We're Not Post Racial By a Long Shot

I keep hearing about how "post racial" the US is, and I always shake my head. First of all, if people feel such a need to point it out, it probably isn't true. It's like going on and on about how much you don't care about your ex. Secondly, Obama is our first black President. He's also white, but he's our first black President, and you hear about it all the time. Not exactly post racial.

Anyway, my husband just related a story to me that made me sad, and showed how much of a lie "post racial America" really is. My husband has been making some money recording a local rapper*. (All the rappers in this story are black, just so I don't have to keep saying it.) It's a friend-of-a-friend situation, and my husband discovered that recording rappers is significantly easier than recording bands, and he gets to use the beats he likes to write so much but can't use in his own music.

Word of mouth has gotten my husband a few more rappers to record and they stopped by the house to meet him this morning. One of them stuck out his hand, and my husband automatically shook it. One of them said, "I was a little 'I dunno' about a white guy recording rap, but you're good people."

My husband couldn't figure out what he meant, so he asked.

"Oh, white people usually don't want to shake my hand. Like it's catching or something."

That's really sad. I can't imagine going through life with people refusing to touch you because of the colour of your skin. I was always taught that handshakes are irrefusable, though women don't get asked to shake hands as much as men do. I was taught, as was my husband, that even if you just watched the other person sneeze on that hand, you shake it. To do otherwise is to offer a level of contempt only applicable to Hitler or Stalin. Seriously, we tried to figure out whose hands we wouldn't shake and that's what we came up with.

A lot of people apparently add "black men" to that list.

*I'm not exactly certain if that's called "hip hop" or "rap" these days (get off my lawn!), but they refer to themselves as "rappers", so I'm going with it. They're also all my age, if that helps any.

MLK Day Race Fail

Racefails, aren't they awesome?

My 11 year old niece was aghast when she discovered that I was working on Martin Luther King Day. "How can you work on Martin Luther King Day?! He had a dream and then he gave a speech and that got rid of racism!" Yeah, so we need to have a talk* (with the school board about their curriculum), but at least she has a basic understanding of what MLK was about. Racism. Ending it. I'll take what I can get from 11 year olds.

C. Jane, however, is not 11. So this racefail is not excusable.

If this holiday is all about having a dream, I'd like to declare mine: I have a dream where I get a private audience with Mormon writer Emma Lou Thayne. We'd have tea and readings. Tea and readings--doesn't that sound nice?

No, Martin Luther King Day is not about having a dream. And even if it were, his dream was for equality and opportunity and an end to bigotry and racism. Your dream is to drink tea with someone. Martin Luther King, Jr. spent time in jail to achieve that dream. He suffered terribly, he sacrificed greatly and then he died for it.

And you fucking want tea.

Thus answering the question of how much of a self-indulgent spleen weasel one can be. From now on, we will refer to being truly self absorbed as cjane. As in, "Yeesh, what a cjane he is!" or "How cjane can you be?"

*I tried to explain about nonviolent resistance, but as she said, if that worked why are we always at war? I sputtered something about Ghandi and then went to cry for lost innocence somewhere private. (The bathroom.)

I'm White, How Dare You Do This to Me!

So, the TSA has some new procedures, procedures we Americans shouted and screamed for. After all, brown people were somehow managing to get on planes. Clearly something needed to be done.

Well, it's done, and the same people who kicked and screamed for heightened airport security are more than a little put out that heightened airport security applies to them, too.

Another passenger, David, told WND he traveled to attend a sister's funeral in Los Angeles and found the security procedures at LAX "like a racist homosexual grope fest."

"This screener made me turn all my pockets inside out, patted me down four times, being particularly attentive to my crotch and butt. I asked him if he just wanted me to strip down naked and he said go ahead. My wife then approached a nearby sheriff, who brought these violations of my privacy, and person, to a halt," said the passenger, who described himself as a "middle class white guy." [emphasis mine]

What, exactly, is he upset about, do you think? That he was "groped", or that he, a middle class white got groped? Groping is for brown people, not good white people. White people are never terrorists. White people never fly planes into IRS buildings . . . no, wait . . . white people never blow up federal buildings . . . no, wait . . . white people never concoct elaborate plans to kill law enforcement official en masse . . . no, wait . . .

Poor David, he lost his privilege for a moment. He got to spend 5 minutes in the life of a brown person, and he really didn't like it.

Boo-fucking-hoo, David. You get to live in the world you helped create. Deal with it.

This Says More About You

I keep a lot of right wing blogs in my reader and a few days ago I starting seeing posts comparing and contrasting President Obama on a bike to former presidents on bikes and horses.

This is manly, reassuringly so.


This is not.




I couldn't figure it out. Why are former President Bush's pasty thighs "reassuringly manly"? Why is President Obama not manly, reassuringly or otherwise? I, personally, can't see a difference between the two pictures. To me, that looks like "guy on a bike" and "another guy on a bike".

Then I remembered something. You see, I don't think that the blogger responsible for "reassuringly manly" is a raving white supremacist. I don't even think that most teabaggers have Nazi flags hanging in their living rooms. In fact, I think most of these people would be quite indignant at the thought, and not fake indignant, either. Honestly indignant.

The thing that I remembered? Unconscious Racial Bias.

Scientific
research has demonstrated that biases thought to be absent or extinguished
remain as "mental residue" in most of us. Studies show people can be consciously
committed to egalitarianism, and deliberately work to behave without prejudice,
yet still possess hidden negative prejudices or stereotypes.

In other words, while you may be committed to a racially neutral worldview, you automatically view a white man as manlier, more presidential and all around better than a black man. So when you see those two pictures, which are virtually identical, you identify former President Bush as "reassuringly manly" and President Obama as embarrassing.

This says nothing about President Obama, but it does say a whole lot about you. Unfortunately.

Oh, NeoNazis, You're So GOP circa 2009

There's two types of White Supremacists in the US, the terrifying young men with shaved heads and red suspenders that you should run screaming from no matter what race you are, and then there are the dilettantes. Bored, white, middle aged, middle class, they like to study preCivil War and Civil War era history, maybe cosplay* a little, and write newsletters and blogs. Blogs about the action they will take. Oh, the action they will take!

hee-hee!

Take for example the Jacksonian Club (yes, that Jackson), which I found through a Christian blog, but that's another post for another day. Note how their proudly anonymous White Supremacist plans are exactly what prominent GOPpers were suggesting as serious policy in 2009.

Unlike the usual right-wing commentator, I am not here just to deliver you the news and my views. On the contrary, this blog is nothing less than a call to action. It is my intention to gather together as many good men as I can find with the immediate goal of forming Jacksonian Clubs in as many of our towns and cities as possible. Like the leftist Jacobin Clubs of old, the purpose of the Jacksonian Clubs will be to bring us together in a spirit of fraternity, to provide an alternative space for us to speak, think, plan and act.

And act we shall.

We shall fraternalize and plan and think and speak. About actions. We shall take them.

But what actions shall you take, Albert Jacksonian?

This guy over here may think that this can be remedied by a Second Continental Congress and a new Constitution, while this other guy might think the answer lies in new form of national socialism, while the guy in the corner may be for the formation of a smaller White entho-state in the current territory of the U.S.

Call a Continental Congress? Really? Oooh, secession. Wow, current White Supremacist rhetoric is so 2009 GOP.

These arguments and ideas are important, but we cannot begin to argue over the best way to achieve our objectives until we have at first organized on the first principle, the first necessary step: that the current Government has become our enemy, that it is actively seeking to overturn the basics of our civilization, that it has us slated for replacement as the majority population of this land and that none of this will be cured by ordinary politics.

Well, that's preObama rhetoric, circa 2008. It's like he's invented a Time Machine of Hatred!

You’d be surprised how many of us are out there.

Dude, "we surround you" has already been done.

You know, there was a time when all of the above would have shocked- Shocked!- me, now it's just "been there, heard that, don't you have something new for me?" How did we get to the point where white supremacists pandering to other white supremacists is not just old hat, but old major political party, all over the news, done to death boring?

*They call it "reenactments". I call it cosplay.

**Huh. That actually works for North America and India.

I See You on the Bus and I'm Ashamed

The percentage of people who believe that President Obama is a muslim has increased from 12% before the election to 18%. I believe Steve Benen has it right when he says that this is not a reflection of people who believe, contrary to all evidence, that President Obama prays towards Mecca five times a day, but simply that "muslim" is the nastiest thing these people can think of to say about our president.

Think about that for a second. "Muslim" is the new "ni*ger".

What country do we live in? What century? Who are these people, my countrymen, my neighbors, who seek to turn an entire religion into an insult? And why do I feel so responsible?

There has been a large influx of muslims to the area I live in in the last decade. A muslim family has, in fact, moved into the house down the street from me. My niece saw one of the women, wearing a gorgeous gold and red headscarf, and said, loudly, "Oh, that thing on her head is so pretty!"

I cringed.

I feared that the woman had heard and that my niece's innocent enthusiasm for a truly beautiful piece of fabric would offend this woman, make her feel out of place or unwelcome. Then I cringed over my cringing. Was I being hateful, too, assuming she would misinterpret a child's innocent enthusiasm?

I can't imagine how they feel, listening to the uproar over the (not at) Ground Zero (not a) Mosque. Do they feel safe at all, trusting of anyone when "muslim" is the worst insult 18% of Americans can think of? Are they safe?

I see another muslim woman on the bus with her young son. He is adorable, she is loving and kind. How does she feel, bringing her son up in a country that considers him the ultimate insult, the most terrible of dangers? How does she explain this to him? How does he understand?

Nothing ever changes, does it?

That Word? I Don't Think It Means What You Think It Means

If I have to tell you why this is racist, you need to DIAF.

The rightwingers are all kinds of bent out of shape at the NAACP's suggestion that the Tea Party should disavow racism in its movement. When accusations of racism in the Tea Party first surfaced, caused by actual examples of racism in the Tea Party movement, the Tea Party first tried denial. When that didn't work, they pulled the biggest No True Scotsman in history. That failed, so now they're going with "if you call me a racist, it's because you are a racist."

The NAACP should only propose resolutions that they have exercised themselves. The Tea Party, having only been active for a year and half, is the only group being singled out for racism in today’s society. There are races committed to the destruction of our entire nation and the Tea Party is being targeted as a threat. Perhaps it is a threat.

The Tea Party is only group being singled out for its racism? Really? I guess the writer has never heard of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist organizations in the United States and distributes lists of them. "Only" apparently doesn't mean what you think it does.

There are "races" committed to the destruction of the US? Races? Well, there's only so many races, so who is it? The blacks? Asians? Who? That statement is so ignorant, I now think that the NAACP needs to visit the house of every person in the US just to make sure they understand what the conversation is about, because the writer of this piece clearly does not.

These groups run to the rescue of distressed brown people only when the media deems it newsworthy. Meanwhile, there are inner city black children who continue to grow up fatherless while sharing a neighborhood with stray bullets, drugs and a plethora of liquor stores on every corner. To my understanding of the” I Have a Dream” speech, Dr. King’s intention was far from gang-banging and gangster rap.

Silly black people! They think gangsters are dreams! Also, the fact that you have no idea what the NAACP does when the cameras aren't on makes you ignorant, it doesn't make the NAACP useless.

I don’t believe that the true meaning of this nation’s creed was to move black people from one form of slavery to another. The NAACP has been completely ineffective in my lifetime, and the lack of leadership in the black community has contributed to the ability of these groups to speak on behalf of the rest of us. The ignored and forgotten society that lives among the projects has been abandoned by the likes of NAACP. And, along with other groups and individuals that rode in the coat-tails of MLK, they are irrelevant but continue to feed off of the codependence that they have created among blacks for validation.

Once this is realized by the forgotten society, race in this country will be as irrelevant as those who thrive off of it

Race is only a way of getting attention. Once you stop giving those people attention, we'll all be the same color! So, what has the NAACP done for you lately? A lot, as it turns out. (Simple search on the NAACP website, my dear, but why research an article you got paid for half as well as an unpaid blogger?)

The problem here isn't so much that the NAACP called the Tea Party out on its bullshit, it's what the NAACP has accomplished: helping the poor and disenfranchised. The last thing a bunch of nouveau GOPers masturbating to Ayn Rand want is children receiving free health care and unemployment benefit extensions.

What's so funny here is that the writer, in attempting to defend the Tea Party from accusations of racism has proven exactly how racist the Tea Party really is.

Making Money for Black People

You know how you know you're a racist*? When default "people" are white people. If you're talking about people in the general sense, for example, people who work or people who play sports or people who own homes, and you have to specify if there are any black people in those categories, you don't quite think about black people as "people"**.

Rush Limbaugh gave us a wonderful example of this upon the occasion of George Steinbrenner's death:

"That cracker made a lot of African-American millionaires," the radio commentator said Tuesday on his show after the New York Yankees owner died at age 80. "He fired a bunch of white guys as managers left and right."

It's pointed out by a defender of Limbaugh's, perhaps positing that unrestrained capitalism is a force for equality, that the quote is taken out of context. Context doesn't really help.

George Steinbrenner has passed away at age 80. That cracker made a lot of African-American millionaires. George Steinbrenner, the classic capitalist. Everybody around him became wealthy. Like most successful capitalists, he made the people around him wealthy, and a lot of African-American millionaires along the way, and at the same time he fired a bunch of white guys as managers, left and right. Steinbrenner hasn't been himself for the past two or three years, but nevertheless what a man he was and what a fixture and a character he was in Major League Baseball."

Steinbrenner did not make random black people millionaires. He made very talented, very dedicated, very hard working people millionaires. Some of these people were white, some were black, some hispanic, but their defining traits had nothing to do with race. Unless you're a racist.

Steinbrenner also did fire people- people he felt weren't performing well enough. Again, race is irrelevent here, performance was. Not to Rush, who clearly sees it as remarkable that Steinbrenner would pay blacks millions of dollars, but fire white guys.

That's right, Rush, white guys can be fired.

*This works for misogynists and homophobes, too. If default "people" are men or heterosexuals, you have a problem.

**Obviously, there are legitimate reasons to specify race, for example, when discussing experiences particular to one group and not others.

I'm Not Legal

Dear Arizona Idiots:

This is how your rhetoric makes real people feel. If you think "illegal" is an acceptable way to define another human being, you are responsible for this.

Sincerely,

Personal Failure

p.s.: Racist idiots aren't worth killing yourself over. You belong right where you are, please don't jump off the bridge.

pic link

The First Amendment: A Review

I'm not sure why people have so much trouble understanding the free speech portion of the First Amendment. It's not long or complicated. In fact, the entire amendment is short and quite simply stated.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Do you see anything in there that protects anyone from the consequences of their speech? No, you don't. You are more than welcome to say any horrible, shocking, racist, sexist, otherwise bigoted crap you want to say, but you are in no way protected from my reaction to what you said. I am more than welcome to tell my boss exactly what I think of him- and he is equally welcome to fire me for doing so.

Or, as my mother used to say, you have the ability and the right to shove a potato chip up your nose, that doesn't make it a good idea. (I didn't realize until much later in life that my mother made up a lot of her "old sayings" on the spot.) Sure, John Stossel, you can announce to the world that you think people should be allowed to engage in institutionalized racism, and I have to right to call you a bigoted spleenweasel because of it.

At the time, racism was so pervasive that such an intrusive law may have been a good thing. But, as a libertarian, I say: Individuals should be surrounded by a sphere of privacy where government does not intrude. Part of the Civil Rights Act violates freedom of association. That's why I told Fox's Megyn Kelly, "It's time now to repeal that part of the law."

You can't say that in America?

Sure you can, asshat. Were you arrested for saying that? Were you thrown in prison? Were you executed? Clearly not. Clearly, you still have a platform from which to spew your stupidity. So, can you say that in America? Yes. Is it a good idea? Probably not. Those are two entirely separate issues, however.

The First Amendment allows you to say what you wish, but you're on your own when it comes to deciding whether or not you should.

Protestants Experience Institutionalized Racism in the US?

Upon reading the third sentence of this screed against Elena Kagan, I screamed "WHAT THE FUCK?!" You probably heard me. People in China probably heard me. My boss definitely heard me.

Me: "WHAT THE FUCK?!"

My boss: O_o

Me: "Uh . . . stubbed my toe?"

My boss: *_*

Seriously, this spleenweasel almost got me fired.

The nomination of Elena Kagan for Supreme Court should outrage evangelical Protestants. The reason is not simply her legal perspective, her lack of judicial experience, or her personal view of faith and religious liberties. Devout Christians of all denominations and races are in danger of experiencing what blacks in the late 1960s and early 1970s called “institutional racism” or “institutional discrimination.”

Really? From over here in the atheist corner, Christians have so much privilege it's oozing out their ears. Some examples of Christian privilege in the US*.

• An American Christian can affix a Jesus fish to his or her car without having to give vandalism a second thought. And yet, I do not get to place any sort of symbol promoting science, reason, or atheism on my car for fear of vandalism or assault. The same goes for t-shirts.
• The state of Florida actually exempts faith-based day-care centersfrom state inspection and licensing while requiring both of secular day-care centers.
• Christian billboards are commonplace, but atheist billboards are typically met with vandalism, protests, and calls to the billboard owner.
• Public school teachers may come under fire for criticizing religion but are expected to criticize every other form of idiocy.

Testify in Court and the first thing they do is make you take an oath to God on the Bible. Nobody even notices a cross necklace, that's just jewelry, but try wearing a Darwin fish or pagan symbol and see what you get. Sneeze and get blessed, don't bless someone who sneezes and you are the rudest person imaginable. I could go on and on. Christians have privilege in this country which is entirely unlike being the victim of discrimination and it is unbelievably offensive to the actual victims of discrimination to have the privileged claim this. Blown away, I am.

*I keep making the point "in the US" because Christians do experience actual persecution and discrimination in other countries. This often involves torture, lengthy imprisonment and murder. I am horrified by this and if I could do anything to stop it, I would. In fact, I strongly support allowing victims of religious persecution asylum in the US- because there is no persecution or discrimination against Christians in the US.

On the Border

The Arizona Senate passed a law that would make citizens of Arizona responsible for asking for proof of citizenship when they have reason to suspect any random person they see is in the US illegally.

Stop and think about that.

How would any random person know whether or not any other person was legally residing in the US? Honestly, I can't say I've seen any proof of citizenship of most people I know. I've seen my boss' driver's license, but I've never seen any of my coworkers, for example. They could all be illegal aliens, should I call the police?

HAHA. Of course not. My coworkers are all white. What am I thinking?

I lived in El Paso, TX, about 2 miles from the border with Mexico, for 3 years, so let me tell you that the above is no exaggeration. We used to see Border Patrol trucks all the time. My family never got stopped by Border Patrol, even when our license plate was stolen and we drove around for a week without one. My friends, my Hispanic, dusky, black-haired, black-eyed friends? They got stopped at least once a week. My fair-haired, pale-skinned Hispanic friends, on the other hand, got stopped as often as I did. Never.

I knew, for a fact, that my friends in El Paso were legals. I know because they had to pull out identification regularly to show to Border Patrol. Well, I knew that my brown friends in El Paso were legal, I have no idea if my fairer friends were or not. Actually, this one girl in gym was illegal*, and being a blue-eyed blonde**, she was there at graduation.

This law, if the Governor signs it, will require the citizens of Arizona to be racists, to judge their neighbors and coworkers by skin colour alone. They will have no other way of judging. Ah, the 21st Century, bringing me useless 3D movies (I lack sufficient depth perception), increased homophobia and now legally required racism. Fantastic!

*Don't be shocked. I don't particularly care about legal or illegal. She got teased for her terrible English, I got teased in general, so we naturally gravitated towards one another.

**Yes, there are very white Mexicans out there. I admit I was pretty surprised when I figured that out, and then really ashamed of being surprised.

pic link

Oh, Yeah, We're Totally Post Racial

She's so damn proud of her bigotry.

If by "post racial", you mean racism is rampant.

According to a new poll regarding teabaggers:

Among whites who approved [of the Tea Party movement], 35 percent said they believe blacks to be hardworking, 45 percent said they believe them intelligent and 41 percent said they believe them trustworthy.

Run the numbers backwards. 65% of teabaggers think blacks are lazy, 55% think blacks are stupid and 59% clutch their purses tightly when they see a black person.

That's sad. Sad and disturbing.

picture link.

It's a Scary Place Inside Your Head

terrorism, bigotry, racism, fear,

[disturbing images below the fold]

I have a devised a test so you can tell if you're a wingnut or sane.

Two women wearing headscarves walk into a McDonalds. Do you (a) not even notice them as you has cheeseburger, or do you (b) watch their every move because they might be ISLAMoFACIsTERRORISTS and ISLAMoFACIsTERRORISTS are known for blowing up McDonalds franchises in the greater Pittsburgh area?

Wednesday night, we all went over to our local McDonald's for some food. I didn't have the gumption to really cook anything of substance, and state law requires us to feed the kids. It doesn't say WHAT we have to feed them (yet) but only that they have full bellies.

Sitting there eating, I happened to notice a couple of families who must have been traveling in the dining room. The women were wearing hijabs (the muslim headscarf), and my radar kicked on. I sat through the rest of my meal not paying attention to my family, but watching their moves.

What a scary place inside your head is, bngfan. Really, it's tragic. Racist and rude and tragic. Are you filled with this kind of terror every time you see brown skinned people, or just when you see brown skinned people in scarves?

I would like to point out two things. If you truly feel that this level of terror was appropriate to the situation, then the terrorists really have won. Their goal is, after all, to instill terror, and they seem to have succeeded admirably with you.

Secondly, has it occurred to you at all that those families could well regard us white Americans with the same terror? 'Twasn't the brown skinned desert folk who did this:

or this:

or this:

Those were, by the way, the least disturbing images of our violence that I could find. Yeah, we're so much better.

It's So Hard for a White Man to Get Ahead

health care, racism, obama, bigotry, poverty,

George Picard (-25,000,000 points for making me associate you with Sir Patrick Stewart) at American Thinker wrote a much needed article about how hard it is for the white man to get ahead in this new America, with its racist President.

The administration and Congress have passed policies clearly based on favoritism. They have further appointed, approved, and empowered key officials who have displayed a strong desire to benefit African-Americans over the interests of all Americans.

He never really addresses why Obama might do this, other than the implication that Obama is BLACK, so he hates whitey. You know, like his mother. And the grandparents who raised him. Also.

There are two ways this agenda has been promoted: steps that have a disparate impact in favor of African-Americans, and those that are designed to specifically favor African-Americans (disparate treatment).

Disparate impacts are outcomes that benefit African-Americans because they are compose a higher proportion of a particular group. These include:

efforts to gut the workfare requirement that was the signature achievement of Bill Clinton in the area of welfare reform;

giving a blank check to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Housing Authority to expand home "ownership" among lower-income people and income redistribution on a massive scale (via tax hikes and stimulus bills -- and by the way, stimulus views vary by race, with African-Americans far more in favor of it than whites, Hispanics, or Native Americans); and
health care "reform" (including expanding the ranks of those who qualify for Medicaid) despite all the polls showing that most Americans are happy with their own medical care and do not want the intrusion of government, the massive deficits, and the tax increases that will come with such "reform."

Because African-Americans make up a high proportion of the disadvantaged, they will disproportionally benefit. This is an agenda at work.

Don't believe me? Listen to Barack Obama when he spoke to a friendly crowd of minority journalists in 2008 about why he favored universal care:

If we have a program, for example, of universal health care, that will disproportionately affect people of color, because they're disproportionately uninsured.

That sound you hear? That's me, beating my head against my desk. According to Mr. Picard, it is racism to help the poor, because such a high percentage of the poor are minorities.

I don't even know what to say about that. Helping people get health care is racist, because the people without health care are overwhelmingly minorities? Whom else should we help? The people that don't need it? That doesn't even make sense.

Oh, Look- You're Sponsered by a Hate Group!

fair, tea party, racism, bigotry, palin, politics,
When I heard about the National Tea Party Convention, I giggled. That's like getting a late Christmas present!

It only took me 3 clicks to find something interesting: the NTPC is being sponsered by a hate group, the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

The Southern Poverty Law Center classifies FAIR as a hate group because, in part,

Founded by Tanton in 1979, FAIR has long been marked by anti-Latino and anti-Catholic attitudes. It has mixed this bigotry with a fondness for eugenics, the idea of breeding better humans discredited by its Nazi associations. It has accepted $1.2 million from an infamous, racist eugenics foundation. It has employed officials in key positions who are also members of white supremacist groups. Recently, it has promoted racist conspiracy theories about Mexico's secret designs on the American Southwest and an alternative theory alleging secret plans to merge the United States, Mexico and Canada. In 2006, a senior FAIR official sought "advice" from the leaders of a racist Belgian political party.

That's who's sponsoring the National Tea Party Convention. Can we stop pretending the Tea Party movement isn't racist now? And, since Sarah Palin is their keynote speaker, can we please start calling her out on this association?

Think of the Children!!!one!!!

bigotry, racism, homophobia, same sex, gay, marriage, traditional,
A Louisiana Justice of the Peace refused to issue a marriage license for an interracial couple because of the children- doesn't that argument sound familiar? And yes, this did happen in 2009.

HAMMOND, La. - A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have.

Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.

So, "the children" and "[such] marriages do not last long". Why does that sound familiar? Oh, yeah, you hear them all the time in relationship to same sex marriages. I just didn't expect to hear this about (what I thought was) the settled issue of interracial marriage.

Justice Bardwell's beliefs are based entirely on anecdotal evidence- sound familiar?

Bardwell said he has discussed the topic with blacks and whites, along with witnessing some interracial marriages. He came to the conclusion that most of black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society, he said.

Then we get the same odd notion of equality you'll hear from "traditional marriage" advocates:

If he does an interracial marriage for one couple, he must do the same for all, he said.
"I try to treat everyone equally," he said.

So tell me, how is this any different? How are the arguments against same sex marriage any different?

Rush May Not Be Racist, But This Metaphor Sure Is

racism, lynching, rush, limbaugh, nfl

[warning: graphic imagery below the fold]

Look, I don't know what Rush Limbaugh actually thinks. I know what he's said, and a lot of it's vile racist, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic deliberately inflammatory crap. It's the deliberately inflammatory portion of it all that leaves me with a tiny doubt. Maybe Rush Limbaugh is not racist, misogynist, homophobic and transphobic, but he certainly gets paid enough for appearing to be so. Loudly and crassly appearing to be so.

I don't think the NFL's refusal to allow Limbaugh to own an NFL franchise is unfair or improper. The NFL is a private organization. They can allow in or keep out whomever they please. If they don't want a drug-addicted, four times divorced, deliberately inflammatory shock jock who attempted to fly to the Dominican Republic with four other men and somebody else's prescription for Viagra into their little club, that's up to them.

It's in the best interests of the NFL to avoid politics as much as possible. You can't sell Super Bowl ad slots for almost $10,000 a second if NFL viewership is restricted to wingnuts, the only people who don't think there is good evidence that Limbaugh is racist. So it's understandable that the NFL really doesn't want to deal with the controversy of Limbaugh co-owning an NFL franchise.

Unless you are a wingnut, in which case you use the worst possible metaphor for the situation to drum up sympathy for poor Rush.

Rush's dismissal is a victory for political correctness, despicable reporting and high tech lynching. No need to fact check racist accusations against Rush, although a few researchers have pursued and failed to find the alleged racist statements. When it comes to Conservatives, the Left hangs them simply because they are Conservative.

. . .

The Left killed Rush's dream of owning an NFL team. A liberal media lynch mob dragged Rush's dream out into the public square and hung it by the neck until it was dead while the likes of Sharpton and Jackson laughed and cheered celebrating their victory.

A "high tech lynching"? "dragged out into the public square and hung by the neck"? for anyone not familiar with the term "lynching":

The lynching era encompasses roughly the five decades between the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of the Great Depression. During these years we may estimate that there were 2,018 separate incidents of lynching in which at least 2,462 African-American men, women and children met their deaths in the grasp of southern mobs, comprised mostly of whites. Although lynchings and mob killings occurred before 1880, notably during early Reconstruction when blacks were enfranchised, radical racism and mob violence peaked during the 1890s in a surge of terrorism that did not dissipate until well into the twentieth century"

This is what a lynching looked like:

Yeah, Rush Limbaugh being denied entree into the world of NFL franchise ownership is exactly like the picture above. Just like that. You fucking racist fuck.

$5 to the first person who can correctly identify

acorn, tim jones, 912 project, washington, vendors, racism, tea party, teabagging,
all the amendments to the constitution Tim Jones does not understand.



Tim Jones is the wingnut "hero" of the above video. In the video, shot at the 9/12 Washington DC protest tea party hate rally whatever, he accuses three black street vendors (two of them minors) of being ACORN*, then proceeds to yell at and follow them until they leave. He later characterized his actions as a victory, stating: “The truth caused them to leave finally,” he said. “The truth can win out if we stand with the truth!”

What truth? That you can scare three black people half to death by attempting to whip up a group of 70,000 white people into an angry mob against them? I think we already knew that one.

Ignoring the absolutely absurd notion that Acorn sent street vendors to the 9/12 thing, (and the fact that Mr. Jones didn't suspect any white vendors of being Acorn plants*) so what if they did? This was a public event on public property. What right does anyone have to tell another person they can't attend?

Those street vendors have the First Amendment right to believe and say what they wish. They share in the right to demonstrate also guaranteed by the First Amendment. One would think Mr. Jones would recognize, as a proud believer in capitalism, their right to make a living, maybe even pull themselves up by their bootstraps, as it were.

Wait . . . I think I know which amendment Mr. Jones is unfamiliar with. I do believe that would be lucky number fourteen.

Sigh.




*actually "Akawn". apparently, "Dora the Explorer" actually rhymes in the Jones' household.

¿Hablas Wingnuttian?

journalista, illegal aliens, undocumented workers, crime, racism, bigotry, wingnut, stupid,
I'm starting to think the journalista chronicle might be a Poe. Surely no one in real life is actually that much of a clichéd Republican. Surely not.

Her latest article begins as a screed against a government website in- ¡gasp!- Spanish. I know, right? It's insane, providing Spanish-speakers with information in Spanish. What kind of communists are we?

Journalista, in case you read this, there are many legal aliens and US citizens that speak Spanish natively, and speak English. However, and I speak from experience here, no matter how fluent you become in another language, no language will ever be as comfortable to you as your native tongue. That's why we provide translations of government notices, etc.- to ensure that nonnative speakers are absolutely clear on what it is we're trying to tell them. Asshat.

What follows next is an admission of both crimes and bigotry.

I have to admit, I don’t mind them being here. I just think that if they work, they should pay taxes like everyone else. And if they aren’t legal, the government shouldn’t be footing their bill. Living in S. California it’s nice to have someone to clean my house and keep up the yard and help me flip my houses for a really cheap price, and most illegal immigrants that I have met are really sweet, but I also don’t think that my tax dollars need to go to individuals who broke the law and came to this country illegally. If they’re here illegally, and don’t pay taxes, then they should not benefit from those of us who do put money into the system…I mean, that have our money stolen from us by the government and put into the system.

Yeah, journalista doesn't mind letting "really sweet" illegals scrub her toilets or mow her lawn or help her make money, but she doesn't want them stealing her tax dollars! How dare the people that help her make a buck quick want to drive on her roads and visit her hospitals and . . . and . . . breath her air? That's Amurkin air! It's for Amurkins!

First of all, journalista, you are committing a crime every time you pay an undocumented worker. Glass houses, my dear. I'm sorry you don't like scrubbing your own toilets, but you're a criminal.

Secondly, how could anyone possibly live in the US and not pay taxes? You pay taxes at the store, at the gas pump, and when you pay your landlord, you're helping to pay their property taxes. Nobody is not paying taxes in this country.

Next, the same person that flips houses and pays someone else to clean up after her is "taxed to death".

Honey, you aren't "taxed to death". For one thing, you're still alive, unless your ghost wrote this little bit of ridiculousness. Secondly, if you have the money to flip houses and hire a maid and a gardener, you're not poor. I'd say come talk to me about being poor, but you have people right at hand to have that discussion with: the undocumented workers you hire.

But I suppose you'd actually have to, you know, listen to them for that.