It's simply amazing how many people know better than black people...

[steve2470]

Take a gander at the OP by 1StrongBlackMan. I take his word for it. I'm a pretty clueless white guy, so I turn to the experts: THE BLACK COMMUNITY.

This shit is amazing and discouraging. Here, of all places.

[Shrike47]

1. If it's any consolation, I know better than white people. I pretty much know better than anybody.

Just ask me.

[marym625]

2. While I agree with you

And while I understand what 1strongblackman is saying, I don't believe this has anything to do with what he is saying. Or, I guess the better way to say it is, how he is saying it.

Let me say it this way since I am doing a terrible job of explaining myself.

As a member of the LGBT community, and as much as I want social justice and equality, I don't believe we can ever have that without economic equality. Without ridding the country of the corpocracy we have become, any move to social justice will be smoke and mirrors.

This isn't a view on what is needed but how we get there.

[steve2470]

3. yes we need both

I would say to 1StrongBlackMan "Yes, you're right. Of course, we need both ASAP".

[marym625]

6. I guess you were talking about the replies?

I didn't read them. Do I want to?

[steve2470]

7. yes the replies

I think you and I and 1SBM are on the same page. He was being theoretical, I think.

[marym625]

9. oy!

I don't wanna read the replies. They're going to make me upset again.

Probably he was

[heaven05]

4. excellent OP

quite revealing, but these last few days here have been very revealing about our Party's participants and a lot of notions concerning racial injustice and the emotional explosions that the injustice precipitates........and how one is 'supposed' to react to the injustice.

[steve2470]

5. I will gladly follow the lead of the black community in these matters

They are the experts. They are reasonable. We need to listen and follow.

[marym625]

8. absolutely agree with that!

[JustAnotherGen]

21. Ahh - I found one out there

Making stuff up today heaven. Just making stuff up.

When you question them about that - they accuse you of being sensitive.

All I can think is that person is probably a gas lighting verbally and emotionally abusive man and I hope to high hell his wife/girlfriends runs hard and fast away from him.

So - that's another 'type' that comes out of their little holes at DU.

[Number23]

10. Bluenorthwest is kicking ass in that thread. And not for the first time

He is trying to get people to understand that for minorities, the individual (social) components are every bit as important as the collective (economic) components. For the life of me, I can't understand how anyone could have a problem with that. Not anyone with a brain or a heart.

And there are still people in that thread saying that their rights and their equality are somehow SECOND to politics. That the right to love who they want, work where they want, live where they want are somehow SECOND to the urge to go after the 1%, reduce the corporate effect on politics etc. This is the speak of people who have been brainwashed or want to get in with a certain club here on DU. They are so anathema to common sense and basic human needs and wants that I don't buy it or the people saying it for a second.

[steve2470]

11. If I was black and I had a choice between being treated with respect or being solidly middle-class..

I would take RESPECT immediately. Yes, I'd love to have economic security and economic justice ALSO, but the social justice is MORE important.

Of course both are important, but RESPECT is MORE important.

[Number23]

12. I SOO feel you, steve! I really do!

If I was black and I had a choice between being treated with respect or being solidly middle-class..

I would take RESPECT immediately.



But I think that Bnw's point is that for minorities, one is not more important than the other. They are both deeply intertwined and in many cases ie gay discrimination in the workplace, they are one and the same! And you're right, if it did come down to a choice of having to choose between loving who I wanted and living where I wanted, being able to educate my children in a town of my own choosing or worrying about how many Wall Street bankers will go to jail for their destruction of the American economy, I would wager there would be no contest for the majority of people on this planet. NONE.

It's pretty obvious that alot of the "it's class, not race" folks are people that have never once had to wonder if their race, gender or sexual orientation have played a part in their economic conditions. And that type of privileged idiocy is one of the many reasons they don't have a leg to stand on and never have.

[steve2470]

13. We are making progress so so slowly

I wish it would hurry up. Economic and social justice NOW, not tomorrow or next century. All the best to you, Number23.

[Number23]

14. But it will be impossible to get that justice if many don't even consider it worth getting

I want both economic and social justice now too.

Thanks for this OP, steve.

[steve2470]

16. my immense pleasure! nt

[sheshe2]

15. Kick and Hell Yes Recommend.^^^^^ This^^^^^

This....

And you're right, if it did come down to a choice of having to choose between loving who I wanted and living where I wanted, being able to educate my children in a town of my own choosing or worrying about how many Wall Street bankers will go to jail for their destruction of the American economy, I would wager there would be no contest for the majority of people on this planet. NONE.

[BainsBane]

17. the class not race argument

Many articulate is not about economic justice generally but about their own class interests. You can be sure that people who think class inequality is a recent phenomenon are not factoring in the poverty that has characterized this nation from its inception. Many also ignore the extent to which poverty disproportionately affects women and PoC. That combined with hostile reactions to discussions of race, etc. confirms for me a point 1SBM often makes that many would be content with addressing their own class interests while doing nothing about PoC. Their longing for the good old days of the Dem party, which makes no mention of its support of Jim Crow, suggests as much. When people can't even listen to other POVs, they sure as hell can't be trusted to address issues that aren't all about them.

[Number23]

19. Nailed it. Again. But when you try to tell these people that, the howls of "THird WaY!1 THRid Way!1"

fill this place up.

As far as mainstream Democratic thought goes, this forum is about as mainstream as it gets. I have always found it fascinating that the black posters on DU are called every name in the book and made to feel as though we are somehow different from the mainstream Dem party when in fact, the beliefs of the folks in this forum simply could not be more consistent with mainstream Democratic thought.

So I always keep that in mind when I see people advocating for "revolution" where admittedly millions will suffer and die but that's what needs to happen so that things can "get better," dismiss the ideals of poc, women and gays as "distractions secondary to the important goals" (which, as you said mostly involve them) and openly long for the Good Old Days miserably ignorant that those days were so good for white/straight/male people because they were a living hell for everybody else, it's pretty apparent that in addition to being ignorant as hell, their privilege makes them just about the last people in the world I'd ever want to ally with.

[1StrongBlackMan]

24. Well ...

To be fair ... the FDR's 2nd Bill of Rights that keeps getting trotted out DOES contain a line about the planks extending to all people without regard to their flavor ... never mind, as he was speaking the words, there were more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans in internment camps, being denied those words.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

18. Thanks, Steve. So when black DUers call out the racism here on DU and in the

Democratic Party at large, we are pleading for people to hear us and hear us clearly.

1StrongBlackMan's thread is a case in point, and there have been many of these same points made which have fallen on deaf ears...deliberately, I might add.

[qwlauren35]

20. Actually

The disintegration into pro- vs. anti- Hillary in a thread about social injustice for African-Americans was mind blowing.

However, I have disintegrated threads when I have been extremely upset...

I 100% agree with 1SB, probably because I *am* middle class, but also because being poor in America is not the end of the world. Homelessness, maybe. But being working class, you can get by. It's hard, but you can get by. Now being shot and killed by a cop, you can't get by. Being arrested for no good reason and having your life messed up with a criminal record... or not being able to make bail, EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE INNOCENT, and losing your job, that's just f***ed up.

I'm still part of the 99%. It's not the end of the world. My house is under water and I can't sell it. Not the end of the world. My husband can't find a steady job. Not the end of the world. Worrying that my husband will get pulled over and shot. That would end my world.

[1StrongBlackMan]

25. As one DUer observed ...

this Income Inequality thing is merely the upper 10%, using the bottom 50%, to fight with the 1%.

[JustAnotherGen]

22. Gird your loins - I gotta good one for you

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026596249

Read that - you tell no lies!

[steve2470]

23. oh yea, I've been skimming that

I tell ya, Bravenak is one tough brave cookie. Maybe 60 freaking years ago, thug meant something fairly neutral, but these days ? Come on, it's racist code.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

26. Isn't it! And now we are being told that since the word thug HAS been used at one time

or another for non black men, then we should take our "Thug is the new N word" agenda and shove it up our sensitive asses

Or something like that

When i say "our" i speak not for anyone other than myself, but folks gotta stop being belligerently stupid

This behavior is supposed to be reserved for the rightwingers.

THUG is the new N word.

period

next

Anyone who feels that they have to argue with that, needs to CHECK themselves