I must laugh because I have no more face palm, embarrassment, head-shaking to offer these clowns.
So once more, the Right-wing echo chamber continues to resonate with the "black folks forever getting reparations" meme that the sickness of the Conservative white soul is drunken on.
Consider for the the Right:
1. Welfare was/is framed as reparations for slavery.
2. Health care reform is reparations for slavery.
3. African America farmers winning a billion dollar lawsuit against the USDA for decades of discrimination is reparations for slavery.
4. Obama's election signals a movement to pay black Americans reparations for slavery--even though the President opposes such an initiative as unworkable.
5. In fact, for Beck et al. every policy initiative offered by Obama is somehow connected to reparations for slavery.
6. Now, Michelle Obama's trip to Spain is somehow connected to the transatlantic slave trade, white guilt, and reparations for slavery.
Question: Where the hell is my check?
Second question (especially) for our white allies, reasonable conservatives, and others: People of color are often held accountable for all members of the tribe, when you hear this level of Right-wing
Third question: Do the beaters of the drum that is the Right-wing noise machine have any decency or self-respect? Would they ever make such an allusion to the Holocaust or the genocide of Native Americans?
16 comments:
Haven't they already done number three? Considering how Texas plans to rewrite its textbooks I can imagine given a generation of re-education, you'll hear folks on the right wonder why those lazy Natives get to sit around and do nothing on land they didn't pay for.
As for the Holocaust, doesn't Glenn Beck's constant ludicrous comparison's of Obama to Hitler cheapen the real monster? And what about when the proto-tea party woman at the town hall meeting calls Barney Frank, of Jewish ancestry, a Nazi for supporting the president?
And yes, as a white member of a liberal city (oxymoron?) It's sad to see how reactionary white America really can be.
I'm glad Limbaugh hasn't procreated, but you know, rumor has it there's a reason for that. Beck? Beck will eventually eat his own children. He's just got that Ed Gein look about him. So, yeah, in my semi-official capacity as Some White Guy, I'd say everyone would be lot better off by shipping them off planet, and not necessarily in an airtight canister.
Me? Ally? Never thought about it that way, but OK. If the shit hits the fan, I'll stand with you, Mister D. But first I'd have to punch in the nads for using the word "meme". One of my idiosyncracies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1wcRqDFg6g
I have taught in First nations schools for a number of years and I have had white teachers say to me, thinking it would be cool to spout such shit because I am white and everyone knows we all think alike, "Don't you think they should just get over it?" and "You know they don't HAVE to stay on the rez".
And the Holocaust-well, you have all the right wing holocaust deniers.
Right-wing, Decency and self-respect?? HA! The terms don't belong in the same sentence!!
Jerkoffs who hold all of any group responsible for the actions(good or bad) of one member are ass hats and deserve to hear, from my lips,that they are bigoted ass hays. And many have.
Rush's psychoses seem most intense in regards to race. I think it's because deep down he knows that as a white dude he is privileged, but can't admit it, since that would call his populist narrative into question. To partially answer your question, this inability to acknowledge privilege by claiming that racial minorities are gaming the system is very, very common among whites. I remember two screaming matches I had in college, one with someone who (similar to what an earlier poster said) claimed that Native Americans were sponging off the government on reservations; the other told me that white people were at a disadvantage in American society.
Rush always, ALWAYS insinuates that the system is somehow trying to pay back black people. I still remember his short-lived stint as an NFL analyst when he claimed that pundits said good things about Donovan McNabb because they wanted to see a black quarterback succeed (not because he is by any objective standard one of the best QBs of his generation.) Tom Jackson looked like he was about to throat-punch him, I wish he had.
When I was a kid, older white folks would give the back-handed compliment of 'he's a credit to his race' to non-threatening black men, or those who in general conformed to their desire to see non-whites 'act white' without getting any strange ideas about equality.
And, yes, Rush Limbaugh is a discredit to his race. I think both he and Glenn Beck are getting fatter because they're filling up with the toxic by-products of their hatred, whereas Anne Coulter is becoming leathery and shrivelled as the last vestiges of her humanity wither.
I am getting good and fed up with hearing from Rush about how "hard he's worked." Listen, sitting on your fat ass every day and talking into a microphone, while the flunky dujour runs for your daily dozen danish can in no way be considered work. You are a fat lazy jackass, sir, who wouldn't know real work if it jumped up and bit you in your lazy fat ass.
Let me make a generalization about generalizations..As a Canadian, and speaking for Canadians (first generalization), I don't for the life of me, understand the constant race baiting that goes on in your fair country...what the fuck is wrong with idiots like Rush? The fact that they are uber popular strikes me as a little scarey..
Again, speaking as a Canadian, I actually find American right wingers far more scary than anything else in this world. There is a lesson to be learned from history and the war mongering, race baiting right wingers will surely bring about the destruction of your country if attitudes don't change.
Great blog, first time I have been here...sorry about my spelling..ah, there you go again, another generalization revealed to be true, we Canadians always so sorry...so...sorry bout that.
Canadian who hates hockey, doesn't like cold weather and never says eh...
@Werner Herzog's Bear:
Since I can't stomach Limbaugh, I only hear about his BS as it echoes through the internet. I didn't realize how obsessed he is with race. It makes me wonder what exactly he was doing in the Dominican Republic with viagra and oxycontin. When I lived there, the only fat white guys from the US, Canada and Europe that you saw were having sex with very underage, usually very dark skinned Dominican boys and girls. I wonder if Rush was living out some kind of slave master fantasy, which I assume occupies his fetid psyche.
People of color are often held accountable for all members of the tribe, when you hear this level of Right-wing fucktardness stupidity do you shake your head and say, "damn, we white folk got to do better?"
Non-white males being held accountable for their entire tribe or gender is one of the racist aspects of our culture that has to stop. It's that attitude that leads to reporters wandering around New York on the eve of the Presidential election querying black women as to whether or not they will vote based on their skin pigment or their reproductive organ (with the not-so-sly implication that you can't really be a woman if you don't vote for Palin and you can't really be black if you don't vote for Obama).
So no, I do not think "We white folks have got to do better" when Rush Limbaugh opens his mouth and spews race-baiting ignorance. I think, "Good god, the human race is doomed."
As others have noted upthread, besides Holocaust deniers, right-wingers have often invoked the Holocaust to attack Obama, although almost every attack has been counter-historical and deeply, unintentionally ironic. The eliminationists and bigots are screaming persecution.
With Limbaugh and his crowd, I wonder what else is to be done. Liberals (and other sentient human beings) will call out Limbaugh or someone else on their racism for the umpteenth time. Mainstream tools like Howard Kurtz and Brian Williams (a fan of Limbaugh's) will pretend not to understand the charge. Andrew Breitbart will launch his latest racist, bullshit attack, supposedly in retaliation. ('How dare you point out the bleeding obvious, that some-but-not-all of our astroturf movement is racist!') Liberals will point out that Breitbart's charges are bullshit. Howard Kurtz will peddle another false equivalency, claiming that both sides are equally guilty, and that objecting to Breitbart/Limbaugh's racism is as horrible as their racism. (It's just an honest difference of opinion!) Rinse and repeat.
Limbaugh's audience knows what they're buying. Most of the mainstream press pretends not to. There's virtually nothing that will bar Limbaugh and Breitbart and the rest from respectability – certainly not on the right, and generally not in the corporate news world. Mark Williams is back with some new PAC. None of this means liberals should stop objecting. I just wonder how much it would help if white liberals explicitly said more often 'as a white person I'm ashamed of Limbaugh,' since it's sorta implied already in every critique. But making it more explicit might be appropriate, at least every time Harry Belafonte is asked to justify the actions of some black person somewhere.
Conservative revanchists always emerge, especially in times of cultural change. Demographics are not on their side, but they have plenty of money and power. Maybe the best route is simply to keep calling out the bullshit, and making converts from the undecided. Pointing out the bigotry opposing the Muslim center in New York City, and how it's antithetical to core American values such as Freedom of Religion, ain't a bad cause at the moment. Just my two cents.
This whole thing is such a dilemma. On one hand do you call them out? Or do you you ignore it?
What really worries me is the eliminationist rhetoric. That stuff is scary scary scary. And to boot, as the Right wing's street soldiers get ramped up--those who don't know this is a "game"--they have started killing people. As Tim Wise and others pointed out, if the shoe were reversed and the New Right were black, brown, etc. or even if Lefties, the narrative would be totally different.
Defend to the death Limpaw's right to speak as he does but don't listen to him. His show is a complete waste of your time. Remember, this is a man who could not complete his freshman year of college.
Limbaugh and Beck are liars. Snakes. Even Republicans should reject them as such. I personally cannot stand to listen or watch more than about sixty seconds of their asinine antics before my brain starts to reject my body or my head starts to whap itself against the closest wall. As a white person, I apologize for them. I hate them. I piss on them by embracing all my brown, yellow, red, black, green brothers and sisters.
OC
The Right Wing's way of thinking about Native Americans is:
1. They were the violent ones. The fact that there aren't so many around now as when the white people got here is just a meaningless coincidence.
2. Besides they have casinos now so they should just shut up.
3. They should go back to Mexico.
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