Oh, The Humanity!

Reproduced from the philly.com website, 12-29-11, 22:47 CST

From the "What A World What A World" Dept.

We Are Respectable Negroes via Jack & Jill Politics:

Tuesday, December 27, 2011
What Do They Call a President Who Happens to be Black? If You Are Fox News You Call Him a “Ghetto Crackhead”

Malcolm X famously asked, “what do you call an educated negro with a B.A. or an M.A., with a B.S., or a PhD?” The answer? “You call him a nigger, because that is what the white man calls him, a nigger.”

Decades later, his wisdom endures.

Malcolm’s observation captures the pain experienced by many African Americans, when during their coming of age moment (either before or after the talk about how not to get shot by the police during a routine traffic stop), they realize that being “young, gifted, and black” is not, all things being equal, sufficient for success in America. Malcolm’s words also capture the sentiments felt by any black person whose confidence has been described by their managers or peers as “threatening” or “arrogant.”

His wisdom also explains the moment when black professors walk into a room for the first time and their students look at each other in shock, wondering if this teacher is “qualified” to teach them; Malcolm’s wit also captures the frustration and insult felt by any black or brown person who has been presumptively assumed to be a janitor, maintenance worker, or mail clerk at their job, when in fact, their titles are actually “manager,” “director,” or “vice president.”

Malcolm’s comment on the arrogance of white racism also speaks to collective memory: it conjures up family stories of men and women trained as doctors, engineers, and lawyers, but who had to work as Pullman Car porters, maids, and home health attendants because Jim and Jane Crow America was by definition, a system designed to choke out the social and economic mobility of the African American community. Both then and now, white racism does the work of class inequality.
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It is a given that Fox News has no love for President Obama. To point, on the Hannity show last week (and without retraction or apology after the fact), Eric Bolling described President Barack Obama, “as a skinny, ghetto, crackhead.”

This moment was an object lesson on the white racial frame in action, and the truth of Brother Malcolm’s deep understanding of the pathologies of white racism, where any black person, however accomplished, intelligent, and gifted, is de facto seen as “less than,” a “nigger,” as a person who is not equal to even the most mediocre and lowest of white people.

Black people and black humanity are forever suspect, under watch, and viewed as less than by many in White America. To the white gaze channeled by Eric Bolling, we are perpetual criminals, deviants, over-sexed, libidinous, dangerous, and pathological. These sentiments are a function of the “wages of whiteness,” the psychological investment in white supremacy, and white superiority, spoken to perhaps most famously by W.E.B. DuBois more than a century ago.
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My surprise at the claim that President Obama shares anything in common with a “skinny, ghetto, crackhead” is rooted in its absurdity. Obama is human. He is imperfect. I often disagree with his politics. Obama is a man. He is nothing more, nothing less. But a crackhead? Impulsive drug user? A hype? Nope. Not ever. Obama’s personhood and habitus, his relaxed and effortless black cool pose (even if some do not possess the cultural framework and lens necessary to perceive it) is obvious–and unapologetic.

The inability by some on the Right to see Obama’s full and dignified black humanity, as opposed to a default of black drug use, criminality, and omnipresent, irrepressible “niggerdom,” is the source of my hurt. I must ask: If the white conservative imagination can frame a man of Obama’s abilities, poise, intelligence, genius, life accomplishments, and talent as a skinny, ghetto, crackhead, how do they see the rest of us?

And we wonder why the colorline persists.

Read the entire post. It's well worth it.

"A Target-Rich Enviromnment"

"This is what I call a target-rich environment." - Tom Cruise, Top Gun

Why am I starting out this post with a quote from a noxious piece of rah-rah Reagan-era propaganda trash today? Because when I look at the Iowa caucuses, it's true! Have you ever seen such a group of losers, sad sacks, incompetents, and just plain fuckups anywhere outside of a circus clown car, or Washington, D.C.?

So we're left with this: a very rich white guy who belongs to a nutty Christian cult (take it from a so-called "descendant of Cain," they're a cult), another rich white guy whom everyone hates and who can't keep his dick in his pants, a crazy old white guy, a crazy white woman, a stupid and crazy white guy, a stupid, crazy, religious nut of a white guy who can't get his name to the top of Google's listings, and another rich white guy from the same cult as Candidate #1, except he says he's not as crazy as the rest--and therefore has a snowball's chance in hell of winning the caucuses, the primaries, or anything else other than a job on CNN, where he can equate demons with honest men and women for a living.

That's not a field of Republican candidates, that's the clown car at the circus emptying out. Whatever happens in Iowa next Tuesday, it's going to leave our country worse off. More ignorant and uninformed, more blind and uncaring, more full of hate. It's a damn shame. So many targets for ridicule, so much hatred to go around, so much ignorance on display...and the whole world can see it. This is the land of opportunity? Yes, the opportunity to show how far we've fallen.

Too many targets, too little time....and too little value in hitting them again.

BTW, would somebody please tell the Donald to shut the fuck up?

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Rick Perry, the Texas Buffoon, apparently thinks that Solyndra is a country:

TPM:

On the stump in Iowa Saturday evening, Rick Perry made made yet another spectacular gaffe. According to CNN, the Texas governor tried to accuse President Obama of ‘picking winners and losers,’ but ended up saying something a little different:

“I want to say it was over $500 million that went to the country Solynda.”

Solyndra, of course, is the solar panel-production company which went bankrupt despite loans from the Department of Energy. Republicans have been using the incident as an example of ‘crony capitalism’ and has become a favorite faux-scandal Republicans have used to attack the administration. Solyndra received $535 million in federal loan guarantees. 

Now, Perry's defenders can say all they want about slips of the tongue, or that they're minor mistakes made under the pressure of running for the presidency, or that it's to be expected that the "lamestream media" would highlight every mistake Perry makes, c'mon, give the guy a break, he's not using a teleprompter! He's genuine! Real!

I'd agree. Perry is a real dumbass, that's for certain. An ignorant, willfully uninformed, reactionary dumbass. Or, as Stephen Colbert once said about another Southern political genius, "what a stupid cracker!" And there's not a Saltine in sight around here. If Perry flubs simple things like "Solyndra is a company" and "the voting age is eighteen." the Chinese will have Perry pimping out his own daughter to pay off our debt to them, and he'll think he made a great deal!

Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, and Mitt Romney: is this the best the Republican Party can offer?

Romney Embraces the Medicare-Killing Ryan Budget

Hahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!

A Few Quick Hits

Michele Bachmann found herself confounded Tuesday by an eight-year-old boy. It's not surprising that an eight-year-old could make Bachmann look stupid, but she also looked like a callous bitch, when she walked away from young Elijah without saying a word. What did he say to make her so flustered? "My mommy -- Miss Bachmann, my mommy's gay but she doesn't need fixing," Kudos for you, Elijah! We need more adults with your courage.

Newt Gingrich says he would nominate John Bolton as his Secretary of State. Notwithstanding that picking cabinet members is illegal under federal law.....really, Newt? Bolton? John Bolton? The wingnut whackado who said that the top ten floors of the UN Building could be lopped off and it wouldn't make any difference? The same walrus-mustachioed, diplomatically incompetent, paranoid, stupid jackass that couldn't get through the Senate for confirmation, so Bush had to do a recess appointment to make him the USA's UN Ambassador? That same asshole? Really, Newt, why don't you just take another cruise. Saturn is nice this time of year.

Chris Christie thinks he can lecture us on manners? "They (OccupyWallStreet) bought that 'Hope and Change' garbage"? I know he thinks that he's an expert on the subject, but don't relate to everything in terms of your personal political philosophy....and diet.

Ann Coulter says she would vote for Jeffrey Dahmer over Barack Obama. I'd vote for Ann to date Jeffrey Dahmer. After all, he was attracted to slim, blonde, gay men.

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog Visits OccupyWallStreet

A little weekend levity starring Triumph. Wish I had been there to see it!