Herz, didn't Baume just give us permission to feel good about politics today? I don't feel so good any more.

I read her essay (twice) and it's too abstract to either agree or disagree.
To be at all persuasive, the writer might want to offer some specifics to illustrate/explain her larger theme.

Willaford and Johnson, pictured, led with "you are all white supremacists." I don't understand how this hostility is apparently not only justifiable, but the new standard for progressive discourse.

This is the same writer who thought that King Louie from the original Jungle Book movie was some kind of blackface character. She used to be an account manager for a car dealer marketing company, she's full of shit.

@2: The rise of proudly biased news sources (Gawker, FOX News, The Stranger, etc), has created this form of writing were you start off with the assumption that your audience already agrees with you, freeing you from making actual arguments, or proving anything you say.

These articles are typically dripping with identity politics as well, since it is assumed that the more "oppressed" a person's identity is, the more correct everything they say must be. It's a defense against any kind of criticism. You can see how the author's identity is essentially the only argument they advance. The piece is filled with "I" and "We" statements.

You see both in this piece, which is why it says nothing of any real substance, or anything terribly persuasive. It is more about virtue signaling, identity signaling, and catharsis for the author than anything else.

What @6 said.
Very juvenile stuff...

It's amusing how the linked article refuses to actually really even mention the criticisms against the rising PC mobs on twitter. The SJW crowd is ok with using bullying tactics and crowdsourced stalking to bulldoze anyone they disagree with. There is no actual reference to the criticism because the loudest voices don't want to admit they are indeed behaving like dictators sometimes.

@8 yet of course they'e allowed to rush to judge everybody else?

So many strawmen, I think my computer will catch on fire.

"especially if you're a comfortably middle-class liberal, or if you read about the recent Seattle University protests and thought to yourself, "You know, those students are going too far." Or if you want everyone on the left to fall in line behind Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, or any particular politician" - Maybe I can be a liberal that understands the world doesn't work the way we imagine it to when we are 20. Far left & far right is wrong, we need to be in the middle.

@12 -- I don't use Twitter myself but there have been a number of cases of people having their lives offline ruined by Twitter mobs. People have been fired from their jobs, publicly shamed and sometimes personally stalked. I wish online harassment was as simple as walking away but these days the trolls can follow you offline.

We're seeing a replay of what ended up killing the ERA back in the 1970's and early 1980's. Progressives started pushing people away with the "our way or fuck off" and it pushed lots of folks into the waiting arms of Phyllis Schlafly.

@6: " It is more about virtue signaling, identity signaling, and catharsis for the author than anything else." Spot-on. And so many of us have withdrawn from engaging in discourse online with these people because it doesn't go anywhere, it's pointless. And if we dare to question their opinions, we run the risk of the smear mob. Yeats's "The best lack all conviction, while the worst...are full of passionate intensity." rings very true now more than ever.

Maybe the author can respond here on Slog?
Add an update in Ansel's post?

Maybe she does have something to say. I haven't been impressed so far on other venues - hearing her on KUOW - but willing to hear her out.

Show me a white person who at some stage of their moral development didn't think, "I'm better than than those black people over there." and I'll show you a liar.

@20, and we'll just ignore your racism

So many white men telling people who are not white men how they should think, or write or be.
@5: What in the name of all that is holy does a job she used to have have to do with anything? Dan Savage used to be a waiter. Patty Murray was once a house wife. I mean come on, try harder.

@22, kinda like non-white men thinking they are superior to to white men instead of equals. I know, it's very annoying

The passive aggressive toxic hostility, open racial and gender hatred, and intellectual dishonesty (not to mention hypocrisy) of leftists like the author have gotten me to the point where I would not want to be affiliated with this brand of leftism under any circumstances. They seem to define progressive as someone who says "how high?" to the command of "jump!" by someone who is deemed to be oppressed because of their gender, race, religion, etc, etc. I've noticed this guilt trip goes something like "Seattlites like to think they are so progressive but ______" Then they mention some incident where some oppressed class of people weren't pandered to enough. In the case, the author was outraged that white Seattlites booed those two black girls who practically assaulted an elderly Jewish man (Saunders). I would have booed them too and made no apologies about it. They were using an incident that happened on the other side of the country (the death of Mike Brown) to abuse some elderly Jewish man in Seattle. Nope. It should be added that Brown wasn't even a victim, and himself had assaulted an elderly Asian man moments before his death. Funny how these ironies are never pointed out.
I've noticed white feminists are the latest target for this malice and have capitulated to the demands to be meek and submissive to groups deemed (dishonestly IMO) more oppressed to the point where they were apologists for the mass rape that happened in Europe and very, very cautious in criticizing Bill Cosby. I've seen more hatred openly expressed towards Ann Coulter and Paula Deen then I have towards Cosby.
The rules seem to be that men need to blindly support women, whites need to blindly support POC, and so on and on. No thanks, I don't blindly support anyone based solely on race, gender, etc. Leftists like the author don't want equality, they want submissiveness and blind allegiance based on race and gender. I don't give it nor do I expect it from anyone.

@11 when have I done that?

"Trickle-Down Progressivism"
That's a great phrase but like many great phrases from both the left and right it rings hollow and is not accurate. There seems to be a demand the grievances of BLM be at the forefront of every discussion. Some of these grievances, such as complaining about the phrase "super predators" used 20 years ago and the death of Mike Brown have no validity IMO. Other grievances have validity, but no more so then grievences of many other people of all races who are being ignored due to the demand that every dialogue that takes place in America be hijacked and turned into a lecture about anti-black racism. This even occurs in instances where blacks were the perpetrator or one in which no blacks are involved at all.

@23: Hey there Cato! Citation please. Or perhaps you'll just beat a hasty retreat like you did yesterday in the Morning News thread.
That seems to be your MO. Make an absurd statement then run away.

If the course she charts leads her to power, I hope she uses the power to good ends. And if it does not, there isn't much point worrying about it, is there?

She sure doesn't need my permission to do what she wants to do.

Here's the thing: If you bring nothing to the table but passion, however justifed, with no solid dependable voting block behind you, you really have nothing to offer.

Progressives/liberals stayed home in the 2010 and 2012 mid-terms, many using the excuse that Obama "let them down". Maybe he did, but their inaction did nothing but help the 1% and the anti-everyone-but-white-guys movement (which didn't need any help), and hurt no one but the most oppressed among us. Instead of accepting incremental change and working on getting better candidates elected, they ceded their responsibility, and played right into the hands of the powerful.

(It should be noted that lower middle-class white conservatives do the same thing with their unquestioned devotion to the GOP, who steals their lunch every election because they present themselves as the party of God and the military.)

Groups can make all the "demands" they want, but until they get political power and a place at the table, no one cares. And getting that place at the table requires compromise and working with others. A lot of the left in this country don't get that. They think that life is some after school special where they win everyone over to their side and everything changes overnight. When they don't get that, they lock themselves in the bathroom for a good pout.

@27: So it bothers you that people whose issues have always been on the back burner want them on the front burner where yours have always been.

@30: I <3 you.

@31 No, it bothers me when mobs use thuggish and abusive behavior to make everything all about them 24/7. It bothers me when people show no regard for facts, as Mike Brown supporters do. You don't know s about me so your assumption that my grievances get addressed are laughable. You are suggesting black grievances aren't getting it's fair share of attention? What planet do you live on?

@31 Oh yeah, and your rhetoric is exactly the stereotypical SJW "logic" used to intimidate people into being afraid to criticize or dissent. And as you can tell it didn't work.

@34 Marriage equality advocates had a clear idea of what they wanted- the right to marry.
The BLM advocates are all of the place. They call any police shooting on a black person to be police brutality and any white on black violence to be racial terrorism. They also have espoused violent rhetoric towards the police, whites, and hate speech towards Jews. I don't remember the marriage equality people threatening straight people with violence or storming into events completely unrelated to their cause, verbally abusing the crowd, and holding everyone hostage to their inflammatory and often factually incorrect rhetoric, do you?

So many racists commenting here. You'd think hundreds of years of white people extorting, kidnapping, murdering and raping people of color would cause us to have sympathy. We privileged, white assholes know nothing of what it's like to live as people of color. Calling white people racist is NOT racism. Everyone who is white in America gets to live a life of privilege, even if they're poor, that is far less painful than what people of color have to deal with every day.

So, you all respond by coming here and attacking this person for sharing their feelings about how fucked up everything is and how hypocritical all of us white people are for accepting and enjoying the privileges granted to us while hardly doing shit to actually improve things for our fellow humans. Going and voting and talking about things we'd like to change is way less than we can be expected to do to improve the lives of our brothers and sisters who are suffering greatly and have been for centuries.

We're all guilty. Open your ears and eyes and close your fucking hateful white mouths.

"close your fucking hateful white mouths" you can just feel the love.

@33, 35: Why I live on planet earth Tara, in the United States of America, where indeed the grievances of black people have not been given their fair share of attention.
I think Blip @34 breaks down the situation very nicely; I hope you read their comment.
No one is trying to scare you into silence.
It's just some one else's turn to speak.

@39: Protip: quotation marks are used to mark the beginning and end of a title or quoted passage not what ever garbage happens to be in your head. No one but you had used that phrase either here or in the article under discussion.

Welcome to the 21st Century, when the discourse is broken, and everything is clickbait.

@42 learn how to read @37 you mindless SJW. Do you regressive leftists need to have everything spoon fed to you when you're out of your safe spaces?

What bugs me here as a comfortable middle-class liberal is not who's speaking up but the lack of basic organizing strategy: 1) Identify the objective (specifically--as in what law/policy/rule needs to change), 2) identify who affect that change, and 3) identify what it takes to secure the support of the person(s) who can affect the change. Until those questions are answered no good will come from screaming in the face of some poor guy at a Sanders rally.

@44: Ah! My apologies! I did not see not see the closing of @37.

I am basically with everything Catalina said in @30.
One thing I would add is that through history civil right movements have gained not by being shy but by being intransigent. What tends to happen is that they lose in their ultimate goals, but society wins by moving closer to those goals. The drama from all the people here with their feelings hurt by a few POC who say mean things and do impolite things is quite laughable. Just as it is the silly cliches of "discourse" and "SJW" thrown around.
Step away from your keyboards, relax, you will be fine. And once you are relaxed read @30, it is a more sober assessment, a better way to argue, full of actual good points.

@28
Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam... Fundamentally, the group believes in the racial superiority of blacks, a belief supported by a complex genesis fable, which includes an envious, evil white scientist who put a curse on blacks.

@48: Indeed. Perhaps when they are the dominant paridgym or setting national policy we might revisit what lasting impact they would have.
But thank you for taking the time.

@25TaraP,
I agree. You raise very valid points regarding some on the Left and its stridency. Simply put, that kind of rhetoric isn't constructive at all. I disagree with Ms. Oluo and the two protesters at the Sanders' rally last year. Sen. Sanders deserved to be heard.

@48,
Indeed, I read Manning Marable's excellent biography of Malcolm X and that was mentioned as part of the history of the NOI. I do believe now, NOI has renounced its separatism and embraced a more peaceful and conventional Sunni (?) Islam.

@47
Intransigence is fine.
Compromise is fine.
Both have a place.

But even more important than either is clarity - words strung together with meaning. So far, Ms Oluo doesn't seem to have offered anything but muddy water.

I am genuinely curious if she has anything to say.

@52, I think that is a fair request and a fair complaint. My issue was with the people here that were all getting their knickers twisted just because of the tone. On this thread people are using the article as an excuse to rant about their hurt feelings for past events when a POC was too loud or too uncompromising or made them uncomfortable, etc.
No one is (or should be) beyond criticism, but the knee jerk idiocy one finds at Slog any time a POC gets too loud is hard to stomach.

For the record, when I said "the discourse is broken" @43, I was referring to the comment thread (and the internet in general) not to Oluo or anyone out in the real world.

@53
A racists racism never dies with the racist. Instead the racists entire race must answer for it for all eternity. Haven't you been paying attention?

@56 Racism exists in institutions. Institutions perpetuate themselves beyond single generations. Individual interpersonal racism isn't the issue under discussion.

In other words, "no matter how offensive our conduct, no matter how many witch hunts we conduct against people with the slightest divergence of opinion, no matter how many reporters we physically assault, no matter what racism and anti-Semitism we tolerate from those among us, we're automatically right because we've faced oppression". Boiled down to its essence, it's the same argument used by far-right Zionist ultranationalists to deflect criticism of Israel's policies.
Ms. Oluo draws a false dichotomy between supporting all social justice movements unconditionally and leaving all groups other than one's own out in the cold. I reject that blinkered view; I am not subject to the tired old paradigms of the past! I support social justice wholeheartedly, but I will not be blackmailed into lending my voice to movements that betray the ideals of their cause. I am for healing, not for keeping old wounds raw. I am for fighting all prejudice, not just that which is currently backed by our society. I am for the facts, wherever they may lead. Above all else I am for justice, not for vengeance; the uplifting of black communities and black people does not require, nor should it encourage, the downcasting of white communities and white people.

@5: Oh my God yes. I'd almost forgotten about that.

@6: Pretty much. These kinds of stereotypical SJWs have gone so far down the rabbit hole that they focus nearly exclusively on identity. I've had a (white, Gentile) woman tell me that I was racist to expect a coherent argument from a black person because they've been so underserved by public schools (a racist and patronizing attitude IMO) and that the Jews aren't a real minority because we don't face oppression according to her.

@12: So, you're saying that cyberbullying is okay because everyone's free to just switch off the computer? One, it's not uncommon for the targets of these online lynch mobs to be doxxed and harassed in real life. Two, PEOPLE HAVE BEEN DRIVEN TO SUICIDE BY CYBERBULLYING. Stay classy!

@30: Mrs. Vel-DuRay tells it like it is, as usual.

@31: I think it demeans the fight for equality to drag it into every possible debate regardless of whether it is relevant. Lots of things are about racism or sexism, but not all things. And when the struggle is co-opted for use as a bludgeon on some unrelated issue, it delegitimizes the cause.

@36: You have a good point about the muddled and schizophrenic nature of the BLM movement, but the gay rights movement wasn't always as focused as it has been in recent years. They were all over the place too, for a while. Coincidentally, they got more done after they adopted some more cohesive goals.
Unrelatedly, there's an excellent book about black people, civil rights, and schizophrenia called "The Protest Psychosis" that I highly recommend.

@37: "Calling white people racist is NOT racism."
I dunno, making generalized assumptions about someone's character based solely on their skin color? Sounds pretty racist to me. If someone says racist things or engages in overtly racist actions, call them out. But what you're saying just isn't true.
"close your fucking hateful white mouths"
Let's change one word: "close your fucking hateful black mouths". Hmm, doesn't sound so good, does it? It's astounding how easily self-professed anti-racists turn to racism. Ebony and ivory, each just as xenophobic and corruptible as the other...

@45: Word.

@50: My overarching point is that just because people and views like them didn't have the backing of society doesn't excuse their racism. If we condone hatred so long as it's not institutionalized, then we will simply have a switching-over of the targets of hatred from time to time, not an end to hatred.

@52: Well said.

@VM,
You're on a roll. Excellent commentary.

I'm glad we have some non-white people telling white people that they aren't allowed to have an opinion on a matter and ought to shut up, that's a new and respect-garnering tactic.

If some young progressive wants to be tough and bold and intransigent, cut the SJW language & copy Elizabeth Warren.

I agree with @6 and @30. There are two paths to power: money, and numbers. If you don't have the former, the best use of your time is organizing people to vote as a bloc, unionize and act as a cohesive group. Shouting loudly, especially into the void of the internet, will get you nowhere except to alienate your allies.

@63, yes indeed. We should be so lucky to have her as Clinton's running mate.

@64: "Shouting loudly, especially into the void of the internet, will get you nowhere except to alienate your allies."
According to the ones I've talked to, any allies they manage to alienate that way were never "real" allies in the first place.