DADvocate

You need to take some of these quotes out of their literalist sense and look at where they are coming from.

Regarding women in science - you've got it dead on. Advocates for more of a demographic in a certain field should speak directly to that demographic, like a marketer. It also ignores nursing, medical science and medicine as fields of "science" and disregards the fact that biology is the fastest growing scientific field.

As far as the CSA quotes, the author is discussing specific "yahoos...yokels," but must write in a patronizing way to keep their audience. Every village has an idiot and every region has their yahoos and yokels, and we've got some awful caricatured individuals in the South. But at this point, I've seen more Obama Confederate Flag combos at this point than Confederate flags at half mast. This author is also advocating not writing off the South in spite of the crazies, but again has to tailor it to a specific audience to keep being read. Of course, if they really want us to go, they can have fun paying our tariffs on the Ohio - Tennessee - Mississippi Rivers.

The economic quote is a very, very unfortunate way to state a fairly effective policy decision. The jobs and programs are designed to grow the work-force and create more high-skilled people. It would not do to enact these jobs and programs and only hire groups of people who already have their contracts squared away. It would be a terrible waste of money and talent if the practice of "Brother-In-Law-Contracting" and patronage (where certain demographics control the practice depending on what city or county line you have to cross) were to continue and be grown because of this program.
 

yahoo n. , pl. -hoos . A crude or brutish person
Yokel n. 1. yokel - a person who is not very intelligent or interested in culture.

Neither word disparages based on skin color. Which makes your "I wonder what equivalent terms Mancini would use to describe blacks" analogy flawed.
 

Let me continue by saying that I labeled them yokels and yahoos because of their actions and beliefs, not because of their skin color.

In other words, the content of their character is lacking basic human decency. I mean, really, how would you describe someone who flies a confederate flag at half-mast on the day we inaugurate our first African-American President or who says on the day after the election that "she was bothered by the idea of a black man 'over me' in the White House?"

And that's not a rhetorical question. I'd like an answer. Because I certainly wouldn't label them tolerant or decent or even nice.
 

Mary - I would describe them as racist. And, I believe strongly the problem of racism in the South is greatly overstated. It's used more as a way of demonizing than addressing real problems.

You are disparaging people based on skin color and region. You are simply arguing semantics regarding the particular words. I think Cousin Pat makes a good point concerning this. You'll never get someone to come over to your point of view by calling them yokels and yahoos. Try writing posts referring to blacks with equally disparaging terms and see what happens.

Cousin Pat - Reich dug himself in even deeper into the world of idiocy of not racism. "“I’d suggest that all contracts entered into with stimulus funds require contractors to provide at least 20 percent of jobs to the long-term unemployed . . .”

20 percent of jobs to the long term unemployed? With unemployment somewhere slightly above 7%, are there jobs for 20 percent more jobs? Or is Reich being careless with words and numbers? If so, should someone so careless be advising the president?

Plus, I would be surprised if many of the long term unemployed have mostly themselves to blame or have some sort of disability. Given the historically low unemployment rates before the last few months, I have to wonder how many long-term unemployed there are?

Sounds to me like code speak for driving out the white males for no other reason than they are white males. Sounds like Reich in endorsing more government approved discrimination which is what quotas are.
 

And you still haven't answered my question.

How would you describe someone who flies a confederate flag at half-mast on the day we inaugurate our first African-American President or who says on the day after the election that "she was bothered by the idea of a black man 'over me' in the White House?"
 

OK, I see you would describe them as racist. Well, we agree on that.

"You are disparaging people based on skin color and region. You are simply arguing semantics regarding the particular words."

I did no such thing. I was disparaging specific people who still, in 2009 and in the South, do and say racist things.

And I did this in between saying that "the last thing we should do is damn them" and "racism is not a mantle carried only by those living in Southern states."

Jeez, misrepresent much?
 

As a native of the South, I am offended by your terminology. And, I have noticed over the years that no such terminology would dare be used by liberals to describe black.

I remember visiting my sister in Nashville several years ago. My sister is a Democrat. Her daughter interned for Clinton and Gore their first year in office. She was telling me how some friends of her's had been mugged in downtown Nashville.

My sister stated that "certain people" were preying on others downtown. She couldn't bring herself to say out loud to her brother in a private conversation that blacks were preying on whites.

Liberalism has a huge double standard in race relations.
 

As far as answering Mary's original question, I would describe such individuals as "marginal at best" and "non-representative."

We have real race issues in the South, just like every other part of the country does. But the specific "yokels & yahoos" Mary speaks of are the kind of characters that allow the real issues to be oversimplified at best and glossed over at worst.

It is unnerving as a Southerner and a liberal to have to constantly point out to liberals from other regions that the marginal individuals they trot out as representative of the South are, at the same time, the least important and most overrated examples of racial "problems" they can find.

Case and point, the jack-turd with his flag at half-mast is actually flying the wrong damn Confederate flag.

Speaking of interesting symbols, Mary, what do you think of this interpretation of the old Georgia flag? Hell, I still can't wrap my mind around it. But if we're so worried about what one guy in Tennessee thinks, what does this say?
 

Oh, and as far as Reich goes, DADv, that other statement just kinda proves that he needs to get out of Washington, stop reading media reports for a while and get into the streets where things are going down. We need both infrastructure improvements and to put people to work right now, but we can do both at the same time without the added hoop he's asking folks to jump through. Get the projects moving, and jobs will follow.

I would say "he should come to the streets of New Orleans" but we already have too many public officials operating outside the bounds of reality here, adding mandates and studies and slowing down every project they can get their hands on.