Politics of Hate category archive

Not if the Republican Party can help it!

The King of Outreach.

Here. Nothing to add.

They flock together.

More here.

Noz pokes himself into Peter King’s fantasy world and finds, well, fantasy.

When I walked into the Student Center at my college, that’s how I announced the murders at Kent State to my friends.

It was true then, and it is true now.

Will Bunch considers Kent State’s lasting import.

It resonates until today.

Aside:

I seldom read the comments to his posts.

He seems to have a marvelous capacity for attracting haters.

If you wish to wallow in hate, have at them.

Bill Maxwell on the Republicans and race cards. A nugget:

The irony is that Obama was America’s best hope of finally improving race relations and perhaps having some honest dialogue. That hope has been squandered. From the beginning, Obama has done his best to avoid racial issues. In fact, he’s angered and disappointed many blacks precisely because he hasn’t given them special attention.

In her book, The Obamas, Jodi Kantor writes that a close friend of Obama told her this: “The first black president doesn’t want to give any insight into being the first black president.”

That friend was right. Obama has tried to govern as an American. Conservatives are the ones who play the race card. In his dignified way, Obama is serving as the president of all the people.

Read the rest.

A long time ago, I read this, from the Scholastic Book Club.

Some want us to forget or even to deny.

Do not. Instead . . .

Now I ask you to take a much smaller bit of time to read this, then this.

In the Roanoke Times, retired professor Jim Marchman fears that fear has conquered all.

Fear has become the primary motivational tool throughout our society, employed by politicians seeking to convince us their opponent’s election will result in the end of civilization as we know it and by virtually every piece of electronic or snail mail we get from groups urging us to contribute to their cause to help ward off the evils they believe to be standing at our doorsteps.

Today’s political and social discourse is crippled by fear. Many live in fear that some deranged killer will mow down our children or grandchildren unless we turn our schools and churches into virtual prison camps. Others have been convinced by self-interest groups that, despite constitutional guarantees and Supreme Court rulings, the federal government is intent on taking away all of our guns, even our single-shot .22 rifles.

Read the rest. It’s worth a look.

The reason is simple: fear sells.

Leonard Pitts, Jr:

“Trust us,” says the South. And the whole weight of history demands a simple question in response.

Why?

One of the tactics of bigotry, in addition to the obvious over-the-top ones, is the little, repetitive chipping away at the dignity, even at the personhood and individuality, of others. Bill Maxwell poses the question:

What prevents a white male from simply asking: “Good evening, sir, what can I do for you?” What compels him to use “boss” or “boss man” or “buddy” or “bud” or “chief”? I often stand aside to observe how the white clerk who just called me “boss man” treats white male customers. In almost every instance, the whites are called “sir.”

Read the rest. Learn to recognize the vocabulary.

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

Chancey Devega on race and Republicanism:

Obama’s election, and the demographic changes associated with it, i.e. the oft-discussed “browning of America,” have been a political enema for the Right. As such, the presence of a black man and his family in The White House has brought to the surface what were thinly disguised–and apparently quite deep–veins of bigotry, xenophobia, and intolerance on the part of the Tea Party GOP.

Michael Tesler details this nicely. His article contrasts “OFR” or “old fashioned racism” (the belief in the inherent biological inferiority of non-whites) with modern racism (a belief that blacks are “culturally” deficient and lack the “American values” of hard work, civic duty, and loyalty) and how the former has returned to prominence in the Age of Obama.

The old school is the new school (again)…it would seem that political fashion is cyclical.

Read the rest.

Delaware Liberal reports on “The Unpermitted.”

Also, the comments.

My two or three long-time readers will remember Milford as where I took to the pictures of the C-5As.

Words fail me.

Addendum:

The signs came down.

Not wanting anyone to be left out, a Wisconsin Republican is now waging war on Kwanzaa.

Full Disclosure:

I used to look down on Kwanzaa as a “made-up” holiday until I realized that

• it is benign and positive, and
• all holidays are made up, that is, created by society.

They may be created to commemorate (Christmas, Fourth of July), honor (President’s Day, Martin Luther King Day), or promote* (Arbor Day, Flag Day) something, but they are societal creations.

Disparaging Kwanzaa says nothing about Kwanzaa, but much about the disparager.

____________________

*Too often, sales of greeting cards, but that’s another topic.

In a long article, Leonard Pitts, Jr., explored the history of race as a social concept.

Contrary to what you and I were taught, the idea of different races based on color is relatively new, about 300 to 400 years old.

Slavery had existed for centuries, but historically was a result of conquest or indebtedness (sort of the ultimate late payment penalty). Quite coincidentally, no doubt, the birth of the concept of an immutable characteristic called “race,” which confers superiority on some and inferiority on others in perpetuity, coincides with the growth of chattel slavery–the belief that some persons are destined by heredity to be owned and exploited, like cattle, forever.

A nugget:

Says (Temple University Professor Matt–ed.) Wray, “It has enabled in the United States for us to justify and legitimate the conquest of Indian land and the near genocide of Native American tribes. It enabled us for such a long time to justify slavery and when we got done with that justification, when people called B.S. on that, we said, ‘Well, this is how we can explain Jim Crow.’ When the Civil Rights Movement happens in the 1950s and ’60s, when African Americans rise up and say, ‘Enough Jim Crow,’ then we use it to justify mass incarceration of black Americans. We find the idea of race and inherent racial differences and the idea that some people are frankly, just better than others, to be indispensible.”

Read it.

Congressman Steve King (R-Cloud Cuckoo Land) sent me a letter asking me to support his campaign to make English the official language of the United States.

Straight to the round file.

Not. Nice. People.

Via C&L.

Dick Destiny profiles the troubadour of WhiteManistan.