"It's Not About Race!" "It's Not Racism!!"

Oh, yes it is.

They may not perceive it, it may not be conscious, but it's about race. And it's racism.

No, I'm not talking about any and all criticism of President Obama. It's perfectly legitimate to criticize the President, if you disagree with his actions or his expressed policies. And it's possible to do so with acerbic wit and biting satire and hyperbolic rhetoric and yes, even with anger and outrage, and not tread on the ground of race and racism.

But, by and large, that is not what is happening in America. That kind of criticism is not what we saw in the hysterical, hyperventilating flap over the President of the United States telling school children to work hard and stay in school and make us all proud. That kind of criticism is certainly not what motivated a man elected to the U.S. House of Representatives--an adult who should know better--to make a complete assclown of himself on national television. That kind of criticism is not what motivated most of those tens of thousands who showed up to scream and wave signs picturing the President with a Hitler moustache or as the psychopathic villain from the last Batman film.

No. THAT criticism is all about race. And yes, it's based in racism.

I am old enough to remember the Civil Rights movement. I am old enough to remember the efforts to drive a stake through the heart of Jim Crow, and to give people of color equal access to the ballot box and the levers of political and economic power in this nation. I was there. And the eerie thing about this current ruckus is the way it's echoing the very tapes that were recorded in my memory back then.

For those of you too young to remember or too young to have lived through it, it might seem ludicrously unbelievable when I assert that yes, those are exactly the same things white people who opposed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were saying back then. Yes, seriously. And, just as they do today, they honestly believed that they were not being racist.

Yes, there were hard-core racists back then who were perfectly willing to admit that yes, it was about race, and yes, they were discriminating, and trying to protect institutionalized discrimination, against persons of color because they believed persons of color were somehow inferior. There's still a few of that creepy breed around today as well. But the majority of these wackjobs are entirely sincere in their assertion that it's NOT ABOUT RACE and they are NOT RACISTS!

They aren't being disingenuous when they claim this --they really believe it!

Because their definition of racism is an extremely narrow one:

It's only racism if I do something to actively discriminate against someone, or say something nasty about someone, explicitly because I want them to experience pain or suffering because they are a different race, and only if I know that's why I'm acting that way. Otherwise, it's not racism, you see.

They have had to narrow the definition of racism to this extent, because it is the only way to protect themselves from having to acknowledge some very unpleasant, negative things about themselves. By defining racism that narrowly, they can justify all their fear- and hate-based actions and utterances. It's not vile of me to speak or act thusly because I am not a racist.

In spite of the fact that my nasty, hate-based words or actions are rooted in a fear of Scary Brown People so visceral and so intrinsic to my own concept of self that I am not even aware of that fear, I cannot possibly be a racist. My reasons for vile speech and pusillanimous action are explainable by all kinds of other, entirely legitimate reasons.

But there is a perceptible difference between the kind of speech and actions that are rooted in rational conviction and manifested in passionate opposition, and the kind of speech and actions that are rooted in fear and manifested as hate. Each can use hyperbole. Each can use satire or mockery. Each can use emotional language. But the signature of hate is unmistakable, and the root of hate is fear.

It's not always fear of Scary Brown People. But it's invariably revealed in two words:

those people

As soon as you hear those two words or any reasonable facsimile thereof, you can be sure that the person uttering them has created an us/them construct in their mind. And when that us/them construct becomes integral to their concept of their self, and their sense of value and self-worth, 'them' becomes something to despise.

And as soon as what we despise starts to threaten us in any way, hate blossoms.

President Obama is a brown "them" for these white people. And they are being told that he threatens them. Threatens their wallets, threatens their religious beliefs, threatens their security. Worse! Because he IS a "them," he will inevitably enable OTHER brown "thems" to acquire illegitimate benefits that will increase the threat to an intolerable level.

No wonder they are hysterical with fear and hate. And yes, it is about race. And it is racist.

And I pity them. Living in hate and fear is not only incredibly tiring and unpleasant, it floods your body with stress hormones that damage your health and impair your ability to enjoy life.

They can deny that their hate is based on race by blaming it on the "threat." But that "threat" alone is not sufficient to send them into frothing convulsions of horror. Many of us felt a very real and very tangible threat under George W. Bush and his cabal of vicious and incompetent greedheads. We expressed ourselves strongly. We "hated" him, and some of us allowed ourselves to wallow in that hate to a degree that was probably unhealthy for us. But the threat he represented to us was not based in the color of his skin.

There are more people in the ranks of liberals who nourish a robust sense of humor, and more who have achieved a fairly good level of education and a broad view of history and society, than in the ranks of conservatives --this I believe. I don't assert it as a fact, but I'd stake quite a lot on that belief. And so we have an abundance of liberals who can communicate passionately and effectively, using tools like mockery and satire and hyperbole. It may sound like hate, but the visceral fear of a threatening "them" is not nearly as prevalent.

Remember: If "those people" hovers about the discourse, even off-stage, as it were --it's about race. And it's racism.

We need to be aware of that racism, based in fear, and how strong a motivator it is, and how effective a barrier against rational analysis and decision making. And we need to be aware of how sincerly these very racists believe that it's not about race, and it's not racism. No matter how clearly we point it out to them, no matter how cogently we draw the connection, they will not be brought to believe or acknowledge their own terror of the Scary Brown Other.

It's important to know this about them. Because unless we understand the terror that lurks unacknowledged at the base of their reptilian cortex, we can't parse their wild, irrational hatred.

They're doing an excellent job of exposing that hatred-- to the point where those who oppose President Obama's policies and actions for reasons other than racist terror are starting to draw back from them, and perceive the peril that lurks in alliance with them.

So much so that the most effective action we can take to counter their wild outbursts is to methodically and constantly pull out the reality checks. Apply them with humor and good nature, and yes, with a little passion as well-- but concentrate on getting the reality checks across, not on opposing the racist haters with a level of invective and fury to match their own.

And when they assert "It's not about race! It's not racism!!"-- shake our heads and politely disagree and, if we aspire to or have attained a sufficient level of spiritual growth, pity them.

Because it's about race. And yes, it's racism.

assertively,
Bright

My pleasure to kick it.


But I'm afraid you will be disappointed in me - I do think of 'them' - well -as a 'them'. Those ones. Over there on the right.

You are only as good as the most vocal in your group. The most vocal of 'them' are the teabaggers. I no longer make a distinction between teabaggers and 'republicans' - it's just 'them'.

They threaten me, they barely veil their threats against the President. They threaten all of us at D.U. They are dangerous. Them. Those ones.

Them--those people--those irrational bigots, those delusional deniers of reality who allow their very souls to be manipulated by sophisticated con-men who have twisted religion into a hate and fear-based social control mechanism. Yes, them. Those people.

Now, I'm no Obama worshiper, but he is clearly one of my tribe. If he disappoints me, it is one of us who has let me down. I will communicate my displeasure to the extent I reasonably can, and then I will expect better of him tomorrow, because he is one of us. Rational, educated, generally wise, motivated by good will, possessed of a sensibility dominated by love rather than hate. I see in him the attributes I try (haltingly and with many setbacks) to nurture in myself.

and yet, 'those people' coming from our tribe, does not signify bigotry. We can do it, you see, because we are educated and sensible, but when they do it, it just shows how vile they are.

Because I'm white, and they're white. How is that racism????

The Prez has not acted nutty or threatening. They're scared.

It is not racist to be afraid of crazy. It is not racist to be scared of stupid.... with a gun.

Get real!

but that it was bigotry. A bigotry that claims that 'those people' are all the same.

It is bigotry to see two or three crazy people in a crowd or two or three stupid people in a crowd and then claim that the entire group is crazy or stupid. Since gangbangers or wanna-be gangbangers really are dangerous, it's also not racist to be afraid of gangbangers. It is racist to generalize that fear to the entire race just as it is bigotry, IMO, to generalize a fear of 'crazy' or 'stupid' to the entire Republican party.

"We're not racists, but those people . . ."

You think the rightwing has not heard this message?

I think it plays right into their hands. Their second message is, according to Somerby "Liberal elites think they are better than you." and we do the work in spreading that message for them.

That's their message, not ours. They will say it anyway. Let 'em. I'm not cowering to fools who think someone can be a socialist and a fascist at the same time. Why give the benefit of the doubt to those who don't know Hawaii is in the US? I'm suppose to have respect for people who listen to Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin? Get real!!!! If they showed some intelligence, then that would be different. But why should I give in to ignorant-and-proud-of-it?

ARE better than rednecked racists. Why not brag about it?...;-)

K&R

And it needs to be pointed out again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again.

And fuck 'em if they get affronted. It NEEDS to be said, again, and again, and again, and again, and again. Rub their noses in it. As our President, Barack Obama, said last Wednesday night in his speech to a Joint Session of Congress, if they insist on continuing to lie and distort, THEY NEED TO BE CALLED OUT.

So by all means! LET'S CALL 'EM OUT. EVERY LAST MISERABLE LITTLE TEENY ONE OF THEM.

Thanks for the post.

and there wouldn't be any court cases of that had McCain won the election ...

and his birth was not in this country ...

I've still not forgotten "that one".

If the GOP is being called racist on a grand scale, it's because they want to be. If they want to be, there is a reason. If there is a reason, it's advantage. They aren't stupid. Don't let them distract and divert.

If they were to actually use the nword, the answer would be "Yes, he's an nword and we're going to get single payer, raise the mileage on cars, and stop the coal companies from blowing the tops off mountains."

that racism should not be the focus of our criticisms of the right. Yes, there clearly are racists there, but they're trying to bait us, to make us play the race card, and scare away all of those voters from the mushy middle who don't like to hear such talk.

Barack Obama won the Presidency because he was a break from the past. That's how JFK was, he was an educated man, not one of the old rough-and-tumble Irish pols who were synonymous with an earlier angry age of "Irish Need Not Apply" signs in windows, and the counter-reaction to them.

That's what hurt Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton the most in their runs for the Presidency, they were most identified with the politics of the radical 60's, and President Obama has been smart to distance himself from that, even when it came time to deal with Reverend Wright. The reason the reich wing brought Wright up was to tie Obama to the "burn, baby, burn" images that tend to be frightening to people who lived through that time.

If any and all criticism of Barack Obama's policies is going to be labeled as racist, then you can expect honest disagreement with the President to disappear, and people will just make their opinions about it known in the privacy of the ballot box.

I guess people believe that if they are simply said angrily enough, then worn out words retain power. It's simply not true, especially when it comes to public opinion. Labeling everything as racism, a 100% word even if the allegation is only 20% true, will lead to a response of "Yeah, yeah, I'm a racist....."

On the other hand, we can look at "male chauvinist pig" and see that while it fell into comic use, at the height of feminism no less, while men were laughing off male privilege and antifeminist attitudes, they were overall changing for the better.

to acknowledge the racism in the first place. You don't have to be a confederate flag toting, cross burning, sheet wearing, klansman to be a straight up racist.

20%? Unbelievable! 20%? Well that 20% has 100% impact on the person who is on the receiving end of the racism.

Not only do you seem to be missing the entire point of the OP but you also seem intent on minimizing the effects it has on an entire segment of the population. Why is that? Do you not think they and how they feel in the country in which they were born are not important enough to deal with their issues? Is that really the message you want to send to people whose votes you'll be looking to garner at the next election? Really is that how you want to go?

It's no wonder why some people are ready to leave the country and never come back.

What do you have to do to be a non-obvious "straight up" racist?

when the statistics say that they're barking up the wrong tree? How we're more often followed in stores, our neighborhoods underserved by municipalities, our schools underfunded, the presumption of unintelligence, banks steering us to sub prime loans even when our credit history warrants a prime one?

How about people considering it a complement to say "well I don't really see you as black" (The translation of that phrase being "I don't see you as the stereotypical black person" which generally means criminal and less than in this country.) How about when you tell someone something about computers and have that person look surprised at your knowledge despite the fact that you're the go to person when it comes to the computer in the office AND the general knowledge that you're a computer nerd. Or what about when you make a suggestion only to have it ignored, until a white co-worker makes the SAME suggestion at which time the talk is about what a good idea it is. Or perhaps, to borrow from another DUer, it's being thanked for "fetching" reports. Fetching, being something that dogs do. Shall I go on?

Straight up is obvoious BTW. It's not the obvious that's the problem. It's the more subtle forms that when pointed out make some people go "You call racism on everything" a bit of hyperbole which is both patently untrue, deliberately dismissive, and completely offensive.

in the first paragraph, but do you really think that the majority of baggers are law enforcement officers (who probably don't want their photograph being part of a public protest), or who are the ripoff artists who sell loans? You do make a point about being underserved by municipalities and having underfunded schools, but that's a function of living patterns, not overt racism. The teabagger in East Frogspit, Nebraska really doesn't consider himself to blame for the fact that schools in Detroit are underfunded.

That "I really don't see you as black" comment is being misinterpreted by you. It's a clumsy attempt of a white person to say, "I grew up in a culture that taught me that black people and white people were very different, but after I've gotten to know you, I no longer feel this way." No, it's not eloquent, it's not politically correct, but it is an attempt by a white person to come out of the shell of a racist upbringing. To verbally smack them across the forehead for saying it is suggest that maybe Grandpa knew what he was talking about.

Same way with "fetch". Some people just use that word for "get". I use it relative to things that I obtain. Not every white person in America is familiar with the Stepin Fetchit character.

It's not always as straight up as you think it is.

I was inspired by the following words of Candidate Obama on the subject, "... I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union."

Perhaps you should look into the term redlining.

Fetch has a specific meaning. Dogs fetch, not people. It is an insult. I haven't misinterpreted a damn thing.

You seem rather invested in deciding that I am misinterpreting a parts of the bullshit that I've had to put up with in my life. And I've also noticed that there's no excuse for the ignoring of suggestions only to hop on it when someone else give it or the computer thing. I suppose I should be glad for that SMALL bit.

Did I mention that I don't appreciate it when people tell me I don't know what I'm talking about when I talk about my own experiences?

So what's the excuse for the missing white woman syndrome then if you have so many answers (not valid ones mind you but answers nonetheless) Why is it that when a white woman goes missing the cable news channels will plaster her face all over the place ad nauseam for days yet a missing black woman (or man for that matter but I'll stick to one gender for this example) doesn't warrant a peep. Are you about to tell me that it has NOTHING to do with which woman is more valued in this society?

Fetching is not reserved for dogs or black people. Some browsers even say "fetching" when they are running really slowly. It's British and rural American perhaps, but hardly exclusive. It's also a favorite with pretentious people and schoolmarms.

Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown,
And Jill came tumbling after.

Oh, and if someone tells you that you look fetching, say "Thank you."

associated with dogs.

So spare me the bullshit. Look you want to make excuses fine, but to call me a fool because I understand the use of a word and that it's use is associated with dogs is just picking a fight for no damn reason.

I guess that's my fault for mistaking you for someone reasonable. I should have stuck with my gut and ignored you since you're other posts put you in the category of apologist.

I shan't make that mistake again.

and it has been made illegal. Is it completely gone from everywhere? Of course not. Making murder a crime doesn't make it go away, either. Rights must be fought for and defended every day.

You are right about the racism that led to the living patterns. I'm glad to see neighborhoods far more integrated than I remember in my childhood in Gary, Indiana. Admittedly, we have some ways to go. Extending loans to the subprime market was a flawed way of trying to help people of all colors attain the American dream of home ownership in a desireable place. It's too bad the loan sharks screwed that up for everyone.

Merriam-Webster has a number of definitions for the word fetch:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fetch
None involve the use of the word dog. Just because some people who are more accustomed to using that word for "get" also use it with their dogs doesn't change that.

I can certainly imagine that you don't like having someone else explain other possible meanings for your experiences. You seem rather invested in keeping your own interpretation of them, without examining the possibility that there might have been another meaning.

You're right about the missing white woman syndrome, but in the news in the background on my TV set, there's a story about the sad ending to a story of a missing woman of Vietnamese ancestry whose body was found yesterday, and was formally identified today. Ever since she disappeared on Wednesday, there have been stories about her. The reporting of missing women of color is not yet perfectly on a par with the blond-haired and blue-eyed, but it may possibly be getting better. I hope so.

If everyone holds on tightly to their hurts, President Obama's message of racial reconciliation that I referred to above will fall on deaf ears.

NOT act as though you are a better arbiter of what they experienced than they are.

I don't think that's too much to ask. And frankly, I'm not asking I'm expecting it.

Reconciliation will not come if we simply decide not to look into grievances and pretend all is well. THAT is what people want to do now. It just doesn't work that way.

I'm sorry you found it disrespectful.

Is that really the message you want to send to people whose votes you'll be looking to garner at the next election?

I'm not clear on what you're asking here because of all the pronouns. Do you mean the GOP will be looking to garner black votes at the next election? I doubt that the GOP is concerned about how many black votes it gets. The GOP has had two lessons in black voting in the last couple of years. When black voters would not vote for Michael Steele, and when virtually every black voter voted for Obama.


It's no wonder why some people are ready to leave the country and never come back.

That's perhaps the one threat which unifies all Americans, as they respond with, "Don't let the door hit you in the ass."

"Is that really the message you want to send to peopel whose votes you'll be loooking to garner at the next election"

You would be the Democratic party, or progressives. Obviously it's not the GOP that's pretty much a given is it not? We're talking about GOP racism, and Democratic dismissal. Let's try to keep things straight here shall we?

In addition, when you make people feel unwelcome or less than in their country it is rather dickish to get mad when they may consider other options. Despite what Pat Buchanan may have some believe, there are other countries where people can go to and not be treated like shit. It's not a threat it's a mere statement of fact. So typical for you to go to the despicable retort favored by the RW.

Only I don't think people who don't consider themselves racist will laugh it off. They'll fight back at the ballot box.

Every once in awhile I listen to Hannity on the radio (you have to know what they're saying to know what they might be thinking) and he was already going with the theme of, "Now, if you criticise Obama or his policies, you'll be called a racist!"

It's one thing to be saying "Republicans are assholes" on this forum, but when someone appointed to the Obama Administration does it, he's gone. I have the feeling that the same thing would happen if someone in the Administration is emboldened by the rhetoric here to make the same statement about ascribing opponents' views to racism.

that I feel that way.

For me, I don't see the Lefts, that happen to be White, continuing to jump on each and everything that they say about him as "Racist" as productive.

If we take our cue from him, it's pretty clear that he is articulate enough to say " STOP. BEING. RACIST. BAGGERS" if he wanted us to say that to the Bags.

He does not want us to get into name calling and take away from his mission for Health Care etc.

The Baggers are Thrilled that we are calling them Racists, have you noticed that they have not stopped doing it?

In fact they are doing it more -- it's the only card they have and we are letting their Race CARD win.

They know that it really makes Clear Thinking Whites mad at them and that is exactly what they want to do.

Are African Americans angry -- YES!
Is this the first time we have faced RACISM - NO
And for us, it is not a surprise but we want to use Obama's technique as the way to address the issue.

Of course we want him protected and we love him dearly- just as the huge majority of ALL people around the World do but don't make him weak by saying it's only about RACE, it's not.

It's about A MAN (that happens to be African American) taking the POWER that they believed belonged only to them. Does his RACE play into that " You BETCHA"--- says good old Sarah.

:patriot:

PS: Selling new for $170 (was completely out of stock during the election process) on the web or $21 Used (I just purchased it for $21 Used) let you know in a few days about the Old Time Baggers that didn't have the internets and M$M to make "news "travel faster.

"Six Black Presidents: Black Blood : White Masks USA "

They reason that looking guilty when caught confirms guilt, so it's better to say it louder to prove that you aren't being a racist, because if you aren't hiding it then it must not be racist.

Look at how they have liberated "arrogant" in the last couple of days. Most people have avoided calling Obama "arrogant" because they get accused of using it in lieu of "uppity". Truth be told, the man has an arrogant facial expression from time to time, but the word has been avoided. The last couple of days, arrogant has been rolling right off the tongues of Republican congressmen and newsies.

what, exactly, is an arrogant facial expression? What exactly does it look like? What differentiates it from a look of concentration when, say, delivering an important speech?

.... is like trying to get someone online to recognize a song you have stuck in your head that you can only hum.

It happens when he's looking downward or sideways and showing too much lid instead of moving his head. I looked for a photo of it, but can't find one, it must be a live thing.

We went though this with Bush fans, trying to examine what it was about Bush's facial construction and expressions which came off as being "dumb looking". While it's perfectly alright for a person to disagree, for one to be utterly blind to observations and get upset at the conversation itself suggests a lack of objectivity I am unable to understand.

If you honestly don't think that Obama has a momentary facial expression which comes off as arrogance and is repeated often enough to be noticed, then I don't suppose it can be explained to you. I do understand that there are people out there who don't interpret facial expressions the same way the rest of us do.

interesting choice of words

Of course, it's possible that you are simply a jackass.

and juvenile behavior such as calling you out of your name.

It's a shame that you can't discuss your premise without such an epic fail in articulation. Welcome to my ignore list.

I hear everyone saying it's about Racism.

OK,let's say that it is ---- and what will change it?

I have yet to hear a plan from the Left about what they will DO about it -- other than to say it's all about RACE.

I think Barack Obama takes his example from Nelson Mandela, who had every excuse in the world to stick it to the architects of apartheid when he was finally in a leadership position, but clearly did not do so. I'm sure Gandhi would not have inflicted revenge on the British, had he lived long in the newly liberated India.

President Obama has tried to stay on the moral high ground of reconciliation every chance he gets. That doesn't mean forgetting the past, or pretending that it was OK, but it does mean moving forward. I think he expects those of us who agreed to give him our votes to follow his leadership in this area.

If we don't find a way to get past the extreme polarization of the last few decades, we are doomed to careen wildly between the extremes every four or eight years.

existed or exists of actually has a negative impact on some people's lives. the OP was so correct about this tradition. the same people who opposed civil rights are now screaming for birth certificates and lying about death panels. not only is racism not a distraction, it's the putrid, disgusting underbelly of america that needs to be exposed.

and the history of america, which includes slavery and apartheid. and the decimation of the indians. and racism against just about every "other" group imaginable. this is an AMERICAN problem...it has nothing to do with what happens in the Sudan or in Nazi Germany. germans acknowledge their problem...it's high time for americans to do the same.

Albeit I can't think of a single American who doesn't acknowledge a tradition of racism in America, even if they aren't in agreement with you or me on where and when it's taking place or how it's taking form.

A healthy portion of the anti-Obama stuff is anti-Democrat stuff. We know this, because they threw everything they had at the Clintons for eight years to sabotage them, and that can't be blamed on racism.

but some of it is anti-black as well. i bet i can find plenty of people in america who either don't know the truth of our history of racism, or deny it completely, or make excuses for it. denial is the glue that holds it all together. nice chatting with you :hi:

in the comment section at CNN under the story about Gibbs saying "The President doean't believe the teabaggers are racists..." BS. My blood pressure is still up.

"This country is not ready for a black president"

I always thought the person saying this was really saying "I cannot vote for a black man".

"I don't think a black man will ever be elected", meant, "I cannot vote for a black man".

But we're not allowed to remember things, of course.

But I never said he was born in Kenya. I said he was born in Russia and that his mother was a communist spy.

And Bush racked up the deficit Conservs are so concerned about today.

What's your point?

During the race I continually said I did not think this country would vote for a non-white, non-male or non-theistic candidate.
Not because I wasn't passionately supporting our candidate; I am behind President Obama fully (even though he is nowhere near my leftist views). It was due to the fact that I see so very much racism, sexism and religiosity everywhere around me.
Mind you, I only said that to those on the same end of the political spectrum who were already guaranteed to vote. I would never want to have an Independent infer that their vote would be wasted.
Perhaps it is because I live in the fly underneath the bible belt. Florida, while rather broad in its cultural and racial reach, has always tended to cling desperately to its historical conservatism. Also, after my state's shameful part in the Gore/Bush election, it was extremely difficult to not be pessimistic as to the honesty of those counting the votes.

I never thought in my lifetime I would see a non-white President.
I am still surprised we have one.
I am still waiting for the alarm to go off and find myself in a world run by BushCo.

Perhaps one day my pessimism about my fellow Americans will disappear, but after seeing the overtly racist imbeciles this summer, it will be a while.

:eyes:

I could really rub their faces in Hillary. But they have to pretend to be OK with the black guy. It takes a lot of the fun out of it.

Very nicely put

It amazes me that people who talk about "colored people" think that they aren't racist. I worked with an African American woman who explained to me that if people were colored, it meant that their color was just a second thought by God. I know that a lot of DUers are Atheists so this may not appeal to them. But I expect the idea helps it to be understandable. When so many make jokes about race , they say it's just a joke and assume that everyone can see the humor of it. Most of racism is very subtle, but if you are the subject of subtle racism, you can easily feel the real intent of the comment. I just hope that I haven't shown myself to be racist. I was for a long time but I'm over it now, at least I hope so.

they can't just look at him for what he is a MAN...

In the musical "Showboat" there's an opening chorus

In the 20's it went "Niggers all work on the Mississippi...."

In the 30's it went "Darkies all work on the Mississippi...."

In the 40's it went "Colored folks work on the Mississippi...."

and in the 50's nobody worked on the Mississippi 'cause they cut it.

I find the term "African-American" dumb because not all black people are from Africa. Or actually, every homo sapien comes from Africa. So no matter what color you are, you're an African-American. I mean, what's the statute of limitations on ancestors?

"Colored People" is a bit archaic, but shouldn't be insulting. Still, it's an emotional thing and we must try to be sensitive to others' feeling.

African-Americans can proudly trace their post-civilization ancestry back to West Africa, where their ancestors were captured and sold as salves for export to the British Colonies. Similarly, most European-Americans can trace their post-civilization ancestry back to the European and Caucasus continental regions.

As for your "Out of Africa" analogy, you may be correct, but the worldwide human genome project has not been totally completed and verified as yet (depending upon which scientific community your rely on). There is a competing view which holds that humans evolved "multi-regionally" in various parts of the world simultaneously. It is true however, that all humans are related in one way, or another, and are 99.99% alike.

Please change "salves" to "slaves" in 2nd line from the top.

most African Americans can proudly trace some of their post-civilization ancestry back to West Africa. They can trace their other post-civilization ancestry back to the European regions.

was a lot of that going on back then...

And yes, racism is a large part of it. Ignorance is another. Calling Obama a Nazi or a socialist displays a profound ignorance of what Nazism and socialism actually are. Any person who thinks Obama is a socialist should read Eugene Debs or Emma Goldman. Anyone who thinks Obama is a Nazi should read Mein Kampf. They won't do that, though, because it would upset their cherished misconceptions and, perhaps, force them to confront the darkness in their souls.

It's been raising its ugly head around here for some time, usually around the subject of immigration; so the baggers were already well-practiced in their excuse-making (as in, "it's about illegality, not immigrants) by the time Obama came on the scene. And the ugliness migrated with repulsive ease into the healthcare town hall meetings, where we were told, loudly, that it's about socialism-communism-fascism-otherism. And, of course, we're accused of racism for having pointed out their racism.

Your OP should be on the pages of our local newspaper. If you were of a mind to submit it I'd be pleased to provide the necessary details. But even with such encouragement I have to be honest enough to advise that the editors would not be likely to run it. More's the pity.

I am so terribly sick and damned tired of white people telling black people, Hispanics, Asians, Arabs etc. - the very people in this country who have actual FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE of racism what is and is not racist.

These same people seem to believe that unless a white person is calling somebody black a nigger, burning a cross in somebody's yard, denying someone a home or job because of their skin color, or screaming at Mexicans to "go back where they came from" that the behavior cannot possibly be racist and that there simply MUST be another reason for it.

America is a racist nation founded on the rock-hard principles of white cultural and intellectual superiority. Even still, many of the most vile, most racist acts in this country that occur every single day even today are done with relative finesse and subtlety. People don't HAVE to come out and be blatant with their racism; the effects are still the same. And most people of color and a large group of clue-full whites (Morris Dees comes immediately to my mind) are smart and savvy enough to know the signals.

Unfortunately, for every clue-full white, there's another one who absolutely refuses to see what's right before their eyes. A person on this site yesterday admitted to giving the birthers the "benefit of the doubt" and was ASTOUNDED that people would automatically attribute the birther movement to racism. I really don't know what can be said to people like this, who are somehow that ignorant of our country's shameful history of racism and are that willing to automatically give all whites the benefit of the doubt, whether they deserve it or not.

Exactly! And the number of times it happens ON THIS SITE ought to be unbelievable but sadly isn't.

Straining to keep the thought in my head from typing itself. :evilgrin:

"Racism?"

We will be speaking only to those that are not Racists.

Now if those that are so fired up about us to continue the back and forth with the BAGS, and adding to the "FIGHT" that MSM wants there to be ~ where does that get OBAMA and Health CARE, major issues?

Help me understand?

All those that are so Fired Up about Racism- then go out to the next BAGS rally and carry your sign that tells them they are RACIST TO THE CORE!

Face them head on and scream at them to stop it!
They would love to have that happen.:bounce:

For better or worse, this is a country that allows for "Free Speech." Democrats have always stood for that - to our favor.

However ~ the last time I checked, it is not against the law to call someone a N-----. If it was the case, my people would be in jail(sad as it is) for calling each other that terrible word.

Recall that Wilson called him a LIAR to his face, in public, for all to see on television and all he had to do was say, "Sorry" and he still raised $$$'s for his campaign.

It is not against the law to question the citizenship of anyone. The Dept.of Motor Vehicles does it everyday.

Can the NAACP come out and condemn it -- Yes They Can and believe me they would if they thought it was in the best interest of this country and the President to do so.

Would the BAGS stop -- HELL NO! They would love for the NAACP to say something to them.

IMO,the BAGS would love that to happen! They would feed on it with open arms.

I taught Kindergarten, treat them like they are 5 years old -- ignore their bad behavior(name calling birth certificate questions and MORAN signs etc.) they want exposure.

Our problem is that MSM wants a good fight and they are just waiting for US to really start a full scale WAR on the "N" word to our President and then their ratings will really go up!

You make quite an assumption about the number of racists on this site. I'm not so sure I'd make that assumption.

Racist if they see that they are on the front page.

have you ever seen a reparations thread HERE? you would swear you were in mississippi circa 1945. do not assume that everyone here is enlighted when it comes to race.

Is the racism from those denying reparations or those insisting on reparations?

i'd like to have a civil discussion about reparations without people quoting racist assholes like david horowitz, and to date, that hasn't been possible here.

Many bigots only know what they know because of what they see on tv/what their mamas and daddies told them/what they heard growing up in their neighborhoods etc. Getting information from people outside of their own culture, actually SEEING things from someone else's eyes is the only way to move past our own personal biases and bigotry.

I agree with some of what you said and am actually blown away by other things you wrote.

It is not against the law to question the citizenship of anyone. The Dept.of Motor Vehicles does it everyday.

You are not seriously equating what the Birthers are doing with what the DMV does in an effort to deny the blatantly transparent racism behind the birther movement, are you? This type of argument serves you no purpose and gives you no credibility, at least not with me.

I taught Kindergarten, treat them like they are 5 years old -- ignore their bad behavior(name calling birth certificate questions and MORAN signs etc.) they want exposure.

I'm all for ignoring the Birthers and the fools at the town halls and wish the media would do the same. But when a sitting member of Congress gets so fevered by the hostility in the current political environment that he has no problem calling the President of the United States, MY President, a "liar" to his face before the entire world, there is no ignoring that. He should be publicly censured and fined as far as I'm concerned.

But. They AREN'T 5 years old! They're brains are as fully developed as they're gonna be. Treat them like the foolish adults they are. Call 'em out.

exactly.

:kick:

But, I have never understood their fear.

There has never been a time in this country's history when Blacks beat, raped, lynched and killed Whites without having to suffer consequences. Evidently, the fear was not there when the Africans were enslaved. Evidently, the fear was not there during Jim Crow. It seems they became afraid when their Masters told them to be afraid.

They are afraid of the scary Black/Brown man, or so they tell themselves. Yet, there are no White Emmet Tills. There is no ongoing history of Black violence against White people.

Yes, I can understand if they are afraid they will lose power. But, this level of hatred for a perceived loss of power that they did not have in the first place, it's mind boggling. The tea baggers are merely pawns in this power game.

:hi: i totally agree. the fear of retribution is not understandable considering there no black equivalent of the KKK? if such a group existed, one might understand the fear, but it doesn't. crazy mofos.

And I've written a couple rambling posts about it elsewhere on DU this week-end.

But we need all of us to write it out, to put our own unique individual perspective on it, whether we're white, black, brown, green, orange, or pink and blue striped.

Obama gave a rousing speech about race during the crisis over Rev. Wright. But a speech isn't a dialogue and we still haven't had that in this country. A dialogue isn't a shouting match. It isn't a debate. It's not a matter to be "fair and balanced" and treat both sides as if they're equally correct.

I know the president's spokesperson can't come right out and say, "Yeah, we think they're all a bunch of ignorant bigots who just left their white sheets home 'cause it's September and it's too hot to wear 'em." You know that, too.

But there damn well ought to be some surrogates in the administration who CAN get out there and make the case that this is really all about race, that some of it is economic but it really goes back to the emotional inability to give up white skin privilege.

They don't want their taxes to go to welfare/healthfare, because they believe most of teh people on welfare are black or brown. At the same time, they don't mind (so much) if their tax dollars go to bailout the bankers 'cause most of the bankers are white men, and white men are supposed to be privileged.

They "support the troops" because they see the military as over there in Eye-rack and Afaghanistan kicking brown butt. They don't have a concept of the military as comprising black and brown and white and male and female and gay and straight and jewish and christian and muslim and pagan. To them, the military is John Wayne and Tom Cruise and Audie Murphy and Alvin York. It's nice white boys, just like the nice white boys who defended the Confederacy.

They're devout fundamentalist christians because the church gives them the answers they find comforting. Jesus loves them, but he doesn't necessarily love anyone else. They don't have to think, they don't have to ask questions. And if they ask, the answers are always there, always unchanging. They don't like change. It frightens them. They like things to stay the same. Women should be women, and men should be men. Everyone knows their place, and that means white folks are supposed to be better than "those folks." 'Cause it's always been that way and it shouldn't never change. If it wasn't supposed to be that way, God wouldn't have made it that way.

They're anti-abortion because havin' babies it what God made women to do. Challenging God's plan is very frightening to them. You can't even try to explain to them than judaism and its "laws" came out of nomadic tribal society that lived in a very different and much smaller world than ours. (You can tell people not to at pork because they could get sick and die, but there will always be those who will think it's going to happen to them; but if you tell them God told them not to eat the flesh of pigs because they're unclean animals and if you back of God's wrath with social ostracism, it's a whole lot more effective and it keeps your tribe from losing a few idiots to food poisoning and trichinosis every few years.)

They're afraid of losing their place in the world. They've had a certain amount of social mobility removed from their desires because their own hierarchy needs to maintain its status quo. They're allowed only so much hope for upward mobility, but they're kept terrified of downward mobility. (it's a sign of God's displeasure with them). And so they see anyone who tries to come from beneath them and go above them as an horrible threat, a sign that not only does God not favor them but that he favors someone else more, someone who used to be lower than they.

Am I making any sense? I'm trying to distill so many concepts into one post and it's difficult, and I know I'm missing things.

But the point is that these are not people with whom a dialogue is even possible. They are 20% or maybe even only 10% who are beyond reason. But there is still another 20% who are on the edge, and they are the ones with whom the dialogue must be initiated. The 10%ers, they should be simply tuned out. Ignored. They should not be given any legitimacy by the media, and the media should be called out on it. I know that's not going to happen, because I know they have a self-sustaining media in Faux and Limbaugh and Murdoch and all the rest.

They are racists, and they are making so much noise and making so many threats that they have bullied the rest of us into submission. They are the willing executioners of the insurance companies' policies of denial of coverage and outrageous premiums and even more outrageous executive salaries. It's not because those people believe the insurers are acting in their best interest; it's that they don't believe their best interest matters. What matters is the system, the very system that takes unfair advantage of them. And we can't get them to understand that.

We want to, and we try to, but it never works. And so we have to take a lesson from Lee Iacocca and just tell them to get out of the way.


Tansy Gold

"They're afraid of losing their place in the world." Here I felt you getting close to some visceral issues that DO NOT just apply to the 20%... Lemme mull a bit. Catch up with you later. :hi:

And I do think ALL of us are afraid of losing our place in the world, but the difference is that "they" feel entitled to theirs and they feel any threat to it from below is less a measure of their own personal failings than a warning from either God (of his displeasure) or Satan (of his generally evil intent).

So it's one thing to have a rational fear and it's quite another when the fear is irrational. A rational fear can be deal with rationally; an irrational fear can only look for a scapegoat.

For example, I have no health insurance and I have pre-existing conditions that put private insurance out of my financial reach. I have too many assets and too much income to qualify for Medicaid. So I'm on my own. Therefore, I am very much in favor of a single-payer program that phases out most of private insurance and phases in a tax-payer funded system similar to those of Canada and other "civilized" countries. I can also do my best to maintain my health until I do qualify for Medicare.

An acquaintance who is similarly situated is far less afraid of his own lack of insurance and his health concerns because he is desperately afraid that his taxes -- he pays very little because he has very little income, owns no property, often can't even afford to buy gas for his aging pick-up -- will fund some other person's health care. And Holy God forbid that that person be black or brown or even cafe au lait. From his taxes going to pay either for all their abortions and killing all the precious unborn babies or for them having one ********* baby after another (depending on whether he's drinking tequila or beer), he immediately extrapolates a fear that they're going to come and take his guns. He can't think his way through the fact that his drunk driving convictions are putting him cloe to felony conviction and then it would be HIS OWN ACTIONS that resulted in loss of his guns (one of which he carries in his truck at all times).

The paradox, of course, is that it's all about him -- he can never put himself in anyone else's perspective -- and at the same time everything he does is in his own worst interest.

And that's so far beyond even remotely rational that he can't be reasoned with. Lack of reasoning ability leaves his vulnerable to the social dominators -- especially the charismatic preachers, who give them all the answers, all the reassurances, and get them to put all their trust in their imaginary friend Jesus.

The terrifying thing is that people like him are walking and driving the streets of every community. And they are dangerous.


Tansy Gold, who isn't

The whole thing rests on the inability of these/those people to integrate information. Whether it's because they don't have the native intelligence to do so is one thing, but for the most part it's a psychological refusal.

The birthers are the perfect example.

They are all hot and bothered about a Kenyan birth certificate. They are all hot and bothered about a Kenyan father.

They can't digest the fact that neither is relevant. By having an American mother, Obama was born an American citizen. It doesn't matter where. it doesn't matter who his father was.

Barry Goldwater was born before Arizona was a state; it was merely a territory. After a little bit of discussion, his candidacy was accepted with hardly a protest. Same with John McCain. But the ultimate legal definition is not WHERE they were born but WHO THEIR PARENTS WERE. And it only takes one parent to make a child a natural-born citizen. END OF DEBATE.

This doesn't even enter into the birther debate. They can't integrate the information. THEY ARE NOT RATIONAL.

I am, and I have work to do.



Tansy Gold

Indeed. Glenn Beck thinks Obama is a racist and has a "deep seated hatred for white people"

So, Obama, Glenn thinks, has a deep seated hatred for his Mother and his Grandmother who raised him.

Interesting.

Tells us more about Beck than Obama.

Swami P. called it, "poking the honeycomb of understanding." I so often want to reply but I'm just.so.tired. of engaging those whose denial overwhelms their common sense. That is, if there were any to be had having the power to put the visceral stuff on the table. What I see happening from across the Big Pond, in the land of my birth, is just.so.painful. I look for ways that I can disengage emotionally.

I've been on the "bleeding edge" since integrating the elementary school on the south shore below the MD line. ;-) My dad was a shrink and I remember asking him if racism should be a part of that diagnostic book he'd talked to me about. He doubled over laughing.

Thank you TansyG for your contributions to this thread. You must be a cipher or something. I think that's the best analysis of the "Moran" mindset i've ever read. I wish i was better at typing... maybe i could wrangle my thoughts better and put something as lengthy and coherent as this together someday. I tend toward poetry though, hence oblique references and concise wording. Cheers.

:)

He's got money for booze and guns?

Yes, he has money for booze and guns, because those are more important to him than other things. Like rent, groceries, dog food.

I don't know who he thinks pays for his ER visits -- and I'm not really sure he ever goes to the ER. It wouldn't make any difference, because he doesn't think rationally. I tried, on several occasions, to "reason" with him, when he was drunk and when he was sober, and although he was more violent and abusive when drunk, he was no more rational when he was sober. After he threatened to beat me to a pulp, I refused to go anywhere near him again. Last I heard, he had joined a christian commune in Kansas.

These people do not think the way we do. They cannot see the contradictions between being against paying for abortions for poor (read, black) women and being against paying for them to have their babies and then paying for the babies via welfare and/or being against paying for them to get borth control which might be used by unmarried women to have sex without consequences which is a sin. They put each of these concepts in its own little box and it doesn't touch any of the others.


"Are you against paying for abortions for poor women?"

"Yes. Abortion is murder!"

"So you would rather pay for their prenatal care and labor and delivery in a hospital?"

"No! Why should I have to pay for them to have one illegitimate kid after another? Then they got half a dozen of 'em on welfare!"

"So would you be willing to pay for them to get free birth control?"

"No! Birth control is like abortion! It might be killing unborn babies! And women were made to have babies, it's what god made them for."

Well, I'll let you imagine the rest.

They can't wrap their heads around two ideas at the same time and see the paradox. It's the same with inheritance tax and self-reliance. Inherited wealth without taxation is anathema to the protestant work ethic. But they can't see that.

That's why it does no good to even try. If you give it a whirl and it doesn't work, don't drive yourself insane trying to convert them. Let them go. Step back, walk away, do not compromise with them, do not grant concessions. Walk away and leave them be.


But don't turn your back on them. They're dangerous.



Tansy Gold

but I certainly don't mind SHARING it. The 9/12'ers don't even want to share.

You've really captured it.

:hi:

Reminds me of a sappy little thing I read in Reader's Digest a couple hundred years ago.

The difference between heaven and hell --


Hell is a place where everyone sits at a huge banquet table that's overflowing with the most marvelous food of all kinds. But everyone's hands end in long spoons, so long that when they bend their arms, the spoons don't reach their mouths. In the midst of all this food, everyone starves.

At first glance, heaven is identical. The banquet table is covered with every imaginable delicacy. And the diners' hands end in spoons too long to reach their mouths. So they happily feed each other.





Tansy Gold

there are many wonderful, insightful posts in this thread, and this is definitely one of them :toast:

over come it with reason.

overcome their fears with reason. You just plain can't.

It's sort of like Obama trying to placate the pukes in congress with all his "concessions" on health care. If he proposed a plan that was 100% mandated health insurance from the existing companies at rates they themselves set, the pukes wouldn't accept it. They could turn around the very next day and propose the same thing themselves and they would not ever ever ever admit it was the same thing.

The more intelligent of them, which probably includes a portion of the political elites, knows exactly what they are doing, and they don't care, because they see themselves as entitled to their position. Once again, anyone who hasn't read Bob Altemyer's "The Authoritarian," just find it on the google and READ IT NOW. You'll understand a lot more.

I sent a friend the link to the Altemyer book and she read it in a single day. Her response: "Now I know why I've never been able to get through to my dad. No matter what, no matter how much information I give him, he just can't see it. Now I know it's all been a wasted effort."

Sad, but true.

The thing is, and I probably haven't made this clear in my numerous disjointed rants, is that there ARE moderates and independents and middle-of-the-roaders who are not brainless, who can be reasoned with. They're the ones we should be talking to, not wasting our time on the 10-20% who will NEVER get it.


Tansy Gold, who needs to get supper.

That's not racism? The birthers? Same thing. The deathers are just stupid.

I am going to steal that concept from this post.

I think you hit the nail on the head; the reality of this reaction is in the wild irrationality of the tea-bags. There is no logic to it, just pure emotion, and that emotion is fear.

I was reading up on the Ku Klux Klan the other day, reminding myself of the second re-birth era in the 1910s and 1920s, when they had their peak of popularity. They remade themselves as a nativist organization, not only anti-black, but very anti-Catholic, Jewish, immigrant, and any other person perceived as the other. They had a peak membership of about 3 million then.

They even marched in Washington in 1925. This is where the tea-baggers want to go.

http://www.shorpy.com/node/5572

For the Klan's vitriol? All of those groups might get something that they wanted for themselves.

Like a job.

Like - The Ultimate Job in America.


They just can't stand the fact that a Black Man - Bi-Racial at that - earned by virtue of his character, intelligence, and integrity THE Ultimate Job in the US.

"The Ku Klux Klan - A Secret History" on the History Channel. It's very instructive.

those other lazy/scary/brown/whatever people are gonna take so much they think they won't have 'enough'

it's absolutely tragic

another excellent essay Bright, thanks

:hi:

to vividly remember the days of "Whites Only," school segregation, back-of-the-bus-please, separate-but-equal, rednecked racists. I enlisted in a segregated U.S. Army, and was threatened, and called a "ni---r" lover for hanging out with black guys from my home state of California because I had absolutely nothing in common with the "South Will Rise Again" assholes. I have been in a "mixed-race" marriage for 50-years (next year), and here in Hawaii no one has EVER mentioned the fact that I am white.

Racists? Of course they exist! They are plentiful, but are dwindling in number with each passing generation. The world is becoming more of a community, and it's newest inhabitants are seeing the error of their parents' irrational hatred and fear based on nothing but beliefs and skin color.

Of course, as long as there are religious bigots, racism will remain as one of their most visible by-products.

needs any other "bigotry" religious or otherwise, to exist.

could you explain why almost every "white-supremacist" hate group also claims Christianity as their "religion," and includes "Jews" among those they choose to single out for hatred? The KKK, the Aryan Nation, and Neo-Nazism, all profess to be on missions from some lilly-white, racist, God.

and I'm NOT singling out the Fundamentalist variety, is the majority religion.

My "majority christian" by the way, includes Mainstream Protestants and Catholics. I mention Catholics because because they were one of the "targets" of the original KKK and, they are not now viewed by the Fundies as "Christian".

Point: Given the demographics of this country, any crackpot Amrican group is going to be, more likely than not, White and "Christian".

all that you've stated, but there is no denying that racism and radical fundamentalist religious bigotry (Christianity, Islam, Judaism) go hand-in-hand, and always have. I realize that atheists can also be racists, as can members of any other belief (or non-belief) system. Religion, or other belief systems are NOT a "requirement" for racism, and most truly spiritual people are neither racists, nor bigots.

My point is that racist groups often use (I can't think of one which doesn't) a religion (pick one) as an excuse for their anti-social behavior, and their hatred of other races and beliefs. At times, racism is just a by-product of a religious group. Most antebellum "mainstream religious" Southerners sincerely believed that it was their God-given right to own slaves, and their "mainstream religious" descendants believed that it was their God-given right to have segregated communities, school systems, public facilities, etc.

The fundamentalist American faux-Christian ministers who support and preach hatred of Muslims, Jews, homosexuals, and yes even African-American Presidents, are no better than the faux-Islamic Mullahs who call for a Jihad against all infidels.

To sum up, not all (or even most) Christians are racist, but many radical and fundamentalist off-shoots of Christianity, and their followers, are. Racism and bigotry are just different terms for the same thing: fear and hatred of our fellow citizens' differences.

Religion is simply divisive. Doesn't have to be Christian. Religion feeds racism. And lots of other prejudices as well. Gays, women....


BTW... there's nothing faux about it.

preaches and espouses hatred, is a faux-Christian in the eyes of most sincere followers of Jesus. You can call them what you want, but "false Prophets" seem to be a popular topic throughout the history of Christianity. Most followers of Islam and Judaism hold similar views about those who preach hatred.

I'm not exactly sure how I rattled your cage, but I don't believe that I've disagreed with anything that you've posted. If I have somehow offended you, I sincerely apologize, as that was never my intent. I am not an atheist, and do not believe that religion is inherently "evil," but neither am I a big fan of organized religion, or the "selfish and vengeful God" theory.

I have firsthand knowledge of the "snake handling" extremists of Christianity who also come from generations of racists and bigots, so I know that they exist in all of their ignorant, arrogant, indignant, and self-righteous hypocrisy. My maternal Grandmother had a KKK outfit tucked away in her "ceder chest," and was (in her mind) both a devout Christian, AND a soldier in the fight against the "black menace," which were NOT separate causes -- to her and her generation. My parents, although not members of the KKK, were very vocal racists, Republicans, and professed Christians, and were a constant source of embarrassment during my early years.

So, once again, if my ramblings have somehow offended you, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Aloha,
Bill

not simple...Like most people, their track record and place in cultures around the world is more complicated than that. Like human beings, most are neither all good nor all bad..Some are better/worse than others.

I see Greed and Power-lust doing as much, if not more, evil as religion.

Religion can do harm, but it can (and does) do good as well...Do you have any idea how many charity, how much help for the poor, is funded by religious groups of all kinds?

Sorry, but I'm not going with another religion-bashing thread.:eyes:

and white supremacy. that explains why some of the hate groups also claim to be christian: it's traditional.

Hitler infused Nazism with liberal doses of "Christianity" in order to sell his neat little package of racism and bigotry all tied up with a "patriotic" string. Sound familiar? And not only the Jews were targets -- just look at Jesse Owens, and other unfortunate "ethnic Africans."

American wannabe Nazis are no different.

Extremist Muslims use the Koran to justify killing "infidels"...What else is new?

BTW, Did you know that the Jews of Jesus time owned slaves?...Don't know if they used their religion to "justify" this or not. :shrug:

the american slave trade and white supremacy. but, as you mention, some churches were at the forefront of the abolitionist and civil rights movements. their are many traditions in this country.

Thank you for such a well thought out, articulate piece on the matter. I was very disturbed to hear Donna Brazile on CNN this morning poo pooing the suggestion that racism has nothing to do with what's going on in the country today. I rather respect Donna and feel she is dead on on a lot of issues but on this one she was either trying to be "politically polite" or still asleep! This most certainly has been and continues to be about racism and it saddens me greatly that while we have come so far we still have so far left to go... I have to believe however, that the "fringe" folks who are perpetuating this ugliness do so at their own peril.

with my younger sister who can't give a convincing explanation of her sudden political awakening.

Tonight's installment:

However, I will go back to my original arguments: Point me to a "citizens group" funding this bowel movement, and I'll provide the names of the corporations or wealthy individuals funding it and, the old standby, "where were you when BushCo* was doing all of the above and then some?" All this talk of Nazis and a communist takeover falls flat when it was Dick and Georgie who used every play in the Nazi playbook to denounce anyone who opposed their agenda (Bill Maher, The Dixie Chicks, Dan Rather, Joe Wilson, etc...) while claiming The Constitution is "just a piece of paper" - one which they seem to have wiped their asses with on a regular basis. When corporations own the government, it's "FASCISM", not Nationalist Socialism. And while you're looking up "fascism", take a gander at "nationalism" and "patriotism". There is a difference.

If it's not the fact that there's a black man in the WH, or even the fact that he's a Democrat, please enlighten me. The Republicans were in the majority in Congress from 1993-2006, and they held the Presidency for six of those years. Specifically, the six years when the national debt more than doubled, taxes on the wealthiest 1% were drastically cut, investigations into those who funded the attacks of 9/11 were quashed (I'll give you a hint: Saudi Arabia) and any regulation of banking and the stock marked ended. In short, all the major components of the financial crisis.

It would be impossible for any new administration, especially a Democratic administration, to wrack up a ten trillion dollar debt in only nine months. That's simply the bill we accumulated during the period you and your spankin' new contacts weren't paying attention to politics.

Why is it such a big deal NOW?

If you were, in fact, getting your information from those evil, socialist history books instead of Rush and Glenn, we wouldn't still be having this argument.

And they were almost always preceeded by the words, "I'm not racist, but . . ."

And she believed and still believes that she is not racist.

that's k & r to you and me

So they are crawling out of the woodwork to let loose something they have had to suppress for so long.

...it infuriates me to read posts about 'rednecks' and the like; pure, unadulterated racism, and it has no place in civil discourse. Thank you for bringing this up.

I don't remember any candidate, Republican or Democrat, subjected to this much scrutiny. That said, the nutjobs wouldn't know what to think if Fox News didn't tell them.

Hello! Clinton and his penis!

Still, even though we spent 75 million on that, and Hillary killed Vince Foster before she decorated the White House Christmas tree with crack pipes.... And patriot militia members blew up kids in a day care center in OK..... And the evil government made David Koresh and is Christian followers fulfill their prophecy.... it STILL wasn't like this. It feels different.

What kind of black man would Repugs accept in the White House? Clarence Thomas?

But they still never called (at least not en masse) Clinton a Communist Fascist dictator that would be the end of our country, nor do I remember the Right pushing for his assassination.

The health Insurance corporations are afraid they will lose their honey pot. And the other corporations are seeing this and they too are afraid they may lose their power.

But how to appeal to the people? The corporations don't employ many American citizens anymore. They have a few, but most of their workers are other brown people in foreign lands, getting paid such low wages that Americans refuse the jobs. CEOs like Bill Gates sometimes con a few brown skin people to the US through HB-1 visas but congress keeps those numbers fairly small and they don't vote. So corporations can't depend on their workers to vote them into power anymore. The vast majority of Americans who vote no longer align themselves with corporatist interests.

So how to convince the average person, who has no interest in the slowly dissolving corporate world of elitism and abuse, to defend their greedy goals? The corporations can't tell the common man the truth. The CEO can't say don't support your President because he will reduce the amount of power and wealth I get from you.

So, instead he throws out the racism card, stokes up the fear of those who are different. Points out how if the abused black man gets his way, why he'll turn on his masters like an angry dog. That black people will take their revenge against any white person, not just the corporatist who make billions off poor blacks, hispanics, brown skinned or undocumented workers.

The corporations funnel some of their huge profits into Fox Noise, Limpballs, Hannity and astroturf groups. They stir up the racists because it is their last card. The CEO is clinging to the edge of the toilet. He has one last chance of keeping his thrown. The racism card will keep him from swirling down into the toilet.

Instead of all the poor and powerless people joining together to overthrow the elite who have destroyed this country, they are busy fighting among themselves. And the CEO stokes the fear, ignorance and racism. He has to keep them at each other's throats, in order to keep from being attacked himself.

If it's no about racism, why did psychotic Glen Beck call our 1st black President a racist? He's being paid (under the table no doubt because he's losing his advertisers right and left) by corporations to stir up the fear of revenge in racist America.

Can't you just see the CEO of United Health Group leaning back, lighting his $100 cigar and watching how the ignorant fools called Teabaggers dance for him. He thinks of them as fools. But very useful fools who are so easily manipulated.

I think Obama has had some missteps but this over the top foaming at the mouth crap by the teabagger crowds is definitely more to do with Obama being a black Democrat than simply a Democrat.

After all, President Clinton drove them crazy too. But the fact that Obama is not a member of the "master race" has undoubtedly turned their amp up to 11.

n/t

This is a LTTE that I wrote after a local candlelight vigil was disrupted by threats of violence and the boycotting of the businessman that gave them permission to use his property.


Once again a small number of local residents have managed to demonstrate that Altoona needs no assistance to embarrass itself.

When a peaceful candlelight vigil was scheduled to highlight the need for Health Care Reform in this country, a few clueless and cowardly individuals managed to once again demonstrate their disdain of compassion and understanding. These cowards used the time honored tradition of the threat of violence and retaliation against a local business owner for allowing the truth to be told. Here’s a radical suggestion for these cowards; stop treating knowledge as an anathema. I can’t blame Mr. Morris for the change of heart when he was concerned about the possibility of violence by these intolerant and non-informed people. I do of course use the term people rather loosely when their solution to everything is violence. The disgusting aspect of this is that although I’m sure that they will deny it, a large part of this is most likely racially motivated. I don’t remember hearing this much outrage against the previous administration and their decision to invade, occupy and murder the citizens of two countries which posed no threat to the US. Of course, the people in those countries were Asian so that makes it acceptable to these cowards. Last November, the people of this country gave overwhelming support to the idea that Barack Obama was the right person to lead this country out of the abyss created by the Chickenhawk reign of error led by Cheney and Bush. Part of his plan is to allow Americans to actually have access to affordable healthcare like most civilized countries have done for years. By the way, for the record; the US was ranked as having the 37th best healthcare system in the last survey by the World Health Organization. Now why would people be against improving that? Well first of all, President Obama doesn’t look like most of the people around here so that’s a reason for concern. That’s probably why a lot of these inane ideas like Death Panels were able to gain traction despite the fact that there is no such thing mentioned in any of the proposed plans.

The only death panels are the ones already in use by the Health Insurance companies who are able to deny life-saving procedures and drugs in order to pad the already obscene compensation packages of their top executives. What does it matter to them that thousands of people die each year because of their avaricious behavior, after all, these aren’t their family members or loved ones. They’re just another new Mercedes or a new cottage in the Hamptons as far as they’re concerned.

So go ahead and feel oh so proud of yourselves for stopping a peaceful vigil with your intolerance. In your own twisted little minds, I’m sure that you consider yourselves far more important than the truth.

was it printed? did anybody learn from it?

this is what is discouraging to me. the willful ignorance. they may as well be sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling "nonny nonny nonny i can't hear you!" so intent they are on remaining ignorant of the facts. when all reason has failed - really it has to be racism underlying much of this hatred and vitriol, because it does not make sense. just like racism doesn't make sense. at least the sense for the CEO's is apparent; they don't want to lose their cash cow. but the everyday citizens, no, it must be and certainly is an issue of intractable and deplorable racism.

The paper called the other day to ask if they could print it and I had to say no. My wife was afraid that it would cause her problems at work and since I've been out of work for over a year, we really need her income and insurance coverage. It really bothers me that I chickened out, but I didn't know what else to do. I deserve any nasty remarks that I get for admitting this. Next time I'll have to run it by her first.
The link is for what got me so upset in the first place for reference purposes.


http://www.altoonamirror.com/page/content.detail/id/522184.html?nav=742

But otherwise...good work!

Remember, Iraq is Mesopotamia....where WESTERN civilization began.

Yeah they are Asian. Not oriental, but Asian, all the same. Southwest Asian.

I realize that some people don't consider that part of the Middle East as being in Asia, but I was using the World Atlas designation. The whole Asian Subcontinent aspect is confusing but I did make sure that my facts were correct.

geography, see this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Asia

And for some insight into the terms "Eurocentric," and "Cradle of Civilization," (as in ALL civilizations) see this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopotamia

And lastly, for the origins of "Western Civilization," (the remnants of Greece and the Roman Empire) see this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world

They might not think it's racism but then again, they think freedom is synonymous with christian fundamentalism. These people are so deluded its amazing.

This is wingnuttery in the 21st century.

It doesn't have to be rascism. It could just be hate, rooted in fear and self-loathing.

But a good rant all the same.

Obama is half white.

that's what they're saying, anyway.

" hates white people".

What about Obama's mother, genius?

What an idiot!

i was in LA when the Simi Valley jury came back with acquittals for the policemen who had beaten Rodney King to a pulp. i knew it was about race, and that it was racism. and on that afternoon, almost nine months pregnant, knowing my city was about to erupt in a very ugly way, i made a decision. i would never again claim, "i am not a racist." because i knew that if asked every one of those jurors would claim, "i'm not a racist," but their decision was clearly racist, which meant that their denials were lies, even if they were lies they believed themselves.

my mother used to make the same claim. "i'm not a racist, i just think they should stay in their place and we should stay in ours. i'm not a racist, but if you marry a black man i will disown you."

i deplore racism. i have done my level best to raise my children to not so engage. but i will never claim, "i am not a racist," because what if i am? if i can plainly see that so many people who are racists cannot recognize it in themselves, i cannot be content that it might not be me as well. and my personal belief is that this insidious, veiled racism that refuses to acknowledge itself is perhaps the most dangerous form of racism of all. because it is infectious and it masquerades as reason, and because it goes unacknowledged and unrecognized, it's like a bacteria or a cancer, multiplying and growing unchecked.

thank you for an important post. i believe that many here on DU might gain from reading it, and i hope so. i know i have.

The name of the book was "NO SANCTUARY"; I've got it at home and don't remember the author's name, but it is a book about lynching photography. Many of the photographs are as recent as the early late 30's. In one picture, it showed a hanging black man with a group of school girls around him, one of them smiling up at him with her hands crossed at the wrist in an imitation of the man who had his hands bound. The pictures of the victims were horrendous enough, but what really horrified me, was the faces of the white mobs. No remorse. Even a festive atmosphere as children were hoisted on the shoulders of parents to watch the spectacle. Some were burned beyond recognition while a photo was taken and sent to a friend with a caption, "here is a picture of the barbeque I went to last weekend." Some of these peope, like those little girls surrounding that hanged victim might even be alive now. They looked liked they were maybe 9 or 10 years old. They probably poisoned their own children with their hate. And as I stated in an earlier posting, the Neo-Nazis at Stormfront.org have a tea party link on the top left side of their web page that informs them of times and dates of tea parties. It's members also talk about their successes at recruiting and handing out their material, although they also talk about being turned away by organizers fearful of being painted as "racist"!

:yourock:

:bounce:

:kick:

Sing it, scream it, do whatever it takes to make it be heard!

I understand that ethnic tribalism, from an anthropological standpoint, was necessary for our forbears to survive, BUT FUCKING EVOLVE ALREADY!
Racism is the refuge of those who have not learnt that 'survival of the fittest' does not mean survival of the bully; it is about those who are most able to adapt to their surroundings.
I was raised by 'proud' southerners who wore their racism as a badge of honor: my own mixed racial heritage was not discussed, as if by ignoring the Cherokee and African ancestors they would be expunged from the genetic record. Mind you, I say this as a Gen-Xer!
We cannot allow race to leave the discourse because it is so very much a part of it.
In their eyes, silence is consent.

:grr:
P.s. An apology for the abuse of the exclamation point and caps lock.

Gypsy blood until I was in my 40's and the older generation was dying off.

A certain amout was of this was surival. If you read about the history of the early part of the 1900's with the eugenics movement in the US, the klan, etc. it's sorta understandable. You could be locked in a mental ward and sterilized because your inferior blood might taint the white gene pool. Our US eugenics movement morphed into the german nazi one, supported by all our best and brightest like IBM.

Of course, 'passing for white' also bestowed certain social distinctions that aided survival for the most part.

On the other hand, some of it WAS and IS intolerance, often illogical and passed thru the generations. Hell my mom (from and old Beacon Hill Boston WASP family) denied there was any Irish in us kids for the longest time although it turns out my father's family was mostly just that. We always heard about her ancestry and none about our father's; until just a few years ago.

My youngest sister is a white supremacist. I have no idea whether she knows about our family and buries the knowledge, or refused to hear it in the first place. I find it ironic that she (and myself) would have been sent to the camps for our non-white blood within x-number generations had we lived in nazi germany.


Yeah evolution would be nice about now wouldn't it? :shrug:

it seems appropriate here.

ON HATE AND RETRIBUTION

It's pretty natural to hate certain people for what they have done. I think a majority of people of my political stripe would admit to hating Rove, Bush, Cheney, and a lot of other members of the recently departed Administration. We want them to be brought to justice: we want them tried, convicted, and given some sort of harsh punishment.

I have been thinking a lot about this hate thing lately. For starters, I notice that I don't do my mind, my body, or my spirit much good by hating. Hate is a corrosive emotion, and I have seen people become progressively more twisted by hate over time. I don't want to become like that.

The Hopi, I am told, have a very different world-view than ours. If someone commits a very heinous crime, they see the offense as proof that the perpetrator is spiritually sick, and they hold healing ceremonies for the criminal. To them the situation is obvious: the person has done something that no normal, mentally and spiritually healthy person could have done. Therefore there is a terrible defect within the person that it is the business of the healers to remedy.

For the past few years, and for an unforeseeable time into the future, military and mercenary fighters have been and will be coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan, and many--maybe most--will be very injured. The preponderance of the injuries will be subtle and hard to detect. There will be very many brain injuries, that only sophisticated medical and neuropsychological testing can detect. There will be the emotional sequelae of trauma. Not just classic PTSD, but a whole range of what are coming to be called Disorders of Extreme Stress (not yet in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, now in its fourth edition, but watch for it in DSM-V). And there will be something else--something that we saw in a number of Vietnam vets, but which I think will be endemic in the Middle East returnees. It doesn't have a name yet, and there will be great efforts from officialdom to deny its very existence. For lack of a better name, I will simply call it Spiritual Sickness. It is the product of long-held guilt. For some, the guilt will be due to having killed a child who was mistaken for an armed enemy. For others, the guilt will be from deliberate acts of cruelty and inhumanity like those we know of from Abu Ghraib.

Even as you read this, our land is being populated by increasing numbers of people whose injuries of body, mind and spirit will create severe problems for generations to come. Some of them will be emotionally unstable and dangerous. Others will simply be unable to hold jobs. Many will drift into addictions to whatever substances or behaviors they can find to blunt their physical and emotional miseries.

Our immediate response will, no doubt, be the same as it has always been in the past. We will deny the existence of their injuries so that we don't have to pay to treat and support them. We will build more jails and prisons for them. We will perhaps find ways to make more use of the death penalty.

Would it not be better to learn from the Hopi? Let us treat our veterans with compassion, recognizing that, if some of them have become monsters, they did not ask to be made into such creatures. Let us try to heal them, and if we can't heal them completely, let us find ways to care for them humanely and provide for their needs.

But in order to take this path, we must give up something. We must give up our hate.

And that, you see, is the rub.

I believe, with the Hopi, that people who commit monstrous behaviors do so out of a spiritual sickness. I believe that is true in every case. I think this principle applies no less to George Bush than it does to Lynndie England.

Surely we must protect ourselves from those whose disorders render them dangerous. Again, this is no less true of a George Bush than of a Jeffrey Dahmer. But, while providing for our own safety, we must treat our damaged people with generosity and compassion. In the land of an Eye for an Eye, everyone ends up blind; however, we are about to enter a time in world history in which we will need every bit of vision we can muster.

And yes, I remember the birth of the Civil Rights Movement well.

Those same tapes are being played ,again.
This time, there are attempts to thinly disguise the racism,
as the naked truth is too ugly to admit to.

Often you see it in the criticism of Obama.

" I don't like where he's from"
( "he wasn't born in the US")
" I don't like where he was educated"

" He started ACORN!!"

i.e. - they have NOTHING!

Thank you for this excellent post!

:)

Explicit racism needs to be confronted.

But what about unconscious racism? The person who is an unconscious racist needs to first recognize that they are that way. But the way our society is dealing with racism is to punish the explicit racist, and drive the unconscious racist toward either denial or explicit status. It seems to me that, in practice, this leads to folks increasing their denial of their unconscious racism because of a real or perceived danger to their status either at work or in society.

Losing your job for an unconsciously racist statement doesn't happen often, but there are high-profile examples that the media, with its right-wing bias, usually highlights. I remember a college coach fired 8-10 years ago for a statement that he repudiated and apologized for immediately - he otherwise (as far as the accounts I read) had an exemplary career of fairness. Maybe people remember a case where a person was fired from their post (although they were later reinstated) for using the word "niggardly", a word which comes from a northern European language (Norwegian) and means miserly - it has no etymological relationship with the n-word. These examples are promoted by the right wing, to increase fear of "political correctness."

Unfortunately, the way we deal with unconscious racism is, I think, actually promoting a lack of self-awareness. If a right-winger realizes he or she has unconscious racist beliefs, they interpret it as a threat, something to be repressed. In the long run, this doesn't help, the person encourages themselves to avoid self-awareness.

From a point of view of society, too, it seems to me, revelations of unconscious racism that result in remorse and contrition might better be treated as forgivable offenses. This would have the danger of pretended remorse becoming a cover for explicit racism, but would promote self-awareness. The explicit racist isn't likely to enjoy the remorse cover very much, I don't think.

It is impossible to grow up in America and not be tainted by racism. At some point we all have to gain some self-awareness and decide that we will no longer respond to that programming we received from relatives/friends/media/etc. that told us to fear the "other."

As they say down South: we have to "rise above our raisin'" In other words, we have to learn to discard those old beliefs about people not-like-us and replace that old programming with a new one of inclusion and understanding that no matter who they are, they are just like us.

The teabaggers and the like are responding to that old programming they haven't excised yet. For them their expressions of racism are almost a response from the reptilian part of their brain upon seeing "the other" in power. That doesn't mean they aren't responsible for their actions but it is all about fear.

That's my point. Ideally, people would be encouraged to confess their unconscious racism, so that they could get over it. Being harsh on racism without making the distinction between conscious and unconscious racism actually, I think, makes the situation worse. It enforces their fear focus, and they react by increasing their self-repression.

At least that's the way I see it.

but until such time, they need to be called out on their shit and have their racism pointed out to them. Maybe a few will actually start to think.

At the absolute least, I sincerely try to. If you are a decent human being, I will do my level best to treat you as such.

you mean, and I believe that you are sincere. I need to point out, however, that the statement: "If you are a decent human being, I will do my level best to treat you as such" implies the qualifier regardless of your_____________(fill in the label -- race, religion, ethnicity...) That is an example of unintended, and "unconscious racism."

I believe that too often, the need to articulate that one is not a racist (or any other "-ist") is a sign of uncertainty. The old saw that "actions speak louder than words," applies in many social situations more often than not.

While I understand the differences in areas of the country, and the treatment of people varies, but it's long time past to quit looking at everything through the race glasses. Not to say there are not times that is it true, and should be brought to light.

But to a large extent, it is time to look at events, treatment, and response on their own conditions.

A thief is still a thief no matter his race, a good person is a good person again no matter his race.

My experience has shown me that to judge people by their actions, and character is the only true test.

To look at everything through a racist outlook only makes that person a racist themselves because they cannot see past it.

So, while you look at race, I look to see what a person does and acts like to determine if I can trust them, like them, call them a friend or enemy.

The sooner we all can do this, the better off the world would be.

and if you show yourself to be one I'm done with you.

Now I know there are people who think that it is possible to be a racist and still be a good person.

It's complete bullshit.

And BTW, you make no sense talking about looking at everything through a racist outlook makes you a racist. Recognizing racism is a SURVIVAL skill and the racist by definition has a racist outlook. So your sentence makes no sense. Pretending that racism isn't out there does not serve the greater good at all. Or are those who are the victims of racism not allowed to expect it to be ameliorated? (Which cannot be done if we pretend not to see it)

it's still racism whether you like it or not.

perfect example of "ignore it, and it will go away." The last sentence in your first paragraph ("Not to say there are not times...") is the entire point of this thread. This IS one of those times, this IS one of those places in our history, and we ARE bringing overt racism and bigotry to light. The Civil Rights movement is far from over, and to allow naysayers to silence us at this juncture would be a crime.

All of the tired and worn cliches that you followed that sentence with have been said, written, and sung about, since before the Civil War. Yet we have still not reached a point in this nation where it is "long past time to quit looking" at racism and bigotry through "race" glasses, or even a magnifying glass.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30876593/ns/us_news-race_and_ethnicity/

Although much of the discussion on DU concerning racism centers around President Obama, and his African-American ancestry, racism against Latinos, Arabs, Asians, and other minorities and ethnicities in America, is rising at a pace not seen since the 60s.

all along. It didn't take them any time at all to come out from under the rocks either.

Rush Limbaugh's "I want him to fail" diabtribe on the radio many months ago was the start of the entire thing. Now they feel emboldened to come out during the day and say nasty things about Obama.

When healthcare could help them the most, the poor white unemployed folks.
Incredible.

Talk about voting against your own best interests.

To one reared in the Deep South and growing up in the sixties, the racism is painfully obvious. Those who point out the use of code words are on the right track. It's like a whole new sub-language developed in the early part of the decade, and it's still in use. If you grew up with it, if you watched it develop, you recognize it.

Plus, we can create all kinds of buzz words/phrases for it, and it fits in a nice little box. Let's go with it; it's WAY easier than actually debating these people.

Heard from a redneck woman on WLOS (Asheville) before Obama's speech to schools.

:thumbsup:

Thanks for the thread.

THIS is more of the level of public discourse we need. We're not going to cure this national ill by hiding our heads in the sand and letting the Wingnuts frame the debate.

:patriot:

What do you expect?

:wtf: is it with racism deniers? what possible reward do people get for denying the obvious, given the disgusting history of racism in this country? it truly boggles the mind, and i believe is a huge barrier to forging interracial coalitions. i am not going to be an ally to someone who denies my reality.

I totally agree with your words. I have thought almost exactly the same thing. What I am embarrassed about is all those behaviors and actions that I've seen being expressed (me a lily white babe) have always been there for our brothers and sisters of color and they have been living with it. Now it is directed toward a public figure and it is out there for everyone to see and "duh" I finally see it.
This is just not about health care. It is about power and it is about the end of power being held by only one skin color. The days of the white majority will be coming to an end. I am afraid it will not be a peaceful transition. If you live in any big city that's obvious; diversity is obvious. But if you get off of Interstate 80 in Iowa and travel 5 miles, the towns are still fairly one color-white. So the reality for those folks in the country is not the same as a city dweller. They still see themselves as the predominant color. And we have paid media clowns that are slowly throwing gasoline on the fire. I'm afraid it will not be pretty, but if we are to move ahead as a nation, it needs to be done.

What I am embarrassed about is all those behaviors and actions that I've seen being expressed (me a lily white babe) have always been there for our brothers and sisters of color and they have been living with it.

Now it is directed toward a public figure and it is out there for everyone to see and "duh" I finally see it.

Yes. Thank you.

Oh, ye playboys and playgirls
Ain't a-gonna run my world,
Ain't a-gonna run my world,
Ain't a-gonna run my world.
Ye playboys and playgirls
Ain't a-gonna run my world,
Not now or no other time.

You fallout shelter sellers
Can't get in my door,
Can't get in my door,
Can't get in my door.
You fallout shelter seller
Can't get in my door,
Not now or no other time.

Your Jim Crow ground
Can't turn me around,
Can't turn me around,
Can't turn me around.
Your Jim Crow ground
Can't turn me around,
Not now or no other time.

The laughter in the lynch mob
Ain't a-gonna do no more,
Ain't a-gonna do no more,
Ain't a-gonna do no more.
The laughter in the lynch mob
Ain't a-gonna do no more,
Not now or no other time.

You insane tongues of war talk
Ain't a-gonna guide my road,
Ain't a-gonna guide my road,
Ain't a-gonna guide my road.
You insane tongues of war talk
Ain't a-gonna guide my road,
Not now or no other time.

You red baiters and race haters
Ain't a-gonna hang around here,
Ain't a-gonna hang around here,
Ain't a-gonna hang around here.
You red baiters and race haters,
Ain't a-gonna hang around here,
Not now or no other time.

Ye playboys and playgirls
Ain't a-gonna own my world,
Ain't a-gonna own my world,
Ain't a-gonna own my world.
Ye playboys and playgirls,
Ain't a-gonna own my world,
Not now or no other time.

My brother and his wife were out shopping with my nephew. He is a beautiful baby who happens to be blond and blue eyed like my brother. They had stopped for ice cream and this man came up to them, and he said

"This country needs you to have more blonde blue eyed children like him!"

The worst part is that he "looked" normal but he was obviously a racist. They are much more common than we know and it is revolting!


And them he walked away

If you don't see the racism then you haven't listened to some of the hateful speech that has reared its ugly head!

I assume you mean the Far Left? I have been a voting Liberal Democrat since Eisenhower was president, and so far President Obama has met with most of my expectations. He still has much to do, and I will not agree with ALL of his decisions, but I will support him as best I can.

For those who expected a radical move to the left, and believed they heard that promise from Candidate Obama, it's called "projection." Candidate Obama never "promised" that he would fight for the legalization of marijuana, nor that he would immediately withdraw all troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, nor that he would immediately prosecute the Dubya administration for their crimes, nor any of a myriad of other Far Left "priority" items. So yes, you are correct that he is not listening to either fringe political extreme, or should he.

What he DID promise was to attempt to return this nation to its former prominence in the eyes of our world neighbors and allies, to attempt to repair the damage done to our economy, and to try and heal the huge social and political divide in our nation brought about by the Rovian neoconservatives. That is what I heard him say, and those are my expectations of President Obama. I am joined by several millions of Americans in those expectations, and only time will tell if President Obama gets the help he needs to accomplish these mainstream Democratic goals.

whining is moot.

And nobody got screwed.

just read the OP first.

"adult" response. Does your mommy know that you're playing with the 'puter again?

BFD.

except, apparently, to the people expressing the hate or the people cheering the hate.

suppose that at least two of your rants have been deleted by the moderators? Now run along back to FR, and hang out with the other juvenile "haters."

P.S. The comment that you responded to was not directed at you, or giving recognition to your childish screen name. It was in response to the original OP.

spoke to my students. He had a message that many of them needed to hear. He was re-emphasizing all the things that I've ever told them. We are covering careers in my class right now and I referenced the President's speech a couple of times during my lecture.

I have always taught in racially diverse schools. I have never taught in an all white, or for that matter a majority white school. The young people in my classes have gone on to become nurses, teachers, and were able to live the dreams that their grandparents and great grandparents never had the opportunity to do.

I'm proud to hold our President up as an example of what can be achieved. He is amazing

Nice screen name:patriot:

and in the end I believe good will come out of this strife.

Growing and changing may be painful for some and I believe the old school haters that buy into the southern strategy are a dwindling number. They may seem more to some because they are very vocal now and out in the open.

The Republican party is destroying itself.

I'd say stay positive and concentrate on reaching out to the moderates and independents who find these sort of divisive hateful tactics troubling.

actions of the Obama-paranoids bespeaks a deeply-rooted terror that has nothing to do with the real world. And I'm not just talking about the southern "sheeters" - Repubs across the spectrum seem to be vulnerable to the mob psychology that is pushing them over the edge.

I agree. And Obama was right when he said that crowd loves to cling to its guns and bibles. That assessment has been born out quite well.

Living in hate and fear is not only incredibly tiring and unpleasant, it floods your body with stress hormones that damage your health and impair your ability to enjoy life.

Not to mention the cortisol which is pumped into the bloodstream, which turns sugar to fat and deposits it in the mid section, as you can see in most of those doughy-bodied cretins.

I believe the GOP opposes Obama not because of racism; it's because of ideological differences.

Does Mr. Steele (the GOP Chairman - a black man like Obama) oppose Obama because of racism?

attention? The GOP, and Steele, are using the existing racism of easily influenced rednecks to further their "ideological differences." Ideological differences such as: no health care reform, openly calling for President Obama to "fail" (and therefore our country to fail) for pure political gain, reduced taxes for their rich friends, and on, and on. Are these the "ideological differences" that you mean? Are the hate-filled diatribes that Republicans like Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck preach to the uneducated daily, and in large doses, representative of GOP "ideological differences?"

These are exactly the same Rovian tactics that the Dubya administration used by manipulating the religious-right in two elections. Since their previous racist campaigns against President Obama's former pastor and his birth certificate failed miserably, they have incited groups of Teabag racists to attack President Obama as a "Muslim, Hitleresque, Socialist, Communist, Jokerish, non-American. ALL of these epithets and euphemisms have but one implied meaning: "uppity ni---r."

No, not ALL criticism of President Obama is because of racism, and there ARE people from both political points-of-view who oppose him for legitimate reasons. But you can rest assured, that with very few exceptions, the neoconservative-wing of the GOP will use existing pockets of racism as a big tool for manipulation in their bag of dirty tricks. And, they still have most of the religious-right in their lobbyist-filled pockets, and the "Muslim" chant resonates loudly with this hypocritical group of bigots.

though many Republicans think of they can find One Black Man to spout idiocies, then they are immune from accusations of racism.

Doesn't work that way. There are crazy black people, too, like the guy carrying the automatic weapon outside Obama's rally in Phoenix.

and Steele is an opportunist with no ideology at all, other than his own self-advancement.

In my opinion, the right-wingers' attacks on Clinton were harsher than their attacks on Obama (they even impeached Clinton!). Clinton is a white guy like the right-wingers are; so the right-wingers' attacks on Clinton couldn't have been motivated by racism; it was due to ideological differences. I believe it's those same ideological differences that are the basis for the right-wingers' attacks on Obama's actions and stated policies.

apples to oranges. How does the neoconservative GOP's treatment of President Clinton even come close to rational comparison with the tactics these assholes are using against President Obama? They impeached President Clinton because he lied about receiving a blowjob -- not because of "ideological differences." Rovian/Gingrich/Raygun Neoconservatives have absolutely no "ideologies" except for greed, hatred, and division of this nation for political gain.

They never questioned President Clinton's ancestry, or place of birth. They never compared President Clinton to Hitler. They never accused President Clinton of being both a Socialist AND a Fascist. I don't recall any rednecked, racially-motivated death threats against President Clinton. I don't recall a preacher calling for his flock to join him in hating President Clinton, and praying for his death. I don't recall any religious-right rednecks showing up to an event where President Clinton was speaking, with a gun strapped to their hip, and carrying a sign calling for the "tree of Liberty to be watered with blood." So please spare me the neoconservative GOP apologist rhetoric, and inane comparisons between President Obama and ANY other president of the USA, except maybe for President Lincoln. We all know what a rednecked racist did to President Lincoln -- don't we?

It has been stipulated on DU time, and time again, that not all American right-wingers are racists, and not all disagreements with President Obama are based in racism. To deny, however, that there are millions of hateful rednecks who ARE overt racists, and wish President Obama harm, is to deny reality. To deny that the neoconservative-wing of the GOP would use that racist discontent for their own political purposes (see Rep. Joe Wilson) is to deny reality. Either that, or you are extremely naive.

:toast: welcome to DU, billh58.

for the welcome!

I don't recall where I said that I was interested in what you thought.

I hear the Clash singing "White Riot"

I am an independent/liberal and I try to listen to both sides of the story to decide on the best viewpoints, candidates, and causes to support. I was a big supporter of the Obama administration because I think they offered us hope, however, now after he is talking about dropping the government option on healthcare I am looking other directions.
Anyways, I am concerned that we are barking up the wrong tree on using race to define this fight. I was reading a very interesting post written by someone that seems to be a liberal on a conservative news site. Don’t ask me why they were on there, I don’t know, too much sun maybe. Anyways, he/she made some interesting points and it is worth a read if you can get past some of their junk. My concern is that we maybe using the wrong medicine to treat the sickness. Using antibiotics on a virus is useless, when we should to be using antiviral medication. I don’t believe that the conservative base thinks that there actions are racist, so calling their actions racist will gain no traction with them or with the independents that don’t understand how important social justice is to societal advance. We need to debate them on each topic, in this case it is health care, we need it, and we aren’t getting it. Anyways, have a read.


Source: http://ivoteforfreedom.com/ivotepress/?p=192

It is Ideology Not Race Which Divides Us

I listen to the liberal talk sometimes just to get a feel for the other side which claims to be “Liberals”. One of the shows I truly enjoy is a show called “Make It Plain” with Mark Thomson. I listen to him daily in the afternoons on my commute to try and figure out why in the world progressives desire to give more power to a government which is corrupt. Mark is probably the best out there at explaining the view points of a progressive liberal and as his show is entitled, “he makes it plain”, however, even with his explanations I cannot understand why the progressives are so quick to remove power from corporate elites just to give it to government elite, but I digress.

Anyways, Mark is an African American and last night I was listening to his show when he started to claim that race was the deciding factor in why people are rejecting Obama. His statement took me back a little, I have yet to hear a single racist comment from any of the conservative hosts I listen to, in fact the only reference to race I have heard is from the “Left”. So why then are they saying that those that disagree with Obama’s policies are raciest?

To start with, I have a problem with just saying that they want to play the race card, progressives are for the most part intelligent people, and they are just misguided. With that said, I think they genuinely believe that race is some kind of deciding factor. Furthermore, I think many on the “Left” are having a problem with separating their ideas on socialism and on race. In the eyes of the classical liberal/conservative, all women and men are created equal; all are judged on their deeds not on the color of their skin. There is no hidden racism in this statement, the truth is that we draw conclusions on people based on what they do, not what they look like. So why then are the ideas of a classical liberal/conservative so easily associated with racism?

So herein lies the problem, we fundamentally disagree with socialist beliefs and those beliefs are core to both the labor movements and the black liberation movements. The “left” believes that a strong central government will have the power to provide equality, and in contrast the conservatives believe that a strong central government holds the power to modify people’s lives in a way that is contrary to their choices. Both are correct understandings of the situations; time and time again history has shown that government’s powerful enough to control the people will do so, and in all fairness, corporations which benefit from a cheap labor gain from delaying the economic growth of the common worker. There are two sides of the same coin, you simply choose which one is easier to live with, a government which uses reeducation camps or a corporation which rapes and pillages economies to gain cost advantages.

Now, the grouping of the Labor and the Black Liberation movements to socialism/communism is very strong as represented by this quote from an article entitled “Black Liberation and the Working-class Unity”, “Racism, like anti-communism, is a powerful and dangerous virus designed to disintegrate the needed unity of Black and white working masses…” Anti-communism is considered equal in the eyes of the author, James E. Jackson, to racism.(Jackson, 2005) Thus this is core to the understanding of why the “left” believes that comments against Obama’s policies, which are socialist in nature, are seen as racist, racism and anti-socialist beliefs are one and the same.

To demonstrate this understanding of the relationship between socialism and racisms lets examine a healthcare debate. The “left” desires a single payer system, and to say that we shouldn’t provide socialized single-payer healthcare to everyone can be seen as racist by the “left”. Many of the poor are minorities which cannot pay for healthcare and are affected by this program, denying them coverage is racist because this singles out that group by association to poverty. The “Left” believes that we should use “common” wealth to pay for the socialist program. The association between race and socialism is clear, use socialist programs to create equality, eliminating racism. By rejecting the tools they feel that the “right” is rejecting equality. They cannot see that there is a difference between the tools and the desired outcome.

However, from the perspective of the classical liberal/conservative let’s look at the same debate; let’s create a government run single-payer healthcare system. First off, as I stated above, the classical liberal/conservative sees government as the problem not as the solution to problems. Looking back in history we see that countries with very strong centralized governments which have a great deal of power over the people tend to abuse that power. Furthermore, by becoming dependent on the government for healthcare you give the government the power to say if you live or die. In the current system you have the choice to pay for surgeries yourself, you have a choice of healthcare providers; in a single payer system this choice is removed. You become utterly dependent on the government, which is not a good thing in the eyes of a conservative.

From what can be drawn from the above statement, the conservative says nothing about racism, race is not included in the thoughts nor is it even spoken of. However, due to the fact that it is against policies based on socialist beliefs and the relationship of socialism as a tool by which to reach equality the liberal comes to the understanding that the anti-socialist ideas are pro-racist, which could not be more distant from the truth. The conservative/ classical liberal simply believes that freedom of all beings is essential to creating an optimized society, and any infringement on that freedom by a government is dangerous. In the eyes of the conservative, the freedom of all men and woman are endangered by increasing the powers of the state, and the influence of that state should be minimized to ensure equal treatment of all.

Now this division of ideologies would be important if in fact there were really two sides to choose from, the corporate elite, or the government elite. However, this is not reality, as I said before; they are two sides on the same coin. All the major companies and groups have their own lobbies, and there is a great deal of inner mingling and payoffs that occur. Corruption in the system has created a government which has approval rating far below 50%. The government does not represent the people, they represent the lobbyists.

Furthermore, if we had a true representative government, a single-payer option would be on the table, not these half baked ideas of “public options” and “co-ops”. The truth is that “we the people” are not having the debate that matters. We are not talking about single-payer programs, which if you ask me would have a better chance at passing since at least the left would be behind it. Instead they give you healthcare light, to enrage debate to divide us based on racism. We, the right and the left, are failing into a trap laid for us, one based on something as foolish as judging someone on the color of their skin.

This focus on healthcare and race are preventing us from having real debates such as how to address the problems of corruption in our system of government. The race issue is one of the past; yes poverty still exists and needs to be dealt with, however, racism remains only in the minds of the ignorant. We need to address the issues of the future, not those from 50 years ago; we cannot have a debate on if the government should have more power until the government is based on the ideas of people, not those of lobbyists. Let’s work together, regardless of race, to clean the system so that we can once again have the real debates based on our ideologies.

Resources:

Jackson, Black liberation and working-class unity retrieved from http://www.pww.org/article/articleprint/6513/

Sorry, but you are a fraud.