Wow.  That’s just…wow. 

What century is this guy from?

“Race meltdown”? Nah. All he did was call Obama’s mother a filthy, n*gger-loving whore. What’s racial about that?

also he seems to think the “main stream” is a location

do we have a stream from which all other streams flow that i am not aware of

Just when I thought that my opinion of the poor excuse for toilet paper that is the Washington Times could sink no lower…

Arakiba:  Remember that “Loving vs. Virginia”, making interracial marriage legal in all states, was a Supreme Court decision made in 1967.  I remember in the same period very ‘moderate and reasonable’ editorials and columns in main stream publications such as Time and Life questioning whether it was desirable for advertisers to use AA actors in their advertisements or for the networks to air TV shows built around an AA character, such as “Julia”.  The tone of such pieces was generally along the lines of: “I’d be all in favor of it, my friends and I are broadminded and modern, but we have to remember that many other whites, especially in the south, will be offended’.

I suppose in a way it’s a good thing that these insane assholes don’t even try to be subtle. Nobody can be in any doubt about exactly what kind of garbage they are.

...TV shows built around an AA character, such as “Julia”.

AAAAARGH!! Why did you remind me of “Julia”? That show is Exhibit A in the pantheon of Tooth-Grindingly Awful Ideas from Well-Meaning Liberals.

For those who are blessedly too young to remember that condescending piece of tripe: It aired in the late ‘60s, starring Diahann Caroll as a single black mom (her husband was killed in Vietnam, so it was OK for her to be single) trying to navigate white society. The theme of the show was, as long as you’re brilliant, educated, drop-dead gorgeous, utterly in command of every situation you encounter, and basically perfect in every conceivable way, then it’s OK to be black.

I hated that show even worse than the Cosby Show, its successor in the Shows Starring Blacks that White People Like lineup. At least the Cosby Show had an actual black person behind it.

born to a mother attracted to men of the Third World

Gah!  I can’t believe I just read that!  I mean I can,  but I still can’t.

The term “blood impulse” also bothers me.  What exactly is that supposed to mean?

That his blood is not “pure” (dogwhistle for “white”), thus he is incapable of understanding what it means to be a True American (again, dogwhistle for “white”).

This is hardly a new theme for Pruden, who wrote a similarly racist column last spring when Obama gave a speech to the Muslim world from Cairo.

And while obviously this further proves the fact that we still aren’t the “post-racial” America that some want to think we are, don’t let these asshats get you too down.  They are 25%ers, which is evidenced by their embarrasingly shrinking numbers at teabagging protests when they have to post fake videos and photos to make their crowds look much bigger than they really are.  They work really hard at trying to convince themselves that they are the mainstream voice of Real America™, but they aren’t.

There was a time when these folks held a decisive majority in the American cultural and political dialogue, and while they have certainly gotten a hell of a lot louder and more offensive since Obama became president, they represent nothing more than the last grasps of a dying ideology that can’t come to grips with their increasing irrelevance.

We ain’t there yet… but we’ve come a hell of a long way, and the forces who work the hardest to stop progress always get louder and more violent when they realize that they are going to be on the losing side of history.  It happened in the 1860s and the 1960s, and both times, the good people won.  It’s happening again today, and just as before, we will win again.

Let them scream.  They are only driving the nails faster into the coffin of their hateful and decrepit ideology.  They aren’t picking up any converts… just driving more and more rational moderates away.

Weird.  I never heard of “Julia.”  I only remember her from “Dynasty.”

“Her” being Diahann Carroll, of course.  Must remember to identify my pronouns.  I shame my English teachers.

And if Pruden wants to imply that Obama’s maternal grandparents were somehow “far from the mainstream” because they lived in Hawaii, he has zero knowledge of their background and upbringing - they were squarely in the “mainstream.”

No kidding… does he not realize that Obama was mainly raised by two white-bread middle America (like literally from the middle of America, specifically Kansas) members of the so-called Greatest Generation, one of whom was a WWII veteran?

How much more Yankee Doodle and apple pie can you get?

I’m unfamiliar with this “57 states”  thing… is that another dogwhistle, or am I just slow on the uptake today?

How much more Yankee Doodle and apple pie can you get?

Well, apparently, you could be a big ol’ racist asshat.

I’m unfamiliar with this “57 states” thing… is that another dogwhistle, or am I just slow on the uptake today?

No, it was a slip of the tongue Obama made during the election. He meant to say 47 states, the number he had campaigned in. Of course, the Prudens of the world jumped in his shit immediately, because it proved that he was as dumb as George W. Bush. Or unpatriotic. Or something.

Well, when you have a group of idiots who have little or no grasp of science, is it any wonder that they think that Being A Real American is a genetic trait?

SRSLY!

Anybody else notice how mixed-race families are now showing up in advertizing?  The only place I saw that before was in Hawaii in 1991.

It’s been obvious right from the start that a lot of right wing opposition to Obama was racist, but as time passes the attacks become more and more blatant.  Racism seems to be growing more acceptable daily, and ideas like miscegenation are returning in public rhetoric.  People like Murdoch and his sock puppets on Fox, Lou Dobbs, and members of the Republican party have been granted open platforms to preach hatred and divisiveness, and they are not being called out on it loudly enough. 

It’s time to start attending tea parties and showing the media that we outnumber these people. 

Phrases like “blood impulse,” sound like things you would hear at KKK and Nazi party rallies.  They’ll be talking about a final solution to the immigration problem soon.  They’re already burning books and shouting down politicians they disagree with.

The term “blood impulse” also bothers me.  What exactly is that supposed to mean?

I’ve seen multiple editorials at this point, usually from assholes like Michael Medved, attempting to claim that American values are a racial trait of the so-called American race. As far as I can tell, they mean two things by this: one, that “American values” are a diversity-free set of conservative politics; two, as damnedyankee said, it’s yet another dog whistle about how whites are the only real Americans.

How much more Yankee Doodle and apple pie can you get?

He’s not white.

I hated that show even worse than the Cosby Show, its successor in the Shows Starring Blacks that White People Like lineup. At least the Cosby Show had an actual black person behind it.

Eh, I had a kind of fondness for The Cosby Show when I was a kid in the 1980s.  Admittedly, I saw it from a white perspective, though I wasn’t the typical suburban white kid shielded from all inner-city black people.  My family was lower middle-class, both my parents had liberal arts degrees but both became unemployed in their fifties in the middle of the decade, so we had to go on food stamps and wear hand-me-downs for a while.  I grew up in an working-class urban neighborhood with rapidly changing racial demographics, so it wasn’t like I had no personal concept whatsoever of what reality was actually like for most African-Americans.

I get what you’re saying, and I agree to an extent, but I think the show’s creators’ intentions were good.  Ronald Reagan had successfully managed to turn all black people into welfare queens in a lot of peoples’ minds, and I think Carsey & Werner were trying to communicate the message that not all black people embodied the worst stereotypes perpetuated by Reagan and the Moral Majority.

To the extent that it perhaps unintentionally promoted the cultural narrative that poor people are bad, that it reinforced the stereotype of what a proper family unit is supposed to be, and that it revolved around the mythical notion that all it takes to move ahead is a willingness to “pull oneself up by the bootstraps”, it was harmful.

But like I said, I think the bigger point they were trying to make was that African-Americans are every bit as personally capable of high achievement as white people, and I think that was a good thing.  Hell, the First Family currently living in the White House is the real-life epitome of The Cosby Show.

I hated that show even worse than the Cosby Show, its successor in the Shows Starring Blacks that White People Like lineup.

I never did like Cosby much, but I’ll admit that I like Sanford and Son.

I’m unfamiliar with this “57 states” thing… is that another dogwhistle, or am I just slow on the uptake today?

No, it was a slip of the tongue Obama made during the election. He meant to say 47 states, the number he had campaigned in. Of course, the Prudens of the world jumped in his shit immediately, because it proved that he was as dumb as George W. Bush. Or unpatriotic. Or something.

Actually, many of the wingnuts jumped on it not because they believed it to be a gaffe, but rather an unintentional admission by Obama that he was a “secret Muslim”.

They claimed that not only was it not just a mere slip of the tongue, but that it was a specific reference to the U.N.-recognized Organisation of the Islamic Conference, which is comprised of 57 member states in the Muslim world.

and reared by grandparents in Hawaii, a paradise far from the American mainstream.

Hawaii is a state last time I checked.  DC on the other hand, Mr. Mooney Times, isn’t.

What do you mean, “These People”?

How much more Yankee Doodle and apple pie can you get?

He’s not white.

Obviously.  My point was that even though he grew up mostly in Hawai’i, the two people who actually raised him, Stanley and Katherine Dunham, were white.  Very white.  They epitomized the stereotype of Real Americans™, at least in terms of their personal biographies, even if not in their personal beliefs.

They were Mr. and Mrs. Yankee Doodle.

Oops, I meant Madelyn Dunham.  Accidentally confused Obama’s grandmother with a famous dancer.

C’mon, people, you know what “blood impulse” is all about.  “Blood impulse” to protect the American soil.  Blood and soil, people.  Blood and soil.

By “these people,” I mean the people who typically fill out the crowd at tea parties and shout down speakers at health care forums, the racist, bible thumping core constituency or both the Republican party and the Ku Klux Klan.  The people who are pawns in Rupert Murdoch’s game plan to destroy America from within.  Why?  Are you one of those people?  Are you offended?

Well, apparently, you could be a big ol’ racist asshat.

Perhaps I’m misunderstanding what you mean, but uh…. exactly WTF are you talking about?

I think the [Cosby] show’s creators’ intentions were good.  Ronald Reagan had successfully managed to turn all black people into welfare queens in a lot of peoples’ minds, and I think Carsey & Werner were trying to communicate the message that not all black people embodied the worst stereotypes perpetuated by Reagan and the Moral Majority.

Oh, of course the intentions were good. But if good intentions were all you needed to succeed, we’d all be millionaires.

It’s interesting that you bring up Reagan, because The Cosby Show was one of his favorites. And why not? Its message was that all blacks needed was a good dose of education and family values to turn them into the kind of folks of whom Ronald Reagan could approve.

One of the reasons I get so annoyed about the Cosby Show is because I remember reading an interview with Bill Cosby in which he remarked that if he tried to portray the black experience realistically on a TV show, people (i.e., whites) would be offended. Bleh. Everyone has the right to make a buck, but I don’t consider pandering to be a particularly respectable way to do it.

I never did like Cosby much, but I’ll admit that I like Sanford and Son.

Oh, I don’t put Sanford and Son in the same class as Cosby at all. Sanford didn’t pander to whites in the least. At times they went too far the other way—-every white person there was a dimwitted lame-o—-but it was still a lot more genuine.

They claimed that not only was it not just a mere slip of the tongue, but that it was a specific reference to the U.N.-recognized Organisation of the Islamic Conference, which is comprised of 57 member states in the Muslim world.

Maybe it was a specific reference to Heinz ketchup and its insidious conspiracy to drown all our food in syrupy tomato sauce.

It’s been obvious right from the start that a lot of right wing opposition to Obama was racist, but as time passes the attacks become more and more blatant.  Racism seems to be growing more acceptable daily, and ideas like miscegenation are returning in public rhetoric.

I may be naive, but I don’t actually think that racism is becoming more prevalent.  I think that what’s happening is that all of those polite code words (“welfare queens,” etc.) don’t have the same impact they used to, so they’re having to hit the blatantly racist tropes harder to get their point across.  Look at how many people saw Lady de Rothschild talk about how Obama was an “elitist” unlike herself and went, “WTF is she talking about?”

I think it’s good to get this stuff out into the open, as long as we make sure to respond to it.  If you have a cyst, really gross stuff comes out when you squeeze it, but you need to get that out in order to clear the infection.

SIRED?! Everyday I swear they can’t top themselves, and yet they do.

elmo,

‘Blut und Boden,’ indeed.

America’s premier conservative newspaper is no stranger to publishing the ravings of white supremacists.  See Steve Gilliard’s archives for more.

Perhaps I’m misunderstanding what you mean, but uh…. exactly WTF are you talking about?

What makes Obama’s grandparents less than Yankee-Doodle Amurkin is that they weren’t giant racist asshats who disowned their multiracial grandkid.

That’s the REAL American litmus test.

You know, speaking of TV, it really, really bugs me how far away we’ve gotten from the 1970s and even 1980s where TV shows made an effort to have black characters.  The original Battlestar Galactica had a black man as the second-in-command of the ship and plenty of others as pilots, etc.  The updated BSG?  Nary a one, except I guess that minor character who ended up marrying Apollo.  I’m always amazed when I turn on old TV shows and they just casually have black people all over the place.

I would have cut the new BSG a break because they shoot in Canada (not like there aren’t any black Canadians, but anyway) but then Warehouse 13 came on the air.  Not a great show, but I noticed that every episode had at least one black actor/actress in a major or at least pivotal role, and that’s not including the two black women who are regular cast members.  So, clearly, it’s not hard to find good black actors in Canada.

Seriously, it’s embarrassing how far we’ve backslid.

Elmo beat me to it in #31… the “blood instinct” thing makes me think of blood and soil.

So Alaska, which is AT LEAST as culturally removed from the mainland as Hawaii is (if not more so), is “real America” and “the heartland” (despite it’s at the literal periphery of the United States), but Hawaii is foreign. Uh ok d00d.

ideas like miscegenation are returning in public rhetoric.

Funny you should mention that.

C’mon, people, you know what “blood impulse” is all about.  “Blood impulse” to protect the American soil.  Blood and soil, people.  Blood and soil.

And “blood and soil” nationalism is patently ridiculous for a settler/new world country like the United States to adopt.

I may be naive, but I don’t actually think that racism is becoming more prevalent.  I think that what’s happening is that all of those polite code words (“welfare queens,” etc.) don’t have the same impact they used to, so they’re having to hit the blatantly racist tropes harder to get their point across.

This! Same with political cusswords, i.e., “Liberal.” They called him a communist because “Liberal” wasn’t a bad thing anymore. Their paranoid, hyperbolic, offensive verbal explosions are occurring because they’re losing control of the narrative. Now, we do need to make it clear they’re in the minority, because a lot of them are getting direct affirmation of some really malicious beliefs for the first time, but I think this is a sign of progress, horrifying though it may be. It sucks to live through, especially for the people of color among us, but it’s the pushback of losers.

And “blood and soil” nationalism is patently ridiculous for a settler/new world country like the United States to adopt.

Enough time has passed since the frontier was closed that they don’t see it that way.  Combine 19th century “nativism”/manifest destiny and contemporary “family values” and what do you get?  Exactly that.

Yeah the “sired” thing got me too. Why not call him a strapping young buck while you’re at it? Jesus.

Perhaps I’m misunderstanding what you mean, but uh…. exactly WTF are you talking about?

What makes Obama’s grandparents less than Yankee-Doodle Amurkin is that they weren’t giant racist asshats who disowned their multiracial grandkid.

That’s the REAL American litmus test.

Oh, I agree completely.

I was just pointing out that according to the stereotypical caricature of what people like Pruden try to present as being representative of Real America™, people like the Dunhams fit the mold perfectly, at least in the most superficial sense.  And yet in trying to characterize Obama’s upbringing as being the opposite of someone who was raised by Real Americans™, Pruden conveniently ignored the biographical background of Obama’s maternal grandparents, which would sort of put a big hole in the ridiculous argument he was trying to make, and the stereotypes he was trying to reinforce.

I think it creates a tremendous amount of cognitive dissonance for wingnuts when you have people who may look the part of Real Americans™ completely, but behave in a way that is antithetical to that belief system.  I remember a photo from last year of a guy in a rural area holding up a poster that read, “Rednecks for Obama” - that’s the kind of stuff that messes with their worldview.

It’s why they despise people like John Kerry and Max Cleland, because only good conservative Real Americans™ are allowed to be honorable military veterans in their minds.  Unfortunately, in 2004, the wingnuts were able to convince half of the electorate that a flunkie combat-evading TANG pilot who once donned a flightsuit for a staged photo-op would be a more honorable CiC than an actual decorated Vietnam Vet.

So someone from Alaska is in touch with Real Americans(TM), but Hawaii doesn’t count as part of Real America(TM)?  Alaska is as different as Hawaii, and both are as different as all other sections of our country.

Emmett: I clicked on your link. Call me pollyanna or whatever, but I think maybe that guy doesn’t realize what “miscegenation” means. He seems to be confusing it with “cohabitation.”

How did you guys find out about my doodling?

This! Same with political cusswords, i.e., “Liberal.” They called him a communist because “Liberal” wasn’t a bad thing anymore. Their paranoid, hyperbolic, offensive verbal explosions are occurring because they’re losing control of the narrative. Now, we do need to make it clear they’re in the minority, because a lot of them are getting direct affirmation of some really malicious beliefs for the first time, but I think this is a sign of progress, horrifying though it may be. It sucks to live through, especially for the people of color among us, but it’s the pushback of losers.

This.

That’s what I was saying upthread.

Compare the 1950s to the 1960s… the 1950s didn’t have nearly as much overt backlash and tension against racial progress as did the 1960s (though it did get worse in the late 50s), but virtually everybody would agree that the 1960s were a much better decade of progress for race relations and civil rights, bloody and ugly as they were.

While it may appear worse on the surface, it’s actually a sign that things may be getting better.  What we’re witnessing here is a group of people who are absolutely freaked out by the notion that we are moving forward into some uncharted territory in race relations.  We did, after all, elect an African-American to the presidency, something that seemed quite literally impossible to most people even just 20 years ago.  These folks are trying to keep the bus from moving forward, to the point that they are having emotional breakdowns in town halls and crying while saying “This is not my America anymore!  And I want it back!”  While they are definitely good at screaming really loud and it may appear that they are succeeding, if you look at any poll data, you’ll see that 3/4 of Americans are not on their side anymore.

Bull Connor may have won the battle when he sent dogs and firehoses out to try to suppress black people, but he lost the war when civil rights legislation was still enacted despite his most aggressive efforts to stop it.  And it’s the same thing happening again today.  Most Americans like President Obama and approve of the job he’s doing, and it’s driving the Wes Prudens of the world batshit crazy, because in his mind, that is not how it’s supposed to be.

And none of this is meant to diminish the vile nature of the racism that’s been increasingly rearing its ugly head in the era of Obama, it’s just pointing out that this is what happens when a rabid dog realizes that it is cornered, and that it isn’t going to win the fight - it tries to fight even harder.  These folks know that they are losing the ideological war in the hearts and minds of most Americans, and they’re fighting their damndest to try to salvage their relevancy.

Mnemosyne:

You know, speaking of TV, it really, really bugs me how far away we’ve gotten from the 1970s and even 1980s where TV shows made an effort to have black characters.  The original Battlestar Galactica had a black man as the second-in-command of the ship and plenty of others as pilots, etc.  The updated BSG?  Nary a one, except I guess that minor character who ended up marrying Apollo.  I’m always amazed when I turn on old TV shows and they just casually have black people all over the place.

Hey, I noticed this too, kinda. It didn’t occur to me to think about it until the series finale of BSG, but after said finale, I thought, Wait a minute, what kind of message is this episode sending? A bunch of white people land on Earth and lift it out of its backwards, tribal ways? The (likely unintentional, but in my opinion obvious enough to be unforgivable) colonial undertones of what happened in the finale really bothered me. And that made me look back on the show as a whole and realize that it is, as you said, very whitewashed. It literally has one semi-major black character and one major Asian character. Tokenism? Why yes.

It seems to me (could be wrong) that there was enough of a reaction against deliberate efforts to include more minorities in TV shows by whiny I’m-being-oppressed-by-affirmative-action assholes that TV studios became wary of doing so. I mean, it’s a difficult balance to strike between inclusiveness and tokenism (a balance that, as we’ve established, BSG doesn’t even approach), but it really should be easier in sci-fi if you think about it. If you’re trying to show a futuristic, inclusive, diverse society, like Star Trek, you probably should make a deliberate effort to include a lot of minorities. But even in multicultural America, it’s easy to forget that most humans are non-white.

...This comment is way too long given that it’s about Battlestar Galactica.

..This comment is way too long given that it’s about Battlestar Galactica.

Have you not been coming to this blog for very long?

Well of COURSE miscegenation is being talked about! It’s what led to fags thinking they can get married and that right thinking Americans would sit still for it.

Combine that with the fact that it led directly to the existence of the man who cheated Sarah Palin out of her God-given right to the Presidency, and it has to be at least publicly disapproved of. This sort of thing must be stopped.

Otherwise we might end up with more Nobel-prize winning mulattos, and nobody wants that!

So someone from Alaska is in touch with Real Americans(TM), but Hawaii doesn’t count as part of Real America(TM)?  Alaska is as different as Hawaii, and both are as different as all other sections of our country.
Comment #48: catgirl on 11/17 at 05:51 PM

Do they shoot wolves and caribou in Hawaii? Do they have a hot christian governor? No? Then there’s your answer.

I have a feeling that before August, 2008 shooting wolves and caribou, eating moose, and snowmobiling would have been looked at by wingnuts as something weirdo Canucks do.

Not that it speaks much better of the new BSG, but there was an entire planet of “Magic Negro” types typified by a REALLY annoying priestess woman who was quite prominent in the first 1.5 seasons.

If you’re trying to show a futuristic, inclusive, diverse society, like “Star Trek,” you probably should make a deliberate effort to include a lot of minorities. But even in multicultural America, it’s easy to forget that most humans are non-white.

IIRC, Ursula Le Guin was really, really pissed off when they did the TV miniseries of “Earthsea” because she was very specific in her books that the races were all mixed and everyone was some shade of brown, and yet the series still managed to have a bunch of blue-eyed, blond Aryans as the main characters.  So it’s not always accidental.

the grungy 60’s? the grungy 60’s?!

I’m sorry, the 90’s were grungy. the 60’s were groovy [/rant]

(sorry, the intelligent comments were all taken already)

a paradise far from the American mainstream.

FYI, poverty rates are higher in Hawaii than in Alaska.
oh, and Hawaii has a pretty substantial issue with organized crime and meth production.
not to mention the recession fucking up tourism which is big money there.

I’d venture Hawaii is more mainstream than the sheltered enclaves of white suburbia.

I have a feeling that before August, 2008 shooting wolves and caribou, eating moose, and snowmobiling would have been looked at by wingnuts as something weirdo Canucks do.
Comment #57: Ben D.  on 11/17 at 07:27 PM

You’ve never been to a Cabela’s or perused an issue of American Hunter have you?

Having grown up in an NRA (and incidentally Dem) home, I can assure you they were into shooting wolves and Caribou long before she hit the scene.

Also, don’t you remember the shit fit they threw when the Clinton administration banned snowmobiling in Yellowstone?

Yeah, denelian.

It’s *creepy*, is what it is.

My blood impulse as a “White” (i.e. White caste) middle-class American born outside the fifty states (unlike Obama - DC’s Washington Hospital Center) makes me want to break Pruden’s fucking jaw.  If he wants an North American Aryan (his Godwin violation not mine) to run, let him be honest.

Hawaii is pretty damn mainstream in terms of problems, and it is hardly a paradise.  Incomes are effectively pretty low due to the cost of importing pretty much everything and robust taxation; housing is ridiculously expensive due to the dominance of the tourism economy.  In addition, travel more than about 50 miles requires flights or ferries; there’s no “Chinatown bus” across the state like up I-95.  Race/ethnic identity play out differently there but it’s no post-racial paradise, though Pruden’s lack of residence there at least helps.

Hawaii, a paradise far from the American mainstream.

This is the Genesis story—Obama lived in Paradise (a land flowing with sugar and pineapples) but left. Nobody leaves Paradise willingly—clearly he must have committed an Original Sin.  We might as well have elected Satan.

Alaska is cold, and you need to wear animal skins to survive. That makes Alaska like the Lower 48, only more so. Instead of just rolling out of bed, and putting on three thongs (get it?) you have to put on your longies even in the summer, probably.

Further, because “middle-class rubes” see Hawaii only on rather expensive vacations, they think all who live there are on a permanent vacation. As pointed out in the comments here, the reality is quite different. I worked on the mainland with an attractive and intelligent middle-aged woman who grew up in Hawaii. Ignorantly wondering why anyone with her background had left, I learned from her that the best job she could have gotten back home was changing sheets and vacuuming.

Do they shoot wolves and caribou in Hawaii? Do they have a hot christian governor?

No. We shoot large pigs originally introduced by the Portugese. Our governor, Linda Lingle, is a middle-aged Jewish Republican.

FYI, poverty rates are higher in Hawaii than in Alaska.

In 2000, barely 12% of people lived below the poverty line with an average household income of $44,000. (Please remember that cost of living in Hawaii is literally twice the average of the mainland U.S.) That number has jumped to almost 20% in the last five years.

oh, and Hawaii has a pretty substantial issue with organized crime and meth production.

You forgot to mention we have the second highest property crime rate in the country.

not to mention the recession fucking up tourism which is big money there.

It’s THE major source of income in the islands, along with the federal government. Which is one of the reasons I wish the legislature would hurry up and pass marriage equality, already. Since California is no longer the gay wedding paradise, we’d be guaranteed a huge windfall of gay wedding tourism dollars. My one family included.

I’d venture Hawaii is more mainstream than the sheltered enclaves of white suburbia.

Strip malls, bad education system, McMansion housing developments no one can afford to buy…yep, pretty mainstream USA, all right!

Further, because “middle-class rubes” see Hawaii only on rather expensive vacations, they think all who live there are on a permanent vacation. As pointed out in the comments here, the reality is quite different

I’ll remember that the next time I’m doing free legal aid outreach to the homeless. They’ll laugh their asses off.

Hawaii is pretty damn mainstream in terms of problems, and it is hardly a paradise.  Incomes are effectively pretty low due to the cost of importing pretty much everything and robust taxation; housing is ridiculously expensive due to the dominance of the tourism economy.

Again, second highest property crime rate in the nation, a meth problem to rival Wasilla’s, high homeless population courtesy of the Atlanta mayor circa 1996, environmental damage and soil erosion (which is killing off the coral reefs). Milk costs $8 a gallon. I’m paying $1450 for a one-bedroom apartment in a reasonably clean area.

In addition, travel more than about 50 miles requires flights or ferries; there’s no “Chinatown bus” across the state like up I-95.  Race/ethnic identity play out differently there but it’s no post-racial paradise, though Pruden’s lack of residence there at least helps.

It’s not a post-racial paradise by any means, though the only time I’ve had anti-white racist slurs yelled at me was by christians protesting civil union debates. The whole “gay is a white disease” meme played out hard that month. Hawaii is like anywhere else; if you go looking for trouble, you’ll find it. Personally, I love living in a place with this many Asian cultures represented all in one spot. I go back to the mainland to all-white enclaves to visit family and I’m bored out of my skull.

“Sired”?  Does he think the President is a horse or something?  In that case, the only proper response is “Naaaay!”.

born to a mother attracted to men of the Third World

I keep cracking up at this line.  “Hey, sailor, you’re looking very Third Worldy tonight.  Care to buy a thirsty First World girl a drink?....Where did you say you were from?  Kansas City???!!  EW!  Get away!  The only ones who make my Maidenform warm are guys from undeveloped nations!”

What would Pruden’s dear old dad think about him working for a non Christian Korean?