Saturday Morning News and Views

Good Morning, Conflucians!!!!

I’ve been surfing around the ‘net for awhile, and I’ve come up with a somewhat eclectic collection of links that mostly ignore current events in Washington DC. These are some stories that caught my eye. What are you reading? Is there anything big happening in the Village that I missed?

First up: more evidence that Professors with Harvard degrees are no better than the rest of us regular folks.

From the NYT: Professor Said to Be Charged After 3 Are Killed in Alabama

Three faculty members at the University of Alabama in Huntsville were shot to death, and three other people were seriously wounded at a biology faculty meeting on Friday afternoon, university officials said….a biology professor, identified as Amy Bishop, was charged with murder.

According to a faculty member, the professor had applied for tenure, been turned down, and appealed the decision. She learned on Friday that she had been denied once again.

The newspaper identified Dr. Bishop as a Harvard-educated neuroscientist. According to a 2006 profile in the newspaper, Dr. Bishop invented a portable cell growth incubator with her husband, Jim Anderson. Police officials said that Mr. Anderson was being detained, but they did not call him a suspect.

[....]

Officials said the dead were all biology professors, G. K. Podila, the department’s chairman; Maria Ragland Davis; and Adriel D. Johnson Sr. Two other biology professors, Luis Rogelio Cruz-Vera and Joseph G. Leahy, as well as a professor’s assistant, Stephanie Monticciolo, are at Huntsville Hospital in conditions ranging from stable to critical.

This is a terrible tragedy that also demonstrates that academics are no more immune to rage, violence, or psychological dysfunction than anyone else. I was thinking about how horrible this must be for the students at UAH, and then I read this.

From MSNBC: Professor charged in university shooting

Gina Hammond, a UAH student, told WAFF that she lobbied the University of Alabama trustees to allow students with gun permits to carry their weapons on campus. She was turned down.

“I’m scared to go back to school,” Hammond said. “However, if they were to allow me to carry my pistol on campus, I would not be as scared.

“… I’m sorry that nobody in that room had a pistol to save at least one person’s life,” Hammond said.

OK, I’m not sure allowing everyone to carry guns on college campuses is the solution to this kind of tragedy. Maybe it would have been better if Dr. Bishop hadn’t had access to a firearm. Then maybe she could have calmed down a little bit, thought things over, and started looking for another job.

Here’s another odd, sad story along similar lines: Psychiatrist Tips Off Police about Her Husband’s Paranoia and Weapons Stockpiling

Gregory Girard, 45, is now being held without bail pending a dangerousness hearing tomorrow in Salem District Court, where he pleaded not guilty yesterday to multiple weapons charges.

Police arrested Girard late Tuesday night after a brief standoff outside the 23 Bridge St. condo where he had been living with his wife and their 16-year-old son.

Girard had a huge collection of weaponry in the family’s home and a shooting range in the attic.

On Monday, Girard’s wife, a psychiatrist, contacted police to express concern about her husband’s increasing paranoia and apparent stockpiling of weapons, Segal said.

Kristine Girard told police that while her husband hadn’t threatened her, she was afraid to return home after an argument.

She said her husband had recently told her, “Don’t talk to people, shoot them instead,” and “It’s fine to shoot people in the head because traitors deserve it,” Segal said, reading from a police report.

This guy is too old to have recently developed schizophrenia. Paranoid schizophrenics sometimes function fairly well. Perhaps he has suffered with the disorder for years and has taken medication that helped him, or perhaps he has some other type of bipolar disorder that can lead to psychotic episodes (bipolar disorder or major depression are possibilities).

Regardless, this man has some kind of severe psychological disorder that wasn’t caused by attending tea party demonstrations or admiring Sarah Palin as the prog blogs have been busy implying. More nutty interpretations of a psychologically troubled person’s motivations at TPM here and here. Meanwhile, right wing blogs are focusing on the fact that Girard’s wife is psychiatrist who works in Cambridge, MA.

Guess what you Obot morons, psychiatrists are subject to human failings just like Harvard education professors and all the rest of us “ordinary people.” Get a clue, why don’t you? This is a human tragedy, and the man has a 16-year-old son who is probably really upset right now.

Crying Wolf

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I previously posted about Digby equating referring to Obama as “presumptuous” to calling him an “uppity negro.” Well, she seems to be seeing racists under her bed again in Affirmative Fool:

I know this isn’t news to anyone, but Rush Limbaugh is a sexist pig and proud of it. If he didn’t have 250 million dollars there’s no doubt he’d be a very lonely guy.

But this racist statement is a doozy:

“This is the first time in his life there is not a professor who can turn his C into an A, or to write the law review article for him he can’t write. He is totally exposed. There is nobody to make it better,” Limbaugh said.

I think he’s probably speaking for a considerable number of people out there who truly believe that black people are inferior. But most of them are smart enough not to say so in public.

I loathe Rush Limbaugh and think he is a disgusting human being, so it pains me to be in the position of defending something he said. But there is nothing inherently racist in that statement.

I’m not saying Limbaugh isn’t a racist, nor am I addressing anything else he has said or done. I fully agree with Digby that he is a sexist pig. But suggesting that Barack Obama isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer isn’t racist, nor does it translate into a racist allegation about the intelligence of black people in general.

This isn’t racist either:

Sign at the NBC cafeteria

It’s a racial stereotype. Left Blogistan really needs to learn the difference between race, racism, racial stereotypes and things that aren’t racial at all.

Criticism of Obama is not racist.

Opposition to Obama is not racist.

Belittling Obama is not racist.

Mocking, jeering and/or making fun of Obama is not racist.

Racism is racist.

White Privilege

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Little Isis’ post “A Conversation on Race: Let’s Not” triggered a discussion of “white privilege.”  I thought the topic worthy of it’s own post.  I’m writing this with the foreknowledge that some people (I use the term loosely) will distort my words and call me names.  But they’ve already done that and I’m still here.

Wikipedia:

In critical race theory, white privilege is a set of advantages that some claim are enjoyed by white people beyond those commonly experienced by non-white people in the same social, political, and economic spaces (nation, community, workplace, income, etc.). Theorists differentiate it from racism or prejudice because, they say, a person who may benefit from white privilege is not necessarily racist or prejudiced and may be unaware of having any privileges reserved only for whites.

Wellesley professor Peggy McIntosh said:

I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was “meant” to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools , and blank checks.

As a general concept “white privilege” is a valuable tool. If I were teaching a course on racism in America I would require my students to understand it. But it is worse than useless for analyzing individual behavior.

You’ll have a hard time convincing anyone who has lived their life at or near the bottom end of the socio-economic ladder that they benefit from any sort of privilege. They live, work and go to school with blacks and other minorities. Would you say this young white student is privileged?:

A picture says a thousand words

Anti-Semitism

Racism

Torture

Culture

Any questions?

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Socially Unacceptable

Remember a couple weeks back when Barack, Michelle and their media entourage flew to New York City one Saturday night for dinner and a show?  Imagine what would have happened if the following week David Letterman did a “Top Ten” list of the worst moments of their trip and said this:

“Number 2 – Finding out that the restaurant didn’t serve fried chicken and watermelon“

Not only would Letterman be retired right now, but so would the writers and producers of his show and the head of CBS would be offering profuse apologies to the Obamas. There would be protests, advertising boycotts, and denunciations of Letterman from the leaders of both parties. You can be sure Keith Olbermann would be ranting “How dare you sir!” and he wouldn’t be blaming the Obama’s for political opportunism. People would be outraged, and rightly so.

Not that long ago racism was socially acceptable and racial discrimination was legal.  Academics prepared scholarly treatises asserting the superiority of the white race.  Many (white) people believed that it was the “white man’s burden” to exercise control over the “lesser” races for their own benefit.

Senator Robert Byrd of West Virgina is a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. That was in 1942.  He is now third in line of succession to the Presidency. Former senator and Supreme Court justice Hugo Black is another prominent figure who once belonged to the Klan.

At it’s peak in the 1920′s the Klan had millions of members from all levels of society:

Indiana’s Klansmen represented a wide cross section of society: they were not disproportionately urban or rural, nor were they significantly more or less likely than other members of society to be from the working class, middle class, or professional ranks.

Once upon a time the Klan had major political influence in the South and Midwest. Nowadays the Klan is a fringe group that is viewed with disgust by the vast majority of the nation.

Sunday: Divide and conquer with racism

I was going to write about how David Broder is Public Enemy Number One.  However, it’s more disturbing to see how accusations of racism are cropping up just when *real* unity would seem to be very important.

Let me just say for the record that unless Barack Obama is Jesus Christ himself, he is subject to the same comparisons and criticisms as any other imperfect human being on earth.  I have not seen any evidence of his perfection so as far as I’m concerned, he’s accountable for what he does or doesn’t do.  The extra melanin in his skin only gives him an advantage in the sun.  It doesn’t confer infallability on the bearer.

Ok, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s talk about why the renewal of accusations of racism directed against those of us who dare to criticize Obama are so destructive.  As I see it, it prevents the left from coalescing and gaining critical mass to oppose the unDemocratic policies that some of his banker friends and advisors would like to pursue.  As long as the Obamanation is stoked to stamp out racism, as defined by Obama’s friends, we can’t get ourselves a posse to take the real bastards on.

So, all you Obamaphiles out there have to ask yourselves, when it comes to accusations of racism, what’s it worth to you?  Is it worth your committment to social responsibility and an economy that’s fair to people who work?  Is it worth having only half the strength you need to prevent the dismantling of Social Security?  Because if you spend half your time and energy trying to distance yourself from those of us you wrongly accuse of racism, that’s what you’re going to end up with.  In my opinion, it’s much better to put down the gun and coordinate your messages with us.

Think about it.

In the meantime, we’ve gotten mixed reviews over the nested comments. In general, the edge is going to having them nested so you can actually reply to someone.  But the “newest at top” is not faring so well.  So, I am putting it up for a vote.  Majority wins.

Buncha Bigots

Eric Holder, America’s first African American Attorney General under America’s first black President, said in a speech to Department of Justice employees celebrating Black History Month, that we are a “nation of cowards“  because we don’t like to talk candidly about race.  This is wrong on so many levels.

Any time we still have to describe people and their accomplishments as “history making” based on skin color, we have a problem with race.  It’s 2009, for Goodness sakes, and we still have cause to celebrate racial “firsts.”  Not only that, we’ve barely scratched the surface; we have yet to have our “first black” lots of things, like, Senate Majority Leader; hell we’ve barely had any black Senators, given that the nation’s fifth is now president.  We, as a nation, have never had a Native American much of anything politically significant, either; the same is true for many other racially diverse groups.  And, as we all know, our history regarding women’s history, contributions, and employment issues, not to mention those of LGBT people living openly, and people living with disabilities, is woefully deficient.

But, does not talking about it make us cowards?  What good does endless recriminatory discussion do?  Does that really advance anybody’s cause, or does it merely inflame passions needlessly?

In this little community we’ve established here in this little corner of the blogosphere, nobody is required to declare their race, ethnicity, gender, or anything else, nor are they expected to check them at the door, unless they choose to, and we seem to get along pretty well.  Our commonality is based on things other than physical characteristics, like opinion and ideology.  How we think and feel is much more important than how we look, love or pee.

Barack Obama should not be president because he’s black, Eric Holder should not be attorney general for that reason, either.  Because that issue was promoted as justification for their attaining their respective positions, many of us were offended, while, to be honest, many more felt vindicated.  The disappointment was not limited to people of any particular group, though African Americans disproportionately embraced the counter opinion.  Just as many men felt, and still feel, that Hillary Clinton was the better Democratic choice, and many white Republicans felt similarly about John McCain, many black Americans, like me, feel that Barack Obama was not.  Race and gender most often had nothing to do with it.

I call our president Black Obama because his racial background played far too large a part in his election.  When he secured the nomination of his party, fraudulently in my opinion, that fraud was validated by “the historic nature of his candidacy,” blah, blah, blah.  His, and his campaign’s, deliberate, subtle, and blatant exploitation of his racial background was shameful to me.   Race should never trump integrity.  Just because we’ve never had a black president is no reason to embrace this one.

Yet, once he was elected, all sorts of racial baggage was either laid at his feet, or more often, exonerated, while the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement’s triumphs was awarded to him simply because of who his father happened to be.  His own lack of accomplishment, experience, preparedness and qualification was magically rendered irrelevant because he’s a black man.

Seems to me, as long as all we’re expected to do is talk about what’s wrong, and what has been wrong in the past, those things will continue to happen, and continue to be wrong.  Once we decide that these things don’t deserve discussion, contemplation, or consideration, there won’t be anything to talk about, anyway.  When it comes to equality and diversity, let’s all just shut up and do the damned thing.

That being said, when racism, sexism and/or any other “-ism” rears its ugly head, it should be immediately, and uncategorically, rejected by all.  The only caveat, and it’s a big one, is that “-isms” are like pornography, hard to define quantitatively.  While we claim to know it when we see it, ultimately, offense is in the eye of the beholder.  On those occasions, just like any other when one experiences hurt at the hands of another, protest is only to be expected.  Yet that protest should be limited to that particular incident; revisiting old issues only opens old wounds and diverts attention from the problem at hand, greatly increasing the odds that nothing will be resolved.  “You hurt my feelings,” will usually result in an immediate apology, “you always hurt my feelings,” will probably result in a fight.

Eric Holder said:

…”we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race.”

I think he’s half right; we, as average Americans, don’t talk to each other, period.  If we did, race would probably never come up.  And when, and if, it did, we’d probably be able to work it out.

Cross posted at Cinie’s World with one modification; I removed a link to the post below, since, it’s the post below.

The Racism Game: A Play in One Ridiculous Act.

May The Blessings Of Obama Be Upon You

THE SCENE: A game show set, modeled on “Jeopardy.” The host, DREW CAREY, stands at a podium, behind which is a giant flat screen. It currently shows President Barack Obama’s smiling face, with the Possum seal behind it.

Across the set from CAREY are three podiums, with a contestant standing at each podium. The contestants are BOB HERBERT of The New York Times, LOUIS DIUGUID of The Kansas City Star, and JOE THE PLUMBER. The lead-in music – “Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist,” from Avenue Q - concludes as the lights come up. The audience applauds wildly.

CAREY: Thank you, thank you everyone! Gosh, it’s great to be here with you. You may not know this, but we’re celebrating a very special occasion tonight – the 100th episode of America’s favorite game show, everybody say it with me now:

AUDIENCE and CAREY (shouting): “Guess Who’s The Racist!”

CAREY: That’s right! Every Tuesday night on “Guess Who’s The Racist,” we all come together and find the hidden racism within people like you and me! The panelist who has the most correct answers gets an all-expenses-paid trip to ObamaWorld, located right next to Universal Studios in lovely Hollywood, California.

AUDIENCE (on cue): Oooooh!

CAREY: Ooooh indeed! Well, let’s start the show. Because it’s a special night, we’ve got some celebrities with us! First, we’ve got Bob Herbert, columnist for The New York Times, who was savvy enough to spot racism in all of its nasty forms during the 2008 election.

HERBERT (waving): Hello, America!

CAREY: And next, we have the incomparable Louis Diuguid of The Kansas City Star, who proved to Americans that the word “socialist” was a racial slur in October of 2008!

DIUGUID (waving): Helllloooooo!

CAREY: And finally, we have Joe The Plumber, who was used by both President Obama and John McCain in the primaries as a campaign prop. Joe has been spending the last few months in a Racism Rehabilitation Camp in Walla Walla, Washington. Let’s give him a big hand, and hope he’s learned enough to match the competitiveness of these two amazing players!

JOE (waving): Hi!

AUDIENCE: BOOOOOOOO!!! RACIST! WHITE SUPREMACIST! BOOOOOOO!

(Joe looks puzzled and hurt, and drops his hand.)

CAREY: All right, take it easy, folks. It’s not Joe’s fault he’s a racist; it’s just because he’s from a rural area and bitter about it. He’s trying really hard, honestly he is. Let’s see how he does on our first question. Are you ready, panelists?

PANELISTS: Yes!

Defined By A Vote?

Are We All Racists Now?

For me, this election season has been a continuous cycle of smacks in the face. The Democrats have compounded their disastrously poor performance (no impeachment, no ending of the war) in Congress by selecting, not electing, a Chicago machine nominee who is as corrupt as any Bush Republican and as authoritarian and narcissistic as Bush himself. In a year when any Dem candidate should be winning in a landslide, November looks like it will be another nail-biter, with possible election fraud on both sides. 

But the worst thing, by far, that has come out of this election has been the race-baiting and sexism by Obama’s campaign, his media enablers and his mindless followers. Even a civil rights luminary like John Lewis has started perpetrating the same myths – that it is McCain who is dividing this country and inciting people to violence because ZOMG They’re All Racists!

Oh really? What does Representative Lewis think Barack Obama meant when he told his supporters to “get in peoples’ faces?” Does he think this type of violence and misogyny is fine, because it comes from people who support Obama? If Obama himself does not approve of the behavior of his supporters, which has been out of control for quite some time, then why does he not say so?

Look, there is a lot of ignorance in this country. We all know that. But can we really judge all people by the way they vote? Can we really call them racists because of the way they pull the lever on Election Day?

In that case, how do we describe the 97% of African Americans who plan to vote for Barack Obama? If they are defined by their votes, then they must be voting for Obama because he is black. Right? And because of that, they must be racist. After all, if it’s racist to vote for a white person because of skin color, it’s also racist to vote for a black person because of skin color. (Note: I don’t blame AA’s for voting for Obama. Part of the reason I still support Hillary is because she’s a woman, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.)

Or perhaps a person’s vote doesn’t define him or her. Is that possible for anyone to acknowledge this year? Or has everyone in the fauxgressive Obamasphere gone stark raving nuts?

Wednesday: The “R” Word vs the “C” Word

I received a very interesting email from Lori, the producer of the film The Audacity of Democracy.  She’s been googling some research:

I was googling tonight and discovered something interesting. In the six weeks that Palin has been in the public eye, she’s been a called a cunt online almost half as many times as Obama has been called by the N word in the past  TWO YEARS. Unbelievable. Totally unscientific but revealing nonetheless.

The search Palin + cunt gives us 308,000 hits:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=palin+cunt&btnG=Search

Then I checked out Hillary and Cunt – 984,000 hits. Interesting.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hillary+cunt&btnG=Search

Well, I had to do the obvious. I googled Obama and the N word. 578,000 hits. In a few weeks, Sarah has hit more than half of the name calling that obama has received in two years.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=obama+nigger&btnG=Search

How does this happen in progressive circles? It’s just staggering. and that flaccid little putz of a Democratic candidate hasn’t attempted even once to put a stop to it.

Thank you, Lori, for the term flaccid little putz of a Democratic candidate.  I will be sure to add it to my lexicon.

Lori’s got a very good point.  How is it that the sexist references about Palin have spiked in the past 6 weeks while the racist references to Obama have more or less plateaued in the past 2 years?  We’ve always suspected that the pearl clutching over perceived racism was a overblown.  There certainly *is* racism and there is no doubt in my mind that some voters will go to the polls to vote against Obama just because he has a surplus of melanocytes and no other reason.

But I suspect (and I only speculate because I have no way of knowing) that for some of these people who take color into consideration, Obama really has transcended his race.  When you reach the heady atmosphere of presidential politics, it is assumed that your political abilities, experience and hard work are responsible.  At the pinacle, color is not important.

Or is it?

Could it be that some of our fellow Democrats protest too much?  Maybe they are looking at Obama and his fellow presidential candidates and assessing him in this frame and found that he is lacking in political abilities, experience and hard work and can’t figure out how he got there.  But there has to be *some* explanation for why he is at the top of the food chain when he doesn’t measure up to his competition.  How else would he have gotten so far?  Maybe the fact that corruption and his willing participation in it is so unsettling to some of our friends that they don’t want to think about it.  Maybe they just want a Democrat so badly that they are willing to overlook this unsavory side of Obama.  So, they might be susceptible to the suggestion that those of us who are screaming our heads off about that very same corruption must be racist lunatics, emphasis on racist.

It doesn’t help that the campaign itself seems to wield racism as a weapon against its enemies.  It’s part of the corruption to turn its base against itself and to shame its enemies.  A corrupt organization doesn’t particularly care if real people are hurt by it, especially the people who are the true victims of racism.  When the real thing rears its ugly head in the future, we aren’t quite so likely to get incensed by it.  Our arousal level will have been conditioned to not react to the word.  In a similar fashion, we will become inurred to sexism of all kinds.  If anyone wants to see where that may lead, I recommend watching a few episodes of Mad Men.  The thought of going back to that era sends a chill up my spine.  The women of the 60′s fought and struggled so hard for respect and independence.  To see all of that hard work thrown away by this corrupt, untrustworthy and ruthless nominee and his campaign enrages me.

So, I am calling on the Obama campaign to put an end to it.  It is time for David Axlerod and Barack Obama and all of their surrogates to stop undermining the fabric of society with these destructive accusations of racism.  I am asking for Barack Obama to rein in his hooligans and tell them to stop using sexism against women who are fighting their way to the rarified atmosphere at the top of the food chain, especially when they get there by their political abiliies, experience and hard work.  Senator Obama, stop trying to cover up for your lack of qualifications by demeaning theirs and stop calling us racists.