Trayvon Martin Case: Comments

The Trayvon Martin case is very important for exposing some rotten aspects of American society (which, like all diseases, has gotten virulent soon after the cures have been located). Specifcally, our addiction to guns and a deep-rooted racism.

I've mentioned in previous posts on gun control, that the biggest fallacy the gun-nuts push is the idiotic idea that a person can tell the difference between a good guy and a bad guy. That's why this case demonstrates the anti-Black racism of America better than any I remember. Because here the victim was an unarmed and innocent black teenager who lived near where he was murdered and his assailant was basically a crazy violent loner with a gun. A crazy Hispanic loner. In every other scenario, were Zimmerman the victim and the shooter were White, the case would be the same. But in the US, blacks are hated more than Latins... need proof, here's your proof.

The key point is this: only if you hate and fear blacks could Zimmerman's actions be OK. And while I hate to credit an anti-Zionist slimeball with anything, Robert Wright of Atlantic makes my points so well, I need to cite him: "(1) A man with a gun pursued an unarmed teenager who had done nothing wrong. (2) The man with the gun initiated a confrontation with the teenager. (3) As a result of the confrontation, the man with the gun shot the teenager to death. "

As Wright points out, these facts aren't in dispute - they are part of Zimmerman's defense! But when seen without race, this is a clear case of an armed assailant attacking and killing an innocent teen. However, since many Americans are viscerally racist, the "innocent teen" is automatically worthy of being shot because of his race. That's why the Police are releasing Trayvon's misdemeanor record - to depict him as a walking criminal. However, and I feel this is so obvious that it's overlooked, Trayvon wasn't doing anything wrong when he was stalked and murdered.

This reminds me of the Toulouse Massacre (which I need to say more about) because in both cases, some disturbed individual with a gun decided that the object of his hate could be killed. Yet, while in France it is seen as a crime to kill children in cold blood, sadly in the US - or in the crazy province of Florida (home of voter suppression and hanging chads) - you can.

Cain's Race Card

Herman Cain as a good presidential name going for him. Single syllable names are great, see Gore v Bush, and Biblical last names even better, no matter the images evoked of a powerful man killing his weaker brother - which is a perfect description for the Republican Party in 2011, and for Cain's attitudes towards American Blacks as well.

However, he plays the race card like he was in Vegas. Most recently, he has needed to double-down (note my gambling metaphors!*) because he has been accused of sexually harrassing a bunch of employees. People have referenced Clarence Thomas. The implicit point of Cain is that black men will be accused of this if they are Right Wing. I don't assume he harassed the women because he was black. I assume he did it because (a) he's a rich businessman born between 1940-1960, (b) he's a patriarchal fool who treats everyone as an object. These are blanket assumptions for anyone of his ilk.

Anyway, Cain and his cronies are trying to portray him as the victim, which I just love in a gallows humor way. In this interview

you can see that he blames the liberal establishment for leading the charge against him. Basically, punishing him and his Black Republican Brethren for their maverickyness.

Aside from the fact that there's no proof for his assertion, and that it's a classic Strawman Defense for someone guilty as Cain, I'd like to use my trusty tools of (1) logic, and (2) precedent to understand the situation.

This is currently a Republican primary. Unlike 2000 and 2008, there's an incumbent and therefore only one primary. And as history will show that primaries are when the real knock-down attacks occur. Scandals are brought up by their own party-mates - and this is logical because once a person gets the nomination, then the process of election changes.

Biden's plagarism, Hart and Clinton's philandering**, McCain's black*** babies, Obama and Rev. Wright - all examples of devestating attacks that occured by their own party during the primaries.

There is no incentive, truly none, for the other party to being opposition research during the primaries. Why should the Democrats attack Cain 14 months before election day? It's illogical and has no precedent. The only people who care about Cain right now, and have the money to do oppo research, are Perry and Romney. I'd bet Romney did this.

Footnotes:
*Gambling metaphors are steeped in US politics. The "New Deal" itself is a poker reference. So is "The Buck Stops Here" (Truman).
** Not with each other.
*** Black to a Republican means something totally different than what you think.

Degrees of Bigotry

The front page of the times had the arresting photo (see left) of some freak, John Gallano, who I assume is either an artist or a professional clown. It appears that the clown has emitted an anti-Semitic slur. Charlie Sheen, aka Carlos Estevez, has also been fired recently for making anti-Semitic comments. While I applaud any action that destroys bigots and scumbags, I do want to draw a distinction between 2 acts of bigotry.

Sheen, according to the Times, went on a radio show and railed against his boss, Chuck Lorre, all the while calling the boss "Hayim Levine." Yeah, it's odd that someone whose name was changed is mocking another ethnic name changer, but it also evinces anti-Semitism (so I'm told) and so he has been fired. Or something - to be honest, I never wanted to watch his show so I don't follow this too closely.

I'd like to point out, though, that as anti-Semitism goes, this is as mild as you can get. Consider that Sheen already has screamed anti-Black epithets in public, and that wasn't a firing offense. Why should anti-Semitism trump that?

Well, I don't think it did and I'm annoyed that it's being depicted that way. My presumption is that Sheen was fired because he was meant to clean up in rehab and instead he walked out of the 'hab and into a radio booth to insult his boss. Is it his bigotry or his aggressive stupidity at fault? I'd prefer to say it's the latter.

Especially in light of the Galliano clown. Here's what the Times says:

The video, posted on the Web site of the British tabloid The Sun, appears to show Mr. Galliano taunting other patrons at the bar, La Perle, declaring in a slurred voice that “I love Hitler” and that “people like you would be dead,” and “your mothers, your forefathers” would all be “gassed.” It was unclear when the video was recorded.

Do you see the difference? Sheen wasn't as much a bigot as a raving jackass. Galliano actually hates Jews. Because nobody but a true hater would even *think* of calling on Jews to be murdered by Hitler again. Seriously, folks.

This was the same case I made about Michael "Kramer" Richards who didn't *just* say the n-word, but actually talked wistfully about the bygone days when you could lynch blacks. Again, the difference is that using the n-word can be put in the category of using angry-talk (like the f-word, or any other word-words), but actively talking about committing specific murder is another category altogether.

Even though I am happy to continue exposing bigots and penalizing people who use racist slurs (which I have no urge to do myself, so I can comfortably condemn that class of scum), I do want to make a distinction between rage-words and actual bigots.

Reverse Boycott Time

While I'm not in favor of anti-Semites, and their Halloween costume cousins Anti-Zionists, being so loud (hate speech is rough on the psyche) I am glad when they are vocal. According to Jacob Weisberg's recent Slate column (h.t. Goldblog), a number of celebrities are boycotting Israel. A great quote:

What they're saying instead is: "We consider your country so intrinsically reprehensible that we are gong to treat all of your citizens as pariahs." Instead of warning that Israel risks becoming an apartheid society if it fails to make peace, boycotters have concluded that Israel already is an irredeemable apartheid society.

Now, as I've mentioned here, I keep my eye on those moral artists who davka tour Israel, so I'm happy to track the opposite side of the spectrum as well. So, according to Slate, here are the new immoral anti-Zionist scum: Meg Ryan, The Pixies, Elvis Costello. Now I have no idea who the Pixies are, and now I'm glad that I don't have to, but I have experience with the other two scumbags and I find a bittersweet silver lining to the hate cloud.

First of all, sweet anorexic airhead shiksa Meg Ryan. What red-blooded American GenX male has not feared her presence in any movie? She's in the category of "pretty only to women" (other members of this group: Julia Roberts and Sarah Jessica Parker) and her one character, recycled in numerous romantic comedies, is the same shrill high-maintenance ditz we discovered when Sally met Harry. Those of us who have secretly detested her reduction of femininity to the most irritating traits (helpless, brainless, neurotic, impossible to please, materialist, irresponsible) can have a concrete reason to hate her.

But the real prize is Elvis Costello. Man oh man, I do not like that guy's music. And yet, all the pallid hipster music snobs have insisted for decades that he's some kind of genius. Yet, these aesthetes seem to overlook that the man sings like a geek. It's his own pretentiousness, the arrogance of his fans, and his utter lack of voice quality that has earned my ire before his latest bigoted escapade. And, hey, look at the Wiki, it says that "Elvis" (a.k.a. Declan Patrick MacManus) had a famous incident in 1979 of publicly calling James Brown and Ray Charles the N-word.

So here ya go, the great entertainers and the moral conscience.

Cotello pic from here.

Tea Party?

The current Tea-Party takes their title from the Boston Tea Party. From the beginning, I've been disturbed by the imagery because even though the original Tea-Partiers became heroes of the American Revolution, at the time they were committing treason. And the current teabaggers, by using that event as a standard, are thus declaring to the world that they intend treason. No?

That established, the Tea Party is in fact the wrong image - because bottom line, the rebellion/treason that they intend to enact is Fort Sumter. Not just because the Teabaggers are generally egotistical misanthropic crackers, but also because they hate non-Whites and especially our Black president.

Image from here. And, note, these people are proud of their Frankenstein imagery.

Frum Anti-Obamaism

A near-daily read, for me, is the frum news-site Vos-Iz-Neias (pronounced "glayyyvin"). Even though, rumor has it, that it's assur to use the intertubes, VIN gathers news from as many sources as possible to bring news stories of interest and importance to the Jewish community. I was 'converted' to them, as it were, when a friend's synagogue had been vandalized and the story was not on the JTA website but was on VIN.

So what does VIN determine is important to the frum news consumer? On one side I admire them for bringing stories of rabbi abuse, chillul Hashem riots, and general criticism of the frum community. On the other side, they seem to have aligned themselves with the Republican party and will gleefully show anything against Democrats and Obama in particular. For example, it is a-priori accepted by the VIN editors that the Health Care Plan is bad for frum Jews (why? because the GOP - a collection of Christian White Men from the South and/or Mountain West - says so).

And, of course, like any website that allows comments (and is read by more than 2 people, unlike The Styx), the comment section is where you'll find the true crazy. Were I a sociologist (uh, wait a sec...) I'd make a theory about how comments-sections reflect the nature of a website. But, to be honest, I can't go that far. Yet. I will say, though, that a sociologist of the Jews would find the crazy exhibited in the comments fascinating.

Take this crazy example, commented on a news thread about (what else) the friendly psychotic Muslim Doctor mass murderer:

Moshe in Baltimore Says:
The anonymous "gunman" was Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39 year old Muslim. Of course this was a terror attack. And to #9, Barack HUSSEIN Obama grew up Muslim, and will always be a Muslim. He is very on top of the game of Islam infiltrating the US and other Western Countries. Look at Yechezkel 38:2, the word Nasi, "Prince" Gog of Magog ends in an Alef. Count every seventh letter and it will spell Alef, Vav, Bais, Alef, Mem, Hay; "Obama". It's an obvious Torah code he is Gog or a major player. May Hashem hasten the Geula with no negative affect to Klal Yisroel.

Again, I'm not sure how "Moshe in Baltimore"s Rebbe has allowed him to access the interwebs, unless Moshe himself is a Rosh Yeshiva. It could explain his superior gematria skillz.

P.S. The commenters are also wacko about vaccines. Fun times for the dumb frum.

Anita Hill at Brandeis

I had no idea that *the* Anita Hill is a professor at Brandeis. Her title is "Professor of Social Policy, Law, and Women's Studies" at the Heller School of Social Policy. I found out that the person with that name was the The was from a lecture I attended this afternoon about gender in end of life issues. The keynote speaker, Susan M. Wolf (U. of Minn.), was a law school classmate of Hill so Hill gave the introduction.

Cooool.

Update:

I mentioned this cool fact to two of my colleagues (who are 10-12 years younger than I) and they did not know who she was. Besides making me feel real old, I think I should explain why she's so significant (to me and to others): Hill is, to me, the Rosa Parks of practical gender civil rights in the workplace. Through an act of courageous, and humiliating, self-sacrifice Hill confronted her tormentor and this action changed the public consciousness of sexual harassment which, in turn, shaped the way that the majority treats the (historically disempowered) minority. Just as the Civil Rights movement helped all minorities, not just African-Americans, so too Hill helped all those harassed by their insensate bosses.

Great line from Ta-Nehisi Coates

Coates is on fire:

'What's the old saying? Black folks didn't object to slavery, they objected to being the slaves. "

Backpost finished 2009-12-07.

Obama Gets Some Advice On Race...

Some straight out wisdom from Ta-Nehisi Coats on Yglesias' blog:

[Obama Gets Some Advice On Race...] from arguably the last group of people who should be giving advice on race. I won't get into this too much, but I just want to say that rather than writing a memo to Obama on how to deal with "white voters" and the "race problem", Newsweek would have done better to send "white voters" a memo on how to deal with Obama and the "race problem." It was tragic to see so many interviews with folks in Kentucky and West Virginia saying point blank that they wouldn't vote for Obama because he was a colored. The conclusion always was, "Wow this is a huge problem for Obama," not "Wow. this is a huge problem for these people."

I know that seems backward, but roll with me for a second: We can all agree that a presidential election is an extremely important event, arguably the most important mass event in the country. If you have voters who essentially disqualify candidates, on race alone, isn't that, like, kind of a problem for the voters? Please do not counter with "but blacks vote for Obama on race!!" As I've said before, it ain't the same dog. Blacks--because we've basically had no other choice--have a long record of voting for white people, and will continue to do so. A guy who openly says "I'm not voting for a black guy," get's no such consideration.

Anyway, my point is that this is of a piece with the widely held view that racism is basically a problem for black people, not whites, that our history of slavery, Jim Crow, sharecropping, housing covenants are an injury to black people, not to the larger country. We think about the Civil War, as a war to free the slaves. But here's another way to think about it: It cost us 700,000 American lives--and the near fracturing of our country--to accomplish something that the rest of the civilized world accomplished with the stroke of a pen. I'm simplifying I know, but the point is racism poisons everything and everyone. Black folks obviously pay the most obvious price, but we really aren't its only victims.

Backpost finished on 2009-12-06.

Obama's Repudiation of Wright

Yesterday Obama (finally) cut off any relationship with his former pastor, the Rev. "Al Sharpton" Wright. Full transcript here (NYTimes). Key passages below, and the video from MSNBC:

"You know, I have been a member of Trinity United Church of Christ since 1992. I have known Reverend Wright for almost 20 years. The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church.

They certainly don't portray accurately my values and beliefs. And if Reverend Wright thinks that that's political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn't know me very well. And based on his remarks yesterday, well, I may not know him as well as I thought, either.

Now, I've already denounced the comments that had appeared in these previous sermons. As I said, I had not heard them before. And I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia, explaining that he has done enormous good in the church."

[snip]

"What we saw yesterday out of Reverend Wright was a resurfacing and, I believe, an exploitation of those old divisions."

We get these points from the repudiation:

1. Wright acted like a different man when Obama sat in the pews.
   
2. Hence, Wright's current diatribes are not the voice of Obama's religion.
   
3. Moreover, Obama's claiming that Wright's behavior is not like the greater Black church experience.
   
4. Obama was trying to be nice and respectful to his "crazy uncle" Wright throughout the campaign and especially in the Philadelphia speech. But since Wright repaid the courtesy with selfish rudeness, Obama is no longer going to tolerate him.
   
5. The 'exploitation' line is my favorite because it sounds like Obama is painting Wright as a newly born Al Sharpton - someone who now has tasted the limelight and won't go away.

'Do the Right Thing' Anniversary

I'm not a fan of Spike Lee, the director. He's a loud, angry bigot. Yes, he's quite talented but that means I put him in the same category as Oliver Stone - their clear talent just makes it easier to effectively transmit their myopic anger. It's odd how a movie-director, whose expertise is in image and spectacle can see the world in such simplistic and monochromatic (in Spike's case literally) terms. When I see one of their films, I feel that I'm being lectured by a loud and stupid co-worker. Thankfully, I can just turn the movie off (not so with work), and therein could be a joy I should find with them: I'll rent their movies just so I can turn them off, achieving a grace that the rest of life denies me.

Note, Lee & Stone's talent is manifest; unlike other screed-screamers (e.g. Michael Moore), their movies need to be taken seriously by movie-buffs. And since I am a self-declared cinefile and I felt it necessary to at least see one Lee film. I had already subjected myself to Stone's Platoon - which was quite good if not simplistic - and Wall Street, whose misapplication by Reaganite greedheads shows Stone's unskilled didacticism, and I was turned off him utterly when I saw a few minutes of Natural Born Killers, an experience I revisit whenever I want to make myself nauseous. Since then, no Stone and I'm a happier and smarter man for it.

Everyone acknowledges that Do the Right Thing is Lee's best film, so while I may have seen it when it came out, I saw it again back in the late 90s. And it's terrible. Seriously bad. The characters are caricatures as imagined through Manichean blinders, the "messages" are telegraphed and dangerous, the portrayal of women sexist, and it's knowledge of human behavior flawed. It's a well-made, yet stupid, movie.

But that's my opinion - and I need to recognize that many people think it's Teh Awesome. It has a 98% ranking at Rotten Tomatoes and for African Americans of my age cohort, the movie said very important things. I acknowledge the movie's power, it's ability to speak to people who are different from me. 1989 was a weird time - we were 9 years in Reagan hell with no end in sight, Apartheid was still the law of South Africa, crack and AIDS were wreaking havoc, and - as stated clearly in the movie - incidents like the Howard Beach 'lynching' was in the minds of the black community.

Yet Lee seemed to just become the cinematic arm of Al Sharpton - and the late 80s was filled with Sharpton's most wicked acts (e.g. Tawana Brawley was 1987). And while it's conventional wisdom that there were false accusations by those 'white people' who claimed that Do the Right Thing would result in riots, just because the movie theatres didn't erupt, is it wrong to connect the call to arms in the movie with the 1991 Crown Heights pogrom or the Rodney King riots in 1992?

Yeah, I know. As a sociologist-in-training how can I claim that a movie that premiered in 1989 lead to riots 2 and 3 years later? Well, uh, if a movie is beloved + advocates, in some measure, violence by young black men as a vehicle for reacting to oppression + young black men react to perceived oppression by rioting soon after = a serious possibility of linked behavior.

Note, I dislike the movie as a piece of art without getting into the real-world misery it may have caused. But I would like to believe that comic book morality can be exposed for what it is and recognized.

All that said, there was a recent interview in New York Magazine with Lee on the 20th anniversary of his movie. And despite all I wrote above, I sympathize with his sentiment here: Q&A With Spike Lee on Making 'Do the Right Thing' -- New York Magazine:

[NY Mag] Do the Right Thing never won an Oscar.

[Spike Lee] Remember what Kim Basinger did? Onstage she said, "The best film of the year is not even nominated, and it’s Do the Right Thing." I didn’t even know her. But when Driving Miss Mother[---]king Daisy won Best Picture, that hurt … No one’s talking about Driving Miss Daisy now."

He's right and not only in this one occasion.

I've written elsewhere about how the Oscar "Best Picture" is often a flash-in-the-sky weepy which moves the maudlin high-school dropouts who populate the 'academy.' Do the Right Thing is no Taxi Driver or Raging Bull, but it was sick irony that a movie about Southern race hierarchy (DMD) beat Lee's movie about race rebellion (and it doesn't help that DMD's nice white people are Jews, that must hurt).

Yet, just to say, Glory was better than both.

And of the big movies of that year, I still watch/own The Abyss, Batman, Hard to Kill, Major League, Say Anything..., Tango & Cash, Uncle Buck, and When Harry Met Sally... This is just to say that popular, effective, films don't often win awards.

First pic of the movie cover, found everywhere. Second pic of the pogrom, found here, third pic from the Wiki. Backpost finished 2009-11-30.

Contra-Wilder Effect

From a letter I sent to the Reality Based Community Folks, in response to this point by Steven Teles.

I don’t buy the idea that Obama lost due to the “Wilder effect” (that voters told pollsters that they’d vote for a black candidate, but secretly voted for white candidates in the secrecy of the polling booth). The main reason is that there’s a plausible alternative hypothesis, which is that the large Obama lead in the polls sent independents into the Republican primary to vote for McCain. But we’ll have to take a look at the data tomorrow, when we’ll have fine-grained information.

One thing about the 'wilder/bradley-effect' that I haven't seen mentioned is why would racist voters choose Clinton over Edwards? Are pollsters and pundits suggesting that people will lie about voting for a black man and then choose a white woman when there's a perfectly acceptable (17% thought so) white man as a choice?

Backpost finished 2009-12-13.

Glenn Greenwald Has a Good Point

Glenn Greenwald is not my favorite political commentator (a little too knee-jerk lefty, especially about Israel), but he's a meticulous reporter and hard to argue against when he marshals his facts. In a recent column, he brings up a good point about how the grudging respect the Right Wing has for Obama will quickly turn sour. Yeah, we've all been predicting it, but he brings a good proof (and something I've marvelled at as well): "Hatred is their [the Right Wing Crazies] fuel. Just look at the bottomless personal animus they managed to generate over an anemic, mundane, inoffensive figure like John Kerry. At their Convention, they waved signs with band-aids mocking his purple hearts while cheering on two combat-avoiders."

I dislike Kerry because he's everything I don't like about machine Democrats. But, the GOP whipped the country into a Kerry-bash frenzy that extended even until the '06 election (cf. "the botched joke").

Note, that I don't think the Kerry-Gore hatred that the GOP created will work against Obama in the same way, just as it failed against Bill Clinton. The two men are natural politicians and charismatic as can possibly be. But it does mean that the same hatred that worked to almost impeached Clinton will be the same hatred brought against Obama.

Except for one BIIIIG difference: the GOP used the hatred to take over Congress and that caused the impeachment. It would take multiple miracles for the GOP to regain the House in the next 2 election cycles.

Hence why I'm not worried about the 'swift-boating' vs. Obama. The man has charisma which equals to Teflon. And the GOP is out of Congress, so all they can do is fan the race-bating flames. And I just don't know how well that flies in 2008.

We're in a different world. The mainstreaming of black actors, black sports figures, and especially black music has made them less marginal figures than ever before. And since the GOP has been trying to attack the immigrants (read: Mexicans) for the past four years, that's made the black question more off the table.

And, it very well may be that the bald-faced tokenism of Condi Rice has also inured many of the younger voters as well.

The First Black President

The Obama-Clinton battle is heating up and the Clinton's allies seem to be leading the Rovian-counterintuition-assault against Obama's 'blackness.' Andrew Young, UN Secretary under HGM Carter, claimed that Bill Clinton has more 'black' cred than Obama(from NPR):

Mr. YOUNG: Bill is every bit as black as Barack.
(Soundbite of applause)
Mr. YOUNG: He's probably gone with more black women than Barack.
(Soundbite of laughter)

Now besides the fact that this is disgusting (especially about the women... do you really want to bring that up, ugh), it is also crazy as hell that the Clintons and their allies want to abuse their popularity in the black community this way. Please, Bill, don't do this. You were called 'black' because you were attacked with blind hatred - i.e. bigotry. And the black community understood bigotry. But don't confuse your 'honorary' status with the real thing.

Backpost finished 2009-11-29. Pic from here.

Watson and race

James Watson, the larcenous claimant to the discovery of DNA is also a racist and eugenicist. How great.

See this recent UK Times story for some charming racism:

... [Watson] is "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really", and I know that this "hot potato" is going to be difficult to address.

I've spent many years showing how hard-science cannot teach morality - it's not in its possible ends nor means. Watson, unwittingly, helps me in that goal.

h/t Sullivan and Slate. Pic from here. Backpost finished 2009-11-26.

The Difference Between New York and Louisiana

Aside from the frequency of city-drowning hurricanes, it's the attitude towards Hate Crimes.

This morning, an African-American Columbia University professor found a noose hanging from her office door. New York considers this a pretty blatant hate-crime. Because, uh, a noose is a murder device that was historically used to terrorize and random innocent African Americans throughout the United States but mainly in the South. This was called "lynching" and it was considered a popular pastime for those who also like Rebel Flags and "Southern Culture."

Anyway, as you know there was a case a year ago in Jena, Louisiana where a bunch of nooses were hung in a racially divided high school that led to a year-long escalation of White-Black clashes. The people who hung the nooses were caught and were punished with the merest slap of the wrist possible. And, and, it was not considered a Hate Crime. Why? According to the Wiki:

District Attorney Walters stated that Washington had found no federal statute under which the teens could be prosecuted, just as he had found no applicable state statute."

The Bush Justice Department - whose civil rights division has been gutted in order to vigorously pursue voter fraud - was even willing to consider this a hate crime... but Louisiana does not considered it such. What's a few nooses between friends?

None of this will end well.

Paul Mooney Agrees With Me

Paul Mooney is a comic virtuoso. I first saw him on the Chappelle Show as "Negrodamus" and I had heard that he wrote one of the best routines in SNL history: the job interview word association sketch between Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase (Monney was Pryor's main writer).

The Onion AV club has an interview with Mooney this week and they asked him why he no longer uses the N-word:

AVC: You've vowed to stop using the N-word.

PM: I won't be using that, no. That's a no-no.

AVC: What was the reasoning behind that?

PM: Well, Michael Richards, his meltdown. His nervous breakdown is what did it.

AVC: How so?

PM: Well, it was something else. I heard about it, and then I saw the video, and it freaked me. I'm not easily freaked. And the way I used the word, I was an ambassador for the word. The way I used the word, I was a part of it too. It became an equal-opportunity word.

[snip]

And there were layers to his breakdown, to Michael. I've known Michael for over 20 years. There were layers to it. This came out of Michael. Michael's a victim of America. There are a lot of white people who have this stuff inside them. It just takes the right situation to bring it out. White America should take responsibility for it like I'm taking responsibility for it. I'm not saying it. You have to say no to it. I was married to the word, I was the ambassador for the word and now I'm not saying it any more.

I've seen too many commentators and pundits associate any use of a racial slur with "Michael Richards" or "Mel Gibson." But those two acted in a very different way than using a slur - Gibson reportedly and Richards on camera were completely insane with hatred. See the clip to see what hatred looks like unleashed (if you've, thank God, never experienced it).

In fact, I can't see "Seinfeld" anymore. True, I was never much of a fan, but I can't see Kramer anymore and laugh. He makes me sick.

Michael Richards Meltdown

I just saw the clip of Michael Richards' horrible screaming meltdown. I stopped watching after 40 seconds because my face started burning with embarrassment. It teaches a bunch of lessons:

1. Richards may be a closet racist (the lynching line is most telling, not the n-word) and that's what a scared racist looks like - which explains all those lynching as well. His reaction was so violent! I wish I could have seen what he was reacting to.

2. If Richards is not a closet racist - and he may not be - then this just shows you that they're right about stand-up being the most frightening of all entertainment. It's just you trying to make people laugh and when you're not good at it, and when you used to be famous for making people laugh, and when people embarrass you by heckling that you're not funny, then Richards' response was the reaction of someone literally scared almost to death. His screams are the screams of a man falling off a bridge. He's that terrified.

Lott!? No! Yeah?! Ha ha ha ha...

Oh you bet. The GOP, reeling from catastrophic losses in the House and Senate try to change their fortunes, and their image, by selecting a racist Southern greaseball as their #2 in the Senate.

As reported yesterday, Lott succeeds in leadership comeback. He was kicked out two years ago because he, aw shucks, made public statements claiming that the country would be better off if segregationists had won the 1948 presidency.

The quote, from Dec. 5, 2002:

"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either."

Gee, GOP, after running a racist campaign in 2006 - trying to attract the jingoistic wackos by showing the Democrats as allowing miscegenation (Harold Ford & the Bunny), Gay Marriage and for being soft on immigration (which angered Latinos) - you'd think you'd want to win those votes back. Hard to do with a white-sheeter as your number 2.

As Robert George (the Caribbean-American conservative blogger, not the Princeton professor) said:

"There's something painfully ironic about Trent Lott being named 'minority whip'."

{2009 Update, pic from here.}

Thomas Too

According to this Washington Post story, if Bush is re-elected then when Rehnquist steps down as Chief (which is imminent) then Bush is thinking of nominating Clarence Thomas as the new chief.

Ken Foskett, the author of "Judging Thomas: The Life and Times of Clarence Thomas," claims that top Bush administration officials have discussed with Thomas the possibility of his succeeding William Rehnquist as chief justice.

I don't see why not; in the choice between Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft, Thomas is the least likely to want to kill me personally with his bare hands. But the thought of that low-grade Uncle Token as the chief terrifies me.

Token? That's pretty harsh. Would I say that Powell is a token. No; because he's the top of his game and actually gave Bush legitimacy (a opposed to those other clowns who take away from this administration every passing second). Do I think Condi Rice is a token? Hell yes. She is as dangerously incompetent as the fat white guys - so why is she there? Tokenism.

What's the difference between token and affirmative action? AA recognizes that the minority in question has been disadvantaged by centuries of continued discrimination. Tokenism recognizes that you can hide your racism by publicly displaying whatever minority dude is callow enough to sell out their fellows. It works best when the token doesn't have much talent. Paging Dr. Rice, paging the Honorable Thomas.

To be honest, I think Georgie W. is a token. He was chosen for his last name and his booze weakened mind. As long as he can keep his prep-school inbred frat-boy arrogance in check, he can pass as a civilian. It's been showing more and more lately (especially in the last debate).

If Team Bush "wins" again in November, then we get the token choosing the token. And I wonder if Ashcroft will then get the bench?