There are two interesting things about this.
First, Madonna is giving a full-on performance of false solidarity. Real solidarity is when we are loyal to those we are connected to in some way, such as our family, or community, or coethnics. But it is more common now to think of solidarity falsely as meaning a compassionate identification with those we hold to be outsiders or marginalised or oppressed.
The latter is false because it is a confusion of categories. Compassion for those who are suffering is undoubtedly a good thing. But it is not the proper basis of solidarity. I should have a sense of solidarity with my own sons even if they are not marginalised or suffering.
Look at Madonna's performance. Flanked by some black male dancers she says to the crowd:
In 1864 Abraham Lincoln was the president of the United States. And what was he fighting for? To abolish slavery. For freedom. And they killed him. As they do. All the prophets. And a hundred years later Martin Luther King Jnr came here to march for the civil rights movement and he won but they killed him. As they do. And now it is so amazing and incredible to think we have an African-American in the White House. Those fine human beings did not die for nothing. They fought for our freedom. Not just African-Americans, but for all people of colour. For people that are different, unconventional, for people who want to believe in what they want to believe. Am I with you? Are you with me? Then that would be a f..... yeah. So, y'all better vote for f....ing Obama, OK? For better or for worse, we have a black Muslim in the White House. Now, that is some sh...t, it's amazing sh..t, it means there is hope in this country. And Obama is fighting for gay rights. So support the man godammit.
So we have this very white looking woman who identifies with those she thinks are most oppressed and most othered: blacks, Muslims, gays. She says that Lincoln and MLK fought for "our" freedom - not just African-Americans but all people of colour. She seems to think of herself as part of an "our" which does not include white people. Her current boyfriend, Brahim Zaibat, fits this identity, as he is of Moroccan (of North African Muslim) descent. She is even keen to think of Barack Obama as a Muslim as that would make her identification with him more complete.
The second interesting thing is that Madonna clearly wants to be seen as a hip kind of non-conformist rebel. Hence the berets, the closed fist salute from the dancer flanking her, the swearing, the invocation of "people that are different, unconventional ... people who want to believe in what they want to believe".
But this is a mask. Madonna's message is the ruling, orthodox, establishment one. She is a voice of the ruling ideology of state (and to some extent of church). If she had wanted to be a rebel she could have shown some loyalty to her own people and her own tradition. But she didn't - she went along with a concept of solidarity that is now mainstream in Western societies. Her radical posturing is a cover up for what she really is: a spokeswoman for a liberal establishment.
Lincoln wasn't fighting to abolish slavery. He was fighting the issue of states rights vs. federal power.
ReplyDeleteRemember, the Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves in the states that did not secede.
If that woman claimed solidarity with me, I'd need to take a long shower. Heck, I think I'd have to walk through a carwash. You're absolutely right that we live under an establishment that insists on posing as rebels and revolutionaries. I have a vague idea that Ms. Anti-Virgin has become political because there's nothing alluring about a sexual degenerate who is old.
ReplyDeleteGreat and Powerful Oz @ I think you are right about the primary issue of the Civil War (or War Between the States, if you like). I disagree with what you say about the Emancipation Proclamation, though, since a slave residing in a free state at that time was property under the laws of a Southern state. I don't think the geographic location of the slave mattered once the Southern state's laws had been nullified. If the Supreme Court were to overturn gay marriage, it wouldn't matter if the couples were still residing in Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, etc.
That woman is degenerate.
ReplyDeleteThe Civil War was fought to keep the Union intact. Slavery was one issue and why many of the states seceded, but the war wasn't waged because of slaves.
ReplyDeleteOn my walks I sometimes run into an older gent who's wife has taken on the "minority" causes by working and listening to her younger coworkers fresh out of college. And they are taught that white males are scum and that minorities are their allies. There is also an increasing interracial dating makeup here and looking into the eyes of the women, the hate for white men is quite apparent. Madonna is playing into it because she's a hasbeen who's trying to still be popular. These women I'm running into are being programmed by the system and actually believe and hate because of it. Toss in the programming blacks get and how they think "whitey" is keeping them down that's only adding fuel to the fire. Biden and his "chains" speech is an example.
Not to sound to cynical, but the system needs to collapse and there needs to be fight waged. Otherwise men like me will be walking targets out in the street. Blacks hate me for the color of my skin and increasingly white women do as well. That mentality will not be overcome peacefully I'm afraid and there will be casualties. I'd much rather it happen because the stage is set and the lines are drawn rather than the slow build up and coverups of black on white violence as has been the norm continues give white males a false sense of security. These guys are not safe in our current environment whatsoever.
Recently I saw a photo from France (I assume) that was of maybe 6 schoolboys of various African, mixed and middle eastern background posing in a school yard photo.
ReplyDeleteOn the ground being pinned to the ground by one black's knees at the neck and face was a white boy face flat on the ground.
They were posing showing off their defeated helpless victim. It was clearly racial. The image has been spread around the net and is one of many of young white men and boys being treated in this manner.
Jim is right something has to give and soon.
The next generation of white kids are being thrown to the wolves growing up in multiculturalism and it's getting worse with each generation under this system.
I'm only 25 and I started to experience the harassment and violence in my late teens. It was a very different world from the all Australian school I grew up in.
It's not possible to be non-conformist and popular.
ReplyDeleteBy definition if you're a non-conformist, only a small percentage of people will follow you. Politically, Madonna is a conformist left liberal, and aesthetically she a populist trying to sell as many copies of her songs as possible.
On the topic of the US Civil War, if the northern cause was so noble, why did the southerners tend to show more courage and out-fight the northerners on a man-for-man basis?
Slave states which didn't secede, and whose slaves were not freed by the Emancipation Proclamation: Kentucky, Maryland, West Virginia, Delaware, Missouri.
ReplyDeleteJim, very thought-provoking post. You had this to say, regarding young, university-educated white females:
ReplyDelete"On my walks I sometimes run into an older gent who's wife has taken on the "minority" causes by working and listening to her younger coworkers fresh out of college. And they are taught that white males are scum and that minorities are their allies. There is also an increasing interracial dating makeup here and looking into the eyes of the women, the hate for white men is quite apparent."
"Blacks hate me for the color of my skin and increasingly white women do as well."
Having read your post earlier, I came across this:
http://vagendamag.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/vagenda-guide-to-republican-candidates.html
Now I don't know where you live. I assume Jim is American. The above female blogger is UK-based and has had pieces published in The Guardian.
There are countless leftists, anti-racists, feminists, etc. out there that have targeted "white males" as the enemy in such a way. This is promoted in the mass media to a certain extent but also in a more overt form in academia, which explains why the young women who had recently graduated from college were so taken in by this "anti-white male" thing.
At the very least, one aim of the "anti-white male" thing is to reduce the level of attractiveness white males generally have to women.
...
Feminism and race-mixing are Marxist weapons against the white man, in short.
Interesting, Race-mixing are marxist weapons against white man and the system needs to collapse and there needs to be a fight waged. Sound like individuals that may have lost or left by some loved one in the past to another "minority' or 'inferior' race! or been picked on and couldn't defend as he was out numbered. I'm NOT Black or White, my wife is of western descent and I'm of asian. Race mixing happens when 2 people just happen to know each other through common ground and of similar background. I was picked on and beaten up by 'europeans-Mediterranean descent' and 'australians' back in primary and high school. I hate neither as my wife is Mediterranean and my friends are 'white australians. Our kids are mixed so are they a weapon against white males and because I'm part of the minority do you want to wage a fight against me and my family?
ReplyDeleteIf a particular group of people are causing trouble they should be punished severly, however, if you are bullied, learn to stand up and fight, even if you are outnumbered. It makes people think twice before they set on you again. NOT just gather a bunch of sheep to fight for you! BTW I do not like Madonna and what she stands for...
Madonna sounds just like a typical female university academic.
ReplyDelete"On the topic of the US Civil War, if the northern cause was so noble, why did the southerners tend to show more courage and out-fight the northerners on a man-for-man basis?"
ReplyDeletethis is silly. it's like saying, "in WWII, if the Allied cause was so noble, why did they firebomb cities?"
i am not comparing Confederate soldiers to Nazis BTW. i'm fine with Confederate veterans' memorials, and a general acknowledgment that regardless of what the "wrong side" was in a given war, obviously people fought for brotherhood/homeland/etc. etc. however i'm not much for Civil War revisionism. it's true that Lincoln did not initially make the slavery issue central, but to say that slavery (and attempts to expand it into new states) wasn't what split the nation apart in the first place is completely ahistorical.
slight tangent, but in the U.S., i would say there are two weird fixations of paleoconservatives (who have what i'd describe as traditionalist views) that have marginalized them from public discourse: the fact that their "criticism" of U.S.-Israeli relations tends to morph into conspiratorial anti-Semitism, and, perhaps to a lesser extent, their attempts to portray the Civil War as a completely abstract states' rights vs. federal overreach issue where Lincoln is the equivalent of Adolf Hitler.
It's interesting how the American Civil War remains a touchstone that reliably reveals an American's political sympathies. I think we can already see the same thing happening to WWII (e.g. Buchanan's Unnecessary War ). Both wars are generally understood in terms of America's liberal/progressive mythology, and once one steps outside of that mythology, they begin to look rather different.
ReplyDeleteSince my ancestors wore blue, I must say a few words about the alleged pugnacity deficit of the Yankees. If it existed, it is explained by three facts. (1) There was never the slightest chance that their states would be conquered by Southern armies; (2) a great many did not give a damn about slavery or union and would have been happy to let the Confederacy go; (3) quite a few were Irish and German substitutes hired straight off the boat by shirking Northern conscripts.
so far as i could tell (i didn't read it,) the problem with Buchanan's book was that he gave Hitler waaaaay too much credit for his supposed rationality. i forget the exact specifics, but his idea seemed to be that Germany would control a certain amount of Europe, and Britain and America would've both retained the influence they had pre-war. the problem obviously, is that there's no indication that Hitler would've stopped at a given point had the Allies left him alone. there's also the fact that, even if that was the case, i don't think most people view a regime in Europe systematically killing every Jew in territories under its control as a reasonable "equilibrium."
ReplyDeletesomewhat amusingly, i also read that the Churchill quote Buchanan used for the title was said because Churchill, unsurprisingly, believed Germany could and should have been stopped earlier. so that's a clever bit of context-twisting on Buchanan's part.
also somewhat amusingly, one conservative publication said they thought Buchanan had just written the book out of boredom, and called boredom an underrated cause of these sorts of contrarian arguments.
i do think that while the guy is obviously smart and knowledgeable about history in general, he does have a bit of "the Jew thing." however i don't write people off entirely just cuz they may have certain prejudices, mild or otherwise.