Baldwin’s remark that “Urban renewal is negro removal” is 60 years old, but when mocking actual history as “wokism” gone mad, it helps for both the mocker and their audience to be completely ignorant of that history. Relies on it.
Yes I get it, it really sounds crazy that white planners would destroy entire black neighborhoods to build a road. It still happened. theatlantic.com/business/archi…
OMFG WHO IS THIS YOUNG WOKE SAYING BUILDING ROADS IS RACIST?!!?!?! (It's Clarence Thomas).
Anyway racism in urban planning is certainly a historical fact, but that doesn’t mean it no longer happens. msnbc.com/msnbc/mount-ho…
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Before cell phone cameras, de jure and de facto segregation made it hard for non-black Americans to pierce the veil and see the disparate treatment black people experience at the hands of the police. Their own experiences may have made black complaints seem impossible.
In recent years that veil has been pierced by technology, and it has opened many people’s views to a reality they were previously unable to see. At the same time, it has sparked a movement in favor of impunity for armed agents of the state who abuse their powers.
This new movement is fully aware that these abuses exist. The veil has been pierced for them too. But they see brutality as a virtue, and they believe as first class citizens, they will never be subject to the same treatment, and can safely support cruelty towards others.
They’re not mad that Obama said there are religiously conservative Latinos who vote Republican (though that’s not why Trump improved his vote share among Latinos.) They’re mad because Obama called Trump racist, a description that logically extends to the people who voted for him.
In other words the thing they’re actually mad about is white people being called racist, which they find outrageous and offensive, especially from the black former president who should shut up and be grateful. Trump’s racism though, is fine.
*not *necessarily* why Trump improved his Latino vote share, I think it’s not fully clear why yet, but we’ll find out.
So there are LOTS of differences between the U.S. after the Civil War and right now, as Adam says (and my argument is not that this is a 1:1 comparison, but that we are potentially at a similar crossroads in terms of potential for progress)
But I actually want to respond by focusing on something that is maybe underappreciated about how little things had changed in the immediate aftermath, politically. In 1868, the Dems run Horatio Seymour on their classic themes of white supremacy and economic populism.
Most people focus on Francis Blair, his virulently racist running mate, but Seymour's convention speech is interesting to me because of its combining of certain...familiar themes. (Note he considers enfranchisement of black men racist...against white people!)
A couple of tells of a bad faith argument: one is you don’t name the person you’re arguing with, another is that you falsely paraphrase the argument because quoting it accurately would refute the point being made.
The piece actually argues that Farrakhan is a fringe figure who retains a certain amount of support despite his bigotry because of NOI’s work among particularly impoverished communities, and because his white critics lack the standing to discredit him.
I could not be clearer about my enmity for Farrakhan; that’s not the same as not understanding the sources of his continuing relevance. If you don’t want to understand it that’s fine but don’t pretend I something I didn’t say.
I think some of you are overstating the political brilliance of Trump putting his name on too-small stimulus checks that are gonna arrive late, or be direct deposited and possibly clawed back by banks, and be insufficient to sustain people through worsening economic conditions.
If the economy recovers in time, Trump may get a lot of credit. If it doesn’t, whatever measures he pursued are likely to seem insufficient. Idk what will happen in November but people know who the incumbent is and crude branding isn’t gonna make much of a difference.
Not saying this will be Trump's fate, but Hoover spent the latter days of 1932 fuming that Americans weren't more grateful for all he had done and lamenting that they didn't understand economics and freedom as well as he did