Patterico's Pontifications

3/17/2011

“In Opposition to Liberal Racism;” or “In Which I Answer Yglesias’ Challenge…”

Filed under: General — Aaron Worthing @ 12:19 pm



[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

Update: Instalink!  Sweet!  Also, William Jacobson via email gave me a reminder about how Yglesias has race-baited in the past, and has shown a creepy obsession with race and white people generally.

Yesterday as an update to a post, I wrote the following:

And just in time [for this post], Yglesias and Think Progress publish this tripe.  Here’s a hint, you cheap race-baiter.  Just because the majority of people wanting something might be white, doesn’t make it automatically racist.  Indeed, the belief that a view is necessarily racist unless there is a rainbow of colors supporting it is itself racist.

So this morning I see a few drive-by comments claiming I was unfair to Yglesias and silly me I didn’t think to try to figure out where it was coming from until much later.  Apparently Yglesias quoted this update (selectively removing boldface, interestingly), and wrote:

I defy you to read my post and find any instance of me calling anyone a racist.

Okay, Yglesias, challenge accepted.  First off let’s start with the definition of racism.  Webster’s dictionary defines it as follows:

1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

2: racial prejudice or discrimination

Of course my personal definition is just the inverse of Martin Luther King’s dream: to judge a person not by the content of their character but by the color of their skin.  But we will see that both definitions are satisfied.  Now, let’s look at Yglesias’ own words:

A good series of charts by Lee Drutman shows that one of the best predictors of declining Democratic partisan ID between 2008 and 2010 is the number of white people….

I now think the system will remain near equilibrium and what we’ll instead see is white voters growing more Republican as Democrats are more and more seen as the party of non-whites…. 

This does mean, however, that politics will become even more abstracted away from “the issues” and questions of identity will become even more central.

(emphasis added.)  So he is saying that as Democrats increase minority membership, white people will suddenly decide they don’t want to be in the same party any more, and thus “questions of identity will become even more central.”  According to him that white people (and arguably minorities) will associate politically and vote according to color.  He is accusing those whites who switched of segregating themselves according to their “identity” away from the Democrats because they are seen as the party of minorities.  And he wants to pretend he isn’t accusing them of racism?

And I will remind you that racial segregation is considered one of the most egregious types of racial discrimination, and as Webster’s Dictionary (and my own definition) would tell you, that is discrimination and thus racism.  So yes, he was pretty clearly accusing them of racism.

And indeed his own commenters interpreted the post exactly the same way. Seriously read through them and it’s comment after comment reading the post as accusing those white party-switchers of racism.  I have read something like one hundred of those comments and not a single person took away a different meaning from the post.

And he implicitly acknowledges as much by the very choice of his words in his own defense.  Go look at the link.  The post is entitled, “Anti-Anti Racism.”  And he writes this about my words:

The hyperactive response here does, however, remind[s] me of one of the signal qualities of modern American politics, namely conservatives’ absolute conviction that overzealous anti-racism is a major social ill…. But it’s clearly the major driver of conservative movement thinking on race in America.

(underline added.)  Now, dear reader, don’t get distracted by the fact that what actually I denounced him for was being a racist himself and race-baiting.  Notice instead that he is saying that by denouncing his post I was engaged in anti-anti-racism. Which can only be true if he believes his post was anti-racist.  Which means necessarily that he was accusing those people of racism.

And not for nothing, but while he may have convinced himself he was anti-racist, but in fact he was himself judging people not by the content of their characters but the color of their skins.  And in my book, that is racism.

And bluntly it is an old and over-used trope on the left to point toward the racial makeup of their opponents in an attempt to denounce them as racist.  Consider this rant by Olbermann asserting that the Tea Party is racist:

If you [in the Tea Party] believe there is merit to your political argument, fine. But ask yourself, when you next go to a Tea Party rally, or watch one on television or listen to a politician or a commentator praise these things or merely treat them as if it was just a coincidence that they are virtually segregated. Ask yourself: Where are the black faces? Who am I marching with? What are we afraid of? And if it really is only a President’s policy and not his skin, ask yourself one final question: Why are you surrounded by the largest crowd you will ever again see in your life that consists of nothing but people who look exactly like you?

And as I said at my old blog (language warning at the link), in the process of supposedly denouncing racism, Olbermann proved himself to be a racist, not the least of which because he apparently can look at a sea of multiple races and see only white people.

So, yes, Mr. Yglesias, you accused those people of being racist.  Not that I expect you to be honest and admit to that.  You do work for Think Progress, after all.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

30 Responses to ““In Opposition to Liberal Racism;” or “In Which I Answer Yglesias’ Challenge…””

  1. Yglesias, Olberman, and Obama all seem to think that if only Obama were white all opposition to his policies would disappear.

    At least that is their argument. It fails the laugh test.

    I fervently hope that Yglesias and Olberman and Obama some day suffer the consequences of their own beliefs.

    Basically, they want people like me to pay for programs I don’t want, don’t benefit from, and can’t afford even if I did.

    Jack (f9fe53)

  2. Blogroach approaching….

    Simon Jester (c8876d)

  3. A.W. – Maybe one of the drive by commenters from that moron blog will explain how those fabulous Drutman charts Yglesias referenced in his post yesterday explained the shift in party ID between 2008 and 2010. It seemed to be missing, at least in any coherent form, from both Yglesias’s and Drutman’s pieces.

    daleyrocks (ae76ce)

  4. I never take it for granted that Obama is a Douschebag.

    Like Kman.

    DohBiden (984d23)

  5. So if whites, en masse, go Republican b/c they don’t like Blacks and that is racism via segregation…. then if Blacks vote Democrat, en masse, doesn’t that make them racist too? I mean, they can just as easily pull the Republican lever but do not.

    Me thinks this has more to do with voting in your best interests than anything else … and you can draw your own conclusion there about the difference between black voters IN GENERAL and white ones IN GENERAL.

    But for me that means one votes for handouts for themselves via the extortion-based approach of Government, the other votes to stop it by getting rid of Government.

    Just saying.

    Torquemada (2a42d3)

  6. And no one like Yglesias has explained how Hilary Clinton lost 90% of the black vote to Obama in the primary given her liberal credentials…… unless it was RACISM, or RACIAL PRIDE, or MAKING “HISTORY” or whatever.

    Torquemada (2a42d3)

  7. @6

    Only whites can be racist. And maybe asians, the left is inconsistent on that point.

    malclave (1db6c5)

  8. Perhaps the truth is that whites will tend to shift more Republican, not because they are racist, but because the Democrats may begin to focus more on special interest racial issues that do not appeal to white voters.

    Eric (704cc0)

  9. I concur with Matt on this issue.

    But this site does have some excellent trolling.
    Which I always enjoy for the imaginative prose.

    DohBiden. The correct spelling is douche bag. But I get your meaning.

    miktek (9ec672)

  10. #10 LOL.

    Torquemada (2a42d3)

  11. Comment by Eric — 3/17/2011 @ 2:29 pm
    That is exactly the point of Yglesias’ post, and you (meaning Aaron) and the hundred commenters at Think Progress are, bluntly, wrong.

    Let me rewrite one sentence from Yglesias’ original post:
    what we’ll instead see is non-white voters growing more Democratic as Republicans are more and more seen as the party of whites….

    In other words, the complement of what he actually said, and if the one is true, so is the other.

    If he’s calling whites voting Republican racist, then he’s also calling non-whites voting Democratic racist.

    And he doesn’t like what he calls identity politics on either side of the aisle–he’s said things to that effect enough times that say otherwise would both a flat contradiction of a long held position

    (speaking as a person whose grandparents had to bribe border guards, use fake passports, and use smugglers to get across the border. Only it was the Russian border, not the American border. Yes, Aaron, I did read your post at AtB.)

    kishnevi (c89e0a)

  12. A good series of charts by Lee Drutman shows that one of the best predictors of whether or not one was ever a member of 80s pop supergroup bananarama was whiteness. It’s a true fact you can google it and that’s what gets results.

    Now be a love and please to stop being racist.

    happyfeet (ab5779)

  13. The leftards play the race card because they’re bereft of useful ideas. They also play the race card b/c they believe it is a useful tool to use against conservatives who often fear nothing more than being accused of racism – even when it’s false. So, just tell them to Fuck off. They’re children. They’re idiots. They’re RACIST. Look at their party’s history and look at their past and present policies of dividing people by race, obsessing over race, and calling all white people racist, calling black conservatives “uncle Toms” and trying to destroy non-white conservatives with the special fervor that only a master has when he fears that the slaves will revolt if they saw a free black.

    Real American (4cdb6a)

  14. “A good series of charts by Lee Drutman shows that one of the best predictors of whether or not one was ever a member of 80s pop supergroup bananarama was whiteness”

    Well the absolute best predictor of whether or not one was ever a member of 80’s pop (I refuse to call them a supergroup) group Bananarama was femaleness.

    gahrie (88a452)

  15. Only racists think in terms of race. Who is it that keeps bringing up the subject of race?

    Steve S. (86f7a1)

  16. Steve S.

    See the update. Yglesias is positively obsessed.

    Aaron Worthing (73a7ea)

  17. As someone who unfortunately lived when racism was the norm, racism certainly exists today. It is condemned as the evil it represents, every day, by both sides of the political spectrum.

    Yet, only one side uses it to pummel the opposition.

    At some point we all have to realize race-baiting only empowers the weak and the ignorant. All have the ability to stand and the dependence of wobbly props diminishes the power of individual will.

    Ag80 (efea1d)

  18. Douche bag

    Dousche bag

    Does it matter whether it refers to Obama Or Soros or any useful idiot which follows the two.

    DohBiden (984d23)

  19. “Last September, my boyfriend broke up with me over a five-line email,” McCain wrote. “I had a speaking engagement at Juniata College, but that would have to wait. I cancelled [sic] the speech and fled to Vegas for a girl’s weekend.”

    summer has come and passed the innocent can never last

    I hurt for you Meghan you have no idear

    happyfeet (ab5779)

  20. oh. I forgot the linker is how bad I hurt.

    Hold me.

    happyfeet (ab5779)

  21. Wow, so close, but so far away.

    I now think the system will remain near equilibrium and what we’ll instead see is white voters growing more Republican as Democrats are more and more seen as the party of non-whites….

    Ask yourself, what exactly it means for the Democrats to be “the party of non-whites”. Answer: They’re the party of “affirmative action.” Or, to be more honest, they’re the party that advocates for the government to discriminate against “white” people. So, if you’re a white person, and don’t give a damn about race, and simply want everyone to be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin, then the Democrats racial politics and racial focus (see the “wise latina”) means that your ideals require you to abandon the Democrat Party.

    If the Democrats weren’t the party of the racial spoils system, that would be an entirely different situation. Then there would be no reason to abandon the Democrats as they become more “minority”. But the Democrats are the racist party, they are the party of racial spoils. And that means the more they become the party of “people who don’t look like you”, the more reasonable it is for you to leave the party. Not because you care about people’s skin color, but because the Democrats are run by people who do care about it.

    Was it “racist” for 1950s Southern Blacks to oppose the Democrat Party? No. It didn’t matter what those blacks position on race was, what mattered was that the 1950s Southern Democrats cared deeply about skin color, and thus were guaranteed to be the blacks enemy.

    Well, things don’t change all that much, and the 2010 Democrats still care deeply about skin color. The colors they hate have changed, but the hatred, and using the government to hurt those they hate, is still the same. So if you’re white, and you don’t hate yourself, and you don’t hate your kids, and you’re not so very well off that the Democrats anti-white policies won’t harm you, then the Democrats racism should push you to support the Republicans, irregardless of any racism you might or might not feel.

    In short, when a racist group gets taken over by people who think you are “not one of them”, then the rational response is to leave that group. And that’s what’s happening with the Democrats.

    Greg Q (327ae0)

  22. Hasn’t this been their schtick for decades? When the white racists (I mean the hardcore KKK Democrat) abandoned the Democrats they had no where to go but to the Republicans. The Democrats saw this as an opportunity to smear all Republicans and they’ve been milking it for all it’s worth since then. The Republicans at the time should have said to the white racists: we don’t want you either. And they should have been saying it every day since.

    The Republicans are beginning to fight back against this smear by fielding more candidates who are not white and for whom race does not matter. Their messages are even more compelling to Republicans than the average candidate. This must be driving the white racists mad. Who are they going to vote for now? Hopefully, they’ll find a rock to crawl under or better yet, smarten up.

    It must be said that the tactic of divide and conquer has done immeasurable damage to society, but especially to a majority of blacks who have been used and abused by Democrats. Using race to gain political advantage is reprehensible and unforgivable. A nation can not survive when the politics of the nation are driven by race and for that the Democrats are entirely responsible. Will they not stop at anything to gain power?

    sgi (40aa52)

  23. Obama got 97% of the black vote. Every Democrat candidate for president since LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act in ’64 has gotten 90%+ of the black vote – give or take a couple percent. Consider that blacks are about 13% of the population. That is a very consistent and extremely loyal Democrat voting bloc. To keep blacks from straying to the Republican Party, Democrats have used racial and identity politics as a political weapon for 45 years. That’s not going to change.

    Democrats are always going make baseless charges of racism against Republicans in order to sew hatred in the hearts of blacks against Republicans to try to keep the black vote from straying.

    It’s really that simple.

    Scott (7fb736)

  24. Yglesias, Klein, Marshall, and on and on. A steady stream of dweebs who spent their junior high years getting tossed into the hallway in their underwear.

    Dotar Sojat (2335b8)

  25. So if ninety percent of a race votes for a candidate because of his/her race, that is racist?
    Tell that to 90 percent of blacks who voted for Obama, whereas only about fifty percent of whites voted for McCain. So who’s voting for whom because of race?
    The depth of Yglesias’ idiocy can never be underestimated.

    eaglewingz08 (74f660)

  26. I especially like your last point. Is the correctness of an idea contingent upon the melanin level of those who hold it? Or the diversity of skin-color of its holders?

    Rhymes With Right (b97a6a)

  27. where is the DRJ this rhymey person has a very good post for to read

    Drink Soda? Texas Dem Wants To Tax You More Than Beer Drinkers

    happyfeet (ab5779)

  28. Nanny statism run amok.

    DohBiden (984d23)

  29. The staff at American Progress looks very racially tilted… How interested in ameliorating disparate racial impact (an A.P. goal, I hear) can they be if 20 of the top 23 staff (Executive Committee and Senior Staff) are white and 0 are black? I’m pretty sure A.P. is based in D.C. so it’s not as if there are no worthy candidates.

    http://www.americanprogress.org/aboutus/staff

    thecarlylegrope (a73777)


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