You are no doubt aware that the Right went on ugly overdrive after the Zimmerman verdict, and then doubled down on the ugly after the President’s remarks on race last week. See, for example,
Nastiest conservative responses to Obama’s Trayvon speech
Top 12 Conservative Freakouts After Obama’s Race Speech
Fox News Host Calls Obama ‘Race-Baiter In Chief’ After Trayvon Martin Statement
Sean Hannity Asks If Obama Is Like Trayvon Martin Because ‘He Smoked Pot’ And ‘Did A Little Blow’
I could go on and on. The mere mention of race drives the wingnuts into a rabid frenzy. It appears that even to treat racial injustice as a serious issue that deserves respectful discussion, or that African-Americans really do experience ill treatment because of race, is taboo. It must not be said in public. It’s like talking about your porn collection in church.
(One does not need a degree in psychology to know that the reason wingnuts feel this way is that they are in massive denial about their own racism. Which, in a way, is progress. Fifty years ago they would have been aiming their shotguns at freedom marchers. Now they’re mostly reduced to throwing tantrums. Well, except in “stand your ground” states.)
What I’m seeing today is, in a way, more insidious. For example, the Los Angeles Times has an op ed piece called “Rhetoric, race and reality in America” that fairly oozes with white paternalism. And yes, I realize one of the co-authors is black.
After criticizing the “hysterical response of some civil rights leaders” to the verdict, and their “message of victimhood and division,” the authors remind us that young black men kill other young black men at higher rates than whites kill young black men. Yes, but one suspects the police actually arrest the perpetrators within a reasonable amount of time.
And what would we do without Shelby Steele telling us that the civil rights establishment is in decline.
On television in recent weeks you could see black leaders from every background congealing into a chorus of umbrage and complaint. But they weren’t so much outraged at a horrible injustice as they were affronted by the disregard of their own authority. The jury effectively said to them, “You won’t call the tune here. We will work within the law.”
Never mind that the law is an outrage. Last year Steele was among the many right-wing media elites who willfully refused to acknowledge that the real issue was the inaction of the police. See also Conservatives Still Don’t Understand The Trayvon Martin Story from April 2012.
Whatever. The Establishment wants us to know that we’ve gone on long enough about Trayvon Martin, and it’s time to accept reality and move on.
Oh, and there are more threats to voting rights on the horizon, but I suppose we’re not supposed to notice that, either.
I was amazed at the vitriol on a FB animal rescue site re: Obama’s speech dealing with race/Trayvon. I tried to get people to think of every person they met as a shelter dog, whose history is unknown but is deserving of decent treatment, but it was just impossible. i quit counting after 18 excuses/accusations/reasons were thrown out, including some quite obscene and medically creative information. There was no reasoning with the mob.
GOP POV:
Well Librards, for bringing these things up, it’s obvious that they’re on the top of your minds, SO THAT PROVES THAT YOU ARE THE REAL RACISTS, MISOGYNISTS, XENOPHOBES, AND HOMOPHOBES!!!
Besides, Zimmerman’s part Spi… Hispanic, so you can’t hang him on us!!!
___________________________________________________
Our Conservatives, are freaking-out something fierce.
If their voter suppression efforts don’t work to the degree that they hope, they can see that what’s at the end of the tunnel isn’t a white light, but a beacon of freedom involving all of the colors of the human rainbow.
They refuse to reach out to these people, who they consider “Unter-menschen” – and so have painted themselves into a demographic corner, with coats of white paint.
That white paint will eventually be painted on the outlines of their dead movement, like the body of a murder victim. Only it will have been suicide.
And that is why their entire game plan is to suppress the votes of minorities, and women – as much as possible – because they’re losing them, too. Especially the younger ones.
Another thing that they have to worry about – and I’m sorry, I read this earlier this morning, but don’t remember where of I’d provide a link – while Progressive Evangelical Christian membership is increasing, the Conservative Evangelical membership is declining.
And if that trend continues, there go their loyal foot soldiers – and they are white toast!
Yes, apparently the most racist thing you can do now is to call a racist a racist.
I looked at the LA Times column. They find some reassuring data in Pew Research polls:
The interesting thing is that I can cite Pew Research pools too. For some reason Lehrer and Hicks make no mention of this one. I wonder why.
You liberals are just too uptight.. Always looking for things that just aren’t there. Now you’re starting in on your racism rants. Sheesh, just get over it!
Put on some soft relaxing music and reflect upon your foolishness.. Grab a bottle of Thunderbird or Colt 45 malt liquor put on this song and maybe you”ll lighten up and see how wrong you are.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5JFeaJ5A4g
Swami,
I’ll never forgive you allowing me to look at that song.
Off topic, but Sean Hannity really does sport a barber shop quartet hairdo.
♫ By the light of the silvery moon…I want to spoon.. with my honey tonight ♫ Boom, boom, boom.
When you are committed to a caste system within a democracy – and you have set a political course to make the gradient between rich and poor even more steep, you have to convince the poor not to vote – or prevent them from voting and
convince those in the middle of the steep gradient (swing voters) that
a) there is no discrimination or inequality
b) the system is completely fair and based solely on merit
c) if you let the rabble have their way, they will take from the middle class.
This is tricky as hell – to disenfranchise as much of a class of people as possible (the liberal poor) without getting caught at it while playing on the fears of the moderate middle class and create the perception that the poor are out to get them (the middle class). This ploy is designed to feed the wealth and power of the conservative elite who are at risk in a democracy because of the power of the vote.
The solution for the common man is implicit in the strategy employed by the conservative elite – if you make democracy work again for the majority, the power of wealth is negated.
The Zimmerman trial and the reaction to the verdict threatens the narrative of fear, resentment and class division which has to be preserved – completely intact in the minds of the swing voters who could turn against the narrative in their voting habits.
Odd though that the turnout for rallies called in support of Trayvon was derisory. Could it be that the majority of blacks in America do not agree that they live in a racist society despite the urgings of your media? Just a thought.
Could it be that the majority of blacks in America do not agree that they live in a racist society despite the urgings of your media?
No. There are ways to find out what African-Americans think besides counting the turnout at rallies, you know. One of the most effective is to listen to them. You should try it some time.
From what I’ve heard – and I can’t quote chapter and verse – the Florida SYG law includes provisions that say that one should not face arrest or prosecution for defending one’s self. While I agree that the police inaction seemed egregious, they may have been following the law.
Of course, there’s another question. In the military, if you’re given an order, you are not expected to follow the order to the letter, without thinking. Doing so can be cause for discipline, or at least lack of promotion.
Did the police follow their instructions precisely, never digging deeper? Or did they dig as deeply as they could, trying their best to build a damning case, fully aware that Zimmerman would likely walk no matter what?
That’s a question only the police can answer. But I’m skeptical that a man with a bloody nose and a scrape on the back of his head saying “I was in fear for my life!” should be given personal benefit of the doubt, even if he must be given legal benefit of the doubt.
the urgings of your media?
“Our” media? You mean that of planet Earth?
You’re white, aren’t you? I mean hopelessly, painfully, cluelessly white… not the normal, listens-to-other-opinions kind.
(FYI y’all: David Duff has a UK email account.)
David Duff: Trust me, dude, African Americans think for themselves very well and probably are less likely to believe news media than most whites. See also:
the Florida SYG law includes provisions that say that one should not face arrest or prosecution for defending one’s self.
I found some details at http://floridastandyourground.org/. It really is fucked up.
And the police get to decide what’s a reasonable belief:
And yes, you can even invoke Stand Your Ground if you’re the aggressor. We might call this the Zimmerman clause. The justification is NOT available to someone who “initially provokes the use of force against himself or herself,” UNLESS
A lot of us have been wondering about this, so I guess the answer is no. Under Florida law Trayvon didn’t even have the right to defend himself.
David Duff has Ann Coulter on his blog roll.. need I say more? We hold these truths to be self evident.
” Ye shall know them by their blog roll”
My interpretation of Duff’s comment seemed like he could be saying that the majority of blacks in America lacked the basic perception skills to know that America is a racist society in spite of the media pointing that fact out. Just a thought.
Pretty much sums it up for me, thanks.
Stephen Stralka,…. I would assume that Florida’s SYG law is the same in all the states the have adopted that law.. My understanding is that it can be ordered through an ALEC catalog of legislation designed for the freshman conservative legislator in search of debut legislation. There might be some slight variation between states to create the appearance of original thought, but basically SYG law is discounted off the rack conservative legislation.
That’s one part that’s messed up. Technically, he did. We can *pretend* that if he’d truly slammed Zimmerman’s head into the ground enough to do more than give him a bit of a scrape, that when the police arrived and he said “this crazy-ass cracker’s been tailing me all night,” they’d have said “oh, well, you were clearly defending yourself from a situation a a reasonable person would find frighenheheheBWAHAHAHAHAHA!” Sorry, couldn’t finish the scenario with a straight face.
Technically, the law claims it would have stood behind him if he’d defended himself. But we know that if a black woman is in a garage, realizes she can’t leave, *arms herself*, and goes back into the house, and fires a warning shot, she couldn’t really be afraid for her life because she went back into the house. Because, you know, people who are afraid don’t arm themselves, right?
(The logic behind such a decision stupefies me. That she armed herself proved she either wanted to hurt someone *or* was afraid of being hurt. That she fired the warning shot eliminates the first. She should have gotten a citation for unsafe discharge of a firearm if she didn’t reasonably believe she had a safe backstop, and then asked to give lessons on how *not* to shoot someone you think might hurt you.)
So she gets to serve 20 years in jail for firing a warning shot.
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/19/marissa-alexander-gets-20_n_1530035.html)
David Duff has Ann Coulter on his blog roll
I looked at his blog too. He is a Brit, but he knows all about race relations in the US because he once saw an integrated army squad on TV. And of course because he reads Ann Coulter.