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Showing posts from October, 2021

Dog Whistle Politics - Fantastic!

  Ian Haney Lopez's DOG WHISTLE POLITICS: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism & Wrecked the Middle Class  is a well referenced, detailed fantastic book. Haney Lopez traces a recent history beginning largely with:  George Wallace, Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon through Ronald Reagan to when the book was written in 2014.   It is fascinating how the Black Lives Matter Movement and the rise and recent fall of Donald Trump - after the fact - strongly fit in with his conclusions. Dog whistle politics are regular parts of Republican Party efforts.   Bill Clinton and Barack Obama also come up for significant criticism, though not as deeply as George W Bush and other Republicans in general. The author makes clear how important it is for us to confront racism directly and deal with systemic racism, rather than incidents of blatant racist words.   He focuses significantly upon the dangers of "colorblindness".  He also makes clear how dog whistle politics help avoi

White People Working for Positive Systemic Change - Paradoxes

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  PREAMBLE-RAMBLE My editor (me) believes that perhaps this writing is about "conundrums", rather than "paradoxes".   He also believes that if this is critically important to you, you might want to stop now - and not continue reading. 2020 U.S. Presidential Election White People are 57.8% of the U.S. population and 71% of the eligible voters voted, so - multiplied together one gets:  .41 Black People are 14.1% of the U.S. population and 63% of the eligible voters voted, so multiplied together one gets: .09 Though there are 4.1 (57.8 / 14.1) times as many white as Black People, their 2020 voting totals were 4.6 (.41 / .09) times as many white as Black People who voted, due to the higher percentage of whites to Blacks who voted. 40% of white men voted for Biden 57% of white men voted for Trump 48.9% of the population is male 4.6 (white voters vs. Black voters) x 40% (male) x 48.9% (% of population male) = .90 95% (Black women voted for Biden) x 51.1% (% of population