Comments for Color-Coded: Jeremiah Wright and the Real Deal on Race at http://www.chris-floyd.com , comment 1 to 6 out of 6 comments http://www.chris-floyd.com Fri, 22 Aug 2008 01:07:34 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1501/135/#comment-7742 Anti-up, it didn't seem to me that Arthur was "jump[ing] in the corner" of Reverend Wright or even "speak[ing] rapturously" of him. what he said was[quote] He has spoken a number of truths... [a]nd he has also caused a number of people to reveal themselves as significant frauds.[/quote]and it was that "service" that got Arthur's blood boiling so. I didn't read anything at all that referred to "Afrinicty," whatever that is. Did you, in fact, read Arthur's piece? - Paul Tue, 06 May 2008 17:45:02 +0100 http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1501/135/#comment-7730 What Wright has done is simply to tell the truth about America's history and its present government. He does that within the context of the Christian faith because that's his job. I don't share that faith or need it to bolster my moral judgment, but a majority of Americans claim to do so. I wonder how many white Christian pastors commended his words to their congregations or even discussed his understanding of the Christian gospel respectfully? My guess is that it was a very small minority. One thing we all should learn from Wright, Silber and Floyd is that we cannot claim to love our country while denying its history, refusing to rage against the obvious crimes of our current government, or believing in the pipe dream of change through the ballot box. - Charles Mon, 05 May 2008 13:41:09 +0100 http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1501/135/#comment-7729 I don't see how Arthur Silber can call himself an "Anarchist" and then speak so rapturously about Reverend Wright whose views I think Patrick Martin of WSWS describes quite accurately as: an eclectic mixture of black NATIONALISM [my emphasis], radical criticism of US foreign policy and conspiracy theories, with a dollop of anti-Semitism—or at least tolerance for the anti-Semitism of figures like Farrakhan—thrown in. I don't believe it's wise to jump in the corner of every big mouth who spouts a little truth in the MSM (as superficialy refreshing as it is to hear). In fact I'd be very wary of anyone given the megaphone. I'd be asking "Why would the MSM let a guy like this--a suppossed truth teller--have his say when their whole mission statement is to lie to protect the corporate powers that be?" At best Wright is saying nothing Floyd and Silber haven't been saying (without all the religion) for years. At worst, by giving any edge at all to "Afrinicty" as he calls it, and by giving a huge edge to religion, he's dicing up people along dangerous lines. the working people of this country need not to see themselves as black, white or christian, they need to see themselves as--working people. - Anti-up Mon, 05 May 2008 03:29:56 +0100 http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1501/135/#comment-7728 It has to do with some fucked-up middle class liberal-elite culture of fucked-up white people striving and succeeding and living a fucked-up so-called lifestyle and being complete assholes wasting all of our time and making everyone around them miserable. It doesn't take years of study, or deep understanding, or special knowledge, or the right guru, or the right theories. Just look around everyday, all day, everywhere you go. And it doesn't take baby steps, we aren't on the path to anything, we aren't getting there, we aren't improving and all of the rest of that drama. It isn't difficult, it isn't hard to understand, it isn't arcane or esoteric. The hard, miserable work, the really difficult, soul-smashing thing to do, is to keep participating in this ongoing and omnipresent and insane discussion going on all the time by the upwardly mobile good people. It takes a huge amount of thought, time, and energy; it is immensely unpleasant and stressful, to play along and keep propping up an insane world view..... It only sounds weird, or difficult to fathom or grasp, because we are embedded in an ongoing insane set of social interactions. Modern liberalism is occupying the space where the Left should be, confusing and misleading people, steering people away from accurate perceptions and clouding their minds, preventing them from asking the right questions because they think they already have the answers. That is dead wood that needs clearing. If we are willing to kick over the beehive of modern liberalism you will see the true face and the true nature of the ruling class war against the people with crystal clarity. As it is, we can't even see the enemy now. We are looking out the tent flap watching for the approach of those dreaded right wingers, and the enemy is behind us right in our own tent. “For years I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions of society, a little change here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you’ve got to have a reconstruction of the entire society...a radical redistribution of political and economic power.” - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr - chlamor Mon, 05 May 2008 02:54:18 +0100 http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1501/135/#comment-7727 To redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions. The silences and denials surrounding privilege are the key political surrounding privilege are the key political tool here. They keep the thinking about equality or equity incomplete, protecting unearned advantage and conferred dominance by making these subject taboo. Most talk by whites about equal opportunity seems to me now to be about equal opportunity to try to get into a position of dominance while denying that systems of dominance exist. It seems to me that obliviousness about white advantage, like obliviousness about male advantage, is kept strongly acculturated in the United States so as to maintain the myth of meritocracy, the myth that democratic choice is equally available to all. Keeping most people unaware that freedom of confident action is there for just a small number of people props up those in power and serves to keep power in the hands of the same groups that have most of it already. One of the most important things that we all have to come to grips with is that RACISM KILLS (as do sexism and homophobia, and all the other oppressions.) If NOLA didn't show the world that for once and for all, it showed us nothing. So many people don't seem to understand what racism even is. "Are you saying ________ is racist?" "Oh, no, I'd never say THAT." BULLSHIT. Of course ________ is racist. And so is everyone else who can't see that it was the racism (and classism) killing NOLA residents more even than the flood, or who shies away from charging most of our leaders and our whole government, the entire system is racist to the core. It's as if they think racism (or any of the other oppressions) is necessarily a CONSCIOUS construct: "I really don't like black people -- I think they're inferior, so let's not fund the levees and then someday they may die." No, perhaps the worst, but certainly the most intransigent aspect of racism is the part(s) based on SUBconscious or even UNconscious beliefs that there are people who simply don't count as much, for whatever reason. But the funny thing is, those people tend overwhelmingly to fall into the oppressed groups. "Oh, it's only black folk (so who cares?)," or "Oh, it's only poor folk (who are lazy and therefore deserve what they get) and old people (past their prime and useless) anyway." The US is a nation born of genocide, suckled on slavery, and weaned on apartheid, and the weaning process has been largely confined to a bottle at board meetings. And of course the sin, in the eyes of the white and affluent, is not the racism itself, but being reminded of it. To be fair, it is so deeply ingrained that most do not even realize it, and their indignation is quite sincere when they insist that they are not a bit racist, some of their best friends are black, and they (or their parents) even marched in Selma. - chlamor Mon, 05 May 2008 02:48:31 +0100 http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1501/135/#comment-7725 Wright committed the ultimate blasphemy of telling the truth about the American Secret History, to Americans. These people not only can't deal with truth, they are agressively hostile to it, or anything that strips the myth of comforting fatuity off the ugly history we have inherited. Dr King was murdered for doing this. While Caucasian myself, I've never been one of those terrified by the idea of "Black Rage", which I feel we certainly deserve, but so many ARE, as the orchestrated venom from "progressives" demonstrates. But the feeding frenzy serves the larger goal of the MSM, to destroy the Dim's candidates in the fond hope that a disgusted electorate will flock to the dribbling senility of McCain. If there is an election. - Grandma Jefferson Mon, 05 May 2008 01:15:59 +0100