There exists a bizarre idea that somehow, because of racism, black people should be immune to the kind of petty clannishness that afflicts other human beings, and it is therefore even more reprehensible when they aren't. But there really isn't much difference between what Tinker did in Tennessee's Ninth District and what Republicans do every year. The Tinker campaign's attempt to argue that only a black candidate could represent a majority black district isn't so different from John McCain's invocation of himself as "the American president Americans have been waiting for."Here is the quote of the week:
Fox's Hannity and Colmes invited the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson onto the show to say what white right-wing pundits would feel less comfortable saying. Peterson blamed the entire black community of the Ninth District, declaring that "most blacks" in Memphis are "so racist that they don't even realize that white Americans have moved on, and so whenever there is a campaign like this, such as this, they always use racism in order to intimidate white Americans." Hours later, the virulently racist black community of Memphis strapped on their black berets, and clutching copies of Soul on Ice, handed Cohen a landslide win with 79 percent of the vote to Tinker's 19 percent. She got a larger share of the vote in 2006, running against 13 other people.UPDATE: Wrong Rockwell.
tinker is the black ann coulter. bloulter.
]]>I think you mean George Lincoln Rockwell.
Unless you REALLY don't like Norman Rockwell's drawings. Which is understandable.
]]>I known I always feel like somebody's watching me.
]]>He went to Look Magaizne to be allowed to address some issues of social justice. The readers above references "The Problem We All Live With", his famous picture of Ruby Bridges being escorted to school. In Rockwell's mind, the problem wasn't with Miss Bridges, it was the racist anger (found in the graffitti in the picture) that necessitated the national guard. Later pictures by Rockwell aslo addressed integration of neighborhoods and the slaying of civil rights workers in Mississipi.
Also, more to the point, way to go Memphis! And shame on Ms. Tinker for the race/religion baiting.
]]>Right, and let's not forget Hillary Clinton in the primaries with rural working class whites.
I think the point is what Serwer wrote; "What's really remarkable about Nikki Tinker's racist campaign is that it's not remarkable at all."
Tagging a political opponent as a cultural outsider; that's lifted right from the Republican playbook. The fact that, in this case, it was used by a black democratic candidate against a white candidate, doesn't make it more(or less)reprehensible. Repubs/conservatives who have no voice when these tactics are used against their political opponents, have no real credibility when the cry out about Tinker.
]]>But my real point:
num1Obamaton writes: Repubs/conservatives who have no voice when these tactics are used against their political opponents, have no real credibility when the cry out about Tinker.
I agree, but then I'm not likely to grant them a lot of credibility anyway. I'm more disturbed by "progressive" groups like the CBC and EMILY's List who supported Tinker on the basis of gender and race despite the fact that Cohen was a better representative of their supposed agendas. After he survived a crowded primary field and then had to stave off an independent challenge from Harold Ford, Jr.'s brother (while Harold himself was at the top of the Democratic ticket in the Senate race), it seems pretty clear that the black voters of the 9th wanted this guy to represent them, and yet the CBC broke protocol to support Tinker because they thought her skin color (and Ford credentials?) was more important than those votes. EMILY's List, which supposedly exists primarily to help elect pro-choice candidates, went with the woman who was weaker on choice than Cohen. Meanwhile, Harold Ford, Jr., who had said it was "inappropriate" for the CBC to support a black challenger over a white incumbent when it wasn't his own old seat that was at issue, seems fine with his wife maxing out in donations to Tinker.
So while I agree with Serwer that there's nothing remarkable about Tinker's tactics, I do think it's important to put the supposedly progressive voices that backed her on blast. They're supposed to be supporting principles that actually matter in the lives of real people, and when they forget that in favor of cheap symbolism, we all lose.
]]>May all Jew-haters rot in Hell --- especially the diehard remnant, the final "19 percent."
]]>Matt's readers will like you anyway - you don't have to do the same type of errors as him.
He would have spelt Rockwell wrong anyway.
]]>Random fact: George Rockwell partly grew up in the same town in Illinois that also gave us Adlai and Maclean Stevenson.
]]>I don't have a problem with someone arguing that. In fact, in response to the House apology I wrote something partly sympathetic to that position.
But those religious allusions in Tinker's ad had nothing to do with Cohen being white? Or did you think only Blacks were Christians? "Now I lay me down to sleep" is not an attack on Cohen's whiteness.
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