That's Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss talking to his base. One guess as to who he considers to be his base:
The development is not lost on Mr. Chambliss. "There has always been a
rush to the polls by African-Americans early," he said at the square in
Covington, a quick stop on a bus tour as the campaign entered its final
week. He predicted the crowds of early voters would motivate
Republicans to turn out. "It has also got our side energized, they see
what is happening," he said.
Damn right we're voting. No one should be outraged by this. No one should repudiate dude. We should be invigorated. That is the past talking--screaming actually--as it chokes on its own bile. Show this to your 18-year nephews, your cousins and daughters. Tell them that this is power. For my part, I have to say that hearing a politician quaking at the site of black people with ballots, puts a smile on my face, wide as 125th. Do the damn thing, Georgia. End it now.
To speak the dun-language...
My old buddy Irish Pirate writes:
TNC,
can you stop with this "sheeeeeeeeeeeeet".
I just spent ten minutes googling various names you used and I still feel more lost than Barry O'Bama at an Alaskan moose hunt.
Please, remember white folks read this blog. Have pity on us.
Include a dictionary with citations. A "blictionary" so to speak.
Now, my black people, I know what you're thinking. We live in their world and no one gives us a whitionary. No one explains to us why Gatsby couldn't kick Daisy to the curb, why cucumber sandwiches taste good, or why keg parties are fun. White folk just look at you like, Figure it out nigger. To be a black professional is to a be a five-year old kid, straight out El Salvador, dropped into a class where no one speaks Spanish. Except that five-year olds are quicker than us.
So I understand the impulse to tell Irish Pirate to step off. But given that he gave us a pretty humorous rebuttal to "Once you go black, you never go back," we shall indulge him. For the uninitiated go here and here. They are your friends. In fact, I'm gonna put em on my blog roll.
True Story. A few years back I did a piece on Erylah Badu for a magazine. They actually published a glossary. Like "White Folks Who've Never Had Overcooked Collard Greens, See Here."
UPDATE: Or you could just rock Big L...
And Because It's Friday...
A favorite around these parts--Carolyn Forche. "The Museum of Stones." I've just started analyzing this, as I read it for the first time while out in Cali last week. Would love to hear what folks think after we digest for a couple hours. UPDATE: OK, comments open. Like I said, I just read this last week. So I'm not sure what I think. As usual her sense of rhythm is just sick--"stones where the bells had fallen, where the bridges were
blown." And then that one beautiful simile--storks crying "like human children"--just sitting in the middle of all this concrete detail is great. Carolyn Forche's poetry is always so muscular--just vivid, precise detail, and then a lovely abstraction right where you least expect it.
The Museum of Stones
This is your museum of stones, assembled in matchbox and
tin,
collected from roadside, culvert, and viaduct,
battlefield, threshing floor, basilica, abattoir,
stones loosened by tanks in the streets
of a city whose earliest map was drawn in ink on linen,
schoolyard stones in the hand of a corpse,
pebble from Apollinaire's oui,
stone of the mind within us
carried from one silence to another,
stone of cromlech and cairn, schist and shale, hornblende,
agate, marble, millstones, and ruins of choirs and
shipyards,
chalk, marl, and mudstone from temples and tombs,
stone from the silvery grass near the scaffold,
stone from the tunnel lined with bones,
lava of the city's entombment,
chipped from lighthouse, cell wall, scriptorium,
paving stones from the hands of those who rose against the
army,
stones where the bells had fallen, where the bridges were
blown,
those that had flown through windows and weighted petitions,
feldspar, rose quartz, slate, blueschist, gneiss, and chert,
fragments of an abbey at dusk, sandstone toe
of a Buddha mortared at Bamiyan,
stone from the hill of three crosses and a crypt,
from a chimney where storks cried like human children,
stones newly fallen from stars, a stillness of stones, a
heart,
altar and boundary stone, marker and vessel, first cast,
lode, and hail,
bridge stones and others to pave and shut up with,
stone apple, stone basil, beech, berry, stone brake,
stone bramble, stone fern, lichen, liverwort, pippin, and
root,
concretion of the body, as blind as cold as deaf,
all earth a quarry, all life a labor, stone-faced,
stone-drunk
with hope that this assemblage, taken together, would become
a shrine or holy place, an ossuary, immovable and sacred,
like the stone that marked the path of the sun as it entered
the human dawn.
McCain comeback?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but is there a single shred of evidence in this story? A poll? Anything? How is this not a GOP press release? How is it not journalism as stenography?
The Brown Bag Unbound
Haitian sensation, Afronerd, and all around friend of the room Evan Narcisse is the only person who understands the true significance of Barack Obama:
I had a high-yellow friend who always used to say that light-skinned brothers are gonna make a comeback. Just wait, he'd say, the halcyon days of Al B. Sure will return. I never realized how prophetic he was.
That's what the I'm talking about. All you Morris Chestnut chocolate boy wonders. All you Denzel Washington mocha macks. All you Mekhi Phifer/Omar Epps/Michael K. Williams/Derek Luke/Pete Rock mofos, I got two words for you--Time's. Up.
Of course, this only applies to dudes. I'm straight Jungle Brothers 1989, rocking that "Blacker The Berry" isht. Lauryn Hill--pre-crazy--is the master mold. But all ya'll Idriss Elba mofos need to back up. Christopher Williams is in the house. Khalil Kane mercs Pac. Kid beats Play. Grab your Sportin' Waves, and stocking caps. Break yo'self, fool.
UPDATE: Here's what I mean...You didn't play, you just got played out...
Max Cleland on the Bradley Effect
This is the sort of thing that makes me wonder if I'm delusional. I have to admit, who knows more about white people in the South, me or Max Cleland? I know there are GOP pundits who'd disagree, but frankly very few of them are to be trusted on race. That may sound harsh, but I can think on one hand the GOP folks who I've seen think about this with some degree of honesty and seriousness. Back to the point, you also wonder how much age is playing into this. Again, this is why I can't have this debate. I could go back and forth on this all day. Better to focus on what we can control than on whether we're going to have to play in the rain.
Because it's Friday...
Nas, "Memory Lane." Lyrics here. Song here. Discussion later. But I'll say that I played this song over and over while I was writing my book. I just wanted it to read like this sounds. UPDATE: Comments open. This song always described what 1988 felt like to me. Or rather what it felt like to be a kid, living in a city at the height of the crack era. It's really all there, the violence, the excitement, the drugs the inevitable downfall. The thing about Nas is he could be nostalgic without being sentimental. And so you get lines like:
I reminisce on park jams, my man was shot for a sheep coat Childhood lessons make me see him drop in my weed smoke. It's real, grew up in trife life, to times with white lines to hype bikes, murdereous night-times, to knife-fights invite crime.
And then the imagery of lines like, "Poetry that's a part of me, retardly bop\I drop the ancient manifested hip-hop straight off the block." That first line makes me think of being a kid and trying to imitate my older brother's bop, hoping I could look as cool as him. On this cut, and really on this whole album, Nas was just so good about saying more with less. It really was like rap was his first language. That's how you get classics like:
My intellect prevails from a hanging cross with nails I reinforce the frail, with lyrics that's real. Word to Christ, a disciple of streets, trifle on beats I decipher prophecy through a mic and say peace.
The whole time I was writing my memoir, I just wanted to do something that sounded like that.
Booting reporters off the plane
I agree with John, it's petty. On the other hand, the seats are going to Essence and Jet. Sorry but that's teh awesome.
By the time I get to Arizona Pt. 2
It's really looking close. I can't see Barry doing it. That said, there would be something poetic about Obama beating McCain in Arizona 45 years after the March. I remain skeptical, though.
And Because It's Friday...
A favorite around these parts--Carolyn Forche. "The Museum of Stones." I've just started analyzing this, as I read it for the first time while out in Cali last week. Would love to hear what folks think after we digest for a couple hours. Poem is after the jump.
Racism, socialism, Ashley the Todd, Joe Plumber blahblahblah
Thanks to everyone who sent me clips of McCain folks acting a fool at rallies and evidence of McCain campaign race-baiting. I know I haven't talking much about Ashley Tood, and Sammy Davis and welfare lately. I was outraged for awhile and now I'm just kinda "meh" about the whole thing. Part of it is because I think Obama is going to win. But the other part is that something about it just feels petty. There are white racists among the American electorate, and the lionshare of them are supporting McCain. OK, now what?
Anyway, there's been a pretty lively debate raging between Yglesias, Douthat, Judis and Feeny. It'll probably come as no surprise that I mostly agree with Douthat, if with a significant twist. It's not that I put it past McCain's people to race-bait, it's that I really don't care. I basically think it's to our disadvantage to ascribe mystical powers to words like "welfare" and "socialism." True, I've done my share of indicting. But, I really believe that the first step in garnering the votes of any group of people, is to see them human beings with all the complexities and myriad emotions weighing on them that actual people have.
This is why I think Barack Obama will ultimately prevail. McCain's whole style is crude--vote for me if you like beefy white guys with bald heads who talk tough. Vote for me if you hate socialists. Vote for me if you think Northern Virginia is a colony of the French. Vote for me if you hate welfare. Perhaps I am giving the voters too much credit, but I just think in these economic times, in this hip-hop era, with these two campaigns, the people are paying attention. Again, that doesn't mean that the McCain's aren't race-baiting. I guess I'm just stuck on "How would I know and why do I care?"
October 30, 2008
The town deserves a better class of McCarthyite
I mean, seriously. If he meant Wright, why not say it? Lrn2Nixonpls. Either that or go back to playing Tetris. In your basement. With your kid sister.
Open thread
Because Tessa gave us the following:
I miss Atari. Unfortunately, I've somehow filled my mother's
shoes--I suck at today's video games. I remember how deflated she
looked when my brother and I would refuse to hand over the joystick,
and now, I can empathize. Sigh. But I can't blame them. Who the hell
wants to sit there and watch me panic and die within the first ten
seconds? It's painful and embarassing.
Okay, sorry for getting off-track. Where's today's open thread?
Go for it folks...
Barack on the Daily Show
Love it. White folks didn't get the memo. Awesome.
Awesome-Sauce: Barack Obama revealed to be Barry 13X
So the new rumor is that Barack is actually the son of Malcolm X. No seriously. Dude look at the resemblance! And they actually have a very similar speaking style. Some may be tempted to see this as the event that will lose us the election. But I have a different take--Barack Obama isn't black, he isn't even biracial. Dig it--Malcolm's grandfather was white. Barack's mother was was white. So Barack isn't really half-black--he's about a third, tops. That has to be worth a few points in the polls, no? I think this news will swing Montana and Georgia.
The Indispensible Ambinder
Marc has a great piece up looking at some recent swing-state polling. But amidst all the great numbers and analysis there is this lovely nugget:
In Florida, a total of 46% of voters believe that "violent" describes
black people extremely well, well, or moderately well. But large
majorities believe that the words "dependable" and "hard working" also
describe black people.
If only they believed that in Washington, D.C. A "violent" but "dependable" and "hard-working" employee sounds like a dude due for big raise. Oh I forgot. I'm not supposed to be making jokes because Obama might lose. Ms. Holloway, get me a line to Al Sharpton, please.
Hold on, I hear somebody coming...
I wrote this:
Are we going to spend the next days trying to
concoct exotic scenarios in which the dastardly Republicans steal this
one?
All-Star commenter Deborah responds:
Why not? It could be like a fanfic contest, with links to the
craziest diatribes by actual Republicans. (Andrew linked to one at
RedState earlier today--McCain-Palin blowout, bitches! The press is
evil and in the can and the polls are wrong because tightening in the
national polls by a fraction means blowouts in all swing states because
state polls don't matter. Also, McCain won the poll after Labor Day.)
And we could try our hand at 24-esque, or Mission Impossible-esque, or
Chuck-esque, scenarios.
For example, this week Chuck had to get a creepy nerd herder Jeff
(who once sported a mullet, and won Slim Jims) to play Atari's Missile
Command and retrieve secret missile codes from the fabled burn screen;
this could easily be adapted to hacking voting machines.
Game on. Let us delve into the high-minds of kvetching liberals everywhere. How will we blow this one fellow lefties?
Is the Voting Rights Act actually a cursed scroll that mandates a century of Republican rule? Will the Arch-Lich, Lee Atwater, rise from the tomb and cast a spell to seal Obama's doom? Is Michael Goldfarb actually Tiamat, in human form? Is Nate Silver the Terminator sent back in time by futuristic Diebold machines? Is Barack Obama Arthas? Is Dick Cheney Ner'Zhul? Oh...my... God...I just remembered. They're cousins!!! Nooooo!!!11ONEELEVEN!!1
Remember that thing your great uncle told you about white people, while his white wife was cooking dinner? Was it really true???? They are a tricky bunch...Will there be bar-codes on our necks? Will it be the Illumanati? The Trilateral commission? Will the 2k virus finally strike?? Are those Sentinels flying overhead?? Are the storm-troopers massing at the gate??? Why are you still reading this?!?!!!! What's that sound outside...Gaaaaahhhhhh!!!!
The L.A. Times tape
I get why the L.A. Times claims they can't release this mystery tape. They say their source gave it to them under the provision that they wouldn't release it to the public. What I don't understand is why you would ever cut a deal like that. Why would you put yourself in a position where you're basically complicit in the suppression of info about a candidate who people already think you're in the tank for?
I don't know, I think if I'm that reporter I don't want that tape in my possession, under those circumstances. I'd rather make a bunch of calls and figure when this took place, who was there, and what was said. Someone will talk. Someone always talks. This business leans too much in favor of anonymous sources and their cowardly demands, and not enough in favor of readers.
UPDATE: A few commenters below correctly note that it actually helps McCain--not Obama--to not have the tape released. It's just another chapter in the "We wuz robbed" narrative. The whole thing empowers the kooks.
October 29, 2008
Obama commercial--What do we think?
Like John, I forget. Worse I didn't remember until John said he forgot.
UPDATE: Video for those of us who didn't catch it. I'm watching it now.
UPDATE#2: Uhm, I just finished watching. Wow. Seeng this campaign in the closing days is like watching Tom Brady circa 2004. The ruthless efficiency of it all is bracing. Every time there's a big moment, they come through. McCain should call his family. Out in the streets, them call it murder. Welcome to Jamrock, indeed.
The credulity of the press regarding John McCain's Pennsylvania
gambit is remarkable. Pollster.com has Obama up by 10.7 points in
Pennsylvania. McCain's lead is smaller than that in Georgia, West
Virginia, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Indiana and
Arizona while McCain is currently losing in Colorado, Virginia, Ohio,
Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, and Nevada. Think about that.
McCain's only chances of winning are either that the polling is
badly wrong for some reason, or else that some kind of shocking
external event -- perhaps a huge terrorist attack -- massively scrambles
the race. But based on the information available, he's just hopelessly
far behind and there's no use pretending otherwise.
Effete Liberals, Bomaye
OK, I'm tired of this. Someone--who shall remain nameless--just asked me if I was "nervous" about Obama. FTDS. I don't believe in black cats. I don't toss salt over my shoulder. I step under ladders whenever the mood strikes me. I break mirrors in my spare time. I've made a hobby out of splitting poles. Thirteen is my favorite number. So fuck it, I'm gonna say it--Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States.
Here is the thing. I believe in competition. John Kerry wasn't swift-boated--he was beaten by a superior campaign. I guess Al Gore lost because of Nader and the Supreme Court. But why was it ever even that close? What is the use of being a Southern senator when you can't carry a single state in the South? I mean no disrespect to any of those guys, I really don't. But this notion that mystical and nefarious forces deprived them from claiming what was rightly theirs is odious and self-serving.
No one has conspired to deprive us of power over the past few decades. The American people aren't stupid. We've sucked at articulating our message. If you have any interest in a more progressive country, we need to be honest. At the presidential level, at least, conservatives have hammered us. Give them their due. Don't blame Rush. Don't blame Kristol. Don't denigrate states you've never visited. Give them their due. Give them their respect. Study them, and then get better.
Denial is bad for two reasons. First, if you can't accept that you lost, you don't have a prayer of getting better. If you think Kerry and Gore lost because they were too "high-minded," then you miss the basic fundamentals at work, and spend your days congratulating yourself for being up on the latest Paul Krugman. This is a war, and you don't lose wars because of abstract principles, but because of hard immovable facts. Is your army bigger than theirs? Are you
attracting more recruits? Are you deploying in the right places? Who has more resources? Who has the technology edge? These are the reasons I voted Obama in the primary. I didn't think he was "more principled" than Clinton, nor did I really care. I thought she was tough, but I knew he was tougher. I thought her campaign was
smart, but I thought his was smarter. I thought one person was talking about being a fighter, and another was out there actually being a fighter. The general is bearing all of this out, because right now, Barack Hussein Obama is
beating John McCain like he stole something--from Toot, no less. [MORE]
UPDATE: Here's the piece I wrote on the PG County cops that Stacy referenced. That was some years ago. But they haven't gotten much better. Here, also, are some thoughts on my old friend Prince Jones--a college kid, and father of a baby girl, who the PG County cops killed right outside his girlfriend's apartment. As for this case, they will almost certainly exonerate the officer. I don't think he should be charged. Probably was a mistake. But he should never have a gun anywhere near him. He should be fired and find another line of work. People's lives are too damn precious. It makes me ill to see some union dude trying to protect some guy's salary and benefits after he just killed someone.
UPDATE#2: Forgot to give a H/T to TalkLeft. The worst part is that I knew he was black while reading it over there. I hadn't even seen the picture. I agree with this, in the case of killing an innocent. I think George put it a little better than me:
Typically, Navy captain who loses his ship never commands another
ship again. The question of why the ship was lost is always evaluated,
but the answer to this question almost never leads to a second sea
command. It is his watch. He is responsible. That understanding, that
responsibility, is simply part of the job.
Police officers should be subject to the same expectations. Cops
involved in accidental shootings like this one should never be allowed
on the street with a firearm again.
On Fox News last week, Sean Hannity said he was tempted to ask Barack Obama: "Where did you buy your cocaine, how much cocaine? How much cocaine did you use? How often did you use it? When did you stop?"
On the same Monday night, Keith Olbermann said on MSNBC that John McCain
had a responsibility "to say 'enough' to Republican smears without end"
and not be "party to a campaign that devolves into hatred and prejudice
and divisiveness."
Are these guys watching the same presidential race, or even living in the same country?
Right. Totally the same thing. No difference at all. From the left and the right
More on Rendell
Lotta good comments below. This one made a lot of sense to me:
Rendell doesn't have an angle, per se - he's simply speaking his
mind, as he's famously wont to do. He has never believed that Obama can
reach white voters. Every bit of his political experience militates
against that conclusion. He was similarly skeptical of the polling in
advance of the primary, and his concerns were borne out, to an extent -
Clinton closed strong in the final week, widening the margin of her
win.
It's very simple. You can count on one hand the number of
politicians who managed to change the underlying demographics of the
electorate. All the rest won office through a mixture of optimistic
projection of their own chances and cynical realism about the nature of
the electorate. It's why so few politicians were willing to back Barack
early on; they didn't buy his game plan. And to this day, many of them
can't believe he can actually change the electorate, can actually win
over swing voters. They just don't. Rendell wants him to win, he's just
panicked that he might lose.
Sure, Rendell might be bitter, or it might all be a devilishly
clever conspiracy to dupe McCain. But I'll take the simplest
explanation available, thanks.
The only problem is--even putting Rendell's motives aside--why does it make sense, given the dynamics of this election, to focus on Pennsylvania? It's true I've been hitting him a little too hard, and perhaps unfairly, but I don't see the wisdom of focusing there. Let's say we buy Rendell's logic. Doesn't it stand to reason that the polls could also wrong about Virginia? About Florida? About Ohio? What about Colorado? Obama has a much smaller lead in all of those states. Why isn't his lead overstated there too? If you're not confident Obama will win in Pennsylvania, why should be confident he's going to win at all? I realize the demography is different in many of those, but in three of them, you have that same vast swath of Appalachia that gave Obama problems in the primary.
It seems reactive to pin it all on Pennsylvania--like, since McCain is pitting his hopes there we should be too. But why? McCain can win Pennsylvania and he'd still be in trouble. Moreover, shouldn't we note that both Gore and Kerry won Pennsylvania? How'd they end up?
Devastating
I think it's the lack of sound, but I found this really, really effective. I love ignoring Sarah Palin until the final week, and then turning that "starbursts" wink against them. It really is the essence of unseriousness.
By the time I get to Arizona
If it's a wall in the way just watch me go through it: :
Is it possible that John McCain could lose his home state of Arizona, which has only voted Democratic once in the last 50 years? A new poll from Arizona State University puts McCain ahead, but also suggests that an Obama win is not at all out of the question.
The numbers: McCain 46%, Obama 44%, within the ±3% margin of error.
The previous ASU poll from a month ago put McCain up 45%-38%.
Other recent polling has shown a close race, too. Rasmussen has McCain up 51%-46%, down from a 59%-38% lead a month ago.
When I saw this I knew I wanted to post the P.E. joint. But then I rewatched the video and saw how out of touch it is with where we are today. I don't mean that as a dis--P.E. existed in the era of Rodney King, Willie Horton, crack and babies making babies. We were just so angry. Another thing that comes across in the video is the shame many of us younger folks felt, back then, when thinking about the Civil Rights movement.
I know this sounds crazy, but a lot of us weren't proud of folks like John Lewis. We saw them as extending courtesies to utter and complete savages. Sista Souljah captures the feeling when she calls King, "a black man who tried to teach white people the meaning of civilization." Living in Baltimore, watching all that old black and white tape of dogs sicced on women and children, and of Southeners spitting and cursing at black folks marching somberly, I really felt that then. Oh man, how much shit has changed. May it continue to change too.
Rachel Maddow--Made Of Win
Truly awesome. John Madden watch out.
UPDATE: What is Ed Rendell's angle? Obama and co. were literally just in Pennsylvania. The state is important, no doubt, but the idea that Barack should be fighting there, instead of Flordia...I mean, maybe. One of the great things about this year is that the Obama cats have found so many routes to victory. Again, not arguing that Pennsylvania should be taken for granted, but this isn't 2004 or 2000. Is this just about preserving the importance of his state? For instance, is the flipside of the 50 state strategy a diminishing of the Big Three? And does that somehow diminish Rendell?
I get guarding against overconfidence, but that isn't the same as doubt. I hear a lack of confidence in Rendell. I'm not sure why. He shouldn't be arrogant about an Obama win, but he should be confident.
Be a father to your child
A while back I posted about playing D&D with my partner and a son. A frequent commenter sent this in as a response:
In one of your posts a few months back, you mentioned that one thing
that an absentee father misses is reliving his childhood. Ever since
then, I've been doing just that with my five year old son. Yes, I'm
sure I'm doing it to make up for the fact that my Dad wasn't around
and recently died. But man, it was an absolute blast taking him to the
comic book store for the first time today. He's in a Batman phase
right now, which is a good place to start talking about right and
wrong, as well as how to kick serious ass.
I will say this until I am blue in this face. One of the best things I got from my Dad as an adult was the notion that too many of us think of fatherhood as a responsibility and not an investment. It really gives so much back.
Yesterday, I had an "After School Special" moment with the boy. Football season is over and he really wants to play hockey. But his swimming instructor wants him to try out for the local swim team. Time won't allow him to do both. He also was scared of swimming competitively, I think. Hockey is just more contact--he's gotten past that. Anyway, I basically told him it wasn't up for debate. Swimming isn't just a sport, but it's a life skill. If he does it for a season and hates it he doesn't have to go back.
Anyway, he sulked for like 15 minutes than came over and gave me hug. Then he said he knew that I always did what was best for him, even when he didn't agree. I was thinking, WTF is this Family Ties? Seriously, I never had that level of self-awareness at eight. Anyway, I think I did the right thing. The kid is eight and swims better than me.
AMC also said that 49% of the adults 25-54 viewers that tuned in
during Season 2 have household incomes above $100,000, giving the
show the strongest concentration of upscale viewers in that demo
than any other original scripted series on basic cable.
Even if I've never met you, I know you all. You guys are that dude at the country club with the beautiful
date, holding a martini and a cigarette, standing against the wall
and makes snide comments about all the CSI-viewrs who who pass by. And you're also a Muslim. Can't forget Muslim
Against the machines
I lost my cellphone on Sunday. Last week my hard-drive went up on me. A month ago I left my Kindle in someone else's car--got it back fortunately. Nevertheless, the lesson is clear--me and tech don't mix. I don't have the sort of brain that can keep track of all this shit. On a tangential note, I'm leaving Facebook too. No fucking way I have 250 friends. UPDATE: If I wasn't clear, I'm not buying another cell-phone. I'm fucking done. Besides my e-mail is right on this page. And I answer it. Anyone can get at me.
The death of the Straight Talk Express
This is a very weird piece of journalism by Maeve Reston. She's the reporter who asked John McCain if birth control should be covered under insurance like Viagra. Reston didn't ask the question for kicks--Carly Fiorina, speaking on behalf of the campaign, had said that she thought that it was unfair that birth control wasn't covered. If you remember, McCain bumbled the question in excruciating fashion. In Reston's telling, this is one of the events that ended McCain's policy of giving reporters unfettered access. The piece is kind of homily to the good old days, when the press and John McCain used to exchange cupcakes, read Tiger Beat, and then strip down to their undies and have a tickle-fight:
I joined McCain during the icy December days in New Hampshire when his
confidence about a comeback seemed almost delusional. Inside the steamy
windows of his campaign bus, the Straight Talk Express, McCain held
court on a gray horseshoe-shaped couch at the rear, where we listened
with rapt attention...
He leavened policy discussions with funny stories from his school days
when some knew him as "McNasty" or reliving his daredevil exploits as a
young naval aviator. He was unguarded and charming, occasionally
solicitous about our lives.
One winter afternoon when Cindy McCain joined him and he was stuck with
three newly engaged reporters, he gave us a 10-minute treatise on
honeymoon spots.
"Where did you guys go on your honeymoon," I asked.
"Uhh," McCain said. "Hawaii," Cindy interjected.
"Canada?" McCain joked, pretending to fumble. "I get my marriages mixed up."
Cindy good-naturedly rolled her eyes. "We had a great time," he said, grinning, before telling us about their honeymoon spot.
For several months, he would often lean in and ask the same question: "Did you set a date yet?"
And did Reston glean from her unfettered access to John McCain? That he really didn't like Barack Obama. That Steve Schmidt did a great Dick Cheney impression.
I want to be respectful here because I think daily reporting is a tough, tough job. I think covering candidates and looking for a new angle everyday has to be doubly hard. But this idea that candidates are under some obligation to give reporters access, that there is necessarily a great deal to be learned--as opposed to a perspective to be lost--from being in a candidates good graces, has to go. MORE
Seriously. The thing I love about this speech is you can tell there are black folks in the house. Beyond that, Obama delivers the closing case. It is, as you would expect. He is who we thought he was.
Barry stays cool
Consider that just yesterday someone yelled "He's a nigger" at a Palin rally. Here is Obama responding to the second plot against his life:
"I think what has been striking in this campaign is the the degree to
which these kind of hate groups have been marginalized," he said.
"That's not who America is. That's not who our future is."
"What I've found is people here don't care what color you are," Obama
said of Western Pennsylvania. "What they're trying to figure out is who
can deliver. It's just like the Pttisburgh Steelers: they don't care
what color you are, they just want to figure out, can you make the
plays?"
Pitch perfect. Make the loons, the crazies, and the stuffed-monkey handlers the marginal figures. They aren't the future. Obama shouldn't waste a word on those loons. Leave that to people like me. And truth be told, I'm having trouble thinking of anything good to say. Part of that is because in declaring these dudes irrelevant dead-enders is the ultimate dis. As Jay would say, they only get half a bar.
UPDATE: A couple posters have noted that no one called Barack a nigger--apparently they were calling him a redistributor. Frankly, I'd rather be a nigger--that is if you can say it right. But that's just me. Anyway, thanks for keeping me honest guys.
Campbell Brown on the Daily Show
Is this love? Is this love? Is this love that I'm feeling?
Charles Barkley for Govenor
I like Sir Charles, but this sort of scares me. I always wondered why he left the GOP...
What ails them...
Via Andrew, here is a pretty brilliant summation of why McCain's weak-ass NIxonian tactics have failed:
This is the problem. It's not just the McCain campaign's problem - although their inability to pick a narrative and stick to it
is a special kind of inexcusable - it's a problem for the entire
wingnut noise machine. Obama is a Marxist Muslim Arab Jesus Black
White Terrorist Technocrat Racist Do-Gooder Liberal FDR Stalin Hilter
Commie Fascist Gay Womanizing Naive Cynical Insider Noob Boring Radical
Unaccomplished Elite Slick Gaffe-Prone Pedophile Pedophile-Seducing
Liberation Theology Atheist Etc. & Anti-Etc. with a bunch of scary
friends from - wait for it! - the Nineteen Hundred And Sixties.
Seriously--a noose around Sarah Palin's neck? Not the same as actual GOP officials sending out Obama bucks, or Sarah Palin doing nothing when someone in the crowd calls Obama a nigger. But, at the very least, an incredible waste of time--and a perfectly good manequin.
Weaksauce Incarnate
The Wright ad. Too little. Too late. But I give them credit--they're trying everything in the book. In other news the ATF just stopped a band of skinheads from trying to kill Obama.
Barack Obama--The Magneto Initiative
Speaking of the X-Men. Barack Obama has been called every name
under the sun--socialist, nigger, communist. anti-American--all of which may or may not apply. But recently I did the math and discovered the true nature of Barack Obama--He's a mutant bent on world conquest.
Think on it. Here is a black man who is evidently securing the votes of white people who don't like black people, who attracts massive crowds, and makes people faint at his rallies. Clearly he's using some Cerebro-like device to magnify his telepathic abilities. Commenters have noted that they just don't feel like they know Obama, and that's because they don't. Obama isn't just poised to lead Democrats to a victory--he's poised to do something that would bend the fabric of space-time, shaking the very foundations of the pundit-verse. There is only one explanation for all of this--Mutant Powers.
Oh man. Call in the Sentinels! Summon the Marauders! Is anyone writing this down? McCain needs to alert the free world!! He's tried everything else. Time to tell the truth--Barack Obama is Mutie Scum.
Mad Men Finale Open Thread
I think this deserves it's own post. Needless to say, if you haven't seen it, keep away. Let's go folks.
Sarah Palin is Rogue???
Oh, gone rogue. Got it. She's got the kiss of death part down. Anyway, you know me. Any excuse to make a lame X-Men joke or post a cover from the golden years of Uncanny. Damn, they were dope. That, for my money, is the best line-up. The Australian one was good too.
The Negro Donald Draper
So Mad Men is over, and short of the NFL, there really is no other reason for me to have a TV. I got rid of mine last spring, and I actually considered buying a new one just to see the new season. But then I discovered Mad Men was on Itunes. You should know that there are only two shows that have ever made me cry--Justice League and Mad Men. Sound insane? You obviously have never watched Justice League. [MORE]
He can now potentially win even without Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida:
As we pointed out on Friday, the significance of moving Colorado and
Virginia into Obama's column is this: If Obama wins those two states,
plus Nevada, he can still get to 270 -- even if he loses Florida, Ohio,
and Pennsylvania.
Truly, truly shocking. Pre-Iowa I was a skeptic. Post-Iowa--and really post-South Carolina--I thought he could do anything. And now let's give credit where credit is due. Howard Dean. He caught way too much shit for that comment about Confederate Flags and pickup trucks. He was the wrong guy to execute the plan. He was right--even if he was the wrong guy to execute the strategy. Barack Obama is now the candidate of white people who say nigger, but have lost their jobs, retirement and health care. Amazing. We don't have to like each other to realize that we could all sink together. H/T to TPM.
Tomorrow, members of the cast of the Peabody Award-winning drama series The Wire
will attend a Backyard Brunch for Barack in Raleigh. Seven of the
show's cast members will visit the Tarheel State in support of the
change Barack Obama will bring across the country and in North
Carolina.
Chad Coleman (who plays Dennis "Cutty" Wise), Deidre Lovejoy (who
plays Rhonda Pearlman), Jamie Hector (Marlo Stanfield), Clarke Peters
(Detective Lester Freamon), Sonja Sohn (Detective Shakima "Kima"
Greggs), Seth Gilliam (Sergeant Ellis Carver), and Gbenga Akinnagbe
(Chris Partlow) will all appear at the backyard brunch on Sunday.
What, no Nicky Sobatka?
October 26, 2008
You're going to be a John McCain supporter
Haha.
This morning's Meet The Press
Here's a good breakdown of the state of the race. The best part is when they ask Charlie Cook what should scare the Obama campaign. Cook responds by basically saying, "It looks too good."
Lieberman, a self-proclaimed "independent Democrat" who
was chosen by McCain to make the case against Obama at the Republican
National Convention in early September, said his comments have been
within bounds.
"When I go out, I say, 'I have a lot of respect for Sen. Obama. He's bright. He's eloquent.'"
Remember Paul Wellstone
And, seriously--whatever your ideology--don't ever be afraid to be who you are, to say what you believe to be true. These are Wellstone's last words on the Senate floor before he died. Brave to the end.
"Jewish Americans cannot afford to make the wrong decision on
Tuesday, November 4th, 2008," the e-mail reads. "Many of our ancestors
ignored the warning signs in the 1930s and 1940s and made a tragic
mistake. Let's not make a similar one this year!"
A copy of the e-mail, provided by Democratic officials, says it was
"Paid for by the Republican Federal Committee of PA -- Victory 2008."
It warns "Fellow Jewish Voters" of the danger of a second Holocaust
due to the threats to Israel from its neighbors and touts Republican
presidential candidate John McCain's qualifications over those of Obama.
October 25, 2008
I'm high-powered, put Dwight Howard to sleep...
The prevailing idea is that Palin was pushed by cynical Republicans who were trying to achieve some mix of the following--a siphoning off of Hillary votes, an electrification of the base, and a shot to the McCain campaign. All of that's true, but there's another oft-understated factor--male conservatives thinking with the wrong head. Jane Mayer is a literary hero of mine for her work on Bush and torture. Her relatively brief take this week on the Palin selection process is nowhere near as Herculean, but it's still revealing. That's because it subtly and effectively lays out the thinking of a certain type of pundit. Here are the reactions of several conservative writers who met Palin in Alaska:
From Bill Kristol:
...as early as June 29th, two months before McCain chose her,
Kristol predicted on "Fox News Sunday" that "McCain's going to put
Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, on the ticket." He described her
as "fantastic," saying that she could go one-on-one against Obama in
basketball, and possibly siphon off Hillary Clinton's supporters. He
pointed out that she was a "mother of five" and a reformer. "Go for the
gold here with Sarah Palin," he said. The moderator, Chris Wallace,
finally had to ask Kristol, "Can we please get off Sarah Palin?"
From Fred Barnes:
During the lunch, everyone was charmed when the Governor's small
daughter Piper popped in to inquire about dessert. Fred Barnes recalled
being "struck by how smart Palin was, and how unusually confident.
Maybe because she had been a beauty queen, and a star athlete, and
succeeded at almost everything she had done." It didn't escape his
notice, too, that she was "exceptionally pretty."
From Bill Kristol:
I've only met once but I was awfully impressed by--a genuine reformer,
defeated the establishment up there. It would be pretty wild to pick a
young female Alaska governor, and I think, you know, McCain might as
well go for it." On July 22nd, again on Fox, Kristol referred to Palin
as "my heartthrob."
From Jay Nordlinger:
In an online column, he described Palin as "a former beauty-pageant
contestant, and a real honey, too. Am I allowed to say that? Probably
not, but too bad."
From Rush Limbaugh:
Rush Limbaugh, the radio host, praised her as "a babe."
From Bill Kristol:
"I don't know if I can make it through the next three months without her on the ticket."
The Mayer piece made me feel like I was watching an assemblage of herbs getting played by the local hot chick. Conservatives rightfully inveigh against the liberal tendency to ban all admiration of the female form. Let's put that aside--Sarah Palin is hot. But let's not get it twisted--these pundits aren't wrong for noting Palin's physical beauty, they're wrong for counfusing that beauty for some sort of political qualification.
In politics, being hot is like a scoop of ice cream on poundcake--the ice cream is nice, but it isn't an ingredient in the cake itself. Furthermore, to the extend the metaphor, a majority of the electorate (women) have spent their lives watching dudes discuss ice cream, when the agenda is pound-cake. They aren't confused. They aren't pleased.
Fruit Flies? Seriously?
Sorry I'm late on this guys, I hopped off the Red Eye this morning, came home and took Samori to his football game. (They promptly smashed-off the Staten Island Hurricanes 26-0) Then I came home and crashed. Just woke up and saw Sarah Palin waxing anti-intellectual over scientific research. What a shock. I keep going back to that quote from Barack that these fools take pride in their ignorance. Others who are smarter than me are inflamed:
This idiot woman, this blind, shortsighted ignoramus, this pretentious clod, mocks
basic research and the international research community. You damn well
better believe that there is research going on in animal models -- what
does she expect, that scientists should mutagenize human mothers and
chop up baby brains for this work? -- and countries like France and
Germany and England and Canada and China and India and others are all
respected participants in these efforts.
Yes, scientists work on fruit flies. Some of the most powerful tools
in genetics and molecular biology are available in fruit flies, and
these are animals that are particularly amenable to experimentation.
Molecular genetics has revealed that humans share key
molecules, the basic developmental toolkit, with all other animals,
thanks to our shared evolutionary heritage (something else the
wackaloon from Wasilla denies), and that we can use these other
organisms to probe the fundamental mechanisms that underlie core
processes in the formation of the nervous system -- precisely the
phenomena Palin claims are so important.
This is not a politician who will be president--like, ever. Here you have a white woman running for national office, who far from being seen as representative, is disliked by a shockingly high number of other white women. You can't win the White House that way. It's popular to assume that you don't pay any price for ignorance in politics. This is wrong. You don't pay an immediate price--but the long-term brand damage is real.
October 24, 2008
Waaassssssuuuuup
Lawl...
Man I knew the story was a hoax, when she blamed a "6-4 black dude"
And I'm in Palo Alto. I'm saying. I wasn't anywhere near Pittsburgh. Here's Rick Sanchez dropping the science on those fools who tried to frame me.
Next right-wing talking point: Clearly the "hoax charge" is tainted by the fact that the Pittsburgh police have black people in the upper ranks of their department. Clearly.
Caught in the spam filter
So sometimes the spam filter garbles legit comments. I was going through trying to rescue some thoughts when I saw someone ask me to google "Obama black enough." Hah! Guess what the number one hit was? God I fucking hated that headline. Anyway, in my defense the crux of the argument was basically the same point I've been hammering today. Still that headline will haunt me till the end of my days...Or the end of the internets...
Because it's Friday...
Let's talk Kool G. Rap. The thing about this piece that always got me was how economical G. Rap is with the details. He needs two or four lines, tops, to give you the lay of the land
I'll explain a man sleeping in the rain, his whole life remains Inside a bottle of Night Train
Or:
I gotta color TV, CD player and car stereo. And all I want is a castle I also got a .38, don't gimme no hassle
Also, the fact that virtually every character in G-Rap's urban landscape is anonymous. There are no people in G. Rap's world--just drug dealers, a daughter with pneumonia, "a young girl undressed in the back seat of a Caddy\Calls her man Daddy." It's like everyone is either defined by what they do to others, or what was done to them. The result is that when G-Rap invokes the personal, it hits extra hard:
Upstairs, I cover my ears and tears The man downstairs must have had too many beers Cause every day of his life, he beats his wife...
Of course the music and alliteration in there is lovely--but that's almost a requirement of the form, and it's a specialty of G-Rap's. Again, what it causes is a kind of contrast when you hear a line with little internal rhyme or alliteration--"human beings are laying on the pavement\Cause their a part of a mental enslavement."
Anyway that's me talking off the top of my head. I heard this in 1990, as a freshman in high school. It just blew me away.
Toward a stilted blackness
Below is a bloggingheads with John McWhorter and Glenn Loury. They spend quite a bit of time, as Brother Jay would say, essaying on "What black is." Loury thinks Obama's blackness is more "complex" than the norm. McWhorter thinks Spike Lee is blacker than Obama.
I don't know how to process any of that--and I kind of hope I never do. I'm West Baltimore born, raised and proud. I didn't have a white friend until I was in my college years. In my single days, I never even hit on a white girl, mostly because I knew so few. It was best anyway, since, honestly, I had zero game. Anyway, my partner, Kenyatta, on the other hand went to school down South, and then in the suburbs of Chicago. She's had white friends all her life. Her first kiss was a white dude in high school. I used to rib her about her "white music" when we hooked up. But she's darker than me, and she's a great dancer. What does any of that mean? Who is blacker here?
Barack Obama is from Hawaii and was raised by white folks. But I bet he's experienced twice as much direct racism as me. I've never been called a nigger by a white person--it's kind of hard when there are no white people around you. He's got a killer jumper. Based on that Annie Oakley riff, I think he'd kill playing the dozens. He's got the world's tightest caesar. He greets Tim Kaine with a pound and a hug. Who is blacker here? What does any of this mean? How is he more complicated, or any less black, than Frederick Douglass? Than Booker T? Than Bob Marley? Than Jason Kidd? Than Boris Kudjoe?
I really don't get any of this--from the left or the right. I never thought Clarence Thomas wasn't black. I thought he was out of his damn mind. Those two aren't the same thing...
Because it's Friday...
OK guys, let's talk Susan Mitchell's take on The Frog Prince. I love the music of this poem--the last verse just kills. The panic in this portion is just so jarring, given the fact this woman liberated him:
At night I cannot sleep. I am listening for the dribble of mud climbing the stairs to our bedroom as if a child in a wet bathing suit ran up them in the dark.
Also, there is the obvious inversion of the "Frog Prince" myth. I think feminists could have a field day with this one. Isn't this ultimately a statement on the fickleness and immaturity of men? About our inability--or alleged inability--to grow up? Or is that too general? Is it about a specific kind of man, and whole idea of turning a loser into a husband. I.E. if you want a man, kiss a man--don't kiss a frog, under the pretense that the kiss will make him a man.
I don't want to say too much more, except that I first read this when I was 19 or 20, and it's one of those pieces that altered how I wrote, that made me more and more aware that great writing doesn't just ring true, in it's very rhythm, it should match the natural music that we all hear. Great writing, literally, sounds good to me--it pleases my eyes, and my ears.
Tom Ridge read this blog
Or McCain is going down hard. Man, talk about "Abandon ship."
There are a couple choice hip-hop lines I could use here
But I won't. This woman seems to be just plain disturbed. Maybe some dude did carve a B in her face. If so, that's horrific, and I hope they catch him. If she's running the Charles Stuart joint, I hope she gets some help.
UPDATE:It's a hoax. Damn. I'm thinking of that dude at the end of that short where the Muslims for McCain challenge the guy claiming Barack is socialist Muslim--Are you trying to make us lose? If I were Drudge, I'd spin things like this--it was stunt pulled by a closet Obama supporter. Indeed all of these fools showing up at the rallies are Obama folks in disguise.
Also Gramsci, you are made of win. Classic lyric. Although I was thinking more along the lines of "I'm like Zorro, I mark a B in your back..."
They wanna be me and my family too...
Because the money that I make be putting cable up in every room.
As one commenter said, McCain will likely blame John Lewis.
I also got a .38, don't gimme no hassle
So yeah, let's try this for hip-hop too. I'm hoping to get some non-heads up in the mix. Today we do Kool G Rap's "Streets of New York." There are those who think G Rap is the greatest of all time. I'm not going that far, but I think the lyrics here are ahead of almost anything anyone was doing in 1990. Check out the song, and read the lyrics after the jump. We'll have a comments thread this afternoon, where I'll share my thoughts. One request--if you absolutely hate hip-hop and believe it's downfall of black America, close out your browser, throw on A Love Supreme and pour yourself a glass of Dewar's. You'll feel fine in the morning.
Reagan is the pres, but I voted for Shirley Chisholm
Commenter Steve writes:
Let me suggest an empirical argument for race being the primary
motivation for Powell's endorsement. Powell belongs to a class of
Republican - moderate, pro-choice, reality-based, etc. - that though a
minority within the party, still comprises a large proportion of its
current and former governing elite. I would bet my bottom dollar that
in the privacy of the voting booth, a significant majority of these,
especially the older cadre, will be pulling the lever for Obama.
This stipulated, the question is begged: who else of Powell's
cohort, of similar or somewhat lesser stature, has gone public with his
or her preferences for Obama? I can think of none.
Perhaps I am not properly appreciating the number of ex-military
endorsements, and Powell's can be understood in such terms. But in
civilian terms, his outspokenness, given his "rank" seems essentially
singular. And the economical interpretation is that race was at the
forefront of his considerations.
I mean no disrespect to Steve, by what follows. He certainly didn't ask for a billboard. Still, I think this sort of thinking has to be interrogated and challenged. Steve argues that very few--if any--moderate Republicans have supported Obama and, thus eliminating ideology, race must be the primary factor for the Powell endorsement. There are two problems--one very obvious to folks who've been following the internal conservative debates, and a second more basic one.
Let's go with the obvious problem first--Steve's facts are wrong. He defines Powell's cohort as "moderate, pro-choice and reality based" and then asks, "who else of Powell's
cohort, of similar or somewhat lesser stature, has gone public with his
or her preferences for Obama? I can think of none." WellIcanthinkofplenty.
But let's assume that my facts are backwards, and go forth. It does not follow that, even if you eliminate ideology as a factor, that race is the only reason to support Barack Obama. Indeed, there are an infinite number of other reasons, flimsy and otherwise, why Powell could have made his choice. He may respect the fact that they're both the children of immigrants. He may have been particularly touched by Obama's memoir. He may like Obama's Ivy-League background. He may simply like his haircut. We don't know, because we aren't in his head.
There is something else--Barack Obama isn''t the first black person to run for president. Did Powell endorse Al Sharpton? Did he endorse Jesse Jackson? Did he even endorse fellow conservative Allan Keys? Did he endorse Doug Wilder? Did he endorse Carol Moseley Braun? If you are arguing that race is the primary reason, you have to explain why Powell didn't support any other black candidates for president--some from within his own party. And this doesn't just apply simply to Powell, but to all black people. Anyone who claims that blacks are simply voting for Obama because he's black must grapple with the fact that, in 2004, both John Kerry and John Edwards destroyed Al Sharpton among black voters in South Carolina, while Barack Obama did the opposite. If black people--and Powell--are blindly supporting the black guy, what explains the paltry support for all the other black guys?
Again, conservatives frequently argue for a high-bar for branding someone a racist. But this evidently only applies to white people. Think on it--If you say the "primary" reason Powell is supporting Obama is race, then the corollary must be that the "primary" reason Powell isn't supporting McCain is race--an unquestionably racist act. That is, to accuse Powell of supporting Obama primarily because he's black, is to accuse Powell of racism. So what we have here is a double standard. Deploy the high bar for people spreading Muslim smears and peddling Obama-bucks, but then abandon all skepticism when it comes to a four-star general.
Again, I don't mean to go off on Steve, but this argument has struck me for a particular reason. This is about racism at its most insidious, a mind-eating, inability to see Colin Powell--a man who's led a quintessentially American life--as anything more than a nigger sticking with another nigger. I deploy such ill language with intent here--it connotes the lack of humanity, the brainless zombiefication, the slow-wittedness that so many conservatives mindlessly apply to black people. They are not alone, or even special--it's human to dehumanize. But it's still a pox on all our houses, and frankly, I blog for a day, when it will be less so.
I am staring into the garden, I am watching the moon
Someone asked last week for some poetry every Friday. I didn't need to hear that twice. Here's what we'll do. I'll post something in the morning, with comments disabled, then start another thread in the afternoon with comments on. I want people to let the pieces marinate a bit. I'm thinking of doing the same with a hip-hop joint also. I'm pretty evangelical about the power of hip-hop as language. Anyway, here's our first piece--a classic, "From The Journals Of The Frog Prince" by Susan Mitchell:
In March I dreamed of mud, sheets of mud over the ballroom chairs and table, rainbow slicks of mud under the throne. In April I saw mud of clouds and mud of sun. Now in May I find excuses to linger in the kitchen for wafts of silt and ale, cinnamon and river bottom, tender scallion and sour underlog.
At night I cannot sleep. I am listening for the dribble of mud climbing the stairs to our bedroom as if a child in a wet bathing suit ran up them in the dark.
What's very, very hard, though, is to see how a primary campaign fought
and won along those lines would put Palin in a position to actually win
the White House - assuming, that is, that Barack Obama doesn't completely
fall on his face in the next four years. Not because Obama won't be
beatable in 2012 even if his Presidency isn't a disaster, mind you, but
because the Sarah Palin whom the base loves at the moment just isn't a
candidate who could beat him. Given the way she's presented herself on
the campaign trail and/or been used by the McCain campaign, and given
the media narrative surrounding her candidacy at the moment, for Palin
to be elected President of the United States would require an image
makeover even more substantial than the one Hillary Clinton underwent
between the late 1990s and this year. (That was the substance of my
argument in this post
from three weeks ago, and I think it holds true in spades right now.)
Such a makeover is by no means impossible - this is America! nothing's
impossible! - but running as the candidate of Rush and James Dobson in
2012 isn't going to get her there.
Part of the problem that Palin's "pro-America America" is shrinking everyday? If you want to be on losing end of demographics she seems like a good pick. This doesn't mean that conservatism, in and of itself, is a losing proposition. In other words, I don't think the whole pro-gun, pro-life, anti-taxes, pro-small government, hawkish foreign policy, pro-business etc. platform is the problem. Perhaps turning that platform into a kind of essentialism is the problem.
I was watching some clips of Reagan inveighing against San Fransisco hippies in the late 60s last night. He was doing that whole "look like Tarzan, walk like Jane" bit, and I was thinking how much things have changed. These cats have to find a new way to sell the package. If you can't otherize the black guy whose middle name is Hussien, who can you otherize? Too many of us look like Tarzan, now. Too many of us have people who were born walking like Jane.
It's worth admitting my own optimism, here. Frankly--and I know this sounds weird--an inclusive conservative party is important to me. Somehow, I think that they day a black conservative can credibly run out, say, Harlem, and not be seen as a dude in bed with the people who brought us Obama-bucks, will be a good day for us all. Take that for what it's worth, given my Muslim socialist status. I have no idea why I feel that way.
October 23, 2008
Watching Tom Ridge on Hardball
And I'm wondering why McCain didn't pick dude. He really seems sharp. Yeah I know, abortion.
The last word on Palin's wardrobe
You know what, this isn't about the wardrobe. It's about incompetence. It's about a poorly executed campaign. Dig this nugget from annals of Epic Fail:
Indeed, a look at some ad buy statistics provided by a Democratic
source shows that the RNC put more money down on Palin's attire than
they and the McCain campaign have spent on a weeks-worth of advertising
in half a dozen, potentially, swing states.
From October 13th through October 19th, the McCain campaign and the
RNC spent a combined $125,000 on advertisements in New Hampshire,
roughly $90,000 in West Virginia, and $86,000 in Maine. In each of
those states, the Republican ticket is fighting Obama for a small but
potentially significant number of electoral votes.
In North Dakota and Georgia, the RNC and the McCain campaign did not
spend a penny on advertising during that same week. These two states
seem likely to break for McCain, but it is not inevitable: Obama could
potentially pick off their votes.
In Indiana, the RNC spent $450,000 last week on ads while the McCain
campaign did not spend anything. An additional $150,000 could have
meant 33% more airtime over the course of a week.
Then there is Michigan. The GOP pulled out of the state a few weeks
ago and so hasn't spent any cash on advertisements there. The $150,000
they put down on Palin's clothes would not have purchased much airtime
in that large market, but it may have saved McCain from the public
criticism that he was subjected to for abandoning the state.
McCain's response to all this? She needed clothes. I bullshit you not.
Dy-lan, Dy-lan and Dy-lan
For those who didn't get the T-N-C/Chapelle reference. Hilarious.
Some housekeeping
Folks. I love you all. I think I have the most intelligent commenters of any political blog on the web. From George Wallace to Wallace Stevens. from Peter Parker to Parker Posey, you guys have got it.
But please don't threadjack. If you see a story you want to bring to my attention, send it via e-mail. I try to respond to virtually all e-mail I receive. It's not there for decoration. If it would help, I'd gladly have an open thread everyday. Not enough? Still frustrated? Then man up, grab your sword and start a blog.
Joe the Plumber meets Cedric the Entertainer
They could have gotten more out of this, but it's funny.
Every other week my whole dress-code switch
"Mecca, Pelle-Pelle, 88 North, Q-Bear and a few others\For the new year, strictly Bama-wear..."
Wu-Tang explains the world. But anyway, via Andrew and courtesy of Teh Corner, here's some comedy for you:
I cannot escape the suspicion that one reason everyone is so
exercised (other than the obvious, i.e. that she's a Republican) is
that she is so gorgeous in those clothes. There is simply no other
woman in political life to match her. The green-eyed monster strikes!
Everything this blog is about--excepting Gwen Stacy and aquatic elves--collides here:
Still, you talk about bossy. I thought he'd let the professional
sportswriter do most of the picking while the wonk occasionally looked
up from some Pakistan brief and nodded. Yeah, not exactly. When I got
on his campaign bus, all three flat screens were tuned to ESPN. Obama
was sitting in a black leather swivel chair, reading the paper. "Hey,
man, I'll be with you in a second," he said. "I'm poring over the
latest economic news." It was the USA Today NFL stats page.
He
is taller, grayer and quicker to laugh than I expected. Moves sort of
like an athlete--cool and smooth. "Now, you're the expert," he began.
"And I'll gladly be the junior partner in this, but I really think we
should take Drew Brees. He could have a big week. Oakland's secondary
is a wreck."
Ohhhh, so that's how it's going to be. "Well, I like Carson Palmer,"
I said. "He's due for a big week, plus he plays in Ohio and I figure
that's a state you need, so ..."
He looked at me like I'd stuck
my elbow in his soup. "Man, this is more important than politics!" he
insisted. "This is football!"
And:
In 2004, when Mike Ditka considered running against him for Senate,
Obama--remembering how Ditka let William Perry score a Super Bowl TD
instead of Walter Payton--said that "anybody who would give the ball to
Refrigerator Perry instead of Sweetness doesn't have very good
judgment." Ditka didn't run. "Too bad," Obama says. "We were hoping he
would."
Oh man...If only I had five votes...
All your Blacks are belonging to us
I've heard some folks in comments grumbling about the inference by Limbaugh, Buchanan, Will and K-Lo that Powell is supporting Obama because he's black. Meh, I don't have a dog in this fight. Demeaning Colin Powell as opposed to taking a sec to be self-reflective only makes the job of liberals easier. If they think this is the way to grow their base, then have at it.
That said, I'll just address the logic of things. I have no doubt that Colin Powell is very proud of endorsing a black man for president. But understand how different that is than, making a presidential endorsement because the candidate is black. These dudes (and dudettes) have the thing backwards. Of course they;re prone to getting it backwards because they've never understood diversity. Getting inside the heads of people is always hard. But getting inside the heads of black people--when you don't know any--is even harder.
Anyway let's return to Tony Dungy. He is the first brother to win a Super Bowl. I'm sure Jim Irsay is extremely proud that he made that win possible But Irsay didn't hire Dungy because he was black. He hired him because he's one of the best coaches of his generation. Ditto for Obama--who is running one of the best campaigns of his generation.
To say that race is major reason for Powell's endorsement is to basically ignore a serious qualitative difference between the two campaigns. But more to the point, conservative like to pride themselves on their skepticism. They're skeptical of people like me claiming Ferraro's statemement was racist. They're skeptical of racial discrimination. They're skeptical of black culture. They want direct evidence of 'racism." Fair enough. But we demand the same in return. Leave mind-reading to Cleo. Prove to me with direct evidence that Colin Powell supported Obama because he was black.
Bamboo earrings, at least two pair
Hey ladies, I'm out my league on this one. 150k sound like a lot, but hey, I'm a dude--and a scruffy-looking one at that. Before the Atlantic put me on, I wore a well-aged, oversized hoodie every day of my life. So let's hear it, did she overdo it? While ya'll marinate on that, I present my ode to Sarah. Fendi bag, and a bad attitude\That's all I need to put me in a good mood.
October 22, 2008
Joe the Plumber
For whatever reason, I've never watched the entire Joe the Plumber tape. I should have. It really says a lot about Obama as a politician. I don't think John McCain could have handled that situation. I'm almost certain Sarah Palin couldn't do it. Barack looks him in the eye, is respectful but direct, and makes his point. This is the difference between true toughness and bluster. Watch the tape--it's why Obama is winning. It doesn't matter that Joe isn't voting for Obama. Other people are watching--people hear that "Joe the Plumber" crack from McCain, but unlike in the past they can go see the tape.. That's what the McCain guys never get--there are other people watching these exchanges besides their fans.
Missing Dave Chapelle
JH says:
Coates has been on fire recently.
Indeed. Who's the Atlantic? T-N-C, T-N-C, T-N-C, and T-N-C.
Spit. Hot. Fire.
Don't test me. I spit hot fire.
In defense of white racism
So awhile back I was wondering why women seem to have such a visceral hatred of Sarah Palin. Then I got to thinking that if Sarah Palin was a brother, I'd might never leave my apartment. I would never blog because all my posts would overflow with venom. Then yesterday I saw Palin has the highest negative rating for a VP candidate in recorded history. And yet, fools are still talking that "Palin for president in 2012." You know me. Totally obsessed with race, so let's say it. A brother in that position not only would not be considered for 2012, he would be impeached when he returned to governorship for embarrassing the state, and then have his ghetto card revoked for embarrassing the local Negrocracy. This country would never allow a black person to be in Sarah Palin's position, and for that I have only two words for white folks everywhere--Thank you.
Here is the thing. We've all noticed that the public persona of black folks has taken a tumble over the past few decades. We went from Otis Redding and the Four Tops, to 50 Cent and Dip Set. We went from Jesse Owens and Joe Louis to Pacman Jones and Mike Tyson. Are today's Negroes of a lesser breed? Nope. What's changed is that white folks are now letting anybody through the gate. White racists have taken a lot of heat on this blog. But the truth of the matter is that they may be the single biggest promoters of black excellence in this country's history. There is a reason Tony Dungy was the first winning coach in Tampa Bay's history--he had to be.
Think about this whole Joe The Plumber foolishness. There's no way in the world Barack Obama could pull off the same trick with, say, Rashid The Barber. Rashid would be laughed off the stage--as he should be--and Barack's campaign would be dead. Joe The Plumber is stupid and it isn't working. A little bit of bigotry would have prevented all of this. So to all the Ferraros out there I have one request--more racism please. It improves our stock. It makes black people, a better people.
Classic example of a date rape
If you haven't seen the most recent episode and are worried about spoilers, just stop right now. OK. Fair the warned, says I.
I've been holding back on Mad Men talk because I have a fairly lengthy piece I'm thinking about posting about Don Draper, passing and the black experience. But save that for another day. I want to know what people thought of that rape scene. I'm a guy who thinks Hollywood is too violent. Not like "Think about the children!" violent. I don't buy that crap. My concern is story, story, story, story. I think movies and TV often lean on sensational acts of violence and sex to camouflage their story flaws. Rape scenes especially disturb me. I made the mistake of watching Derailed a gratuitously violent movie with a senseless rape scene in it. I wish I could have those hours of my life back. I basically agree with Anthony Lane (my favorite critic working, and a master of language) on this:
We have, it is clear, reached the lively dead end of a process that was
initiated by a fretful Martin Scorsese and inflamed, with less
embarrassed glee, by Tarantino: the process of knowing everything about
violence and nothing about suffering.
That said, if I love you as a story-teller, I will watch you do anything. I can take viscous violence as story-telling. I can't take it for show. Anyway, I thought the rape of Joan was one of the must agonizing scenes I've watched in recent memory--agonizing in a great way. Kenyatta on the other hand was extremely disturbed by it--in a bad way. Something about it really bothered her--she feels like they're actively punishing Joan. I would be more sympathetic to that if there weren't other women on the show, and other women who were sexual. I think they're saying something about the limits of sex as power. I can't help but to juxtapose Joan (and to some extent Bobby) with Peggy, who has grown in stature and is on the brink of passing all the junior people in the office.
It's like in the past women were limited in how they could show power--limited to ways that basically affirmed what a men were comfortable with. Joan is threatening to men in a way that can be squelched--as we regrettably saw. But Peggy scares--or is starting to scare--the hell out of the men in the office, and they have no idea what to do about it. How can they stop her, short of killing her? Isn't this about the limits of an "old" sort of power as compared with a "new" power that women have access to? And yet what gives Peggy her foot in the door is her insights as women--remember Belle Jolie?
A lot of this is me just talking. I'd love to hear from some women fans of the show. I could be off my rocker. But I do love the show. This will not be popular, but I think it's first two seasons are as good as the first two seasons of The Wire.
Troy Polamalu is scaring me
And not in a good way:
Pittsburgh Steelers safety Troy Polamalu has not been ruled out of
Sunday's key game against the New York Giants despite sustaining the
seventh concussion of his career last weekend. Steelers coach Mike Tomlin confirmed Tuesday that Polamalu received
a concussion while tackling Bengals running back Cedric Benson on
Sunday....
Oh my. His life I know. But after how Andre Waters went out, this stuff scares the hell out me.
According to a SurveyUSA poll,
58% of black voters support Proposition 8, which would enshrine
irrational fear and rank bigotry into the California Constitution in
order to deny gays the right to marry. Black support is 10% higher
than support of any other ethnic group. This is ironic, considering
that in striking down the law banning same sex marriage, the California
Supreme Court cited the landmark 1967 civil rights case Loving vs.
Virginia that struck down the prohibition of interracial marriage.
A
majority of California's voting African-Americans seem blind to that
irony, however. They see no kinship to their own past as a reviled
minority whose sexual touch toward a single white man or woman would
sully the entire "race"- of American white--just as legally sanctioning
the sexual touch of same sex partners would so sully heterosexuals'
unions that they will, what? Seek immediate divorce? Abandon their
children to the streets? Suffer mass orgasmic dysfunction.
Yeah I understand that, and I offer no haven for neanderthals. But I think this is a "What's The Matter With Kansas" mixed with a kind of "How dare you act like human beings" argument. Man listen, the discrimination the Irish suffered didn't make them, on the whole, any more sympathetic to the Italians. The discrimination Italians suffered doesn't make them any more sympathetic to Latinos. And the discrimination that all of these groups suffer has never made any of them more sympathetic to blacks. Indeed, there is an argument that ethnic whites are the least sympathetic to blacks and to each other. There may be some case for Jews, but the Holocaust is such a singular event that it really breaks the mold.
The point is that this idea that communities who suffer a particular form of discrimination would therefore find common ground with other people who suffer discrimination is a nice thought, but more often than not, it isn't the case. Indeed black folks will often tell you that the most overtly racist white people they come in contact with, are also the ones they seemingly have the most in common with. I think those of us who are black and are really disturbed by this issue have some serious work to do in our own communities. But we have to approach folks as human beings. The question for me has always been what would I want for my son of daughter if they were gay? How would I want their life to be? What I want for my brothers, my sisters, my cousins? It has to be a human question. We have to personalize this.
All that said, I love the close:
Today,
our attempts to defend our pride in the manhood of our men, we only
prove that we're still vulnerable to whims of those who've most reviled
us. We're ready to open the door to the legalization of bigotry--a
door through which we too might one day be shoved. We're not defending
our "manly"- bona fides through supporting Prop 8. We're only proving
how damaged we remain.
UPDATE: Eduardo basically gets it below. Oppression isn't ennobling. It doesn't--in and of itself--make you more enlightened.
Local communists, rarely tapped as campaign pundits, say Sen. Barack
Obama and his policies stand far afield from any form of socialism they
know.
John Bachtell, the Illinois organizer for Communist Party USA, sees attempts by Sen. John McCain's
campaign to label Obama a socialist as both offensive to socialists and
a desperate ploy to tap into fears of voters who haven't forgotten
their Cold War rhetoric
Despite the way the blogs and the Democratic Party are spinning it, I
never called all liberals anti-American, I never questioned Barack
Obama's patriotism
We saw the tape lady.
One last point
Two posts on the subject, and its creepy to do analysis at a time like this, but I do think that this e-mail I received is on point:
Providence keeps providing Obama with pathways to excellence and McCain
with trails to failure. Now Obama gets to show McCain how to interrupt
his own campaigning, maintain the campaign at full tilt, gain
tremendous sympathy for his empathy and love (older voters are just
going to swoon over this one) and revisit his thoroughly Kansan roots,
all the while appearing perfectly and consistently logical. There will
be comparisons with McCain's dumb stunt and none of them will be
favorable. I would like to see the inevitable ugly spin from Limbaugh,
Malkin and the hateful fringe.
Not me. At any rate, no one is saying Obama asked for this, or is even implying that he's exploiting it. But it's very hard to miss the parallels.
More help for an East coast librul lost on the left coast
I have two personal objectives for the next two days:
1.) Get a decent cut (thanks brothers)
2.) Get a good scenic 3-4 mile run in. Yes, I'm an amateur when it comes to this. Still, where should I go? Gonna google around some, obviously, but I find personal testimony to be the best way.
Speaking of Ric Flair
Has anyone seen The Wrestler? It sounds interesting, but I may have to catch it on Netflix, because of my schedule.
I hope this is in good taste
Barack Obama's grandmother is gravely ill. My temptation yesterday was to say nothing. And then, this morning, I came across this picture at Andrew's place. I've reflected a lot--personally--on Obama's campaign and the values of parenting. I often think about how his Dad left him, and never knew that his son would be within days of the presidency of the greatest power in history. Think about this--what else could a father want? My own Dad often says that too many black men see child-rearing as "responsibility" and not "personal investment." They forget about the joy that children bring, and instead focus on the bills, or on stupid, petty beefs with women. As my own son creeps past eight, I've been reminded of that.
Obama's mother, a relatively young woman when he was born, will not be here to see him inaugurated, should he win. Whenever, I think of that I just get sad--mostly because she did know the rewards of parenting and threw herself at her kids. There's something unjust in the fact that she won't get to see the results of all her work.
But now, more than anyone, I am thinking of Barack Obama's grandparents. One of the big mistakes we make when we look at the history of race in this country is to focus on big people and big events. What should be remembered is that, though our racial history is mired in utter disgrace, though the deep cowardice of post-reconstruction haunts us into the 21st century, at any point on the timeline, you can find ordinary white people doing the right thing. Frederick Douglass, himself a biracial black man, is a hero of mine. But arguably more heroic, is Helen Pitts, his second wife--a white woman, who traced her history back to the Mayflower, whose ancestors founded Richmond Township, NY, and who was cast out for marrying Douglass. Here is a white woman who spent the best years of her life fighting for suffrage and racial justice. After Douglass died, she dedicated the rest of her life to seeing him honored, when everyone else was on the verge of forgetting. Please read up on her. She was the truth.
Likewise, I was looking at this picture of Obama's grandparents and thinking how much he looks like his grandfather. And suddenly, for whatever reason, I was struck by the fact that they had made the decision to love their daughter, no matter what, and love their grandson, no matter what. I'd bet money that they never even thought of themselves as courageous, that they didn't give much thought to the broader struggles in the the world at the time. They were just doing what right, honorable people do. But the fact is that, in the 60s, you could be disowned for falling in love with a black woman or black man. There is a reason why we have a long history of publicly biracial black people, but not so much of publicly biracial white people.
We often give a pass to racists by noting that they were "of their times." Fair enough, and I know Hawaii was a different beast, but still, today, let us speak of people who were ahead of their times, who were outside of their times. Let us remember that Barack Obama learned the great lessons of life from courageous white people. Let us speak of those who do what normal, right people should always do when faced with a child--commit an act love. Here's to doing the right thing.
October 20, 2008
Do it Rick
Davis argues that John Lewis--who McCain claims to hold in the highest esteem--has forced them into race-baiting:
Look, John McCain has told us a long time ago before this campaign ever
got started, back in May, I think, that from his perspective, he was
not going to have his campaign actively involved in using Jeremiah
Wright as a wedge in this campaign. Now since then, I must say, when
Congressman Lewis calls John McCain and Sarah Palin and his entire
group of supporters, fifty million people strong around this country,
that we're all racists and we should be compared to George Wallace and
the kind of horrible segregation and evil and horrible politics that
was played at that time, you know, that you've got to rethink all these
things. And so I think we're in the process of looking at how we're
going to close this campaign. We've got 19 days, and we're taking
serious all these issues.
These dudes are worthless. Calling them Nixonian would be a compliment, because they're not even good at running the Nixon game. Please, no BS about how McCain's heart isn't in it. Whatever. I so want them to go there. And throw in the drugs while they're at it. I want these dudes to throw the whole book at Obama, and then I want him to bury them. This isn't about a hatred of McCain, it's about my utter and complete disgust with Northern Virginia not being the "real Virginia," with small-town American snobbery, with neo-red-baiting, with Obama monkeys, and Obama bucks. End this now. Let's close this chapter--not because it will be the end of our problems, but because we have huge actual problems that we should be fighting over.
Thug-Life Chronicles Cont.
I know a lot of us have been crowing over the nuts at the McCain rally, because they're unwittingly helping Barack. I think that nuts in either party are bad for the country. I generally feel that black people voting 9 to 1 for Dems is actually not a good thing. Black people support Dems because they're convinced, understandably, that the GOP is racist. But that's very different than blacks supporting Dems because they're 9-1 liberal. I prefer the latter--the former, not so much. Anyway, this is why I was heartened to see the following video. Bigots and idiots need to be purged out of our politics. I applaud that purging in both parties. Unfortunately, the McCain people now seem to have muzzled the dude. Oh well. Props to him anyway. UPDATE: Peace to Asher for the link.
If all my posters were like this...
I would never need to blog. Seriously, some of you guys should really consider taking up the sword. It's a responsibility to keep going, but it's so easy to start, and a consistently great blog can really make a dent. Anyway, here's a great comment from poster Cynic:
The problem, I think, is that our punditry is largely innumerate. To
a great extent, the stories about Obama's struggles with particular
demographics are farcical. They originated in the heat of the primary
campaign, when the Democratic primary electorate (DPE) showed clear
cleavages along demographic lines. Young people of all races and
genders voted for Obama, but older, poorer, white, Hispanic,
less-educated, and female voters tended to back Hillary. Those were
real divides. It was very clear, during the primary, that within the
DPE, Latinos preferred Hillary.
The problem was the conclusions that the punditry drew from these
clear demographic facts: that Obama had a 'problem' with Latino and
female voters, two traditionally Democratic constituencies. In fact, it
was simple to show that this wasn't the case. Obama's negatives
remained fairly low among both groups. Among Latinos, his positives
were also low - they simply didn't know him, although they knew they
could trust the Clintons. Among women, his positives were reasonably
high. But both groups were evincing a preference for Clinton in a
two-candidate race, not passing judgment on Obama per se. There was,
simply put, never much reason to doubt that in the general election
both groups would trend strongly to Obama. In fact, the evidence that
Obama is now carrying both groups by substantial margins implies that
his support among Democrats in both groups must be
astronomically high, despite his failure to carry majorities of
Democrats in these groups in the primary.
I'm headed to the Bay Area for a week. Where can I get a decent cut?
UPDATE: Sorry folks, was on a plane out west all day. I'm out here now at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. Nothing public, regrettably, though I'm starting to think when I travel I should do meet-ups. The better to meet all five of my readers. Anyway, I would pull something together impromptu, but I'm here with Kenyatta. And when not with her, I'm gonna be closing a piece for the magazine. I'll be back at the start of the year, hawking the paperback of my memoir. Thanks for all the recommendations.
And yeah, about the Cowboys. I think that trade for Roy Williams is going to haunt us for a couple years. Giving up a first-rounder for a WR, when the defense is getting gashed week in and week out, was stupid.
About that Latino vote...
Hmmm. Remember those stories about how Latino racism was going to kill Obama. Funny how they've receded to the back pages as Obama has started to dominate McCain among the demographic. White people hating black people is old hat. White people hating black people is cool. But Black people hating Latinos--or vice versa--is teh sexah!!! Regrettably, Latinos acting like what they are--Americans---is teh dull.
On election night in 1982, with 3,000 supporters celebrating
prematurely at a downtown hotel, I was upstairs reviewing early results
that suggested Bradley would probably lose.
But he wasn't
losing because of race. He was losing because an unpopular gun control
initiative and an aggressive Republican absentee ballot program
generated hundreds of thousands of Republican votes no pollster
anticipated, giving Mr. Deukmejian a narrow victory.
I heard Newt say this on ABC, and thought it sounded completely reasonable, but then he ruined it by making some sarcastic point about blacks possibly being racist in voting for Obama. That's the thing about Republicans. Often they make a perfectly rational point--and then ruin it with a stupid jab at Negroes or Latinos. I don't think they realize how much goodwill they lose with these antics. Anyway, the author worked on the Bradley campaign, and effectively kills the argument at its source.
To be the man...
The wrestling thread below got me thinking about the awesomeness of Ric Flair, arguably the greatest super-villain of my childhood. Yep he's got Magneto and the Hobgoblin beat--only North and Pulaski comes close. Some choice Youtubes of "The Man." Seriously though, can't you see the line between these dudes and like the cats in your neighborhood who talked trash? Who is Jay-Z but a Ric Flair remix? Listen to this kid. He's sick with the word-play.
I think this adds to my calculation -- this is very hard to measure --
but it seems to me if we had the tools to measure we'd find that Barack
Obama gets two votes because he's black for every one he loses because
he's black because so much of this country is so eager, a, to feel good
about itself by doing this, but more than that to put paid to the whole
Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson game of political rhetoric
I really have no idea about this. And neither does George WIll. He can't know. What is the problem with people simply saying, "You know what, I don't know the answer to that." It's why I never want to be a pundit. The entry requirement seems to be that you have to act like you have an answer to everything, when sometimes, you just don't have a fucking clue. Is "I don't know" outlawed or something?
Going down in flames
Any time you're getting into beefs with Fox News, you're in trouble. You know how I know this dude is in trouble? He keeps playing "the race card" card with Lewis, and that ain't even working. Remember when that was supposed to be kryptonite for Obama? No one cares, now. People are scared They are losing their homes. They are losing their retirement. They don't now how their going to send their kids to college. No one has time for this. I never expected McCain to become such a small, small candidate.
Lapdogs, all of you
Numerous fools have written to question my knowledge of snakes. Fools. Normally, I have no problem with correction but you guys clearly missed out on one of the great markers of a great era--80s professional wrestling, The cobra clutch is a wrestling move. See below. And save your know-it-all-ness for my grammar. Like I said before. Fools. How dare you question the repertoire?
UPDATE: OK a little more said. I think this is a pretty good point from Mark Halperin, via TPM:
On CNN just now, Mark Halperin pointed out that one reason this is a
big blow to McCain is that the press will talk about the endorsement
for the next few days, cutting into the time McCain has left.
This took me back to McCain's selection of Palin as a way of stepping on Obama's convention bounce. But all bounces fade, so they were basically stepping on an illusion. Obama is stepping on McCain's lifeblood here--time. That isn't an illusion. He just robbed McCain of oxygen. They are slowly tighnening the grip. The cobra-clutch is in full-effect.
UPDATE #2: Video below. That Muslim answer was incredibly, incredibly, incredibly strong. Stronger than anything Obama's ever said. That was just beautiful. That part should be everywhere. It was really moving. So what if he is, indeed. More later, I need to grapple with that answer. It was heavy. I imagine a lot of Muslim cats (I'm thinking Keith Ellison) are like, "Finally."
UPDATE#2: Powell doing a news conference outside. He seemed really, really emotionally moved by Bachmann.
NFL open thread
I'll be running most of today, and will likely miss most of the games. Please talk here. I'll be checking in from time to time.
The thing about bigotry
I thought this was worth pulling out:
I really don't think homophobia can stand against reality. Mine couldn't.
It couldn't stand against the reality of my cousin, sixty years old, works for the Port of Seattle, married to her partner, good head for business, great laugh.
It couldn't stand against the reality of Martin and Andrew, who worked so hard for those twin baby girls. If you saw them with those girls, it would melt your heart.
My homophobia was challenged once again when I had lunch with Greg on his last day of work. I mentioned how, at first, his gayness was a little bit difficult for me. He said, "me too". I said that once, he was looking at the monitor and put his hand on my shoulder and it made me a little uncomfortable. He looked me right in the eye and said, "Jay, if only you weren't married." And then we laughed hysterically.
I really think that comes down to this: drink deeply from the world, it will enrich you.
As you guys know, I'm mixed in my feelings on integration as a kind of end all be all strategy to solve "The Negro Problem." But I'm not mixed on integration as a value. I think we should stop defining bigots as evil people. Half the problem with the "I can't believe you called me racist" is the belief that racist kill puppies, and beat their wives. But bigotry, at its core, is nothing but a kind of entrenched, willful ignorance.
I had almost the exact same experience as Jay. It was very easy to use the word "fag" around my friends--until I started working with gay people. Part of it was youth. (I was just coming into my college years) But a larger part was living in Washington D.C., hanging out in Dupont Circle (it used to be different), working in Adams Morgan, and being forced to see gay cats as actual human beings. "Gay" was no longer an abstract thing--it was, like, my editor who saved my sorry-ass copy--repeatedly.
I think it's pretty easy to deny a civil right to a dark stranger. But denying it to you children, to your friends, to your cousins is a lot harder. To bring it back to seemingly the only reason for this blog to exist, I think this is why that can't make the terrorist thing stick to Barack. They've seen this guys kids. Everything is harder then.
October 18, 2008
Thug-Life Chronicles Cont.
I think this will be my last entry.The point has been made, no?
Blacks, Homophobia and Prop 8
Commenter Martin wrote in the following on another thread:
TNC
I'm gonna have to side with Sully on the black homophobia argument.on CA Prop 8 shows that African Americans are the largest non-political/non-theological demographic in support of Prop 8 - larger even than the at-large over 65 population.
I look at all of these pro-8 arguments and they look exactly the same as the arguments used to oppose interracial marriage. Maybe the move in CA should have been to put up a competing amendment banning both gay and interracial marriage, just to drive the history lesson home.
A few things:
1.) Here are the SUSA poll numbers which do, indeed, show an appallingly high level of support for Prop 8 among black folks.
2.) If you look back, I never argued that blacks were going to be particularly supportive of Prop 8, so much as I noted the relatively small number of blacks in the electorate of California.. Blacks make up around 7 percent of Cali's pop--there are roughly double as many Asian-Americans (a lot of whom oppose Prop 8) in Cali as there are African-Americans, and many more Latinos (a lot of whom support Prop 8).
3.) Brothers we have a problem: All of the demographic points aside (controlling for income, religion, education etc.), it's very difficult to not be disturbed by all of this. It's sort of sick actually--all our experience with discrimination in this country hasn't made us any wiser. Right, it didn't make the Irish any wiser either, I got that. But, I once heard Bill Cosby say something that rang emotionally true for me, and I'm going to paraphrase. I'm black--I rooted for Doug Williams in the Super Bowl--not John Elway. I want what's best for my team. I want us on the right side of history.
Also, this is one of the reasons why we, as black folks--and frankly me as a black person--should resist the temptation to get all self-righteous about white racism. I still think that if Prop 8 passes, black folks won't be the decisive factor. But, you know me, I'd rather us not even be in the conversation.
October 17, 2008
Thug-Life Chronicles Cont.
There's an interesting parallel between Michele Bachmann's nutty American nationalism, and the essentialism of the old "Keepin it Real" hip-hop heads. But it's Friday, and my baby is bringing me home some Macallan's--the 12-year, fools. (What can I say? It's been a good week.) I'll simply add that Bachmann makes me proud to be an American--proud and extremely thankful. Here's the thing, in other countries, many of which are dear to my heart, people like Bachmann don't simply go on television and rant, they have very large guns and friends with very large guys. The same hateful jingoism you see running through the following screed, is the exact same jingoism that leads to massacres in other parts of the globe.
Fortunately we live in a nation of laws and relative sanity, which allows Bachmann to rant her heart out and me to laugh at her while I prepare dinner. Yes I know, don't laugh to hard, son. We have our own history and we have to stay on guard. But still we've gotten better.
John the Prophet
Over at The New Republic, McWhorter tells you all what I'll write--before I've even written it:
In a recent Bloggingheads dialogue, Ta-Nehisi Coates admitted to me
that Iowa had forced him to "reassess" his pessimism as to how far
America has come on race. If Obama loses, people like Coates will
desist in their reassessments, and settle back into their cognitive
comfort zone.
It's true, I blame the White Man at any opportunity. Were it not for The White Man I'd already have a genius grant, and be on my third Pulitzer. My son got in trouble today at school. The first question I asked the principle principal was "Where was The White Man, and how long had he been there." It's really all I care about. Plus it's difficult to argue about what you'll think, before you've even thought. Still normally, I'd go with John on this. Except that the written record is a little more complicated. Here I am on that Yahoo study that found white racism would kill Obama:
This topic crops up once a month
it seems. And so we have a furious debate, again, over how much racism
will cost Obama in November. Hmm, well it'll probably cost him
something, but this seems to me to be a giant unknowable. I also agree
that there are some transperency issues here.
Here I am on the wisdom of spending your days focused on white racists:
One of the things that's shocked a lot of people is Obama, and his
campaign's, unwillingness to talk about how many votes he may lose
because of racism. The CW is that any talk about racism loses Obama
even more votes. But there's another--arguably more important--reason
not to spend much time dwelling on racism--it's a bad way to compete.
No great football player sits around worrying about the refs and the
crowd-noise.
And despite all of that, a specifically organic black conservative
outlook is the closest thing I have to religion. It's just what I believe.
This is real talk for you: If you're frustrated by my reluctance to
engage in a fight over whether something is racist or not, or whether
proven racism matters or not, I understand. But it really boils
down to this--I'm not very interested in trying to show racist white
people, and non-racist white people who defend them, the error of their
ways. As a black person, I'm just kind of "Meh." I do it from time to
time, but by in
large I think we make a huge mistake when we continually view
the fate of black folks through the prism of "what are white people
thinking?"
And here I am on what will happen in black America if our boy goes down:
That's why an Obama defeat would be met with resignation more than
rage. No one is more tired of talking about racism than black people.
The disenchantment with protest politics, the fatigue from refighting
old battles over school integration and affirmative action, even the
rise of politicians like Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick point to
a shift in the disposition of black America. The big issues of the day
aren't so much racial profiling and police brutality as the achievement
gap, the incarceration rate and unemployment. The great race
conversation has not only decreased in volume; for black people, it's
also become much more introverted. At this moment, black America is in
the grips of a kind of barbershop conservatism that is more concerned
with its own progress than with the attitudes of whites.
The backlash begins before election day even gets here:
An ACORN community organizer received a death threat and the liberal
activist group's Boston and Seattle offices were vandalized Thursday,
reflecting mounting tensions over its role in registering 1.3 million
mostly poor and minority Americans to vote next month.
Attorneys for the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now
were notifying the FBI and the Justice Department's Civil Rights
Division of the incidents, said Brian Kettenring, a Florida-based
spokesman for the group.
Anyone who believes that ACORN is perpetrating "voter fraud" or is just plain confused needs to read Ric Hertzberg's straight dismembering of, what he calls, "Voter fraud, fraud."
During this election cycle, the Timesreported
today, ACORN has deployed thirteen thousand mostly paid workers, who
have registered 1.3 million new voters. One or two per cent of these
workers turned in sheaves of forms that they filled out themselves with
fake names and bogus addresses, and, even though at least a hundred of
these workers have already been fired, the forged forms have been
submitted to election boards.
Sounds suspicious--unless you know that groups like ACORN are required by law
to submit them, even if they're obvious fakes. This is to prevent funny
business, such as trashing forms that look like they might be
Republican (or Democratic, as the case may be)...
Sounds suspicious--until you reflect that the motivation of the
misbehaving registration workers is almost always to look like they've
been doing more work than they really have, and that the victim of the
"fraud" is actually the organization they're working for.
Sounds suspicious--unless you know that even if one of these fake
forms results in a nonexistent person actually being registered, now
under the Help America Vote Act of 2002, "any voter who has not
previously voted in a federal election" must provide
identification in order to actually cast a ballot. This will make it
tough for Mickey Mouse, even if registered, to vote, no matter how big,
round, or black his ears. Likewise, members of the Duck family (Donald,
Daisy, Huey, Dewey, and Louie) who turn up at the polling place will
have a hard time getting into the voting booth. (Uncle Scrooge might be
able to bribe his way in, but he's voting Republican anyway.)
Because it's Friday
Let's roll with some poetry. Ladies and gentlemen, I present one of the great love poems of our time--the incomparable "As You Leave Me," by the great Etheridge Knight:
Shiny record albums scattered over
the living room floor, reflecting light
from the lamp, sharp reflections that hurt
my eyes as I watch you, squatting among the platters,
the beer foam making mustaches on your lips.
And, too,
the shadows on your cheeks from your long lashes
fascinate me--almost as much as the dimples
in your cheeks, your arms and your legs.
You
hum along with Mathis--how you love Mathis!
with his burnished hair and quicksilver voice that dances
among the stars and whirls through canyons
like windblown snow, sometimes I think that Mathis
could take you from me if you could be complete
without me. I glance at my watch. It is now time.
You rise,
silently, and to the bedroom and the paint;
on the lips red, on the eyes black,
and I lean in the doorway and smoke, and see you
grow old before my eyes, and smoke, why do you
chatter while you dress? and smile when you grab
your large leather purse? don't you know that when you leave me
I walk to the window and watch you? and light
a reefer as I watch you? and I die as I watch you
disappear in the dark streets
to whistle and smile at the johns
Don't know if you poetry-heads get into Etheridge Knight. He has the coolest name ever--it just sounds like a poet's name. Or an MC's for that matter. When I was at Howard, he had a huge fan base among those of us who were into such things. I actually never got into him too heavy. But this piece--especially the whole "and I die as I watch you" riff--is butter. I don't want to prejudice anybody. We can do critique and stuff in comments. Heh, all five of us.
The latest on the horse-race
I love stories like this. Here's a pretty cool piece from Politico that gives some ground level data on a few crucial counties in big swing states. The cool thing is that instead of offering this view from a million feet in the sky we get the stats on a much more micro-level. Go check it out. The writer, Alexander Burns, did work.
UPDATE: Meanwhile McCain has finally settled on a national strategy. It's Joe The Plumber. Nothing else. Just Joe the Plumber.
And now let us dis whack football teams
OK, football talk folks. What do I have to say? The Cowboys should not have signed Pacman. The dude evidently has a babysitter--and then he got into a fight with his babysitter. Ugh. Roy Williams wasn't worth a first-round pick. A second receiving threat is a problem--but it isn't our biggest right now. Anyway, speak your piece on your team below.
And now let us praise great comic books
I stopped reading comic books, mostly because I felt they were killing main characters just for shock value and to gin up publicity--and then bring them back and gin up more publicity. It just felt like cheap story-telling. I read Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men and thought it was pretty awesome. The Hellfire arc was thoroughly enjoyable. But then they went and "killed" Kitty Pryde. I'm not against death--but death seems to happen in comic books (especially to women) often because writers can't think of anything else to do. I don't know.
But we're not going to dwell there. Comic books are still--along with hip-hop, D&D, and my Dad's collection of black books--my first literary inspiration. They gave me my that sense of the fantastic and the magical that, as I've said before, I really believe all little black boys should have. Especially in these times. Listen to any Wu-Tang, Big Pun or Jeru album and you'll realize that I wasn't alone in this. Anyway, I've developed this habit--whenever I travel--of popping into the local comic book shop and perusing the collection. I always liked Dwayne McDuffie's work on Justice League Unlimited. For me, that show made the case against comic book movies. OK, that's too broad. But if you look at what they were able to achieve, with old fashion animation, it's just stunning.
And so I went ahead and picked up McDuffie's latest--his Fantastic Four run and his current Justice League. Man, he's killing it. I won't bore all the non-comic book fans here with a recitation of the arcana. But I'm going to talk to my people for a second. Nope, not even black people. I'm talking to those kids who came up like me, whose folks mistook Malcolm's Autobiography for the Bible, gave them African names, but didn't prohibit them from watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. If a 12-sided die and Swahili mark your childhood, than this is for you: Dwayne McDuffie has turned Anansi the Spiderman into a villan. And a cool-ass one at that. The writing is superb, and the pacing and action is great. But after all these years of Thor, Hercules and Loki--and believe me, I loved them all--there's something cool about seeing Anansi in a Justice League comic book.
At any rate, I doubt I'll ever go back full speed. Retconning Spiderman's marriage was the end for me. I get the argument against it, but what a cheap-ass move.
P.S. I know that cover has nothing to do with anything with this topic. I just love that series.
They are who we thought they were--again
I am assuming you guys have seen this. I'm pretty much of out of outrage, especially given the fact that all of this is backfiring on these cats. Wasn't it MLK who said the arc of the universe bends towards justice? I think I can see the curve. By the way this wasn't some nut at a rally--it was a local Republican Party office. Think this can't be tied to McCain and the national GOP? I guess. But you'll have to tell me why McCain is out campaigning with one of his own officials, who urged his workers to push the Obama is a terrorist line.
All of this brings me to another point, one I've made before. It's all fine to attack liberals for upholding "diversity" or for being too "politically correct." I basically agree that Affirmative Action is problematic and a debate is in order. But lefties shouldn't be chastened by thier failures. Here is the thing--at least we're taking up the challenge. We were the first to understand that a country ruled by White Men--not on merit, but by bigoted design--was country on suicide watch.
Our soloutions have been imperfect, wrong, and sometimes straight quackery. But we've been trying, and we have not ducked the long, twisting journey into our identity as Americans. This willingness to take the trip (even when we don't know where the bus is headed), the courage to confront our own prejudices is, in some measure at least the reason our rallies look like this and their's look like that. We've spent the last 40 years grappling with great problems of our democracy --race, gender, poverty. Meanwhile, they've been sitting in the corner cracking watermelon, fried chicken jokes and waxing sarcastic over the health of pregnant women. This is who they are.
October 16, 2008
Great words from cool-ass commenters
From Tyler:
Come on Ta-Nehisi - you know black folks ain't neva said "fist bump". LOL
Dude, I'm infected. Once upon a time I wrote a whole post about the ugliness of the phrase "fist-bump." The proper term is pound or dap. Anyway, my Ebonics game has gone downhill since I started blogging here at the Atlantic. I blame Douthat and McArdle. I know Fallows and Ambinder are closer, on the roll, but I wouldn't be a lefty if I couldn't implicate some conservatives in my lameness.
From Stacy:
If you really think TNC is saying that a single black man doesn't have
the right to be with a white woman, I suggest you try reading the post
again. Everyone is always trying to catch TNC in some obvious double
standard where he shows his own racial hang-ups. It was a light-hearted
post that made a serious point about Barack and Michelle's appeal.
C'mon.
Deborah is the wisdom here, Stacy is the common-sense.
From the Irish Pirate:
My response to "once you gone black you never go back" is "once you gone white you know you done right".
Not much to say here except, game recognize game...
Who knows what lies in the hearts of sistagirls...
You've all heard about the Michelle Obama whitey tape, the rumors that Obama is a Muslim, that he doesn't say the pledge blahblahblah. But in the secret counsels of Delta and AKAs, in closely guarded meetings of the Links, in the offices of Essence magazine, in book groups where black women ruminate over the deeper meaning of Sula, there is a shadow lurking, a possibility so devious, so menacing, so unholy that it has never been spoken in mixed company--UNTIL NOW.
The great fear is that, at some point in this campaign, it would be revealed that Barack Obama was having an affair with--wait for it--a white woman. Since 2004, sisters across the nation have been treated to a great black love story. If Love Jones were on CNN, it would be Barack and Michelle. OK, not really, but I can't think of many other black romantic comedies that are any good. Work with me people. Anyway, sisters everywhere have been caught by the idea that their basketball playing, Harvard educated, smooth talking chocolate brother is just around the corner. Most of them will end up a Leroy, a Dashawn--or a Ta-Nehisi, even. But that isn't the point.
With any fantasy there must be some threat, and it's not uncommon, when in the company of four or more black women who happen to be discussing the awesomeness of Barry and Michelle, to hear something like the following,
Sistagirl #1: They're so great! And did you see the fist-bump? Sistagirl #2: And did you see his little girls?? Sistagirl #3: I love you Daddy! Awwwww...."
And then it comes like shot of venom through honey,
Sistagirl #4: He better not be cheating on her with a white girl...
All Sistagirls the world-over, in unison: Mmmmhmmm
Oh the horror. Oh the humanity. So, for you honeys out there, here is Barack speaking on your deepest fears. May I add that Katie Couric goes there for you. So ya'll need to stop the hate. Also you can just cut it off when McCain comes on. No one cares what he's doing.
P.S. Please no comments like "Yes, but Barack IS HALF-WHITE!!" We know this, white folks. It's fear. It's not supposed to be rational.
You gotta hand it to him, when you truly understand it
From Bill Clinton to John McCain, Senator Barack Obama
has proved adept at driving very smart politicians out of their comfort
zone, leading them to make comments or embrace tactics that end up
backfiring.
"We now have 19 days," Obama said. "We are now 19 days not from the
end but from the beginning. The amount of work that is going to be
involved for the next president is going to be extraordinary."
But, he said, for anyone getting cocky or giddy, "two words for you:
New Hampshire. I've been in these positions before where we were
favored and the press starts getting carried away, and we end up
getting spanked."
Trane reigns superior, always taking care of ya...
Here is a post for all my Etta James-rocking, Maker's Mark-sipping, "Pull your pants up!" people. The ones who send me e-mails reminding me to Be A Credit To My Race, put on a tie, and stop using so much foul language ("This is The Atlantic, young man!"). Seriously, I love you all. No sarcasm there, it really does take a village.
Anyway, I'm writing today, reworking a feature for the magazine. I don't know much about jazz but I do have this Three-CD Retrospective of John Coltrane's stuff on Impulse and I kinda love it. I only say kinda because I don't know what I'm listening to, and whether, or why, it's good. But "Greensleeves," "Spiritual," "Chasin' The Trane," and "Afro Blue," are killer. To put this in the language of my folks, Coltrane comes on at the end of "Afro Blue" and just rips shit. It's like listening to Kane back in the day drop that last verse of "Symphony"--except I can write while listening.
Ta-Nehisi's geek pass is revoked
Yeah. I'm just not that excited about J.J. Abrams's Star Trek. I mean him no disrespect, and it isn't even about him. It's about the whole direction of Hollywood when they take on these sorts of things. Count on more explosions and more special effects. It's what the people love. But, frankly, when I watch something like the current season of Mad Men, I have no idea how anyone in the business of telling stories makes it through the day. You may think it's apples and oranges. But it's all storytelling, and that's all I'm really in it for. So I think I'll act my age, stay home and watch First Contact again. The Borg rule.
This is a great ad
I'll say it again, Obama is the best counterpuncher in the business. Hat-tip to TPM.
B.Y.:
I think that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were also major factors. And I
believe that many of the problems in the mortgage area can be
attributed to the confluence of Democratic and Republican priorities:
the Democrats' desire to give mortgages to people, particularly
minorities, who could not afford them, and the Republicans' desire to
achieve an "ownership society," in part by giving mortgages to people
who could not afford them. Again, I believe that if you are suggesting
that the financial crisis is a Republican creation, or even more
specifically a McCain creation, I think you're on pretty shaky ground.
M.T.:
Oh, come on. Tell me you're not ashamed to put this gigantic
international financial Krakatoa at the feet of a bunch of poor black
people who missed their mortgage payments. The CDS market, this market
for credit default swaps that was created in 2000 by Phil Gramm's
Commodities Future Modernization Act, this is now a $62 trillion
market, up from $900 billion in 2000. That's like five times the size
of the holdings in the NYSE. And it's all speculation by Wall Street
traders. It's a classic bubble/Ponzi scheme. The effort of people like
you to pin this whole thing on minorities, when in fact this whole
thing has been caused by greedy traders dealing in unregulated markets,
is despicable.
B.Y.:
I was struck by the recent Senate testimony of James Lockhart, who is
head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, about the sheer
recklessness of Fannie in recent years. Despite "repeated warnings
about credit risk," Lockhart testified, Fannie became more reckless in
2006 and 2007 than they had been in the scandal-ridden tenure of
Franklin Raines (who departed in 2004). In 2005, Lockhart said, 14
percent of Fannie's new business was in risky loans. In the first half
of 2007, it was 33 percent. So something terribly wrong was going on
there, and it became a significant part of the present problem.
M.T.:
What a surprise that you mention Franklin Raines. Do you even know how
a CDS works? Can you explain your conception of how these derivatives
work? Because I get the feeling you don't understand. Or do you
actually think that it was a few tiny homeowner defaults that sank
gigantic companies like AIG and Lehman and Bear Stearns? Explain to me
how these default swaps work, I'm interested to hear.
Because what we're talking about here is the difference between one
homeowner defaulting and forty, four hundred, four thousand traders
betting back and forth on the viability of his loan. Which do you think
has a bigger effect on the economy?
B.Y.: Are you suggesting that critics of Fannie and Freddie are talking about the default of a single homeowner?
10:31 That was a great job moderating. I think Obama had it--not by much, but he had it. I think John McCain just looked petty for much of the debate. It ain't his year.
10:25 Great ending...to the McCain campaign. He's laughing because he doesn't know how much he's bleeding.
10:23 "That was vouchers Senator Obama. I'm surprise you didn't pay more attention..." Lecturing again. Condescending again. Does that approach actually reinforce the age problem?
10:18 I think that parents part is critical.
10:15 That eloquence attack is a nonstarter. It's a debate. You can't attack someone for being eloquent in a debate.
10:14 Why does McCain keep sighing into the mike?
10:12 The kitchen sink comes out.
10:05 McCain rambling...Obama swats him.
10:02 From Andrew:
"Maybe you ought to travel down there." C'mon, McCain, this is
weeeaaak. And petty. And incoherent. McCain's veep only got a passport
last year and McCain is attacking Obama for not visiting Colombia.
10:00 Doesn't "Joe the Plumber" sound like a 70s porn star?
9:59 OK, now he turns to Joe the plumber. But he turns to attack Obama.
9:58 Look, he's looking at Bob. It's like he doesn't know the camera is right there.
9:57 One thing I just noticed is the Obama is--and has been--much more aware of the fact that he's on TV. Dig how he turns to the camera. McCain is caught in the moment. The battle, for him, is right there at the table. He doesn't project out.
9:55 "There isn't any doubt that Senator Obama wants to restrict trade and raise taxes..."
9:53 McCain can't stop himself from lecturing and condescending, can he...
9:51 More passive-aggressive. "I admire Senator Obama's eloquence..." It just says you don't take the guy seriously.
9:39 You just heard why John McCain will lose. He pivoted from an attack on ACORN and Ayers to his campaign getting the economy back on track. Worst segue ever. The two don't line up. Ayers and ACORN don't take you to a larger campaign theme. This isn't "Swiftboating" which took you to the War on Terror. This isn't Willie Horton, which took you to crime. This isn't "States Rights" which takes you to busing and the Voting Rights Act. It's just empty demagoguery. It doesn't say anything about what is foremost in the electorate's minds.
9:38 Devastating. "Says more about your campaign, than it says about me."
9:36 "Destroying the fabric of democracy!" Who knew ACORN was a herald of Galactus?!??
9:35 Here it comes...
9:34 Damn, McCain looks angry.
9:29 Boy Barry pounded him on this one. The "Woe is me" BS never plays well.
9:26 WEAKSAUCE!!! We get whining about John Lewis instead of Ayers?? WTF?
9:25 Here it comes. I smell Ayers...
9:23 Good come back. He's steady as hell. It's amazing, even sitting down he looks erratic. It feels like that "I am not President Bush" argument should have come up earlier.
9:20 Good. Good. "Senator Obama, I am not president Bush." Said it looking right at him. I think he's learning kids.
9:16 Is the "buying up mortgages" idea popular? Who is the constituency for this?
TNC likes to portray himself as above the fray ... all the while
lecturing white people on history and how we are supposed to feel about
it.
Well kind of. I actually think I'm down in the mud with all the other pinko, commie bastards. But I do like lecturing white people, but not just on history--on dress, food and culture also. Plus is there really anyway for white people to feel besides guilty? OK there's guiltier, I'll grant you that. But the key is guilt. Yes. More white guilt please.
Don't ask me, I went from ashy to classy to nasty...
Seriously. You never thought hip-hop would take it this far...
More McCain and Wright
Earlier this year, after Republicans lost Louisiana's Sixth District, Newt Gingrich warned his fellow conservatives:
The Republican brand has been so badly damaged that if Republicans
try to run an anti-Obama, anti- Reverend Wright, or (if Senator Clinton
wins), anti-Clinton campaign, they are simply going to fail.
This model has already been tested with disastrous results.
I thought about that quote as I read this report that Johnny Mac is at odds with his people, because they want to bring up Rev. Wright. It's apparent that no one listens to Newt:
The aides argue that the 20 years that Obama spent in the fiery
Wright's pastoral care -- and his later assertion that he knew nothing
of his former minister's more extreme statements -- provide an opening
to challenge Obama's judgment and honesty in a relevant and politically
resonant way.
"He was a central figure in Obama's life, shaping Obama's thinking, and
he made the extreme radical comments that are borderline
anti-American," the campaign official said.
McCain is right--but not for the reasons, he thinks. It's honorable that he doesn't want to be known as a racist candidate, but there is something else--the tactic will fail. Here's the thing. I was on a panel with Peggy Noonan a couple weeks back, who I generally disagree with. But she made a great point about Sarah Palin and populism. Noonan argued that populism as a tactic, when connected to some larger thing, can work. But populism as an entire strategy--i.e. vote for me because I'm like you, and nothing else--is much much harder to execute.
There's a reason why some demagoguery works and other demagoguery doesn't. Obama's attack on McCain's house allowed him to circle back and score points on the economy--it was connected to an actual issue that was on the minds of voters. Ditto for the Keating Five. The Swift Boat attack allowed Republicans to come back to terrorism, at time when folks were living in the shadow of 9/11. Bill Clinton's Sista Souljah thing allowed him to tap into all sorts of shit--from welfare to Affirmative Action to crime. These were actual voting issues at the time. Willie Horton connects to crime policy--a big deal in the late 80s. And so on.
What does Wright represent? What policy does he circle back to? The big voting issue this year is the economy. All this does is say to people--who are steady losing money--that McCain doesn't want to talk to them about the great issue of this election. If this were 1988, and the issues were crime, welfare, Affirmative Action, maybe this would work. But this is just a character attack. It doesn't lead anywhere.
Jackson himself denounced Taheri, according to the Associated Press,
for "selectively imposing his own point of view and distorting mine,"
issuing a statement saying Taheri was trying to "to incite fear and
division."
Jackson added that he "has never had a conversation with Sen. Obama about Israel or the Middle East."
That still doesn't quite say he didn't say it. He made some remarks at the forum and then talked to dude, apparently.
Anyway, from the department of internecine feuding, Jeff thinks I "copped-out" by calling Jesse's actions a cop-out. He prefers the term "scape-goat." I don't think there's much I can say to move the discussion forward.
All your memes are belonging to us
Christopher Beam has a nice discussion of the origins of the terms "Fail" and "Epic Fail"
It's nearly impossible to pinpoint the first reference, given how common the verb fail is, but online commenters suggest it started with a 1998 Neo Geo arcade game called Blazing Star. (References to the fail meme go as far back as 2003.) Of all the game's obvious draws--among them fast-paced action, disco music, and anime-style cut scenes--its
staying power comes from its wonderfully terrible Japanese-to-English
translations. If you beat a level, the screen flashes with the words:
"You beat it! Your skill is great!" If you lose, you are mocked: "You
fail it! Your skill is not enough! See you next time! Bye bye!"
Haha--"You Fail It!" And then there is this:
The highest form of fail--the epic fail--involves not just catastrophic failure but hubris as well. Not just coming in second in a bike race but doing so because you fell off your bike after prematurely raising your arms in victory. Totaling your pickup not because the brakes failed but because you were trying to ride on the windshield. Not just destroying your fish tank but doing it while trying to film yourself lifting weights.
It's really interesting because Beam argues--persuasively--that "fail" preceeded "epic fail." My experience was the exact opposite. In MMOs (Multimedia Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games for uninitiated) like Everquest, WOW, and now Warhammer, they have quests which reward you with gold and/or experience. The hardest, and most rewarding, quests were called "Epic Quests." There are also "Epic" swords, "Epic" chest-plates, and "Epic" staves etc. The point is that "Epic" is the ultimate. When people I played with said "Epic Fail" it was the opposite of "Epic Quest." And then later people just started saying "Fail," which I always took as short for "Epic Fail"--not a lesser kind of "Epic Fail." But that may just be how I caught it.
Frankly, I'm fascinated by how language is developing online. My favorite meme I encountered in my whole time in WoW was ROFLcopter. The booby prize to whoever can figure out what that means. Man, just writing about this makes we want to throw on my head-piece, boot up Ventrillo and go stomp some fools in Warsong Gulch or Arathi Basin. But I'm older now, and a respectable Negro. I have standards to maintain, no?
A rambling post on race and history
Jan Crawford Greenburg has a pretty great piece discussing John Lewis's comments. Greenburg is white and from Alabama, and so it's interesting getting the context for racial violence from the perspective of white native Southerner:
The laws then said blacks were unequal; the politicians would come
to preach that blacks also were dangerous. The governor of my home
state declared "segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation
forever," and crowds cheered. He later stood in the schoolhouse door to
keep blacks students from entering the University of Alabama, and
emboldened crowds threw bottles and sticks and hurled epithets.
When I was a student at Alabama decades later, I used to walk by
that building, Foster Auditorium, on my way to class. I saw R.E.M. play
there on Sept. 22, 1984. But I can still imagine Wallace, standing in
the schoolhouse door.
It was just the other day.
One thing that's come to me, during this election, is how so many people view pre-Civil Rights movement America as this distant aberration. There's sort of this belief that--at some point in the past--there were slaves in this country. And then Abe Lincoln ended it all and saved the union, though the people who fought Abe were honorable men themselves (can't forget that caveat). Then later someone put up some signs saying "Whites Only." A few bad apples killed some black people who didn't like the signs. Then Martin Luther King proclaimed he had a dream, and it was huggie time--until some fool, motivated only be his own individual sense of evil, killed him. But we're mostly all better now.
I think that's the narrrative that McCain/Palin are working from. A lot of folks think that these guys are intentionally stirring up these old forces--but that gives McCain/Palin too much credit. They don't really know how close this stuff is to us--that this country sacrificed 750,000 of its best men on the altar of white supremacy. They don't really know what the 60s cost John Lewis. They don't know that the only successful coup d'etat in America's long illustrious history, was led by white racists. Wilmington still hasn't recovered from that. They don't know anything about housing covenants, black vets lynched in their uniforms, the government conspiring to keep black neighborhoods poor, states conspiring to make black children stupid, or Alabama sharecroppers being used as guinea pigs. They just have no idea how history walks with us all, that all of this happened just the other day.
Waterboard Barack Obama
To avoid lapping over with Andrew, I'm just going to refer you guys to him. It isn't some fool in a crowd. It isn't a lunatic with a monkey doll. It's our thug-life in action, pure and simple. Say it with me children--They are who we thought they were. And as they get closer to the end of a noxious chapter on our history, they show themselves to be the same cowards they were in Philadelphia in 80, with Willie Horton in 88, with hands in 90, with Sista Souljah in 92, with McCain's love-child in 2000. They are who we thought they were. And I think their time has come.
More Thug-Life Chronicles
I should stop, but somehow I'm transfixed. It just amazes me, especially in light of our convo on conspiracy theories. Dig this.
Churchill and McCain
It's weird but when reflecting on the Palin/McCain "pals around with terrorists" strategy, I keep thinking of that Churchill quote about having to choose between war and dishonor, and how choosing dishonor ultimately leads to both. Here is what last week wrought for John McCain:
Six in 10 voters surveyed said that Mr. McCain had spent more time
attacking Mr. Obama than explaining what he would do as president; by
about the same number, voters said Mr. Obama was spending more of his
time explaining than attacking.
Over all, the poll found that if the election were held today, 53
percent of those determined to be probable voters said they would vote
for Mr. Obama and 39 percent said they would vote for Mr. McCain.
At the risk of repeating myself I'll say, again, that we, as liberals, are shook. We think that bringing up Ayers and Wright is evidence of a kind of toughness and steely strength that we lack. In general, and specifically in this case, I see it exactly the other way. McCain and Palin are afraid of a fight on the terms that most voters want--the economy. They don't want war with Obama over who has the best economic policy--and they've admitted as much. But they can't even honestly fight that battle, because they don't want their general to get bloody. So they dispatch his wife and other clueless surrogates to do what the general is afraid to do himself. When you are scared to fight on issues, and scared to attack on the terrain you've identified, I don't know how that makes you tough, strong or any of that. It makes you dishonorable. And, in these times, you won't be able to duck the war. Indeed, as Churchill said, you will have both.
My view: whoever brings up Ayers loses. People are worried about their 401ks and their jobs.
Basically. I think McCain stepped into it on this one. People are giving him praise for holding back on Wright, but that's just smart--it's in his interest to hold back on Wright. Excepting the neanderthals stroking their monkey dolls, no one cares. People are losing their retirement and their kids' college funds. I know some of us think of white racism as this force that trumps all. But everything I know about this country says that there is a power even greater than "The Nigras are merrryin our daughters!!" The power of the dollar. It will be our damnation--but it will be our savior first.
Billy Dee Williams says "Jesse, step away from the mike bruh..."
The most important change would occur in the Middle East, where "decades of putting Israel's interests first" would end.
Jackson believes that, although "Zionists who have controlled
American policy for decades" remain strong, they'll lose a great deal
of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House.
I have two problems with this. 1.) The "Zionist control" theory is a cop-out, a kind of "the Israelis made me do it!" defense. If you have a beef with American foreign policy over the past couple decades, take it to the people you elected and supported. 2.) Why is this dude speaking for Barack? How does he know what Obama's foreign policy priorities will be? Why can't he stop talking? I don't get this at all.
To Jesse's credit, later in the piece he says that he isn't an adviser to the campaign. But that only makes his comments even more puzzling, because if that's the case, he has no way of knowing what Barack is going to do. There are some very disturbing inferences that can be made, in terms of jealousy. But whenever I've speculated on the contents of the hearts of men, I've gotten in trouble. I think it's wrong to read a generational beef into this, even though I've been guilty of it in the past. I think this has to do with Jesse, and Jesse only.
UPDATE: Jesse says he didn't say it. I'd love to know what that means. Did he never talk to the guy? At any rate, the veracity of the comments are disputed. Here's the thing, the writer has a nasty record. Jesse also has a record of lodging charges at more credible journalists. Frankly, I don't know what happened. Sometimes a blogger gets ahead of himself. It's possible that, in this case, that blogger would be me.
October 14, 2008
We wuz robbed pt. 2
The saga continues, with the GOP's chief victimologist laying the groundwork for post-November excuse-making.
The latest in Death Penalty news
Troy Anthony Davis will, in all likelihood, die. I don't know what to say. I'm against the death penalty on basic principle--the math says we'll eventually execute (and likely already have executed) someone whose innocent. That just seems morally repugnant to me. Moreover, I don't believe in law as a tool of vengeance. And often that's all the death penalty is--societal vengeance.
Is Ed Rendell still pissed?
I'm not sure what Obama did to him. Or maybe this is just what happens:
"The proudest accomplishment I'll look back on is the seven-week
campaign we ran for Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania," Rendell said.
About half of the several hundred people at the outdoor rally
applauded.
"I have never seen a seven-week campaign catch fire the way that
campaign did," Rendell went on. A smaller number of people clapped.
"It was wonderful to see people who would tell me, 'I'm never voting
for Hillary Clinton,' by the end of that seven weeks were avid Hillary
Clinton supporters," Rendell continued. This time nobody applauded.
Rendell was not quite done. "In Washington, D.C., if we lose all of our
supporters, all the people who look out for us, there will be one man
left standing," he said, "but that man will be a woman, Hillary Rodham
Clinton."
Clinton tried to take over the microphone, uttering a "Whoa!" to admire
the crowd -- but Rendell reclaimed the floor. "One last time!" he
shouted, leading the crowd in a chant of "Hillary! Hillary!"
I wonder if this has something to do with the following: A central tenet to the argument against Obama was that he was this effete liberal who could only get the votes of blacks and the over-educated (Paul Begala's "African-Americans and Eggheads" assertion). Back then it was thought that Obama would have trouble with Jews, Latinos and white people who didn't go to Harvard. Whatever happens over the next few weeks, that claim now looks ridiculous. And so the fact of the matter is that these guys didn't just support the losing candidate, their argument is daily being exposed as hogwash. They weren't just wrong about the primary--they were incredibly wrong about the general.
Hillary Clinton ran the most successful presidential campaign ever launched by a woman. But these guys need to believe something more. It's like the world is changing under their feet, and even if the change is good for liberals, they can't accept it. Take a look at Fivethirtyeight. I don't know if that will hold up, but who will these people be when the walls fall down? What will these people say if Obama actually gets more white voters than Kerry? If his win trumps Bill Clinton's? What will they say if their "hard-working white voters" chose a Hyde Park liberal? What will they call themselves?
McCain telegraphing his punches
McCain now promises to bring up Ayers. Why? Have these guys just given up? Think about it--it didn't work for them last week. What the hell makes them think it will work better in a debate? Is this just McCain getting his "I ain't no punk" on?
More GG right-wingers
Heh, Ann Althouse checks out Jack Cashill's theory that Ayers wrote Obama's bio, and comes up divided:
In fairness, there's been some pushback over at The Corner about this latest nuttery. Still, I'm going to say this one last time--actually I'm going to say it until they put me under: I don't ever want to hear anyone complaining about black people and their conspiracy theories. The cat on the corner--or even the Reverend--yelling about the government inventing AIDS is off his rocker. But my God, all these people do is sit around think. And this is what they come up with--Bill Ayers wrote Barack's memoir. Wow.
AV Club TVOTR Interview
Haven't even read it yet, but I'm going to go ahead and link. Will comment some more after I get through it.
October 13, 2008
What it's all about
Seriously guys sometimes we forget. Here's a note from a reader:
My father
(85 year old African-American and, in fact, a "public intellectual" who
helped coin the phrase "African-American" 40 years ago, a phrase we now take
for granted on our census forms) and his wife (77 old European-American, the
term they both hope will replace "white" someday, and life-long civil rights
activist and academic) voted this morning in Atlanta, GA. My stepmother
emailed me this morning to tell me about their experience, early voting,
getting "fragile elderly" treatment from the poll-workers, wishing she could
kick up her septuagenarian heels after casting her vote.
I sat in my
office, reading her email, and wept. Then, I went down the hall to my
colleague's office, sat down, and wept. After seven decades of constant
struggle, my father walked into that booth and knew that his life's work was
now done. My stepmother can think of every person who secretly and
not-so-secretly thought of her as some kind of race traitor, smile and think
"I told you so!"
Obama will win, I'm sure he will. But today,
my parents did. I am so deeply, deeply
grateful.
Exclusive: New McCain ad exposes Obama's secret ties.
This is bigger than the whitey tape. Someone call Larry Johnson...
McCain is ten points down in the national polls
But he has Barack Obama right where he wants him. As the Infamous would say--"Fee, fie, foe, fum\I smell the blood of a completely shook one." Release the hounds, Barry.
Same old race-baiters
Adam gives some much needed historic context to the whole socialist/Leninist/communist/Maoist slur deployed against Obama. People think this is a new tactic--It isn't:
The feeling that black-rights activists were part of a front for
communism and socialism was widespread. Jerry Falwell famously
criticized "the sincerity and intentions of some civil rights leaders
such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer, and others, who are
known to have left-wing associations." Falwell charged, "It is very
obvious that the Communists, as they do in all parts of the world, are
taking advantage of a tense situation in our land, and are exploiting
every incident to bring about violence and bloodshed." For the agents
of intolerance, things haven't changed much. On October 9, a McCain
supporter told the candidate that he was angry about "socialists taking
over our country." McCain told him he was right to be angry.
The right wing continues to link the fight for black equality with
socialism and communism. At the website of conservatism's flagship
publication, National Review, conservatives like Andy McCarthy argue whether Obama is "more Maoist than Stalinist," and National Review
writer Lisa Schiffren explicitly argued this summer that Obama must
have communist links based on his interracial background. Schiffren
mused, "for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there
was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics."
If I were a conservative, I'd hate the media too...
...mostly because Bill Kristol is repping for me. Let's get this straight. Two weeks ago, Kristol argued that McCain's campaign suspension was a great move. Last week. Kristol endorsed Sarah Palin and the McCain people's strategy of taking the gloves off. After it failed miserably, Kristol concludes that McCain "should fire his campaign'
What McCain needs to do is junk the whole thing and start over.
Shut down the rapid responses, end the frantic e-mails, bench the
spinning surrogates, stop putting up new TV and Internet ads every
minute. In fact, pull all the ads -- they're doing no good anyway. Use
that money for televised town halls and half-hour addresses in prime
time.
And let McCain go back to what he's been good at in the
past -- running as a cheerful, open and accessible candidate. Palin
should follow suit. The two of them are attractive and competent
politicians. They're happy warriors and good campaigners. Set them free.
Provide total media accessibility on their campaign planes and buses.
Kick most of the aides off and send them out to swing states to work
for the state coordinators on getting voters to the polls. Keep just a
minimal staff to help organize the press conferences McCain and Palin
should have at every stop and the TV interviews they should do at every
location. Do town halls, do the Sunday TV shows, do talk radio -- and
invite Obama and Biden to join them in some of these venues, on the
ground that more joint appearances might restore civility and substance
to the contest.
Really folks, does this even require comment? No? But it is fun, isn't it?
October 12, 2008
Thug-Life Chronicles Continued...
I wasn't going to post about this guy with the Obama monkey-doll. Then I watched the video again, and noticed something. There is nothing troubling about one lone racist nut in a crowd. What's troubling is the crowd. Dig how they just look on and smile uncomfortably. No one confronts him. This is the banality of evil, no? It isn't the guy doing the deed. Its the enablers who give comfort and haven to spew his hatred. On one level, I'm thankful for them. Anyone, who wants to now say that an Obama election proves that racism is dead will have to contend with this last week. And it isn't the nuts that this person must contend with---it's the crowds, the crowds who silently, and sometimes not so silently, just stand by and let it happen. They are all, to a man, cowards.
Sunday NFL open thread
What are we seeing folks? I'm watching the Bears and Falcons while doing some writing. Kyle Orton is trying to pull an Elway, after Jason Elam skanked the game-winning FG.
UPDATE: Oh shit. Chicago just scored. Kyle Orton comes through.
UPDATE#2: WTF! Elam has another shot. How did they leave Jenkins that open??
There has been speculation about this which I've
ignored, no doubt because there are enough policy reasons to oppose
Barack Obama and I don't want to feed into what sounds, at first blush,
like Vince Fosteresque paranoia. But I've finally read Jack Cashill's
lengthy analysis in The American Thinker. It
is thorough, thoughtful, and alarming -- particularly his deconstruction
of the text in Obama's memoir and comparison to the themes,
sophistication and signature phraseology of Bill Ayers' memoir.
There is nothing in Obama's scant paper trail prior to 1995 that
would suggest something as stylish and penetrating as, at times, Dreams from My Father is.
And when Obama speaks extemporaneously, one doesn't hear the same voice
one encounters in the book. Now maybe Obama has a backlog of writing
fom Columbia or Harvard that signal great literary promise, but he not
only hasn't shared it, he's assiduously hidden traces of it. And, to
be sure, writing is different from speaking -- in fairness, some of
Obama's off-the-cuff bumbling when he speaks is certainly due to the
rigors of the campaign which would cause even the most gifted
communicator to faulter from time to time. But it's not unreasonable
to expect more similarity between Obama the writer and Obama the orator.
GG conservatives.
UPDATE: More on literary criticism for the low-info voters from Edge of The West:
At The Corner, Andy McCarthy evaluates
Cashill's argument and proves himself to be an idiot by finding
Cashill's "lengthy analysis . . . thorough, thoughtful, and
alarming--particularly his deconstruction of the text in Obama's memoir
and comparison to the themes, sophistication and signature phraseology
of Bill Ayers' memoir." To be blunt: if you find Cashill's
identification of "sea imagery" and his lists of words both Obama and
Ayers use to be particularly anything other than laughable pablum,
you're an eighth-wit.
If, however, you only use Cashill's juvenile musings as a hypothetical which, if true, suggests all the unsavory things you already believe about Obama,
then you've fully embraced the Cashill Doctrine. What do I mean by
that? If you deconstruct Cashill's name, you'll find that it contains
the words "cash" and shill." "Cash" refers to paper bank notes which,
in more robust times, could be exchanged for goods or services. A
"shill," according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is "one
who poses as a disinterested advocate of another but is actually of the
latter's party; a mouthpiece, a stooge." It goes without saying that
shills often shill for cash, but in this case, I think we can say the
shill's shilling for cash and attention.
I add a mutherfucker so you ig'nant voters hear me
First, props to sgwhiteinfla for catching this. Second, at some point you have to say McCain is responsible. Here is my old colleague from TIME, Karen Tumlty, reporting on Virgina GOP Chairman Jeffrey M. Frederick's efforts to motivate the GOTV troops in the state:
With so much at stake, and time running short, Frederick did
not feel he had the luxury of subtlety. He climbed atop a folding chair
to give 30 campaign volunteers who were about to go canvassing door to
door their talking points -- for instance, the connection between Barack
Obama and Osama bin Laden: "Both have friends that bombed the
Pentagon," he said. "That is scary." It is also not exactly true --
though that distorted reference to Obama's controversial association
with William Ayers, a former 60s radical, was enough to get the
volunteers stoked. "And he won't salute the flag," one woman added,
repeating another myth about Obama. She was quickly topped by a man who
called out, "We don't even know where Senator Obama was really born."
Actually, we do; it's Hawaii.
This is an actual campaign official urging his troops to go out and not use innuedo, not insinuate, not rally, but to actually lie to voters. Last night I was out with a buddy (here in Chicago again, damn I love this town) and we got to talking about McCain whipping up the troops. I made the point that McCain wasn't a bigot. My buddy responded that McCain is using the tools of bigotry, and so functionally, what is the difference? I think we've given enough rope.
On a quick side-note, does it not say something about the ineptitude of McCain's campaign that this guy said this in front of a reporter from TIME?
Obama and the "Bradley effect"
One of the things that's shocked a lot of people is Obama, and his campaign's, unwillingness to talk about how many votes he may lose because of racism. The CW is that any talk about racism loses Obama even more votes. But there's another--arguably more important--reason not to spend much time dwelling on racism--it's a bad way to compete. No great football player sits around worrying about the refs and the crowd-noise.
Here is thing--Barack has been a black man working in a white world for a long time. Anyone who has done that successfully knows that the quickest path to high blood pressure is to spend your days worrying about the whims of "white racists." If you think that white racism is a dire threat to your ambitions, then you just need to go home--right now. Time spent worrying about some fools who you can't control, is time away from improving your chosen craft. Moreover, you have to believe in the humanity of white people. You can't think they are automatons reflexively ruled by racist impulses. Barack Obama doesn't talk about racism's effect on his campaign because it's pointless, and from a competitive standpoint, it's a distraction. It would be like a boxer going into a match preoccupied with the judges.
"George Wallace never threw a bomb," Lewis noted. "He never fired a
gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged
vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to
exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of
hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was
bombed in Birmingham, Alabama."
Is there really anything else to say? OK, maybe a little. Lewis didn't say McCain/Palin were George Wallace, but he rightfully noted that Wallace--among others--stoked anger and hate for his own political ends, which in turn led to a lot of death. There are a couple other parrellels which are worth noting:
A black lawyer recalls, "Judge George Wallace was the most liberal
judge that I had ever practiced law in front of. He was the first judge
in Alabama to call me 'Mister' in a courtroom."[2] Later, when a supporter asked why he started using racist messages,
Wallace replied, "You know, I tried to talk about good roads and good
schools and all these things that have been part of my career, and
nobody listened. And then I began talking about niggers, and they
stomped the floor."
He was defeated by John Patterson in Alabama's Democratic gubernatorial primary election
in 1958, which at the time was the decisive election, the general
election still almost always being a mere formality. This was a
political crossroads for Wallace. Patterson ran with the support of the
Ku Klux Klan, an organization Wallace had spoken against, while Wallace was endorsed by the NAACP.[2]
After the election, aide Seymore Trammell recalled Wallace saying,
"Seymore, you know why I lost that governor's race?... I was
outniggered by John Patterson. And I'll tell you here and now, I will
never be outniggered again."[2][4] In the wake of his defeat, Wallace adopted hard-line segregationism, and used this stand to court the white vote in the next gubernatorial election.
Fascinating.
UPDATE: For the record, Obama's response was pitch perfect. One thing I truly respect about Barack is his unwillingness to do the Sista Souljah movet. He is nuanced, thoughtful and self-critical when it comes to black folks. But I've never seen him throw us over the bridge--despite white pundits repeatedly calling on him to do it. As a black person, I have tremendous respect for that.
October 10, 2008
McCain walking it back
I would make a post about this, but TPM is basically all over it. Check out their coverage. I believe, as I did when this started, that these guys really are ignorant of the forces they're dabbling with. I don't think they actually believed that their crowds would start to actually resemble a mob. Also, sometimes things look worse when you see them on TV, than when you're in the moment. That said, I also believe, as I said earlier, that ignorance ain't an excuse. They need to cut the shit.
I don't think pushing the Ayers line is so bad, as in, arguing that Ayers is a despicable guy who Obama didn't distance himself from. I don't buy that line, but I'm not supposed to, I'm an Obama supporter. But when you start accusing homeboy of "palling around with terrorists," you've gone too far. Think about it logically--terrorists caused 9/11. And we basically believe that they are worthy of death. From that perspective, what do we think should happen to people who are friends with them? From that perspective, what do we think should happen to Barack Obama? Think there aren't some crazies out there who are connecting those same dots. These guys need to watch what they say.
Because it's Friday
The Roots. Water. "In between Islam and Straight thuggin...If they don't got a man like mine, they got a cousin." Pure literature.
Barack v. 50 Cent
This an interesting piece, but frankly it scares me. I have respect for the work Byron Hurt has done. Also, I've never been a huge 50 fan. But I worry about the scapegoating of 50 here as much as I worry about making Barack into some sort of savior. One thing that concerns me is that I think many of the people in this piece critiquing 50 aren't actually fans of modern hip-hop. I always thought if you wanted to know what was up with hip-hop in the 90s, and the problems inherent with Biggie or Puff or Snoop, you'd be better off listening to some Lauryn Hill or some Jeru, not talking to (no disrespect) Stanley Crouch.
I'm really scared of us becoming what we hated when we were hip-hop heads in our 20s--blowhards who didn't really listen to the music, but feeling the need to critique it. Even the choice of 50 as somehow a representative seems dated. Is he really as "right now" as Barack? I don't know. I want to hear from my under-25 peoples. I'm not seeing many of them speaking in this video.
I need to think more before I write anything else about this--the broad
sweeping generalizations about "black masculinity" are really worrying. We are headed into a new place here, we need to tread lightly. Maybe think more. Talk less.
No more sports metaphors
I promise guys, I'm done with that for today.
One other point on the Obama caricature
Affirmative Action. Dig this quote Andrew plucked out:
We're all wondering why Obama is where he's at. How he got here. Everybody in this room is stunned we're in this position.
Let me posit a working theory here--if you truly believe that black people get a leg up in this society, that Barack Obama is only where he is because he got into Harvard Law because of east coast elites favoring him over some salt of the earth hard-working white guy, then you would be stunned. I don't think the AA piece works solo, but it does work in consort with all the other factors I listed below. Basically the word has been--from McCain down--Obama is not worth you respect, or your concern.
This is why I tell my son--over and over--not to give a damn about people verbally slighting him. When time comes to show and prove, all the disrespect in the world doesn't hurt the disrespectee--it hurts the disrespecter. Electoral politics are about showing and proving--no amount of Affirmative Action can get you to the presidency. You have to compete and win. If you're the sort of voter who shows up at one of these dead-end rallies, who likely believes that Obama never deserved the hype he got, that he was only a big deal because he was the "black guy," then, yeah, you are liable to be stunned when he Buster Douglasses that ass. When you're on the canvas searching for you mouthpiece wondering, How the fuck, did I lose to a nigger...
UPDATE: Video of Tyson-Douglass, for the unitiated. The background is Tyson took Douglass lightly, and Douglass basically trained like a mad man. Also his mother had died, like, the week before, so he was ready to go. Tyson, on the other hand, had grown sloppy and he underestimated Douglass, and paid for it.
We wuz robbed
Here it comes. If there is a sense of "how the eff did this happen," these folks have two groups to blame:
1.) Themselves. These are exactly the sort of people who forward out "Obama is a Muslim/socialist/terrorist" e-mails. They are the reason that the ugliest of smears have hung in the air for this entire campaign. The media likes to talk about the expectations game--but here is the real expectations game that they've missed. When you portray your opponent as Satan incarnate, as the herald of the invading Muslim hordes, when you inflate him into a total caricature, then you make it incredibly easy for him to dispel the cartoon. Indeed, all he need do is show up in his three-piece suit, smile, and deploys all the skills he inherited from his time at Harvard Law. If he can get people to say--"Hey, he doesn't look Satan to me"--then he wins.
On the flip-side, if you think Obama is a total wimp, who isn't strong enough to stand up to the world's dictators, all he has to do is assert his desire to kill Bin Laden, and then look you in the eye and enumerate why and how you were wrong. It doesn't help that you can't meet his gaze. Look, the "Americans are stupid" line is wrong--whether deployed by right or left. In this election, conservatives have mistaken the most rabid sections of their America, for America itself. They are wrong--again.
2.) The media--but not in the way these guys think. The bias toward "on the other hand"-ism, toward covering every little McCain or Obama ad as a potential "game-changer," distorted the picture. If you've been a dedicated viewer of cable news, you might think that Lady Lynn would have an impact on this election, you might believe that the "celeb ads" are an actual stand-in for a solid ground game, you might think that, this year Sarah Palin "exciting the base" would erase the fact that her base is smaller than the Democratic base, and thus you might be pissed at the polls.
But this is like you watching NFL-Live, with the volume off, and concluding that the reverse, or the corner blitz is somehow a substitute for the consistent five-yard off-tackle, for a solid, unyielding 4-3. But now is the fourth quarter of their era. Five minutes left. Down by ten. The enemy has the ball, and he is slowly, mercilessly grinding it out. The frustration comes from the ticking clock, from the dawning sense that you are going down, that you are all out of time-outs.
What if Barack loses?
I try to stay away from prognostication. But even the kid has his moments of weakness:
That's why an Obama defeat would be met with resignation more than
rage. No one is more tired of talking about racism than black people.
The disenchantment with protest politics, the fatigue from refighting
old battles over school integration and affirmative action, even the
rise of politicians like Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick point to
a shift in the disposition of black America. The big issues of the day
aren't so much racial profiling and police brutality as the achievement
gap, the incarceration rate and unemployment. The great race
conversation has not only decreased in volume; for black people, it's
also become much more introverted. At this moment, black America is in
the grips of a kind of barbershop conservatism that is more concerned
with its own progress than with the attitudes of whites.
So,
yes, an Obama defeat would be greeted with a loud sucking of the teeth
and a deepening of self-doubt. A loss would be hugely disappointing,
and to put it crudely, it would also be more of the same. But it is
also true that the biggest change has already taken place. The Obama
campaign has been the anti--O.J. trial, a 24-hour ongoing drama about a
black man cast not as a problem but, potentially, as the solution.
October 9, 2008
The Weather Underground
For the record, with all this talk about Ayers, the Weathermen documentary is pretty amazing. You have to understand how I come at this. My Dad was in the Panthers, and the two groups were "allied" for a time in Chicago. I'd read some on them as a kid, and was--quite frankly-- fascinated. What struck was while I could understand the Panthers and their beefs with the cops, I never could get what would drive a bunch of rich white kids to start setting off bombs. It just didn't add up. The doc does a great job of putting you inside, not just their heads, but inside minds of young people at that time. It's a lovely piece of work best viewed as sort of a companion to Fog Of War.
Beef is not what Jay said to Nas...
This notion has been circling around the comments here today, and Josh, for my money, just nailed it:
McCain's moral cowardice has been one of the subtexts of this
campaign ever since he wound up the nomination and turned his attention
to Barack Obama. But I did not realize it would reveal itself in such a
physical dimension.
The tell came this week as McCain unearthed the Ayers story which,
for whatever its merits, was fully aired months ago and has no clear
relation to the particulars of October other than McCain's collapsing
poll numbers. He's on it. Palin's on it. He's releasing slashing new TV
ads like this one. Both of them are ginning their crowds up into spiraling gyres of right-wing delirium -- a ready-made Lord of the Flies
(and let's admit that's a gentle allusion, given the tone of these
barnburners) if Obama happened into one of the auditoriums at the wrong
moment.
He ever swaggered on for a couple days about how he was going to 'take the gloves off' when he met up with Obama in Nashville. But when the two of them were there in each others physical presence ... nothing. By a myriad of gestures and reactions Obama owned him.
Nor is it a matter of shifting off the tactics, because as soon as
McCain made his hasty retreat from the stage at Debate #2 he was right
back at it. In every other aspect of life, high and low, refined and
unlovely, we have a word for that kind of behavior: cowardice.
And now Obama can lightly taunt McCain
with that very cowardice, his inability to just say it to his face. And
if my take on the inner workings of McCain's mind at the moment is
right that should simply unhinge him even more.
Dems have bought into this idea of "showing toughness" or "getting angry" in order to communicate to voters that they aren't chumps. I've never liked people that felt the need to tell me how big and bad
they were. I don't much care about George Bush bellowing into a bullhorn at the ruins of the WTC, when over a half-decade later Osama is still at large.
Frankly, I've always believed that the quickest way to show you're a chump is to run around telling everyone about that aren't one. You want to prove to the American people that you aren't shook? Don't talk them to death. Get in the ring and kick the other guys ass. It's that simple. Screw all this talk about who's tougher than who. Here is what I know: McCain will talk that shit about Ayers and brag about taking the gloves off. He will send his wife and Sarah Palin out to do his dirty work. But when faced with the man who he believes "palls around with terrorist" he played his position.
Don't let these people fool you. Come November, the only tough guy will be the one left standing.
"All of the things they said about Barack Obama in the TV, on the TV,
at their rallies, and now on YouTube ... John McCain could not bring
himself to look Barack Obama in the eye and say the same things to
him," Biden said this morning. "In my neighborhood, when you've got
something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to
him."
McCain Thuggism Pt.348484
OK, not so much thuggism. But incredible, incredible ignorance. Courtesy of Andrew, of course, who's been on it when it comes to the thug-watch. I'm working hard here not to slander conservatives. This isn't the whole base, but this is pretty vile, and its McCain's most motivated supporters. Incredible. Note how she buys the CRA line that conservatives have been pushing.
UPDATE: Again, watching this, I'm not feeling much anger. It's just incredibly sad. Just really sad. This is either 1.) The past, and this is sad, because these guys are being left behind or 2.) The end. And thus sad because this country is going to eat itself. Also, as I've said before, I don't ever want to hear any talk about conspiracy theories, culture of ignorance, or anything like that in reference to that black community. We've all got our issues.
A point about the beauty of blogging
Commenter Outsider posted this:
Ta-Nehesi, I've been so disappointed not only in the mainstream
media but in the blogs, including yours, for not posting more on this.
The Times ran a story on voter caging a few weeks ago, and few people
picked it up. They also brought up problems with voter registration.
There is clearly one party that is getting out the vote, and another
that is working on keeping it in. And when the vote is kept in, poor
people and people of color are disproportionately affected.
There is lots more to post on this issue, so where have you been?
He's right. I've been seeing some of the stuff on voter caging and voter-fraud and I haven't covered it a whole lot here. But you guys know me well--I maintain this blog, try to keep the
comments productive, do some long-form writing, kiss my baby when I see
her, talk to the kids when I can, and raise my own somewhere in between. I'm going to miss some things in the course of all of that.
If you feel like I'm really really missing something big then let me offer a suggestion--start your own blog. I want to distance myself from people who throw that out there in a sarcastic manner because they're getting shit from their commenters. In this instance, I really, really mean it. There's a lot going on out there, and we need people to bring it to light. Don't think anyone will read it? Send me a link, and I'll do what I can. Also scroll back through the early days of this blog? See any comments? It takes time to build an audience--and then time to maintain it.
No disrespect intended at all, but If you really think this army ain't up to snuff, then dammit, stop shouting from the sidelines. Grab your guns, and let's do the damn thing,
Desperation
I just saw a clip of Cindy McCain on the attack. Wow. They're just emptying the clip, throwing chairs, file cabinets, jabbing folks with keys and cell phones. When Cindy McCain is your attack dog, you're in trouble.
UPDATE: Comments about Cindy McCain's appearance will be deleted. Sorry guys. You may think I'm uptight. I just don't see why it's necessary.
UPDATE#2: Some grainy video. Man she is awful on the stump.
Say it to my face
Barack on McCain's Ayres bullshit. Also, he directly addresses Ayres.
Let's go
After watching this, I really, really, really want Barack to step to John McCain at the next debate. But that wouldn't be good for anyone.
The Unthinkable
And really the unsayable. But I've been thinking about this McCain-Palin Obama "palling around with terrorist" idea more lately. The saddest thing about many Republicans isn't just that they disagree with liberals on race--it's they are largely ignorant on race. When the McCain campaign cast the spell of diabolical jingoism, they have no idea of the forces they are toying with. We remember Martin Luther King's murder as a sad and tragic event. Less remembered is the fact that ground-work for King's murder was seeded, not simply by rank white supremacy, but by people who slandered King as a communist.
This was not some notion bandied about by conspiracy theorist, but an accusation proffered by men who were the pillars of the modern Republican Party:
As late as 1964, Falwell was attacking the 1964 Civil Rights Act as "civil
wrongs" legislation. He questioned "the sincerity and intentions of some civil
rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer, and others, who
are known to have left-wing associations." Falwell charged, "It is very obvious
that the Communists, as they do in all parts of the world, are taking advantage
of a tense situation in our land, and are exploiting every incident to bring
about violence and bloodshed."
Falwell was not alone. These men didn't kill Martin Luther King, but they contributed to an atmosphere of nationalism, white supremacy and cheap unreflective patriotism that ultimately got a lot of people killed. Confronted with Aparthied South Africa, men like Helms and Falwell used the same "communist" defense. While Mandella wasted away in prison, they dismissed the whole thing as a communist plot.
Let me be clear--This is the ghost that McCain Campaign is summoning. This is the Ring Of Power that they want to wield. The Muslim charge, the "Hussein" thing is nothing more than today's red-baiting, and it is what it was then--a cover for racists. You may say I'm overreacting, and I really hope you're right. 999,000 out 1 million times we'll go on like normal and proceed to Election Day. But if some shit pops off, the thug and thug-mongers will not be able to throw up their hands and say "How could I have known?" Ignorance will not save them. Their stupidity is a scourge on us all.
Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't purging you
The six swing states seem to be in violation of federal law in two
ways. Michigan and Colorado are removing voters from the rolls within
90 days of a federal election, which is not allowed except when voters
die, notify the authorities that they have moved out of state, or have
been declared unfit to vote.
Indiana, Nevada, North Carolina
and Ohio seem to be improperly using Social Security data to verify
registration applications for new voters.
In addition to the six swing states, three more states appear to be violating federal law. Alabama and Georgia seem to be improperly using Social Security information to screen registration applications from new voters. And Louisiana appears to have removed thousands of voters after the federal deadline for taking such action.
CNN on McCain's race-baiting
What is the world coming to when Coates is agreeing with Campbell Brown? What will happen to my leftist credentials now? No radical am I...
October 8, 2008
The views expressed here do not represent Appalachia...
Just saw this over at Andrew's. I have a couple reactions:
1.) I'm sympathetic to white folks on this one. This is like when some fool from your local news affiliate goes to interview someone in a black neighborhood and they pick out the most ignorant fool they can find. That dumbass is then taken as representative for us all. Seriously White people, having seen this, you guys should have some idea of what we go through.
2.) That said, this is why I think a lot of black people don't much care about racism as bigotry. I mean, seriously, these fools don't even really offend me. They've got much bigger problems than Barack Hussein Obama. I'm happy there will be less of these kooks on the planet. But in reality, is that what we were fighting for? This is the enemy? Really??
Keep the car running
Ugh, sorry for my absence guys. Was on the run all of today, and my plan to post some stuff in advance was foiled. Ah well. I'm back now. Miss me much?
October 7, 2008
I hold the microphone like a grudge
OK folks live blogging starts now. I'd be shocked if McCain doesn't do well. I'd also be shocked if Obama tries to run out the clock. I really think he's going for the kill--even if its killing him softly. Also I'm on Pacific time, Don't let it freak you out.
7:34 Man he seems wobbly. Does McCain want to be president or not? Where is that killer instinct?
7:31 Killer end on bio. This will be hard for McCain to follow.
7:22 From Fallows:
Two minutes ago, McCain half-pointing at Obama and calling him, in the third person, that one.
The sense of seeing in real time a gesture that will be regretted for a long time.
I missed that. Did anyone else catch it?
7:10 Man, everytime Obama talks the bar for women just shoot up. I don't want to be sexist, but come on ladies, you ain't heard a word he said! Admit it! Your just thinking "He's soooooo dreammmyyyy..."
7:09 OK, McCain sounded good on the military. He actually seemed to believe. Here's a thought--maybe McCain is actually only interested in one part of the president job--the military part.
7:03 The "I don't understand" counter--he should have pounded harder. He could have drilled Johnny Mac on that one.
7:01 A question from the room:
Someday, TNC,
you're going to have to tell us the genesis of "weak sauce." I've been
using that phrase for the past month or so, and hopefully in the right
context.
I can't take credit for that. I'm a recovering World of Warcraft addict. I got it from the kids there. I've been gone for a year now, but still I hear it calling me...
6:55 The hair-transplant joke, uhm, awkward...
6:54 I feel bad, but I agree with Josh, this debate is boring. I think things are solidifying, it's hard to see anyone being swayed by anything happening tonight It's about issues though! Hey Deborah! Hi David!
6:44 Sister got the ball. She ain't fumbling. Good question. Meanwhile, I kind of think--just judging by the dials--people just don't like McCain. I don't think it has anything to do with his answers. I think it actually is about his aspect, his bearing.
6:42 Why does he think that cheap laughter is appealing?
OK, this is wierd. I'm at Claremont-McKenna College doing a talk and a bunch of us are going to watch the debate. I'm going to live-blog while we watch. I generally like the whole "blogging in my underwear eating fritos" deal. I guess that won't work tonight, huh?
If you shoot you ain't the real Pretty Tone
Sorry I didn't mention this, but Lady Wesley reminded me to tell you guys I was at the New Yorker Festival this weekend with some people whose brains are about twice the size of my own. Anyway it was fun. I won't lie dunny, I was scared as hell. Like really really really scared. Like shook from the moment I got the invite. Still, it was a lot of fun.
The highlight of the whole thing was Kenyatta getting to meet David Remnick. We've been together for ten years down and in the worse times--I'm talking making like $4,000 in a year--all she said was "Keep writing, baby. Keep writing." Now, less you be touched by my baby's selflessness, since she was like, 12, she's been reading the New Yorker. So half her point in supporting me was the hope that I'd end up at one of those shin-digs. I got a career. She got her party. Not a bad deal.
About OJ...
...what does it mean that no one cares that he was convicted? I always thought that black people's support of him had much more to do with a kind of naked revenge than with guilt or innocence. It was not a good look for us. I'd love to see some polling on how many black people think he's innocent today. Oh well. Good riddance.
Your boy cleans up well, no?
Hov at the UN
Palin McCain Thuggism Pt.2
Sorry to steal from Andrew, but this demanded a reposting. I don't hold McCain or Palin accountable for the incrediblehatred that we've seen at their rallies as of late. Let me rephrase--I don't think they're accountable for everything they're knucklehead supporters say, anymore than Obama is accountable for every comment on DailyKos. But they should be shook by the people they're attracting. We are getting a good look at the elements of the base now. These are not people just posting anonymously in internet forums--these are people who literally believe Obama is a terrorist and showing up at rallies. These guys need to watch what they say. Somewhere, slumbering in this country, there are men who aren't clued in that this whole "terrorist" thing is mere strategy. They have guns, and all their lives they've wanted to be famous. Don't give them a reason. This is still America. We are never that far from the past.
My Bad
Sorry guys, had a snafu with the publishing today. I'm up though. Hope you like my new kicks.
For John McCain to get back into this race, he is
going to need some dramatic events to occur, and we don't know in which
types of states such events might have a differential impact; something
like an outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East could make a very
different electoral footprint than new revelations about Barack Obama
and William Ayers.
Check out the polling. I think it holds so much more weight then the pre-convention, pre-debate stuff. What we are seeing, as far as I am concerned, is the vindication of strategy, optimism and coolness. Much like in the primary Obama is sticking to his game-plan, not worrying about being baited into a contest of anger, but slowly choking the life out of his opponent. McCain is in the sleeper hold. The ref is now raising his hand for the second time...
Today's Random TV On The Radio Thought
I promise this will end soon, but, "DLZ" rocks.
The incredible elitism of Smallville
Meant to link this some time ago, but here's Steve Chapman pointing out that snobbery can cut all kinds of ways:
Most Americans, it seems, can tolerate hearing of the superiority of
the small town, as long as they don't have to live in one. You wouldn't
know it from listening to country music stations, or to the governor of
Alaska, but four out of every five Americans choose not to reside in
rural areas.
Maybe if they ventured beyond the city limits more
often, those people would not be so inclined to believe everything they
hear about the merits of rustic hamlets, which harbor a full complement
of social ills.
Not everyone in rural America gets high on fresh
air and the smell of new-mown hay. Illicit drugs are nearly as common
out there as they are in cities and suburbs.
In 2007, a survey
of 8th graders by the Monitoring the Future project at the University
of Michigan found that country kids were 26 percent more likely to
experiment with drugs than middle-schoolers elsewhere. Overall
methamphetamine consumption among adults and teens is more than 50
percent higher in the country.
There's no mercy for the weak in the Middle East; if America ducks out
of Iraq in a way that makes it look like it is actually ducking out of
Iraq, well, you won't want to be an American in the Middle East,
believe me. Of course, if America stays in Iraq, you might also not
want to be an American in the Middle East. More thoughts later; right
now I'm busy picking up my 401(K) off the floor.
It's a good point, and one people like me tend to overlook. One of the cool things about Lawerence Wright's Looming Tower is how he indicts U.S. policy but still notes that there are actual crazies there who do hate America for its freedom. My problem has always been this--at this point, I could not send my son to fight in this war. Like a lot of Americans, I felt different at the start. But I just couldn't do it now.
October 6, 2008
The Keating Five
Don't know what to make of this. Part of me thinks it's stronger than the Wright/Ayers stuff because it's a personal attack with substance and policy behind it. In other words, it goes hard at McCain, but it also keeps the economy in the conversation. It's not just a random insult.
Another way of thinking about "racism without racists"
A lot of folks have taken issue with the post below about excuse-making. Let me posit something a little different. Allow me the liberty of generalizing here--whites are most concerned about racial bigotry. That is, "I don't believe in interracial marriage" or "I don't want black people living next to me" or even "I think black people are prone to crime."
Black folks don't like racial bigotry, but they're mostly concerned--not about racism as bigotry--but racism as oppression. That's a loaded word, I know. But let's go to the dictionary--" an unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power." I think job discrimination falls under that category. I think redlining falls under that category. I'd hesitate to call the drug war "racial oppression," but with that definition, I think there is a case. So, as I've mentioned in comments, blacks aren't so much worried about whether white people like them, they're worried about the fact that in New York City, their job prospects are about the same as white guy with a record. In that world you can have a guy who isn't a racist bigot--but in fact is a racist oppressor. It may be "racism without racists" but it's still "racism with racist oppressors." Frankly, that terrifies me.
From a black perspective, the intent of white people is irrelevant--the effects are what matter. Thus we fear--I fear--this perverse self-congratulation over the fact that "racism as racial bigotry" has been banished, while "racism as racial oppression" lingers. I don't much care about Obama and white racism because he won't suffer any racial oppression. Heh, one could argue that white racists who vote against him could be contributing to the oppression of themselves.The "racial bigotry" fight is weird because, truthfully, only white people themselves can truly answer that question. It has to do with what's in a man's heart. But the question of racial oppression is much clearer. Certainly there's much much less of it today than there was a half a century ago. But it's still a big problem.
One final thing: I'd ask that you guys bear with me. I'm thinking out loud here. All of you made some good points in the comments thread below. I'm trying to incorporate, recast, rethink and respond.
NFL open thread
So what did you guys think? The Skins look like the real deal. My boys squeaked through, but they still look kind of lackluster. I'm going to be a fan until I die--but this is the worst team to have to root for. Romo really is baby-Favre. Sometimes he does things that are just incredible. Other times he does things that are just stupid. The thing I loved so much about the Cowboys of the 90s was their defense. Their D never got enough credit. But they knew how to shut people down. These days, I don't what I'm getting. Meanwhile, you can't count the Colts or the Pats out just yet.
Let it come
From the lips of unofficial GOP spokesperson Bill Kristol, we get Sarah Palin ruminating on Jeremiah Wright:
"To tell you the truth, Bill, I don't know why that association isn't
discussed more, because those were appalling things that that pastor
had said about our great country, and to have sat in the pews for 20
years and listened to that -- with, I don't know, a sense of condoning
it, I guess, because he didn't get up and leave -- to me, that does say
something about character. But, you know, I guess that would be a John
McCain call on whether he wants to bring that up."
Call me crazy, or overly optimistic, but I don't think Wright can save these fools. Racism is a luxury that, at this point, a lot of white voters can ill-afford. I think a crucial number of them know that. Furthermore, I really, really, really doubt Palin wants to get into a game of who has the nuttier religious connections.
Senator Obama is facing what scholars have dubbed "racism without racists."
This is a fascinating phenomena. Kristof and his scholars define it as follows:
For decades, experiments have shown that even many whites who earnestly
believe in equal rights will recommend hiring a white job candidate
more often than a person with identical credentials who is black. In
the experiments, the applicant's folder sometimes presents the person
as white, sometimes as black, but everything else is the same. The
white person thinks that he or she is selecting on the basis of
nonracial factors like experience.
Here's a more likely explanation--they're fucking lying.
Before I go forward I want to be clear about a couple things. Kristof's column is puzzling because by the end he concedes that, in fact, these people are racists (averse racists, one scholar calls them). But more importantly, there is this: too much has been made about the effects of white racism on the presidential contest. I'm tired of hearing about it. If It's not some guy telling us that Obama that he has to woo racists, it's some other guy telling us he's going to lose because of them. I thought that the Yahoo story Kristof pillories was bunk. As I've said before, I have no idea how many votes Barack Obama will lose because he's black, or gain because he's black. And at this point, I just don't care.
But there is a certain strain of argument that seeks to make excuses for the bigots among us. Somehow the civil rights struggle has been defined down to getting white people to have a beer with us. So if you profess to "earnestly believe in equal rights," you aren't a racist--even as you actively discriminate against black people. This is civil rights reduced to some sort of citizenship pledge. David Duke doesn't think he's racist. Michael Richards ranted "he's a nigger" on stage, but was shocked to be called a racist.
Really though, this is easy for me--If I profess to "earnestly believe in equal rights" and yet discriminate against women, I'm a sexist. Moreover, I'm a sexist in the worst sort of way. I talk a good game while actively working against the power of women. Why do we care about what people profess? This whole line of thinking proceeds from this idea that the worst thing about racism was Bull Connor and police dogs. It's been encouraged by the NAACP holding funerals for the word nigger, and by discussions over whether McCain's refusal to look at Obama was racist.
I have worked really to avoid writing a headline like that, but watch this video where she basically says, "If you don't support me, you're going to hell."
Incredible.Sarah Palin's message to undecided women is "Support me, or burn." Is she out of her mind? Has she mistaken Sean Hannity for America? Does she really think this is going to sway women who are on the fence? Does she think Madeline Albright is going to give her cover? Does she have any concern for her own career?
But that isn't even the half. McCain--equally stupid--has somehow gotten it in his head that Palin is an effective attack dog--but she has no credibility, why would anyone believe her? She basically represent a profane, thuggish populism--but nothing else. George Bush had "compassionate conservativism" and "the ownership society." What else do these guys have? They're just running on a kind of tribal neandrathalism--nothing else.
UPDATE: What manner of Christianity is this? I can't talk because I'm not exactly a believer, but seriously--is claiming to know who will burn for eternity Christ-like? If you're a serious Christian isn't this offensive? There's something almost Taliban-like about it. Imagine Barack Obama saying "there's a special place in hell for black people don't support other black people."
UPDATE #2: I never do this, but email this joint around, and post it if you're a blogger. This is beyond gaffery--this is just insane.
UPDATE #3: Lotta commenters saying I'm taking this too far. I don't completely agree with the argument, but a lot of folks making it are commenters I respect, so I take the point. We're all subject to an overreaction, here and there. Half the point of having comments is to get called on your bullshit. The other half is for them to tell you how great you are. You guys can feel free to go back to the latter at any moment now...Any moment...
It was so sparkling, it was mesmerizing
So yeah, maybe we shouldn't be mocking Lowery, but can't we laugh a little? I mean come on:
I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her
first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I
think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she
clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost
mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and
ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that
can't be learned; it's either something you have or you don't, and man,
she's got it.
And they call us Kool-Aid drinkers...
Goldberg on McCain
I'm halfway through Jeff's beautifully reported cover on John McCain. One theme that rings out is just how much war is at the core of John McCain's being. I don't mean that as a slight--it just seems true. Jeff would probably disagree with this, but to my mind his reporting shows how much the literal fight has blinded McCain to the greater war. Dig this scene with McCain and Lindsey Graham:
"They were running for the exit signs," Graham said, and Democrats
weren't the only ones unhappy with McCain's vociferous calls for troop
increases.
"Some of our Republican friends were jumping ship," McCain said. "I
can't tell you the number of guys who said, 'We've got to get out.'"
Earlier he had told me, "I think another problem is that some of the
leading thinkers in America said the war was lost, it was over--Tom
Friedman of The New York Times, Joe Klein of Time, a long list of people who are widely respected said the war was lost."
Graham recalled the numerous bipartisan attempts, including one led
by the Republican defense stalwart John Warner, to bring the war to a
quick close: "There were nine different plans, and we beat the shit out
of them. I love John Warner, but we just beat the shit out of him."
"If we'd done what Obama wanted to do, we'd have been out by March
2008, and the surge could never have happened," McCain said.
I asked McCain if he thought Obama was a "defeatist."
"When he says 'End the war, whatever it takes to end it,' there's no
doubt that--especially in the primary when he was appealing to the left
of his party that felt betrayed by Hillary Clinton--that ending it was
the first priority, just ending it. And that meant, whatever the
consequences were. I'm not saying that he wanted defeat."
But, I asked him, didn't you say publicly that you believed Obama would rather lose the war than lose the election?
"I don't think he said we have to lose," McCain said, "but he did
say in unequivocal terms, to standing ovations, 'I'll bring them home,
we'll end it, we'll end it, I'll bring them home.'" (What McCain had
actually said of Obama, just before this conversation, was: "It seems
to me that Senator Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a
political campaign.")
There is no sense here that one may have other reasons, short of cowardice, for wanting out of Iraq. But this is like being back on the block. Your man tells you that he got jumped by some cats from across the tracks, so you and him go to war. The beef lasts for months, and then you find out he never got jumped to begin with. But when you pull out, he calls you a chump.
It doesn't matter that McCain is a 72-year old man. This is jungle law--and the jungle does not change. So there is very much an "I ain't no punk" vibe going on in the piece. In other words, McCain and his crew see us pulling out as a breaking of the American will. This, of course, ignores everything up to the actual fight. It says nothing about the complete and total absence of WMD. It says nothing about Guantanamo, about Abu Ghraib. It says nothing about selling Saddam and 9/11, about "greeted as liberators." In the McCain view of war, specifically this war, it doesn't matter if the government conned the country into going to war--the ultimate fault for a loss will lie with the weakness of the people. I want to be fair--McCain has been a long-time critic of the old Rumsfeld/Bush method of conducting war, but he has no critique of the war itself.
Meh. Tina Fey is awesome. But Latifah didn't even try to get Gwen Ifill. Maybe I'm asking too much. Dude doing Biden was OK. I think they miss Amy Poehler.
