COMPLEXITY ISN'T US: Supreme Court hears an important case!

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2022

At the Post, do editors care? Should state legislatures "take race into account" in creating congressional districts?

Is it legal to "take race into account?" Is it required by law? If it is required by law, is it a good idea? Also, if some such action is required by law, would that requirement be constitutional?

These are important questions. Due to our nation's brutal racial history, a wide range of major policy questions still turn on matters of what we describe as "race."

Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case about the way congressional districts are formed. At issue is a somewhat peculiar question:

Among its seven congressional districts, should Alabama have one district which is majority black, or should it instead have two?

For the record, a second question lurks inside that surface question. That hidden question goes like this:

Among its seven congressional districts, should Alabama have one district which is likely to elect a Democrat, or should it instead have two?

In short, we have one (important) surface question, and a second important which may be slightly disguised. 

Under terms of prevailing American law, these questions are highly complex. There's little chance that any daily newspaper will be able to explain the constitutional twists and turns of this matter in a way which the average reader will actually understand.

That said, our newspapers gave it a try this morning—in the New York Times, to cite one example, but also in the Washington Post. In its online edition, the Post's report on this complex question appears beneath this basically sensible headline:

Supreme Court debates Alabama’s refusal of second Black voting district

Simply put, the Alabama legislature has created one congressional district (out of seven) which is majority black. Litigants are arguing that, under terms of the Voting Rights Act, the legislature should have created two such districts.

On a legal and constitutional basis, this is a highly complex matter. The Post's Robert Barnes gives the topic his best shot today, but as with so many aspects of our civil society, the matter is so complexificated that it's quite hard for a daily journalist to settle all (or any) points.

Last week, Charles Blow wrote an opinion column in the New York Times in which he discussed a similar matter in Florida. Below, you see the headline on the column, and the start of the relevant section:

Ron DeSantis's Race Problem

[...] 

I have always thought of DeSantis as reading the rules of villainy from a coloring book and acting them out. Nothing about him says clever and tactical. He seems to me the kind of man who must conjure confidence, who is fragile and feisty because of it, a beta male trying desperately to convince the world that he’s an alpha.

But there is a way in which race policy reaches far beyond being merely racist-adjacent. DeSantis, for instance, has actually tried to strip Black Floridians of their power and voice.

In 2010, Florida voters, by a strong majority, approved a constitutional amendment rejecting gerrymandering. The amendment made clear that “districts shall not be drawn with the intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process or to diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice.”

Yet Florida’s Republican-led Legislature produced a gerrymandered map anyway. In 2015, the state Supreme Court struck down much of the Legislature’s proposed map, and demanded that eight House districts be redrawn. Among them was the Fifth District, which at the time snaked up the state from Orlando to Jacksonville. The redrawn map allowed Black voters to elect four Black representatives.

For the record, Blow ends up describing a redistricting which occurred in the past several years. Eventually, Blow reports, Governor DeSantis stepped into the fray, creating yet another "redrawn map" which reduced the number of majority-black districts down to two, instead of four.

"The legislature went along and approved DeSantis’s map," Blow correctly notes. 

To what extent should race be an issue when legislatures construct such maps? To what extent must race be an issue under terms of the Voting Rights Act? To what extent is justice served by the creation of such maps?

Those are the questions being explored before the Supreme Court in the Alabama case. The questions at issue are very important. Given our brutal racial history, so are all such matters involving the topic we refer to as race.

Tomorrow, we'll look at the way Blow treated the Florida matter. For today, we thought we'd describe the prominence, or lack of same, the Washington Post has given to this topic in its online edition today.

Barnes' report about the Alabama case is the featured report in today's POLITICS section. 

That said, that section appears roughly two-thirds of the way down the online Post's lengthy front page. A reader must scroll and scroll, then scroll some more, just to see that some such report exists.

What sorts of topics will the reader encounter before reaching Barnes' report? Briefly, let us count the topics:

Online, the Post' s front page starts with six featured news reports. Two of the fully bannered headlines are these:

Chess site alleges ‘likely’ cheating by embattled Magnus Carlsen rival

I tried McDonald’s Happy Meal for adults, and it didn’t make me happy

After those six bannered reports, the reader encounters this additional pair of reports, presented with smaller display:

Angelina Jolie details Brad Pitt abuse allegations in new filing

Aaron Judge hits home run No. 62 to pass Roger Maris’s single-season mark

At this point, we've barely begun our long, slow act of scrolling all the way down to the Barnes report. And alas! Before the reader sees that report, she will encounter these:

She will encounter the online Post's ADVICE section. Today, its four reports present advice from Carlyon Hax, from Ask Damon, from Miss manners and from Ask Amy.

After that, the reader will encounter the Post's WELL + BEING section. Five reports are featured today, including these:

Coffee vs. tea smackdown

How many concussions is too many? Neurologists answer your questions.

Why do cats knead? Why do dogs lick you? The science of pets’ quirks.

The coffee vs tea smackdown is the section's featured report.

At this point, the reader will finally encounter sections devoted to CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT and also to WORLD. But before the reader encounters the report by Barnes, he will encounter the HELP DESK section (three reports) and the LIFESTYLE section, whose five reports include these:

Beauty experts have had enough of celebrity skin care brands

When seniors can’t care for their dogs, these volunteers step in

Snoop Dogg says his cannabis-infused onion rings may make you say ‘oowee’

Finally, two-thirds of the way down an endless front page, the reader encounters the NATIONAL section. Its five reports include this:

Lost cat found in Idaho 9 years after wandering away from California home

At last, the reader encounters the POLITICS section, where the Barnes report about the Alabama case is offered as the third of five. We think this placement may tell an enduring story about the true shape of our world.

Do editors at the Washington Post actually care about topics involving matters of race? Again and again, then again and again, we find ourselves asking that question about journalists and opinion leaders within our own blue tribe.

In his column about Florida's redistricting, Blow delivered a standard tribal message. He let us know that the Others are just plain pretty much racist.  

At present, our own blue tribe loves to make that sweeping tribal accusation. But do we sometimes toy with basic facts to pleasure ourselves with that claim?

Especially at this highly partisan time, many members of our own tribes love to make that sweeping claim. Experts suggest the possibility that, due to the way our human brains are wired, we may, at the end of the day, care about little else!

Tomorrow: Blow visits the Fifth


77 comments:


  1. "...should Alabama have one district which is likely to elect a Democrat"

    Very good, dear Bob.

    Sounds like one of your more cognizant moments: stripping away your tribal hate-mongering bullshit, getting down to the essence: struggle for power. Power for your tribe's globalist sponsors.

    Oh well.

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  2. Bob thinks he is the media with this classic.
    Let's make the discussion about who is calling who what names, and not about those who are victimized by bigotry.

    Remember this?:
    Does the GOP have the votes to go to war with Iraq, or will the Dems get enough votes to keep the Iraq War from happening?
    Tune in. We'll be discussing this, and not the fate of Iraqis for the next 10 months.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Everyone is racist and hates gays.

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  4. “To what extent should race be an issue when legislatures construct such maps? To what extent must race be an issue under terms of the Voting Rights Act?”

    Race has to be considered, according to the Voting Rights Act.

    It says any law that “results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color” is illegal. That was the whole point of the Act. To find otherwise is to declare the Act a dead letter. This is of course what Alabama is asking the court to find.

    The question here is whether Alabama’s map resulted in a denial or abridgment of Alabama’s black voters.



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And a panel of federal judges ruled in January that the map was discriminatory. They said it wasn’t a close question. And two of the judges were Trump appointees.

      Delete
    2. Absent extraordinary impediments to acquiring an ID and access to the polls there is no violation.

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    3. @11:09 This is about racial gerrymandering, not obstacles to voting.

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    4. Re: Voter ID

      If states want to make a Voter ID mandatory to vote, the state needs to find each and every eligible voter and provide that eligible voter with a free Voter ID card.
      That's just the price you pay to assure every voter has a Voter ID.

      Delete
    5. @11:12 Of course you're correct, as a matter of logic But, law doesn't always follow logic.

      @11:26 States with voter ID laws do offer have free voter ID cards.

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    6. David,
      The state goes out and finds each and every one too?

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    7. We don't need people who can't get off their asses to go acquire a voter ID, without a reason involving emergency or disability, to vote. I took a bus to get registered at 18 so I could vote. For Al Gore but I was 18.

      Delete
    8. Yeah, fuck all those elderly and disabled people, especially the ones living in rural areas without transportation to official ID places. They need to get up off their lazy asses!

      Delete
    9. 5:37,
      Yes. If it's easy for you to get an ID, it's easy for everyone to get an ID.
      That's just science.

      Delete
  5. “That hidden question goes like this:

    Among its seven congressional districts, should Alabama have one district which is likely to elect a Democrat, or should it instead have two?”

    That is, of course, not the “hidden question”, unless you believe that black voters will always and only vote for Democrats.

    It is Somerby’s crass way of introducing partisan politics into the mix. It has nothing whatsoever to do with whether the congressional map is discriminatory to black voters and is an affront to those voters.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Eh... how can a map be discriminatory to "black" voters, dear mh?

      Is it because you believe they are, on average, too stupid to understand maps?

      Delete
    2. https://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/AL-caster-20220124-order-granting-PI.pdf

      Delete
    3. Somerby pretended to not understand that recent survey question, but obvious to everyone not blinded by trauma and therefore obsessed with dominance, is that question has "hidden" questions:

      Do White people today benefit from how Blacks were treated in the past?

      YES

      Do Black people today benefit from how they were treated in the past?

      NO

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    4. Sounds like nonsense, dear mn. Everyone has the right to vote, end of story.

      The idea of 'race-based' voting, on the other hand, while it might've made sense in back 1965 (right after the abolition of forced segregation), these days it seems like the usual liberal race-mongering bullshit.

      Just our humble opinion. We'll see what happens.

      Delete
    5. "Everyone has the right to vote, end of story."
      !00% agree the Supreme Court needs get behind this idea, and to stop listening to "the Others".

      Delete
    6. Of course the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 made it easier for everyone to vote.
      But once the Roberts Court started chipping away at it, it made it necessary to pass another one.

      Delete
    7. Things fell off the cliff, relatively speaking, when Obama got elected, right wingers went nuts, and progressives got nothing since Obama was a neoliberal.

      Delete
  6. "But do we sometimes toy with basic facts to pleasure ourselves with that claim?"

    Somerby loves these crude references, like when he talks about Maddow stuffing cash in her pants.

    It isn't about race or partisan politics, but about self-pleasuring. Maybe it's a stand up thing, like when Louis C.K. liked to pleasure himself in front of female stand-ups. Show biz types are not like the rest of us, but talk about projection!

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    Replies
    1. If you think that's crude wait until you find out mentally deranged wine mom Democrats are taking their children to pervert performances.

      Delete
    2. Wait until you find out Republicans couldn't care less about anything but bigotry and white supremacy.

      Delete
    3. Like Louis C.K.'s show?

      How old were you when you found out what a prevert is? Shouldn't younger kids know so that they can avoid becoming one, like these degenerate stand up comedians?

      Delete
    4. Not one Republican voter who cares about babies being murdered by abortion will vote for Herschel Walker.
      Also, don't expect Herschel Walker to lose one vote from Republicans just because he paid for someone's abortion.

      Delete
    5. If Republicans voted based on the perceived morality of the pawns they select to represent their interests they would never have succeeded in overturning Roe v Wade and millions more would die.

      Delete
    6. It is odd the way Republicans object to drag shows when Democrats do it, but participate enthusiastically when they and their friends do it, witness the photos of Republican politicians that keep popping up, showing male politicians dressed as women, but also dressed in blackface. That seems to be a staple of frat parties and fund-raisers, especially in the South. So it is OK when they do it, but not OK when Democrats do it for their own purposes?

      When you look at sex scandals involving Republicans, there are far more than with Democrats. But Republicans claim that family values are their issue and that Democrats are the perverts. The facts just don't support that, no matter how many books Republicans get banned.

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    7. When you only care about bigotry and white supremacy, everything else is easily waved away.

      Delete
    8. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/22/madison-cawthorn-photos-00027286

      Delete
    9. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10153308011606680

      Delete
    10. I haven't seen any Republicans dressed as women inviting children to watch them dance and stuff bills in their shorts.

      The only blackface I've seen is the Democrat governor of Virginia who remained in office with the support of the entire party.

      Delete
    11. 11;59,
      I'm trying to imagine you giving a shit about either of those things, and I keep coming up blank.

      Delete
    12. We seem to say that wearing blackface is wrong but dressing up as women, which to me is just as degrading, is acceptable.

      Delete
    13. Dressing like a woman is degrading? Do women know that?

      Delete
    14. Abortion does not kill a single human, and in fact saves human lives.

      A non sentient non viable clump of cells is not a human; the bible makes it clear and science makes it clear of this fact.

      The anti abortion stance is deeply immoral, the smugness of those so disposed aside.

      A woman is whoever identifies as a woman. Sexism and racism are both forms of oppression, but are not the same - there is a difference between blackface and mocking feminism through clothing misappropriation; however, both are harmful.

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    15. Nazis and others who find a group of human beings they want to kill for their own convenience always tell us there is something not quite human about the group.

      They'll even pretend science supports their view that the humans are something different than human. They'll tell us it's immoral not to kill this targeted group of humans. Sometimes they'll even base the killing on a good dictated by religion.

      There have always been ideologies that embrace the evil of dehumanizing humans.

      Delete
    16. Dehumanizing something that is not human is not evil. If I dehumanize a chair, I haven't done anything wrong, to the chair or anyone else. Similarly, if I dehumanize a dog, it wasn't human to begin with and I haven't done anything to harm the dog or any actual humans.

      A fetus is not a human being. You cannot dehumanize it because it is not human. It is grotesquely wrong to equate abortion with genocide because it trivializes the wrong done to the humans targeted by that genocide and reduces the evil to a medical procedures. THAT is evil and that is what certain anti-abortion trolls do here regularly.

      Delete
    17. The main function of clothing is to provide warmth and protection and to conceal nakedness, giving people some privacy in their bodies. Beyond that, people use clothing to display social status, to express artistic impulses, to identify with others as part of a group, and for comfort and tactile pleasure. Both men and women do these things. The style of clothing is arbitrary -- across time, men and women have worn highly similar clothing, including skirts for both men and women, padding and corsets for both, bright colors and soft fabrics for both, and so on. There is nothing inherently male or female in any style over time, only in specific circumstances in specific cultures and at specific points in time, during which men are designated a type of clothing to show their status as male, and women are designated a different type of clothing to show their status as female. There have always been individuals who challenged those designations. There have also been social rules and even laws about who may wear what -- in Great Britain, it was illegal to dress in the other sex's clothing, but it was also illegal to dress as a member of a higher social class, such as to pretend to be gentry or royalty.

      There is no reason why women should not dress as men today (and women generally have that freedom), but there is also no reason why men should not dress as women, although there is far greater social stigma when men do so. Why the imbalance? In fact, why should anyone care when there are fewer and fewer social privileges assigned to men these days. People have increasingly been recognizing that rigidly forbidding men from wearing artistic, bright, fun clothing while allowing women to wear what they want, is unfair to men and prevents them from experiencing the range of pleasures possible with clothing choices. Now Republicans want to make this a political issue, when there is no inherent political meaning to clothes either. Why? It seems like a step backward to deprive mostly men of their expressive freedom without any practical benefit. Next, Republicans may mandate facial hair or forbid tattoos or otherwise prescribe behavior that has no link whatsoever with masculinity or femininity, sex or gender, and no inherent meaning, simply as a culture war issue. This makes as much sense as making rules about Mr. Potatohead and only serves empty social rules observed to limit people in their social interactions. Like when we girls had to wear skirts to school and jeans were forbidden, back in the dark ages (pre-1965) and boys' hair could not touch their shirt collars. Those were bad old days, not anything anyone with any sense wants to return to.

      Delete
    18. There have been accusations that students in CO have been de-catifying cats by pretending to be animals at school. The right-wing candidate for governor has been saying this. However:

      "“No, several large Colorado school districts said Tuesday, they are not having issues with students identifying as cats or other animals, as Republican gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl has repeatedly claimed is happening in schools across the state,” the Denver Post reports."

      I suppose, if it were true that students were denying their own humanity, that would be a case of self-dehumanization. But, this is just another false issue invented by the right to attack public schools and make Democrats appear ridiculous.

      Delete
    19. "Nazis and others who find a group of human beings they want to kill for their own convenience always tell us there is something not quite human about the group."

      You didn't have to go back to German Nazis to make your point, Newt Gingrich and Lauren Boebert are much more recent examples.

      Delete
    20. Are the rights of appendixes protected by the Bill of Rights?

      Delete
    21. 1:24,
      Give it up. No matter how many times you pretend you care about fetuses and not about keeping women in their place, we aren't going to fall for it.

      Delete
    22. I'm sure 1:24 would make a better argument about protecting babies, if he gave a shit about them.

      Delete
    23. Maybe so, but none of the millions whose lives will be saved as a result of the overturning of Roe v wade will care whether one percent or one hundred percent of the Republicans who made it happened care about babies.

      Delete
    24. "Dehumanizing something that is not human is not evil"

      That's what Nazis said about people who thought killing Jews was evil.

      Delete
    25. No, it isn't anywhere close to that. Why? Because the Jews and others executed by the Nazis were human beings who the Nazis dehumanized. A chair, a dog, a fetus, none of those are human beings, so it is not possible to dehumanize them, even if you are a Nazi.

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    26. People who are anti-abortion have no interest in the supposed lives saved. They have no idea how many of the fetuses would be viable, how many deformed, how many condemned to brief painful lives and early deaths in childhood, how many may starve or be abused due to economic or social hardship, and so on. They take no care of adopted infants and they do not support social services for families. They are awful people whose main concern is controlling women's sexuality in order to keep women out of the workplace, trapped in horrible marriages, condemned to poverty if they leave abusive marriages. There is nothing noble about this anti-abortion asshole who haunts this blog.

      Delete
    27. 5:31 you sad lost soul, you are set on dehumanizing people who actually own a moral compass, while you wander aimlessly. Thing is, the abortion rate won't go down, it will just be more dangerous and deadly for pregnant people - the Nazi comparison only works with yourself.

      Delete
    28. "A chair, a dog, a fetus, none of those are human beings"

      Whoa, is this an actual liberal talking point? We find it hard to believe. But then, who the fuck knows these days...

      ...nah, let us be charitable and assume that this is just an accident; one damaged soros-bot going off the rails...

      Delete
    29. That Republican voter who cares about babies is probably the same imaginary Republican voter who isn't a bigot.

      Delete
    30. “A chair, a dog, a fetus, none of those are human beings"’

      The accuracy of your statement depends upon whether it’s a human fetus.

      Otherwise, you need a refresher course in Sesame Street.

      “One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just does not belong.”

      Delete
  7. "At this point, the reader will finally encounter sections devoted to CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT and also to WORLD. But before the reader encounters the report by Barnes, he will encounter the HELP DESK section (three reports) and the LIFESTYLE section, whose five reports include these:"

    If you don't know how to use a table of contents to find the politics section directly, should you be allowed to vote? Is it the fault of the publisher, especially in an online format? In print formats, they used to put the sports page on the back so that sports fans could find it without being confused by all the other news.

    ReplyDelete
  8. "In his column about Florida's redistricting, Blow delivered a standard tribal message. He let us know that the Others are just plain pretty much racist. "

    Someone who is black, as Blow is, is likely to encounter more racism in his daily life than those who are white, as Somerby is. It seems to me that Blow is performing a service when he identifies racism via his personal experience that white people may not have the opportunity to encounter. He ought to know, if anyone would, whether there is still racism being directed at black people.

    Somerby implies that Blow's statements about who is racist are unreliable or not worth paying attention to. He brushes them off, but on what basis? How would Somerby have any better idea about who is and is not racist, given that Somerby is not on the receiving end of such racism?

    Somerby's knee-jerk denial that anyone is racist, much less The Others, strikes me as denying the lived experience of a person who will directly feel racism in interactions in his own life. How can this first-hand experience be discounted, the way Somerby always does whenever Blow, Coates, Reid, and various other black journalists and academics tell him about racism?

    He does the same thing when women talk about their struggles, and even when that female Asian lawyer described the attacks on Asians in New York's Chinatown streets. Somerby thought she was making things up too.

    Who died and made Somerby the arbiter of all things racist? Cecelia claims that Somerby never denies the existence of racism, but here he is doing it again about Blow's assertions, only hours after she made her blanket defense. What evidence has Somerby presented that the Others in Florida are NOT pretty much racist? None at all. But he is just so damned sure that Blow is wrong. And Somerby doesn't even live in Florida! How can he know?

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  9. If Somerby weren't such a racist himself, he might have reported the things Ketanji Brown Jackson said yesterday in the arguments by the Supreme Court. They are germane to what Blow argues and also Somerby's comments, because they deal directly with the extent to which race must be considered based on the Voting Rights Act.

    What partisan and racial considerations have caused Somerby to suppress her important statements? Or does he ignore her because she is female? Or is this the happy conjunction of identity that permits Somerby to ignore her input on multiple counts? In any case, he has "disappeared" her entirely from his discussion. The S.C. won't be able to do that as easily as our white male blogger who today thinks that talking about the annoying lifestyle section of the paper takes precedence over voting rights. No one has forced him to talk about celebrity face creams today.

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  10. Dana Loesch gave the game away.

    I'll be here at TDH, all day, accepting apologies from those who argued that Republicans care about something other than bigotry and white supremacy.

    ReplyDelete
  11. DeSantis supported the racial gerrymandering in Florida but Blow is the problem in Somerby's mind?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anyone who fell for the ridiculous lie that Republicans care about babies harmed by abortion, raise your hand. Don't be shy, now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. To paraphrase Homer Simpson, it takes two parties to lie. Republicans to tell the lie, and the corporate-owned, mainstream media to believe it.

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    2. Lumping the rest of the media in with Fox News is incorrect because there are important differences between them and many instances where the media does debunk Fox's lies. The so-called mainstream media is not monolithic.

      The media performs an important function by acting as a check on the excesses of government and political candidates. While it has done some bad things (by promoting Trump and attacking Hillary), it has also revealed scandals and done important investigative journalism that has kept the spotlight on malfeasance. Homer Simpson isn't the most wise person on that show -- truth usually comes from Lisa.

      Delete
    3. Maybe not but none of the babies not harmed by abortion that would have been harmed by abortion, if Republicans didn't introduce restrictions, are going to care about how sincere Republicans were about saving their lives.

      Delete
    4. 11;38,
      Fine. Just don't confuse them with allies.

      Delete
    5. 11;56,
      Good for them, because the answer is not at all. Republicans were not at all concerned about saving lives.
      But you knew that.

      Delete
    6. Still. It would have been nice for the media to explain Benghazi was caused by a Republican congress pretending the richest country in the history of mankind was broke.

      Delete
  13. "Do editors at the Washington Post actually care about topics involving matters of race? Again and again, then again and again, we find ourselves asking that question about journalists and opinion leaders within our own blue tribe."

    Is Somerby now trying to hint that Blow doesn't care about "matters of race"? If not, who exactly is he talking about? Is it because the lifestyle section talked about face creams?

    Another one of those vague accusations without evidence. These attacks are intended to undermine faith in the media's reporting, making it easier to feed voters garbage originating on the right. Today we are told bad things about Blow, without any discussion -- that is postponed to some future date and may or may not arrive. And we are told bad things about the "media" as a lump, again without any specifics, just saying that the left is bad to believe them (about what, he doesn't say). And those "opinion leaders" are mentioned, when we have no idea who he is talking about or what they did to deserve that negative mention.

    This is character assassination aimed at the left and the media, by someone who pretends to be liberal but hasn't said a liberal thing here in years. But the drip drip drip of negative assertions about the media is inexorable, Somerby's only reason for writing here daily, since he never says anything worth reading any more. Not least today, where he criticizes a digital media in which it doesn't matter where anything is placed because you can find what you want instantly by using search and contents features. A nonsense discussion whose only purpose is to present more negative remarks about the media.

    And who benefits from that? Russia, enemies of democracy, Republicans with their cartoon candidates, and everyone else who wants an ignorant audience cynical to the core and willing to believe anything as long as you frame it as a conspiracy.

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    Replies
    1. This is a very intelligent take. I never thought of it that way. There's no question you are right.

      Delete
    2. Maybe he recognizes there's nothing decent or even liberal about the fascist left including its media organs.

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    3. Tsk, nah. More like Nazi than fascist, we'd say.

      Typical Nazi lingo prevails everywhere in the modern liberal discourse: 'racial progress', 'racial justice', all that shit.

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    4. Mao, Blow cares about "matters of race". Pure and simple. The inexorability of the negative drip, drip, drip assertions about the media is a nonsense discussion whose purported negative remarks about digital media doesn't matter when you can find instantly what you want by using search and contents features aimed at the left and the media.

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    5. Blow is black. Why shouldn't he care about race? And why shouldn't he write about race? And while we're at it, why wouldn't his experiences as a black man in our society give him an important perspective for saying how race affects individuals on a personal level?

      In contrast, Somerby is a white man. He has never had the experience of being any other race. What does he know about Blow's experiences or any other black person's daily life? Nothing, except perhaps through reading or movies. That makes Somerby less of an expert (or not an expert at all) and decreases his standing to criticize Blow's opinions on race.

      Somerby wants to deny the whole concept of expertise. He thinks anything is possible and therefore no one can know anything, and thus any person is as knowledgeable as any other. In fact, know-nothings on the right are as valid in their opinions as anyone else, and even Somerby can call Blow names because what can Blow possibly know about race?

      Needless to say, Somerby's approach to knowledge is bankrupt. It leads to idiocracy, already happening on the right. Worse, people who engage in this thinking will have worse lives because reality doesn't change to fit Somerby's assertions. When Somerby says wrong things, the world will remain the same, except Somerby will be in conflict with it. When that happens, the world (reality) always prevails.

      I remember a film where Richard Pryor tried to convince the Klan that he was a white man and not black. It was only funny because it was a movie, and the character was not believed, nor was he exempted from being chased by armed men, once they pulled his hood off. Reality isn't fooled either, when people pretend that masks don't work and then die of covid because they won't wear one. Herschel Walker thought he could pretend the facts of his life didn't matter -- we are seeing how well that is working for him. Trump thought he could pretend that classified documents were his. They aren't, and now he is going to pay the price for that delusion. You can steal gifts from foreigners given to the American people, but not our nation's secrets.

      Delete
    6. This makes even more sense than the last one. These are penetrating truths that arej lucid and rational and really everything in between.

      Delete
    7. Stick to calling SCOTUS illegitimate, folks.

      Keep your mitts off the corporate media.

      Delete
    8. "Stick to calling SCOTUS illegitimate, folks."
      My cup runneth over with Samuel Alito's tears.

      Delete
    9. Anonymouse 8:17am, that’s why anonymices inspire more eye rolling than a Carrot Top routine with your “assault on democracy” shtick.

      Delete
  14. Here are some of the comments made by Ketanji Brown Jackson about the Alabama voting rights case:

    https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2022/10/the-idea-that-the-protecting-civil-rights-never-allows-the-state-to-consider-race-is-ahistorical-and-illogical

    ReplyDelete