11 Comments
Aug 27, 2021Liked by Free Black Thought

What a truly thoughtful and informative dialogue between people of good will. Many thanks for publishing this.

Expand full comment
Aug 28, 2021Liked by Free Black Thought

First off, TYTY for video-session. TY to ALL the speakers. Too tired to give the praise it deserves, nor name all the individuals. I've been sort-a hogging these comments, but if You actually KNEW me, I'm not about me, ME, *ME*. I wanted to take more-a that outta what I wrote yesterday, but I'm wore out from writing here, and on another stupid forum. I need to reread the Birmingham Letter which, coincidentally, I read this morning for first time.

All that to say, I didn't hear much that would cause me to change a LOTTA what I wrote yesterday, so here, literally, goes nuthin'... I would-a toned it down a LOT, but it wouldn't get all that much better.

I posted the end of this mess, Part 3 of 3 below, and here is beginning and middle, and I plan to spend next while getting better informed. Dunno if Part 2 will FIT.. As You know what I say immediately below, it's best i could do. SOrry it's so long...

And, “Ah well…” NONE-a this made ANY sense unless I posted it in REVERSE order. Only excuse is my day starts around 2am or 3 and it’s been loooong and tiring day.

Please forgive, is all I can hope for… :) = 😊

---------------------------

Part 1 of 3

---------------------------

Well, it is what it is. Somewhat lame, but nobody likely to notice this anyhoo. Perfection unattainable, I go for “good enough for government work.” It wouldn’t get APPRECIABLY better if I worked on it two more days. No matter, I enjoyed thinking about it. On to mebbe finishing “Cynical Theories” next!

---------------------------

First the carrot, M. Wood: I’m not sure exactly how I found it, but like Braver Angels. Was in a workshop a week or two ago on how white people should talk to other white people on race. I had no IDEA it was a participatory workshop. I do mebbe 99% of my communication in writing. Had LOADS of fun. Signed up for another in September.

You all, FAIR, the Woodson Center and No Labels are bright spots in an otherwise gray forecast. Posted links on a Substack of M. Bari Weiss’s, except mebbe for No Labels, I thin’.

A li’l about me, “tho nobody’d prolly be interested:”

I’m 66, white, male, divorced, smoker. On the totem-pole of life, there’s nobody lower. The absolute dregs. I’m EXACTLY 50% Fundamentalist Atheist, and EXACTLY 50% Religio-Spiritual. I’m uneducated (failed to get Associate’s because of required Speech Communications course ;). I have NO qualifications, NO particular qualities in my favor, NO reputation to uphold. I don’t say these things to appear as an underdog, because I’m not one. Just not one to try to be something I’m NOT. (I’ve always been “one-a them thar Yanks,” tho a Southern accent slips in, rarely, but commonly when I write. ;) I don’t claim to BE a writer, let alone any good at it. I don’t write articles, essays, or stories. I write “pieces.” This is just one in a short line-a pieces.

There’s one HUMONGOUS difference between how I am as a writer and how I am in-person.

One last on me, before the (hopefully ;) interesting “stuff.” How I’ve lived, tho i never heard-a Stoic Religion until about a year ago:

Epictetus:

“Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. It is only after you have faced up to this fundamental rule and learned to distinguish between what you can and can't control that inner tranquility and outer effectiveness become possible.”

Dunno anything about outer effectiveness, but inner tranquility is a nice side effect.

It doesn’t matter in the least if anyone changes their mind about signing The Dream Coalition 828 Letter. Nor does it concern me if You, M. Wood, even READ this tripe. Nor if ANYBODY reads it, and I don’t assume anybody WILL. It’ll prolly be longer than it needs to be for most. I have PREFERENCES, but no matter.

For those who’ve “seen” me before, they know I shoot from the hip. I write instinctively/intuitively. pert near 100%.

---------------------------

I thin’ there were some very good points made by M. Wood and M. Gutmann. However, I think they were SOMEWHAT orthogonal to the letter’s purpose.

I don’t think it was fully flushed out WHO the letter is addressed to. The letter, AFAIK, and ICBW, is for people who have a lick of COMMON SENSE. Now, am I ATTACKING the ideologues? As individuals, no. As a GROUP, and considering these kind travel in PACKS, I’m saying these people are among the STUPIDEST groups of people on the PLANET. But, alas, hard to argue against SUCCESS…

Again ICBW, but I hardly think the Dream Coalition 828 Letter even COULD puncture the minority-conscious mindset.

It’s a RALLYING cry. AFAIK, it’s probably an act of DESPERATION, to get people to understand what HAS been going on, what IS going on, and what it all will end UP to be, if these groups of people get their way. And they WILL. Unless reasonable discussion is ALLOWED to hold forth. May not be LIKELY, but gotta try SOMETHING.

Now, if things work out the way i, PERSONALLY, would like them to then they’ll just look like the fools they are and there’s no hard feelings. Judgmental? Well, when emotions take precedence over scientific FACTS, as they often do these days?

I don’t see ANYTHING in the letter that would imply that these people promulgating an IDIOTIC, demonstrably HARMFUL ideology are ENEMIES, individually, is there? But, again as “a pack of vermin,” to put it uncharitably, they’re the “enemy” of American DEMOCRACY. Of freedom of speech. Of freedom of the individual from dominance by groups of ALL kinds, all the way up to the Government.

AFAIK, there isn’t much question that’s what we’re headed for, is there? Freedom of speech quickly going down the drain. MOB RULE as opposed to civil discourse. Individual rights slowly being removed in the courts, as opposed to group rights. Reliance on subjective experience INSTEAD-a facts. Isn’t that what this letter, correctly, points towards?

Subjective experience being foremost, those lording it OVER everyone sane can claim to be the underdog. The “victims” of those they actually hold in their POWER.

They are TOTALITARIAN in how they go about FORCING their message from the highest highs to the lowest members in their pack. TOTALITARIAN in how they SQUASH anybody in their way. By GANGING up on individuals who can’t protect themselves, mostly.

Love I have in abundance. I know, hard-ta believe at this point.

But I don’t, for one SECOND, underestimate how DANGEROUS these folks are.

The highest highs? President Biden and V.P. Kamala Harris have gotten the message, right?

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-advancing-racial-equity-and-support-for-underserved-communities-through-the-federal-government/

Now one can say President Biden didn’t mean “equity” and “racial justice” by the common meanings everyone else goes by. Except for the following (and I think all would be best served by skipping the links and just taking my word for it):

The Department of Education got the message: https://www.fairforall.org/department-of-education-proposal/

The ABA got the message: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/civil-rights-reimagining-policing/a-lesson-on-critical-race-theory/

The 270,000-member AMA?

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/08/11/medicine_is_getting_major_injections_of_woke_ideology_that_will_likely_affect_your_health_care_789077.html

I’ll just add the above link shows what happens if You go against “The CRT MACHINE’s” Narrative. Lost reputations. Demotions. Lost livelihoods.

Expand full comment
Aug 28, 2021Liked by Free Black Thought

---------------------------

Part 2 of 3

---------------------------

All this STARTED in the Universities, and the teachers now view their jobs as force-feeding the ONLY RIGHT WAY of thinking to all the SJWs they turn out. (I don’t see much hope there.):

But now they’ve gone into K – 12. Since I don’t assume anyone will go to the trouble of checking out so many links, the one for the D.O.E. says it’s to be REQUIRED that the teachings of M. Ibram X. Kendi (FKA Ibram Henry Rogers) be taught in K – 12. Apparently that was finally overturned, thanks to over 33K comments against the idea, among them FAIR’s.

Can’t recall where I read, but struck me as common sense when I did, that if You wanna change society, You get ‘em when they’re young and impressionable. The SPLC, which I used to support, had a program called “Teaching Tolerance” that they provided to schools. But they’ve gone woke, too. They’re training teachers how to turn out little SJWs just like they are. K – 12 SJWs.

As opposed to such quaint notions as teaching reading, writing, and… Well, now even MATH has gone woke. https://reason.com/2021/05/04/california-math-framework-woke-equity-calculus/

Starting in KINDERGARDEN, getting whites to hate themselves because they’re “oppressors” and Black kids to hate themselves because they’re “VICTIMS” of the 5-year-old oppressors. Might put M. DiAngelo outta a job, but then she’s made enough $millions, and will continue to do so regardless.

Now, this may seem contradictory, but how I view people individually is DRASTICALLY different from how I view these non-monolithic groups that make up those who’re trying to END AMERICAN DEMOCRACY (recall, italics).

To sum up my views, article I just finished reading when Your all’s came in (might be worth a read): https://www.persuasion.community/p/a-taxonomy-of-fear-f14 The FEAR these non-monolithic groups put into THEIR enemies is inhumane, to be charitable. Mainly fear of loss of job, but that’s not at ALL the only one. Just the one that’s first used, whenever these groups of individuals get together.

Those just posing QUESTIONS about teaching CRT in schools? First question these groups ask, and I quote: “Where do they work?”

It might be desirable to build a bridge with these non-monolithic groups of people. Our fellow citizens, although they want to do away with citizenship as we currently know it. Or USED-ta know it. But it was them who burnt the bridge DOWN. They’re BURNING the bridges as they COME to each one. Although they’re a vocal minority, they’ve got the nation’s institutions behind them. Everybody else will be a small island of people, by the time these groups get done, right?

(You’d be surprised to watch me calmly typing all this “stuff” in. Just breathing and typing, is about all that’s going on here. :)

. . .

Point being, NOW I’m gonna start offending people. Sorry in advance, if so.

. . .

You see, now I’m gonna call a shovel a shovel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_a_spade_a_spade

People break the enemy of American Democracy down into different groups, depending. Me? I see it as a four-pronged hydra:

BLM, the 1619 project, and the whole MESS that goes under the umbrella of “CRT.”

BLM? They get a LOTTA support from people who have no IDEA what they’re about. Even after M. Cullors stepped down to make millions doing her multi-media thing, she was given GREAT praise. Her having bought a $1.4M house in one-a the whitest zip codes in the country? The previous $multi-M properties? See, I take a data point like that and make generalizations that generally turn out to be fairly accurate.

Now they praise Rep. M. Bush, who wants to ABOLISH the police. Sound thinking, that…

The 1619 Project? Just read yesterday where M. Hannah-Jones said, in a now presumably deleted tweet, that it was an “origin story,” rather than history. So why is this being used as a curriculum in K – 12 History class? Again, not INTENDING to offend but prolly going to anyway.

Blacks make up about 13% of the population in the U.S. (And about 12% of the police forces, from what I “heard”.) How does their history become the CENTER of the national narrative? Why is slavery the CENTER of the national narrative. What is, by many accounts, historical FICTION.

By sheer FORCE OF WILL of those behind the 1619 Project. The once-journalistic NYT. Just heard either Andrew Sullivan or Wesley Yang, can’t recall, say that the young “reporters” defined their job as quote “teaching their readers how to think.” One thing this youth has over ALL other generations is they’re absolutely SUPREMIST in their self-confidence. Thus, conscientious editors get thrown overboard. Can’t recall his name…

Goal of all the above: “America IS racist and is IRREDEEMABLE from the beginning of WHATEVER date until now. If You deny this, just shows that You ARE a racist. Even Blacks can be ‘white racists’.”

CRT? If You all don’t know why I begrudge M. Kendi his fame, fortune, prestige and POWER, then I don’t know where to start.

But let us not forget how the Marxists want to tear down Democracy, root and branch, by changing “the laws of the land:” https://freeblackthought.substack.com/p/why-did-critical-race-theory-emerge

Now, one thing this various-headed hydra wants in common is REPARATIONS. It’s a power-grab, and there’s no other name for it. “Make the white man PAY!” What greater example of wielding power than that? I mean, when compared to the ordinary day-to-day taking-over of institution after institution, and steamrolling anyone that gets in their way.

I have an argument AGAINST the case for reparations, and it goes something like the following: Basically, reparations are “pure evil” (to coin a phrase ;) from practical, legal, theoretical, ethical, and MORAL perspectives.

Practical: PERMANENTLY, IRREVOCABLY drive WEDGE BETWEEN POOR WHITES AND BLACKS.

“Bayard Rustin, for example, saw that strategy as arising from a misdiagnosis that wrongly elevated racial conflict over the centrality of class conflict and a misprescription that would further weaken the prospects for progressive working-class unity by exacerbating racial resentments.”

~ Randall Kennedy, “For Discrimination,” Kindle location 528.

And this is EXACTLY what HAS happened, and IS happening, what with the BLM-1619 Project-CRT MACHINE and all the talk of reparations. And not just POOR whites, either.

. . .

Legal: 14th and Title VII. There already was an injunction against Biden’s Farm Relief program that was based STRICTLY on color of skin. But laws? Not to be respected these days, according to some in The CRT MACHINE.

. . .

Theoretical: As I’ve “said” before, NUMEROUS times. From the Fed: https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/#quarter:123;series:Net%20worth;demographic:networth;population:1,3,5,7;units:shares

It was said there are two Americas, the top 60% and the bottom 40%. That’s not quite correct. This is America:

America 1: The one-percenters and the other nine percent that enable them. Together, they own two-thirds of the wealth.

America 2: The next 40%, pretty much ANYbody reading ANY of this (if any ;).

America 3: The bottom HALF.

Q1, ’21 Wealth Percentages, according to the Fed:

Top 1% 32.1%

Next 9% 37.7%

Next 40% 28.2%

Bottom HALF 2.0%

Thought experiment: Who amongst the bottom HALF deserves a handout?

. . .

Ethical: Rich Blacks getting money vs. poor whites. Better to help the poor among whom, too many, are Black, right? Again: Q1, 21 shows bottom HALF (50%) of Americans hold TWO (2) percent of wealth.

. . .

Moral: Divide or actually BE inclusive and bring Americans TOGETHER. Choice is there to be had.

Expand full comment
Aug 28, 2021Liked by Free Black Thought

---------------------------

Part 3 of 3 (Part 2 was too long to fit.)

---------------------------

DEI = Divisive, EXclusive, Interrogation.

Some company I saw gave DUB training sessions: Diversity, Unity, Belonging. They don’t stand a chance against The CRT MACHINE. However, it’s a GREAT idea.

. . .

Tahanisi Coates would say otherwise, of course. Just going on economy of words, I would have beat him hands down. Maybe besides that. M. Coleman Hughes says it better, of course: https://quillette.com/2019/06/20/my-testimony-to-congress-on-reparations/

. . .

Now I’ve read a LITTLE of MLK. A few speeches and “Where Do We Go From Here.” So I’m pretty much an ignoramoose. Appreciated Your article, https://areomagazine.com/2018/05/05/the-philosophy-of-nonviolence-the-lost-legacy-of-martin-luther-king/, M. Wood.

To be fairly immodest, I’ve lived pretty much like this, before I ever heard-a the philosophy just now. I don’t go out much, so’ve come into contact with very few. Therefore, only two people I thought I hated. Realized I didn’t. Realized why they did what they did and that I was STUPID about the whole thing. Only person harmed by my views was ME. So, no… I don’t think that me, myself, nor the writers nor many-a the signers of the letter would look at these individuals as ENEMIES.

But I don’t, for one SECOND, underestimate how DANGEROUS these folks are.

The thing is, and ICBW, but I’m not so sure that MLK’s socialist and peace-activist views still apply in this post-9/11 world. That point’s debatable. The larger point is that, as M. Gutmann “said,” The Dream Coalition 828’s Letter was intimately concerned with “The Dream” speech, not the whole body of work.

I don’t see how it’s POSSIBLE to take on all that, 50 years on. And I’m not seeing where the Coalition Letter goes against MLK’s position on non-violence, from the article about MLK’s philosophy, linked to above.

Opinions will vary, but AFAIK, it was extremely MILD compared to the FACTS of the matter. But ICBW.

To recap:

Pros and cons for You signing or not, M. Wood, were clearly stated by both You and M. Gutmann. Above may not add much.

But to ME?

1. Question of who the audience is supposed to be.

2. Question whether any-a those arrayed against Democracy will pay ANY attention to ANY-a this.

3. Question whether they could, in any way, shape or form, be harmed by this. Other than by using their IMAGINATION to PRETEND they’re under psychological or physical attack. Which a lot WILL do. That’s how they OPERATE, to SHUT DOWN the opposition.

4. Question, if any do pay attention, how long it will take for them thar “others” to get the knives out. Me? I expect at the speed of Twitter.

Question of how to hate the sin, but love the sinner. Only Way possible: Hafta turn the other cheek while You’re getting knifed in the back. Because “The BLM-1619 Project-CRT MACHINE” won’t extend same courtesy to any-a the signers of The Dream Coalition 828 Letter, right? Or anyone ELSE who stands in their way.

---------------------------

TY to anyone taking time to read ANY-a this crap. Just thinking out loud, mostly. Will think quietly, for a fair bit now. ;)

Expand full comment
Aug 28, 2021Liked by Free Black Thought

Always mistakes. https://www.smu.edu/News/2014/mlk-at-smu-transcript-17march1966

Also should-a mentioned the theme: "Come long way, long to go."

Expand full comment
Aug 27, 2021Liked by Free Black Thought

Done. I'll wait on it though. I read THROUGH the thing, which is something I don't ordinarily do. Problem is, not wishing to offend. Ah well... Mebbe later. Mebbe NOT. TYTY and TY again, M. Gutmann, M. Wood and JFBT.

Expand full comment
Aug 27, 2021Liked by Free Black Thought

Argh... M. GutMANN. Always said I was bad at names.

Expand full comment
Aug 27, 2021Liked by Free Black Thought

I use “M.” like the French do, for Monsieur but ALSO for Mesdames and Mademoiselle EQUALLY. (That’s just me. ;) ALL CAPS are ITALICS. :)

Firstly, TY (thank You). TYTY both. But ESPECIALLY TY to ALL regarding Coalition 828. But there's no upper limit to my TYs for M. Gutman.

Of course! (Almost forgot. :) TYTY to FBT, as well. Mebbe more later (one never knows. :)

Expand full comment