Disqus - Latest Comments for Macon D

Re: http://siditty.blogspot.com/2008/06/believe-others-consider-them.html

Macon D — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:35:00 -0000

Thanks for the re-post, Siditty. I'm a regular at your place, which is right helpful--I appreciate the work you do.

Re: http://siditty.blogspot.com/2008/06/believe-others-consider-them.html

Macon D — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:26:00 -0000

Loving the discussion here, so glad I got a chance to spark it.

I hope to respond more when I get a chance, busy week for me.

Siditty, I don't know where you got the idea that I live outside of Texas, but I actually live in the midwest--an even whiter place.

Re: http://siditty.blogspot.com/2008/08/mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm.html

Macon D — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:32:00 -0000

Thanks for bringing this stuff back! Yeah, what DID happen to the Dummies? I remember their song about God shuffling his feet with particular fondness.

The Femmes go places most bands don't or won't go, like in that song about pushing a daughter into a well. Dark places. "Black" places . . . No? Okay, they're pretty white. Very white.

Re: http://siditty.blogspot.com/2008/09/republican-national-convention-recap.html

Macon D — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:53:00 -0000

Yes! I saw that one on the convention, excellent counterpunch to the trivialization of community organizers. I also like the point I've been hearing, that the much vaunted "founding fathers" were among our first community organizers (and the repugs would NEVER dump on them). Though come to think of it, I'm not sure the organizing the founding fathers did was in the interest of "the community," as much as it was in their own.

Re: http://siditty.blogspot.com/2008/09/republican-national-convention-recap.html

Macon D — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:34:00 -0000

I see what you're saying, Siditty. I guess "community organizer" isn't the label they'd use for members of their own party doing that kind of work. After all, "community" sounds a lot like . . . "communism"!

classical one, you seem to have quite a nostalgic view of the founding fathers. Where, for one, are the founding mothers in that picture? And aside from their sexism, what about their rampant racism and classism?

Many of those "fathers" enslaved, beat, overworked, and sold other people, including some of their own children. They provoked a "revolution" largely because their business interests were being curtailed--their profits. And they used the whole idea of race and a vaunted fiction of whiteness to divide and conquer the classes below them.

The nostalgic vision of the beginnings of "the greatest country on earth" was inspiring when we were in junior high school (especially if we were white boys), and yes, that story did inspire other countries into semblances of democracy. However, we should remember the largely forgotten mess that's closer to the "true character of the founding fathers." Maybe then we'd see more clearly that times haven't really changed all that much.

Re: http://siditty.blogspot.com/2008/09/republican-national-convention-recap.html

Macon D — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:34:00 -0000

classical one, your refusal to see that what you call a democracy has always been instead a plutocracy makes this conversation fruitless. Enjoy your rosy visions. Or, if you'd rather wake up, try some books by Howard Zinn, Theodore Allen, James Loewen, David Roediger, or Ronald Takaki.

Re: http://siditty.blogspot.com/2008/09/republican-national-convention-recap.html

Macon D — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:49:00 -0000

One last word--although Zinn has identified with Marxism, dismissing his clear-eyed, ground-level, anti-authoritarian view of history for that reason, and lumping him together with the others I mentioned as that "kind," are both ridiculous. Oh, and one more word--just because the American empire has managed to outdo others doesn't make it a better one.

Re: http://siditty.blogspot.com/2008/09/ike-and-newsreporters.html

Macon D — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 12:53:00 -0000

Hang tight, siditty. I know mere weather can't defeat YOU!

Re: http://siditty.blogspot.com/2008/10/race-culture-in-america.html

Macon D — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:58:00 -0000

Thank you for a good post that exposes a lot of the interconnectedness and cross-borrowings between whites and blacks.

I'm less sanguine than you seem to be, though (if I'm reading the post right), about the declining significance of race. I think it was emphasized in the first place as a wedge issue by class-based elites, and then by subsequent generations of their descendants (whether literal or not), who continue to distract ordinary people from the realities of class with the chimeras of race. Consider how much the corporate media focus on racial issues (or rather, on certain ones), and how little they focus on class issues--where, for instance, is the "Labor Hour," or really any sustained coverage of labor issues? And whatever happened to powerful labor unions, and more to the point, to the media's recognition of their significance?

The "Drug War" is one of the more blatant examples of the increasing, rather than decreasing, significance of race. That "war" has accelerated incarceration rates for blacks, and that's only one way that the criminal justice system/industry has been much harder on blacks and other races than on whites. Also, residential segregation, as well as de facto discrimination in housing practices, has accelerated in many parts of the country, rather than getting better.

So I fear that, as with the current economic conditions, we will see MORE of an issue with race, not less. Darker others are convenient scapegoats for distracting ordinary white people from the abuses of their class-based masters. Ordinary people have been primed for that, and it won't be difficult to stir up that part of their psyches again.

I imagine you're aware of these things, but I thought they were sort of overlooked in your post.

Re: http://siditty.blogspot.com/2008/10/matter-of-time.html

Macon D — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:22:00 -0000

That postcard is pathological; reminds me of the lynching photos white people used to send each other as postcards.

I sure hope they change the site for Obama's election-night speech.

Re: http://siditty.blogspot.com/2008/10/wowi-mean-wow.html

Macon D — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:10:00 -0000

That this popular site exists actually makes sense in a way, in this era of Bush, an era of normalized "cheating." But then, look where all that financial cheating and war-mongering cheating and hypocritical bible-thumping cheating and Lots of Children Left Behind cheating got us--hopefully this era is sailing downward into the dustbin of history.

Re: http://siditty.blogspot.com/2008/11/passing-love-brilliante-weblog-award.html

Macon D — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:06:00 -0000

Congratulations! An award strongly deserved, methinks.

Re: http://siditty.blogspot.com/2008/12/original-sin.html

Macon D — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:16:00 -0000

Thanks for the memories! I used to think they were pretty cool. So sad about the end of Michael Hutchence.

Re: http://siditty.blogspot.com/2008/12/concept-of-being-white.html

Macon D — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 19:49:00 -0000

The question at the end of your post is oddly stated--I don't know if whiteness is "devalued" through mixing. Whiteness itself is either valued or not valued--more the former than the latter. A person does often become less valued if they're discovered to be mixed, of course, but that doesn't devalue the whiteness itself, does it?

Anyway, I think people who are known to have white blood mixed with black are more often devalued compared to those of other mixes. Just think of how often whites like to claim Native American ancestors, compared to how very rarely they claim what is much more common, black ancestors.

I also think that in some social circles, some mixed kids are even more valued than plain old white kids, especially white-and-Asian kids.

By the way, what about this video? "Wonderful black baby with blue eyes." "Wonderful"? Why? Not that I'm saying this baby isn't wonderful. I'm just wondering why the poster of the video would say so, and why it's such a popular video--over a million views is pretty high on YouTube.

Re: http://siditty.blogspot.com/2009/06/even-in-my-moments-of-insanity-i-find.html

Macon D — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:22:58 -0000

thanks for that one where he gives a tour of his house, siditty. that was . . . stunning. I think I understand how claustrophobics feel now.

(i too loved the 'uptown girl' romp.(

Re: http://siditty.blogspot.com/2009/07/im-racist.html

Macon D — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:07:29 -0000

Thank you for a thoughtful and honest post, and like others here, I saw alot of myself in it. One difference for me is that when it comes to white people, I try to think and talk and write in terms of common white tendencies among us. That avoids that mental and emotional blocker for white folks (especially newbies), the word RACISM. And even more than that, it puts the emphasis on things white people often do, rather than on who or what they supposedly are. Not a perfect strategy, but it seems to work better than having to smooth down hackles raised by that word.

Re: Monday Open Thread - It’s a New Week!

Macon D — Mon, 26 May 2008 22:55:00 -0000

One thing white Americans prefer not to remember on this memory-day is the whiteness of the bomb.

Re: Space Invaders

Macon D — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 11:11:00 -0000

This is a really interesting post. It makes me think of something white people do a lot of, which is more like "Space Ownership." Unlike most black people, they'll stand in the way in hallways or busy sidewalks, making people walk around them. Or there's those white women in skirts on the bus who always have to cross their legs, and so they also have to stick one foot and leg out in the aisle. So what if people have to brush up against that shoe, even on rainy days. I'll have to write a post about this. Thanks for the inspiration.

Macon D

http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/