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nofurylike

(8,775 posts)
Thu Jan 12, 2012, 06:50 AM Jan 2012

predawn reflection

Last edited Thu Jan 12, 2012, 08:13 AM - Edit history (2)

i had not posted here for a long time, but i have started posting because there are many people i deeply admire posting here, and i want to support their courage to do so; and because it is election season, and i support President Obama with my whole heart and soul.

in the time since President Obama's election, i have become estranged from two people who had been my very dearest friends, because their egos were seduced by the Professional Left. the last words to me of one of them were "i can't believe you would let politics end our friendship." the other used that old trick, "i'm entitled to my own opinion, stop trying to oppress my freedom of expression," lectured at me, as such people usually do, to halt my expressing my opinion, and my feelings.

it did not matter to either that they were betraying me in their efforts to undermine Democratic candidates, including our President. it does not matter to them that they are, in effect, supporting the election, feeding the power of people who wish me, a lesbian, dead - combined with all their other vile bigotry. neither is willing to face that i am at least as idealistic as they are, and am far more radically political than they are - have worked many times harder than either has to make Progressive ideals reality.

if asked whether they voted for VP Gore, or Senator Kerry against dubya, they would be aghast that i even wondered. if asked if they considered President Kennedy, or Senator Robert or Edward Kennedy a hero, they would exclaim, "of course!"

what i had to recognize, and made me heartsick, was that they are the same kind of racist that the Professional Left is. they are not like the extreme socialist Left, who seek the collapse of this country no matter who is elected to govern. they are people who believe that President Obama owes them more than Clinton, Gore, Kerry, or any other white male Democrat owed/owes them, since they, after all, HAD voted for him, The Black Man. it was like that during the Civil Rights Movement, where white supporters felt that they were doing blacks a favor, that they, themselves, were really superior, and that their opinions on HOW to achieve rights should be yielded to.

in the words of the Great Steve Biko, "white liberals always knew what was good for the blacks and told them so"; " ... the liberals are playing their old game. They are claiming a 'monopoly on intelligence and moral judgement ... ' "; "I am against the intellectual arrogance of white people that makes them believe that white leadership is a sine qua non in this country and that whites are the divinely appointed pacesetters in progress."

it does not matter to either of them that NO ONE could ever have achieved MORE than President Obama has, and that anyone who tried to hurry Progressive goals faster than the President did would have been even more absolutely obstructed, and by even more Democratic legislators; and that he, our President, knows that, and does a magnificent job of walking the tightrope between achievable goals and his own Progressive ideals.

all that matters to them is that he must do twice as much, twice as often, twice as well - and half as aggressively - for half the credit. well, more like a ten times as much, it has been shown.

that is also why i could not stomach the tone of this place since President Obama's election - before he was even IN office.

but there were times when i was devastated watching the Professional Left sabotage it ALL, and i would come read on the PBOG and the AA Group and be soothed, healed and enlightened by members here - brilliant people who actually research the FACTS before they come to conclusions. i found that, when the facts are revealed, the ideals, goals, and accomplishments of our President continually exceed my own hopes of what a president might accomplish.

i also know that, given another term in office, he will continue to pour his heart and soul into those ideals and goals; and that we will have the best chance we have ever had to see this country finally grow up, grow out of its white-supremacist roots and heritage, and maybe even survive the devastation we have inflicted upon the Earth. i work constantly toward that goal, and i recognize the dire threat of those who would sabotage his campaign.

so, HELLO! to all i so deeply admire, and have so sorely missed! i will be reading here! and i will be posting my appreciation whenever i possibly can!

thank you, all, so very much. for ALL you do; for your INSPIRATION, WISDOM, COURAGE and DEVOTION to Democratic Ideals.

You are my Heroes!



*edit for two missing words and a spelling error, and to add a hug

12 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
predawn reflection (Original Post) nofurylike Jan 2012 OP
posted in PBOG too. nt nofurylike Jan 2012 #1
Fury, WHERE DOES THIS SHIT COME FROM?? Number23 Jan 2012 #2
it really is SHIT! and i SCREAM WITH You!! nofurylike Jan 2012 #3
The truth of this paragraph will probably burn down this site's servers Number23 Jan 2012 #4
laughing and crying all at the same time nofurylike Jan 2012 #5
Don't ask me why, but I absolutely LOVE that show Number23 Jan 2012 #7
i fume to hear of it, Number23!! nofurylike Jan 2012 #9
i presume it is because Sheldon is emblematic of intellectually validated white men, nofurylike Jan 2012 #10
That quote is HILARIOUS Number23 Jan 2012 #11
"That quote is HILARIOUS" nofurylike Jan 2012 #12
I'm with you....... FrenchieCat Jan 2012 #6
YES!! "I almost wish ... " nofurylike Jan 2012 #8

Number23

(24,544 posts)
2. Fury, WHERE DOES THIS SHIT COME FROM??
Thu Jan 12, 2012, 07:45 PM
Jan 2012
"they are people who believe that President Obama owes them more than Clinton, Gore, Kerry, or any other white male Democrat owed/owes them, since they, after all, HAD voted for him"

I am SCREAMING. Where does this attitude come from? Why do so many whites feel as though the president "owes" them more than he owes everyone else merely because they voted for him? Lots of different types of people voted for Obama, but there is one very NOTICEABLE characteristic of person that seems to be running around with an incessant list of demands and screams that the president "works for them" as if he's their butler and not someone who represents them in government.

And if you as a white woman are seeing this, then perhaps so many blacks who have seen the exact same thing and been shouted down from here to Heaven whenever we mention this can finally get an answer. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND this mentality. I do not get it!


it was like that during the Civil Rights Movement, where white supporters felt that they were doing blacks a favor, that they, themselves, were really superior, and that their opinions on HOW to achieve rights should be yielded to.
There is alot of truth here. Alot.

that is also why i could not stomach the tone of this place since President Obama's election - before he was even IN office.
Join the club, my sweet Fury. Join the club.

i work constantly toward that goal, and i recognize the dire threat of those who would sabotage his campaign.

so, HELLO! to all i so deeply admire, and have so sorely missed! i will be reading here! and i will be posting my appreciation whenever i possibly can!


You are so very welcome. I am so terribly glad that you are here.

nofurylike

(8,775 posts)
3. it really is SHIT! and i SCREAM WITH You!!
Fri Jan 13, 2012, 07:30 AM
Jan 2012
I am SCREAMING. Where does this attitude come from? Why do so many whites feel as though the president "owes" them more than he owes everyone else merely because they voted for him? Lots of different types of people voted for Obama, but there is one very NOTICEABLE characteristic of person that seems to be running around with an incessant list of demands and screams that the president "works for them" as if he's their butler and not someone who represents them in government.


"as if he's their butler" is exactly what it is about. they think they gave him a hand up, did him a favor by voting for him - when, in fact, it is he who is doing us all a service by giving his life in service to everyone's best interest and wellbeing - the entire country's, as opposed to what a repug does in office serving only his own.

it's that old effed-up feeling of entitlement that they can't grow out of, and can not admit to. but it is also their smug belief that they are why Barack Obama is President - not reckoning that African American Voters show up to vote at numbers that put whites to shame, and are the reason any Democrat ever wins.

And if you as a white woman are seeing this, then perhaps so many blacks who have seen the exact same thing and been shouted down from here to Heaven whenever we mention this can finally get an answer. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND this mentality. I do not get it!


that mentality is incomprehensible to those who understand the world. nothing you don't already know, all too well, i am sure. you know white men, generally speaking, are sure they are smarter than everyone. how convenient for them that their superiority complex/delusion - which it is, because it is often unconscious or repressed - protects them from seeing they are the problem by invalidating their only possible educators, you - blacks, people of color.

their ferocity shouting you down is a measure of how fiercely they need to deny that truth. white liberals are loath to admit they are privileged (where white supremacists would agree they are privileged, actually believing that they deserve to be) because they know the devastation privilege causes. theirs is a genuine wish for a Just world, that is hindered by fear of finding themselves responsible for Injustice.

sadly, they simply do not, maybe can not realize that trusting those who do understand privilege and justice is the only healing possibility - healing of their own selves, and of this country! trusting, for instance, President Obama. they can not imagine, and if they could, could not endure that he knows more, and better than they do.


my sweet dear friend, i am deeply, deeply touched by your kind words and welcome.
i am joyful to be here! and to be posting here with You!

thank you, dear #23! thank you, very much!

Number23

(24,544 posts)
4. The truth of this paragraph will probably burn down this site's servers
Fri Jan 13, 2012, 06:32 PM
Jan 2012
it's that old effed-up feeling of entitlement that they can't grow out of, and can not admit to. but it is also their smug belief that they are why Barack Obama is President - not reckoning that African American Voters show up to vote at numbers that put whites to shame, and are the reason any Democrat ever wins.



BOOM go the servers!! POW go the exploding heads!!

you know white men, generally speaking, are sure they are smarter than everyone.


That one last server that was quiveringly trying to self-resuscitate just exploded again.

I am particularly fond of the white men who try to tell me about my own history/culture. Are you familiar with a show called The Big Bang Theory? It is such a funny show about a group of super-smart eggheads. One character, Sheldon, is forever "educating" another character, Raj, on the dynamics of Indian culture. The funny bit? Raj is actually Indian and Sheldon is a white guy born and raised in freaking Texas. Every time Sheldon starts in on one of his sermons about Indians, Raj, responding with a mixture of anger and utter incredulity, practically screams "dude, why are you telling me about MY OWN CULTURE?"

I got a post hidden (one of only two) for having a similar reaction to someone trying to tell me what happened during the Civil Rights struggle. And there are a few folks here who because they have dated black people or have some other... er... FASCINATION with black people/culture, see nothing wrong with posting threads and actually trying to "educate" black folks about blackness as if a) there is ANYTHING they could possibly tell any of us that we don't already know and b) anyone f*cking asked them to.

white liberals are loath to admit they are privileged (where white supremacists would agree they are privileged, actually believing that they deserve to be)


You are absolutely KILLING it. SPEAK it, Fury! Did you see this thread from an article that Tim Wise wrote? http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002160575

nofurylike

(8,775 posts)
5. laughing and crying all at the same time
Sat Jan 14, 2012, 08:02 AM
Jan 2012

o my Goddess, sweet dear #23! what words can express ... your kind, encouraging words mean so much to me
gratitude ....


i am just back from reading the Tim Wise thread on GD. YOU are amazing!! your courage, always, always, always inspires me, my guide and friend! o! gratitude, your speaking up!! and wow, your cool brilliance ... (where IS that bowing smilie?!) i BOW!!

and laughing/crying (btw, i love Big Bang Theory - Sheldon so reminds me of those "few folks here" you refer to!) because this is true, because it is nauseatingly predictable of them, because of your dazzling aplomb before swine, because it gets left to you to educate since they are not even able to grasp that they need educating (as Sheldon), because it really is serious and enraging despite being here only a hint of a big and disgusting picture, because your sardonic humor ... :

I am particularly fond of the white men who try to tell me about my own history/culture .... Raj, responding with a mixture of anger and utter incredulity, practically screams "dude, why are you telling me about MY OWN CULTURE?"

.... And there are a few folks here who because they have dated black people or have some other... er... FASCINATION with black people/culture, see nothing wrong with posting threads and actually trying to "educate" black folks about blackness as if a) there is ANYTHING they could possibly tell any of us that we don't already know and b) anyone f*cking asked them to.


o my, see? laugh and cry
and cheer!!

my cherished teacher i will. i will "SPEAK it" as you inspire me to do.

Number23

(24,544 posts)
7. Don't ask me why, but I absolutely LOVE that show
Sat Jan 14, 2012, 05:36 PM
Jan 2012

And the fact that even these brilliant, over educated people are still so CLUELESS as to their own subtle prejudices (that Sheldon as a WHITE MAN by virtue of his whiteness and maleness and his readings on Indian culture must simply make him more of an expert on the issue than a man who was born and raised in that culture!!) is astounding. The beauty of the situation is that I love Sheldon and think that he is probably able to take the lesson from Raj that there are some things he needs to shut up about. But come to think of it, this IS Sheldon we're talking about here...

And I will simply never EVER forget when one of the most clueless assholes I've ever encountered here had the unmitigated gall to try to "school" me on Coretta Scott King. Him, the white guy from wherever the hell he's from, me the black chick FROM ATLANTA. Fury, you know during our private conversations of my relationships with that family. So the utter NERVE of that person... omg that was a couple of years ago and I still fume whenever I think about it.

There was a similar dustup recently when a white poster did the same disgusting tactic of trying to school a black poster on Rosa Parks. She got her ass handed to her by that poster and about five or six other ones. I guess the problem is that it is hard to identify black posters on DU. But I also think that part of it is just a very typical white "liberal" mindset which is that they know EVERYTHING and understand everything better/deeper/richer than everyone else. This is why people like Tim Wise are so despised and why Melissa Harris Perry was so maligned after writing her piece on white liberal racism. Seems like everyone understands that white liberals can be racist or bigoted except white liberals themselves. And unlike Sheldon, there aren't all that many of them that I like enough to try to do anything about it except go in the opposite direction whenever they come around.

nofurylike

(8,775 posts)
9. i fume to hear of it, Number23!!
Sun Jan 15, 2012, 08:56 AM
Jan 2012

i do see how completely clueless an asshole he would have to be!! and that, even without his knowing the crowning fact of your having a personal relationship with the family!!


also

... there aren't all that many of them that I like enough to try to do anything about it except go in the opposite direction whenever they come around.


just hours before reading your post, i had been thinking, as i often do around discussions like this, that i often say to white liberals trying to deny their racism:

can you not grasp that you are fortunate when someone is willing to reveal to you your racism? it is when they WON'T, when they feel you are a waste of time, beyond repair, too arrogant, self-satisfied ... that you have reason to be upset - with yourself.


something i love from this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11874#post3

JustAnotherGen:
Would that such white “progressives” were required to focus group their proposal in a locked room with a random sample of 20 African-American women.

You, Number23:
Girl... nobody
And I mean NOBODY will tell it to ya like a sista.

i bow.



rushing through, but more reply to this, soon

nofurylike

(8,775 posts)
10. i presume it is because Sheldon is emblematic of intellectually validated white men,
Mon Jan 16, 2012, 08:15 AM
Jan 2012

in that he is absolutely positively certain beyond any possible doubt that he is right, dominates others' views even when he is completely wrong, yet never pays any consequences whatsoever for that. we all love to get a chance to laugh at them out in the open, as opposed to always keeping it behind their backs since they really can be dangerous.

those characters are as opposed to, also widely, wildly laughed at, Being There's Chauncey Gardiner:

LOUISE:
Gobbledegook! All the time he
talked gobbledegook! An' it's for
sure a White man's world in
America, hell, I raised that boy
since he was the size of a pissant
an' I'll say right now he never
learned to read an' write - no sir!
Had no brains at all, was stuffed
with rice puddin' between the ears!
Shortchanged by the Lord and dumb
as a jackass an' look at him now!
Yes, sir - all you gotta be is
white in America an' you get
whatever you want! Just listen to
that boy - gobbledegook!



a lot like *dubya. and the antithesis of Sheldon.

all hilarious. therapeutic laughter.

just been thinking about it since you put it out there .....

i will always think of you when i watch it, from now on, my very dear, sweet friend



*edit to correct errors

Number23

(24,544 posts)
11. That quote is HILARIOUS
Mon Jan 16, 2012, 05:10 PM
Jan 2012

I love it. And there is definitely some truth to that.

I remember as a kid (remember I grew up in an all black environment) thinking that white people just HAD to be so much smarter than I an everyone else. They had all of the money. They had all of the power. They had the nicest cars and houses and were always traveling the world. No one I knew did that.

I remember when I was in 10th grade going to summer school and being exposed to white kids my own age for the first time in my life. I was intimidated as hell and prepared to be blown away by their smarts and sophistication. Needless to say, I was underwhelmed. So underwhelmed in fact that it dawned on me for the first time that the game had to be rigged. And it was -- against people like me. That made me mad as hell.

But as I said before about Sheldon, the difference between him and some others is that I think that in his heart he really is a benign person. Arrogant beyond all doubt, but there have been a few times where he appears to have "learned" that he doesn't know have all of the answers. This is usually after much screaming from the other characters, including Leonard who is another hyper-educated white guy, but sometimes he does get there.

We should start a Sheldon Cooper forum. Why do I have the feeling that we'd by no means be the only participants?

nofurylike

(8,775 posts)
12. "That quote is HILARIOUS"
Tue Jan 17, 2012, 07:41 AM
Jan 2012

isn't it?
i love it too.
way too much truth to it.

Needless to say, I was underwhelmed. So underwhelmed in fact that it dawned on me for the first time that the game had to be rigged.

yes! THAT is that quote. rigged. white affirmative action, unearned privilege, appearing to be accomplishment. whites believing it is accomplishment.

then, it is obvious, and you are mad as hell.

it breaks my heart to know you went through that, sweet dear. you, my teacher, my hero, brilliant, kind - you, who explains so generously peacefully to those who don't get it - had to go through that ....

then you saw the "gobbledegook."
rigged against you. yes. i am so sorry you had to go through that, dear woman.


i see what you mean about Sheldon, "that in his heart he really is a benign person," and sometimes seems almost on the verge of getting it. the writers are absolute geniuses at portraying that character! the texas fundy thing is mind-boggling, and even Sheldon recognizes its sociopathy. maybe we will have the pleasure of watching him get some honest glimpses of himself! Raj is getting more vocal about it - recently downright exasperated when he called Sheldon on it! and i realize that Leonard is far more humble, and "sometimes he does get there."

i agree, we could make an entire Sheldon Cooper forum! and he definitely has fans everywhere!

thank you, Number23.

FrenchieCat

(68,867 posts)
6. I'm with you.......
Sat Jan 14, 2012, 04:39 PM
Jan 2012

as you know!

Sometimes, I get so frustrated, I almost wish what the folks want (the defeat of Obama)
would actually happen....just so I could then watch them find a foot deep up their arse.....
and then they'd see that what they worked for so hard all along was their own demise....
but of course, that would mean having to sacrifice all of us, and I don't want to see
good people suffer simply to teach the Asinines full of Privilege a lesson......

Sad, I know!

nofurylike

(8,775 posts)
8. YES!! "I almost wish ... "
Sun Jan 15, 2012, 08:20 AM
Jan 2012
...then they'd see that what they worked for so hard all along was their own demise....
but of course, that would mean having to sacrifice all of us, and I don't want to see
good people suffer simply to teach the Asinines full of Privilege a lesson......

YES!! SO VERY WELL SAID!!!

dear FrenchieCat, i know that feeling so very, very well!! i fight wishing it on them, all the time!!



thank you so much for telling me you are with me! it is an honor to be here with You, amazing brilliant FrenchieCat!!

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