Prometheus 6

John McWhorter, ironically, isn't so "stupid" but he is a "depressed" Race Man now (about what, exactly, I don't know) given how Whites, perhaps including Buchanan, have received and responded to Obama's speech.

Bloggingheads.tv

Yeah, I watched a video of McWhorter and Glenn Loury at Bloggingheads two days ago and Br. John did not look like a happy camper. He said that he did not feel optimistic given the responses to Obama's speech on race. I have no idea why he ever expected the folks in his neo-con crowd to act any differently.

I have no idea (now after view-listening to the whole video) what his depression is about when he insisted on the resolution that there are no moral appeals regarding Black people's plight that can be made to White folk, liberal as well as conservative.

Good point, Nquest. Good point. You can't lose what you ain't never had.

I have no idea why you listened to the ass.

PT, I wasn't trying to make a point, per se.  I was questioning McWhorter's retreat into his faux black nationalism -- i.e.  we can't depend on white folks, so why  do we  (1) act like improving ourselves is dependent on them and (2) keep trying to appeal to them which assumes #1. 

To be accurate, it seemed like McWhorter ultimately argued how if there was any chance of seeing public policy that would benefit Black folks that it would come through Obama's supposed essential argument that White people, Hispanics, etc. have the same problems we do. 

McWhorter talked about the virtual 'white trash' in his godchild's family tree who simply could/would not see past their own circumstance to ever buy into the idea that Black people have been unjustly limited (more than they) by societal racism, etc.  His argument (or, simply, his presentation of those human nature 'facts') was akin to those who argument for economic or need-based affirmative action vs. so-called race-based affirmative action.

Now, I would make the point that what other Americans think and will resent is beside the point.  Plenty of gov't actions benefit some more than others that never were introduced for public approval or ever the subject of any appreciable public scorn.  Indeed, the civil rights acts of the 1800's and, later, the 1960's were not products of public approval -- i.e. something voted in by public referendum.

Also, all this obviously ignores how Black people continue to pay taxes which result in policies that arguably continue/deepen their (our) oppression.  So, it an act of clear self-inflicted, though systemized, double jeopardy for Black people to define democracy as that thing that has to go through White hands, for White approval, first, in national town hall of White public opinion -- with an eye on resentment-reduction -- and, second, for White approval in the halls of gov't.

The problem with this is the very basis of "White resentment" is based on them having say/sway over what and, in this case, who their taxes go to.  Oh, for McWhorter et al to play on a black nationalism of self-respect that says White folks have no more right to have anymore say/sway over their taxes than we do; which is to say that if we're going to make any arguments/appeals to White America that it must be a doctrine of democracy that insist on that kind of equality -- that we have a fundamental right to political efficacy the same way any and everyone else believe they do. 

I have no idea why you listened to the ass.

Because his video mate was Glenn Loury. If Loury, who is not supporting Obama but who is not hostile or even necessarily critical of his candidacy, had not been part of the exercise then I would not have watched.

My answer:  Because the kind of deliberative space and effort, especially given Loury's presence, is worthwhile.  And, at least in that video, McWhorter wasn't "stupid."  Indeed, his idea and Obama's converged which says to me that Obama's viewpoint is shared among "asses" and not-quite "asses" alike. 
 

Of course, McWhorter is in full ass-mode when and where his "trillion dollar" rhetoric converges with Pat Buchanan's.

So, maybe I'm saying, with a lot of leeway given... McWhorter is a half-ass?