More of This

Black leaders in Missouri have refused to sign a letter condemning one of their colleagues criticism of Senator Claire McCaskill:

African American leaders in Missouri are frustrated with what they see as Sen. Claire McCaskill’s lackluster engagement with minority voters.

Frustrated enough that they refused to sign a letter pushing back against comments made last month by Bruce Franks, a prominent black activist and state legislator from St. Louis, who called on McCaskill to “show up” and earn the support of minority voters in her state.

“I’m going to vote for Claire, but Claire is going to have to bring her ass to St. Louis,” Franks said to applause at a town hall he hosted Feb. 17.

In response to Franks comments, McCaskill had asked African American elected officials in Kansas City and St. Louis to sign the letter.

Among those who were approached by McCaskill are U.S. Reps. Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City and Lacy Clay of St. Louis, and state Rep. Gail McCann Beatty, the minority leader in the Missouri House.

Each declined to sign.

“I’m 100 percent certain that nobody signed it,” Cleaver said in an interview Wednesday with The Kansas City Star. “We talked about it very seriously and strongly and every one of us said, ‘We’re going to support her, but signing this letter isn’t going to achieve what she wants. It’s just going to make people angry.’ ”

Cleaver said he’s sympathetic to McCaskill’s plight. She’s a Democrat running for re-election in a state Republican President Donald Trump won by nearly 19 points in 2016. He understands she must win over some right-leaning voters to survive.

But as McCaskill works to burnish her reputation as a centrist, Cleaver and other African American leaders said they worry she’ll leave minority voters on the left with the impression that she’s taking them for granted — and it could cost her turnout in the urban centers that are crucial to her base.

I think that they are sick of being characterized as "super-predators" by people who want their votes.

Running against you base to appeal to people who will never vote for you is stupid, and it does not get you any votes, and people who do it do not deserved to be elected.

Nice to see this blow up in Claire's face.

Tweet of the Day

"white people decide to do black music without black people" is basically the story of popular music in the united states until the late 20th century!

— Adam Serwer 🍝 (@AdamSerwer) January 25, 2018

Yeah, pretty much.

Sad I Missed This

It appears that Cornel West and Ta-Nehisi Coates explored their differences of opinions over Twitter, with West asserting that Coates that the latter's, "narrow racial tribalism and myopic political neoliberalism has no place for keeping track of Wall Street greed, US imperial crimes or black elite indifference to poverty".

I have not personally seen this exchange, but Coates deleted his Twitter account after their exchange:

Author Ta-Nehisi Coates has deleted his Twitter account after a dispute with philosopher and social critic Cornel West.

“Peace, y’all. I’m out,” Coates wrote Tuesday on his now-defunct account, according to the AP. “I didn’t get in it for this.”

West recently criticized Coates in an essay published in The Guardian, slamming him for not being critical enough of former President Obama and writing that he “fetishizes white supremacy.”

In the piece, West accuses Coates, who has emerged as one of the country's leading black intellectuals, of having a “preoccupation with white acceptance” and an “allegiance to Obama.”

I don't know what happened, but I am sad to have missed this.

I also have no clue as to who "won", though like most Twitter fights, my guess is that they they both "lost".

That is just the nature of Twitter.

Still, these are two talented writers, and neither of them are slouches intellectually, so it was probably epic truly epic.

You Cannot Blame the Deplorables or the Russians for This

The Pew Research Center just did a study, and it showed that black voter's turnout fell in 2016.

A record 137.5 million Americans voted in the 2016 presidential election, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Overall voter turnout – defined as the share of adult U.S. citizens who cast ballots – was 61.4% in 2016, a share similar to 2012 but below the 63.6% who say they voted in 2008.

This wasn't Russian hacking. This wasn't, as Lamberth Strether sarcastically noted, "Black voters are racist, sexist bros," this was an incompetent, arrogant, and, uninspiring candidate with a history of winking and nodding to racism. ("They are often the kinds of kids that are called superpredators — no conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first, we have to bring them to heel.")

This was a candidate who promulgated a Lord of the Flies management style in her campaign which created an incompetent, arrogant, and uninspiring campaign.

And the Democratic party establishment, the incompetent, arrogant, and, uninspiring Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the incompetent, arrogant, and, uninspiring DNC, and the legions of incompetent, arrogant, and, uninspiring consultants pulled out all the stops to fix the primary process for her.

Running against the most racist major Presidential candidate since Woodrow Wilson, somehow, she, and the entire Democratic Party establishment, could not get black voters to turn out.

These are not the people who should be running the Democratic Party. 

These are not consultants who candidates should pay to run their campaigns. 

These are not people who should hold elective office.

They need to go away.

Remember, There is Always the Option of Not Voting

One of the alarming political data points in the last election for the Democratic Party is that Black voters are not turning out.

This is not a surprise.  They have nothing to vote for.

Well, Here is Some Good News to Start the Month

The Supreme Court just remanded the Virginia redistricting case back to a lower court with instructions to apply a more rigorous standard regarding racial bias.

It wasn't a complete victory, but it was a definite win for the good guys:

The Supreme Court on Wednesday gave Virginia Democrats a fresh chance to challenge parts of the legislative map for the state’s House of Delegates.

………

“The upshot of all of this is that not much has changed with these cases,” Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, wrote in a blog post. “The fight will be over the details and application to particular cases.”

Marc E. Elias, a lawyer for the challengers in the case, disagreed, calling the decision a “major victory” that will help Democrats.

………

In 2015, a divided three-judge panel of Federal District Court in Richmond, Va., upheld 11 of the challenged districts because, it said, race had not been the primary factor in drawing them. Since the districts could be justified under traditional redistricting criteria like compactness, contiguity, incumbency protection and political considerations, the court said, race could not have been the predominant reason for drawing them.

That was the wrong approach, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority. “The racial predominance inquiry concerns the actual considerations that provided the essential basis for the lines drawn,” he wrote, “not post hoc justifications the legislature in theory could have used but in reality did not.”

………

In assessing those challenges, Justice Kennedy wrote, the trial court identified “no fewer than 11 race neutral redistricting factors.” He called that kind of analysis too malleable.

“By deploying those factors in various combinations and permutations, a state could construct a plethora of potential maps that look consistent with traditional, race-neutral principles,” Justice Kennedy wrote. “But if race for its own sake is the overriding reason for choosing one map over others, race still may predominate.”

Justice Kennedy did not say the challengers would win under his less rigid standard. “The district court,” he wrote, “is best positioned to determine in the first instance the extent to which, under the proper standard, race directed the shape of these 11 districts.”

The Supreme Court affirmed one part of the trial court’s ruling, concerning a single district, which the trial court had upheld even after finding that race played the dominant role in drawing it. The trial court said the district was justified by an attempt to comply with the Voting Rights Act, which forbade the reduction of minority voters’ ability to elect candidates of their choice.

Redistricting is still a mess, but it is a bit less of a mess, and it appears that racial Gerrymanders have become more difficult.

Tweet of the Day

Like IM tired of hearing these pundits and washed up Clinton era folks STILL trying to pimp race for their gain... Thats whats happening.

— officialERICA GARNER (@es_snipes) November 22, 2016

As an reminder, Erica Garner is the daughter of Eric Garner, who was murdered as a result of an illegal police choke hold.

Oh, yeah, this tweet too:

An intersectional, Black "progressive" CEO outsourced your job & now you're homeless. Do you think:

— Benjamin Dixon (@TheBpDShow) November 22, 2016

H/t naked capitalism

When the Washington Post Editorial Board Condemns Something, It Is a Hearty Endorsement

They just came out guns blazing in their condemnation of the NAACP's opposition to charter schools.

Don't worry. They are just proving that the NAACP is right.

From their support for the ill conceived adventures in Iraq and Libya, to their endorsement of privatizing Social Security, there is perhaps no group in the country that has proven to more reliably and spectacularly wrong.

Fred Hiatt and his merry band of useful idiots are the veritable Washington Generals (taste the irony there) of punditry, which says a lot.

Comedy Central Goes Full "Unblackening"

They just canceled Larry Wilmore’s show:

For almost a decade, the combination of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert made Comedy Central destination viewing for fans of late-night comedy and barbed political commentary.

But over the last 12 months, the post-Stewart and post-Colbert era has not been as easy for the network.

On Monday, Comedy Central announced that it was canceling “The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore” because of falling ratings and a distinct lack of buzz.

The final episode of Mr. Wilmore’s 11:30 p.m. show — the slot formerly occupied by Mr. Colbert before he left for CBS — will be Thursday.

Kent Alterman, Comedy Central’s president, said he informed Mr. Wilmore of the news late last week. The move, Mr. Alterman said in an interview, was made for a simple reason: The show “hasn’t resonated.”

“Even though we’ve given it a year and a half, we’ve been hoping against hope that it would start to click with our audience, but it hasn’t happened, and we haven’t seen evidence of it happening,” Mr. Alterman said.

The awkward timing of the cancellation, just 12 weeks before the presidential election, ultimately came down to a contract, Mr. Alterman said. Mr. Wilmore’s deal, along with those of several of the show’s other staff members, was set to expire in a few weeks and the network had to decide now whether to renew or cancel.
Continue reading the main story

For the time being, Comedy Central’s 12 a.m. show, “@midnight,” will replace “The Nightly Show” at 11:30 p.m. “The Daily Show” with Trevor Noah remains at 11 p.m. Mr. Alterman said he hoped to name a full-time replacement for “The Nightly Show” sometime next year.

………

“The Nightly Show” has been known for a signature segment, “Keep It 100,” (slang for telling the truth, no matter the consequences) and for Mr. Wilmore’s often stinging commentary on race and this year’s election. (He called the election to find Barack Obama’s successor “The Unblackening.”) Though the late-show genre remains heavy on easygoing laughter, any one episode of “The Nightly Show” could occasionally go for prolonged stretches without a single joke, something that intrigued some critics but failed to attract a broader audience.

“I’m really grateful to Comedy Central, Jon Stewart and our fans to have had this opportunity,” Mr. Wilmore said in a statement. “But I’m also saddened and surprised we won’t be covering this crazy election or ‘The Unblackening’ as we’ve coined it. And keeping it 100, I guess I hadn’t counted on ‘The Unblackening’ happening to my time slot as well.”

It wasn't getting the demographic that the network wanted, White Bros, because it attempted a meaningful dialogue on race, which is about as welcome by that demo as a turd in a punch bowl.

I'm bummed.

Snark of the Day

Will Hillary Clinton Do More For Black America Than Did Obama? Is That A Low Enough Bar?

—Black Agenda Report

This is a Very Interesting Perspective on Black Lives Matter

Even more than the now moribund Occupy movement, Black Lives Matter appears to be a movement without goals.

There is nothing approaching a statement of goals, just a vague statement of principles, which are unattainable because they are little more than a word salad of good sounding words.

Over at Orchestrated Pulse, R.L. Stephens II says that this serves a purpose, and that many of the "leaders" of the nominally leaderless Black Lives Matter movement have personal career goals at the core of their actions:

The latest effort to storm Bernie Sanders’ appearances is only making the problem more obvious. The two women that interrupted Sanders last weekend seemingly did so unilaterally. You can’t build real mass political power that way, but building effective power is not their point. Make no mistake, this Bernie Sanders hoopla is ultimately about campaign jobs and foundation funding, not emancipation for the masses. These interruptions will create career opportunities for a few activists and political operatives—the Black leadership desired by [BLM activist] Tia [Oso] and others—but, as with Ferguson, the masses of Black people will be unaffected. 

I have heard variants of this complaint for decades, that some elements of the Black political class are driven more by a desire for patronage positions than by a desire for substantive change.

Certainly, this would explain why BLM activists have not been as active, or as effective, at confronting Hillary Clinton.

If the name of the game is patronage, than it naturally makes sense to hitch your star to Hillary, who has been a creature of this sort of politics, for decades.

Read the rest.

H/t Naked Capitalism.

I Cannot Believe that I am Saying This………

But I was wrong when I suggested a few days back that the disruption of a Bernie Sanders speech by Black Lives Matter was likely an exercise in Nixonian rat-f%$#ing by the Clinton campaign.

It turns out now that the best evidence now is that at least one of the protesteris a bit of a nut, who was in the not too distant past a Teabagger supporter of Sarah Palin.

IMNSHO, you cannot manufacture this kind of lunacy, so I'm going with a small group of nuts:

An interesting development has occurred within the Black Lives Matter movement and it has caused many outside and from within the movement to question the wisdom in the most recent interruption of Bernie Sanders campaign. While no one can deny its effectiveness, especially considering Senator Sanders newest addition to his team is a Black Lives Matter activist, this interruption happened after Bernie had already begun shifting his campaign towards publicizing his stance on racial issues.

When individuals place themselves in the public eye they become scrutinized at every level. While looking into these activists for the Black Lives Matter movement, it became readily apparent that either they were not officially a part of the BLM movement, or they were not organized until just around the time of the incident.

………

Then more startling information came out concerning Marissa Johnson, the main agitator who berated Bernie for being a racist. According to her own Facebook profile she was a huge Tea Party supporter and had supported Sarah Palin in her 2008 Vice Presidential candidacy.

………

While none of that necessarily qualifies her as being a troll, or as some on the internet have accused an operative who is just trying to delegitimize the Sanders campaign. It is very possible that Johnson was a staunch Tea Party supporter in 2008 and has now changed her political persuasion to more closely mirror that of Bernie Sanders or Martin O’Malley. Eight years are a long time for an individual to reflect upon politics and their effects in the real world.

Although it is quite disquieting when you dig deeper into the facts. The Facebook page and social media presence of Johnson’s faction BLM Seattle did not exist until the day of the rally. Two hours after the interruption her Facebook page had been live for less than 24 hours and had garnered less than 50 followers. Again, this may all relate back to poor planning and nothing nefarious, but it is certainly not indicative of someone attempting to achieve legitimacy within the political spectrum. Johnson is also a member of a group called Outside Agitators 206, a movement within the larger Black Lives Matter movement, based out of Seattle. Unfortunately, they don’t appear to hold the same goals as the larger movement and actually made a public statement declaring their intent was to “declare war on the Democratic Party“. ………

I would note that there has been no formal comment by BLM on this protest, and I would argue that there can't be one, because, much like the Occupy movement, there is no head, there is no tail, and there is no way to determine if someone is official, a nut, or an agent provocateur.

On the other hand, I think that the preponderance of the evidence here is that this specific protest is the product of the bat-sh%$ insane wing of BLM, so I apologize to the Clinton campaign.

BTW, read what the Bear who Swims has said about Occupy and its ilk about the tendency of groups like Occupy, and BLM to function as "Useful Idiots".

Here is a particularly good bit:

Say what you like about the reactionaries, they have spent the last 30 years do these things. They have

• Used mass media to explain their theories, and why they are better.
• Popularized goals and objects and made them part of the political discussion through poltical organizing and outreach.
• Created a cadre of individuals who are willing to take on public office at all levels of govenment to implement their policies.
• Created a core group of constituencies who are loyal to their cause -- even against their own interested.

Let us put that another way, they have play practical electoral politics effectively.  In the course of this they have created a separate reactionary nationalism, which while at odds with the views of many, has no counter balance.

Go read what the Bear, AKA my brother, AKA the hairiest Saroff, AKA Stephen wrote.

He has been involved in politics for a long time, and has little patience for folks who think that it is noble to rearrange deck chairs on a certain White Star Line ocean liner as an alternative to identifying and avoiding icebergs.

Chuck Todd, go F%$# Yourself

I understand that gun control is an incendiary issue, so it makes sense to have a discussion, and even to have a discussion about guns that involves talking with felons, but there is no excuse for Meet the Press decide to have all the felons in its video to be black:

While the country — and South Carolina, in particular — is once again debating racism in America, NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday offered a video of men in prison expressing regret for their own gun violence. All of the men in the video are black.

The segment was part of Sunday’s show, which focused on the recent killing of nine black people at a bible study group in Charleston, South Carolina. The alleged shooter, Dylann Roof, is accused of making racist statements during the rampage and in an online manifesto that describes black people as “stupid and violent.” He has been seen in photos online holding a Confederate flag and wearing the flags of apartheid-era South Africa and white-ruled Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.

“The circumstances you are about to see are very different from the racist violence in Charleston,” Meet the Press host Chuck Todd said in the introduction to the video.

“The last thing we wanted was to cloud the discussion of the topic,” Todd wrote on the NBC website after receiving a wave of negative feedback on social media about the video.

“The original decision to air this segment was made before Wednesday’s massacre. However, the staff and I had an internal debate about whether to show it at all this week. When we discussed putting it off, that conversation centered around race and perception – not the conversation we wanted the segment to invoke,” he said.

In a panel discussion responding to the blowback, Todd said, “It wasn’t meant to be a black and white issue. And I understand maybe it’s one of those moments when people are only seeing through black and white.”

 This has to be the lamest non-apology apology that I have ever heard in my life.

Translated to English, Todd is saying, "Who cares if the only felons we show are black?  You are too hung up on race."

I've always thought that Todd was a lame and shallow product of the insular and narcissistic White House press corps(e), but this is a whole new level of wankitude.

Hopefully My Last Comment on the Oscars………

The front page of the Oakland Tribune in response to the essential whiteness of the nominees is epic:





H/t TPM.

Mazel Tov!!

The new editor of The New Republic has announced that he will try to expand its bullpen beyond its white Ivy League past:

The best way for any new editor of this magazine to respect the spirit of the institution is to first recognize its defining characteristic is a habit of reinvention. The task before us is to ask what The New Republic should be one hundred years after its founding. We set out with many advantages: first, an owner who has committed to investing in quality journalism and who has granted his editorial staff the creative freedom to find a new path. We have an impressive editorial team that has demonstrated exceptional mettle and we will be adding to their ranks. And we have the heritage of sustaining a continuous conversation about America's promise.

As we revive one proud legacy of The New Republic—the launching of new voices and experts—those new voices and experts will be diverse in race, gender, and background. As we build our editorial staff, we will reach out to talented journalists who might have previously felt unwelcome at The New Republic. If this publication is to be influential, and not merely survive, it can no longer afford to represent the views of one privileged class, nor appeal solely to a small demographic of political elites.

You know, I think poaching Ta-Nehisi Coates from The Atlantic might be a good start.

He's a great writer, and has been aggressive critic of The New Republic's indifference, and occasional hostility, to the minority community, and it would do a lot to indicate that this is a clean break from the ignominious reign of the contemptible Marty Peretz.

I Know that this is Trolling, but I Approve

Author H.A. Goodman is suggesting that black men should avail themselves of the right to open carry wherever possible.  He gives 2 highly convincing reasons:

I never thought I'd be an open-carry advocate.

However, I'm a firm believer in working within the American political system in order to change the status quo. If the Second Amendment is cherished by millions of Americans, then why not use it to further certain liberal ideals? Protecting African-American lives and alleviating tensions between the black community and law enforcement should be a top priority of all Americans and especially Congress; however, this is not the case. It speaks volumes that African-Americans vote over 90 percent Democrat during national elections, yet our future nominee in 2016 still hasn't addressed an issue the whole nation is talking about, even after Darren Wilson's acquittal and the flames that engulfed Ferguson.

He goes on to state that, "I'm not advocating armed insurrection. My name isn't Cliven Bundy."

He then gives three very good reasons for blacks to open carry:

1. Openly carrying a gun legally (in an open-carry state) is a public display indicating that an individual does not have a criminal record. This alone undermines the basis behind racial profiling.He's right, of course.

If you have been convicted of a felony, the federally mandated background check will catch you.

Well it will if you don't exploit the gun show loophole.

2. The epidemic of disproportionate force utilized against black men in America warrants an alternative, and legal, solution to this problem.

………

There are so many more instances of unarmed black males shot by police that there simply isn't enough room in this article to continue. Therefore, regardless of your view of gun ownership, the predicament faced by African-Americans warrants a serious look at whether or not openly carrying a weapon will save black lives.

Anything that deflates the sense of impunity that many in law enforcement (aka the Thin Blue Line) will improve the quality of policing int he country.

3. The vast majority of African-American men will never commit a crime, so it's time America realizes this fact. If openly carrying a gun will help our country overcome centuries of prejudice pertaining to skin color, then it's an option that should be pursued.

This whole "Carry a gun, and show that you are not a criminal," thing is trolling.

It's trolling when the (almost completely caucasian) open carry ammosexuals do it, and it's trolling when people of color do it.

But the right to troll is fundamental, and it should be available without regard to race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or national origin.

BTW, if anyone wants to organize a gay black open carry parade in Houston or Dallas, TX, I will do what I can to help.

Open Carry This!

Local Coverage

In an eerie echo of the actions that led Ronald Reagan to sign into California law what was then the most restrictive gun law in the United States, the the Huey Newton gun club is staging open carry demonstrations:

A Texas gun club named after one of the founders of the Black Panthers Party marched in Dallas on Wednesday to protest against police brutality, KTXA-TV reported.

Around two dozen members of the Huey P. Newton Gun Club carried rifles and red, black and green flags as they marched through the city’s south side, sometimes chanting in support of Michael Brown, the 18-year-old man killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, on Aug. 9.

“If they don’t get these killer cops and corrupt cops under control,” a member identifying himself as Commander Drew X was quoted as saying. “What happened in Ferguson is going to be nationwide.”

The club’s leader, Huey Freeman, said Wednesday’s march would be the first step in a campaign of “civilian patrols” through the area. The state’s open carry law allows “long gun” owners to display them unless it is meant “to cause alarm.”

“We believe we can police ourselves and bring security to our community, ridding our community of black-on-black crime, violence, police terror, etcetera, etcetera,” Freeman told KXAS-TV.

Needless to say, I do not approve of open carry protests, but I do find a bit of schadenfreude in the the undoubted freakout that is going on in Dallas about black men open carrying.

A Fact of Ferguson that is Finally Getting Mainstream Notice

The fact that more than 20% of the budget of the town of Ferguson comes from tickets and warrants issued by police shows that the police are not there to protect the populace, they are there to extract tribute from them:

Scratch any social crisis, and you're likely to find economics not far below the surface. Via ArchCity Defenders, a St. Louis legal-aid nonprofit, we can see how this has worked to create the dismaying spectacle of the breakdown of justice in Ferguson. (H/t Alex Tabarrok, via Kevin Drum.)

According to the group's recent report on the municipal court system in St. Louis County, the Ferguson court is a "chronic offender" in legal and economic harassment of its residents. There's not much of a secret why: the municipality collects some $2.6 million a year in fines and court fees, typically from small-scale infractions like traffic violations. This is the second-largest source of income for that small, fiscally-strapped municipality.

………

For a low-income community--and for a black community subjected to the racial profiling, as the report documents--these fines can gather force like a boulder rolling downhill. 

Tabarrok points to the report's observation that the Ferguson court processed the equivalent of three warrants and $312 in fines per household in 2013.

"You don't get $321 in fines and fees and 3 warrants per household from an about-average crime rate," he notes. "You get numbers like this from [B.S.] arrests for jaywalking" and what the report calls "low level harassment involving traffic stops, court appearances, high fines, and the threat of jail for failure to pay without a meaningful inquiry into whether an individual has the means to pay."

The reason that the minorities in Ferguson do not see the police as their defenders and their protectors, it's because they aren't.

This arrangement, where peace officers have as their primary function tax collections, is fundamentally pathological and corrupt, and it needs to stop.

Tweet of the Day

Brilliant

Taylor Swift can probably get away with killing like 20 cops without getting arrested.
— Spencer Ackerman (@attackerman) August 18, 2014

What a Surprise

When Whites are asked about affirmative action in the context of Asian-Americans, suddenly they are much more supportive of affirmative action:

Critics of affirmative action generally argue that the country would be better off with a meritocracy, typically defined as an admissions system where high school grades and standardized test scores are the key factors, applied in the same way to applicants of all races and ethnicities.

But what if they think they favor meritocracy but at some level actually have a flexible definition, depending on which groups would be helped by certain policies? Frank L. Samson, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Miami, thinks his new research findings suggest that the definition of meritocracy used by white people is far more fluid than many would admit, and that this fluidity results in white people favoring certain policies (and groups) over others.

Specifically, he found, in a survey of white California adults, they generally favor admissions policies that place a high priority on high school grade-point averages and standardized test scores. But when these white people are focused on the success of Asian-American students, their views change.

As the saying goes, "Where you stand depends upon where you sit."