If Dean is so weak on race, what makes your candidate better on it?

[BurtWorm]

I don't think Dean is weak on race, except for the fact that he comes from a state that isn't racially diverse.

Please don't bash Dean in this thread. Please speak to the strnegths of your candidates on this issue. Thanks.

[AP]

1. For Edwards, this:

There was that GQ article about Edwards. He was asked to tell a story about how his life intersected with race in the south. Improbably, he said that he couldn't think of one. They asked a high school friend who said that the black students wanted to have a separate prom. They were having a sit-in at school. Edwards walked up to one of the organizers, talked for a few minutes, and sat in with them. Edwards said he couldn't remember the event.

There are pictures of Edwards on the HS basketball and football teams. Many black faces in those pictures.

Edwards tells the story about how the valedictorian of his law school class (and a good friend today) would not have been in that class if not for AA -- thus his argument about AA is that it takes down barriers and allows people to fully express their abilities and capacity for hard work.

Edwards tells the story about how Robbins, where he grew up, is now mustly latino. They go there for the same reason his father went there: a better life. He wants to give them the same options as his father had. Thus his message about race, again, is that he wants to take down barriers.

In 1998 it was the black vote that came out heavily for him. He hasn't forgotten that. The black community, I understand, loves JRE in NC. More black people have voted for Edwards than any other candidate (and possibly all the other candidates combined). Incidentally, 12 years ago, Gep's district was 99% white. It was one of the whitest districts in the house. Don't know if that's still true today.

Edwards was the first candidate to state that he was going to respect the NAACP boycott in SC by staying only in private homes. This is above and beyond what the NAACP said they would consider keeping the boycott.

On Tavis Smiley, Smiley said that he talked to prominent NYC black Democrats who told Sharpton that Edwards was at the top of their donor lists. Sharpton's response: he agreed with the donors that Edwards was great.

[BurtWorm]

2. With all due respect, I don't think "Some of my best friends"

demonstrates strength in race issues any more now than it did then. But the support of the NAACP boycott is valid. Is he really keeping to it?

[AP]

3. Edwards didn't say that. It is a fact that they are friends today.

In the article I read about this it was stated that the guy was good friends with Edwards. He's a Raliegh attorney and very prominent. (Admittedly, this is all from memory -- the article I read was from when the U of M case was an issue -- Edwards might have said he the guy was a friend, but he definitely didn't leave it at "I'm OK because some of my best friends are black." He was telling an allegory about AA, not about himself or who his friends were.)

Edwards is keeping to the boycott. Dean's first response to that issue, after Edwards had been keeping to it was that Dean was still evaluating the issue.

I also think the Tavis Smiley thing and his '98, and the story about Robbins are ALL very powerful. It's not just the boycott.

[HFishbine]

30. NAACP Boycott

The head of the SC state NAACP recognized the need for Democrats to run effective campaigns in the state and gave his blessing for them all to put aside the boycott while they campaign.

Edwards supporters claim that he is only staying in private homes. However, campaign finance records show that his campaign is spending money on hotels in SC. Whether those expenditures are for Edwards or staffers isn't clear. If Edwards himslef is only staying in private homes (hard to confirm) it's a symbolic gesture at best as his campaign, like all the others, is not limiting the money they are spending in SC on lodging or any other area.

[spooky3]

37. Edwards' fighting to keep bigoted judges from being approved by Senate

[tameszu]

4. Clark has unambiguously and consistently supported race-based Aff. Action

See the amicus brief to the Supreme Court to which Clark contributed. This is the result of working in an institution which is much more heavily african american (50% of all females in the armed forces, for example) and poor than most other government institutions in the U.S.

And Clark doesn't want to put barriers on native American tribes who seek official recognition. Go ask the Vermont Abenaki why they think about Dean (and why Clark has scored the 2 biggest native American endorsements in the race so far). In the indian country SW states on Feb. 3, these endorsements will counter Dean's union power.

[Marian]

31. Excellent.

He also has Mary Frances Berry (who has never endorsed a candidate for president before) (yes, the Mary Frances Berry of the Civil Rights Commission who headed the investigation into the 2000 voter fraud in Floriduh); Andrew Young; Charlie Rangel; Coleman of Cleveland and many other African-American supporters and high-level (as well as ordinary level) campaign workers. He is endorsed by some Native American groups as well as Hispanic political office holders. For the moderates and Texans, he has 18 reps in Texas supporting him. He also has the www.Jews4Clark.com site.

This guy has got it all - plus he's worn a real uniform. If the democrats want to get rid of BushCo, no question the only chance with the national electorate is Clark...endorsed as well by the progressives mentioned above.

[jumptheshadow]

32. Clark's reputation was for being pro-minority

When he moved into a command where there were no minority officers one of the first things he did was pick up the phone and get qualified minority commanders.

Not only was that the right thing to do, it was the smart thing, too, seeing that the military is one of the most integrated institutions in this country.

[corporatewhore]

5. Kucinich has

worked to end racially biased/fueled death penalty and drug war
defended aff. action
his Dept.Peace was designed to address issues and work towards solutions for hate crimes
He has never pretended that he is the only one to talk about race and he has not defended the confederate flag

[AP]

6. I like DK, but I vaguely remember some story about him trying to appeal...

...to latent anti-black sentiment in a local race in Cleveland. I may have this totally wrong, and it was discussed here a LONG LONG time ago. I don't want to start rumors, so let's operate from the presumption that I'm totally wrong.

Anyone remember anything about this?

[BurtWorm]

11. I started that thread, which was based on stories in Cleveland

magazine, and it was a fruitful discussion between me and Kucinich supporters. In a nutshell: Kucinich's first run for the city council was as a representative of the city's Westside, where white ethnics were up in arms about busing. Kucinich, who grew up on the poorer, blacker Eastside, was determined to represent his new constituency (I get the feeling because he believed someone had to do it), and he altered some of his positions accordingly, i.e., opposing busing, criticizing public housing projects being built among his constituency, opposing gun control, opposing making a holiday of Martin Luther King's birthday. But of course, in the mid-1980s, after suffering major political setbacks in Cleveland, Kucinich went back to his more progressive roots.

[AP]

13. There's a picture of Kucinich on his HS football team. There isn't a...

...single black kid on the team. I presume that, if he grew up in the Eastside, he must have attended a private school (Catholic, no doubt). Yes?

[indigo32]

14. Can't imagine how they could have afforded Catholic School

wasn't he raised in quite a poor family?

[AP]

15. Church scholarships?

Anyone know about this?

[OhioStateProgressive]

33. a catholic poorhouse school

and Dennis went to 4 or 5 different schools in Cleveland over the course of his life

[blm]

35. Poor people like DK and my family traded for tuition.

My father did all the electrical work for the church and school in exchange for his kids' schooling thru 8th grade. There were 12 of us.

When DK was in an orphanage/kid's home, my aunt was one of the head nuns there. Everyone did the best they could with what they had.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

36. Catholic Schools were free when I attended in the 70's

at least in Springfield, Massachusetts. Bt the time I graduated there was a nominal "book fee". Poor kids could get waivers.

[BurtWorm]

16. Probably.

Disassociating from African-Americans by choice is an issue--and I doubt that's why Kucinich went to Catholic school. But association with African-Americans is not necessarily a sign that one is not going to take their votes for granted in the general election. It seems to me that Dean is going to work harder for the African-American vote because of this perception of weakness, and because he truly believes in enfranchisement and empowerment of the disaffected, disempowered and disenfranchised.

[AP]

18. His rhetoric is at odds with that perception though.

Seriously, he says civil rights law has done what it can, and now it's time to address subconscious FEELINGS about racial preferences in hiring. He told Howard U. students that caring about high black incarceration rates was liberal and weepy.

I don't think that he's trying so hard for black voters. I think he's trying to convince moderate whites that they won't have to make any significant sacrifices in order to right the wrongs of racism.

[BurtWorm]

21. When did he make this statement about incarceration rates

and what were his exact words? Thanks.

[AP]

23. He said it at Howard University immediately after the excitement about

the confederate flag statement (I think -- if not, it was right after he got called on saying he was the only person to speak bluntly about race to white audiences).

Google "Dean Howard Univeristy liberal weepy" and you should find it.

[BurtWorm]

27. I think you're misrepresenting his remarks.

According to the one news story I found about it, the remark was in response to a question about African-American incarceration, which Dean began to answer by addressing drug laws. It was those he was saying "we" (Democrats) shouldn't get "all liberal and weepy" about, meaning the issue should be addressed not just as a "tragedy" (which I, personally believe it is) but as a misapplication of justice. He said, in particular, that he thought drugs should be viewed less as a criminal issue and more as a medical one.

Typically, when Dean is charged with making "gaffes," especially ones you can't believe anyone in their right mind would make, it turns out he was actually making sense.

[AP]

34. What you quoted is EXACTLY what I said he said.

My point is that he thinks high black incarceration rates are an issue that has to do with drug abuse and that it's liberal and weepy to care about them as something more significant.

I think the issue is MUCH more important and I'm a little stunned by Dean's response.

I think putting a lot of black people in jail was something America started doing in the 70s as a very conservative response to a situation that developed because racism and conservativism wasn't delivering the economic benefits of our society to black communities. Rather than fix that problem, America started putting blacks in jail. It got worse when private companies figured out a way to make a lot of money off of this, which is preventing America from fixing the problem.

Drug abuse is another correlary of the central problem, and is not the cause.

I think Dean is ALL WRONG on this issue and I think his statement is very revealing. I don't think this a gaffe in the sense that he didn't mean to say it. I think this is what he thinks and that he's an idiot and a closet Libertarian.

[BurtWorm]

39. He did not say he thought they were insignificant.

He was remarking on a failed strategy to get the public to deal with the issue of high rates of incarceration for black men. Drugs is very often the excuse to put black men in jail. What do you think racial profiling is about? RP gives cops a "reason" to pull black men over, and possession is often the excuse to arrest them, especially if they have nothing to do with the supposed crime the police are allegedly investigating.

Or do you have another theory about how DAs were able to convince judges and juries to put millions of people in prison who happened to be young black men?

[AP]

41. You really think drug abuse is a cause

of (rather than a correlary with) high incarceration rates?

The penalties for intention to distribute are way higher than for possession of amounts which suggest you only use drugs. You may not even use drugs, but have to sell them becuase it's the only job you can get, and you'll go to jail for a long long time. What good is a drug treatment program to you? It's not going to solve your real problems which is that we have structurally poverty in black communities which the government doesn't care to fix.

Your last sentence could produce a book-length argument if I were to address it fully. Suffices to say that DA's have lots of discretion about what they're going to pursue and that there's a very complicated nexus of political will, cultural influences and socio-economics which determines who goes to jail, and sending lots of black men to jail is a product of that complicated nexus. You can't seriously say that DA's have sent tons of black men to jail because that's the fact of American life, black men are more criminal than any other demographic and their convictions are the sausage that comes out the other end of rational, efficient criminal justice sausage machine.

It also suffices to say that Howard Dean and I have VERY different views about this issue and I would hate to vote for someone with views like his.

[AP]

42. BTW, if we cooly and rationally put drug ABUSERS in jail

regardless of class and race, two-thirds of the white people in my high school class would be in jail.

How many times do the police do a pretext-less stop and search of white 17 year-old which reveals the inevitable bag of pot? Rarely. There's way more going on here than, as Dean seems to believe, black people's drug abusing ways are putting them in jail at disproportionate rates.

[BurtWorm]

43. Your points are well taken.

I'm not an expert on Dean's position, and it might turn out I disagree with him as much as I agree with you about a lot of this. I don't believe Dean is quite as simplistic about this issue as you are making him out to be. I think of Dean as a radical incrementalist, in a way, as someone who will push hard for incremements he can get, so the flag can be moved further back for the next increment. That's clearly his position on medical insurance. I read the statement you had a violent reaction to as a push to take one weapon out of racial profilers' hands. I admit, I may be misreading it.

[BurtWorm]

44. Incidentally, here's an interesting snippet from a fairly critical piece

on Dean and the press in the Nation a few months back. The author, Matt Taibbi, complains for most of the piece that reporters don't want to deal with issues, and Dean wasn't making too much of an effort to get them to. But he talks about an interesting moment on the press plane relevant to this discussion we're having:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20031006&c=4&s=taibbi

...On the last day, for instance, Dean made his daily plunge accompanied by a friend, the former mayor of Baltimore and an ex-classmate of Dean's from Yale, Kurt Schmoke.

Schmoke's presence on the flight ought to have been a big story among the press corps, for he is something of an anomaly in American politics. One of the country's most visible and outspoken black politicians, Schmoke was perhaps the first major politician in America to openly advocate the decriminalization of drug use. He once famously described the war on drugs as "our domestic Vietnam" and, before he left office in 1999, implemented a series of drug reforms in Baltimore aimed at the "medicalization" of the drug problem.

Considering the sensitivity of the drug issue in America, it was an act of some political bravery on Dean's part to bring Schmoke into the back of the plane with him. He was clearly trying to make a point, but no one among the reporters seemed interested.


...


PS: Do you think Schmoke is an "idiot" whose position on this issue you'd have difficulty supporting?

[Brian_Expat]

7. Excellent point!

So far, all I see are variants of:

1) "Some of my best friends are. . . "

2) "<Blank's> platform says. . . "

Both can be applied to Dean as well, which exposes the anti-Dean rhetoric in this instance to what it is -- the sputtering of demogogues. :)

[AP]

8. Respectfully, you've mischaracterized mine.

Mine is, basically, Edward's biography has an intersection with race. Edwards has looked at his biography and has applied his experiences to policy in a way I think is totally approrpiate (racism is a barrier preventing people from opportunities to work hard and be rewarded fairly for their efforts). As a result, Tavis Smiley, Al Sharpton, and the thousands of NC AA's who have voted for him recognize these facts.

Can you beat that?

[Brian_Expat]

9. Depends on how you define "beat"

For me, Edwards' refusal to move on gay equality harms his views on diversity. There, Dean is stronger.

Overall, I think the idea that any Democratic candidate in this field "isn't good on race issues" is hogwash -- EXCEPT for Al Sharpton. Sharpton is actually responsible for deaths due to his incitement of racial violence.

[AP]

12. Read Lisa Duggan's The Twilight of Equality.

She has a long chapter on Andrew Sullivan's advocasy of gay marriage and talks about how incorporating gay people into one of the most conservative institutions in our society might be conservative. What she suggests is that rather than incorporating gays into a government recognition of marriage (ie, asking state and church to overlap further) perhaps we should be expanding the notion of civil unions and opening that up to oppostie sex couples.

Edwards is all for extending all the legal aspects of marriage to same sex couples. Compare this to Andrew Sullivan, and Edwards might acutally be pretty liberal on this issue.

[Brian_Expat]

17. I'm no fan of Sullivan. . .

. . . but I am also no fan of "separate but equal," whether it's over interracial marriage or gay marriage. It should be available to anyone who wants it, equally.

[AP]

19. Read Duggan's book.

She makes a great argument about why Sullivan's pro-gay marriage argument is VERY conservative.

As for me, I put separation between church and state pretty high on my list of good things. If you can find a church that wants to marry you, great. It's not the governments business. The government should have a category called 'civil union' which confers all the legal rights of marriage on people. It should be open to same sex and opposite sex couples.

Basically, it's a Justice of the Peace marriage, except you don't wast the time and money on the JoP ceremony. More accurately, it should be enought to file with the government.

[Brian_Expat]

20. Agreed, IF the government ends all recognition of all marriages. . .

. . . and offers only "civil unions" to everyone.

BTW, I am aware of Duggan's arguments, and I don't subscribe to them myself. She is too far to the left for my tastes.

Similar arguments to hers were made by Black Panther Party radicals in the 1960s about radical racial seperatism, and I oppose seperatism or segregation of any sort -- racial, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

[AP]

22. Duggan doesn't advocate what I said. As I said it's implied. She limits

herself to a critique of Sullivan's argument in that book.

If you've read her taking the argument farther, I'd love to read it. What have you read of hers?

[Brian_Expat]

26. I've read three articles by her. . .

. . . including a compilation which had an article from her about gay marriage in a book which I believe was edited by Andrew Sullivan. It's somewhere in my library, I'll look it up and PM you with the title. Interesting reading.

About the only issue where I agree with Sullivan is gay marriage. Everything else? Yuck. :)

[corporatewhore]

10. I was refering to Kucinich's record

he has worked for years as co chair of the proggressive caucus with the black caucus to try to end the death penalty war on drugs and to defend aff.action

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[AP]

25. one ethnic minority in SE Europe loves Clark, however.

[LTR]

28. The US Army is highly integrated

There are many minorities that serve, not to mention women.

I have heard that Clark is viewed favorably by minority groups because there is no racial or ethnic discrimination in the armed forces.

[zulchzulu]

29. Kerry has 100% rating with NAACP

That's pretty good if you ask me.

http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/civilrights/

[CWebster]

38. Not much of a showing for those who would defend

their candidate....which would seem to indicate that the intent all along was exclusively to bash Dean.

[BurtWorm]

40. I noticed that as well.

:eyes:

[diamondsoul]

45. I'll try to explain my position on race

but it's a little odd for most people.

I prefer Kucinich stance on it because he and I think a lot alike. I can see that in his lack of mention of race in general when he explains his positions. It's not because we don't care about the racial divide in the United States and I mention that because I think a few people take it that way.

It's because we don't categorize people by race. I'm betting if you asked Kucinich to name 5 "black people" he knows, he wouldn't be able to do it. Not because he doesn't know any, but because he doesn't LOOK at people or sort his friends by their race. I discovered that about myself back when I was about 15. I had a class in HS and one day the teacher brought up subconscious racism. That is how it's possible for people to have racist tendencies and views without even being aware of it. Her question to start the discussion was "How many black students ride your bus?". She watched how the kids figured out how many there were, going through each student individually and how the kids were thinking and pointing to specific sections of the bus to calculate who was black and who wasn't. She pointed out that the segregation that happened on their buses was a sort of subconscious racism.

Anyway, when she came around to me I blinked a few times, thought hard and then said "I can't think of any!". She looked at me like I'd completely lost my mind. LOL There were in fact about 17 black students I rode to and from school every day with, only I couldn't think of any because that wasn't how I percieved them, ever. They weren't "black kids", they were just kids. That's where Kucinich comes from. People aren't black, white, brown, yellow, or whatever, they're just people.

It's leading by example, and his positions on the issues fit my perception. While there are some issues that have to be defined by race, such as immigration problems, hate crime and things like that, generally speaking what policy is good for a poor white person will also be good policy for a poor black, NA, Middle Eastern or any other race person. Did that make sense?

BTW, I prefer Kucinich's outlook on race, but I am sickened by the low blow aimed at Dean.