“I don’t like it. The cables (TV) have a lot to do with it.” —Former President George H.W. Bush on the lack of civility on the Left, particularly toward failed spawn his son, W.
The first President Bush raises the bar of political discourse even as he criticizes it. In an interview with CBS, Dear Leader’s avenged daddy spouts out hypocrisy that is so entertaining that one longs for those simple days before his son destroyed the economy and our relations with the rest of the world.
While he said he does not believe in personal name-calling, he singled out MSNBC personalities Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow calling them “sick puppies.”
“The way they treat my son and anyone who’s opposed to their point of view is just horrible,” Mr. Bush said.
When asked about the abuse being heaped by the Right onto the current occupant of the White House, Bush Number One goes flaccid.
Mr. Bush said verbal attacks on Mr. Obama “sometimes crosses the lines of civility.” He also said it crosses “party lines and ideological lines.”
Mr. Bush does not believe most of the attacks on Mr. Obama are racially motivated. He said, “You might find some racists out there but I don’t think the attacks per se have to do that he’s an African American.”
Was Poppy awake during the 2008 campaign through to the present day? Anyway, Rachel had a response to the elder Bush…
The Washington Post writes a story today about the terrible incivility of today’s viral world (read: bloggers). And the opening anecdote shows the fundamental problem with the way they’re looking at this:
Late last month, Charisse Carney-Nunes fired up the computer at her home in Northeast Washington to check her e-mail. Her brain already was on morning drive time: breakfast for the kids, her day’s work at a government agency. She glanced down at her screen, then froze.
“Ms. Carney-Nunes,” began the e-mail from Michelle Malkin, a best-selling and often inflammatory conservative writer with a heavily trafficked Web site. “I understand that you uploaded the video of schoolchildren reciting a Barack Obama song/rap at Bernice Young elementary school in June. I have a few quick questions. Did you help write the song/rap and teach it to the children? Are you an educator/guest lecturer at the school? Did you teach about your book, ‘I am Barack Obama’ at the school? Your bio says you are a schoolmate of Obama. How well-acquainted are you with the president?”
Carney-Nunes looked at the time stamp—6:47 a.m.—and closed the file without replying. She knew Malkin had driven criticism of President Obama’s back-to-school speech, streamed nationwide, as an attempt to indoctrinate students. Now Malkin was asking about a YouTube video of New Jersey public school children singing and enthusiastically chanting about Obama from a Black History Month presentation.
It takes another six paragraphs before they actually get to the point of the story:
Carney-Nunes, swept up in a viral tornado of vitriol, had nothing to do with the children’s song. She was doing an author’s reading in the school that day.
...And then the story goes back to the “everyone’s so meeeeeean” story for another two and a half pages.
Yes, a great number of conservative bloggers and demagogues are terribly, stupidly mean, like cavemen who can’t understand why the rock doesn’t have delicious meat inside. But more importantly, they’re terribly, stupidly dishonest, and it’s the dishonesty that’s the real danger. The Washington Post spent eight paragraphs writing about a conservative scandal and only managed to toss in a single fact-checking line in paragraph nine, at which point they went back to being observant scolds of the political discourse.
I understand that us bloggers use cursewords and invective and sometimes call reporters mud-flinging slapfucks (or we do now!), but the entire point of the conservative anger is that it allows them to push forward complete and total lies and yell down anyone who debates against them. One of my favorite continually-told conservative stories is, “I just argued a liberal into complete and total submission using nothing but my facts, which are like a brain penis. And a big one.” And usually, if you break down the debate, it went in three parts. The first is the conservative asking a fatally flawed question based on factually incorrect assumptions. The second is the liberal attempting to answer. The third is an explosion of conservative smugness so overwhelming that the liberal must escape out of fear for their own lives and weed stash.
The reason conservatives are so able to build up lies is because, by being nasty about it, they know that the dreaded MSM will only focus on the nastiness. Eventually, the entire thing turns into a series of op-eds by Davids Broder and Brooks excoriating both sides for lowering the discourse, asking where President Obama’s promise of postpartisanship went, and then endorsing the three elected Republican officials who haven’t accused Obama of flouridating our children’s water supply as a method of mind control as the new centrist way forward.
But they totally called out Michelle Malkin for being bad, so there! She only needs to be on Meet the Press a few more times to get the message, I think.
Do these Aussies in blackface not understand that “artform” in this day and age is, well, um, racist? Shane @ Queer Two Cents passed this unbelievable bit of business along from an Aussie TV show, Hey Hey It’s Saturday, that actor and singer Harry Connick Jr. appeared on recently. He obviously couldn’t believe this performance by the “Jackson Jive.”
Connick gave the group a zero rating for their performance and was booed by the audience, later, he gives everyone a good talking to about why blackface is so wrong. Believe it or not the group says it was meant to be a tribute to Michael Jackson! It reeks with racism from start to finish. On air, Connick says, “If I knew that was going to be a part of the show, I definitely wouldn’t have done it.” This incident has created controversy in Australia, especially on talk radio, where listeners feel that Connick was over-reacting!
Good for Harry. We’ve got enough problems stateside with goons who think blackface is A-OK.
Well, you all watch the video and see for yourself.
“White schoolchildren would ‘envy the freedom’ of ‘colored playmates.’ Slave food, even if monotonous, was plentiful. Corn bread and bacon were the mainstays, with plenty of fruit and vegetables in season. In hog-killing time, countenances were unusually greasy.” — Glenn Beck‘s idol, far-right activist W. Cleon Skousen in “The Making of America”. Beck has made some of this man’s writings the centerpiece of his of 9-12 Project.
I don’t even know where to begin with the above statement.
I imagine it will be even more challenging for the bluster-filled bigoted Beck to explain what he terms the “divinely inspired” work of W. Cleon Skousen, who has published some of the most incredible racist revisionist history about slavery that I’ve ever seen. There’s no other term for this garbage than a flaming pile of cowsh*t. (Media Matters):
Newly sold slaves “usually a cheerful lot.” “The tendency was to sell families as units, if for no other reason [than] to keep the slaves contented. The gangs in transit were usually a cheerful lot, though the presence of a number of the more vicious type sometimes made it necessary for them all to go in chains. At the other extreme, when the Central of Georgia railroad company in 1858 equipped a Negro sleeping car to assist in the slave trade it set a standard not always maintained in a later generation. When on the block, the slave was as likely to hinder as to help in his sale. Some, out of a vain conceit in bringing a high price, would boast of their physical prowess, in which case an unwary purchaser would likely be cheated. Others would malinger, because of a grudge against owners or traders or in order to bring a low price and be put at less tiring labor. Dealers, also, adopted the tricks of horse traders to make their merchants more attractive—the greasiest Negro was generally considered the healthiest.” [The Making of America, pages 731-732]
Slaves hampered efficiency of white labor. “In the management of slave labor the gang system predominated. The great majority of owners, having at the most only one or two families of Negroes, had to work alongside their slaves and set the pace for them. Slavery did not make white labor unrespectable, but merely inefficient. The slave had a deliberateness of motion which no amount of supervision could quicken. If the owner got ahead of the gang they all would shirk behind his back.” [The Making of America, page 732]
Cruelty rare, slave owners “the worst victims.” “Excessive toil occurred only where the masters or overseers were feeble witted as well as brutal. A persistent rumor among abolitionists was that sugar planters followed a policy of working slaves to death in seven years as a matter of economy. The persons spreading such reports were as ignorant of Negro nature as they were of conditions in the sugar mills. Furthermore, they overrated the ability of the masters to know how to kill a slave in the given time instead of leaving him a broken-down burden to the plantation. When they set out to prove the accusation they returned with no evidence, but convinced that the practice existed in some obscure region which they had not succeeded in ferreting out. Harriet Martineau, after watching slaves go through the motions of work without tiring themselves, considered the planters as models of patience and observed that new slave owners from Europe or the North were prone to be the most severe. Numerous observers, of various shades of opinion on slavery, agreed that brutality was no more common in the black belt than among free labor elsewhere, and that the slave owners were the worst victims of the system.” [The Making of America, pages 733-734]
Southern life a “nightmare” of fear—for white people. “The constant fear of slave rebellion made life in the South a nightmare, especially in regions where conspiracies were of frequent occurrence. The extermination of white civilization in Santo Domingo was followed in the nineteenth century by several other bloody outbursts in the West Indies, which never failed to cause ominous forebodings in America. [...]
This may seem like a little inside baseball, but bear with me, because it will directly affect some of your favorite blogs.
Over at my blog, my contributors and I have inboxes overflowing with emails asking us to cover this story or that event—from advocacy organizations, tips from readers, PR firms, and the news media. It’s pretty clear that the equality rights movement is highly dependent on blogs and citizen journalism to analyze, report and advocate in the unique way that we do.
Many of these LGBT-based blogs are done as a labor of love because there’s certainly not enough money out there to quit our day jobs. Bloggers like myself, who subsidize the site with an unrelated day job are about to get a big F-You from Chuck Schumer if the roof isn’t raised. Ad revenue is irrelevant here, btw; you have to be employed by an entity to be covered.
A recent amendment to the federal shield bill being considered in the Senate will exclude non-”salaried” journalists and bloggers from the proposed law’s protections.
The law, called the Free Flow of Information Act, is intended to prevent journalists from being forced to divulge confidential sources, except in cases such as witnessing crimes or acts of terrorism.
Well, read the fine print to see how citizen journalists are left legally hanging out to dry. Schumer’s amendment draws a distinct line between bloggers and “real journalists” that:
limits the definition of a journalist to one who “obtains the information sought while working as a salaried employee of, or independent contractor for, an entity–
a. that disseminates information by print, broadcast, cable, satellite, mechanical, photographic, electronic, or other means; and
b. that— 1. publishes a newspaper, book, magazine, or other periodical; 2. operates a radio or television broadcast station, network, cable system, or satellite carrier, or a channel or programming service for any such station, network, system, or carrier; 3. operates a programming service; or 4. operates a news agency or wire service.”
So there’s no doubt that independent bloggers are the target here. At once we’re considered irrelevant and so dangerous they have to legislatively set up a slippery slope that can land us in the clink or left penniless just for trying to participate in citizen journalism. Wow. The real issue here, however, is less the shield law than placing a definition of what is a journalist on the books. That will alllow pols, news outlets, state governments, etc. to deny citizen journalists press access because they are not “journalists” as defined by federal law.
It’s a huge slippery slope and a loss for independent reporting by bloggers if this definition clears.
Marcy Wheeler of Firedoglake confirms that we’re screwed:
To to be a journalist in Chuck Schumer’s eyes, you have to both have a boss (at this point, you generous readers and Jane would count as my boss, but Jane doesn’t have a boss, for example) and that boss’ company must disseminate news on some other medium, in addition to the Toobz. Even free-lance writers or people like IF Stone (in the period when he ran his own newsletter) would be excluded from this definition of journalist.
Now, I’m on the record as a skeptic that this new law is going to work out the way the media thinks. I fear that the national security exemption will mean the law will protect people like Judy Miller mobilizing smears or the Rent-a-Generals spreading propaganda, but not protect Dana Priest or James Risen and their sources.
Still, this move pisses me off because it’s a transparent bid to grant a powerful industry special privileges.
This is about ensuring that there is a wall between real journalists and the perceived unwashed masses of ignorant, unqualified bloggers who are mucking up the system. This is a serious issue, because I believe that reliable citizen journalists do have the respect of traditional media in some circles, but this legislative bid to create a firm wall is declaring war on us.
Nieman Journalism Lab’s Zachary M. Seward, who previously noted the House’s different definition of journalist, also expressed concern. “The shield law obviously needs a definition that limits its scope, but the professional definition, which now seems inevitable, would exclude student journalists as well as bloggers with a day job,” he wrote.
You too can land a radio show gig by sending pervy IMs to young men who are serving their country as Congressional Pages.
Mark Foley, the Florida Republican who left Congress in 2006 amid accusations he sent lurid e-mails to male House pages, is credited with helping to sour the electorate’s view of the Grand Old Party in a year when Nancy Pelosi and the Dems swept into power.
In the years since, he’s been in real estate investment, contemplating a return to politics.
Tonight, he makes his debut as a radio talk show host. “Inside the Mind of Mark Foley,” billed by the station as a program that “will expose the inner workings of Washington, D.C.,” airs at 6 p.m. EST on WSVU-AM (960) out of North Palm Beach, Fla. It can also be heard at www.seaviewam960.com.
Is this the kind of inner workings that Mark will share with listeners?
Maf54: You in your boxers, too?
Teen: Nope, just got home. I had a college interview that went late.
Maf54: Well, strip down and get relaxed.
Another message:
Maf54: What ya wearing?
Teen: tshirt and shorts
Maf54: Love to slip them off of you.
And this one:
Maf54: Do I make you a little horny?
Teen: A little.
Maf54: Cool.
The language gets much more graphic, too graphic to be broadcast, and at one point the congressman appears to be describing Internet sex.
The conservative attacks on the excesses of political correctness are not wholly without merit. For instance, it’s certainly ridiculous to strive for a world where there are no labels, or where the invocation of any bit of identifying information with any potential social or cultural value attached to it is verboten. I think these things are utterly ridiculous, and, at all costs, we should support the conservative movement where they seek to stamp out this foolishness.
The Post’s Thursday news story (headlined “ACORN to review incidents”) helpfully identifies Giles as “the eldest daughter of a conservative Christian minister in Miami.” (Questions for the reporter: Does it make any difference that she’s the eldest rather than, say, the second eldest? On what basis do you characterize the minister as conservative, and why is that relevant? You characterize the minister as “Christian,” but aren’t all ministers in the U.S. Christian, or are you just trying to distinguish him from a cabinet minister?).
And why did you even mention Miami? Are we to think of her as some harlot strutting on the beach, her firm breasts jutting out for the whole world to see but not touch?
So, under these rules, we are not allowed to mention:
1.) The age of someone relative to their siblings.
2.) That someone is Christian.
3.) That someone is a member of the clergy of a church or a denomination.
4.) Someone’s political affiliations.
I mean, sure, if we’re going to wipe all mention of age and religious affiliation from discourse lest it actually identify someone, that’s fine, but we’re really going to have to edit Franklin Graham’s Wikipedia page. You have to appreciate this degree of crazy, though - if you give any sort of identifying information about a conservative, you have to prove that every single factoid you give is not only absolutely ironclad, but lacks any sort of judgment or potential for judgment altogether. In other news, if you weren’t aware who George W. Bush is, he is a human being who…wait, no, can’t say he “owns” a puppy, because some people might not like “own”, plus I don’t have the papers…can’t say “has kids”, because he didn’t “have” them and it might be wrong to call adult women kids.
Okay, the new Conservapedia bio for George W. Bush: he is a person. Later details to be filled in as they don’t offend anyone.
Scotty 2 Hotty, the author of the original post, also heavily disputes that the ACORN Pimp had any racial motivations in this incident:
If O’Keefe had said something incendiary about a racial motivation for undertaking his investigation of ACORN, one can be sure that the Post reporters would have quoted it instead of simply larding the context with an imputation of racism. The Post certainly provides no supporting quote.
Good god—the bile just flows continuously out of these beasts on the right; people like Mark Williams let their bigoted *sses hang out on international TV without a care in the world—but claims he and the teabagger movement aren’t racist. Say it, class—“You Lie!” Devona Walker at The Loop:
Tea Party leader Mark Williams called President Obama an “Indonesian Muslim turned Welfare thug,” last night on Anderson Cooper 360 in a segment where he was trying to deny any racist motivations behind the Tea Party protest.
Williams denounced those carrying blatantly racist signs against President Obama during the tea parties as “no more part of the mainstream of America than the hippies who wear nipple clips and feather boas in San Francisco streets during so-called peace demonstrations.”
“What you’re saying makes sense to me here when I’m hearing what you say but then I read on your blog, you say, you call the President an Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug and a racist in chief,” Anderson Cooper said. “Yeah, that’s the way he’s behaving,” Williams said. “He’s certainly acting like it. Until he embraces the whole country what else can I conclude.”
You see, Williams can say what he did without a bit of guilt that he’s crossed some sort of line in defense of racism. Why? Because the people in question didn’t burn a cross on a lawn or drag a black man tied to the back of a pickup truck down a road until his limbs fell off. THOSE PEOPLE are the racists, right?
Just because you don’t use the N-word doesn’t mean you are not a racist. Just because you call your movement one of “angry, working-class Americans” does not provide cover for the fact that you are leading a racist mob. Just because you don’t explicitly tell people to assassinate the president, abortion doctors, gays, Hispanic-Americans or illegal immigrants, you may still have blood on your hands if you cheerlead them on and provide propaganda as fuel.
Well if someone ordered a set of Klan sheets for Williams, he would wear them very well, thank you.
In an unintentionally hilarious article by Peter Wallsten in the Los Angeles Times, “Some fear GOP is being carried to the extreme,” we learn just how out of touch the MSM is about the crazies, bigots and wingnut conspiracy theorists that write and hang out at Joseph Farah’s WorldNetDaily.
I mean come on, LGBT bloggers in particular have been writing about the lunacy and homo-hate being excreted from the keyboards of the writes there for years.WND has been in bed with the GOP for ages, depending on the news organ churning out content to stir and inflame the Base of the party. Now that President Obama is the center of the site’s bashing—endless birther articles, socialist/communist/Nazi screeds, all of a sudden the lazy MSM wakes from its slumber. Also, as prominent Republicans, now afraid of the hate from the Base spinning out of control, they want the party to sever (at least in public) ties to WND:
Some are pressuring the Republican National Committee and other mainstream GOP groups to cut ties with WorldNetDaily.com, which reports some of the allegations. Its articles are cited by websites and pundits on the right. More than any other group, critics say, WorldNetDaily sets the conservative fringe agenda.
Critics charge that the RNC has paid WorldNetDaily for access to its mailing list, estimated to number in the hundreds of thousands, and that the RNC is therefore subsidizing the website’s anti-Obama writings.
RNC spokeswoman Gail Gitcho did not respond to questions on the matter.
The chilling part of the article, and it only confirms what we’ve already thought, is that the GOP’s scorched-earth, patently unpatriotic political strategy based on racism and fear-mongering will continue because they need that unbalanced demographic to win.
Insiders’ criticisms have been dismissed by some conservative leaders, who argue that the party needs an energized base—even if it’s extreme—to gain in future elections. Some analysts think that conservatives’ summer revolt against Obama’s healthcare agenda helped erode public approval of Democratic leadership enough that the GOP could pick up as many as 30 House seats next year.
To show you how scared Republican pols are of the Base (and WND and Glenn Beck, Rush, et.al.), the article cites the cowardly (and idiotic) lockstep behavior of Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) when it came to vote on the nomination of Obama regulatory nominee Cass Sunstein. While holding views favorable to business (which should be pleasing to GOPers), the talk-show bleaters declared Sunstein “radical” and built up a frenzied base.
One leading conservative Republican senator, Jim De- Mint of South Carolina, said in an interview over the weekend that he decided to oppose Sunstein after hundreds of calls from constituents demanding a “no” vote due to Sunstein’s “extreme views.”
Asked to say which of Sunstein’s views he considered extreme, DeMint could not answer. A DeMint spokesman later said, echoing the arguments of Beck and others, that his boss objected to the fact that Sunstein had once called for a ban on hunting and to his past statements on the legal rights of animals.
This is a completely steamrolled party that cannot think for itself, it’s a tool of ignorant, bigoted, unelected goons on the air, or in the case of WND, online, who marshall low-information, paranoid voters out there to threaten the party’s small-donation dollars. That’s why you see Michael Steele and the rest of “leadership” bend over for Rush et. al. That’s why you see Mitt, Huckabee and the 2012ers sucking up to the fundies. The moderates are dead in the water in the GOP in terms of any sane influence.
KO let Wilson and the GOP have it in his Special Comment (transcript via C&L):
And finally, as promised, a Special Comment about the shout of “You Lie” during the presidential address to the joint session of Congress last night on the matter of health care reform.
The 43rd president of the United States lied the nation into the war, lied 4,343 of his fellow citizens to death in that war, lied about upholding the constitution, and lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction.
He lied about how he reacted to Al-Qaeda before 9/11 and he lied about how he reacted to Al-Qaeda after 9/11.
He lied about getting Bin Laden, and he lied about not getting Bin Laden.
He lied about nation-building in Iraq, lied about the appearance of new buildings **in** the nation **of** Iraq, and lied about embassy buildings in nations like Iraq.
He lied about trailers with mobile weapons labs in them, and he lied about trailers with Cuban prostitutes in them.
He and his administration lied—by the counting of one non-profit group—532 times about links between Al-Qaeda and Iraq. Only 28 of those were by that President, but he made up for that by lying 231 times about W-M-D.
And yet not once did an elected Democratic official shout out during one of George W. Bush’s speeches and call him a “liar.”
These right-wing gasbags are so predictable. Barren of any original thought, Rush Limbaugh resorts to high school, towel-snapping-boys-in-the-locker room drivel as a response to the verbal beat-down that Rep. Barney Frank gave to a deranged wingnut spewing the “Obama as Hitler” meme. Who’s the one fixated on the anus, Rush?
Of course no one has said anything about it on the conservative sites. Maybe a “ha,ha, Limbaugh is so funny” on places like Free Republic, but as far as I know, Fox News hasn’t said a word nor has One News Now. And I don’t think that they will.
Now if someone was to make a statement about Limbaugh’s history of pill-popping, I’m sure that would wake up Glenn Beck and company.
But basically, Limbaugh is sending a message that when gay man makes a public statement, it all comes down to his sexual orientation, huh?
On one level we should all be ashamed that Limbaugh is a perfect example of political discussion in America.
I suppose if a female legislator gave the same response as Barney Frank, Limbaugh would attribute it to her “woman’s problems.”
If an African-American male legislator gave the same response, Limbaugh would attribute it to “black men wanting to always bed white women.”
Does this mean it will be “Hammer time” and we’ll see him in parachute pants?
Tom DeLay is the name DWTS executive producer Conrad Green expected to have “most people splattering on their cornflakes” following this morning’s announcement on Good Morning America. How did it come about? “I know it will sound stupid, we just asked him,” Green tells EW. “We usually throw a few Hail Marys every season to people we don’t think are gonna say yes, but we think, oh, why not ask him. Occasionally, they come off. As it turns out, Tom DeLay likes to do a bit of the Two Step, he likes dancing with his wife. His daughter is a country dancing champion, I believe. He actually really enjoys dancing. Now I don’t know whether that translates into him being the next Mario Lopez on the dance floor, but I think he’s gonna come into it with a big smile on his face and probably surprise a lot of people cause he’s gonna embrace it so much.”
Other toe-tappers will include:
• Donny Osmond: Singer, brother of DWTS Season 5 contestant Marie Osmond, and choreographer of his own freestyle moves in “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “White & Nerdy” video
• Macy Gray: Baby-voiced singer and performer on DWTS Season 4 (who famously commented on Apolo Anton Ohno’s “huge bulge” to reporters)
• Kelly Osbourne: Reality star/”singer”
• Debi Mazar: Actress (Entourage) and friend of Madonna
On Thursday, Ron Reagan was broadcasting his show from Netroots Nation and Megan Carpentier, one of the behind-the-scenes people at Air America came up to me during an earlier panel and asked if I do a segment with Ron Reagan about LGBT issues later in the day. Of course I was surprised that I was a first pick for this, considering the many great peeps in attendance. Anyway, I said sure, and showed up early since it was hard to find the radio row.
So I’m standing around chatting and all of a sudden his producer comes up and says that I was going to go on right now because the slotted guest was late. YIPES. So before I knew it, I was in the hot seat with the headphones on and doing the interview with Ron, who is a really nice guy who works well in this challenging environment with a wide variety of guests who are here.
It was a fun interview (radio is infinitely easier than doing TV) we talked about Prop 8 repeal, the Maine ballot initiative to roll back marriage equality, allly support, and minority outreach.
So today the President will sit down with Skip Gates and his arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge PD to have a beer. A lot of Internet bandwidth and airwave time have been spent dealing with trivialities, such as who is consuming which brand of beer (Obama a Bud, Gates tossing back a Jamaican Red Stripe. Crowley’s will opt for a Coors Blue Moon).
I just want to point out that the fact that we’re talking about a beer summit confirms the role of class in this whole brouhaha, an issue I raised earlier (”Why class does matter in the Gates arrest debate”). They are not sitting down to share a bottle of wine; the decision to “lower the class bar” by using the alcoholic beverage of the working (class) man is quite purposeful. Beer is a social signifier that Gates, Obama, and Crowley are on the same level as regular guys shooting the sh*t. Palin aligned herself with “Joe Six Pack” for the same reason—to indicate she’s down with the working class American.
Of course this is all artifice; Crowley is sitting down with the President of the United States and a superstar scholar from Harvard. Gates and Obama are way above Crowley’s station in their professional and social spheres. However, what the Gates incident has taught us is that if you take Barack Obama, Henry Louis Gates or any prominent black man out of context—they can still easily and quickly drop well beneath Crowley’s station given the right (or more accurately, wrong) circumstances. In the often-disappointing real world colored by perception and stereotypes, it’s a rude awakening. If the President and Prof. Gates are anonymized into the average black man, it is still a world of driving while black, voting while black, shopping while black, hailing a cab while black, and now, being in your own home while black that they would experience.
What will these three talk about today, as they chug a cold one? I venture they will touch upon race in some, hopefully productive way, but I can put money on it that class won’t be on the table.
• noun 1 the belief that there are characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to each race. 2 discrimination against or antagonism towards other races.
— DERIVATIVES racist noun & adjective.
It’s clear
no one wants to be labeled a racist
, no matter how insane and inappropriate an action or comment they make. Some people seem to have a definition of it in their heads that excludes the possibility that anything THEY say or do might be steeped in racism, intended or not.
Take Boston Police Officer Justin Barrett, whose beat is District B-3 (Dorchester and Mattapan). He mass-mailed an execreble piece of trash to his presumably fellow non-racist friends (as well as The Boston Globe(!) and colleagues in the National Guard):
“His first priority of effort should be to get off the phone and comply with police, for if I was the officer he verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC deserving of his belligerent non-compliance.”
“He indeed has transcended back to a bumbling jungle monkey, thus he forever remains amid this nation’s great social/racial divide…”
“That paragraph was as pathetic as jungle monkey gibberish.”
You are a Fool. An infidel…You should serve me coffee and donuts on a Sunday morning.”
I am “not a racist but I am prejudice [sic] towards people who are stupid and pretend to stand up and preach for something they say is freedom but it is merely attention because you do not get enough of it in your little fear-dwelling circle of on-the-bandwagon followers.”
“Gates is a goddamned fool and you the article writer simply a poor follower and maybe worse, a poor writer. Your article title should read CONDUCT UNBECOMING a JUNGLE MONKEY-BACK TO ONE’S ROOTS. JB”
Ummmm…never mind racist, this man is a dumbass for it sending to the media. Or maybe he really thought there was nothing wrong in that missive. No one is saying he can’t have an opinion over who is right or wrong in this incident—why in god’s name is it relevant to refer to Gates as a “jungle monkey” in his criticism? BTW, the Police Commissioner, Edward Davis took Barrett’s gun and badge; Barrett is awaiting a termination hearing.
The Washington Post writes a story today about 
Slaves hampered efficiency of white labor. “In the management of slave labor the gang system predominated. The great majority of owners, having at the most only one or two families of Negroes, had to work alongside their slaves and set the pace for them. Slavery did not make white labor unrespectable, but merely inefficient. The slave had a deliberateness of motion which no amount of supervision could quicken. If the owner got ahead of the gang they all would shirk behind his back.” [The Making of America, page 732]
Over at my blog, my contributors and I have inboxes overflowing with emails asking us to cover this story or that event—from advocacy organizations, tips from readers, PR firms, and the news media. It’s pretty clear that the equality rights movement is highly dependent on blogs and citizen journalism to analyze, report and advocate in the unique way that we do.
Maf54: You in your boxers, too?
Just because you don’t use the N-word doesn’t mean you are not a racist. Just because you call your movement one of “angry, working-class Americans” does not provide cover for the fact that you are leading a racist mob. Just because you don’t explicitly tell people to assassinate the president, abortion doctors, gays, Hispanic-Americans or illegal immigrants, you may still have blood on your hands if you cheerlead them on and provide propaganda as fuel.
So today the President will sit down with Skip Gates and his arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge PD 
“His first priority of effort should be to get off the phone and comply with police, for if I was the officer he verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC deserving of his belligerent non-compliance.”