StrangeSox

what

Male view of entitlement to womens' bodies used to be worse in this country and is considerably worse in some other countries.

Can we at least all agree that the dudes (and it's pretty much always dudes) who make a big show of carrying long guns into public places are weird and creepy?

I understand, my hypothetical was more if say my boss became aware of me making an offensive tweet but otherwise it's completely disconnected from my work. He could still fire me for that reason (or no reason), but I don't think someone should necessarily be fired in a case like that.

An overwhelming majority of people in this country are ok with more restrictive gun laws, it's just that it's much easier to organize those that are really, really opposed along a single line of opposition. The recall elections in Colorado several months ago are a perfect example of that. Side note: if no amount of laws is going to stop people from killing other people, doesn't that undermine the whole "deterrent" argument for capital punishment or a harsh retributive justice system in general?

I'm going back and forth on the speech issue. No, it's not a violation of his 1st amendment rights probably, but it's still a stifling of his speech. The speech wasn't related to his job in any way, but he was (or became) a public face for the university. I'd certainly be fired for tweeting something like that from a work account, but would I or should I be fired for tweeting it from a personal account completely disconnected from my job, given that I'm not in any way a public face for the company?

I'm not sure how much of her platform from 2008 is relevant given that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will both be over by the end of 2016 and the other major issue, health care reform, was passed. edit: but it is May 2014. there is still plenty of time for campaign issues to emerge and for the major platform planks to be established. We didn't have the global financial collapse to deal with until a couple of months before the 2008 election.

So why shouldn't we care about restricting the availability of guns to gangs? If it's harder to buy legal guns, it's harder to funnel them to gangs. Short of confiscating a bunch of guns, you'll still have a huge supply for a while, but at least it wouldn't constantly be making matters worse.

This is from the bill. This is in the text that you quoted. Things can be about more than one thing. This is where you're being weirdly binary. I'm not sure why you keep insisting that the detailed examiniation of racial oppression in the post-Reconstruction era and into modern times that Coates details in this article and others (along with many other writers and scholars) and to which HR40 explicitly refers to alongside slavery is just "smoke and mirrors." I don't even understand your drive to "attack the core" in the first place versus discuss the topic. Not everything is an adversarial court battle. Honestly, whatever form reparations would take and whether or not its actually justified beyond something like HR40 which in my mind would function more like a truth and reconciliation committee than anything is the least interesting part of the article. Even if you don't ultimately agree that reparations are appropriate, the article still gives a background on how we arrived at the present. Even if HR40 was explicitly and exclusively about reparations solely for slavery, arguing why reparations for slavery aren't appropriate fails to engage or discuss the overwhelming bulk of the article. If all you want to do is say that Coates (and HR40) only care about slavery and that there shouldn't be reparations for slavery, then there's not much else to discuss.

Again, weird binary thinking. If it mentions slavery, everything else must be smoke and mirrors. If you claim it's not focused on slavery, that means you're saying that it has nothing to do with slavery. The summary of HR40 you posted mentioned more things than slavery. I'm not sure what's wrong with presupposing harm from the legacy of slavery and the ensuing racial and economic discrimination. I'm still thinking you haven't actually bothered to read Coates' article if you're saying something like that.

I don't disagree that it was a dumb thing to tweet and that it's pretty dumb even with "nuance," just not sure if the consequences should necessarily be losing your job or having the state legislature change the law so that you can lose your job.

Not related to anything above, just thought this was interesting when I came across it yesterday. The concept of "white" people didn't exist until an 1681 Massachusetts law. http://books.google.com/books?id=M_e2WLcxv...681&f=false No idea about the validity of the rest of what she is saying

It's twitter so there's not exactly a lot of nuance, but I imagine that argument is more that the NRA works to prevent any and all forms of gun regulation which all but guarantees that there will be another mass shooting with dead children. It is then only fair that the NRA lobbyists who work to prevent gun control suffer the consequences of their work instead of others. Not exactly a great argument, but different from arguing for retaliation.

HR40 being for the study of reparations as it relates to slavery doesn't mean that Coates wouldn't also support broader programs of social justice. You know, again, like the one he chose to mention as a potential form of reparations. Coates wrote a long article detailed the public policy of racial discrimination against African Americans in this country and used to make a case for the legitimacy of reparations. He nowhere argued that only blacks have suffered, that only blacks should receive some form of social/racial justice. Sharkey's research that he references includes discussion of Hispanic housing discrimination and nowhere does TNC reject that. He's focused on the black american experience because he's a black american from Baltimore. You can't conclude that if you write about and advocate for one specific topic, it implies that you don't also support if not actively oppose related topics. No piece of writing considers every possibility. As far as "smoke and mirrors," perhaps you should read his article again, or maybe even just the stated purpose of HR40 you quoted right above. The only one in this conversation who keeps focusing on slavery is you. Go back to the OP of this thread to see that Coates has been writing about this "smoke and mirrors" issue of 20th century housing discrimination for over a year now. Go read this follow-up that I've linked where he explains how he came to write this article, which sort of really undercuts your portrayal of him: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archiv...autopsy/371125/ So here he's laid out the initial thoughts on what this article might eventually become from the framework of other minorities being the target of lobbying by blacks, and his sympathy with those other minorities. Yes, he says and believes that black people deserve special consideration, and, with perhaps the exception of American Indians, I can't say I disagree. Many immigrant and minority communities have been treated poorly in this country, but blacks have gotten a particularly raw deal along the way that others really haven't. A lot of that it tied up directly in how so many black people came to be in this country in the first place. White people should support HR40. White people should also support broader social justice programs. These two ideas are not contradictory or incompatible. You can advocate for HR40 or some other reparations program (or not! reparations is not universally supported even within the African American community) while still recognizing and allying with other groups. For all we know, the recommendations that would be the outcome of HR40 would be something exactly along the lines of broad educational and works programs open to the poor of all races.

IIRC he said something along the lines of "blood is on your hands, I hope its your children next time." Not professional or level-headed, but not exactly just wishing random violence or retaliation against their children.

So your animus is based largely on an intentionally provocative title and a stubborn binary view where, if Coates is laying out the history and consequences of black discrimination and concluding with why that makes reparations a valid discussion topic, it implies that he does not recognize any other non-black racial struggles, past or present. You should waste time on the author so that you can actually understand his positions instead of assigning him the ones you've so quickly jumped to. You might be surprised if you read one of the follow-ups I've linked where he explained how he came to support the case for reparations over the past couple of years. Or you could once again look at one of the reparations proposals he chose to mention which would be a jobs and education program with racial (note: not exclusively black) justice as a goal "but includes the poor of all races." The only way to continue to insist that Coates only recognizes abuses against blacks and that he believes in no other forms of racial or social justice is to remain intentionally ignorant of what the man actually says and writes.

I'm not on any mailing lists, but Atrios has made a few comments on that: http://www.eschatonblog.com/2014/05/from-bean-to-cup.html From Bean to Cup

monster?

I know Cicero was mentioned in the article, and that reminded me of an episode of TAL on how Cicero came to be 2/3's Mexican-American these days: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-arch...sode/179/cicero Act One: To understand how Cicero reacted when Hispanics started flooding into town, you have to understand how it dealt with conflict in the past. For a period the town was run by Al Capone, and the mob was connected to Town Hall for most of the twentieth century. Since the 1950s, the town also had the reputation of being "the Selma of the North," with black people being driven from town by angry mobs while the authorities turned the other cheek; and a police chief who wore a t-shirt that says, "Police Brutality: The Fun Part of Police Work." Act Two: In the 1970s and 1980s, a wave of non-white migration into Cicero begins, this one primarily Mexican-American. The head of the political machine is named Betty Loren-Maltese, whose husband, now deceased, was convicted for mob-related activity. She responds to the newcomers with some of the intimidation tactics of the past, but also with some new ones that no town anywhere seems to have tried.

Is your only evidence for your claims that his piece on the history of anti-black discrimination only talks about anti-black discrimination? I've read nothing from Coates to indicate that he is concerned exclusively with the plight of black Americans, especially not to the point you're accusing him of where he fails to recognize or actively rejects others in poverty or their experiences. I mean, brief section he actually talks about some reparations programs, he mentions this: Drop Coates a line with some of your questions, he responds and dialogues a lot. I don't see where you're coming away with the messages from this piece that your are.

You said they ended in 1960. They didn't. Maybe Moyers should have phrased it "from the 1930's through the 1960's" but the extent and duration of the mortgage discrimination is made very clear in Coates' original article.

I was referring to the response I received from Prof. Sharkey in response to my question: also where did you read that the practices ended in 1960? That's pre-CRA, pre-Fair Housing.

I posted two links directly above that were in response to almost that exact question.

I had a dream last night that the hawks got completely dominated again.

Tnc on bill Moyers http://billmoyers.com/2014/05/28/ta-nehisi...ted-the-ghetto/ Also on democracy now! http://m.democracynow.org/stories/14399