1) There's more optimism on race relations in the US since the election of Barack Obama
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/us/politics/03race.html
And in Brooklyn, Shel Harris, a black man, said he dropped his “skeptical, more on guard” attitude toward whites after working alongside so many on the Obama campaign.
“Whenever they said something, I was always looking out for their ulterior motives,” said Mr. Harris, 62, a retired phone company worker. “Now I find that I take white people’s statements more on face value.”
I really want to comment on that statement
Think about this: In one day , 29 people were nice to you, 1 was mean to you.
Guess which one would you think about the most?
It's not the 29 people!
Our minds seem to programmed to dwell on the negative experiences more than positive experiences.
Now, let's pretend you're a racial minority. A few members of a racial majority called you a racial slur!
That might make you paranoid about the majority! Even when other members to the racial majority are very friendly to you, you might think "they got ulterior motives, they might be calling me racial slurs behind my back"
What Mr Harris has learned is this "When those Caucasians were nice to me, THEY REALLY MEANT IT! THEY HAD NOTHING TO HIDE!"
I'm a racial minority where I live. I am part-Latino/part-European, but look mostly Latino. I'm surrounded by Asians and Pacific Islanders.
I know Asians and Pacific Islanders well enough to know that when they're nice to me, THEY'RE SINCERE ABOUT IT! THERE'S NO HIDDEN MOTIVES! Most of them are nice to everyone!
I also noticed, when a few Asians and Pacific Islanders were mean to me, I noticed those same individuals were also mean to members of their own race!
I noticed that most nice people are nice to everyone regardless of race, whereas most mean people are mean to everyone regardless of race!
2) Walter Williams,Americans of African ancestry, claim that they rather have his people called "black", instead of "African-American"
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams051309.php3
Here's what I wrote to Walter Williams
You say you prefer "your people" to be called "black" instead of African-American!
But if we are talking about black-skinned people, we could be talking about people from southern India , Sri Lanka , Papua New Guinea , Micronesia , etc. They're just as dark as Africans.
In fact, many Indians, Melanesians and Micronesians have skin that's DARKER and BLACKER than the "blacks" that you might find in Harlem or Chicago 's South Side!
But you're not Indian, Melanesian or Micronesian! You are an American of AFRICAN ancestry. Or in other words --- African American!
Let's look at Joe Biden. You might call him "white". But many people in Japan & Korea are as white-skinned as a person from Sweden ! In fact, many Japanese and Koreans have skin that is LIGHTER and WHITER than the so-called "whites" you might find in the Hamptons or the Appalachians . So we call people like Mr Biden "Americans of European ancestry". Or European-American!
Some Latinos talk about "Brown Pride". But many Polynesians, Filipinos and Middle Easterners are also brown!
So instead of talking about "brown people", we say "Latinos", "Mexican-Americans", "Polynesians", "Arabs", "Arab-Americans", etc, etc.
And I don't think that many Americans of Chinese ancestry would like to be called "yellows". They're called Chinese-Americans, even if many of their families have been in the US for more than a century. Even if many never been to China or many can't speak Chinese!
These labels of "black" and "white" are relics of an era when most Americans were either of Northern European and West African ancestry! Back then, 99% of Americans never met a super-dark guy from Sri Lanka or super-light guy from Japan !
But now that we got immigrants from super-dark Sri Lanka and super-light Japan, it's ridiculous that you want to cling on to the relics of "black" and "white" to describe those of West-African and Northern-European ancestry!
------
Some might find my letter condescending to Mr Williams. That's not my intention. My intention is to inform him the reason many people are moving away from labels like "white people" and "black people" towards labels like European-American, Caucasians, African-Americans, etc.
3) Amy Benfer of Salon writes about women bosses being mean to women employees.
Of course, some are saying "we women were oppressed, how could we do this to each other?"
http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/05/11/mean_girls/index.html
Here's what I wrote in the comments section
http://letters.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/05/11/mean_girls/view/index2.html?show=all
even the oppressed oppress
Most people just look out for themselves! They may not like being harassed, attacked, bullied, etc..... BUT they will harass, attack or bully others!
That not only explains women-on-women meanness, but black-on-black crime, Latino-on-Latino crime, the people of differing minority groups attacking each other during the LA riots, etc, etc.
It reminds me of the stories on Vietnamese gangs! Many of them were picked on when they immigrated to the US! The worst, racist bullying you can think of!Picked on, not only by whites, but those of African,Latin or Pacific Island ancestry! Those Vietnamese kids team up with each other for protection. But once they get power... guess what?
Many of those same Vietnamese youth commit armed robbery on weaker Vietnamese people! IT's the mentality of "dont f--- with me, but I'll f--- with anyone I feel like"
This is not a criticism of women, whites, blacks, Latinos (i'm part Latino),Pacific Islanders or Vietnamese. IT is a criticism of human nature!
--
Most of the female bosses I had were cool to everyone.
But the idea that female bosses are supposed to be exempt from being mean is BIZARRE!
Nice & Mean happens in both genders and all races!
Like Rodney King once asked "Can we all just get Along?"
'
4) Islamic fanatics vs our "libertine society"
Conservative pundit Mona Charen had an interesting editorial
http://townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/05/22/is_it_all_about_britney
In his book "The Enemy at Home," Dinesh D'Souza shows little patience with the leftists who reacted to 9/11 by declaring that America had it coming. And yet, his book is a variant on that theme. It was our cultural decadence, our foul popular movies, music and pornography, D'Souza argues, that enraged traditional Muslims worldwide and moved some to violence.
D'Souza is a thoughtful and interesting writer, and many of his observations about the cultural left worldwide, and particularly about the dismaying state of popular culture in America, got vigorous head nods from conservative readers.
[skipped paragraphs]
For the sake of argument, let's stipulate that America's cultural exports in the form of movies and music are the principal cause of Muslim hatred of the United States. This cultural rot did not set in, D'Souza acknowledges, until after the 1960s. Yet the godfather of the radical movement that spawned Osama bin Laden was the Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb, who formed his fanatical beliefs after living in the United States in the late 1940s.
Qutb was offended by everything about America, from its food to its delight in football and money, and particularly by what he saw as sexual libertinism. "Jazz is the American music," Qutb wrote, "created by Negroes to satisfy their primitive instincts -- their love of noise and their appetite for sexual arousal." Attending a church social in (dry) Greeley, Colo., in 1949, Qutb was revolted by what he saw: "Dancing naked legs filled the hall, arms draped around the waists, chests met chests, lips met lips, and the atmosphere was full of love."
So the America Qutb despised was one that most conservatives consider pretty tame. Yet it was to his eyes a sewer. This suggests the cultural divide between American conservatives and Muslim conservatives is more like a chasm.
Notice the racist stereotypes promoted by Mr. Qutb. Notice that regular ballroom dancing (seen as conservative and "old-fashioned" among young Americans) is a blasphemy to Mr Qutb.
This is the mentality we are currently dealing with in Afghanistan, and the tribal sections of Pakistan!
It's important we liberate those areas and not surrender against Al Quaida!
Monday, May 25, 2009
Jack Kemp (1935-2009)
Earlier this month, Jack Kemp passed away.
Kemp was known for many things. He was an NFL quarterback in the 1960s, a member of US Congress, the US Secretary of Housing & Urban Development, and the man who ran for Vice President with Bob Dole in 1996 (and loosing to Bill Clinton & Al Gore).
He was a believer in free-market economics, who helped wrote tax-cut laws that was signed by President Reagan, promoted enterprise zones in many inner city areas in hopes of bringing businesses back to many dying cities in the late 1980s/early 1990's.
He wanted the Republican Party to expend it's membership from being an overwhelmingly Eruopean-American party into one with more African-Americans and Latinos. Kemp understand that not every African-American or Latino is a far-left liberal; that some are church-going traditionalists, entrepreneurs, veterans who could relate to certain aspects of the conservative ideology! Kemp also understood that the growing Latino population makes it important that the Republican Party to NOT be a "whites only party".
While Reagan and Bush Jr. did have more Latino votes than most Republican politicians, too many other Republican supporters alienated Latinos with their anti-immigration proposals. Meanwhile, while some Republican politicians attempted to reach out to African-American voters, many African-Americans were alienated from the party due to politicians like Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott who openly pandered to white segregationists.
Meanwhile, a combo of factors, including the housing crisis, Wall Street meltdown of 2008, and the charismatic leadership of Barack Obama has made the Democratic Party more powerful and the Republican Party in decline!
Now, the Republican Party is going through an identity crisis. Should it be a more centrist party or should it stick to its conservative principles?
If the Republican Party wants to survive in the 21st century, it doesn't have to abandon all conservative principles.
It does, however, need better marketing to non-white voters. Having Micheal Steele, its first African-American chairman, does help!
It does need to be more pro-immigration. The idea that "Republicans need to be more anti-immigration to win elections in the future is WISHFUL THINKING!". The California Republicans tried that in the 1990's. They won in 1994, but it only motivated non-voting Latinos to become voters, moderate Latinos to be alienated from the Republican Party, and motivated immigrants to take their citizenship tests so they could become eligible to vote. The Democrats benefitted from the Republicans shooting themselves in the foot! Afterwards, the Republicans have been in severe decline in California, with it's only bright moment being the election of Austrian immigrant Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor!
Meanwhile, in the 1990's, in Texas, another state with a large Latino population, and a Anglo population even more conservative than California's, George W. Bush understood that alienating Latino immigrant would hurt the Republican Party in the long run! He openly criticized the anti-immigration activists. Bush still sticked with conservative principles on moral, tax, energy, and defense issues! Because of this, Bush won TWICE as governor of Texas and won TWICE as the US president!
---
Here's what Clarence Page wrote on Jack Kemp.
http://jewishworldreview.com/0509/page050709.php3
Who in the world would bring the queen to a pubic housing project? I knew it had to be Jack Kemp, the former pro football star and Republican congressman from New York who had become secretary of Housing and Urban Development under the first President Bush.
Would anyone else in stodgy Washington have had the desire, the enthusiasm and the steamroller perseverance to bring the queen and a rare spotlight of public attention to America's vastly overlooked underclass? I think not.
To those who cared about the future of our cities, the stunt was "pure Jack." He would have done just about anything to bring attention to his urban "empowerment" agenda, which included tenant management and ownership of public housing, "liberated" from negligent, fraudulent or incompetent bureaucrats and government contractors.
[skipped paragraphs]
He scoured the country for "neighborhood assets," the ordinary men and women in every neighborhood who, given a chance, make better local leaders and organizers than government intermediaries do.
Kemp didn't just talk about blacks, Hispanics or the poor. He knew real people. He lunched in soup kitchens and spent nights in low-income apartments. Inside every "ghetto," he saw a neighborhood itching to be "empowered" and "liberated," perhaps with a little "seed corn" from government or private foundations.
Meanwhile, is President Obama willing to openly and consistently promote enterprise zones, and tenant ownership of public housing? Both were championed by Jack Kemp! Both could help inner-city ghettoes like the ones Obama used to work in at Chicago. Both could end the streotype of Obama as a "socialist"!
Kemp was known for many things. He was an NFL quarterback in the 1960s, a member of US Congress, the US Secretary of Housing & Urban Development, and the man who ran for Vice President with Bob Dole in 1996 (and loosing to Bill Clinton & Al Gore).
He was a believer in free-market economics, who helped wrote tax-cut laws that was signed by President Reagan, promoted enterprise zones in many inner city areas in hopes of bringing businesses back to many dying cities in the late 1980s/early 1990's.
He wanted the Republican Party to expend it's membership from being an overwhelmingly Eruopean-American party into one with more African-Americans and Latinos. Kemp understand that not every African-American or Latino is a far-left liberal; that some are church-going traditionalists, entrepreneurs, veterans who could relate to certain aspects of the conservative ideology! Kemp also understood that the growing Latino population makes it important that the Republican Party to NOT be a "whites only party".
While Reagan and Bush Jr. did have more Latino votes than most Republican politicians, too many other Republican supporters alienated Latinos with their anti-immigration proposals. Meanwhile, while some Republican politicians attempted to reach out to African-American voters, many African-Americans were alienated from the party due to politicians like Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott who openly pandered to white segregationists.
Meanwhile, a combo of factors, including the housing crisis, Wall Street meltdown of 2008, and the charismatic leadership of Barack Obama has made the Democratic Party more powerful and the Republican Party in decline!
Now, the Republican Party is going through an identity crisis. Should it be a more centrist party or should it stick to its conservative principles?
If the Republican Party wants to survive in the 21st century, it doesn't have to abandon all conservative principles.
It does, however, need better marketing to non-white voters. Having Micheal Steele, its first African-American chairman, does help!
It does need to be more pro-immigration. The idea that "Republicans need to be more anti-immigration to win elections in the future is WISHFUL THINKING!". The California Republicans tried that in the 1990's. They won in 1994, but it only motivated non-voting Latinos to become voters, moderate Latinos to be alienated from the Republican Party, and motivated immigrants to take their citizenship tests so they could become eligible to vote. The Democrats benefitted from the Republicans shooting themselves in the foot! Afterwards, the Republicans have been in severe decline in California, with it's only bright moment being the election of Austrian immigrant Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor!
Meanwhile, in the 1990's, in Texas, another state with a large Latino population, and a Anglo population even more conservative than California's, George W. Bush understood that alienating Latino immigrant would hurt the Republican Party in the long run! He openly criticized the anti-immigration activists. Bush still sticked with conservative principles on moral, tax, energy, and defense issues! Because of this, Bush won TWICE as governor of Texas and won TWICE as the US president!
---
Here's what Clarence Page wrote on Jack Kemp.
http://jewishworldreview.com/0509/page050709.php3
Who in the world would bring the queen to a pubic housing project? I knew it had to be Jack Kemp, the former pro football star and Republican congressman from New York who had become secretary of Housing and Urban Development under the first President Bush.
Would anyone else in stodgy Washington have had the desire, the enthusiasm and the steamroller perseverance to bring the queen and a rare spotlight of public attention to America's vastly overlooked underclass? I think not.
To those who cared about the future of our cities, the stunt was "pure Jack." He would have done just about anything to bring attention to his urban "empowerment" agenda, which included tenant management and ownership of public housing, "liberated" from negligent, fraudulent or incompetent bureaucrats and government contractors.
[skipped paragraphs]
He scoured the country for "neighborhood assets," the ordinary men and women in every neighborhood who, given a chance, make better local leaders and organizers than government intermediaries do.
Kemp didn't just talk about blacks, Hispanics or the poor. He knew real people. He lunched in soup kitchens and spent nights in low-income apartments. Inside every "ghetto," he saw a neighborhood itching to be "empowered" and "liberated," perhaps with a little "seed corn" from government or private foundations.
Meanwhile, is President Obama willing to openly and consistently promote enterprise zones, and tenant ownership of public housing? Both were championed by Jack Kemp! Both could help inner-city ghettoes like the ones Obama used to work in at Chicago. Both could end the streotype of Obama as a "socialist"!
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