U.S. Politics: Can't Stand It, I Know Ya Planned It, Gotta Set It Straight this Morongate

[Ormond]

37 minutes ago, Mother Cocanuts said:

 

What's "numerically illiterate"? The only "numeric" I provided was the comparison of homeless white and black demographics. And there being twice as many homeless whites as there are homeless blacks is a fact. And we've argued just once before, so I don't understand what's frequent.

Please illuminate me.

Yet it's still worth just enough for you to chime in. You're doing a pretty good job at ignoring me.

Yes, using the idea that there are twice as many homeless White people as Black people to claim that "white privilege" no longer exists is numerically illiterate. There are 198 million Whites in the USA and 46.8 million African-Americans. There are over four times as many Whites as there are African-Americans. So if there are ONLY twice as many homeless Whites as Blacks, that means that Blacks are actually TWICE as likely to be homeless as Whites are, given their proportions in the population. If Whites are only half as likely to be homeless as Blacks, that certainly would be one indication of "white privilege" still existing.

P.S. To be completely clear, the 198 million figure is for "non-Hispanic Whites," 

[DanteGabriel]

34 minutes ago, kairparavel said:

@DanteGabriel  Thank you for your post. 

 

8 minutes ago, Ormond said:

Yes, using the idea that there are twice as many homeless White people as Black people to claim that "white privilege" no longer exists is numerically illiterate. There are 198 million Whites in the USA and 46.8 million African-Americans. There are over four times as many Whites as there are African-Americans. So if there are ONLY twice as many homeless Whites as Blacks, that means that Blacks are actually TWICE as likely to be homeless as Whites are, given their proportions in the population. If Whites are only half as likely to be homeless as Blacks, that certainly would be one indication of "white privilege" still existing.

This reminds me of a similarly intractable right wing poster when we were arguing about racist policing in Ferguson. He could not or would not see the difference between the number of black people being pulled over and the percentage of traffic stops targeting them (which was also massively skewed against black people).

[Shryke]

1 hour ago, DanteGabriel said:

This is post nicely illustrates what frustrates me about modern politics. You complain that you've been ignored. Someone linked you Hillary Clinton's proposal to spend billions of dollars on rural Americans who weren't going to vote for her, and you just throw it off, assuming she'd never do it. Why wouldn't she do it? Did you know, during Bill Clinton's Presidency, she helped wrangle support for a bill to provide federal money to states so that they could provide low-cost, higher-quality health insurance for poor children? Do you know that this Republican President and Congress let that funding lapse, and now millions of poor kids, all over the country, are at risk of losing health insurance?

Obama wanted to spend more money to help poor Americans. Do I need to tell you again how hard the Republicans fought him when he was trying to do that? Do you remember how dire the economic situation was he was elected, and people were losing their homes due to predatory capitalists? Obama's leadership saved the American auto industry (Republicans wanted to "let Detroit go bankrupt") and saved the jobs of a lot of people who now scorn him. Of course, it's not just about Detroit (which is code for "undeserving black people" in Republican talk) -- plenthy of the factories that would have been shuttered if GM closed are in the South, in places that don't vote Democrat. But Obama risked a lot of political capital very early in his term to keep American car companies afloat. Meanwhile, "Foreclosure King" Steve Mnuchin, who made hundreds of millions off foreclosing on people's mortgages (often with underhanded or deceptive tactics, like backdating documents), is Trump's Treasury Secretary. Spare a moment to think of Mnuchin and his trophy wife and the privileged attitude she revealed when she ranted at an ordinary mom who questioned her for taking a government plane on day trip to Fort Knox.

Then of course, there's Obamacare. It's not a perfect program. It needs a lot of fixes. But Obama used up just about all his political power to get health insurance to millions of Americans who couldn't afford it before. Republicans fought him tooth and nail, and Trump is trying to destroy it. None of their proposals will work. It's just an excuse to give more tax breaks to the wealthy. Do you dispute these characterizations?

These seem to me to be pretty concrete examples of how Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and the Democratic Party tried to help poor and working-class people all around the country, and how Republicans don't give a fuck. Yet you seem to think that both parties are equally culpable in ignoring you. If you like facts, think on those facts for a bit. 

Since we're illustrating broad social trends with personal anecdotes, I'll observe one reason why I think Democrats don't get enough credit from the "white working class" for their economic efforts. The (white) wife of a former co-worker used to be on government assistance before she met my friend. High school education, two kids. A couple of years ago, when Trump was just getting attention, a discussion about him and his remarks about Mexicans caused her to go on a Facebook rant about how she couldn't get enough government money to assist her kids because the state was giving it all to "illegals." That her kids were the "wrong color" to get more assistance. 

What was driving this woman to Trump was not some belief in Republican economic policies. It's racial resentment.  I don't believe the "white working class" or "less educated white people" or whatever you want to call the demographic actually wants less government. They want a government that provides benefits to people who look like them and resents it when the government helps non-white people. It's a racial resentment that was stoked hundreds of years ago to keep poor white laborers divided from black slaves, rather than focusing their anger on the wealthy and landed classes that kept everyone else poor. It's a racial resentment capitalized on by Richard Nixon, with his Southern Strategy and launch of a racist drug war and coded "law and order" appeals. It continued with Reagan and his language about "welfare queens in Cadillacs" and "young bucks" with able bodies who don't work.

Let's talk about Shirley Sherrod. She once told a story at a conference about how, as an official in Obama's Department of Agriculture, she overcame her own racial biases (her father had been murdered when she was a girl) to help rural white families in need. She was telling a story about how she had helped saved a white couple from losing their farm. Andrew Breitbart, Republican shit-flinger and the founder of the site Steve Bannon used to elevate Trump to the Presidency, edited footage of her speaking to make it look like she'd refused to help a white farmer. Sherrod got fired before the deception was revealed. Why make up a lie about a hard-working black official who helped white farmers? Why fire an innocent woman who was doing what she could to help people and heal racial divides? To stoke the racial resentment that is the Republican Party's bread and butter.

The Republican Party has been feeding your communities bullshit about lazy black and brown people and welfare abusers (meanwhile I've seen posters here who say they are white and in poor communities and talk about how their relatives game the system for disability and welfare checks). And it works so damn well because of the racism baked into this country.

Part of the reason I stayed away from the US Politics thread for so long is because I got so tired of trying to have arguments with people who start from the flawed bullshit premises of the Republican Party. I have to trot out some kind of rant about the Republicans' conscious efforts to appeal to white racial resentment. I don't have the energy to get into it about white privilege today. I doubt you can be convinced. But for fuck's sake, think about the auto bailout, Obamacare, the children's health insurance program, and Shirley Sherrod and Steve Mnuchin, and let me know if you think both parties are equally dismissive of the concerns of poor white Americans.

Mmmhmm. The right in america is fundamentally about white supremacy and has been for a long time. The only place something else joins it is in the creamy topping of the rich white men who constitute the "establishment" where killing government's ability to stop them from amassing massive wealth and doing whatever they want takes over the driver seat. Although, of course, those people are still at best super comfortable with white supremacy and often just white supremacists themselves too.

[Mother Cocanuts]

23 minutes ago, Ormond said:

Yes, using the idea that there are twice as many homeless White people as Black people to claim that "white privilege" no longer exists is numerically illiterate. There are 198 million Whites in the USA and 46.8 million African-Americans. There are over four times as many Whites as there are African-Americans.

I never disputed this.

28 minutes ago, Ormond said:

So if there are ONLY twice as many homeless Whites as Blacks, that means that Blacks are actually TWICE as likely to be homeless as Whites are, given their proportions in the population.

You're going to have to explain this math to me.

30 minutes ago, Ormond said:

If Whites are only half as likely to be homeless as Blacks, that certainly would be one indication of "white privilege" still existing.

This isn't true. Regardless of how you slice it, a black person with respect to his demographic will always make up a larger proportion because there are four times fewer black people. The privilege of which you speak is only an abstract of group comparison. But to the individual white or black person, demographic differences does not influence their conditions nor does it determine how "likely" they are to enter homelessness.

And in the interest of an honest debate, I have to admit that I just found out that the numeric I cited was wrong. There aren't twice as many homeless whites as there are blacks. It's actually pretty close according to the 2016 report. My argument remains unchanged given that there are more homeless white people, but I thought I'd at least reveal my mistake. Whenever you allude to white privilege, you're describing the state of white people--not some white people; not most white people; but all of them. If this "privilege" doesn't manifest equally among all white people, then it's not white privilege. Because then you'd have to conclude that the number of white people who aren't afforded this privilege aren't white (which is ridiculous) or that the privilege you're alluding doesn't reflect any racial bias.

[DanteGabriel]

12 minutes ago, Shryke said:

Mmmhmm. The right in america is fundamentally about white supremacy and has been for a long time. The only place something else joins it is in the creamy topping of the rich white men who constitute the "establishment" where killing government's ability to stop them from amassing massive wealth and doing whatever they want takes over the driver seat. Although, of course, those people are still at best super comfortable with white supremacy and often just white supremacists themselves too.

I've said over and over again that Reagan's chief political achievement was uniting the greedheads, warmongers, racists, and evangelicals (big overlap with the racists). The politicization of the racist-ass Southern Baptist convention helped that. It's the money-monger wing of the party that wants "limited government" and they used racism and social wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage to push the other groups into their camp. The party that working class whites reflexively support is cutting their social services and the regulations that protect them, but it's okay because the Republican Party doesn't ask them to share space at the table with non-whites. The taxes paid in by metropolitan liberals get funneled  to rural states  because both parties try to kiss their asses and because the antiquated Electoral College system values rural states' votes more than populous states.

The Shirley Sherrods of the world get scorn and get run out of the good work they were doing, so Breitbart can monetize clicks making credulous white people angry and advance an agenda that serves the Trumps and Mnuchins of the world. 

Crack was a drug epidemic that destroyed lives and whole communities in the 1980s, and the response was to police them harder, kill them more, lock them up, build prisons -- because the victims were black. Now the opioid epidemic hits white people, so all of a sudden addicts need treatment and rehabilitation. Drug deaths in poor communities weren't tragic to America until white people started dying.

If you're a working class or rural white person who feels neglected, it's not because no one is paying attention -- it's because you've been suckered into voting against the only party willing to actually try to help you. And I'm sick of my vote counting less and my taxes leaving my community because of the nation is held hostage by your poorly focused resentment.

[Week]

23 minutes ago, Mother Cocanuts said:

Whenever you allude to white privilege, you're describing the state of white people--not some white people; not most white people; but all of them. If this "privilege" doesn't manifest equally among all white people, then it's not white privilege. 

This is your own definition based on your own biases. It is not - in ANY way - accurate. In the interest of an honest debate, re-evaluate your analysis of whether blacks are over-represented in the homeless population. 10% of the general population -- nearly 40% of the homeless population.

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/minorities.html

 

Quote

• People of color – particularly African-Americans – are a minority that is particularly overrepresented. According the PBS Homeless Fact and Figures ’07, 41% are non-Hispanic whites (compared to 76% of the general population), 40% are African Americans (compared to 11% of the general population) 11% are Hispanic (compared to 9% of the general population) and 8% percent are Native American (compared to 1% of the general population).

eta- the classic white privilege paper: https://www.deanza.edu/faculty/lewisjulie/White Priviledge Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.pdf

[DMC]

2 hours ago, Altherion said:

Because against anyone except an African-American, a majority of African-Americans would vote for Clinton and they constitute a significant fraction of Democratic primary voters. Obama won Iowa by a narrow margin in a 3-way split; this is not a stable configuration (especially after what came to light about Edwards shortly).

This is all kind of moot though -- there aren't any juggernauts like the Clinton campaign anymore so the 2020 Democratic primary will be very different from the 2008 and 2016 ones.

Of course it's moot, lord willing.  Anyway:

1.  Assuming Hillary would capture the African-American vote in both proportion and turnout is terribly ironic considering this is a large factor that led to her loss.  2.  Bringing up Edwards is like Republicans that whine about Perot in 92.  Not only is it conceptually inert, both assumptions are wrong.  3.  Since you're just looking at this from an identity politics lens, you're ignoring the demographic gains a hypothetical woman or latino Obama would almost certainly muster in either of those two categories.

[Mother Cocanuts]

1 hour ago, Week said:

This is your own definition based on your own biases. It is not - in ANY way - accurate. In the interest of an honest debate, re-evaluate your analysis of whether blacks are over-represented in the homeless population. 10% of the general population -- nearly 40% of the homeless population.

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/minorities.html

 

eta- the classic white privilege paper: https://www.deanza.edu/faculty/lewisjulie/White Priviledge Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.pdf

I have no interest in debating you about anything. I did not forget your antics in both the previous U.S. Politics thread, and Gun Control thread. By all means you're free to respond to my comments, but I thought you should know that, with the exception of this comment, I will not be responding back.

 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

Just now, Mother Cocanuts said:

I have no interest in debating you about anything. I did not forget your antics in both the previous U.S. Politics thread, and Gun Control thread. By all means you're free to respond to my comments, but I thought you should know that, with the exception of this comment, I will not be responding back.

Translation: Math is hard!

[DanteGabriel]

Lol. It's too hard to just say "I am not able to respond."

[Mother Cocanuts]

2 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Translation: Math is hard!

No, the Math is easy enough. I've just made a decision to not engage a person who's characterized me as a "child" and "troll." I much prefer the saltiness of someone who can't fathom that I disagree with them on basketball. If anyone else wants to make Week's argument, then I can show just how hard I find the math.

 

7 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Lol. It's too hard to just say "I am not able to respond."

Abstinence is not the same as incompetence.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

1 minute ago, Mother Cocanuts said:

No, the Math is easy enough. I've just made a decision to not engage a person who's characterized me as a "child" and "troll." I much prefer the saltiness of someone who can't fathom that I disagree with them on basketball. If anyone else wants to make Week's argument, then I can show just how hard I find the math.

I can fathom that you disagree with me on basketball, what I can't fathom is the refusal of obvious evidence. Just as the percentages breakdown that Week forwarded illustrates that you are willfully  misunderstanding the math surrounding this argument, the reality that every single team targets Curry on the defensive end illustrates that you willfully misunderstand the assertion that he is a defensive liability. 

[Mother Cocanuts]

1 minute ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

I can fathom that you disagree with me on basketball, what I can't fathom is the refusal of obvious evidence. Just as the percentages breakdown that Week forwarded illustrates that you are willfully  misunderstanding the math

The percentages alluded to convey each individual with respect to each demographic. In other words, proportions. The numbers I refer to are absolute numbers. I'm not "misunderstanding" the math. We're just using different context. You and others think that proportions offer more weight, and I've rejected it. You see, disagreement doesn't mean that I don't understand you. It just means that I disagree with you.

6 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

the reality that every single team targets Curry on the defensive end illustrates that you willfully misunderstand the assertion that he is a defensive liability. 

ROFL, wow, I was being facetious, but your sodium levels are really high, aren't they? Be it as it may that we fundamentally disagree on Curry's defensive capabilities, surely my "refusal of obvious evidence" is not why you seek me out and attempt to insult me, is it? Drink some water, man.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

6 minutes ago, Mother Cocanuts said:

ROFL, wow, I was being facetious, but your sodium levels are really high, aren't they? Be it as it may that we fundamentally disagree on Curry's defensive capabilities, surely my "refusal of obvious evidence" is not why you seek me out and attempt to insult me, is it? Drink some water, man.

Defining your responses as willful misunderstanding is not an insult, it's an accurate observation regarding your debating style. You simply refute numbers and evidence that don't fit your argument. You do this a lot. 

[Mother Cocanuts]

1 minute ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Defining your responses as willful misunderstanding is not an insult

No, it isn't. But this is:

40 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

43 minutes ago, Mother Cocanuts said:

I have no interest in debating you about anything. I did not forget your antics in both the previous U.S. Politics thread, and Gun Control thread. By all means you're free to respond to my comments, but I thought you should know that, with the exception of this comment, I will not be responding back.

Translation: Math is hard!

You could've easily left that part out (and if I didn't provoke you into some response, that's all you would've said.), but you just had to attempt to insult me. You do THAT a lot. If you have a problem with my debating style, point it out; or ignore me. But let's not pretend that your seeking me out (and you do seek me out) is provoked by your "observing my willful misunderstanding."

[Ser Reptitious]

4 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

Part of the reason I stayed away from the US Politics thread for so long is because I got so tired of trying to have arguments with people who start from the flawed bullshit premises of the Republican Party. I have to trot out some kind of rant about the Republicans' conscious efforts to appeal to white racial resentment. I don't have the energy to get into it about white privilege today. I doubt you can be convinced. But for fuck's sake, think about the auto bailout, Obamacare, the children's health insurance program, and Shirley Sherrod and Steve Mnuchin, and let me know if you think both parties are equally dismissive of the concerns of poor white Americans.

I mostly just lurk here, but I'm so glad you're back. I feel like you're channeling EHK (minus a few f-bombs! ;-) )! 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

2 minutes ago, Mother Cocanuts said:

No, it isn't. But this is:

You could've easily left that part out (and if I didn't provoke you into some response, that's all you would've said.), but you just had to attempt to insult me. You do THAT a lot. If you have a problem with my debating style, point it out; or ignore me. But let's not pretend that your seeking me out (and you do seek me out) is provoked by your "observing my willful misunderstanding."

Yeah, I'm a self-described sarcastic smartass, more often than not.

Honestly, I think I've more or less ignored you outside of the basketball thread, as interacting with you doesn't typically lead to anything interesting or productive. Pretty sure this was the first time I responded to something you posted in about a week, so if that can be accurately described as seeking you out, then yeah, I guess I'm seeking you out.

[Larry of the Lawn]

@DanteGabriel well said, thanks for taking the time to do the heavy lifting.

[Mother Cocanuts]

1 minute ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Yeah, I'm a self-described sarcastic smartass, more often than not.

Honestly, I think I've more or less ignored you outside of the basketball thread, as interacting with you doesn't typically lead to anything interesting or productive.

Haha, no you haven't. Look, I'm all for being sarcastic smart-ass, but let's not lie here. You didn't "ignore" me in the last gun control thread, where you again attempted to insult me, and you didn't ignore me in the last U.S Politics thread where... you attempted to insult me. Would you like to see the evidence?

9 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Pretty sure this was the first time I responded to something you posted in about a week, so if that can be accurately described as seeking you out, then yeah, I guess I'm seeking you out.

This is the first time you responded to something I've posted in a week, because this is the first time I've posted in a week. Sorry, it's not your "restraint."

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

7 minutes ago, Mother Cocanuts said:

Haha, no you haven't. Look, I'm all for being sarcastic smart-ass, but let's not lie here. You didn't "ignore" me in the last gun control thread, where you again attempted to insult me, and you didn't ignore me in the last U.S Politics thread where... you attempted to insult me. Would you like to see the evidence?

This is the first time you responded to something I've posted in a week, because this is the first time I've posted in a week. Sorry, it's not your "restraint."

My last response to you in the Gun Control thread was more than a week ago. It was almost at the beginning of that thread.

And you're wrong here as well. Simply click into your profile and you'll see that you posted numerous times yesterday, and I didn't bother responding to you once. I suspect if I paged through your posts, that this would be true for most of the week. I'm not invested enough in this to be bothered. Today was not the first time you posted in a week, sorry.

You're right though in that it's not my restraint. It's my lack of interest.