Democratic Underground - Words Olbermann, Schultz and their like will never understand

I said to myself these are not bad men. They are misguided. They have fine reputations in the community. In their dealings with white people they are respectful and gentlemanly. They probably think they are right in their methods of dealing with Negroes. They say the things they say about us and treat us as they do because they have been taught these things. From the cradle to the grave, it is instilled in them that the Negro is inferior. Their parents probably taught them that; the schools they attended taught them that; the books they read, even their churches and ministers, often taught them that; and above all the very concept of segregation teaches them that. The whole cultural traditional under which they have grown—a tradition blighted with more than 250 years of slavery and more than 90 years of segregation—teaches them that Negroes do not deserve certain things. So these men are merely the children of their culture. When they seek to preserve segregation they are seeking to preserve only what their local folkways have taught them was right.

Stewart's lumping in of Olbermann and Schultz with right-wing crazies wasn't to equally condemn the political left and right. It was to condemn certain -voices- on the left and right, who teach their listeners that followers of the opposing view are irrevocably ignorant, evil, contemptible, corrupted, and forever less than human.

Many of those irreclaimable unhuman teabaggers out there voted for the New Deal and the Great Society. The difference now is that they have been taught, very successfully, to hate. The answer to that is not to cultivate our own hatred in an arms race of slurs, but to cultivate the sense of community that has been lost among common people in this country. I want the "gov't hands off my Medicare!" guy to see why he's wrong; I don't want to gloat over his ignorance. I want him to learn that he's been misguided; I don't want to insult him.

That we and "our" pundits so readily sling schoolboy insults at the ignorant, who are already thoroughly abused by their leaders, is shameful. They didn't bomb our houses or attempt to kill our families, and yet sitting on our asses in front of computers, we can't approach the understanding of Dr. King--we reach for a slur and all thinking ceases.

Words Olbermann, Schultz and their like will never understand [View All]