Carter's Racism accusation

Remove all ads!

I assume nothing. I have watched you post in these threads for years. I have seen the questions you ask and the questions you don't ask, and it has become quite clear over the years that you are willing to form a conclusion with essentially no facts at all, insisting we do all your research for you in order to divorce you from incontrovertibly false nonsense like the birther movement or the old "Obama is a secret Muslim" canard. I've seen it over and over again, and by the arguments you've made and the questions you've asked, you've shown me again and again that and go to the facts second -- if you even go to the facts at all. I'm sure this criticism will fall on deaf ears, but I'm hoping at least part of it gets through. Examine yourself. Go back and objectively read some old threads in which you've participated. If you do, you'll see what I mean.

 

I am familiar with the KKK's diminishing power, and with AN's growing power, as well as it's prison basis. I know that they're organized and that some have directly participated in organized crime targeted at minorities. I think our disagreement is on their influence on the national stage. I see these as a vocal minority that the vast majority of people ignore or shun, that the vast majority of people view as a shame on our nation. I would be shocked if their total membership were more than 200,000 nation wide.

It looks like the Anti-Defamation League estimates KKK membership nationwide at 4-5K.

I couldn't find any membership estimates for AR or AN. If anyone can, please post links.

There are approximately 2M people in prison as of 2008. I couldn't find any race statistics later than '97, but it seems somewhere between 50% and 30% (claims made by various groups) of that population is white. I've also heard roughly 10% total are involved in racist groups (sounds like it's equally split between the races). That puts us at white supremists 60-100K in prison (as a very rough estimate).

For results, the above isn't much, but it's the kind of thing I would expect you people to present if you're arguing that racism is a significant force in the US today. This is why I'm so frustrated with you all. You make numerous claims that I'm being obtuse, or that I'm nieve, yet you make no efforts to support your claims. Maybe I have led a sheltered life in this respect, as I said earlier, I've never actually personally heard any racist comments, or witnessed any violence or crime attributed to race, but you all will have to do more than just repeat your claims if you want me to believe you.

Drew, I'll admit I've been reticent to change my positions in the past, but that's hardly something only I can claim. It seems to be a common trend on these boards and, as far as I've experienced it, humanity in general. I'm trying to improve myself, to do more research and cite results. I'm paying attention to what you all say. I have never, however, overlooked links in my searches. I've dismissed them as biassed, just like you all do, when they make egregious claims, and I've sought arguements and counterarguements and only posted the links that I felt won the debates (in my mind, at the time), but I've never ignored what people posted or what came up on my searches.

 

NOG - I pointed these groups out because although they are a small minorty they represent the extreme end of the scale; a lot of racists fall somewhere in the middle of the scale. Most racism is not of the violent or overt variety, although I encounter some of that here in Texas. When I worked in South Houston it was the worst. There was a Klan member working at the store there, and the issue of race was a little more tense. When I was still new at that store I was surprised to get a phone call from a good ole boy who said he wanted to come into the store and buy a new computer, but he wanted to be certain that he did not have a n---- salesman waiting on him.

When I mentioned it to a younger guy working in the department, he said his grandmother, an old-time southerner, was the same way, and in fact, didn't like coming into the store because she felt there were too many blacks working there. I came to hate that side of town, and moved back to the northside of the city. But now that Obama is elected I hear far more racist comments, even on this side of town, than I've heard for quite some time. I think it depends on where you are and your personal experience. But IMO, race is still a problem, and it's gotten worse, since Obama has been elected.

 

NOG,
the point is one of _exaggeration_ (in particular, by the Examiner) and not so much one of exact numbers. The organiser has conceded that the numbers they had reported have been vastly inflated. Even Michelle Malkin recanted statements to the same effect.

You ought to do the same.

 

Chandos, I'm not surprised to see some latent racism in Texas, just like I'll bet there's a good amount in Louisiana and Georgia, but I still bet it's a small minority. Your speaking from personal experience only makes this more likely, because people tend to take note of the objectionable extremes, but not to notice those who aren't. That means that you're automatic estimation of the frequency of that sort of thing tends to be an overestimate.

Again, if you want me to believe it's anything more than that, you'll have to provide more proof than you have.

Ragusa, I've admitted there's no source for the 2M estimate. Looking at the pictures myself, and having seen the areas in question in person, I'd guess somewhere in the hundreds of thousands range. I think 60-70k is ridiculously low for a total, especially considering what the Fire Department said.

 

How much real power do groups like the Aryan Nations hold in American society? I would argue that they don't hold a lot -- the vast majority of the population does not agree with them or their tactics, and they hardly command respect. In prisons and some geographical areas they may have some more sway, of course, but prisons are a social disaster and don't really reflect the way that society as a whole is going.

Am I saying we should ignore them? Absolutely not -- you let a cancer like that alone and it'll grow faster than you'd have thought possible. They should be watched and opposed by every means a society has.

But they do not pose the same level of threat as they did even 50 years ago.

As for the creeping racism that manifests itself not in violence but in situations like the people not wanting an American of African descent to wait on them at a store, that's a little tougher to crack. Some people have had personal experiences that have been negative, and it is very difficult to get people to move past such experiences. But I don't think it's fair to say that such racism always results in violence down the road. I know that no one here has said that but I've heard it said in other venues.

 

I'm honestly of the opinion that claims like that of Mr. Carter are as bad, if not worse, than ignoring what racism is present. It's a blatant attempt to portray the opposition as bigoted, ignorant, and backwards, and thus something that should be dismissed and ignored rather than taken seriously.

 

Oh, it doesn't matter to me what you believe. Just as you have no idea about the situation here in Texas, or Georgia, without any "proof." Carter's experience is somewhat similar to mine, in that having lived in both areas, one hears A LOT of racist talk in the deep South. But you can believe what you care to. It's a free country.

 

And just as relevant:

I actually think that the effect of Obama being black, and the black turnout of the last election had very little to do with the final election results. It is true that 1.2 million more blacks turned out in 2008 than in 2004, but when you consider that we had around 100 million total ballots cast, that's actually a pretty small number.

Furthermore, you cannot even make the arguement that it wasn't just the total number of blacks voting, but that they voted in far higher percentages for Obama than they have voted for other Democratic candidates in the past. Consider that Obama received 95% of the black vote in 2008, and Kerry received 91% of the black vote in 2004.

All told an extra 1.2 million voters, spread across the country, with a 4% difference in voting pattern, had only the most minimal of effects on the election results. One final point to consider: If you roll back the black turnout to the 2004 levels, and assume that Obama received just 91% of the vote instead of 95%, McCain wins exactly ONE MORE STATE: North Carolina. Since North Carolina was not the deciding factor in terms of electoral votes, Obama would still be president today.

(Here's a news flash for the die-hard Republicans out there: Dukakis could have won the 2008 election.)

As someone who has lived for several years just south of the Mason-Dixon line, and who has a large contingent of his wife's family living in Virginia, I do not consider Maryland, nor most of Virginia to be in the "deep South". In fact, the only part of Virginia that MAY be able to claim to be the "deep South" is western Virginia. NOG is from Virginia Beach, which is about as far from western Virginia as you can get and still be in Virginia. However, I also have friends that live in South Carolina. The attitudes towards race in those two locations differ vastly.

That good. (sincerely!) I always thought that was one of Beck's most retarded statements ever. Yeah Obama hates white people - like his mom.

 

NOG, the fire department knows a lot more about determining crowd sizes than you or I do, since doing so is essential to performing the duties of their job maintaining public safety and a mis-estimation could be disastrous if/when the **** hits the fan and the fire department needs to either get in or start pulling everybody out, so they have a vested interested in keeping and, more importantly, knowing how to keep a reasonably accurate count. There is a science to it, too.

Looking at a few wide angle shots, there's really no way to determine how many people were there. You need to be on the ground for that, and the fire department was on the ground. Since you weren't there the most prudent action would be to defer to the experts who were. Upon recanting, the other exaggerators haven't been insisting on a number higher than that of the Fire Department -- maybe you should ask yourself why.

 

No. Obama won because he also catered to the moderate vote and revolutionized fund raising. He brought with him a sense of change no other candidate could have. Dukakis would have lost to McCain.

 

It's called "hyperbole".

 

On whose part -- yours or mine?

 

Mine mostly - Dukakis probably could never be elected in the US, because of his hard-line stance against capital punishment, something that is not popular amongst most Americans. But I don't think Obama was the only candidate who could have won the 2008 election. As a more realistic example, I think Hillary would have been president if she won the nomination, not so much for her popularity, but because of general Republican unpopularity.

 

We've been down this path before but I think the republicans were more prepared to take on Hillary (and Bill) -- the platform of "change" would have been lessened with Hillary returning to the White House and Clinton had much less financial leverage than did Obama. I think those are significant enough factors to question the outcome (although the Bush factor was a huge obsticle to overcome).

 

I'm not sure you're looking at that right. That's 1.2% of the popular vote. While it probably wouldn't have made the difference between winning and loosing for Obama, it is a heavy contribution.

This is true. While the locals like to thing they're 'true southerners', anyone north of here thinks they're transitional, and anyone south of here may as well call them Yanks. Being from New Hampshire myself (and a proud Yank), I think it's really funny.

Drew, one of the reason's I'm sticking to larger numbers is because the fire department estimate was only of Lafayette Park, and even then was only an 'early estimate'. Realize that Lafayette Park was only a portion of the area covered by the protesters. That tells me that there were, in total, considerably more than that. At least twice, quite possibly much more than that. Claiming the Fire Department numbers as a total estimate is like estimating the number of students in the cafeteria at ODU at any one time and claiming that's ODU's total enrollment.

 

You do realize that Robert E. Lee was a Virginian. Stonewall Jackson? And that Richmond was the capital of the Confederate States? And that the Army of Northern Virginia was the South's greatest fighting force in the Civil War. Battles like Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, The Seven Days Battles, Gettysburg and Seven Pines were all fought by Bobby Lee & Company (although the army was made up of many southern states).

Virginia was really the pride of the "Old South." Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison, Patrick Henry, and the Lee brothers were all Virginians. They really pride themselves on manners and decorum. They could be hard-core biggots as are found anywhere in the South but to vocalize it outside of the family would be considered poor form and crude manners for any real Son or Daughter of "Old Virginia."

Virginians are yankees? Those are fighting words in my family of Virginians....

 

Oh, I'll agree. But, for example, here in Virginia, if you ask for tea at a restaurant, they may even assume you mean hot tea, and if they don't, they'll ask if you want sweet or unsweet. In the 'deep south', people assume sweet tea is the only kind of tea ever invented, and in some places they even think it's the only kind of drink ever invented. I've been to restaurants in Georgia where they didn't even ask what we wanted to drink, they just gave us sweet tea. As my mother, who lived in Georgia for many years, says, in the deep south "Y'all" is singular, and "Alls y'all" is plural. West Virginia is close, they've got "us'ns" and "yous'ns".

And yes, I amm intimately familiar with Virginia's role in the Civil War. Far more than I wish I were. You can't avoid it around here.

 

Not so much anymore. I can remember when it was that way 15 or so years ago, but now, with corporate takeovers and conformity, tea can mean hot tea, even in Texas. Of course, I live in an area in which there are a lot corporate chains. It's really economics, and even small independent owners have discovered there is not much money in selling iced tea (beer, wine, coffee and speciallty drinks bring in way more dollars and profit). Of course, it could still be the way you describe out in the sticks (nothing would surprise me out there). But believe it or not we even have Starbucks here in the deep south.

 

Chandos, Texas's claim to 'deep south' is also iffy in many eyes. You're more 'south west', aren't you?

It's a good point, though, that cities and the influx of national chains change things like that. I'll bet the big cities even in Georgia have sushi and tacos and such.