As far as the Obama pants thing goes… he’s right, assuming the term ‘brothers’ transcends race. If he or anyone else thinks someone who’s pants hang low is inconsiderate that person is a fool. Having said that, there are some who push the boundary so much that they are assholes (I’m not trying to see any dude’s ass regardless whether or not it’s covered by his boxer shorts… at the very least his shirt needs to cover that shit up). I personally think they look like idiots… This goes deeper than black people or black culture.

“”
Um, how would people have reacted if Obama had told white springbreaking co-eds to cover up their chests?”"

They’re not trying to get a job while on Spring Break. They can switch on the bourgeois values when they need to. Hell, that’s what everyone does. The problem is that many poor people (black, white, brown, or green) are growing up in broken homes and communities where they don’t get the chance to absorb the bourgeois values that’ll lead to success in life.

Despite our ongoing struggles, African-Americans have more political power in the U.S. than any other ethnic group, and seeing that power fully leveraged for a presidential candidate who doesn’t (and can’t) at the outset step outside of the center-right framework scares the shit out of people. Those tears from from black folks on election night in Grant Park, the screaming white, Latino, and Asian kids, the people dancing in the streets in Kenya — the latent symbolism scares people on the left because this is being framed as the progressive moment we’ve been waiting for. Interest groups on the left are scared that they are on the outside looking in. Give the man a chance before you erect the wall of oppostion. He’s the most progressive candidate we’ve fielded since Carter, maybe since Lyndon Johnson. And he fucking won! Take a moment to process that… There is a difference between sobriety and cynicism. One is helpful, the other is not. I maintain that the core weakness of the left is the inability to be constructive and/or pragmatic, or appreciative of progress. Obama is now arguably the most powerful man in the world, and I haven’t seen anyone even remotely progressive operating in that capacity in my lifetime. Stay sober, but get some god damn perspective.

I realize these are not the only causes of poverty (there are other causes like divorce, mental illness, getting laid off, etc) but they are two of the major causes. By the way, I am liberal, but I will not sugar coat the truth. There is nothing racist about the facts that I stated. There are many black people like me who do not act like this and many whites who do (one only needs to watch an episode of Maury, COPS, or Jerry Springer to know this).

But to answer your question I don’t think bigoted attitudes against whites by liberals or by minorities have the same impact as bigoted attitudes towards blacks by mainstream society. This is because there are more whites than blacks, and whites on the whole have more power and control than blacks. On the national, societal level bigotry against whites will not have as much impact as bigotry against blacks. But on the individual level, where white people find themselves the victim of racist violence or racist/classist discrimination by so-called liberals as I have, it can be every bit as bad if not worse than what black people experience.

It’s funny but after writing that comment and reading yours, I started thinking about a racist song every black kid in my neighborhood knew and which was often sung to me at school or particularly on the bus coming home from school. So I googled the lyrics and found this:

http://tinyurl.com/64w7ao

Not sure if this will take you to the right spot on that book but go to the part where it says

“Ungawa, Black Power.
Destroy, white boy.”

and read the commentary below it. This was the song that was sung to me so many times I remember the lyrics to this day, though the lyrics were slightly different from what he has here. The author makes the assertion that black kids singing racist songs like this were not likely to act out with violence against whites, though my scars would definitely argue otherwise. He also states that many white liberal academicians like himself had hostile attitudes towards whites and that these attitudes were not only shared by many in the Black Power movement, but actively projected onto black children, who were depicted as “avatars” of “Black Rage.”

I know from the extreme violence and racist harassment I endured that those kids where more than just “avatars” of anti-white hostility, they were active participants in anti-white violence and racism and it is not unreasonable to assume that based on what this guy is writing here, they may have been encouraged on some levels to be that way by the Black Power movement and white liberals. The result for me was a living hell.

During that time no one in the school administration would help me. They wouldn’t even let me go out through an unused exit which would have enabled me to avoid most if not all of the abuse I suffered, but instead forced me to exit with everyone else which is when most of the abuse occurred. I can’t imagine to this day what kind of an individual would force a child to go through something like that, knowing what was going to happen, or the kind of philosophy that would justify such a decision.

So I tend to take a dim view of those who would minimize the reality or impact of anti-white, anti-working class bigotry among liberals or anyone else because for me, they were hard realities carved on my face so I will never forget them.