But were the left's insults really that pervasive? Let's look as Bush II. Sure the usual extremists writing in places like the Nation may have called him Racist. But Sen. Kennedy worked with him on NCLB. Nor do I ever really recall Democratic congressional leaders using racism to describe George Bush.
But were the left's insults really that pervasive? Let's look as Bush II. Sure the usual extremists writing in places like the Nation may have called him Racist. But Sen. Kennedy worked with him on NCLB. Nor do I ever really recall Democratic congressional leaders using racism to describe George Bush.
The left is so many different people that it is hard to find something that they did not say. But there is a tremendous difference between the all too common way Republicans in power label Democrats as soft on crime, un-american and socialist - while in the era before Trump, Dems in power gave Republicans respect. Romney is another one who was NOT called racist by the mainstream Dems. He was called clueless and a liar (as he disowned creating a version of Obamacare in his state).
Of course "racism" is also overused now. But not just re people, but re matters like what is called environmental racism, or structural racism.
Sorry but it is if the heavy industry was developed before African Americans moved North. For much of the eastern half of the US, heavy industry developed before WW1. So before the Great Migration. As far as the dumps, in NJ our dumps were not and are not in minority areas - we have the meadowlands in the East of the state and dumps in rural and white Sussex County.
I don't know were dumps are located in all states - but let's leave that aside. The Rust Belt developed before African Americans were a significant presence in the North. Before 1910, 95% of African Americans lived in the South.
It is true that industrial area are lousy places to live - and so only those with few options choose to live near factories. But these were white laborers before Ww1.
So that many of these became majority black was a coincidence. My family lived in Paterson near the factories. It was an area of working class whites. Shitty but it had nothing to do with race. That does not mean that poor minorities don't get the worst places but the issue is far more complex.
By the way, Whippany NJ is mostly white but has a few very polluted sites. Again a complex issue.
Well remember most folks before WW2 did not own cars. They usually walked to work. So where you lived was about what you could afford and where you needed to be. In most towns, the well to do lived in large houses on broad avenues, the rest lived in smaller homes closer together etc.
Even in more recent times there are dumps/water treatment plants, etc. built in minority/poor neighborhoods. Prior to that the urban renewal projects often fragmented and displaced those minority neighborhoods in favor of elevated highways and public buildings. We are talking 1960s-2018--well after the Northern Migration. In my region -- https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/syracuse-residents-fight-stop-sewage-plant-n409261
Even in more recent times-- Flint, Michigan-- where the water source was changed out to save money but no efforts made to ensure it was safe and thus poisoned hundreds of children.
With Flint - yes you are talking about racism. And the urban renewal - some of it was. But my comment was about industry, not about urban renewal. But even that was not all about race. For example the destruction of lower manhattan destroyed lofts and factories to build new office space. It was about greed but not about race at all.
I don't discount racism but much commentary is poorly informed. It becomes like the recitation of a catechism.
Environmental racism actually IS a thing; there are a lot of examples of polluting industries and transportation facilities being sited in minority communities as the result of their lack of political and economic power
But it isn't everything. I can show you examples where they were preferentially sited in white communities. I have lived in two such places, Baltimore and the Bronx.
It may be but in the places I know, the polluting industries were were they were - and workers were moved nearby. And at the time they were white workers. I am thinking of rust belt towns whether in CLeveland OH or Donora PA or Newark and PAterson in NJ.
The real bottom line is that the poorest workers live closest to the mills/factories etc. The poorest will be white coal miners who live near a polluted stream of Hispanic immigrants who live in a part of town that was originally Little Dublin.
While i have no doubt current dirty businesses would be sited where minorities lived - for most of the stories I hear, the dirt came before the minorities. I live near NYC so our dirty industries killed white folks first.
From an advocacy perspective, I think the word "racism" is so charged that it all but shuts down all discourse and very little gets down. I think we'd make more progress on things like this issue if we called it "environmental bias."
My reasoning is, as opposed to racism, *everyone* has some experience with bias - bias against short men, bias against unattractive people, bias against being overweight etc. Even rich people have felt some degree of bias in certain situations.
"Racism" has too strong a headwind. "Bias" has much more power to activate people in a positive direction.
" I think we'd make more progress on things like this issue if we called it "environmental bias." Exactly THIS! Bias is easily understood as being possibly impersonal, a circumstance without a CURRENT intent. Whereas to the person on the street, "racism" means has a tinge of personal animus, no matter how much it's 'explained' and argued in nuanced terms. It's like white *privilege* which has a tinge of something unmerited. Or "defund the police" which nobody would be convinced wasn't about abolishing police departments.
Not all cancers are alike. And some growths are tumors but not cancers. So yes, I want specificity, otherwise all I have is panic and doom. Do you want to solve a problem, or do you want to have the satisfaction of giving all targets of your righteous ire the explosive epithet you think they so richly deserve? You can have one but not the other. Being opposed to affirmative action is not the same as saying a judge is biased because he has Mexican heritage. The racist murder of Amaud Arbery is not the same as voting for Trump. When everything not sufficiently racially sensitive falls under one umbrella, nothing means anything. And you lose the persuadables.
I'm not saying do nothing and hope the problem goes away. I'm saying find ways to specify the exact problem rather than using a term that just gets peoples backs up. It's a conversation stopper, not starter. The term totally 'others' the person it is directed to. It's seen as irredeemable. Solving problems by building alliances requires specificity, not generalized (and therefore meaningless) labeling. So yes, the murder of Amaud Arbery was absolutely racist. As is redlining, and some parts of anti-immigration rhetoric. But using that word for what is systemic bias that may not have specific current racist intent, dilutes the term and does NOT make people see the light. So, for example, is test-based admission to gifted student programs racist? How about a tax on groceries? Increased funding for the police? Outlawing menthol cigarettes (this is currently controversial within the CBC) ?
George W. Bush actually led efforts to purge racists from the Texas Republican Party. That is one reason why a lot of Hispanics in Texas vote Republican. At about the same time, Pete Wilson in California was going all in on nativist bigotry. That is one reason why few Hispanics in California vote Republican.
Ironically GWB was undoing some of the damage his father had caused. The elder Bush had run for the US Senate in 1964 as an opponent of the Civil Rights Act, losing badly to the very liberal Ralph Yarborough; the last time Texas has sent an unapologic liberal to the US Senate.
The GOP coalition is not a racist monolith but it is more homogenous than the Democratic coalition is. If we look at Trump voters specifically, in 2016 a cluster analysis broke them down into five types:
"American Preservationists (20%), Staunch Conservatives (31%), Anti-Elites (19%), Free Marketeers (25%), and the Disengaged (5%)"
American Preservationists were Trump's core support, the early adopters. They "lean economically progressive, believe the economic and political systems are rigged, have nativist immigration views, and a nativist and ethnocultural conception of American identity" — specifically,
"A slim majority (54 percent) 'strongly' believe discrimination against whites has become 'as big of a problem' as discrimination against minorities. In addition, less than half agree that 'increased opportunities for African-Americans have significantly improved the quality of life in the United States.'
"This group has a strong sense of racial identity. Fully 67 percent say that their race is extremely or very important to their identity — 30 to 50 points higher than any other Trump voter group (see Figure 8). To put this in context, only 17 percent of Free Marketeers feel their race is important to their identity. The American Preservationists were also the most likely to believe their fate was linked with their racial group (73 percent)."
I was shocked by the 67 and 73% figures the first time I saw them. Perhaps I shouldn't have been. Trump had already won, after all. Still, considering 67% figure is 30-50% higher than for the other Trump voter groups, maybe it's not surprising that members of the GOP whose bubble excluded American Preservationists just didn't see what was going on.
The range on the Right is far narrower than on the left, largely through GoP self selection (under the rubric of getting rid of the RINOs). It seems like the non-openly racist portion of the GoP has been getting smaller and smaller--and the openly racist bits have been getting bolder and louder.
I am sure I get counted as a Republican, because I have never changed my registration. I haven't actually been a Republican since the early 90s.
But were the left's insults really that pervasive? Let's look as Bush II. Sure the usual extremists writing in places like the Nation may have called him Racist. But Sen. Kennedy worked with him on NCLB. Nor do I ever really recall Democratic congressional leaders using racism to describe George Bush.
The left is so many different people that it is hard to find something that they did not say. But there is a tremendous difference between the all too common way Republicans in power label Democrats as soft on crime, un-american and socialist - while in the era before Trump, Dems in power gave Republicans respect. Romney is another one who was NOT called racist by the mainstream Dems. He was called clueless and a liar (as he disowned creating a version of Obamacare in his state).
Of course "racism" is also overused now. But not just re people, but re matters like what is called environmental racism, or structural racism.
So, it's a coincidence that dumps and heavy industry are most often located in majority Black areas?
Sorry but it is if the heavy industry was developed before African Americans moved North. For much of the eastern half of the US, heavy industry developed before WW1. So before the Great Migration. As far as the dumps, in NJ our dumps were not and are not in minority areas - we have the meadowlands in the East of the state and dumps in rural and white Sussex County.
I don't know were dumps are located in all states - but let's leave that aside. The Rust Belt developed before African Americans were a significant presence in the North. Before 1910, 95% of African Americans lived in the South.
It is true that industrial area are lousy places to live - and so only those with few options choose to live near factories. But these were white laborers before Ww1.
So that many of these became majority black was a coincidence. My family lived in Paterson near the factories. It was an area of working class whites. Shitty but it had nothing to do with race. That does not mean that poor minorities don't get the worst places but the issue is far more complex.
By the way, Whippany NJ is mostly white but has a few very polluted sites. Again a complex issue.
Was it a coincidence, or did relative poverty compel them to live there?
Well remember most folks before WW2 did not own cars. They usually walked to work. So where you lived was about what you could afford and where you needed to be. In most towns, the well to do lived in large houses on broad avenues, the rest lived in smaller homes closer together etc.
Even in more recent times there are dumps/water treatment plants, etc. built in minority/poor neighborhoods. Prior to that the urban renewal projects often fragmented and displaced those minority neighborhoods in favor of elevated highways and public buildings. We are talking 1960s-2018--well after the Northern Migration. In my region -- https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/syracuse-residents-fight-stop-sewage-plant-n409261
https://cnycentral.com/news/the-map-segregated-syracuse/the-map-urban-renewal-and-the-removal-of-blacks-from-the-center-of-syracuse
Even in more recent times-- Flint, Michigan-- where the water source was changed out to save money but no efforts made to ensure it was safe and thus poisoned hundreds of children.
With Flint - yes you are talking about racism. And the urban renewal - some of it was. But my comment was about industry, not about urban renewal. But even that was not all about race. For example the destruction of lower manhattan destroyed lofts and factories to build new office space. It was about greed but not about race at all.
I don't discount racism but much commentary is poorly informed. It becomes like the recitation of a catechism.
Environmental racism actually IS a thing; there are a lot of examples of polluting industries and transportation facilities being sited in minority communities as the result of their lack of political and economic power
But it isn't everything. I can show you examples where they were preferentially sited in white communities. I have lived in two such places, Baltimore and the Bronx.
It may be but in the places I know, the polluting industries were were they were - and workers were moved nearby. And at the time they were white workers. I am thinking of rust belt towns whether in CLeveland OH or Donora PA or Newark and PAterson in NJ.
The real bottom line is that the poorest workers live closest to the mills/factories etc. The poorest will be white coal miners who live near a polluted stream of Hispanic immigrants who live in a part of town that was originally Little Dublin.
While i have no doubt current dirty businesses would be sited where minorities lived - for most of the stories I hear, the dirt came before the minorities. I live near NYC so our dirty industries killed white folks first.
LULUs and homevoter politics!
Who loses in the local landowner politics wars is who has less clout. Race is part of that, though not the whole story.
https://modelcitizen.substack.com/p/does-zoning-cause-racism-does-negative?s=r
From an advocacy perspective, I think the word "racism" is so charged that it all but shuts down all discourse and very little gets down. I think we'd make more progress on things like this issue if we called it "environmental bias."
My reasoning is, as opposed to racism, *everyone* has some experience with bias - bias against short men, bias against unattractive people, bias against being overweight etc. Even rich people have felt some degree of bias in certain situations.
"Racism" has too strong a headwind. "Bias" has much more power to activate people in a positive direction.
" I think we'd make more progress on things like this issue if we called it "environmental bias." Exactly THIS! Bias is easily understood as being possibly impersonal, a circumstance without a CURRENT intent. Whereas to the person on the street, "racism" means has a tinge of personal animus, no matter how much it's 'explained' and argued in nuanced terms. It's like white *privilege* which has a tinge of something unmerited. Or "defund the police" which nobody would be convinced wasn't about abolishing police departments.
Not all cancers are alike. And some growths are tumors but not cancers. So yes, I want specificity, otherwise all I have is panic and doom. Do you want to solve a problem, or do you want to have the satisfaction of giving all targets of your righteous ire the explosive epithet you think they so richly deserve? You can have one but not the other. Being opposed to affirmative action is not the same as saying a judge is biased because he has Mexican heritage. The racist murder of Amaud Arbery is not the same as voting for Trump. When everything not sufficiently racially sensitive falls under one umbrella, nothing means anything. And you lose the persuadables.
I'm not saying do nothing and hope the problem goes away. I'm saying find ways to specify the exact problem rather than using a term that just gets peoples backs up. It's a conversation stopper, not starter. The term totally 'others' the person it is directed to. It's seen as irredeemable. Solving problems by building alliances requires specificity, not generalized (and therefore meaningless) labeling. So yes, the murder of Amaud Arbery was absolutely racist. As is redlining, and some parts of anti-immigration rhetoric. But using that word for what is systemic bias that may not have specific current racist intent, dilutes the term and does NOT make people see the light. So, for example, is test-based admission to gifted student programs racist? How about a tax on groceries? Increased funding for the police? Outlawing menthol cigarettes (this is currently controversial within the CBC) ?
It's only charged because the racists are upset at being called racists.
George W. Bush actually led efforts to purge racists from the Texas Republican Party. That is one reason why a lot of Hispanics in Texas vote Republican. At about the same time, Pete Wilson in California was going all in on nativist bigotry. That is one reason why few Hispanics in California vote Republican.
Ironically GWB was undoing some of the damage his father had caused. The elder Bush had run for the US Senate in 1964 as an opponent of the Civil Rights Act, losing badly to the very liberal Ralph Yarborough; the last time Texas has sent an unapologic liberal to the US Senate.
"The left is so many different people"
Meanwhile, a couple comments above this one, the Right is a racist monolith. Weird.
The GOP coalition is not a racist monolith but it is more homogenous than the Democratic coalition is. If we look at Trump voters specifically, in 2016 a cluster analysis broke them down into five types:
https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publication/the-five-types-trump-voters
"American Preservationists (20%), Staunch Conservatives (31%), Anti-Elites (19%), Free Marketeers (25%), and the Disengaged (5%)"
American Preservationists were Trump's core support, the early adopters. They "lean economically progressive, believe the economic and political systems are rigged, have nativist immigration views, and a nativist and ethnocultural conception of American identity" — specifically,
"A slim majority (54 percent) 'strongly' believe discrimination against whites has become 'as big of a problem' as discrimination against minorities. In addition, less than half agree that 'increased opportunities for African-Americans have significantly improved the quality of life in the United States.'
"This group has a strong sense of racial identity. Fully 67 percent say that their race is extremely or very important to their identity — 30 to 50 points higher than any other Trump voter group (see Figure 8). To put this in context, only 17 percent of Free Marketeers feel their race is important to their identity. The American Preservationists were also the most likely to believe their fate was linked with their racial group (73 percent)."
I was shocked by the 67 and 73% figures the first time I saw them. Perhaps I shouldn't have been. Trump had already won, after all. Still, considering 67% figure is 30-50% higher than for the other Trump voter groups, maybe it's not surprising that members of the GOP whose bubble excluded American Preservationists just didn't see what was going on.
The range on the Right is far narrower than on the left, largely through GoP self selection (under the rubric of getting rid of the RINOs). It seems like the non-openly racist portion of the GoP has been getting smaller and smaller--and the openly racist bits have been getting bolder and louder.
I am sure I get counted as a Republican, because I have never changed my registration. I haven't actually been a Republican since the early 90s.
Why are you even here at a fascist racist site, then?