The Other Side of Racism

jwoodie

Platinum Member
Aug 15, 2012
19,745
8,515
940
ANNE WORTHAM - The Other Side of Racism




Dr. Wortham is author of "The Other Side of Racism: A Philosophical Study of Black Race Consciousness" which analyzes how race consciousness is transformed into political strategies and policy issues.

She has published numerous articles on the implications of individual rights for civil rights policy, and is currently writing a book on theories of social and cultural marginality.

This article by her from November 2008 is an interesting perspective on our current president:

Fellow Americans,

Please know: I am Black; I grew up in the segregated South. I did not vote for Barack Obama (in 2008); I wrote in Ron Paul's name as my choice for president. Most importantly, I am not race conscious. I do not require a Black president to know that I am a person of worth, and that life is worth living. I do not require a Black president to love the ideal of America .

I cannot join you in your celebration. I feel no elation. There is no smile on my face. I am not jumping with joy. There are no tears of triumph in my eyes. For such emotions and behavior to come from me, I would have to deny all that I know about the requirements of human flourishing and survival - all that I know about the history of the United States of America , all that I know about American race relations, and all that I know about Barack Obama as a politician. I would have to deny the nature of the "change" that Obama asserts has come to America .

Most importantly, I would have to abnegate my certain understanding that you have chosen to sprint down the road to serfdom that we have been on for over a century. I would have to pretend that individual liberty has no value for the success of a human life. I would have to evade your rejection of the slender reed of capitalism on which your success and mine depend. I would have to think it somehow rational that 94 percent of the 12 million Blacks in this country voted for a man because he looks like them (that Blacks are permitted to play the race card), and that they were joined by self-declared "progressive" whites who voted for him because he doesn't look like them.

I would have to wipe my mind clean of all that I know about the kind of people who have advised and taught Barack Obama and will fill posts in his administration - political intellectuals like my former colleagues at the Harvard University 's Kennedy School of Government.

I would have to believe that "fairness" is equivalent of justice. I would have to believe that a man who asks me to "go forward in a new spirit of service, in a new service of sacrifice" is speaking in my interest.. I would have to accept the premise of a man that economic prosperity comes from the "bottom up," and who arrogantly believes that he can will it into existence by the use of government force. I would have to admire a man who thinks the standard of living of the masses can be improved by destroying the most productive and the generators of wealth.

Finally, Americans, I would have to erase from my consciousness the scene of 125,000 screaming, crying, cheering people in Grant Park, Chicago irrationally chanting "Yes We Can!" Finally, I would have to wipe all memory of all the times I have heard politicians, pundits, journalists, editorialists, bloggers and intellectuals declare that capitalism is dead - and no one, including especially Alan Greenspan, objected to their assumption that the particular version of the anti-capitalistic mentality that they want to replace with their own version of anti-capitalism is anything remotely equivalent to capitalism.

So you have made history, Americans. You and your children have elected a Black man to the office of the president of the United States , the wounded giant of the world. The battle between John Wayne and Jane Fonda is over - and that Fonda won. Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern must be very happy men. Jimmie Carter, too. And the Kennedys have at last gotten their Kennedy look-a-like. The self-righteous welfare statists in the suburbs can feel warm moments of satisfaction for having elected a Black person.

So, toast yourselves: 60s countercultural radicals, 80s yuppies and 90s bourgeois bohemians. Toast yourselves, BlackAmerica. Shout your glee Harvard, Princeton , Yale, Duke, Stanford, and Berkeley. You have elected "NOT" an individual who is qualified to be president, but a Black man who, like the pragmatist Franklin Roosevelt, promises to - Do Something! You now have someone who has picked up the baton of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. But you have also "FOOLISHLY" traded your freedom and mine - what little there is left - for the chance to feel good.

There is "NOTHING" in me that can share your happy obliviousness.

God Help Us all...

Anne Wortham is Associate Professor of Sociology at Illinois State University and continuing Visiting Scholar at Stanford University 's Hoover Institution. She is a member of the American Sociological Association and the American Philosophical Association.
 
Is it racial profiling to predict that blacks will continue to vote al least 80% democrat? However, when many black people are asked about specific issues such as abortion, school choice, and gay marriage they are conservative.
 
ANNE WORTHAM - The Other Side of Racism




Dr. Wortham is author of "The Other Side of Racism: A Philosophical Study of Black Race Consciousness" which analyzes how race consciousness is transformed into political strategies and policy issues.

Copy and past jobs are tedious. Anyone can find something on the internet they agree with. What matters is the ability to compose one's own arguments, using the internet only to document factual assertions.
 
Is it racial profiling to predict that blacks will continue to vote al least 80% democrat? However, when many black people are asked about specific issues such as abortion, school choice, and gay marriage they are conservative.

They should practice that social conservatism on themselves and stop having so many illegitimate children and committing so many crimes.

Social conservatism begins in the home with a married couple raising their legitimate children, and teaching them good values to live by.
 
Is it racial profiling to predict that blacks will continue to vote al least 80% democrat? However, when many black people are asked about specific issues such as abortion, school choice, and gay marriage they are conservative.

You are actually the first person I have seen notice this. I tell my friends this all the time. The think I'm crazy. Then I start to ask them questions about where they stand on issues. Most of the answers are conservative. Abortion, gay marriage, The death penalty and believe it or not welfare.
But here's the thing, 98% of black conservatives are insulting to black people. They go around to all these white venues and insult black folks. They haven't lifted a finger to help the black community. They haven't gone to at the very least try talking to black people to try to get their point across. All they do is insult black folks.
We need some black conservatives who can get the message across without the insults. Just get the message out. I mean white conservatives are racist enough (not all but lets face it), we don't need black self hating racist helping them out. I know there are a ton of problems that we the black community needs to work on. But getting up in front of a bunch of white folks and insulting all black people is not the way to fix them.
 
Is it racial profiling to predict that blacks will continue to vote al least 80% democrat? However, when many black people are asked about specific issues such as abortion, school choice, and gay marriage they are conservative.

You are actually the first person I have seen notice this. I tell my friends this all the time. The think I'm crazy. Then I start to ask them questions about where they stand on issues. Most of the answers are conservative. Abortion, gay marriage, The death penalty and believe it or not welfare.
But here's the thing, 98% of black conservatives are insulting to black people. They go around to all these white venues and insult black folks. They haven't lifted a finger to help the black community. They haven't gone to at the very least try talking to black people to try to get their point across. All they do is insult black folks.
We need some black conservatives who can get the message across without the insults. Just get the message out. I mean white conservatives are racist enough (not all but lets face it), we don't need black self hating racist helping them out. I know there are a ton of problems that we the black community needs to work on. But getting up in front of a bunch of white folks and insulting all black people is not the way to fix them.

From my prospective I do not see how black conservatives are insulting to black people. What I see is the liberal leadership of blacks (Al, Jesse, NAACP, etc) demonizing black people that try to communicate the conservative message of personal responsibility and smaller government. What do you think are some specific ways that black conservatives (or other conservatives) can be successful in spreading the conservative message without being insulting to black people?
 
Is it racial profiling to predict that blacks will continue to vote al least 80% democrat? However, when many black people are asked about specific issues such as abortion, school choice, and gay marriage they are conservative.

You are actually the first person I have seen notice this. I tell my friends this all the time. The think I'm crazy. Then I start to ask them questions about where they stand on issues. Most of the answers are conservative. Abortion, gay marriage, The death penalty and believe it or not welfare.
But here's the thing, 98% of black conservatives are insulting to black people. They go around to all these white venues and insult black folks. They haven't lifted a finger to help the black community. They haven't gone to at the very least try talking to black people to try to get their point across. All they do is insult black folks.
We need some black conservatives who can get the message across without the insults. Just get the message out. I mean white conservatives are racist enough (not all but lets face it), we don't need black self hating racist helping them out. I know there are a ton of problems that we the black community needs to work on. But getting up in front of a bunch of white folks and insulting all black people is not the way to fix them.

From my prospective I do not see how black conservatives are insulting to black people. What I see is the liberal leadership of blacks (Al, Jesse, NAACP, etc) demonizing black people that try to communicate the conservative message of personal responsibility and smaller government. What do you think are some specific ways that black conservatives (or other conservatives) can be successful in spreading the conservative message without being insulting to black people?

First off let me clear one thing up. Day to day working class black folks like myself don't pay any attention to people like Jessie and Al or the NAACP. We for the most part just wish they would just go away.
I have had this conversation before. I really don't know how they should go about it. I'm sure they have people for that. I just know how I and the people I know feel. Take for instance when Sharpton made his bid for POTUS. The first thing we thought was "HA not in a million years could this clown do it" Then he raised like $50,000. Not a lot of support there. Then I see Herman Cain. I had never really heard of the guy so I looked him up. What I saw of him at first was interesting and I started to follow him. Then it seemed like every time he had the chance to make a point about black folks, I went away feeling insulted. Allen West is the same way. He even has ties to the racist MC gang "The Outlaws". I never got that feeling from people like Micheal Steele, Colin Powell, Condi Rice and a few other's that you almost never hear from. But the ones that are showcased West, Cain, Keys and so on all seem to hate black folks.
 

Forum List

Back
Top