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Next entry: Why Blue Dogs? Previous entry: Sometimes, we CAN have nice things

Intersectionality, bitches!

Via Digby, we learn that the Republican nominee for Congress in New York’s 18th district Jim Russell has a history of straight up white supremacy, falling somewhere on the spectrum of evil between David Duke and Dinesh D’Souza.  Notably, he published an essay titled “The Western Contribution to World History” in a publication called “Occidental Quarterly”.  The title alone is the sort of thing I was alluding to earlier when I was talking about the way that white supremacists have this obsession with lining up a bunch of white people who did important shit, as if they get a piece of Shakespeare’s brains because they share his skin color.  (The other part of that is denying the cultural accomplishments of people they consider different in some way, of course.)  But for all the pretensions to the heights of Western civilization embodied in a title like that, it appears that the actual work itself is an incoherent rant.  But hey, he doesn’t need to be smart, since there have been some smart white people in the past and he can just round up because of it.

But what was really awesome about this essay was the Jim Russell has a native understanding of how, when you’re a Tea Cracker, you don’t have to choose between misogyny and racism.  You can have it all at once, if you want.  Who’s going to stop you?  Rush Limbaugh?  Russell’s argument against racial integration, particularly of schools, is beautiful in its linkage of the aims of patriarchy with the aims of white supremacy.

It has been demonstrated that finches raised by foster parents of a different species of finch will later exhibit a lifelong sexual attraction toward the alien species. One wonders how a child’s sexual imprinting mechanism is affected by forcible racial integration and near continual exposure to media stimuli promoting interracial contact. The most serious implication of human sexual imprinting for our genetic future is that it would establish the destructiveness of school integration, especially in the middle and high-school years. One can only wonder to what degree the advocates of school integration, such as former NAACP attorney Jack Greenberg, were conscious of this scientific concept. It also compounds the culpability of media moguls who deliberately popularize miscegenation in films directed toward adolescents and pre-adolescents. In the midst of this onslaught against our youth, parents need to be reminded that they have a natural obligation, as essential as providing food and shelter, to instill in their children an acceptance of appropriate ethnic boundaries for socialization and for marriage.

The sociobiological warfare that our youth is subjected to is likely to be even more diabolical since it appears to deliberately exploit a biological theory of sexual imprinting at the critical period of sexual maturity. Movies like this past year’s spate of miscegenationist titles, Save the Last Dance, Crazy / Beautiful and O, a parody of Othello, appear deliberately designed to exploit the critical period of sexual imprinting in their target audiences of white pre-adolescent girls and adolescent young women.

If Jim Russell wants to honor his elders—-and what are teabaggers without an obsession with looking back to “happier” times when patriarchy and white supremacy weren’t questioned as much—-this strikes me as an opportunity for him to do so.  Remember that famous Jesse Helms ad in 1990 that blamed job loss on racial integration and affirmative action? 

Scene: Pair of middle aged white hands holding a picture of a high school cheerleader, taken some time in the late 60s/early 70s, when Jim Russell was in high school.

Voiceover: “You needed that pussy.  It was your birthright. But she had to give it to a minority.  Because of school integration. Is that really fair? Nita Lowey [his opponent] says it is.”

Scene: Crumpling up of picture.

I think it’s a message the Tea Crackers would eat up.  After all, they can tell each other that this will really piss off the liberals, and at the end of the day, isn’t that what matters the most?

Instead, the GOP decided to assert itself a little, dropping Russell and joining the ranks of the “liberal elite”.  Russell is well-versed in conservative victimology, calling the GOP “hypersensitive”.  Which is quickly becoming the slur term for anyone who is uneasy with any kind of racism, no matter how over the top.  Only a bunch of pansy asses and girls get upset when they discover that a candidate for Congress is opposed to school integration. 

 

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Posted by Amanda Marcotte on 10:05 AM • (93) Comments

Relax, it wasn’t like this guy was going to win anyway.

(Although I’m going to be annoyed if he gets easily removed from the ballot, while the Democrats are stuck with the likes of Alvin Greene.)

Comment #1: Bitter Scribe  on  09/23  at  11:34 AM

In other news from finch research, human mothers are neglecting their natural duty to regurgitate food into the mouths of their children.

Comment #2: librarian  on  09/23  at  11:35 AM

I’m sure he’d get apoplectic that the local university has been doing genetics science lab work with the local high school.  One of the things the kids are doing is testing their mitochondrial DNA for the origins of their maternal line.

Why would this disturb a bigot?  Because some high SES, high achievement, culturally white kids like my son find out that their maternal line goes back through north America, South America, or Africa and not Europe.  That tends to make people think a bit about their assumptions about themselves and their heritage.

Guns, germs, and steel baby.

Comment #3: Ms Kate  on  09/23  at  11:39 AM

Librarian, most species of bird pair up and both parents take turns brooding and raising the young - I could get onto that!

Comment #4: Ms Kate  on  09/23  at  11:40 AM

“You needed that pussy.  It was your birthright. But she had to give it to a minority.  Because of school integration. Is that really fair? Nita Lowey [his opponent] says it is.”

Who let John Mayer in?

Comment #5: Richard Goblin  on  09/23  at  11:43 AM

Jim Russell = Ass. Hole.

I was trying to come up with more to say, but that’s all I’ve got right now.

Comment #6: Mark  on  09/23  at  11:45 AM

“Relax?”  I’m a little confused.  What part of this post gives you the impression that this is about my inability to relax?

Comment #7: Amanda Marcotte  on  09/23  at  11:47 AM

“Russell is well-versed in conservative victimology, calling the GOP “hypersensitive”.  Which is quickly becoming the slur term for anyone who is uneasy with any kind of racism, no matter how over the top.”

I hear that “Dr.” Laura Schlessinger has some relevant experience in combating the baseless liberal charges of racism.  Perhaps she can lend a hand to help reduce the level of hypersensitivity so another Good White Man can be elected…

“Only a bunch of pansy asses and girls get upset when they discover that a candidate for Congress is opposed to school integration.”

As that Good White Man Tent Lott said, If we’d only elected Strom Thurmond, Dixiecrat, as our President back in 1948, “...we wouldn’t have had all these problems over the years…”, and who can disagree with good, old-fashioned, common sense like that?

No uppity Negroes walking around like they belong here, no Jews in our country clubs, no integration of the Armed Forces, or schools, or places of business.  A man would be able to get a nice cool drink from a Whites Only drinking fountain, safe in the knowledge that it was untainted by contact with undesirable and debased colored people.

And women would know their place was in the home.  Quiet, submissive, dutiful, and with their gosh darn mouths kept shut, pardon my French.

We don’t hate coloreds and women, we just don’t like them very much and resent having our beautiful minds subjected to assault by these obviously lesser people.  After all, if God had meant us to live together in racial and gender harmony, why did he make it so easy to tell different kinds of people apart?  Those gutter people need to live their own lives apart from regular <strike>volk</strike> folk.  It’s only natural.

We had a good country once.  It’s about time we roll back all that “progress” forced on us over the last <strike>50-years</strike> <strike>100-years</strike> 160-years and make things the way they used to be!  In 1850!  We need to restore the <strike>Reich</strike> nation to its place of glory!...

Comment #8: MikeEss  on  09/23  at  11:51 AM

miscegenation

Weird how they take a word that’s really just “mix” + “genation”, i.e. a mixed family, and make it “mis”, like it’s a horrible mistake.

Comment #9: atheist  on  09/23  at  11:58 AM

I like how he slips in non-white = alien species.

In a minor historical note, I “voted” in that Helms v. Gantt race for kids voting. It was super, super fun! It was done right at the polls, so your parents went and voted for real and you got to go to your own booth and vote too. I remember the ballot had pictures of the candidates, so it’s not like we couldn’t see that Gantt was black. Anyway, they tallied up the kids votes and Gantt won, while the fucking adults clung to Helms. And then those kids grew up and helped turned NC blue for Obama. You talk about how the conservatives are going to lose out in the demographic war, Amanda, so there’s a little data point to support that.

Comment #10: ElleDee  on  09/23  at  11:58 AM

There’s apparently a few white supremacists who latched on to an idea of European early humans coming to the Americas before native Americans, based on some similarities in spearpoint designs; naturally the lack of European DNA must mean that the native Americans genocided the Europeans. (It’s based on a rather unaccepted hypothesis called the Solutrean hypothesis; the Solutreans were a western European culture from, I think, southern France. Naturally, the genocide is right-wing victimology.)

I got into a debate with a neo-Nazi promoting this on the blog Dispatches from the Culture Wars—watching him hit the roof when I told him the average American Communist was more patriotic than he could ever be (because of being more inclusive) was hilarious.

Comment #11: BrianX  on  09/23  at  12:05 PM

The need to borrow other people’s brilliance is an aspect of white supremacy that always cracks me up.  The people that promote the “Shakespeare was white, so am I, and that’s all you need to know” mentality appear to have an insecurity that is understandable, seeing as how they’re dumbasses.

Comment #12: Amanda Marcotte  on  09/23  at  12:09 PM

One wonders how a child’s sexual imprinting mechanism is affected by forcible racial integration and near continual exposure to media stimuli promoting interracial contact.

Wow, only the second sentence in and my mouth was literally dropping open.

This is also a tidy way to hate on other non-“traditional”/non-50s-stereotype lifestyles… gays can’t have kids ‘cause of imprinting turning the kids gay! Single parents can’t have kids ‘cause of imprinting turning the kids… uh, bad at marrying. Liberals can’t have kids ‘cause of imprinting making them think their parents are… like… arugula. Or orgies. Or Planned Parenthood. Or Obama. Yah.

Comment #13: Bagelsan  on  09/23  at  12:11 PM

Librarian, most species of bird pair up and both parents take turns brooding and raising the young - I could get onto that!

You can’t bring up facts like that! Don’t you know that reality has a well know liberal bias?

Comment #14: librarian  on  09/23  at  12:12 PM

In other news from finch research, human mothers are neglecting their natural duty to regurgitate food into the mouths of their children.

Librarian wins the thread!

Comment #15: Woodrowfan  on  09/23  at  12:14 PM

Though in all fairness, I imprinted on science, book-reading and computer games as a kid and never looked back. (Also on homemade cookies. Store-bought is never the same.) Now I’m simply ruined for anything else. So maybe there’s something to that… ;p

Comment #16: Bagelsan  on  09/23  at  12:16 PM

I happened to catch (well, hear) a trailer for some new tv show or another that I’m probably not going to watch, and one character was shouting about needing paper towels in a hurry.  Why, he was asked.  “I just threw up on the baby.”  Apparently finch research is infiltrating what sounds like horrible sitcoms now.  The line was kinda funny, mostly because the actor delivered it perfectly.

Comment #17: libdevil  on  09/23  at  12:24 PM

Amanda:

I’d argue it gets even weirder than that. To roughly paraphrase (and snark-boost) a point Martin Gardner once mentioned in “Fads and Fallacies” (a must read, btw, as one of the first great psychoceramic studies in the English language), the Aryan Superman (R) (tm) (c) (cf) is a strange and fragile being—he’s got “heroic” tendencies that border on a berserker death wish, and he apparently has a nearly uncontrollable compulsion to fuck anything darker than a cup of coffee with cream and sugar. It’s like homophobes that get caught with their flies down—it’s hard to read white supremacy as anything other than a sublimated inferiority complex.

Comment #18: BrianX  on  09/23  at  12:26 PM

and yet, just a couple weeks ago, a RW professor had an editorial in the WashPost complaining about how the left so unfairly criticizes the Republican party as racist.  To paraphrase Mills, “while not all Republicans are racist, most racists are Republican.”

Comment #19: Woodrowfan  on  09/23  at  12:30 PM

What’s worse in Russell’s book is that mixed-race and minority kids might get the idea that they can achieve and do shit too! 

I’d love to trap this jerk in a room and 360-project slides from my son’s middle school graduation.  It is a school that is really representative of the US in racial makeup - mostly white, but with a mix of those darned others who tend to outnumber whites on the honor role and academic awards, student of the year stuff, etc.  Oh, and then there’s the pic of my son being kissed by a black/hispanic girl and an Asian girl.  We could set it to hip-hop music and use superglue to keep his eyelids open. 

A bit of the ultraintegration, anyone?

Comment #20: Ms Kate  on  09/23  at  12:32 PM

Ms Kate, this creep has seen it all before. He grew up in NYC, and is running to represent a district that’s more than 30% people of color.

Comment #21: Angus Johnston  on  09/23  at  12:41 PM

Growing up in NYC isn’t any real guarantee that he experienced anything integrated at all - in fact, it argues toward segregation as the law of his early “imprinting”.  What I’m thinking is that it would be fun to rub his nose in the America of the Next Decade, when this increasingly diverse pack of kids comes of age.

Comment #22: Ms Kate  on  09/23  at  12:45 PM

You know, there’s that particular sub-genre of machismo that doesn’t belch or flex or work on cars, but rather counters any mention of an existing problem (and the desire to work on it) with “Hey, don’t worry about it.  Take it easy.  It’ll all work out.  Etc.”  Charges of political correctness have never been anything much more than that: an assertion that things are fine just the way they are, it’s all in your head, don’t worry about it.  Or, in short: “Just shut the fuck up ‘cause I’m sick of hearing from you, you whiny little jerk off.  You’re crowding out my privilege.”  “Hypersensitivity” is maybe the label du jour, but it’s all the same crap.

Incidentally, the guy in the picture on top (I assume that’s Jim Russell) bears a striking resemblance to a ventriloquist’s dummy.  That would both explain just exactly what’s up his ass and also maybe point in the direction of a new, post-candidate career.

Comment #23: jTuba  on  09/23  at  12:47 PM

While the election of President Obama hasn’t ended racial problems in the US, his election has performed an invaluable service to the nation by acting as a catalyst to bring out multiple layers of our cultural racism and expose them to the light.

So all you right-wing racists — who have struggled in the past to keep your racism covered in a white sheet well enough to be able to convince some people you’re not racist while sending out dog whistles to reassure The Right People you’re really with the program — now’s your chance! 

Remember watching film of white people harassing black kids trying to enter a segregated school, and feeling jealous of their freedom to vent their true feelings regarding race?  Now you can let it all out!

Remember trying to tell that racist joke you love so well, but having to make sure only the “right people” will hear it?  Now you’re free to tell it out loud to anyone at any time!

Remember trying to tell your kids they should date only fellow white kids, but trying to avoid being called a racist in the process?  That’s all behind us now!  You can openly tell them to avoid consorting with the Children of Ham and no one will call you for it!

So come out from under all those rocks, take off those sheets, stand up proudly and proclaim you’re white and you hate everyone who isn’t!  It’s the American thing to do!...

Comment #24: MikeEss  on  09/23  at  01:00 PM

There’s apparently a few white supremacists who latched on to an idea of European early humans coming to the Americas before native Americans, based on some similarities in spearpoint designs; naturally the lack of European DNA must mean that the native Americans genocided the Europeans. (It’s based on a rather unaccepted hypothesis called the Solutrean hypothesis; the Solutreans were a western European culture from, I think, southern France. Naturally, the genocide is right-wing victimology.)

The really hilarious thing about this notion is that the Solutreans almost certainly weren’t modern “white” Europeans. They appear to have been either wiped out or assimilated by the population which later became modern “white” Europeans when the latter migrated out of the Middle East.

Comment #25: Dunc  on  09/23  at  01:03 PM

His basic premise seems to have some validity. I don’t have numbers, but I’d be surprised if early and regular exposure to people of other races makes DIDN’T make it likely to view them as potential romantic partners.  I’m sure glad it worked out that way for me, otherwise I’d have missed out on dating a few great people.

My parents were upfront from well before I was old enough that the dating outside of race was A-OK, but dating outside of religion, not so much.  So I became an atheist.

Comment #26: Ron O.  on  09/23  at  01:25 PM

OK can’t really watch as I’m at work. But does it actually talk about “pussy” in the 1990 ad, or is that a “shorter”?

Comment #27: atheist  on  09/23  at  01:43 PM

Ron O, Strom Thurmond fathered a child by his familiy’s 15 or 16 year old servant.  Oh, but that wasn’t the result of desegregation.  That’s different.

Comment #28: Ms Kate  on  09/23  at  01:46 PM

One wonders how a child’s sexual imprinting mechanism is affected by forcible racial integration and near continual exposure to media stimuli promoting interracial contact. The most serious implication of human sexual imprinting for our genetic future is that it would establish the destructiveness of school integration, especially in the middle and high-school years.

Oh noes!!!111!

their target audiences of white pre-adolescent girls and adolescent young women

Hey, white males are left out of it? No fair! Where’s our “miscegenationist imprinting”?

BTW, is “miscegenationist” even a real word? Like, is there such a thing as “MisceginationISM?” Or a “Miscegenationit Party”?

Comment #29: Ben D.  on  09/23  at  01:52 PM

And speaking of Strom Thurmond, $100 bucks says Jim Russell has fathered a mixed race child. He’s protesting a little too much here.

Comment #30: Ben D.  on  09/23  at  01:53 PM

What I don’t get is why he says this like it is a bad thing.

I mean, if the ozone layer goes, the whitest people are gonna get it first!  No diversity means no adaptability!

Comment #31: Ms Kate  on  09/23  at  01:55 PM

@27 - the 1990 ad is about a black person taking a job from what we have to assume is meant to be a vastly more deserving white guy (the paper he’s holding is supposed to be a rejection notice from a job he wanted).  Oh, the plight of the white guy, society is just out to get him, so he should vote for Jesse Helms who will keep those nasty black folks in their place.

The text below is a parody, updated for the times, about Russell’s bizarre argument against integration, because integration would lead to more integration, and then white guys would never get laid.

You know, there’s that particular sub-genre of machismo that doesn’t belch or flex or work on cars, but rather counters any mention of an existing problem (and the desire to work on it) with “Hey, don’t worry about it.  Take it easy.  It’ll all work out.  Etc.”

That’s machismo?  Crap.  I kinda resemble that.  Though it’s more like, “Hey, don’t worry about.  Take a step back and let’s get ahold of ourselves.  We can figure out how to make this work out.”  Not ignoring the problem, but trying to get myself and those around me out of anger and panic mode as fast as possible.  I don’t do productive very well while angry and panicked.  (Also, I hate that panicked adds a random ‘k’ - always takes me multiple attempts to spell it.)  It’s not exactly the same, but it’s close enough that it kinda struck me.  And I try hard not to do the macho-jerk thing.

Comment #32: libdevil  on  09/23  at  01:56 PM

Pair of middle aged white hands holding a picture of a high school cheerleader, taken some time in the late 60s/early 70s, when Jim Russell was in high school.

I am sure Michelle Malkin would pose for that picture.

Comment #33: James  on  09/23  at  01:56 PM

Kate, that is different.  Rich scions of important families have been doing that for ages.  I just found it funny that something he found so horrible works out pretty well for a lot people, including me.

Comment #34: Ron O.  on  09/23  at  01:56 PM

As I was reading the excerpt of Russell’s essay, I was thinking “When the hell did he write this? 1954?”  And then I got to the part where he cited recent films as evidence of his “finches mating with alien finches” metaphor.  Really dude?  What a birdbrain.

Comment #35: mythbri  on  09/23  at  02:04 PM

Of course it works out well when both parties come to it on equal or at least consensual footing ... I somehow doubt that 15 year old girl had much latitude to say no!

Comment #36: Ms Kate  on  09/23  at  02:05 PM

As I was reading the excerpt of Russell’s essay, I was thinking “When the hell did he write this? 1954?”

It sounds like something pre-1945 actually, even 19th Century. I can only see something like this being even remotely respectable in polite society before Nazism showed the logical conclusion of this line of “thought”.

Comment #37: Ben D.  on  09/23  at  02:14 PM

“sociobiological warfare”

[citation needed]

Trench? Guerrilla? Asymmetrical? Conventional? Psychological?

Shock and Awe?

Is there a Maginot Line/Hadrian’s Wall/Great Wall of China?

Is there a cordon sanitaire?

Are our precious bodily fluids now weapons of mass destruction?

Comment #38: stryx  on  09/23  at  02:15 PM

I’m gonna take a risk here and give props to Bill Maher. He’s the only one I’ve heard who pointed that what Strom did wasn’t some naughty little affair, but that it definitely was rape.

Comment #39: librarian  on  09/23  at  02:15 PM

Oh, and clicking through, Amanda omitted this gem that Digby quoted:

“There is now afoot a conscious effort to de-Europeanize and to re-Judaize Christianity, through scriptural revision, internal treachery and external pressure.”

I’m thinking he’s a little Re-Judaized and Confused.

Good thing he’s a Republican, or someone might think he was an antisemite of some sort!

Comment #40: witless chum  on  09/23  at  02:18 PM

“There is now afoot a conscious effort to de-Europeanize and to re-Judaize Christianity,

Yeah, I heard people are even trying to suggest the New Testament was largely written by Jews!!!! Blasphemy!!

Comment #41: Ben D.  on  09/23  at  02:22 PM

MsKate @28: but, see, that was okay because the woman was a minority and the man was white. It’s not like he gave her legitimacy by marrying her or something. The problem is when white women, who are the rightful property of white men, stray off the ranch. 

librarian @39, wasn’t it baffling how all the stories about that tiptoed around the issue of the lack of consent - particularly given Thurmond’s very public and very well-known inability to keep his hands to himself?

Comment #42: mythago  on  09/23  at  02:22 PM

“It sounds like something pre-1945 actually, even 19th Century. I can only see something like this being even remotely respectable in polite society before Nazism showed the logical conclusion of this line of “thought”.”

Is it possible he plagiarized some early 20th century racist and replaced references to the Lindy Hop, Jazz joints and Faulkner with current movies? (It’s probably unfair to this nice gentleman to speculate about such wrongdoing with no basis or evidence. I feel real bad.)

Comment #43: witless chum  on  09/23  at  02:24 PM

Let’s see, this guy rails against immigration, affirmative action, and HUD desegregation housing policy. Here he is (from his website):

Congratulations to Westchester County Executive Robert Astorino for vetoing the “source of income discrimination” bill that was passed by the Westchester County Board of Legislators. It’s too bad that the board didn’t have the good sense to reject the outrageous federal Housing and Urban Development Department settlement last September. As I stated then to the board, it is not a mere coincidence that HUD embedded a source of income discrimination paragraph in the middle of the settlement agreement, but rather a ploy to pave the way for Section 8 tenants to move into HUD’s “middle income” projects.
HUD has an insatiable desire to reconfigure neighborhoods across America. And what has “our” Rep. Nita Lowey, D-Harrison, done to stop the HUD steamroller? Absolutely nothing! What can be done? Introduce legislation to amend federal housing laws to exclude any requirement to “affirmatively further fair housing,” and to eliminate the irrational assertion that so-called “de facto segregation,” which is often the result of natural housing patterns, constitutes proof of discrimination.


And Republicans are shocked, shocked I tell ya, that he’s a racist.

Comment #44: JohnL  on  09/23  at  02:25 PM

@Comment #29: Ben D.  on 09/23 at 11:52 AM

BTW, is “miscegenationist” even a real word?

The intertuubez say yes.

Comment #45: atheist  on  09/23  at  02:30 PM

@Comment #39: librarian on 09/23 at 12:15 PM

I’m gonna take a risk here and give props to Bill Maher. He’s the only one I’ve heard who pointed that what Strom did wasn’t some naughty little affair, but that it definitely was rape.

I really think Maher has unusual amounts of guts. Lots of people say “I’m politically incorrect”, but he’s one of the few for which it means something beyond a “dog whistle”.

Comment #46: atheist  on  09/23  at  02:35 PM

There is now afoot a conscious effort to de-Europeanize and to re-Judaize Christianity

And they have to recalibrate the prayer injectors as well.

Comment #47: Dark Avenger Guardian Chow Mein  on  09/23  at  02:36 PM

wasn’t it baffling how all the stories about that tiptoed around the issue of the lack of consent - particularly given Thurmond’s very public and very well-known inability to keep his hands to himself?

Yeah, they sorta had this snickering attitude. “Ohh, this is a tad embarrasing for the old guy. He was a naughty boy there.” When in fact, as Bill pointed out, it was far more serious than some slight hypocrisy. I guess they saw it through the lens of more recent sex scandals and didn’t bother thinking about how different it was back then and especially in the south.

Comment #48: librarian  on  09/23  at  02:40 PM

“And they have to recalibrate the prayer injectors as well.”

...of course, that goes without saying.  Same thing for the dogmatic encabulators…

Comment #49: MikeEss  on  09/23  at  02:41 PM

Maher also went after Roman Polanski. When it seemed like everyone I respected was signing that fucking petition, he came out an unequivocably said that no matter what angle you looked at it from, what Polanski did was rape and he should be punished for it.

There are times I just shake my head and say “Oh, Bill…” but he’s been pretty good about calling out sexual violence for what it is lately.

Comment #50: Mighty Ponygirl  on  09/23  at  02:51 PM

The text below is a parody, updated for the times, about Russell’s bizarre argument against integration, because integration would lead to more integration, and then white guys would never get laid. libdevil

But that’s the thing, only racist white guys wouldn’t get laid because they’d be after all the white womenz who’re now corrupted by Hollywood and dating black guys (and it’s always the fear of losing women to black guys). If they weren’t assholes they’d double, hell, triple their chances of getting laid cause they’d have more options.

But nope, gotta go after that pure white pussy so they can have the pure white babies.

Comment #51: UltraMagnus  on  09/23  at  02:52 PM

but he’s been pretty good about calling out sexual violence for what it is lately.

Except with Michael Jackson. He pretty much said he believed Jackson did sexually abuse those kids, but it’s not as bad as getting bullied in third grade, or something. I couldn’t believe anyone could think like that.

What’ even weirder is he’s really hard on Roman Catholic priests for doing the exact same things Jackson allegedly did.

Comment #52: Ben D.  on  09/23  at  02:59 PM

Last night my husband and I Netflixed “Brian’s Song” because he wanted to cry manly tears of pure manliness.  One of the major plot points in the movie is that the black Gale Sayers and the white Brian Piccolo roomed together when the team was on the road, which was controversial at the time.  During the scene where the coach takes Sayers aside and solemnly explains the anger and harassment he’s going to face for sharing a hotel room with a white player, my husband suddenly said, “This country is weird.”

That’s all I can think when I read something like this.  This country is weird.

Comment #53: Shaenon  on  09/23  at  02:59 PM

Ben D… I may be wrong on this but I suspect that someone had a sit-down with him after that because I’ve only started getting the Real Time podcast in the last year (we don’t have HBO so I have to listen to the show the next week), and I don’t remember hearing that quote but I have heard about it, which makes me think that he said it before I started listening, but between then and when I started listening, someone took a minute to dope-smack him and clear up a few things about sexual assault. At least, I hope that’s the case.

Comment #54: Mighty Ponygirl  on  09/23  at  03:06 PM

Mighty pony girl—I am not exactly sure when it happened, but it was on Craig Ferguson’s show and not his own.

Comment #55: alysia  on  09/23  at  03:12 PM

Maybe so, then again Michael Jackson can’t really be in the news any more.

Regardless I do like Bill Maher on the whole and think his heart is in the right place even when he makes dumbass statements. I don’t know if anyone else noticed, but during the writer’s strike his show seemed to cut way, way down on the misogyny (which is an occasionally irritating thing about him) , so maybe some of it is his writers.

Again, what struck me as weird is that during that same period, he was (rightly) lambasting Roman Catholic priests for doing the same things Jackson is alleged to have done. That’s what struck me as very odd.

Comment #56: Ben D.  on  09/23  at  03:16 PM

There are times I just shake my head and say “Oh, Bill…”

I think it’s easy for people who are continuously in the position of having to speak truth to power to fall into the trap that on the occasion where they’re horribly, horribly wrong and everybody is telling them they are, it’s yet again an example of all the people marching out there in lockstep and you should continue spouting in the face of ridicule.

I do want to slap him for being an anti-vax whacko.

Comment #57: BlackBloc  on  09/23  at  03:19 PM

BlackBloc—that’s why I try not to get too outraged when someone* makes a bone-headed statement. I can definitely be upset, but I try not to salt the earth.

*especially when that someone is an entertainer… a comedian even.

Comment #58: Mighty Ponygirl  on  09/23  at  03:28 PM

*especially when that someone is an entertainer… a comedian even.

Careful. I get what you’re saying, but Rush Limbaugh/Glen Beck often use the “I’m just an entertainer, guys!” dodge after getting called out for saying something beyond the pale.

How Maher got treated for his 9/11 comment was despicable, though. He was talking about the <I>physical courage, not moral courage of the hijackers. Two very separate things.

Comment #59: Ben D.  on  09/23  at  03:35 PM

I have no doubt that this guy believes the stereotypes about black men are true and he can’t, uh, measure up to the competition.

Really, how often does stuff like this seem to stem from these guys’ massive sexual insecurities? I always thought a lot of white men’s fear and disgust with white girls dating black guys stems from it. Then there’s the obsession with the idea that sexual freedom for women will turn them into lesbians or man-haters. Or that too much gender equality turns men effeminate, or gay. And let’s not forget the Texas AG who spent years trying to uphold the ban on vibrators. Anyone else suspect he was afraid he can’t compete? Of course, their insecurity causes them to lash out at everyone they see as a threat.

Comment #60: Ashley Herzog  on  09/23  at  04:05 PM

“...deliberately designed to exploit the critical period of sexual imprinting in their target audiences of white pre-adolescent girls and adolescent young women.”

Ah, see? He’s worried about girls liking black guys, but not white guys liking black girls.

Comment #61: Ashley Herzog  on  09/23  at  04:06 PM

appear deliberately designed to exploit the critical period of sexual imprinting in their target audiences of white pre-adolescent girls and adolescent young women.

I think I speak for everyone when I ask the question, “Where da white women at?”

Ah, see? He’s worried about girls liking black guys, but not white guys liking black girls.

That’s the misogyny talking.  When a white girl dates a black guy, she was manipulated or forced against her will.  When a white guy dates a black girl, he is a race traitor or a desperate savage.  In the first case, you have to protect poor, innocent, irresponsible, dumb-as-a-sack-of-hammers white girls from polluting themselves before you can marry them off to nice rich white men.  In the second case, it’s just the white man debasing himself because, due to a combination of bigotries, it’s not like we care what the black woman thinks.

Comment #62: Zifnab25  on  09/23  at  04:21 PM

“This country is weird.”

I was very young when Mother Avenger explained to me the civil rights issue in terms of how would I feel if Dad was unable to drink out of a fountain because of his skin color, so I’d say, ‘weird, but slowly progressing’.

Comment #63: Dark Avenger Guardian Chow Mein  on  09/23  at  04:21 PM

Ben D…. I can look at a body of work and figure out whether or not to cut someone some slack.

Comment #64: Mighty Ponygirl  on  09/23  at  04:22 PM

I always thought a lot of white men’s fear and disgust with white girls dating black guys stems from it.

When I was going to school in the early 80s in Mobile, AL, I overheard a classmate repeat what a Caucasoid friend had said about dating an African-American: “You don’t know what being treated nice is like until you go out with a black dude.”

That, coupled with the anecdata from a couple of sources that AA men often grew up thinking that dating a white woman was the pinnacle of status dating, it wouldn’t be surprising that there would be some white men who’d get pissed at AA men for having the audacity to be on their best behavior when dating ‘their’(WMs) women.

Comment #65: Dark Avenger Guardian Chow Mein  on  09/23  at  04:32 PM

That’s probably part of it. Don’t you think a lot of it has to do with the stereotype of black men being more virile, masculine, and having bigger, uh, packages? I have no doubt it makes certain white men insecure.

Comment #66: Ashley Herzog  on  09/23  at  04:33 PM

Ironically, the biology suggests that if you wanted to avoid sexual mixing along racial lines, there is a specific remedy:

Premarital sexual behavior and marriage patterns were investigated in Israeli kibbutzim. All adolescents and adults of the second generation (N =65)in one kibbutz were studied. There were no cases of heterosexual activity between any two native adolescents of the same peer group and no cases of marriage between any two members of the same peer group. The avoidance was completely voluntary. Among 2769 marriages contracted by second generation adults in all kibbutzim, there were no cases of intra—peer group marriage. These findings could represent a case of negative imprinting whereby collective peer group education which includes an incessant exposure to peers from the first days of life and an unimpeded tactile relationship among the peers between ages 0–6 results in sexual avoidance and exogamy.

Comment #67: Dark Avenger Guardian Chow Mein  on  09/23  at  04:38 PM

In my experience in my school that was about 65/45 white/black split, there was a lot of flirting and whatnot between races from about 6th to early 8th grade (both black guy/white girl and white guy/black girl), and nobody made a big deal about it. At least the kids never did. But near the end of 8th grade and especially in high school it ended quite suddenly and there was a grand total of one interracial couple in my entire high school.

Comment #68: Ben D.  on  09/23  at  04:50 PM

[hit blaspheme too soon]

Has anyone else observed this? I guess it had something to do with the parents saying things, or cliques forming, or both.

Comment #69: Ben D.  on  09/23  at  04:55 PM

What passes as scholarship among wing-nuts boggles the mind.

Comment #70: Lee  on  09/23  at  04:58 PM

@Comment #69: Ben D.  on 09/23 at 02:55 PM

I guess it had something to do with the parents saying things, or cliques forming, or both.

I guess parents, at least, tend to care a little more who their kid dates as the kid gets older.

Comment #71: atheist  on  09/23  at  05:28 PM

Avenger @67 - I don’t see how this settles anything.  You have your study on people.  He has his study on birds.  How the hell are we to determine which one might be more applicable to people?  It’s just like those damned ‘experts’ to confuse the issue with their science.  That’s why Jesus said that white folks can’t have sex with black folks.  We don’t need science to settle issues of morality.

Comment #72: libdevil  on  09/23  at  05:52 PM

They really gave 110% at your school, Ben D.  smile
My high school was so lily white, that I have no anecdata.

Comment #73: gravitybear  on  09/23  at  05:56 PM

As somebody who actually lives in the congressional district in question, most (all?) of this comment thread is pretty much beside the point.

The really depressing thing is that it means that there is no real alternative candidate to Nita Lowey, so she can do pretty much anything she wants, knowing that only the right-wing idiots (who wouldn’t vote for her anyway) will vote for the Republican.

This is an ongoing pattern here in Westchester County.  The guy who won the Democratic line for our state assembly district is a guy whose only political experience has been 10 years in our local patronage mill (the county legislature), and whose main ability is going along and getting along with the local party bosses.  I voted against him in the primary, and I really, really wanted to vote (and campaign) against him.  But it now looks like his Republican opponent, Tom Bock, is also a total nut case—today is the first time I’ve heard his name, and it’s in an article where he is quoted by our local paper defending and supporting Russell.

It’s the pattern throughout the state, most of the time.  Almost no races are real contests, because you rarely get two candidates for an office that a significant number of voters can stomach (often, you don’t even get one.)  In many cases, one gets the impression that the two parties decide beforehand who should win, sort of like crime bosses dividing up a territory, and the campaigns and elections are just window-dressing.  The guy who is running against Gillibrand (the anti-abortion successor to Sen. Clinton) is the usual Karl Rove wannabee who’s been a perennial Republican candidate since I moved to the county.  (He may have had a term in Congress, I’m not sure.)

Comment #74: AMM  on  09/23  at  05:58 PM

Ah, see? He’s worried about girls liking black guys, but not white guys liking black girls.

Well, the former does seem to be several orders of magnitude more common than the latter…

Comment #75: Devonian  on  09/23  at  06:03 PM

@Comment #75: Devonian on 09/23 at 04:03 PM

Well, the former does seem to be several orders of magnitude more common than the latter…

I’m not sure that’s true. Do you have any data to support that contention?

Comment #76: atheist  on  09/23  at  06:09 PM

They really gave 110% at your school, Ben D.

Ah, now you see why I had such trouble with math in school!

Anyway I met to convey a slight but not overwhelming white majority.

Comment #77: Ben D.  on  09/23  at  06:15 PM

Gillibrand (the anti-abortion successor to Sen. Clinton)

AMM - I’m not sure if I’m reading you wrong, but Senator Gillibrand is pro-choice.

Comment #78: rivki  on  09/23  at  06:35 PM

Black husband and white wife is more than twice as common as the other way around. On the other hand white husband and Asian wife is more than thrice as common as the other way around.

However this doesn’t really matter much since interracial marriage is very uncommon in comparison.

Relevant Wiki page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage_in_the_United_States

Comment #79: librarian  on  09/23  at  06:37 PM

Yeah, but 4.6% of black people are married to white people, which means that we are looking at 1.5% of black women marrying white men and 3.1% of black men marrying white women. With numbres that small over twice as much isn’t really a huge deal.

Comment #80: alysia  on  09/23  at  06:45 PM

Gillibrand (the anti-abortion successor to Sen. Clinton)

As rivki said, Gillibrand is not anti-abortion. From her site:

Senator Gillibrand believes that a woman’s medical decisions should always be made between her, her family, and her doctor - not by politicians.

Senator Gillibrand is committed to protecting and defending women’s access to the full range of reproductive health care. Her support for reproductive rights has earned her a 100 percent rating from the National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood, and NARAL: Pro-Choice America.

Were you confusing her with someone else? Or is there a specific reason you labeled her as such?

Comment #81: Alison  on  09/23  at  06:46 PM

Don’t know if it’s already been posted and if so, sorry for the repeat, but Russell got his ass handed to him on TV.

Comment #82: UltraMagnus  on  09/24  at  02:57 AM

“That’s probably part of it. Don’t you think a lot of it has to do with the stereotype of black men being more virile, masculine, and having bigger, uh, packages? I have no doubt it makes certain white men insecure.”

No, I think it has to do with the white women’s tendency to be a ho. There are no shortage of white hos in America, thats for sure, the pron industry is dominated by white hos.

Comment #83: coffee partier  on  09/24  at  09:08 AM

Ah, the late thread crazy. It’s the happyiest kind of crazy.

Comment #84: witless chum  on  09/24  at  10:06 AM

3/10

Comment #85: atheist  on  09/24  at  10:07 AM

Well, he isn’t exactly wrong on this one. I know having grown up around different races, and even having a step-father of a different race than me, lead me to be open to interracial dating. I, a white woman, even went so far as to marry a black man. Gasp!

I guess the difference is that I see this a good thing, and he sees it as the end of the world.

Comment #86: Olivia  on  09/24  at  11:21 AM

You are consistently to generous with your troll ratings, atheist.

Comment #87: alysia  on  09/24  at  05:47 PM

Ugh, he looks like Mitch McConnell’s sun-deprived younger brother.

Comment #88: Alyson Miers  on  09/24  at  08:50 PM

@78,81 (Re: is Gillibrand anti-abortion)

I may be misremembering (when I characterized Ms. Gillibrand as anti-abortion.)

I do remember that our governor (Patterson? was criticized for selecting Ms. Gillibrand on the grounds that she was too right-wing (or more so than Ms. Clinton), and I thought it was on the subject of abortion.  Perhaps those with better memories for NYS politics can correct me.

FWIW, since I last wrote, our local newspaper has had some updates on the Russell story:

1.  Russell was reported (and in some cases filmed) as participating in a number of white-supremacist rallies.

2.  Tom Bock backed off on his support of Russell.  Make of it what you will.

Comment #89: AMM  on  09/25  at  02:11 PM

AMM, Gillibrand got money from Emily’s list, so I assume she is pro-choice. IIRC the controversy with her was over her views on gun rights. According to this sight http://www.issues2000.org/NY/Kirsten_Gillibrand.htm She is fairly far left on social issues, but somewhat moderate on econ issues.

Comment #90: alysia  on  09/25  at  09:47 PM

Wow, I haven’t heard anyone using the word “miscegenation” since the 60’s.  These guys really DO want to go back in time.

Comment #91: Nutella  on  09/26  at  12:06 AM

@Comment #87: alysia on 09/24 at 03:47 PM

You’re probably right. In general, my scale is:
1/10 = too lame to comment on
5/10 = dumb enough to laugh at
10/10 = full retard

Comment #92: atheist  on  09/26  at  03:58 PM

thanks for the ableism fail there, atheist. You actually managed a trifecta.

Comment #93: Tropes on the Run  on  09/27  at  08:04 PM
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