Canned laughter is there to tell you when you're supposed to laugh.

I don't think it's canned laughter, but rather a studio audience being cued to laugh which is actually almost kinda worse.

As a white person, I appreciate the help. Laughing at the wrong times would be awkward.

jesus christ the thing is great, would you shut up?

Mostly shitty, anyway. "Good Hair" is worth a watch if you feel like being depressed.

Five for the video.

So 7 stars otherwise?

That would be awesome, and maybe in a few hundred more years it will even be the case.

Depends on if you're rich white or poor white. Either way, it feels about the same.

Of course, to old-school racists, the world feels like it's going to hell. In other words, about the same.

Eh, the reactionary movement will just appropriate other ethnic groups, just like it did when all European ethnicities all got lumped into "white".

I'm middle-aged and white, but have no interest in holding on to power that's not shared fairly. So what it's like for me is: I like where this is heading.

Demographics are finally, finally starting to work against the Republicans, and I'm all for it.

Demographics have always been against the Republicans, since there are more poor people than rich people. It would be more accurate to say that past strategies for overcoming that problem... the social issues bullshit and liberal baiting-they exploit to get people to vote against their own interests... are becoming obsolete, and they're struggling to keep up without alienating The Base.

But they're remarkably successful. Even when they can't get Republicans elected, the Democrats who "beat" them behave like Republicans. It's always been about the ruling class, and the ruling class is kicking ass. Race is less of a factor in determining the ruling class, that's all. A black man who goes to Harvard can become president. A black man who grows up in the projects is just as fucked as he ever was.

The Ruling class is a little bit darker than it used to be, but any shift of power between the classes is going in the wrong direction.

So far. We can see the problems the Republicans are having in this election. Mitt was nominated not because The Base liked him, but because every other candidate was scary and delusional. He was the electable one.

"A black man who goes to Harvard can become president. A black man who grows up in the projects is just as fucked as he ever was."

But that black Harvard man is going to try to put forward policies that will be at least somewhat helpful to the black projects man. I'm going to toss out Obamacare as a very visible example: as much as it wasn't the single payer that people were hoping for (still not sure where the votes for single payer were going to come from), it does go a long way to making sure people can see the damn doctor when they need to, children can get immunizations for free, and women won't be in a position where they can't afford birth control. Your ruling class doesn't need to worry about any of that, but health care was made a central cause of the Democrats in general and Obama in particular, and boy, is the ruling class pissed about that.

While it's foolish to think that our politicians are all starry-eyed polyannas with nothing but the public good in mind, it's foolish in the other direction to think they're all cynical used car salesmen serving the ruling class while putting on theater to distract the rubes.

He's a half-black man who went to Harvard.

I kinda love it when anyone interrupts a debate re:Obama with "He's only half black." What the fuck, you think every African American isn't significantly part Caucasian? Something like 40% of African American genetics aren't African in origin. White people did a lot of raping, way back when.

Do you interrupt people to point out Colin Powell, Thurgood Marshall, Slash, and Halle Berry don't count as black by your estimation, too? Or do you save this little micro-aggression exclusively for the president?