I think it comes down to the goals of an “identity politics” movement. If oppression or marginalization is ongoing, it makes perfect sense to rally around that cause. Of course, reasonable people will disagree on what constitutes “oppression” and “marginalization” so claiming that you are opposing such things is not in and of itself a justification for indulging in such politics. It is really hard to weigh in on the legitimacy or the need for an LA day since there was little offered (at least in that article) as to its purpose.

Is it just me, or am I seeing a *whole bunch* of commercials about/shot in Detroit lately? Not just car companies? (H and R freakin’ BLOCK?? WTF?) All trying to sell us on the ridiculous notion that Detroit is (somehow) “making a comeback”, thanks to….oh, I dunno….some unnamed Godlike Benefactor who stepped in and stopped the rising of the oceans and the disintegration of Motown.

All very nice, I suppose – even if Eastwood’s love sonnet to said Omniscient Unnamed Benefactor was shot in….uh, LA and New Orleans… – but it’s all a crock of shit. Watch ‘em closely. The exterior cityscape shots are purtied up best as they can make it, but pay closer attention. We’ll see a shot of a tidy little home, but not the fact that it’s one of 6 homes left standing on a once-crowded street. (or the [probable] fact that the burglar bars and security door went back up the instant filming ended.) A peek at a clean-looking (if oddly deserted) section of downtown, but it lasts all of a second-and-a-half. No shots of the boarded-up windows the ‘people mover’ passes. Not a hint of the windowless abandoned block-wide hotels & skyscrapers with trees growing out of the roofs; or the dozens (hundreds?) of closed schools/hospitals; or the abandoned-for-30-years massive railway station; or the once-mighty Packard factory/Model T factory: abandoned 60+ ago, still standing, as far as I can tell.

They can try as hard as they want; they can change the name of the place to Blingtown or Glamorville; they can bombard us with “All is well, Remain Calm!” messages 24/7. But that don’t change the fact it’s a stinking, despairing shithole, swirling ever faster down the toilet. The parts that aren’t hopeless, horrific ghettos (“Homes for Sale! $100 and up!”)(Really. see Realtor.com) are vast vacant sections that were once thriving neighborhoods (Brush Park comes to mind) now returning to the original prairie. This is a “comeback”? For who? Gophers and pheasants?

I just wonder why so many companies are trying to put their dress on that pig. Why would they want to associate their brand with the most visible and infamous symbol of urban suicide and decay in America? Golly, it’s almost as if they were being *instructed* to do it…..

No two groups experiences are the same, and in general, being white, male, Christian, and not poor in the US has been a fairly big win for all of our history, right up to the present day. But in terms of the underlying legal or moral principle, yeah, it’s apples to apples–either it’s okay to write ethnic-group-appreciation day into the law for your favorite ethnic group, or it’s not. Similarly, either it’s okay to organize politics along ethnic lines, or it’s not. It’s easy to see why, say, La Raza isn’t as scary as a large-scale white power movement–whites are already mostly in the driver’s seat, and it’s easy to see how a return to overt white ethnic politics could go badly for everyone. But in terms of the law, and in terms of any moral principle, they’re the same thing.

Personally, I think ethnic identity politics are a bad thing, whether they’re done by whites or blacks or anyone else. But I don’t see how you can condemn white identity politics and praise black and hispanic identity politics on any basis other than “this group is on my side and that one isn’t.”

I disagree with your position but at least there is room to discuss here. And we hashed that out over two posts on an internet blog! I’d like to think that an elected official would be at least a bit better than two anonymous posters. Of course, that is probably just silly of me…

So I agree that it was a clumsy and ineffective rhetorical tactic, but I can see what he might have been trying to get at and I don’t think it’s fair for Radley to link with the text he did or for Fox to use the headline they did without more facts. It was a dumb proposal, but I’m very willing to believe for now that it was never seriously intended (unlike the original).

If you think comparing the request for a Lation-American day to the request for a White Person day is apples to apples, you must also think that the experience of Latino-Americans in Arizona is apples-to-apples comparable to the experience of Whites in Arizona. The request is predicated on the unique history and experience of Latinos in the state, which is marked by oppression and marginalization. There is room to debate whether that validates a “day” and the general purpose and effectiveness of such “days”. But building an opposition on the lack of a day for Whites, a group whose history is not marked by oppression and marginalization, is weak, at best.

“Isn’t it odd and unique?
Seein’ people smile wild in the heat
120 degree
‘Cause I wanna be free
What’s a smilin’ fact
When the whole state’s racist”

So they picked New Orleans?

“Five years after Hurricane Katrina emptied New Orleans and prompted the largest mass migration in modern American history, the 2010 Census counted 343,829 people living in the still-recovering city, a 29 percent drop since the last head count a decade ago, according to data released today.”

2. The story is even more delicious as Carlos Miller was ordered arrested by the cop’s Media Liaison. And she probably ordered the deletion of the video as well. You don’t have to make this stuff up.

Well yeah, you’re not supposed to squeeze that sphincter when launching bottle rockets out your rectum. Just keep them buttocks loose and it’ll all be fine.

I disagree. But then again, I’m not white.

I don’t know, go to Japan. The cops bow to you in the street, and help
you with your problems, and I could make a strong case they are more “civilized” than we are. So something’s not right about this logic.

There are so many ethnic, special issue, and other small special interest group holidays that they have become a standing joke, and have been since the 1960′s (Tom Lehrer singing about “National Brotherhood Week”, for example). The Arizona legislator who said he hoped the Hispanics would reciprocate for his support of a Hispanic holiday by supporting a White Folks holiday may be a racist jerk, but the story says nothing to support this view.

There is an alternative. You and I are not allowed to speak of it because we don’t have a “get out of jail free” card that is issued to all police when they kill unarmed people and lie about it.