Following up on a couple things that I've been thinking behind the scenes of recent debates, I've been making sure that my Conservatism category is up to date. I happened across two interesting posts.
The first is GOP Rent A Negro. Having my lost my patience monentarily with FN and his crew, its a good reference for those trying to dissect my thought process. I sum up my attitude in issuing the challenge in this first paragraph that I wrote more than 18 months ago:
..most blackfolks who are antagonistic towards the GOP are pitifully ignorant of it. They don't distinguish between the various factions within the Party, they don't know the differences between Bush & Reagan, they don't know the difference between Fiscal and Social conservatives, they don't distinguish between Neocons and Paleocons, and they inclined to believe that any garbage that sticks to Donald Rumsfeld for example, sticks to every black Republican. So instead of them listening to what it is we're actually saying, they're pitching whatever garbage they can dream up and saying 'what about this?'. In other words they have been educated by gibberish and they believe it enough to consider their antagonism logical and proper. Most of the time it is broadly prejudicial, flatly ignorant and quite frankly embarrassing. People who don't bother to consider the intellectual distinctions between blackfolks are pains. Likewise more often then not I am likely to ignore such people, or tell them they are full of dookie. To which they generally respond that their dookie doesn't stink as much as my dookie, the problem being they have no idea which dookie I claim, to what extent, to what ends and for what motivation. So basically, I'm not going to chase down that monkey business because it's like arguing with people who think all rap sounds the same. They're never going to get it, so to hell with them. My message to you is learn to speak in politically coherent terms and you'll get real feedback, in the meantime all of your questions sound like stupid questions to me.
OK so now you know where my bad attitude comes from, but I do give props to Zimbel for meeting me halfway on the challenge.
But the reason I would go fight FN in the first place might seem puzzling and 'anti-black'. Here's the rationale from a pretty good and recent discussion about black racial self-interest:
For 15 years, my answer has been "Don't second-guess black people." So from that perspective the answer would be no, that phrase is a non-starter that I immediately discount.
Today I am second guessing the intent and capacity of those who would address African Americans with a black political agenda. Today, I'm interested to investigate the claims of those who *do* use that phrase, with the purpose in mind to disabuse them of their moral authority. I do so because I think there are two fundamental errors. The first is that they are arrogating authority in biologically racialist ways. The second is that they are violating the spirit of previous successful movements and values of African Americans.
I tend to believe today, that 'blackness' has lost its coherent meaning in the context of contemporary politics. That there is an unbridgable gap between the Black of the 60s and any meaning it has today 40 years later. I think African Americans are left in the lurch without a clear road.
Now here's what seems to be a very interesting parallel when it comes to racial politics. Especially when it comes to the Southern Strategy and Black Nationalism. I believe that both of them are ineffective, outdated and institutionally bankrupt. I haven't really held them up side by side and said so straight out, but it has been implied in everything I've been saying this week.
So now I'll say it more directly. Black Nationalists are still fighting Southern Strategists. So there are several questions which ought to be answered.
1. Does it matter?
2. How do party politics play into this?
3. How influential is this battle?
4. Where is it taking place?
I have a few brief answers.
1. Sorta. To the extent that Americans are drawn into and stay in politics based on racial appeals, it is the demarcation line of a failure of real democracy. It is a throwback to tribalism, only proving our society is not as righteous as it could be. I am convinced that the strength of the nation is not in jeopardy because of this - there are no great ethnic conflicts in store, especially when talk in current events say things like "R. Kelly is the new OJ".
2. Marginally. Everyone acknowledges that overt racial appeals have no place in significant political campaigns. There are no replacements for the Southern Strategy. Everything is now racial dog-whistle politics with nothing but rhetorical patronage on the back end.
3. More than marginal. I figure that 15% of America is racist and another 15% are insufficiently moral to combat bigotry at any level. So while few people cop to thinking stupidly, plenty are. There are plenty of crackpots bloviating and sheep out there who are ready to listen to the latest racial bloviation. Both parties think they are more central to American politics than they really are, and that's primarily because they can and will be manipulated as useful idiots. I don't think there's much of a way around this aside from the racial smackdown - (c.f. Jessie Owens, Joe Louis...)
4. Online. In Sherwood Forest. In ghettoes of all sorts. It's not taking place in the mainstream and the combattants aren't meeting face to face.
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In any case, I think these movements are ships passing in the night. I think their influence is less pressing than the expectation of its influence. And I think that expectation is manifest implicitly in expressions like "Why don't Republicans reach out to blacks?". There is a general expectation that some racial self-interest politics are supposed to be played in America, and when people ignore it, they get called on it. There is *supposed* to be a white vote. There is *supposed* to be a black vote. There is *supposed* to be a latino vote. Therefore there are racial appeals, and racial rhetorical patronage.
Again, I think both Southern Strategists and Black Nationalists are woefully out of date.
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