Disqus - Latest Comments for ubstu34

Re: Is the Dream a Reality, or Are We Waking to Reality

ubstu34 — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 20:59:52 -0000

Good to see you blogging again.

Re: Pat Robertson = Predictable Racist on Haiti’s Pact With The Devil

ubstu34 — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:33:22 -0000

Toussaint L'Ouverture made Catholicism the official state religion upon becoming dictator. Did Pat know that, or does he just hate Catholics too?

Re: Pat Robertson = Predictable Racist on Haiti’s Pact With The Devil

ubstu34 — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:28:57 -0000

Toussaint L'Ouverture made Catholicism the official state religion upon becoming dictator. Did Pat know this, or does he just hate Catholics too.

Re: Pat Robertson = Predictable Racist on Haiti’s Pact With The Devil

ubstu34 — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:25:59 -0000

Toussaint L'Ouverture made Catholicism the official state religion upon becoming dictator. Did Pat know this, or does he just hate Catholics too

Re: Pat Robertson = Predictable Racist on Haiti’s Pact With The Devil

ubstu34 — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:23:16 -0000

Toussaint L'Ouverture made Catholicism the official state religion upon becoming dictator.

Re: Oh, Yes He Did!

ubstu34 — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 23:15:29 -0000

I am trying to contemplate what Obama's legacy will be if his administration continues to ignore the persistence of racial disparities in American life.

Re: Oh. My lord!

ubstu34 — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:43:34 -0000

I think you are right. FDR couldn't run afoul of southern democrats in pursuing a liberal agenda. LBJ's Great Society was, in part, torn apart by racial conflict. Not much has changed even with the election of black president. Liberals are more comfortable celebrating diversity than addressing racial realities.

Re: Oh. My lord!

ubstu34 — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:06:33 -0000

What point do you think the Democrats who conducted this study are trying to make? I, too, haven't thoroughly read their conclusions but the media reports about the findings left me feeling very skeptical.

Re: Hush, Little White Church. Naw, for Real. Hush.

ubstu34 — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:45:52 -0000

Weren't influential portions of the black church strongly opposed to abortion following Roe v Wade? I know Jesse Jackson was pro-life for a while before he changed positions. This notion that abortion crept its way into the mainstream because "the church" was asleep doesn't pass the muster

Re: Hush, Little White Church. Naw, for Real. Hush.

ubstu34 — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:16:08 -0000

What do you think of people like Rick Warren?

Re: Ram Rush

ubstu34 — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:04:17 -0000

I wasn't aware of the scarcity of black college football coaches. It seems to me that college coaches would guard their fiefdoms much more rigidly than pro coaches who always appear to be bouncing around from team to team in search of more money.

As far as Rush is concerned, it would have been interesting if Condoleeza Rice had been made NFL commissioner and forced to comment on this situation.

Re: Ram Rush

ubstu34 — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 21:09:14 -0000

Seriously..... Rush believes that a majority of black people who distinguish themselves in American life have not truly earned their success. Well the last time I looked, seventy percent of NFL players were black. What kind of moral is this going to instill in players who play for an owner who believes they don't work hard enough to warrant the recognition they receive? Rush strikes me as one of those arrogant owners (like Jerry Jones) who fancies himself as a knowledgeable student of the game who is qualified to not only run the business side of things but to make decisions better left to coaches, players, and scouts. He won't be one of those types of owners who sits in the owner's box each game and lets the money roll in but one who heads down to the sidelines to tell the coaches how to do their job, to lecture players on how they should play the game, to let it be known that he is the brains behind the actual football side of the operation. Someone so insecure isn't going to tolerate anyone who second guesses him or doesn't kowtow to his ego. I suspect that if does get the team, the whole stint will be a fiasco.

Re: Nobel Obama

ubstu34 — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 23:47:40 -0000

It's obvious that a big reason the European community loves Obama is that, on the surface at least, he represents the almost polar opposite of Bush. But I think there is a lot more to the love affair than that. This is all the more surprising given the fact that Europe appears to be moving to the right politically, while the political pendulum in the United States is beginning to swing to the left. What is just as amazing is that people of color in Europe (I may be wrong--this is just a hunch) have not broken the same kind of ground in terms of seizing the reins of political leadership that Americans of color have. Leadership in Europe does not reflect the growing racial diversity of the population the way the political leadership in the United States does. This may be because racism in Europe has historically been more subtle and there is hence less motivation to redress the power imbalances; but I don't know for sure. I am not trained in the field of Afro-European history. The important point is that although (white) Europeans fawn over Obama, a large number of them are undoubtedly blind to the racial disparities and injustices in their own midst and would probably be miffed if someone pointed them out. Indeed, racism in Europe has grown more overt during the last forty years as more and more Africans and people of color have migrated to the Continent. If Obama's father had chosen to study in Britain and fathered a child with a white British women, would his offspring have grown up to become Prime Minister? Probably not. He might not have suffered the same cruel indignities, but would he have been inspired to break new racial ground? I am not sure. Like a lot of white American liberals, I believe white Europeans are enthralled by the myth of a post-racial world which Obama seems to represent.

I think the important question to ask is if the European community is pressuring the president to draw troops out of Afghanistan by awarding him the peace prize, what would they have to gain from such an action? A sense that they can influence the most powerful country on earth? I am not sure it is because they avidly want to heal the wounds between the West and Islamic world. Islamophobia is deeply entrenched in European society. What is your take?

Re: Ram Rush

ubstu34 — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 20:46:05 -0000

If he gets the team, won't he have to tidy up his public relations skills? Or am i just dreaming?

Re: Nobel Obama

ubstu34 — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 02:00:34 -0000

Wilson deserves credit for ushering in a new age of internationalist thinking, even if his ideas were ignored for an entire generation. As the most racist of our chief executives, however, he appears small next to recipients like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. I have not thoroughly studied Theodore Roosevelt's role in negotiating peace between Russia and Japan, so I am not at liberty to comment on whether he was a valid recipient of the award. I think Carter was deserving of the honor. As far as people who think Reagan should have received the prize, it is worth mentioning that two key figures involved in ending the Cold War were Nobel winners--Gorbachev and Lech Walesa. It is not like the circle of people who grant the prize ignored this moment in history. Reagan, by the way, was responsible for Iran Contra.

In terms of comparing Obama's status as a peace keeper to previous black Americans who won the award, I don't believe he measures up thus far. As a UN representative in 1948, Bunche negotiated a land mark peace deal with Israel and its neighbors which lasted for about twenty years. His effectiveness as a negotiator was facilitated by the fact that he could empathize with people of color and racial minorities and gain their trust in a manner that no white westerner could have. (Colin Powell once said that Bunche's status as a Nobel winner had an empowering effect on him as a black American and demonstrated that black Americans could find success in arenas outside of traditional race leadership and sports and entertainment. It's too bad that Powell ended up becoming a neocon tool.) Martin Luther King adopted strategies pioneered by Ghandi in his struggle against British colonialism and applied them to his struggle against Jim Crow. In doing so, he emphasized the value of international solidarity and brought international attention to injustices that the United States would have preferred to ignore.

If Obama is too earn recognition as a peacemaker, he has a lot of work to do. I will say that his speech in Cairo was awe-inspiring and believe that it will go down in history as one of the most significant foreign policy speeches ever delivered by an American president. If he can build upon those words and turn them into concrete actions, then he will be deserving of his Nobel. At this point, he is in the strange predicament of being honored as a peace keeper and in the middle of escalating the war in Afghanistan. For this reason and for the fact that he has been in office for less than a year, I think the award is both untimely and somewhat unwarranted.

I've been doing ok. I would really like to return to school and attain a masters or doctorate someday. Right now, however, that doesn't seem to be in the cards. I am glad that you are posting more often on your blog. I always make a point of dropping in pretty often.

Re: Nobel Obama

ubstu34 — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:04:54 -0000

I don't think his accomplishments, at this point, measure up to those of previous presidents who won the award. Nor do they measure up to those of previous Afro-Americans who won the award, Ralph Bunche and Martin Luther King. That said, all the vitriol eminating from the right has been absurd.

Re: Do I Need to Scream?

ubstu34 — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:48:52 -0000

In the days since his death, "They Don't Care About Us" is another song of his that struck me as indicative of his societal discontents. The extended dance sequence in the "Black or White" video that caused a backlash appears in retrospect to be a premonition of the images of the LA riots of 1992 which occurred months after the video premiered. There was clearly something amiss in Jackson's vision of "post-racial" America.

Re: Monday Open Thread -It’s A New Week

ubstu34 — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 10:17:58 -0000

Great photo. Quite appropriate.

Re: Obama’s National Service Plan= SLAVERY? Oh really?

ubstu34 — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 07:17:32 -0000

You have to excuse Mr. Goldberg. This is a man who argued in his last book that American liberalism was an outgrowth of Soviet Communism. Goldberg ignored the fact that American liberalism preceded Soviet Communism, has outlived Soviet Communism, and throughout its history has produced such prominent anti-Communists as Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Arthur Schlesinger. His argument that compelling young people to perform community service in exchange for tuition money is analogous to slavery is another example of his intellectual dishonesty. Only the most cynical would support such views and only the most stupid would actually believe them.

Re: It’s Official: Obama Will Give Convention Speech At Stadium

ubstu34 — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:25:06 -0000

I am not so sure this is a good idea. The Democratic Party has already spent more money on the convention than they planned to and are in danger of wasting more money due to extravagent ideas such as this. The Obama campaign was noted for their thrift in comparison to the lavish spending Clinton campaign. I think it would be better to conserve funds for the fall when the campaign absoutely needs them.

Re: An Evil Old Racist Finally Dies – Elegy for Jesse Helms

ubstu34 — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 09:42:44 -0000

I think it is fitting that Obama's family attended a parade in the predominately white state of Montana the day he died. Perhaps some of what he represented has died with him.

Re: For Mama

ubstu34 — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:48:18 -0000

So sorry to hear about your loss. May God grant you the strength to get through this tough time.