Know your Enemy: Steve Bannon by Amy Goodman

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I think others have answered very well for me.
And if I call someone right wing, I mean they come across as right wing. I'm not insulting anyone, just pointing out a fact.

Right wing white men are evil.
Left wing white men atone for their atrocities.

I've been trying to warn Asians for a while, but also trying not to sound racist, about buying into being accepted as white. That offer was bound to be withdrawn eventually. To be frank, Asians I've met have had less concern than I would like about saying things that sound racist.

I can't predict the battle lines of a plausible race war anymore, and I hate the idea that Bannon & co might put me into a uniform despite my active opposition.

I didn't choose my skin color, and I won't have someone else telling me How to Be White.

You watch too much CNN and MSNBC obviously, the main promoters of race war in this country btw

Left wing platitudinous lies are smug and stupid.
Right wing platitudinous lies are honest mistakes by people with sincere hearts.

But here's the thing: Russian and German are adjectives denoting national identity while Asian denotes both a continental identity and a racial identity. See the difference there?


I suppose this relatively simple issue has been made complicated by the verbal gymnastics of SJWs and people who apply literary theories to political and economic issues and so this needs some definition.

What I mean when I say racist is ascribing fixed characteristics and relative superiority or inferiority to people based on clusters of superficial physical characteristics like skin color, eye color, hair color and texture, eye shape, ear shape etc.--the physical characteristics that have historically defined the concept of race.

Clear enough for you?

I reject the notion that racism is somehow related to power. A destitute person from a despised outcast group can be a racist if they subscribe to the idea that race determines social and moral traits or intrinsic value.

So you see there being two interpretations, just as well do you think Steve Bannon wants more European CEOs versus Asian and Indians or it is about geography instead of race? I take it he is talking about wanting more American CEOs in Silicon Valley rather than more white people. That's how I see it, you might not like how 'literary theories' are applied to all aspects of life now but it doesn't change the reality that they are being applied that way or the impact it has had on our culture.

I agree with your definition of racism but what you are quite a bit to the 'right' of the SJW position FWIW, most would call you racist for the limited scope of what you consider racist altho in practice you seem to have different standards. I do no believe what we know about Trump or Bannon makes them racists, coming where I come from I see their populist beliefs as something that particularly benefits disadvantaged Americans as they are the ones that disproportionately suffer because of the policies of both your mainstream Republicans and Democrats. I don't see Trump's position on NAFTA, war, or illegal immigration as 'white interests' but rather our national interests or at least the local interests that have been relevant to me my entire life.

Amen! I'll holler it again: AMEN!! !

If Bannon was only interested in having more American CEOs in Silicon Valley as opposed to south Asians, then he wouldn't have opened Breitbart to Alt Right white nationalists. Birds of a feather.

So you agree with Jacoby then.

If he agrees with me, then yes. Jacoby and I, believe it or not, have been in agreement in the past, particularly regarding the evil posed by Saudi Arabia.

But why is he talking about limiting the number of Asians who become Americans if it's not about race? Legal immigration means blocking people who want to join America and be Americans.

I don't think there are two interpretations, because the "region" interpretation doesn't make sense. Region doesn't determine culture. There is more than one culture in India, more than one culture in China and more than one culture in Japan, There is certainly no common Aisan or South Asian culture. Really, trying to pass this off as a reference to culture and not race makes no sense at all.

btw, Story on how wrong Bannon's numbers were here

More on Bannon's influence on Trump here.


I don't believe that Bannon doesn't know what the Asian Exclusion Act was about. You can't talk about the immigration act of 1924 without opening the door to all that hellish stuff from the dark past.

East St. Louis: 1917. Arkansas: 1919. Tulsa: 1921.Rosewood Florida: 1923.Immigration Act 1924.

It's worth noting that Italians were the victims of racist violence in that era--less frequently than citizens of African ancestry, but subject to the same kinds of violence. There is a short, informative film about this here

We like to forget how intensely the white nationalists of those days fought anyone they thought might be a threat to their vision of a racially pure America, but a man like Bannon has read the histories and knows this subject well.

The campaign to ethnically cleanse the west of Chinese is one that most Americans would rather forget, unless they are thinking it was a good thing. A roundup of related violence here.
It's worth noting that the first time the word "racism" was used in Supreme Court deliberations was in Korematsu v. United_States in 1944, right in the middle of Bannon's golden age of immigration restriction.

The racist immigration act of 1924 emerged from that background and was ended by the immigration act of 1965. That change was part of a movement that alse ended the legal excuse for racism provided by the Jim Crow laws with passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the end of the systematic disenfranchisement of citizens with African ancestry in the with passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Bannon's pal Sessions not only thinks the Immigration Act of 1924 was just great, but also has worked against the Voting Rights Act of 1965 throughout his career. Read about it here (Caution: trigger warning for those with delicate constitutions, it's a left wing source!)

Bannon is not saying these things in a vacuum.

Given that, I will continue to consider him a racist unless he gives some very compelling explanation for how his support of racist laws and his racist comments about immigration are not indicative of racism.

So far the efforts to downplay the racial significance of his remarks on this topic seem to exist somewhere in the vicinity of the risible, the unconvincing or the implausible.

Is there something like racism which is related to power?

I just have two definitions, academic and schoolyard, and consider both useful. If we need another word for the academic term for the structural effects of schoolyard racism, I'm okay with having one.

Although, some powerless shouting wouldn't be a real serious problem by itself. I think that sums up part of the right's argument, that it's just harmless shouting. That simple assertion ignores a lot of social psychology.

Thank you for finally posting the context of that statement, I would definitely say Bannon is guilty of making an ignorant statement for falsely stating that two-thirds or three-forth of Silicon Valley are from India or Asia but I think it is one ultimately about nationalism rather than something about race. It mentions the troublesome H1-B visa as the program for 'highly skilled foreign workers' which doesn't mention the rampant abuse of this program by the tech industry. Silicon Valley should be held in similar regard to Wall Street in its callousness towards working people, they are among the chief exploiters on planet. There are also economic and cultural considerations that have been dismissed as irrelevant or even racist, this is where political correctness is suffocating. Do you think opposing illegal immigration racist?

No.

Though it can be. It depends on how you do it.

Nobody is downplaying the "racial significance". You made a very specific assertion "Bannon is racist" that you haven't supported with evidence.

I've listened through the entire interview (CLICK ME), and the context is American jobs for American citizens, and the condemnation of H-1B visas by Mike Huckabee (who was on the show later). Relevant part starts at 15:40-ish.

There is nothing to provide further context that might inform us as to how Bannon was going to finish his thought before Trump interrupted him. He does, however, clearly say "Sessions" before the "America is a civic society" part, and I'd be interested to know if he was quoting him directly. Going to keep digging and see if I can find anything that fits - though it's made difficult by the obfuscation of hundreds of articles running the same story.



That's how I see it too, Jacoby, especially in the wider context of the entire broadcast. He's doing a lead-in to his next (or a later) guest and the topic they're going to cover.

Huckabee interview is here: CLICKY

I'm listening to it right now.