Van Jones Says Alienated Young White Men Need ‘Love,’ So Right Wing Calls Him A ‘Race Baiter’
Van Jones Says Alienated Young White Men Need ‘Love,’ So Right Wing Calls Him A ‘Race Baiter’
Right-wing bloggers have seized on remarks by White House green jobs advisor Van Jones to claim that he is a “race baiter” who is “just like herpes.” In 2006, Van Jones recorded a series of lectures on good, evil and social justice, based on his years of experience as an activist who successfully worked to reform the California criminal justice system with the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. In one such lecture, he discussed how society is failing not just minority youth but also white youth, making reference to the Columbine shooting:
Our young white males are suffering in this society, profoundly. Profoundly. And no one is saying a word about it. We’ll criminalize the black student, black child, criminalize the Latino child, we have this whole discussion about whether they are animals or they not animals, should we abuse them should we help them, blah blah blah. You’ve never seen a Columbine done by a black child. Never. They always say, “We can’t believe it happened here. We can’t believe it’s these suburban white kids.” It’s only them! Now, a black kid might shoot another black kid. He’s not going to shoot up the whole school! “My cousin’s up in here, I’m not going to shoot the whole school then, I might hit my cousin! I’m gonna shoot you though!”
But these young white men will be in so much pain, and so isolated, so alienated they’ll shoot up the entire school. Where is the concern, where is the love, where is the compassion for these young men?
Watch it:
Van Jones “mocks Columbine,” RedState.com claims, even as they admit “his statement is true as far as it goes.” “Only ‘Suburban White Kids’ Shoot Up Schools,” blares the Drudge Report. But Van Jones’ speech is clearly a desperate plea for compassion and healing — to recognize that though our criminal justice system and society still treat youths differently based on race and class, we should do better no matter what color — black, brown or white.
Van Jones continues:
Where is concern, where is the love, where is the compassion for these young men? And it is doubly twisted, because if there’s anything that you’re doing that is wrong, we want to hurt you, we want to punish you, we’re not going to help you, we’re not going to love you. And so rather than punish you and attack you and jump on you like we do the black kids, we’ll just ignore you and we’ll just neglect you.
We have got to begin to look at this idea of criminality, of evil, of wrongdoing, of mistakes as being a universal condition, requiring a universally loving response and a universally embracing response — so that our society in trying to confront evil at any level does not in fact become evil.
It is just as evil, in my view — to attack these young black and brown men — it is just as evil to neglect and to ignore these young white men, who, as best I can tell, have very little now in the way of loving, affirmative male leadership, that can put an arm around, wipe away a tear, and show a kind of masculinity that is not brittle or mean-spirited. And that I think is the problem that gets masked over by calling any community evil.
Now, according to right-wing bloggers, it is Van Jones who is “evil.”
6 Responses to “Van Jones Says Alienated Young White Men Need ‘Love,’ So Right Wing Calls Him A ‘Race Baiter’”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Wonk RoomContact Us
Donate
IMO, only two things will ’sink’ society: 1) an out of control divorce rate (hint: approx. 2/3? in U.S., but stable!) and, 2) a non-performing or non-graduating school system! Thoroughly, initiatives to improve the family institution, have surmounted difficult obstacles to include elements of ‘gay’ people from several groups, within a bon afide matrimonial ubris; in addition educational institutions are being supplemented by foster care programs, and early education programs, just to name a couple!
September 5th, 2009 at 11:14 pmObama kicks Van Jones out of White House for being correct!
Sun, 09/06/2009 – 06:19 — Comrade Rutherford
Top News this morning:
Obama eagerly caves in to far-right extremist’s demands to fire Van Jones for his successful attack on Glenn Becks’ continuous stream of lies and propaganda!
Van Jones kicked to the curb by fawning Obama who’s sole purpose in the White House is to bend over as far as he can for Conservatives and their extremist lies while simultaneously screwing over the voters that put him in office!
Obama instantly caves in yet again to extremism! Obama does ONLY what the far-right extremist Conservatives allow him to do. Latest example: firing Alex Jones for making Glenn Beck uncomfortable.
In an example of craven cowardice, I-Wanna-Be-President-So-Bad-I’ll-Do-Whatever-The-GOP-Crazies-Want Obama fired Alex Jones because Jones had successfully exposed the lies of Glenn Beck.
Obama’s slave-masters order him to fire Alex Jones, Obama’s reply, ‘yes, massa!’
+ + + + +
I am so seriously pissed off at Obama. I never got fooled into thinking he was a Democrat from the very start (one look at his record shows that he is NOT a Democrat by any means). But this really takes the cake.
Alex Jones was one of the best people in the last 30 years to actually make some headway against the far-right crazies by getting advertisers to drop Glenn Beck’s propaganda and lies TV show of Fox ‘News’. When the far-right extremists get themselves together to counter-attack Jones, Obama instantly cravenly caved in and refused to fight back against their insanity.
Now that the President has sided WITH Glenn Beck and against the truth, how long will it take for all those advertisers to follow the President’s lead and return to Beck’s show? Probably a lot longer than it took Obama to sell his soul to the GOP leadership (which I clocked at about 1 second)!
Seriously, with ‘leadership’ like this from Obama, why even bother? Let’s follow President Obama’s lead and hand total control of the Federal Government over to the far-right extremist crazies and let them just run everything openly. Because right now it’s OBVIOUS that Obama has NO credibility, no authority, and is NOT the President. It is obvious that Obama is totally under the direct control of the far-right extremists.
Obama REFUSES to do ONE single thing that the Democrats have been demanding for decades. Instead Obama does ONLY and EXACTLY what the craziest far-right wingers gives him permission to do.
When Democrats refuse to fight back against obvious and blatant lying, that in and of itself is the proof that they are NOT Democrats, but GOP operatives doing the bidding of the extremists.
I am done with Obama, this cravenly and cowardly surrender to the blatant lying right-wing crazies is the final straw for me.
September 6th, 2009 at 9:54 amThere is something deeply wrong with our culture when a desperate plea for compassion for troubled white youth is used to help destroy the budding career of a very smart and insightful new leader.
I see deep-seated and blatant racism in people like Drudge whipping up this totally false impression of who Van Jones is.
Drudge is rarely one of societies moral exemplars — So how is it that he has become such an “important” voice in the media landscape?
I think it is time for many of us to call out the racism that is running amok in the attacks against Obama. The President being attacked for encouraging kids to succeed is school is, to my eyes, another glaring example of a black man doing right and having his work twisted into nefariousness.
That these men are so easily painted speaks to our long-lingering fear of black men. It is far to easy to ascribe bad motives to them because we still have that ‘grab your purse’ reaction (as some random twitterer pointed out yesterday).
September 6th, 2009 at 2:28 pmVan Jones added a refreshing voice to the administration. He wasn’t a secretary of state or whatever, so the fact he might be raw around the edges sometimes is acceptable. So, one would think. Are we only to allow pablum? No surely not … people who say offensive things about progressives can be part of an administration apparently.
This is a weak-willed move and it really made me mad.
September 6th, 2009 at 4:51 pmDick Cheney is out there spewing his bile and cheer-leading for torture and the Republican establishment loves him. And Cheney’s past associations? Oy vey.
But a liberal dares to have a past that is not totally sterile, watch out!
It’s sickening.
September 7th, 2009 at 1:18 amIMO,there was a short-lived calming tone within some literature of the 60’s-70’s, which appealed to the individual to ‘be OK’, or to create a social sphere, around one’s personal existence, which would foster creativity, serenity, family unity, sharing or closeness. Professor Joseph Campbell, in New York back then, said, “Follow your bliss!” and to this end he recommended to his students of mythology, and others, to have a special place in the home to be regularly visited, where there was no news of the day, no personal or economic obligations to be considered; and then to utilize that ‘corny’ book or CD that you like, in spite of common wisdom…
September 7th, 2009 at 11:13 am