- Phil Robertson
- Charles Blow
- Frederick Douglass
- Ann Althouse
Don't you DARE restore "a brightness and happiness" to their lives.
And - no matter what "they" say or think or do - Merry Christmas!
ADDED - I can't forget my girl:
A Big Holiday Shoutout to PW (and her family):
I've never felt alone with y'all there,...
So, what's TMR's Christmas message to we sad, angry, misunderstood, "bellyaching" black people, who whites, today, don't want to help (no matter what we say, or what happens to us, including death) unless we agree with them, their politics - and, not only their version of history but, even the current state of our very being?
Don't you DARE restore "a brightness and happiness" to their lives.
And - no matter what "they" say or think or do - Merry Christmas!
ADDED - I can't forget my girl:
A Big Holiday Shoutout to PW (and her family):
I've never felt alone with y'all there,...
“Robertson’s statements were uttered freely and openly without cover of the law, within a context of what he seemed to believe was ‘white privilege.’"
ReplyDelete—Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr.
Wasn't Robertson being interviewed? Answering questions?: You're obviously rich, white, and privileged. You've always had "white privilege", right? You grew up in the deep South during the pre-Civil Rights Movement. Did you even personally know any black people? Any who were happy? Or did you and your family oppress black people? When did you stop oppressing black people? Do you just hate all black people the way you seem to hate gays and feminists?
I took something different from that GQ interview (maybe because of who I am and where I'm from).
ReplyDeleteFirst off, the interview was a hit job -- that show was supposed to be like every other "hillbilly" show, in which the place subtitles (oddly enough the other show I've seen them do that with is The First 48, and that's worth looking into to understand what's going on here).
Secondly, I really didn't see him say anything that egregious about gay people; didn't say anything mean about them at all, just homosexual behavior and that's a big point -- there's been much worse and it wasn't directed at -- and he answered the question straight up, and what did people expect from Phil Robertson anyway? But he certainly isn't rah-rahing homosexuality, so that's a problem.
And then there's the stickier comments about black folks -- and I wondered why it's 1) so brief; 2) just stuck there in a blurb. That makes me wonder if not everything said was reported. And even still, no mention was made of Jim Crow (at least what was reported), so he didn't say Jim Crow was better...but we could look at it from another context:
No, Jim Crow was no good (and we don't know what Phil Robertson's actual thoughts are on that actual thing), but was the Great Society that came after any better? Was Pruitt-Igoe (and all that came with it, that's important too -- all that it was about) really a better thing than the cotton fields? Which, people seem to forget Phil Robertson was working in himself being one of those whites so poor that food may not be on the table; the people they call "trash". In the great sliding scale of privilege in this country, white folks like that don't have an abundance of it (aka. they get subtitles whether you can understand them or not, which I can perfectly...just like I do the majority of people I saw on First 48 show).
So whether meant or not, there's an interesting kernel to chew on there...because in a sense Pruitt-Igoe is the (privileged, nice) white America's response to Jim Crow (Mitt's dad worked on those projects)...and it's led to what today?
And Phil Robertson, unlikely a candidate as he may be, is the one who kicked that topic out into the middle of shitstormville (and I notice nobody is running with it -- hell, they're doing everything they can to not talk about that part...just like they're doing everything they can to tie this together with the gay stuff, which is ridiculous imhao, as I've already said many a time here).
Sorry for the rambling, I could.
And sorry I haven't been around much...the husband, the boy, and I have been out hunting a lot lately (it is cheaper I think to be poor in the country than poor in the city, at least in some ways) and trying to desperately keep our truck running...and honestly, I just find myself not able to say anything anymore -- the world does not make much sense to me; that must be it.
PW
"[Phil Robertson] being one of those whites so poor that food may not be on the table"
ReplyDeleteHear ya, PW. I knew some guys in Mississippi who were white share cropper's kids and who couldn't count on something to eat every day, and who picked cotton with blacks. By most standards their opinions would reek of racism and lack of awareness.
They were not at all naive about their situation, though, so there's truth to be found in hearing them out.
Having been a sharecropper's grandchild (and being half raised by said sharecropper) I understand a bit of the life situation there.
ReplyDeleteThe racism is of a different nature: the blacks you work with (and for sometimes) are people, with names and everything! And it's easy to wind up thinking there is nothing wrong because, well, not black so not savvy to what's up with that. This is especially the case if you are on an outfit with no real issue with blacks or whites together(and such folks will congregate to the same work crews, so they will reinforce that worldview, and thus you are shielded and can develop tunnel vision).
And under such conditions, with a good boss (any color) life is...well, not bad; there is a fair amount of joking, singing, and back and forth (the work is monotonous -- and if you're with a good crew, well, the camaraderie is definitely there). So I can see where it would lead to a narrow vision if that's all you know.
But on the flip side, black folks aren't some sort of statistic or special project either -- which I've seen a lot of more sophisticated types turn them into (with the resulting problems there)...
PW
*plus I'll just admit to a strong bias against living in an urban environment (where I'm at now is almost too much for me, and it is nowhere near a truly cityscape) -- somewhat nice to go take in the culture from time to time, would definitely not want to live there, and can't understand how anyone manages to do so (one of the running family stories was of Grampa seeing the new big city in the 70s -- said the place looked like a big ol state pen without the barbed wire and wondered what on earth they were going to do to the poor people who had to live there -- how would they fend for themselves in that?; suffice that he wasn't impressed at all; ...Gramps may have had a point)