They Need Less Stupid

Michael Goldfarb is shocked, shocked that a political candidate would diversify the background at a campaign appearance to portray a particular message:

The Obama campaign discriminates against people of color, and their own supporters no less, in what is presumably a misguided pander to white voters. Very strange, but perhaps Obama's candidacy really has transcended race in America (surely this is a first). Alternatively, the campaign may just plan to stage-manage it out of public view.

Nothing quite showcases the misguided sense of victimhood some folks on the Right have than viewing this as "discrimination." These folks view any kind of racial identification as in and of itself "racist" with no sense of proportion whatsoever. After all, what's the difference between tailoring a background to make a candidate look good and and an eyewitness wrongly identifying a suspect because they think all black folks look alike? It's all "discrimination" after all.

Goldfarb and others are notably uninterested in racial discrimination in any context that has the potential to affect people's lives, unless of course they themselves feel discriminated against. Here the lack of proportion comes into play, as in: Academia's alleged leftward tilt is the same thing as the Taliban.

Of course, Goldfarb would have defended as "inclusive" rather than pandering, the invitation of a Gospel Choir to the Republican convention in 2000. It's positively naive to think other politicians don't do the same thing ALL THE TIME, but it only matters here because Obama is black, and so in this context it is seen as somehow unethical. Conversely, the Bush Administration screening out dissenters at campaign rallies isn't discrimination, it's "freedom".

What it is, completely and utterly, is trivial. Expect to see another 3000 articles this week on Obama "discriminating against his own supporters". Only in America can a black man be accused of being a radical Christian and a radical Muslim and of hating white people and black people at the same time.

BONUS: McCain discriminating against his white supporters at his MLK speech:



What a racist!

DMX Is An Idiot

What foolishness in this XXL interview. Here's an excerpt focusing on the presidential campaign

Are you following the presidential race?
Not at all.

You’re not? You know there’s a Black guy running, Barack Obama and then there’s Hillary Clinton.
His name is Barack?!

Barack Obama, yeah.
Barack?!

Barack.
What the fuck is a Barack?! Barack Obama. Where he from, Africa?

Yeah, his dad is from Kenya.
Barack Obama?

Yeah.
What the fuck?! That ain’t no fuckin’ name, yo. That ain’t that nigga’s name. You can’t be serious. Barack Obama. Get the fuck outta here.

You’re telling me you haven’t heard about him before.
I ain’t really paying much attention.

I mean, it’s pretty big if a Black…
Wow, Barack! The nigga’s name is Barack. Barack? Nigga named Barack Obama. What the fuck, man?! Is he serious? That ain’t his fuckin’ name. Ima tell this nigga when I see him, “Stop that bullshit. Stop that bullshit” [laughs] “That ain’t your fuckin’ name.” Your momma ain’t name you no damn Barack.

So you’re not following the race. You can’t vote right?
Nope.

Is that why you’re not following it?
No, because it’s just—it doesn’t matter. They’re gonna do what they’re gonna do. It doesn’t really make a difference. These are the last years.

But it would be pretty big if we had a first Black president. That would be huge.
I mean, I guess…. What, they gon’ give a dog a bone? There you go. Ooh, we have a Black president now. They should’ve done that shit a long time ago, we wouldn’t be in the fuckin’ position we in now. With world war coming up right now. They done fucked this shit up then give it to the Black people, “Here you take it. Take my mess.”

Right, exactly.
It’s all a fuckin’ setup. It’s all a setup. All fuckin’ bullshit. All bullshit. I don’t give a fuck about none of that.

We could have a female president also, Hillary Clinton.
I mean, either way it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. No one person is directly affected by which president, you know, so what does it matter.

Yeah, but the country is.
I guess. The president is a puppet anyway. The president don’t make no damn decisions.

The president…they don’t have that much authority basically?
Nah, never.

But Bush pretty much…
You think Bush is making fuckin’ decisions?

He did, yeah, he fucked up the country.
He act like he making decisions. He could barely speak! He could barely fuckin’ speak!
Can’t be serious. He ain’t making no damn decisions.

Well Barack has a good chance of winning so that might be something.
Good for him, good for him.

This is a shame. There's a glimmer of insight when he talks about how it doesn't matter who the president is and how the president doesn't make decisions. That's not completely true, but much stays the same regardless of who's president.

The problem is that this glimmer of insight is washed out by the floodlights of ignorance in almost all his other comments! I don't expect all entertainers to be able to wax eloquently about the presidential campaign, but I also don't expect them to so proudly flaunt nonsense. I never thought I'd be happy a black man couldn't vote, but in this case, DMX has shown that right would be wasted on him.

Just another reason you shouldn't get your political analysis from random rappers... or cable TV pundits and columnists for that matter.

Ta-Nehisi Coates on Why Black People Won't Join The Republican Party

Ta-Nehisi Coates is a former writer for the Village Voice among other pubs and has a new book coming out. I also know him from way back in the day in DC/Baltimore. (No, I don't know everyone I link to, but it can help :)).

Anyway, he's written an excellent piece on the debate about Obama's speech and Why Black People Won't Join The Republican Party. An excerpt:

My point is that the Right really doesn't understand black America, and is much more interested in lambasting it then going out in the field, reporting and learning. Cosby has commanded large crowds of black people, pulling on a conservative tradtion that stretches from Booker T. Washington to Louis Farrakhan. The crowds who come to see him understand his message of hard work and "not blaming the white man," but they also find him credible and don't think he's trying to sell them out.

The same can't be said of Ward Connerly black conservatives, and there's a good reason why. The conservative position on black people is essentially a negative one. I don't mean that in a value sense, but in the literal sense. The idea is to either dismantle all elements of government which explicitly attempt to heal the old wounds of slavery and Jim Crow, and then do nothing. Of course one could argue that this is of a piece of conservative, small government ideology. Except that black people aren't stupid. They know, for instance, that most conservatives think that government should ban abortion, and some don't. They know that most conservatives are anti-illegal immigration, and some aren't. They know that many conservatives doubt global warming, but some don't. They know that many conservatives believe in standing strong with Israel, but some others don't. There even are a few David Brooks conservatives who believe in gay marriage.

Yet when it comes to black folks, for decades the most impoverished demographic in America, the policy is essentially (excuse my language, but it's appropriate)--Fuck them niggers. The saddest thing about Obama's speech is that there really is not a conservative rebuttal. Peek in over at The Corner and you'll hear a lot of folks taking issue with the speech, but virtually no counter-proposals. That's because conservatives believe that black America's biggest problem is itself, and thus they see no role for government. There basic ideology is if black people would start getting married and parenting, they'd be fine. There may be some truth to that, but from there perspective--despite decades of racist policies enacted by the government--there's absolutely nothing government should do to help.

Derrick Ashong on CNN.com Responds to Obama Speech (also in NYT)

cross-posted to goodCRIMETHINK


I'm just so proud of my folks. Yall remember Derrick from the now-infamous (900,000+ views) set of YouTube videos featuring him discussing Obama. This past Monday, the NY Times business page featured him on the front.

Today, CNN.com has his response to the Obama speech. An excerpt:

Like many Americans I watched Sen. Barack Obama deliver his speech titled "A More Perfect Union."

I watched in a state of minor shock, not so much at the deftness with which he defused the sophomoric conflation of his call for national unity with the inflammatory rhetoric of the retired head pastor of his church -- a conflation that would imply that we must each swallow whole the entirety of views expressed by our friends and associates.

It was not his repudiation of small thinking that struck me. It was the fact that here we had an American politician speaking with both candor and compassion about the proverbial elephant in our national living room.

Race is an issue that continues to confound this country. It is an undercurrent that paints our description, understanding and valuation of people in American society whether spoken or not. It is the subtext that places NBA star LeBron James and Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen on the cover of Vogue, in uncomfortable caricature of brute and ingénue.

It is in the minds of some the very reason a person of color would even be considered a serious candidate for the presidency of the nation -- never mind that three centuries into the American experiment there has been to date, only one such person.

More Derrick Ashong. Less Pat Buchanan!

Be sure to check out the closing line. It echoes what I've been saying for some time, which is that in most elections it's the candidates being tested, but this time around, it's America that's being tested. Will we pass or fail?

Follow Derrick's Take Back The Mic initiative, and see the resulting winners on health care.