If White Male Country Star interrupted a young black female singer

[Rath]

Sqrl said:

1) It absolutely takes way from what you said.  Your argument is that the right has a racist past and that undertones of that past are present in their dissent.  But the reality is that both parties have racist pasts and racial undertones are part of American politics in general (pretty much world politics as well).  The point being that you are taking a general truth about American politics and cherry picking it down to a specific subsection for the express purpose of marginalizing.

You say the marginalizing is only meant for those who are "like that" but the nebulous and non-specific condemnation is the rhetorical equivalent of an adult telling a child that there are sharks in the ocean just before he goes for a swim......His chances of being attacked are ridiculously small but now he is terrified of going in any part of the water and for no good reason.  The same way the adult would be a buffoon for not knowing that this is the effect it would have on the child, it is absurd for those making this racism argument to claim they don't want to unfairly marginalize legitimate dissent.  That is exactly what you are doing and, to be blunt,  you have to be blind not to see it.

So then the correct solution is for the world to ignore any racial undertones in politics rather than to attack them? To me it is clear that the more extreme edges of the protests do have racial undertones and I don't like it at all.

It reminds me of the situation in some climate change protests in Britain, there were people protesting against a new power plant but the protests also attracted violent anti-authority groups who attacked the police. I actually agreed entirely with the anti-power station people (I don't think building new coal plants is a spectacular idea) yet I strongly disagreed with the people attacking the police and felt they were damaging the actual message of the protests.

In my opinion you should be doing the same - agreeing with the people opposed to Obama's policies and being thoroughly annoyed at the people who are using the protests for their own racist agenda.

 

2) I'll be honest...

I can't remember a single instance where you actually discussed their concerns directly...I of course remember discussions of protesters with members on the left provided that we were focusing on liberal talking points about how they were racists or about how they were a minority (ie discussions that marginalize them) but I can't remember you actually getting involved in a discussion about how Obama is spending 4x faster than any other president, which is an extremely common complaint by protesters.

I would personally say Obama has had to take exceptional actions in extraordinary circumstances. I think his actions, along with those of leaders in Europe, have probably saved the world from a far greater crisis than this current recession. I can see why they would complain though, America does have a terrible defecit and currently its only getting worse.

I don't know maybe I've just missed it but I can't recall a single instance where the protesters have been brought up and racism hasn't been shrieked by at least one liberal in the thread until it was the only topic of discussion...

Even if I am completely wrong and those discussions have happened, the point remains the same.  You (and others of your view) still insist on pointing out the faults of a super-minority of  an undisclosed minuscule"ness" and with no particular examples of the types of racist arguments they've made...ahead of addressing the overwhelming super-majority's arguments.  To the point that it is your very first reaction to the mention of them to the exclusion of the "legitimate" claims of the non-racists you claim to not wish to impugn.

I have thoroughly talked about the real arguments of the people opposed to Obama's policies. I love such discussions and engage in them all the time, I'm actually thoroughly sick of talking about a few racist protesters and would much rather discuss the actual politics. I just don't think that flat out denial of any racism in these protests is the right way to go about it.

 

That is without a doubt going to be my last post on this thread. I'm really thoroughly sick of it.