The MTV Survey On Millenials And Race
A popular link on facebook these days is to an article in Slate magazine, Why Do Millennials Not Understand Racism? It is written by Jamelle Bouie, and is based on the MTV Survey on Millenials and Race. Mr. Bouie does not like the results of this study.
One question might be why he is paying attention to the study. The results are broken down in two groups, white and POC. The study was conducted in English. The respondents were 14-24 years old, with the under 18 crowd needing parental permission. Only people who watch MTV were interviewed.
Some questions asked about “microaggressions” … “brief and commonplace actions or words that are subtle examples of bias. Microaggressions can be intentional or unintentional, and often communicate negative feelings towards people of color.” POC report having more problems with microaggressions than white people. One possible reason for this is the fact many white people have never heard of microaggressions. The use of words like this is one reason for using English only.
Mr. Bouie makes a few broad comments. Remember, he is talking about a group of MTV watchers. “More jarring is the 48 percent of white millennials who say discrimination against whites is as big a problem as discrimination against racial minorities. … there’s no doubt that a substantial plurality of young white people believe their race is a disadvantage, which is ludicrous given the small number who say that they’ve felt excluded because of their race (10 percent) or say that they’ve been hurt by racial offenses (25 percent). But while this reaction doesn’t seem to have a basis in reality, it makes perfect sense given what millennials writ large believe about racism.”
Maybe this is white privilege. Many white people are not sensitive to being discriminated against. What is a microaggression to one person is a rude comment (or misunderstood look) to another.
The way the survey was worded might have something to do with it. The questionnare is not included in the report. The study does not go into the family income, or level of education in the family. The only breakdown is white vs. POC.
When a person gets on a roll, it is tough to stop. The rhetorical snowball rolls down the slope, getting bigger and bigger as it heads to the bottom. “From these results, it’s clear that—like most Americans—millennials see racism as a matter of different treatment, justified by race, that you solve by removing race from the equation. If we ignore skin color in our decisions, then there can’t be racism …. The problem is that racism isn’t reducible to “different treatment.” … No, racism is better understood as white supremacy—anything that furthers a broad hierarchy of racist inequity, where whites possess the greatest share of power, respect, and resources, and blacks the least. … And the magic of white supremacy is that its presence is obscured by the focus on race. When a black teenager is unfairly profiled by police, we say it’s “because of the color of his skin,” which—as a construction—avoids the racism at play, from the segregated neighborhood the officer patrols to the pervasive belief in black criminality that shapes our approach to crime.”
Holy social scientist Batman. Who is this we? Most people never hear about a black (POC) teenage in his encounter with the police. Is it fair or unfair? Is it because of the color of his skin, or the 911 call that started the encounter? Yes, some police may target POC unfairly, and that is an issue to address. Runaway rhetoric by the likes of Jamelle Bouie does not help.
Maybe this is another case of the younger generation being misunderstood by the old fogeys. The study makes the shaky claim that “The majority of millennials believe that their generation is post-racial.” Perhaps … and this just might be a good thing … there are people coming along who are more interested in solving problems, than in worrying whether the problem affects white people more than POC. Maybe, just maybe, the divide and conquer tactics of the ruling class are being seen as the foolish distractions that they are. Those who enjoy screaming about racism might find themselves obsolete in a few years. This might not be such a bad thing.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Chamblee 54 Election Guide
Next Tuesday is the Georgia Primary. This is the day when the number of candidates is reduced from too many to two. The inevitable runoff will be held July 22. It is an “open” primary, which means you choose between the Demos and the Repubs.
When you vote in the runoff, you must choose the same party as the primary. This rule was enacted after the 1966 election. Many Repubs voted in the Demo runoff for Lester Maddox. He was generally conceded to be the Lester of the two evils, and was elected Governor through a quirk in the State Constitution. The election of Mr. Maddox should provide a warning to those who vote for a goofy candidate, in hopes of providing weak opposition for another candidate. This strategy can backfire.
PG lives in Dekalb County, Georgia. In District 81, House of Representatives, action, incumbent Scott Holcombe is unopposed in the Demo Primary. Someone is unopposed in the Repub primary. In the race for District 40 State Senate, incumbent Fran Millar faces opposition from Richard D. “Dick” Anderson. Mr. Millar mailed PG a flyer produced by Rosetta Stone. This is never a good sign. The US congressman for PG is Tom Price, who will win re-election.
Dekalb County is going to elect a new sheriff. This is a special election, and will be on the ballot for both duopoly parties. The candidates are Tony Hughes, Melvin Mitchell, Melody Maddox (Rumored to be the love baby of Lester Maddox), Jeff Mann, LaSalle Smith, Vernon Jones. Mr. Jones is the former county CEO, and the BFF of TV reporter Doug Richards. Mr. Mann, and Mr. Mitchell, have the money to send out slick mailers. Derwin Brown and Pat Jarvis have not commented.
Georgia has two high profile state elections. Nathan Deal has opposition in the primary, but will probably win. His probable opponent in November is Jason Carter, whose main qualification is being Jimmy’s grandson. The other Demo candidate for statewide office is Michelle Nunn. She is running for the US Senate. The primary qualification of Ms. Nunn is being the daughter of Sam “don’t ask don’t tell” Nunn. Maybe it is none of our business.
The election with the most money involved is the Repub contest for the US Senate. The incumbent is mercifully retiring. The most prominent candidates are Paul Broun, Art Gardner, Phil Gingrey, Derrick E. Grayson, Karen Handel, Jack Kingston, David Perdue. According to the polls, Ms Handel, Mr. Kingston, and Mr. Perdue are the leading contenders.
A popular truism is that when you don’t have anything good to say about someone, you should not say anything at all. Despite this, chamblee54 has written about Karen Handel one, two, three, four, five times. If you can’t be a hypocrite during an election…
A site called Politico had this item today. Perdue … had this to say: “She ran five times for five different races, got elected twice, didn’t finish either term.” Perdue was referring to Handel leaving the Fulton County Board of Commissioners to run for secretary of state, then cutting that term short to seek the governorship in 2010. … Handel seethed at those comments. “Would we be having this conversation if I were a man?” she said. “I would argue not.”
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
60 Words
Radiolab recently presented a show, 60 Words. It is based on a Buzzfeed article, 60 Words And A War Without End: The Untold Story Of The Most Dangerous Sentence In U.S. History. It is about the Authorization for the Use of Military Force. This resolution was passed by Congress after Nine Eleven. It has been twisted into a never ending war, against enemies on a secret list.
A part of the audio report stands out. In the aftermath of nine eleven, there was a sense among Democrats that the President needed to be supported. This was a few months after the controversial 2000 election. Even then, the opposition party saw the country as being under attack. They saw a need for a unified response.
Compare this to the ongoing health care quagmire. There was not a spectacular one day event to call attention to the problem. Instead, the health care disaster has been ongoing for years. Like military action, it is bleeding the nation’s resources dry.
The Republicans have made trouble for the Democrats at every step of the way on health care reform. There has been almost no cooperation. Instead of trying to work together to solve the problem, the opposition has engaged in name calling. The candidates for this year’s elections are denouncing health care reform in the strongest terms, without any alternative plan.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Thomas Jefferson Said What?
PG was wasting time with facebook when he saw a friend say “Damn I love this quote”. The passage being praised was “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Desmond Tutu.
The rhetoric alert started to flash. These days, the wolf and the sheep buy their clothes at the same Walmart. To hear some oppressors talk the talk, they are the ones under attack. It is tough to tell the good guys from the bad guys. Also, as the Kony fiasco showed, often you can make things worse by getting mixed up. Sometimes the best thing to do is mind your own business.
Ok, now that is out of the way. Some lines sound good, but don’t hold up to a bit of thinking. As for the veracity of the quote, Desmond Tutu may very well have said it. (or maybe one of his rivals said it, and Mr. Tutu copied it.) The quote has been attributed to Thomas Jefferson, Edmund Burke, Patrick Henry, and probably others. Almost no one has a source, for the quote, from the dead white guys.
There was a discussion in Prison Planet Forum about BHO, and his alleged good buddy Larry Sinclair. The signature line for one of the posts was that crowd pleaser, “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” Thomas Jefferson. All that needed to happen to get the party started was to highlight the quote, right click, and ask Mr. Google to help.
A post called MISQUOTING THE FOUNDERS did not mince words. “The only problem with this scene that has been repeated many times across the country is that Thomas Jefferson never said that, never wrote that, and quite possibly never thought it. Our aspiring politician had fallen victim to the perils of popular misattribution. You could fill a book with misquotes and misattributed quotes we hear repeated regularly today. Right now if I Google “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent” the entire first page of results wrongly attribute it to Thomas Jefferson. The quote and its many variants have been attributed in the past to Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke, but no record exists of the quote in any of their writings or contemporary accounts.”
On November 13, 1787, Mr. Jefferson wrote a letter to William Smith. The letter is full of zesty quotes. “What country before ever existed a century & a half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.”
A few lines above that, Mr. Jefferson said “God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion.” Twenty years after he wrote this, Mr. Jefferson was President. He probably did not want to deal with a revolution when he was President.
Getting back to the quote about tyranny, Martin Porter wrote an entertaining essay, A study of a Web quotation. He gives credit, or blame, to Edmund Burke. First, a list of different versions is presented. This is a clue that something is awry. The conclusion: “There is no original. The quote is bogus, and Burke never said it. It is a pseudo-quote, and corresponds to real quotes in the same way that urban legends about the ghost hitch-hiker vanishing in the back of the car and alligators in the sewers correspond to true news stories.”
Mr. Porter wrote a follow up essay, Four Principles of Quotation. These principles are:
Principle 1 (for readers) Whenever you see a quotation given with an author but no source assume that it is probably bogus.
Principle 2 (for readers) Whenever you see a quotation given with a full source assume that it is probably being misused, unless you find good evidence that the quoter has read it in the source.
Principle 3 (for quoters) Whenever you make a quotation, give the exact source.
Principle 4 (for quoters) Only quote from works that you have read.
If these principles were to be used, then there would be a lot less hotheaded talking on the intercom. Those who are trying to influence you to the justice of their cause will not want you to read this. Pictures for this feature are from The Library of Congress. These pictures are Union soldiers, from the War Between the States. When war is discussed, all inspiring quotes are in doubt.
This is a repost. It is written like James Joyce. In the past year, doing due diligence on alleged quotes has become a hobby. Many people don’t care who said it, if they agree with the thoughts expressed. The prevailing thought is that an idea becomes more true with a famous name at the end. If the famous person is deceased, and cannot defend his/her reputation, that is not a problem. People do not like being told that Santa Claus does not exist.
A Rainbow Prayer
The National Day of Prayer was last week. This is a repost.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
Good Morning G-d. Please give me the slack I need to make it through this busy life. I have a birthday today, and am getting older. Please give me less pain, both above and below the neck. Thank you for letting me get this far. Thank you for the gift of sobriety, and the memory of inebrience. The gift of moderation would have been appreciated. Help me to overcome body chemistry telling me to be unhappy. If this doesn’t work, help me hide it better.
Please tell the Jesus Worshipers to shut up. They make too much noise. Help me to forgive them. Give Jesus Worshipers a bit more humility. Help Jesus Worshipers to get over their confusion, and quit hating gay people. Let people know that G-d does not write books. Let men know that A REAL MAN KEEPS CONTROL OF HIS TEMPER. Please tell the proud people praying today that it is better to listen than to talk, and that louder does not mean more true.
Please find a happy medium for Atlanta water. Let us have neither drought nor flood. It would help if the developers would move to North Carolina, and the politicians would grow a conscience.
G-d, please try to get along better with Allah. This is important. Maybe if you and her got along better, then all those religious crazies would hate each other less. Help white people and black people get along better. Please be good to the people who have already lived, and are now deceased. Please understand that I am not in a hurry to join them.
Help Mr. Obama with the mess this country is in. Help Israel get along with her neighbors, and live within her borders. Help the world solve the carbon dioxide problem.
Thank you for the birds that sing. Thank you for dogs, and dog owners who clean up. Thank you for earth, air, fire, and water. Thank you for the people who enjoy this prayer. Help those who are offended to get over it. Namaste, amen, all my relations, Good Bye.
“Racist” Again
In recent discussions about Donald Sterling’s big mouth, the word “racist” has been universally used. Everybody seems to agree that the comments Mr. Sterling made are “racist.”
It is believed by many that black people cannot be “racist.” The concept is “Black people can’t be racist. Racism is an institution. Although “black people can be prejudiced, we don’t have the power” to enforce the sweeping institutional racism that perpetuates social, economic and political inequality.”
A few years ago, Donald Sterling got in trouble. He was a landlord, and was accused of discriminating against people. This is what “institutional racism” is. This was ignored by the media.
It is worth noting that at the time of the landlord issues, the Los Angeles Clippers were the worst team in the NBA. Mr. Sterling owns the Clippers. Some have speculated that owning this terrible team was his punishment for being a terrible landlord. Currently, the Clippers are a winning team, and Mr. Sterling is the anti-christ. He would turn a profit by selling the team.
So the gf recorded the argument, the old man said some “racist” things, and the national knickers are twisted. Is telling the inamorata not to pose with Magic Johnson perpetuating social, economic and political inequality? Or is it just an old man having a bad hair day?
Maybe the constant use of the label “racist” is what is perpetuating social, economic and political inequality. When you engage in high octane pearl clutching over a famous person saying stupid things, you distract attention from the real problem. What Donald Sterling said, to V. Stiviano, is not going to affect police activity, economic opportunity, or any of the other concerns that people of color have. Maybe it is time to banish the word “racist” from the national vocabulary. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Those were different times.
Atlanta Rising
Atlanta Rising: The Invention of an International City 1946-1996 is on the shelf at the Chamblee library. This book is a history of Atlanta in the modern era, written by former fishwrapper scribe Frederick Allen. This is a repost.
The story begins in 1948. AR is weighted more to the older part of the story. The main text is 248 pages. On page 124, Ivan Allen has just built a controversial roadblock on Peyton Road, which would be in 1962. The further along in the story, the fewer details are included. The first big story is when Georgia had two governors. This is one of the best descriptions of the two Governors controversy around, and does not mention Ben Fortson’s wheelchair cushion.
The mayor at the start of the story is William B. Hartsfield. “Willie B” was a leader in creating the Atlanta Airport, and in building it into the powerhouse it is today. He was mayor until 1961, when Ivan Allen Jr. moved into the office.
AR has many moments of unintentional irony. When you read a book 18 years after it was written, and fifty years after the events in the book, you see things that could not have been imagined before. In 1960, many of the political-business elite thought it was time for Mr. Hartsfield to retire. Among his shortcomings was an indifference to sports. Mr. Hartsfield thought that a new stadium would be too great a drain on the city’s taxpayers. Fifty four years, and three stadiums, later, the power elite is going to build another stadium. Atlanta Stadium cost eighteen million dollars. The Blank bowl will cost over a billion. (In the past year, a plan to move the Braves to Smyrna was announced.)
One of the big stories here is civil rights. Atlanta came out of that struggle looking pretty good. It was a combination of image conscious businessmen, enlightened black leadership, and a huge helping of dumb luck. In 1961, the city was under federal pressure to integrate the schools. The state was firm in opposition, and the city wasn’t crazy about the idea anyway. Then, another federal court ordered the integration of the University of Georgia. Since the people would not stand for messing with their beloved University, the state laws forbidding integration were quietly repealed. The city schools were integrated with a minimum of fuss. (The book tells this story much better than a slack blogger.)
The controversy about the 1956 model state flag was going full steam when AR was written. The book has some legislative records, which for some reason never made it into the fishwrapper. There is no clear cut answer as to why the legislature changed the state flag. It was mentioned that at the national political conventions, you could not have a written sign, but you could wave a state flag. This controversy provided a diversion from gold dome crookedness, and hopefully has been laid to rest.
A man named Lester Maddox sold fried chicken, and ran for public office. AR describes Lester as looking a bit like an angry chicken. Through a series of constitutional convulsions, Lester was elected Governor in 1966. The state survived his tenure. In the seventies, when Jimmy Carter was running for President, Lester said a lot of rude things about Jimmy, helping the smiling peanut farmer get elected. In another turn of fate, Lester Maddox died June 25, 2003. This was two days after the eternal departure of Maynard Jackson, the first black Mayor of Atlanta.
The book ends with the 1996 Olympics looming over the city. Billy Payne led a smart campaign to secure the games for Atlanta. One of his moves was to keep Jimmy Carter and Ted Turner out of the action. After the 1980 boycott, and the Goodwill Games, neither person was popular with the I.O.C. The book was published before 1996. The Olympics were a blast.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
Medical Waste
There is a story going around, Aborted babies are being incinerated to provide electricity in the United States. Supposedly, medical waste is produced in British Columbia, shipped into Oregon, and used for fuel to generate electricity.
“‘Medical waste,’ in this brave new world of ours, includes amputated limbs, cancerous tissue, and the bodies of murdered children. I don’t have any long tirade for you. I just need you to understand what’s happening here in your one nation under God. We are incinerating slaughtered babies so that we can charge our iPhones and power our televisions.”
The local BS detector runs on batteries, Ding, ding, ding. To start, this product was shipped across an international border. Does US customs allow medical waste to come in?
The picture, on top of the blog post, shows a red plastic bag labelled biohazard. If you look in the dumpster behind the hospital, you will see a lot of plastic bags. When you burn plastic, toxic fumes are released into the atmosphere. If you are using recycled matter as fuel, it cannot be contained in plastic. Is there someone at the power plant that unties the bags, and dumps the fuel into the fire?
Power plants use a large volume of fuel. Making electricity requires a lot of heat, to boil the water, to push the turbines. The medical waste from the participating hospitals in British Columbia probably would not generate a whole lot of power. Since this matter is wet, it probably does not burn well.
You shouldn’t believe everything you hear. Of course, when you are a religious enthusiast, you enjoy believing things that others find preposterous. When you denounce abortion, no rhetoric is too extreme. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Jury Duty
April 15 is the day income tax returns are due. Many self anointed conservatives make noise on this day. 364 days a year they loudly celebrate American exceptionalism. When it is time to pay for it… One popular blogger had a story along those lines today. The chamblee54 comment: In paragraph one you say “full paragraphs necessitate the formation of full thoughts, which only come to those who write because they actually have something to say.” Paragraph five was “Fine. Maybe not.”
PG spent this April 15 with another tacky, but necessary, civic obligation: jury duty. During the educational video, SCOTUS parasite Samuel Alito said, in effect, that if you were on trial you would want someone, like yourself, on the jury. PG has a functioning BS detector. The average lawyer would not want PG in the same zip code as the jury room, if his client were on trial.
The day started at 5am. PG made breakfast, took the week’s trash to the street, and published a blog post about drones. This is the sort of expensive, big government activity that the conservatives don’t seem to mind. Drones kill children, and right to lifers say nothing.
The plan was to take marta to Dickhater. PG gets tired of driving all the time. When the time came to go to the station, PG slipped off the driveway, and tore up a slice of earth. He stopped to cover the skid mark with mulch. He got to the marta station in time to see the train leaving for downtown. The plan then became a drive to Dickhater. The parking deck was reached at 7:53am. The summons said to arrive at 8:15 am. Spell check suggestion for Dickhater: eradicate.
The entertainment did not begin until 8:37 am. PG probably could have caught the next train. There was little to do except watch the video, read a book, and wait. At 9:20 am, the MC asked a list of people if they had Safeway insurance. At 9:25 am, they were led to the courtroom, and the rest of the jurors were given a break until 10 am. At 10:21 am, the rest of the jury room was sent home.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a wonderful facility, offering downloads of thousands of public domain photographs. The LOC is a function of big government, and is supported with tax revenues. It’s annual budget would pay for a three drone strikes. The last statement was a made up statistic, and should not be used in any serious discussion. This collection of working women was taken in Philadelphia, PA. The photographer was Jack Delano, and the time was June 1943.
Drones
A giant art installation in Pakistan got some attention. An international committee displayed a large picture of a child, in an area that receives many drone strikes. The idea is to make drone controllers more aware of the human life on the ground.
A few days later, a commentary appeared, This Giant Art Piece in Pakistan Won’t Be Making Drone Pilots Feel Empathy. The author said the *target audience* of the piece was the empathetic public, not the drone controllers. There is a link to an article, where the psychological impact of drone warfare, on the controllers, is discussed. People in Yemen have a different perspective.
The drone war has been going on for some time now. It began under George W. Bush, and was intensified under Barack H. Obama. The “right to life” moving lips have been strangely silent. There are indications that fewer children are being killed now than before. Since the drone war is conducted by the secrecy oriented C.I.A., there is little way to *confirm or deny* these reports. Nor is it possible to determine the financial cost of this program. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Chamblee54 
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