Digby: Calling Them On It (racism)

It's clear that this is the soft white underbelly and the Dems needed to be far more explicit if they wanted to really hammer their point home.

And if you doubted they are racists, read this little anecdote at Sadly No! by Dave Riehle :
(excerpt from Riehle, recounting some teabaggers DC Metro ride on their way back to their hotels, bravely ignoring some (black) teenagers who were floating some pointed comments their way -- not copied here for space. See original for text, link at bottom)

Keep in mind that these are the same people who were just carrying signs calling Obama Hitler and saying that Acorn groups and his arrogant wife should be sent back to "their own" country and be stripped of their rights. I'd say those so-called thugs were the polite ones.

More seriously, these people are a perfect example of the modern racists. They don't go around calling black people "boy" (to their faces) and they certainly don't think of themselves as bigots. But in their minds, racial minorities are dangerous barbarians who are threatening to destroy their way of life. Hence, when they find themselves in a group of loud teenagers, they see it as a test of their own manhood to "put them down." (Of course, that's why they need all those guns.)

A black president is threatening to them, even if they don't really understand it, because while he is unquestionably a very accomplished individual in anyone's estimation, the loyalty he inspires among African Americans frightens them --- and his sometime feints to popular culture and black solidarity make them very, very uncomfortable. That's why this obsession with ACORN has such resonance. The black army is forming.


Full article at:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/calling-them-on-it-by-digby-i-wrote.html

Sadly No! link about Riehle's comments at:
http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/24978.html

Riehle's original post at his own blog:
http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2009/09/a-912-experience-dangerous-times.html

http://www.ajc.com/news/clayton/army-reservist-beaten-in-138917.html

Army Reservist beaten in front of child


A man beat an Army reservist in front of a Morrow Cracker Barrel, yelling racial slurs at her as he kicked her in the head, Morrow police said. The assault happened in front of the woman’s 7-year old daughter, who stood there, crying, witnesses told police.

Morrow police arrested Troy Dale West of Poulan after reviewing a video surveillance tape and talking to customers. He was charged with battery, disorderly conduct and cruelty to children.

The woman and her daughter were leaving the South Lake Plaza Drive restaurant last Wednesday about 7:30 p.m. as West was heading inside, Capt. James Callaway of the Morrow Police Department said. The restaurant doorway nearly struck the woman’s daughter, prompting her to tell West, “Sir, you almost hit my daughter with the door, could you please be careful,” Callaway said.

West responded, telling the woman that she needed to watch her daughter and then began yelling racial slurs at her and kicking and punching her in the head, Callaway said.


more at link. It's been turned over to FBI to determine if civil rights violations and/or hate crime laws apply.


Tansy Gold