Can White people legitimately rail against centuries of institutionalized racism

[cali]

that continues to this day? No, of course not. And that's what Reverend Wright was doing- railing against institutionalized racism. White people don't like being reminded of this inconvenient fact. It makes us uncomfortable, on the whole.

I am not saying that Wright's comments aren't a problem for Obama. I think they are. Even being seen by proxy as an "angry black man" is dangerous in this country, particularly through an electoral lens. I'm not saying that Wright's comments were artfully phrased. I'm not even saying I agree with him on some of them. I don't for a minute believe that AIDS is a plot to kill off people of color. But in the light of history, I do understand how that could seem possible to the black community- and not just to undeducated people either. Still, I think it's wrong to voice that when it's so demonstrably not true. I do think that 9/11 was, to a large degree, the chickens coming home to roost. And that's been said here thousands of times, with few taking exception to it. Nevertheless, it's not a thing that you can get away with in this context. I think Wright's comments about the Clintons were way over the line.

But let me stress this once again: There is no history of institutional racism against white people. White people have been the perpetrators of it, not the victims. Wright expressed, in many of his comments, the frustration and anger of people who have been the victims of centuries of institutional racism. If you don't understand that, you aren't trying hard enough to view his comments through a prism not your own, instead of just knee jerking and calling Wright a racist. I don't see the evidence for that.

One more time, for those who don't read well: I'm not denying Wright isn't a problem for Obama, and I'm not condoning many of his remarks.

Just my take on it.

[MadBadger]

1. Cali, I kind of feel uncomfortable watching the White Media talk about and criticize all this.

I think his comments are pretty bad and Obama hasn to answer them, but I find it extremely uncomfortable to watch the all white press talk about what Wright is saying. Especially on MOrning Joe where three of the whitest white people are talking about this. You know, usually I criticize MSNBC for having Eugene Robinson on when there is a race issue in the campaign, but this time I think he is absolutely necessary for some perspective.

[Iceburg]

3. Re: "some perspective". 52% of the population would like appreciate some perspective& balance

[slampoet]

39. As a Canadian, What are you doing in the Primaries area?

[bilgewaterbill]

97. Looked like they were discussing the primaries.

[Texas Hill Country]

85. LOL, I agree

[niceypoo]

58. Better get used to it...

...because if Obama is the nominee we will be seeing a lot of this for a long time...

[boston bean]

2. Cali, if that was all, no big deal, but that's not all

He says "God Damn America" inside a church.

He says America got what it deserved on 911

He says that the gov't of the us is committing genocide against black people via aids.

He preaches hate against "rich white people"

This is not the message of MLK.

[shadowknows69]

4. So what?

It's not the message of Obama either.

[Window]

Thank you.

All this indignant outrage over some stupid shit some old fool pastor says. Unbelievable. But then, not so much. Some folks hate Obama so much, they will jump on anything. To pick a few dumb ass sermons out of 20 years is fucked up.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, Obama says or does on this subject will satisfy the haters.

If he drove a stake through Wright's heart on live TV, it still wouldn't be enough.

[elixir]

46. Thank you, redo.

"All this indignant outrage over some stupid shit some old former vice presidential candidate says. Unbelievable. But then, not so much. Some folks hate Clinton so much, they will jump on anything. To pick a few dumb ass words out of 45 years is fucked up.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, Clinton says or does on this subject will satisfy the haters.

If she drove a stake through Ferraro's heart on live TV, it still wouldn't be enough."


There, now you can see how silly you sound.

[NOLALady]

84. I still remember the outrage

about the sermons of another black minister who was also widely hated.

[elixir]

41. It most certainly is if he attend weekly sermons espousing these ideas to his family

[cali]

6. You're hung up on the "goddamn America"

in a way I'm not. There's actually a long history of phrases like that being used in churches going back to the beginnings of this country. Think the fiery sermons of hellfire and damnation preached by Jonathan Edwards and others. He did not say that America deserved 9/11, though I can certainly see how it could be interpreted that way. I do think that 9/11 was, to a large degree, the chickens coming home to roost. He's completely to fault for the AIDS comments. Wright's remarks are a mixed bag. He's also preached reconciliation and love between races. In any case, it's vital to see if Obama can handle this.

[MadBadger]

7. Interview with a Diane Sawyer like character comes to mind

[boston bean]

11. I am also caught up in him gyrating sexually behind the pulpit. nt

[greguganus]

64. Take a cold shower. lol. n/t

[thunder rising]

9. And you say that like it's a bad thing.

:shrug:

Like you haven't done the same thing. That's the Republican/Clinton double standard for you.

[boston bean]

13. This is church, not my back yard bbq picnic. He's a minister.

to use the lords name in vain in church is pretty bad.

[cali]

16. He wasn't using it in vain. Your ignorance is frightening

Study some history. He was using it in the sense of "God damns sinners". It's been used in churches by preachers for centuries.

[JVS]

23. Who died and made you the Church Lady?

[boston bean]

25. I have used the lords name in vain many times, I have broken the commandment. I have

repented and asked for forgiveness. And I still do it to this day.

But for a minister to do it, in a church of all places. I just don't get it.

[cali]

26. Again, you don't know what you're talking about

He was not taking the lord's name in vain. It was an imprecation. Educate yourself about "hellfire and brimstone" sermons and they're history in this country. It's not a style of preaching I find appealing but it certainly has a long history.

[boston bean]

27. does sexually gyrating behind the podium at the pulpit and saying riding dirty

part of the fire and brimstone routine.

I don't think so. It was disgusting and I can't believe children are in those services.

[boston bean]

28. If you read the rolling stone article, he also says "shit" is that part of fire and brimstone? nt

[JVS]

31. zOH NOES! HE SAID "SHIT"!

SOMEBODY THINK OG TEH CHILDREN! :cry:

[boston bean]

32. and he gyrates sexually behind the pulpit saying riding dirty. Oh no is right! nt

[greguganus]

67. how many times you gonna post "sexually gyrating"? I'm getting excited. n/t

[JVS]

82. sexually gyrating!

[elixir]

49. We interrupt this thread to provide a translation of the post #31...

Header: zOH NOES! HE SAID "SHIT"!
Translation: Oh, no! He said "SHIT"!


Text: SOMEBODY THINK OG TEH CHILDREN!
Translation: SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!


:puke:

[Dr. Strange]

52. Thank God for babelfish.

:patriot:

[greguganus]

66. Probably lots of shit in hell. I mean, it IS hell. n/t

[cali]

29. no. but you're changing the goal posts here.

and again. You need to educate yourself.

[boston bean]

30. you need to look at the whole story, not just the part that you think makes it ok.

you are the one who needs to educate yourself.

[elixir]

50. Are they changing the goalposts or just moving them. Because if they're

changing them, I want to know.

[kwassa]

38. I didn't find it disgusting.

I think you might be overly sensitive, in my opinion. Like it or not, sexuality is all around us in all of our culture these days, and children are exposed to it all at a young age through popular media. They still manage to grow up o.k.

Different churches have different styles, and I think that there are very few participants in this forum who have spent any time in any black church, regardless of style. Many don't spend any time in any church, so I am even more suspect of their criticism. White churches tend to be far more subdued, except for those in an evangelical or pentacostal style.

[UALRBSofL]

93. JVS-OMG I Love The Church Lady

JVS you probably wouldn't remember this but in the early, mid 80's when she was popular on SNL and I use to watch her. Anyway, I'd go out to a club, especially during Halloween and you would see one or two folks in Church Lady Drag. Ggggeeeerrrr that brings back memories.

[theboss]

86. That was the exact opposite of using the Lord's dam in vain

It was an invocation along the lines of "Come, blessed savior."

Yesterday, I was wondering if white people had any idea what took place inside a black church. Now, I'm wondering if DUers have any idea what takes place inside ANY church.

When I was a kid, my preacher would occasionally go on rants about the sins of neighboring Steubenville - the bars, the bookie joints, the drug dealers. His belief was that judgment was coming.

Christians may believe in a New Testament Christ. But the God of the Old Testament is still there.

[thunder rising]

89. Not in vain, God has apparently answered their prayers, but not as they thought

They were thinking along the lines of a Moses and instead they got a man that will finally join them into the community of first citizens. And, the entire community will be whole and healed. I look forward to the day!

[polticalpout]

5. HELP WANTED - NO IRISH NEED APPLY

The 1800's the Irish weren't so lucky. Look up the The Know Nothing Movement, t was an attempt to remove Irish Catholics from public office. Irish were rejected from schools and social situations as well.

[cali]

8. Comparing what the Irish went through

here, to what AAs went through is grotesquely ignorant. Millions of AAs died being transported in conditions worse than cattle. They were property. Nothing like that happened to the Irish or the Jews or the Italians or any other ethnic group that came here by CHOICE. It's sick to try and compare the lot of the Irish with the AA community.

[Spider Jerusalem]

18. See post 15; something somewhat similar actually did happen, although not in the 1800's.

[slampoet]

40. Sorry but you are wrong. The Famine gave the Irish no choice. Millions died.

The Irish were forced to board Coffin Ships which were ships loaded without enough food and not seaworthy enough to make the journey to America. They were designed to be a weapon of Genocide from the start.


The Slave Ship was also a weapon of Genocide but it had the additional evil of being a for-profit venture.



I don't compare scabs,

but there are a LOT of ethnic minorities who suffered hideous things before they came here and even after. In mentioning these we don't demean the Black Experience instead we show How Relatively Great America Is and also show where we need to improve.

If you can't open your heart in this matter I can see how the next genocide will happen. It will happen to some minority that We Americans, with our ignorance of history, Think hasn't suffered in their lot in life.


It isn't the Genocide that makes the Black Experience unique. It isn't the suffering one they were here that is unique. It is the current inequity and the unwillingness to do anything about it that is America's Main shame in all this.


In not acknowledging that suffering is universal you have also shown your ignorance of several other Genocides from that era.


What about the Creoles? They were forced out of several countries and it is said that they were even held on an Island that no one can recall the location of for several generations. These people have even less connection to their roots than the average AA (oh and Creoles are African Americans too.)

Ask a Narragansett Indian sometime why their people look Scottish, Irish and Black. They will tell you that they accepted all runaway slaves into their tribe, back in the early days of our nation.

Why are there words from India spoken in Jamaica? It is because there were slaves from India in the Caribbeans.



Again, I quote the Buddha, "Suffering is Universal."


When we acknowledge suffering in others, our own burden is lifted.

[NDambi]

45. Here! Here!

In addition, I don't believe the Irish still suffer today what AA's suffer...they went through it, we are still going through it.

[elixir]

56. Yes, but you asked for an example of institutional racism..I think

the irish, italians and especially the jews were treated very badly. My father, second generation Irish, was not allowed into certain households due to his heritage. He was considered a second class citizen although it was perfectly fine for him to spend years in WWII with permanent side effects.

But, if that's not good enough for you, how about the encampment of the Japanese during World War II? Now you can call the game for a technicality, these folks are Asians who technically aren't "white", but, that would be silly on your part. You would be dismissive of the Japanese and their pain and suffering.

There Cali, do you feel better about Rev. Wrong now?

[Spider Jerusalem]

15. Except that lasted about a decade. Not centuries.

And it wasn't racism; it was largely anti-Catholic prejudice.

Although on the issue of general oppression of white people by other white people you need look no further than the history of the English in Ireland, going back to the days of Richard 'Strongbow' de Clare, and on through Cromwell sending 25000 Irish into slavery in the West Indies, and arguably up to the 20th century.

[slampoet]

42. Actually you are dead wrong. The know nothings reformed under the Klan.

Also see my post #40 for details on the Coffin Ship Genocide that added to the Genocide of the Potato Famine.

[Spider Jerusalem]

47. That took a while, though.

The original KKK was mostly a Southern white supremacist organisation; it wasn't until fifty years after the Civil War that the KKK reformed along the lines of the old Know-Nothings.

And my great-great-grandfather came to America as a child in the 1840's, with his family, from Cork, fleeing the potato famine; I'm familiar with the history there.

[BadgerLaw2010]

65. Discrimination and exploitation of Irish by English/WASP's lasted a decade? Okaaaaay...

[Spider Jerusalem]

72. You should try reading the whole post and not just the headline.

In the body I make it clear that it went on for 800 years.

[Radical Activist]

91. Or white mormons who were violentry drive out of the US

after their leader was killed by a mob, and then they had James Buchanan send out federal troops against them. Or white women and white homosexuals who have faced institutional discrimination. Not to mention that many forms of institutional discrimination affect poor white people as well. Prejudice and discrimination come in many forms.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

92. Would a bunch of Irish-Americans be left to drown in New Orleans? nt

[EffieBlack]

10. Beautifully said. Thank you!

[cali]

12. Thank you, Effie

that means a lot. I'm still frustrated with what I wrote. It doesn't quite capture what I want to say.

[EffieBlack]

22. I think you said it very well - I understand EXACTLY what you're saying!

[MadBadger]

14. I just hope when I get back in a week, all this morbid, Obama is done feeling is gone

I hope we are on to our next controversy and this thing doesnt stick into the minds of the voters. It is critical for Obama to come and handle this himself. I think it will be a shame if people believe Obama subscribes to these views. I've seen some on DU call Obama a bigot, but I can never get them to say who he is bigoted too.

[shadowknows69]

17. What if I was black in a previous life?

[usrbs]

19. I actually agree with many of Wright's points

including saying that Hillary was never called... (even so, he had no business saying this from the pulpit)

But there are many things even I find offensive - ("God damn America?", Farrakhan?) and my reaction doesn't matter anyway. To my disappointment, some of the reasons people vote against Obama are racial, but fortunately, not that many. However, now that this has gotten out, there's no way to play this and no way to spin this, and I can't see how he can get past this in the GE.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

76. There is some truth to what he's saying. Apparantly, it's not sugar-coated enought for the PC police

[mmonk]

20. There has been institutionalized type of racism to a degree in the past

against caucasians. Nothing as horrid as slavery or that reaches that thresh hold though. Just deportation, job discrimination, church burnings, and such.

[EmilyAnne]

24. What are you talking about? Are you talking about Caucasians as in Georgians, Armenians and

Azerbaijanis? In Russia today, yes, they are being treated horribly.

But seriously, what are you talking about here? I would love some examples and I am not being sarcastic about that.

[mmonk]

33. When I have time.

My post did not indicate it was anywhere comparable to slavery. The only thing comparable to that is genocide. However, I've had a cross burned on my yard. America has a past of church burnings, priests and nuns being murdered, deportations and such. It's just not taught in school. Seems to be only remembered in different ethinic neighborhoods or communities. And to answer your question, no not really legitimately.

[mmonk]

36. Part of the U.S.'s more sordid history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_racial_violence_in_the_United_States

[slampoet]

57. Here are some examples.

The long term starvation of the Irish in Several engineered rounds of starvings during the Potato Famine and sending the Irish to their deaths at sea in Coffin Ships.

Oppression of the Welsh and their role as coal miners.

In fact I can comfortably say that ALL Coal Miners (mostly white) have been facing high level of oppression from 1600-1975 and from 1985 til the present.

The Fins in America had several decades of violent encounters when they tried to stand up for their labor rights in the early 20th century. These are gone over in the book Lies my Teach Told me and the sequel Nothing ever Happened Here.

The Mountain Meadows Massacre were Mormons slaughtered white settlers headed west. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre BTW this account in Wikkipedia used to be more damning but it was cleaned up assumedly due to the Romney Run.


and here are a bunch of others, black and white and all the colors of the world that I really don't know enough about to explain.


Nativist Period 1700s-1860

for information about riots worldwide, see List of riots.

* 1829: Cincinnati Riot of 1829 (Cincinnati, Ohio)

Rioting against African-Americans results in thousands leaving for Canada.

* 1829: Charlestown Anti-Catholic Riots (Charlestown, Massachusetts)
* 1834: Massachusetts Convent Burning
* 1835: Five Points Riot (New York City, New York)
* 1841: Cincinnati Riot of 1841 (Cincinnati, Ohio)
* 1844: Philadelphia Nativist Riots (May 6-8/July 5-8)
* 1851: Hoboken Anti-German Riot
* 1855: Louisville Anti-German Riots

Civil War Period 1861-1865

* 1863: New York City Draft Riot

Post-Civil War and Reconstruction Period: 1865 - 1889

* 1866: New Orleans Riot (New Orleans, Louisiana)
* 1866: Memphis Riot of 1866 (Memphis, Tennessee)
* 1868: Pulaski Riot (Pulaski, Tennessee)
* 1868: Opelousas, Louisiana
* 1868: Camilla, Georgia
* 1868: Ward Island Riot

Irish and German-American indigent immigrants, temporarily interned at Ward's Island by the Commissioners of Emigration, begin rioting following an altercation between two residents resulting in thirty men seriously wounded and around sixty arrested. <6>

* 1870: Meridian, Mississippi
* 1870: Eutaw, Alabama
* 1870: Laurens, South Carolina
* 1870: New York City Orange Riot
* 1871: Second New York City Orange Riot
* 1871: Los Angeles Anti-Chinese Riot
* 1871: Scranton Coal Riot

Violence occurs between striking members of a miners' union in Scranton, Pennsylvania when Welsh miners attack Irish and German-American miners who chose to leave the union and accept the terms offered by local mining companies. <7>

* 1873: Colfax massacre (Colfax, Louisiana)
* 1874: Vicksburg, Mississippi
* 1874: New Orleans, Louisiana
* 1874: Coushatta, Louisiana
* 1875: Yazoo City, Mississippi
* 1875: Clinton, Mississippi
* 1876: Statewide violence in South Carolina
* 1876: Hamburg, South Carolina
* 1876: Ellenton, South Carolina
* 1887: Denver Riot of 1887

In one of the largest civil disturbances in the city's history, fighting between Swedish, Hungarian and Polish immigrants results in the shooting death of one man and injuring several others before broken up by police. <8>

* 1887: Thibodaux, Louisiana - Second highest fatalities in a labor dispute - 30 plus African Americans killed

Jim Crow Period: 1890 - 1914

Further information: Nadir of American race relations

* 1891: New Orleans Anti-Italian Riot

A lynch mob storms a local jail and hangs several Italians following the acquittal of several Sicilian immigrants alleged to be involved in the murder of New Orleans police chief David Hennessey.

* 1891: 1st Omaha Race Riot

10,000 white people storm the local courthouse to beat and lynch Coe, who was alleged to have raped a white child.

* 1894: Buffalo, NY Riot of 1894

Two groups of Irish and Italian-Americans are arrested by police after a half hour of hurling bricks and shooting at each other resulting from a barroom brawl when visiting Italian patrons refused to pay for their drinks at a local saloon. After the mob is dispersed by police, five Italians are arrested while two others are sent to a local hospital. <9>

* 1898: Wilmington Race Riot
* 1898: Lake City, North Carolina
* 1898: Greenwood County, South Carolina
* 1899: Newburg, NY Riot

Angered towards the recent hiring of African-American workers, a group of between 80 and 100 Arab laborers attack a group of African-American workers near the Freeman & Hammond brick yard with numerous men injured on both sides. <10>

* 1900: New Orleans, Louisiana : Robert Charles Riots
* 1900: New York City, New York
* 1906: Atlanta Riots, Georgia
* 1908: Springfield, Illinois
* 1909: Greek Town, a successful Greek immigrant community in South Omaha, Nebraska is burnt to the ground and its residents are forced to leave town by a "white" mob.<11>
* 1910: Nationwide riots following the heavyweight championship fight between Jack Johnson and Jim Jeffries in Reno, Nevada on July 4

War and Inter-War Period: 1914 - 1945

Further information: Nadir of American race relations

* 1917: East St. Louis, Illinois
* 1917: Chester, Pennsylvania
* 1917: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
* 1917: Houston Riot (1917)
* Red Summer of 1919
o 1919: Washington, D.C.
o 1919: Chicago, Illinois
o 1919: Omaha, Nebraska
o 1919: Charleston, South Carolina
o 1919: Longview, Texas
o 1919: Knoxville, Tennessee
o 1919: Elaine, Arkansas
* 1921: Tulsa, Oklahoma
* 1923: Rosewood Massacre
* 1935: Harlem Race Riot
* 1943: Detroit Race Riot
* 1943: Harlem Race Riot
* 1943: Zoot Suit Riots, Los Angeles, California






There. Is that enough spoon feeding?

Can you promise to do a simple google search next time rather than display your ignorance?

Americans need to have a knowledge of history in order to avoid the problems of the past and the least of your patriotic duties should be a simple google search.

I asking other to do it for you ....you are giving the impression that you a have a right to be served by others.

You are treating us like your servants.

That is pretty un-American.

[EmilyAnne]

79. None of these are examples of institutionalized racism against Causasians. Sorry.

I think you are the one who needs to do some googling on what that term means. Furthermore, simply going to google and copying a link is not really such a servile behavior. You are just showing your hostility by seeing it that way. Absurd.

[slampoet]

80. So United Coal isn't an institution. The Chicago Police Aren't? The BRITISH EMPIRE IS NOT ?

PULEESE. Don't be a fool.


I just defended my first three points. Do SOMETHING besides display you ignorance like it was something to be proud of.


You are just being a naysayer and you are insulting quite a bit of my family heritage with you WILLING ignorance.
Only the privileged poke at people's ancestors and then feign surprise at hostility.

[Radical Activist]

94. Mountain Meadows

Mountain Meadows was bad but the things done to Mormons was far worse, more deadly and more widespread. Its just more fashionable among liberals to criticize Mormons than to acknowledge that they're the only religious groups to be forcefully relocated outside US borders.
The Mountain Meadows wagon train bragged of being part of mobs that killed Joseph Smith, raped women and destroyed Mormon farms.

[kwassa]

68. but not racism against Caucasians, only ethnic discrimination against Caucasian ethnicities

That is not racism, sorry. To be racism, it would have to be against all Caucasians for being Caucasian, not against an ethnic minority within the Caucasian race.

[mmonk]

73. However, institutionalizing it can have similar effect.

http://www.nde.state.ne.us/SS/irish/unit_2.html

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?r=1&ean=9781592289011

And what about the Jews in Germany?

My post was not discounting what African Americans and Native Americans have gone through.

[kwassa]

75. oh, very much so, just as genocidal and inhumane as racism

I thought that, while interesting, the parallel in the paper between the plight of the African slaves and the oppression of the Irish to be fairly weak, except in the areas of slavery in the Caribbean. In the US, the early Irish could be indentured servants, not slaves, and later Irish fleeing the famine were neither. What the British did to the Irish was genocidal, however, and horrifying.

To call what happened to the Irish racism, though, is an inaccurate use of the term. Though they might be temporarily considered a different race, that changed,and they can be considered white, something that could never happen with African-Americans.

I couldn't get your second link to open, by the way.

[mmonk]

78. Opens for me.

Oh well, it was about the lynching of Italian Americans in Louisiana. The thing about racism is visible differences that make that kind of hatred and prejudice harder to fight. I can't pretend to know what people of color go through.

[Kahuna]

21. They do it everyday. nt

[C_U_L8R]

34. Lets be honest, they're doing it to Wright at this moment

They (the bigots far and here) have found a lightning rod of man they can point to and condemn
not because of his ideas.. in fact there is no discussion of his ideas at all...
but rather for his choice of words and the impassioned way he uses them.
They have their screaming black man that they point to and say oogabooga.
Yeah he looks funny and he sounds funny and you can parse and triangulate
his words to mean whatever you want. But no one dares discuss the ideas behind the words.
The issues. The causes. And the way forward. Because frankly, they don't care and the
tactics are more than obvious. Yes Goddamn America and Goddamn You silly silly people
for forcing the unfortunate rants of a retiring firebrand of a preacher to fit you awful agenda.
Shame on you.

[MadBadger]

35. Why is it that Chris Matthews is the only one that makes sense on this whole thing?

Are we in bizarro world?

[mtnsnake]

48. Matthews used the Wright issue to make the point that Obama needs to prove he loves America

in order to win the election if he is nominated. He said Obama needs to do this in light of the Wright fiasco. Matthews then included as an afterthought that Hillary needs to prove her love for America as well.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5073689

He did that just this morning on Mika's show. Matthews will do anything to help Republicans win in November, but he's careful and shrewd how he goes about it.

[BearSquirrel2]

37. Ask a white kid in a black high school ...

Ask high performing black students in high schools who are called "whitie" for their efforts.

There is reverse racism out there. It's just isn't nearly as prevalent.

[rucky]

43. Rec'd! n/t

[elixir]

44. What if Clinton went to church and her minister said..

"God Damn America"

The the black man is suppressing our society

that black society is committing genocide by transmitting aids

the he hates "poor black people"

that America got what it deserved on 9/11


I don't you'd think twice about ripping her a new one. Shame on you.

[ProSense]

51. If this is what was said

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people," he said in a 2003 sermon. "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

In addition to damning America, he told his congregation on the Sunday after Sept. 11, 2001 that the United States had brought on al Qaeda's attacks because of its own terrorism.

"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye," Rev. Wright said in a sermon on Sept. 16, 2001.

"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost," he told his congregation.

link

I'd agree!

What did America do in her moment of "indignation" over the attacks (horrible and tragic as they were)?

America invaded a country that had nothing to do with the attacks, destroyed it and facilitated the killing of more than a million people!


What do you say to that?

[BigDDem]

61. "What if Clinton.......

we know what would happen, this place would blow up.
Since it's Saint Obama's spiritual mentor "God Damn America" is the
new God Bless America.

[niceypoo]

53. So, white people cant rail against racism because of their skin color?

Ludicrous

Why make excuses for this guy? If the shoe were on the other foot, Obama supporters would go absolutely bonkers.

[underpants]

54. The MSM message is also two-fold: Don't get out of line

and yes we can rail against institutionalized racism. There were lots of whites that risked and suffered much to get the civil rights movement and race relations to where they are today.

I'll pick up that flag anyday. :patriot:

[Freddie Stubbs]

55. Can rich people work to end poverty?

[fbuzz]

59. So "White People" Are Racists, And Should Murder Themselves For Blacks, Even Though They Did Nothing

Hmm, interesting.

[fbuzz]

60. Let's Pin Scarlet Letters On White People! Oh, I'm So Sorry For Being "White". Who Is "White"?

I seem to not recall, but who are these "white people"? My ancestors weren't even here.

[bunnies]

63. Murder themselves for "blacks" ?!

I know Ill regret this but... what the fuck are you talking about?

[fbuzz]

62. Black People REALLY Need To Get Over It

I'm gay, and still don't have equal rights, and I can get fired from my job, due to my sexuality. Gays have only been discriminated against since the beginning of time, and thrown into concentration camps. Do you see me blaming every single person for something done in the past that they had nothing to do with? There is REAL discrimination, and then there is JUST LOOKING FOR A HANDOUT. This woe-is-me crap, has got to end. People are tired of being labeled racists for something they had no part in. It's a crutch.

How many of these "slaves" are still alive? You can't keep banking on your ancestors. I seem to recall that people were free in the North.

[kwassa]

69. oh, boy, you've stepped in it now.

You clearly know next to nothing about the history and impact of racism in America.

You think racism stopped with slavery?

:rofl: :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

[greguganus]

70. Damn! I typed 5 different responses to you, but deleted them all.

I just don't have the time. Hopefully, another poster will discuss this. I'll be waiting with my:
:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

[Adelante]

74. Actually, there was slavery in the North

Sojourner Truth was a New York slave, for example.

[easy_b94]

77. Get over it...How would you like if I say "GAY PEOPLE NEED TO GET OVER IT" U MAD NOW

[bicentennial_baby]

87. You have to be one of the most ignorant people on DU...

Hands down. Not to mention bigoted.

Free in the North? Ha! Slavery was alive in well up here, even in liberal Massachusetts. I went on a walking tour once of an old colonial village. The focus of the tour was slavery...and you know who the biggest slave owner in town was? The Minister.

Slavery was more concentrated in the South due to differing economic systems between the two regions. The South was deeply based in agriculture and the plantation system, due to favorable climate conditions, and therefore there was a far higher demand for slaves. In the North, the agricultural season is far shorter, and the economy was shifting, in the late 18th and early 19th c., to a manufacturing base, due to comparative advantage in the North for manufacturing.

But, to deny the existence of slavery in the North is just ignorant.

[misanthrope]

103. Folks in "the North" discovered...

...it was far more profitable to exploit immigrant labor. The waves of people arriving from other shores were much heavier in "the North" and provided an inexhaustible pool of labor you could use mercilessly and then throw away without nearly the lost investment you would have from working slaves to death.

It wasn't because they suddenly gained a conscience about exploitation. They just wanted larger profit margins.

[Windex]

71. Need help here

I understand the God Damn America as a preacher caught up in his passionate attempt to motivate Change. It looks better if you add a comma tho..God, damn America.

That is similiar to Ron Paul (Republican candidate for President) when he said in a debate "We should
ask them why they bombed us."


But, I really don't understand how the preacher thinks AIDS is a plot to kill off people of color. You said you understood how that could seem possible to the black community.

This bothers me more than anything else he said.

Do black people really believe this?

[cali]

81. many AA folks believe it

why? study history. I'm not saying they're correct. In fact, I believe they're not, but I understand where they're coming form.

[rucky]

99. Tuskeegee. n/t

[Why Syzygy]

105. Aids in Africa.

http://www.time.com/time/2001/aidsinafrica/

[izzybeans]

83. White people can rail against it, but they look like assholes for getting mad

at a black person for doing it.

[Hepburn]

88. Excellent analysis...as usual. Thanks, Cali...K&R n/t

[Radical Activist]

90. Yes they can and they do.

White people have always been a part of the fight against racism. Do you know how many white people were in the room at the founding of the NAACP? I think its a mistake to diminish or ignore that.

[Mike03]

95. Why did your other thread get locked, Cali?

That didn't seem to be fair at all.

[JoFerret]

96. Better idea: Get to work on the real issues that maintain the racist status quo

Jobs
the economy
education
income disparity
equal opportunity
day care
health insurance
and all the rest.


That is what they can and should do.

[misanthrope]

104. You forgot...

...Ignorance
ignorance
ignorance
ignorance
ignorance
ignorance
ignorance
ignorance
ignorance
and ignorance.

That's the ultimate root.

[boppers]

98. Yes, they can, actually.

Know any Polack jokes? Know why Italians were called WOPS? Oh, and 6 million people called, something about Holocaust denial and 2,000 years of continuous persecution?

There *has* been institutionalized racism against white people. For the most part, it was varying subsets of white people, be it the Irish, the Poles, and today, anything that even has a whiff of Spain and Portugal.

I'm not trying to equate all of these, it's just an awfully broad brush you started out with. Some white people have had quite the hard road because of their perceived "race". Others have not.

[cali]

100. Sure you're equating all of these with the institutionalized racism

of this country against AAs. And you're wrong.

[boppers]

101. No, I'm not equating.

That would be unfair.

The 'subset' word is key.

I'm pointing out that that people have been singled out based on culture.

Irish folks.... like Barack.
Black folks.... like Barack.
White folks.... like Barack.

I wouldn't be surprised if he has "more cultures to hate", but then again, that's the message of his campaign, no?

That hate is broken and wrong?

[misanthrope]

102. "White people have been the perpetrators of it, not the victims..."

...Not if you listen to folks in Alabama. I frequently hear the open lament that "white, Southern men are the only minority it's okay to discriminate against."

Hell, they're even saying that the fracas over the Boeing/EADS airplane contract dispute is only being revving up because a Southern town won the contract.