1,421 words
Stacey Abrams
Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change
New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2018
If you are a white American, you are – right now – engaged in the Racial Holy War. You might not be interested in this war, but this war is interested in you. Bearing that in mind, one should read the books of our racial enemies to gain an important understanding of what they are thinking and plan to do. One such book is Minority Leader by Stacey Abrams, who is a black Democratic politician from Georgia, and she came very close to winning the 2018 Governor’s race. Her book is a mish-mash of basic positive thinking career advice that reminded this reviewer of what any corporate life coach or inspirational speaker would say. In fact, it is almost as simplistic as the message of one of the villains in Dexter, who was a life coach of some sort.
For example, she encourages us to list our goals and look at our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). I seem to recall that SWOT was one of the many acronyms I learned in the military two decades ago, so this is hardly original. Additionally, she divides mentors into several groups:
Sponsor: Cordial relationship, not deep. Relationship can open doors.
Adviser: Complex relationship, offers advice and engages in long-term plans.
Situational: More related to the other person’s expertise.
Peer: Similar in age or position. Can help game out situations.[1]
While there isn’t anything original in it, it’s a respectable book of life advice for average or below-average performers. Ben Sasse’s book is considerably more insightful and applicable to modern circumstances. On a personal note, I’ve found that all books on career advice and life lessons leave out the really hard lessons, such as when to fire someone, how to weed out non-performers, or how to lead well even when you and your group are losing.
There is nothing about political policy in this book. There is no grasp of America’s problems and how to deal with them. In fact, much of the book consists of emotional descriptions of the various groups in the Democratic party: Koreans, homosexuals, Latinas, and so on. Oh, and she likes romance novels. Also, Abrams is deep in debt – student loans and other things have piled up, and this has caused her some setbacks. But the book does show two things very well from a “between the lines” perspective: the inner workings of American black culture, and the Great Replacement.
Conformists all: American black culture
The most remarkable thing about American black culture is just how conformist it is. East to west, north to south, all American Negroes are the same. They have a similar outlook and react to everything in a highly predictable way. Race riots, like 2014’s violence, develop exactly as did the LA riots in 1992 and across the nation in the late 1960s. As soon as O. J. Simpson got a black jury, it was a foregone conclusion that he would be found not guilty, no matter what the evidence showed. On the individual level, blacks all act alike, and it seems they are highly policed by their own community to conform to the social norms of “acting black.”
Stacey Abrams found that this conformity stifled her work. She writes:
. . . I am still critiqued as cold and aloof, whereas among my white or male counterparts, the same qualities are seen as being composed and introspective. In my campaign for governor of Georgia, former colleagues have questioned how “black” I truly am because I did not take on certain issues or do more to disrupt the normal order. The critiques can be nullifying, eating at the core of who I am. More than once, I have found myself wondering if I have overcorrected, moving from one stereotype to another: from Shanaynay to Uncle Tom.[2]
Abrams mentions some other aspects of black culture. First, all blacks, no matter where they are in society, have relatives who are or have been involved in serious crime. Abrams has a brother who served a prison sentence, and her brother-in-law was also locked up for a crime he says “he didn’t commit.” As a result of this, the entire black community is fundamentally sympathetic to crime. No matter where they are on the social ladder, they are never far from the jungle.
Additionally, blacks have a hard time obtaining wealth. Abrams has several “answers” to this dilemma that amount to something like “When You Wish Upon a Star.” Abrams also has a warped view of white men: She believes that powerful white men rarely hear the word “no.” I find this somewhat baffling, given that such men are often beset by problems caused by other powerful white men. In such an environment, hearing the word “no” might be the politest thing spoken to them.
The Dispossessed Majority
According to the book, Abrams’ political career began while she was studying at a historically black women’s college in Atlanta. Blacks in Atlanta rioted in sympathy with the blacks in LA during the Rodney King riots. As a result, the police cordoned off the area where she was living. Abrams organized a phone campaign to the local media to get their story out. This led to her meeting with Atlanta’s Mayor, the late Maynard Jackson. Abrams has been awarded many scholarships and other awards. Far from speaking truth to power, Abrams is a pet of the Establishment. (Amazingly, nobody in power endorses any black who has a vision of blacks leaving America and creating their own, independent country – a Black Zion, away from whites, and thus guaranteed to be free of racism.)
Stacey Abrams’ career is an example of how the dispossession of the majority (to use Wilmot Robertson’s phrase) actually works. In the context of the black community, Abrams is a high-end performer. In the context of the white community, she would be average – at best. However, the institutions of power, such as scholarship boards, deliberately overlook worthy whites to give advantages to non-whites who don’t behave in a pathological way.
Georgia: The Union’s most unstable state
Abrams’ power base is an example of further dispossession. Georgia is a victim of the Great Replacement – euphemistically referred to as “changing demographics” by the mainstream. There are several interlocking reasons for this. First, the foolish 1965 Immigration Act brought in many Third Worlders. On top of this, Atlanta has become a destination for many blacks who fled America’s northern cities – which they themselves destroyed between the 1940s and the 1960s.
Stacy Abrams’ campaign was the first of its kind in that she didn’t bother to seek out white votes. With the electorate so divided between whites and non-whites, there is no need for compromise. Georgia is a racial powder keg. If Georgia had a large white population and stable demographics, Stacey Abrams would comfortably fit in the mold of the many non-white grifters who have sprung up since “civil rights.” As mentioned above, she has no vision and no grasp of the issues outside of the problems that a race-hustler claims to be addressing. However, she came close to winning the Governor’s race because of the demographic changes, and she fulfills Peter Brimelow’s prophecy from his classic 1995 book, Alien Nation:
As that white voting bloc is reduced in relative size, ever more intense incentive will be offered enterprising politicians of all ethnic groups, including, perhaps, the almost-majority whites, to whip their own supporters into line in order to marshal their vote. Supreme power in American politics will have come within grabbing range – no longer for any one bloc but for an unstable, jockeying combination of them.
Georgia is a highly unstable polity and Stacey Abrams is an expression of that. Indeed, its instability is right there on the surface. Atlanta, famously, is a “city too busy to hate” – which is an admission that Atlanta’s civic leaders have to keep the economy humming to avoid any interracial reckonings. Georgia’s political establishment can’t even agree on common symbols: The state flag has been changed twice just since 2001. Indeed, Stacey Abrams burned Georgia’s flag in the 1990s because it featured the Confederate Battle Flag. Today’s is based on the design of the First National Flag of the Confederacy – but given the current political climate, a further change is certainly possible. In the end, there is no solution to Georgia’s instability but to proceed onward, towards the white ethnostate.
Notes
[1] Stacey Abrams, Minority Leader (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2018), summarized from p. 101.
[2] Ibid., p. 43.
21 comments
Most interesting. Scary to think what will happen when an entire state becomes a macro Detroit or Baltimore. But there’s a lot of ruin in a nation. The bleed will be slow until 2050 or so. Whites will move to Montana. In 2500, far eastern historians will write “decline and fall of the American empire,” blaming it all on an addiction to professional sports.
Black rule in Atlanta is bad, but more concerning is the number of Hispanics I saw in the countryside. The country has usually been the domain of white Southern culture, and now it’s being assaulted by Latinx newcomers. The South is already gone in most ways, it’s the New South now, but what little remains is finally being stomped out.
White Southerners, as much as I love them, are a particular lost lot.
Unfortunately, I can’t disagree with you at all, dogger. I have lived my entire life in the rural Deep South, and we have become a lost lot. All of our traditional institutions have been corrupted including the church, and there isn’t anywhere the normie southerner can turn for guidance. Lower class whites without the funds to escape large black population centers have been completely deracinated by integration, and more prosperous whites who can afford to flee from diversity have become the enemy of lower class whites. You are also correct in noting a lot more Hispanics in the rural areas these days.
I’ve noted the same phenomenon you are talking about when it comes to white class structures in the South. It’s be nice to think noblesse oblige has survived, but the Southern white middle and upper classes have unshackled themselves from lower and working class whites since the end of Civil Rights. There are no more Southern aristocrats left, just bourgeoisie college gameday fans – as has already been noted by others. The college fraternities are the odious and most overt example of what the Southern gentleman has turned into and what responsibilities of power he has foregone in the pursuit of money and women.
And if you’re a poor Southern white? Forget about it. You’re squeezed between blacks that hate you and a white upper class that wants nothing to do with you. The Golden Days of Jim Crow when whites across the South worked to preserve their race and identity are long gone.
Yet, 90,000 white Georgians on any given Saturday in the Fall will be in Athens cheering for their beloved Bulldawgs. If only that energy could be channeled elsewhere.
A-fuckin’-men to that, Cockpit.
93,000 Whites funnel into Sanford Stadium to watch Negroes who hate them toss a ball.
Same thing at the Staples Center last year. An arena full of Whites maniacally cheering for angry, anti-White Negro zillionaires.
One of several reasons I haven’t watched sportsball in many years.
I have pleaded until I am blue in the face for my friends to give up sportsball, but life is still to good and comfortable for most middle to upper class whites. It is easy to stomach the diversity of college football from a 50 yard line seat, when you can get in your 50K SUV and drive home to your all white subdivision after the game. Who cares if Georgia is losing the demographic battle as long as UGA is in the college football playoffs?
Remember when the media was saying Clinton could win Georgia in 2016?
I’m struck by the point about Atlanta being to busy to hate. What happens when the recession hits? Atlanta is one of those places which is being gentrified, but that means it’s gone from 31% white in 1990(it’s historic low) to 39% in 2010. In 1940, Atlanta was 65% white. Most of these white’s who’ve moved in are socially liberal I’d guess. I’d also assume that since 2010, more liberal white’s have moved in. But how long will this cohort stay liberal once racial tensions increase under the stress of a serious recession?
Stacey Abrams never had a chance of being governor in Georgia because if you look at it how can you win when you have someone who is the Secretary of the state running for governor, think about it. It was all set up, this what we called here in the “SOUTH” the good old boy system she would have made a better governor than the one we have in office now that in my community being a Black man we call him Gomer Pyle that old southern draw that pues from his mouth it brings me back to the sixties when my father and mother fought for what they have now.
“Hang in there.It is America.
You mentioned “Black Zion”
I thought about going visit with my family in Mississippi from Tennessee
#MT Mount Bayou Mississippi
#awesome.
#your time is now
“Stay inspired”
Some Georgians didn’t vote for her because we didn’t agree with her, and felt that Kemp was a better candidate to represent us. It has nothing to do with the fact that she is woman or African American. This is just the same as Hillary, no problems with woman president, just not THAT woman in particular. Please stop throwing down your race card and gender card, and accept the fact that sometimes It’s Just You as an individual.
2017 Census Bureau estimates say Georgia is only 52.6% non-Hispanic white -and no doubt a lot of whites in the Atlanta area are SWPL. The estimates say the state is 9.6% Hispanic, 31% black and 4% Asian. The Georgia GOP may be able to remain viable for some years more if they come up with urbane (i.e., non-rednecky ) candidates who can attract enough SWPL, Asian and Hispanic votes. My guess is that dealing with the abortion issue would be tricky.
Such a book from a politician scarcely renowned for her bon mots could well be ghost-written.
Stacy Abrams may not actually have read it — nor have more than a vague idea of its contents.
In order to understand what Ms. Abrams is saying, you’d have to be Black. You’d have to be in her shoes. And Black americans are. Sure, nit all Black citizens agree with her, but most of us understand what she’s saying. If we weren’t dealing with those who are still stupid enough to think we shouldn’t have the right to vote, these conversations wouldn’t take place at all. So until things change in the minds of racists, the coversation will continue. I work. I pay taxes and I have the right to choose whom I want to represent me in matters of government in this country. That is MY decision. No one else’s.
Black Americans who understand and agree with Abrams are black Americans who hate America just like her.
“(Amazingly, nobody in power endorses any black who has a vision of blacks leaving America and creating their own, independent country – a Black Zion, away from whites, and thus guaranteed to be free of racism.)“
– ha ha ! So true ! Basketball Americans tried that ! It’s called Liberia. Lovely place ! It is a parasitic race – incapable of creating civilization. Everywhere they become the majority – destruction follows. That is an inconvenient truth. Sorry folks!
Tom Wolfe’s “A Man in Full” gives an excellent description of what Atlanta was like circa 1998.
“have relatives who are or have been involved in serious crime.” Yes, that is the most damning thing about blacks. Why even the best of them you don’t want as neighbors, because their relatives and black friends, most of them members of the untalented 90th, will make it a point to visit them often, and at the very least make you feel uncomfortable when they’re there.
“On the individual level, blacks all act alike, and it seems they are highly policed by their own community to conform to the social norms of “acting black.””
The overwhelming majority of Africans socially construct their “truths.” Sensory data arrives and induces an emotional response. Then they fight about it (collaborate) until consensus is achieved.
Whites are metaphysical. They disdain the senses and emotional responses. Their “truth,” coming from authority, is accepted with little criticism. They parrot it with little understanding of its meaning or implications beyond 1 move out. Should sensory data conflict with that “truth,” the resulting cognitive dissonance lasts for 2 seconds before the data is wiped clear from their minds.
Whites like us are and forever will be a minority. To be sure we are much the same as the whites mentioned above. We differ only in that we view authority with suspicion. Thus we are open to using sensory data to criticize “truths” passed down from “on high.” Cognitive dissonance, for us, isn’t wiped from our minds in 2 seconds. We puzzle on about it, looking for a solution.
All whites are guilty of projection. We foolishly project our open-mindedness onto other whites. They effectively project their close-mindedness onto us. Only the open-minded minority are capable of feeling guilt. The close-minded majority never feel it.
“However, she came close to winning the Governor’s race because of the demographic changes,”
Well, that, and election fraud. Given that her opponent was Secretary of State, he was in a position to anticipate the fraud problem and get ahead of it at least a little. Had she been running against someone else, all of her election fraud would have stuck and she’d be governor now.
Let’s hope Kemp has the common sense to address election fraud, otherwise he’s not getting re-elected in 2022.
I’m fascinated by two observations by Abrams on black culture; First that “all blacks, no matter where they are in society. have relatives who are or have been involved in serious crime”, and I would add, “or are homeless”.
Secondly, that “Blacks have a hard time obtaining wealth”.
The ‘crime’ aspect speaks for itself — usually because blacks are convinced they can never obtain wealth by working, so turn to criminal activity, which they think requires less ‘work’.
In numerous studies of black poverty, one aspect of black behavior is noted: They have little control over “forward thinking or future thinking” and “impulse control”. Therefore, the concept of “saving money for the future” is totally anathema to most, if not completely incomprehensible. Yet both are critical to accumulating wealth. And it may be noted that both seem anathema to most whites we find living in poverty as well.
Those whites who do become “rich” (who are not inheritors) –‘rich’ being defined for our purpose as accumulating at least $100,000 by age 50 — and this being the minimum basis for going on to ‘wealth’ — DO SO SINGLY BY SAVING MONEY WHILE WORKING! Further clarification — “While working at a job THEY DO NOT LIKE”! Oh, is that news to poverty-dwellers?
Until blacks and other poverty-dwellers begin gaining control of their lives by 1) Future thinking and impulse control; 2) Working full-time or 2 part time jobs that pay into Social Security right along; 3) Saving wages daily, weekly, monthly — and overcoming the ‘urge to splurge’ at a young age; there will be no end to black poverty as a cultural barrier to wealth, nor help for whites either!
Blacks must stop blaming whites for their poverty and other problems, and realize that white families bring up their kids on the simple mantra: “Work Hard, Save Your Money”.
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