I visited The Huffington Post this morning and a quick review of its site reflected what seems like the media’s increased interest in giving a platform to the racists and lunatics that have cropped up since President Obama’s election. Now mind you, these folks have always been here: hovering around the fringes, locking their car doors when you walk down the street, clutching purses when a brother steps on the elevator, asking if you work here or quietly assuming that the reason you’ve accomplished certain milestones is because someone gave you the answers to the test.
Last week, as I luxuriated (for work purposes!) in one of Southern California’s beautiful beach communities, I watched Pat Buchanan spew forth angry, inaccurate and highly offensive statements about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor and the overall contribution (or his perceived lack thereof) of minorities to America. Buchanan’s hateful and presumptive assumptions about Judge Sotomayor’s intellect and blatantly racist comments got the Twitter world into a tizzy, as people from all walks of life posted comments about his KKK-inspired rant.
For me, what’s even more shocking than Buchanan’s statements -because it really is no secret where he stands on race in America – is that MSNBC continues to give him air time and prominence as a commentator. After all, he’s just crazy old Uncle Pat, and it’s ok because we all have that crazy uncle who regularly spouts racist rhetoric, right? Yet Buchanan’s continued defense of Sarah Palin’s lightweight and now incomplete acccomplishments, and support of her as a viable candidate for president, highlight that Buchanan’s politics are singularly racial.
I’m all for giving platform to opposing opinions. It’s one of the reasons that I don’t limit myself to one network or website for my news source, that I listen to Michael Smerconish in the morning (he admirably offers great balance on the issues he discusses, even though his audience is heavily and rigidly conservative), and that I like to talk to strangers about their belief systems. You have to step out of your bubble to get a true flavor of what people really think and feel.
Critical debate is essential to progress. Narrow-minded, ill-informed and divisive commentary is not. Debate Judge Sotomayor on her comments and her merits, whether she properly explained herself, or what her judicial record may reveal about how she’ll impact the Supreme Court. You don’t have to like her, and you can go on TV and say that.
But to suggest that Judge Sotomayor got to where she is because she stole opportunities from more deserving white men, that she made law review and garnered her legal jobs because of affirmative action, and that she doesn’t deserve to be on the bench – despite having a far more substantial judicial record than the Chief Justice himself – is ridiculous. And to warn her about her alleged temperament, as Sen. Lindsey Graham did, pays homage to that black tax reminder that once you do make it, you better remember to stay in your lane since we’re letting you up in here.
Side bar: Another one of my black tax favorites is that once you do get in the door, please don’t try to do “too much.” Example: the current theme in the media as to whether President Obama is trying to do too much, and whether he should just focus on the economy. Can I tell you how many times I’ve personally heard that, while the underlying directive is to work harder, smarter and faster?
If we’re going to truly evolve in the aftermath of President Obama’s historic election, it means that we do not have the right to remain silent (for these purposes). It means that when you’re arrested in your own home, you raise hell about it. When racist idiots pollute your television, you raise hell about it. When the publishing world refuses to publish diverse thought, you raise hell about it. When your kids can’t swim in pools for fearing of changing the complexion, you raise hell about it.
For the sake of balance, I note that MSNBC does have several African-American anchors and commentators on air throughout the day. Those commentators of color, however, are not using their time on the air to rail against white Americans or other minorities, or to insert divisive inaccuracies into the mainstream- thought that is an affront to progress.
Rachel Maddow took on Buchanan in a follow-up after his appearance, but for me it’s not enough. The point is that regardless of what MSNBC does with Buchanan, we have a voice and options. Let’s exercise them, even if it’s as simple as changing the channel and not buying from the advertisers who implicitly support these offensive thoughts. Let’s use these options to push for more balance, and to create alternative platforms that give air to both sides and actually educate.
It also means that we hold our own accountable, because when they do or say things in the mainstream, like performing ”Every Girl” on stage with underage girls, it furthers the stereotypes of African-Americans generally. Those stereotypes that fuel, and in some minds, support Pat Buchanan’s lunancy.
Below is your morning round up of what ”post-racial” American looks like. I don’t cite these headlines from HuffPo’s site to sensationalize the problem, but, rather, to illustrate that we’re far from a post-facial America. So what are you going to do about it?
Maddow Demolishes Buchanan’s Surreal Facts About America’s Racial Past
Lou Dobbs Speculates If Obama Is Undocumented
Liz Cheney Defends Birthers On Larry King
Fox News Host: Is Obama’s Surgeon General Too Fat For The Position?
Brian Kilmeade Apologizes For Racist “Pure Species” Comment
Bad Day For Birthers As Matthews Picks Up Where Sanchez Left Off
Riot Police Storm Texas Town After Black, White Protesters Clash Over Dragging Death
Breeze Harper
/ September 24, 2009Tieffa,
Rachel Maddow “corrected” Buchanan’s “fact” about how USA was “built by white folk.” http://immigration.change.org/blog/view/keep_pat_buchanan_on_the_air
I just finished reading a book for my dissertation work. It’s called “Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance” edited by Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana. It’s a volume of 17 or so essays that explore Charles Mills’s “Racial Contract”, seeking to understand how it is possible that so many white identified people in the USA are incredibly ignorant about the history of the USA as well as contemporary issues of racism and white privilege. In the introduction, the editors explore “white ignorance” (from Charles Mills’s “Racial Contract”). IF you are unfamiliar with this, this is its definition:
“Dr. Mills has described this epistemological norm as a type of white ignorance
a form of ignorance, what could be called white ignorance, linked to white supremacy. The idea of group-based cognitive handicap is not an alien one to the radical traditional, if not normally couched in terms of “ignorance.” Indeed, it is, on the contrary, a straightforward corollary of standpoint theory: if one group is privileged, after all, it must be by comparison with another group that is handicapped. In addition, the term has for me the virtue of signaling my theoretical sympathies with what I know will seem to many a deplorably old-fashioned, “conservative,” realist, intellectual framework, one in which truth, falsity, facts, reality, and so forth are not enclosed with ironic scare quotes. The phrase “white ignorance” implies the possibility of a contrasting “knowledge,”… (Mills 2007, 15)”
Playing off of this, the editors of the “Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance” volume, dig deeper into this specific type of ignorance:
“The epistemology of ignorance is an examination of the complex phenomena of ignorance, which has as its aim identifying different forms of ignorance, examining how they are produced and sustained, and what role they play in knowledge practices….At times [epistemologies of ignorance] takes the form of those in the center refusing to allow the marginalized to know: witness the 19th century prohibition against black slaves’ literacy. Other times it can take the form of the center’s own ignorance of injustice, cruelty, and suffering, such as contemporary white people’s obliviousness to racism and white domination. (Sullivan and Tuana 2007, 1)”
I find examples like Buchanan, not really shocking, just disappointing. However, I am seeing it in all facets of life, here in the USA. He is the “extreme”, but at least he is overt about it and I know and see it coming. The difficultly I’m having is dealing with covert manifestations of whiteness, white privilege, and racism– particularly with those I meet who sincerely think that being “colorblind” is a “good thing” and that that is all that is needed to achieve an equal society.
Mills, Charles W. The Racial Contract. Ithaca, N.Y. ; London: Cornell University Press, 1997.
Mills, Charles. “White Ignorance.” Suny Series, Philosophy and Race. Eds. Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana. vols. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007. 13-38.
Sullivan, Shannon, and Nancy Tuana. Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance. Suny Series, Philosophy and Race. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007.
Kenneth Brown
/ September 28, 2009The Protesters are Racist
By Kenneth Brown
What’s happening today in the town hall debates on healthcare isn’t a debate at all and it needs to be called what it is “RACISM.”
These so-called “Protesters” formed groups around the country called the Tea Party. They said Obama was in the process of raising our taxes. When that turned out to be a joke, they became the birthers.
Then those same racist were saying Obama wasn’t born in the United States. Even though Obama’s birth certificate was available for everyone to see, it didn’t matter. Birthers went on television saying Obama’s birth certificate was forged. When some were asked if they had seen his birth certificate they said no. When they were asked if they wanted to see it they said no. When they were asked how the newspaper in his birth place could make the announcement of his birth at his birth so far in advance; they said it didn’t matter.
Now these same racist are saying Obama is a liar, is going to kill seniors, take away their health care, socialize health care and Obama is a Nazi. When interviewed they claim to be protesting out of their love for America and the American way of life.
But where was their love for America and America’s way of live over the past eight years? During those eight years George Bush told us Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, which was untrue, Iraq was in bed with Al Queda, which was false, Iraq had a nuclear weapons program, which was a lie and as a result we were misled into an unnecessary war that took the lives of over 4000 of America’s sons and daughters. Those lies sent some of Bush’s supporters children to their grave and yet they still supported him. He also ran the economy into the ground, lost millions of jobs, violated the Constitution, committed crimes against humanity and international law and signed a pharmaceutical benefit program that was designed and created by the pharmaceutical industry for the pharmaceutical industry. All this was okay with these lovers of America because during this activity they were as quite as a mouse. But what has them pissed off is Obama’s attempt to have health care for all Americans.
History is simply repeating itself. The same activity took place during the debates of the Civil Rights legislation in the sixties. Anyone who thinks racism is a thing of the past because Obama was elected President needs to take a few days to get sober. The so-called health care reform protesters are carrying signs and yelling “Death to Obama.” What does “death to Obama” have to do with disagreeing with reforming health care? Some of the protesters are carrying posters with a picture of Obama looking like Hitler. What does his looking like Hitler have to do with health care reform? There is a protesting website that claims the health care reform Obama is suggesting is really a back door for reparations. How do reparations enter the debate?
President Obama hosted a town hall meeting in New Hampshire on health care. At that meeting the secret service apprehended a man with a knife. A search of this man’s truck revealed an unlicensed fully loaded semi-automatic pistol. Why would this or any person take a knife and an unlicensed fully loaded semi-automatic pistol to a health care debate? At a health care debate in Phoenix, half dozen men came to the debate armed. One of the men attending that debate had an AR-15 assault rifle slung over his shoulder. Although this is legal in Arizona, why would this man bring an assault rifle to a health care debate? This was a black man and after listening to his interview he reminded me of the black men who told on slaves who were planning to escape.
David Scott of Georgia supports health care reform and he received a fax that used the “N” word. What does the “N” word have to do with health care reform? At one health care debate there was an effigy of Obama being hung. What does Obama being hung have to do with disagreeing with health care reform? At another so-called debate a woman was recorded saying,” I want my America back.” She sounded more like a Native American than she did a European. But how is health care reform taking away her America?
Let’s call it what it is. It’s Racism. It’s all about America having a black President.
During the Clinton years Hillary approached health care reform. I can’t remember the protesters carrying signs of her looking like Hitler or a monkey or effigies of her being hung or of her being buried or people saying, “I want my America back” or her being considered the anti-Christ or talk show hosts saying she hates white people. Hillary’s opposition dealt with the issues not race.
Then Richard Steele, the so-called head of the Republican Party, goes on television to say these protesters are just voicing their opposition by exercising their right to free speech. So did the Ku Klux Klan when they covered themselves in sheets and hoods. And he’s saying this as if he’s a black man speaking for black people. Richard Steele reminds me of the slaves who told their white slave owners there was an escape being planned.
Kenneth Brown
/ September 28, 2009During President Barack Obama’s September 9th, 2009 address to the joint session of Congress he outlined various elements of his health care reform. One of those elements was the claim his reform will insure illegal immigrants is false. He said, “…the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.”
From his seat on the Republican side, Representative Joe Wilson, of South Carolina, pointed to President Obama and shouted, “You lie.” Members of both parties condemned Joe Wilson for his outburst. Some Republican members of Congress characterized Wilson’s actions as “Totally disrespectful” and that “there’s no place for it in that setting or any other and he should apologize immediately.”
Later that night, Wilson’s office issued a statement that read “This evening I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the Presidents remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill. While I disagree with the President’s statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the President for this lack of civility.”
The non-partisan Factcheck.org noted that “the President was correct” and Wilson was wrong.
Wilson immediately recorded a YouTube video to defend his position on Obama’s health care reform and request donations for his reelection.
Anyone who thinks Wilson’s outburst was the result of his disagreeing with Obama’s health care proposal should also think about not smoking crack. Wilson is a racist and the media seems to be content with not bring that fact to light. In 2003, Wilson had no problem voting to provide federal funds for illegal immigrant’s health care. He voted for George Bush’s Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003. This act contained Sec. 1011 authorizing $250 million annually between 2003 and 2008 for government reimbursements to hospitals who provide treatment to uninsured illegal immigrants. So why is it okay with Joe Wilson when George Bush gave health care benefits to illegal immigrants, but has a problem with it now. Its not about health care, it’s about a black man being President.
In 2000, Joe Wilson was one of seven Republicans in the South Carolina Senate to vote to continue flying the Confederate battle flag over the state house. At the time he said,”The Southern heritage is very honorable.” The Senate voted 36 to 7 to take the flag down. He is also a member of the “Sons of Confederate Veterans.” This membership says a lot about Wilson. After all, the Civil War began in 1861 in South Carolina and as a result 93,000 confederate soldiers were killed in action, 260,000 total dead in the south and 137,000 plus were wounded in an attempt to prevent the end of slavery, restore the Union and the strengthening of the role of U.S. Government.
In 2003, Wilson was one of the people who doubted Essie Mae Washington-Williams’ claim that she was the child Strom Thurman had out of wedlock. Wilson said even if the story is true, she should not have revealed it because “it’s a smear” on Thurman’s image and was a way to “diminish” Thurmond’s legacy. After the Thurman family acknowledged Washington-Williams was Thurman’s child, Wilson apologized, but added she should not have revealed Thurman was her father. According to Wilson’s statements, it appears Thurman’s legacy would not have been affected by the fact that Thurman, a married man, was cheating on his wife by sleeping with and having a baby by his black maid.
But Joe Wilson is simply following in the footsteps of his South Carolina predecessors.
In 1856, Congressman Preston Brooks, of South Carolina, entered the Senate chamber carrying a gold tipped cane. After exchanging a few words with Senator Charles Sumner, Brooks began to beat him in the head with his cane. Sumner was a martyr for the anti-slavery cause.
In 1902, Senator Benjamin Tillman, of South Carolina, assaulted Senator John L. McLaurin. Tillman was one of the most outspoken and unapologetic advocates of white supremacy ever to serve in Congress. Tillman once said, “We of the South have never recognized the right of the negro to govern white men and never will.” It would not surprise me if Joe Wilson feels the same way. Tillman also said, “We have never believed him (Negros) to be the equal of the white man and we will not submit to his gratifying his lust on our wives and daughters without lynching him.” After Booker T. Washington dined in the White House with President Theodore Roosevelt and his family, Tillman predicted, “The action of President Roosevelt in entertaining that nigger will necessitate our killing a thousand niggers in the South before they learn their place again.”
Throughout the 1960’s Senator Strom Thurman, Senator from South Carolina received low marks from the press and his fellow Senators in the performance of his Senate duties. He often missed votes and rarely proposed or sponsored any noteworthy legislation. In 1964 he assaulted Texas Senator Ralph Yearborough to prevent the Senate Conformation of a moderate from Florida. Thurman had a strong disapproval of the Supreme Court opinion in Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, which ordered the immediate desegregation of schools in the American South. Thurman was once Joe Wilson’s employer.
Joe Wilson is a racist and although the media is always talking about how racism needs to be discussed, they are the very ones keeping that discussing from taking place and Joe Wilson is the perfect example. There are people saying Joe Wilson was simply exercising his First Amendment rights, I guess the same can be said of the Ku Klux Klan. When Jessie Jackson referred to New York City as “Hymietown” I didn’t see or hear one white person say he was exercising his First Amendment rights. He was branded “Anti-Semitic.”