crikey, you're an asshole, icehole. let's (temporarily) assume that you have at least a low-level awareness of what you're talking about:

I'd be very careful on this. I may not agree with what Simon has to say, but I think you'll find he has taught at college level? Please correct me if I'm wrong Simon. And "if" he has then he more than likely has more than a low-level awareness

LW,

the only reason i presumed to define his personal blog as neo-nazi propaganda" is because he came on to my site to spout it. youre completely correct, LW. i have never been to his website, and though im sure i have read some of his articles, the reading must have been some time ago. on top of admitting my ignorance as to what makes empicecream tick i have been absent from joeuser for so long that i have no idea what makes anyone tick anymore . . . many of the joeusers who used to participate are no longer around, many of the joeusers that were here and still are have flipflopped on many positions that seemed so important to them only a few short months ago . . .

as usual, when i pop in to take a peak at what's happening, i tend to look first for a few authors who i find interesting. as it happens, your blog is one of them, and while i rarely agree with your positions on anything i always find your articles to be well-crafted, intelligent, and passionate postings, and you seem to take some care to respond to your responders.

as in the case with "what it's like to be white" you make a position, some of which is sound, and some of which seems to be an extension of your passionate ability to write rather than forward a position through logic--which first of all means nothing coming from me; and second of all is part of the blogging deal. we can call this publishing, but there's a difference. we have an understanding--though we tend to break the pact when we're criticizing people on the other side of the aisle (ex: spelling police).

the problem with "what it's like to be white" is not so much the article but the weight of all of the responses it received. my position on the subject of "who has a hard life?" is that we all have hard lives. shit is going to happen, and often it is going to happen to white people. also, sometimes the shit that falls on black people is not going to be white people shit, it's just going to be shit.

that doesnt change the fact that the black culture has been forcibly transplanted into our own culture.

if empicecream really has a problem with the term "white culture" that's fine, i dont need to use it, because im referring to western civ, which as a confluence of different ideas where the structures of semetic religious societies and the philosophies of a few greeks were carried to all parts of the world by the spread and the breakup of the roman empire.

i never said white means evil. i never said that other colors represent peaceful, all-get-along cultures. all i said was that OUR CULTURE is the one in which we're living right now, yes, a blend of many cultures, but these happen to be the places where ours come from.

im not sure if you really feel that empicecream's response to my post was an appropriate response. i dont know if you believe that my post was condescending enough to warrant the two overwhelmingly beligerent and increasingly vague responses emp made here. i also dont know whether or not empicecream was pretending to be unclear on what i was saying.

most of the sources he used were mildly relevant, not all, and i believe that none of it made any concrete argument against what i was saying. it looked like an ad hominem argument rather that one based on logical progression, and certainly didnt appear to be interested in any discourse whatsoever.

he just dropped two logically-fuzzy flame bombs on my site from left field. when you want to talk about something, you dont do that. you come up with some logic. then you write it down.

tbt

dr miller,

obviously empice has some background or he wouldnt be using the terminology . . . that he was using. that doesnt change the fact that most of it was used as an attack on me rather than anything i placed in my article.

whether or not he knows what post-colonialism means, not just today with its feminist and identity politic connotations, but in the sense that he seemed to be suggesting, i dont know. nor do i know why he threw marxist terms used to study primitive religions at me, or why he equates what he calls "metanarratives" with postmodernism when at most, a metanarrative is a technique that sometimes finds its way into postmodern art, but has found its way into art from the very beginning of all art.

none of that is the point. right now i am studying postmodernism in school which is, of course, why im writing about it now. i would love to discuss postmodernism with anyone who knows about it, even (especially) if they disagree with me. but empicecream's response was not a well-thought out argument. it was an often-time illogical, emotional outburst on someone else's page--mine--and little of it had to do with postmodernism. it had to do with is political beliefs and also his relationship to someone i disagreed with.

im sure you will agree that LW is perfectly capable of defending her ideas, which she did, by the way, in her own article where this response was originally posted, as linked at the top of this article.

crikey.

tbt

kingbee,

man, i missed you. what happened to this joeuser thing? there seemed to be some debatable ground last time i checked--i dont know if i would go so far as to call it middle ground--but at least there was some room for interesting discussions. wasnt there?

so i have about 23 bucks before i buy some printer paper. can i buy the rights to your short film? or i can work for film . . . i can play the part of the pig . . .

tbt

TbT I take offense at the "where is the discussion remark" I am open to your thoughts and have always remained civilized and respectfull when answering you.

MM

im not sure why youre sticking to the "TBT condescending to speak" tune. as i mentioned earlier, the considerable numbers and content of responses to your article made me sit back and take some deep breaths. it seems weird to me that you consider my response to be so condescending, LW, but of your own comments within the article and the user responses you make no note. true, my own response was vague and did not critically attack every conservative response i saw (the vagueness was then attacked by empire), and when you responded by commenting on the flavor of puke chunks slipping about your tongue like coagulated bits of chunky salsa . . . a conversation stopper, to say the least.

so please, LW, tell me why my post is so condescending when your post and the subsequent responses were cool and evenhanded:

LW
"Forget the fact that only a small percentage of Southern land owners owned slaves, our entire nation was built by hard-working blacks, while whitey sat around cracking the whip and sipping Mint Juleps. Never mind the fact that it was their own black brethren that captured and sold these slaves, and that many blacks faced lives of slavery in their own land even before being brought here in chains, (arguably an even worse fate.) And forget about the fact that now, hundreds of years later, blacks born and raised here as free men and women live far better than any born in Africa today, where famine, corruption, genocide, and disease flourish unchecked.

Nope, never mind the facts, folks, it's all my fault. I have white skin, you see".

first of all, none of these are simple facts, they are nuances of truth expressed in your emotional style of writing; and second, "never mind the facts, folks" doesnt strike you as condescending?

LW
"If a black person is unemployed, it's because the person who makes hiring decisions is white. It has nothing to do with their skills or qualifications, they didn't get the job because some racist white denied it to them.

If they are in trouble with the law, its because whitey's justice system is prejudiced against them. Every white cop, judge, jailer, probation and parole officer has conspired to incarcerate them. Why? Simply because they are white."

you are portraying a perspective, and you are exaggerating this perspective to the nth degree. whether by suggesting that this "black" perspective spies an absolute white conspiracy or by suggesting that white people have absolutely no responsibility for an utterly transplanted black community, you are being quite condescending.

LW
"If they have piss poor credit because they haven't paid their bills on time, its the fault of the racist banking system in this country."

here's a variety of responses i found (not written by you, necessarily, but just look at the cumulative affect):

"I have seen how blacks can move into a neighborhood and totally turn tha neighborhood into a drug infested, crime-ridden area, that just a few years earlier was a law-abiding upstanding neighborhood."

"I liked him alot.... intelligent, well-spoken....but in the end, he'd rather hold onto his people's truth than listen to ours. He's as black as the rest of them." (suggesting that if he was less black, more white, things would be different . . .)

"I asked Jermayne to exibit some of the same empathy he required of me, to consider what it's actually like on the other side of the fence, to try to see things through my eyes for just a moment. In order to do that, I had to describe what I see. I'm sure it caused him more than a moment of discomfort, but rather than deal with that and make an honest effort, I got more of the same old..."you're a racist and you'll never understand" sort of response, pleasantly (but rather ineptly) disguised." (you asked him to exhibit some of the empathy he required of you, but come on, LW! he's the only black guy in the middle of an unbridled conservative slugfest, and there wasn't much in the way of empathy in your article.)

"We were, correctly, forced by law to get rid of "blacks only" schools, restrooms, payphones, water fountains, lunch counters, bus seats....all the trappngs of segregation.
Until we get rid of BET, the Congressonal Black Caucus, the United Negro College Fund, and all the many ways in which blacks now legally exclude whites, while forcibly including themselves in (white) society at large, it an't happenin'." (while i tend to agree that the more isolated a community becomes, the more likely it is that the community at large wil suffer, but it's just not fair to assume that a culture which is finally beginning to get its head above water wont need support. do i think that every instance of majority-proof collaborative is good? no way. many are money-seeking entrepreneurs picking up a buck from the gullible. that happens everywhere and not just within segregated communities)

all right, that's enough. my point is not to bash the authors of these comments. my point is to show how, en masse, these comments demonstrate a condescending attitude for which you claim to be bashing my post.

and by the way, when you criticized me for vague language, as did emp "Unfortunately, it's also a ragbag of unquestioned, uncriticized assumption" i didnt realize i would receive it up the back end by getting into detail.

so please, LW. again: please explain why you are not being condescending while i am; why your crew is expressing reasonable, evenhanded thoughts? is it simply a matter of rhetoric? i just dont get it. go ahead and bash, i guess.

tbt

moderateman,

you are right: whether or not you agree you are always willing to discuss, and you have some impressive emotional-control skills that i sorely lack. honestly, in the midst of this unexpected whirlwind, i've lost track of the "where's the discussion" comment i made.

was it directed at you? if it was, im sorry.

tbt

will you chill out and listen to yourself?

jermayne handled himself well, no one questioned that ever (except the poster who said he was "just as black as the others" or whatever), but whether or not there is a difference between sarcasm and condescending rhetoric, you and 39 other white, conservative authors arent going to be able to have an open, even dialogue with one black man. if there had been anyone else in sight who took his part, you would have heard "a load of the same old crap" and not just from me. it's not condescending LW, that's dialogue, where people get to point out things that you dont want to say. there were no other people willing to speak up with him, black or white or red or yellow, liberal or conservative. so he can take care of himself. fantastic. so what's wrong with a white person agreeing with him? what happened to your policy of bullshit to the color excuse? now only black people can speak anti-LW?

and give me a break LW. if your article had been written as if you believed literally every word, no sarcasm, no irony, then there would be no discussion here. i wouldnt have responded. i would have thought "well, there goes another ultra-righter that no one can talk to." and beyond that, what kind of dialogue were you hoping to open, LW? a dialogue with you and forty other think-alikes? jermayne stuck it out from a different thread, but i assume you noticed that you werent dialoguing with anyone else. just because i came in late to your "discussion" to make a different case shouldnt make you feel like you opened up an enlightened, uncondescending dialogue any more than i did. it was just as condescending, if not more because you refused to allow my comments, different than yours though they were, into the dialogue. that equals "no dialogue" or monologue or preaching or whatever variation ofthe word "condescending" that doesnt "frost your ass."

you want to talk? fine. talk. but listen. talk and listen.

whether or not you believe that YOU come from a long tradition of cultural influences is up to you, but by now you shouldnt be shocked to hear that many other people do believe that where we come from affects who we are. you're going to keep hearing such heresy if, as you claim, you want a dialogue.

i cant believe that you feel my comments were somehow more insulting than the flames you and emp threw into my thread. sorry if my opinions seem like the same load of crap to you, but would you be shocked to find that your own "groundbreaking" articles sound like the same old crap youve written before? that's how it goes. you believe what you want and unless you confront yourself at a 2am epiphany and suddenly go buddhist, the rest of us are stuck with good ole LW. it just so happens that many of us are willing to listen.

talk. listen. okay, LW, that's dialogue. my crap will sound the same. so does yours. sweet.

tbt

Taboo, you had a great article, but it seems to be deteriorating into a he said she said diatribe. Perhaps we can restart this fresh looking at another aspect of it and try again.

dr,

well, you're probably right, and i hope so, and i suppose that's how it goes.

thanks for the comment, by the way.

tbt

TaBoo, you allowed yourself to get sidetracked. You got pulled off your original thesis, which I found illuminating, and slipped down that steep slope that led to, of all things, debating about how to debate. Despite what some say, I was actually looking forward to 'more of the same'. There is a comfort in knowing that there is at least one person here who, give or take a point, shares my view of the world and is capable of presenting a case for it in an eloquent manner. You were steered off course and in short, this post was shanghaied.

Let's get back to it........you were saying?

so i have about 23 bucks before i buy some printer paper. can i buy the rights to your short film? or i can work for film

save your money. consider this a full transfer of any rights i may have once the dw griffith estate is finished suing me.

My paternal grandparents were slaves to the coal mines of eastern Kentucky, so where's MY affirmative action, hmm

apparently your concept of what it is to be a slave is a bit blurry if you see any equivalency whatsoever between your grandparents' situation and that imposed upon africans brought here in chains as property to be sold and owned in perpetuity.

In other words, while my original article was indeed sarcastic, it opened a dialogue where there was some hope of understanding being incubated, and you ruined it with the same tired finger-pointing and blame game that I was using to illustrate that sarcasm. And no one, including that poor colored fellow surrounded by the equivilant of a JU lynch mob asked for your help in that regard.

the last statement provides far more damning proof of the innacuracy of your first statement than anything else i could say.

? there seemed to be some debatable ground last time i checked--i dont know if i would go so far as to call it middle ground--but at least there was some room for interesting discussions. wasnt there?

i'm in total agreement with both drguy (jeez luiz ) and ubob. this is how ground is reclaimed.