Colin Powell Dead

TownieDeac said:

show me how you feel about student loan debt with emojis i've got hot sauce in my bag

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To be Black in America is a complex, subtractive thing less defined by who a person is than who they are not. Colin Powell was not just a four-star general. He was not just the fourth in line for America’s highest political office. He was not just a diplomat or a soldier, or even a human being who lived and did things and died. Before he was any of those things, as noted by some of the most prominent news organizations on the planet in the first paragraph of his obituary, Powell was a Black man in America.




That Powell is considered an honorable man worthy of respect in death while epitomizing the abhorrent actions of an abominable administration is not hard to understand. He is a war-mongering nationalist who is also a symbol of American valor. For Black people in America, the two seemingly contradictory characterizations are not mutually exclusive. He is both and neither.

Being an American of African descent engenders a mutual sense of knowing among those whose existences are defined by the first paragraphs of their lives. We are not necessarily willing to absolve a person for their past sins simply because we share the same skin color. Still, we can appreciate what it means to navigate a system built with the intentions of erasing those of us who share the same ancestral heritage. Perhaps this collective benefit-of-the-doubt that non-white people graciously extend each other is the only privilege that blackness affords. It’s not that we forgive or forget; we simply understand.

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Powell’s political ideology was never the thing that endeared him to Black people. For example, as the 1992 presidential season approached, Republicans considered replacing then vice-president Dan Quayle with Powell. The thought was quickly nixed when polling data showed that Powell’s high Black approval rating didn’t translate into African Americans switching political parties to vote for the Black guy. The same speculation emerged again before the 1996 election until the GOP realized that, as a political candidate, Powell was actually more popular among white voters. Black people liked and respected Powell, but we weren’t going to vote for him.

Unlike their white counterparts, most African Americans never agreed with Powell’s war strategy. Black voters overwhelmingly disapproved of the Iraq invasion before and during the war, while most white voters initially supported it. Yet, in 2004, when nearly three-quarters of Americans said they were worried about Iraq, Powell’s approval never waned. In 2008, his approval rating was 20 points higher than Kanye West or Tiger Woods. But it wasn’t Powell the politician, Secretary Powell or General Powell who garnered all that support in the Black community. It was the Black guy from the South Bronx who married a Black woman, endorsed the first Black president, and repudiated the most recent anti-Black president who was considered a respected figure worthy of honor.

And none of that admiration was in spite of Powell’s complicity in the corrupt Bush administration. For the most part, Powell’s admirers still condemned the policies of the nation-building neo-conservative cabal in which he served and supported. But Black folk also know that in the entire history of the US, there has never been a Black man – not even Barack Obama – who had the unilateral authority to start an international conflict. Because they are Black, they know scapegoating Colin Powell as the cause of America’s geopolitical failures is as laughable as blaming global warming on Megan Thee Stallion for pushing her “hot girl summer”.

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myDeaconmyhand said:

Jon Ossoff, Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, and that’s just the most recent examples. “Acknowledge” isn’t a synonym for assume, and what you are referring to is a biased assumption that criticisms that you don’t agree with are racially or gender biased. It’s a cheap way for you to dismiss preferences and opinions that differ from yours.

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PhDeac said:

Whose decisions made sure that Townie growing up in Winston-Salem in the 80s and 90s wasn't like living in Fallujah during the Iraq War?

Can you give us a timeline and some names?

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PhDeac said:

It's also honestly infuriating when white men progressives dodge criticisms of sexism and racism by lumping all critics together as "lazy."

Good article by Michael Harriott on Colin Powell:


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/21/colin-powell-black-man-america-race-michael-harriot

[h=1]Politics aside, Colin Powell was a Black man in America[/h]The former secretary of state worked for administrations most Black people opposed, yet many African Americans respected him

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Colonel Angus said:

I remember the simpler times on the Tunnels when a white lib could call a sitting black supreme court justice "Uncle Thomas" with very little pushback.

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Strickland33 said:

that's one of the worst posts i've seen on this board tbh

didn't expect it to come from ph

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myDeaconmyhand said:

Presumably this was something he deleted before I saw it? Glad I didn’t see whatever it was and I don’t want to know what it said. Anyway, sorry y’all - he and I can’t seem to debate civilly. I’ll put him back on ignore, and I’m not saying that antagonistically. It’s just easier for me not to engage him.

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