminal, etc look like...well, there you have it.  It was by design and often I use the fictional movie "Trading Places" as an example....switch the environment, switch the outcome.   I have seen instances where (in Corporate America) White people have refused to work with Black people and didn't get fired.  Really, a top salesman didn't like Black people and refused to work with them so the VP simply relocated the Black person to another division (geographical).   HR did nothing.  [Wouldn't he have a case for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission???  That is hugely discriminatory.] This shat is common, systemic, etc.  I have an advanced degree in Engineering and have worked with White people in similar roles with no degree and degrees in Drama. non-technical fields, etc.  They got in, got trained through years of experience and some actually obtained a degree while working.  Do you think any Black person would even get hired to do certain jobs without the proper credentials?

So you ask us to play poker when we know the deck is stacked against us.  That we know but still keep going....you call it the "hood", and avoid it like the plague...we call it home.  See, Black people know they're aren't inherently dangerous no matter what those fake numbers state.  [Then disprove the numbers.  They came straight from the FBI].  Hell, we didn't drag White people out of their native land half away around the world, enslave them, bet 'em have to death,  lynch and continue to  treat them many times as second class citizens.  

A lot of people thing Black Lives Matter is solely about police brutality,  nah, it's a system that on every level has a negative impact on Black people and that has to change.....on every level in America .  White people are equally if not more dangerous than Black people, period.  [citation?  If you're going to make that kind of statement, provide evidence.]  It's about a  economic and justice system skewed against poor people and a society pre-disposed to consider one subset of citizens as guilty without much of a chance of being proven innocent.  And without the financial means to combat the law and order/judicial system racket which is essentially a multi-billion dollar business.  

Help fix the system, and it will help fix America which was broken form it's inception to date.    Start with you....do something instead of blaming damn liberals.

I am not saying that there aren't other big issues that need to be fixed.  But if all you have to offer are personal anecdotes, and you live in a fantasy where you pick and choose what facts are "real", and accuse me of avoiding blacks when my next door neighbors (and their next door neighbors) are black, then I think this discussion is over.

13 hours ago, JHart said:

This is the more damaging form of racism that exists all over the United States. In your mind you convince yourself that you're not a racist and you don't hate black people simply because they're different from you. You might not burn crosses into the ground and go on group lynchings with your friends but you actively seek out any information that can make you feel superior to another group of people; you're giddy when you come across a new statistic you found online that you can point out to others that this group of people are clearly second class citizens.  [I don't do any of that, but you are free to prove otherwise]

@Durhamite is exactly right that it is systematic racism that has created these issues. We are barely a generation removed from the civil rights era where black people couldn't even use the same restrooms/drinking fountains/restaurants. Charlotte in particular has a long history of systemic racism across the board. Racist white bankers denied loans for certain neighborhoods and redlined entire portions of the city for development, police targeted enforcement of certain areas for crimes that were targeted specifically at minorities instead of whites. It's the new form of white supremacy to ask why an entire race hasn't completely reformed over 1 generation after hundreds of years of systematic oppression..

Blaming *everything* on systemic racism is a convenient excuse to dismiss problems that are more the result of personal responsibility/irresponsibility than actual racism.  I do think there are some systemic effects present in certain aspects, such as black home ownership due to redlining in decades past, and I'm not dismissing other hardships that so many blacks have historically faced.  However, many things - such as black-on-black murder rates, black out-of-wedlock births, etc - are impacted very little by other races; we can "fix" all sorts of "systemic" problems, but if the problems I have mentioned are still running rampant, I don't think any gains made by reformation and/or reparation will be long-lived.

I'm seeing a lot of personal attacks and anecdotes on here from a number of users that show a complete lack of ability to factually dispute statements I have made, or foster any meaningful debate.  Objective facts, which is what I have included in my comments, cannot in and of themselves be racist, and it's unfortunate that you've adopted such a perspective that anyone who tries to bring to light issues that make you uncomfortable simply must be a racist.

Oh and @elrodvt, since you seem so eager to put words in my mouth, I'm not a Republican, and furthermore I didn't vote for Trump in 2016 and won't be voting for him this year either.

Edited October 21, 2020 by nicholas

[elrodvt]

^I thought I was leaving you a chance to say just that? 

Based on others responses it must be obvious to you how your comments came across.  Especially when defending posters like GM and Urban! Maybe you didn't read all their comments though.

[TCLT]

^I thought I was leaving you a chance to say just that? 
Based on others responses it must be obvious to you how your comments came across.  Especially when defending posters like GM and Urban! Maybe you didn't read all their comments though.

You’re giving him the benefit of the doubt that he doesn’t deserve...

[nicholas]

11 minutes ago, elrodvt said:

^I thought I was leaving you a chance to say just that? 

Based on others responses it must be obvious to you how your comments came across.  Especially when defending posters like GM and Urban! Maybe you didn't read all their comments though.

Fair enough.  I didn't mean to come across as defending either one of them, I've had urbanplanet on ignore for months, and definitely did not agree at all with gman's comment, as I have relatives who are gay.  It was more in response to TCLT's reaction.

[Madison Parkitect]

1 hour ago, nicholas said:

However, many things - such as black-on-black murder rates, black out-of-wedlock births, etc - are impacted very little by other races; we can "fix" all sorts of "systemic" problems, but if the problems I have mentioned are still running rampant, I don't think any gains made by reformation and/or reparation will be long-lived.

That's the thing, though: these systemic issues which began with slavery, continued through reconstruction/Jim Crow/redlining/etc., and still exist today, are what is causing the things you're saying are personal issues. You say murder rates and out-of-wedlock births are "impacted very little by other races" but that's not true at all. Everything in minority life is affected by the majority race, to the extent that the median white household has a net worth of $171,000 while the median black household has a net worth of $17,150. You don't think that kind of disparity would lead to higher murder rates and more out-of-wedlock births, let alone the generational trauma black people are literally born with. Slavery was not that long ago and the black race in this country has proven disadvantages in almost every single area of life. It's not surprising that those disadvantages show up in areas like violence and single parents.

[Nick2]

I get that this forum is literally meant to "save UP" from political bs but I think we can be a little nicer to each other in this community even on such a divisive topic.

[urbanlover568]

11 hours ago, elrodvt said:

^I thought I was leaving you a chance to say just that? 

Based on others responses it must be obvious to you how your comments came across.  Especially when defending posters like GM and Urban! Maybe you didn't read all their comments though.

We aren't the ones calling people idiots or assholes. Yall are... 

12 hours ago, Madison Parkitect said:

The Republican Party's M.O. since at least the 80s is to cloak itself in religion and convince poor whites that non-whites are the enemy so the poor whites don't realize who's really keeping them at the lower socioeconomic level. It's all a big misdirection sleight-of-hand.

Justice Neil Gorsuch paved the way for LGBTQ employment protections in Bostock v. Clayton County. Those bigot intolerant Republicans, right? 

[Madison Parkitect]

12 minutes ago, urbanlover568 said:

Justice Neil Gorsuch paved the way for LGBTQ employment protections in Bostock v. Clayton County. Those bigot intolerant Republicans, right? 

I didn't say anything about Republicans being bigoted or intolerant, nor anything about Gorsuch (who has gone against the stereotypical right wing decision on occasion). You took my statement about economics poor white people, in response to another statement about economics and poor white people, and turned it into something about morals.

[ruraljuror]

40 minutes ago, urbanlover568 said:

Justice Neil Gorsuch paved the way for LGBTQ employment protections in Bostock v. Clayton County. Those bigot intolerant Republicans, right? 

All of the Democratic-appointed Supreme Court Justices ruled in favor of LGBTQ employment protections in Bostock v. Clayton County, but the majority of Republican-appointed Justices dissented against that decision. 

Gorsuch certainly deserves the credit you're giving him for writing the opinion, but extrapolating that credit to the Republican party in general  is not accurate if you're using Bostock (or really any other Supreme Court case) as your measuring stick.

Edited October 21, 2020 by ruraljuror

[TCLT]

1 hour ago, urbanlover568 said:

We aren't the ones calling people idiots or assholes. Yall are...

If the shoe fits...

I’ll also point out that nicholas called me an idiot for not believing black people are flawed as a group, so something something both sides. 

[rancenc]

"Trump promises casino in exchange for Lumbee votes"! Great headline for MSNBC news

https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/2020/10/21/president-trump-supports-federal-recognition-lumbee-tribe-cherokee/3720700001/

[tozmervo]

1 hour ago, rancenc said:

"Trump promises casino in exchange for Lumbee votes"! Great headline for MSNBC news

https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/2020/10/21/president-trump-supports-federal-recognition-lumbee-tribe-cherokee/3720700001/

Robeson County is notably at the bottom of the list (well, next to last) for % of absentee & early votes so far in the state.  

[tarhoosier]

(Crude generalization) For a long time Robeson County has been roughly 1/3 white, 1/3 native and 1/3 black. Each of the groups mistrusts the other groups for historic reasons and may form an alliance with another of the three for temporary advantage but the alliance never holds. This population grouping is unique in North Carolina. For many years the County Board of Elections reflected this split though I cannot say if this is true today.

[tozmervo]

2 hours ago, tarhoosier said:

(Crude generalization) For a long time Robeson County has been roughly 1/3 white, 1/3 native and 1/3 black. Each of the groups mistrusts the other groups for historic reasons and may form an alliance with another of the three for temporary advantage but the alliance never holds. This population grouping is unique in North Carolina. For many years the County Board of Elections reflected this split though I cannot say if this is true today.

I'm sure the Lumbees are tired of being promised tribal recognition by candidates of both parties, too, and never getting that delivered. 

[tarhoosier]

NC has the largest population of native americans of any state East of the Mississippi. Sixth most by total in the U. S. 

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/us-states-with-the-largest-native-american-populations.html

These numbers have fluidity as any self-reported numbers of any kind. Cherokee, Lumbee and Tuscarora are established (in the legal and also non-legal sense of that word) in the West, Sandhill and Northeast sections of the state. Native Americans live in places most of us never go making their numbers surprising to many.

[JRNYP2C]

After what would normally be considered a monumental day in the regions history yesterday (if it were a normal year), I'm hearing crickets about the two visits.  The super spreader event in Gaston County, and Harris' hush hush speech at Truist Field.

As a resident of Gaston County, I'm more inclined to stay home and away from people for the next two weeks.  Regardless, I am fairly certain our cases will spike pretty high.  Everything I heard about Harris' visit has me looking at it two ways.  On one side of the coin, it was done with all of the Covid protocols in place (social distancing and masks, etc.), but the way that it was put on with short public notice and very few, if any, public attendance, has me questioning why bother?

[JHart]

14 months of waiting to hear Merrick Garland's nomination, 22 days to confirm ACB. Oh and we'll adjourn the Senate because there is an election coming up, no time to listen to any stimulus proposals that have been sitting around for 6 months..

GOP already know Biden will take over so they've started hamstringing the country so that they can run attack ads next cycle, rinse and repeat like the last 25 years. This country is such a farce.

[Popsickle]

41 minutes ago, JHart said:

14 months of waiting to hear Merrick Garland's nomination, 22 days to confirm ACB. Oh and we'll adjourn the Senate because there is an election coming up, no time to listen to any stimulus proposals that have been sitting around for 6 months..

GOP already know Biden will take over so they've started hamstringing the country so that they can run attack ads next cycle, rinse and repeat like the last 25 years. This country is such a farce.

This issue with Garland was that Congress was 54-44-2 Republican in 2016 (if I remember correctly).  So Garland never stood a chance, had the Dems controlled Congress then or now it would have been the opposite story. 
 

But yeah, the senate as a whole is just a complete joke, regardless of which way you lean and needs to be reformed, term limits would be great in my opinion. 

Edited October 27, 2020 by Popsickle

[urbanlover568]

3 hours ago, Popsickle said:

This issue with Garland was that Congress was 54-44-2 Republican in 2016 (if I remember correctly).  So Garland never stood a chance, had the Dems controlled Congress then or now it would have been the opposite story. 
 

But yeah, the senate as a whole is just a complete joke, regardless of which way you lean and needs to be reformed, term limits would be great in my opinion. 

I have a feeling the House, Senate, and Presidency will go blue next week. There are millions of families on the brink of bankruptcy and the senate chose to focus on the supreme court nomination istead. It's definitely not a great look. They really aren't hamstring anything, because with the legislative and executive branch being Democrat, they can pack the court and/or set term limits. Mcconnell was very short sighted. 

[SgtCampsalot]

2 hours ago, urbanlover568 said:

I have a feeling the House, Senate, and Presidency will go blue next week. There are millions of families on the brink of bankruptcy and the senate chose to focus on the supreme court nomination istead. It's definitely not a great look. They really aren't hamstring anything, because with the legislative and executive branch being Democrat, they can pack the court and/or set term limits. Mcconnell was very short sighted. 

I'm not one to delve too deeply into the bi-partisan duopoly we've got in DC, because it's a trash fire, but W. Bush's 2000 election win was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court. McConnell was towing the line to probably prepare for possibly-contested election results.

Edited October 27, 2020 by SgtCampsalot

[CLTramper]

11 hours ago, urbanlover568 said:

I have a feeling the House, Senate, and Presidency will go blue next week. There are millions of families on the brink of bankruptcy and the senate chose to focus on the supreme court nomination istead. It's definitely not a great look. They really aren't hamstring anything, because with the legislative and executive branch being Democrat, they can pack the court and/or set term limits. Mcconnell was very short sighted. 

Despite covid and the riots a record 56% of Americans say their better off now than in 2016. I agree that some stimulus is needed in targeted areas of the economy. Instead of spending target production that drives economic growth.