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| Thread: Donald Trump the first white president |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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Blizzardboy
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posted October 27, 2017 08:58 AM |
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Donald Trump the first white president
Ta-Nehisi Coates is a public intellectual with a hand in racial affairs, and he makes an argument (which I found very convincing) that Donald Trump is the first white president, and also argues that he is a white supremacist. I've attached below the first part of an interview he had:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cFJKsld8Ok
The claim Coates makes is that historically, "whiteness" has never been viewed as a fenotype so much as it is an abstract idea. In the US, Irish at one point were not white; Jews were not white; Italians were not white, etc. In that sense, when we think of "whiteness" in the abstract, Trump's presidency is identified with "whiteness" in a way that all previous presidents did not have. He says, "in the same way you can't have a white population without a black population, you can't have a white president without a black president."
Here is the original article - which is pretty long and heavy - in The Atlantic that I strongly recommend reading:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/the-first-white-president-ta-nehisi-coates/537909/
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artu
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posted October 27, 2017 11:15 AM |
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That was a long, long, long, long article. Do you agree that racism, although less direct, is still so prevelant that it determines presidents? His arguments are certainly strong.
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Blizzardboy
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posted October 27, 2017 11:19 AM |
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I don't think most people consciously realize the impact, but passively, yes, "whiteness" as an abstract is a very strong factor.
I think the one example he made says it all: picture in your head a 70-year-old huskily built black man. The same figure as Trump, except black. Imagine scandals erupting of him groping women. Lying about such and such and so and so. Then imagine him winning the presidency
Not happening.
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Blizzardboy
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posted October 27, 2017 11:32 AM |
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artu said:
That was a long, long, long, long article.
You've just been conditioned with cheap 21st century data bites is all. Quality stuff actually takes time to read.
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artu
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posted October 27, 2017 04:14 PM |
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Edited by artu at 17:35, 27 Oct 2017.
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You realize that I have like 6000 - 7000 actual books at home and I mostly read from paper, right? It is true, however, the internet conditions you to a faster tempo, just like Hollywood pace, in time, makes it harder to watch older movies with a slower tempo. Damn, supremacist empires of the past at least came up with stuff that elevated you! Your culture just conditions us to junk! Viva la revolucion!
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Salamandre
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posted October 27, 2017 07:23 PM |
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Well, what an intellectually dishonest and poor article. It starts with the "obvious": Trump would not be president were it not for the fact that he is white.
This is racist, plain racist. This is the very definition of racism, saying the color of the skin define one's achievements or failures. Just imagine the trouble if someone would have made a similar article saying about Obama same thing, he would have been crucified. And you find that intellectually valid, have you lost your objectivity at such point?
Then the article continues the dishonest rant by mentioning "modern recasting of the old American precept that black people are not fit to be citizens of the country (Trump view) while one of the conditions for applying to USA presidency is dully noted in the CONSTITUTION: you have to be naturally born in USA, it does NOT mention the color. And that was precisely the skirmish between Trump and Obama, Trump repeatedly asked for Obama birth certificate and Obama took 4 years to release it. It isn't about color or race, is a political argument like they all do.
The bottom line is that you guys conflate race with culture, and this is what stirs hate and divisiveness, and will probably end by destroying any track of our western superior values. Repeatedly telling to minorities that it is their color or race which cause their failures - characteristic that they can't fix, while it is the culture - which they CAN fix, is pouring oil on fire and is blatantly false: millions of people from other cultures dream about coming in EU or USA, which is btw the only needed proof that our western values are the BEST. You imagine Jews immigrating to Germany in 1939?
Western culture is NOT the problem, it is the SOLUTION. Now replace "white supremacy" with "western culture" and rethink the equation until you debunk by your own the hoax.
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Kipshasz
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posted October 27, 2017 07:32 PM |
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The wall just got another 6ft taller.
The article is typical trump bashing manure by the alt-left. But at least with manure, you can put it to use as an organic fertilizer, and a damn good one at that.
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artu
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posted October 27, 2017 07:57 PM |
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Salamandre said:
Well, what an intellectually dishonest and poor article. It starts with the "obvious": Trump would not be president were it not for the fact that he is white.
This is racist, plain racist. This is the very definition of racism, saying the color of the skin define one's achievements or failures. Just imagine the trouble if someone would have made a similar article saying about Obama same thing, he would have been crucified. And you find that intellectually valid, have you lost your objectivity at such point?
No. What it specifically says is that It is as if the white tribe united in demonstration to say, “If a black man can be president, then any white man—no matter how fallen—can be president.” Then, it backs up that claim with voter statistics that are not specifically consistent in class but consistent in race. It also says that when it comes to achievement and image, a black candidate and a white one are subjected to different standards. The important thing here is that according to the article, the traditional American mindset sees poverty of minorities as the natural order of things, meanwhile, poverty of the "white" groups is seen as an anomaly, something that shouldnt be as dramatic as black poverty.
@Kip
The article is quite critical of the American left's diagnosis of the Trump issue, whatever you mean by the alt-left, this is not it.
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tSar-Ivor
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posted October 27, 2017 07:59 PM |
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Quote:
I say that the lower race of human beings that constitute the substratum of what is termed the slave population of the South, elevates every white man in our community … It is the presence of a lower caste, those lower by their mental and physical organization, controlled by the higher intellect of the white man, that gives this superiority to the white laborer. Menial services are not there performed by the white man. We have none of our brethren sunk to the degradation of being menials. That belongs to the lower race—the descendants of Ham.
I couldn't agree more, though my approach to black and white has nothing to do with skin complexion.
Also when using terms like 'alt-left' it's very difficult to determine what you actually mean, there's so much overlap in ideologies that without specifics we're simply left wondering or forced to assume.
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Salamandre
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posted October 27, 2017 08:08 PM |
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artu said:
the traditional American mindset sees poverty of minorities as the natural order of things, meanwhile, poverty of the "white" groups is seen as an anomaly, something that shouldnt be as dramatic as black poverty.
Any evidence to back this claim? The american mindset is more likely struggling to seek solutions for minorities because poor minorities hurt the working class - more welfare, more unrest, more criminality. Yet Obama, a black man was in power, did something changed about? No.
So the solution to minorities poverty lies in minorities themselves, there is no external cause. And btw which minorities we talk about? Because asian or european minorities are doing great in America.
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artu
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posted October 27, 2017 08:13 PM |
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Edited by artu at 20:15, 27 Oct 2017.
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The whole article is full of historical and contemporary quotes about it, you speak as if you havent read it. The minorities are the working class, blacks in America are not recent immigrants from another culture, they have been living there for generations.
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tSar-Ivor
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posted October 27, 2017 08:15 PM |
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Sal you're making the same mistake as I did in my early academic studies, you're trying to find a simple cookie cutter basis for abstract ideologies ("mindsets" as you call them).
Obama is not disliked because he did exemplary work in healing the rift between minorities (blacks are still a minority) and their white overlords, he is despised for the same reason that he is praised - he is the first black president of the US. In order to understand the debased you have to be far more flexible and prudent, it's not about facts and statistics (crime rates/unemployment/education etc), it's about what fantasy catches interest and attention, one of the hooks Trump used for instance was that Obama was not born in the US (thus not a true American - illegitimate). It doesn't/didn't matter whether it was 'true' or not, a falsehood once spoken out is real enough to many to do the work of truth, provided there is an audience that is attracted to that delusion that is (fantasy, delusion is a little judgemental, I don't look at people like that no matter how disfunctional their ideology may be).
Trump is not the first "white president", he is the first true president of the whites, a living embodiment of their own personal depravity in all its glory.
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artu
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posted October 27, 2017 08:26 PM |
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Trump is indeed often playing "the post-truth" card without any shred of shame. As if the state would not have already checked if any president is constitutionally fit to be president or not before appointing him, he backs up some urban legend because he knows on some level, it will stick. As many already said, he is the first politician not to care if his points are fact or not, so blatantly and so openly.
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Salamandre
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posted October 27, 2017 08:31 PM |
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tSar-Ivor said:
It doesn't matter if it's true or not, a falsehood once spoken out is real enough to many to do the work of truth if there's an audience that is attracted to that delusion that is
But what are then the Russia collusion, the racism and sexism of Trump (only "proofs" coming from changing-room rumors), the racism of America, if not falsehoods daily pouring in the 99% left based medias. I already told once, every extreme creates its proper opposite, another extreme. Beside, USA politic are very aggressive, they go personal, they go into baseless and merciless accusations, that's the game. Taking one fact out from context and then trying to make it race baiting is dishonest.
tSar-Ivor said:
Trump is not the first "white president", he is the first true president of the whites, a living embodiment of their own personal depravity in all its glory.
What that even means? That in a white and western culture based country, white people electing a white man defending western culture is somehow racist or subject to depravity? Please explain.
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artu
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posted October 27, 2017 08:36 PM |
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I think what's problematic is your very definition of Trump itself: A man defending the Western culture. What makes him so in your eyes remains a mystery to me but it kind of supports the analysis of the article about why he got elected.
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tSar-Ivor
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posted October 27, 2017 08:37 PM |
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Slavoj Zizek makes a remarkable point regarding how this aspect of human psychology funtions, he surprisingly likens it to Pokemon go, most of us know there are no friggin pokemon lurking around, but with the use of our mobiles we can visually embelish reality with our "illusions" (once that is done they DO become real, this is what intellectuals miss, and thus do not arrive at a sufficient understanding). We are attracted to this, we find it enjoyable (though Zizek is specifically talking about Hitler, it doesn't matter, if Jews are the monsters they're made out to be, the state introduced a 'game', catch the Jews and ordinary people indulged in this game without ever truly knowing why, just like you enslave pokemon without such a negative-view of the game ever crossing your mind).
People forget/don't realize that life is indeed a game, just as anything you'll find in the virtual world, the only difference is the amount of data.
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Salamandre
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posted October 27, 2017 08:46 PM |
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artu said:
I think what's problematic is your very definition of Trump itself: A man defending the Western culture. What makes him so in your eyes remains a mystery to me but it kind of supports the analysis of the article about why he got elected.
What is problematic? has our culture been different through centuries other that considering that citizens of a country have and should have priority upon people from worldwide? That immigration must be limited to economical needs, as it always was? That western values are about tolerance, and so they prove to be, while the other candidate was obsessed about racism and discrimination, based on no facts at all and contradicted by worldwide immigration movements?
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artu
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posted October 27, 2017 08:59 PM |
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If by Western culture, what you mean is liberal democracy, human rights, capitalist economy and so on, I don't see how you significantly associate Trump with these and his competitors opposed as in being against them? None of the above signifies Trump's arguments in any specific aspect.
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Salamandre
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posted October 27, 2017 09:17 PM |
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None of the above YOU mentioned, but those weren't mine, they were yours. For example, a candidate to presidency role is to federate all citizens, not call the ones having a different political view as "deplorable". His role is not to encourage cheating by regularizing 11 millions of cheaters -all of them-, which will finally evolve in more cheaters because "they can" and a total dilution of law responsibility, but is to keep order while making humanely all its possible to remain fair - for example Daca aspect. It is a compromise, not just give up all values because that calls in more voters for her. Let's not forget that Trump's concurrent was Hillary, which was also very controversial in many aspects.
You guys make it sound like Trump won against the pure reason and the pure morale, therefore our society is now on wastage, somehow evil's work. None of those, he won against a bad candidate which lost despite the entire press being on her side, just to get it how really bad she was.
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artu
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posted October 27, 2017 09:41 PM |
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The article focuses on why Trump won, not why Clinton lost. It's main hypothesis is that this was largely because of a reaction to Obama, that Trump played that horn deliberately. You can, of course, claim this is not the whole picture and just a part of what went down. However, the article is backing up this reactional sentiment with various quotes, voter statistics, Trump's own words and action. So, it is not something the writer pulls out of his ass. Once again, immigration is only mentioned briefly and blacks in the U.S. are mostly not immigrants but citizens by birth for generations. There may be slight sub-cultural differences in the black community but they don't represent another culture. Obama and Trump are not icons of different cultures, they are both mainstream Americans.
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