Quote:
Originally Posted by CPHoya
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tl;dr (but shouldn't that be implied as a reasonably significant chance when it's me posting?)
Well, I unexpectedly had a lot of time and was motivated to read and think about the landscape of humanity and other deep things over the past year while going through chemo and while frequently sitting in offices awaiting the treatments, or blood labs or scans or meeting with oncolgists and what not. So, while I'm deeply disheartened and disappointed by the response to my thoughts, I cannot say I'm terribly surprised. In some sense it's almost a comedic parody of what one would expect of the worst stereotype of the opposing position.
My wife sort of laughed when I explained the thread and asked why I'd even bother to write a reply but with a deep sigh, she knew that I would. Basically, I said I didn't think much of Trump but asked for people to be a bit judicious when throwing around the "racist" label. There is nothing in Donny T's comments or tweets that is different than when Barry O threw around "clinging to guns and religion" or "my son could have been Trayvon Martin" type comments. They're both superficial level stuff to score identity level politics points. The behavior of both men based on who they hang out with (golf with), praise, and admonish strongly suggests to me they aren't racist. It's not a fringe viewpoint. Even after peak-Donny is a racist narrative post-Charlottesville, there was still 36% of white millenials who did not think he was a racist when put to them directly as a poll question. That's the youth raised in a social media world of information. Imagine how that skews with the older age group. Regardless, not a fringe position.
Apparently, holding such a position held by a great number of Americans was enough for a few, definitely not all, but definitely more than one poster to imply or outright state that I, too, must be a racist. It's because of that I'm taking the time to respond as I'm not going to let such a ridiculous label stand unopposed, even if it's on a politics thread of a sporting events subsection of a poker forum. My wife and I had our conversation in front of a fridge that had holiday/season's greetings cards. 6 of 9 couples who sent us pics of their kids are mixed race marriages. That's who I'm spending my time around. I could point to the whole subsection of race relations books I have on a shelf in my living room prominently displayed (although my guess is some would take umbrage when they see the number by John McWhorter, Shelby Steele, and Thomas Sowell among them). I could point to if one of the accusers had taken the time to do the easiest of google searches on the high school by me I mentioned just a bit earlier, he would've seen it's 45% minority. While I moved to Vegas for the weather and taxes, my wife and I chose it over Tennessee and Texas because it is more integrated and diverse. And, we use a bigger definition of diverse where the people living in my non-gated but upper middle class neighborhood include a large number without college degrees. We wanted to be somewhere where trades and entertainment professionals are valued. While my neighborhood is too new, you can look at the fivethirtyeight work on integrated neighborhoods and see the ones right by me are among the most integrated in the entire world. I could live anywhere with what I do for money. I could live in the Rend Lake area of Illinois (think the show Ozark if you're unfamiliar) or areas of Tennessee not far from family, but my wife and I specifically chose to live in a more diverse area for raising our children. I could point out the pilgrimmages I've made to the Civil Rights museum in Memphis or Martin Luther King Jr National Historical Site (now a Park after a signing this week by Donny T--hurrah!) in Atlanta by myself, a person who got his History BA cum laude focusing on American History on top of the BS in Accountancy and MAS from, arguably, the nation's top program even though the history degree didn't improve my job aspects one iota just because I value knowing and cherishing our past. Yeah, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah, could've gone on for paragraphs on each of those.
Instead, I'm just going to highlight a story about a small white boy in the Illinois Department of Corrections who just got out of his segregated population cell to be with general population in a free movement type campus prison. That white boy made the mistake of eating on the "black" side of a divided cafeteria as he just wanted to eat with the people he was friendly with and had conversations and was naive enough to not see the obvious race division in the seating. He was the only white boy on that side not wearing a badge. Leaving that meal, he had other white dudes with swastikas tattoo'd on them, one on his forehead so that everyone can see explain the situation to him and tell him he would be considered a race traitor with no protection if he ever sat on that side again or talked to those inmates. That white boy didn't change his behavior. His Mexican cellmate used to ask why he'd watch monkeyball (basketball) and play chess with those N*****s and warned him they were animals who would turn on him at any moment. That white boy didn't change. If you figured out who that white boy is, congrats.
So, yeah, if you later call that white boy a racist, who didn't buckle to race pressures when his ass was literally on the line, he might just consider being opposed to you on nearly every front.
I was happy a few of you realized that I do post in complete earnestness what I actually believe to be true. My roommate my second year at UofI used to comment how hilarious he thought it was the most people thought I was really funny and maybe a bit crazy when all I did was tell people what I really thought. Now that I think about it, that roommate was Jewish and asked me to live with him. Guess he didn't get the vibe some of these posters who can throw around such a label lightly did. Neither did my black roommate my third year at UofI, or the Indian-American I lived with for a couple years of grad school and he's missed it since knowing me from the early 90s. I'll have to let him know the next time I see him at Lake Tahoe. I'll also be sure to let one of my best friends who I'm meeting up with next week whose Turkish and raised Muslim know what's up.
Now, I fully know I can expect some Daily Show type cynical, snark reply. Maybe even get a umad, bro?
Well, you're damn right I'm mad. It's not only because one of the side effects from chemo I'm having is lymph blockages that cause my left hand to swell like it does when I get stung by a bee (allergic) and it hurts my fingers to type though I have to keep working through that to maintain. It's not only because I'm exasperated like Glenn Loury was in his talk with McWhorter before Christmas on Coates and how we keep on having "educated" people deny the secret sauce to flourishing people: capitalism with few restraints and behaving "as if" we have free will with an internal locus of control and growth mind-set. I'm mad I'm called a racist because almost all the world is emotional/tribal and very little is rational. Almost everyone had an influential adult or two in their life as an early teen which dictated how they think for the rest of their life. This is often a 6th through 9th grade civics, social studies, or english teacher. As someone who sat in numerous classes with the type, if you think many of those peeps put a whole lot of effort into their own studies and searching for their own overall life philosophy and values, you'd be mistaken. This is all in the research literature and I had to have the last 18 months hammer it home.
Libertarians ran successful R governors from D states and couldn't even get a whiff of respect. Mike Munger, mainly on Rubin Report, convinced me I need to be more directional and less ideal in what I hope to get out of politics. So, I am going to hold my nose and go with the side that doesn't support cultural marxism. I re-read one of my old history professor's books, "From Germans to Nazis", and the book on the German cops overlooking Poland in WWII, "Ordinary Men." Of the tribes in the US, it's the left I fear replicating such behavior the most. They view the colorblind, individual merit but with sympathy and compaasion society I think we should be striving toward as a bad thing.
Thus, congrats, you have a person who had a Gary Johnson bumper sticker on his car and who voted in the last election for the first time to have it on the record that he didn't vote for Donny or Hillary as someone who is going to happily vote for Trump next time.
Down at home games in Baton Rouge, they used to play a song affectionately called "Neck". You can find videos on youtube. The only way I take some joy out of the world in current affairs these days is when I read every Ezra Klein, Matthew Yglesias, Noah Smith, or Nate Silver (the Axis Voltron of Evil imo) hand-wringing post and think of a mass of Trump supporters singing "Neck" to them subsituting Donnie for Tiger.
Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.... yyyyyyyyyyyyyyoooooooooooooooooooo
And it shouldn't bother you. Sure, you took a couple Donnie loads in the face of late. But, the war is already over and it's merely playing out the motions at this point. The post-modern cultural marxists dominate the government schools, academia, traditional media, social media. Time is on your side. Those who try to be rational to get to their beliefs are a dying breed. Hell, while my cancer is in remission, I also know from the literature that I ruminate on things a bit too much (you don't say?) to have my body not break down badly in the near future. Just, please don't disparage good things I did on the way out with false attacks because I agree with a non-fringe opinion that happens to run counter to the world view you constructed.
