
I’m Not “Black Enough” for Inc. Magazine - bootload
https://facesoffounders.org/im-not-black-enough-for-inc-magazine-337569d54a6b
======
uncletaco
There's something that always bothers me when someone sees a statistic that
says "Among racial and ethnic groups, African Americans had the highest
poverty rate, 27.4 percent, followed by Hispanics at 26.6 percent and whites
at 9.9 percent." and flips it to say "almost 75% of blacks are not poor!"

Yes, that's true, but if I were to go further and look at the source he
cited's fact sheet on African Americans then I'd see some interesting factoids
about wealth. For instance:

> In 2010, the median wealth, or net worth, for black families was $4,900,
> compared to median wealth for whites of $97,000.

> Blacks are nearly twice as likely as whites to have zero or negative net
> worth—33.9 percent compared to 18.6 percent.

So yes, we can say "nearly 75% of Blacks are not poor" but that doesn't really
work as a jumping off point for any argument about black wealth, at least in
my opinion.

It looks to me like this guy has taken his suburban upper class experience (he
called his living situation "Huxtable-esque") and assumed that all black
people who are living above the poverty line are somehow doing just as well as
he is. Therefore the media is going out of its way to find the "archetypal"
black entrepreneur who comes from that ~25% of blacks who grew up in poverty.
I don't really buy that argument, especially because being above the poverty
line doesn't really speak to matters of wealth, class, and social mobility.

I'm not saying any of this to diminish his success, I'm happy he's made it,
but I think he's failed to recognize his (sadly) exceptional situation that
doesn't really speak for the rest of the 75%.

EDIT: cleaned up some grammar.

~~~
5thaccount
> It looks to me like this guy ... assumed that all black people

Thus is the heart of the matter - in reverse. I'm not trying to be pointed,
but there is no other way to say it, so here it is: it is you who have
assumed, not the author. This extrapolation of the one to the many is at the
heart of modern identity politics. It is the core of what the article gets at
- to be identified as a thing you have to fit the stereotype. And anything the
one does is instantly assumed to be a comment on the many or, in some cases,
the all, and any way the one varies from the many doesn't change the
definition, it is merely discarded.

I despair at this, I really do. Why do we breakdown the individual homo
sapiens in a story to their base elements of race, gender, sexuality,
religion, rather than celebrate their unqiueness?

I had a 23andme DNA test years ago, and I shared my racial profile (X%
Scndanavian, y% norther european etc) and someone made a comment about the
last line: "100% 5thaccount - you are 100% you". I still think about that
comment a lot. These elements that make us up don't define us, as we are not
the sum of these elements the way water is two parts hydrogen, one part
oxygen. We are our own selves, who are more than, or sometimes less than, the
sum of these things. Rather than reduce our experiences to the net sum of
these simple elements, I think we should praise the unique - an unique implies
not generalisable to the many or all - outcomes we each create.

~~~
jakelazaroff
We can still "celebrate uniqueness" while acknowledging that how we're treated
by society is in large part determined by what groups we happen to belong to.

For example: if you're black, you will likely receive a longer prison sentence
than a white person who commits a similar crime[1]. Full stop. You're your own
self, you can't be reduced to the sum of your race/gender/etc, and yet on
solely on the basis of your skin color you'll be given a more severe
punishment.

The "but everyone's their own person" critique of identity politics doesn't
hold water because regardless of whether or not I bucket myself, society will
still bucket me and treat me thusly.

[1]
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324432004578304...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324432004578304463789858002)

~~~
zachkatz
> The "but everyone's their own person" critique of identity politics doesn't
> hold water because regardless of whether or not I bucket myself, society
> will still bucket me and treat me thusly.

Yes, but _everyone_ is being bucketed by society. By their gender, skin color,
age, height, hair type, personality type, on and on and on—there are so many
buckets that eventually you reach the level of the individual. Everyone is in
their own bucket.

~~~
neumann
Perhaps I am misunderstanding you and you are responding to a particular
point, but the buckets are not equal! Your 'bucket' is not just based on your
unique identity but on social categorizations which influence others and their
(and their government's) policy that can have decades, and even centuries long
influences on you and groups of people.

~~~
zachkatz
I'm going to delegate my response:
[https://youtu.be/aDRgMUoEvcg?t=2445](https://youtu.be/aDRgMUoEvcg?t=2445)

Highly recommend the whole thing, but 40:45 to ~46:00 is, to your point, the
most eloquent argument I've ever heard about this topic.

~~~
neumann
Thank you for your response.

I watched that section, and I offer a rebuttal.

My summary:The speaker here argues that post-modernism's great illogical flaw
is that it invites all individuals to assign themselves labels of victimhood,
and argues that if one were fair and listened to everybody, everybody is a
victim.

Firstly, that argument doesn't appear very insightful - the individual's
narcissism is incompatible with fairness. On a separate note, the speaker uses
self-identifying label as a call for victimhood when many individuals (which
is the perspective he is using) would never see it that way, so he is
revealing a prejudice about the labels he is referencing. Either not self-
aware or a deliberate choice.

But that's not the point here - this argument has it backwards. It's not about
a black person saying 'I am disadvantaged because I am black'. It is about
statistical facts showing that black people are disadvantaged, and historical
laws showing that this is due to decades of policy and laws which were a
result of another bucket of people (whites) saying, 'These people are black,
let's disadvantage them'.

The segueway about LGBTQIAK label is I think parallel/tangential to this and
is itself super interesting with a whole bunch of complications that societies
have to unravel, but let's not conflate the two, because they are not
analogous.

edit:grammar and clarity

------
BadassFractal
The guy doesn't fit the narrative that's currently oh-so-trendy, thus he is
not deemed valuable to the media. Makes you realize how much intentional
selective bias there is in these publications' portrayals of the world.

"Can we cause outrage with this? Nope? Ok, discard this dude, find someone who
supports our hypothesis so we get more page views"

Remember, the media are not in the business of keeping the public informed,
they're first and foremost interested in putting bread on their own tables,
like any other business out there. They like having a job, and these days,
given how high our tolerance for absurdity has become, their job requires they
come up with the most dramatic and outrageous content they can in order to
keep people hooked.

~~~
TorKlingberg
On the other hand, this article is on HN because it fits an other narrative.
There is never just one "the narrative". There are always two or more
competing narratives and people publish, share and upvote stories that fit the
one they prefer.

~~~
walrus01
If I had to make an overly broad generalization of the HN readership, people
reading links here are _more willing than the average person_ to read an
article that disagrees with their preconceived stereotypes and worldview.
Whereas mass market media (the magazine Inc, etc) is going in the opposite
direction from that.

~~~
Larrikin
Maybe on which programming language or framework is best. Most articles
regarding race/gender discrimination even if they directly involve major tech
firms are flagged and downvoted by large portions of the community. If they
survive the initial wave, the top comments are usually pretty dismissive

~~~
aaron695
Large businesses being evil is a very common narrative and a lame cliche
really.

So if HN is downvoting, it's probably because educated people are not liking
being played by a tired narrative.

Major tech firm is worse with race/gender discrimination than the community at
large? Please, ever worked blue collar and seen their hiring practices?

They are dismissive for a reason.

If the tech community wants to set a good example, great. Being played to feel
like they are worse than society... to smart for that narrative.

~~~
Larrikin
If there is an issue it only matters if it's extremely egregious and the worst
example?

~~~
aaron695
No. Not at all.

As long as it is reported as such. Which it is not. Hence my point.

------
throwaway_45
67% of black kids have a single parent so if you randomly picked a black
person they would likely have been raised by a single parent home. He states
that he came from a dual parent household from the suburbs. So he isn't an
average black person just from statistical point of view. He got really lucky.
I think if you give black kids two parents some money and a good school they
would probably do as well as everyone else.

~~~
ptaipale
That 67% number seemed shocking so I tried to dig up a source. Only found
this:

[http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/107-children-
in-...](http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/107-children-in-single-
parent-families-by)

And it says: "In this definition, single-parent families may include
cohabiting couples ..."

So it may not be quite that bad - co-habiting couples sharing children are not
a particular risk setup even if they are not married. Where I live - north
Europe - they are entirely normal.

But what is the proportion of kids, and black kids, actually living with just
one parent in the US?

~~~
Mz
From what I have read, the norm for the Black community in the U.S. is that
the baby's daddy leaves the picture and mom gets involved with someone else
because young Black males are the "last hired, first fired" and also much more
likely to spend time in prison than any other demographic in the U.S. So what
happens is that many young Black males are not in a position to actually
support their children. When "the bum" father who "won't"/can't support the
baby exits the picture and mom gets a new boyfriend, since the baby is not his
child, anything he does for the baby is viewed as generosity and expression of
good character.

(Edit: Since you are European, let me explain that this is due to systemic
racism and the fact that welfare only pays if you are an unwed mother. So very
poor women cannot get married, because they would lose their welfare benefits.
This is a horrible thing warping the Black community in directions that Whites
then condemn as "immoral" behavior. I have known a White welfare mom who would
not marry the father of her kids because he was an unemployed alcoholic and
her Catholic mother was incredibly condemning of this, but a) her psycho bitch
mother is part of why she was in this mess and b) her psycho bitch mother was
not in any position to make sure the kids ate if her daughter lost her welfare
benefits. There is a reason we have a saying about how you need to be able to
afford middle class morality. Further, the U.S. has a terrible track record
compared to Europe in areas such as paid maternity leave...etc. The U.S. is
one of the richest countries in the world and most of our children are growing
up in poverty because we have very serious issues. This is in no way like YOUR
experience.)

Furthermore, from what I have read, the Black community in the U.S. is as
resilient as it is because they brought a matrilineal orientation with them
from Africa: Like a pride of lions, it is female blood relatives that are the
backbone of the family for Black Americans. This helps them survive in the
face of high unemployment and high incarceration rates, much of it completely
unjust.

For example, see: [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/06/20/derrick-
hamilto...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/06/20/derrick-hamilton-
jailhouse-lawyer)

There is also this (NSFW) piece about discrimination in the fashion industry:

[http://globalnews.ca/news/3115014/black-mirror-project-
highl...](http://globalnews.ca/news/3115014/black-mirror-project-highlights-
lack-of-diversity-in-the-fashion-industry/)

Having said all that, I am very sympathetic to the author of this piece. I am
female and I get a lot of flack from other women, apparently for failing to be
as crapped on by men as they are and for failing to be as bitter about my life
as a woman as they are -- at least, that seems to be the gist of it, as best I
can tell. And when I try to talk about what I think works and is effective,
the most common response is to accuse me of blaming the victim for telling
women what they can do to try to handle life as a woman more effectively, in
spite of the assholes in the world.

I find it enormously frustrating. Like "Do you actually want a fucking
solution? Or do you just _like_ being a victim and want someone to validate
that it isn't possible to have anything better?"

I spend a lot of time wondering why the fuck I bother trying to be helpful to
people. I spend a lot of time wondering if I need to just quit trying to be
helpful and just focus on figuring out how to solve my own financial problems,
and to hell with the rest of the world because it sure as hell does not give a
flying fuck about me, so why should I give a flying fuck about it, only to be
kicked in the teeth for it?

And I say that (about my own life experience) to say this:

Yes, the Black community in the U.S. has real and serious problems. This man's
experience is not the norm. But I think he has a valid criticism of the media
here. Blacks routinely complain that they are underrepresented in media and
they lack good role models because of racism by Whites who control so much
media, yet he can't get his story published in a major Black medium because it
isn't enough of a sob story. I think that is a completely legitimate thing to
point out as something very wrong with the system.

~~~
tashi
Re: your aside about your personal experience, I've heard it called
"engineer's disease" to hear a person complaining about something in their
lives and respond by trying to offer a solution. For many people,
commiserating about bad experiences is mostly a bonding exercise, and your
main job is just to listen and empathize. If you immediately jump into
problem-solving mode, even though you're trying to help it can feel hostile.

You may already know that, but since it's not a thing I ever would have
figured out on my own, I thought it was worth mentioning.

(Hey, I just noticed: I'm a black man posting my experience in the comments to
an article about a black man's experience, but my only comment is unsolicited
advice to a woman about how not to offer unsolicited advice to women. My irony
detector just crashed.)

~~~
humanrebar
For many kinds of people, working together is also a bonding exercise. Maybe
we should also appreciate that instead of calling it a disease.

~~~
tashi
Huh, I expected the playfulness of the term would come through. Sorry about
that.

This was a term coined by engineers to explain why the behavior that seemed,
and still seems, so obviously right to a certain kind of brain can be so
unwelcome in general.

~~~
humanrebar
I didn't mean my response to come across so personal and pointed. Apologies.

I was pushing back against the wider phenomenon of telling people to clam up
and stay disengaged when confronted with pain or discomfort in the people they
care about. It's (perhaps ironically) a very narrow perspective that
undermines people accepting and understanding one another.

------
balls187
I want to point out a couple things from the article:

> In fact, nearly 75% of Blacks are not poor.

~75% of African Americans live above the poverty line, however ~45% of young
African American children live below the poverty line.

Also African Americans are the largest ethnic group living in poverty.

Poor in this case is defined as $22,314 for a family of four. Where do the
numbers go if you raise that to $37,000 for a family of four, which is still
arguably not a lot of money.

While I understand the basis of the authors argument, I did find that 75%
statistic to be misleading.

~~~
notdonspaulding
It's not as misleading as you suggest. I read that statistic and thought to
myself "I would've assumed it was closer to 50%". He's challenging the popular
notion in white America's mind that _most blacks are poor_. He's not wrong
either in restating the figure to emphasize the non-poverty percentage, or in
his assessment that Inc. magazine is only interested in furthering the notion
that most blacks are poor.

The statistic (even as you restated it) supports his general thesis of the
perceptions of black people that media outlets want to promulgate really well.

------
redsummer
The culture has an ideology about race which is shared and fed by the media.
It's almost a nostalgia for the sixties where people want to pin halos on
themselves by pretending its the 60s and that they are fighting against
segregated buses etc.

The demand for stories which fit this narrative outstrip the supply. The same
thing can be seen with various 'hate crimes' which are eventually revealed as
hoaxes. The media - and the public - are strangely desperate for this bigoted
world to exist - because they can feel more noble fighting it.

I'm guessing it has something to do with all the ideological refugees, in
academia and the media, from the 60s and 70s who are fighting battles that are
long over.

~~~
foldr
Not sure how you can say this when a literal white supremacist just literally
murdered a random black man in New York because he was black. Is that a hoax
in your view?

~~~
angry-hacker
Statistically this event is irrelevant, it doesn't happen often and black
person is more likely to die because of anything else, most likely because of
another fellow black person. Stop fearmongering.

~~~
foldr
You could say the same thing about terrorist attacks. The effect of hate
crimes goes far beyond the deaths of the individuals involved.

The suggestion that we shouldn't worry about hate crimes until they're a
leading cause of death for members of minority groups presumably doesn't
deserve a response. Even in the Jim Crow south, it's not as if a majority of
black people died from being lynched.

It's quite silly to suggest that I'm 'fearmongering' merely by referencing
something that's already all over the news. I don't think my mention of this
incident deep within an HN thread is likely to cause anyone to be more
frightened than they already are.

~~~
angry-hacker
It's no better than stormfront users spamming the stats about blacks in
prison, black on white rape and crime etc.

As I said, statistically this event is irrelevant and doesn't add anything to
discussion.

~~~
foldr
Saying that I'm no better than white supremacists on the basis of my fairly
anodyne comments is pretty clearly crossing the line.

I hope that you are not being sincere.

In any case, as I already addressed your point about "statistical
significance", it appears that you have nothing further to contribute to the
discussion.

~~~
angry-hacker
Don't put words in my mouth.

------
throwaway6845
Inc Magazine is very identity politics, very much written by privileged
Silicon Valley kids with preconceived notions of diversity. I gave up reading
it a long while ago and I'm as liberal-left as they come.

~~~
throwaway6845
...ok, I goofed. Getting confused between Inc and Mic (three letters, two of
which are I and C, very similar logos). Apologies, please ignore above
comment.

~~~
uncletaco
The weird thing about Mic.com though, now that I'm thinking about it, is they
have the best breaking news app I've ever used on iOS. It literally exists in
the notifications so when something happens you can read the story from the
notifications screen and be done with it. I wish more media companies would
offer that.

------
djrogers
Wow - here's what I found most telling about the article: The top Highlight
was this:

"The real problems are things like unanimous votes at Venture Capital firms.
There is always someone who “can’t get comfortable” with the Black guy’s deal.
It’s grey, and blurred, and subtle, and can always be substantiated by some
facts."

And the rest of the paragraph is:

"And though this type of discrimination exists, it certainly does not leave
Black entrepreneurs completely under funded and out in the cold. For example,
Black women are the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs in the country —
outpacing all other startups by six times the national average. This is
significant, yet woefully under reported."

So the thing people want to highlight in his article are the _only two
sentences which fit the narrative he 's trying to counter._ SMH...

~~~
tomlock
Conversely, this article is one of the thousands written by black
entrepreneurs that this website has chosen to upvote.

~~~
menacingly
This is a great point that challenges the views I brought to this thread with
me.

~~~
tomlock
I don't think there's a different comment that you could have made that would
make me happier. Thank you!

------
jakobegger
If the people from the magazine really threw away all their work because the
guy wasn't the "archetypal Black entrepreneur to hang the story around"....
that's quite sad?

I mean, they have a journalist shadow the guy for two months, and then they
decide that the material doesn't fit their story and they toss it?

Shouldn't it be the other way around? Do the research first, write the story
afterwards?

I worry that a lot of journalism really suffers from this. The magazine has an
idea what kind of story they want to write, and then they look for sources /
people / material that corroborates their story.

That won't lead to stories representative of the real world...

~~~
PeterisP
The magazine has an idea of what kind of story their audience wants to read,
and then they look for sources / people / material that would work for that.
If some story represents the real world but isn't particularly interesting for
their audience, then there's no place for it in the magazine; just as the
classic example of why "dog bites man" isn't a good story but "man bites dog"
is, _exactly_ because it's not representative of the real world.

------
JabavuAdams
1) Silly black-person. In the US, "black" means "loser", so if you are
successful, you are ipso facto not black. Uh, unless you're an athlete, or
other entertainer.

2) I grew up in a prosperous white neighbourhood and spent a lot of time at
University of Toronto, as a kid. My dad was a math-teacher and programmer. I
recently met a developer -- a young woman of colour at a conference, who came
from a stereotypical deprived background. I could barely understand her
experiences or the language she used about identity, inclusion, and diversity,
because I have never felt excluded. Ambitious, envious at times, but never
excluded.

3) I've just realised in the last few months that it's probably harder to be a
woman in tech, of whatever skin shade, than to be a 6'3" half-black guy from a
scholarly middle-class background. As far as I can tell I've faced no
discrimination. I've been sexually harassed once, but it started as a joke and
the woman had no power over me. One time outlier. Caveat: I have not sought VC
funding, nor have I progressed to leadership roles in someone else's
organisation.

4) At one small company I worked at, we were approached to do a TV segment.
Two of the four founders are white Africans. The reporter seemed really intent
on pushing a rags-to-riches story. The guys had to keep reminding her that
they had started the company from their basement while they both had well-
paying jobs. They were the sons of a professor. This was really eye-opening
with regards to reporters pursuing pre-conceived narratives.

~~~
arximboldi
> 1) Silly black-person. In the US, "black" means "loser", so if you are
> successful, you are ipso facto not black. Uh, unless you're an athlete, or
> other entertainer.

I an not from the US, but I guess the impression that in the US _race_ is a
proxy for talking about _class_. The latter word is such a taboo as much as
anything coming from Marxism or economic left. You even go to say "losers"
instead of working class, which is so insulting.

This keeps the left running in circles in identity issues. And keeps the poor
fighting against each other (see poor whites supporting Trump).

~~~
JabavuAdams
You raise some valid points, but as recently as 60 years ago (in living
memory) there were laws on the books that ensured that blacks were on-average
a lower class.

Race, specifically African American race is tied to class in the US in ways
that it's not in other countries.

~~~
arximboldi
I agree with you.

------
jolux
Inarguably the best reply: [https://medium.com/@mr.ed.dunn/please-dont-use-
supposition-o...](https://medium.com/@mr.ed.dunn/please-dont-use-supposition-
or-create-fake-news-on-a-serious-subject-regarding-tech-media-racism-
ceea96c8876b)

~~~
int_19h
Is it? It doesn't seem to address any of the points in the original article -
it just repeats the accusation that he is, indeed, "not black enough".

~~~
jolux
No, it's because it explains how he is misusing the term "not Black enough"
(used originally for dealing with colorism in the Black community) and accuses
him instead of being a boring person. I can't call him out on the former but
the latter I wholeheartedly agree with.

If a journalist wants to write a story about overcoming adversity and you
respond that you haven't had any adversity to overcome, if they reject you
it's pretty silly to complain about it and also pretty plainly because you're
too privileged to understand why this is important and his reaction makes it
pretty clear that he is indeed too privileged to understand why talking about
adversity is critical to overcoming it. (Also mentioned in the reply)

~~~
int_19h
It is not clear to me that the magazine was actually explicitly trying to
write a story about adversity, or whether they are just trying to write a
story about being black, and _implied_ that this should include adversity
(which is what the Brian had a problem with, if it's a racially-based
implication). Indeed, it does seem to be more of the latter, at least if his
words are taken at face value:

"I was approached by Inc. Magazine for a feature on the life of a successful
Black entrepreneur."

~~~
jolux
>and implied that this should include adversity (which is what the Brian had a
problem with, if it's a racially-based implication)

What, so we're not allowed to imply that racism exists anymore?

------
neveroffensive
Seems like society works like a pendulum.

People spend decades fighting discrimination based on race. But, in the end,
their focus on race makes it a defining characteristic.

We try and fix one imbalance, and end up just shifting it around. Still I
guess we're better off today than in the 1960's.

~~~
greglindahl
When and where has race not been a defining characteristic?

~~~
nitwit005
Probably most places, for most of human history, given the lack of travel.

Not that they didn't find other reasons to dislike their fellow humans.

~~~
tomlock
A lot of genocides have been committed between races that, particularly from
an outsider's view, are quite racially similar and nearby.

For example: Hutu/Tutsi, Serbians/Croatians

------
bambax
The problem is not only prejudice, it's journalism: journalists write stories
first, and then go look for "facts" to support or illustrate their narrative.

~~~
mehaveaccount
Yes, journalism is just stage writing where the play is strung together by
selectively taking quotes from people and putting them out of context into a
sequential order that makes it look as if it were caused by a preconceived
narrative.

------
_pmf_
Read about black Trump supporters' experiences in "coming out". As soon as you
slightly deviate from the media's narrative about how a black person should
be, you run a high risk of being ostracized and verbally abused. The media
don't want stories about self-made successful black people, the want stories
about how the establishment helps black people being successful (preventing
them from their inevitable fate of becoming drug addicts and criminals).

Look at how Ben Carson has been treated by the Democrats and main stream media
since he joined the Trump administration.

------
column
> We are facial recognition for .com's, as opposed to .gov's.

WTF does that mean?

~~~
uncletaco
Corporate surveillance is ok, government surveillance is not ok, I'd imagine.

------
danso
That's a shame. It's not just narrative that's important, and well-off
African-Americans can still be impacted by the effects of systemic bias.

~~~
lern_too_spel
If he feels he didn't suffer for being black, why should he get any
preferential story treatment from Inc. over anybody else who didn't suffer for
their race or background? His point is very poorly argued.

~~~
nickpsecurity
If they're presenting the truth, they should be looking at what many types of
black people are doing in multiple places with what results. If something made
many succeed, then that should become part of a Reality-Based Narrative. If
there's racism holding them back, there should be evidence of that. Any
personality traits or tactics that successful ones use would be game. And so
on.

A media group only interested in evidence for one hypothesis while suppressing
counter-evidence is showing its bias in favor of promoting that hypothesis
even if it's incorrect. They're lying for ratings/revenue. Typical in media
with biases/narratives varying based on their customers' demographic.

~~~
lern_too_spel
Nonsense. Inc. wasn't writing an academic article about race and
entrepreneurship. They were specifically looking for a feel good rags to
riches story to highlight. He didn't fit the story that they want to tell, so
he has no more reason to complain than you do as an upper middle class or
wealthy white man.

~~~
nickpsecurity
That's another one. The narratives blend in his case where they expected him
to start in one then end up in another.

------
Freak_NL
What is the difference between the adverb 'black' (or its US synonym 'African
American' when used for skin colour) and the capitalised adverb 'Black' used
here?

~~~
mehaveaccount
They are the same.

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adamjleonard
I love Brian Brackeen. Very smart guy!

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olleromam91
So how do I share this with my black friends that feel the same way, without
offending them?

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sidlls
This sort of "all blacks must be poor and perpetually victims of racism"
narrative was exploited very well during the Democratic Primary by the Hillary
campaign. And then Trump happened. It was and is shameful.

And yet, the fact is that among those 75% of blacks who aren't poor, a much
higher ratio of them as compared with whites (even poorer whites) will fall
victim to a great many life-impacting negatives, from poorer quality of
treatment by medical professionals to discrimination in finance. The
difference is definitely related to racism.

Also, his anecdote certainly isn't typical for poor folks or black folks, and
especially not poor black folks. Overall he has a decent point regarding the
"poor, racism beaten" stereotype, but it's not very well argued, in my view.

~~~
stvswn
I think that there's an argument to be made that Hillary didn't rally the
Black vote well enough, because she assumed that it would transfer to her as
part of a new permanent Democratic majority instead of being an artifact of
enthusiasm for the first Black president. In other words, she took them for
granted. I didn't see much pandering from her at all. The most shameful race-
related story of the Democratic side was when Bernie was libeled as a racist
by Black activists with thinly disguised connections to the Clinton campaign.

Hillary made strategic missteps, I don't think that portraying Blacks as
victims was one of them.

Your point may be that the Democrats have played this game too long and turned
off working-class whites, creating an opening for a populist, politically
incorrect Republican who only has to agree to keep his hands off of Social
Security and Medicare and he's "liberal enough." I think there's some truth to
that.

~~~
sidlls
Hillary didn't rally the black vote well enough during the general, but that's
one failing among many of hers as a candidate in that election. I was
referring specifically to the campaign for the nomination, in which she and
her campaign successfully cast Bernie as a racist, as you note, and did so in
part by portraying him as though he thought poverty caused racism _instead of_
racism contributing to the poverty of black folks. There were other factors at
play (e.g. Lewis' remarks about not remembering seeing Bernie around during
civil rights protests and activities), but those are separte, if related,
issues.

But, yes, you are also spot on regarding the Democrats' malfeasance in
"play[ing] this game too long," too.

~~~
uncletaco
Even during the democratic primary there's not much of a case to be made that
her campaign sought to portray Sanders as a racist. We even have emails that
show her campaign's strategy was largely focused on wooing over black leaders
during the primary[1]. Also, several staff members from Sanders' campaign
admitted they did not do a lot to appeal to black voters, having already
assumed they were in the bag for Clinton[2]. She drew comparisons between her
own campaign's efforts at outreach and his[3], comparisons which have been
proven to be true. Saying she cast Sanders as "racist" is both misleading and
ignores the fact that his outreach to black voters was provably lackluster.

[1]
[http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-w...](http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-
wikileaks-emails-clinton-black-voters-20161022-story.html)

[2] [http://fusion.net/story/323539/how-bernie-sanders-lost-
black...](http://fusion.net/story/323539/how-bernie-sanders-lost-black-
voters/)

[3] [https://secure.politico.com/story/2016/02/hillary-clinton-
sp...](https://secure.politico.com/story/2016/02/hillary-clinton-speech-
racism-harlem-219311)

~~~
sidlls
None of these things contradicts what I wrote or supports your assertion.

~~~
uncletaco
Then prove to me she was casting Sanders as a racist.

Show me how Sanders' campaign was not lackluster when wooing black voters.

