Talk:Sister Souljah moment

Neutral Effort

I made some changes that someone asked I explain as to why they would be more neutral. I thought the point of the article was to explain the political manuever itself. So I removed three things:

1. "In the end, there is little evidence that Clinton's remarks hurt him in the long run with black voters and he remained popular with them. The comic Chris Rock called him "our first black president" (a comment famously repeated by author Toni Morrison) and he was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame as an honorary member, the first white person so honored"

2. "Interestingly, just as Clinton's comments did not cause lasting damage to his support among blacks, Bush's remarks did not alienate religious conservatives, who continued to be among his strongest supporters."

3. "McCain would later seek to mend his fences with this important part of the Republican base in preparation for a 2008 presidential run."

Each incidence seems to obscure the focus of the article on these moves and go beyond into how these men actually appealed to parties that might oppose their moves with separate stances apart from these specifically detailed ones. I assumed that leaving open the ability to discuss these men beyond their Souljah movements leaves open much room for conjecture.

I thought that made sense. I am not willing to fight for these changes though if someone wants to restore what I changed. - Abisai

Democratic and Republican "beliefs"

I just removed the following:

Similar behavior can be seen in other actions on the part of America's Democratic party when they publicly endorse:

• Support for America's Military
• Belief on God
• Disapproval of Communism

or America's Republican party when they publicly endorse:

• Civil Rights
• concern for the Middle class
• fiscal stewardship

These public endorsements do not even begin to reflect the true nature of their beliefs, but simply represent additional examples of Sister Souljah moments, whereby they realize that their political future relies on concealing their true beliefs on these issues.

Here is why:

• Prominent members of both of these parties genuinely support all of the above. It is both NPOV and grossly inaccurate to state that endorsing these things is an act of deception.
• Deception is not a necessary component of a Sister Souljah moment. Presumably Bill Clinton genuinely opposed the idea of having a week to kill white people. (For one thing, Clinton is white.)
• No specific extremist figure or position is being repudiated in endorsing the items above generically. If John McCain were to endorse civil rights, that would not be a Sister Souljah moment; if he were to attack John Ashcroft and the PATRIOT act, it would be. Therefore, the act of, say, professing belief in God is much more like motherhood and apple pie than Sister Souljah moment.

Now, if someone want to write a section comparing the use of "motherhood and apple pie" and "Sister Souljah moment" in politics, I encourage that person to go ahead. However, the passage above, as written, is misleading and NPOV. k.lee 04:44, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

NPOV

Is a "Sister Souljah moment" capable of becoming a neutral subject heading suitable for Wikipedia? --Wetman 04:05, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I don't see why not. Among the chattering classes, the term has a fairly precise denotation and connotation, although its usage probably peaked sometime in the late 90's. The bare facts of the term's origin story are widely agreed upon. And the story is not universally understood to reflect either well or poorly on Clinton --- it depends on whom you ask --- so the act of telling the story itself doesn't violate NPOV. k.lee 06:04, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

As a political tactic

To clarify: the term "Sister Souljah moment" is used principally when commentators wish to talk about an act in terms of its political ramifications. This doesn't mean that the act is insincere or politically calculated, but rather that the speaker using the term wishes to emphasize or analyze the political effect of the act. Accordingly, discussion of the political effect belongs in the first paragraph of the article, which is why I moved it back to the top (a previous editor had moved it to the bottom). Please keep this in mind in future edits. k.lee 06:10, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

deleted my own comment on third way, missed the negations in it, nevermind. Wolfman 07:37, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

---

"Whether sincere or not, such an act of repudiation can appeal to centrist voters, at the cost of alienating some of the politician's allies."

To me, this sentence makes it sound like the voters gained equal the voters lost. When Bill Clinton employed it, he was able to keep his vice grip on the Black vote AND gained centrist votes. It is a tactic that can work well, or disastrously, and that should be acknowledged. Emma

---

I changed the word "cost" to "risk" in response to Emma's concerns and incorporated her point about Clinton into the discussion. --JChap2007 18:47, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

====

Believing that "without its context" is a sufficient disclaimer as to the reliability of the perception of Ms. Souljah's quote, I removed a portion which seemed to be overly defensive of her intent and the accompanying paraphrase, which I thought even more egregious.

DrZin

George W. Bush

Did he have a Sister Souljah moment when he criticized a segment of the Republican party for using words like "Slouching Towards Gomorrah?" If that's the case, please post it in the article as another example. --- Yes. I included this in the article, along with an example of a similar moment from John McCain. --JChap2007 18:51, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Quayle/Brown

Would the Dan Quayle and Murphy Brown incident count as a Sister Souljah moment? 70.20.216.43 05:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Need Reference for Origin of Term

None of the cited sources seem to contain the term "Sister Souljah moment".

No reference is provided for the coining or use of this term in any significant or notable capacity.

This entry is for a neologism (see: WP:NEO).

I do not believe this article satisfies the criteria for a Wikipedia article, and should be recommended for deletion if these concerns can not be addressed. dircha 06:38, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

FYI there are over 10,000 Google hits for "sister+souljah+moment"|Sister Souljah Moment and I am reasonably confident that the term has been used on the websites of most major United States daily newspapers. See, e.g., USA Today 2008-11-20, Washington Post 2009-05-13, NY Times 2008-06-15, LA Times 2009-08-11, Wall Street Journal 2004-11-11. I started this article because I wanted to know what the heck these people were talking about. I don't see what's served by removing it. k.lee (talk) 05:38, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

to be fair, no-one's actually suggested removing it for nearly three years now. in my opinion, the article is a strong keep. we should cement this status by adding all the references you've found to it. tomasz. 10:32, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

You’re black aren’t you? 2601:18C:8203:D960:4183:6A48:CD04:AC73 (talk) 01:24, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

p.s. prospect.org has a post today with many references that could probably be used to shore up this article if someone made the effort. k.lee (talk) 18:26, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Sister Soulja #2?

Does anyone else think that Bill Clinton's comment when answering the question about how it must feel for Obama to run against two people fall under this term? He laughed and said "Even Jesse Jackson won here in 1984 and 1988." Many pundits believe that these race tactics in the last few days of the SC primary led to him getting 81% of the African-American vote, and may even ruin her candidacy while propelling him to the nomination.

I went back to this page today after visiting it the day before the primary and I thought for sure that it would be included, especially after how all the pundits and journalists on MSNBC and CNN were talking. Any thoughts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by DLarsen01 (talk • contribs) 22:31, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Do we really need a section on "NOT a Sister Souljah moment"?

Fixed this a couple of times, repeating on Talk page. A columnist saying he wished a Politician took a stand and criticized people he wants them to criticize is always of dubious relevance. If we put every instance where we wanted a Pol to cut someone off at the knees, but they didn't, Wikipedia would run out of server space. --209.6.69.227 (talk) 19:17, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Possible plagiarism?

The following 2 extensive phrases in the summary/introduction are identical to the “plagiarism” entry in Taegan Goddard’s Political Dictionary, with only 1 minor wording change:

• In the 1st sentence: “… public repudiation of an extremist person or group, statement, or position perceived to have some association with the politician or the politician's party”. (Goddard says “his party” instead of “politician’s party”.)
• 3rd sentence: “… designed to signal to centrist voters that the politician is not beholden to traditional, and sometimes unpopular, interest groups associated with the party…”

This is blatant plagiarism: either WP copied the wording directly from Goddard’s Political Dictionary, or vice versa. If it’s the former, quotation marks and citations to Goddard should be added to the article. Note that the Vennochi source is common to both WP and Goddard, but Goddard’s entry contains a citation to Schlesinger that isn’t cited by the WP article. --Jackftwist (talk) 18:14, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

The first phrasing has been present in this article since my edit of October 2004. As far as I can remember, the sentence was original writing (although not original research; it was a one-sentence summary of the sources available to me at the time; keep in mind that standards for citations were different in 2004.). In 2004, politicaldictionary.com effectively did not exist (according to archive.org, it was owned by a domain squatter back then), and if you browse that site today you'll find that most of the articles are thin paraphrases of English Wikipedia content. It is highly likely that the site plagiarized Wikipedia, not the other way around. k.lee (talk) 18:22, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

"Pungent"

Google can find nothing on the web with the phrase "pungent sister souljah moment" except for wikipedia and those sites directly copying wikipedia's phrasing. Is it appropriate to delete that uncited statement? (It seems likely that "poignant" was meant, anyway.)

(Is concern about "citogenesis" a valid reason to delete relatively unimportant, uncited statements?)

Scott Lawrence (talk) 14:23, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Stennes Putsch

I would suggest that the Stennes Putsch be added; it seems a relevant example of a Sister Souljah moment. See:

"This "oath of legality", as well as the suppression of Nazi advocates of direct violence - the so called Stennesputsch in 1931 - added to this respectability." (Sanford L. Segal, Mathematicians under the Nazis, p. 78). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stennes_Revolt#Expulsion_of_Stennes

However, I don't have a source that specifically mentions the Putsch as a Sister Souljah moment. Can I make that judgment call? Can the community?

Aristotles (talk) 21:36, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Legacy meme

It's quite possible this was a 'widely used term' in the 90s, but there are almost no references to the term in the decades since. This article could do with some editing to make it clear that this is a "dead meme". 122.58.89.12 (talk) 14:34, 9 July 2023 (UTC)