Cobb

Interesting piece.

Is race and class even necessary in this debate? Some wish to make it so for partisan purposes but it's a legitimate question.

Lots of poor black people died in NO this past week. Did they die because they're poor and black? Yes, but not because of anything goverment did this week. Those who exist on the fringes of capitalist society in our past were never in the kind of dependent position that those poor souls and the Superdome or Convention Center were.Hence, I think a legitimate argument can be advanced (in my post that you kindly linked to) that the very dependence - through no fault of their own - contributed to their deaths.

What Moynihan was saying (and I'd love to read what you wrote on him some day) and what I was trying to say a lot less eloquently is that after generations of dependency, people lose the ability to function in society; what social scientists call social cripples.

Those people sat around in the Superdome for 3 days and never got organized for protection, never took pride enough in their surroundings to keep them clean, never organized "johnny details" for disposal of waste; in short, the things that associative, functioning members of society would have done on day 1 (or 2 if it looked like they were going to stay awhile) did not even occur to people in the Superdom.

Was this a function of race? Of class? Or dependency?

Questions that I'd like to explore without the usual namecalling and caterwauling from the left.

"George Bush doesn't care about black people" is a racist sentiment so far as I'm concerned. I don't care who said it, I don't care why. It's racist. It's part and parcel with a type of racism common in some quarters that says, "the man's white and I don't like him, so that makes him fair game." I've seen it all my life and I'm with Goldstein--I'm not shutting up anymore. Kanye and his apologists may have started this conversation but it's not going to end there. I'm mad as hell about this bullshit and I'm not shutting up.

George Bush clearly DOES care about black people because they are Americans. He's shown it with his words and his actions going all the way back to his days as Governor of Texas. Any claim to the contrary is based on ignorance and prejudice--the hallmarks of racism.

It's unusual that a President would note first a prominent Senator's home being among those damaged? Uh, hello? You think President Clinton wouldn't have done that? You think if it had been a Democratic Senator Bush wouldn't have? No way. Of course he would have. That's what you do.

And by the way, the press obsession with blacks on this is disgusting from multiple levels. Countless poor white trash have lost their homes and lost loved ones on that, and they're just as poor and just as important. Most aren't in New Orleans but some are, but making it all about poor black people isn't good for anybody.

I'm not convinced that we'll immediately hear any stories of ordinary decency or heroism around the Superdome. If there's a such thing as a liberal media, then we know that it's ready to milk the blacks as victims story for as much as it can. I've hard a counter story, for what it's worth, that some posse in the 'dome beat a rapist to death. But I was one of those who found it intriguing to listen to stories about the Superdome having four levels of Hell. How can you beat that press? It's impossible for me to imagine that people were not making new friends for life in that situation. So when does that story get told? That is a question of who gets to tell the story and what their interests are.

There's a reason that police cannot disband gangs overnight. There's a reason that churches survive for generations, that's because human teamwork is non-trivial. Even if people are poor and destitute, and perhaps moreso, they are going to organize some kind of way. Illegal immigrants from Mexico find a way to get here against all odds and border patrols. So people are expressing their will and organization at all levels of society. Looking at welfare and Medicaid and all that from an economic point of view, as well as the dynamics of extended and single parent families is a great study. The question isn't whether Moynihan is right or wrong per se, the question is whether the families we sustain are compatible with the economies we sustain. The reason it's so easy to point at the dysfunction is because the mainstream middleclass standard is so clear, but dual income families are more the norm now than in Moynihan's time. What would he have made of soccer moms who work? My point is that whatever ugly socioeconomic niche the poor black survivors inhabited, it can't be undone simply and it's wrong to suggest that it could be. Nobody knows this like rich cousins of poor cousins.

The upshot is that Welfare Reform is too like scientific socialism in that it is a government initiative to change the economic circumstances of a class of people to whom it is responsible. You cannot discount the way people organize themselves.

Dean I would simply suggest to you that Kanye West is doing nothing more or less than political posturing and I believe that the origins of his sentiment are not in any theory of racial supremacy. I would even go as far as to say that he never expected that anyone who would listen to him would misinterpret his remark as racist.

West isn't able to be Richard Pryor. He can't talk about black people and white people like Pryor did and have it resonate in truth because today, African Americans are far too diverse in class and in politics to put into that narrow dialog.

I think there is a substantial burden of proof in the Republican Party to demonstrate its ability to reach African American voters with any sophistication, and that's obvious. This idea wasn't born yesterday, and I know black Republicans who want to run for office on the GOP ticket who can't get the attention of party bosses, well money, because it is a generally accepted premise that black GOP candidates cannot reliably deliver black votes.

Kanye West has become a black spokesman how and why? Because of whom? What's his politics? Nobody know before last week. If it takes this kind of event to talk about what's going on in poor black New Orleans, then who decides? Where's Bill Cosby?

You're right. All this media concentration on black looters is a crime against America, just like the bogus story about the prison riot, and just like everybody on the planet knows that somebody shot at a helicopter. This is an ass-backwards way to get talking about our society, and I wish it weren't so, but that's a discussion that should take place far above the level it has crawled to.

As far as I'm preliminarily concerned, West has just thrown in with Susan Sarandon, Harry Belefonte, and the rest of his Hollywood ilk who are all thinking the same thing. It *is* about how we politically percieve the interests and expressions of poor blackfolks, and what kinds of stories we are willing to accept about them at face value. I don't think we should protest too much.

West doesn't get to represent and the more you focus on his self-evident political idiocy, the more you take away from sensible folks who are a bit more thoughtful.

Well I said more in the trackback I sent you. Maybe some fruitful dialogue will occur from that.

Hmm. Looks like the trackback didn't take. Stupid technology!

Anyway, response more or less is here:

http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1125900443.shtml

Beyond that I'll just note there are two definitions of racism--first is the idea that one race is superior to another in some deep fundamental way. But the other, right out of the American Heritage, is, "Discrimination or prejudice based on race."

When it's open season to sling accusations at a guy because of his race, that's racism in my book. In a way it even is based on a theory of racial superiority or inferiority--at least on a moral level, the assumption is that it's okay to kick the white guy around.

Anyway I said a lot more in my piece. Maybe you'll agree. Maybe you won't. Peace either way.

I'm ready for the debate. And I think that everybody who rolled their eyes listening to West, or Jesse Jackson, or Amanda Marcotte from Pandagon try to turn the occasion of this catastrophe into a racial issue is ready for that debate, too. And I'm betting it was an awful big cross-section of people.

Much of the 'racist' comments from some come from the facts that people around the Superdome were not allowed to leave and penned in by gunpoint, that network reporters were able to get into places where militias were not, the fact that Bush went speechifying the first few days afterward, instead of rushing to the scene, etc. Recall the hue and cry from the Left after the Red Lake Indian Reservation massacre and how Bush's slow response to that contrasted to Clinton's at Columbine.
Esmay is a typical dense white guy who loves posturing on race, even as he wallows in its semiotic underbelly, and utterly does not get it. But, he's not alone. He's just the tip of that stick.
Bush's insensitivities to race and poverty (and poverty is the greater class division- it's just that there is a higher rate of poverty in that area among blacks) are not new, but they lead directly to discrimination- mostly in corporate America. I agree, however, that had this occurred on Indian lands, or in white rural Appalachia, his response wd have been similarly slow. To call him on this is not racist, merely self-evident. The thing this most cruelly exposes is not Bushco's (for it's not just the Prez) insensitivity, but their utter incompetence. 4 years after 9/11, and one feels that mayve the terrorists were scared they couldn't succeed again, w all the $ spent on homeland security. Osama and co. must have their hands down their pants with glee over this fiasco. Incompetence has always been the biggest bane Bush has borne- that a part of that has to do with his racially insensitive attitudes is just that- a part.
And there's a reason why you're not as big in the blogosphere as Esmay, Sullivan, Daily Kos, Wonkette, Atrios, etc.
And you know what it is. Left or right, racism is not a political thing, but a psychological aberrance. By medical definition it is insane to think that one's skin color or eyelid shape makes one better at this or that. For better or worse big time racism went Madison Ave. during Reagan's tenure, and so there are less lynchings, etc., but the glass ceiling is thick as ever, and so are de facto red lines. Gentlemen's agreements are more in vogue, sotto voce, than ever before.
I'd never heard of Kanye West before, but if all he was saying was 'George Bush doesn't care about black people,' the correct response from any thinking person would be, 'Ya think?' To call that, itself, racist, shows how much America, white or black, needs to wake up and listen.

edited for brevity

Here's a little taste of the culture that's behind West's impromptu announcement:



"Shine and the Titanic," #149 Swapping Stories

Arthur "Arturo" Pfister, New Orleans, Louisiana



http://www.louisianavoices.org/Unit5/edu_ss149_shine_titanic.html



Cap'n Charley said, "Shine, Shine don't you know my might?
Anything I say and do is right.
You work for Cap'n Charley when the sun comes up
You brings my favorite slippers and my coffee cup.
You work for Cap'n Charley, stokin' the coal.
You work for Cap'n Charley and I owns your soul.
You might be a Christian and pray to the Lord,
But on the Titanic, I outranks God."

[Pfister makes a sound to indicate that an iceberg hits the ship]
Then there was a loud, crashin,' smashin' sound
God pulled rank.
Shine said, "You might be the Cap'n on the land and the sea,
You might run the engines, you might turn the key.
You might be Cap'n Charley, well all that's hip,
But I'm gettin' off of Cap'n's stinkin,' sinkin' ship."

Jumped his black butt into the sea, he did.
He said, "I'm going to tell you one thing, and I don't mean maybe,
But I was long and grown when Father Time was a baby.
I done kilt a whole lot of men's way better than you.
Done kilt a thousand V.C. in Dien Bien Phu.
You can be Tarzan and Rambo and Jungle Jim,
But that's one iceberg that sure ain't slim.
Forked is your tongue, I done heard all the lies,
I'm going to ride with the water and make my own enterprise."

I'm not convinced that we'll immediately hear any stories of ordinary decency or heroism around the Superdome.

You won't.

Race isn't simply culture, it's class and politics too and until people start putting those three things together into identifyable quantities, blackfolks are going to get blamed for everything whitefolks want to blame them for, without specificity

Yep. Which is why I've been a gnat to some of your CB bloggers because, I think, they don't get it either, or chose to ignore it.

Race isn't simply culture, it's class and politics too and until people start putting those three things together into identifyable quantities, blackfolks are going to get blamed for everything whitefolks want to blame them for, without specificity.

Hence part of the the psychological and ideological utility of racism. It simplies the world by providing a convenient scapegoat of all manner of social ills.

Dean E:" But the other, right out of the American Heritage, is, 'Discrimination or prejudice based on race.'

When it's open season to sling accusations at a guy because of his race, that's racism in my book."

Dean, I'm not sure you understand the definition, then. Kanye was basing his accusation based on Bush's actions (or, in this case, inaction). The accusation was specific to one person, Dean, not the whole clan.

Now, if'n he'd said, "George Bush doesn't care about Black people because he's White," alright, you may possibly have a case based on the AH definition. Because that would amount to a condemnation of all White kind, if you follow the simple logic.

But that's not what happened here. You've rushed to the defense of White People Worldwide, tryina put out a fire of your own invention. Just chill. Peace outty.

I'm with Cobb on this one. West's statement was stupid, but there's no evidence it was motivated by George Bush's race. If last November's election had gone the other way, does anyone believe for a minute that West would have said the same thing about President Kerry? He's white too, last time I checked.

The guy who needs a good thrashing from the 'sphere is Steve Sailer. Will you check out his rant?

http://www.vdare.com/sailer/050903_new_orleans.htm

Hardly. Most of us are pretend amateur social scientists with an axe to grind. He's no different. He's also no different from any other garden-variety racist 'cept he likes to set up pretend institutes to point to disseminate his favorite collections of half-truths. He's not worth my energy.

He can be dealt with via the VC Wiki (starting with a full discrediting of The Bell Curve).

Vdare just exited my blogroll. Not sure if I'll bother fisking the guy or just leave bad enough alone.

I opted for fisking the guy after all. If I'm going to spend as much time as I do debunking phony charges of racism, it's the least I can do to condemn the real thing when it surfaces from time to time.

ahh, the dumass illogic of it all...kerry don't like black folk neither...didn't you see the 'lection. guess not. didn't you check his platform and his issues. guess not. kanye ain't a politician...don't matter what he might have said 'bout kerry. all we have is that dummya dropped the ball on this...can't blame kerry or the gubbner in louweeesiana or the mayor. just fall and the sword and come up with a rationale that makes sense. west certainly isn't stupid simply for stating the obvious - but it doesn't make him wise. y'all need to move on 'cause dummya ain't got a leg to stand on. too much vacation, too little brain.

The reason your blog may be less popular than you think you deserve is: (1) You have problems with spelling, which is why I don't read your blog, and (2) Your natural writing style is more suited to print.

[Editor's note: Very well, you are hereby banned]

I think your entire premise is off beam. You've built your entire argument on the idea that Kanye West is a typical Hip Hop artist; perhaps a greedy, intellectually weak opportunist who torments the nation’s sensibilities with his vacant expressions through that garbage that "THEY" call music? Actually this young man is an intriguing character. He is an individual with alertness about social phenomenon that is rare in this age. The messages in his music very often go against the values of what you would consider to be his “constituents” therefore indicating that he really doesn’t have a constituency.

You need not diminish Kanye’s intent to address Bush’s weakness. Following the trend of the conservative Black, you haven’t the spine to criticize your leadership without assuming the repentant stance; taking a strong position but making a point to knock down a Black figure in order to maintain your legitimacy so as not to loose face with those that you so deeply want to impress…. White Americans. Next time, keep it simple: Bush is out of touch with everyone except the members of his set. His lack of awareness is an indication of a lack of concern or care for others including Blacks. So yes, in that way Kanye is correct.

Perhaps the terms that best suites the modern climate with regards to how European decedents consider the rest of the world’s people is not racism, better stated, its white supremacy. White supremacy is brought on by a very natural phenominon called ethoncetrism.

I trust that discussing the matter of race in this manner provides you with a more comfortable platform, as this matter does need to be dealt with. The fear of being linked with those who publicly attribute racism to every observable human act should not prevent us from dealing with this matter.

If Kanye West were the best political hiphop artist in history, superior in every way to KRS-1, Paris, Chuck D, De La Soul, XClan, Jamiroquai and Common, that wouldn't change the fact that he made an idiot comment that was a vacant ramble.

It also wouldn't change the fact that he has contributed zero to a debate that was already very well covered here in the blogosphere to which you too are apparently on the late freight.

If anybody is out of touch, it's people like yourself who bring up tired and wrong arguments about who black conservatives are and what we're trying to do. So I tell you what. I'll go analyze Kanye West's lyrics and you come read some stuff from the Conservative Brotherhood. Show me where we're kissing white butt. I've got three years of writing almost every day - hundreds of thousands of words from which you can draw your conclusions.

West may have intended to make a cogent criticism of the Bush Administration but he didn't do it, that's why all of his fans have to rush to his defense and explain what he really meant.

West doesn't get to represent on the strength of 15 seconds of wasted airtime that black political science professors don't get. You want to defend that as legitimate political criticism?

I don't think you understand Hazel, that I'm anti-racist. I am defending West and saying he's not racist here. But I'm also saying that his political comments are beneath consideration and that even if he was saying what he probably intended to say he was weak.

But here's my stuff on race if you want to go that way. But to save some time, I'll go straight to the Republican = Racist scenario.

I understand what you are anti-racist.

Lets simplify again. You are saying that George Bush does care about Black people.....?

By the way I am sure that most political science professors would be delighted if their students would exhibit any level of sincerity, conviction or brevity such as that which was expressed by Kanye. In this age when the King (President) clearly has no clothes and no one cares to say, and Reality is produced for the masses to observe and emulate, I say bravo to the young man. By the way, you are mistaken; I am not a fan of Mr. West’s music. I detest Hip Hop and before any other assumptions are made, I consider myself to be an Independent. Hence an encounter with any predictable sentiments (right or left) is rather tiresome. The most unappealing position to me is the expected.

You are correct I come to it all rather late. Perhaps its also why I am having a difficult time with how one attaches their genetics to a political ideology. If one is indeed not concerned with making some sort of point about their race and politics to others why then label oneself a member of an exclusive club of conservative, one to be distinguished by race? I will read your position and perhaps then will I understand your position and the brotherhood (and its necessity).

I'm reading away. What seems to be missing is a way to implement your proposals in a society that plagued as you say, by the white supremacist ideology. Why would “the supreme” choose to fully collaborate with “the inferior” to relinquish his superiority so that he is considered equal to “the inferior”. I’ll keep reading.

Not following your reasoning on The Worst Case Republican Scenario. The first of many confusing assertions is that you are Republican because Republicans are all racists and you want to join in? Yes I'm over simplifying but do you realize that that is what you said? I realize that you wrote this in the wee hours but have you gone back to read it? You further assert that this choice makes you a humanitarian. I’m rudely cracking up. I’d hoped for quite sometime that an encounter with a brother who is solely aligned with the Republicans would help me to see the light, but….. Its late in my part of the world. Maybe my judgement is affected.

Kanye West is RACIST. Why does he still look at race. The reason white rappers are more popular is because there are less of them. Why cant the brotherhood and kanye just leave it go. I live in the hood and I rap. Is it wrong for me to rap because i am white? Its horrible that people have to show their ignorence. Racism is still alive in all colors, but right now yall are the ones being racist

I agree that the media is showing many black people looting but when they show images of gangs of blacks stealing for jewlery stores grabbing watches, how can you not say their taking advantage of the situation.

i dont mind seeing black or white people looting for food but stealing "bling" and other non-usuable things is just plain stupid and needs to be shown

The victims were REFUGEES, there I've said it. (Refuge: a place that provides shelter or protection.)

When the people who finally left their homes which were no longer a place of refuge (a place that provides shelter or protection) in search of a place that provides shelter and protection. THEY BECAME THEM REFUGEES.

The entire population of New Orleans were given three days "before" the storm's landfall for a mandatory evacuation. 32% evacuated (race up for discussion), 68% ignored mandatory evacuation order (race plastered over every television set in the civilized world.)

When they ignored he three day mandatory order to evacuate and placed themselves and their children in imminent danger they further earned the title IDIOTS.

This is not a race issue, it is a common sense issue. Now, if you'll excuse me I need to get to the back of the line again for another free $2,000 credit card. Got three so far.

Pop star Kayne West barely made it through high school only to flunk out of the first quarter of one of the lowest rated colleges in our country. He has absolutely no knowledge, experience, or even a single conversation regarding political science and we have morons like the iron-haired Reverend Sharpton actually lending full political support to this teenybopper.

Jesse Jackson has lost all political clout long ago with black people and Sharpton is pretty much a joke. It seems to me that black people are somehow reticent to accept legitiment black leadership. Colin Powell, Condeliza Powell, nononono forget Jesse Jr. He is worse than his P.Black Stone Ranger father.