Give Me Strength...

The above t-shirt is courtesy of this fool:

Marietta tavern owner Mike Norman says the T-shirts he's peddling, featuring cartoon chimp Curious George peeling a banana, with "Obama in '08" scrolled underneath, are "cute." But to a coalition of critics, the shirts are an insulting exploitation of racial stereotypes from generations past.

[...]

Norman said those offended are "hunting for a reason to be mad" and insisted he is "not a racist."

Why picture Obama as Curious George? "Look at him . . . the hairline, the ears, he looks just like Curious George," Norman said.

He's not a racist, he just thinks black people look like monkeys. To quote Ta-Nehisi Coates, who exactly does a guy have to lynch around here to get called a racist?

H/T Balloon Juice

UPDATE: So obviously, Curious George is a registered trademark of Houghton Mifflin Company. The T-shirt is most likely protected as parody, but if you're as irritated as I am, feel free to contact the good folks there and let them know what people are doing with their property.

Houghton Mifflin Company
Permissions Department
215 Park Avenue South
New York, New York 10003

You may also contact our general interest and children's Permissions Department by fax at 212-420-5899
or via e-mail at trade_permissions@hmco.com.

Sidney Blumenthal Was There.

Max Blumenthal wants you to know that he was right there when all the scary Negroes were about to riot over the Sean Bell verdict:

Unlike Rich, and what seemed like the entire Times Metro desk, I attended the demonstration that erupted in Jamaica, Queens -- the neighborhood where Bell lived and died -- just hours after the verdict was announced. While this protest did not end violently, it was large, brimming with anger, and anything but restrained. At one point, I found myself in the midst of what seemed certain to become a brawl between a faction of furious protesters and a squadron of cops they had surrounded. It appeared from my vantage point that the cops retreated from the melee only because they were badly outnumbered.

But don't take me at my word. Watch the video I produced about the Sean Bell demonstrations, especially the latter half, which depicts the uncomfortable reality that Rich overlooked in his reductionist portrait of an imaginary post-racial America.

In the video, Blumenthal wrings his hands over Barack Obama's difficulty in "maintaining his credibility" among black voters while reaching out to blue collar whites. I'm not sure what planet Blumethal is on, but it's apparently not the one where Barack Obama is knocking Hillary into Nixon-like margins among black voters.  Son Of A Former Clinton Advisor Max Blumenthal knocks "former theater critic Frank Rich" for not "bolstering" his claim with statistical evidence, but the humiliating margin of the black vote Hillary Clinton is getting is notably absent. Who's the one really having trouble walking that tightrope?

One person Blumenthal interviews says "where's Hillary? She's our state's Senator". An interesting question, since Governor Paterson suggested he might revive the office of the Special Prosecutor to investigate claims of police brutality. The Sean Bell shooting happened in her state, and yet Clinton has been mad quiet. I'm sure it's not because voters in West Virginia and Kentucky might not want to hear what Clinton thinks about the Sean Bell verdict.

But all of this is less important than Blumenthal's ultimate point, which is that the Sean Bell trial (and his uncorroborated description of a near riot, which is actually just people talking smack at the police at a protest) proves that America is too racist to elect Barack Obama president.

Of course, Blumenthal's deep concern about issues of race and racism in America is by no means driven by his support for Hillary Clinton. He's just really worried that people don't understand how serious racism is, especially all those black folks who clearly have no idea, which is why we're voting for Obama, because we just don't know what it's like out here.

The Obama camp could have made a similar argument about Hillary Clinton with gender, but it hasn't, and it won't, and that just makes what the Clintons are doing all the more messed up.

After all, why stop with the president? Blumenthal's rationale extends itself to all spheres of life. Don't make him manager, people won't respect him because he's black. Can't let her into Yale, folks are racist, they might think she just got in because of affirmative action, and she might not be able to handle it. Might as well forget about going to medical school, because some white people don't want a black doctor.

America is a racist country, and has a lot of growing to do. But whether or not America is ready to elect a black president is yet to be decided, and racism should never be an excuse to tell a black person they can't do something.

There's something so sick about Blumenthal's exploitation of the Sean Bell tragedy to further a Pro-Clinton agenda. There's nothing in that "documentary" about an independent body that would have actual power to hold police accountable and would replace the toothless CCRB, there's no description of the increasing numbers of violations by the NYPD that have gone unpunished, just an assurance that black people are still angry and potentially violent.

Even Juanita Young, who was thrown down a flight of steps by cops after her son was murdered by the NYPD, appears as a mere prop in Blumenthal's piece, the only point of which is to smear the black man running for president as a race traitor.

UPDATE: I accidentally identified Max as having worked for the Clintons and having sent the emails, it was actually his father Sidney. 

Clinton Makes Case For WHITE Appeal

cross-posted to goodCRIMETHINK

I thought I'd edit this USA Today headline to reflect what's really going on.

Links:

• USA Today story
• dnA's badass analysis
• Pam's House Blend more badass analysis

Update @ 10:51pm ET

Audio of Clinton's statement

NPR Picks Up NC Pro-Clinton Vote Suppression Efforts

NPR confirms a story that's been on the blogs since earlier this week, efforts by a pro-Clinton group to disenfranchise black voters.

Thousands of North Carolina residents answered their telephones last week to hear this message, delivered in a deep, soothing voice:

"Hello. This is Lamont Williams. In the next few days, you will receive a voter registration packet in the mail. All you need to do is fill it out, sign it, date and return the application. Then you will be able to vote and make your voice heard. Please return your registration form when it arrives. Thank you."

In fact, the deadline to register for the May 6 Democratic presidential primary had already passed. The robocall went to many registered voters who were expecting to vote that day. The call and follow-up mailings left many wondering whether they were registered for the primary or not.

This sounds like a classic example of voter suppression — sowing confusion in order to drive down turn-out. The calls seemed to be aimed at African-American communities, places where Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is expected to run well ahead of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.

But the group behind the calls isn't partisan Republican or ideologically conservative. It's Women's Voices Women Vote, a 501(c)(3) charity that states its mission as registering single women to vote. The robocalls seem completely at odds with the group's usual, upbeat message. In one of the group's public service announcements, the actress Julia Louis Dreyfus strolls thru a replica of the Oval Office and fantasizes about women electing a woman president.

The group has ties to some high level Clinton folks.

Will Evans of the Center for Investigative Reporting , who collaborated in reporting this story, found some Obama backers among the Women's Voices leadership, but the group mostly has ties to Clinton and her campaign. Gardner worked on former President Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign. Board member John Podesta was President Clinton's chief-of-staff. Maggie Williams, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, used to be on the Women's Voices leadership team and did consulting work for the group.

Chris Kromm, director of the Institute for Southern Studies, in Durham, N.C., says there's no hard evidence that the robocalls were meant to suppress the pro-Obama vote. "We can't show that there's any formal or direct connection," he says.

NPR is reporting that there's "no evidence" these calls were aimed at disenfranchising Obama voters. That's not quite accurate. There's no admission of guilt or damning memo, but if the calls were directed at black folks, as NPR asserts, a block that has been voting 9 out of 10 for Obama in the primaries, the robocalls could only hurt him and help Hillary. Given the scale and persistence of the operation, it's hard to believe the Clintons had no idea what was happening.

You don't accidentally commission a bunch of robocalls using time tested voter suppression technique targeted at a particular group.

Moreover, they've been doing this for a while.

The Institute turned up other complaints about the group as well, in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin. A "Lamont Williams" robocall similar to North Carolina's ran in Ohio last fall. In Virginia, robocalls days before the February primary caused voters to flood the board of elections with phone calls, in turn triggering an investigation by the state police.

Kromm says this shows at least five months of a "deceptive tactic, illegal in many states." He notes, "Each time this group is criticized for this activity, they apologize for the confusion."

They're obviously trying to help someone out. Of course, disenfranchising black voters isn't what I'd call racist. It's just trying to trick people out of exercising their constitutional right to vote because they're of a certain race, which is completely different.

H/T Davidkc