On Thursday, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission dropped a bombshell: Sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace, the EEOC ruled, is already illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This ruling—which is binding on EEOC conciliations between employers and employees, and is an extremely persuasive authority for courts—has been a long time in the making.
This seems like a huge deal. All those statements about you can be fired for being gay; Do they now go away?
9.
Joe Falco
I believe Jezebel takes top prize though in presenting Bobo for what he is:
I am boycotting this unfortunate waste of oxygen, but I want to say that our Mr. Brooks has a near perfect record of obsequious lick-spittle support of the established elites. If you want to know what pleases the rulers of Manhattan and the world, read Mr. Brooks, but let me warn you that the slime is hard to wash off.
Holy Moses Jesus Joseph Mary Mohammed Buddha and Vishnu, he actually said “There’s a Lincoln for every Jefferson Davis” and then followed it up with “and a Harlem Children’s Zone for every K.K.K.”
I can’t, I just can’t.
17.
Anne
@sharl: “listen, silly black man boy, lemme tell you about American history cause you don’t mean what you said”
FTFY.
Seriously, the piece reads like the Platonic ideal of white privilege.
18.
KG
@shell: nah, still to racey, radio stations wouldn’t want to say the name on air, so it’s end up being “B Me, Bobo”. It’d be better as a B-side track (not that they technically have B-sides anymore – but as like a second single from an album, it’d work)
19.
Benw
@BGinCHI: nice link, thanks. Ripping Brooks apart is fish/barrel stuff, but that’s a good one. Also fun, whenever Brooks is dumb enough to float one of his little economic theories, causing an enraged Paul Krugman to go full K-thug on his ass.
Seriously, try to read your own blog between rage-gasms.
It’s his blog, let him have it
23.
bcw
From the play Angels in America:
Belize: I hate America, Louis. I hate this country. It’s just big ideas, and stories, and people dying, and people like you. The white cracker who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word ‘free’ to a note so high nobody can reach it. That was deliberate. Nothing on Earth sounds less like freedom to me. You come to room 1013 over at the hospital, I’ll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean. I live in America, Louis, that’s hard enough, I don’t have to love it. You do that. Everybody’s got to love something.
@catclub: they go away to the extent that federal courts uphold the EEOC’s interpretation of the law (or until a Republican president appoints new EEOC members). Best, of course, to get ENDA passed, but in the meantime this’ll do.
25.
glory b
@BGinCHI: Well, to be fair, I don’t think anyone savages Bobo like him.
His photoshops are museum worthy.
26.
jibeaux
Seen on my FB was some thing like, “look, if you’re complaining about David Brooks just remember that the minute you decided to read David Brooks is when your day went pear-shaped.”
Most of the TNC commentariat are upset with the DeBore and now the Bruuks, but we’re compensating by making t-shirt logos about Oatmeal recipes and Hair Cuttery coupons.
It is still an open subject until Moral Hazard weighs in.
33.
Mike J
I like the correction at the bottom of SEK’s article.
UPDATE: The original version of this argument identified Brooks as a “professional taxi cab passenger.” That, of course, is the Times’ other professional contrarian, Thomas Friedman.
They all look alike to me.
34.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@BGinCHI: God, the beauty of that photoshop is the way it highlights the sneer
@Sherparick: Pierce assigned Brooks the Stupid Cafe today, and Moral Hazard could not be roused for the walk over from the (no longer) Young Fogies Club
Alison McQuade
@akmcquade
I feel like David Brooks’ editors should make him read his columns out loud to a room full of Black people before they publish them.
@Ninedragonspot: This is a critical point. There are a number of courts out there that love nothing more than to tell EEOC they don’t give a f*** how they interpret the statute. So this will help in friendly jurisdictions but not elsewhere. A legislative fix is still needed.
38.
BGinCHI
@rikyrah: The NYT would have to outsource that, as they would not be able to fill a room from available employees.
39.
jl
It is very sad that Coates did not take Brooks’ White feelings into account when he threatened Brooks’ White American Dream by being realistic about things that Brooks would rather not think about.
40.
jl
@BGinCHI: They better outsource it, if they want to keep any employees at all.
41.
BGinCHI
TNC: American history as a narrative of Progress and Success violently suppresses the way it has denied that Progress and Success to Native Americans, Blacks, etc.
DB: Stop living in the past. As all good conservatives know, the past is forgotten and the future is a dream for those who can afford to close their eyes.
42.
catclub
@jl: I nominate this for ‘most Brooksian toned’ comment.
But I mean it as a compliment.
43.
srv
You people shouldn’t be worried about not getting enough of Mr. Brooks. If he lives as long as Mr. Broder, he’ll be on Snooze Hour and the NYT’s until 2040 or so.
44.
gelfling545
@spudvol: Is there something that prevents you from having your own blog on which you may do as you please? I get a bit tired of the Cole-bashing by people who must have very dull lives in that they have nothing else to bitch about.
45.
SatanicPanic
Brooks needs to take JayZ’s advice to Nas- leave it alone, don’t throw rocks at the throne, don’t bark up that tree, that tree will fall on you
How easy it must be for Brooks to focus on tomorrow, to write in earnest that we can “abandon old wrongs and transcend old sins for the sake of better tomorrow.” Those untouched by the pangs of history find it easier to dismiss, I suppose. But Coates is talking about the present as much as he is the past. Brooks, despite making the appropriate gestures, is blind to this part of Coates’ argument. He does not — and apparently cannot — see how our past defines our present and constrains our future.
Brooks rarely makes the effort to see the world from the perspective of the other. When he’s writing about poverty or middle class virtues or racism, his analysis is always removed, abstract, and condescending.
Today’s column continues that tradition in fine form.
49.
BGinCHI
Have any of you read Dickens’ novel Martin Chuzzlewit?
It just occurs to me that Brooks is very much a Mr. Pecksniff.
He is certainly very Pecksniffian.
50.
Gravenstone
@rikyrah: Presumes that Brooks would feel a sense of shame in doing such things, and thus not publish this tripe. Sadly, Brooks cannot feel shame. For if he could, he would surely combust and burn away to ash and smoke for this latest atrocity.
51.
trollhattan
@NonyNony:
An accomplishment not to be sneezed at.
52.
SRW1
It’s just David Brooks giving voice to his inner Marie Antoinette.
53.
jl
@catclub: The column left me very puzzled. I think I put my finger on it.
It never occurred to me that, as a while person, I could read a bigoted column by another white man about race and feel personally insulted by offensive things that white man said about another group of people. But I think this column did the trick.
What the hell was Brooks trying to say in that part where he tossed out that people (or groups?) who came here voluntarily could share in the ‘American Dream’ while those forced to come here as slaves could not? What the hell was that about? That really pissed me off.
The end where Brooks drivels out that Coates’ is naughty because his ‘excissive realism’ ruins Brooks’ goofy ‘American Dream’ dream pissed me off too.
Brooks must just type this garbage out, not caring much what it means as long as it sounds right for a Brooks opinion product. Why would any half way normal person write out self-defamatory gibberish that can be interpreted as being very offensive and bigoted and smug, but is also almost impossible to figure out what it means? So, I figure he just types stuff out and turns it in and gets the money, and tomorrow is new day.
54.
BGinCHI
@BGinCHI: David Perdue’s description of Pecksniff:
Sanctimonious surveyor and architect “who has never designed or built anything”, and one of the biggest hypocrites in fiction. Father of daughters Mercy and Charity. In an effort to gain old Martin’s money he embraces then throws out young Martin at old Martin’s wish. When long time servant Tom Pinch learns of Pecksniff’s treachery he is also thrown out. Pecksniff’s self-serving designs are eventually exposed by Old Martin who reconciles with his grandson, young Martin. Dickens’ description of Pecksniff’s hypocrisy is telling: Some people likened him to a direction-post, which is always telling the way to a place, and never goes there.
55.
Face
What’s the origin of “David Brooks” becoming “Bobo”? Is it because he’s clownish? Otherwise I’m not seeing it.
@jl:
From the minimal energy I’ve put into understanding Brooks’ POV, my takeaway is he’s the outsider trying to gain entry into the circle of the very rich and very powerful. And he’ll never be admitted, just invited as a pity gesture because he’s not truly rich nor in any meaningful fashion powerful, despite his high-profile desk. And he dearly desires both.
So to recast this column, “You think you got problems, buddy, well just listen to this.”
61.
spudvol
@gelfling545: Cole likes it when people give him crap…it’s one more cloud for the old man to shout at.
Jeb Bush ‘should be embarrassed’ by his overtime pay claims, economists say
Experts say the Republican presidential candidate’s assertions that changes to overtime pay would result in fewer jobs and lower pay show he is misinformed
Jeb Bush has created a flap with another statement about American workers. In an appearance in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on Tuesday, he said Barack Obama’s proposal to expand overtime pay to millions more managers and white-collar workers would result in “less overtime pay” and “less wages earned”.
Numerous economists attacked Bush’s statement, calling him woefully misinformed. And several studies on the rule contradict Bush’s assertion that the overtime rules would “lessen the number of people working”.
Daniel Hamermesh, a University of Texas labor economist, said: “He’s just 100% wrong,” adding that “there will be more overtime pay and more total earnings” and “there’s a huge amount of evidence employers will use more workers”.
Indeed, a Goldman Sachs study estimated that employers would hire 120,000 more workers in response to Obama’s overtime changes. And a similar study commissioned by the National Retail Federation – a fierce opponent of the proposed overtime rules – estimated that as a result of the new salary threshold, employers in the restaurant and retail industries would hire 117,500 new part-time workers. The study also warned that the overtime change could cost the increased US retail and restaurant industries $9.5bn a year, unless those industries made money-saving changes in response.
During his remarks on Tuesday, Bush criticized Obama’s proposed overtime rules, which would extend overtime coverage to managers earning below $50,440 a year. Under current rules, employers can deny overtime pay to “exempt” salaried managers earning more than $23,660 a year. This meant that a $25,000-a-year fast-food assistant manager working 60 hours a week might not receive any overtime pay. (US law generally requires time-and-a-half pay for all hours worked above 40 per week.)
“It’s this prescribed top-down approach that is the wrong approach,” Bush said. “The net effects of the overtime rule will be, if history is any guide, there will be less overtime paid, less wages earned.”
@rikyrah: Jeb! is ignorant of current law on social security retirement age, and has problems understanding the difference between ‘knew then’ and ‘know now’.
Maybe Jeb! is tapping Dub and Dub’s crew as advisers in order to have some real brains on the team?
67.
sharl
@Face: Like SatanicPanic said, the ‘Bobo’ tag came from his book Bobos in Paradise, published in 2000.
A guy who was onto him early on was former Philadelphia magazine writer Sasha Issenberg, who did some fact-checking on his book, then wrote about it in a 2004 article:
Wayne-bred David Brooks is the public intellectual of the moment. But our writer found out he doesn’t check his facts.
I’m not recommending that you or anyone else read that, unless you are sadly afflicted (as I am) with a curiosity about how the media sausage gets made, including the roles of conventional wisdom creation and reinforcement of wealthy/white privilege. It ain’t pretty or inspiring, but to me it is absurdly intriguing.
@sharl: The part where Issenberg contacts Brooks to get his side of the story and Brooks scolds him for fact checking things that Brooks gave the impression were actual facts is instructive to read for all, I think.
Brooks told issenberg that his fact checking was unethical, and I think made some veiled threats. Well, what can you say? ‘Character’ will enable you, yes, you, and you and you, to do that to!
71.
Randy P
OT, but Wonkette has put together a wonderful selection of Trump utterances over the years. Trump has mostly been off my radar for many years but after reading this article now I say, I need, NEED him to be on the stage at the GOP Last Klown Standing debates. Give this guy a mike, I say, and no time limit. My life will not be complete without it.
He apparently coined the phrase “bourgeois bohemians” to describe the contemporary Middle Class. Bobos for short.
73.
Brachiator
I loved this caption:
David Brooks White Whines Over Ta-Nehisi Coates’ New Book While Appearing Not to Have Read It
@John Cole: Evidently, gawker has some sense of shame:
Yesterday, Gawker published a post about the CFO of Condé Nast attempting to pay a gay porn star for a night in a Chicago hotel. Today the managing partnership of Gawker Media voted, 5-1, to remove it. Executive editor Tommy Craggs, who helped edit the piece, was the sole dissenter.
The part where Issenberg contacts Brooks to get his side of the story
I misread that as Isengard and thought you were making a Saruman joke.
75.
jl
@sharl: I also found it instructive that Brooks took the Limbaush Line. Which I think is basically: well, everyone can just kind of figure out when I am reporting and when I am making jokes, so checking anything I say that I give the impression of being factual is unfair, and frankly rather unsophisticated and ignorant. In fact, the only reason anyone would do it is because of unethical ulterior motives.
Building old fashioned Character allows a person to speak bold uncomfortable truths like that.
Edit: not sure whether I meant Rouge Limbush or Lush Rimbaugh or Rush Limbaugh, they all kind of blend together for me.
76.
cmorenc
@John Cole:
(quoting a passage from David Brooks’ article in question)
Am I displaying my privilege if I disagree? Is my job just to respect your experience and accept your conclusions?
So how am I supposed to react when I’m engaged in a political or social discussion with someone and they respond to something I say with: “check your privilege?” Frankly, my strong inclination will be to tell them to shove that comment up their ass, though the civil side of my nature is more likely to respond with something less inflammatory, but nevertheless clearly communicates that the condescending disrespect of their comment is being returned in kind. In a discussion, the comment “check your privilege” that is designed to intimidate any sort of challenge or disagreement to the speaker’s expressed point of view. If you want respect for yourself and your words, you have to be prepared to give it, and “check your privilege” is a new politically correct way to say “shut up motherfucker, you ain’t got nothing worth hearing”.
David Brooks is indeed a privileged prick and hack including parts of his “letter” to Ta-Nehisi Coats, but on this one think (like a blind squirrel occasionally finding an acorn) he hits a valid point.
77.
Mike in NC
Followed the Driftglass link to the piece Brooks did for the Weekly Standard back in 2003, where he defended the Bush Crime Syndicate’s Iraq misadventure and sneered about filthy liberal ‘dream palaces’.
Despicable even by his own low standards. What a soulless hack our BoBo is. Apparently still blissfully ignorant 12 long years later.
78.
Aleta
About the first sentence and opening para of the column: In Brooks’ words, the “education for white people,” the “humbling and instructive” information, has not come from witnessing the murders at Ferguson, Baltimore, Charleston and more; but from the (judged) quality of ‘the African-American conversation.’ Insulting right off the bat. And why doesn’t he have the guts to speak directly about his reaction to the murders? I’d say it’s because his “appraisal” of the murders is so warped toward the conservative view that any direct statement he could make would blow his facade of conciliatory praise right out of the water from the start.
Apparently still blissfully ignorant 12 long years later.
The Times pays him handsomely to maintain that ignorance, I’ll have you remember. Our Mister Brooks still serves a useful purpose to somebody, as evidenced by his continued employment.
82.
Belafon
@cmorenc: Remember when Brooks argued that it was a bad idea for police to wear body cameras because then they’d be less likely to let people go without writing a ticket?
83.
BGinCHI
@Poopyman: “To comfort the comfortable and judge the afflicted,” I think it says in the contract.
84.
jl
@cmorenc: I haven’t read everything Coates has written, but is he in the habit of saying things like ‘check your privilege’? He has been tweeting about issues related to this issue today. One example:
Write your truth and the reader gotta figure it out.
@Poopyman:
Not to mention, Chunky Bobo needs a mentor (and fashion adviser).
87.
dogwood
The thing about guys like Brooks and Douthat isn’t simply that they are hopelessly clueless and wrong; its that they are always deadly dull. The Grand Dragon of modern conservatism, WFB, had had some wit. William Saffire could be a good read even if you thought he was wrong. Hell, even the dillusional woman who fancies herself as Ronald Reagan’s girfried, Nooners, can actually turn an artful phrase. Brooks is just a bore.
88.
Brachiator
@cmorenc: check your privilege” seems the rational and least combative response to something as inane as Am I displaying my privilege if I disagree?
You are saying that Brooks is the McDonald’s of conservative opinion informengineering product?
It is a business model. Readers know pretty much exactly what they will get every time they read it.
McDonald’s moves lots of product at a nice profit.
It is a business model. Readers know pretty much exactly what they will get every time they read it.
Yes, and whether Brooks believes any of what he writes, while perhaps to some an interesting question, is ultimately irrelevant.
91.
Kylroy
TNC is absolutely right that the American ideal of meritocracy and opportunity is bullshit. But our greatest strides in civil rights for black people (and pretty much every other minority) have been achieved by appealing to it. TNC has always understood that, so I’m really seeing this current book as succumbing to despair as he realizes power is (at best) slowly, haltingly negotiated out of the hands of the privileged, rather than righteously seized.
92.
sharl
@jl: You got me to wondering if Brooks would now even personally take a call from Issenberg or someone else doing fact checking, or would he route such a request through an NYT publicist (or personal assistant, if he has one of those).
But beyond that, I also think Brooks has been smart and slick enough to adapt and sharpen his game over the past fifteen years.* I rarely read him anymore – DougJ or Driftglass would likely know better about this – but I don’t think he includes falsifiable statements (i.e., assertions that can be fact-checked) in his work anymore. It is nearly all fuzzy platitudes that provides comforting confirmational bias to the demographic most sought after by the NYT: people with disposable income who do not wish their beautiful minds to be troubled.
*Brooks quickly learns from the kind of mistakes that he can easily be called out on. He once used some online “nutpicking” to find a clearly wacky anecdote for inclusion in a piece written in favor of his neocon chums, but got singed on that, and I don’t I’ve seen that kind of Jim Hoft-level crap from him again. He may be amoral, but he’s no dummy.
93.
Scamp Dog
@Face: He wrote “Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There,” bobos being Bourgeois Bohemians. In an interview, he claimed
You know, the essence of bobo life is people who consider themselves sort of artistic or writers or intellectuals but find themselves in the world of making money, in the world of commerce. And so I certainly am in that. You know, I–I consider myself a writer, and I live for ideas and things like that. But I also want a big house, so I’m caught between money and spirituality.
Yep, Davey Brooks, he’s intellectual and spiritual.
94.
Kylroy
@Major Major Major Major: Losing arguments is a small price to pay for all the benefits of being a straight, cisgender, American-born, white, neurotypical middle class male. (Apologies if I missed a qualifier,) It just means I’ve learned to avoid discussions on this topic the way I’ve learned to keep my hand off the stove.
95.
SFAW
@Scamp Dog:
That quote from Bobo’s interview may not be the single stupidest thing I have ever read on the Intertoobz, but it certainly made it to the Round of 64.
He keeps that shit up, and Jim Hoft will send a hit squad of his highly-trained morons minions to prevent Bobo from wresting the title of SMOTI from him. Which would make Villago (re: #1) just a wee bit happier.
So how am I supposed to react when I’m engaged in a political or social discussion with someone and they respond to something I say with: “check your privilege?”
It’s up to you. I would probably take a minute or five to think through the question of whether that’s a fair reaction to whatever I’d said. If so, I’ve learned something. If not, I might try to reengage and see if we can both learn something.
There’s a lot of room between shutting up while quietly fuming and talking over the discussion with your superior dominant culture viewpoint. It’s not that hard to find.
Brooks told issenberg that his fact checking was unethical, and I think made some veiled threats.
Reminds me of Bill Cosby telling a reporter that if they were “responsible” they wouldn’t ask him about the rape allegations a few months ago when he expected to be interviewed about some art he’d loaned to the Smithsonian. Truthfulness is no excuse for troubling our betters.
There’s a lot of room between shutting up while quietly fuming and talking over the discussion with your superior dominant culture viewpoint. It’s not that hard to find.
“Check your privilege” is inherently a dismissively disrespectful, insulting way to try to persuade or educate someone that you think they are speaking from a too-sheltered perspective to adequately understand the particular challenges of certain other persons’ situation. See? That was a much nicer way to express the same notion without insulting the other person with what amounts to a “STFU you ignorant fool” demand. You’re unlikely to elicit much gain in understanding from someone you command “check your privilege”, except that you’re pissing them off.
103.
Glidwrith
@cmorenc: I suppose then that some equality is then achieved, since the privileged person was already pissing off the person whom they were lecturing.
I can probably count on one hand the number of times I was told, “Check your privilege” or a similar phrase and felt secure that I was not using my privilege and the other person was just trying to shut me up.
I would need to borrow the hands of probably a couple of dozen people (at least) to count the number of times it turned out I was ignorantly speaking from my position of privilege.
If you find that people you’re talking to frequently tell you to “check your privilege,” well ….
106.
Matt McIrvin
@cmorenc: I liked the “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” version: “YOUR EXPERIENCES ARE NOT UNIVERSAL!!!!”
So how am I supposed to react when I’m engaged in a political or social discussion with someone and they respond to something I say with: “check your privilege?”
You should respond by checking your privilege—it’s probably merited.
Since that’s what the guy calls himself (minus your mis-spelling of it) then by definition it is a name.
Curious why you would question that particular guy’s name.
112.
Kylroy
@Suzanne: Except the whole point of the “privilege” concept is that it’s an invisible backpack, a bunch of things I don’t know that I don’t know. I can’t “check” something I am blind to the existence and extent of…so it’s really just a complicated way to tell a member of the majority to shut up.
@Kylroy: Saying “check your privilege” is a relatively polite way of trying to make that invisible backpack a bit more visible.
We should all make efforts to be more aware of our privilege and our blessings. It’s not someone else’s responsibility to do that for you.
115.
Applejinx
Taking a dump has been an education for white people.
Poo comes out! And it lands on the floor, and you know what? It smells bad! Plus it’s apparently a health hazard. Who came up with this stuff?! It’s almost certain that having poo on the floor and all over the place is bad. There might even have been times in history when having poo all over the place was bad!
It might even be a good idea to do something about it, have a place for it to go or something. We could call such a thing a ‘toilet’ or ‘indoor plumbing’. It might be expensive, so that’s an obstacle: people will have to make up their own minds about this, some might justifiably not want to spend that kind of money on their poo, which (as we are prepared to admit) smells bad.
These reports of the whole world being covered in poo are very unfair to the dream of a world NOT covered in poo. It seems unreasonable and one might fairly ask, why do these people hate America, or more accurately hate the DREAM of America. Why is that? Any white person can look across their hard-earned marble countertops and clean white tile floor and see that dream in action, so long as the Merry Maids have done their job.
And sometimes, one lonely lilttle poo, which should serve as both a spur to the dream of America and a reminder to call the Merry Maids and fire the last ones they sent, whose job it is to tidy such things so you don’t have to notice.
And yet, in those pearl-clutchy stinky moments, it can only be called an education for white people.
Where’s that number for the Merry Maids? They’re going to have to clean quicker than that. We noticed a poo.
Villago Delenda Est
The world will be a much better place the day the broken, exsanguinated body of David Brooks is found in a back alley.
Joel
This was posted earlier, but it’s a subject worth visiting more than once.
Benw
Brooks’ columns are extremely useful as a way of tracking exactly how white, male privilege continues to manifest itself.
kindness
Seriously John, you don’t want Bobo anywhere near your junk. Really.
spudvol
Seriously, try to read your own blog between rage-gasms.
Carnacki
Here’s some goats running roughshod over the Confederacy to cheer you up.
BGinCHI
Fuck Salon. Here is Driftglass on Brooks’s pile of shit.
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2015/07/richwhitelivesmattertoo.html
catclub
Flotsam from the dead thread below:
This seems like a huge deal. All those statements about you can be fired for being gay; Do they now go away?
Joe Falco
I believe Jezebel takes top prize though in presenting Bobo for what he is:
http://jezebel.com/listening-to-ta-nehisi-coates-whilst-snuggled-deep-with-1718506352
Slugger
I am boycotting this unfortunate waste of oxygen, but I want to say that our Mr. Brooks has a near perfect record of obsequious lick-spittle support of the established elites. If you want to know what pleases the rulers of Manhattan and the world, read Mr. Brooks, but let me warn you that the slime is hard to wash off.
sharl
From Wesley Lowery, shorter Bobo:
Mike J
TPM also talks about the column.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/david-brooks-nyt-ta-nehisi-coates
Bobby B.
“I’m paid to be a narcissistic blowhard…”
catclub
@Carnacki: Amusing!
shell
Good name for a band.
KG
Holy Moses Jesus Joseph Mary Mohammed Buddha and Vishnu, he actually said “There’s a Lincoln for every Jefferson Davis” and then followed it up with “and a Harlem Children’s Zone for every K.K.K.”
I can’t, I just can’t.
Anne
@sharl: “listen,
silly black manboy, lemme tell you about American history cause you don’t mean what you said”FTFY.
Seriously, the piece reads like the Platonic ideal of white privilege.
KG
@shell: nah, still to racey, radio stations wouldn’t want to say the name on air, so it’s end up being “B Me, Bobo”. It’d be better as a B-side track (not that they technically have B-sides anymore – but as like a second single from an album, it’d work)
Benw
@BGinCHI: nice link, thanks. Ripping Brooks apart is fish/barrel stuff, but that’s a good one. Also fun, whenever Brooks is dumb enough to float one of his little economic theories, causing an enraged Paul Krugman to go full K-thug on his ass.
tybee
@KG:
Below me, BoBo.
KG
@Bobby B.: good work if you can get it.
Rosalita
@spudvol:
It’s his blog, let him have it
bcw
From the play Angels in America:
Belize: I hate America, Louis. I hate this country. It’s just big ideas, and stories, and people dying, and people like you. The white cracker who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word ‘free’ to a note so high nobody can reach it. That was deliberate. Nothing on Earth sounds less like freedom to me. You come to room 1013 over at the hospital, I’ll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean. I live in America, Louis, that’s hard enough, I don’t have to love it. You do that. Everybody’s got to love something.
Ninedragonspot
@catclub: they go away to the extent that federal courts uphold the EEOC’s interpretation of the law (or until a Republican president appoints new EEOC members). Best, of course, to get ENDA passed, but in the meantime this’ll do.
glory b
@BGinCHI: Well, to be fair, I don’t think anyone savages Bobo like him.
His photoshops are museum worthy.
jibeaux
Seen on my FB was some thing like, “look, if you’re complaining about David Brooks just remember that the minute you decided to read David Brooks is when your day went pear-shaped.”
John Cole
@spudvol:
Zandar’s post did not link to the SEK post I linked. How about you read the fucking site in between showing your ass in the comments?
Sherparick
Driftglass, also does a wonderful job on this piece of drivel (which by the very form he uses show that Brooks has never gotten out of high school mentally). http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2015/07/richwhitelivesmattertoo.html
Driftglass found this particular pebble for a man living in the Crystal Palaces of glass houses particularly noteworthy:
“- I feel compelled to say that this one sentence from Mr. Brooks’ column today —
I think you distort American history.
— is the single funniest fucking thing I have read all month.”
Given Mr. Brooks titanic distortions of American History over the last 40 years. (My particular favorite http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/10/innocent-mistakes/)
srv
If only those people could see the world as we see it. Why can’t you just get along?
PaulW
The Horde abides.
Most of the TNC commentariat are upset with the DeBore and now the Bruuks, but we’re compensating by making t-shirt logos about Oatmeal recipes and Hair Cuttery coupons.
It makes sense in context.
spudvol
@John Cole: Foreplay?
Sherparick
It is still an open subject until Moral Hazard weighs in.
Mike J
I like the correction at the bottom of SEK’s article.
They all look alike to me.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@BGinCHI: God, the beauty of that photoshop is the way it highlights the sneer
@Sherparick: Pierce assigned Brooks the Stupid Cafe today, and Moral Hazard could not be roused for the walk over from the (no longer) Young Fogies Club
rikyrah
Alison McQuade
@akmcquade
I feel like David Brooks’ editors should make him read his columns out loud to a room full of Black people before they publish them.
BGinCHI
@glory b: They remind me of Banksy.
dedc79
@Ninedragonspot: This is a critical point. There are a number of courts out there that love nothing more than to tell EEOC they don’t give a f*** how they interpret the statute. So this will help in friendly jurisdictions but not elsewhere. A legislative fix is still needed.
BGinCHI
@rikyrah: The NYT would have to outsource that, as they would not be able to fill a room from available employees.
jl
It is very sad that Coates did not take Brooks’ White feelings into account when he threatened Brooks’ White American Dream by being realistic about things that Brooks would rather not think about.
jl
@BGinCHI: They better outsource it, if they want to keep any employees at all.
BGinCHI
TNC: American history as a narrative of Progress and Success violently suppresses the way it has denied that Progress and Success to Native Americans, Blacks, etc.
DB: Stop living in the past. As all good conservatives know, the past is forgotten and the future is a dream for those who can afford to close their eyes.
catclub
@jl: I nominate this for ‘most Brooksian toned’ comment.
But I mean it as a compliment.
srv
You people shouldn’t be worried about not getting enough of Mr. Brooks. If he lives as long as Mr. Broder, he’ll be on Snooze Hour and the NYT’s until 2040 or so.
gelfling545
@spudvol: Is there something that prevents you from having your own blog on which you may do as you please? I get a bit tired of the Cole-bashing by people who must have very dull lives in that they have nothing else to bitch about.
SatanicPanic
Brooks needs to take JayZ’s advice to Nas- leave it alone, don’t throw rocks at the throne, don’t bark up that tree, that tree will fall on you
Poopyman
@shell:
Or Mattel’s follow-on to Tickle Me Elmo
NonyNony
@Mike J:
SEK should have updated it to identify Brooks as the inventor of the Applebee’s Salad Bar.
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Was a little disappointed that we didn’t hear from Moral Hazard, but even Pierce takes awhile to author in long form.
Not satisfied with just one Brooks shellacking from Louisiana, Salon publishes a second, from somebody named Sean Illing..
BGinCHI
Have any of you read Dickens’ novel Martin Chuzzlewit?
It just occurs to me that Brooks is very much a Mr. Pecksniff.
He is certainly very Pecksniffian.
Gravenstone
@rikyrah: Presumes that Brooks would feel a sense of shame in doing such things, and thus not publish this tripe. Sadly, Brooks cannot feel shame. For if he could, he would surely combust and burn away to ash and smoke for this latest atrocity.
trollhattan
@NonyNony:
An accomplishment not to be sneezed at.
SRW1
It’s just David Brooks giving voice to his inner Marie Antoinette.
jl
@catclub: The column left me very puzzled. I think I put my finger on it.
It never occurred to me that, as a while person, I could read a bigoted column by another white man about race and feel personally insulted by offensive things that white man said about another group of people. But I think this column did the trick.
What the hell was Brooks trying to say in that part where he tossed out that people (or groups?) who came here voluntarily could share in the ‘American Dream’ while those forced to come here as slaves could not? What the hell was that about? That really pissed me off.
The end where Brooks drivels out that Coates’ is naughty because his ‘excissive realism’ ruins Brooks’ goofy ‘American Dream’ dream pissed me off too.
Brooks must just type this garbage out, not caring much what it means as long as it sounds right for a Brooks opinion product. Why would any half way normal person write out self-defamatory gibberish that can be interpreted as being very offensive and bigoted and smug, but is also almost impossible to figure out what it means? So, I figure he just types stuff out and turns it in and gets the money, and tomorrow is new day.
BGinCHI
@BGinCHI: David Perdue’s description of Pecksniff:
Face
What’s the origin of “David Brooks” becoming “Bobo”? Is it because he’s clownish? Otherwise I’m not seeing it.
Major Major Major Major
OT (not even reading stories *about* that Bobo column): Um, being gay is now covered under the Civil Rights Act as of yesterday.
I guess? IANAL.
Mike J
@jl:
My delusions are more important than your reality,
SatanicPanic
@Face: from his books Bobos in Paradise. Don’t ask, I haven’t read it.
Wag
@kindness:
This.
trollhattan
@jl:
From the minimal energy I’ve put into understanding Brooks’ POV, my takeaway is he’s the outsider trying to gain entry into the circle of the very rich and very powerful. And he’ll never be admitted, just invited as a pity gesture because he’s not truly rich nor in any meaningful fashion powerful, despite his high-profile desk. And he dearly desires both.
So to recast this column, “You think you got problems, buddy, well just listen to this.”
spudvol
@gelfling545: Cole likes it when people give him crap…it’s one more cloud for the old man to shout at.
chopper
@Major Major Major Major:
then i guess that story is good news!
rikyrah
and, he is the ‘ smart one’.
………..
Jeb Bush ‘should be embarrassed’ by his overtime pay claims, economists say
Experts say the Republican presidential candidate’s assertions that changes to overtime pay would result in fewer jobs and lower pay show he is misinformed
Jeb Bush has created a flap with another statement about American workers. In an appearance in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on Tuesday, he said Barack Obama’s proposal to expand overtime pay to millions more managers and white-collar workers would result in “less overtime pay” and “less wages earned”.
Numerous economists attacked Bush’s statement, calling him woefully misinformed. And several studies on the rule contradict Bush’s assertion that the overtime rules would “lessen the number of people working”.
Daniel Hamermesh, a University of Texas labor economist, said: “He’s just 100% wrong,” adding that “there will be more overtime pay and more total earnings” and “there’s a huge amount of evidence employers will use more workers”.
Indeed, a Goldman Sachs study estimated that employers would hire 120,000 more workers in response to Obama’s overtime changes. And a similar study commissioned by the National Retail Federation – a fierce opponent of the proposed overtime rules – estimated that as a result of the new salary threshold, employers in the restaurant and retail industries would hire 117,500 new part-time workers. The study also warned that the overtime change could cost the increased US retail and restaurant industries $9.5bn a year, unless those industries made money-saving changes in response.
During his remarks on Tuesday, Bush criticized Obama’s proposed overtime rules, which would extend overtime coverage to managers earning below $50,440 a year. Under current rules, employers can deny overtime pay to “exempt” salaried managers earning more than $23,660 a year. This meant that a $25,000-a-year fast-food assistant manager working 60 hours a week might not receive any overtime pay. (US law generally requires time-and-a-half pay for all hours worked above 40 per week.)
“It’s this prescribed top-down approach that is the wrong approach,” Bush said. “The net effects of the overtime rule will be, if history is any guide, there will be less overtime paid, less wages earned.”
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/17/jeb-bush-obama-overtime-pay-changes-economy-jobs
jl
For a little relief from today’s Brooksgeist, another item for the Annals of GOP Outreach
Steve King Claims He’s As Hispanic As Julián Castro And Wikipedia Takes Note
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/steve-king-hispanic-wikipedia
Sadly Estaban Arnoldo ‘Steba’ Rey’s wiki page has already been restored to the apparently inaccurately Anglicized previous version.
kc
@John Cole:
Simmer down, for crying out loud.
Give us some STEVE.
jl
@rikyrah: Jeb! is ignorant of current law on social security retirement age, and has problems understanding the difference between ‘knew then’ and ‘know now’.
Maybe Jeb! is tapping Dub and Dub’s crew as advisers in order to have some real brains on the team?
sharl
@Face: Like SatanicPanic said, the ‘Bobo’ tag came from his book Bobos in Paradise, published in 2000.
A guy who was onto him early on was former Philadelphia magazine writer Sasha Issenberg, who did some fact-checking on his book, then wrote about it in a 2004 article:
I’m not recommending that you or anyone else read that, unless you are sadly afflicted (as I am) with a curiosity about how the media sausage gets made, including the roles of conventional wisdom creation and reinforcement of wealthy/white privilege. It ain’t pretty or inspiring, but to me it is absurdly intriguing.
Major Major Major Major
@chopper: was that a buttsex joke.
Another Holocene Human
@tybee: Behind me, Satan
jl
@sharl: The part where Issenberg contacts Brooks to get his side of the story and Brooks scolds him for fact checking things that Brooks gave the impression were actual facts is instructive to read for all, I think.
Brooks told issenberg that his fact checking was unethical, and I think made some veiled threats. Well, what can you say? ‘Character’ will enable you, yes, you, and you and you, to do that to!
Randy P
OT, but Wonkette has put together a wonderful selection of Trump utterances over the years. Trump has mostly been off my radar for many years but after reading this article now I say, I need, NEED him to be on the stage at the GOP Last Klown Standing debates. Give this guy a mike, I say, and no time limit. My life will not be complete without it.
Citizen Alan
@Face:
He apparently coined the phrase “bourgeois bohemians” to describe the contemporary Middle Class. Bobos for short.
Brachiator
I loved this caption:
@John Cole: Evidently, gawker has some sense of shame:
Not a unanimous sense of shame, but close enough.
Iowa Old Lady
@jl:
I misread that as Isengard and thought you were making a Saruman joke.
jl
@sharl: I also found it instructive that Brooks took the Limbaush Line. Which I think is basically: well, everyone can just kind of figure out when I am reporting and when I am making jokes, so checking anything I say that I give the impression of being factual is unfair, and frankly rather unsophisticated and ignorant. In fact, the only reason anyone would do it is because of unethical ulterior motives.
Building old fashioned Character allows a person to speak bold uncomfortable truths like that.
Edit: not sure whether I meant Rouge Limbush or Lush Rimbaugh or Rush Limbaugh, they all kind of blend together for me.
cmorenc
@John Cole:
So how am I supposed to react when I’m engaged in a political or social discussion with someone and they respond to something I say with: “check your privilege?” Frankly, my strong inclination will be to tell them to shove that comment up their ass, though the civil side of my nature is more likely to respond with something less inflammatory, but nevertheless clearly communicates that the condescending disrespect of their comment is being returned in kind. In a discussion, the comment “check your privilege” that is designed to intimidate any sort of challenge or disagreement to the speaker’s expressed point of view. If you want respect for yourself and your words, you have to be prepared to give it, and “check your privilege” is a new politically correct way to say “shut up motherfucker, you ain’t got nothing worth hearing”.
David Brooks is indeed a privileged prick and hack including parts of his “letter” to Ta-Nehisi Coats, but on this one think (like a blind squirrel occasionally finding an acorn) he hits a valid point.
Mike in NC
Followed the Driftglass link to the piece Brooks did for the Weekly Standard back in 2003, where he defended the Bush Crime Syndicate’s Iraq misadventure and sneered about filthy liberal ‘dream palaces’.
Despicable even by his own low standards. What a soulless hack our BoBo is. Apparently still blissfully ignorant 12 long years later.
Aleta
About the first sentence and opening para of the column: In Brooks’ words, the “education for white people,” the “humbling and instructive” information, has not come from witnessing the murders at Ferguson, Baltimore, Charleston and more; but from the (judged) quality of ‘the African-American conversation.’ Insulting right off the bat. And why doesn’t he have the guts to speak directly about his reaction to the murders? I’d say it’s because his “appraisal” of the murders is so warped toward the conservative view that any direct statement he could make would blow his facade of conciliatory praise right out of the water from the start.
Major Major Major Major
@cmorenc: My husband has a trump card he likes to break out in online arguments.
trollhattan
@Major Major Major Major:
Until he runs into the handicapped, retirement-age version of the above….
Poopyman
@Mike in NC:
The Times pays him handsomely to maintain that ignorance, I’ll have you remember. Our Mister Brooks still serves a useful purpose to somebody, as evidenced by his continued employment.
Belafon
@cmorenc: Remember when Brooks argued that it was a bad idea for police to wear body cameras because then they’d be less likely to let people go without writing a ticket?
BGinCHI
@Poopyman: “To comfort the comfortable and judge the afflicted,” I think it says in the contract.
jl
@cmorenc: I haven’t read everything Coates has written, but is he in the habit of saying things like ‘check your privilege’? He has been tweeting about issues related to this issue today. One example:
Write your truth and the reader gotta figure it out.
p.a.
@rikyrah: not their target audience.
trollhattan
@Poopyman:
Not to mention, Chunky Bobo needs a mentor (and fashion adviser).
dogwood
The thing about guys like Brooks and Douthat isn’t simply that they are hopelessly clueless and wrong; its that they are always deadly dull. The Grand Dragon of modern conservatism, WFB, had had some wit. William Saffire could be a good read even if you thought he was wrong. Hell, even the dillusional woman who fancies herself as Ronald Reagan’s girfried, Nooners, can actually turn an artful phrase. Brooks is just a bore.
Brachiator
@cmorenc: check your privilege” seems the rational and least combative response to something as inane as Am I displaying my privilege if I disagree?
jl
@dogwood:
” Brooks is just a bore. ”
You are saying that Brooks is the McDonald’s of conservative opinion informengineering product?
It is a business model. Readers know pretty much exactly what they will get every time they read it.
McDonald’s moves lots of product at a nice profit.
Cervantes
@jl:
Yes, and whether Brooks believes any of what he writes, while perhaps to some an interesting question, is ultimately irrelevant.
Kylroy
TNC is absolutely right that the American ideal of meritocracy and opportunity is bullshit. But our greatest strides in civil rights for black people (and pretty much every other minority) have been achieved by appealing to it. TNC has always understood that, so I’m really seeing this current book as succumbing to despair as he realizes power is (at best) slowly, haltingly negotiated out of the hands of the privileged, rather than righteously seized.
sharl
@jl: You got me to wondering if Brooks would now even personally take a call from Issenberg or someone else doing fact checking, or would he route such a request through an NYT publicist (or personal assistant, if he has one of those).
But beyond that, I also think Brooks has been smart and slick enough to adapt and sharpen his game over the past fifteen years.* I rarely read him anymore – DougJ or Driftglass would likely know better about this – but I don’t think he includes falsifiable statements (i.e., assertions that can be fact-checked) in his work anymore. It is nearly all fuzzy platitudes that provides comforting confirmational bias to the demographic most sought after by the NYT: people with disposable income who do not wish their beautiful minds to be troubled.
*Brooks quickly learns from the kind of mistakes that he can easily be called out on. He once used some online “nutpicking” to find a clearly wacky anecdote for inclusion in a piece written in favor of his neocon chums, but got singed on that, and I don’t I’ve seen that kind of Jim Hoft-level crap from him again. He may be amoral, but he’s no dummy.
Scamp Dog
@Face: He wrote “Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There,” bobos being Bourgeois Bohemians. In an interview, he claimed
Yep, Davey Brooks, he’s intellectual and spiritual.
Kylroy
@Major Major Major Major: Losing arguments is a small price to pay for all the benefits of being a straight, cisgender, American-born, white, neurotypical middle class male. (Apologies if I missed a qualifier,) It just means I’ve learned to avoid discussions on this topic the way I’ve learned to keep my hand off the stove.
SFAW
@Scamp Dog:
That quote from Bobo’s interview may not be the single stupidest thing I have ever read on the Intertoobz, but it certainly made it to the Round of 64.
He keeps that shit up, and Jim Hoft will send a hit squad of his highly-trained
moronsminions to prevent Bobo from wresting the title of SMOTI from him. Which would make Villago (re: #1) just a wee bit happier.Keith G
@Major Major Major Major:
Thanks for an actual laughing out loud event.
mclaren
Shorter David Brooks:
“Won’t somebody lynch that uppity n****r?
gelfling545
@spudvol: That makes it no less tedious.
wasabi gasp
drkrick
@cmorenc:
It’s up to you. I would probably take a minute or five to think through the question of whether that’s a fair reaction to whatever I’d said. If so, I’ve learned something. If not, I might try to reengage and see if we can both learn something.
There’s a lot of room between shutting up while quietly fuming and talking over the discussion with your superior dominant culture viewpoint. It’s not that hard to find.
drkrick
@jl:
Reminds me of Bill Cosby telling a reporter that if they were “responsible” they wouldn’t ask him about the rape allegations a few months ago when he expected to be interviewed about some art he’d loaned to the Smithsonian. Truthfulness is no excuse for troubling our betters.
cmorenc
@drkrick:
“Check your privilege” is inherently a dismissively disrespectful, insulting way to try to persuade or educate someone that you think they are speaking from a too-sheltered perspective to adequately understand the particular challenges of certain other persons’ situation. See? That was a much nicer way to express the same notion without insulting the other person with what amounts to a “STFU you ignorant fool” demand. You’re unlikely to elicit much gain in understanding from someone you command “check your privilege”, except that you’re pissing them off.
Glidwrith
@cmorenc: I suppose then that some equality is then achieved, since the privileged person was already pissing off the person whom they were lecturing.
rikyrah
sometimes Cole, your post titles just crack me up
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@cmorenc:
I can probably count on one hand the number of times I was told, “Check your privilege” or a similar phrase and felt secure that I was not using my privilege and the other person was just trying to shut me up.
I would need to borrow the hands of probably a couple of dozen people (at least) to count the number of times it turned out I was ignorantly speaking from my position of privilege.
If you find that people you’re talking to frequently tell you to “check your privilege,” well ….
Matt McIrvin
@cmorenc: I liked the “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” version: “YOUR EXPERIENCES ARE NOT UNIVERSAL!!!!”
Suzanne
@cmorenc:
You should respond by checking your privilege—it’s probably merited.
Major Major Major Major
@Matt McIrvin:
Checking your privilege isn’t going to hurt you anyway. I mean, you can do anything for ten seconds.
A guy
Is ta-nehsi even a name?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@A guy:
I realize that this will come as a shock to you, but there is more than one language in the world. More than two, even.
Jebediah, RBG
@A guy:
Since that’s what the guy calls himself (minus your mis-spelling of it) then by definition it is a name.
Curious why you would question that particular guy’s name.
Kylroy
@Suzanne: Except the whole point of the “privilege” concept is that it’s an invisible backpack, a bunch of things I don’t know that I don’t know. I can’t “check” something I am blind to the existence and extent of…so it’s really just a complicated way to tell a member of the majority to shut up.
chopper
@Major Major Major Major:
teh buttsecksiest!
Suzanne
@Kylroy: Saying “check your privilege” is a relatively polite way of trying to make that invisible backpack a bit more visible.
We should all make efforts to be more aware of our privilege and our blessings. It’s not someone else’s responsibility to do that for you.
Applejinx
Taking a dump has been an education for white people.
Poo comes out! And it lands on the floor, and you know what? It smells bad! Plus it’s apparently a health hazard. Who came up with this stuff?! It’s almost certain that having poo on the floor and all over the place is bad. There might even have been times in history when having poo all over the place was bad!
It might even be a good idea to do something about it, have a place for it to go or something. We could call such a thing a ‘toilet’ or ‘indoor plumbing’. It might be expensive, so that’s an obstacle: people will have to make up their own minds about this, some might justifiably not want to spend that kind of money on their poo, which (as we are prepared to admit) smells bad.
These reports of the whole world being covered in poo are very unfair to the dream of a world NOT covered in poo. It seems unreasonable and one might fairly ask, why do these people hate America, or more accurately hate the DREAM of America. Why is that? Any white person can look across their hard-earned marble countertops and clean white tile floor and see that dream in action, so long as the Merry Maids have done their job.
And sometimes, one lonely lilttle poo, which should serve as both a spur to the dream of America and a reminder to call the Merry Maids and fire the last ones they sent, whose job it is to tidy such things so you don’t have to notice.
And yet, in those pearl-clutchy stinky moments, it can only be called an education for white people.
Where’s that number for the Merry Maids? They’re going to have to clean quicker than that. We noticed a poo.
Theodore Wirth
I do not think that you would be able to enjoy it.