In case you were wondering why we as a country are not having that long-overdue NCAR (national conversation about race) take a look at how differently these two men view the election of Donald Trump.
Mr. David Brooks of The New York Times is the apotheosis of undeserved elite white privilege. He is one of the media's most influential Very Serious Persons and a gatekeeper of the terms and limits of every national political debate. And he visibly cringes at the thought of any serious nation political conversation that gets anywhere near the subject of race, racism and -- surprise! -- white privilege:
Mr. Ta-Nehisi Coates is one of the most insightful and unflinchingly honest writers about race in American politics and culture. His take on the centrality of race in election of Donald J. Trump is true and tragic and irrefutable (NBC killed the previous link due to copyright issues. Here is a new one that looks durable):
You might recall that just two years ago, Mr. Brooks took it upon himself to publicly scold Mr. Coates' for "dissolving the [American] dream under the acid of an excessive realism". Mr. Brooks then his ass sawed off and handed to him on the good china up one side of the internet and down the other:
#RichWhiteLivesMatterToo -- Update
Mr. Brooks has written a column today.It is entitled:Listening to Ta-Nehisi Coates While WhiteAnd it is quite possible that the word "entitled" has never more comprehensively encompassed both of its definitions:en·ti·tledinˈtīdld,enˈtīdld/transitive verbto give a title to : designateadjectivebelieving oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.As The Twitter has already noted, Mr. Brooks is in for a very long day...
Well Mr. Brooks, the acid of excessive realism that dissolves the American Dream has finally arrived. It arrived leading a cheering mob of bigots and imbeciles formerly known as the Party of Lincoln and it looks like this.
And while I do not think that even Mr. Brooks is stupid enough to publicly cross swords with Mr. Coates again any time soon, in the black-and-white contrast between their reactions to the election of President Stupid you can see the fatal flaw in our media laid bare.
Our media is in the hands of gatekeepers who are determined to abort any discussion about anything that threatens their privilege, their status as gatekeeper or the Both Sides Do It narrative that keeps their whole world propped up. And until that changes -- until talking openly about our real problems becomes something the media works hard to accomplish and not avoid -- nothing else will change.
Behold, a Tip Jar!
6 comments:
The dream is a fantasy that, for whites, has always relied on others being relegated to second-class status or worse, whether or not even liberal whites want to see that. Coates hits on themes that great Black writers and even some white authors have been eloquently addressing since the early nineteenth century (and probably long before that). How is it these points continue to be new and shocking and just too complicated for "public intellectuals" like Brooks? Brooks' garbage makes me hesitate to ever ask a single person of color to have the least little bit of trust in me, or any other white person.
-- an unidentified FB friend of Equus, who spoke out of his own chinkle-chankle to share those words in comments to "#RichWhiteLivesMatterToo"
"There is no point in saying less than your predecessors have said."
-- John Simon, "After the Prize" (review of Wendy Kesselman's My Sister in This House), New York Magazine, December 7, 1981
The sad fact of the matter is that people who are referred to and called "white" think and believe that they are the "norm" for humanity. That they are the standard. Nothing could be farther from the truth. And now they are waking up to it ...and are shocked!
the both sider meme IS a winner but the cherry on the sundae is the NYT trick. one that is being paid for handsomely, namely, if there is the perception of oppression ask the OPPRESSOR about how it is....they'll say 'what oppression?' and feel oppressed.
it is the edmund burke philosophy in a nutshell..we feel a wee bit bad about the nasty perception of our bigotry and selfishness in the perfect little world...what are the steps, small-cheap-inconsequential, we can take to make OURSELVES feel better about OURSELVES?
it is ayn rand w a thin candy coating....
Gerald: Exactly. That's the core conceit of the writings of Daniel Quinn: One culture that fancies itself to be the whole of humanity, and therefore its problems are the problems of humanity, while numerous examples of other cultures who don't suffer from said problems still exist, and more importantly, have existed the whole time, back before our culture existed.
He calls the event that separated our histories "the great forgetting."
-Doug in Oakland
If we wait and rely on the corporate owned media to have an earnest full term conversation of institutionalized racism. White privilege. Not going to happen.........!
Donald J Birther who the media sensationalized. Those who called Obama a Muslim. Like Beck who was all over the media saying Obama is a racist.
Because they felt they could not use the word, "Nigger".
How the media (for the most) addressed Romney's campaign over the 47 percent comments.
This is a economic issue. The wealthy enjoy a large sliver of white privilege.
The reap the ownership and rule making via fiat via their wealth. They promote racism (and so much more discource) to divide the masses of Americans.
Every wall, every locked door, every moat,every gated community marks the buffer to prohibit Americans from Uniting . Keep us all divided so much that the institutionalized theft of Americans confused from what the preamble of the constitution expresses.
Why big banks were bailed out as main street had their life's accumulation taken away in 2007 econ collapse.
Why AG Sessions is given authority to lock up a person for a joint in a state that joint was legalized while someone with wealth can operate a fraud on people, get taken to court with legal prison penalties. Have the judge give public advice to settle out of court (and do so). Never having a criminal file, not serving a day in jail and free to go out and do it again. While being inaugurated as a US president.
Oh yes racism is alive and well, But who nurtured it since the Civil War? To end up with Steve Bannon. We know the wealthy Mercer family is a most recent sponsor of this dividing Americans by skin color.
If not by color, by political ID. After going through Jews. NAZIs got to purity race of blue eyes and blond hair. Native Americans weren't black and did a group like the KKK form to suppress them. Well, the entire white government did and it was greed of land in the name of capitalism and building a nation and society that only the native
Americans had to pay for with their existing pre condition of being right full property owners.
Yes racism, Fascism, anti semetic White on white exists. It is nurtured and provides a security blanket to the likes of people with wealth who are so very scared of the rabble united .
Taking land for a foreign company to run an oil pipeline through the country to funnel that oil to the far east for private profit. If the pipe bursts and contaminates water and farm soil. Hey, it is your land and your problem. They will fix the pipe to pump more oil. And this is taking White people land that has been in their family since their great great grand pappy stole it from the native American owners.
Make no mistake, racism is a tool instituted and deployed exclusively for a wealth class. Most modern wars have more economic interests for the very wealthy than anyone else and guess who is relied on to fight those wars.
How do you get republicans that were reciting the crushing debt for 8 years of Obama, Recite republican tax cuts for the wealthy in the first year of Trump?
America has been a conquered people with never having to surrender.
Because the dividing remarkably still works.
Mr. Ta-Nehisi Coates YouTube link broken...
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