OT: Cam Newton & the race card

[XLIX]

I don't recall Bush being accused of America-hating treason, the way Obama is, or of murdering his friends, which is a charge levied at Clinton.

So what was it like living in a cave from 2001 to 2009? You missed some great football here in New England!

 

[eom]

What?

Seriously, I'm pretty sure that I was thinking of "Who's on first?" back at the time. My excuse for not being totally certain is that the conversation happened in 1976.

 

[XLIX]

This is Cam Newton in a nutshell:

In September, Cam Newton posted a picture of him and some friends on a trip to Mexico they took in May. Some of the friends are wearing bandannas on their faces. Cam is flashing a gang sign (he would later try to spin it to say it was a "W" to represent his high school. Yeah, sure thing Cam.)

Then he gets all pissy when people react the exact way common sense dictates they should react.

He trolls for a certain type of reaction to his activities and then when he gets the desired reaction, whines about how racist and unfair everyone is.

 

[A Defiant Goose]

And you'd be leading the cheers if Brady tore them down.

Probably. But I'm a fan, I'm allowed to be biased. If Brady did the same thing he'd get just as much **** as Cam. People already hate him way more than Cam

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

I prefer Doug Baldwin's Super Bowl celebration to dancing from Cam Newton, Inc.

I all seriousness, though, is this really worth so much energy? He does a weird, super annoying dance when he scores TDs. It's almost like he has Tourette's. Whatever the reason, it makes sense in his head, and he's a heck of a player. I am really looking forward to this SB.

 

[eom]

Probably. But I'm a fan, I'm allowed to be biased. If Brady did the same thing he'd get just as much **** as Cam. People already hate him way more than Cam

prob cuz he's white

 

[Tunescribe]

Your wild guess at my intentions and feelings is far from accurate. Racism doesn't change simply because you use numbers to justify it.

This makes absolutely no sense. Tell me HOW I was using numbers to "justify" racism??? I wasn't attempting to "justify" anything -- there was no judgment involved on my behalf. I simply was citing the results of scientifically compiled studies. Observation of the fact that a higher percentage of interracial marriages end in divorce is not an expression of, or attempt to "justify," racism. It merely is empirical data logically confirming the premise that couples of like background are more likely to have successful marriages. It most certainly is NOT a racially motivated condemnation (by me) of mixed marriage, as you seem to be implying.

Certainly, there are many successful interracial marriages and that's great. But going back to @1960Pats' rhetorical question starting all this: yes, it appears that partnering with someone you share fundamental things in common with -- including race, religion and culture -- is sound advice, giving you better odds of succeeding over the long haul. Most folks would call that basic common sense vs. racism. But if you want to see it as racist, knock yourself out.

 

[eom]

, it appears that partnering with someone you share fundamental things in common with -- including race, religion and culture -- is sound advice, giving you better odds of succeeding over the long haul. .

and they say romance is dead

 

[aluminum seats]

1. It is my contention, which you studiously ignore, that the people comparing Bush to Hitler were VASTLY fewer than those who hate Obama. If you can find polls that get affirmatives to "Is Bush like Hitler" in percentages that rival those who'd say Obama is a traitor, or a secret Muslim, or a Kenyan plant, or whatever, please feel free to exhibit them and prove me wrong. But I would be very surprised.
2. I recall some of the Hitler analogies and the so-called "reasoning" behind them. Few people making them seemed to actually view Bush as a genocidal maniac. You are right that equating Bush to Hitler is totally ridiculous. But I believe the people who did so were in most cases mischarcterizing Hitler, not Bush.

You're ignoring the points you made in your last post, where you listed things you felt were wrong with Bush in response to the fact that many people on the left compared Bush to Hitler. Probably smart to try and get past that.

You're also continuing to make excuses for those who would compare Bush to Hitler, saying that "few people....actually" believed it. In doing so, you're excusing their language and ascribing loftier motives to them, for whatever reason you may have to do that. At the same time, you take the opposite leap with criticism of Obama, jumping immediately and aggressively to the position that his critics are racist.

If you tied yourself into any more knots with this, we'd have to serve you with mustard.

 

[RayClay]

Don't think people know enough about Cam and that Winston Salem team to work up a good hate.

 

[RayClay]

They sure know how to hate Brady and BB, though.

 

[Tony2046]

Hogan did a Q&A on Medium that might be worth checking out where he goes into more detail on the claims made in White Cargo specifically. A lot of the "white slavery" thing seems to go hand in hand with Holocaust denial as a big white supremacist thing; I'm not accusing you of that, though. I suspect the narrative is comforting but it also plays into the idea that chattel slavery wasn't uniquely horrifying.

I'll willingly concede that chattel slavery and indenture weren't all that different up until the late 17th century, by the way, mainly because no one really lived long enough for it to matter. But once the surplus population of England was needed for industry so there wasn't enough labor to meet the growing demand for tobacco, and people in the colonies were living longer so servants were reaching the end of indenture, it took on a qualitatively different character (particularly in law). Black slavery became the only means to provide that labor so a trickle of blacks slaves turned into a waterfall, and racism became an ideological means by which a group of people could be cut off from Lockean conceptions of freedom or liberty.

A good book (rather two books) on this is Ted Allen's Invention of the White Race, though there's a shorter "summary of the arguments" available online (Google summary of the arguments of invention of the white race). Allen did extensive primary source research on Virginia and Ireland. His primary rhetorical flourish is to show that the racial power structures used under the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland are the same as in Virginia, with Protestants and Catholics taking the place of white and blacks. In other words, there's no biological "races," they're invented for political purposes. In the US the marker was skin color and in Ireland religion, but other countries in the Americas had a very different racial power structure despite a history of chattel slavery (in Jamaica, for instance, there's a difference between black and "colored" that doesn't exist in the US).

OK, that's interesting. I've always thought of racism, race or recognizing differences between two people, prejudice etc.. as a natural psychological process in which the classic genetic vs environment argument comes in play. I used to wonder if all the races mixed enough would racism still exist but later witnessed that even the slightest skin color variation is used to differentiate and suspect that if all skin color were identical something else would jump up the criteria tree. (Side Note: I grew up as a military brat in the DOD school system and one of the first key factors used to decide your initial social status was your daddy's rank. Of course race and other factors were used but they were much less impactful than I witnessed in a civilian school. Race, although acknowledged, did not determine your popularity or predict your educational, athletic etc... success etc)

"Invented for political purposes". Curious of what that means.

Creating or using class structures has been evident from the Roman empire to the Kentucky coal mines. But to invent race? Interesting. I will have to read it. I'm curious how they would incorporate or get around the psychological aspects of it.

To me white slavery was interesting in that I had never heard about it before but never thought of it as an excuse or an argument for or against black slavery or whatever it was being used as. Not sure how much it matters to me either. I kind of feel a little caught off guard or slimy knowing that it was used in a way to somehow devalue the impact of black slavery. That was definitely not in my mind when reading the book.

Thanks for the reply and the suggestions.

 

[1960Pats]

So you're one of those people who actually believes the world is going to **** because of the younguns......

When I was younger I had the good sense to go to older folks for knowledge. After all, they'd been there done that.

 

[XLIX]

It's true in Asia. Asians do not like interracial relationships in general but it's more prevalent in older generations which the same could be said here.

I can attest to this as well. A lot of old-school Asians are very racist. What I find most amusing is how racist they are against each other. For example, a white racist would tell his daughter "I don't want you to marry an Asian." But an Asian racist would say "I want you to marry a Korean, but don't you dare marry a Japanese."

 

[Tony2046]

I think our core disagreement may be that you're assuming a binary test -- "racist" or "non-racist" -- whereas my whole point is that there different kinds and degrees of racism. The worst kinds of racism have been largely stamped out in this country, except in small fractions of the population. Other kinds of racism, however, are widespread, and are damaging even though they're much less bad or badly-intentioned than what came before.

You could be right. I could be ignorant of the various degrees of racism or your definition of racists may differ from mine. I do know that voting results indicate that it did not matter if President Obama was black or white and in fact he received more white votes than some of the previous white democratic presidential candidates. I do not see the reactions against Obama any worse than I saw against Bush. (I would have used Quayle as an example but that would have been cheating.) I guess you could argue that if Obama was white and had a christian name he would have received even more votes but how do you measure that?

Cam has a loud "look at me I'm superman" personality and it will rub some people the wrong way whether he is white or black.

Not sure how we could quantify a person's additional reaction to someone because of their potential degree of racism.

 

[Tony2046]

I can attest to this as well. A lot of old-school Asians are very racist. What I find most amusing is how racist they are against each other. For example, a white racist would tell his daughter "I don't want you to marry an Asian." But an Asian racist would say "I want you to marry a Korean, but don't you dare marry a Japanese."

Some of that is cultural and some of it is historical.

Chinese hate the Japanese because of their war time history. According to the Chinese the Japanese were absolutely brutal during WWII. Taiwan has a different history with Japan and are therefore more Japanese friendly. Koreans are known to be more racists than most other asian countries which was touched upon during the Hines Ward documentary.

In China and Taiwan I noticed that a darker Chinese skin implied worker and a lighter skin implied upper class. You will not find too many Chinese women catching a tan on a beach anytime soon.

Side Note: If you lined up 10 Asians from ten different countries they would be able to tell you which country each was from simply by looking at facial features. Similar to how a white guy would attribute some physical features to various European heritages.

 

[XLIX]

Some of that is cultural and some of it is historical.

Chinese hate the Japanese because of their war time history. According to the Chinese the Japanese were absolutely brutal during WWII.

Agreed. I was going to say that from what I hear, things are loosened up a little today as compared to 50 years ago. Younger generation, wounds are not so fresh, etc. However, that statement is 100% anecdotal based on things I've heard, I'm not old enough to say I witnessed Asian culture first hand back in the 50's and 60's.

 

[Joker]

can we stop with the racial discussion bullshyt?

I got a better idea...let's talk about women...oh...WAIT!

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

So what was it like living in a cave from 2001 to 2009? You missed some great football here in New England!

He may have had NEM on ignore

 

[Tunescribe]

can we stop with the racial discussion bullshyt?

I got a better idea...let's talk about women...oh...WAIT!

We stand a much better chance coming to a conclusive group resolution on racism.