Deterioration in U.S. Race Relations

You don't say?

At Gallup, "U.S. Worries About Race Relations Reach a New High" (via Memeorandum):

My favorite part about the Obama era is all the racial healing.

— jon gabriel (@exjon) November 24, 2014

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- More than a third (35%) of Americans now say they are worried "a great deal" about race relations in the U.S. -- which is higher than at any time since Gallup first asked the question in 2001. The percentage who are worried a great deal rose seven percentage points in the past year and has more than doubled in the past two years.

Concern about race relations in the U.S. has risen during an 18-month period marked by a series of deaths of unarmed blacks at the hands of police officers. These deaths sparked major, sometimes violent, protests and fueled the nationwide rise of the "Black Lives Matter" movement.

Democrats, Liberals More Worried Than Republicans, Conservatives

Concern about race relations over the past two years has increased among Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, and blacks and whites. But the gap between the groups who were already most worried before 2015 -- Democrats, liberals and blacks -- and those less worried has not shrunk, and in some cases has widened. Of particular note is the 53% to 27% "worried" gap between blacks and whites, up from the 31% to 14% gap between blacks and whites in the 2012-2014 combined polls...

More.

Racial healing, heh.

President Obama's Legacy of Racial Divisiveness

From VDH, at Pajamas, "Bitter Clingers 2.0":

Clingers 1.0: “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Clingers 2.0: “Certain circumstances around being the first African-American president that might not have confronted a previous president, absolutel.  … If you are referring to specific strains in the Republican Party that suggest that somehow I'm different, I'm Muslim, I'm disloyal to the country, etc., which unfortunately is pretty far out there and gets some traction in certain pockets of the Republican Party, and that have been articulated by some of their elected officials, what I'd say there is that that's probably pretty specific to me and who I am and my background, and that in some ways I may represent change that worries them…. If you are living in a town that historically has relied on coal and you see coal jobs diminishing, you probably are going to be more susceptible to the argument that I've been wiping out the economy in your area .… I think if you are talking about the specific virulence of some of the opposition directed towards me, then, you know, that may be explained by the particulars of who I am.”

Barack Obama in the final stretch of his 2008 primary campaign explained away—off the record in an unguarded moment—his unpopularity in Pennsylvania. The problem then was a biased “them”—not so much the hard-left policies and principles of Barack Obama.

These narrow-minded clingers were supposedly not fond of Obama and similar others “who aren’t like them.” Thus, because of their parochialism, nativism, and fundamentalism, the unenlightened voters of Pennsylvania were unable to appreciate Obama’s message of “hope and change” and vero possumus—much less his landmark promises to return the Presidency to constitutional restraint, radically improve American health care, end the role of big money in politics, solve the “bad” Iraq war and win the “good” Afghan war, cool the planet and recede the seas, end government scandal, bridge the racial divide, balance the budget, reset relations with Russia, and win back the hearts and minds of the Muslim world.

For some reason, the under-educated voter seven years ago was skeptical that Obama would do any of that. Of course, Obama smeared the Clingers off the record, given that what he really thought of the white working class of Pennsylvania did not quite synch with his purported racial and class ecumenicalism.

Seven years later an unpopular (43% approval rate in the RealClearPolitics.com aggregate poll), lame-duck President Obama has come full circle in his angst and pouting. Now with no more elections looming, nothing apparently is off the record. He recently gave an interview with NPR, in which he offered a sort of Clingers 2.0 exegesis for his current poor approval ratings and absence of a legacy.

Once again the fault is with an ignorant “them” and their biases (e.g., “I may represent change that worries them”), not Obama’s own unimpressive record of governance.

A liberated Obama is more overt in his sense of victimization. Now he can be more explicit than his Clingers 1.0 indictment and quite openly allege that his family’s background and race best explain his plight...

More.

The most divisive president in American history. *SMH*.

Public's View of Race Relations at Lowest Point in Two Decades

And Obama was supposed to be the great uniter, a post-partisan leader for the ages. Boy, was that a load of crap.

At WSJ, "Americans’ View of Race Relations at Two-Decade Low — WSJ/NBC News Poll":

Americans’ view of race relations is as grim as it has been in 20 years, in the wake of a series of deaths of unarmed black men in confrontations with police officers, the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows.

This month, only 34% of Americans believe race relations in the U.S. are fairly good or very good, down from a high of 77% in January 2009, after the election of Barack Obama as America’s first black president.

The figure is the lowest since 34% in October 1995, after the acquittal on murder charges of African-American former football star O.J. Simpson, a traumatic and racially polarizing event.

“This is a very sad chart,” Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican polling firm that conducted the poll for The Wall Street Journal and NBC News, said of the figures. “It’s a reminder… what a continued rupture point in our country race is.”

Just Wednesday afternoon, a judge declared a mistrial in the criminal trial of a Baltimore police officer charged in connection with the death of an African American man last April

Over the past two decades, blacks and Hispanics have always had slightly more negative views on race relations in the U.S. than whites. But for about four years following the election of Mr. Obama in November 2008, majorities of the three demographic groups viewed race relations in the U.S. as very or fairly good.

In February 2012, a white volunteer neighborhood watchman named George Zimmerman shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, who was black and unarmed, at an apartment complex in Florida, after reporting to police he had seen a “suspicious person” and was stepping from his vehicle to investigate. Mr. Zimmerman was acquitted of murder in July 2013.

Since then, a series of police killings of unarmed black teenagers or men – in Missouri, New York City, South Carolina, Chicago, Cincinnati and beyond, have sparked outraged protests and have significantly diminished views of race relations among all racial groups, the polls show.

“We know the march is not yet over.  We know the race is not yet won,” Mr. Obama said in March at the 50th anniversary of the marches from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., a seminal moment in the history of the civil rights movement. “We know that reaching that blessed destination where we are judged, all of us, by the content of our character requires admitting as much, facing up to the truth… There’s nothing America can’t handle if we actually look squarely at the problem.”

Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, which also conducts the WSJ/NBC poll, said Americans’ views on race relations began to decline in polls in 2013, after the Zimmerman/Martin episode and continuing with high profile police shootings of African Americans.

In an unhappy irony, the gloomy view on race relations is a rare point of agreement among blacks, whites and Hispanics who are divided on so many other issues.

In the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, 26% of African Americans, 33% of whites and 38% of Hispanics view race relations as very or fairly good.

The issue is not free from partisan divide, however...

Survivor of Charleston Massacre Tells Lester Holt About the Moment Dylann Roof Opened Fire During Bible Study (VIDEO)

Watch, at NBC News, "Dylann Roof Told Survivor: ‘I’m Going To Leave You Here to Tell the Story’."

But hey, let's wave that Confederate flag in her face!

Confederate Flags Raised Again in South Carolina

Well, no doubt the Confederate flag debate has simmered down by now. I've personally disassociated with so-called conservatives who champion that symbol of Southern heritage. I appreciate the sentiments of pride, but not the denial of the flag's uglier symbolism. The only people making the hardline "heritage" argument are Marxists and radical libertarians, not true conservative patriots.

Stogie at Saberpoint's backed off his brusque attacks on dissenters from the Marxist/radical libertarian line. I see his last big post on this was from August 18th, "George Zimmeran's [sic] Painting of the Confederate Flag." (But see also from August 14th, "The Civil War Absolutely Was Not About Slavery: Must-Read Book Tells Why.")

It's a stupid, childish lie that the Civil War wasn't about slavery, as I've shown here repeatedly. And all any half-rational person has to do is read Bruce Levine's magnificent book, The Fall of the House of Dixie: The Civil War and the Social Revolution That Transformed the South.

In any case, because there's always going to be disagreement over this, you'll never see the blatant in-your-face displays of the flag go away, especially in the South, and even in South Carolina, where the murders of the nine black Charleston parishioners will forever be a stain on that state's history.

So, here's the New York Times with a reminder of how that culture endures, with NASCAR.

See, "Confederate Flags Crash Nascar’s Plan for a Homecoming":

Confederate flags crash @NASCAR's plan for a homecoming http://t.co/rJ12sqrIUY pic.twitter.com/10jRw5OS71

— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 6, 2015

DARLINGTON, S.C. — Throwback paint schemes on racecars and retro logos and signs welcomed Nascar fans when they arrived at Darlington Raceway this weekend for the Bojangles’ Southern 500 Sprint Cup race. The marketing campaign was designed to make one of the most storied tracks on the circuit look like the early 1970s all over again.

Fans were more than happy to complete the picture, much to Nascar’s dismay. The Confederate flags they raised on R.V.s across the infield and outside the track dotted the sky above Darlington on Friday morning, as they have for decades here. The Southern 500, after all, was long known for playing “Dixie” as its anthem and used to feature a character named Johnny Reb — a man dressed as a Confederate soldier who stood atop the winning car with a rebel flag.

As those Confederate flags waved once more on Friday, Nascar faced its recurring quandary: How could a sport so closely associated with its Southern roots broaden its appeal nationally without alienating that base?

An insightful and occasionally amusing package of the sports journalism you need today, delivered to your inbox by New York Times reporters and editors.

“I’d say we’re always looking to make sure we’re satisfying our core fans and our long-term fan at the same time as we are growing to a new audience,” Jim Cassidy, Nascar’s senior vice president for racing operations, said Thursday during a telephone interview. “It’s a balance.”

And Darlington Raceway, as much as any track on the circuit, epitomizes the struggle Nascar has faced in trying to find that balance with an event that holds a special place in racing history.

The Southern 500 was first held at Darlington on Labor Day weekend in 1950. For 53 years, it was an iconic stop on the schedule, revered by some as much or more than the Daytona 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 among the most important races of the year. That was until 2004, when Nascar changed the schedule to give the Labor Day weekend date to its sister track in Fontana, Calif., in the coveted Los Angeles market.

The Southern 500 was suddenly gone.

“It’s one of those things: Be careful what you wish for,” said Kyle Petty, the longtime driver who is now an NBC broadcaster. “We wished for a bigger sport, we dreamed of a bigger sport. We dreamed of Chicago and Kansas and Dallas, Tex., and L.A., and we dreamed of those markets when we were running North Wilkesboro and Darlington and Rockingham and Martinsville and places like that.

“And then all of the sudden you have those markets, but there’s a sacrifice to be made to be in those markets. And I think Nascar looked at it and said, let’s change some of this stuff around. I give them credit for changing it at the time to try to make something happen. But I give them huge credit for realizing what we had was just as special and coming back to it.”

Darlington retained one race each season, the date shifting on the schedule several times. The Southern 500 name was brought back in 2009 as well. But it was not until after the California experiment failed and the Labor Day event was shifted to Atlanta for four years that Nascar finally gave Darlington back its Southern 500 on Labor Day weekend this year. It was hard to gauge enthusiasm going into the weekend; the race was not a sellout at the 58,000-seat track.

“I think our great race fans in South Carolina support this racetrack,” said the track president, Chip Wile. “Certainly, we want to make a big splash in our return to Labor Day weekend, and I think we’ll do that.”

But officials are determined not to make a scene at the same time with Confederate flags in clear view during the race broadcast. After all, the Nascar chairman, Brian France, had declared that Confederate flags were no longer welcome at tracks after a mass shooting at a church in Charleston in June. When the series shifted to Daytona in July, track officials came up with an exchange program. They offered American flags to replace the Confederate flags there...

Still more.

Baltimore Reports 45 Homicides for July, Deadliest Month of 2015, and August Kicks Off with More Violence (VIDEO)

And here I thought #BlackLivesMatter?

At CBS News Baltimore:

Confederate Symbols, Swastikas, and Student Sensibilities

Political correctness run amok, at the New York Times.

Confederate Flags Placed at Ebenezer Baptist Church and Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site

It's MLK's former church, now a national historic monument.

Because the Confederate flag stands for racial reconciliation, or something.

At the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "Cops: Video shows 2 men placing Confederate flags at Ebenezer":

Atlanta police said surveillance footage shows two men placing Confederate battle flags at two of Atlanta’s most notable landmarks early Thursday: Ebenezer Baptist Church and Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site.

As investigators worked to identify the men and their motive, church and civic leaders decried the act as terrorism, vowing not to be threatened.

Police later Thursday released several black and white videos from Ebenezer’s surveillance cameras showing images of two men walking and placing flags at various spots...

The National Park Service also received a "threatening message" just days ago that mention the historic site, although authorities are not yet linking it to events overnight.

Also at CNN, "Confederate flags found at MLK's church," and AP, "Confederate Flags Placed Near MLK's Ga. Church."

And at Fox 5 News Atlanta, "Rev. Warnock on Confederate flags found at church."

I'm going to check over at Saberpoint to see if Stogie's renounced this act of "terrorism," to use the word of condemnation of church leaders.

Hey Conservatives, What's Worth Conserving If It Ain't White?

So, that's what the whole "#Cuckservative" thing is all about?

And here Robert Stacy McCain was saying it was a leftist meme. I guess not.

At American Renaissance, "An Open Letter to Cuckservatives":

You aren’t just betraying your principles.

Dear Cuckservative,

You are not alone. Like you, Erick Erickson at RedState.com, Matt Lewis at the Daily Caller, Taylor Millard at Hot Air, the blogger Ace of Spades, and Jim Harper with the Cato Institute are all squirming under the lash of this new coinage. They are squirming because a single word–cuckservative–lays bare the rot at the heart of your movement: American conservatism can conserve nothing if it cannot conserve the nation’s founding stock. I’ll put it bluntly: Nothing you love will survive without white people.

Do you stand for limited government and a balanced budget? Count your black and Hispanic allies. Do you admire Thomas Jefferson? He was a slave-holder who will end up on the dung heap with the Confederate flag. Do you care about stable families and the rights of the unborn? Look up illegitimacy, divorce, and abortion rates for blacks and Hispanics. Do you cherish the stillness at dawn in Bryce Canyon? When the park service manages to get blacks and Hispanics to go camping they play boom-boxes until 1:00 a.m. Was Ronald Reagan your hero? He would not win a majority of today’s electorate.

Do you love Tchaikovsky? Count the non-whites in the concert hall. Do you yearn for neighborhoods where you can leave the keys in your car? There still are some; just don’t expect them to be “diverse.” Are hunting and firearms part of your heritage? Explain that to Barack Obama or Sonia Sotomayor. Are you a devout Christian? Muslim immigrants despise you and your faith. Do you support Israel? Mexicans, Haitians, Chinese, and Guatemalans don’t.

Your great festival – CPAC – is as white as a meeting of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. That’s because blacks and Hispanics and even Asians don’t share your dreams. You’ve heard the old joke: “What do you call the only black person at a conservative meeting? The keynote speaker.” Outreach doesn’t work. You can’t talk someone into loving what you love. Faith, patriotism, duty, and honor come from deeply cultural, religious, and ancestral sources you can’t reach.

Why do you evoke Martin Luther King when you call for a “colorblind” America? You know he wanted quotas for blacks. You evoke King because you think he’ll help you silence blacks and liberals. But it doesn’t work, does it? That’s because only whites–and Asians, when it suits them–even think in terms of “colorblindness.” Blacks and Hispanics will squeeze every unfair advantage out of you they can. At what point will they ever abandon their aggressive racial agenda? When they’re the majority just think how hard they’ll squeeze your grandchildren...

What a load of crap, and there's still more.

And this is the kind of conservatism Stogie at Saberpoint is all about? I don't know, but count me out brother, in any case. CPAC ain't all white, you cracker idiots. And true conservatism knows no color.

I really hate this moment of ideological purity we're having, but as folks can see I've taken my stand and it's not with the dolts of the racist Deutschephysik battalions.

#Cuckservative

That hateful Deutschephysik Twitter account was tweeting the #Cuckservative hashtag over the weekend. ICYMI, "Deutschephysik: Gotta Be a Parody Account, Right?"

Actually, I'm not sure that was a parody account.

But no fear, Robert Stacy McCain is here with the lowdown. See, "About the #Cuckservative Thing: By Whom Is the ‘New Right’ Being Trolled?" Also, "Notes on Survival Amid the Madness."

Deutschephysik: Gotta Be a Parody Account, Right?

Even if it is parody, the hate in that "joke" about "tying down a beaner" just doesn't emerge from a vacuum.

Seriously, neo-Confederates might have a problem, but don't tell Stogie or he'll "block your ass."

It's still up on Twitter, amazingly.

Democrats Struggle with #BlackLivesMatter

I think everybody struggles with #BlackLivesMatter, but to see the Democrats struggle is divine.

From Wesley Lowery and David Weigel, at WaPo, "Why Hillary Clinton and her rivals are struggling to grasp Black Lives Matter":

Amid the famous politicians, wealthy donors and top Democratic Party officials invited to New York last month to watch Hillary Rodham Clinton announce her presidential candidacy sat another VIP guest: a newcomer to politics, but a man whose presence at the event was sought by Clinton aides.

DeRay Mckesson, 30, one of the most visible organizers of the Black Lives Matter movement that has sprung up in the aftermath of protests in Ferguson, Mo., had received an invitation, and the campaign encouraged him to tweet his observations to his 178,000 followers.

He wasn’t impressed.

“I heard a lot of things. And nothing directly about black folk,” Mckesson wrote moments after the speech. “Coded language won’t cut it.”

Then, this week, Clinton rivals Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley each began a frenetic push to appease Black Lives Matter activists who are angry about the way the two men handled a demonstration by the group at a liberal conference last weekend. O’Malley, a former governor of Maryland, appeared on a black-oriented talk show to say he made a mistake, while Sanders, a senator from Vermont, called activists to request meetings.

The strained interactions demonstrate the extent to which a vibrant new force on the left has disrupted traditional presidential politics, creating challenges for Democratic candidates who are facing intense pressure to put police brutality and other race-
related issues on the front burner ahead of the 2016 election.

The rise of Black Lives Matter has presented opportunities for Clinton and her opponents, who are seeking to energize black voters to build on the multiethnic coalitions that twice elected Barack Obama. But the candidates have struggled to tap into a movement that has proved unpredictable and fiercely independent. It is a largely organic web of young African American activists — many of them unbound by partisan allegiances and largely un­affiliated with establishment groups such as the NAACP that typically forge close ties with Democrats.

Led by several dozen core activists, many of whom voted for the first time in 2008, Black Lives Matter has organized protests — at times drawing hundreds of participants — in more than two dozen cities and colleges. Many of the movement’s leading activists are among Twitter’s most influential users — with the ability to pump messages out to hundreds of thousands of people, often prompting topics to trend nationwide.

At times, they have pressured media outlets to cover stories surrounding race and justice, and they have leveled sharp critiques of politicians and celebrities that often go viral. In one such instance, activists blasted Clinton when she appeared at a black church near Ferguson last month and said that “all lives matter” — a phrase that struck the demonstrators as dismissive of the unique discrimination against African Americans by law enforcement officers.

The activists say they are ready to make their voices heard in the presidential race. Although they are pressuring candidates to talk more about police brutality, they say they intend to carve out a broader agenda encompassing other issues relating to systemic racism...

More.

Remember, though, #BlackLivesMatter is actually a revolutionary communist organization, and their program isn't about improving the lives of blacks. It's about overthrowing the entire U.S. "hegemonic" system.

Plus, hehe, see Mediaite, "DeRay McKesson: Leader, Activist, and Unrepentant Conspiracy-Monger."

Change! Most Say Race Relations Worse After Years of Obama-Democrats, New Poll Finds

Change you can believe in.

At the New York Times, "Poll Finds Most in U.S. Hold Dim View of Race Relations":

My favorite part about the Obama era is all the racial healing.

— jon gabriel (@exjon) November 24, 2014

Seven years ago, in the gauzy afterglow of a stirring election night in Chicago, commentators dared ask whether the United States had finally begun to heal its divisions over race and atone for the original sin of slavery by electing its first black president. It has not. Not even close.

A New York Times/CBS News poll conducted last week reveals that nearly six in 10 Americans, including heavy majorities of both whites and blacks, think race relations are generally bad, and that nearly four in 10 think the situation is getting worse. By comparison, two-thirds of Americans surveyed shortly after President Obama took office said they believed that race relations were generally good.

The swings in attitude have been particularly striking among African-Americans. During Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign, nearly 60 percent of blacks said race relations were generally bad, but that number was cut in half shortly after he won. It has now soared to 68 percent, the highest level of discontent among blacks during the Obama years and close to the numbers recorded in the aftermath of the riots that followed the 1992 acquittal of Los Angeles police officers charged in the beating of Rodney King.

Only a fifth of those surveyed said they thought race relations were improving, while about 40 percent of both blacks and whites said they were staying essentially the same....

The nationwide telephone poll of 1,205 people, which focused on racial concerns, was conducted from July 14 to July 19, at the midpoint of a year that has seen as much race-related strife and violence as perhaps any since the desegregation battles of the 1960s. It came one month after the massacre of nine black worshipers at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C., apparently by a white supremacist, and after a yearlong series of shootings and harassment of blacks by white police officers that were captured by smartphone cameras.

The Charleston shootings, which took place during Bible study on June 17, generated a national outpouring of outrage and grief. The suspect’s embrace of the Confederate battle flag in Internet photographs prompted South Carolina’s Republican governor, Nikki R. Haley, and its Republican-controlled legislature to order the flag’s removal from the grounds of the State House in Columbia.

But despite the perception that the shootings inspired a moment of empathy and reconciliation, the poll suggests that attitudes toward the flag remain deeply divided between whites and blacks, and not just in the South.

When asked how they regarded the battle flag, 57 percent of whites said they considered it mostly an emblem of Southern pride, while 68 percent of blacks said they saw it more as a symbol of racism. The view that the flag represents heritage more than bigotry was shared by 65 percent of white Southerners, including three-fourths of white Southern men.

About four in 10 whites, and one in 10 blacks, said they disapproved of the decision to lower the flag in Columbia, while 52 percent of whites and 81 percent of blacks favored it. Nearly half of white Southerners disagreed with the decision. Four in 10 blacks said they would be less likely to shop with a retailer who sold Confederate flags and merchandise, but only 17 percent of whites said so.

“The Confederate flag is a part of history that should not just be thrown out the door,” said Mary Nordtome, 66, a white retired rancher from Fort Sumner, N.M., in a follow-up interview. “It really hurts me that we have to be so politically correct in everything.” She added, “Hate groups have distorted what the Confederate flag means and the history we should not forget.”

Mindy Zhu, a 19-year-old college student from Queens who is Asian, said the crusade against the Confederate flag, regardless of its meaning, posed a threat to free speech. “As soon as you start taking away a symbol for something, then you start taking away other people’s freedom,” she said.

In the aftermath of the Charleston shootings, many Americans were deeply moved when relatives of five of the victims told the suspect in the killings, Dylann Roof, at a court hearing that their faith directed them to forgive him. The poll found that about half of those surveyed, including 49 percent of whites and 41 percent of blacks, could not have brought themselves to do the same...

A bare majority agreed with Governor Haley's decision to remove the flag from state grounds --- even after those big majorities saying the flag represents a symbol of heritage. I think that's actually a sign of racial healing and acceptance: that a majority of Americans, despite a symbolic view of the Confederate flag, agreed that it's the right thing to do, removing it from public grounds. (Very similar to CNN's earlier findings on the exact same thing.)

Still more.

For leftists, of course, it doesn't stop there for this insane political correctness. I mean, now Connecticut Democrats are dropping the name of party founders Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson from their annual state fundraising dinner. See Rick Moran, at Pajamas, "Connecticut Dems Drop Jefferson, Jackson Names from Fundraising Dinner." You can't fit everything down the memory hole, although no doubt leftists will keep trying. (Via Memorandum.)