If Kanye West is racist, then so is every reader of Dean's World.
As the founder of The Conservative Brotherhood, and being something of an intellectual evil genius, I often have some strange feelings about being less popular in the blogosphere than I believe I should be. As well, I concern myself with the ability of the blogosphere to be an adequate broker of information of concern to Americans. The root of my problem devolves to one essential fact - whites are too popular. In short, no matter what you choose to make of it, there are white owned and operated blogs that will continue to be more effective in disseminating information about blackfolks and black culture than those which are black owned and operated. This unfortunate fact is not, however, racist.
For the sake of brevity, let's call this reasoning existential. All things being equal, people choose bloggers to read because at a personal level, they connect with the writer. They do so because they hear a voice, and that voice speaks to them in the way they want to be spoken to. Even though they may not always agree, it is that tone of voice they adhere to.
So let's consider this axiomatic and evaluate what has just gone down with respect to the great temptation for somebody to call somebody racist, in the context of the New Orleans catastrophe. I submit to you that many of us, drawn to the subjects of race, could have but very few of us should have and that Kanye West is the wrong target. Dean has succumed to the temptation, and draws an interesting loop of logicians attending the discussion.
One theme of this disaster, quickly and easily identifyable by those of us on the Right, is the relative wisdom of depending on government for one's well-being. And my Brotherhood mates were quick to point this out, but not without some considerable hesitation. Nobody sane wants to appear to be callous with regard to the fate of those people suffering greatly in New Orleans. But their is no way to avoid that singular principle of Left vs Right. The very suggestion that Nagin or anyone would tell the poor blackfolks of NOLA, "you're on your own" is either an article of faith (for the Right) or an abandonment of duty (for the Left). And yet the very severity of this crisis has made that matter unavoidable. By definition, those poorest, weakest, blackfolks were inevitably going to be hurt most by any disaster. What would be a poor excuse for anyone capable is going to be a fact of life for somebody else.
I count myself as a member one of the many families who have seen the good and bad, but on the whole sad news that although all of us are accounted for, we have lost property - homes, jobs, pets. And if I would be so bold as suggest it, I would bet the majority of these families took one clue from Nagin "you're on your own" and got the hell out of Dodge with no further government assistance.
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I don't listen to Kanye West. But there is no question about the fact that his business is black cultural production. Hiphop is not all there is to black culture, far from it. But he was stating the truth, he just didn't qualify it the way a politician would. Is there anybody who would question whether or not GWBush listens to Kanye West's music? Of course he doesn't. Is there anyone who questions whether or not West's music has special appeal to blackfolks? Of course not. If there is any reality to the fact that West's primary audience are black and that they are not part of the Bush electorate? So why is it racist to acknowledge this - surely there are plenty of other reasons why West's people don't like Bush and vice versa.
Hell I'm black and Republican and conservative and GWBush, as the head of the Republican party doesn't care about me. So really, how much of a stretch is West making? None. And there's nothing racist about it.
What is anyone to make of the fact that GWBush mentioned Trent Lott's house in his first public statements? Why didn't he find the most troubled person from the ghettoes of New Orleans and say *their* house would be first to be rebuilt? One hardly need think twice to know that's exactly the kind of press conference that Bill Clinton would have staged? This is not in either case, West's or Bush's anything more that them speaking to their constituencies.
If we cannot be comfortable in acknowledging that people are different without drawing it into simplfied racial terms, then we are not going to be able to deal with the real complexities of the underlying politics. Ultimately all Dean is saying by labelling West 'racist' is that West's politics are bankrupt and not worth any consideration. It's the end of negotiation. So now you have to dismiss that camp with prejudice. And who are the followers of Kanye West? A bunch of racists? Hardly.
So this is where so many of the analysts of this issue fall flat. They don't give any consideration to how these constituencies are constituted other than a simplistic racial demographic. And it's simply black & white and not even mildly ethnic. What happened to the Latinos here?
Now it doesn't surprise me that all the angles are taken into consideration. After all, I'm just jumping into the trackbacks now. I think my audience understands a bit more about this tricky territory.
So I'll make a couple quick hits and take questions from the audience.
I'm rather surprised that people don't seem to be ready to recognize that all the shootings we've witnessed in New Orleans this past week were probably going to happen anyway. Only this time the victims weren't the same 'poor black' folks in the ghetto, but rescue workers. New Orleans is a murder a day city, and its been like that for a long time. Nevertheless, McMillan's main thrust is well-taken. There is a special kind of poverty we have in America where thousands of people too obese to walk or work have motorized chairs subsidized by Medicaid. Now we're forced to look at them.
Yet when Goldstein is ready to get into a verbal war over this, I don't think he realizes what he's getting into. What is Kanye West saying which is substantially different than 'Blame Bush'? And if we're going to bring Moynihan into the mix then it's clear we're headed straight into 'blame the victim' territory. That's difficult enough to negotiate in peacetime, which is one of the reasons I've had my piece on Moynihan in draft for over a month. It's going to be a very tough slog to bring all this weight over the dead floating bodies of poor blacks in New Orleans, and that's only going to hurt, not help.
I'm finding lots of reason to enjoy RightWing Nuthouse, primarily because of the new timeline posted there. However Rick Moran has loaded up a big gun and is shooting it off in the air to get attention just like the ruffians in the ghetto. It may very well backfire for him as well. Remember I said so.
Race isn't simply culture, it's class and politics too and until people start putting those three things together into identifyable quantities, blackfolks are going to get blamed for everything whitefolks want to blame them for, without specificity. There will always be one person to prove the point, which demonstrates how small a point it actually is.http://sixmeatbuffet.com/archives/2005/09/02/george-bush-doesnt-care-about-black-people/#comment-7534
UPDATE:
I find it mildly amusing that a few others who have blogged about West's apparent idiocy have never heard of him before today. That would include Dave and PunditGuy. Again, this underscores my point about who elect whom to speak for blackfolks. Just check out the comments at this joint
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