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"The Left is the New Racist Right!"- care to comment?

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hellbound-liberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 08:46 AM
Original message
"The Left is the New Racist Right!"- care to comment?
I just found this article on the Huffington Post and thought some of you might want to weigh in:

The Left: It's the New Racist Right! By John Ridley

Joe Biden's done-before-it's-begun presidential campaign says less about Biden (who, as recently as last December took public pride in the fact that his Delaware was once a "slave state") and more about the Left in general and their paradigm shift to the fore as the purveyors of racial insensitivity.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-ridley/the-left-its-the-new-ra_b_40290.html

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The Count Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 08:50 AM
Response to Original message
1. Right, and Bush speaks about who all Americans are...
Edited on Sat Feb-03-07 08:51 AM by The Count
Love me some stereotyping in the morning! What an ass!
The difference is that when Lott or mel Gibson come lose, their own try to cover for them. We sure aren't (with some notable exceptions of soulless strategerists)
But thanks for putting it on the table here. It merits addressing.
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bluerum Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 08:54 AM
Response to Original message
2. No thanks. eom
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wyldwolf Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 08:55 AM
Response to Original message
3. Nah. I would say the left is still too racially sensitive, not the opposite as he says
...besides, I hear Limbaugh and Hannutty make the same "points" Ridley does.

Interestingly, I wonder if HuffPo edited out the most blatent examples of so-called left racism or if Ridley didn't have the balls to include it:

While running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2003, Howard Dean uttered this beauty: "I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks, "unfairly stereotyping Southern whites as confederate flag waving yahoos and displaying a remarkable insensitivity to blacks.

In 2005, During a meeting with the Democratic black caucus, Dean praised black Democrats for their work for the party, then said this:

"You think the Republican National Committee could get this many people of color in a single room?" Dean asked to laughter. "Only if they had the hotel staff in here."

Was Dean implying that African Americans are only worthy to be menial servants?

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The Count Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 09:06 AM
Response to Reply #3
7. yeah, why would we need to be so sensitive anyway? I mean Trent Lott has been removed
oh, no, wait - he is back in the saddle...Gez, maybe there still is some racism left in this country. I'd rather err on the side of "hypersensitivity" if you don't mind - than make posts like yours that "clean as a whistle" meaning no criminal record is a more acceptable stereotype for blacks that a hygiene reference. But that's just me :shrug:
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wyldwolf Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 09:15 AM
Response to Reply #7
8. hey, "count?"
Edited on Sat Feb-03-07 09:17 AM by wyldwolf
I'm certain you really don't believe a US Senator would knowlingly say black people have poor hygiene. Or maybe you would if believing such would fit your agenda.

My "clean as a whistle" meaning no criminal record or corruption reference came from the definition and origin of the term.

YOU be hypersensitive if you'd like. I won't walk on eggshells to avoid offending leftist racial sensitivities.

And, yes, what DEAN said TWICE was so much more racist there really is no comparison.

On edit:

I have all day, "Count." Let's rehash it all again.
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marmar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 11:17 AM
Response to Reply #8
17. Ah yes, the sensitive left, suggesting that minorities determine what they find offensive to them...
When will they learn that white people are the sole arbiters of what they are to be called? :shrug:
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wyldwolf Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 11:36 AM
Response to Reply #17
20. no, the sensitve left, deciding for minorities what is offensive and what isn't
When will the learn that individuals are the sole arbiters of what they find offensive?
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marmar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 11:44 AM
Response to Reply #20
22. So, when people on the left recognize that what might not offend them, might offend someone else....
they're being racist? Sounds more like open-mindedness to me.
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wyldwolf Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 11:52 AM
Response to Reply #22
26. Put words in other's mouths much?
When people on the left find it to be their responsibility to save the word from the evil whitey and determine just what is offensive and isn't, it isn't racism it's dishonesty.
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Katherine Brengle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 11:45 AM
Response to Reply #8
23. I have to agree here...
I think people have a right to be offended if they so choose, but I think Biden just didn't think before he spoke - I don't think he honestly intended to say something that would come off the way it did.

Hypersensitivity just makes everyone afraid of their own shadows - I refuse to live in fear of offending someone.

Sometimes words are just words, and not weapons.
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marmar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 11:50 AM
Response to Reply #23
25. But understand, that as an African American, sometimes words are not just words...
they hold a lot of subtext. No, I don't think Biden was consciously trying to say something racist. But when he applies those words to his African American opponent, and not to his others, then it reflects some subconscious stereotypes about what African Americans are. And recognizing that doesn't make someone a bad person - it makes him or her a good person who realizes they're not perfect when it comes to issues of race, and they want to get better.
The automatic "it's not racism, this is an overreaction" defensiveness when it comes to the issue of race is what stifles the debate about race in America. The problem will NEVER get solved unless it's acknowledged.
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wyldwolf Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 11:56 AM
Response to Reply #25
27. tell you what, then
Edited on Sat Feb-03-07 11:56 AM by wyldwolf
Until a general consensus is reached among African Americans or any other group (without any input from the hypersensitive left) of what words are offensive and which aren't, I'll continue to use the words of the Engish language as defined and it they're suddenly offensive to someone, I'll assume it is his or her problem to deal with it.
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marmar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 11:58 AM
Response to Reply #27
28. That's fine. I have no desire to relive Thursday's circuitous debates....
I'm just offering a perspective.
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wyldwolf Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 12:00 PM
Response to Reply #28
29. I respect your perspective
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marmar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 12:02 PM
Response to Reply #29
30. Es lo mismo.
:hi:
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unpossibles Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 09:43 AM
Response to Reply #3
12. I'd say he was implying the opposite
that the Republicans only see non-whites as being worthy of being servants
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Solo_in_MD Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 11:04 AM
Response to Reply #3
13. There is some merit to the hyper sensitivity claim made about the left
for race, gender and other issues. IME, it manifests itself in the assumtion about discrimination or predujice before any information is in. One can argue that given opast history that is a reasonable presumption, but that ignore the shortness of the American view of history.

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mdmc Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 08:55 AM
Response to Original message
4. We were all slave states at one time or another
:kick:
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NoPasaran Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 09:34 AM
Response to Reply #4
10. Not so
The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 established that the states of the "Old Northwest"... the area north of the Ohio and East of the Mississippi... would be admitted to the Union as free states. And the Missouri Compromise of 1820 prohibited slavery in the territories north of the 36-30 line until its repeal by the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854.
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mdmc Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 09:40 AM
Response to Reply #10
11. lol true
:patriot:
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The Count Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 09:00 AM
Response to Original message
5. One more thing: in what bizarro world is Biden "leftist" anyway? Here's "lefty"
Rice Takes Center Stage at Confirmation Hearing
Democrats Press Nominee on Iraq
By ANNE GEARAN,
http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050116...''
However, Biden also had blunt advice for European critics: "I have one
simple message: Get over it. Get over it. President Bush is our
president for the next four years. So get over it and start to act in
your interest, Europe.''..........
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KharmaTrain Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 09:03 AM
Response to Original message
6. More Corporate Media Framing...
They love to paint us in broad strokes, then put us in some kind of box...that somehow "the left" is a monolith like the right wing is. Sorry...we don't have the Morton Blackwells, Edward Anslingers, William Mellon-Scaiffe and others with deep pockets and slime machines like the right wing does.

Biden stuck his big foot in his big mouth again. No surprise to some around here...as noted above. However, this time the corporate media was waiting for it and pounced. They knew it'd get a reaction and have played it to the hilt. It's not about Biden...he's small change here...instead, this is another meme of incompotent and divided Democrats...the corporate media's continuing storyline.

The subtle racism and sexism that pervades the corporate media is also the storyline here. They still don't know how to deal with a black or a woman being a serious Presidential contender.
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baldguy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 09:31 AM
Response to Original message
9. Biden is on the left?
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porphyrian Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 11:09 AM
Response to Reply #9
14. That's what I was thinking. "Since when?" - n/t
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Beelzebud Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 11:10 AM
Response to Reply #9
15. Thank you for asking the obvoius question. Of course he isn't.
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donco6 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 11:19 AM
Response to Reply #9
18. That's what I thought, too. Did he convert? eom
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toddaa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 11:17 AM
Response to Original message
16. He lost me at Stanley Crouch is a leftist
n/t
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muriel_volestrangler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 11:47 AM
Response to Reply #16
24. CNN isn't what I'd call 'left' either
'centrist corporate', I'd classify it as.
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blogslut Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 11:27 AM
Response to Original message
19. I can't get HuffPo to load :(
Edited on Sat Feb-03-07 11:27 AM by blogslut
I would like to have read the whole blog post before commenting on it.

For me, the phrase "paradigm shift to the fore" needed further explanation.
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hellbound-liberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 11:41 AM
Response to Reply #19
21. Here's the rest of the article:
Edited on Sat Feb-03-07 11:42 AM by irkthesmirk
To me Ridley is being just as bigoted as those he condemns. To attempt to paint everyone on the left as being racist just because of the actions of a few is just plain stupid. I expect he'll have his own show on Fox any day now.

<snip>
"Joe Biden's done-before-it's-begun presidential campaign says less about Biden (who, as recently as last December took public pride in the fact that his Delaware was once a "slave state") and more about the Left in general and their paradigm shift to the fore as the purveyors of racial insensitivity. To be sure, for every Joe Biden there's a Trent Lott who isn't afraid to publicly pine for the good ol' days of segregation.
But the right early on has learned to read the writing on the walls, recognize the setting of the sun on their lily empire and get with the new; embrace ideologically aligned minorities who are, in Biden's assessment, "good blacks," "articulate and bright and clean," and "nice-looking:" Thomas and Rice and Paige and Powell of most prominence. Of course, to name any is to risk a shout out from the left that they are all nothing but an "Aunt Jemima," a "Brown Sugar," an "Uncle Tom" and a "house nigger."

That Harry Belafonte could get away with calling Colin Powell a "house nigger" with nary a ripple from the media speaks to their tacit approval of racism from the left toward the right. Hate the politics of conservative blacks all you like. But if Powell were to refer to Barack Obama as a "lefty coon," I can assure you the presses would stop, the special bulletins would fly and the excoriating would begin.

But the liberal plantation is where modern and accepted racism has taken up residence. And unfortunately Barack Obama will be the target of a campaign that is instigated by the soft bigotry that the worst paternalists of the left wield so well. Obama, different from, say Sharpton or Jackson, isn't beholding to liberal paternalism. And after decades of having blacks under their thumb there's nothing more frightening to the leftist old schoolers than an ascended and independent black man.

Prime Exemplar: In the short history of our new millennium has there been a more public racist diatribe than Stanley Crouch's recent piece in the Daily News; What Obama isn't: Black Like Me? Crouch, who is apparently the arbiter of all things black, dismisses Obama being a member of the tribe based on his biracial background.

Crouch: "when black Americans refer to Obama as "one of us," I do not know what they are talking about."

Take close note. Crouch speaks of "black Americans." Interesting, as it's the left that since the early eighties has brow beaten the public into using the dismissive and often wrongly applied appellation African American when speaking of all black people. Now
that a man of direct African descent is poised to be president, according to Crouch, it's good "black Americans" who are being bamboozled by him. Crouch ends his rant by dismissing Obama as having to run for president as the product of a "white woman and African immigrant" who, if elected president, will have gotten into the White House through the "side door."

As opposed to, say, Al Sharpton who deserved to stroll right through the front of the joint.

Not all the left-leaning slams against Obama have been so obvious. CNN has been engaged in a stealth war against Obama for months. From their promo department "accidentally" running the caption "Where's Obama?" under pictures of Osama Bin Laden, to CNN correspondent Jeanne Moos mocking the similarity of Obama's first name to Bin Laden's and Obama's middle name of Hussein to the former Iraq dictator. Her piece was replete with a split screen contrasting Obama with the Middle East's most wanted.

CNN analyst Jeff Greenfield compared Obama to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad because they both tend to dress business casual: jacket, collared shirt and no tie.

Greenfield insists it was just a joke.

Sure.

Same as the anti-Harold Ford "call me" ad was just a little Republican mischief.

But most inexplicably, in the middle of a decidedly apolitical interview with Rick Warren, CNN's Wolf Blitzer inexplicably blurted: "Is America ready for a black president," essentially positing a negative for his audience.

Wolf, a whole lot of America has been ready for a black president ever since we got dumped here off the boat from the motherland. The question isn't "is America ready for a black president," the question is: can American afford one more rich old white guy as president?

Though it seems CNN has had its considerable left-leaning phasers set to kill, I gotta cut the network just a tad of slack because Dick Parson's is, literally, "the man" up top. But that doesn't mean his minion's got the memo that the "lighten up, it's just a black joke" soft bigotry is as damning as the straight up old school Jim Crowisms of the right.

As Soledad Brother George Jackson taught us the Left and Right are just tentacles of the same beast. When it comes to bigotry I don't expect the left to be better than the right. I would, however, appreciate if they learned to keep it to themselves."
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Gold Metal Flake Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 12:18 PM
Response to Original message
31. John Ridley, Concern Troll.
Next.

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Nikki Stone1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-03-07 12:25 PM
Response to Original message
32. Since when is Biden "Left"?
He may be to the left of the current adminstration, but so was John Paul II.
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