Moridin920 posted:

To be perfectly blunt it's just funny how people will be so quick to (rightfully) say "black people are not a monolithic entity!" when someone asks "how do black people feel about..." and yet for some reason the statement "the black people's candidate was Hillary Clinton and her defeat was a personal insult to black people" is fine.

Praseodymi posted:

I hate to sound like #NotAllLeftists, but can we stop referring to Sanders and his supporters as 'the left'? He's a milquetoast SocDem and they only support him because they're not racist enough to vote Republican but too racist to agree with the Black Panthers.

It just seems like some people here are ignoring the massive contribution that black people have made to Marxism and similar ideologies.

HotCanadianChick posted:

Not to mention the BPP is, to this day, the only socialist party in American history to successfully implement actual socialist programs run by the people of the community, for the community (the breakfast for schoolchildren initiative and the Chicago chapter's free medical clinics).

They made more progress on Marxist ideals than white Americans have, and any wanna-be white 'leftist' who is ignorant or dismissive of their achievements is worthless.

ATP5G1 posted:

I think it is very telling that most (white) progressives have been busying themselves on nitpicking "fiscal leftism" talking points and wringing their hands over poor white people. The Democrats haven't had a majority of white people since the 1960s (basically since the Southern Strategy was implemented), and have seen a long downward trend since then. The future of the party is not white people. You'd think progressives who truly wanted to focus on the disenfranchised would turn their attention to the dramatic erosion of the voting rights of POC in just the past 5-10 years, and a long-term erosion from the combo of our racist legal system and removing voting rights from the incarcerated. The ANES has been slowly churning out the official numbers from the past year, and I am hoping there is a polisci team out there running the crosstabs of the effects of the VRA demolition on POC (especially Black) turnout.

This was the first election since that VRA ruling. Why the gently caress is everyone talking about white people and their wallets, and not about THAT?!

BRAKE FOR MOOSE posted:

So? I don't see anything wrong with shitlists. There's also zero chance of passing much in the way of racial justice legislation right now, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be hammering representatives to push it. Coalitions have different interests, and it's up to us to convince others and our politicians that our interests are important, rather than trying to convince people to not give a poo poo about their pet issues.

Tiny Brontosaurus posted:

Get the gently caress out of here with this concern trolling bullshit. "It's just funny how" from someone I've literally never seen say anything that wasn't dogwhistle bigotry. Eat poo poo.

Jenner posted:

If Democrats are voting in line with white supremacists and fascists then they need to be primaried out and replaced because they're complicit in promoting a fascist regime. I guess I'm sounding like a Justice Dem here but I wanna make it clear, I'm done with racism. I am not remotely interested in voting for a candidate that does not prioritize social issues or at least marry all related social issues to the fiscal issues. I'm not going to entertain leaving minorities behind again.

But if a Democrat is voting in line with white supremacists and fascists then I don't care about their record, they are no ally to minorities and get them the gently caress out.

quote:

Sounding like a Justice Dem again here but for the 8 years Republicans obstructed us they made a lot of symbolic votes on bills to send a message. I don't see any reason why we should not do the same. Single Payer, Addiction and drug rehabilitation and lightening of drug sentencing, legalizing marijuana (go after the libertarians) and returning of voting rights to people with criminal records (that aren't treason) have no chance of passing but making it obvious that Republicans are voting down things their constituents want might have some power?

Morby posted:

This is kinda veering dangerously into "black people need to get off the Democratic plantation" bullshit IMO. It assumes that we don't know our own minds or can't think for ourselves. No, the Democrats haven't been perfect, but they are the only ones that let us have a seat at the table. Even with the '94 crime bill (which no one cares about anymore) the Clinton administration worked with the Black Caucus to find out our specific concerns and try to draft legislation to address them. The bill as it was written was very popular at the time with our community and it was truly an effort on their part to address a serious problem. Its execution and changes by the GOP is royally hosed, but it would be a lie to say that the administration didn't try to help. Hillary Clinton went undercover in the state of MS gathering evidence to sue the state for not desegregating their schools in the 70s and 80s, and Hilarycare in the 90s helped a ton of black kids get healthcare.

I am a Democrat because I choose to be one. The Democratic Party is literally the only party that has listened to us in the last 30 years.

blackguy32 posted:

You're telling us stuff that we have already heard a million times. Basically:

Dexo posted:

The other side who is super loving pro Hillary is dumb too.

Moridin920 posted:

And I don't understand why "the Dems need to get with it a little more" is so controversial when there are other posters itt saying a) they need candidates that actually prioritize social and racial issues because they don't seem to be doing that and b) we all agree that they are a party of mostly white people that don't seem to care a whole lot about enfranchising minorities given their lack of resistance to it when disenfranchisement happens.

blackguy32 posted:

Jenner posted:

If Democrats are voting in line with white supremacists and fascists then they need to be primaried out and replaced because they're complicit in promoting a fascist regime. I guess I'm sounding like a Justice Dem here but I wanna make it clear, I'm done with racism. I am not remotely interested in voting for a candidate that does not prioritize social issues or at least marry all related social issues to the fiscal issues. I'm not going to entertain leaving minorities behind again.

there wolf posted:

gently caress even focusing on the disenfranchised; any progressive who wants to see their cause advanced by the democratic party should be screaming about voting rights. I literally don't think most white Dems realize how not-white the Democratic party is, and considering the demographics on every level past city, I guess it's not that surprising.

ATP5G1 posted:

I think it is very telling that most (white) progressives have been busying themselves on nitpicking "fiscal leftism" talking points and wringing their hands over poor white people. The Democrats haven't had a majority of white people since the 1960s (basically since the Southern Strategy was implemented), and have seen a long downward trend since then. The future of the party is not white people. You'd think progressives who truly wanted to focus on the disenfranchised would turn their attention to the dramatic erosion of the voting rights of POC in just the past 5-10 years, and a long-term erosion from the combo of our racist legal system and removing voting rights from the incarcerated.

blackguy32 posted:

Moridin920 posted:

I mean I'm literally saying this:







You can disagree and that's fine but idk why you're insisting all black people must love Democrats.

Being critical of the Democratic party doesn't automatically mean I think the GOP is better or that there is some 'plantation' black people need to escape from. It just means the Dems aren't perfect and have room for improvement. If no one agitates for that improvement, it won't happen.

blackguy32 posted:

I never insisted that all black people must love Democrats. Anyways, that is my last word on the subject.

blackguy32 posted:

But you need to stop telling us when we should be critical of Democrats. We will be critical when we deem it necessary to be critical, not when you think we need to.

Moridin920 posted:

To be perfectly blunt it's just funny how people will be so quick to (rightfully) say "black people are not a monolithic entity!" when someone asks "how do black people feel about..." and yet for some reason the statement "the black people's candidate was Hillary Clinton and her defeat was a personal insult to black people" is fine.

Lightning Knight posted:

Because the statement "Hillary Clinton was the black person's candidate in the 2016 Democratic Primary" isn't a value judgement, it's a statistical fact.

Why that was statistically true is a complicated and multifaceted question and the answer isn't the same for all black Americans who voted for Hillary Clinton.

quote:

As Chairman Yeshitela so poignantly lamented, Trump’s colonialist campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again” was actually politically correct code speak for “Make America White Again.”

The Chairman makes it plain in his influential book, “An Uneasy Equilibrium: The African Revolution versus Parasitic Capitalism”:

“While things are bad in general within the U.S., the conditions for Africans can only be explained by our status as colonial subjects. This oppression continues just as starkly under the Obama regime as under any previous U.S. president.”

During his address the Chairman reiterated that, “Hillary Clinton offered us nothing, but only a continuation of what Obama did. And if you want more of that you’d have to be insane.”

The Shortest Path posted:

"not all or even a majority of black people voted period" because the party that Hillary was running against stopped many them from voting.

Moridin920 posted:

Dude of course it's a value judgement, and based on that value judgement most black people who voted ended up voting for Hillary. But not all or even a majority of black people voted period so clearly many of those people felt like neither candidate represented them.

I'm pretty sure if I said "HRC was the black person's candidate" to Omali Yeshitela he'd call me an idiot, based on his comments here:

Lightning Knight posted:

I'm not really sure how that quote disproves the idea that black people aren't a monolith, really.

Moridin920 posted:

You think voter turnouts are so low solely because of disenfranchisement? There's no possible way many people just felt like both parties were hosed and screw it anyway? Disenfranchisement is definitely a thing obviously but it isn't the only factor at play here.

It's not just black people man most of the country doesn't vote whether white/black/latino/whatever. There's a reason for that.

The Shortest Path posted:

Certainly not solely, and many non-black people were also prevented from voting, but voter disenfranchisement was enormous. Indiana alone tossed out tens of thousands of voter registrations, and that's just the ones reported.

Moridin920 posted:

Thinking a politician represents you is always a value judgement by definition.


I'm not trying to disprove anything. I'm saying "look here's a huge group of black people who think Hillary sucks."

Moridin920 posted:

Yeah and that is horrible but dude there are millions of black people who didn't vote and I bet many thousands of those didn't vote because they hate both parties.

Lightning Knight posted:

Ok but that's not what was being discussed. Literally what I said:

Statistically, the majority of black people preferred Hillary Clinton in the primary. Why this is, is a complicated and nuanced question.

You're saying "but there are black people who don't like Hillary Clinton?!?!?!" firstly because you apparently don't understand how statistics work and what "majority" means, and secondly because you're not reading what is being said.

blackguy32 posted:

Bringing this back to black people, we had a candidate. We supported her greatly. Our support was disparaged and many people sought to discard it because, we were primarily situated in the South. We had our candidate go to the general election, and the people that were supposedly on our side sought to rip her to shreds and repeat right wing talking points.

So no, I still don't think you quite get how that feels. I don't think you quite get that for us, this election was much much more important than some stupid neoliberal slapfight against establishment Dems.

Lightning Knight posted:

lol tell us more about how both parties are the same. You're showing your hand way too early here.

Moridin920 posted:

Here is what is being discussed:


I said this post imo treats black people like a monolithic entity. That's what we're debating about.

All I'm saying is maybe this one poster doesn't speak for all black people. Maybe this poster is qualified to talk about their own experiences but "us" and "we?" Not all black people agree with that opinion. That's all I said.

Lightning Knight posted:

Except "not all black people liked Hillary!" isn't a profound statement, and you're only deploying this argument for the explicit purpose of a "both parties suck and Hillary was Quite Bad," which is the exact thing this poster is complaining about in the first place.

Moridin920 posted:

I mean I'm literally saying this:

there wolf posted:

Except you're not because the overall discussion is about white people on the left refusing to care about black issues, and blaming black people for not getting onboard with the financial liberalism cure-all that surely would have saved us all.

We all know the Democrats have problems, but this discussion is primarily about the inherent racism of white leftists and how it is hurting the cause. In that context your continued insistence that the Dems suck comes off as support for the white liberalism. So do you think it's right that certain white liberals blame black people for loosing the election because they didn't support Bernie? Do you think it's right that they habitually focus on issues of white poverty and economic injustice, and then give the same line about rising tides whenever asked how that's going to help black people? Do you think it's right that white liberals are wringing their hands and wracking their brains on how to win over working-class whites to increase democratic power, but are silent about going after voter suppression and disenfranchisement of POC citizens?

Moridin920 posted:

You think voter turnouts are so low solely because of disenfranchisement? There's no possible way many people just felt like both parties were hosed and screw it anyway? Disenfranchisement is definitely a thing obviously but it isn't the only factor at play here.

It's not just black people man most of the country doesn't vote whether white/black/latino/whatever. There's a reason for that.

Paracaidas posted:

A teaching moment.

You have said something that posters in this thread disagreed with. They laid out their objections. You believe that was an incorrect interpretation of your words, so you've rephrased to handle specific objections... and are now upset because you don't believe they're reading your posts.

From the outside, what's actually occurring is that you're addressing the text of the complaints without actually engaging with the complaints. You're reading the text and missing the message. Your lack of engagement creates an impression that you don't respect the people you're interacting with.

When you combine that with what you've been posting in the thread, it becomes easy to understand why people are being dismissive. You've demonstrated that you know fuckall about this topic-the Obama administration rebuilt the OCR from drat near scratch, with a number of employees who had served under Bill, and won hard-fought victories protecting the franchise. The Clinton primary campaign filed suit all over the country to protect voting rights despite the fact that she did better during the primaries under more restrictive rules. The only thing you've said that made a lick of sense is the accurate statement that since the recession, minority wealth (and especially black wealth) has been decimated.... but you've offered nothing to demonstrate you understand why, or how the Democrats have failed to fix it. Your summation has been colorblind-Dems bad about economy, that's bad for black voters too!

You are sure you're correct. You are sure you're not racist. You're sure that you would never engage in tokenism. The problem is that you appear to have a very base understanding of a complex topic, are emphatically disregarding the dissenting opinions of black posters (an indication you value your dilettante's understanding more than their lived expertise), and your overarching reason for engaging in this conversation is your demand that the small minority of black voters who agree with you need to be given more attention.

Once you grapple with that, you'll find yourself with a better understanding of your own limitations, the value of others, and how better to advocate for your positions to a diverse audience. Or you can label me a whiteknight woke idpolitico and wonder why all these so many of these women and minorities are resistant to your message.

Moridin920 posted:

Poster can complain without speaking for all black people in the country.

I mean I literally linked you a respected black scholar/speaker/party leader/academic saying basically "gently caress Hillary."

Lightning Knight posted:

Because he isn't claiming to speak for every black person, he's claiming to speak for the majority of politically engaged black people, which is statistically absolutely true.

Moridin920 posted:

You think voter turnouts are so low solely because of disenfranchisement? There's no possible way many people just felt like both parties were hosed and screw it anyway? Disenfranchisement is definitely a thing obviously but it isn't the only factor at play here.

It's not just black people man most of the country doesn't vote whether white/black/latino/whatever. There's a reason for that.

Moridin920 posted:

Fair enough, I'm totally in the wrong then. I just read it differently.