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Yo! Howard: Why did Dean have to embrace the Confederate flag?
Wall Street Journal ^ | November 14, 2003 | Shelby Steele

Posted on 11/13/2003 4:51:59 AM PST by Jim Noble

Edited on 04/23/2004 12:06:07 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

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Pretty good commentary on identity politics. I don't think guilt will serve much longer to suppress white group politics.
1 posted on 11/13/2003 4:51:59 AM PST by Jim Noble
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To: Jim Noble
But Howard Dean and all other white candidates--Democrat or Republican--run into a hard limit when they play identity politics.

Yeah, those Republicans -- always playing identity politics! They are just like the Democrats, always appealing to blacks on the basis of blackness. Always appealing to gays on the basis of gayness. Always appealing to women on the basis of feminism.

Funny, I associate identity politics far more with Democrats than I do with Republicans. But Sheby Steele seems to see some commonality or equivalence between the parties on this point.

There are a lot of other reasons why I think this essay is a piece of junk, but I'll refrain.

2 posted on 11/13/2003 5:06:41 AM PST by ClearCase_guy (France delenda est)
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To: *dixie_list; BSunday; PeaRidge; RebelBanker; PistolPaknMama; SC partisan; l8pilot; Gianni; ...
bump
3 posted on 11/13/2003 5:08:12 AM PST by stainlessbanner (Grits & Gravy)
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To: Jim Noble
Dean's comment was more elitist than racist.
4 posted on 11/13/2003 5:10:30 AM PST by stainlessbanner (Grits & Gravy)
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To: Jim Noble
I have no white guilt! Those who would impose "guilt" upon me because I am white are racists and that would include the majority of the black population as well as a sizable portion of the white population.
5 posted on 11/13/2003 5:13:21 AM PST by FLAUSA
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To: Jim Noble
What kind of word is "Yo!" I've lived in the South for nearly 60 years and never heard anyone use that expression, except in TV commercials.
6 posted on 11/13/2003 5:14:36 AM PST by js1138
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To: stainlessbanner
Bingo! I think Steele utterly missed the point of Howard Dean's statement. It wasn't about Race. Not white, not black, not identity politics in any real sense. Dean was trying to appeal to what he perceived as poor, ignorant, no-class southerners. As you say, it was an elitist comment, not a racial one.

But Steele sees race in everything. Often from a rational viewpoint, and I often agree with him. But here, he missed the boat completely.

7 posted on 11/13/2003 5:19:33 AM PST by ClearCase_guy (France delenda est)
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To: Jim Noble
"Today, only the strictures against a white racial identity keep us at all civilized around race."

Such 'strictures' only seem to impede caucasians; all other groups are allowed, nay encouraged, to be 'uncivilized' around race.

8 posted on 11/13/2003 5:20:21 AM PST by NicknamedBob (Tag line roulette wheel spinning, ... spinning, ... (FREE SPIN))
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To: Jim Noble
Thus, today's black power is only a weak atavistic power without enough development behind it to make it either helpful or threatening to anyone.

Tell that to the Jews in Crown Heights when then mayor David Dinkins decided to hold off on cracking down on black protestors who eventually wound up running through the streets shouting "Kill the Jews" and a few actually did kill one young Jewish man.

Because of this indifference to the threat posed by that black mob, New York will likely not have another black mayor unless they are a law-and-order Republican willing to crack down on black groups when they get out of hand.

9 posted on 11/13/2003 5:21:23 AM PST by Question_Assumptions
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To: stainlessbanner
Dean's comment was more elitist than racist.

It was also clueless and stupid. He seemed to leap from "some" to "all" with no justification or experience. Some pickup trucks in the South have confederate flags on windows?...so what, so do some everywhere else. But, to create a voting class of southerners with pickup trucks with confederate flags in the windshield is just not valid or part of his life experience.

It's extremely condescending, kind of "I come from Vermont and know what's good for you" and "I know how you think". I can't believe that voters aren't seeing his snobbery and lack of perspective. Give Al Sharpton some credit...he knows it when he sees it, this time.

10 posted on 11/13/2003 5:30:13 AM PST by grania ("Won't get fooled again")
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To: js1138
"What kind of word is 'Yo!'"

Two of them go together to describe a toy that goes up and down on a string - or to describe a Democrat.

11 posted on 11/13/2003 5:33:52 AM PST by azhenfud ("He who is always looking up seldom finds others' lost change...")
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To: Jim Noble
For at least a minute, Howard Dean tried to be such a leader, a racial leader demagoging his Confederate-flag white people into a resentment that would redound to him as power. He wanted to be Al Sharpton, and use race to carve out a territory of votes that would be atavistically loyal, locked up for him by identity itself. These voters would look at him and see a white man not afraid to be proud, a "brother" as it were.

Searing.

12 posted on 11/13/2003 5:51:48 AM PST by OESY
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To: Jim Noble
No group in recent history has more aggressively seized power in the name of its racial superiority than Western whites. This race illustrated for all time--through colonialism, slavery, white racism, Nazism--the extraordinary human evil that follows when great power is joined to an atavistic sense of superiority and destiny.

What crap.

What's the deal on Steele, is he a black pundit trying to find dry ground?

People of color still practice slavery and exploit the caste system. People of color who raped Nanking have no regard for people of their own color to this very day.

On the other hand,

"Western whites" are the reason you are sitting in a sanitary, heated, illuminated, comfortable...(place to read this)

Western whites are the reason your mother lives into her dotage and your father went nuts over the Packers. Western whites brought you democracy, art, capitalism, Christianity, the scientific method and bubble gum.

Western whites make the world work. Yes, we aggresively "seized power." Pity for the rest of the world that our values could not have better prevailed.

13 posted on 11/13/2003 5:56:44 AM PST by nathanbedford
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To: ClearCase_guy
Bingo! I think Steele utterly missed the point of Howard Dean's statement. It wasn't about Race. Not white, not black, not identity politics in any real sense. Dean was trying to appeal to what he perceived as poor, ignorant, no-class southerners. As you say, it was an elitist comment, not a racial one.

But Steele sees race in everything. Often from a rational viewpoint, and I often agree with him. But here, he missed the boat completely.

Excellent points! Dean seems to me to be a typical snotty damnyankee know-it-all that looks down his nose at Southerners (he would not likely know what a "Southron" is.) However, the article's denunciation of the Confederate flag and Southern whites strikes me as blatant racism.

I have seen far too many "minorities" who see everything through race-colored glasses. My race (white) is not a characteristic I think of quickly when identifying myself, but it appears to be the defining characteristic used by members of other races.

14 posted on 11/13/2003 6:12:02 AM PST by RebelBanker (Call my flag an American Swastika and I'll shove the flagpole somewhere!)
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To: nathanbedford
Thanks! You hit the next point I wanted to address better than I could have.

Your Humble Servant...
15 posted on 11/13/2003 6:13:59 AM PST by RebelBanker (Deo Vindice)
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To: Jim Noble
I don't think guilt will serve much longer to suppress white group politics.

True, but the whole notion of race in America is rapidly being blurred by interracial and interethnic marriage and the subsequent mixed-race children produced. For example, my children are half-white and half-Latino. Within a generation it will be impossible to maintain the neat categories that allow the Sharptons and Jacksons and Deans to flourish.

16 posted on 11/13/2003 6:25:00 AM PST by jalisco555 (Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.)
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To: stainlessbanner
BUMP
17 posted on 11/13/2003 6:42:16 AM PST by SCDogPapa (In Dixie Land I'll take my stand to live and die in Dixie)
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To: nathanbedford; stainlessbanner
Very good post.

If that ain't the truth,,,what is???

18 posted on 11/13/2003 6:45:02 AM PST by SCDogPapa (In Dixie Land I'll take my stand to live and die in Dixie)
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To: js1138
What kind of word is "Yo!" I've lived in the South for nearly 60 years and never heard anyone use that expression, except in TV commercials.

Sorry, I've heard the expression my entire life (and use it fairly regularly myself). It is more of a "Hey" or a "Yeah" depending on the context.

Is it "proper English?" Probably not -- and I certainly don't use it in business situations.

But I use it nonetheless.

19 posted on 11/13/2003 6:48:02 AM PST by mhking
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To: rdb3; Khepera; elwoodp; MAKnight; condolinda; mafree; Trueblackman; FRlurker; Teacher317; ...
Black conservative ping

If you want on (or off) of my black conservative ping list, please let me know via FREEPmail. (And no, you don't have to be black to be on the list!)

Extra warning: this is a high-volume ping list.

20 posted on 11/13/2003 6:48:58 AM PST by mhking
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