Tag Archives: Racism

Brad Paisley, Accidental Racist on Purpose 7

by • Arts and Entertainment, Politics • Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Hey Brad Paisley, your song sucks and I can’t believe LLCoolJ sang with you and you are lucky you have one black friend left.

I want you to know something, if you are still wearing that shirt with a confederate flag on it, you aren’t a racist by accident, and to make the claim you don’t know what that shirt means to many Americans, Black or otherwise, because you either aren’t paying attention or your just plain lying. Oh and as a side note,  good for the Starbucks employee for calling you out.

I am utterly disappointed with this weird attitude of some of you southern boys. The Confederate flag is a symbol of separating us as a nation, splitting America in two in order to maintain Slavery as an institution and really spitting on everything that America is supposed to stand for, equality, fairness and justice. When you say you can’t walk a mile in the shoes of a fellow human being it simply indicates your too lazy to bother. Cause see, here is the thing Brad, you have so much to learn.

First off I have completed a reading list for you to learn what that flag means to those of us who do not associate ourselves with that flag.

  • Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
  • The Bondwoman’s  Narrative Harriet Craft, edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
  • Harriet Jacobs, A Life
  • The Autobiography of Malcolm X
  • Life Upon These Shores, Henry Louis Gates Jr.
  • Eye’s on the Prize, JuanWilliams
  • In Search of Hannah Crafts, Critical Essays on the Bondwoman’s Narrative
  • Ghosts of Mississippi, The Murder of Medgar Evers, The Trials of Byron De La Beckwith, and The Haunting of the New South

Please also read about James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, those were the three voter registration volunteers who were murdered by Klan members in Mississippi. Did you ever see Mississippi Burning? Did you think it was just a movie? Read about Jim Crow laws and tell me that states rights is really all that symbol represents. It isn’t of course, it represents a sinister terrible part of our history, the terrible awful part where white people got away with murdering black people in the south.. just because they wanted to!

You brought it up dude, now it is time to woman up and learn why maybe you shouldn’t be so butthurt that people think your stupid TShirt with the Confederate Flag on it is racist, guess what, it is racist. Now go read something. Because this is what your song really about, it is about ignorance, ignorance of our history, ignorance of slavery and the civil war and ignorance about how others might perceive this type of shirt. You wouldn’t walk around with a TShirt that had a swastika on it would you? Well the Confederate flag is just as vile. But I don’t like that you simply don’t understand our history, that is a real shame. You are certainly someone who ought to know better.

The 10 Rules for Everyone About John Derbyshire and Conservatives 3

by • Blogging, Humor, Politics • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

John Derbyshire fills his kids heads full of racist crap, I am pretty sure he does that right after they place those white hoods upon their heads and go out for a good old fashioned cross-burning. If you want to read his BS piece of crap piece it is at a place called Taki Magazine, something I’ve never heard of but Dave Weigel says it is a magazine of one of the former founders of the American Conservative, let’s call him “not Pat Buchanan”. Not that Pat himself doesn’t have problems with race, but this one isn’t his.

Let’s review some facts about Derbyshire, in February 2001 he wrote a piece that should have had him banned from anyone publishing any of his work for the rest of his life, in fact he should have been relegated to serving food to Klan meetings. This particular column  gave us real insight into Derbyshire. That column was all about his hatred for a young Chelsey Clinton and how it would be okay to exterminate her and her parents.  And of course he does this all under the guise of humor, I guess humor for conservatives is all about killing a young girl cause you don’t like the politics of her parents. He is a real piece of work, and then yesterday he went a step further.

I am pretty sure he thinks he is an ironic, ancient hipster, who seems to believe he is teaching us all something, and he is mad that the Trayvon Martin murder has once again shone a light on institutional racism in America.

America of course is not a perfect place, and John Derbyshire is trying to make it even less perfect. And he isn’t ironic or funny, which is why I’ve come up with my own 10 Rules for my kids, before the leave the house when they come across either John Derbyshire or other conservatives.

1. Among your fellow citizens are roughly 30 million or so who identify as conservative, and whom I shall refer to as idiots. The cumbersome term “Caucasian” seems to be in decline, thank goodness so instead we will use the term Klan Cracker. I think that says it all to  normal people.

2. American Caucasianscome from all over Europe but some of the worst among us were hatched under rocks and we know them today as conservatives, you will recognize them as those who can’t get along with others, who don’t’ share and who believe in their own enormous IQ’s. They are unlike their white counterparts because they’ve built their own reality and they stay in it, Bill Maher calls it, The Bubble. I call it hell.

3.  They appear to be just like every other white person until they open their pie-holes. Once they do you will instantly know the difference, a.) they think it is funny to threaten the children of people they don’t like b.) They portray themselves as victims even though they own the world.

4. The default principle in everyday personal encounters is, that as a fellow citizen, with the same rights and obligations as yourself, any individual conservative is entitled to the same courtesies you would extend to a non-conservative citizen. That is basic good manners and good citizenship. In some unusual circumstances, however—e.g., paragraph (10h) below—this default principle should be overridden by considerations of personal safety. These guys love concealed weapons so it is best to avoid them at all cost. It could save your life.

5. As with any population of such a size, there is great variation among conservatives in every human trait (except, obviously, the trait of identifying oneself as conservative). They come fat, thin, tall, short, dumb, smart, introverted, extroverted, honest, crooked, athletic, sedentary, fastidious, sloppy, amiable, and obnoxious. There are conservative geniuses but there are more conservative morons. There are conservative saints but there are many more conservative psychopaths (i.e. George Zimmerman, Timothy McVeigh). In a population of thirty or more million, you will find almost any human type. Only at the far, far extremes of certain traits are there absences. There are, for example, no conservative with common sense, they only have anger and believe they are winners.

6. As you go through life, however, you will experience an ever larger number of encounters with conservative Americans. They seriously bring their conservatism with them everywhere, then they will call you names and once people tell them to STFU, they will claim the mantle of victimization and cry like babies. Assuming your encounters are random—for example, not restricted only to conservatives who are so self assured their worldview never changes—the Law of Large Numbers will inevitably kick in. You will observe that the means—the averages—of many traits are very different for conservative and regular Americans, as has been confirmed by methodical inquiries in the human sciences. Don’t bother arguing with them, they are far to stupid to convince with facts, remember they’ve created their own world in the face of facts.

7. Of most importance to your personal safety are the very different means for antisocial behavior, which you will see reflected in, for instance they all carry concealed weapons, steer clear of them, always. They might get mad and shoot you for no apparent reason, i.e. see George Zimmerman.

8.  These differences are magnified by the hostility most conservatives feel toward everyone who doesn’t believe as they do. Thus, while conservative-on-conservative violence is uncommon but does happen, see David Frum’s expulsion from American Enterprise Institute.

9. A large cohort of conservatives—in my experience, around 90% —is ferociously hostile to everyone else and will go to great lengths to inconvenience or harm us. Remember they carry concealed weapons.

10. Avoid concentrations of conservatives not known to you personally, they simply cannot be trusted and they will threaten your life.

And with that I allow my kids out into the world, to consort with everyone but a conservative, in general they have low IQ’s, reject facts and hate women and minorities of all kinds. Even though you are white don’t get yourself in with their group, they require white hoods and cross burnings and that can only lead to trouble with the FBI.

In Defense of Melissa Harris Perry 3

by • Blogging, Media, Philosophy, Politics, Presidential Politics • Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

It all began with a Michael Moore visit to the View. It was nothing short of appalling. So we will call it Exhibit 1:

For the longest time I just didn’t know what to say about that clip, I’d certainly read all of the criticism of Moore after this episode. I’ve been formulating what I want to say since then, and reading as much as possible about onslaught of commentary that followed his outburst of what can only be called blatant racism. And in a sense I think Professor Harris Perry (ProfHP), was really responding to this, after being exposed to much of the diva outbursts that attempt to denigrate the Presidency of Barack Obama, in the so-called progressive blogsophere. I am going to introduce this clip as the penultimate example of racism in the so-called progressive community, and I am using Moore’s gaff first because it is a blatant example of employing a stereotype to describe ones disappointment in the President. Does Moore really believe this?    Moore definitely caused an avalanche virtual debate.  I did read much of it. However as a white person, I still believe I have much to learn about racism and how it manifests in the most blatant and subtle ways. Ultimately in order to bridge our racial divide white people have to listen. But in a deeper sense first and foremost ProfHP does have some real hard evidence of racism in the so-called progressive community and that begins with Michael Moore’s statement on The View. That does constitute evidence, it really does.   Why would you stoop to a stereotype to register your already well-known disappointment in the President? So we have one significant piece of evidence or outright racism, because unlike what Joan Walsh writes, evidence that is not in the form of a poll can also be relevant and serve as examples of racism at work, because most progressives don’t believe they are racist! They would never admit to it to a pollster, and that means we have to have other means of gathering data, come on, this isn’t that hard.

Exhibit 2: So after ProfHP’s original piece appeared in The Nation, Joan Walsh weighed in, with an okay blog, but it didn’t tell the entire story, and her blog required proof of racism via poll data.  Poll responses about subtle racism cannot be supported without actual working evidence, which is often the things people say and write. Joan Walsh used the conservative talking point, there is no evidence to conclude such things, when in fact there is evidence, first and foremost Michael Moore.

Exhibit 3: The leader of the group New Progressive Alliance, Anthony Noel, told an African-American blogger to get over being black and to start debating like a human. What? OMG, I don’t know how to respond to that kind of racism and I can’t believe this is actually happening and this does constitute evidence, cold hard factual evidence of racism among the so-called progressive blogosphere.

Exhibit 4: David Sirota’s response to ProfHP: Boy that guy is one mad upper middle class employed talk show radio host isn’t he, I had never read him prior to this, so I delved into his stream of consciousness, and that is what it was a stream of consciousness wrapped in white-hot anger. So let’s get to Sirota’s criticism, to which he claims not one person has taken on his so-called facts to challenge him, people have just called him a racist. Well Dave if the shoe fits buddy, I guess you will have to wear it. Sirota wrote this:

By seeing this record and then explaining away declining liberal support for President Obama as a product of bigotry, Harris-Perry exhibits the ultimate form of both denialism and elitism.

But does she really exhibit the “ultimate” form of both denialism (which is not a word for the record) and elitism, (hello pot, meet kettle). Because there is ample evidence of her thesis. Sirota doesn’t want to acknowledge it, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t evidence. First of course this elitism crap is being carried too far, Sirota by definition is a liberal elitist, he should quit pulling the faux populism card.  But what does account for the declining support of so-called progressives? Hell according to politifact.com the President has accomplished many of his campaign promises, in fact he has accomplished 147 of his campaign promises. Why are his accomplishments never acknowledged or if they are they are written off as tiny and not worthwhile and doesn’t make him progressive etc and so on. The list of his accomplishments are here: Politifact.com.  Was Clinton a surrender monkey when his health care bill failed and he never talked about universal health care again? Health Care was huge, and because of it more people are covered.

Let’s go over more examples of racism in the Progressive community and these do constitute proof, the proof folks like Walsh, Sirota and Lyons are demanding.

Exhibit 5: 2011 article by Robert Kuttner: Black and Bleak

The problem is less Obama’s failure to target black unemployment per se than his weakness on the jobs issue generally. Race comes into the equation because of an almost pathological aversion to conflict on Obama’s part, which has been widely attributed to his wish to bridge racial and ideological gaps.

What? It is as though Kuttner doesn’t realize that the President through policy implementation has successfully “strengthened  Small Business Administration programs that provide capital to minority-owned businesses, support outreach programs that help minority business owners apply for loans, and work to encourage the growth and capacity of minority firms.”  So actually the President is working to help minority communities by supporting the growth of business, which can only serve to help any given community by providing more jobs. So that makes Kuttner’s analysis not just wrong, but weird. Is it direct racism? Maybe not, but it is subtle, if Kuttner had done his homework he would see the President is implementing the same kind of policies the Clinton Admin for minority owned business. These were programs that were immediately ended when Bush took office.  No doubt African-Americans have suffered a great deal during this terrible recession, greatly. However, this is a statistic that never changes, it doesn’t matter who is in office or what his color might be. African-Americans have always suffered more during economic downturns and as a people we should attempt to address and make corrections. It is all our responsibility, and we should start by getting Republicans out of congress.   So  when I read this particular line made me feel uncomfortable; is it subtle racism? It makes me think Kuttner believes the President is just looking for approval of white, protestant men, otherwise, why is up with the sloppy statement based on some sort of ESP?

Race comes into the equation because of an almost pathological aversion to conflict on Obama’s part, which has been widely attributed to his wish to bridge racial and ideological gaps.

Exhibit 6: FDL sometimes is a hotbed for subtle and outright racism. Case in point: This is a blog post about labor unions, but then there is this the last line in the blog:

The basic problem is that the Rich ate all the pie. What do you intend to do about it? Snuggle up to their Democratic Party incarnation some more in the hope of getting some crumbs? There used to be a term for that, on the plantations. House N****r.

No one is going to tell me this isn’t evidence of racism amongst so-called progressives. Was it necessary to  head directly to plantation talk? Was it? How can anyone write that there is no evidence of some divisive racial language used by some people on the left?

Exhibit 7: Now let’s get to Gene Lyons, who perhaps responded like a bully and then pulled his own race card.  Lyons in retaliation asserted that ProfHP was a fool, and that was bad enough, but then came the most troubling paragraph:

Furthermore, unless you’re black, you can’t possibly understand. Yada, yada, yada. This unfortunate obsession increasingly resembles a photo negative of KKK racial thought. It’s useful for intimidating tenure committees staffed by Ph.D.s trained to find racist symbols in the passing clouds. Otherwise, Harris-Perry’s becoming a left-wing Michele Bachmann, an attractive woman seeking fame and fortune by saying silly things on cable TV.

If I didn’t know better, I would have figured this was written by one Rush Limbaugh, not just denigrating the Professors expertise but making a claim that she used her blackness to intimidate tenure committees, OMG, and yet there is no racism in the so-called white progressive community.  This type of commentary makes me nearly speechless. I said nearly.  When the President was elected I was naive enough to believe that so-called progressives would never ever stoop to racially insensitive speech. I.Was.Wrong.

Cross Posted at  DAGblog