HuffPost's misguided step: a segregated website

[pampango]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2011%2F01%2F25%2FEDUK1HE111.DTL

When the subject is race or ethnicity, conservatives usually flunk the course. Their modus operandi is to use minorities as foils, all to get the votes of white people.

Think Willie Horton. Or the debate over what the right calls reverse discrimination. Consider the immigration issue, much of which is guided by xenophobia. Or the schoolyard bullying of Sonia Sotomayor by Republican senators because she dared to suggest that white males might be at a disadvantage without the insights of a "wise Latina."

Alas, the alternative isn't much better. Despite polls that show most Americans give the left higher marks on race relations, the truth is that liberals usually don't get better than a "C" - for condescending. And sadly, even when liberals try to do the right thing and be more inclusive, they can't surrender the need to maintain control, which leads them to open the door only a crack and remind everyone just how exclusive their club really is.

Case in point: Plans by the unabashedly left-leaning Huffington Post to launch a special section of the website devoted to African Americans and another section for Latinos. What's the next trend in cyberspace? Segregated lunch counters? As the Internet age sprints forward, is it also going backward? Are the new media picking up old bad habits?

Doesn't seem that a website offering special sections designed to appeal to minorities is the same concept as forcing them to segregated lunch counters.

[somone]

1. Where are they gonna put Obama?

in the African-American dungeon?

[jonnyblitz]

5. does Obama blog? nt

[Bucky]

2. Thank you for posting these fact-free sweeping generalizations.

If HuffPo were limiting black contributors to their African American section, it'd be segregation. If there's a section that addresses concerns & issues about the black community, that's called "recognizing cultural and political realities." It's about as racist as the continuing existence of historically black colleges (which, by the way, now admit white students).

[n2doc]

3. yep. By their reasoning DU is segregated n/t

[TicketyBoo]

4. I have mixed emotions about this.

I can understand people wanting to know about and be proud of their heritage. But clinging to one's own racial/ethnic identity (and/or language) seems against America's tradition as a melting pot. You are (or come here to be) an American. I'm rather sorry to see anything that separates us from our collective identity as Americans.

[Bucky]

8. You'll find few historians actually pushing the "melting pot" theory in the past 40 years

For more than a generation, the term of choice has been the "vegetable stew" metaphor. We're all in the soup together, but that doesn't mean we have to lose our minority identities (and in one measure or another, just about every American is a minority).

[TicketyBoo]

13. But, as I just replied

the Melting Pot is what unites us. And what doesn't unite us tends to divide us.

A common language, a common culture.

Celebrate your heritage if you want to do that, but learn English; adapt. Become an American in spirit.

We are melting together more than ever before, I believe. I hope.

[jazzwinders]

9. Hey Tickety,

Maybe you're not aware, but black people do not have anyuthing to hold onto. Our culture is the american culture. By my grandmothers account, our family has been in this country for at least 7-8 generations (maybe more) and most of what we know and hold onto are things that we learned in the USA.

[TicketyBoo]

12. I am well aware,

but what would you prefer to be called? African-American? Black?

Whoopie Goldberg has said, "Don't be calling me an African-American! I'm an American who happens to be black. Africa has nothing to do with me."

That's the spirit I'm talking about — the American spirit. We're all in this together.

Are you proud of your ancestors' slave roots? That's something to hold onto, if you want to do that. Are you proud of your African roots? Some people are, and that's okay. But Whoopie's attitude is the one that's best for the country as a whole (and probably best for her, too).

It's over. Water under the bridge, spilt milk. We are the here and now. Let's get on with it. United we stand, right? Absolutely.

[Bucky]

14. I totally disagree

I couldn't disagree more with the statement "black people do not have anything to hold onto" in American culture. African Americans stand among the giants of American culture. The United States would not be the United States without jazz music, the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, the guitar, and the impact of slavery on the economy and culture of the whole nation (among a million other things in the language, the arts, the architecture, the music, social organization, religion, philosophy, and science.

The Black American experience is an integral part of the development of the American identity. American African and Afro-Caribbean roots may not be as well documented as some of the European roots, but the contribution of the mostly involuntary immigrants is real and irreplaceable. And this is to say nothing of the contributions that blacks have made to American culture since establishing nativity here.

[NoPasaran]

6. This is as bad as the supermarket putting Asian foods on a special aisle

Fucking racist scumbags!


:sarcasm:

[Zephie]

7. My best friend and I are of different races

I accept that there are some things that are more relevant to her than to me, and vice versa. I don't see this any differently. Some things apply to everyone and some things don't. Should we shut down BET for being racist?

[SoCalDem]

10. Offering "extra" space in addition to sharing the common, is not segregation

Houses have many rooms, each devoted to a particular activity.
All rooms are part of the same house. Sometimes people sleep in the living room, but there is also a special place designed around sleeping. Sometimes people eat in their bedrooms, living rooms & kitchen, even if there is a dining room.

I see nothing wrong in writers writing for the "commons", and also asking for a special place where they can write for their own particular interests. They are not being told that all their writing will be placed in that one area.. They are being offered an opportunity to "do more".

[ellenfl]

11. why'd you even post that? it's ruben navarette!

when i first read his columns, i did not expect a conservative slant but he is as rw as they get.

ellen fl

[Shagbark Hickory]

15. What does that make the Brio then?