Staying away from the news this weekend was supposed to give me space for some real world stuff I have to finish up. What actually happened was it allowed some unfinished thoughts to rise up and demand attention.
I am not superstitious of religious in any way you'd normally consider. I do, however, acknowledge synchronicities, defined as significant coincidence. Example: I post this reference to David Neiwert's Media Manifesto, mentioning what I intend to rant about post-election :
Only I (personally) have to prepare for the post-election world. This election is not going to be about the needs of minorities. To me it's only about removing a a group of people whose plans are disruptive to real conservatives and real libertarians as much as real progressives.I am convinced that minorities will make no progress while the Bushista philosophy reigns…not even so much out of racism as out of the fact that the continuation of their influence requires the continuation of the current state of affairs. I am convinced the bottom 95% of the economic pile will make little to no progress for the same reason. Add to this that minorities defines minority issues as "issues of concern to minorities" while the mainstream defines it as "issues we have with minorities" and you'll understand why I will drop all this electioneering crap as soon as I feel the election process has moved from the free will phase to the destiny phase.
There will be plenty facts for me to check, and lots of asses presenting them.
…and the very next day an ass comes forward that needed checking. I refer to the inestimable Joseph Taylor, of Redeye's Corner who volunteered to demonstrate the difference between "issues of concern to minorities" and "issues I have with minorities" (and who, as a side note, I must say is full of shit, because he claimed he has things to take care of and so couldn't finish getting trounced for his asinine post at OSP nor answer my simple questions: what did you hope to accomplish by lying on and insulting me, and why did you think it would work? Meanwhile, the header at Redeye's Corner says it was last updated May 22nd).
And there's a brother I'm not linking to here that wrote a post that cries out for a response by no less than The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.:
Negro leaders suffer from this interplay of solidarity and divisiveness, being either exalted excessively or grossly abused. Some of these leaders suffer from an aloofness and absence of faith in their people. The white establishment is skilled in flattering and cultivating emerging leaders. It presses its own image on them and finally, from imitation of manners, dress and style of living, a deeper strain of corruption develops. This kind of Negro leader acquires the white man's contempt for the ordinary Negro. He is often more at home with the middle-class white than he is among his own people. His language changes, his location changes, his income changes, and ultimately he changes from the representative of the Negro to the white man into the white man's representative to the Negro. The tragedy is that too often he does not recognize what has happened to him.
and
The majority of Negro political leaders do not ascend to prominence on the shoulders of mass support. Although genuinely popular leaders are now emerging, most are still selected by white leadership, elevated to position, supplied with resources and inevitably subjected to white control. The mass of Negroes nurtures a healthy suspicion toward this manufactured leader, who spends little time in persuading them that he embodies personal integrity, commitment and ability and offers few programs and less service. Tragically, he is in too many respects not a fighter for a new life but a figurehead of the old one. Hence, very few Negro political leaders are impressive or illustrious to their constituents. They enjoy only limited loyalty and qualified support.This relationship in turn hampers the Negro leader in bargaining with genuine strength and independent firmness with white party leaders. The whites are all too well aware of his impotence and his remoteness from his constituents, and they deal with him as a powerless subordinate. He is accorded a measure of dignity and personal respect but not political power.
The Negro politician therefore finds himself in a vacuum. He has no base in either direction on which to build influence and attain leverage.
I've broken a promise by documenting that. Oh, well.
Then there was Bill Cosby's demonstration that our collective mind suffers from the same dual-soul syndrome our individual consciousnesses do. And the whole Integration vs. Board of Education discussion/serial misrepresentation, the myopic misunderstanding of racism as a point rather than a vector. And my hovering on the edge of concluding the final outcome of the invasion is now just a matter of the passage of time. And maybe it's time for a change in focus (not coverage).
And that's just blog stuff. I'm considering restructuring pretty much everything in my universe. Again. Almost as much to make sure I still can do that sort of thing as because I see a need to do so.
Posted by P6 at May 23, 2004 03:50 PM
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Comments
I'm a 41 year old white guy who grew up in Clemson, SC and now lives in Anderson (a few miles away). My dad grew up in Hamlet, NC and the one thing that would set my father off more than anything else was bigotry. I grew up sensitive to the issue and never did find jokes funny when the punchline was to diminish a whole group of people. That's humor?
Even from my perspective, I can see we have a long, long, long ways to go in this nation before parity is acheived in social and economic areas. Even then, people will always find reasons to hate each other, or feel superior to one another.
Sigh.
Posted by Michael Miller at May 23, 2004 06:04 PMKeep blogging it. These jackals want to inject helplessness
The Negro politician therefore finds himself in a vacuum. He has no base in either direction on which to build influence and attain leverage.Geesh.
BTW, what the heck is with that article on "Why Treason Should Be Legalized"? Just when I think I've seen everything.
Posted by Hal at May 23, 2004 06:34 PMHal:
That quote wasn't from anything current. It was from an article Dr. King wrote for Time Magazine in the 60s. I can't link it because it's on my hard drive.
The thing is, he wasn't describing a plot, he was reporting an observation…one that can still be made, particularly in the Republican sector.
Posted by P6 at May 23, 2004 09:39 PMMichael my real position is, hate me all you want as long as I get my due.
Posted by P6 at May 23, 2004 09:42 PMCheck out the most excellent post @ the Gadflyer. Not completely relevant, but oh so topical.
These bastards must be ground into powder.
(politically speaking, of course)
Posted by Hal at May 24, 2004 12:03 AM