You should not be so surprised. There is a long history of white defensiveness about their relationship to black people. White people have feared black people. White people are surprised to find out that black people are angry. This does not add up. To be surprised that black people are angry is to think that black people should not be angry. But if black people do not have any good reason to be angry, why are white people afraid of them? If black people are dangerous, the implication is that black people must be bad, because white people couldn't possibly be bad. What is missing is a recognition by white people that black people have something to be angry about. This is blaming the victim. It is a classic psychological defense mechanism, the purpose of which is to hide from white people their own complicity in the suffering of black people. The tricky thing about defense mechanisms is not that they are completely delusional, but that they select their facts to hide other facts. In this case, white people fear black anger without being able to recognize the existence of black anger. Yes, there is crime in the ghetto, but why is there this inability to deal with legitimate black anger? There is a disconnect. The fear is not entirely rational. This element of irrationality is a clue that some of the fear is a projection of ones own guilt feelings.

Any white person who has seriously been paying attention ought to be aware that there is good reason for black anger.

Posted at March 19, 2008 2:40 AM in response to Obama's Speech

A year ago, some people were saying that the Democratic party should abandon the South, because white Southerners are racists.

Now people are saying that they are worried about the depth of Obama’s support, because middle-aged and older, working-class white Southerners will not vote for him. But I am no longer hearing people say that the Democratic party should abandon the South.

The worries of today are narrower and more qualified than the worries of one year ago. I see that as progress. The Southern Strategy of the past may not be dead, but it is staggering.

As an older Southern progressive who is fed up with the old ways, I voted for Obama with great exhilaration. To me, it is like breaking through the Berlin Wall. Let us rejoice in real progress.

Posted at February 6, 2008 12:18 PM in response to Obama's Biggest Weakness

How does Spain handle long-term care for the elderly? We never hear anything about that in the discussions about health insurance.

Posted at January 8, 2008 1:03 PM in response to Letter from an Uninsured Woman

An exellent post, but Joe Wilson says in his book that Glaspie does not deserve the blame that she has received. She was taking the heat for Bush I.

Posted at January 2, 2008 1:05 PM in response to No Time for Amateurs

Alzheimer's is a huge concern for the baby boomers, and that is only one of the disabilities of old age. I am concerned that nobody is even talking about long-term care for the elderly. Most of this is not high-tech at all, but the accumulated expense is very high. Clearly, nobody is talking about long-term care because there is total pessimism on the subject. The numbers of baby boomers needing long-term care will overwhelm the system. Blogs are a great place to overindulge in hyperbole, but I think it would be difficult to exaggerate the seriousness of this problem.

Posted at December 21, 2007 12:01 PM in response to How Soon Can We Expect National Health Reform?

"Was the monk not commenting on his own philosophy, as well as that of the 'west'"

Yes, you are getting over my head, but I believe that issue is one of the complexities of the Heart Sutra.

Form is emptiness
Emptiness is form
Emptiness is no other than form
Form is no other than emptiness

Whatever you say, the monk will respond, "Then I will hit you with a stick thirty times."

Having thought about the subject from every point of view, and thoroughly understanding every point of view, and understanding the limitations of every point of view, the fully comprehensive non-answer is that "Things are just like this," or more simply, "The grass is green, the sky is blue." Or even more simply, a single syllable, such as "Mu" or the belly-laugh, "Katz!"

It is not correct, however, to simply respond with any of these phrases as a canned answer.

Posted at December 11, 2007 8:25 AM in response to Faith in the Public Sphere, Part 2

There is a lot to think about here.

Even within Buddhism, there are different strains of thought. There are, for example, the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, which seem, at least to a Westerner, to represent a categorizing, rule-bound way of looking at things. On the other hand, when you look at the Four Noble Truths in detail, they are not easy to understand.

Posted at December 10, 2007 7:00 AM in response to Faith in the Public Sphere, Part 2

I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your answer. I will have to cogitate about it.

Posted at December 10, 2007 6:32 AM in response to Faith in the Public Sphere, Part 2

That is very interesting.

I don't want to exaggerate the point, but some people might say that the Western point of view carries with it an implicit imperialism. That is, Westerners cannot help themselves but frame things in a rule-bound, deterministic way that is controlling.

How does that fly?

Posted at December 7, 2007 2:00 PM in response to Faith in the Public Sphere, Part 2

Since we have locked horns before, you may be surprised to hear that I share your concerns, to some extent. You are ahead of me, however. I have not read the book, only a blurb about it. To be fair, I should just say that I have some questions that I hope will guide my further thinking on the subject.

If I am permitted to mix my cliches, I am inclined to think that this sort of thing has to be "emergent" from the "grass roots".

Maybe I have just seen too many leaders come and go. Maybe I have seen too many paradigms turn to shifting sand.

To be more specific, however, I think that I would question that spirituality is a frame. That sounds too deterministic to me.

I think of spirituality as more of a process of empathetic exploration.

Perhaps a frame sounds too much like a doctrine to me, and doctrines are very low on my radar.

It is possible that I also wonder how (or whether) a frame distinguishes ends and means. I am inclined to think that there should not be any (or much) separation between ends and means. So I wonder if the frame is too directed toward a specific goal to allow for a flexible path to a pretermined outcome.

I guess when it comes down to it, I prefer the word "karma," which I understand as a complex web of cause and effect. This whole discussion seems to me very much oriented toward Western thought.

Of course, you could say that karma is a kind of paradigm. But I wouldn't be doing good Zen if I didn't ask you to consider that karma might be a kind of anti-paradigm, in somewhat the same sense that "thinking outside the box" is an anti-procedure.

Buddhists are so damned uncooperative, aren't they?

But then, I haven't read that much about the book, yet.

There is a story that a Western philosopher once went to a Zen monk to compare notes. The philosopher expounded his views for several hours, while the monk sat patiently listening. Finally, when the philosopher was finished, he looked at the monk expectantly, hoping for an enlightening discussion. The monk said, "That is very interesting. But of course, the opposite is also true."

Posted at December 7, 2007 12:42 PM in response to Faith in the Public Sphere, Part 2