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    Originally posted by Nefertiti2 View Post
    The White Supremacy thread featuring a white poster calling the contribution of a black poster "the immature drivel of a noisy militant garden gnome in short trousers"

    .
    As an expert in such things, you should know that "noisy militant garden gnome in short trousers" is a term of endearment in Uruguay.

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      I'll respond to this.

      But something else strikes me about what you say: "If you are as smart as you like to think you are and i am as stupid as you claim, this would have been easy work". That's why I don't like debating with you. For you it's about "winning", rather than exchanging ideas. And not too long ago, you threw the grenade of calling me a racist. And you keep arguing in bad faith, frequently claiming you didn't say what is there to see, black on white.
      This isn't true.
      I accused you of using White Supremacist talking points which I believe is a fair accusation as you were arguing against returning stolen land back to the indigenous population. An opinion I think is strange for someone who said they were part of the struggle (much like someone who claimed to have marched with Dr King being against reparations). You are the one who called me a racist and threatened me. Feel free to link to that debate.

      I like to debate with people on here, not because to I want to win, I do it for the following reasons:

      I actually mainly do it to test if my opinions can stand up to scrutiny.
      To see if the person I am debating with actually knows about or believes in what they are saying and not using cut and paste arguments (which are common on OTF)
      For people I profoundly disagree with, I like to understand how and why they came to hold the opinions they hold. We are an international bunch with different backgrounds which influence the positions we hold in life (a mixture of what we have read and what we have experienced). This is something that fascinates me, so (for me at least) I lose interest in what they believe and why.

      And you keep arguing in bad faith, frequently claiming you didn't say what is there to see, black on white.
      No matter how many times you and others say this, It will not be true. And you know what I am going to say next right............

      Comment


        Tactical Genius re Mandela and his "sell out", You said upthread that he came out of prison "a broken man". This, combined with the fact that 27 years spent unjustly behind bars would break just about anyone, would suggest that there were seriously mitigating circumstances in his subsequent capitulation to the status quo/establishment. Would this be a fair assessment?

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          Originally posted by Sporting View Post
          Tactical Genius re Mandela and his "sell out", You said upthread that he came out of prison "a broken man". This, combined with the fact that 27 years spent unjustly behind bars would break just about anyone, would suggest that there were seriously mitigating circumstances in his subsequent capitulation to the status quo/establishment. Would this be a fair assessment?
          If that's the argument you want to make, there is nothing there i can disagree with.

          This is why those like me who were disappointed with the post 1990 Mandela don't go too hard on him. In some respects, it would have been better for his legacy if he had died in the 60's like Malcolm X, Patrice Lumumba and MLK.
          I once spent three hours in a police cell because an officer didn't like the cut of my jib. I was completely innocent and after 30 minutes I was ready to go all Tekashi69.

          Comment


            Originally posted by Sporting View Post
            Tactical Genius re Mandela and his "sell out", You said upthread that he came out of prison "a broken man". This, combined with the fact that 27 years spent unjustly behind bars would break just about anyone, would suggest that there were seriously mitigating circumstances in his subsequent capitulation to the status quo/establishment. Would this be a fair assessment?
            Capitulation? The man headed the negotiations that forced the apartheid regime to peacefully surrender all political power, in part because he didn't show grudges over his incarceration. At a time when the white establishment controlled the entire security apparatus, that was an enormous accomplishment.

            There was no alternative to negotiations, and there was no alternative to a reconciliation programme. The compromises that followed -- like the Springbok-wearing stunt -- drew the sting from any possibility of a militant white reaction. Mandela (with others) led the most unlikely of peaceful political transitions. That was not selling out; it was a wise, deft and necessary programme.

            Without Mandela's leadership, there would have been civil war (indeed, there was a low-level civil war happening in KwaZulu-Natal in the early 1990s). The liberation movement would have lost that civil war (any idea to the contrary is a naive delusion) international support would have swung to De Klerk. And after winning that civil war, the whites would have dictated the terms of the post-apartheid settlement.

            Of course, mistakes were made as well. While white political power was defeated, white economic power wasn't. The Mandela government preached social democracy and transformation, but had its policies dictated by the threats of world capital. I think that SA's failure to switch to large-scale manufacture instead of begging for investment was an error.

            The Truth & Reconciliation Commission should and could have been a vehicle for justice. But there was no follow-through (that goes on Mbeki's account, however). And, yes, the Rainbow Nation ideal was naive, and gave whites an attitude of letting bygones be bygones.

            The sell-out came later: the neo-liberal economics, the corruption that started under Mbeki and went into full throttle under Zuma's kleptocracy, the political culture that rewards loyalist toadies over competence or integrity, an incomplete transformation that benefitted only a few, the co-option of leaders (including Ramaphosa) into the world of white capital... None of that is primarily on Mandela.

            Mandela was no Uncle Remus. The romantic revisionism that suggests that in the 1990s Mandela could have somehow smashed the white establishment, nationalise everything and take all the land from the whites is free of any understanding of the context of the time. It's a childish flight of fancy.

            Nor does it account in any way for the objectives of the mass democratic movement in the 1980s, which envisaged a peaceful transition as the preferred option (seeing as military victory was impossible, no matter how much the idea was used as a tool of mobilisation). The constitutional democracy, a model that is among the best in the world, is the victory of the struggle.

            The ruined economy and poverty show that the victory was incomplete. But that has little to do with the reconciliation project, which retains currency (as the reactions, even if fleeting, to the recent rugby world cup win or Zozibini Tunzi winning Miss Universe indicate). That owes to mistakes, failures and the corruption of the ANC government over the past quarter of the century.


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              The truth and reconciliation commission at its heart was one of the most enlightened acts in the history of human endeavour. As Gman says it wasn't properly followed through which is a huge pity. But the idea and the process was brilliant. And no sell out

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                James Baldwin, what, 50 years ago?

                [URL]https://twitter.com/bakari_sellers/status/1227558780017221638?s=21[/URL]

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                  I wont response to the above posts as they are not directed at me. So moving on.

                  I am not sure if I have posted this before.
                  A biography of the life of the Great Dr John Henrik Clarke in his own words. He is lesser known of the heavyweights of the 1960's but very influential.

                  He was a personal friend of Kwamae Nkrumah from the late 40's as well as other Pan African leaders of the pre-independance era.
                  He was also a close confidant of Malcolm X from 1959 and steered him towards the Pan Africanist movement when he became estranged from the NOI.
                  Along with Malcolm X, started the organisation of Afro-American unity in 1964.

                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPTiiP3ZRA8



                  ​​​​​​​

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                    Originally posted by Nefertiti2 View Post
                    That is very good.
                    Baldwin is a popular guy as is Bayard Rustin by the homophobic black community.

                    Below is a round table discussion with Baldwin, Malcolm X and a few others. This is back in 1961 and the topics are still relevant today.


                    Last edited by Tactical Genius; 12-02-2020, 15:30.

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                      Baldwin is consistently amazing.

                      Rustin was just pardoned for a garbage "morals charge" on which he was convicted in California 67 years ago.

                      Only 33 years after he died. We call that "progress".

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                        Yep, Baldwin is brilliant.

                        The edition I have of If Beale Street Could Talk is still one of my top contenders for cover that worst represents the contents of the book:

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                          *re-sets jaw after dislocation*

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                            There was something bugging me about this image from the guardian and I couldn't work out what it was, but it's just clicked. It's basically presenting evolution as a transformation from black to white and heavily hinting that paler skin equals more evolved. I doubt that anyone who commissioned it even noticed.



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                              True.

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                                I am sure this was deliberate. it is what Dr Andrews calls psychosis and I call White Supremacy. I pervades all areas of human activity and is so subtle most people miss it.

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                                  But surely if it's the process of psychosis, or part of a pervasive attitude (which I think it is) it wouldn't be deliberate. Or not necessarily at least.

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                                    I'm not sure if portraying it as psychosis is helpful. Having experienced actual clinical psychosis for a 9-day stretch, it doesn't really feel the same to me.

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                                      Originally posted by Etienne View Post
                                      But surely if it's the process of psychosis, or part of a pervasive attitude (which I think it is) it wouldn't be deliberate. Or not necessarily at least.
                                      You make a very good point there and to answer it properly will take some time which I don't currently have as I'm in the gym.

                                      my short answer would be it is my belief the pervasive attitude is a form of psychosis as white supremacy has no factual or scientific basis. Also, it depends on what the definition of deliberate is. The message of that poster is clear, the lack of melanin is proportional to stage of evolution, that seems deliberate to me and even more troubling than if all the evolutionary stages of man were the same shade (which would have been troubling too).

                                      It is a scientific fact that as our ancestors diverged from primates, they actually got darker as they lost body hair and needed the extra pigmentation to protect them from the Sun.

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                                        Originally posted by Balderdasha View Post
                                        I'm not sure if portraying it as psychosis is helpful. Having experienced actual clinical psychosis for a 9-day stretch, it doesn't really feel the same to me.
                                        I googled the term psychosis and it came back with this,

                                        "a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality"

                                        I think this captures the racist mindset perfectly without trivialising people who suffer from acute Episodes.

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                                          The implication of calling white supremacism a psychosis is that white supremacism is not a matter of choice but some form of mass delusion brought on by collective mental illness. But that has implications for the culpability of those racists. Are you sure that there is an argument to be made for their diminished responsibility?

                                          Comment


                                            I understand it to be "whiteness" is a psychosis, where "whiteness" is much more of an unconscious thing than "white supremacism". White supremacism (to me) means the conscious act of believing and stating out loud that you believe that white people are superior. Whiteness is a sort of blind and unquestioning acceptance of white privilege. I feel like trying to sum that up in a sentence is not terribly satisfactory, for which apologies.

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                                              If you are on the receiving end of projections about you that diminish your identity and at the very least are silent in the face of violence and at the worst actively participate in it then maybe it’s easier to call it psychosis than something conscious, both for your own sanity and in order not to be entirely negative about humanity.

                                              I’ve seen something similar in researching the way that whatever Jews did in 1930’s Germany confirmed the prejudices and hate of the perpetrators and justified their actions to themselves.

                                              Its important to remember that white supremacy has nothing to do with black people. And normalisation of that kind of implicit hatred and violence based on untruths and fantasies is close to psychosis, even if it’s one that’s very widely held.

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                                                G-Man,
                                                The implication of calling white supremacism a psychosis is that white supremacism is not a matter of choice but some form of mass delusion brought on by collective mental illness. But that has implications for the culpability of those racists. Are you sure that there is an argument to be made for their diminished responsibility?
                                                I think there can be an argument for diminished responsibility in some circumstances. There are some people who believe in white Supremacy because that's the society they were raised in. Apartheid South Africa is a good example of this. Can you blame the average white boy there for believing he is superior by dint of his complexion, after all, he has not experienced anything to tell him otherwise.

                                                Ad Hoc

                                                I understand it to be "whiteness" is a psychosis, where "whiteness" is much more of an unconscious thing than "white supremacism". White supremacism (to me) means the conscious act of believing and stating out loud that you believe that white people are superior. Whiteness is a sort of blind and unquestioning acceptance of white privilege.
                                                In my opinion "whiteness", "white Privilage" and "white supremacy" are the same thing or at least not so different to expend too much time discussing as they lead into each other.

                                                I feel like trying to sum that up in a sentence is not terribly satisfactory, for which apologies.
                                                This is why i am never keen on arguing semantics.

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                                                  I am definitely more aware of my white privilege through having a non-white husband. There are many situations which I would have always blithely assumed would work out fine, and they would for me, because I was white, but where my husband has a much more heightened sense of alertness to his surroundings. Part of that is a male / female dynamic as well. On a drunken night out, for example, no-one is going to start a fight with me because I am such an obviously non-threatening presence. Something I've realised over time, is that I used to be a very inconsiderate tube passenger / pedestrian. I would squeeze myself into the tiniest of spots just because I could and no-one ever objected, and I never ever noticed if I was standing in someone's way on the pavement. My husband is always scanning his environment to pre-empt situations and make sure that he isn't going to inadvertently antagonise anyone. It's a very different way of being and of experiencing the world. I don't know if I'd call it psychosis, but that's just because of my personal history with that word.

                                                  Living in China made me much more aware of my whiteness as well. Growing up in the UK, there was just a sense that I was the default type of human being and that anyone non-white was other, in the way that people assume that they are the only one who doesn't have an accent. Two years in a town where the default type was Chinese and I was usually the only visible other, was quite eye-opening.

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                                                    [URL]https://twitter.com/radleybalko/status/1228484884127256578?s=21[/URL]

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