Joe Klein was Right: To Beat Romney, Barack Obama and the Democrats Cannot Appear to be "Kissing the Butt" of Negro Equality

A white man who extended a Sunday-school class in to a two-day school for poor children was called on by irate Klan members. He was taken out, blindfolded, and forced to kiss the private parts of several assembled blacks:

Well, they made me kiss the negro man's posterior, and held it open and made me kiss it, and as well as I remember a negro woman's too, and also her private parts, and then told me to have sexual connection with her. I told them they knew, of course, I could not do that. They struck me, and some them begged for me. They asked me how I liked that for nigger equality. I told them it was pretty tough.

According to a white eyewitness, "I think that was the cause, or one cause, of his being whipped. That was what they professed, that he was equalizing himself too much, and that was the reason they made him take that kissing negro equality."

History echoes. This account from the 19th century can just as easily describe the white racial anxieties and resentment that Mitt Romney's campaign is playing to almost a century and a half later, and which Obama and the Democrats must neutralize this week.

Pundits, journalists, academics, and others have spent a good amount of energy dissecting the race-baiting go for broke white right-wing populism of Mitt Romney and the Tea Party GOP. The Republican Convention in Tampa tried to balance the "read meat" for the base with an open-arms appeal for the Independents and undecideds who were watching the event at home--and not checking out the white trash adventures of Honey Boo Boo. 

This week, the Democrats have a similar challenge: they need to mobilize their base; but Obama and company must also convince undecideds that they are in fact better off now than they would be under a continuation of Bush the Younger's failed economic policies under Romney-Ryan, and to tout the successes of President Obama in the face of rabid Tea Party GOP obstructionism.

The Democrats also have a particularly fine line to walk, one that is the converse of the Tea Party GOP's "mobilize the angry white men" strategy.

The novelty of having a black president has worn off. Moreover, how can the Democrats appeal to white Independents who are unhappy about the economy, somewhat "persuadable" by Romney's racial dog whistles, and yet do not feel particularly comfortable with either the latter's personality or the Tea Party GOP's policies?

These right-leaning Independents, undecideds, and low information voters are vulnerable to the white identity politics that are the foundational premise of Mitt Romney's Southern Strategy 2.0. However, with the correct prodding, some of them could perhaps be won over by the Democrats.

Ultimately, the big tent is already present in the convention hall. The practical politics involve figuring out how the Democrats can get the votes of these white fence sitters.

White Space: A Black "Ghetto Nerd" Reflects on His Experience at Chicon 7, the 70th World Science Fiction Convention

Last week, I attended Chicon 7, the 70^th World Science Fiction Convention which was held here in Chicago. I was able to do this because of the monies donated by the readers and friends of We Are Respectable Negroes. I would like to reiterate my thanks for their kindness and generosity.

As a ghetto nerd, I come to conventions with a set of assumptions which are based upon previous experiences. I also try to be open minded as each convention or gathering has its own particular personality and vibe. There are many different subcultures and hobbies among those who are self-described geeks and nerds. Consequently, I try to experience each space on its own merits. 

Our personhood is defined by many things. For example, as a person of color and a member of the working class--one who is also a sci-fi, comic book, space fantasy, pro-wrestling loving, child of the hip hop generation who studies and teaches about race and cultural politics in the United States--my critical gaze is informed by those life experiences, hobbies, habits, and interests.

By extension, I cannot help but view Chicon 7 through that lens.

In all, I was very much impressed by the sense of comradery, friendship, and warmth that the attendees of the conference showed one another. I was also very much impressed by how accessible the writers, guests of honor, and other featured attendees were towards their fans. Chicon 7 had a vibe that was supportive of science fiction as an artistic and intellectual project first, and where ego was secondary to these broader goals. And based upon the quality of the questions asked during the panels I attended, there are some pretty smart folks among sci-fi fandom. For an author to impress such a public, he or she had sure be bringing their best game.

However, all was not perfect (is it ever?). I chatted with some sci-fi writers and attendees at Chicon 7 who shared with me their concerns about the dynamics surrounding race, identity, inclusion, and fandom. I also attended the panels which explicitly dealt with questions of marginalization, inclusion, and diversity in science fiction literature and fan culture.

In the interest of parsimony, and because I cannot resist any reference to Clint Eastwood given his empty chair agitprop stunt at the Tea Party GOP convention last week, let’s work through the good, the bad, and the ugly of Chicon 7 as I experienced it.

So What? Paul Ryan Enjoyed Putting His Penis Inside of a Black Woman While He was in College

While in college, Paul Ryan enjoyed some coffee with his sugar. This fact reveals little about his political values.

White supremacist Thomas Jefferson took his own pleasures with the female slaves that he owned. Strom Thurmond, supporter of Jim and Jane Crow, and Dixiecrat, had a black mistress and "love child." A large percentage of African-Americans, as hinted at by our varying hues, have rapist's blood from white on black violations across the color line flowing in our veins. Interracial sex is part of the cultural and political typography of the United States. Consequently, these are common matters.

The Daily Mail's story about the relationship between Paul Ryan and Deneeta Pope is rich with entertaining details. Ryan was/is a gym rat. Pope was an attractive young scholar and cheerleader while in college, and to my eyes, a woman with many potential suitors. Ultimately, the Daily Mail has provided its readers with a solid human interest story. It tries to locate Paul Ryan's life trajectory relative to a story about interracial relationships, and is grounded in the bigger question of how a white man who is the vice presidential candidate for a racist political party could have been in love with an African-American woman.

The relationship and the negative reaction he said he suffered from his so-called friends were a formative experience in the political evolution of the VP pick who described himself as a 'big, big fan' of Martin Luther King and is a staunch advocate of civil rights. 

But Pope, an I.T. specialist and realtor living in Chicago, denies that they experienced any racism as a couple. Pope also said that while their relationship was not very serious, they have remained friends through the years.

'It tells you the kind of guy Paul is when you learn that he has remained friends with all of his friends that he met in college.' Michael Steel, campaign spokesman for Ryan, confirmed to MailOnline on Thursday that 'Mr Ryan dated Ms Pope in college' in the 1990s.

In a 2005 interview, Mitt Romney’s future running mate said that he had been confronted with racism personally, because he had dated an African-American and also had a brother with a black wife. I have a sister-in-law who’s African American,’ he told Milwaukee Magazine.

‘My college sweetheart was black,' he added.

‘I just experienced some ugly comments, some racist views from people who I thought were friends of mine.'

People are complicated and contradictory in their ways. My answer on these matters is a simple one: a person can enjoy having sex with someone who is a member of a group which they despise, have animus towards, or otherwise look down on. These are not complicated matters.

There is a second problematic here as well: if Paul Ryan is such a principled anti-racist who had his eyes opened to the realities of bigotry and prejudice because of his relationship with a black woman, how can he be a party to Mitt Romney's race-baiting, Southern Strategy 2.0, efforts to use white racial resentment and hostility to defeat the country's first black President? The layers of Ryan's hypocrisy are deep.

The Daily Mail offers some details on a semi-related matter that are for more compelling and important as we assess Ryan's fit for the White House, and if he would be an advocate for the Common Good.

At Which Point I have Hurt the Feelings of a "Conservative White Dude" and Made Him Tired...

I do not make a habit of sharing the emails from angry racists and others that are sent to We Are Respectable Negroes because I do not want to encourage those shenanigans. I almost made an exception a few months ago with a priceless Irish-obsessed Nordic Aryan fetishizer because the exchange was so funny.

I try to be a nice, respectable, calming, soothing colored fellow who goes to great lengths as to not upset the sensibilities of white folks. I am embarrassed, truly so, when I have strayed from this life mantra. In order to make up for my foul ways I would like to share the following email that I received a few days ago.

As a conservative white dude (i.e. a racist in your book) I have really tried all my life to treat everyone I ever met, regardless of race, creed, yada yada yada as my equal, my neighbor, and the way I would want to be treated.  But because of people like you, who cry racism at every turn, who race bait to no end, who do nothing but point fingers of accusation at the slightest mention of race, I am pretty fucking tired man. 

So it will begin.  And people like you are to blame.

 I do not want to be the cause of a race war. I am also ashamed that I was a naysayer during a week when the Tea Party GOP celebrated its commitment to diversity and racial inclusion.

What can I do to make amends? Any thoughts or suggestions?

An (Empty) Chair Shot to the Head? Clint Eastwood, the Republican Convention, Mick Foley, and a Promo That Never Was

I just got back from Chicon 7. Consequently, I missed Mitt Romney's speech--to be honest, I had no interest in watching how he would pile his own lies on top of the stinking fetid burrito of political feces and propaganda that was Ryan's stillborn lie of conservative afterbirth from the day before. I also missed out on the big surprise that the Tea Party GOP had promised its public--like many I was hoping for a holographic zombie Ronald Reagan. Alas, I am disappointed.

Instead, we were treated to one of the great elders of Hollywood, Mr. Clint Eastwood. 

I love Clint Eastwood's movies. I respect him as an actor. I am at a loss, a total loss, to explain his speech to an empty chair before a howling group of neo-John Bircher Secessionists. Yes, Eastwood starred in The Outlaw Josey Wales where he played a "good" Confederate. But, he also starred in Unforgiven with Morgan Freeman, and offered up one of the smartest recent meditations on the complexities of race and the color line in "post racial" America in the criminally underrated film Grand Torino. Play Misty For Me is all sorts of goodness--if I ever have a son I am going to show him that movie after my talk about how he best be weary of women with them "crazy eyes."

I would like to believe that the man with no name knows exactly what he is doing. In keeping with my ghetto nerd proclivities (and themes for the week of my attending Chicon 7), I would hope that Clint is actually doing a great pro-wrestling inspired "work/shoot" at the expense of the Tea Party GOP. Nevertheless, I must also entertain the possibility that he has suffered one too many chair shots to the head, and is lost in a waking dream. 

Maybe Ebert is right, and Clint Eastwood just souled out? But why, and for how much, given that he has more money than god?

Mirroring Mick Foley's classic promo, I do want to believe that Clint Eastwood is not a whore.

As such, I can still dream that in an alternate reality, Clint instead chose to give the Tea Party GOP his own version of Hogan's famous heel turn from Bash at the Beach circa 1996.

What a night that would have made for...

Ghetto Nerds: If Germany had Won World War Two Would Black Americans have Greater or Fewer Civil Rights by Now?

I would like to formally thank all of the kind folks who offered up monies to finance my ghetto nerd sojourn to Chicon 7. I will be on several panels at the conference and am looking forward to doing some networking, as well as attending some of the parties at the event--if folks want to invite a brother over to their room/suite/floor, or to get a drink or three, do shoot me an email so we can build.

I would not be able to attend the conference if you had not extended your kindness and support. I thank you. I mean that sincerely and from my heart. In keeping with our bargain, I will be offering up a lurid story or two next week, and some selections from my zombie opus for your laughs, mocking, and amusement.

I will be sharing posts over the next few days about Chicon 7 as the events merit. I will also be borrowing a friend's camera and taking some pictures that I will offer up as "proof of life" so to speak. In keeping with the science fiction theme of the weekend's events, I would like to share the following essay by the always entertaining and readable Cobb as featured on his eponymous website a few days ago.

A Particularly Low Class of White People: Republicans Throw Nuts at Black Folks; They Heckle the "Foreign" Delegate from Puerto Rico

Their forefathers were John Birchers. Their grand-pappies and grandmas likely spent time at the monthly lynching tree. Some of them were members of White Citizens Councils, the "polite" racists, who stood against civil rights for black folks and upheld Jim and Jane Crow. Earlier this year, the most zealous among them booed gay soldiers, howled in glee at the prospect of a person being executed by the State, and cheered the idea of some sad soul dying because they did not have health insurance.

This is the contemporary face of the Republican Party.

When Republicans heckled Zoraida Fonalledas, the representative from Puerto Rico to their own convention with nativist chants earlier today, they reminded the American people who and what they really are...again.

When a black CNN reporter had nuts thrown at her, and was told "this is how we feed the animals," the Tea Party GOP showed us who they have always been...again.

And do not buy into the excuse-making: Chants of "U.S.A." have nothing to do with an internecine conflict between Ron Paul and establishment conservatives. Rather, this episode has everything to do with white conservative xenophobia and anti-immigrant zeal by a group of mouth-breathing Right-wing troglodytes who believe that Puerto Ricans are dangerous Spanish speaking "foreigners."

In all, the racist and xenophobic ugliness on display during Tuesday's meeting of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida should not be a surprise. The elites and opinion leaders of the Right have created this witches brew; now, they will either be saved by their monster or the beast will consume them.

My mother's people are from North Carolina. My grandmother and other elders would often talk about "good white people." The ability to distinguish between white people who would kill you, discriminate against you at will, or put you out of house and home because they could, was a practical life skill. We may no longer have The Negro Motorist Green Book, but black and brown folks still give their kids "the talk" about how to survive a routine traffic stop by the police. Cultural memory is deep and a gift. I am so very glad (and lucky) they passed on their wisdom and life skills. In turn, if so blessed, I will share that wisdom with my children.

It is true that white supremacy has evolved over time; but the lives of people of color are still expendable, and subject to arbitrary violence in America by White Authority (and those overly identified with it--see George Zimmerman).

For people of color in the United States, skillfully and successfully navigating the color line meant (and means) protecting your own life, as well as that of your children and family. Those of us who are not part of the in-group, or otherwise marginalized by Power, have to learn this skill set if we are to survive and do well in this society. Consequently, black and brown folks have to become expert students on the ways of white people.

I do wonder if Whiteness and White Privilege permits our white brothers and sisters to realize how much people of color know about them and their particular ways.

To point: as my parents and other elders have taught me, the "U.S.A" chanting cowboy hat wearing white populists who heckled Zoraida Fonalledas represent a particularly low class of white people. They may have money, but this group of white people has no decency. The low type of white person exemplified by the neo-John Birch base of the Tea Party GOP are also bigots. All that they have to comfort them is a weak type of nationalism which is emboldened by silly chanting, and the psychic wages of whiteness that happen to come with being arbitrarily categorized as "white" in this society. 

The slogan "free, white, and twenty-one" got this class of white people through many decades of life in America. In an increasingly globalized world, with a black president, and a multicultural leadership class, such a slogan is approaching obsolescence. For many white people this is a terrifying prospect.

By comparison, Senator Priebus and Mitt Romney represent a slightly "better" class of white people. The latter is most certainly a racist. The former is likely one as well given his enabling of his party's Southern Strategy 2.0 and race-baiting against Barack Obama, the country's first black president. Together, both are "polite" racists. They have no love for what was once called "poor white trash." Elite whites such as Romney and Priebus use materially disadvantaged and racially resentful white people as a tool in order to maximize their own wealth and resources. The white reactionary populists who form the base of the Republican Party in the Age of Obama have not yet woken up to this old school con.

This brings us full circle. What of Zoraida Fonalledas? How do make sense of her awkward moment? On one hand, the better and more generous part of my soul has pity for her. It must hurt to realize that you are viewed with contempt by your own political brethren and comrades. As I suggested several here, she, and other conservatives who happen to be black, Latino, Asian, Native American, or Other, are sick with a delusion that they are "special" or "different" in the eyes of the White conservative gaze. Tuesday's happenings could perhaps be her wake up call.

The more cynical and less noble part of my soul smirks and smiles. Zoraida Fonalledas made her bed and now has to lie in it. Yes, the money and gold are substantial. Nevertheless, I struggle to understand how any self-respecting person of color could ally with the Tea Party GOP, the country's de facto White political party, and an organization whose electoral strategy increasingly consists of mining white racism and anxiety towards people of color to secure electoral victory.

I think that I will just smile. Zoraida Fonalledas experienced her own "Lisa broke Ralph's heart moment" on a national stage. The question remains: will Zoraida Fonalledas, and other non-white conservatives like her, keep coming back to the Tea Party GOP for more abuse?

I think we know the answer. They are almost to the one, sad pathetic souls.

Forget Mia Love, in a Perfect World Beetlejuice Would Be A Featured Speaker at the Republican Convention in Tampa

I have been spending so much time trying to figure out the inside game, focus group practiced, (semi) refined race-baiting antics of Mitt Romney's Southern Strategy 2.0 gambit, that I forgot how a simple message, when coupled with passion, can help a candidate connect with the public. This is especially true for low-information voters in general, and conservatives, specifically.

In a perfect world, Beetlejuice would be invited to lead the opening plenary at the Republican Convention in Tampa: his affect, diction, speech, talking points, and rage at Barack Obama are as articulate as anything that one would hear on Fox News or Right-wing talk radio. Alternatively, Beetlejuice could be put in charge of Tea Party GOP's outreach program to African-Americans. Given that Romney is polling at zero percent support among that group, Beetle could do no harm.

Instead of Beetlejuice the public was stuck listening to talking point prop black conservative Mia "not-like those lazy African-Americans" Love. Meh. Alas. We can always dream.

Smart People Saying Smart Things: Thomas Edsall Explains Romney's Racist "One-Two" Welfare Medicare Punch Strategy in The New York Times

The Republican ticket is flooding the airwaves with commercials that develop two themes designed to turn the presidential contest into a racially freighted resource competition pitting middle class white voters against the minority poor. 

Ads that accuse President Obama of gutting the work requirements enacted in the 1996 welfare reform legislation present the first theme. Ads alleging that Obama has taken $716 billion from Medicare — a program serving an overwhelmingly white constituency — in order to provide health coverage to the heavily black and Hispanic poor deliver the second. The ads are meant to work together, to mutually reinforce each other’s claims.

Chris Matthews and I had beers the other night. I drank Sapporo. He had Bell's. We talked about politics, and at his urging I shared some of my thoughts on Mitt Romney's race-baiting racist air raid siren politics. It was good. I did not tell him anything that he did not already know; Matthews was gracious, smiling the whole time.

I wish. One day, if Fate so deems it, I will be given an invite to sit at the big kids table and talk politics with the pros. Either way, I am glad that Chris Matthews has been calling out Romney and the Tea Party GOP for their willful lying, mobilizing of white racial anxiety and insecurity, and racism as they use any means necessary to defeat President Barack Obama. 

In total, the last few days have given us a bounty of pundit class wisdom. I had originally intended to comment on Ta-Nehisi Coates' great essay on President Obama, Tim Wise's bringing the pain like Jesse Ventura's mini-gun in Predator, and George Lakoff's precision job on Romney and Ryan's budget plan. All of those articles are worth reading, and please feel free to comment on them as well. 

However, Thomas Edsall, writing in The NY Times, "Knicked it out of the box" so to speak.

Edsall's essay is beautiful. He is able to crystallize expert knowledge down into relatively few words, demonstrate empirical rigor in his claims, and just drive his point home with direct, simple, and dense prose. When I grow up, I would love to be able to write like him. Jargon is a crutch; Edsall transcends it and speaks to the public with clarity and ease. Such a feat is not an easy thing to accomplish for an expert academic and intellectual of his stature and gifts. 

Ultimately, "Making the Election About Race" is an insightful working through of the genius strategy of colorblind racism, the Southern Strategy, and the politics of white racial resentment that are embodied by Romney and Ryan's two pronged assault on President Obama through the tag team meme of "Barack Obama is a Welfare King," and the seemingly "race neutral" claim that Medicare must be reformed through vouchers and other neoliberal policy initiatives.

Sharp criticism has done nothing to hold back the Romney campaign from continuing its offensive — in speeches and on the air — because the accuracy of the ads is irrelevant as far as the Republican presidential ticket is concerned. The goal is not to make a legitimate critique, but to portray Obama as willing to give the “undeserving” poor government handouts at the expense of hardworking taxpayers. 

Insofar as Romney can revive anti-welfare sentiments – which have been relatively quiescent since the enactment of the 1996 reforms – he may be able to increase voter motivation among whites whose enthusiasm for Romney has been dimmed by the barrage of Obama ads criticizing Bain Capital for firing workers and outsourcing jobs during Romney’s tenure as C.E.O. of the company. 

The racial overtones of Romney’s welfare ads are relatively explicit. Romney’s Medicare ads are a bit more subtle.

Both play on race and white racism. Yet, they do so in very different ways. The latter is the jab; conservatism and racism are one and the same in post-civil rights era politics. Here, Obama, and black people by extension, are marked as "thieves" who are stealing from good white folks by supporting a "bankrupt" entitlement program. 

Romney's lies about Barack Obama and welfare reform are complements to Ryan's Medicare gambit: Obama is taking good white people's money and giving it to the lazy blacks and other undeserving, lazy, poor people. Romney's play here is torn right out of the Tea Party's GOP racist Southern Strategy. 

The punches complement each other in a type of ugly beauty--Right-wing worries about health care expenditures do not mention race, but nonetheless play off of a sense that the white folks are getting screwed by some Other, i.e. non-whites and other "unproductive" citizens, as such, white people best work hard to protect what is theirs.

By contrast, the welfare queen lie is the overt and naked racial appeal to white racial resentment. If criticized for this ploy, Romney and the Tea Party GOP will turn it around and play the white victimhood "race card."

Either way right-leaning white independents will hear the White Tea Party GOP political cue that black and brown folks are fleecing them. Consequently, Romney and Ryan cleanup at the polls by picking those sad white folks' pockets, as the Tea Party GOP directs their racial and class-insecurity motivated anger at the wrong group of people. The plutocrats win out again as white conservative populists choose skin privilege and the psychic wages of whiteness--as they have many times before in this country--over addressing their long-term, substantive material needs. 

In essence, the ad is telling senior voters that the money they paid to insure their own access to Medicare after they turn 65 is going, instead, to pay for free health care for poor people who are younger than 65...

Romney’s Medicare ad is designed to undermine that relatively modest but potentially crucial advantage. It is artfully constructed to turn the issue of health care into a battle over limited tax dollars between a largely white population of seniors on Medicare and a disproportionately minority population of the currently uninsured who would get health coverage under Obamacare... 

The importance to the Romney-Ryan ticket of two overlapping constituencies — whites without college degrees and white Medicare recipients — cannot be overestimated. Romney, continuing the Republican approach of 2010, is banking on a huge turnout among key white segments of the electorate in order to counter Obama’s strengths with minority voters as well as with young and unmarried female voters of all races. 

There is extensive poll data showing the depth of Republican dependence on white voters.

Thomas Edsall's essay also contains a prescient warning for those who understand Romney's racist campaign strategy. Students of American politics talk about Atwater and company's notorious Southern Strategy quite often. Larry McCarthy, the evil mastermind who produced the notorious Willie Horton ad, is rolling out a series of commercials in support of Mitt Romney in the next few weeks leading up to the election. 

Romney is coming for Barack Obama. He will not be stopped. And given the sophisticated deployment of white racism by Romney and the Tea Party GOP that we have seen so far, Larry McCarthy is going to put on a clinic.

Origins of a Race-Baiting Birther: How Did Mitt Rommey's Upbringing in a Racist Religion Impact His Attitudes Towards People of Color?

I would like you to use your imagination for a few moments.

Imagine if there was a candidate for the presidency, the highest and most powerful office in the United States, and that he or she once held an official position in a religious order with which they were still very closely involved.

Imagine if that same candidate was raised to be one of the “elect,” with special obligations and a “divine” destiny to ensure that his religion saved America when its Constitution was “hanging by a thread.”

Imagine if this candidate for President belonged to a religion which long argued that black people were judged by God to be “cowards” who were not worthy of true “salvation.” Consequently, black people were destined for servitude and second class citizenship relative to white folks, even in the afterlife.

Finally, imagine if this same religion held such beliefs until 1978—not a century ago, or two hundred years ago—but less than 40 years in the recent past.

We have such a candidate today. His name is Mitt Romney.

Pluralism and tolerance are wonderful values for a society to embrace. Although the United States has been far from perfect in this regard, a belief that our differences can also be a source of strength is part of our national creed.

However, an embrace of diversity and pluralism should not prevent us from asking hard questions about which values ought to be encouraged, and if there are some beliefs and habits that are actually antithetical to our democratic project.

As the American people decide upon their next president in the months and days leading up to November’s election, these questions are made even more important.

Americans do not usually like talking publicly about religion and politics because both are understood by many people to be private matters. However, this anxiety should not stop us from asking basic questions when a concern arises that a candidate’s religion may complicate their loyalty to the Constitution, or make it either impossible or difficult for them to treat all Americans equally regardless of race, creed, or color.

What Took Him So Long? More Than "Dog Whistles" Mitt Romney Finally Goes Full Birther

Told you so. 

Mitt Romney has surrendered to the most despicable urges of white conservative populism and xenophobia. Although he will talk out of both sides of his mouth in denying the obvious, Romney has finally endorsed Birtherism. An honorable man would be a principled bigot; Romney has no principles or honor, thus he will deny, deny, deny, and obfuscate all the while winking at the white racists who are the base of the Tea Party GOP. 

One of my mentors said it is satisfying to reach a point where you have enough material written, and are enough of an authority on a topic, that you can quote yourself. This is not laziness; it is efficiency. I may not have the latter, and I am working on the former, but regarding Mitt Romney's sociopathic, white racist ways, I called out his shenanigans months ago. 

Mitt Romney is only getting started folks--and his bigotry is going to pay great dividends among "the silent majority" of white voters come election day. Candidates go "negative" because it works. White conservative candidates mine white racial resentment because they have calculated that the reward is greater than the risk. Romney's people have run the numbers and decided that ginning up white racism is a tactically sound choice for securing their candidate's victory over President Obama.  

Do allow me my moment of gloating.  Here are three passages from just a few of the pieces I have offered here on We Are Respectable Negroes that speak directly to Romney's concerted campaign of race-baiting and the Southern Strategy 2.0. Do share these prescient observations with your friends, and please tell folks where you heard them first. 

1. As I have written about numerous times, Mitt Romney is a sociopathic racist. His campaign ads have recycled naked and racist stereotypes about Barack Obama--and by implication black Americans. Moreover, Romney's use of both naked racial appeals and dog whistle politics represent one of the most sophisticated uses of racial animus in recent American political history. As the election approaches, Romney and Ryan are going to go places that McCain never would have dared. White racial resentment, and manipulating white racial anxiety in order to win over white voters, is one of the few remaining weapons (along with voter suppression) that Romney and the Tea Party GOP have left in their arsenal given the unpopularity of their proposed policies.

2. By proxy, these racially driven attacks on Barack Obama are really an assault on Black Americans. We are positioned in the White Conservative political imagination as perennial outsiders and second class citizens. As the late Joel Olson smartly observed, in the American political tradition, and in a country founded as a herrenvolk society, to be black means to be an "anti-citizen."

Romney and the Tea Party GOP's efforts to use racially coded speech, dog whistles, and naked racism to mobilize white voters against Barack Obama work only to the degree that the target audience can locate the president relative to the African American community. Thus, hostility to black folks, stereotypes about them, and other negative sentiment, is transferred on to Barack Obama. 

  

In all, the real America/American exceptionalism talk (both are intimates) that Romney and other Right-wing populists have deployed is a exclusionary one.

"American exceptionalism" is code for white American exceptionalism. "Real America" is code for white America.

3. The Tea Party, with its ethos of white populism, Birtherism, and racial animus towards the country’s first Black President (and people of color more generally) is emblematic of an even bigger challenge for the Republicans—they are looking to a fictive past for inspiration, what were the “good old days” when the colored folk, the gays, and the women all knew their places. This is anAmerica that never truly was. However, it is a true lie and dreamworld that is central to the Right-wing political imagination.

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney’s family photos reflect this contrasting view of America. Mitt Romney’s family is a collective poster child for conservative “whiteopian” Culture War political dreams. Everyone is white; they are all the same.

When the Republican Party talks about a return to “traditional values” and “American exceptionalism” this is the vision of family—and the past—they are signaling to. To them, Mitt Romney’s particular brand of whiteness is normalizing, comforting and familiar.

Late to the Party: The Mainstream News Media is Finally Discussing Mitt Romney's Use of Racism to Win Over White Voters

Obama's team, in turn, says Romney's welfare charges are dishonest. Numerous independent fact-checkers, including The Associated Press, have determined that Romney and his surrogates are distorting the facts...

But that criticism has done little to persuade Romney and his aides to abandon the welfare issue or even tweak its assertions. The White House says the waivers Obama approved for states last month would only allow them to drop the work requirement if they can accomplish the same goals using different methods, a move Obama aides said was done at the request of both Republican and Democratic governors. 

Romney's welfare push comes with risk for the presumptive GOP nominee. Focusing too heavily on welfare, which had barely registered as a campaign issue before Romney began pushing it, could turn off voters who want to hear the candidates offer specific prescriptions for job growth... 

It could open Romney up to criticism that he is injecting race into the campaign and seeking to boost support among white, working-class voters by charging that the nation's first black president is offering a free pass to recipients of a program stereotypically associated with poor African-Americans.

In my best NPR fundraising voice...

I would like to extend a very sincere "thank you" to the kind readers of WARN who offered up some funds for my trip to Chicon7. Several of you dug deep into your pockets and made a donation that put quite a smile on my voice. In this hard economy, I am touched that you could find the resources to indulge my ghetto nerd proclivities and make it possible for me to represent at the World Sci-Fi Conference for the WARN family. We are so close to our fundraising goal of 300 dollars. Monday is the deadline for me to confirm if I will attend Chicon7. I think we can reach this goal if we are able to add one dollar, two dollars, the price of a  Starbucks coffee or a value meal into the begging bowl.

We Are Respectable Negroes is often ahead of the curve on many issues related to American politics, race, and popular culture. I know we are doing something valuable here--and providing a useful service to the folks who have found our humble site. The following piece about how The Associated Press is finally picking up on Mitt Romney's obvious race-baiting is more evidence of that fact.
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The streets are watching. We have been discussing these related matters here on WARN for several months: our truth-telling is gaining some traction (and attention).

The mainstream news media is (finally) edging closer to an open discussion of how Mitt Romney is using racism to win over white voters. However, The Associated Press (AP) and other media outlets are still playing a game of political frontage; the AP's hand is up the proverbial dress, but they are still afraid to close the deal.

As I have said previously, and will continue to state whenever the opportunity is appropriate, Mitt Romney is a racist. He traffics in white racial anxiety and bigotry in order to scare white voters into voting against Barack Obama, the country's first black president. Romney is also an unrepentant liar: his "Barack the Welfare King" campaign is part of a larger pattern of intentional distortions and propagandizing that would impress masters of the craft such as Edward Bernays and Joseph Goebbels.

For many reasons, the mainstream media are very reluctant to criticize Mitt Romney's choice to use white racial resentment for political gains. Primarily, the myth of the liberal media, a fiction which has been created by conservative operatives and opinion leaders, has caused a general retreat from the tenets of responsible journalism. The Fourth Estate has been forced back onto its heels by the Right's Orwellian newspeak and partisan bullying.

To suggest that Mitt Romney is a racist (or manipulates white racism for political purposes) would mean that a journalist or pundit is brave enough to dance on the third rail of American politics and culture. Sadly, most do not have such grit, skill, or character. The triumph of colorblind racism in the post Civil Rights era also means that the default assumption is one where racism does not exist, and it is just an opinion--despite the mass of readily available evidence to the contrary.

And in the most perverse and twisted examples of the realities of race in "post racial" America, white men, generally, and white conservatives, specifically, constitute one of the most protected classes of people in the United States on these matters.

This is Who They Really Are: NPR Asks Romney's Supporters About His Barack "The Welfare King" Obama Lies

"I really don't want to help somebody who just decides, 'Oh, well, I was raised on welfare. I can raise my children on welfare,' " Malcolm said. "I had a cousin who, she is a registered nurse and the stories she told me about people coming in there and having babies just so they could get more on their food stamps and more on their welfare. It's like no, I don't want to take care of those people."

I am still handing around the begging bowl in order to try to make my way to Chicon7. Two intrepid souls out of the many more visitors to WARN this week have kindly put thrown in some change. Talk about my public embarrassment and shame.

If you like WARN give their monies some company if you can--a dollar or five from a few folks can go a long way. Such gestures are appreciated, as it would make me smile, and ghetto nerds everywhere would be in your debt. Plus, if we make our goal, you get to hear some of my lurid and embarrassing stories, as well as read part of my equally laughable novella.

My obligatory and awkward NPR inspired fundraising moment ends now.
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Wednesday's edition of All Things Considered on NPR featured a particularly revealing segment on Mitt Romney's lies about President Obama and welfare reform that many of you will likely find of interest.

NPR interviewed attendees at a rally for Mitt Romney, the Tea Party GOP's presumptive presidential nominee, near Pittsburgh. There, they asked Romney's supporters about the candidate's repeated, willful, and transparently naked lie, that President Obama is going to rollback welfare reform and encourage the "parasitic" and "slothful" behavior of the undeserving (read: black and brown women) poor.

It is apparent that the folks who were interviewed are deeply immersed in a Right-wing propaganda fueled alternate reality universe. Perhaps most troubling, is how when confronted with the basic fact that Mitt Romney, their chosen candidate, is lying about Barack Obama, these individuals have a moment of cognitive dissonance, and then quickly return to partisan script.

The white conservative populist base has decided that Obama is the devil; these same people will then reframe how they process the facts in order to reach this conclusion. This type of post hoc reasoning is disturbing because it can be manipulated to justify all types of anti-social behavior, behavior that is not limited to "harmless" racism, ethnocentrism, and bigotry.

At present, conservatives live in a post-truth universe: a dangerous and frothy mix of guns, god, religion, Fox News, Christian Dominionism, conspiracy theories, and Right-wing talk radio form the boundaries of their cognition and perception. The elites on the Right know that this world is an artifice and a construction based on a lie; the foot soldiers and the base really and truly believe that the lies which are spun by their social betters and "influentials" are in fact true. All Americans suffer because this particularly virulent strain of abnormal politics makes consensus on matters and challenges of shared concern almost impossible to attain.

All Things Considered offered several particularly rich examples of these processes at work. For those of us who are trying to make sense of Romney's Svengali-like hold on post-truth, conservative voters (and right- leaning independents), these exchanges are quite instructive.

Is the Tea Party GOP's 2012 Platform Crazy Like a Fox? Or is It Just Plain Crazy?

The naysayers, skeptics, critical thinking old school political hands, Republicans who are terrified of losing to Obama, as well as Democrats who are crowing about an inevitable victory come November, are alternatively either bemoaning or cheering what they see as the batshit crazy "outside of the mainstream" GOP platform that is going to be debuted at next week's convention in Florida. 

I am in the minority of opinion on these matters. Despite what the polling data and other models are suggesting, I believe that Obama, if he wins, will only sneak by in a nail biter. The Bradley Effect was pronounced slain, and dead on arrival, in 2008; however, given Romney's sophisticated use of race-baiting and dog whistle tactics, the ghost in the machine may come roaring back as a political poltergeist in 2012. The experts are also talking about how Obama's likeability may trump both a bad economy, and a candidate in Mitt Romney that is less than inspiring to the GOP base--a man who is also an insincere, negatively enigmatic figure, in the eyes of undecideds and independent voters. 

I do not know if this is a corollary to what political scientists call sociotropic or "pocketbook" voting, but my sense is that a bad economy, plus a black president, are a recipe for a losing election. I do hope that I am wrong. 

To outsiders, the Republican Party platform is pure "red meat" for the base, and as such, has a little bit of something for everyone in the New Right: it doubles down on killing Trayvon Martin(s), keeps lazy and unqualified colored people from jobs that they do not deserve (like the Presidency), ensures that men can control women's bodies, and keeps the damn Mexicans out of the country. It also talks enough about the framers, American exceptionalism, and the merits of trickle down economics so that Saint Ronald Reagan will remain at peace in his grave. 

For those outside of the Right-wing echo chamber, and who have not drunk deeply from the New Right Fox News Tea Party Jim Jones Kool-Aid, the 2012 Republican platform is one more example of how a major political party is in the midst of its death throngs as it slips further down the road to demographic suicide. However, for those in the Fox News echo chamber, and for many low information, right-leaning voters, the language of the document is imminently sensible. 

On immigration, what reasonable person could disagree with the following statement?

"We support changing the way that the decennial census is conducted, so that citizens are distinguished from lawfully present aliens and illegal aliens. In order to preserve the pinciple of one-person, one-vote, the apportionment of representatives among the states should be according to the number of citizens."

Or alternatively, who could disagree with this phrasing against "unfair" programs such as "affirmative action?" The language sounds so meritocratic:

"We support efforts to help low-income individuals get a fair chance based on their potential and individual merit; but we reject preferences, quotas, and set-asides, as the best or sole methods through which fairness can be achieved, whether in government, education or corporate boardrooms...Merit, ability, aptitude, and results should be the factors that determine advancement in our society."

The Republican Party platform uses superficially benign language in order to advance the Right's radical political agenda. This is a genius move. As such, we mock the Tea Party GOP platform at our own peril.

Am I giving the spin masters on the Right too much credit? Or is this platform one of the last exhalations of a political party on the verge of obsolescence, but is willing to fight to the end in defense of its "principles?"

Life Isn't Fair: Yes, White Democrats Like Joe Biden Can Talk to Black Folks in Ways that White Republicans Cannot

The chattering classes are still talking about Joe Biden's "y'all" and "put you back in chains" turn of phrase from a speech that he made last week in Danville, Virginia. Republicans, members of the party of Willie Horton and Birtherism, have lept at an opportunity to call a Democrat "racist." The Democrats are playing damage control and highlighting how Vice President Biden was essentially correct: the banksters and usurious financier classes do in fact want to have their full boots and heels on the necks of the American people--and the Republican Party will free them to do so with full force.

Despite all of the posturing and partisan sniping about Joe Biden's comment, the facts are actually quite plain, all this fuss about chains is really much to do about nothing, a non-controversy.

Why? Because white Democrats in the post Civil Rights era can say things to black and brown folks, and talk about race, in ways that Republicans cannot. The pundit classes are afraid to acknowledge this simple truth because their money is made from drama and conflict.

Part of the challenge here also lies in how Americans are immersed in a culture of false equivalence, one in which every point of view, however ridiculous it may be, is somehow made legitimate and valid.

Can You Help a Ghetto Nerd Attend the World Science Fiction Convention Here in Chicago?

You know us black folks, we are always asking folks for something. It is one of our "black habits" as Redd Foxx would say.

Chicon 7, the 70th World Science Fiction Convention (also known as Worldcon), is one of the largest, and longest running, science fiction conferences in the United States (and to my knowledge on Earth). On a lark, and without complete information, I threw my name into the proverbial hat and offered myself up as a panelist for the event.

I very much enjoy giving talks at non-academic fan events and hanging out with fellow geeks and nerds. I also take it as a professional and personal obligation to talk about "serious" stuff, i.e. politics, race, culture, etc. with an audience that often "gets" that there is real substance to their hobby, but just needs the language and a few examples to help them along in realizing what they already know.

To my surprise, the organizers of Chicon 7 asked me to be on three panels--one of which is a meet and great "literary beer" where fans get to talk to authors and other such folks. Yes, I was surprised about that last one too. I was also surprised that panelists, all of them save for "honored guests," are expected to pay for their entry fees to the conference.

When confronted with having to pay for conferences I either 1) sneak in; 2) share a badge with a friend; or 3) ask my department for some money. These are not options for Worldcon here in Chicago as 1) I have been told they are pretty tight with security and checking badges; 2) only one person I know is going, and I don't think that I could pass as "Heather"; and 3) Worldcon falls between budgetary request cycles and my boss folks will also not pay for association memberships.

I am ultimately of two minds. I would like to go, and I think there could be some good professional networking done which will help me out with various projects including WARN. Life is funny, as you never know where and when good things can happen: for example, I may very well be offered one of the high honors of geekdom in the near future because of some folks I met at Chicago's C2E2. If it happens, I will of course share the good news with all of you.

I also think it would be great to represent for the ghetto nerd set. Science fiction and fandom can be very "white" spaces; it is good to shake things up a bit and make sure that a diversity of voices are represented.

On the other hand, I am not so moved as to come up with the 300 dollars out of pocket, in essence paying to present and do work, at a convention. I have other responsibilities regarding family and a 16 year old dog that I must prioritize, regardless of the temptation to do otherwise.

[For those of you who are justifiably curious, I did my research and Stamford Animal Rescue will be getting the money we collected a few months ago.]

This leaves me with hand open, and begging bowl out, to the friends and fans of We Are Respectable Negroes. I learned from my last semi-successful fundraising effort that you need to repeat your pleas for donations more than once. I cannot promise that I will do that, save for a few ghetto nerd related posts, in order to keep fundraising pitch in the foreground. To do more crosses over to nagging...and that isn't cool. 

Apparently, fundraisers are also most successful when they are time-limited. I need to confirm with the conference no later than Friday of this week (or Monday at the latest).

Finally, the experts on these matters suggest that you should give people who are kind enough to donate money a "thank you" or some type of gift and incentive. I like stories and sharing. Hopefully, those stories are not just interesting to me given my delusional state of sustained egomania and borderline narcissism. If we can get me to Worldcon I will offer up the following "gifts."

1. I will share some excerpts from my zombie novella. This will be your chance to laugh, mock, make fun of, and see me exposed as the literary wannabe hack that I really am. A few friends have read parts of Zombie Lives. The response ranges from "great" to "good, but do more of x,y,z" and "you have something solid here that you should send to an agent." One friend doesn't get the genre--and said it just wasn't her cup of tea despite her appreciation for what I was trying to bring to the table in writing a zombie novella that is "about something."

2. Here on WARN, I often, and in a playful manner, talk about sex and taking the ladies to Space Mountain (in reality the ride is more like The Tea Cups at Disneyland). Sometimes these episodes end in embarrassment, confusion, or laughter--usually at me and not with me.

We have two possibilities (of many here) from my catalog of epic sexual and romantic fails.

I can offer up a true story about a night of random intimacy, with a relative stranger which was ruined mid foreplay by an argument about Abraham Lincoln, the color line, and Emancipation.

Or, I can entertain and titillate, as I share a night of great shame and George from Seinfeld-like incompetence and bad luck. Details? Let's just say that this ruined night involves a sex goddess, a dog, pepper spray, and my wounded masculinity. 

It is August and the start of school is approaching. For those of you with kids, money is probably especially tight this time of year. However, if folks can find a dollar or two to throw in the virtual tip jar/donation box in the upper right hand part of the screen, I would very much appreciate the gesture.

If I am able to attend Worldcon I will of course share stories, gossip, photos, and any fun things that happen to transpire. Thank you for indulging me.

The Tea Party GOP's Greatest Fear: President Obama is a "Black-Beast Rapist"...and He is Coming to Get Them

Popular culture is an informal type of public opinion. In its best instances, popular culture is a powerful lens into our collective fears, hopes, and anxieties. I was rewatching David Mamet's Edmond, a great film which explores questions of existential angst, a man's descent into madness (or sanity depending on one's point of view), and his subsequent imprisonment. The final scenes of the film are challenging and provocative; they are a great example of how the "popular" and "political" can intersect in some surprising ways.

While it is little discussed in the mainstream press, or among the pundit classes, I would argue that the New Right and the Tea Party GOP's anti-Obamamania is driven by a sense of imperiled white masculinity. The "angry white man" has been a part of our political and cultural vocabulary for several decades. He ultimately found a home and a political party in the Tea Party GOP. Although white men are the single most powerful and wealthy group of people in this country, the Right has been able to successfully  manipulate a sense of grievance, anxiety, and fears of a lost future where "the blacks," "the minorities," "the women," and "the gays" have taken over.

This is a shrewd political strategy that plays on the relationship between psychology and politics. The petit authoritarianism that is contemporary conservatism fears nothing more than a loss of control. As such, what better way to advance one's political goals than to create a narrative of white victimology?

Ultimately, the fears of the New Right, the Tea Party GOP, and the aggrieved, imperiled white masculinity that Mitt Romney and other Republican elites pander to, are responses to a collective nightmare, what is a waking dream where they are being metaphorically raped and dominated by Barack Obama and people of color. 

During Bush 2's rule, Republicans were obsessed with how the American public, as well as the Democratic Party, should "respect" the Office of the President of the United States. Curiously, a few years later the Tea Party GOP has shown nothing but utter disrespect for President Obama since he won the office in 2008.

There are many examples of this paranoid and conspiratorial behavior.

The State of the Union Speech was interrupted in an unprecedented fashion by a Republican who yelled "you lie" at the President. Major political figures on the Right and in the mass media have alternatively suggested that President Obama is not a United States citizen, is a closet Muslim, takes orders from his dead father's African ghost, and is an "affirmative action" hire who sneaked his way through Columbia and Harvard. Obama has also been faced with threats of violence, mass rebellion, secession, and naked racism. The Tea Party GOP was willing to risk economic Armageddon during the debt-ceiling crisis in order to embarrass Barack Obama.

These conspiratorial fantasies are ultimately about respect, authority, and legitimacy. Partisanship, and an extremely polarized public that has been subjected to Right-wing propagandists who are deeply invested in crisis and rumor mongering, are central to this story too. But, "normal" politics cannot be decoupled from the symbolic politics that are necessarily embodied--quite literally--in Barack Obama, the country's first black president. For many conservatives, and especially aggrieved whites who are made insecure by the United States' changing demographics and a sense that America is not "their country" anymore, Obama is seen as pure evil--he is their anti-Christ.

In the conservative political imagination, people who look like him, his family, and those other black and brown folk with some degree of political and/or economic power, do not belong in or near the White House. White reactionary conservatives may not state the following as plainly as I am willing to: The United States has long been the white man's country; the Tea Party GOP, as a White Party, are willing to do almost anything to regain this true lie and fictive past.

As I have written about numerous times, Mitt Romney is a sociopathic racist. His campaign ads have recycled naked and racist stereotypes about Barack Obama--and by implication black Americans. Moreover, Romney's use of both naked racial appeals and dog whistle politics represent one of the most sophisticated uses of racial animus in recent American political history. As the election approaches, Romney and Ryan are going to go places that McCain never would have dared. White racial resentment, and manipulating white racial anxiety in order to win over white voters, is one of the few remaining weapons (along with voter suppression) that Romney and the Tea Party GOP have left in their arsenal given the unpopularity of their proposed policies.

I am not suggesting that Mitt Romney is experiencing, nor that he is moved by, the same racial fears and white anxieties which motivate the Tea Party GOP base. Romney and his backers are billionaires. They fear nothing. But, Mitt Romney is willing to use the petty fears of reactionary white conservatives and right-leaning independents in order to further his political and economic goals.

In these conversations about President Obama, legitimacy, white voters, and the Tea Party GOP, one variable has been consistently ignored by most pundits and analysts. The Tea Party GOP is a Southern, White political party. Its leaders made a bargain decades ago to absorb the Southern racists, the Dixiecrats, into their fold. By doing so, they flipped the South "red." This choice also meant that the Republican Party was now the party of Jim and Jane Crow, the slaveocracy, and all of the other assorted political, racial, and cultural baggage that comes with it.

Heads Up. Kira Davis, Youtube "Niggerization" Black Conservative, Will Be on Blogtalk Radio Tonight

For those of you who are interested in chatting with Kira Davis, "she of the boo hoo Toure hurt my feelings with the mean word niggerization" Youtube video apparently has a BlogTalk online radio show. Here is the description of tonight's episode:

Thanks to all of you who have sent messages of encouragement and support regarding my YouTube response to Toure (oh he of one name). I'll elaborate on my story a bit more and I'm taking calls/questions. I know many people have a lot of questions. Tonight's the night to get them answered!

She is such a victim. Who woulda thunk it?

I think you all should give her a call. I am sure she would love to get the traffic, and will generously respond to all of your questions about niggerization, her defense of Mitt Romney, and the plight of black conservatives in America.

Who knows, maybe Chauncey DeVega will call in as well? It has been a long time since I paid a black conservative a surprise visit.

Kira Davis's The Dark Side airs at 9pm according to BlogTalkRadio. However, her twitter feed says that the show will be live at 9pm central/10pm Eastern so do check twice. The call in number is (424) 220-1807.

Have fun.

More Fun With "Colorblind" Racism Online: "What Did Pressure for Obama to Release His Birth Certificate Have to do With White Privilege?"

Before I go watch the remaining hours of the Chicago Air and Water Show, I wanted to share the following gem with you. 

Apparently, my open letter to black conservative Kira Davis got the attention of some of her supplicants and handlers. I am not that into Twitter--apparently my friend Gordon Gartrelle is doing his thing there, so do check him out--but they sent me some "tweets" that I proceeded to respond to here. 

Kira is a lost soul. Her website features a cabal of semi-professional black conservative Right-wing race hustlers. Much of their writing is bad comedy. Alas, I could not save Kira from her quest to be the next Michelle Malkin; but if another young person of color takes my advice, I will count that as a win. 

Also, she and her peeps won't respond to my simple request for an interview. Funny. Too bad. 

Last week, I wrote about how I am collecting examples of colorblind conservative racism from political websites and blogs for use in one of my classes on "race in America" (as well as for an article that I would like to write in the near future). In tracking down some of the links from Kira's site, I came upon this gem by Chuck Morse who writes for the blog, "A Whig Manifesto". 

It is always fun to see yourself quoted, and one's arguments filtered through the prism of talking point Tea Party GOP conservatism. The distortions can be epic, what are a type of low rent political cubism or amateurish surrealism.

Moreover, the standing priors and worldview of talking point conservatives are so fundamentally disconnected from political and social reality, that the whole mess would be funny, if not for what it suggested about the health of our civic culture and educational system. 

I will leave you all to annotate and deconstruct the following passages (Morse's essay is here in its entirety). Whenever I encounter work such as this, I marvel, truly I do, at the effectiveness of the Right-wing propaganda machine at disseminating information, crafting an alternative reality, and then reinforcing their talking points through repetition. 

As Chomsky and others have deftly pointed out, the Right-wing propagandists created a lie that the media is somehow "liberal" or "biased" against them. This untruth is accepted as fact. Therefore, it encourages (and legitimates) a willful misrepresentation of the facts by conservatives because such distortions are now reframed as being somehow "fair and balanced." 

Because the Right-wing media machine also circulates and creates conspiranoid fantasies in the Age of Obama, the more you try to correct those who are part of this cult--that word is used intentionally; the New Right and populist conservatism share many of the traits common to a religion--the more a belief in their righteousness and truth-telling is reinforced. In total, the populist Right is a closed community whose political worldview is prefaced upon tautological, closed circle, reasoning.

Ultimately, the Right-wing media industrial complex rivals that of the official state media in China or the former Soviet Union. Impressive. Most impressive.

Chauncey DeVega, a columnist for the left-wing online publication AlterNet, wrote an article on April 29, 2011 entitled 10 Ways That the Birthers Are an Object Lesson in White Privilege. This article, written in response to President Obama’s release of his birth certificate, serves as a rich illustration of a left-wing view of race in America, and how race is used as a political football by the left. Significant portions of the article are reprinted here with commentary.

DeVega begins with the highly sarcastic assertion that: In an era of racism without racists, the Tea Party GOP Birther brigands provide one more lesson in the permanence of the social evil known as White privilege. The author defines our era as one of racism without racists and at first glance this appears to be a sarcastic rejoinder to the assertion by conservatives that they are not racists. Yet this comment raises the question of whether America is a society of racism without racists. Going one step further, this comment begs the question regarding how racism is defined in America today. Who is a racist? What did pressure for Obama to release his birth certificate and other classified information have to do with White privilege?

Of course there are racists in America today as the term has been classically defined. There are still KKK men who parade around in white sheets and who burn crosses on lawns. There still are fringe organizations, neo-Nazi groups come to mind, which adhere to white supremacy which was mainstream in America before World War II and even into the mid 1960’s in some quarters. The image of George Wallace, the Democratic Governor of Alabama, blocking the school door to stop an African-American child from attending school comes to mind as does the Birmingham Alabama police chief Bull Connor turning water hoses on civil rights protesters. In 1968, the Republican civil rights leader, the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, was brutally murdered, shot down in the prime of his life and at the peak of his creativity, by a white supremacist. Lynching was a not an infrequent practice in America until the 1950’s.

As a bonus, here is Morse's analysis of Sarah Palin and her "real talk," "I am not an elitist" appeal to the Right-wing mouth-breathing classes: 

Sarah Palin is an easy target for scorn from the left and the ugly attack against her has more than a whiff of sexism. Palin didn’t attend an Ivy League College and she doesn’t talk like, walk like, or look like your typical liberal eastern seaboard liberal establishment type. President Obama, on the other hand, has the Ivy League College cred, the language, the look, and the walk of the liberal establishment type down to a tee. Like many conservatives before her, Palin is marginalized by the left as “stupid” and therefore as a person who is not to be listened to or taken seriously.

With the type of scorn that has been heaped upon her, it is easy for the left to take the next step and label her as a racist and DeVega performs this hit is classic left-wing style with snide and indirect references to her engaging in racial resentment while calling her a witch on a broomstick to boot. The very idea of actually taking what Palin has to say seriously is not considered as she is instead denounced in classic left-wing agitprop fashion. Palin, who in her at times awkward way is a plain spoken truth teller, poses as a threat to the edifice of left-wing ideology. The populism that she at times espouses is universal to all Americans and that is socially conservative values, limited and honest government, low taxes, and national sovereignty. 

Wow, that last sentence is rich with semiotic and discursive possibilities: it is a political burrito wrapped up in bacon, battered, refried, and then slathered with cheese.

Because Kira Davis was Hurt by Toure and the Word "Niggerization": My Open Letter to a Black Conservative on Youtube

As I have written about here, Toure's more than accurate observation that Mitt Romney is trying to "niggerize" President Obama has been met with gasps, complaints, and no small case of the collective vapors by Conservatives throughout the Right-wing echo chamber. Social media is afire with protests about Toure's "racism." Blogs and muckrakers are driving some traffic with their manufactured outrage at his "racism." Romney's people are calling MSNBC's people in an effort to get Toure fired from his job as a guest commentator on the network.

Regular folks are chiming in as well; they are talking to cameras on Youtube and sharing their pain for all who will listen. One of them is Kiradavis422, (a relatively young) black conservative who is so very hurt and offended by Toure's use of the word "niggerization." I love these videos as they represent the best and worst that digital democracy has to offer, as the Internet allows citizens to give voice to their concerns about political and social matters on a huge stage. 

I also love these Youtube talking head videos because they are teachable moments. As such, if I knew Kira Davis, and could talk to her directly, I would share the following bit of advice regarding her "pain" and "hurt" about Toure's choice of language.

Toure Learned the Word "Niggerization" From the Nazis! The Prize for Proving Godwin's Law Goes to Which Conservative Website?

In 2008, Jonah Goldberg laid one hell of a stinking egg with his lie of a book Liberal Racism. His argument that "liberals" and "progressives" are actually the descendants of Hitler's fascist authoritarianism still resonates across the Right-wing and their mouth-breathing lumpen troglodyte lumpen foot soldiers to the present. These are also the same folks who believe that the now eviscerated and publicly defrocked David Barton was actually a respectable "historian." As such, the depths of their trained and practiced ignorance does not surprise me.

Toure's simple and obvious claim that Mitt Romney is trying to use white racial animus, and anti-black stereotypes for electoral ends against President Obama, is a prima facie, on the face plain, description of social reality. Because conservatives and the New Right live in a fact free, post-truth universe, Toure's observations about Romney's niggerization of Barack Obama must be opposed at every opportunity--even if it means trying to get Toure fired from MSNBC.

The Right-wing website The Gateway Pundit went nuclear yesterday, as it dropped the Nazi-bomb on Toure when one of its contributors suggested that the former's use of the phrase niggerization has "Hitleresque" origins, and is one more example of the wicked authoritarian fascist tendencies of the always vaguely and nebulously defined "Left" in America. Breitbart doubled down on this silly talk in the following passage:

When Touré took to the airwaves of MSNBC earlier this evening to announce that Mitt Romney was engaging in the “niggerization” of Barack Obama, he was using an old Nazi term. “Niggerization,” as it turns out, is a notorious Nazi word referring to the supposed degeneration of art and music. The term in German is “Verniggerung.” It was closely associated with the notion of Jews degrading culture – “Verjudung,” or “Jewification.”

The Gateway Pundit's claims are ahistorical, inaccurate, and desperate efforts at false equivalence, which are not surprisingly, also problematic on factual grounds. In all, that site's suggestion that Toure's phrase "niggerization," what is a basic and elementary claim that the white gaze (and the white racial racial frame) is deeply invested in linking together black personhood with anti-black stereotypes in the service of white supremacy, is at all similar to some Nazi-like rhetoric is both specious and foolish.

The Gateway Pundit's lie of an article is a perfect example of the perils and comedy that come to pass when stupid people try to sound smart. Any suggestion that the phrase niggerization as used by Toure has any substantive relationship at all to the Nazis is bad comedy in its finest, and simultaneously, most grotesque sense.

The editors of the Gateway Pundit should be ashamed. Of course, we all know that Jim Hoft, author of said propaganda, will not be, for in the alternate reality created by conservatives and the New Right, Hitler was a "liberal" and the Tea Party GOP is the party of "civil rights." As Hitler famously suggested, if you are going to lie, you might as well lie big. Mitt Romney and his agents have learned, and indeed practice, that lesson quite well. Shame on them.

Toure was Right, Mitt Romney is Engaging in the "Niggerization" of Barack Obama

Yes Virginia, despite what you may hear on Fox News, Right-wing websites, and talk radio, "niggerization" is in fact a real word.

I have had my issues with Toure in the past--most notably his wholesale lifting of my argument that Herman Cain was/is a race minstrel--but I can be the bigger person and acknowledge that he was spot on in his description of Mitt Romney's ugly race-baiting campaign against President Obama. Earlier today on MSNBC, Toure made the matter of fact observation that:

Yeah, that really bothered me. You notice he says anger twice. He's really trying to use racial coding and access some really deep stereotypes about the angry black man. This is part of the playbook against Obama. The otherization, he's not like us. I know it's a heavy thing to say. I don't say it lightly. But this is niggerization. You are not one of us, and that you are like the scary black man who we've been trained to fear.

Toure's only error here is when he, like many in the chattering classes are fond of doing when faced with plain truths, walked-back and qualified his claim about Romney's Southern Strategy 2.0 efforts to "blacken" Obama in the eyes of the white public in order to lighten his blow.

As I have argued here, Mitt Romney is a racist. In coming to this conclusion, I followed Marcus Aurelius' famous observation that we adopt the qualities of our deeds and actions. Romney is using overt and naked racial appeals to gin up white racial resentment, anxiety, and bigotry against the country's first black president. Consequently, he is a white racist. Q.E.D.

Toure was just afraid to close the circle. I am not. Ultimately, if you are going to put your size 13 shoe in another person's butt you might as well go all in. What is the point of pulling it halfway out?

That having been noted, Toure did commit a classic error, one that is common when folks with a great deal of expertise engage in a conversation designed for the lay public. In these circumstances, one needs to be direct, simple, and to the point. Toure has expertise in Cultural Studies, African-American studies, literary theory, and semiotics. The "academese" and technical language--what some would less kindly call "jargon"--always interferes with communicating in plain, direct, and simple tones in a public forum, for a general audience, and on a panel where you are afforded a few seconds to make a point.

Academics (and others with expert knowledge) often prefer to use one word that is dense and rich with meaning, and which pivots off of shared, inside assumptions, than to use several simpler terms to make (almost) the same point. Weapons are effective to the degree that they are deployed in the correct circumstances. Niggerization is a powerful word that perfectly captures the racial invective and stereotypes about race and representation which the Right has been systematically mobilizing against Barack Obama and his family.

Unfortunately, Joe Q. Public only hears the word "nigger." Toure just gave the Right-wing bloviators a talking point, a quill to use for writing their dishonest script that the Tea Party GOP and Mitt Romney are the party of racial equality, opportunity, and diversity, while the Democrats and Obama are the real "racists."

In reality, the Republican Party is the United States' de facto White Party. The Right and its supplicants will boohoo about "reverse racism" and "double standards" in order to force MSNBC to fire Toure. Don't worry, Mitt Romney and his surrogates will be calling President Obama an "angry black who hates America and is not really born in this country and secretly despises white people and wants to give the colored parasitic people free money and welfare at white people's expense while his wife secretly hates white people too and wants to make them eat their broccoli" by next week.

Old habits die hard. The Tea Party GOP is addicted to racism; they are unable to break the habit. The metaphorical glass pipe and that racist political crack rock got em tweaking and feenin.
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Lest you think I am kidding about "niggerization" being a "real" word, here is Cornel West using the phrase in a talk at Harvard University a decade ago. The word itself has origins that go back to at least the 1960s and The Black Arts Movement if not earlier (perhaps an intrepid etymologist could find the first use of the word in print or elsewhere and share it with us here).

Chauncey DeVega's World of Ghetto Nerds: Cause Poppa Got an AK-47. C.J. Chivers Discusses his book "The Gun"

This is my rifle, this is my gun, this one's for...

Sorry, I just had a phallocentric gun worship masculine culture of violence psychotic episode. It won't happen again. Really. I promise.

Whenever there is a mass shooting by someone using a "semi-automatic" rifle, America's gun culture comes under scrutiny. Nothing ever happens of course; but for a few weeks there are spirited appeals and hand-wringing over the need to have a national conversation over gun violence. The media obliges as it offers up stories about guns and our national obsession with them.

The NY Times has obliged with this interesting piece about the iconic assault rifle the AK-47, and how it has become one of the most popular guns in the United States (domestic sales rose 50 percent last year). The irony is priceless: I cannot help but smirk at the thought of militia and "patriotic" Red State American types running around in the woods with a Kalashnikov reenacting Red Dawn as their purchase goes to subsidize a Russian arms merchant, who in turn, will be able to offer cheaper weapons to that country's military.

I am a proponent of a reasonable policy towards firearm ownership that involves mandatory training, waiting periods, and background checks. Apparently, the former "evil empire" agrees with my approach:

Izhmash benefits from American gun laws that are looser than in its home market. In Russia, consumers can buy a long-barreled firearm only with a police permit, which requires a clean criminal sheet, a diploma from a gun safety course and a medical certificate of sanity. In the United States, laws vary by state, but buyers often need to clear only an F.B.I. criminal background check.

A few months ago I shilled for C.J. Chivers great book The Gun, which is a cultural history of the AK-47. For those of you interested in social history, cultural studies, technology, geopolitics, or military affairs, it is a wonderful read.

In addition to being a thorough exploration of the mythic origins of the weapon, Chivers offers up a great narrative full of rich story-telling that connects the AK to American foreign policy, the Cold War, Vietnam, terrorism, and popular culture.

Ultimately, the Russians could make a great assault rifle and a decent tank, but they were brought down by an inability to make good washing machines and other consumer goods. History is a trickster.



My favorite story in the book centers on the differences between the AK and the M16 series of weapons. Apparently, the AK-47 makes noise when you shake it because the weapon is manufactured to broader standards of tolerance. Counter-intuitively, this makes the AK series far more reliable than the M-16 which was made to more precise Western standards.

Chivers' discussion of the clusterfuck the corruption laced, bureaucratic nightmare that was the introduction of the M16 in Vietnam is also a powerful warning about the military industrial complex and how the Pentagon privileges profits and good PR over protecting soldiers' lives. As a counter-factual that never could have been in the context of the Cold War, how many American soldiers' lives would have been saved if the Pentagon simply adopted the AK-47 as the standard assault rifle during Vietnam?

Here is a bonus clip about the history of the M16 and genius gun designer Eugene Stoner: