tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post1043146108802441979..comments2023-11-22T01:14:54.298-08:00Comments on amor mundi: Not Looking GoodDale Carricohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-37651428920321812612009-11-23T15:45:06.699-08:002009-11-23T15:45:06.699-08:00> . . .often racist and who knows what else in ...> . . .often racist and who knows what else in the<br />> hate department. . .<br /><br />I picked up an issue of _Newsweek_ in the laundromat<br />last weekend and came across this:<br /><br />Raina Kelley<br />Play the Race Card<br />Why avoiding the issue doesn't help.<br />Published Sep 19, 2009<br />http://www.newsweek.com/id/215742<br />--------------------------------------<br />Let me say this clearly so there are no misunderstandings:<br />some of the protests against President Obama are howls of<br />rage at the fact that we have an African-American head of<br />state. I'm sick of all the code words used when this subject<br />comes up, so be assured that I am saying exactly what I mean.<br />Oh, and in response to the inevitable complaints that I am<br />playing the race card -- race isn't a political parlor game.<br />It is a powerful fault line in a nation that bears the scars<br />of slavery, a civil war, Jim Crow, a mind-numbing number of<br />assassinations, and too many riots to count. It is naive<br />and disingenuous to say otherwise.<br /><br />So when Idaho gubernatorial candidate Rex Rammell jokes about<br />hunting the president or South Carolina GOP activist<br />Rusty DePass calls an escaped gorilla one of Michelle Obama's<br />ancestors, it's racist. . . When "Tea Party" leader Mark Williams<br />appears on CNN and speaks of "working-class people" taking "their"<br />country back from a lawfully elected president, he is not just<br />protesting Obama's politics; he is griping over the fact that<br />this country's most powerful positions are no longer just for<br />white men. No, I do not believe that everyone who disagrees<br />with Obama is racist. But racists do exist in this country,<br />and they don't like having a black president. . .<br /><br />So color me a little offended when the "mainstream media"<br />suddenly discovered that there might be a racial element to<br />the attacks on Obama. Maureen Dowd's Sept. 13 column in<br />_The New York Times_ is a perfect example: "I've been loath to<br />admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer—the frantic<br />efforts to paint our first black president as the Other,<br />a foreigner, socialist, fascist, Marxist, racist, Commie,<br />Nazi; a cad who would snuff old people; a snake who would<br />indoctrinate kids—had much to do with race." But at least<br />she did acknowledge it. A _Times_ piece just a day earlier<br />explained why Obama is so unpopular in Louisiana and somehow<br />managed to omit race as a factor. It took 20 paragraphs for a<br />Politico column titled "What's the Matter With South Carolina?"<br />to mention race. This hesitancy to even speak of racism widens<br />the divide between readers and the journalists who are supposed<br />to be covering the world as it is, not as they want it to be.<br />It also explains, at least in part, the popularity of alternative<br />news sources like _The Daily Show_ or the _Huffington Post_<br />that love to identify racist double-talk. . .jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.com