Edging Ever Closer...

[Pamela Troy]

I used to comment that some of the yahoos I debated online were apparently looking forward to the glorious day when they could take their “Kiss Me, I’m a White Supremacist” t-shirts out of the closet and wear them in public without fear of being hissed and booed off the street. These were the ones who, if asked directly, would neither deny nor admit that they were racists, and were frequently saved from doing so by various online conservatives, moderates (and even a few infuriatingly naive liberals,) who would react to the question by scurrying to the defense of the yahoo. So long as the online racist never used the “N” word or uttered the words, “yes, since you ask, I am a racist,” the onus would fall on whoever was rude or “confrontational” enough to ask the question invoking the “R” word.

Well, it looks like those t-shirts are about to come out, and the yahoos can barely contain their excitement. Some of them are coming out of the gate just a bit early, but the signs for them are plainly encouraging. On Fox Nation, in the midst of messages denouncing the notion that racism has made a comeback, one poster has proudly declared “I am proud to be a racist!” and the only response so far has been from a liberal who had wandered onto the site. (And in the finest online tradition, it’s the liberal who's been subsequently denounced – not the avowed racist.)

The right-wing is all atwitter and ablog about an incident on an Illinois school-bus related more to garden variety schoolyard bullying than race, but oddly silent about a black woman, an army reservist, being beaten in public by an insanely hateful white man screaming racial epithets at her. The overt racism of the overtly racist signs waved at many “Tea Parties” is being blandly dismissed by beltway Republicans. All shame has departed. Any and all pretense is probably the next thing out the door.

A nice little preview of upcoming attractions was offered by Rush Liimbaugh the other day, (via Media Matters) when he asked the following:

“Can this nation really have an African-American president? Or will the fact that we have an African-American president so paralyze politically correct people in the media that the natural scrutiny and process through which all of our presidents are put through and vetted do not occur because of the fear in the State-Controlled Media of themselves being called racist and the desire to be able to call everyone else racist. In other words, we have a blank slate. We have a president here who is not scrutinized, who is not examined. There is no attempt to be suspicious of power anymore. So is it possible that we really have an African-American president? Or does having an African-American president paralyze the process by which people with that kind of power in our representative republic are kept, quote, unquote, honest?

See, it’s not that Rush is a racist! Oh mercy no! It’s just that black Americans, and their liberal enablers, just aren’t ready to have a president yet. They just can’t handle it, just don’t understand the need to vet the president, and they “paralyze the process by which people with that kind of power in our in our representative republic are kept quote, unquote, honest.”

You can almost hear the faux regretful sighs as these born again racists shake their heads and say, that, well -- it’s sad, really. Yes, racial equality was a good-hearted experiment, and we gave it our best shot, but alas, African Americans just aren’t ready for it yet….

That’s probably the argument that’s next on the horizon from certain quarters, and like most of what comes from Limbaugh and that ilk, there’s nothing new about it. I remember being taught, in my grade school days in the Jim Crow south, how awful it was during Reconstruction that so many black people ran for office and won before they were ready to take on the responsibility. D.W. Griffith’s notoriously racist film, Birth of a Nation even includes a scene in which black legislators guzzle whisky and prop their bare feet on the desks.



Watch for it. Because this is how these people see our president.

[lunatica]

1. It's not like we need to watch for it. It's been smacking us

right in the eye for at least a year. Ever since Sarah Palin was thrust on us. that's when it became OK to be an angry racist.

[butterfly77]

2. I wonder why these nuts..

always try to pretend as though this country is only black and white. Now,what does limbaugh propose to do with all of the other races and nationalities that live in this country, do they go under the caucasian category and Blacks are separate and unequal?

[tridim]

5. Limbaugh wants blacks, liberals and everyone in-between dead.

So your question is pretty much moot.

If you're not white and "conservative" he wants you dead. He is currently rallying his troops in an attempt to make it so.

[butterfly77]

7. I know but...

a lot of people don't realize that limbaugh uses black to describe everyone else,and use them to destroy themselves.

[Caliman73]

9. It is easier that way. And NO to the second part of your statement.

All non-White, non-straight, non-Christian (excluding Catholics)are easier to classify as Black. Latinos, Asians, Jews, Muslims, Arabs, Gays, and Lesbians don't get a pass. We are just a little harder to spot. These crazy fucks hate us all and want us all dead and gone. Just wait till immigration reform is attempted in the next few months and you'll see. We won't be talking about Canadians or European immigrants.

[myrna minx]

3. I always enjoy your thoughtful essays, Pamela. K&R n/t

[Oldtimeralso]

4. K & R and want to get out the truth. n/t

[cali]

6. best writer on DU as well as one of the most thoughtful

[me b zola]

8. K&R

[WatchWhatISay]

10. About that Illinois school bus incident

Have they all forgotten (so soon) the incident that happened about a week earlier? The one in which a young black man on a school bus wrestled away the gun from a girl (I never noticed them reporting what race she was) who was threating the students on the bus with it. I didn't notice them obsessing about what a hero he was.

It's really just all a matter of what you decide to pay attention to.

[monktonman]

11. Isnt the head of the RNC black?

Am I mistaken?
I guess that explains whats happening to republicans.
they have a party leader who is just not ready for the job.

[DCKit]

12. The Hatriots were hoping for Fred Sanford and got Frederick Douglas instead.

It's no wonder they're freaking out. He doesn't gaffe.

Not only is he a Black Democrat, but he's intelligent, thoughtful, incredibly well-spoken, handsome, devoted to his family, charismatic.... The anti-Bush*, everything they're not and it's just too much for them.

A few more months, and they'll be clamoring for "Medicare 4 All" as hatred begins to manifest a physical toll on the "base" - hypertension, heart disease, stroke and cancer. They have become their own death panels.