Obama acts "white"

Well, not really, since class-based discrimination wasn't the law of the land for 300 years.
However, you're not entirely wrong.
But the ease with which white poor people could be encouraged to do the dirty work against black poor people -- cf. Diane McWhorter's "Carry Me Home" among others -- belies the theory somewhat.

 

Class Based Discrimination has been the defacto modus operandi for the entirity of human history. chattel Slavery is merely another form of it. It forms a line, only broken until the last 200 years, that has prehistoric origins. And was practiced by the ancestors of the slaves in America for thousands of years. To frame the slave trade and slavery in North America as some sort of unique and uniquely evil practice is foolish.

Every culture had a form of slavery and underclass.

try a new new song on your old violin.

 

The class war's always been going on here, though the heat of the battle waxes and wanes.

The GOP's been fighting the class war, hard, since '01 -- while whining that the Dems want to heat up the topic.

Disingenuous turds.

Hypocrisy's astounding, around those parts.

 

Riiiight. Man, you couldn't be more clueless in this case.

 

Oddly enough, I was listening to Ed Schultz last night (!) and thought he made a good point (!!). If Jesse really wanted to get Obama's focus on the issue, why not pick up the phone and have that conversation in private?

Jesse's outburst had little to do with Obama and everything to do with Jesse.

 

Well, that's most singularly idiotic post you've ever thrown up on the topic, and that's saying a great deal. "Chattel slavery" is "merely another form" of class-based discrimination?. So if rich people don't let me swim in their country club pool, that's the same as those rich people OWNING me and my family and forcing me to clean the pool for free.
And, historically, we're supposed to be better than the ancient Hebrews or the neolithic tribesof central Africa. As Herman Melville said the Declaration of Independence makes the difference.
Arguing from comparison that American slavery is not that big a deal, historically.
Wow.

 

You see, Henry. We agree all the time.

 

And me makes three.
JJ's right about Jena. though.

 

Right on, Fen. Historicizing American slavery only serves to relativize and diminish its horrors. Sure, it's useful to know that slavery has existed since the beginnings of humanity, but it's particularly egregious in our case when slavery runs directly counter to the supposed principles of the nation.

Historicizing slavery just makes it easy for Americans to forget how foundational it was to our country. It's sort of analogous to Germans who historicized the Holocaust as if that somehow diminished its evils.

 

Wow, h-a. I didn't know you were police chief in Jena, La.

Suspected it, however.

Must be rough throwing the books at all the black kids and coddling the white kids. Don't your arms get tired?