This Day in Racism History: Little Rock, Arakansas, Reprise

51 years ago today, the US Army was sent in so that nine black high school students could attend the white Central High School in Little Rock.  This, merely 21 days after the National Guard had scuttled a previous attempt to desegregate the school.

This, in my opinion, is an example of everyday heroism I am not sure if I see anymore.  Kids nowadays (myself, a few years ago, included) skip school when they have a pimple on their nose.  These nine kids, facing throngs of hostile crowds and racist assaults, went to school AT RISK OF MURDER, and guaranteed to be treated like shit by almost every person in the halls, student or staff.

In a political sense, it seemed to be the case decades ago where the President would take authoritarian measures to do what he thought was right (at least in sentiment, correctly, in this case and many others), against popular opinion, at risk of electoral defeat and dissent among their more close-minded Congressional colleagues.

Can you imagine our current President taking it upon himself to do anything that was in the best interests for the nation or its people, at the risk of his own legacy or political power?

At least in either outcome for 2008, that will be somewhat ameliorated.  Although I do not expect either candidate to bring back the sense that the President is willing to face personal short term consequences for the greater good of the nation, and live with those consequences knowing that he did what was right.  At best, I expect they will compromise from what is best, and try to do close to the right thing, as long as it they don’t have to pay for it themselves (I believe it could be argued Bill Clinton’s failed attempt to reform healthcare in America, and his apparent, in my view, trepidation in putting the full force of his Presidency behind it to shift public and Congressional opinion, was an example of an attempt to do the right thing, but not at the expense of a Presidency).

The last time we saw a Presidency put on the line for the greater good, George H.W. Bush lost what should have been a certain second term.  The people just don’t like being told their taxes have to go up.

… and the cow goes moo (if it pleases God-King Paulson)

This Day in Racism History: The Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation

I guess this should be a This Day in Unracism History entry.

146 years ago today, Abraham Lincoln declared all slaves in rebel states should be made free by January 1, 1863.

“all person held as slaves within any State, or any designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever, free”

Forever.

… and the cow goes moo

McCain is racist! Video and bloggers prove it! Nooooo!

I’ve been meaning to comment on this ridiculous post I saw on Sunday at Crooks and Liars, but just never got around to it.  Thank FireFox for saved tabs.

As a Doctor of Racism, and an active practitioner,  I feel I should exercise my authority in this matter to squash debates that demean racists everywhere.

bluegal seems to enthusiastically agree with Commonplace Book’s assertion that the video  constitutes proof that John McCain is a racist… Please view the video at either site.  I’ll wait.

…

…

Now… I don’t mean to be dismissive of novices in the field, or to intimidate, but I have been practicing racism my entire life and I did not see a single racist thing in the ad (except for an oppressive white font on a black background).  I didn’t see anything racist and I’m the type of person who sees racism in the sun rising on my white neighbour’s house before mine.

The narrator is a women, not a curmudgeonly old white man (though the ad is approved by one).  The ad is mostly about Barack Obama (for those keeping track, Barack Obama is black so I can assume that plays a part in the confusion) but actually says “they lashed out at Sarah Palin” while showing a picture of both Obama and Joseph Biden (who is, forgettably, white) and his/their comments about Sarah Palin being “good-looking” (like how many have noticed that Barack Obama is… “handsome” during this election cycle), doing “what she was told” (like reading speeches written by McCain’s campaign and all), and “lying” (… I’m sure everyone can think of an instance or two where she lied without my help).  In response to this, the narrator says: “how disrespectful… And how Governor Palin proves them wrong every day”

True, the start and end of that statement don’t have much to do with each other.  But I don’t think that’s because the start is racially prejudiced against the end.

And there’s that use of the word “them”… Do you think the narrator is referring to “they” from earlier, the pictured Obama and Biden?  Or is the narrator referring to all black people (who, I guess we are to have assumed, all think Sarah Palin is good-looking or are disrespectful of her good looks or something)?

Now these bloggers have apparently latched on to the word “disrespectful” as being the smoking gun of John McCain’s / Republican’s / All White People’s racist attitudes towards Barack Obama as, of course, no black person can be accused of being disrespectful without conjuring up horrible memories of the days when black people were forced to be… disrespectful?  Wait.  Why the fuck can’t we accuse Barack Obama of being disrespectful without cheapening the concept of racism?

The video could not make the case more clearly that they’re accusing Barack Obama (and Joe Biden) of being disrespectful of women and, hence, SEXIST! They are saying he has been dismissive of Sarah Palin by describing her in superficial terms (good-looking), assuming that she is docile or acting on the orders of a man (doing what she’s told), and a liar (because women are all liars.  Yes, I’m a sexist too.  I can be two things).  THAT is the “disrespectful” behaviour they are accusing Obama and Biden of and it couldn’t be more clear.  The only way you could see racism in that video is if you are SO PREJUDICED AGAINST REPUBLICANS THAT YOU IMMEDIATELY SEE RACISM IN ANYTHING THEY DO THAT HAS TWO INGREDIENTS OF RACISM (ie. a black person and a white person).  JOHN MCCAIN IS NOT THE KING OF RACISTS!  HE DOES NOT OWN US!

So please, let’s be a little more careful next time and not confuse racism with something that isn’t.  Remember, the race card is black and the gender card is pink.  John McCain was playing the gender card.  Remember this.  We’re going to be seeing it a lot for the next two months.

Sidenote:  Both posts appear to be written by white women (I believe this is a picture of bluegal here, and Steph Mineart here), so their missing the gender-baiting of the remark and seeing race-baiting would be pretty ironic if it wasn’t just so like a woman to miss the obvious.

… and the cow goes moo

This Toy Looks a Lot Like One I Had Before?

(Reference to Polizeros #3… I really am not doing this intentionally)

Polizeros has another post that touches on a long-bitched-about issue that I have regarding the accusations that Obama has taken the typical course of running left of center during the primaries, and returning to the center for the general election campaign.  I wish to defend Obama against this accusation with what is probably a much more damning accusation of my own.  I’m well-known for sending mix messages.

As follows, my comment in the Polizeros post (and I do intend to do a thorough follow-up, WITH RESEARCH! AND REFERENCES!):

“I agree with your comments to the extent that I can while almost totally disagreeing with Tom Hayden.

Always hard to attribute cause accurately to statistical vicissitude however I feel this loss of luster in the Obama campaign/presidency isn’t due to a movement to the center, or his forsaking the farther-left (far-left has now become a very inaccurate and misused label).  I believe Obama was a centrist from the start, maybe moreso than Bill Clinton.  I believe many on the father left were fooled by their own prejudices.  An exciting young, black Democratic candidate.  Many assumed he was a true progressive.

I believe many misinterpreted his promise for change as being a change in US policy from it’s current extrapolated line.  I always interpreted as a change in the timber of the debate away from partisanship and nothing more.  His moving to the right will occur not because he’s become an appeaser, but because his policy was always that of appeasing the right to reduce the violence of debate.  I don’t agree with Obama (or, more accurately, this depiction of him), but I do understand why he might make this the goal of his presidential campaign).

I post this here rather than directly to Tom Hayden because:
a) I don’t even know who Tom Hayden is, though the name sounds a bit familiar;
and b) I actually thought from some previous posts that Bob held at least a suspicion that, inherently, Obama’s policies were deliberately targeted to a moving center.

I’ll add to this in my own blog when I get a chance.  This is in the blog-queue somewhere.”

ADD (from my second comment, as I neglected to include a point in those 200 words):

“and to clarify, the reason I believe Obama’s poll numbers are falling is that his followers, even some of his most ardent, are realizing that he never was what they thought he was (a revolutionary mainstream American politician… Or as much as such a thing can exist).

And I think they’re all asking themselves how much they loved Obama, and how much they loved his packaging.  Now that the box is open, it’s a bit of a disappointment.”

… and the cow goes moo

Bill Moyers throwing some brain heat

Big fan of his ever since I saw his nine thousand hour interview of Joseph Campbell (The Power of Myth). It had some great stories, even if you don’t really dig mythology, or believe as Campbell does in the recurrence of themes across cultures, the reasons for those recurrences, or what those recurrences say about how humans are put together.  At the very least, it feels like a fireside storytelling session with grandpa (that I never experienced, but I think I saw on TV or in a movie when I was a kid).

As my nighttime zone out brain nightcap, I’ve been streaming videos from PBS.org of Bill Moyers Journal, a news/commentary show with long and engrossing thoughtful interviews with (normally) one notable expert/author/journalist about one of the many most important and perhaps under-covered stories of the day.  His most recent interview with former Colonel (now author and Boston University professor) Andrew J Bacevich about the state of the American executive governing body, and the war in Iraq, was very interesting and ended on a touching note.

The segment that really kept me up one night was an older one with Douglas Blackmon, discussing what they termed as ‘Neoslavery’.  The point that Moyers brings up that I lamentably never hear mentioned is how extreme racism’s existence in history is so RECENT.  Moyers makes a minor, but significant observation that some of the most glaring excesses of vestigial slavery still existed even in Moyers’ lifetime.  Sometimes we look at slavery in America as some fossil from a bygone era, and neglect to keep in mind that there are MILLIONS of people alive today that were alive when 14 year old African-American Emmett Louis Till was brutally murdered for allegedly whistling at a white women.  I hate to spoil the ending for those that don’t know the story, but (highlight to see)… THE TWO MURDERERS WERE FOUND INNOCENT AND EVEN WERE PAID BY LOOK MAGAZINE FOR THEIR CONFESSIONAL TELLING OF THE EVENTS SURROUNDING THEIR MURDER OF THE CHILD, SECURE IN THEIR FREEDOM FROM RECRIMINATION BY WAY OF DOUBLE JEOPARDY PROTECTION.

Many people alive today were children when blacks were routinely lynched for crimes real and imagined, often involving perceived ‘threat’ to white women, as the 14 year old (albeit husky) Emmett apparently represented to two adult males.  Racism in roughly its most brutal form existed by government mandate or government apathy in the lifetimes of many of our neighbours today.  This is not meant to be accusatory of those who lived to see that, as most were so young as to hardly be able to be involved, but I find many people who don’t observe racism and don’t tend to their history believe that racism just… Does… Not… Exist… Anymore.  That it ossified and was worn to dust by the stifling winds of enlightened America.  Not enough time has passed to erode that mountain. Not nearly.

That an idea that seems so obviously wrong and truly exemplary of the height of human malice could be held or allowed to persist so broadly, so recently, reminds me of why it’s so important that I, and every other person in the world, die one day: So that the parasitic heinous ideas that subsist on our souls will die, starving in our empty husks.

… and the cow goes moo

DOUBLE BREAKING NO BACKSIES NEWS! JOSE CALDERON SO NOT A RACIST!

AS PER THIS UPDATED ARTICLE IN THE GREY LADY (link will open in a new window… I think I’ll do that for all of them)

“Calderon denies any racist tinge in the gesture and expressed his “great respect for the East and its people.” The Extremaduran highlighted his great personal relationship with several Chinese friends…”

As an aspiring journalist, I wasn’t about to take his word for it.  After all, racists, despite their impeccable social graces and strength of character, are just as capable of lying as unhygienic ethnic minorities.  So I did what all the best journalists do: I google pictured “Jose Calderon’s Chinese Friend” and lo-and-behold, the fucker was telling the truth!

Jose Calderon's Chinese Friend: "Racism Bei-Gonn"

*METHODOLOGICAL NOTE: By using my secret Chinese techniques (such as Chinese GPS, Asian Radar, SuperSecret Communist Hive Mind Communication Protocols, and even superersecret ones that I list in this space but you can only see when reading this with chink eyes), and squinting even more than usual, I have ascertained with 100% accuracy that the young man next to Jose Calderon is a Chinese person. Also, that dude is me. And a really bad picture from years and years ago that was heavily smudged before scanning, and I was squinting and making a stupid face but that was the only picture I could find. Really. I’m not ugly. Or as ugly as Jose’s Chinese Friend, anyways.

I take back all the horrible ‘it’s ok because they started it’ racist comments I made about the proud and sexy people of Spain and their lovely temperate and sangria-soaked European paradise. The mark of a fine journalist is the ability to be able to say ‘my bad’ (probably because you would have to be known as a pretty fucking good journalist to be able to use dated Martin Lawrence colloquilisms in an article), and I am saying ‘my bad’ to you, Jose Calderon, and to all other Spanish peoples, for perpetuating the lie of Jose’s racism.  JOSE FOREVER, TJ NEVER!

… and the cow goes moo