Mammie!

for the life of me, I can’t understand why African-Americans vote overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates.

Billy Van:

[E]white people have every reason to be racist seeing as how blacks are more likely to be criminals than white people.

Norman Podhoretz, is that you?

Shorter Linda Chavez: There’s a presidential candidate in the woodpile!

The fact is, our jails are full of black people, not as many white people. And don’t give me bullhockey about how the law is biased against black men. They committed crimes. Lots of them. If anything, the media is biased against conservatives.

The fact is, our jails are full of orange jumpsuits. It’s the orange jumpsuits that committed crimes. Lots of them. If anything, the media is biased against pastels.

It’s just more flogging of the “Wright issue”, writ large. Since the issue is fading to the MSM backburner, Chavez is in a panic to push it back into the campaign limelight. “More Wright-bashing, dammit!”

I love how she quotes statistics from over ten years ago. And most of what she claims – that “institutional” racism is less now than it has been in the past – is not the real problem with the “racial divide”. The problem was thrown into stark relief by the attitudes displayed toward Obama by the “rural, low-income working class whites” in Appalachian states. And that isn’t even the real problem – assholes will be assholes. It’s that anyone considers those asshole’s opinions to be worth anything. It’s that politicians pander to those attitudes. (Mostly Republicans, but I’m looking at YOU too, Hillary.) THAT is “institutional”, and the institution most likely to do the pandering is the Republican party. As r€nato said, “for the life of me, I can’t understand why African-Americans vote overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates.”

Where did you get that picture of Lily Tomlin?

Many of us are deeply biased. I know I am.

We’re biased against malicious, malignant stupidity, fear and hate.

We are certain that we are all humans, that race is an artificial construct, and who you love has no bearing on your standing as a fellow human being.

There are more of us every day. Therefore, Gary and Linda, you are fighting a desperate rearguard battle against the forces of tolerance and sanity, and therefore you cannot win. The amount of damage you can still do is immense, and we fully expect you to harm as many people and crush as many dreams as you can, but ultimately, it will all amount to spite.

A meaningless and tragic defense of an ugly, discredited worldview, and one that will only bring about more quickly the demise of these hateful platforms.

The world does not belong to white americans, and very quickly the world is becoming a place that white americans cannot dominate. The world belongs to, well, the world, and the sooner we join the community of nations and people and stop trying to bend them to our will the sooner we can begin to recover our wealth and prestige…

mikey

Nope. Tis another lovely day out, I’m going to become a godfather in a few hours therefore I ain’t clicking on the link.

So, what mikey said, minus the Gary fighting a rearguard action part because that creates libido squelching mental images.

Wow! Surveys show that less than 10% of Americans have racial prejudice! That’s great to hear, because people always answer such surveys with complete and total honesty! I can’t imagine a single situation where a person who dislikes black people would be ashamed to admit as much to a pollster!

And I’m glad to read that there are no barriers to black advancement, but that should have been obvious from the hundreds of black Senators, governors, congressmen, Fortune 500 CEOs, and even presidents out there!!!

Blackface is so twentieth century. Nowadays you have to get the penis enlargement too, if you’re going to be serious.

With the heavy overcast and the valley fulla smoke from the Summit Fire, it feels like a january weekend out there.

But I’ve gotta go vote in the Cali Primary (not gonna be here on 6/2).

mikey

Blackface is the new black!

“hundreds of black Senators”

Actually that would be exactly 3 black senators in the history of the US. Overall, if you just look at current numbers in congress then all ethnic minorities are underrepresented by 20% or better compared to their proportion of the general population. The Senate is much worse than the House, but neither comes close to being representative.

As to the issue of criminality, numerous studies including some by the DOJ have shown a systematic bias against minorities in the legal and judicial system. They are more likely to be stopped, more likely to be arrested, more likely to be charged, more likely to be convicted and less likely to receive a plea bargain, receive longer sentences and are less likely to get parole under generally similar situations than are whites.

Yep. No discrimination here. Nothing to see, just move along quietly….

I’m still waiting for the Wingnut shorter as follows:

You know who were the real victims of slavery? White people.

naked bids for power, like Jesse Jackson’s in 1984 and 1988

Because Whitey never bid for the power of the presidency. And they were all clothed, too. Not them savage African(-American)s.

I’m still waiting for the Wingnut shorter as follows:

You know who were the real victims of slavery? White people.

well they haven’t gone that far (yet)… but I’ve read more than once of wingnuts asserting that white folks did AA’s a favor by bringing their ancestors here, so they should STFU about slavery.

Black Africans sold other black Africans into slavery.

I’m not sure exactly what that proves, but it always sounds pretty persuasive when Rush uses it to downplay slavery.

Liberals. Hmf.

naked bids for power, like Jesse Jackson’s in 1984 and 1988

How dare someone campaign for the presidency with a motivation as coarse as wanting to lead the county.

According to Chavez,

…the real culprit behind most of the disparities between whites and blacks is not lingering racism or the lack of spending on social programs but the decline of the black family.

Sounds familiar: divorce the social from the economic. It’s not the econonic system – the decline in real wages, the growing income gap, the weakening of organized labor, the disproportionate inflation of the cost of higher education, the collapse of public education especially in cities, the sprawling of America, the expansion of the security state and its need for perpetrators, the winner-take all orthodoxy that literally undermines the mental health of the 99.99% of us who are not winners, the defeat of regulation, the ruthless greed of many of the unregulated – that explains the fate of a minority. It’s their morality as measured in whole-family statistics.

It’s their morality as measured in whole-family statistics.

Well, yeah, Cuz white folks’ families never experience divorce, or single parenthood.

I’m still waiting for the Wingnut shorter as follows: You know who were the real victims of slavery? White people.
Actually, I have heard a few “Lost Cause” wackos argue that the North FORCED slavery on a reluctant South, then made war on the south using slavery as an excuse, so that’s pretty close.

BTW, why is it whenever I hear some RWer say “Let’s be honest” what they really mean is “Let me be a bigot openly…”?

Typical Republican said,

May 24, 2008 at 20:48

Black Africans sold other black Africans into slavery.

I’m not sure exactly what that proves, but it always sounds pretty persuasive when Rush uses it to downplay slavery.

Funny thing about that. The whole West African slave trade started when the Malis (Islamic West Africans) captured and bought/sold nearby people into the Muslim slave market. The Muslim slave market was huge in the Medieval times. In fact, the word “slave” is derived from “Slav”, as in Slavic people, because Europeans often captured Slavs to sell on the slave market.

If only typical Republicans actually studied history, they could use this as another excuse to bash the Muslims.

The article’s even worse than your shorter…much much worse.

Blacks wouldn’t have higher crime rates, longer prison sentences, greater poverty, if they were disciplined like white people. She suggests Obama’s role should be to direct black people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, be disciplined and stay married.

Wright…rejects the promise offered by self-discipline and self-respect—the promise that a person who exercises them will lead a more fulfilling and prosperous life, or whose children will be enabled to do so.

Woodrowfan said,

May 24, 2008 at 21:24

I’m still waiting for the Wingnut shorter as follows: You know who were the real victims of slavery? White people.
Actually, I have heard a few “Lost Cause” wackos argue that the North FORCED slavery on a reluctant South, then made war on the south using slavery as an excuse, so that’s pretty close.

The big bullshit about that one was that the agricultural South needed slaves to run their huge farms, as industrial technology wasn’t advanced enough yet for mobile heavy machinery… and even if it was around at that time, the South had no industrial capacity, as all the industry was in the North.

The South did begin to toss around the idea of ending slavery, but that didn’t happen until a few months before the war ended.

yo howie

as you wish … er, it’s in the mail

I’m still waiting for the Wingnut shorter as follows:

You know who were the real victims of slavery? White people.

“good help is just so hard to find!” [cue the violins and the smelling salts…a palefaced somebody is about to faint from hardship]

Reparations. I can hear the groaning all the way over here but hey, it wouldn’t be a first. Germany isn’t perfect but they have made real attempts to atone for past crimes, the latest amounting to several billion euros (about 10 I believe) paid within the last 8 years to several thousand former slave laborers. Too little too late for many victims who died waiting for the check to arrive but still, a public, formal, major attempt to compensate victims of crimes committed more than 50 years ago. Why shouldn’t the victims of crimes committed more than 150 years ago also be compensated. I bet movement here would open up the political system for renewal.

” . . . naked bids for power, like Jesse Jackson’s in 1984 and 1988″ Actually, if black people were so bigoted against whites/for other people of color, Jackson or Sharpton would have done much better in their bids, possibly even won.

There are no doubt people voting for Obama because he’s African American but I think its mostly because He is an amazing person, very well suited to be President *especially* now when our country is being destroyed from within by reactionaries and corporate thugs.

Ohh, come on Mr. o’scrod, you should know by now when they talk about “responsibility” and “maturity” they aren’t talking about themselves! Besides, that would involve paying huge amounts of money for something other than the arms industry, and right thinking Rightists won’t stand for that assault against Liberty.

r€nato said,

May 24, 2008 at 20:39

well they haven’t gone that far (yet)… but I’ve read more than once of wingnuts asserting that white folks did AA’s a favor by bringing their ancestors here, so they should STFU about slavery.

Michael Medved used this argument fairly recently.

Blue Buddha:
In fact, the word “slave” is derived from “Slav”, as in Slavic people, because Europeans often captured Slavs to sell on the slave market.

It wasn’t until 1838 that Prussia acted decisively to forbid “Leibeigenschaften” who were for all practical purposes enslaved farmhands. There weren’t slave markets – the Leibeigenschaften were a class like the Untouchables, doomed to the lowest caste by birth. Alexander II of Russia got around to freeing his 23 million Russian serfs – also enslaved farmhands – in 1861.

And what about southern white sharecroppers who intitially supported the North?

Gundamhead: yes we can!

Hmmmm……….it’s interesting how Chavez, in a “conversation about race” has so little to say about hispanics. Just forgot, I guess.

Oh that ol’ soft shoe/Is a-comin’ roun’ da bend!

Hey! Look who the cat drug in.

It’s teh l4m3.

Hey teh. Where ya been?

mikey

As SadlyNo!’s resident B.A. in African History, let me say something about the enslavement of blacks in Africa:

Certain African cultures did practice something akin to slavery but there is more than one way that slavery can be thought about and practiced. The transatlantic slave trade was actually the first historical example of what is called “chattel slavery” in which the slave holder owns the slave body and soul forever and ever (and their offspring too) and there is basically no legal or social code requiring any sort of humane treatment. The absolutely breathtaking soulless brutality of slavery in the New World was completely unprecedented in history.

I am certainly not defending the African brand of slavery, but it is inaccurate to equate it with the American version, ESPECIALLY for the purpose of justiflying the horrors of what was done to black people here in the US.

I just love the complete and total ignorance of all things African among conservatives, until they find a tidbit that they can use then they are suddenly interested:

“Even Africans had slaves? Great! That means America has never done anything bad and is bestest country ever times a billion!”

… wait, you mean it was more complicated than that?

Well, why should I care about what them darkies did over in savage darkyland?”

Hey mikey,

Sorry, I’ve been to new places. Places the sun shines and the earth moves: in other words: I’m the wind, baby.

Gumbyanne,

The rest of your points are certainly spot-on, but…

The transatlantic slave trade was actually the first historical example of what is called “chattel slavery” in which the slave holder owns the slave body and soul forever and ever (and their offspring too) and there is basically no legal or social code requiring any sort of humane treatment. The absolutely breathtaking soulless brutality of slavery in the New World was completely unprecedented in history.

…ain’t true in the claims of the transatlantic slave trade being unprecedented. Prior to the fifteenth century in Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas there existed levels of unfreedom that allowed owners total control of slaves’ bodies. There were also lots of written and unwritten codes in the New World colonies requiring some sorts humane (or “humane”) treatment, as there were in earlier times across cultures. The volume in humans and scale of organization of the transatlantic slave trade were the unprecedented bits.

Groovy.

I often reflect on what it might be like to actually, you know, have a life….

mikey

She suggests Obama’s role should be to direct black people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, be disciplined and stay married.

I’ve heard that every few years, when his fingers tire of making lamps out of white babies, and his thirst for the blood of Jewish grandmothers abates, Louis Farrakhan says something like that.

She suggests Obama’s role should be to direct black people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, be disciplined and stay married.

Well, ever since the Kulturkampfers managed to get all the white people to do this stuff, they can advise Obama on how to pull it off. They’d do it themselves, but, you know … black people.

So now Linda Chavez has posting privileges at No Quarter? Sweet!

The fact is the jails hold more white people than any other group, but not in proportion to their share of the population. And probably not in proportion to their share of criminality. I’m sure that most people in jail have in fact committed crimes. And even now people are working on making breathing while black a crime.

The naked bid for pwer is distressing, unlike W Bush who practically had to be drafted. Ooh, sorry, I used the d-word. It still upsets him.

Ooh, sorry, I used the d-word. It still upsets him.
You BEAST! Don’t you know the meaning of propriety?

I don’t know, Clif. You may have gone outside the guidelines with this one.

“Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”

– A.Lincoln

As an anthropologist who has looked into the issue of comparative slavery, I would like to clarify a couple of points. First, traditional West African slavery was also “chattel slavery” as are most pre-modern forms of slavery. This simply indicates that slaves constitute a form of livestock which the owners can dispose of however they wish, including arbitrarily killing them. There are also other, more limited forms of slavery in the world which are not designated “chattel”. That said, in West Africa and in most other pre-modern forms of slavery in Africa, Asia, the Americas, and pre-modern Europe (i.e., classical Greek and Roman slavery) slaves had much greater rights than in mercantile slavery (a better term for the modern Transatlantic system). They could own property and amass wealth in their own right, could hold positions of power and authority, could bear arms, and much else.
I should also point out that slavery is the reason for the establishment of Dublin, Ireland, which was a staging area for Vikings who were enslaving the Irish, Welsh, and British for sale in Byzantium and the Islamic world, as well as elsewhere in Europe.

I don’t know, slavery in Ancient Rome was pretty rotten too, but I could submit to the HBO version if my master was Ray Stevenson too> YoW!!

Obama’s grandmother is hardly alone in fearing young black men who behave aggressively or whose dress and demeanor suggest they are part of the underclass.

Did she actually mean to write this? Does THAT sort of shit make her ‘conversation’ honest? Holy shit. What a fucktard. Am I the only one who feels a bit more scared by white frat guys walking at night? I mean these days, my dog would just rip their throats out and all, but previously I knew they were more likely statistically to try something on me…either in my old college town or where I live now. Just sayin’.

BB, ahh, that Medved guy! I had quite forgotten him recently, thanks for the reminder. And the fact that he actually pulled that kookiness out for print.

At least he didn’t put a big ole sandwich in her mouth.

“slavery is the reason for the establishment of Dublin, Ireland”

When we’re talkin’ history, it always come down to the fucking Irish.

Which is central to my point.

The problem for the brain dead fRighty (yes, I know that’s redundant) is he looks at slavery in giant assed continent like Africa and can only see dark-skinned people enslaving other dark-skinned people.

If you try to tell him that there are huge differences (cultural and physical) between the various groups of people on the giant assed continent, smoke comes out of his ears.

If you try to point out that those various groups regard one another as vastly different, to the point where some scarcely qualify as human, his head will explode.

Holy crap, thanks for the shorter, because that lady’s got the typing equivalent of verbal diarrhea. She probably thinks her name is TLDR.
Although I’d like to point out that the dateline means this column if from the future. She’s risking all of causality to send these nuggets back into the past, maybe by as many as five weeks. So don’t harrass her too much, maybe she’ll send back information about the Puerto Rico primary.

The historical record is clear on the institution of slavery for purposes of mass entertainment. The ancients would drape the Colisseseus Tremenjous with bunting for the sword and kung fu battles between Maximus Crowe and Tiberius Kirk. And then wager…with qua…you know.

slavery is the reason for the establishment of Dublin
I had always been under the impression that the Vikings established Dublin because previously there had been no sizeable settlements in Ireland for them to pillage.

Ah, Linda. One of the original Reagan era ethnic quislings, sent out to bark at other members of The Lower Orders all about how they should stay out of Mr. Reagan’s hair and stop bothering the houseguests.

Are you sure that isn’t actually a photo of Camilla Paglia?

Billy Van?! That’s a damnable slander on the guy who did Eureka! Noooo!! Spare the Canadian filmmakers!

MH,

Are you sure that isn’t “stay out of the houseguests and stop bothering Mr. Reagan’s hair.”?

Still chuckling at “Twilly Spree”.

Just don’t kill any litterbugs or pelican molesters.

Other Shorter Entire Right Wing On Race in the USA:

Here, let us give all sorts of statistics revealing the tremendous advances in racial and ethnic group development and inter-connections which you liberals fought for over decades in order to blame you liberals for failing to recognize that you were wrong and none of those policies were necessary given the amazing way in which we’ve advanced.

I’m curious as to why you chose that image to head up this post. It feels very much like trying to get humor out of shock value, but it also feels like shock value that’s funny to you might not be funny at all to people who are coming from a different perspective.

Oh, let’s be a little clearer: this blog is a fun place for a mostly-white, mostly-male population to clap themselves on the back about how superior they are to the conservatives they’re snarking. All well and good, and I’ve had some laughs here, but the blackface images of minstrelsy are less a jab at conservatives and more, given historical context, a jab at POC that you are theoretically supposed to be aligned with. The fact that Linda Chavez is racist does not give you the right to use racist imagery in making fun of her. I can guarantee you that image hurts her a lot less than it hurts the people the image was originally intended to demean.

Michael Harrington said,

May 25, 2008 at 5:39

Ah, Linda. One of the original Reagan era ethnic quislings, sent out to bark at other members of The Lower Orders all about how they should stay out of Mr. Reagan’s hair and stop bothering the houseguests.
———————————————————————————————————–

Michael, I cannot think of a more blatantly racist comment. You added nothing to the conversation except an attack on Latinos. You should be ashamed of yourself.