So, the instructor says, go ahead, take a cookie....they're delicious. Just try one...go ahead. So you reach out to pinch just one little cookie from the pile and as you do, BAM! He slaps your hand!
And that, friends, is the state of the 'conversation' about race in America today.
The racist AG Holder claims that Americans are too cowardly to bring the subject to the floor... but as soon as one attempts it, takes the bait, Holder slaps your hand with "Holder sees 'racial animus' in opposition"
Holder sees 'racial animus' in opposition | TheHill
Which brings me to John McWhorter. "John Hamilton McWhorter V (born 1965) is an American linguist and political commentator. He is the author of a number of books on language and on race relations."
John McWhorter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
1. In his usual well-considered prose, McWhorter discusses the difficult subject as "in fact, indicative of a certain psychic roadblock in enlightened black thought of late.
2. Theodore R. Johnson III, writing on NPRs blog to tell us that when we hear an ice cream truck play Turkey in the Straw, we must understand that the tune has racist origins..... because ice cream parlors played minstrel songs in the nineteenth century, people in the 1920s and 1930s would have associated Turkey in the Straw with its unsavory alternate versions. In response to Johnson, I wrote that by the time those trucks existed, people thought of the tune as simply Turkey in the Straw, a song about the farm. No evidence exists that ice cream parlors were ever sites uniquely associated with racist music.
3. ... it is here that we encounter the psychic roadblock I referred to above. For Johnson, the main thing is that somehow, some way, we must acknowledge the racist history of that ice cream jingleeven if it requires bending over backward regarding the facts.
4. Its revealing that Johnson is so deeply committed to showing that there is something racist about ice cream jinglesit tips us off that Johnson is ultimately talking about something much bigger than ice cream. His intent becomes clear in his final observationthat ice cream trucks have played other tunes with minstrel histories, such as the Stephen Foster chestnuts Oh, Susanna and Camptown Races.
5. No doubt, those tunes were racist in their original incarnations, with their dusting of Negro dialect and more (some of the lyrics to Oh Susanna, now unsung, show how sick America was at the time). But those songs were written back in the Gilded Age. As time passed, they seeped into Americas pop fabric as faceless little ditties. Almost no one learning Camptown Races (doo da, doo da) at camp, or while taking elementary piano lessons, has any idea that the song began as a black-oriented tune.
a. Or, think of what the expression that sucks really meansand note that, today, we never do.
6. But the question is how much we need to consider, eternally, the history of things .... Your average person is thinking about getting a popsicle or cone. Johnson wants us to stop, mid-lick, and consider that 130 years ago, people would have heard that tune and been as likely to associate it with its Zip Coon lyric as the Turkey one.
7. Johnsons position is akin to Ta-Nehisi Coatess in his Atlantic piece, The Case for Reparations, which was greeted with something approaching religious rapture in certain corners. Just as Johnson suggests ... Coates wants us to enlighten the person scarfing their hot dogs on the Fourth of July while denying the facts of our heritage. He wants an America where our racist history is not just something taught in school and commemorated in museums and Oscar-winning films and hit plays, as it currently is. To Coates, none of that is enough; America remains a country that turns away from acknowledging racism.
8. .... classifies critics of his first article as the sorts who dont get it, who dont want to talk about race. Coates seems to want Americas racist past to constitute an eternal, gnawing background awareness for all citizens,..."
The Case For Moving On by John H. McWhorter, City Journal 11 July 2014
McWhorter is warning us about individuals who wear their skin color as though it is a suppurating wound that never gets better, and never will.....yet the closest they've come to oppression is picking cotton out of an aspirin bottle.
McWhorter is a wise man....far wiser than the Holder's who aim to keep a wedge between the people of this nation.
And that, friends, is the state of the 'conversation' about race in America today.
The racist AG Holder claims that Americans are too cowardly to bring the subject to the floor... but as soon as one attempts it, takes the bait, Holder slaps your hand with "Holder sees 'racial animus' in opposition"
Holder sees 'racial animus' in opposition | TheHill
Which brings me to John McWhorter. "John Hamilton McWhorter V (born 1965) is an American linguist and political commentator. He is the author of a number of books on language and on race relations."
John McWhorter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
1. In his usual well-considered prose, McWhorter discusses the difficult subject as "in fact, indicative of a certain psychic roadblock in enlightened black thought of late.
2. Theodore R. Johnson III, writing on NPRs blog to tell us that when we hear an ice cream truck play Turkey in the Straw, we must understand that the tune has racist origins..... because ice cream parlors played minstrel songs in the nineteenth century, people in the 1920s and 1930s would have associated Turkey in the Straw with its unsavory alternate versions. In response to Johnson, I wrote that by the time those trucks existed, people thought of the tune as simply Turkey in the Straw, a song about the farm. No evidence exists that ice cream parlors were ever sites uniquely associated with racist music.
3. ... it is here that we encounter the psychic roadblock I referred to above. For Johnson, the main thing is that somehow, some way, we must acknowledge the racist history of that ice cream jingleeven if it requires bending over backward regarding the facts.
4. Its revealing that Johnson is so deeply committed to showing that there is something racist about ice cream jinglesit tips us off that Johnson is ultimately talking about something much bigger than ice cream. His intent becomes clear in his final observationthat ice cream trucks have played other tunes with minstrel histories, such as the Stephen Foster chestnuts Oh, Susanna and Camptown Races.
5. No doubt, those tunes were racist in their original incarnations, with their dusting of Negro dialect and more (some of the lyrics to Oh Susanna, now unsung, show how sick America was at the time). But those songs were written back in the Gilded Age. As time passed, they seeped into Americas pop fabric as faceless little ditties. Almost no one learning Camptown Races (doo da, doo da) at camp, or while taking elementary piano lessons, has any idea that the song began as a black-oriented tune.
a. Or, think of what the expression that sucks really meansand note that, today, we never do.
6. But the question is how much we need to consider, eternally, the history of things .... Your average person is thinking about getting a popsicle or cone. Johnson wants us to stop, mid-lick, and consider that 130 years ago, people would have heard that tune and been as likely to associate it with its Zip Coon lyric as the Turkey one.
7. Johnsons position is akin to Ta-Nehisi Coatess in his Atlantic piece, The Case for Reparations, which was greeted with something approaching religious rapture in certain corners. Just as Johnson suggests ... Coates wants us to enlighten the person scarfing their hot dogs on the Fourth of July while denying the facts of our heritage. He wants an America where our racist history is not just something taught in school and commemorated in museums and Oscar-winning films and hit plays, as it currently is. To Coates, none of that is enough; America remains a country that turns away from acknowledging racism.
8. .... classifies critics of his first article as the sorts who dont get it, who dont want to talk about race. Coates seems to want Americas racist past to constitute an eternal, gnawing background awareness for all citizens,..."
The Case For Moving On by John H. McWhorter, City Journal 11 July 2014
McWhorter is warning us about individuals who wear their skin color as though it is a suppurating wound that never gets better, and never will.....yet the closest they've come to oppression is picking cotton out of an aspirin bottle.
McWhorter is a wise man....far wiser than the Holder's who aim to keep a wedge between the people of this nation.
