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Ah, It Must Be A Day That Ends With “Y”

Ron Rosenbaum writes in Slate:

When did “liberal guilt” get such a bad reputation? You hear it all the time now from people who sneeringly dismiss whites who support Obama’s candidacy as “guilty liberals.” There are, of course, many reasons why whites might support Obama that have nothing to do with race. But what if redeeming our shameful racial past is one factor for some? Why delegitimize sincere excitement that his nomination and potential election would represent a historic civil rights landmark: making an abstract right a reality at last. Instead, their feeling must be disparaged as merely the result of a somehow shameful “liberal guilt.”

Mmmkay. Well, he’s got a point there, though I think it’s one that is more up for debate than he’s willing to admit. Fair enough, though. Hmm… what else has he got to say… let’s see…

Oh, here we go:

Guilt is good, people! The only people who don’t suffer guilt are sociopaths and serial killers. Guilt means you have a conscience. You have self-awareness, you have—in the case of America’s history of racism—historical awareness.

Uh huh. So not wallowing in white guilt not only means that a person is unaware of the history and repercussions of racism in America… but also that they’re akin, psychologically at least, to sociopaths and serial killers. Did someone give Diego Hernandez a job at Slate or something?

And then there’s this pablum:

I wonder whether there’s something deeper going on here in the delegitimization of guilt and anger. I wonder whether it’s a misbegotten legacy of the long-discredited but still-lingering influence of Freudian theory. Which alas too many otherwise intelligent people still take seriously, despite the pseudoscience of his method, his misogyny, his malpractice, and his coke-addled arrogance.

CJ and I were talking the other night about some crazy person who hangs out at Starbucks writing crazy things in a crazy-person’s diary. Did someone give that guy a job at Slate or something?

[edited to fix missing link]

  1. Chris Holman says:

    Ok cool, thanks! I’m familiar with that stuff, so that will help a lot. : )

  2. Vincent says:

    Chris:

    As far as I know, most normal HTML tags should work fine in comments. Embedding video, etc. is tricky because of WordPress, but basic HTML stuff works just fine.

    Here is a primer on most of the HTML you’d ever need to post comments on this blog.

  3. Chris Holman says:

    Quick question….and thanks for embedding the link…where is the ‘how to’ for this forum. I know a lot of tags and whatnot for other blogs, but I’m not sure which one this runs on. In other words, I’ll gladly embed and whatnot in the future if someone can point me in the right direction.

    Cheers!

    Glad you liked that Sean.

  4. Sean says:

    Did not expect that.

    Hilarious.

  5. Chris Holman says:

    His arguments remind me of this.

  6. CJ Ciaramella says:

    I thought that guy was the Ed-in-Chief of Slate …

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