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Wingnuts Erupt In Rage Over Coates “Reparations” Article Without Bothering To Read It
Last edited Thu May 22, 2014, 06:18 PM - Edit history (1)
This is an excellent article, well worth reading: Ta-Nehisi Coates: The Case For Reparations.
The Case for Reparations
Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
MAY 21, 2014
The implications are chilling. As a rule, poor black people do not work their way out of the ghetto—and those who do often face the horror of watching their children and grandchildren tumble back.
Even seeming evidence of progress withers under harsh light. In 2012, the Manhattan Institute cheerily noted that segregation had declined since the 1960s. And yet African Americans still remained—by far—the most segregated ethnic group in the country.
With segregation, with the isolation of the injured and the robbed, comes the concentration of disadvantage. An unsegregated America might see poverty, and all its effects, spread across the country with no particular bias toward skin color. Instead, the concentration of poverty has been paired with a concentration of melanin. The resulting conflagration has been devastating.
One thread of thinking in the African American community holds that these depressing numbers partially stem from cultural pathologies that can be altered through individual grit and exceptionally good behavior. (In 2011, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, responding to violence among young black males, put the blame on the family: “Too many men making too many babies they don’t want to take care of, and then we end up dealing with your children.” Nutter turned to those presumably fatherless babies: “Pull your pants up and buy a belt, because no one wants to see your underwear or the crack of your butt.”) The thread is as old as black politics itself. It is also wrong. The kind of trenchant racism to which black people have persistently been subjected can never be defeated by making its victims more respectable. The essence of American racism is disrespect. And in the wake of the grim numbers, we see the grim inheritance.
snip
The Supreme Court seems to share that sentiment. The past two decades have witnessed a rollback of the progressive legislation of the 1960s. Liberals have found themselves on the defensive. In 2008, when Barack Obama was a candidate for president, he was asked whether his daughters—Malia and Sasha—should benefit from affirmative action. He answered in the negative.
The exchange rested upon an erroneous comparison of the average American white family and the exceptional first family. In the contest of upward mobility, Barack and Michelle Obama have won. But they’ve won by being twice as good—and enduring twice as much. Malia and Sasha Obama enjoy privileges beyond the average white child’s dreams. But that comparison is incomplete. The more telling question is how they compare with Jenna and Barbara Bush—the products of many generations of privilege, not just one. Whatever the Obama children achieve, it will be evidence of their family’s singular perseverance, not of broad equality.
Even seeming evidence of progress withers under harsh light. In 2012, the Manhattan Institute cheerily noted that segregation had declined since the 1960s. And yet African Americans still remained—by far—the most segregated ethnic group in the country.
With segregation, with the isolation of the injured and the robbed, comes the concentration of disadvantage. An unsegregated America might see poverty, and all its effects, spread across the country with no particular bias toward skin color. Instead, the concentration of poverty has been paired with a concentration of melanin. The resulting conflagration has been devastating.
One thread of thinking in the African American community holds that these depressing numbers partially stem from cultural pathologies that can be altered through individual grit and exceptionally good behavior. (In 2011, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, responding to violence among young black males, put the blame on the family: “Too many men making too many babies they don’t want to take care of, and then we end up dealing with your children.” Nutter turned to those presumably fatherless babies: “Pull your pants up and buy a belt, because no one wants to see your underwear or the crack of your butt.”) The thread is as old as black politics itself. It is also wrong. The kind of trenchant racism to which black people have persistently been subjected can never be defeated by making its victims more respectable. The essence of American racism is disrespect. And in the wake of the grim numbers, we see the grim inheritance.
snip
The Supreme Court seems to share that sentiment. The past two decades have witnessed a rollback of the progressive legislation of the 1960s. Liberals have found themselves on the defensive. In 2008, when Barack Obama was a candidate for president, he was asked whether his daughters—Malia and Sasha—should benefit from affirmative action. He answered in the negative.
The exchange rested upon an erroneous comparison of the average American white family and the exceptional first family. In the contest of upward mobility, Barack and Michelle Obama have won. But they’ve won by being twice as good—and enduring twice as much. Malia and Sasha Obama enjoy privileges beyond the average white child’s dreams. But that comparison is incomplete. The more telling question is how they compare with Jenna and Barbara Bush—the products of many generations of privilege, not just one. Whatever the Obama children achieve, it will be evidence of their family’s singular perseverance, not of broad equality.
Read More:http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
However on #tcot (Top Conservatives On Twitter) they are enraged and seething, and of course, never even bothered to read the article.
Here is a sample of the derpularity. Enjoy.
YeaYouRite @YeaYouRite
@KurtSchlichter two paragraphs? So you read like 1% of the piece and made up your mind?
Kurt Schlichter @KurtSchlichter
Follow
.@YeaYouRite Actually I made up my mind reading the title. Just like I would 4 equally immoral, racist BS like "The Case for Anti-Semitism."
2:14 AM - 22 May 2014
More:http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/43417_Wingnuts_Erupt_In_Rage_Over_Coates_Reparations_Article_Without_Bothering_To_Read_It#rss-sm
The excerpt is but a small part of the article by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I just finished it, I feel it is a must read. It tells a story of the past and sadly brings us right up to today. It's not over, no matter how hard some may wish it to be.
41 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Sharecropper boys in 1936 (Carly Mydans/Library of Congress)
The losses mounted. As sharecroppers, the Ross family saw their wages treated as the landlord’s slush fund. Landowners were supposed to split the profits from the cotton fields with sharecroppers. But bales would often disappear during the count, or the split might be altered on a whim. If cotton was selling for 50 cents a pound, the Ross family might get 15 cents, or only five. One year Ross’s mother promised to buy him a $7 suit for a summer program at their church. She ordered the suit by mail. But that year Ross’s family was paid only five cents a pound for cotton. The mailman arrived with the suit. The Rosses could not pay. The suit was sent back. Clyde Ross did not go to the church program.
It was in these early years that Ross began to understand himself as an American—he did not live under the blind decree of justice, but under the heel of a regime that elevated armed robbery to a governing principle. He thought about fighting. “Just be quiet,” his father told him. “Because they’ll come and kill us all.”
Clyde Ross grew. He was drafted into the Army. The draft officials offered him an exemption if he stayed home and worked. He preferred to take his chances with war. He was stationed in California. He found that he could go into stores without being bothered. He could walk the streets without being harassed. He could go into a restaurant and receive service.
Ross was shipped off to Guam. He fought in World War II to save the world from tyranny. But when he returned to Clarksdale, he found that tyranny had followed him home. This was 1947, eight years before Mississippi lynched Emmett Till and tossed his broken body into the Tallahatchie River. The Great Migration, a mass exodus of 6 million African Americans that spanned most of the 20th century, was now in its second wave. The black pilgrims did not journey north simply seeking better wages and work, or bright lights and big adventures. They were fleeing the acquisitive warlords of the South. They were seeking the protection of the law.
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
And here is this little gem
How To Tell Who Hasn't Read The New 'Atlantic' Cover Story
In this month's issue, it's done it again. Ta-Nehisi Coates' cover story sketches out the trajectory of historical disadvantages accrued by black folks over the last several generations and argues that it's time for Americans to have a reckoning with this legacy.
This essay has been titled "The Case For Reparations," which means many folks might think they've read the essay before they've actually read the essay. (The magazine even released a trailer for it last week.)
You may not have read the piece, but it's possible you'll see people talking about it even though they haven't read it either. (To be fair, it's pretty long!) MSNBC's Adam Serwer anticipated this in a tweet last night.
AdamSerwer ✔ @AdamSerwer
Follow
How to Read TNC's piece on reparations:
1. Read the title.
2. Stop reading. Do not read past the title.
3. Explain that racism is over.
6:33 PM - 21 May 2014
254 RETWEETS 238 FAVORITES ReplyRetweetFavorite
To that end, here are three handy tips to help you suss out folks who haven't actually read it themselves.
(Full disclosure: Coates is a friend, and I had the chance to read the piece several days before it was published.)
In this month's issue, it's done it again. Ta-Nehisi Coates' cover story sketches out the trajectory of historical disadvantages accrued by black folks over the last several generations and argues that it's time for Americans to have a reckoning with this legacy.
This essay has been titled "The Case For Reparations," which means many folks might think they've read the essay before they've actually read the essay. (The magazine even released a trailer for it last week.)
You may not have read the piece, but it's possible you'll see people talking about it even though they haven't read it either. (To be fair, it's pretty long!) MSNBC's Adam Serwer anticipated this in a tweet last night.
AdamSerwer ✔ @AdamSerwer
Follow
How to Read TNC's piece on reparations:
1. Read the title.
2. Stop reading. Do not read past the title.
3. Explain that racism is over.
6:33 PM - 21 May 2014
254 RETWEETS 238 FAVORITES ReplyRetweetFavorite
To that end, here are three handy tips to help you suss out folks who haven't actually read it themselves.
(Full disclosure: Coates is a friend, and I had the chance to read the piece several days before it was published.)
http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2014/05/22/314881767/how-to-tell-if-someones-actually-read-ta-nehisi-coates-essay
This whole thing is spot on
But somehow, this doesn't matter...because Jena and Barbara Bush have even more? 
So affirmative action's goal is to create a black inter-generational overclass to rule over the rest of us in the same way the Bushes have always done?
Coates positions is not defensible under any theory of AA I've ever heard.
Malia and Sasha Obama enjoy privileges beyond the average white child’s dreams. But that comparison is incomplete. The more telling question is how they compare with Jenna and Barbara Bush—the products of many generations of privilege, not just one.
Although, honestly, some good did come out of this. One particular part of Juror #6's comment was quite insightful, IMO:
Good people from all races and nationalities must work in the present for the common good.And I say, amen to that!
