Prometheus 6

Brad DeLong not only sent me a bag of referrals, by making me check to see what the hell blew up my stat counter he pointed me to a number of other interesting comments made all the more relevant by Chris Rock and Jay Leno last night.

Links out the yin-yang, watch out...

First The Carpetbagger:

Nearly one-in-three

Posted 1:28 pm

Dan Froomkin raised a point today that should be a striking wake-up call to the entire Bush gang: a significant percentage of the public seems to believe the president is willing to leave African Americans behind.

Froomkin pointed to a Gallup poll that asked respondents whether they believe Bush does, or does not, "care about black people."

Among blacks, 21 percent say he does and 72 percent say he doesn't.

Among whites, 67 percent say he does and 26 percent say he doesn't.

Overall, 62 percent say he does and 31 percent say he doesn't.

Obviously, that's a pretty dramatic rift. But consider the absolute numbers: Three out of four blacks, one out of four whites, and one out of three people across the country regardless of race actually believe that President Bush doesn't care about black people.

Sorry, but the question: "Does the president of the United State care about black people" should be a no-brainer. Of course he does should be the overwhelmingly common answer.

Of course it should, and yet, it isn't. Nearly one-in-three Americans — even one-in-four white people — believe that the president simply can't be bothered to consider the welfare of African Americans.

I added a little emphasis in that last paragraph.

I didn't see that poll. The results are a good sign...a significant fraction, maybe even most, of that one-in-four actually gets it, and the rest are on their way.

Check the comments people. There's more good than bad in there...in fact the bad isn't so much bad as wimpy...not to mention another example of the unresolved issues I felt compelled to remind you of yesterday.

Net judgment at The Carpetbagger Report: Bush doesn't care about anyone.

Next we visit Michael Froomkin.

It's an Unfair Rap

Musically, George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People (mp3) is a real catchy bit of rappy pop. [Warning: lots and lots of 'bad' words.] And the feeling is raw and real, and I always appreciate that in my music.

But politically, the title, and a good part of the content, is an unfair rap. The Bush administration has an admirable record of appointing African-Americans to top posts. And despite the occasional strange incident, I don't think it is a racist administration. Rather, it's thoroughly classist. Kleptocratic even.

For as far as I can tell, what George Bush -- and his team -- don't care about is poor people. All poor people. No sympathy (in the sense of a sympathetic or shared understanding) at all.

"Strange incident." Uh huh.

We accept Mr. Froomkin's good intentions. However we refer him to Frequently Asked Questions About "U-People". The relevant question (which he ain't asking, don't get scared):

Why do U-People always think everyone is a racist?
Well, everything in America is looked at through, measured in terms of, categorized and stored by race. So we know you have thoughts and opinions about us. Then we look at everything the society produces that depicts us. We consider that to be tangible evidence of the collective attitude. So now we know that the collective opinion of our race is negative.

This is a competitive disadvantage, and when our abilities are immediately discounted to the degree that we can be made to fit people's preconceptions as a tactic, we feel the tactitician and the one who executes the tactic is racist. When the tactic succeeds, we feel those who hold the preconceptions that were played on are racist.

Comprende, potna?

Fortunately it didn't turn out to be an issue. Commenters straight jacked any dilution of the racial aspect.

Finally Ezra Klein screws up the courage in the face of expected universal opprobrium to agree with Mr. Froomkin.

Sorry dawg. I ain't mad at ya. Because it seems you're on the road to recognizing.

The one thing to remember, though, is that Bush is happy to exploit racism in favor of kleptocratic ends. He didn't, for instance, run for president to screw over black people, but he did win the South Carolina primary by embracing Bob Jones U., home of the nation's most racially regressive dating policies. Intentions-wise, it's not quite the same, but it ends up looking awfully similar.

I just wish you'd call a spade a spade.

At it were...

We support the effects test on Prometheus 6, by the way.