February, 2011 archive

Bill Maxwell comments on cultural baggage and double standards at the St. Petersburg Times. A nugget:

Although baggage is universal, the baggage of select groups is judged to be superior to others. Some are treated gingerly, even reverently. Others, such as that of blacks born and reared in America, get no respect. As I have said, we African-Americans are constantly admonished to get rid of our baggage, to “get over” our history.

I do not know of another group in this country whose history is viewed so cavalierly as being disposable.

Paradoxically, many white Southerners, even while channeling the defeated “Forget, Hell!” baggage of their slave-owning forebears, lead the drumbeat in telling the offspring of slaves to “move on” and forget all those generations of being human chattel.

Southerners, along with many Republicans nationwide, are not alone in rejecting black traits and patterns . . . .

He goes on to limp to what I find a weak, though not necessarily invalid, conclusion, arguing that President Obama’s victory in the presidential election resulted from his not showing signs of “black cultural baggage.”

I say “weak” because his discussion does not take into account the significant portion of the population which clearly rejects President Obama solely because he is not-white, those who cannot get past his not-white-ness to notice what he actually believes, says, and does.

See this column by Dick Polman; Polman was discussing voters’ willful ignorance, not race, but racial bigotry clearly forms part of the backdrop to the incidents he describes.

Bob Cesca details the Republican War against women in their attacks on Planned Parenthood. A nugget:

Why are Mike Pence (R–Barefoot and Pregnant–ed.) and the Republicans against women receiving cancer screenings and affordable oncological treatment?

Why is New Jersey governor Chris Christie against this? Christie vetoed a spending bill that would have funded non-abortion services for women via organizations including Planned Parenthood. Non-abortion services. Again, here’s the gist of the bill: “The bill, proposed by Democrat lawmakers in New Jersey, would have included funding for Pap smears, counseling, and other non-abortion services provided by the non-profit organization.” The bill would have cost the state just $1.1 million. A small price to pay for the health of lower-income and disadvantaged women in New Jersey.

Thoreau points out the, as regards international events, the world does not revolve around Foggy Bottom, nor should it. An excerpt:

The US government is, to be blunt, the bad guy here. The US government has spent decades propping up a dictator, giving him weapons, and sending people to his torture chambers under the name of “rendition.” If the Egyptians put in place a government that has no interest in playing games and doing favors for the government that sponsored their oppressor for decades, well, that’s what people with self-respect do, you know? Frankly, the primary question that any decent person should care about is whether the next Egyptian government will be brutal or humane towards Egyptians, and the next most important question is whether the next Egyptian government will be brutal or humane toward other people as well.

He has a point.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., takes a look at the current legislative proposals in Arizona to penalize persons for looking foreign (as long as “foreign” does not include “Canadian”). A nugget:

For all that, the most striking thing about the Arizona proposals — and CNN reports that 40 other states are weighing similar measures — is not their overreach but their shrill incoherence. It is worth noting that this is the 25th anniversary of an actual immigration amnesty signed into law by none other than President Ronald Reagan.

That this icon of conservatism would, like Bush, find himself so strikingly out of step with his followers today testifies eloquently to how strident, nonsensical and unpragmatic this debate has become. Rather than offer workable solutions, lawmakers are busy outlawing ethnic studies classes, requiring Latinos to carry papers like Jews in prewar Germany, decrying anchor babies and other boogeymen, competing to prove who can be toughest on dirt poor Mexicans, rousing the rabble in their xenophobic righteousness.

This is not statesmanship. It is not serious policymaking. It is not even adult.

It is a temper tantrum, the incoherent bawling of those who see fundamental demographic change coming and like it not one bit. They scream in the face of an incoming wave. But the wave comes just the same.