…so we can know whom to fire.
As noted at the end, those calling for a “conversation,” don’t really want a dialogue. They just want to lecture us, without interruption.
60 thoughts on “Let’s Have A “National Conversation About Race””
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Despite what they say, they don’t want a “National Conversation About Race.” They want a never-ending National Monologue About Race. Only approved people get to have a say and the rest of us are supposed to sit there and soak up their abuse, now and forever more.
If, by some bizarre inversion of normality, Jeff Greason was invited to an hour long solo meeting with the President of the United States for the purpose of having a “dialog” or “conversation” about a) what is wrong with SLS, b) what we should be doing in space , and c) how we can do it sustainably, what percentage of the meeting would ideally be a lecture, where Mr. Greason explains things to the President? There would be a lot of ground to cover in a short time, and if the President was interested and willing to listen and learn, I think a lecture format would be good idea!
That’s both true and irrelevant.
If you retrace, you can replace the space chase disgrace with the case of race, but it isn’t my place to tell your base what to embrace.
you can replace the space chase disgrace with the case of race
Not by employing anything resembling logic.
Big government isn’t the problem? I thought big government was always the problem!
“If you retrace, you can replace the space chase disgrace with the case of race, but it isn’t my place to tell your base what to embrace.”
Define “racism”.
Reminds me of the joke about the guy lost in a balloon. He flies up next to a building and yells to someone in it, “Where am I?” To which someone in the building yells back, “You’re in a balloon.” Now he knows exactly where he is since the information was factual, but unhelpful, he knows he’s at a Microsoft help center.
Does anyone know why, when I double click on email I get a growing list of email addresses I don’t know? This does not happen with name or website.
Key difference: Greason would be telling Obama things that were true and that Obama didn’t already know. And if Obama had a pertinent question, he could ask it without being condemned as a hater.
Ya beat me to the punch. Well done, McGehee.
Once again, you try to hijack a thread by making irrelevant comments. You’re pathetic.
I don’t call him “Sidetrack Bob” for nothing.
by some bizarre inversion of normality
I know I’m probably going to regret this, but why exactly? Does Jeff Greason’s race cause the “inversion”? Does “bizarre” apply to anything other than your “logic”?
I just meant that the President doesn’t normally (or ever) end up talking with Jeff Greason for an hour. My comment had nothing to do with the two men’s race – I just picked Greason, my favorite expert, and Obama, someone ignorant on the expert’s topic but capable of making a difference if he understood what the expert had to say.
You can accept or reject the analogy, but that’s what it was.
My feeling is that anyone who has experienced racial discrimination might be worth listening to regarding what that’s like, and is probably a sort of semi-expert compared to someone hasn’t experienced it, and everyone is capable of making a difference if they listen to what the semi-expert has to say, but I recommended a bonafide expert who is more in Greason’s league in my other comment.
the President doesn’t normally (or ever) end up talking with Jeff Greason for an hour
equals
some bizarre inversion of normality
Got it.
My feeling is that anyone who has experienced racial discrimination might be worth listening to regarding what that’s like
Can you imagine any possible situation where it would NOT be worthwhile listening?
“My feeling is that anyone who has experienced racial discrimination might be worth listening to regarding what that’s like,”
I’ve experienced racial discrimination, but you’re not interested in that.
Define “racism”.
So have I. So has my Asian wife but that doesn’t count. The so-called National Conversation About Race is little more than an attempted “reeducation” campaign of the communist model where one side browbeats the other until they get sufficient “evidence” to destroy them. The word conversation implies a true multipart dialogue but you know good and well that would never be allowed. The only thoughts allowed will be dictates and PC monologues from one side and forced confessions of guilt from the other.
The president rarely talks to anyone (at length) these days outside his inner circle, and has been described by members of his own party as ‘extraordinarily insular’. I believe that the phrase ‘he should get out more’ applies nicely here…
Regarding the value of conversation with those who have experienced racial discrimination, you have missed the point. Obviously CONVERSATION with those individuals could be useful, but the Left isn’t looking for conversation (which implies both sides talking with each other, and listening to each other), but rather an extended monologue where we listen and they talk. BIG difference
LOL Bob, they don’t call you Mr. Tangiental for nothing
I think your analogy would work better if you didn’t use two examples that you agree with. It would work better if you picked one that you don’t agree with like Obama and the Democrats should sit down, shut up, and listen to Republicans sermonize about the environment.
Why would you have Greason lecture Obama on the SLS? SLS is the baby of Shelby et al. The Senate Launch System.
Hop, the task was to explain what is wrong with the SLS.
Once again, Obama isn’t an SLS supporter. It was forced down his throat by congress critters looking out for their pork.
So given that Obama is not an SLS supporter, what would the point of having him hear arguments against it?
Given how ignorant he probably is on the issue, it would at least give him rhetorical ammunition in the unlikely event that he wanted to expend political capital to fight it.
Bob,
Your point that “I think a lecture format would be good idea!” misses the point being made. Or to be more charitable, is an irrelevant point.
People don’t need to be lectured to, by these idiots. They think they know something profound and are sure others don’t. They are so wrong it’s pathetic. It’s the bearded Spock episode: They don’t know how to hide their ignorance all the while believing they are the intellectual elite. Barrack is not the smartest guy in the room… almost any room. What he is, is a liar with an agenda that harms America at every turn.
The problem with your analogy is that Greason is a genuine smart guy. The analogy breaks down because those ‘elites’ are not. That you would put forth such an assertion, while having an element of wit, means you really don’t get it and it’s difficult to figure out a way to explain that you would get.
Ken,
I think people who have experienced hurtful or unfair racial discrimination (as well as other similar forms of hurtful or unfair discrimination) have something to teach people who haven’t experienced it. A lecture format really isn’t ideal, but it is ok in that it distinguishes between experts who have a lot of information to convey, and non-experts who should try to learn the information, as opposed to a meeting of equals. The nature of discrimination changes as society changes, so a new lecture once a decade or so wouldn’t hurt either.
I don’t mean to say that anyone who has experienced racial discrimination is an expert on the subject, equal in caliber to Jeff Greason. For one thing, Jeff Greason is really good at explaining things, at least in his area of expertise, and that’s a rare gift. So that’s where my analogy fails, but there people who are just as good explaining their point of view on racial discrimination as Jeff Greason is at explaining sustainability in space activities. I recommend Ta-Nehisi Coates, who you won’t always agree with, but who you will find to be quite good at explaining his point of view.
I am white. I have been discriminated against while I was in college, many times. Not by black people, well there was the odd Black Supremest and a Chicano multicultural teacher, but by progressive white people who thought it was appropriate to go after a straight white male who was perceived as part of several out groups.
Do progressives want to hear me lecture them about how I have been discriminated against by other progressives? No, they say I deserve it.
From my point of view, having to listen to a Democrat of any color lecture me about racism and discrimination is absurd considering how many racist or bigoted experiences I have had at the hands of Democrats. Democrats do not have a good track record on race and the current efforts to claim moral high ground just make them look more racist. They don’t come from an ideal of being inclusive, it is all about being exclusive, in-group out-group mentality, where in-group has the privilege of double standards and out-group is inherently racist no matter what their views are.
Just a day or two ago, the Obama’s claimed they were victims of racism because people mistook them for employees. Who hasn’t had this happen? Who views being mistaken for working class as an insult? In Michelle’s case, she didn’t even look like a Target employee. In Barack’s case, I think he just made it up. He took a stereotype, like poor people buy dog food, and claimed oh yeah this happened to me too.
I have been mistaken for a store employee before. I didn’t think it was racist or even an insult. I have also been mistaken for a construction foreman while checking out a giant hole in the ground. I took it as a compliment.
I doubt President Obama has experienced much discrimination in his life. He has had a privileged life. His father was an executive for a global company, his mother worked for the government, he was raised by the VP of a bank in Hawaii. He has lived out the rest of his life at elite institutions in Democrat voting areas. Obama has to rely on cliche stereotypes for experiences because he never lived in poor black areas. He has not shared the experiences they have.
A reply which doesn’t address everything you just said: I will happily listen and think about any lecture you’re willing to give. I rarely agree with you but I always want to read what you have to say. About clothing and appearances: I am never mistaken for an employee because I dress so sloppily. I have had people tell me I must be rich because only a rich person would look so sloppy. I don’t know what they would think if I was also black.
“I rarely agree with you but I always want to read what you have to say.”
Thanks, and I always read what you have to say.
“I don’t know what they would think if I was also black.”
A good chance they wouldn’t think anything of it or that they hope they don’t inadvertently do something you might perceive as being racist. IMO, a white person is a million times more likely to go out of their way to not be perceived as being racist than they are to do something racist.
Who views being mistaken for working class as an insult?
Black professionals who are assumed, on the basis of their skin color, to be waiters and doormen. And they’re right, it’s an insult.
his mother worked for the government
Not that it matters to the argument, but I’m curious: when was that? According to her Wikipedia bio she mostly worked for NGOs and Indonesian banks, with some of that work funded by USAID.
I doubt President Obama has experienced much discrimination in his life. He has had a privileged life.
There is no contradiction between living a privileged life and experiencing discrimination.
Obama has to rely on cliche stereotypes for experiences because he never lived in poor black areas. He has not shared the experiences they have.
Huh? As it happens, Obama has lived in areas with poor blacks in New York and Chicago. But racial discrimination isn’t restricted to poor black areas. The experiences Obama mentions are cliched precisely because they are reported by so many American black men of his economic class.
Jim, discrimination exists but Barrack IS NOT the poster child. You’re jumping the shark buddy.
Black professionals who are assumed, on the basis of their skin color, to be waiters and doormen. And they’re right, it’s an insult.
How do they know it was based on skin color? It probably happens, but this sounds spurious in today’s world. It’s not the 1930s anymore.
Huh? As it happens, Obama has lived in areas with poor blacks in New York and Chicago
Yes, by choice. Would you give the same credit to an affluent white suburban who moves to the inner city for a short period? I doubt it.
But racial discrimination isn’t restricted to poor black areas. The experiences Obama mentions are cliched precisely because they are reported by so many American black men of his economic class.
Valerie Jarrett, mistaking then-Vice Chief of Staff of the Army Peter Chiarelli for a waiter, gave him her drink order.
“I’d like another glass of wine,” she reportedly told Chiarelli, despite the fact that he was in full military dress uniform.
Gosh, the horror. I get asked questions in stores all the time. It’s called being neighborly, not racist.
Black professionals who are assumed, on the basis of their skin color, to be waiters and doormen. And they’re right, it’s an insult.
What’s ‘insulting’ about being a waiter or doorman?
Why do you hate the working class?
“Who views being mistaken for working class as an insult?
Black professionals who are assumed, on the basis of their skin color, to be waiters and doormen. ”
That implies that only black people are waiters and doormen and they aren’t. What does it mean when non-black people are mistaken for being a waiter, doorman, or Target employee? When being mistaken for a worker is common across all racial backgrounds, there is a strong implication that race has nothing to do with it. Do Democrats or black people allow that this happens to non-blacks too?
I had some interesting conversations with black people during the Ferguson protests. The people I talked to wouldn’t even allow for the possibility that white people are mistreated by cops or that they are killed by cops. They only had stereotypes with which to judge the parts of the country that they know nothing about, which was 99% of the country.
One guy’s head exploded when I told him a white lady was killed by the cops just a few weeks ago. In his world this wasn’t even a possibility due to the stereotypes he has. But I also have a lot of white progressive friends who do not even know about the white people killed by cops in their own towns. It is like they ignore reality in favor of dogma.
“I’m curious: when was that?”
I might have got that wrong, I thought she worked for the State Department at some point. But she was gainfully employed and married, at least once, to a well off businessman.
“There is no contradiction between living a privileged life and experiencing discrimination.”
No there isn’t but I doubt Obama experienced much discrimination outside of Indonesia. Especially not in high school, college, and his adult life and if he did, it was likely at the hands of fellow Democrats. If Obama experienced discrimination at Harvard, it says little about Billings, Montana or the rest of the country.
“Huh? As it happens, Obama has lived in areas with poor blacks in New York and Chicago.”
But did Obama live in the poor part of town? Claiming to live in Chicago or NYC gives one common experience with the worst off of those cities doesn’t really count if you didn’t live in the poor parts of town.
“But racial discrimination isn’t restricted to poor black areas.”
I don’t think discrimination happens all that frequently. The examples cited by the Obama’s are so trivial and occur across all races. I am more concerned with dealing with real racism not perceived micro-aggression.
“cliched precisely because they are reported by so many American black men”
They are cliche because people just assume that it happens regardless of whether it does or not. It is part of progressive dogma. You notice Obama wasn’t specific, he just grabbed a stereotype out of his bag.
In my view, the stereotypes and bigotry inculcated by Democrat activists and by minority communities are also harmful. Tolerance and equality are two way streets. Viewing white people, cops, or non-Democrats through a paradigm of racial stereotypes and caricatures will never lead to equality, it will only lead to more hate, and judging by the actions of Democrat activists, I think that is the goal.
When she was on the Letterman show a couple years ago, she described the incident with a laugh. Perhaps she has turned the incident into something els in her mind since then, or perhaps she’s lying (then or now). Imagine her horror at actually being asked to help someone with her own hands instead of turning the task over to some government program.
Let’s compare the average waiter with Michelle Obama… By using the Clarey Test.
A full four points on the Clarey Test means you’re a worthless narcissistic egomaniac. Zero points means you’re a valuable member of society.
The Test:
If you have a worthless degree, that’s 1 pt.
No private sector experience? 1 pt.
Currently working in the civil service/ngo/academia (excluding police and military)? 1 pt.
Rich Parents? 1 pt.
Now let’s play… Compare an average waiter with Michelle Obama.
What’s ‘insulting’ about being a waiter or doorman?
Nothing. But having someone assume that you must be a waiter or a doorman, because you are black, is insulting. There is nothing insulting about being a nurse, but assuming that a doctor is a nurse, because she is female, is insulting. In both cases it’s an expression of the inability to see a black man as an individual who might be a professional, or to see a woman as an individual who might be a doctor. That blindness is the remnant of centuries of discrimination, when black men with very few exceptions could not be professionals, and women with very few exceptions could not be doctors. Mistaking a white man’s occupation isn’t remotely the same thing.
” But having someone assume that you must be a waiter or a doorman, because you are black, is insulting. ”
In the abstract, yes, but you make the assumption that this happens only because of skin color. We all agree that making assumptions about a person’s employment based on skin color is wrong. We disagree that all such cases are due to the color of a person’s skin.
It would be nice if Democrats also did not make judgements based on skin color but that is always the first place they go. Have you ever met a Democrat who did not judge you or others based on race?
” Mistaking a white man’s occupation isn’t remotely the same thing.”
So something that happens to all races is uniquely racist when it happens to one race? Does the intent or thoughts of the accused get any play here or are they assumed guilty of racism because of the stereotype? Are they assumed guilty because they are always white in the stereotype?
What people are we allowed to judge on their race and is this a special power Democrats only grant to themselves?
You guys might have stopped burning crosses but you have yet to end the violence and bigotry in your party.
In the abstract, yes, but you make the assumption that this happens only because of skin color.
No. But I don’t assume — as you do, at least where the Obamas are concerned — that it never happens because of skin color.
Jim, a few years ago, Tom Cruise made a movie called “Jack Reacher”. The name “Reacher” is a nickname of the author given to him by his wife. The author Lee Child is tall, and is often asked by others to reach items on the top shelf. Thus his wife calls him “reacher”. Jim, you may be surprised to know that Lee Child is white.
Bob, are you completely unaware of your wrong assumptions? Lectures can be useful, but who decides to attend? If not the person themselves we identify that with re-education camp with all of it’s well deserved implications.
Everybody experiences discrimination. We should all be more sensitive to it. But naturally we get desensitized when it crosses the line into bullshit. Repeatedly. Continuously. Without respite. To be falsely accused of it is worse, making people angry. This is not how you get sympathy for a position. This is how you irritate and anger people and justifiably so.
No it is not in the explaining where your analogy fails. It fails because they are trying to teach what isn’t so. They are the people afraid of an honest discussion. They are the people that believe they have nothing to learn. It is Barrack that believes we just need to listen to him and believe his crap. That’s his failed foreign policy in a nutshell.
Thugs that rob and believe they can attack police then die don’t get the chance to learn anything. Apparently those remaining alive are unable to do any better. They simply don’t want to learn anything. They’d rather just tell us what we should think and punish us if we do not agree.
I do not agree with the liars and to hell with being lectured by them. You Bob, need to not assume we’re stupid.
“I think people who have experienced hurtful or unfair racial discrimination (as well as other similar forms of hurtful or unfair discrimination) have something to teach people who haven’t experienced it.”
I’ve experienced racial discrimination, but you’re not interested in that. Instead, you’re interested in preaching sermons from your stupid Neo-Puritan religion. No thanks, Cotton Mather.
And… Define “racism”.
And Greason isn’t a poser. He just works hard to achieve his dream. He doesn’t sit in a plush office suing the crap out of companies to grease his pockets.
Big government is a problem stemming from one more fundamental. Bob, do you understand why Larry refers to it as abuse?
There is no humility in these lectures. There is no room for the possibility of being wrong, meaning they are not teachable. They already know everything even if everything they know is wrong.
Humble people allow for the possibility of being wrong and it’s used against them. People have doubts long past the point when there is no doubt. Humble people can learn and grow. Marxist haven’t grown the tiniest bit since the manifesto was written except the way a spoiled child learns to manipulate an unskilled parent. We have a lot of unskilled adults giving benefit of doubt which allows these con men to continue doing there damage (parsing language like a lawyer as if that means they are not liars when they absolutely are.)
We need accountability which is exactly what these liars are expert at avoiding. We need adults willing to marginalize these marxist children which is getting harder all the time because marxism is affecting all our thoughts. Poster child: Elizabeth Warren.
“To begin with, any arguments that some might see as racist could lead to complaints and even lawsuits about a supposedly “racially hostile work environment”;”
THAT is the objective, in my opinion. Get people talking and every time someone says something the Socialist/Marxist/Race-baiting hive doesn’t like, punish the speaker mecilessly.
Every. Time.
That will put the clamps ont he national dicussion and the Race Baiters will say, “Well look we’re standing around the water cooler waiting for people to come with opposing views and no one comes and speaks. Therefore we must all be in agreement with what the Hive says.”
It’s a scientific fact that fair skinned people have a higher albedo than dark skinned people.
Make a law requiring all people to be the same color… that’s the ticket… hair too? Naw, shave it off. You can fix anything with a law doncha know! I vote blue-green.
Say what you like about the KKK but at least their uniforms fight global warming.
Stories like the one linked are another excellent reason for being anonymous on the internet. The pitchfork brigade for any group is too easy to mobilize. Anonymous speech is free speech and we all know how little some people care about the ideal of free speech, so we should all take steps to protect it for ourselves.
In the late 80s I drove a cab for a few years to make ends meet (after five layoffs from electronics companies in a year and a half, it was grim). For a while I subleased a cab from another driver, Tyrone Brown, a retired Army Sergeant. One morning after my night shift, turning the cab over to him for the day I asked him, “T, I try not to be prejudiced, and hell I know I’m not perfect, but why is it that so many young black men seem to feel an _obligation_ to be a pain in the ass?” He laughed and replied “Man, I know how you feel. They get in my cab, get all familiar, ‘Hey, brother, what’s happening?’ and I just glare at ’em and snarl, ‘I AIN’T your brother!'” He said words to the effect that it wasn’t just me, he wanted to smack some sense into the youngsters, too. It’s not a new problem.
I chuckle because I was all of 28 back then, he was maybe 40, talking about teen-early 20s passengers. All relative, I guess.
Obama talk to Greason for an hour? You mean the same Obama that made Buzz Aldrin ride on the back of the plane and refused to talk to him?
I’ll allow for the possibility that Barack Obama may have experienced racial discrimination when he was growing up in Indonesia and Hawaii. He may have been picked on by other kids.
But neither he nor Michelle have *ever* experienced discrimination in the mainland US as adults. Quite the opposite. They have been given the benefit of the doubt repeatedly, through affirmative action and white guilt. They have had doors opened for them without regard to their qualifications or achievements, simply because of their skin color.
And since they’ve been in the White House, neither of them have ever missed an opportunity to stoke the fires of racial resentment. I’ll be damned if I’m going to listen to them lecture me about race.
But neither he nor Michelle have *ever* experienced discrimination in the mainland US as adults.
How could you possibly know that?
I agree that they’ve experienced discrimination through much of their lives. In their favor. Obama has been promoted far beyond his meager abilities, largely based on the color of his skin.
When I see the phrase “National Conversation About Race,” I picture lefties shrieking like Roger Waters at the end of “Another Brick in the Wall” (which I for many many years misheard as “How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your beets”).
From watching the live streams of the Ferguson protests, it is pretty clear that racism isn’t just a problem with white people or non-Democrats. The black community and progressives have their fair share of racists and progressives have more than their fair share since they have a whole race based dogma.
I recall conversations from the 1970s:
“You should really get your nose out that textbook and get interested in Problem X.”
“Okay… Now that I’ve read about it, I think you’re wrong.”
“How dare a math/physics major disagree with social scientists!”
“Nobel Prize winners Hayek and Friedman agree with me.”
“That’s called ‘argument from authority.'”
That could be a Trey Parker/Matt Stone script.
A very productive conversation.
Not.
Go To:
Soda head opinions Dec 23rd by Thomas Sowell—-become intellectually informed!
Fact is this written by an intellectual Black person with an honest evaluation—which has little or nothing to do with what the race baiters / haters want you believe are the issues.
Become informed–a refreshing start to trying to resolve issues!