Jesse, this is a lot easier if you realize that everyone who isn’t racist ever in history is Republican.

English abolitionists?  Republicans!  The founding fathers who opposed the slave trade?  Republicans!  Thomas Jefferson was a Republican when he was writing the Declaration of Independence, but suddenly stopped being a Republican whenever he was out being a slaveowner racist.  Then he was a goddamn Democrat.

It’s a tricky distinction, but it makes western history easier to comprehend.  And easier to understand why liberals are the REAL racists.

Believing six impossible things before breakfast may be a fun literary allusion, but attempting it in real life can lead to long-term brain damage.

I actually think that Baron-Cohen’s next project has to be putting on blackface. And, like in Borat and Bruno, have some pretentious, pseudo-intellectual reasoning as to why this isn’t offensive.

The Whigs and the Republicans who came from them really were on the side of the angels on the whole black people are human issue.  Too bad that had to change.  I see this all the time from disingenuous right-wingers pointing to the history of their party as if it had any real bearing on today.  Similarly, they will say the Democrats are racist for their history, again ignoring today.

Obnoxious.

Indeed, there is no case in which putting on blackface is ever acceptable.

I personally hope Gene Wilder burns in hell forever.

The problem is that treating black people like, well, people goes far beyond abolishing slavery or even ensuring them a constitutional right to vote (which wasn’t extremely effective at protecting that right anyway).  Also, what John said about the past not reflecting the present.

brain damage

dain bramage.  Yup.

God give me strength, Michael Steele!

Oppose us if you will, lie about us if you must, obstruct us if think you can; but STOP embarassing us.  The rest of the world actually thinks you’re still real Americans.  They don’t understand that you’re sniveling, traitorous sociopaths.  People are watching you!  At least have the decency to hide your moronity from innocent eyes.  Think of the children!  What will they think when they see ‘grown-ups’ doing shit they’re not allowed to do?

My brother, my brother!  I wish the people in Steele’s family would stage an intervention for this man.  Not only is his buffoonery making Black folks look really bad, he’s shaming everyone he touches with this Uncle Tommery.

To clarify, Michael Steele just said that the Republican Party, founded in 1854, outlawed slavery by putting the 1954 version of a pledge written in 1892 in the Constitution in 1787, which in turn outlawed slavery in 1865, which was before the British did it in 1833.

...wait…what?  O_O

The goal of this party from its inception about inclusion.

Indeed. The goal of the Republican party from its inception has been about inclusion. No matter what race, sex or creed you may be the Republicans have always been more than willing to take your money and give it to rich white men.

Wow.
He really needs a tinfoil hat for that balding pate of his for his next on camera appearance.

The Whigs and the Republicans who came from them really were on the side of the angels on the whole black people are human issue.

Why all this love for the Whigs?  The Whigs were not on the side of the angels on this issue.  Some Whigs were, but so also were some Democrats.  Northern Whigs tended on the whole to be more anti-slavery than northern Democrats, but there were tons of anti-slavery northern Democrats, and plenty of wealthy conservative northern “cotton Whigs” who had no interest in rocking the boat on slavery issues.

Southern Whigs tended to be less into “insanely provoking the north by insisting that it talk about how wonderful slavery is and demanding ridiculous boons for the slave system” than southern Democrats, but southern Whigs actually tended to represent the actual big plantation owners, and agreed with everyone else in the south on the “black people are not really human” issue.

Everyone really needs to stop it with all this love for the Whigs.  Both parties were deeply implicated in the slave system, and both parties included people who opposed slavery.  (The Whigs were distinctly better on the “Indians are human” issue, though)

The Republican Party sold black people out in 1877 and have never looked back.

Good points, jlk7e.  I was simplifying of course, and I even knew about the Cotton Whigs and such.  Indeed, even with the Republicans, committed abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison had a “lesser of two evils” attitude towards them, especially with Lincoln temporizing about not interfering with slavery in existing slave states.

Nonetheless, being against slavery or at least the extension of slavery was definitely a theme in the Whig party, just as pro-slavery sentiment was a definite theme with the Democrats.  Individuals and different parts of the coalition varied of course, but that didn’t change the basic reality.  Even being against slavery didn’t guarantee a good attitude towards black equality.

Wow, that timeline is like premillenial rapture stuff.  Pick random facts and jumble them into some sort of order that makes it look like today’s GOP is still the party of Lincoln and the Southern Strategy is just a figment of Nixon’s imagination.

Things can be offensive and still also be effective and meaningful satires.

Ferox:  ‘“Indeed, there is no case in which putting on blackface is ever acceptable.”

Watch Spike Lee’s Bamboozled.  There’s a scene with Savion Glover and Tommy Davidson applying burnt cork to their faces which is in my list of the top ten most powerful cinematic scenes ever.

@oldfeminist - Recs for Bamboozled.  I think that movie was unfairly ignored when it was released.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMZ6zp-3oGY