April 25, 2014

Remember when the President called us to "a national conversation on race" and told us to "Be blunt"?

Back in 1997.
A therapeutic model of group dynamics seems to underlie the president’s initiative. We are supposed to be getting our long-hidden fears, resentments, and frustrations out in the open. "Be blunt," the president instructed [the audience at his "artfully conducted" town hall meeting in Akron, Ohio].

31 comments:

Nonapod said...

The subject of race has become a fetish, a thing we as a culture seem to worry and fuss over endlessly. Has anything been gained by all this worrying and fussing? Or are we all worse off for it?

Greg Hlatky said...

Or as they said in Red China in the 1950's, "Let a hundred flowers bloom."

hawkeyedjb said...

Hah! Want a lot of hurt? Be blunt.

Work for a Fortune 500 company? Try standing up and saying, no, our greatest strength isn't our diversity. It's our (product line, distribution/logistics capabilities, ability to execute).

Fired.

Work for a university? Stand up and say, no, diversity shouldn't be our primary goal. It should be (teaching, research).

Fired.

Yes, be blunt. So we can find out who you are, and ostracize you.

exhelodrvr1 said...

Not the blunt he was referring to.

tim maguire said...

"Be blunt!" because we need sound bites to bring you down with later.

mikee said...

I note not only the conversation called on race, but also the conversations called on gun laws, gay marriage, student loans, Obamacare, and any number of other topics.

The common denominator of all the things about which we are called to converse is that a fairly well settled issue is being re-opened to debate, with only one side being invited to participate. Not a conversation, but a lecture, followed by a fundamental transformation of the previous paradigm.

So to hell with conversation. If Obama wants to continue fundamentally transforming something good into something worse, he can try to do it without my civil support while he lectures me about his plans.

Michael K said...

This is similar to the Let a hundred flowers bloom campaign of Mao after which those who spoke up were killed or punished by the Red Guards.

Say something about race openly and wait for the thought police to arrive.

virgil xenophon said...

@hawkeyedjb/

Or try being a member of the armed services and saying that: "No diversity does NOTHING towards making better pilots, tank gunners, submarine commanders, radar, sonar operators, mechanics and technicians of all kinds medics, etc.,--all of which are skills needed to close with and kill our enemies." Can you say head straight to personnel and begin submitting your out-processing papers?

'TreHammer said...

Blogger exhelodrvr1 said...
Not the blunt he was referring to.


Now, that's funny!

The Crack Emcee said...

Nonapod,

"The subject of race has become a fetish, a thing we as a culture seem to worry and fuss over endlessly. Has anything been gained by all this worrying and fussing? Or are we all worse off for it?"

You have to have a "loyal opposition" for progress to be made, and whites still aren't prepared to be that.

tim maguire,

"'Be blunt!' because we need sound bites to bring you down with later."

Yeah - I, too, tremble in fear at the thought.

It must be rough,...

Virgil Hilts said...

Having people be honest and blunt makes it easier to "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Remember to go after people and not institutions; individual persons can be hurt faster and more effectively than institutions. So what if it is cruel and unfair. Progressive ends always justify the means.

n.n said...

The American race? The German race? The Italian race? Which race?

The white race? The black race? How much detail will this conversation tolerate?

Should we talk about tribes, internal factions?

Perhaps we should focus on people's religion (i.e. morality) or ideology.

What is the true measure of a human being? Is it the color of their skin or the content of their character? What are the real motivations to progress from bias to prejudice?

jacksonjay said...

Here's blunt! That was the first Black President who was later bum-rushed by the first Mixed-Race President!

Bob Boyd said...

Bundy was blunt and his supporters went from "He's a hero" to "go ahead and shoot him".

CWJ said...

Google "how not to be seen" to learn everything you need to know about these calls to conversation.

Or here's the link. Sorry I don't know how to do these things in an easier way. I'm too busy trying not to be seen.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zekiZYSVdeQ

tim in vermont said...

"Let a hundred flowers bloom."

Not sure that the lefties here will get the reference, given their studious ignorance of all things leftish before the great idea struck them as something new and never tried in this world.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

OK, bluntly speaking, first thing is to get definitions agreed on. What is race?

(You're the guy who brought the subject up, Mr. President, so you go first. Give us your definition(s), and tell us if you are speaking personally or as a matter of Federal policy.

kcom said...

If I remember correctly, Joe the Plumber was blunt. But I guess that president, or his supporters, didn't want to hear it so they plastered Joe's personal data from state agencies all over the internet. But let's have a conversation.

Richard Dolan said...

"A therapeutic model of group dynamics seems to underlie the president’s initiative."

Ridiculous. It was Clinton, and so what "underlay" his "initiative" was, as always, politics and triangulation. Only an academic (the piece Ann is quoting seems to have come from some institute at Boston Univ) could be so idiotic to think that Clinton would ever have pursued a "therapeutic model of group dynamics" as a way to address racial divisions in general or disputes about affirmative action in particular.

Ann Althouse said...

The linked piece is by Glenn Loury (whom I've done many Bloggingheadses with).

Larry J said...

Work for a university? Stand up and say, no, diversity shouldn't be our primary goal. It should be (teaching, research).

Fired.

Yes, be blunt. So we can find out who you are, and ostracize you.


When it comes to thought, the opposite of diversity is university.

When the race obsessed government wants to know my race, I select "Other" and write in "human." There is only one race and that's the human race. All this noise about skin color is absurd.

traditionalguy said...

The Democrats also want to see a national conversation on Immigration Amnesty, the War on Women and The Koch Brothers.

They sure are a curious bunch.

CWJ said...

kcom @ 11:08,

That was the watershed event for me; and explains why I am so demoralized.

It is not just that a state government functionary was willing nay eager to break her trust with the citizens of Ohio, it's that the media were so willing to comply with the personal destruction of a nobody. The scapegoating of filmmaker guy, and Lois Lerner, are simply logical extentions of this seminal petty act of ideological extortion.

cubanbob said...

The only national conversation needed is to discuss why the worst president since FDR and his idiot side-kick along with his appointed criminal cronies haven't had the decency to resign.

paul a'barge said...

Everybody here who voted for Barack Obama, raise your hand.

Now, look around. See?

Drago said...

"Remember when the President called us to "a national conversation on race" and told us to "Be blunt"?"

obama doesn't have to call on us to have "blunt" conversation on race anymore.

He can simply use the organs of gov't to identify those of us who he'd really like to get "blunt" with.

And, of course, he has.

Capt. Schmoe said...

I made the mistake of trying to be open about race at a kumbyah meeting several years ago. I'll never do that again!

Sam L. said...

That was superseded within the hour. Couldn't stand the backtalk.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Why would anyone attend a kumbyah meeting? I've always found grow-up-or-go-fuck-yourself meetings to be far more productive. Promotes greater understanding, too.

Kirby Olson said...

Let a hundred flowers bloom, Harold.

Lyle said...

The labeling of Bundy as a racist tells us how much character we lack as a people. The guy praises Mexicans, shows pity for poor blacks living in the projects, and he's a racist because he hyperbolically and ignorantly suggests that slavery was maybe better.

Fuck us we are in bad place America. God damn ourselves and our politicians.