Posts filed under ‘Racism’
Test Driving a BMW While Black
Ah yes, Georgia reaffirms it’s a racist hell hole once again. If a neeegro’s driving a BMW, something MUST be wrong:
(Image via Commons.Wikimedia.org)
More proof that “driving while black” is no joke.
“A man who went car shopping in Gwinnett County ended up in jail during a test drive. Jon-Christopher Sowells had just driven a BMW out of Philips Motors on Highway 78 in Snellville when an officer stopped him.
Sowell told Channel 2’s Kerry Kavanaugh he pulled over, unclear about why the Snellville police officer stopped him. “He said you don’t have any tags on the car. I said, ‘No problem, I don’t have any tags on this car because it’s not my car. The dealer is right there we can get it all clarified,’” Sowells said.
He asked the officers to call the dealer three or four times, then the officer asked to see some paperwork on the back seat. Not knowing what the papers were, Sowells refused.“They asked me to get out of the car. I said ‘I don’t feel comfortable.’ They commenced to open up the car door and they tried to drag me out of the door by my left arm,” he said.
At that point, Sowells says, the officer had called for backup. According to the police report, Sowells pulled away from the officers. Two officers grabbed their Tasers and Sowells got out of the car.
He was arrested for obstruction.
[...]
And I am supposed to be worried about Uncle Sam listening to my long distance call to my cousin in Jamaica? I don’t think so. Not when I am worried about just stepping out the damn door.
I am glad that some folks are up in arms about their privacy and want to check the government, but it would really be nice if they were just as outraged at stories like this one.
Americans are worried about having their freedoms limited. Sadly, quite a lot of us have already had it taken.
If you’re caucasian, chances are good, having something like this happen to you has never crossed your mind. It hadn’t mine.
Wow.
Bob Fletcher: Rest in Peace Dear Man
What an amazing story. Bob Fletcher: You are my new hero:
(Image Randall Benton / the Sacramento Bee via the NYTimes.com)
Bob Fletcher, a former California agriculture inspector who, ignoring the resentment of neighbors, quit his job in the middle of World War II to manage the fruit farms of Japanese families forced to live in internment camps, died on May 23 in Sacramento. He was 101.
His death was confirmed by Doris Taketa, who was 12 when Mr. Fletcher agreed to run her family’s farm in 1942, the year she and her extended family were relocated to the Jerome War Relocation Center in Arkansas.
“He saved us,” Ms. Taketa said.
After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the United States government forced 120,000 Japanese-Americans on the West Coast out of their homes and into internment camps for the duration of the war.
Near Sacramento, many of the Japanese who were relocated were farmers who had worked land around the town of Florin since at least the 1890s. Mr. Fletcher, who was single and in his early 30s at the time, knew many of them through his work inspecting fruit for the government. The farmers regarded him as honest, and he respected their operations.
After President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order in February 1942 that made the relocation possible by declaring certain parts of the West to be military zones, Al Tsukamoto, whose parents arrived in the United States in 1905, approached Mr. Fletcher with a business proposal: would he be willing to manage the farms of two family friends of Mr. Tsukamoto’s, one of whom was elderly, and to pay the taxes and mortgages while they were away? In return, he could keep all the profits.
[...]
For the next three years he worked a total of 90 acres on three farms — he had also decided to run Mr. Tsukamoto’s farm. He worked 18-hour days and lived in the bunkhouse Mr. Tsukamoto had reserved for migrant workers. He paid the bills of all three families — the Tsukamotos, the Okamotos and the Nittas. He kept only half of the profits.
Wow. Wonderful. How proud he must have been of that.
It’s tragic we don’t hear about everyday superheroes like Bob Fletcher more often or hey, I have an idea: While they’re alive! If the editors of People magazine don’t think a story fits inside their pages, well, that would be that.
Bravo to Cherrios
I saw this commercial the other day and I literally couldn’t believe my eyes.
I though wow. Bravo to Cherrios for going there; for showing an interracial couple in a television commercial. Hell yeah. Let’s bust through that door too.
But, predictably, not everyone saw it that way:
A nice Cheerios advertisement whose only discernible difference from other Cheerios commercials is that it depicts an interracial family was forced to disable its YouTube comments section today after it became inundated with virulent racism.
Despite the hate, Camille Gibson, vice president of marketing for Cheerios, told us in a statement, “Consumers have responded positively to our new Cheerios ad. At Cheerios, we know there are many kinds of families and we celebrate them all.”
Anyway, bravo to Cherrios!
The First Memorial Day
(Image via AmericanCivilWar.com)
Too bad this isn’t common knowledge:
Charleston was in ruins.
The peninsula was nearly deserted, the fine houses empty, the streets littered with the debris of fighting and the ash of fires that had burned out weeks before. The Southern gentility was long gone, their cause lost.
In the weeks after the Civil War ended, it was, some said, “a city of the dead.”
On a Monday morning that spring, nearly 10,000 former slaves marched onto the grounds of the old Washington Race Course, where wealthy Charleston planters and socialites had gathered in old times. During the final year of the war, the track had been turned into a prison camp. Hundreds of Union soldiers died there.
For two weeks in April, former slaves had worked to bury the soldiers. Now they would give them a proper funeral.
The procession began at 9 a.m. as 2,800 black school children marched by their graves, softly singing “John Brown’s Body.”
Soon, their voices would give way to the sermons of preachers, then prayer and — later — picnics. It was May 1, 1865, but they called it Decoration Day.
On that day, former Charleston slaves started a tradition that would come to be known as Memorial Day.
Willie Manning: Mississippi Refuses DNA Test For Man Set to Be Executed Tomorrow
Why in the freakin’ world wouldn’t a state want to do everything possible to make sure they’re executing the right person? Because it’s assbackward Mississippi, that’s why. Oh my God:
The State of Mississippi has denied requests for DNA testing of evidence made by a prisoner set to be executed on Tuesday, potentially setting up what experts said would be a rare case in recent years in which a person is put to death with such requests unmet.
The Mississippi Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 decision, ruled in April that the existing evidence tying Willie Jerome Manning to the murder of two college students in 1992 was so strong that the findings of DNA tests would not make a difference.
Lawyers for Mr. Manning say that there are flaws in the prosecution’s case, which is almost entirely circumstantial, but that at the very least tests of the available physical evidence should be conducted before his execution. They are now lobbying the governor.
Richard C. Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said that fights over testing were not uncommon but that if testing were not eventually allowed before the execution, “that would be very rare indeed.”
“Today I think it’s become increasingly rare not to go through the whole bank of tests because of what’s at stake,” Mr. Dieter said.
And yes, of course, Manning is African-American:
(Image via the NYTimes.com)
and the victims were white as was the jury…all white.
How Does One “Act Hispanic?”
Serious question: How does one “act Hispanic?”
(Image via Wikipedia)
During an appearance on CSPAN’s Washington Journal on Wednesday, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) claimed that this week’s bombings of the Boston Marathon should give pause to immigration reform advocates who seek to reform the system.
“We have seen this in Israel,” Gohmert said of the Boston attacks and recalled visiting areas that had been struck by suicide bombers. “Finally the Israeli people said this is enough. They built a fence and the rest is a wall to prevent snipers from telling their kids. They finally stopped the domestic violence from people that wanted to destroy them. I am concerned we need to do that as well.”
The Tea Party favorite said he feared people entering the country illegally or posing as undocumented Hispanic immigrants could carry out “copycat things.” “We know Al Qaeda has camps on the Mexican border,” he said. “We have people that are trained to act Hispanic when they are radical Islamists.”
Oh, man. Gohmert is definitely one to watch. (Here and here too.)
Institutionalized Racism
The United States of America, circa 2013. Unbelievable:
(Image via WSAV.com)
Wilcox County Students Fight Segregated Prom
ROCHELLE, GA – They share the classroom, the football field, and the baseball diamond, but the school is still holding on to a vestige of this country’s darkest days of segregation.
“We’re embarrassed, it’s embarrassing,” exclaimed Stephanie Sinnot, Mareshia Rucker, Quanesha Wallace, and Keela Bloodworth.
The group has been friends since the 4th grade and they say they do everything together, except prom night.
“We are all friends,” said Stephanie. “That’s just kind of not right that we can’t go to prom together.”
Stephanie and Keela are white and Mareshia and Quanesha are black. They’re seniors at Wilcox County High School, a school that has never held an integrated prom during its existence.
“There’s a white prom and there’s an integrated prom,” said Keela.
The rule is strictly enforced, any race other than Caucasian wouldn’t dare to attend the white prom.
“They would probably have the police come out there and escort them off the premises,” said Keela.
Let’s hope the students win this.
Wetbacks? Really?
More on Republican “outreach” and “rebranding” their party:
(Image via Wikipedia)
Rep. Don Young (R-AK), in an interview with KRBD, referred to Latinos by using the derogatory term “wetbacks.”
Said Young: “My father had a ranch. We used to hire 50 or 60 wetbacks and — to pick tomatoes. You know, it takes two people to pick the same tomatoes now. It’s all done by machine.”
According to the Washington Post, Young later released a statement: “I used a term that was commonly used during my days growing up on a farm in central California. I know that this term is not used in the same way nowadays and I meant no disrespect.”
Notice he didn’t say he was sorry. And notice that, despite having been around “wetbacks” as a kid, he apparently didn’t develop a lick of empathy for the backbreaking work they did.
We’ve all heard the term “wetbacks” but it takes a real, through-and-through racist to have that word on the tip of their tongue when speaking about Latinos.
The KKK Adopts a Highway in Missouri and Then…
Adopt-a-Highway programs allow civic-minded organizations to clean litter from roadsides, but should just any group be allowed to volunteer? In Georgia, a fight has broken out over an application by the Ku Klux Klan to sponsor a one-mile section of Route 515 in the Appalachian Mountains, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Monday. Civil rights leaders have asked the Georgia Department of Transportation to deny the group permission, but if legal precedent is any guide, they may be forced to let the KKK go ahead — or be forced to shut down the program.
Litigation in a similar case favors the KKK’s position. In 2005, the Missouri Department of Transportation lost a case in the U.S. Supreme Court after denying a highway-adoption application from another KKK chapter. With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union—a strange bedfellow for the Southern white-supremacist group—the KKK argued successfully before the Court that the First Amendment barred the DOT from denying an application because it disagreed with an organization’s political agenda.
I side with the ACLU here — the KKK should be allowed to Adopt-a-Highway — but most of all I LOVE how Missouri handled it in the end:
While it lost its legal battle over the KKK’s application, Missouri’s state legislature found another way to fight back: it renamed the KKK-adopted road after civil rights icon Rosa Parks in 2000. In 2009, after a different stretch of Missouri highway was adopted by a neo-Nazi group, the state voted to name it after Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, a rabbi who fled Nazi Germany and led civil rights movements in the U.S.
Aaaahhaaaah!
(Image via wpclipart.com)
Orange County PD Officer Shoots Man in the Back, Twice, But Goes Scott Free
Manuel Diaz with his daughter (Via Blogs.OCWeekly.com)
An Anaheim police officer will not face charges for the fatal shooting of an unarmed man that helped spark nights of protest over the summer, the District Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday afternoon.
Officer Nick Bennallack was on a gang-enforcement patrol in the Anna Drive neighborhood on the afternoon of July 21 when he pulled up to a small group of men. Manuel Diaz, 25 years old and a convicted gang member, bolted.
The officers gave chase, down an alley and into the front yard of an apartment house. There, Bennallack fired two shots, one hitting Diaz in the back-right side of his head, the other hitting him in his right buttock, District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said.
The police association said shortly after the shooting that officers saw Diaz pull something from his waistband and turn. Diaz was found to be unarmed; investigators found a cell phone registered to Diaz, as well as the two ammunition cartridges from Bennallack’s gun and a drug pipe, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Bottom line? 25-year-old father Manuel Diaz was unarmed. Inconvenient fact: Diaz was Latino. He was shot in the back of the head and in the butt while he “bolted.”
The officer who shot him — Nick Bennallack? He “won’t face charges.”
If Diaz’s name was Nelson Rockefeller, you can bet your sweet bippy Bennallack would be sweating bullets somewhere tonight.
Record Number of Militia and Hate Groups in the U.S.
This from the Southern Poverty Law Center (fantastic group):
(Image via SPLCenter.org)
The Year in Hate and Extremism
Capping four years of explosive growth sparked by the election of America’s first black president and anger over the economy, the number of conspiracy-minded antigovernment “Patriot” groups reached an all-time high of 1,360 in 2012, while the number of hard-core hate groups remained above 1,000. As President Obama enters his second term with an agenda of gun control and immigration reform, the rage on the right is likely to intensify.
[...]
While the number of hate groups remained essentially unchanged last year — going from 1,018 in 2011 to 1,007 in 2012 — the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) count of 1,360 Patriot groups in 2012 was up about 7% from the 1,274 active in 2011. And that was only the latest growth spurt in the Patriot movement, which generally believes that the federal government is conspiring to take Americans’ guns and destroy their liberties as it paves the way for a global “one-world government.” From a mere 149 organizations in 2008, the number of Patriot groups shot up to 512 in 2009, jumped again to 824 in 2010, and then skyrocketed to 1,274 in 2011 before hitting their all-time high last year.
Now, in the wake of the mass murder of 26 children and adults at a Connecticut school and the Obama-led gun control efforts that followed, it seems likely that that growth will pick up speed once again.
[...]
The Hysteria Mounts
Even before the Dec. 14 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, gun and ammunition sales shot up in the wake of the re-election of the country’s first black president, the result of shrill conspiracy theories about Obama’s secret plans to confiscate Americans’ guns. When the killings actually did spark gun control efforts that clearly had not been in the Obama administration’s plans, the reaction on the political right was so harsh that it seemed to border on hysteria.
I know the dates and numbers on the graph are hard to read. Apologies. Go to the “More…” link immediately above to see a larger version.
I Can Only Imagine
This is just a bit of what Representative John Lewis (D-GA) has done in his life:
(Image via Wikipedia)
In 1964, Lewis coordinated SNCC’s efforts for “Mississippi Freedom Summer,” a campaign to register black voters across the South. The Freedom Summer was an attempt to expose college students from around the country to the perils of African American life in the South. Lewis traveled the country encouraging students to spend their summer break trying to help people in Mississippi, the most recalcitrant state in the union, to register and vote. During the first days of the Freedom Summer, three civil rights workers were murdered who had been sent out to investigate the burning of a black church where Lewis became nationally known during his prominent role in the Selma to Montgomery marches.
On March 7, 1965 – a day that would become known as “Bloody Sunday” – Lewis and fellow activist Hosea Williams led over 600 marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. At the end of the bridge, they were met by Alabama State Troopers who ordered them to disperse. When the marchers stopped to pray, the police discharged tear gas and mounted troopers charged the demonstrators, beating them with night sticks. Lewis’s skull was fractured, but he escaped across the bridge, to a church in Selma. Before he could be taken to the hospital, John Lewis appeared before the television cameras calling on President Johnson to intervene in Alabama.
My family lived in Indiana during the 60s and I remember my father marching for voting rights in local marches that were held in our town. But finally, finally the Voting Rights Act was enacted in 1965.
I felt kind of depressed yesterday knowing the Supreme Court was hearing arguments to overturn a critical portion of it and I thought about all the people who are still alive who put their lives on the line to get it passed in the first place. It’s just unbelievable that might happen.
I could only imagine how John Lewis felt:
Now I know.
Racism is Alive and Well at Business Week
Yesterday the Supreme Court heard arguments for and against repealing part of the Voting Rights Act because hey, there ain’t no more racism in this country.
Really? Check out the cover of the most recent Business Week:
Marco Rubio Thinks Beating Women is Cool
Marco Rubio (R-FL), the guy Time magazine says will be the Republican party’s “savoir,” voted in favor of violence against women on Monday:
(Image via Wikipedia)
Eight Senators on Monday voted not to consider the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, a bill that protects victims of domestic violence. The Senators who voted against moving to debate on the bill were: Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Tim Scott (R-SC), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Mike Johanns (R-NE), Rand Paul (R-KY), Pat Roberts (R-KS), and James Risch (R-ID).
(Look at all those Rs who think violence against women is cool.)
Wonder Boy Rubio might have an Hispanic name but if he casts anti-women votes like this he could lose his “savior” status in-a-Florida-minute.
Not only that, his stand on climate change (not convinced it’s real) will haunt him too. It ain’t gonna be pretty when the sea rises, hurricanes increase and who know what happens as a result of that unreal pesky thing. Four years is a long time in that category.
Poor kid.
Oh well. He’s cute, so he’s got that going for him.
Mo Farah, Olympic Gold Medalist, Detained by U.S. Customs Agents Because…He’s From Somalia so He Must be a Terrorist
Americans are a bunch of scared little people:
(Image via Telegraph.co.uk / Reuters)
Mo Farah Held by US Customs on Suspicion of Being a Terrorist
Farah, who won a 5,000m and 10,000m double [gold metal] at London 2012, was detained for questioning after the US border force saw he was born in Somalia.
The 29 year-old came over to Britain with his English-born father as a child and is one of the most famous athletes in the world, but this did not stop judicious officials from grilling him at the border.
Farah moved to Portland [Oregon] last year to work with his coach Alberto Salazar at Nike’s HQ in the Pacific Northwest and was travelling back to spend Christmas with his wife and children.
And even presenting his two gold medals to the officials did not help his cause.
“I couldn’t believe it. Because of my Somali origin I get detained every time I come through US Customs. This time I even got my medals out to show who I am, but they wouldn’t have it,” he told the Sun.
[...]
Farah told the newspaper that when he and his family tried to leave Canada and enter the US as residents they were told they were under investigation as a terrorist threat and would have to stay away for 90 days.
But Salazar intervened and called upon a friend at the FBI – a massive running fan – and he solved the issue.
I’m embarrassed for my country. “Homeland security” turns into homeland paranoia and racism. It’s out of control.
Newt Gingrich Forgets The Indians Were Here Before the Pilgrims
Here is this year’s Thanksgiving message from Newt (a former history professor — cracks me up) and Callista Gingrich. Note the title:
The Very First Americans
November 21, 2012
Newt and Callista GingrichIt was 392 years ago this month that a small band of religious pilgrims from England agreed in writing how they would govern their new settlement at Plymouth. Their covenant began, “In the name of God, Amen.”
Today, we know their agreement as the Mayflower Compact, and these pioneers as the Pilgrims.
They would have considered themselves among the earliest English settlers in the colonies — but in fact, they were some of the very first Americans.
These Pilgrims left their homes and came to this continent with nothing, to build for themselves a new life, to find freedom, and to participate in the great experiment of self-government.
Forget me some of them brown people hey Newt?
History according to Republicans.
Newt, Callista and their friends apparently can’t wait for people like me who grew up seeing scenes like this
(Image via rg022.k12.sd.us.com)
to die off so they can have their white world.
(P.S. I took a screenshot of Newt’s post. If anyone sees that it has been “amended,” please let me know and I’ll put that up.)
UPS Does the Right Thing
Clearly the UPS knows which way the wind is blowing:
UPS has confirmed that it has implemented a new policy for its charitable giving that will disqualify groups like the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. The UPS Foundation posted the following on its site yesterday:
“The UPS Foundation seeks to support organizations that are in alignment with our focus areas, guidelines, and non-discrimination policy. UPS and The UPS Foundation do not discriminate against any person or organization with regard to categories protected by applicable law, as well as other categories protected by UPS and The UPS Foundation in our own policies. These include, but are not limited to race, gender, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran or military status, pregnancy, age and religion.”
Fantastic! Thank you UPS.
White People Riot After Obama Win
The alternate universe:
Drudge Promotes Conspiracy Site Warning That Black People Will Riot If Romney Wins
The Drudge Report, Mitt Romney’s favorite website, is stirring up another race-baiting conspiracy theory. Since Friday [October 12], Drudge has linked to two articles on conspiracy site Infowars.com warning of “massive riots” of black people attacking white people should Mitt Romney win the election.
Maybe it’s just me but I don’t think this would have happened.
Reality:
(Image via @MMollyObrienn on Twitter)
Ole Miss Students Yell Out Racial Slurs in Campus Riot Protesting Obama’s Reelection
President Obama’s call for unity in his acceptance speech in Chicago didn’t quite make it down South.
A riot broke out at The University of Mississippi – known as Ole Miss – as more than 400 students yelled out racial slurs and burned Obama-Biden campaign posters after the Democratic incumbent was crowned the victor of the 2012 Presidential Election on Tuesday.
Gee. After a quick check of the DrudgeReport, which I hate to give hits to btw, I don’t see a thing about scary white students essentially burning effigies at Ole Miss.
Figures. It’s called racism.
Sergio Romo: “I Just Look Illegal”
(Image via ColorLines.org)
San Francisco Giant Sergio Romo, who threw the series-winning last out in the 2012 World Series against the Detroit Tigers, strode through the city during the team’s celebratory victory parade today wearing a t-shirt with the words: “I just look illegal.”
Romo comes from Brawley, Calif. a small, remote farming town about 20 miles north of the Mexican border. Romo was raised in a baseball-loving family, and is the grandson of migrant workers.
Sergio Romo making a little noise, doing a little personalized acting up. Love it.
On Being in the Same Room As Donald Trump
My Tweet of the Day (I think I’d feel exactly the same way):
Romney Surrogate Shocks Andrea Mitchell, Calls Obama “Lazy”
You’d think, with the MSM falling all over Romney today for his “performance” at last night’s debate, the campaign would take it cool and enjoy the positive glow for a few days. But no. They’re inherently such arrogant jerks they can’t help but start putting their foot in it again:
(Image via Wikipedia)
Andrea Mitchell Visibly Shocked After Sununu Calls Obama ‘Lazy,’ Asks Him If He Would Take It Back
Former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu appeared on MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell on Thursday where she asked for the surrogate’s impression of Mitt Romney performed at Wednesday night’s presidential debate. The conversation quickly devolved when Sununu opted to instead critique President Barack Obama’s performance, calling him “lazy” and “disengaged.” Mitchell was visibly taken aback by the criticisms and asked Sununu if he wanted to apologize for that remark. Sununu did not take that opportunity.
Ah yes, the racism. Get it? Obama’s just like the other dark-skinned people who mooch off the government because they’re lazy (wink wink, you know, THOSE people.)
Stay classy guys!
Dreaming of a White President
In the eyes of millions, the only “credential” the next president needs is to be white. This is for them, courtesy of Randy Newman.
(Via.)
Time to Think Twice About Watching the Discovery Channel
I guess the Discovery Channel is turning into the Discover Racism, Hate and Bigotry Channel. Check this out: VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED: Discovery Channel To Air Special Starring Ted Nugent.
The Butterfly Effect
Juan Cole over at Informed Comment is, as usual, the go-to guy for understanding what’s going on in the Middle East. This is the best I could do to (hopefully) convey his main points, cut from a very long article:
Romney Jumps the Shark: Libya, Egypt and the Butterfly Effect
[...]
So the Associated Press did a careful investigation of the ‘Sam Bacile’ who supposedly directed the hate film, ‘The Innocence of Muslims.’ And AP found that probably he does not exist, but is a persona used by a convicted Coptic Egyptian fraudster, Nakoula Bassely Nakoula.
But the story gets more complex. Nakoula had Coptic and evangelical associates in the shooting of the film, including Steve Klein, a former Marine and current extremist Christian who has helped train militiamen in California churches and has led “protests outside abortion clinics, Mormon temples and mosques.” My guess is that most of the Egyptian Copts involved are converts to American-style fundamentalism.
The Egyptian Coptic church has roundly condemned the hateful film they made smearing the Prophet Muhammad.
Anyway, the bigotry of the edited film, directed at Muslims, is part of a movement of religious prejudice that also targets . . . Mormons.
[...]
Then it turns out that the film was shot in such a way that there was originally no mention of the Prophet Muhammad in the script, and the cast had no idea what they were getting themselves into, and then the name of Muhammad was clumsily dubbed into the final edit.
So, the film was from the beginning a fraud. It was directed by a fraud. It was promoted by a militia trainer. And Nakoula marketed it fraudulently as the work of a fictitious Israeli-American Jewish real estate agent, ‘Sam Bacile,’ and falsely said it had been funded by “a hundred Jewish donors.”
The group behind the film, in other words, managed to evoke all the classic themes of anti-Semitism as a way of disguising the Coptic and evangelical network out of which the ‘film’ came. When they weren’t busy picketing Mormons and defaming Muslims they were trying to get Jews killed for their own smears of Islam!
Of course, given the strident hatred of Muslims promoted by a handful of Jewish American extremists such as Pamela Geller, David Horowitz, Daniel Pipes and others, in which they gleefully join with white supremacists and Christian fundamentalists, it was only a matter of time before their partners in hate turned on them and used them.
The bad, dubbed ‘film’ only had one theater showing in some dowdy place in LA. Then in July the group had the trailer for it dubbed into Arabic with subtitles as well, and put it on Youtube, where it was found by strident Egyptian Muslim fundamentalist Sheikh Khaled Abdallah, who had it shown on al-Nas television and caused the sensation that led to Tuesday’s demonstrations in Cairo and Benghazi. As I argued yesterday, the vigilante extremists or ‘jihadis’ have been left on the garbage pile of history by the democratic elections in Egypt and Libya, and are whipping up the issue of this film in a desperate attempt to remain relevant.
Aware of the building sensation about the film, an employee of the US embassy in Cairo condemned it as hate speech before the rally began outside its premises.
In other words, this is a non-film and a non-story, a fraud, promoted by the worst people in each culture.
[...]
In the end, the violence and extremism of the hardliners on both sides is a phantasm of the past, not a harbinger of the future. The wave of democratic politics sweeping the region has left the haters behind, reducing them to desperate and senseless acts of violence that will gain them no good will, no popularity, no political credibility.
(Emphasis added.)
The term “Coptic Egyptian” is new to me. Here is the Wikipedia page for that group.
A Word Republicans Will Never Utter
I’m watching the Democratic National Convention (while I make tacos!) and I just heard a word I know, I KNOW, wasn’t uttered by anyone, ANYONE, at the RNC:
APARTHEID
IMHO, Republicans want apartheid in the USA, USA, USA.
For you wingers who’ve never heard the word, do the Google.
Praise for George W. Bush on the Seventh Anniversary of Katrina
The seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is upon us and parts of New Orleans are flooded or flooding. Yet Jeb Bush is speaking at the Republican National Convention tonight, touting his brother.
This is my Tweet of the Day:
Agreed.
Romney Trying to Turn Middle and Lower Classes Against Each Other
The other day wingers had a collective fit when MSNBC’s Chris Matthews accused Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus (rightly) of playing the race card.
(Image via BrainShavings.com)
Now we have this:
Yesterday, the National Journal’s Ron Fournier got into a spirited panel discussion in which said that Mitt Romney’s welfare ad “touches a racial button.” This got some attention, and Fournier is back with another piece today that’s generating more chatter, in which he explains why he believes the Romney ads constitute playing the “race card.”
[...]
Fournier says GOP strategists who have either worked for or shared information with the Romney campaign have candidly told him that the welfare attacks are about angering blue collar whites and turning them on Obama. And it’s bearing fruit, as evidenced by movement among these voters in Romney’s direction.
[...]
This strategy confirms that Romney has decided he can’t win on his supposed economic prowess alone and needs to inject resentment-based themes into the race.
And we can only hope this will come to pass:
What makes this all noteworthy is who Fournier is. He’s well respected in Washington journalism, having worked as the Associated Press’s Washington correspondent — where he was called on first in many presidential press conferences — before becoming editor in chief of the National Journal Group. Having him come out and explicitly charge the Romney campaign with race-baiting will make this a safer topic among some of the top-shelf commentator and journalist types who might otherwise have shied away from it.
Shorter version: What Romney has done until now hasn’t worked so he’s throwing the race card on the table. Even shorter: He’s desperate.
