robillionaire wrote:Clyde_Style wrote:robillionaire wrote:
There is a new party starting. I don't know if it's going to be worth joining or not. If it is, perhaps it would be worth participating. I'm registered in the green party but flexible to another option. It's possible there's still room in the dems, although it becomes more clear by the day those like myself are not welcome. A lot of things are up in the air right now, especially with an election around the corner. We don't know which way the winds will blow.
I never said I had the answers to every question, and I never said that my approach was better. Or that yours didn't have any value. I was giving my interpretation of what he was saying in the letter, which I still believe to be the correct interpretation and not "appropriated in a perverse fashion". You are free to disagree with the way I interpret it, but you want to take it to a personal level. Your questions are fair, and of course we could all ask ourselves if we are doing enough in a moment like this, but I don't know you or anybody else on here from Adam and I'm not going to answer it. You aren't entitled to demand answers about someone's personal life. But I would also encourage you to ask the same questions of yourself if the moment is truly serious.
Wingo was the one abusing MLK's legacy. That you chose to defend Wingo's tactics is clear. That I attacked Wingo for this is clear. The inference that I responded to you in the same attack mode is definitely not clear.
Me asking you to explain why your sense of urgency is greater or what you are doing to prove that you are acting on the sense of urgency WAS THE NEXT LOGICAL QUESTION TO ASK you on the basis of your interaction with me and MLK's text. I gave you room to account for yourself, but not to validate Wingo's self-aggrandizement and attempt to elevate himself and paint everyone not on his list as Republican Lite and the usual BS he pushes.
So you can step into the middle of a row if you want. I didn't swing at you. I dealt with you. And gave you an opportunity to respond. Big difference.
Yes, my questions are fair. But if you don't want people to ask what you are doing personally then the flipside is not defending eggregious behavior when another person is abusing MLK to impugn the character of their opponents. It goes both ways. You're always welcome to talk to me. I don't hate Wingo. I'll talk to him anytime. But I'm not putting up with this.
Honestly, I don't check the thread that much anymore. I came in and yours was the first post I saw. I was actually not even sure if I was taking you in the right context or not. I'm still not entirely sure what you were trying to say about that quote. What does that quote mean to you, if you didn't agree with my interpretation? Did I misrepresent yours? I probably shouldn't have even jumped into that mess without reading back several pages and I regretted it as soon as I clicked submit. I simply wanted to discuss the quoted part of the letter. I see that you took it personally but you'll just have to believe that it was never my intent to say that you aren't doing enough. Whether or not you are doing enough is ultimately up to you to decide. I never think I'm doing enough. I think that's a good attitude to have.
You probably missed quite a bit then. I think you can appreciate why I don't want to go back and review what preceded.
Per MLK, he was sitting in a jail cell wondering what is it going to take. I certainly don't blame him for questioning the intentions of white folks who claim to suppport civil rights when you're still getting hosed and clubbed and jailed. What it will take is risking some of your advantages for the sake of protecting others. And that usually takes larger numbers of people of all shapes and colors unified in protest. So you do need white people willing to risk their freedom to gain freedom for everyone. MLK was correct about this. A movement of a single race agitating solely for that single race will go nowhere. At the end of the day, only a humanist creed will triumph over systemic oppression.
Now as far as MLK criticizing white folks who don't walk the talk, well he's not the only one to make that observation. Long before he wrote Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe was a cultural essayist in the sixties and 70s when he coined the phrase Radical Chic. New York City had its share of parties where privileged people would invite black panthers or cool radicals to hang out in their boojie digs. It doesn't mean they gave two craps about those people. There have always been liberals with money who give to causes and do nothing else though. Mass protest and hard core grassroots electioneering is what gets the real change done. Having money from those do nothing liberals to campaign with does help, so each person has their role to play if you look at it like an ecosystem.
I saw some of it as a kid. My family was not rich, but they were resourceful. My dad built a country house all by himself and we'd go there from NYC most weekends. One time we brought a Black Panther with us. He was a really nice guy. It was a normal weekend. BBQ, swimming, cocktails. We never heard from him again. The FBI called my dad about a decade later to ask what he knew about this guy. He knew nothing and they hung up.
Were we tripping on radical chic that weekend? Maybe, maybe not, but my mom was just being a host. She was a pretty blonde lady who didn't have a prejudiced bone in her body. During the biggest blackout in the 60s she was trapped in a subway car. She came home with the black guy she hung out on the train with and was friends with him for a short while.
Anyway, I share those things because that was not how everyone was in the sixties, but my family was cool with whomever came through the door. My friends were from everywhere and less than half of them were white. So I grew up thinking this is normal. But sadly it is not. I'd like to see that happen, but my only sense of urgency right now is for cops to stop beating the chit out of people and for Biden to kick Trumps ass and to take back the Senate.
