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post #31 of 56
12/31/08 at 8:48am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ckblv View Post
The guy who made the recording, that sings the song. The Reverend Al impersonator, he is black. He did it, he owns it as far as I am concerned.

I thought the whole deal is a parody or satire as the Reverend Al impersonator singing a song to Barack because he (Rev Al) is jealous of Barack because Barack is getting more attention than him (Rev Al)

Since a black dude made the recording I don't even think it was meant to be racist at all. It was supposed to be funny and IMO, it is kinda funny, I admit it, I laughed when I listened to it.
Oh, it makes sense now. You just had the wrong information on who made and sang the songs and was basing your conclusion on that.
But really, even if a black man wrote, sang or distributed it, does it make it any less offensive. It cause quite the controversy when Limbaugh first played it and it hasn't diminished now. My father, thank goodness, always made sure from elementary school that I knew I was responsible for my own actions. I remember a teacher told my dad that some kids and I were singing an inappropriate ditty. He didn't seem impressed when I told him someone else started it. He held me accountable for my actions. So I tend to hold everyone else accountable for their actions and saying someone else started it just doesn't fly with me.
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post #32 of 56
12/31/08 at 8:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Skippymjp View Post
It's not one word or the other, it's the phrase "Magical Negro". As a phrase it indicates that the black in question has some kind of magical ability, but it can only be used to aid or support whites. Think Will Smith in "Bagger Vance".
Actually, I don't think negro is used anymore. I remember when I first started working with my black co-workers I used the word negro. You could have heard a pin drop when they all turn to looked at me. They gently explained to me the term negro is no longer used. I really tend to avoid using any words that designate color when describing people. Were are all just people to me anyway.
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post #33 of 56
12/31/08 at 9:43am
I'm not bothered about the "Barack the Magic Negro" song. There has been "satire" put out by both Democrats and Republicans that some have found extremely offensive and others have taken in the spirit it was meant and found it funny. I don't believe this song was done mean-spiritedly, but it's not particularly appropriate either.

It's definitely not appropriate for someone who wants to be the leader of the Republican party to send out CDs as a Christmas present (!!!) containing material that is essentially making fun of other races and heritages. That sends out an incredibly bad image. It just blows me away that Saltsman with the aspirations he has thought this would be a good Christmas gift. I keep typing sentences and deleting them. I can't even begin to verbalise how much of a stupid move that was.
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post #34 of 56
12/31/08 at 10:18am
Okay, the black dude is the guy who originally wrote the article for the LA Times, before Shanklin ever recorded the song, Shanklin got it from him.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Skippymjp View Post
Where are you getting this from? Paul Shanklin, who creates impressions of dozens of people, and both wrote and performed this little ditty, is entirely Caucasian. He also wrote and performed several other offensive tracks on the CD, such as "The Star Spanglish Banner" and "The bank of Amigo".
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post #35 of 56
12/31/08 at 10:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Skippymjp View Post

It's not one word or the other, it's the phrase "Magical Negro". As a phrase it indicates that the black in question has some kind of magical ability, but it can only be used to aid or support whites. Think Will Smith in "Bagger Vance".

That is what you got from it. I didn't get anything of the sort.

I guess we all perceive things differently. Not to say I don't think Saltsman used poor judgement, because I think he did.

But I do have to agree with some of what the author of the LA Times article said and I still don't see how a black guy (that authored the article) can be racist to his own race. Blacks are allowed to say that kind of stuff about blacks and white people aren't and that is okay with me also.

I agree with sarahp's post totally.
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post #36 of 56
12/31/08 at 1:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ckblv View Post
That is what you got from it. I didn't get anything of the sort.

I guess we all perceive things differently. Not to say I don't think Saltsman used poor judgement, because I think he did.
Actually, it not a case of "what I got from it". That is the historical use of the phrase. http://www.doubletongued.org/index.p...y/magic_negro/

Quote:
Originally Posted by ckblv View Post
But I do have to agree with some of what the author of the LA Times article said and I still don't see how a black guy (that authored the article) can be racist to his own race. Blacks are allowed to say that kind of stuff about blacks and white people aren't and that is okay with me also.
I'm not sure that it's possible, by definition, to be racist against one's own race. People of one race can be in solidarity with another, but I think that's the extent of it. But then again, no one said that he was! His article was on the subject of whites voting for a black candidate because they suffer from what he perceived as "white guilt". He did not acknowledge any other reason for a white voter to support a black candidate, a quite racist viewpoint actually.
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post #37 of 56
12/31/08 at 5:11pm
Yes, it is possible to be racist against your own race, and people do it all of the time.

A black boss, when looking over prospective employees and who would best fit into which position, can hire white employees for white collar jobs that pay more and hire black employees for blue collar jobs that pay less money. There are many, many other possibilities of racism against your own race, but I doubt I need to come up with examples: if you think of any kind of measurable racism, it can be done by a person of any skin color. Women can be sexist in ways that disadvantage women, and it actually happens fairly often.

I suspect it is true that people less often discriminate against people of their own group than of against people of other groups, but where the culture as a whole has deep-seated discriminatory expectations, it is extremely easy for individuals to discriminate against their own group.
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post #38 of 56
1/1/09 at 1:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Enuja View Post
Yes, it is possible to be racist against your own race, and people do it all of the time.

A black boss, when looking over prospective employees and who would best fit into which position, can hire white employees for white collar jobs that pay more and hire black employees for blue collar jobs that pay less money. There are many, many other possibilities of racism against your own race, but I doubt I need to come up with examples: if you think of any kind of measurable racism, it can be done by a person of any skin color. Women can be sexist in ways that disadvantage women, and it actually happens fairly often.

I suspect it is true that people less often discriminate against people of their own group than of against people of other groups, but where the culture as a whole has deep-seated discriminatory expectations, it is extremely easy for individuals to discriminate against their own group.
I don't know if that could be considered "racists" but it would be discrimination...there is a difference IMO. For example, applying for a federal job, a applicant get more points if they are a minoriy, disabled, if they have federal employement experience (ie military) or, I think if they are a woman. Then test scores are figured into it and added to the points. So someone could score lower than I but still get the job instead of me if they happened to be a disabled vet of mexican origin (I do have the woman thing going for me ).) Do I think that's racist? No. Do I think it's a form of discrimation? Yes.

On the other hand, if a black person or a female is doing the hiring, they may feel that if they hire a black person or a female over a white male, they will be accused of favortism. Ridiculous, I know but I can see that happening. "Oh, he only got the job because he's black or she's a woman".

People just seem to walk on eggshells anymore when it comes to race. It reminds me of the cartoon where a woman comes into a man's office at work and says "I heard all the women in the office are suing you for sexual harrassment. You haven't harrassed me yet so I'm suing you for discrimination". Some people just can't win.
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post #39 of 56
1/1/09 at 2:16pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by peachytoday View Post
Actually, I don't think negro is used anymore. I remember when I first started working with my black co-workers I used the word negro. You could have heard a pin drop when they all turn to looked at me. They gently explained to me the term negro is no longer used. I really tend to avoid using any words that designate color when describing people. Were are all just people to me anyway.
And the odd thing is that the term "Negro" is very old, and was at one time preferred by blacks. Then they went with the term "Black," which was preferred by Afro-Americans.

Then Afro-Americans decided they preferred "African American."

I guess any group has the right to have a preferred appellation. They even have the right to be touchy about it. (For example, use the term "necon" around a Republican, or "Democrat Party" around a Democrat.)

I agree that such terms usually serve more to separate us than unite us.
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post #40 of 56
1/2/09 at 1:57pm
Well, here's an interesting take on the matter: Bigger Than Bush

Quote:
Forty years ago the G.O.P. decided, in effect, to make itself the party of racial backlash. And everything that has happened in recent years, from the choice of Mr. Bush as the party’s champion, to the Bush administration’s pervasive incompetence, to the party’s shrinking base, is a consequence of that decision.
...
In 1981 Lee Atwater, the famed Republican political consultant, explained the evolution of the G.O.P.’s “Southern strategy,†which originally focused on opposition to the Voting Rights Act but eventually took a more coded form: “You’re getting so abstract now you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites.†In other words, government is the problem because it takes your money and gives it to Those People.
Oh, and the racial element isn’t all that abstract, even now: Chip Saltsman, currently a candidate for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, sent committee members a CD including a song titled “Barack the Magic Negro†— and according to some reports, the controversy over his action has actually helped his chances.
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post #41 of 56
1/2/09 at 5:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jcat View Post
Well, here's an interesting take on the matter: Bigger Than Bush
Yep, read that today in the NYTimes. Loved it!
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post #42 of 56
1/3/09 at 5:46pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by jcat View Post
Well, here's an interesting take on the matter: Bigger Than Bush
Well, I was voting 40 years ago and that doesn't sound like anything I remember. The GOP's strategy under Atwater and Reagan was to court disaffected southern Democrats. These would be conservative Democrats who were disenchanted with the very liberal Democratic Party that came out of the Carter years pretty divided and with some pretty black clouds hanging over their heads. The Republican Party simply tried to cater to them to get their votes for Reagan and other more conservative candidates. And it worked quite well. And racism had nothing to do with it and any attempt to make out today that it do so is simply yet another rewrite of history. Well, they're rewriting this a little too soon because some of us that were around then and remember it are still alive and kicking.

Sheesh.....and on another board in another thread they're talking about the Moon Landing as being all a big hoax.
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post #43 of 56
1/3/09 at 6:12pm
Rewriting history seems to be pretty common these days.
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post #44 of 56
1/3/09 at 6:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ckblv View Post
Rewriting history seems to be pretty common these days.
It appears to be pretty evenly divided between people trying to rewrite history, and those that have trouble remembering it thinking it's being rewritten
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post #45 of 56
1/3/09 at 11:22pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Skippymjp View Post
It appears to be pretty evenly divided between people trying to rewrite history, and those that have trouble remembering it thinking it's being rewritten
Well, google "Reagan Democrats" and you'll see there's nothing wrong with my memory; in fact here's an article confirming what I wrote and posted on one of those "mainstream" websites (your definition)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5151912/
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post #46 of 56
1/4/09 at 3:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by coaster View Post
Well, google "Reagan Democrats" and you'll see there's nothing wrong with my memory; in fact here's an article confirming what I wrote and posted on one of those "mainstream" websites (your definition)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5151912/
Actually, I said "evenly divided" in response to ckblv's post that it was becoming "pretty common these days". I'm not sure why you would take that as being accusatory.

It's not my definition. It's the one I picked up here. So are you saying that news sources considered "liberal" are NOT mainstream media? What an interesting twist. Personally, I like a very varied supply of news. Nothing screams "media bias" like a single news source whose viewers claim is totally fair and truthful, and then support that with blogs by people that get their news from the same source.

One of the most fair and balanced sources of news in the US appears to be, of all places, the Christian Science Monitor, simply because everyone thinks they cater to the "other guys". People think that way because they print the truth, even the truth that people don't want to hear, and both sides think they're the other side because they don't care who the truth ticks off.
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post #47 of 56
1/4/09 at 7:34am
It is interesting that many on the internet are blaming Rush for this, I don't see it myself

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/est...ro_.guest.html

Oh yeah, easy to blame Rush, just isn't true.
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post #48 of 56
1/4/09 at 10:21am
Quote:
Originally Posted by coaster View Post
Well, I was voting 40 years ago and that doesn't sound like anything I remember. The GOP's strategy under Atwater and Reagan was to court disaffected southern Democrats. These would be conservative Democrats who were disenchanted with the very liberal Democratic Party that came out of the Carter years pretty divided and with some pretty black clouds hanging over their heads. The Republican Party simply tried to cater to them to get their votes for Reagan and other more conservative candidates. And it worked quite well. And racism had nothing to do with it and any attempt to make out today that it do so is simply yet another rewrite of history. Well, they're rewriting this a little too soon because some of us that were around then and remember it are still alive and kicking.

Sheesh.....and on another board in another thread they're talking about the Moon Landing as being all a big hoax.
This quote comes from the article you linked to:
Quote:
“In the South the Reagan realignment of the 1980s was a momentous achievement,†wrote political scientists Merle Black and Earl Black. “By transforming the region’s white electorate, Ronald Reagan’s presidency made possible the Republicans’ congressional breakthrough in the 1990s.â€Their reference to the “white electorate†is deliberate: Reagan alienated many black voters by, among other actions, contending in 1982 that racially discriminatory private schools were entitled to tax-exempt status unless Congress specified otherwise.
The National Housing Institute criticizes Reagan in this 2004 article, Reagan's Legacy: Homelessness in America:
Quote:
Reagan’s fans give him credit for restoring the nation’s prosperity. But whatever economic growth occurred during the Reagan years only benefited those already well off. The income gap between the rich and everyone else in America widened. Wages for the average worker declined and the nation’s homeownership rate fell. During Reagan’s two terms in the White House, which were boon times for the rich, the poverty rate in cities grew.
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHis indifference to urban problems was legendary. Reagan owed little to urban voters, big-city mayors, black or Hispanic leaders, or labor unions – the major advocates for metropolitan concerns.
...
The 1980s saw pervasive racial discrimination by banks, real estate agents and landlords, unmonitored by the Reagan administration. Community groups uncovered blatant redlining by banks using federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act information. But Reagan’s HUD and justice departments failed to prosecute or sanction banks that violated the Community Reinvestment Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in lending.
This op-ed, Reagan's Race Legacy, probably puts in best (emphasis mine):
Quote:
Philadelphia, county seat of Mississippi's Neshoba County, is famous for a couple of things. That is where three civil rights workers -- Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman -- were murdered in 1964. And that is where, in 1980, Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan chose to launch his election campaign, with a ringing endorsement of "states' rights."
It was bitter symbolism for black Americans (though surely not just for black Americans). Countless observers have noted that Reagan took the Republican Party from virtual irrelevance to the ascendancy it now enjoys. The essence of that transformation, we shouldn't forget, is the party's successful wooing of the race-exploiting Southern Democrats formerly known as Dixiecrats. And Reagan's Philadelphia appearance was an important bouquet in that courtship.
I don't accuse Reagan of racism, though while he served, I did note what seemed to be his indifference to the concerns of black Americans -- issues ranging from civil rights enforcement and attacks on "welfare queens" to his refusal to act seriously against the apartheid regime in South Africa. He gets full credit from me for the good things he did -- including presiding over the end of international communism. But he also legitimized, by his broad wink at it, racial indifference -- and worse.
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post #49 of 56
1/4/09 at 1:34pm
I could care less what anyone says about President Reagan, I was around back then and he was a good President and a large part of the reason the Cold War ended. But many people feel the need to disparage his memory, I'm just not one of them.

And I not a huge fan of "Welfare Queens" either.
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post #50 of 56
1/4/09 at 3:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ckblv View Post
I could care less what anyone says about President Reagan, I was around back then and he was a good President and a large part of the reason the Cold War ended. But many people feel the need to disparage his memory, I'm just not one of them.

And I not a huge fan of "Welfare Queens" either.
I rather doubt he's going to be sanctified. Like most leaders, he had his strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures, as well as supporters and opponents/critics.
Reagonomics or 'voodoo economics'?
Reaganomics - Its Remarkable Results
Welfare queen
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post #51 of 56
1/4/09 at 6:27pm
I notice you fail to mention his huge accomplishments with regards to ending the Cold War Tricia. I wonder why that is. I would think Reagan is thought of pretty highly in Germany and he should be and FDR should be also.

Did Reagan make mistakes? Sure he did, what POTUS doesn't? But he has gone/will go down
in history as a great POTUS. Much better (which isn't saying much) than that ineffectual POTUS before him, for sure.

And that WALL did get torn down didn't it?
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post #52 of 56
1/4/09 at 6:34pm
When I think of "Welfare Queens" I think of women in the 70's that had one illegitimate child after another to increase their monthly welfare benefits.
Pathetic. Generational welfare. It makes my head hurt, I'm not even going down that road tonight.
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post #53 of 56
1/4/09 at 10:03pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Skippymjp View Post
Actually, I said "evenly divided" in response to ckblv's post that it was becoming "pretty common these days". I'm not sure why you would take that as being accusatory. :
Cindy's post was simply a comment supportive of my post, and your post was immediately following Cindy's, so it's reasonable to assume your comments insinuating a poor memory were directed at me. My short-term memory may be failing, but my long-term memory is still functioning quite well, thank you.
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post #54 of 56
1/4/09 at 10:09pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by jcat View Post
This quote comes from the article you linked to:
Quote:
wrote political scientists Merle Black and Earl Black. “By transforming the region’s white electorate, Ronald Reagan’s presidency made possible the Republicans’ congressional breakthrough in the 1990s.â€Their reference to the “white electorate†is deliberate
political science is the least disinterested of any "science" -- these two gentlemen write from a particular political viewpoint, and it seems to me their political viewpoint is to tie racism to the Reagan administration. Reagan was the least racist guy in the whole country (read his autobiography) and whatever their political objectives at the time, any effort to disenfranchise black Americans or any other racist agenda is simply a modern-day slant. Would that America have another Reagan as a President someday. He's needed now morel than ever.
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post #55 of 56
1/5/09 at 12:42am
Quote:
Originally Posted by coaster View Post
Cindy's post was simply a comment supportive of my post, and your post was immediately following Cindy's, so it's reasonable to assume your comments insinuating a poor memory were directed at me. My short-term memory may be failing, but my long-term memory is still functioning quite well, thank you.
As you wish I've impressed myself. I never realized that I could write so much information "between the lines"
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post #56 of 56
1/5/09 at 7:00am
Thread Starter 
Mike, as far as writing misinformation "between the lines" goes, you're a master at it. You have every right to be impressed with yourself.

And as Mike would say:
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