NOTESFrom John Eric Williams: Racial bigotry expressed in disguised forms is called covert racism as opposed to overt racism where racial bigots openly express their aversive sentiments towards racialized “others.” Sometimes the covert racist is not even aware of the fact that he/she is racially bigoted. Because it is now unacceptable to express openly racist views, European American racial bigotry has morphed into a systemic process of oppression that is less overt, far more subtle, and less identifiable in terms of specific individuals committing the hateful acts. Since systemic racism operates as an established and respected force in America, it receives far less public condemnation than openly expressed bigoted acts. Saltsman’s racial political “satire” — Barack The Magic Negro — is a compelling example of covert systemic racism in that political officials widely deplored Saltsman’s individual act of bigotry — at least in words but remain mum about the systemic racism that keep racialized “others” in poor health, jobless, disenfranchised and so on. [ READ MORE ]
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Rethinking Racism: What the right wants us to forget is that race relations are rooted in systems, and that not all racism is individual, intentional and overt. Individual bias plays a role, to be sure, but it’s the institutional rules, written and unwritten, that enable such racism, not the other way around. You can’t “heal” a system; you have to rebuild it. [ READ MORE ]
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Partners in Crime: Fox News Figures Aided & Abetted Breitbart’s Racial Deception
Pattern of Deception: Fox News’ History of Teaming Up With the Disgraced Andrew Breitbart
The End of Andrew Breitbart’s Credibility
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Fox News’ Partnership with RACIST Mark Williams and the Tea Party Express
Fox News and the Willie Hortonization of Barack Obama
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Roger Ailes‘ History of Race-Baiting Has Been Transformed into — Fox,
A Racist, Biased, Extortionist Republican Political Operation.
[CLICK PLAYLIST FOR MENU]
Striking his patented tone of arrogant, bombastic victimhood, Limbaugh sought to portray his ownership bid as an urgent matter of great historic importance to the nation. “This is not about the NFL, it’s not about the St. Louis Rams, it’s not about me,” he bellowed on his show, hours before being sacked. “This is about the ongoing effort by the left in this country, wherever you find them, in the media, the Democrat Party, or wherever, to destroy conservatism, to prevent the mainstreaming of anyone who is prominent as a conservative. Therefore, this is about the future of the United States of America and what kind of country we’re going to have.” — Eugene Robinson (Washington Post)
Rush Limbaugh, whose occupational practice is making white people comfortable within their own prejudices, has been sacked from the NFL permanently.
The bigoted SHIT-THROWER will not part-own the St. Louis Rams or any other NFL team for that matter, unless America becomes more racist in the near future or the 75 percent blackness in the player roster dwindles to something like forty percent, whichever comes first.
The owners know damn well who oils their money churning machines — strong, young black men — just like it was in the southern plantations, during slavery. The difference from then, is that — in these times, black men get paid for their sweat, even while the white man still gets a much larger share of the whole pie.
That said, things are a lot fairer for the black man — on the football field. So, when Rush FAT Limbaugh signed on to become an owner with a PLANTATION MENTALITY, he was kicked to the curb unceremoniously.
No rich FAT owner was going to let Rush SHIT in the honey-pot!
Said Roger Goodell, the white NFL Commissioner: “The comments that Rush made about Donovan [McNabb] I disagree with very strongly. [They were] polarizing comments that we don’t think reflect accurately on the NFL or our players and I obviously do not believe that those comments are positive and are divisive. I disagree with those comments very strongly and I’ve told the players that.” “We’re all held to a high standard here and divisive comments are not what the NFL’s all about,” added Goodell. “I would not want to see those kind of comments from people who are in a responsible position in the NFL, no. Absolutely not.”
The right-wing MEDIA RESEARCH CENTER sent out an ALERT SPECIAL!, complete with a 21 page PDF souvenir….LYING to extort money from its gullible and “BIGOT JUICED UP”IDIOT Republican followers. LOL!
Note:We Have Added Videos and Links To Refute Media Research Center’s LIES.
——————————————————————————– MRC Alert Special: ‘Character Assassination Campaign Against Rush Limbaugh’
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***Media Research Center Special***
4:05pm EDT, Thursday October 15, 2009 Special Report.“A Rush to Ruin: The Left’s Character Assassination Campaign Against Rush Limbaugh”
In the wake of leftist activists, including those disguised as journalists and sports columnists, using fabricated quotes to smear Rush Limbaugh as a racist in order to successfully torpedo his effort to be part of a group making a bid to buy the NFL’s St. Louis Rams, the MRC updated a previously un-released special report documenting the long-record of scurrilous media attacks against Limbaugh. Below is the executive summary of the report compiled by the MRC’s Tim Graham. We are working to get the HTML version, with videos, online; but we do have up a PDF of the 20-page collection of evidence. The MRC’s Melanie Selmer created the cover.
Legendary talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh recently joined a group seeking to purchase the National Football League’s St. Louis Rams, which spurred the latest attempt by the American left-wing media to destroy Limbaugh, or at the very least marginalize him as an extremist — and, they hope, marginalize the millions of American conservatives who agree with him and enjoy his radio show. Some have even wished on national television that he would die or be killed — including Chris Matthews on MSNBC on October 13. Last year, HBO’s Bill Maher publicly wished he had “croaked” from a drug overdose.
Almost from the beginning of his nationally syndicated radio show in 1988, Limbaugh has exposed the worst in journalists who are supposed to honor fairness and accuracy. Even today, with Obama and the Democrats numerically dominating Washington, the leftist media portray Limbaugh not as a commentator, but as a clear and present danger who must be curtailed.
Racist Rant On Obama
Increasingly, the Left is acting on the principle that the ends justify the means. Anything goes in an attempt to demonize Limbaugh — even the basics of Journalism 101. Obvious distortion and even outright fabrications are being used in this campaign to ruin Limbaugh. The Media Research Center has repeatedly exposed how the media’s loathing of Limbaugh has led to vicious incivility and utter recklessness with basic facts. The leftwing media’s character assassination campaign against Limbaugh falls into three categories:
# Vicious Personal Attacks: While journalists fiercely chronicle and protest the most obscure mockeries of Barack Obama, these supposed guardians of civility have insulted Rush Limbaugh as a “troll under the bridge,” a “human vat of vitriol,” and a “car-wreck-quality spectacle.” Limbaugh’s admission of an addiction of Oxycontin in 2003 wasn’t an occasion for media compassion, as most addicts receive, but a chance for anchormen to declare they were wearing a “permanent smirk.” Journalists even assigned Limbaugh’s “anti-government” rhetoric as a cause behind the bombing of an Oklahoma City federal building in 1995.
# Distortions of Limbaugh’s Quotes: “News” reporters have often deliberately twisted Limbaugh’s words in TV interviews and radio routines beyond recognition. Limbaugh’s declaration that he wanted President Obama’s liberal policies to fail was presented as Limbaugh wanting the nation to fail. They mangled Limbaugh’s politically incorrect parodies, like the song “Barack the Magic Negro,” in which an Al Sharpton impersonator sings about how Barack Obama isn’t an authentic black. It didn’t matter than the parody was based on a black film critic’s Los Angeles Times article titled “Obama the Magic Negro.” Some journalists even compared Limbaugh to Sister Souljah, a rapper who suggested after the Los Angeles riots in 1992 that the country needed “a week to kill white people.”
Limbaugh’s Racist Song for Obama, Barack the Magic Negro
Limbaugh Defending Barack the Magic Negro
# Outright Falsehoods and Fabrications: When leftist authors and bloggers circulated fabricated Limbaugh quotes, “news” networks and columnists picked them up without giving the slightest appearance of checking for an air date or an audio clip. Opponents of Limbaugh’s Rams bid are currently claiming Limbaugh said the slavery of blacks “had its merits,” and even claiming that Limbaugh praised James Earl Ray, the convicted assassin of Martin Luther King. Supposedly professional cable networks used empty, undated citations like “Rush Limbaugh On The Radio” (CNN) and even sourced a linebacker: “Cited by James Farrior, Pittsburgh Steelers” (MSNBC). In 2007, the liberal media and Democrats in Congress rose up as one and claimed Limbaugh said that soldiers speaking in the media against America’s wars were “phony soldiers,” when Limbaugh was referring to men who made false claims of serving abroad.
Liberal media figures suggest it is a national injustice that Limbaugh has the popularity and influence that he has when his words are so vicious. But while they suggest he needs to be marginalized by the media and the Republican establishment, their coverage and analysis and mockery of Limbaugh has crossed every line of civility and now shows contempt for the elementary rules of evidence.
Racism Is the Prime Cause for Debunked Obama Birth Certificate Conspiracy Theory. The attacks on Sotomayor, the hysteria over Obama’s criticism of the Cambridge police, and the persistent rumors about Obama’s origins seem symptomatic of something larger, something that is "the culmination of centuries of ingrained privilege and hegemonic control." A person of color running the country … is psychologically debilitating to white folks who all their lives have internalized notions of entitlement and superiority." Given how deep such notions of entitlement and superiority can run, it’s hard to know to what degree the birthers are fully conscious of the racist impulses behind their crazy allegations — or whether they are in such denial that they actually believe their own bullshit.
[ By: Liliana Segura ] By now, everyone has heard of the "birthers," that rabid crop of self-appointed patriots who insist that Barack Hussein Obama is not a legitimate president because he is not really an American citizen. What was once a nasty little rumor in the early days of the residential race has since evolved into a full-blown conspiracy theory whose proponents, though "viewed as irrelevant by the White House, and as embarrassing by much of the Republican Party, "in the words ofPolitico‘s Ben Smith, nonetheless enjoy increasingly high-profile political support, and media coverage 9/11 "truthers"could only dream of.
The birthers’ conspiracy theory — which holds that Obama was born in Kenya, despite all evidence to the contrary — has long been debunked. The Obama camp released a copy of his birth certificate as early as June of last year (although that only seemed to fan the flames). Yet, last week the "birthers" became big news again, after a video emerged showing Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE) confronted at a town hall meeting by a woman who angrily accused him of being complicit in the cover-up of Obama’s true origins. Castle, who is commonly labeled a "moderate Republican" — and whose subsequent remark would earn him the label "RINO American Traitor" in some corners of the internet — seemed genuinely perplexed. "Well I don’t know what comment that invites," he said, to a chorus of boos. "If you’re referring to the president, then he is a citizen of the United States."
The video of Castle’s unfortunate run-in with the birthers hit YouTube and went viral. MSNBC put the clip on heavy rotation; "Hardball" host Chris Matthews devoted multiple segments to the topic; On CNN and on his radio show, sneering nativist Lou Dobbs fanned the flames with such remarks as, "What is the deal here? I’m starting to think we have … a document issue," and on Larry King, Dick Cheney’s increasingly vocal daughter, Liz, shared her highly unempirical view that "one of the reasons you see people so concerned about this" is that "people are uncomfortable with having for the first time ever … a president who seems so reluctant to defend the nation overseas." By midweek, Jon Stewart had lampooned the birthers and their media allies on Comedy Central, a move that, given his recent distinction as the new "most trusted man in news," might have spelled the death of the birthers.
Of course, it hasn’t.
This week alone, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) was quoted as saying they may "have a point," while the fourth-highest ranking member of the House, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) said she’d "like to see the documents." Meanwhile, an attempt by Hawaii Democrat Rep. Neil Abercrombie to pass a resolution to commemorate his state’s 50th anniversary (while also proclaiming the state as President Obama’s birthplace) was temporarily blocked by Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann on Monday, only to pass a few hours later.
By now it seems everyone has put in their two cents (and then some) about the birthers. But while most media coverage has treated them as incurable wackjobs pushing a conspiracy theory to be classified alongside the moon landing "hoax" (40 years old last week!) and the (considerably larger) group of Americans who believe 9/11 was an inside job, the "truth" of Obama’s birth seems to fall into a slightly different category. Like all conspiracy theories, it springs from the fertile soil of collective denial. Unlike all conspiracy theories, it thrives on a deep-rooted, racist belief: that a black man with a foreign name could never have won the presidency in the United States through anything other than trickery, deception, or fraud.
"If Barack Obama was an Irish American or a Polish American or a German American, there would be no discussion anywhere in this country about his citizenship," radio host E. Steven Collins told Chris Matthews on Thursday, in response to his fellow guest, deranged right-winger and Nixon Watergate operative G. Gordon Liddy, whose own attempt to defend the birthers should mark a low point, even for his career. "This is because many people in this nation cannot still accept the fact that a brilliant African-American is the commander-in-chief."
The Sad Reality of The Tea-Parties and Janeane Garofalo
Tim Wise, author of Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama, puts this in perspective: "When [Arnold] Schwarzenegger became governor, there were people who were saying,’hey we should amend the constitution to allow people who are naturalized citizens to maybe run for president."
"Although that didn’t go anywhere — and my guess is that the ‘birthers’ who are doing this crap with Obama probably wouldn’t have been real keen on that idea — notice that there was no groundswell of anger and opposition."
It’s the Racism, Stupid!
Perhaps it is too obvious to say that the birthers’ insistence on Obama’s illegitimacy is based on racism. Even so, why isn’t this collective racism at the heart of the "debate"?
"That’s one of the problems with this so-called post-racial era that we’re in," says Wise. "White folks in particular — and some folks of color — are very quick to avoid that angle at all costs, lest they be accused of somehow being the ones who are somehow racist in some way or who are thinking in racial terms."
After all, Americans have seen what happens when people of color dare to suggest that the country is anything but perfect: they are ruthlessly attacked. Take the rage over Michelle Obama’s remark during the presidential campaign that "for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country," which was treated as unpatriotic hate speech. Or the controversy prompted by Eric Holder’s remark that we are a "nation of cowards" when it comes to race.
Or, more recently, the ugly backlash against Obama’s (considerably mild) remark that a judge should have a capacity for "empathy" and an understanding of "people’s hopes and struggles." "Usually that’s a code word for an activist judge," Sen. Orrin Hatch told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week, a line that became a rallying cry against Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. ("I will not vote for, and no senator should vote for, an individual nominated by any president who believes it is acceptable for a judge to allow their personal background, gender, prejudices or sympathies to sway their decision in favor of or against parties before the court," Alabama Senator Jeff Sessionsproclaimed at the confirmation hearing.) In the end, the obsessive harping over Sotomayor’s "wise Latina" remark and right-wing accusations that she is a "reverse racist" because of her ruling in Ricci v. DeStefano (otherwise known as the Connecticut firefighters case) hijacked her confirmation hearing.
In fact, no sooner was the latest "birther" story gaining ground last week than we saw this same phenomenon on full display with a new controversy: the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. In an unguarded moment, Obama dared to say what might have seemed pretty obvious to even the most superficially race-conscious: the Cambridge police, "acted stupidly" by handcuffing Gates in his own home, particularly given the "long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately." Obama’s comment became national news; the networks seized on it, the blogosphere went wild, and by Friday afternoon, Obama had backtracked, issued a qualified apology, and invited the arresting officer, Sgt. Jim Crowley, to the White House for a beer.
"There’s a bizarre tendency, every time a person of color criticizes white folks — or just white racism — to say ‘that’s racism,’" says Wise. "So, by that logic, Rev. Jeremiah Wright is a racist, Barack Obama is a racist, Sonia Sotomayor is a racist … Meanwhile, people like Pat Buchanan, who say Sonia Sotomayor is unqualified or that white people built the country and are basically entitled to 100 percent of everything — they’re not racist."
The attacks on Sotomayor, the hysteria over Obama’s criticism of the Cambridge police, and the persistent rumors about Obama’s origins seem symptomatic of something larger, something Wise believes is "the culmination of centuries of ingrained privilege and hegemonic control."
Even it you are not yourself in a position of power, "… if you’ve gotten used to seeing people who look like you in almost every position of authority," he says, "to then have to wake up every day and see a man of color basically running the country … is psychologically debilitating to white folks who all their lives weren’t necessarily bigots or racists in any overt sense, but had simply gotten complacent with the way things were. They had internalized these notions of entitlement and superiority."
Given how deep such notions of entitlement and superiority can run, it’s hard to know to what degree the birthers are fully conscious of the racist impulses behind their crazy allegations — or whether they are in such denial that they actually believe their own bullshit.
White Hegemony Challenged
To explain the devastating effect of Obama’s presidency on those ordinary Americans who were quite happy with their white privilege, thank you, Wise quotes W.E.B. DuBois’s concept of "the psychological wage of whiteness."
"A lot of white folks don’t have much. They’re struggling, they’re hurting, but they’ve been able to content themselves with the idea that at least they’re not black," Wise says.
"So they get this psychological wage from their whiteness. The problem is, that’s a wage which is diminishing in value. If you say to yourself, ‘Well I may not have much, but at least I’m not black,’ and then you look around and say, ‘Shit, Black is the new president!’ — now the value of your psychological wage is reduced in real dollar terms. Now you’ve got nothing."
In Wise’s view, "The people who latch on to the birther stuff (working class and struggling middle class whites) aren’t any more racist than elite white folks, but their way of expressing it is so much more raw and visceral, because: a) they may not have the filter that you get when you’re elite (you sort of know when to check yourself), but also because they’re the ones who feel the most threat."
Of course, white elites have their own fears over the erosion of white hegemony — and not just televised bigots like Pat Buchanan. For a real measure of the panic over their own supremacy, a prime example is the growing number of elected officials who are pandering to — and emboldening — the birthers, not just by paying them lip service, but actually introducing legislation based on their outlandish claims.
This past February, Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) introduced a bill that would require presidential candidates to provide a copy of his or her birth certificate. (Posey has been widely quoted as saying he "can’t swear on a stack of Bibles whether [Obama's] a citizen or not.") As David Weigel recently wrote in the Washington Independent, "While Posey initially said that he disbelieved conspiracy theories about the president’s birth, he told the host of an Internet radio show that he’d discussed the possibility of Obama being removed from office over ‘the eligibility issue’ with ‘high-ranking members of our Judiciary Committee.’"
According to Weigel, who has covered the birthers extensively, "as of July 15, nine fellow Republican members of Congress were backing the bill."
"While Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas) has said that he supports the bill because he didn’t know whether Obama was a citizen, other sponsors say that they weighed in to pour cold water on the conspiracy theories."
One such sponsor is Rep. John Campbell, a California Republican, who parroted this dubious claim in an interview with Chris Matthews on July 21st.
"Wouldn’t you like to put all this to rest?" Campbell asked. "That’s what this proposal is about." ("Nice try," Matthews responded.)
MATTHEWS: No, no. You are feeding the wacko wing of your party. Do you believe that Barack Obama is a legitimate native-born American or not?
CAMPBELL: That is not what this bill is about, Chris.
MATTHEWS: No, what do you believe?
CAMPBELL: As far as I know, yes, OK?
MATTHEWS: As far as you know?
CAMPBELL: Yes.
Campbell and his ilk may be an embarrassment to more "respectable" and powerful members of the Republican party. But they have more in common than they would like to admit.
"It appears to me that the Republican party, because of the choices it has made — going back 40 years or more — on policy positions have guaranteed that they were destined to be, at the end of the day, the white nationalist party," says Wise.
When "your budget-cut philosophy is about cutting programs that are perceived as helping ‘those people’, your attacks on affirmative action are very clear, your attacks on busing are very clear, all your law and order stuff … when you sow those seeds for several decades, you ought not be surprised when a whole crop of people who have grown up with that — that’s what they’re about now."
Take the new chair of the Young Republicans — a 38-year-old woman named Audra Shay. She recently came under fire when she was caught cosigning a racist Facebook post that read "Obama Bin Lauden [sic] is the new terrorist … Muslim is on there side [sic] … need to take this country back from all of these mad coons … and illegals."
Shay’s reply: "You tell em Eric! lol."
From "Barack the Magic Negro"; to e-mails depicting watermelons in front of the White House, to, most recently, a conservative activist’s circulation of an image of Obama as a witch doctor, incidents like these are as ubiquitous now as they were during the presidential campaign. And the people yelling "terrorist" at Sarah Palin rallies or those informing John McCain that Obama is "an Arab" have not gone away. Mainstream Republicans who wish to look respectable may want to distance themselves from this "lunatic fringe," but as representatives of a party largely built on structural racism, this is a very real part of their base.
In order for the GOP to survive, says Wise, Republicans are going to have to somehow bring in more minorities — a task that would require a fundamental revamping of the Republican identity and agenda — or "they’re gonna have to start making a lot of babies."
"I don’t think the Republican party ever thought they could get a lot of black folks," Wise says. "But they thought they could get Latinos. And the reason they thought so was because of this ridiculous and fundamentally racist naivete that said, ‘Well, Latinos are family-oriented so they’ll be against abortion.’ If you don’t think white folks are that one dimensional how can you think Latinos are so one-dimensional? Well of course you can — if you’re a racist."
For a number of people, the Sotomayor confirmation hearings were a sign that the Republicans are no longer particularly set on attracting "the Latino vote," something that might make the Pat Buchanans in the party smile, but which will ultimately prove costly for the GOP as a whole. As the country’s demographics evolve, the party that brought us the Willie Horton ads in the ’80s will have to evolve too. And so will white Americans who continue to insist on blaming their problems on people of color.
"The birther stuff to me is part of the same narcissistic breakdown that is at the heart of every e-mail I get from a college kid or that college kid’s parents who say, ‘I couldn’t get enough financial aid because they’re giving all the scholarships to black people,’" says Wise. "This narcissism is especially evident when you watch such hateful right-wing media buffoons as Rush Limbaugh — who supports the birthers — and "who are just becoming totally unglued."
"On the one hand it’s funny," says Wise. "On the other hand it’s really frightening, because people when they’re in that sort of meltdown mode don’t make good decisions and do really crazy things." Take James W. Von Brunn, the white supremacist — and "birther" himself — who shot and killed a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in June.
It would be pushing it to see the birthers phenomenon is a sign that white hegemony is nearing its last throes. However, "one really positive thing about Obama’s presidency in regards to race" says Wise, is that "its created this nuttiness on the part of a lot white folks who have always been thinking this stuff but they just haven’t been as bold with it."
"At some point it will become increasingly difficult for those who like to deny racism as a problem to continue completely burying their heads."
"At some point, people will have to say, maybe black folks aren’t the crazy ones. Maybe it’s not the folks of color who have lost their minds. Maybe it’s you."
One SHEEP got up on its hind-legs and punched Rush Limbaugh in the mouth.
Pam Spaulding Writes: OMG. Has the dam finally burst? Is this a sign that conservatives are completely embarrassed by All Powerful Head of the GOP Rush “Oxy” Limbaugh? You know, the guy who said PM Gordon Brown will get “anal poisoning” for complimenting President Obama? Mr. Entertainment who played “Barack the Magic Negro?” The radio show host has become so desperate and hateful that he’s not just playing the opposition role, he’s damaging his own movement. But apparently he’s still getting strokes from his dittoheads, and weak GOP elected officials and party honchos continue to be afraid of this bastard. Well, one caller has just had enough of this toxic blowhard. [ READ MORE ]
Fringe right-wingers are still clinging to anti-immigration absolutism. Americans want immigration solved, and they realize that mass deportations will not do that. When you add the unprecedented engagement of growing numbers of Latino voters in 2008, it becomes clear that the nativist path is the path to permanent political irrelevance. Unless you can find a way to get rid of all the Latinos. — New York Times
The relentlessly harsh Republican campaign against immigrants has always hidden a streak of racialist extremism. Now after several high-water years, the Republican tide has gone out, leaving exposed the nativism of fringe right-wingers clinging to what they hope will be a wedge issue.
Last week at the National Press Club in Washington, a group seeking to speak for the future of the Republican Party declared that its November defeats in Congressional races stemmed not from having been too hard on foreigners, but too soft.
The group, the American Cause, released a report arguing that anti-immigration absolutism was still the solution for the party’s deep electoral woes, actual voting results notwithstanding. Rather than “pander to pro-amnesty Hispanics and swing voters,” as President Bush and Karl Rove once tried to do, the report’s author, Marcus Epstein, urged Republicans to double down on their efforts to run on schemes to seal the border and drive immigrants out.
This is nonsense, of course. For years Americans have rejected the cruelty of enforcement-only regimes and Latino-bashing, in opinion surveys and at the polls. In House and Senate races in 2008 and 2006, “anti-amnesty” hard-liners consistently lost to candidates who proposed comprehensive reform solutions. The wedge did not work for single-issue xenophobes like Lou Barletta, the mayor of Hazleton, Pa., or the former Arizona Congressman J. D. Hayworth. Nor did it help any of the Republican presidential candidates trying to defeat the party’s best-known voice of immigration moderation, John McCain, for the nomination.
Americans want immigration solved, and they realize that mass deportations will not do that. When you add the unprecedented engagement of growing numbers of Latino voters in 2008, it becomes clear that the nativist path is the path to permanent political irrelevance. Unless you can find a way to get rid of all the Latinos.
What was perhaps more notable than the report itself was the team that delivered it. It included Bay Buchanan, former adviser to Representative Tom Tancredo and sister of Pat, who founded the American Cause and wrote “State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America.” She was joined by James Pinkerton, an essayist and Fox News contributor who, as an aide to the first President Bush, took credit for the racist Willie Horton ads run against Michael Dukakis.
So far, so foul. But even more telling was the presence of Peter Brimelow, a former Forbes editor and founder of Vdare.com, an extremist anti-immigration Web site. It is named for Virginia Dare, the first white baby born in the English colonies, which tells you most of what you need to know. The site is worth a visit. There you can read Mr. Brimelow’s and Mr. Buchanan’s musings about racial dilution and the perils facing white people, and gems like this from Mr. Epstein:
“Diversity can be good in moderation – if what is being brought in is desirable. Most Americans don’t mind a little ethnic food, some Asian math whizzes, or a few Mariachi dancers – as long as these trends do not overwhelm the dominant culture.”
It is easy to mock white-supremacist views as pathetic and to assume that nativism in the age of Obama is on the way out. The country has, of course, made considerable progress since the days of Know-Nothings and the Klan. But racism has a nasty habit of never going away, no matter how much we may want it to, and thus the perpetual need for vigilance.
It is all around us. Much was made of the Republican mailing of the parody song “Barack the Magic Negro,” but the same notorious CD included “The Star Spanglish Banner,” a puerile bit of Latino-baiting. It is easily found on YouTube. Google the words “Bill O’Reilly” and “white, Christian male power structure” for another YouTube taste of the Fox News host assailing the immigration views of “the far left” (including The Times) as racially traitorous.
Racist SCUMBAG Bill O’Reilly:“They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you’re a part, and so am I, and they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically break down the structure that we have. In that regard, Pat Buchanan is right. So I say you’ve got to cap with a number.”
White-Supremacists on TV — Sanctioned Immigrant Hate-Mongering on Cable
And it takes only a cursory look at a worsening economic climate and grim national mood to realize that history is always threatening to repeat itself. Last week on Long Island, the authorities in Suffolk County unsealed new indictments against a group of teenage boys accused in a murderous attack against an Ecuadorean immigrant, Marcelo Lucero. Since that crime last year, many more victims have come forward with stories of assaults in or near the same town, Patchogue. The police in that suburb seem to have made a habit of ignoring a long and escalating trail of attacks against immigrant men, until the hatred rose up and spilled over one night, fatally. | Originally posted in NYTimes.com |
By now, everyone has heard of the "birthers," that rabid crop of self-appointed patriots who insist that Barack Hussein Obama is not a legitimate president because he is not really an American citizen. What was once a nasty little rumor in the early days of the residential race has since evolved into a full-blown conspiracy theory whose proponents, though "viewed as irrelevant by the White House, and as embarrassing by much of the Republican Party, "
