Blog Incognito

Yesterday’s news….

On the same day that victorious tea-party associated (Republican?) senatorial candidate Rand Paul from Kentucky told Rachel Maddow that business’ should be allowed to discriminate – because after all, it’s their business not the government’s – Mark Williams, listed as a national tea-party leader, went off on a rant about Muslim’s worshipping a “monkey-God”.  And this from the party that adamantly denies there is any racism involved in their ranks?

As Harry Shearer exposes on his weekly radio program “Le Show”….You can’t make this stuff up!

Last week a columnist in the Washington Times (surprise; a blonde white woman.) criticized President Obama for his lack of decorum by suggesting that his use of the term “tea-bagger’s” in referring to members of the “tea party”, is akin to the use of the ‘n’ word.  Quoting Grover Norquist (largish white man), president of the organization, Americans for Tax Reform; “This remark is the equivalent of using the ‘n’ word.  It shows contempt for middle America, expressed knowingly, contemptuously, on purpose, and with a smirk.  It is indefensible to use this word.  The president knows what it means, and his people know what it means.  The public thought we reached a new low of incivility during the Clinton administration.  Well, the Obama administration has just outdone them.”

The columnist, Jennifer Harper takes Obama to task for his recent college commencement speech where he stated; “We’ve got politicians calling each other all sorts of unflattering names.  Pundits and talking heads shout at each other.  The media tends to play up every hint of conflict becuase it makes for a sexier story.”

Isn’t that just exactly what she’s done here?!

And as for Mr. Norquist’s assertions…first of all, naive as I may or may not be, I actually had to look up the term to see what the hell he was referring to when he accuses the administration of “knowing what it means”.  Apparently it is associated with a sexual act (I won’t get into the details – google it yourselves!).  I am quite sure a sitting administration would NEVER use a term they knowingly thought referred to any kind of sexual or inappropriate action.  That’d be suicide, not too mention totally inappropriate…and as much as Mr. Norquist would like to think they have intentionally been inappropriate, I’m afraid that’s just a lot of hyperbole masked in detest for Obama’s ideals.

But more to the point here….comparing “tea-bagger’s” to the ‘n’ word has got to be one of THE most ridiculous claims the right has perpetrated yet.  REALLY?…these words carry the same significance?  More white privilege and denial….

Ah….we seem to keep humming the same tune…….

With the proliferation of the mass of disinformation literally shoved into people’s faces (brains) each day, it’s a wonder how we can tell truth from fiction.

Oh….you say perhaps we can’t?

Well, it doesn’t surprise me when we actually have so many of what we regard as “our finest” journalists – or would “opinionators” be a better term? – spewing forth a froth of hyperbolic lies and trash daily.  Who can you possibly trust in the media?  I once heard an Editor of a major newspaper describing the problem of backlash against his paper and their reporting as; “people will only hear/read what they want to hear”.  In other words, even if it is the truth, if it doesn’t fit your version, your beliefs, you will never see it as truth and therefore reject it.  Said Editor was describing his paper’s effort to report on the not-so-long-ago “death panel” scare during the healthcare debate (propagated by of all people – “the people’s champion” – Sarah Palin!).  He said the paper actually reported the truth, that indeed there was absolutely no wording in the healthcare bill having anything remotely to do with “death panels”.  The clause in question was in fact to help people understand more about their care as they get older.  However, due to that “truthful” correction, the backlash against the paper was more forceful than anything they had ever experienced in the history of the paper’s existence.  Could it have just been the issue – healthcare?  Perhaps.  However, more than likely it is the phenomenon  described above, that people only want to hear what they already believe and anything that deviates from that is met with fierce resistance.

Which brings me to RUMORS….

Last week I noticed a column in (ahem…) The HuffPost which reported on a study about rumors done by the folks who might be considered the authorities on such matters, Snopes.com.  They spend their waking hours verifying and debunking all manner of internet rumors.  Recently they conducted research to do a comparative analysis of rumors spread over the yet-in-progress Presidency of Barack Obama and the two previous terms of his predecessor.  The HuffPost writer goes on to say the results may not surprise you, however I would contend the results, although not surprising, are not being called for what they are – the deep gulf of racism that still exists in our society.

After eight years in the White House, George Bush had been the subject of 47 internet rumors.  After less than TWO years in office, Barack Obama has been the subject of 87.  And perhaps even more telling, of the 47 rumors on GB, 20 were true, 17 false, and the remainder could not be verified.  As for Mr. Obama, of 87 rumors, 8 have proven to be true and 59 false, with the remainder unverifiable.

So…you may be wondering, how does Fosberg get to the “race card” from this?  True, we are discussing two very different parties here – Repub’s & Demo’s, and true, these men are extremely different in their approaches….  However, this discrepancy seems to once again prove my point about the very different ways in which whites and blacks are judged.  There is such a completely different standard at play here; whites being GIVEN a privilege (sometimes completely unaware) that whatever they do is right, whereby blacks are forced to constantly prove themselves as trustworthy, intelligent, and lord knows hard-working!  When considering the political opinions of say, Sarah Palin, do we as whites (I am including myself since I am half!) consider her the spokesperson for us all?  Obviously not.  However, when a black man or woman speaks forcefully on a political topic – let’s say Mr. Obama – most whites assume that he speaks for the entire black race.  (It might be interesting to mention here – yet again – that Barack Obama is biracial!)  I admit this is a bit of a generalization and that not every white person feels that way.  However, my point is about the vast differences in which we see racial barriers.

In this case, I just call ‘em as I see ‘em….and maybe that’s the problem, I see what I want to see and nothing else.  Do we all?

At yesterday’s Chicago Cubs / Arizona Diamondbacks game here in Chicago at the “Friendly Confines”, or what is sometimes referred to as Wrigley field….several protesters camped out front of the famous entrance signage and plied people with fliers urging them to boycott the state of Arizona.  Someone supposedly sent the Cubs a letter requesting the team move their spring training facilities out of that state.  The Cubs of course declined comment.

Apparently a black counter-protester was called a racist when he urged people to “stand with America’s favorite pastime.”  Other fans found it offensive to “picket” the park commenting, “We’re here for the Cubs, and they want to talk about this?”  Seems we are always TOO distracted with one superficial distraction after another, to actually get INVOLVED with something IMPORTANT.

The Diamondbacks management for their part issued a statement opposing the State Bill recently passed concerning immigrants/immigration, and added, “We have never taken political stances”.  Really?  Not even when it might benefit your club??

I found it interesting that a protest would materialize at a ballpark where the crowd on most days is a majority white.  I can’t claim to have done any scientific analysis as to the actual numbers of people of color who enter the ballpark….but I can say it has always amazed me when attending a game or even just driving by on game days, how utterly white the fans seem to be.  <Full disclosure: I live just a mile from the ballpark>  There have also been reports over the years from both visiting and former ballplayers at the rowdiness of the crowd in regards to racial comments being hurled from the stands.  (Having been to several different sporting events over the years, it kind of amazes me how disrespectful many sports fans are these days!)

However, Wrigley field yesterday was abuzz with immigration protesters passing out fliers, inciting the crowd to join in their disagreement with the State of Arizona, and hoping to win the hearts of a mostly white crowd.

With so many millionaire hispanic ballplayers hailing from latin countries all over, I wonder what sense they make of this recent law?  They, and their families, quite secure financially.  Certainly being hailed as a sports superstar can help them gain citizenship (or merely the paperwork to work in this country) far easier than any other immigrants who must find their way here through all manner of illegal methods, not to mention battle the harsh conditions they faced before fleeing.

A recent study released by a fair-housing organization in Oregon found in Beaverton and Ashland,  78% of  black participants applying for rental housing were either quoted higher rents, steered to inferior units, or rejected outright.  So much for those national fair-housing laws…and so much for all the chatter about either race being a non-factor since the election, racial-profiling being non-existant, or the famously unaware and insensitive quote; “What’s wrong with them?”

In thinking more about the fast pace of all the “racial” news reported just in the past week – in particular the two Arizona laws; one about immigration, the other dealing with a Presidential candidate’s birth certificate – it’s hard to imagine how week after week with studies showing these kinds of disturbing results, that the deniers can be in such denial for so long?

It might be interesting to note here that The Oregon Trail was once used as a migration route (during the mid-1800’s) for settlers, ranchers, farmers, miners, and business people migrating to the Pacific Northwest.  I bet they didn’t have any problems renting an apartment!

What exactly does that mean?  When the tea-party folks march/rally and we hear over and over the chants of “We want our country back!”, what exactly do they mean?  From whom are they asking for it back?  This is assuming someone has taken their country.  Whom would that be?  Am I to assume they mean the federal government since a good deal of their opposition and anger is directed at the largess of the federal government and our run-away deficit?

If this is whom they are asking – demanding – their country back from, when did it get taken away?  In the past two years since the election of Barack Obama?  I must assume this as well, since these folks were no where to be found during the previous eight years of out-of-control federal spending (look it up, the Bush administration spent more tax dollars than any previous administration and this doesn’t even take into account the costs of the two wars on terror!  Oh, and not to mention that we took in less due to the enormous tax cuts for the wealthy!!).  If I am understanding this correctly, they are angry at what they see as the current administration’s “reckless” spending?  Do I have that correct?  The economic stimulus bill?  The passing of the near universal healthcare bill (which we have been told will actually lower the deficit, not inflate it.)?  The more recent attempts to regulate the financial industry via government intervention, thus hopefully making it slightly more difficult for Wall St. tycoons to make their billions off the heads and hard work of regular Americans (like the tea-party faithful)?  Is this what they are opposed to?

So…if these are their beefs…legitimate or not…I ask, where were they when all the shit was going on during the eight years of the Bush administration?  Even the bank bailouts happened on Bush’s watch!  Why weren’t they protesting at rallies with armed automatic weapons then?  What changed between then – record deficits, lied about astronomically costly wars, infringement on people’s civil rights, the inequity of wealth in America, record numbers of uninsured, lobbyist dollars spent beyond belief, etc. – and now?

I’ll tell you what’s changed….

And yes, I am going to “as they say”, “play the race card”…

We elected a black man as President.

Think about it.  Tim Wise, the terrific writer and speaker about all things “race” & “white privilege”, wrote an amazing essay called “Imagine if the Tea Party was black”.  In it he suggests that if it was an all black tea-party that gathered on the lawn of the capital bearing arms and calling out for the overthrow of the government…..

Well…you get the idea.

Yet, as he posits, these “protests” are seen as “fundamentally American”.

They are (as he also suggests) fundamentally a result of white privilege.

Again taking from his essay, when Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama, the right attacked him viciously as just another black man endorsing a black man.  But do we suggest the opposite when say Newt Gingrich endorses John McCain?  Or Mitch McConnell endorsed George Bush?  Is this simply a white male endorsing a white male?  (The same was thrown Hillary’s way when it came to women by the way!!)

So who are they asking for their country back from?

Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and all other people of color and mixed race who are slowly and steadily rising in numbers thus making the white population a minority.  This, they fear, will be the end of the world as they know it.

Oh…and a question for all you out there…when did the phrase, “Playing the race card” first become widely used?  And…doesn’t it seem like every time you turn around someone is accusing someone else of this?

What a week!

Just days after the “Birther’s” started pounding their ridiculous drums again…comes word out of Arizona that if you are caught walkin’ the street, you’d better have your papers on you.

First…the “Birther’s”…IN THE SAME STATE NO LESS!  Seems the Republican’s in the state Senate of Arizona (why does it always have to be political?) have decided to take up a bill that would require a Presidential candidate in the state of Arizona to provide a birth certificate before their name could be included on the final ballot.  As is always the case, the “denial train” runs right through Republicanville as those pushing for this bill deny it has anything to do with the (still?!) ongoing controversy surrounding Barack Obama’s official Hawaiian birth certificate.  Apparently it is not enough for any of the accusing party that the State of Hawaii – which has kept all state business electronically for the past five years (how advanced of them!) – will not provide the actual document for folks to look at.  When did a copy not become enough?  Did we ask the same of George Bush?  Bill Clinton?  Ronald Reagan?  A certified copy by the state of Hawaii is not enough?!  Have we asked this of all Presidential candidates in the past?  Has it been required of them to provide the ACTUAL document in order to prove they are a citizen?  Or did we just take it for granted they were American because their father’s weren’t black men from Africa?

So wait….Arizona…you’re telling me there is absolutely no connection with the Obama situation and this ridiculous bill?  REALLY?!  Sometimes it seems as if politician’s think we are the dumbest people on the planet.

On the heels of this ridiculous effort comes the now signed-into-law Arizona immigration bill which gives the police the right to stop anyone at anytime and demand papers to prove their citizenship.  For no other reason than what….they LOOK illegal?  What does that do to legal residents of Arizona…now they MUST carry some sort of document which states they are a citizen for fear the police can stop them at anytime to demand to see this proof?  Would kids be included in this scenario?  Will we now expect young children to carry their papers with them as they walk to and from school?

Sure, our immigration system is quite broken, our borders like sieves, jobs are being lost to undocumented workers (although I would contend there are not many “white” American’s who would do the kind of work we’ve come to expect from our Mexican population.), and the strain on our educational and healthcare systems is near a breaking point.  Not to mention the drug trafficking running rampant in Arizona and Texas….

Is this how we want to enforce the law…simply by the way someone looks?  I think not…although, this is essentially what we are currently doing at our airports!  Racial-profiling….yep.  However, this has been going on in our country for a long long time.  The immigration and same-sex-marriage issues are our next civil-rights mountains that nobody in Washington is ready to climb.

Title from The Onion satirical newspaper?  Recent John Stewart bit from The Daily Show?  Mad Magazine spoof?

NOPE.

Today’s article by Best of the Web Today blogger James Taranto at The Wall Street Journal Online suggests “the left” needs racism to keep their numbers up and win elections.  Thus, they – “the left” – push the “R” word wherever possible to further their agenda and create what appears to be a backlash against “the right”.  Mr. Taranto further suggests as proof (see previous blog post!), the election of Barack Obama as President pretty much says we Americans are over our racist ways!  I quote;

“The election of Barack Obama made nonsense of the idea that America remains a racist country and thereby necessitated an intensifying of attacks on the opposition as racist.”

This from a fat white guy.

I shouldn’t need to ask this but….how can a white guy (okay, the fat part – although he is – is just a nasty and perhaps inappropriate way for me to refer to him!), a guy with absolutely no experience in what it is like being black, claim that racism is dead?  What I really mean to point out is….this is a PERFECT example of white privilege.  He hasn’t a clue as to the privileges he lives with, and is so deeply steep in political dogma, that he can’t possibly know how ridiculous this sounds.  Not only to black people, but to all people of color, and a good number of folks within his own race.

First off…my apologies for the continued use of titles from great works of literature….

However, much like the story surrounding the play/movie penned by David Auburn, the recent  firestorm regarding whether or not members of Congress were accosted verbally from tea-party protesters outside the capital as they made their way across the street to vote on the healthcare bill is an equally deeply complicated affair.

If you recall, Representative John Lewis (he of the great civil rights marches in the ’60’s), Andre Carson, and Emanuel Cleaver (all black men and Representatives in the House) claim to have been verbally attached with use of the “N” word, in addition to having been spat on while making their way from the House ofices to the Capital.  A shocking and dispiriting occurrence and one that says a great deal about the contentious nature of not only this bill, but our political process as well.  There are several extremely bad video snippets that have surfaced on the internet, but none that capture implicitly the true nature of their claims.  In most, the crowd noise is deafening and far too shrill to make out distinct words, the video shaky and shielded by the mass of people, and just plain too far away to capture the true nature of what went on that day.  I scoured the internet and viewed as much as I could find…and there is nothing worth noting that passes for any conclusive PROOF.  (There is however a multitude of offensive signs at this and many of the other tea-party rallies I watched, many of them blatantly racist, some quite vile and disgusting.  Oh…and of the rallies I caught on video, I think it is important to point out a fact that many tea-partier’s are in denial about, the crowds are almost 100% white.)

HOWEVER….many on the “right” (and I hate to use this term because it implies a political position, stereotype’s, and immediately leads to a divisive dialogue) are demanding PROOF of these accusations, claiming the elected officials in question are fabricating these charges.  They say, “Why isn’t there any conclusive PROOF of these charges?  Where is the video?  In this day of camera phones and video access everywhere 24/7, why has conclusive video PROOF not surfaced?”.  In other words…these guys – our elected Representatives, black Representatives – are lying.

Since when did video have to be PROOF for everything that happens??  If video has become the new PROOF for every accusation one makes in this country, then our courtrooms would go out of business and criminals would be running free in the streets.  Have we ever asked a “white” politician for video PROOF of any accusation that was hurled at them?  Larry Craig?  Mark Stanford?  Apologies to Joe Wilson since the television cameras caught his decidedly inappropriate “You Lie” remark for an entire nation to see!  This smacks a bit like the unfortunate remark Joe Biden made when announcing his run for the President during the recent campaign.  When asked how he felt about another fellow Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, he described Barack as “Clean and articulate.”, not exactly the kind of language one uses to describe a person of light skin.  This seems to me another example of the privilege of having light skin…one doesn’t need PROOF…one has privilege!

Isn’t this a double-standard?

What’s up with everybody jumpin’ on the band wagon declaring April “Confederate History Month”?  Fresh on the heals of the Virginian Governor drawing national attention for his statewide proclamation of April’s “Confederate History Month” observation, comes the governor of Mississippi declaring this a worthy idea in the face of withering media criticism.  Forget the fact that Gov. McDonnell hastened a quick mea culpa when it was pointed out that SLAVERY was no where to be found in his historical revision of the Confederacy.  Gov. Barbour of Mississippi quickly and emphatically stated this “dark” omission to be “diddley” in his eyes (or state of mind perhaps?).  The fact that SLAVERY has no relevance to the history of the confederacy is a joke beyond anything Don Rickles, the biting racial slanderist, could conjure.

What are these guys thinking…or not?  Wasn’t the battle between North & South fought primarily on the grounds of owning or not a person of color?  I mean, I know there were other political and philosophical differences, but weren’t we really fighting over SLAVERY or not?

This is exactly the kind of insensitivity I talk about all the time after shows….

If we are to have any kind of dialogue – open and forthcoming – about the issues of race, identity, stereotypes, prejudice, and even perhaps white privilege – how do we expect to do it when there are still guys like this flaunting their separatist views in front of a national audience.  In order to move beyond this type of thought and come together as a nation/people, we must have a greater sensitivity toward all people and certainly HISTORY.  There is nothing wrong with pride toward your people, accomplishments, struggles, traditions, culture, etc., but one must take into consideration at what cost to others has that been achieved.