Reply #39: excellent post [View All]

[Two Americas]

Thanks PH. Good work, and an important topic.

Paraphrasing Dr. King: "I don't care whether or not someone likes me, so long as they do not have the power to harm me."

I am stunned at how much traction the idiotic "reverse racism" arguments are getting among "progressives," as we can see on full display in all of its ugliness right here on this thread.

Only those from the dominant and powerful group, enjoying unexamined and assumed privilege, can see racism as a matter of which individuals like which other individuals, thereby stripping any consideration of power and abuse from the discussion. Only those who enjoy full rights and privileges can see it as reasonable and practical that the desperate needs of GLBTQ people as a nuisance and not a priority. This is power talking now, at the expense of principle.

"I like Black people, and I am not a racist, but some of them don't like me merely because I an white. That is as bad as racism against Blacks."

"I like gay people, and I support gay rights, but some of them seem to hare me because I an strength and are labeling me as a bigot. Hatred goes both ways."

If people can say that "hatred goes both ways," and that one is equal to the other, then they are arguing that there is no social problem, that it is merely a matter of our personal feelings. To deny that there is a social problem is to defend the way that things are now, and that means that bigotry and racism and homophobia cannot be challenged, cannot even be examined or discussed.

This has been very sad and frustrating to watch. As the Democrats are coming into power, too many here are now sidling up to power, using the arguments of those in power to beat down the rest of us, taking the authoritarian position on every issue, and reveling in their imagined association and identification with those in power even to the point of defending including bigotry in a misguide notion if "including people." The only ones being in included are those with power, and those without power or persecuted and abused are being attacked by their presumed allies and seen as the problem.

"We won! Get over it!" we heard from Bush supporters. Now we are hearing that from our supposed friends and allies.

Did you get a chance to see the Pew Research survey on this PH? As the general public moves to the Left and toward greater tolerance, liberals and progressives are moving the opposite direction. The public has overwhelmingly rejected and repudiated the religious right and Reaganomics, and Pew survey taken shortly before the election shows that. Yet liberals and progressives are moving to the right, as they now catch a whiff of power and start strutting an bullying and seeing themselves as "winners" and looking at the people, and those speaking out for the suffering and abused among us, with contempt and derision.

Majority now says "get religion out of politics"
Pew Research study
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=221x113168