Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Gopher]

Jaykimf: I have argued this:

[jaykimf]

Hey Gopher,

Are there, or are there not, a number of white racists who continue to discriminate against blacks in the US., despite the laws, and if such racial discrimination continues, how common do you think it is?

[Gopher]

Let us say, for argument's sake, that all white Americans are racist and hate blacks.

Do you think that undermines my position, particularly as I articulate it in those first three quotes, above? If so, how? I think that ultimately what you want to say is that you object to my characterizing America as I do; you want us to stay focused on what a sorry place it is, a place where your "racial discrimination" is "common." I cannot and will not argue against that position, Jaykimf.

But I will ask you this, to test your perspective and worldliness: do you allege that only white Americans manifest racism? If not, who else does? And how do they all compare, as far as virulent racism goes?

[Kuros]

For what its worth, I think the two dominant narratives I'm hearing on this thread are both correct, and not irreconcilable.

Gopher & ManintheMiddle are correct. Having a black man in the White House is going to change perceptions. Particularly when those perceptions are compared to past Presidents. I think that Obama can do better than Bush, and I think there are ways in which he might surpass even Clinton, Reagan, & Eisenhower.

Huffdaddy et al are also correct. There is a continuing legacy of discrimination against African-Americans, and even if there were not, African-Americans are a more vulnerable portion of society socio-economically partly because of America's racist past. I don't think this is Leftism to acknowledge at least that much of Huffdaddy's point.

[Gopher]

I disagree. Leftism begins where people refuse to acknowledge real change in favor of the no-longer-appropriate, angry identity-politics and its allegation-driven discourse. Perpetual, undefeatable pessimism, where the glass is not only half-empty, but it was deliberately made half-empty by greedy, racist, sexist, homophobic capitalists, etc.

Kuros: blacks experience and benefit from the full-range of citizenship in America, by every standard that everyone who has ever measured it, from T.H. Marshall forward, has ever measured it.

I allege nowhere that America is a utopia or without faults. But we have moved well beyond Jim Crow -- and we continue moving away from it. Do you even understand what Jim Crow represented? Surely you have read Plessy by now, and understand its politics and compromises. My freshmen read and discuss Plessy in the post-Civil-War American-history survey course.

There is an irreconcilable difference between the two positions, then. Jim Crow and separate-but-equal persists in American society, African-American voters, jurors, lawyers, judges, and executive and legislative officials at the federal, state, and local level notwithstanding? Where is the Jim Crow in all of that, with B. Obama standing by to occupy the Oval Office? News reporting involving the Ku Klux Klan are broadly representative of "Americans?" Where do you stand on that?

You are in law school: are there no African-American men and women there? As students and/or administrators and professors? Do you know where they would be in a Jim Crow or Jim-Crow-like system...?

[jaykimf]

[Gopher]

I have in fact answered that question and articulated and repeated my position clearly multiple times here. You are not reading it. Or you are reading it adversarially and dismissively at best.

By the way, who is not answering questions now?

[Kuros]

[Gopher]

Re: H-diddy's Jim Crow and your "culture of poverty."

So far offpoint from the issues I have raised and addressed that the conversation becomes meaningless. We are talking so far past each other it is not even funny. Take a snapshot of African-Americans in the 1650s, 1750s, 1850s, 1950s, and project the 2050s, and tell me you can not see what I see...

Some of you simply prefer your world of dark, depressing pessimism. You stubbornly ignore African-Americans as they are today: complex and diverse; and more to the point: fullly-included citizens, upper, middle, or lower class or not (and all three exist).

In any case, at the end of the day, we should stick with what works for us. As for me, I remain satisfied with the "citizenship" debate and literature and African-American leaders' perceptions on race-relations. As for the rest of you, I honestly do not know what you are talking about, what language you are speaking, etc.

[Kuros]

[Gopher]

All right, then.

H-diddy's Jim Crow remains entirely inappropriate in the United States 2008. But I recognize that the slavery experience cast a long shadow over race-relations and legacies of the unequal power-relations remain, in diminished form or not.

Re: your "culture of poverty." I guess so. But it transcends the African-American community and touches whites and Hispanics and others as well. You are getting away from race and getting into class. When you link the two as you seem to have done here, you gloss over wealthy, professional, and skilled working-class blacks. They occur as more than mere token blacks, Kuros.

As far as my own position here, I have seen no contradictory evidence presented at all that (a) blacks enjoy the full spectrum of citizenship in America today; and that (b) B. Obama's election has motived African-American leaders and many everyday African-Americans to rethink their previous views on their position in American society -- and they are talking about "reaching Martin Luther King, Jr.'s moutaintop" and "a new era," etc.

Things have changed a great deal since the Constitution deemed African-Americans 3/5 of a person, since they could not vote, or since they had to sit at the back of the bus. Hello. They sit in Congress, on the Supreme Court, and are moving to sit in the Oval Office as we speak.

[Kuros]

[huffdaddy]

[huffdaddy]

[Big_Bird]