Sitting in Your Childhood Bedroom While Wondering if Mikhail Kalishnikov Got a Ride to Heaven With Santa Claus and Reading Langston Hughes' Poem "Negro" as an Antidote To Phil Robertson's Racism After Discovering Sex Books in a File Cabinet and Elsewhere

I hope that you all had a nice ChristmasHanukkahKwanzaa--or other pagan and otherwise made up holiday you chose to celebrate (or not)--this week.

My journey home--and now back--is almost complete. I have eaten too much Chinese food. I discovered that a foul concoction called "scotch beer" is just as hellish as the name implies.

I have also tried to write while sitting at a Panera and suffering the yammering of yentas complaining about the difficulties of their stay-at-home rich people suburban housewife manufactured drama. The white new money classes who talk in loud tones at mid-tier dining establishments about first world problems for all to hear is mighty entertaining...for a moment, and only for a moment, before it quickly becomes tedium.

In all, those are mild complaints for what was a nice trip home, one that was subsidized by the readers and friends of We Are Respectable Negroes. I appreciate all of your support and wish you only the best for the new year.

[Some personal sharing and random thoughts for the holiday and new year. Do share your own thoughts too, and treat this as more or less an open thread for these days when we are traveling, distracted, and when posting may be light.]

Returning to a childhood home is a life ritual which allows us to reflect on the promises we made to ourselves (and family) those years ago and the dreams of where our lives would be in that far off nebulous future that came into being too fast and too soon. When I return to my childhood home, I always look through old books, pictures, and papers. This is a scavenger hunt of my recent and mid past life. It is also therapy. I hope that I am not the only person who likes--or is that some time of masochism in practice--discovering essays written in high school, "genius" papers from college, or love letters and mixed tapes made for "the one", the person you knew that you would marry when you were 17?

I was laying in my childhood bed, conducting my end of year life inventory, listening to Coast to Coast AM on the radio, and looking through some of books that are still in the bedroom. As much as we grow and change from our teen years to twenty or so years later, the seeds of who we are--or are running away from being--are likely still present there. 

Phil Robertson, Duck Dynasty, and the White Trash Politics of the Republican Party

The “controversy” about the wildly popular reality TV show Duck Dynasty is both laughable and sad for what it reveals about the woeful state of American public discourse.

The manufactured fracas centers on Duck Dynasty actor/character Phil Robertson (who is an ideal-typical example of the worst sort of white trash) and his anti-gay bigotry as shared with GQ magazine during a recent interview.

In the same piece, Robertson discussed his White Supremacist yearnings for the “good old days” of African-American subjugation and oppression in the South, before the foul carpetbaggers, Civil Rights agitators, and the evils of Reconstruction, the New Deal, and the Great Society robbed the good simple Negro people of their innocence and white toothed, big lipped, toothy grinned, banjo playing, watermelon eating, cotton picking ways:

"Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I'm with the blacks, because we're white trash," he said.  "They're singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’—not a word!... Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.”

For people such as Phil Robertson, and the white conservatives who share his particular type of myopic and ahistorical whiteness, the full liberty and freedom of black Americans, especially as demonstrated through the use of our citizenship rights to redress grievances by struggling for full equality, is morally objectionable.

Robertson and his Duck Dynasty clan are a depiction of how a writer and show-runner have chosen to represent white trash America. How can a network then feign surprise when an actor gives the very performance it has solicited?

The following may be a surprise for those people who are not media literate or critical consumers of popular culture: reality TV is not real. It is a type of entertainment that is predicated on the cultivation and creation of an “irreality”.

The paradox is a simple one: actors pretend to be “real” people, who viewers invest themselves in, as a means of distraction from the pain and anxiety of the “real” real world.

Politics is a performance too. As I have written about on a number of occasions, the spectacle of American politics in the 24/7 news cycle--in an age when capitalism and democracy are conflated, and public policy does not serve the public good but rather a narrow set of private interests who win over voters in much the same way as how a computer company brands its goods to create consumer loyalty and a feeling of emotional attachment to a product--most closely resembles professional wrestling. There is an important difference: professional wrestling is much more honest and transparent.

As one more example of how a debased politics have become almost inseparable from the public spectacle that is the mass media, Robertson’s observations about how “lazy” and “complaining” black Americans have been “ruined” by “entitlements” are none too different from what prominent Republicans and the Right-wing media have being saying for decades about the black community.

Sorry Guys, Santa Claus Will Not be Giving You the Gift of a Larger Penis This Year: A Conversation With Patrick Moote, the Star of the New Documentary "Unhung Hero"

For many men around the world, God's finger is a topic of much conversation and fascination. I know that I am not the only man who in his youth and teens has over a few beers--or many more--argued about how to best and most accurately measure the length and girth of his penis.

A balance must be struck between exaggeration and verisimilitude in that as well as in all other things. I always default to the noble lie--or having the lights off and extraordinary amounts of foreplay if the issue is at all ever in doubt.

As they negotiate their personal identities, women most certainly have to struggle with issues of body, identity, beauty, and self-esteem. Patriarchy is real. The cultural obsession with the size of men's penises--while not often discussed enough by the mass media in a mature and responsible way--is very real too and often to the detriment of men's mental health and self-esteem.

Given how racial subordination and the body intersect for black men, the Mandingo fantasy (and myth) is both a blessing and a curse. We are all prisoners of our bodies. Black men who believe that the social fiction of race endows them with unique and special biological powers in the genitals walk a fine line, as they have internalized a white supremacist notion about their breeding power and bestial natures, while then often trying to fight against the social and political implications of anti-black stereotypes in the United States and elsewhere.

In thinking through these issues of "penis politics", I was lucky to have interviewed both the subject and director of the new documentary (or "cockumentary") Unhung Hero which premiered at Sundance, and was recently released on DVD in the United States.

Unsung Hero has also been shown on Showtime.

We had a great conversation that will be of interest to anyone who was not born as a penis which just happens to have a man attached to it.

[Do you like that pithy? I thought hard and long about it. I slay myself sometimes...].

The "star" of Unsung Hero is named Patrick Moote. He both is smart and funny. In Unhung Hero, Patrick is so vulnerable and real as he experiences many a man's nightmare, and then embarks on a personal journey of self-discovery in a quest to make sense of his own relationship with an undersized matsutake that may (or may not) be able to bring satisfaction to a woman as it penetrates her jade gates.
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1. I have to first commend your courage for being so vulnerable by telling your personal story in Unhung Hero. How did you build up the momentum? How many false starts were there for Unhung Hero?

Well, once we realized that my epic fail of a proposal might be a good pitching tool for the documentary, we really just had to get it out there, and the rest fell into place very quickly.

2. How did you pitch this project? Were you surprised, sitting there watching the movie on screen, that this all came to pass?

I still can’t believe this is happening. I am waiting for someone to be like, “PSYCH! No one really cares about your penis story. Put it away, bro.” Hasn’t happened yet, so fingers crossed.

3. I have to ask about the viral video of your girlfriend turning down your wedding proposal because she felt you were not sufficiently endowed. Naysayers and disbelievers would say there had to be more to the story. Was her complaint about your endowment just a proxy for some other issues?

There were plenty of other issues. I think in situations like that we usually choose to focus on the ones that make us look and feel like the victim, and that’s what I did. Honestly, if I were to ask myself to marry me right now I’d probably say no, and penis size would have nothin’ to do with it. I’m basically still just a child wearing an adult looking costume. I have a lot of growing up to do, but I’m certainly getting there!

4. There is a great paradox at work in the narrative of your movie about masculinity and a American society that is still very sexist, structurally, ideologically, and culturally, in favor of men. But, men who do not live up to a false and unreasonable image of "normal" or "desirable" male bodies, are often personally pained and
insecure. How does your movie help men to navigate those issues? Are Americans uniquely size obsessed? Or are other cultures more healthy in this regard?

I think this film has the potential to help everyone. It didn’t take long before Brian and I started to realize that what we were making was a film about much more than my stupid penis, or about penis at all. It’s really at it’s core about manufactured insecurities, realizing that everyone has them and then finding a way to embrace yourself because of them. And from what I have seen, I think it’s a concept that most all people will be able to relate to.

5. In the documentary, you go to a urologist to have the official measurement of your penis taken. I am not the only person who will own, on more than a few occasions, having done his own personal assessment "just to make sure". I would rather have my own personal measurement--and the bias therein--and most certainly not a pro's take on what I am bringing to the party so to speak. What was that experience like? Was all hope lost? Or did it just confirm what you already suspected?

I didn’t really know she was going to do that when I went into the interview, but adopted a “say yes to everything” attitude when we started the project so I was going to do it no matter how brutal. Dr. Berman was polite about it, but yeah it wasn’t my favorite experience ever.

6. Random questions given your expertise. Would you rather be the guy who follows up a lover who was under-endowed and just be average but "large" by comparison...or, would you rather be objectively well-endowed and your new lover's ex was "huge?" Tough dilemma?

Honestly, I really don’t want to know what my lovers, ex-lovers anything was like. It’s never been the kind of conversation that I’ve been eager to dive into… and I think we all know why.

7. Numbers lie and liars figure. Research suggests that most men lie about the size of their penises. Across categories, self-reported data is notoriously unreliable. Penis size data would be especially susceptible to such misrepresentations. What would it take for men to tell the truth? Or do most of our partners--straight, gay, other--know that folks are lying about their penis size and just play along to keep the peace and our egos secure? I would have to imagine that "tell the truth about our penis size day" would cause mass mayhem and a national moment of painful admission. Every society needs it lies. Am I wrong on this one?

No, not wrong at all. Anyone who doesn’t want to talk about it shouldn’t. The point behind talking about it isn’t to make you more miserable; it’s to take the power away from it. As for men telling the truth about their penis size, I don’t really care what they say, as long as they feel like it’s big, on the inside… Now that was deep! Am I right?!

8. What were you thinking during the sauna scene when your curiosity about how your endowment compares to Korean men--supposedly among the smallest in the world--discovered that you were filming them? Were there apologies later? Or did you just get out of there and hope for the best?

I was thinking, “is this a weird thing to do?? Cause I feel like it’s not that weird.” I blame the kid from the Korean University for suggesting that I go there. It was his idea, not mine! After I got caught there were some apologies, and after I explained what I was actually making a documentary about they were laughing so hard I could have got away with anything.

9. You interviewed Jonah Falcon for the documentary. I first learned about him on the Howard Stern Show. He is mammothly endowed--to say the least. Am I just lying to myself, or is there a bit of sadness on his part, being reduced by his partners to just one body part?

I think it’s terribly sad. Jonah is a wonderful person, and for that to be what a partner likes most about him is just silly. I also think it’s sad that guys like myself who are just a little below what they would like to be, think it’s a problem. At least we can supplement with hard work. Being too big is a much BIGGER problem, you could actually be hurting someone, and if you care about the person that’s got to be just awful.

9 ½. I will admit though, that when I see the rich guy with the beautiful woman in the expensive sports car I tell myself he is over-compensating for having a small penis. The truth--that he is hung, rich, happy, and with a beautiful woman--may just be too much for me to accept.

Everyone has their reasons for being with someone, but I never try to think I can understand just by looking at the surface stuff… that being said, I fucking hate that guy too.

10. What is your next project? Any future body image related topics to explore?

Not at the moment. I poured a lot of myself, and my energy into this project over the last couple years. My main concern right now is that the message gets heard. It’s really getting out there right now, and I couldn’t be happier and more proud of what I have done… my penis hates me, but what are you going to do? If you’ve got one you know how fickle they can be.

Is Santa Claus Giving All the Good Little Boys and Girls Guns for Christmas? Richard Slotkin and Lt. Colonel Robert Bateman Team Up to Give the Gun Right Coal in Their Stockings One Year After the Sandy Hook Massacre

First, I would like to thank those readers who donated to the annual fundraiser here at We Are Respectable Negroes. I was impressed and also pleasantly surprised by the kind notes and monies sent to further my efforts here. Some donations are still trickling in even today. So kind.

I also hope that all of you will have a restful and relaxed next week or so. Please do right by one another and yourselves. I emphasize the last part of that suggestion because many people get caught up in playing a role and forget their mental health and the wise observation that charity starts at home. Be good to yourselves folks. Always take care of you first whenever possible.

I did not write anything about the one year anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre. Why? The American people are content to be prisoners of the Gun Right, and to continue to sacrifice their children to Moloch in order to protect their "Constitutional freedoms" and "right" to "bear arms". 

Gun violence is a public health problem. The American people are not willing to hold their elected officials accountable for their political fellatio of the gun lobby at the expense of our collective safety and security. 

While many children have been killed by guns since Sandy Hook, and the "national conversation" about gun violence and gun ownership was stillborn even then, (how could it really be anything else?), why expend the energy trying to bring a critical voice to a topic that the American people have surrendered?

Moreover, there are really smart folks writing and thinking about how gun violence in America is a cultural problem that is reflected by broken public policies. I would prefer to listen to and learn from them, and subsequently share their work here on WARN.

When I was shilling for our fundraiser, I mentioned the good work I am trying to do through the site's podcast series.

For example, one of the first guests who sat down and chatted with me there was Professor Richard Slotkin. He is one of the country's foremost experts on America's centuries-long culture of gun violence. Because of the help of some of the friends of WARN, I was able to connect with Dr. Slotkin and talk with him on our podcast series about gun violence, Sandy Hook, and why reasonable gun control policies are verboten in the United States.

Slotkin was also a recent guest on Bill Moyer's TV show.

I work hard to bring smart and interesting guests (and their insights) to We Are Respectable Negroes. Thus, I have no shame in calling out my/our successes in that regard. I smiled as I listened to and watched Dr. Slotkin on PBS. Again, we are doing something special here on WARN. I have even more essential guests lined up for the remainder of this season of the podcast, and for Season Three as well.

Two is almost always better than one in most positive situations in life. As a complement to Dr. Slotkin's wisdom on gun violence and America's gun culture, I would also like to share the much discussed piece by Lt. Colonel Robert Bateman that was greeted with howls and pain by the Gun Right "they are coming to take our guns away/symbols of embattled masculinity" at Esquire.

He offers several suggestions for dealing with gun violence in the United States. I was especially partial to these two:

Guns are tools. I use these tools in my job. But like all tools one must be trained and educated in their use. Weapons are there for the "well regulated militia." Their use, therefore, must be in defense of the nation. Shooting and killing somebody because they were not "upset enough" over the loss of a college football team should not be possible in our great nation. Which is why I am adding the following "Gun Plank" to the Bateman-Pierce platform. Here are some suggestions: 

1. The only guns permitted will be the following:
a. Smoothbore or Rifled muzzle-loading blackpowder muskets. No 7-11 in history has ever been held up with one of these.
b. Double-barrel breech-loading shotguns. Hunting with these is valid.
c. Bolt-action rifles with a magazine capacity no greater than five rounds. Like I said, hunting is valid. But if you cannot bring down a defenseless deer in under five rounds, then you have no fking reason to be holding a killing tool in the first place... 

5. We will initiate a nationwide "buy-back" program, effective immediately, with the payouts coming from the DoD budget. This buy-back program will start purchasing weapons at 200 percent of their face value the first year, 150 percent the second year, 100 percent the third year. Thereafter there will be a 10 year pause, at which point the guns can be sold to the government at 10 percent of their value for the next 50 years.

In our discussions of the sick phenomenon that is mass shootings and gun violence in the United States, I have shared how I am dismayed by the ease at which civilians can have access to military weaponry (whatever the nomenclature or games with naming for marketing practices and for deflection by the Gun Right, a "military style" weapon is for all intents and purposes a "military weapon", and as such should not be owned by civilians), yet by comparison getting a drivers licence is far more difficult.

Lt. Colonel Bateman's suggestions echo my own thoughts on how to deal with guns as a public health issue.

[I have argued that there should be extensive background checks for anyone who wants to buy a gun, a license/certificate of sanity issued by a doctor, mandatory training, at least a 30 day waiting period, a limit on the number of weapons that a single person can own, and mandatory gun insurance].

What do you have planned for the holidays? Are any of you buying guns or giving them as gifts to your family, loved ones, or children? Are such gestures misunderstood by those who are not members of the Gun Right and that believe in reasonable and more strict gun control laws?

Featured Readers' Comments: The Power of Racial Microaggressions and How the Debate Over the "Color" of Santa Claus is a Rorschach Test For White Racial Attitudes

The commenters here on We Are Respectable Negroes routinely offer up many great insights. I like to acknowledge those smarts. Consequently, I feature readers' comments when appropriate in order to move our conversations forward.

There was such an exchange about the Santa Claus Fox News Megyn Kelly silliness regarding if fictional characters are "white" or 'black" that are worth exploring in more detail in response to this post.

Yes, the faux debate about the racial identity of fictional and mythological character is on the surface, very, very silly. However, the "Santa Claus Whiteness Debate" is important because of what it suggests about bigger systemic and institutional issues related to white supremacy in the United States, and the West, more generally.

In our dialogue about racism, Santa Claus, and Jesus Christ, the following comments were spot on.

Black Sci-Fi made a great intervention as he observed how:

The whole Santa/Jesus = white men meme is really just an online click-bait trap for the toopid. Rather than waste more precious electrons on a fake issue, why don't we (liberals?) figure out how to increase employment in the USA. 

Race Baiting by Fox News is how they've been able to keep their ratings high. They find no shame in saying the most vile things about our President because it increases viewership, even among so-called liberals. Why? Because they aren't serious about anything except creating "high paying" sensation, not reporting news. Their entire news operation is simply "CLICK-BAIT. GET A CLUE and stop supporting their madness. If you want to stop the madness then stop buying products made by Koch, Inc and other products advertised on FOX. In America, if you want to change something, put your money where your mouth is. Imagine the headlines that would follow a successful boycott of Fox advertisers. Anything less is BS and making a noose for your hangman. 

SANTA? JESUS? REALLY?
STOP FEEDING THE MONSTER...!!!

Bryan Ortiz replied with:

I do agree this issue (non-issue really) is silly, but Megyn Kelly's remark should be seen as one of those microagrressions toward black Americans that white people do on a regular basis. It was perhaps also fodder for that teacher to ridicule his student for being black and wearing a Santa costume.

Both of them are offering up some great insights that we should meditate on.

A few weeks back, one of the friends of We Are Respectable Negroes told me over some beers, that I am like a junkyard dog who obsesses about an issue, and then stays on it long after many readers may have lost interest. I agreed.

Yes, I do tend to linger. But like a dog in a fight, I am trying to hold on as long as I can, and biting down to the bone of a subject. I do this without apology. However, I do often think about the balance between catering to a very superficial drive-by public attention span and the time needed to fully explore a subject.

Readers of WARN know that of course I tend towards the latter. I wonder what I should do in the future. Any suggestions or thoughts?

In one of my first essays on Megyn Kelly's white supremacist musings about Santa Claus, I clarified my use of the concept known as "the white racial frame". I want to do something similar by fleshing out Chester Pierce's theory of "racial microaggressions".

Toure Ethers Megyn Kelly's Silly Talk About the Whiteness of Santa Claus on MSNBC's The Cycle While I Wonder if Jimmy McMillan "The Rent is Too Damn High" Politician is Proof that the "Historical" Santa was Really a "Black" Man

On Monday's edition of The Cycle on MSNBC, panelist/host Toure had the final word on Fox News and Megyn Kelly's silly-talk that Santa Claus and Jesus Christ were "of course white".

In yesterday's promo, Toure ethered Kelly by metaphorically putting her sloppy drunk on white privilege claims about Santa in a submission hold that the WWE's Daniel Bryan would have acknowledged as textbook perfect.

I smiled when Toure linked Santa Claus to the national security state, white privilege, white supremacy, and a fear by some white folks of a black man who is the all-seeing panoptic eye--he who knows if you are naughty or nice, can sneak into your house, and then punish or reward you. Well done. Very smart.

However, there could be an unintended complication in Toure's evisceration of Megyn Kelly's claims about the indisputable fact of Santa's whiteness. In his promo, Toure referenced the following documentary which purports to show what the "real life" Greek-Turkish "Santa Claus" would have supposedly looked like.

Based on some of the comments by white supremacists that I follow online, and who are passionately defending the whiteness of Santa Claus and Jesus--and any suggestion to the contrary as being evidence of "anti-white" and black "cultural appropriation" of white history--they would be mighty disturbed by the fact that the "historical" Santa is a bit swarthy and brown in complexion.

Race is a social construct. It has little to no basis in biology. As such, who is defined as "white", "black", or "other" is an arbitrary distinction with real social power that changes across time, place, and to fit certain political realities and questions.

In this Megyn Kelly "Santa Claus is of course white imbroglio", we may have stumbled upon a fact that many Americans are truly not prepared for. Could Jimmy McMillan, the recently famous "the rent is too damn high" politician from New York, be a direct relation to Santa Claus?

Their shared physical resemblance is uncanny.

Is Jimmy McMillan more proof that Santa Claus is a black man? Will Henry Louis Gates and PBS do a special on Mr. McMillan and Santa Claus's family origins so that we can finally get at the truth about the real "racial identity" of Santa Claus?

Where is Alex Jones when we need him?

They are Dreaming of a White Christmas: What if Fox News and Megyn Kelly Interviewed Zwarte Piet, the Netherlands' Black Faced Assistant to Santa Claus?

We are in the final week--and hopefully finally 3 days--of the fundraiser here on We Are Respectable Negroes. I would like to thank all of the folks who have donated so far. With my hand out, I want to try to demonstrate some of the unique, I think at least, conversations and critiques that I try to bring to the site as way of finishing up the annual fundraiser and encouraging a few more folks to throw some change into the collection pile.

Laughter and satire are useful tools for exposing the truth. As I have done on other occasions here on We Are Respectable Negroes, I try to have fun and to use the comic and the absurd as a way of "speaking truth to power". Here I wrote about how Megyn Kelly's observations on Fox News about how "white" Santa Claus and Jesus were examples of white supremacy and the white racial frame in action. I want to push that a bit farther. Given that Kelly is so dim, where else could her ignorance lead her on these matters? Let's indulge ourselves and work through what could be a counter-factual turned real for the Fox News White Right-wing echo chamber.
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Megyn Kelly: Here at Fox News we strive to be fair and balanced. Last week, I was unfairly criticized by liberals who can't take a joke because I said something obvious and they are overly sensitive.

Silly me, I thought it was common knowledge that Santa Claus and Jesus were white. Apparently, the organized Left-wing in this country took offense. They also don't have much of a sense of humor and are obsessed with playing the race card. That sad and tired old race card doesn't even get time off for the holidays. Goodness gracious.

Taking a cue from President Barack Obama and his love of "teachable moments", I decided to show those liberals who said Fox News and my show are racist for saying that Santa and Jesus were white, that they really don't understand how conservatives don't see a person's color.

There is something really insidious with The Left and their bigotry and intolerance especially when it is part of the War on Christmas and attempts to rob the United States and its children of their Christian roots.

My guest on today's show is Zwarte Piet, or as his friends in the Netherlands also call him, "Black Pete". He is one of Santa Claus's--they call him Sinterklaas in the Netherlands--helpers and is responsible for making toys and punishing all of the bad little boys and girls. And just like how our traditional values have been under attack in this country for way too long, Netherlands is also trying to resist its very own War on Christmas.

First, I would like to thank Zwarte Piet for being a guest on the show. I have a toy version of you in my home that I put out for Christmas. We have you dangling right near the top of our Christmas tree!

Zwarte Piet: So good. I am so happy to talk to the American people and to make sure that bad little boys and girls know that I will be giving them coal in their stockings if they don't behave. Sinterklaas loves all the good little boys and girls who mind their parents, do their homework, and are nice. He sends me for you bad little brats. Always be good now.

Megyn Kelly: Your Christmas tradition in the Netherlands has been going on for thousands of years. In America, Christmas is being threatened by the forces of political correctness. Schools and public places are not even allowed to mention Christmas, Jesus, or put out decorations because it is offensive to atheists, Muslims, feminists, gays, and other minorities.

Here at Fox News we are working hard to stand up for traditional American values. In the Netherlands, you and the other Zwarte Piets are being threatened by people who say that you are racist and that your skin color is disrespectful to the blacks. How is this making you feel? You don't even have a skin color, you are quote unquote black because of coal dust from chimneys right?

Zwarte Piet: Very upsetting. Very sad. Christmas is for all children and people around the world. Zwarte and Sinterklaas love all children of every color and language and nationality. My skin color is from the black coal dust and my hair and lips are just what they are. Sinterklaas is white. I am black. We are friends. I work for him. We love everyone the same.

Megyn Kelly: Like America with our changing demographics because of a broken immigration policy and broken borders, your country is also in lots of trouble too. Native born people in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe are being forced to change their values and beliefs because of immigrants from all over North Africa and elsewhere. Why can't these new people in your country just accept you Zwarte? Political correctness and liberal multiculturalism is causing havoc all over the world. What do you think of those "anti-racists"--what is really just a way of being "anti-white" and practicing reverse racism--who want you to not be part of Netherlands' holiday celebration? That you and Sinterklaas are relics from the past?

Zwarte Piet: Like herring and tulips, me and Sinterklaas are part of Netherland's rich culture and history. Even if a few mean grownups want to take me away from the children all the fun loving adults and their kids will keep me and Sinterklaas as part of the holidays. We love the children. This is all just good fun for the holiday season.

Megyn Kelly: In a world where there is so much conflict, you and Sinterklaas are great role-models for how people of different racial backgrounds can get along and work well together. I also think that you are a great role-model for black children here in the United States. Given all of the poverty in America's cities and how so many young black kids do not have good role-models, come from broken homes, and don't see people around them working hard, being self-reliant, and living the American dream of pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and joining the middle class, I think that you Zwarte Piet could do some great work in this country. Instead of criticizing me and Fox News, black leaders and the NAACP should reach out to you and really keep Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream alive.

Zwarte Piet: I am confused. Me and Sinterklaas love the children. We are apolitical. Be good little boys and girls. Don't be bad or you will get coal in your stockings.

Megyn Kelly: I knew you would agree with me Zwarte. It was so nice to have you on the show. Merry Christmas!

The White Racial Frame in Practice: Dear Fox News and Megyn Kelly, the "Historical" Jesus is Not "White". He is Actually a Character in the Movie "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug"

I would again like to thank the donors to We Are Respectable Negroes' annual fundraiser. Some kind and generous folks threw some money into the begging bowl today. I am grateful and impressed.  If you can and are willing here is the link.

Moving forward...

Megyn Kelly's effort to defend the Whiteness of Jesus Christ and Santa Claus is an example of stupidity in action by those who do not know how stupid they really are.

[I wonder, is this a version of the Dunning-Kruger effect?]

I am not one for name-calling. However, Kelly is, to borrow from the movie Casino, "one dumb white woman". It takes practice to be so dim while so passionately arguing about the racial identities of mythical and historical-fictional characters.

Fox News and the Right-wing echo chamber preys on low information, racially resentful, white conservative voters.

[Or is it more accurate to suggest that these folks "pray to" Fox News and the Right-wing propaganda machine?]

Megyn Kelly's matter of fact assertion that Jesus and Santa Claus "must of course" both be "white" is a perfect fit for a public that believes that "there is a war on Christmas" and a black communist, socialist, fascist named Barack Obama is President of the United States. Such beliefs are the gravity holding together the intellectual constellation that is the Fox News Right-wing media universe and its public.

When you confront madness and insanity there is the risk that you too will become lost. If you have ever had a relationship with a mentally unhinged person (a boss, relative, friend, lover, or the like) with anger management issues and a persecution complex then you have an intimate understanding of how the irrational can convince the heretofore rational person that it is the latter who is crazy. Alternatively, if you work in the mental health field, some delusions are so compelling that at a certain point a clinician has to sit back and ask themselves, "do they know something I don't?"

Kelly has no such gifted insight to offer. But, she does provide an example of the oft-discussed "teachable moment".

Continuing With We Are Respectable Negroes' Twice-Annual Fundraiser and Offering Thanks and Thoughts by Way of Fred Sanford and the Whopper Chopper

I would like to thank all of you who donated to our annual fundraiser here on We Are Respectable Negroes which is now at the end of its second week.

I would like to conclude the fundraiser by early next week at the latest. We are three-quarters or so of the way to this year's goal. I am so very moved and flattered by both the many kind donations, as well as the very nice emails and notes that folks have sent to me so far.

As readers of WARN know, I am fascinated by the meta-game of writing online and the particular branding and character development that is necessary to become a "professional" member of the chattering classes. At various times, I have described this process as akin to professional wrestling and playing the slots at a casino. As hinted at by my chosen avatar Fred Sanford, many of the travails of this journey can be explained by the TV show Sanford and Son. As such, there are few problems and experiences in said milieu which cannot be worked through after an extended viewing session of that brilliant sitcom.

In all, this was a good week for We Are Respectable Negroes. My essay on how the Tea Party GOP views poor black and brown children as "useless eaters" has been shared on Facebook about 7,000 times. Thank you.

[Because of the urging of some readers who know more about these matters than me, I will be adding a "Facebook Friends Sharing" box/profile on the sidebar. I have underestimated the utility of Facebook as a means of circulating what we are doing on We Are Respectable Negroes. I am also seriously thinking about adding a link which will include all of the books and other materials that have been discussed here on WARN so that readers can purchase them through Amazon. I am still undecided on this latter option. But, more than a few readers have suggested that it could be very helpful and convenient for them. Any thoughts or suggestions?]

With a few exceptions, my piece about Dasani and the Tea Party GOP's War on the Poor is one of the most widely shared essays ever here on WARN. This week, I have also finalized more guests for the podcast series. But ultimately, and being real and honest, I was most moved and impressed this week by the donations, kindness, and good energy, the readers of the site have shown towards me.

Just touching base. If you can do so, after taking care of family, pets, and other obligations, please throw some change into the donation bucket if you are so able. Once we conclude our fundraiser, I can stop nagging for your spare change. Goods things are coming--as they have this year for the site--in the near future. Thank you again for making that happen.

Racial Formation and "The Jackson Whites" Come "Out of the Furnace"

In reading more about the great new movie Out of the Furnace, which I wrote about yesterday, I came upon some other items that I would like to share with all of you.

While I disagree with the suggestion by Louis Proyect over at Counterpunch that Out of the Furnace, like "Nebraska" is condescending class snobbery cinema, and just a rehashed action movie from the 1980s--the skeleton and structure may be similar; the artifice and resulting story are very different--I learned a bit more about the social context of Braddock, Pennsylvania, the community in which the film is set.

Like we are seeing in many other American cities, the forces of gentrification and invading hordes of hipsters are threatening the cultural integrity of these communities. Proyect calls this out here, while also offering up a harsh critique of the film:

And getting back to today’s Braddock, there’s little in common with the way it is portrayed in “Out of the Furnace”. If you take a close look at Russell Baze’s neck, you will see the tattoo of a number there: “15104”. That’s the zip code for Braddock, the same one that Mayor John Fetterman has on his arm. 

Fetterman has been trying for a number of years to turn Braddock into a haven for artists looking for cheap loft rentals, just as happening in Detroit now. This has antagonized the largely African-American population of the town that feels left out of this gentrification experiment. They were far more interested in preserving the local hospital, a struggle that Braddock long-time resident Tony Buba has documented in “We are Alive! The Fight to Save Braddock Hospital”. That is a film that is much more honest about American social reality than “Out of the Furnace”.

Louis Proyect is correct in that the "hillbillies" and "mountain people" in Out of the Furnace are one dimensional villains designed to channel anxieties from 1970s exploitation flicks such as The Hills Have Eyes, or even more mainstream horror movies such as Deliverance (yes, the latter is horror film). As depicted in Out of the Furnace, the "Mountain people" are "white trash". Moreover, with Woody Harrelson as their "leader", they are white trash that will kill and murder outsiders on a whim.

In 2010, New Yorker magazine offered a very compelling essay on the people who live in the Ramapo mountain region. There, Ben McGrath suggested that this anxiety about those "mountain people" may be tied to racial miscegenation, a counterculture spirit, and desire to exist independent of the State and its coercive power.

I knew something about the "WIN" tribe of Virginia: they are a group of "white-Indian-negros" as categorized by the United States Census and eugenicists at the turn of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And in my memory banks, I recall reading about mining communities in Pennsylvania and West Virginia in which (then) free blacks and whites lived together in relatively integrated communities.

Ignorance is a blessing that we can embrace if it leads us to learning new things. To point. The following story of how race is made and formed is a fascinating one:

“Mountain people” is a euphemism for what locals used to call “Jackson Whites”—a racial slur that the referents equate with the word “nigger.” They call themselves Ramapough Mountain Indians, or the Ramapough Lenape Nation, using an old Dutch spelling for the name of the river that cuts through the Hudson and North Jersey Highlands, although suburban whites tend to think of them as racially indeterminate clansfolk. The Ramapoughs number a few thousand, marry largely among themselves, and are concentrated in three primary settlements: on and around Stag Hill, in Mahwah; in the village of Hillburn, New York, in the hollow below Stag Hill’s northern slope; and, west of Stag Hill, in Ringwood, New Jersey, in the remains of an old iron-mining complex. The settlements span two states and three counties—a circumstance with socially marginalizing consequences—but they are essentially contiguous if you travel through the woods, by foot or A.T.V.... 

The Ramapough Mountain Indians incorporated in 1978. The galvanizing event, for a group that had always been characterized by outsiders as disorganized and indifferent, was the publication of a book, “The Ramapo Mountain People,” which investigated the sources and validity of the folk legends, and concluded that they were mostly bunk: no Jackson, no hookers, no Hessians. Using baptismal and census records, the book’s author, a Rutgers professor named David Cohen, attempted to trace the movement of free “coloreds,” like Augustine Van Donck, from near the Collect Pond in lower Manhattan, in the seventeenth century, to the Hackensack River Valley and then to the Ramapo Mountains. 

Cohen granted that individual Native Americans might have married into the new mountain families, but his thesis was that the people of the Ramapos were essentially “Afro-Dutch,” as he put it, and he suggested that their collective identification with Indian traits was itself a kind of internalized racism; not wishing to be black, they preferred to think of themselves as something rarer—as, indeed, the mainstream culture had always insisted they were. Still, he saw himself as an advocate for the people, and tried persuading them—“naïvely,” he now says—that they ought to embrace this new identity with pride: pioneering black landowners, among the first in the New World.

Out of the Furnace is a great film precisely because it lingers in the mind after you leave the theater while also inspiring additional reading, research, and investigation. Most popular culture is disposable. Such is the nature of that type of cultural product. By comparison, Out of the Furnace leads the careful viewer to ask questions. For me, that is the highest praise which I can offer to a film.

Making A List of Rustbelt America Movies: Reflecting on the Race, Class, and Gender Politics of the New Film "Out of the Furnace"

I do not shill for movies. As readers of WARN know, I tend to write longer critical essays than straight reviews and endorsements of a movie or TV show.  I will have to break with that habit here. Several days ago I was very lucky to see the movie Out of the Furnace. It is one of the best, of the many movies, I have seen this year.

My movie tastes may deviate from those of the general public, as well as many professional reviewers. My love of the movie Cloud Atlas is an example. My likely unpopular view that 12 Years a Slave is an expert exercise in film-making, but not necessarily a great biopic, is a second outlier opinion.

Out of the Furnace is a brilliant and essential film with stellar performances by marquee actors such as Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Forest Whitaker, Sam Shephard, William Dafoe, Zoe Saldana, and Woody Harrelson that explores how globalization, deindustrialization, militarism, and class inequality have impacted Rustbelt America and its denizens.

Out of the Furnace is set in and around Braddock, Pennsylvania during Obama's 2008 presidential run and uses that moment as background and atmosphere which forces an uncomfortable question: what will the country's first black President (not) mean for improving the life chances of a multiracial working class who are dependent upon the United States' near dead and dying industrial manufacturing base?

A great film leaves an emotional and intellectual impression on viewers after they leave the theater. More than "what is this movie trying to tell me and us?", a great film drives the engaged viewer to want to learn more about the characters, their struggles, and the larger issues of public concern we as a society are struggling with.

Given my interests in American racial politics, I was moved to reflect on the racial diversity of the communities shown in Out of the Furnace. Race was present and real--as it should be in a movie that purports to any type of "social realism". But, race was not foregrounded in the film. Race is how class is lived in America. Yet, how is that rubric modified when a whole community, across the colorline, is dependent on a dying industry?

And how are the troubles and challenges in multiracial Braddock (and rural Appalachia) damning proof of Charles Murray's thesis in "Coming Apart" about the decline of "good culture" among White America?

Given my family's background, and subsequent travels as a child and teen, I am very familiar with the dead and dying multiracial Rustbelt communities on the East Coast. They are very racially segregated. But, these same communities are also very integrated in their shared working class ethos, culture, values, and sense of pride.

America has been inaccurately described as a "melting pot". Borrowing from Eduardo Bonilla Silva, the history of American society is more akin to that of a cauldron hanging over a fire in to which different European ethnic groups were thrown into the stew pot, while black and brown people were the kindling for the fire which cooked the meal of "Americanness". Globalization, Austerity, income inequality, changing racial demographics, and resurgent white supremacy in the Age of Obama have created the "furnace" for which the title of this movie, intentionally or not by its writers, is a beautiful metaphor.

What other movies would you add if we were making a list of films (within the last 50 years) that intelligently explore the dynamics of race, class, and gender in Rustbelt deindustrialized America?

In addition to Out of the Furnace, I would start with The Fighter, Winter's Bone, and An Officer and a Gentleman. What would you suggest?

Dasani and the Tea Party GOP's War on the Poor Continued: What do Republicans See When They Look at This Photo of a Homeless 11-Year-Old Girl's and Her Family's Room?

Our annual fundraiser here at We Are Respectable Negroes continues. I would like to thank the kind folks who have already donated. If you can find a dollar or two to throw into the Paypal collection, I would be in your debt. My online work is a blessing. It is also work and a labor of love. I appreciate all of you and the support you have given me over the years.

The above image from the NY Times story "Invisible Child" about the life of an 11-year-old girl named Dasani and her family is rich with meaning and context.

Earlier, we talked about how the Right-wing in the United States wants to kill and eliminate poor people and the working classes because they are "useless eaters" and "takers" who are drains on the body politic.

Conservatives and the Right-wing media are naked in how they link stereotypes about race, class, and gender together in a narrative that leverages white racial resentment to advance an agenda which hurts the middle and working classes.

Among other absurdities, Fox News and the Tea Party GOP's bloviators have suggested that poor people in America live a life of luxury because they have refrigerators. What offenses and moral crimes would Republicans and the White Right see in the above photo of Dasani and her family's room at a homeless shelter?

For Republicans, a Homeless 11-Year-Old Black Girl Named Dasani is a "Useless Eater" Who Should Just Die

Al Sharpton did some great work on Monday's PoliticsNation where he further exposed the politics of cruelty that have possessed the Republican Party.

Republicans want to cut food stamps, believe that kicking people off of unemployment insurance who cannot find a job in an economy where there are 3 people for every available position, and that a particularly evil and twisted version of "Christian faith" justifies punishing and hurting poor people as righteous deeds and acts that mark conservatives as "the elect" who are destined for heaven.

I am not a "Christian". But my understanding of the "historical" Jesus was that he was a man who died fighting State tyranny and would do anything to help the poor, the weak, and the vulnerable. The Tea Party GOP's bastardization of Jesus Christ remakes him into a figure who puts his foot on the throats of the hungry, weak, the vulnerable, and the needy, in order to motivate them into self-sufficiency--or alternatively die from a lack of breath.

For the Tea Party GOP, either outcome is acceptable.

The panoply of Right-wing hypocrites that Al Sharpton calls out, what is a rogues gallery of the cruel and the heartless, are wealthy people who have not taken to heart basic principles such as how noblesse oblige may actually create the social stability necessary to protect the rich while advancing their long-term interests.

I wrote about how the Tea Party GOP wants to kill the "useless eaters" here on We Are Respectable Negroes. I was also fortunate to do an interview on Right of Fire Radio where I explained my argument in more detail.

During that conversation, I made a special effort to "connect the dots" between how the Republican Party's hostility to the poor and working classes is fueled by white racism and an explicit appeal to Eliminationism, i.e that some citizens are worthy of life and others are to be purged and eliminated from the body politic.

[During our annual fundraisers when I talk about how we are doing good work here on We Are Respectable Negroes, and are ahead of the curve on many pressing issues of public concern, Al Sharpton's (and others') echoing of our narratives is just one more example to cite. We are doing something special here on WARN which it matters on a larger scale.]

During his TV segment, Al Sharpton mentioned this heartwrenching piece about a homeless 11-year-old child in New York by the name of Dasani. Her tale of struggle and endurance is both tragic and inspiring. Dasani is a little soldier; Dasani should not have to play such a role in what is ostensibly the world's "richest" country.

America is rotting from within while the very rich smile and gloat. The 1 percent can buy their kids tree houses that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Dasani has to struggle to maintain her dignity while living in the shadow of squalor.

There are no children in Dasani's world. The super rich enjoy an extended childhood and adolescence, one that for many never ends because wealth is ultimately an insulation from the consequences of your choices: thus are the fruits of money and privilege.

The NY Times' story about Dasani and her family is socially responsible and important journalism. The fourth estate should and must do this type of work if it is rehabilitate itself as the watchdog of American democracy. Al Sharpton is to be commended for daring to get close to the truth of how the Republican Party views the working class and the poor as leeches, bums, social parasites, and whose children should be in workhouses or cleaning their schools as janitors.

Yet, The NY Times and Al Sharpton are teasing a harsh reality. Unfortunately, neither are able to state that plain fact for fear of reprisal by the Right-wing noise machine and the corporations which control the American news media. I have no such restrictions.

The Republican Party wants to see 11-year-old children like Dasani and her family die. As viewed by the White Right, they are "untermensch". The language which Republicans and their media use to describe poor, working class, and unemployed people--in particular those who are black and brown--leads to no other reasonable conclusion.

Leeches and parasites are to be destroyed; this is pest control; human leeches and parasites are to be eliminated with even greater expediency.

Little black girls like Dasani are subjected to a social phenomena known as "adultification".

Here, they are not allowed the innocence of childhood or to be vulnerable and in need of help and assistance by majority white society. The White Gaze, especially from the Right, has historically seen black folks as children for the purposes of civic inclusion and democracy (see the GOP's obsession with suggesting that African-Americans are civic children, veritable slaves, on a "Democratic plantation" without agency, as an example). In parallel, black children are seen as adults who can be imprisoned, executed, harassed by police, punished, profiled, expelled, and not allowed their innocence by a criminal justice system or educational system that deems them not allowed the white privilege of youthful error, insecurity, or nurturing.

Moreover, race, class, and gender are inexorably linked in the racial logic and rhetoric of Right-wing (and American) politics. Black women are "welfare queens". Black men, borrowing from Reagan's language, are "strapping young bucks" who use welfare to buy steaks. Because claims about poverty are also claims on morality in American society where the poor "deserve" their fate and have made "bad choices", the myth and cult of meritocracy combines with a centuries-long legacy of white supremacy to further mark and stigmatize children like brave Dasani.

If Sharpton, and The NY Times, were able and willing to offer up the basic and fundamental truth about how Republican rhetoric about poverty and people of color is not "innocent" political gamesmanship or mere bombast, but rather how the Tea Party GOP actually feels about the "useless eaters", they would simply say the following: the American Right-wing wants to see little innocent black girls like Dasani die...or at the very least conveniently disappear.

They are "surplus" people to be eliminated. Why? For conservatives, and those other who adhere to an Ayn Randian culture of cruelty that is intermixed with a a worldview and ideology in which conservatism and racism are one in the same, the sins of the mother and father are passed down to the child. As such, stalwart and strong little girls like Dasani are tainted with "bad culture"--and perhaps even bad genes.

As understood by contemporary Republicans, why should the United States' social safety net support and protect the poor and working classes when American elites can choose to instead enrich the 1 percent, while also continuing to support Wall Street and the Corporateocracy, those who are the "makers" and not the "takers?"

How Can You Resist Sending Them a Thank You Note on My Behalf? A Dollar for WARN's Annual Fundraiser is a Dollar That Raises the Ire of a White Supremacist

I would like to thank the kind people who have donated to We Are Respectable Negroes' annual fundraising drive. Your generosity is so very much appreciated and welcome. It really does encourage me forward in my writing here and elsewhere.

There is no such thing as bad press--to borrow from that cliche and truism. I have been lovingly mentioned by white supremacist websites on more than a few occasions. I also enjoy their literate and inspired hate mail. I use it as a model for my "fun with yellow journalism" essays.

Some of  our white supremacist--they call themselves "race realists"--friends at Mindweapons in Ragnarok were kind enough to show their displeasure towards my post in support of Professor Shannon Gibney and how neoliberalism is using white supremacy to destroy academic freedom while also reshaping American society to the further advantage of the 1%.

Mindweapons in Ragnarok appear to be oblivious to how the global power elite are using the white working class, and ginning up white racial resentment (and likely mobilizing white supremacists and the White Right) against people of color, to advance the former's hold on power and their efforts to further redistribute it upwards to them.

I am a self-interested agent. I love a bit of irony in my trouble-making too. I think it would be great fun if fans of WARN (and those who just like to mock white supremacists more generally) would throw some change into our annual fundraiser and then post a thank you note or quick comment to that end on the website Mindweapons in Ragnarok.

I Have No Particular Emotional Attachment to Nelson Mandela. But, I Wonder if Sixto "Sugar Man" Rodriguez Will Perform at Nelson Mandela's Funeral and How Long Until Republicans Try to Claim That Reagan and Mandela were Allies?

I wonder if Sixto Rodriguez will be given the opportunity to sing a tribute at Nelson Mandela's state funeral? Would be perfect and appropriate, no?

I wonder how long until the American conservative propaganda machine tries to rewrite history so that Reagan and Mandela were allies? In reality, Reagan supported Apartheid South Africa and opposed the movement toward divestment and the efforts by black South Africans to bring down that evil regime. Republicans are feckless in their lies. They have tried to claim Brother Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. Why not go for Mandela too?

I am not a fan of hagiographies. Such as that may be, when a world leader of great importance passes way he or she ought to be allowed that moment.

I understand the importance of Nelson Mandela to global and American racial politics, anti-colonialism, and people's movements. However, I have no particular emotional attachment to Nelson Mandela.

I was thinking about my (non) reaction to Mandela's death during the obligatory public memorializing which occurred yesterday upon the announcement of his passing, and the tears and upsetness shown by some in the commentariat class on TV and elsewhere.

I am solidly a part of what is known as the "hip hop generation".

Like those men who were too young for World War 2 and then too old for Korea, I missed the anti-Apartheid movement because of my generational moment. I remember all of the discussions about Apartheid, watching Mandela being mentioned on The Cosby Show, reading about how students a few years older then me were involved in the American divestment movement, and listening to song lyrics that referenced South Africa's wickedness.

But, I was not politically active. My political consciousness had not yet developed enough to make the connection between the evil of Apartheid and why I should really care enough to spend the personal energy to get involved when their were girls to chase, video games to play, and rumored and unheard of hip hop mixed tapes featuring legendary MC's who were like legendary titans to track down at the corner store and during trips to New York.

In truth, I cried, real sincere tears, when the news broke that early afternoon that the Notorious B.I.G. had been shot and killed. I do not have any tears for Mandela. I doubt that a man of his modesty and dignity cares about how the public chooses to grieve and memorialize him. Funerals are more for the living than they are the dead.

Teach me something if you would.

For those of you who are deeply attached to Mandela, and perhaps who participated in the anti-Apartheid college protests and divestment movement in the United States and elsewhere, how are you feeling in this moment? Is the upsetness about the loss of Mandela or is it more a mourning of a political innocence and youth now in the more distant past because of age?

First the "Knockout Game" and Now This! Unspeakable! Sunny, the Obama Family's Black Racist Dog Attacks Innocent White Child During Holiday Event at the White House

Our annual fundraiser here at We Are Respectable Negroes continues. I would like to thank the kind folks who have already donated.

I do not advertise here at WARN. This is a decision that I have made in order to keep the website free from such encumbrances or obligations. I also do not receive compensation for my writing at the various websites, and other venues, that have featured my work.

Instead, I offer up the twice a year begging bowl that lasts approximately two weeks. If you can find a dollar or two to throw into the Paypal collection, I would be in your debt. My online work is a blessing. It is also work and a labor of love. I appreciate all of you and the support you have given me over the years.

If you like and enjoy the type of work I am trying to do here on WARN, please support our fundraiser if you are able. I try to offer something different and unique in terms of the balance between news analysis, commentary, and entertainment. I doubt you will find pieces such as the following at many other online magazines or news related websites.
  
Readers of We Are Respectable Negroes know that I am fascinated by the rhetorical style and of tone of late 19th and early 20th century American newspapers. The coincidence of the White Right's "knockout game" moral panic, and the Obama's family dog knocking over a white child who was visiting the White House, is too perfect a combination to ignore.
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Our wonderful country, a beacon of civilization and greatness for all of the world is once more under assault! How can she and her people survive being violated at the highest levels of office by a corrupt negro president whose blood pulses and runs with the most befouled and savage blood of deepest darkest Africa while our good and innocent women and honorable men and elderly are run down likes rabbits in the great hunt by the most lowest members of the colored race and its giant negro warriors who howl and bay at the moon like savage werewolves as they see White Civilization as a target for rapine lust which their swollen purple lips utter and vomit out as the so-called "knockout game!"

Never before has a standard so foul flown above a marauding army. The black destroyers are wicked and cruel. They are street pirates more fit for the waterways of the Caribbean or enslaving white women and men off of the Barbary Coast than of polluting America's streets! The negro hobby and sport that is the knockout game is drapetomania unleashed on the good and noble white people of this great nation. It must be stopped!

The bravest truth tellers who embody all the best of the American creed and the power of the free press have trumpeted the black wickedness of the hooga mooga's savage knockout game assault on American civility and decency. The negro cowards pray upon the innocent and the weak. Hopping out of bushes. Attacking in fearsome packs like the driver ants of their colored race's ancestral home in the jungles of African, cutting down and destroying all in their wake without mercy. The knockout game thugs offer no parlay to their victims. Without the honor of even the noble red savage of the Old West, or the feminine races of East Asian, the white toothed black savage attacks any white person they can find!

Intrepid white journalists have documented this catastrophic tsunami of negro violence. Our greatest cities have been overrun by roving bands of black highwayman. New Haven is under assault and its most great institution of higher learning, Yale University, is plagued by this menace. When our best minds are not even allowed peace and protection what will come of our great nation, dragged down by alien blood which has proven itself resistant to all manner and patience at civilizing its impulsive and violent ways?

Beyond the "Knockout Game" and Colin Flaherty's "White Girl Bleed Alot": Know Your Enemies. What Other Books are Popular with White Supremacists on Amazon.com?

We are in the fourth day of our annual fundraiser here at We Are Respectable Negroes. I would like to thank the kind folks who have already thrown some money into the collection bowl. Such gestures are very much appreciated. I am very impressed and touched by them.

I do not advertise here at WARN. Nor, do I receive compensation for my writing at the various websites, and other venues, which have featured my work.

I want to thank the kind donors who have thrown monies into the begging bowl. I also want to thank the good person who sent me an Amazon gift card. How cool! So appreciated.  

Instead, of advertising or hounding folks on a regular basis, I offer up the twice a year begging bowl.

If you like and enjoy the type of work I am trying to do here on WARN, please support our fundraiser if you are able.  

My plan is to end the fundraiser by the end of next week. If folks throw in a dollar or two we can end our pledge drive early. One dollar, two, three, or five all count towards the total. We Are Respectable Negroes in a labor of love. I am driven by your comments, support, and good energy.
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Have you ever gone to a website, and after reading the comments left there by Right-wing trolls, been astounded and shocked by the detachment from reality they have demonstrated?

Do you often wonder if conservatives, the troglodytes and foot soldiers who befoul the comment sections of news websites, are deranged, existing in an alternate reality, one with its own set of facts?

If you have answered "yes", then you have witnessed the power of populist conservatism and its intentional, practiced, and deft ability to manufacture propaganda for the purpose of shaping public policy and public opinion. This has been called "the right-wing noise machine"; it can also be described as "epistemic closure" wherein conservatives are part of a cult and religion, advancing a disinformation campaign that would have impressed the Nazis, Mao, or Stalin.

The moral panic of the "knockout game"--which is still exciting Right-wing types into acts of public political masturbation and race-baiting as seen on Twitter, Fox News, and elsewhere--is an example of this phenomena in practice.

Propaganda is made most effective through repetition, and the creation of an alternative knowledge system that is divorced from the facts--yet, one that is encouraging, validating, and stimulating to its believers.

On issues such as global warming, the economy, healthcare, and the Constitutional divide between church and State, the Right-wing establishment in America (and elsewhere) has created its own "knowledge industry". The information is junk; yet, it has appeal for its audience because such propaganda validates and rewards the ignorance (and activism) of low-information voters who are usually working against their own collective self-interest.

I acknowledge skill, craft, and hustle when I see it. To point. Right-wing "black on white crime reverse racism race hustling" genius Colin Flaherty is "my man in Amsterdam"--to quote the great movie Pulp Fiction.

He is also a snake oil salesman whose seminal text for the Right-wing, White Girl Bleed Alot, has been thoroughly debunked as an example of piss poor research and social scientific endeavor.

However, in conjunction with WorldNetDaily, Flaherty has been able to use his supposed expertise as an "authority" on the national "plague" that is "black crime" for great effect and personal profit.

Most of the stories about the "knockout game", what is really just a tired post Civil War era narrative about he natural criminality of African-Americans, cite his specious work.

White Girl Bleed Alot does not meet the most basic standards of social science research. However, it is damn compelling for those who are already primed to believe in both old fashioned and symbolic racism.

White Supremacy is magical thinking. White Supremacy's magic is made "scientific" by "truth" claims that dishonestly present "statistics" and "facts" in support of its worldview.

[I can imagine the objection. Why criticize a text because of the political ideology of those who choose to buy it? I am old school. If White supremacists cheer on your work, then there is likely something fundamentally flawed about it. If White Supremacists cheer on your work, and a given author does not denounce and rebut them in a substantive way, then said author is likely in bed with those same White Supremacists.]

Knowledge is an output of a larger system.

The philosophical, empirical, and pedagogical priors of this system do intellectual work and buttress claims of "fact" and "science". Moreover, intellectual work and truth claims are based on appeals to expertise and an ability to cite and reference other research as foundational and necessary for advancing and "proving" the "reality" of a given observation.

Footnotes and other types of citations are examples of such practices. White Supremacists try to substantiate their facile lies, which are deceptively couched as truths, in much the same way. The Right-wing noise machine has created a knowledge industry to that end. Comments on websites, especially by conservatives, are often made by professional trolls, bots, and those who are hired by public relation firms to advance the Tea Party GOP agenda.

Those folks who have purchased or clicked on Flaherty's work on websites such as Amazon.com have left a type of intellectual biography in their wake. The comments on the "knockout game" online also reveal the ugly White Supremacist  knowledge machine which is driving the meme.

Reasonable and intelligent people must be careful and suspicious about the appeal and allure of the knockout game meme; it is spurious and silly to us; the racist trope of the knockout game is compelling for many other people.

Consequently, an analysis of the the habits of those people who are trying to develop "expert" knowledge on White Supremacy is very revealing about the bigger political and social agenda at play.

What follows are some of the books purchased by the white racists who also have shown interest in White Girl Bleed Alot.

The well-springs of the weak "factual" claims which serve as the ammunition for a coordinated campaign of cyber racism are readily apparent in the sophistry presented by these "scholarly" works.

• White Apocalypse/Conscience of a Right-Winger, by Kyle Bristow
• Racism Smascism, by James Edwards
• White Identity, by Jared Taylor
• Jihad, by Arthur Kemp
• The Brigade by H.A. Covington
• The Darker Side of Evil Paperback by Andre Nicholas Turner
• Rise of the Black Serial Killer: Documenting a Startling Trend Paperback by Justin Lee Cottrell
• Black Racism, White Victims: Reverse Discrimination, Black-On-White Crime And Other Legal Problems Paperback by John Publius
• The Un-Civil War: BLACKS vs NIGGERS: Confronting the Subculture Within the African-American Community by Taleeb Starkes
• White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century by Jared Taylor

Amazon.com and other booksellers have removed many anti-Semitic texts from their sites. Why do they continue to provide an outlet for anti-black and brown White Supremacist tracts? Why are people of color not treated with the same respect?

What are some other books, articles, and online resources which you have found to be frequented by White Supremacists? Please share those materials so that we can build a reading list that can be shared online with anti-racists and others who want to remove them from the marketplace of ideas.

Semiotics and the Politics of Representation: How Do You Interpret These Images From American Vampire, Boardwalk Empire, and of Female Marines Ready For Combat?

We are in the third day of our annual fundraiser here at We Are Respectable Negroes. I would like to thank the kind folks who have already thrown some money into the collection bowl. Such gestures are very much appreciated. I am very impressed and touched.

I do not advertise here at WARN. Nor, do I receive compensation for my writing at the various websites, and other venues, which have featured my work.

Instead, I offer up the twice a year begging bowl. I am the worst fundraiser ever because I open my hands and ask that after you take care of home, friends, family, pets, and other commitments, that if you can find a dollar or two to throw into the Paypal collection, I would be in your debt. My online work is a blessing. It is also work and a labor of love. I appreciate all of you and the support you have given me over the years.

If you like and enjoy the type of work I am trying to do here on WARN, please support our fundraiser if you are able. Here is something a bit different for We Are Respectable Negroes. I learn so much for all of you. Please teach me something. I am eager to hear from you all.

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As long-time readers of We Are Respectable Negroes know, I am very interested in what popular culture reveals about a given society's political values, norms, beliefs, and order.

Film, TV, music, books, music, graphic novels, art, etc. are insights into our collective subconscious. They all do powerful social and political work precisely because of the unstated assumptions--both by their creators and audience--that come with them.

The fancy term that we use to describe the study of systems of meaning, signs, codes, and how various types of "texts" relate to one another is called semiotics. Semiotics is also concerned with the symbolic power of a text and how its deeper meaning is more important than the surface interpretation.

[I prefer to reduce that very complex and rich concept down to a few questions. In terms of a photograph, what does this image say to you? What is the image communicating to the viewer about society?] 

Images are not neutral. Human beings possess racial and gendered bodies. Images are also products of a given social and political moment: consequently, images reveal to the viewer something about a moment in time (that may or may not be universal).

Individuals read meaning into those images and moments relative to their own social locations and what we as viewers take to be "normal".