No, they’re racist because they use blatantly racist language and tactics in trying to trash the first black candidate for President with a serious chance. It’s not that they’re right wing, but that they’re actually racist. The Jeremiah swiftboating is racist. So is garbage like “Obama’s baby mama,” and Sean Hannity crowing about a “whitey” tape that doesn’t exist. It’s not their political stance (which is often just incidentally racist), but actual, intentional racism.
No has yet been able to explain why that term is racist. You just keep declaring it over and over again with no explanation.
What a condescending, self-righteous thing to say. Who are you to say what black people are obligated to find offensive?
He is opening his stand based on an actual study (street poll)?
Then no, not racist. It’s based on data gathered, supplied by the customers themselves (I assume), as opposed to an assumption made based on skin color.
I’m not offended, but I hope I explained that my objection to Juan Williams was based on more than his ethnicity, but in his willingness to participate in the racist denigration of his own ethnicity.
The key here is in the meaning of “prejudice.” If you’re doing the market research and you know what people actually want, you’re not being prejudiced by opening the store. You haven’t judged in advanced, you’ve judged based on the facts. If you open the store because you just assume black people like fried chicken, you’re prejudiced and you’re an idiot. [This is the hypothetical “you,” not WhyNot.]
Renob, saying Fox - they of the “terrorist fist jab” and so forth - and racist is not an indictment of all conservatives. I think one can easily come to the conclusion that Fox has engaged in race-baiting during this election and is racist without saying anything about all people who lean to the right.
Let me make sure I’m understanding you. You’re saying that calling one black man a “houseboy” does not mean that the user of the term is comparing all black people to slaves. If that’s what you mean, I guess I don’t disagree with that.
My point was that using that term against someone is comparing that individual to a slave – a very specific type of slave – and yes, the behavior stereotypically attributed to that type of slave. But you can’t extract the implied behavior without making the analogy to being a slave.
I think what you’re trying to communicate is that since the comment was not directed at or attributable to all black people, the term does not fit your definition of racist. I’m staying out of that argument. But just understand that, from my point of view, at least, calling someone a houseboy carries an inexorable linkage to slavery.
All you’re doing is helping to clarify that there is a distinction between being a racist and ingratiating yourself to racists. Juan Williams is not a racist. he he just sucks up to them and tells them what they want to hear.
Ok, we agree. So why is a comment about Colin Powell’s observed behavior*, not his skin color, (ETA: Or predicting behavior based on his skin color) racist?
*Again, I hasten to add, misinterpreted, IMHO. I think Powell really meant what he said when he said it. **Merijeek **doesn’t, but not out of racism.
I laid out the reasons as best I could earlier on. It’s a comment on his observed behavior that takes the form of a comment on his race, and it degrades Powell and black people in general.
Jeremiah Wright made arguably incendiary statements. Calling in to question Obama’s association with him is legitimate, if weak. McCain’s relationship with similar (white) incendiary personalities is also legitimate.
I suspect that even if Obama was white, Hannity would have still overindulged himself with clips of Wright. Hannity’s speciality is exaggerating news stories, not Klan rallies.
However, I will not defend “Obama’s Baby mama”, which is extremely tacky IMO, and the non existant “whitey” stuff, or Obama’s possible Muslim/Madrassa childhood, which appears to be “race baiting”.
OT:
I like Brit Hume, Chris Wallace, Neil Cavuto (even though buisness news bores the piss out of me), they seem to have integrity.
O’Reilly. Hmm. Sometimes I agree with him, sometimes I think he’s a pinhead.
Greta Van Susteren seems to know law reasonably well. But she (and Geraldo) occasionally succumb to the over-sensationalised or over-sensationalising of some stories for me, IMO.
Hannity, though, is as about far right (and sensationalised) as FNC gets. I wish Combs could reign his butt in, sometimes.
Williams didn’t used to be that way. He was tougher, and took less bullshit and (I think) more honest when he was at CNN. That’s one of the reasons I think he’s a genuine sell out, and not just sincerely deluded.
Well, yeah, that I’ll give you. I think most insults are meant to degrade the people they’re about.
This is the part I’m not following. Don’t act like a houseboy and you won’t be called a houseboy. If someone wasn’t acting like a houseboy* and they were called a houseboy *because *they were black, I’d be right there with you.
sigh I guess that’s too much like the “there are niggers and there are black people” routine, right?
*IMerijeek’sHO, of course.
(The weird thing about this whole debate is that when I hear “houseboy”, I think of Agador (sp?) from The Birdcage, not black slaves.)
Because the “house boy” comment implies that Powell willingly betrayed his race, when in fact his actions (if he knowingly lied to the UNSC) betrayed a much broader group of people.
“House Boy” has decidedly racial overtones. If, instead, the term “Bush stooge”, or “lying spokes-hole” was used, no one would have squaked. (Much. )
I figured. And me too, honestly. But at the end of the day, “houseboy”, to me, isn’t quite as pervasively black only as “nigger”. See above re: Guatemalan and Asian houseboys in entertainment.
Minority, yes. Subservient, yes. Black? Not always.
Not that this particular example didn’t connote black, certainly it did, if only because the target is black. But sure, it could have been leveled at a subservient boot-licker who wasn’t black.
While I can see why every black person would be realistically afraid of being called a nigger at some point, and that therefore the “only some black people are niggers” argument is bullshit (or at least an attempt at revisionism), I just didn’t think “houseboy” was widely enough and exclusively enough used to denigrate black people to be similarly taboo. But what do I know? I’m a white trash bitch.
Obligatory whack at the straw man: Yes, I’m typing out “nigger” instead of “the n-word”. Fuck it, we’re not fourth graders here.
Besides the “baby mama” thing, I’m unsure what racist language they used. But if they did, I have no problem condemning them. I am really not a fan of Fox News and I think they cheapen our political discourse.
The Jeremiah Wright thing is legitimate news to a certain extent, although it’s been overblown by conservatives. But attacking Wright’s views is certainly not racist. The Whitey tape thing is just stupid on Hannity’s part. But it’s stupid because no tape exists. If Michelle Obama did say something like that which was alleged, I think that would be legitimate news. Again, that’s not racist.
Since the implication underlying the statement is that all black people must think alike (or that your skin color determines your political views), I’d say that’s a pretty racist premise. And since it’s calling someone, essentially, a race traitor, I think that qualifies, too.
The only thing I’m saying is that it’s racist for anyone – black, white, Latino, whatever – to think that your political views are determined by your skin color. And it’s ignorant to say that you are a traitor to your race if you hold certain political views.
I realize that. Again, I’m not a fan of Fox News. Discussions about whether Fox News is racist may be an interesting topic, but it would sidetrack even further an already sidetracked thread.
You mentioned something about Guatemalan houseboys in entertainment, but I don’t know the reference. As far as I know, “houseboy” is only a denigrating term (in American English, I guess I should say) when applied to black people.
