I am not joking and I see no reason to accept your claim without any evidence.
That the Tea Party was manufactured by the brothers Koch in cooperation with Fox News is probably true. That it had to be “racial” is not. That the president in office when the Tea Party was created was black is true. It is also true that the president in office was Democrat. In addition, the Tea Party originated simultaneously with the Great Recession. You appear to be engaged in post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacious logic and I have already provided two separate phenomena that could have spurred the Tea Party’s enlistment that have nothing to do with race. If you want to argue that the Tea Party is inherently racist, then I expect to see racial rhetoric accompanying most of the original gatherings or filling their literature. I have found only scattered racial comments, rarely from actual Tea Party leaders, and you have provided none.
Logical fallacies are not a good way to persuade me of your position.
The people that the Tea Party was able to recruit to run for office–at least the ones who were sufficiently politically savvy to get elected–tended to come from the extreme Right, to begin with, the portion of the Republican Party that has always held those views. (For that matter, those recruited to join the Tea Party tended to be Republican on the far Right. That does not make them racist, just politically Far Right.)
As to your “grotesque flip-flop,” I am afraid that you simply ignored the news from 2005 through 2008 and after. There was a very real and growing movement within the Republican Party throughout that period that was increasingly angry with GWB regarding his deficit spending and budgets. They were not going to vote for John Kerry under any conditions, but they were very angered by Bush and they were not happy with McCain for the same reason. There has been speculation that McCain made the disastrous Palin pick because he thought that he could hold her up as a “fiscal conservative” to garner far Right support for his campaign.
The Tea Party was created from a tiny wing of the Republican Party that has not “flip-flopped” on any real issue. They just got lucky enough to find a news outlet that would finally give them more attention than they had been able to receive (or deserved) in previous years.
Ahh, racism in this country has really come out of the woodwork since Obama was elected.
It has become blatant (instead of the carefully closeted thing it was before).
There are SO many examples of racism which have come from the Right since Obama appeared on the scene…and not just from run-of-the-mill Righties but from the upper reaches of the establishment…that it is impossible for any thinking person to deny that racial bias is a significant factor in the hatred of Obama by many (and it is an especially PERSONAL sort of hatred, and FEAR, for all their protestations that their opposition is based on political grounds.)
As a film major, I have had SEVERAL (mandatory ;)) occaisions to view the 1915 classic *Birth of a Nation *by D.W. Griffith. A GREAT film for its innovations in the art of cinema but an abomination when it comes to racist rhetoric. It was widely protested even in its own time, but still wildly popular at the box office; the first true blockbuster (followed by King Kong, another film with similarly racist undertones).
In Birth of a Nation, there were no undertones about it, though…it was all right there on the table; the sexual threat free Black men posed to White women; the inherent violent, lazy/shiftless, and primitive nature of Blacks; the despised carpetbaggers who (ACORN-ish) came into the South and encouraged and organized Blacks to vote (and the depictions of voter fraud on the part of Black voters); the scene of the SC Legislature taken over by Blacks who cavorted like apes, ate fried chicken, put their feet up on the desk, drank on the job, forced through legislation oppressing the White folk, and leered openly at the White women in the gallery…
(Edited to add: not sure of the mass email/outrage about Obama putting hjis feet up on the desk in the Oval Office is included below, but it speaks DIRECTLY to the scene in this film…nevermind that several other Presidents had been photographed doing it…the fact that a NIGGER was doing it was unbearable to many.)
it’s all there; the root of every single stereotype which is currently being pulled out of our national psyche and aimed at President Obama. This shit runs DEEP.
And for those who know the code, it is obvious (for all the denials on the part of those spewing it.)
Here, I have a list (a short one and some months old) documenting a few of the more blatant examples: (add to it the recent flap over a Congressman remarking on the size of Michelle Obama’s backside, a repeated theme among the racists which has NOTHING to do with her weight or size overall and EVERYTHING to do her being a Black woman…see the photoshopped images of her with an enlarged butt and alterations to her wardrobe making her resemble Aunt Jemimah dating back over a year.)
It is truly a disgusting display, but yes, it renders denial impossible. :((forgive any out of date links…as I said, it is some months old)
“The California Republican (Marilyn Davenport ) who e-mailed a racist “family photo” of President Obama because she thought it was funny offered up a second, less defiant apology Monday…The racist e-mail, which the elected GOP official sent out to dozens of friends and fellow Republicans on Friday, featured Obama as a baby chimpanzee with two chimpanzee parents.
Davenport, who in 2009 defended a former mayor in California for sending a similarly racist e-mail about Obama, claims to have received threats since her “Internet joke” gained national attention.
The grandmother and Tea Party activist, who represents the 72nd Assembly District in Orange County, was immediately slammed with calls for her to step down….”
“Young Republican Caught Forwarding Racist Email About Obama on Student Government Listserv
Nicholas Phelps is the Student Body President of the University of Kentucky, and by one report is a protegee of Mitch McConnell …From the Lexington Herald-Leader: …UK Student Government President Nick Phelps forwarded on Jan. 17 an e-mail deriding Obama to a Student Government Association e-mail list, angering students who regarded the message as anti-Muslim and anti-atheist and who felt Phelps inappropriately represented the student body.”
“Alaska officials exchanged racist emails about Barack Obama
Alaska has launched an investigation after state officials emailed each other racist jokes about President-elect Barack Obama using government computers. One of the five emails obtained by the Associated Press news agency asks about the outcome of the Democrat’s victory after all the time and money invested. It concludes: “Another black family living in government housing!”
The existence of three of the racist messages were confirmed by the state’s information technology division after an electronic search of the government’s email system.
Annette Kreitzer, Alaska’s administration commissioner, said: “It’s embarrassing to the state.”
She said that she had alerted the office of Governor Sarah Palin … about the emails….”
AND, re’ the same incident in Sarah Palin’s administration (and which, as far as I was able to find, she NEVER publicly condemned):
“A Google search for the title of one of the emails mentioned by the Associated Press, “Da Night Befo Crizzmus” will yield dozens of entries, all with similar text. It begins:
Wus da night afo’ Crizzmus, and all thru da hood,
everybody be sleepin’ and dey be sleepin’ damned good.
We hunged up our stockins, an hoped like all heck,
dat dear ole Santy Claws, gunna brang us our check.
Some versions mention a black Santa, some mention Obama, and it only goes down hill from there.”
“Tennessee Senator’s aide caught sending racist Obama e-mail…Sherri Goforth, an aide to state senator Diane Black, was given a “strong letter of reprimand” after embarrassing the GOP by sending a mass e-mail with a racist picture attached mocking President Barack Obama.
Following racist humor related debacles originating in Tennessee such as “Barack the Magic Negro,” Goforth forwarded a “historical keepsake photo” of all 44 US Presidents in a mass e-mail. Obama’s photo, however, was just a large pair of white eyes peering out from a black background… Perhaps most troubling is the still-employed staffer’s attitude regarding the shameful action. From Nashville Is Talking:
When I asked her if she understood the controversial nature of the photo, Goforth would only say she felt very bad about accidentally sending it to the wrong list. When I gave her a second chance to address the controversial nature of the email, she again repeated
that she only felt bad about sending it to the wrong list of people.”
“…Trey Walker, an advisor to S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster, posted an innocuous Facebook update about this morning’s escape of a Western Lowlands Gorilla from Columbia’s Riverbanks Zoo.
Walker’s harmless update, however was followed by a highly-questionable comment from longtime SCGOP activist and former State Senate candidate, Rusty DePass.
“I’m sure it’s just one of Michelle’s ancestors — probably harmless,” DePass wrote….DePass later helpfully explained that he was just making an innocent joke about the First Lady’s remarks on evolution (which nobody can seem to track down), and he was sorry “if” he offended anyone. “
“Conservative Activist Forwards Racist Pic Showing Obama As Witch Doctor…On Sunday night, Dr. David McKalip forwarded to fellow members of a Google listserv affiliated with the Tea Party movement the image below. Above it, he wrote: “Funny stuff.”
“The mayor of Dallas, Georgia, posted an esoteric message on his Facebook page, seen here, that is believed by the Internet-commenter hive-mind to refer to Schlitz beer and Camel cigarettes – you know, things Obama might reasonably be expected to offer Gordon Brown as a gift…
On their website, the Republican Women of Clifton joked that Baskin Robbins had created a new ice-cream flavor named Barocky Road, which was half vanilla and half chocolate. But, this extended metaphor continues, the “vanilla portion of the mix is not openly advertised and usually denied as an ingredient,” which doesn’t even make any sense. Does “white woman from Kansas” ring any bells? It should….
Another South Carolina GOP activist, Mike Green, tweeted the alleged joke, “JUST HEARD OBAMA IS GOING TO IMPOSE A 40% TAX ON ASPIRIN BECAUSE IT’S WHITE AND IT WORKS.” And yes, it was, obnoxiously, entirely capitalized….
Dean Grose, the mayor of Los Alamitos, California, thought a “small group of friends” – including a black woman, not incidentally – would get a kick out of an e-mail showing a watermelon patch growing on the White House lawn, and the caption, “No Easter egg hunt this year.”…Grose resigned after the ensuing uproar, apologized for his actions, and dubiously claimed that he was “unaware of the racial stereotype that black people like watermelons.” It’s unclear what, then, he thought the joke was….
“The latest newsletter by an Inland Republican women’s group depicts Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama surrounded by a watermelon, ribs and a bucket of fried chicken, prompting outrage in political circles…. The October newsletter by the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated says if Obama is elected his image will appear on food stamps – instead of dollar bills like other presidents. The statement is followed by an illustration of “Obama Bucks” – a phony $10 bill featuring Obama’s face on a donkey’s body, labeled “United States Food Stamps.”
“Mulligan’s Bar & Tavern in Cobb county has printed up racist t-shirts featuring cartoon chimp Curious George peeling a banana, with “Obama in ’08″ printed underneath and are selling them in the bar. The owner, Mike Norman thinks there’s nothing wrong with the T-shirts and calls them ”cute.” Norman said those offended are “hunting for a reason to be mad” and insisted he is “not a racist.”
Why picture Obama as Curious George? “Look at him . . . the hairline, the ears, he looks just like Curious George,” Norman said.
He said it’s just a coincidence that the character he chose for the T-shirt is a monkey….”
“A doll symbolizing the 44th President of the United States was found hanging from a noose in Plains, Georgia. The Secret Service is investigating the case after the large Black doll was found hanging above of a large sign that reads:
“Plains, Georgia. Home of our 39th President Jimmy Carter.”
“When a racist image of first lady Michelle Obama surfaced from the ugliest corners of the Internet last week to top Google’s image search results, the episode shined a spotlight on the mysterious workings of search engines….
In the case of the crudely doctored Obama image, which replaced her face with that of an ape, Google eventually removed the page on which it first appeared – “
“ThinkProgress reports on a Waffle box: "At the Values Voter Summit this weekend, vendors sold an item called “Obama Waffles” featuring a racist cartoon of Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) on the box front — with “popping eyes and big, thick lips” — and another image of him wearing an Arab-like headdress on its top flap…Finally a button that’s amazingly offensive: (it reads, “If Obama is president, will we still call it the White House?”)”
“The photo is authentic, Barnes & Noble acknowledges that the offensive display did, in fact, appear in a window of its Coral Gables, Florida location, and a public apology has been issued. The racist implications of inserting a book entitled Monkeys in a display devoted to Barack Obama are clear and undeniable. According to company statements, however, the incident does not reflect the attitudes of Barnes & Noble, its management, or its employees. It is believed that a customer surreptitiously replaced one of the books in the display with the offending title.”
“Photograph shows the tail number of Air Force One to be N166er… FALSE…”
“A President Obama impersonator was pulled off the stage Saturday at the Republican Leadership Conference, after telling a string of racially themed jokes about the president…Eventually, RLC President and CEO Charlie Davis made the decision to pull him offstage, and a man came onstage to physcially escort Brown off. ”I pulled him off the stage,” Davis acknowledged afterward. “I just thought he had gone too far. He was funny the first 10 or 15 minutes, but it was inappropriate, it was getting ridiculous.”…
“Laughter erupted at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans Saturday when a Obama impersonator told racially tinged jokes.
“My favorite month is February, Back History Month,” comedian Reggie Brown told the audience. “See Michelle, she celebrates the whole month. I only celebrate half.”
“My mother loved a black man, and no, she was not a Kardashian,” he said as the audience laughed.
Brown also showed a picture of the Fred Sanford character on Sanford and Son and said that was what Obama would look like after he left office.”
“Racist Incidents Give Some Obama Campaigners Pause…In Muncie, a factory town in the east-central part of Indiana, Ross and her cohorts were soliciting support for Obama at malls, on street corners and in a Wal-Mart parking lot, and they ran into “a horrible response,” as Ross put it, a level of anti-black sentiment that none of them had anticipated.
"The first person I encountered was like, ‘I’ll never vote for a black person,’ " recalled Ross, who is white and just turned 20. “People just weren’t receptive.”
For all the hope and excitement Obama’s candidacy is generating, some of his field workers, phone-bank volunteers and campaign surrogates are encountering a raw racism and hostility that have gone largely unnoticed – and unreported – this election season. Doors have been slammed in their faces. They’ve been called racially derogatory names (including the white volunteers). And they’ve endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping from people who can’t fathom that the senator from Illinois could become the first African American president….”
“Since Mr Obama took office, the rate of threats against the president has increased 400 per cent from the 3,000 a year or so under President George W. Bush, according to Ronald Kessler, author of In the President’s Secret Service.
Some threats to Mr Obama, whose Secret Service codename is Renegade, have been publicised, including an alleged plot by white supremacists in Tennessee late last year to rob a gun store, shoot 88 black people, decapitate another 14 and then assassinate the first black president in American history.”
“Sarah Palin blamed by the US Secret Service over death threats against Barack Obama
Sarah Palin’s attacks on Barack Obama’s patriotism provoked a spike in death threats against the future president, Secret Service agents revealed during the final weeks of the campaign….The Republican vice presidential candidate attracted criticism for accusing Mr Obama of “palling around with terrorists”, citing his association with the sixties radical William Ayers.
The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling “terrorist” and “kill him” until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric.
But it has now emerged that her demagogic tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists to go even further.
The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin’s attacks.
Michelle Obama, the future First Lady, was so upset that she turned to her friend and campaign adviser Valerie Jarrett and said: “Why would they try to make people hate us?”“
P.S. Addressing the anecdotal aspects of the OP, I’ve experienced racism directed toward myself several times, including being one of only 3 other White kids at an otherwise 90% Black, 4-5% Hispanic school when I was 11 or so.
The other White kids and myself suffered HORRIBLE persecution, even from some TEACHERS. Believe it or not, I eventually made friends and did OK (I grew up in mostly Black areas and once they figured out I was “OK” they either left me alone or befriended me).
Many years later, back in my hometown of Houston, I encountered frequent discrimination and attitude from (mostly Mexican national) Hispanics (though I bore them none). I was a “Gringo” and at every chance, they let me know it.
One of their kids even beat up my son for being one of the only White kids in his school.
So yeah, I’ve experienced it personally. A bully is despicable regardless of racial aspects, imo (also experienced abuse from other WHITE kids and adults, overall, MORE of it than from those of other ethnic groups).
P.P.S. If my use of “Nigger” (in the context of condemning the term) was out of bounds, I apologize. I did not use it in the sense of an ethnic insult, but only in the service of criticising such insults.
I couldn’t agree more. There are so many examples of it, but it often feels like you can’t even suggest that racism has anything to do with these problems without being accused of playing the race card. I don’t see what other explanation there is for the extreme criticism and roadblocks that are put up whenever President Obama attempts to do anything. He’s one of the most moderate democrats we’ve ever seen, but he gets called a socialist (among other things) and a liberal wackadoo. I don’t think it would matter what he did, the right is never going to acknowledge anything positive Obama does. Hell, the killing of Bin Ladin proves that. They barely gave him a pat on the back, despite the fact that he accomplished something they couldn’t.
This thread also reminded me about Glenn Beck choosing to do a rally on MLK’s birthday a few years ago, which lot of people felt was incredibly insulting and exploitative. This was a day honoring the country’s civil rights movement and that dick had the nerve to “reclaim” it for a means to an end. And as if that wasn’t insulting enough, he did it very close to where MLK delivered his I Have a Dream speech.
So yeah, I definitely think there’s a lot of denial about racism in this country. People try to talk like we’re in a “post-racism” moment in time, but the fact remains that there are a shitload of cases like this going around constantly. Frankly, I have more respect for racists who don’t try to hide it, at least they’re being honest, which is more than I can say for a lot of folks.
Sorry to go off on a tangent, but this subject gets me riled up.
In recent years I have seen attempts to recharacterize racism as science or rigorous analysis. I have seen attempts to recast the civil war as being primarily about something other than slavery, anything other than slavery. I have seen denial that racism is enough to hold you back anymore, the poor white Appalachian is on the same footing as the poor black kid in Detroit and while they might have more in common than the poor black kid has with Barack Obama’s kids, if I had to choose between being poor and white or poor and black, I think I would still probably decide to be poor and white.
Well, I have encountered the notion that only white racists are in a position to create structural and institutional racism.
It sounds liek there might be a schism in how people are defining racism.
East Asian racism is not particularly harmful in the US, it can be harmful in East Asia if you are of a race that is perceived to be inferior.
I’m going to guess that you are not Korean, Chinese or South East Asian. There seems to be racism against anyone from a place that was once a part of the Japanese empire (back when japan had guns and the rest of Asia had nunchuks).
At this point I think you have come to realize that its pretty pervasive even if its not directed at you.
Marriage is between a man and a woman of different races, just as God intended it?
Well, I have certainly noticed more cases of white folks claiming reverse racism when the playing field gets levelled. What strikes me as particularly amusing is when white folks claim that affirmative action is costing them their slot at Harvard when the elimination of race conscious admissions seems to barely affect white admissionr ates while increasing Asian admission rates at the expense of blacks and hispanics. If anyone should complain about affirmative action in college admissions it should be Asians but we don’t seem to at nearly the rates that white people do. Not all white people have this overdeveloped sense of entitlement but enough do that you wonder if they think that the only reason they aren’t President instead of Obama is because affirmative action.
Two incidents in Massachusetts during the 2008 presidential elections illustrate the state of racism in the country.
Primarily black districts started to run low on ballots and additional ballots had to be sent out. Some people roared that this was a conspiracy to keep blacks from voting and Obama from being elected.
More ballots than usual had been sent to these districts; requests from these districts for additional ballots were responded to quickly; additional ballots were ready and quickly sent. Did I mention this was in Massachusetts? Where we still snark “Don’t blame me” if Nixon’s name comes up? So, I call R.O. on this one.
Some asshole burned down a church that night.
So, I think that yes, people are hypersensitive to racism, and yes, racism flourishes all around us.
I hear you, but what about the English football player who recently got charged for using the word. (Sorry, no further details…someone else will have to take up the ingnorance fight)
Well, there’s this story that occurred more recently - June of 2011.
If we’re still a country where a group of men can decide its ok to deliberately find a man, beat him to death, and then run him down in a truck just because his skin happens to be the “wrong” color, then “hypersensitive” is just the wrong word for race relations in the US.
When we get to the point there are no racially motivated murders in the country, then maybe we can start claiming racism is overblown and people are hypersensitive about it.
Only if one takes the rather odd view that racism has to be an aspect of the personality of every person in the community. the statement you truncated continues:
Also from the article:
The event hardly is a case that the U.S. is a society permeated by racism. However, it is pretty clearly a sign that significant racist attitudes remain among the population.
No, that’s silly. It’s just the opposite - you have to believe that one instance of racism is enough to establish racism in the community, and the guy who wants to push this as a hate crime says specifically that this is not the case.
Right, because a group of teens who have been harrassing kids long enough to capture the attention of the police and who go out in a gang to beat up someone just for being black is the same as “one guy.”
Nobody said it was the same as “one guy”. You claimed that it was necessary to believe that no single person was racist in order to believe that a community was not racist. That’s ridiculous, as I pointed out, and as the DA who wants to prosecute this as a hate crime agrees.
The fact that no one did anything about a group of people marauding about town harassing every black person, gay person, or white/straight person who had so much as spent time with a black or gay person, until it escalated to the point of cold-blooded random murder, is in fact evidence that may suggest tolerance for racism and homophobia in the community. People don’t start off their criminal careers with murder.
I was responding to your quoting out of context a statement in order to claim that it would be difficult to prove racism was present. I exaggerated the point to make your point obvious, which you were clearly unable to see.
Racist attitudes may not permeate our society (or even all of this community), but
There’s clearly at least some part of the population that is racist and
Choose to act on this racism with physical violence.
There was also a recent execution of a Texas man who dragged a black man to death behind his pick up truck in a racially motivated crime. I guess it was nearly 15 years ago, but that was a particularly gruesome crime. It wasn’t just the fact of the death but also that he was conscious up until his head and arm were separated from his body. What’s worse is that the men drove on for the better portion of a mile, leaving a trail of body parts.
And another case from 2008 in Paris, Texas when another black man was run over and dragged in yet another racially motivated murder.
So, it’s hardly ‘one person’. I would think websites like Stormfront and the ilk also show it’s not isolated to lone nut individuals.
What’s worse is that in the case above, there’s somebody trying to claim ‘reverse racism’ in defending this group of idiots.
So, trying to say that charges of racism are often the result of hypersensitivity shows a remarkable lack of awareness of actual race relations in this country.
There are other posters making claims about how the US seems to take it to extremes, but I say that just shows how poorly some other countries (particularly in Western Europe) handle the issue and the poor awareness (or deliberate blindness) of the treatment of racial or ethnic minorities in their own countries. I’m sure there are Americans who wish we could do the same thing and sweep these incidents under rugs, but we try not to let that happen nowadays.