Who Said Racism Isn’t Alive & Well in America?

I realize this is from al Jazeera but you can find plenty of similar stuff from concerned Americans on the web. This one shows a segment of the crowd that’s flocking to Sarah Palin.

 

"It’s Our Time"

“It’s Our Time” may be the meme of the Democratic presidential runoff. Obama used it to powerful effect in his speech last night. Hillary supporters have been using it constantly to bolster their claim that Mrs. Clinton deserves the throne.

To all you rabid Hillary supporters – it’s your time when your candidate wins and, please, make sure I’m the first to know just when that happens. Until your candidate wins, it’s not your time. Obama didn’t deserve to win because he’s black anymore than Hillary deserved to win because she’s female. So, cut the crap.

Here’s another thought. No genuine feminist can also be a racist. Sexism is bigotry and so is racism. You can’t fight one form of bigotry and freely embrace another. And there’s plenty of bigotry to be found among Hillary supporters.

It’s difficult to read too much into blog comments but I’ll give you a few examples of what Hillary supporters have been saying:

“the little sooty tan man”

” it was our time little man, not a token black man”

“the flushing sound? thats your buddy husseins chances of becoming prez”

Hillary enjoyed the support of rank bigots of both genders but it was the depth of bigotry among women that took me by surprise. Now I’m not naive. I studied in the states and I’ve seen, first hand, more than enough racism among American women. What troubles me is how the feminist leaders didn’t step forward to denounce this sort of thing during the nomination campaign. Certainly they ought to have been fighting misogyny but also speaking out against the tide of racism that surfaced from their own gender. Instead they sat on their hands.

Genuine feminism cannot tolerate racism. So, what happened?

 

The Hate Vote

Americans have spent an enormous amount of time, energy and money over the past half century to convince themselves that they had finally left behind their nation’s horrible racist history.

Even if Barack Obama should lose to McCain in November, he’ll have done his country an invaluable service by exposing just how alive and well racism is in today’s America, among Democrats as well as Republicans, even among some feminists who ought to be the last to tolerate much less embrace racial bigotry.

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen calls it “A Campaign to Hate.”

“Wherever I go — from glittering dinner party to glittering dinner party — the famous and powerful people I meet (for such is my life) tell me how lucky I am to be a journalist in this the greatest of all presidential contests. I tell them, for I am wont to please, that this campaign is indeed great when, as history will record, it is not. I have come to loathe the campaign.

I loathe above all the resurgence of racism — or maybe it is merely my appreciation of the fact that it is wider and deeper than I thought. I am stunned by the numbers of people who have come out to vote against Barack Obama because he is black. I am even more stunned that many of these people have no compunction about telling a pollster they voted on account of race — one in five whites in Kentucky, for instance. Those voters didn’t even know enough to lie, which is what, if you look at the numbers, others probably did in other states. Such honesty ought to be commendable. It is, instead, frightening.

…So I see little to be happy about, little that pleases my jaundiced eye. Yes, voter participation is way up and in the end, the Democrats will choose a woman or an African American and, to invoke that tiresome phrase, history will be made. But this messy nominating process has eroded the standing of both candidates. It has highlighted the reality that racism still runs deep and that misogyny, although more imagined than real, is not yet a wholly spent force. This is an ugly porridge that has been placed before us, turned rancid since the cold, pristine days of Iowa only five months ago. We were, with apologies to Bob Dylan, so much younger then. “

 

America’s Racist Media Laid Bare

They spent the better part of a century and a half warning us that “the South will rise again” and the decent world didn’t listen. Yet since the days of Lyndon Johnston the South has indeed arisen and a lot of the ugliness it once championed has been resurrected.

Under George w. Bush, in particular, racism and bigotry have crept back. Even America’s media, wittingly or otherwise, are getting into the act. Look at the way they’re focusing on Barack Obama and Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Then look at the way they’re abjectly ignoring those other preachers – the white boys – and their political allies.

This article is from Alternet. It’s long but it deserves to be read:

Rudy Giuliani’s priest has been accused in grand jury proceedings of molesting several children and covering up the molestation of others. Giuliani would not disavow him on the campaign trail and still works with him.

Mitt Romney was part of a church that did not view black Americans as equals and actively discriminated against them. He stayed with that church all the way into his early thirties, until they were finally forced to change their policies to come into compliance with civil rights legislation. Romney never disavowed his church back then or now. He said he was proud of the faith of his fathers.

Jerry Falwell said America had 9/11 coming because we tolerated gays, feminists and liberals. It was our fault. Our chickens had come home to roost, if you will. John McCain proudly received his support and even spoke at his university’s commencement.

Reverend John Hagee has called the Catholic Church the “Great Whore.” He has said that the Anti-Christ will rise out of the European Union (of course the Anti-Christ will also be Jewish). He has said all Muslims are trained to kill and will be part of the devil’s army when Armageddon comes (which he hopes is soon). John McCain continues to say he is proud of Reverend Hagee’s endorsement.

Reverend Rod Parsley believes America was founded to destroy Islam. Since this is such an outlandish claim, I have to add for the record, that he is not kidding. Reverend Parsley says Islam is an “anti-Christ religion” brought down from a “demon spirit.” Of course, we are in a war against all Muslims, including presumably Muslim-Americans. Buts since Parsley believes this is a Christian nation and that it should be run as a theocracy, he is not very concerned what Muslim-Americans think.

John McCain says Reverend Rod Parsley is his “spiritual guide.”

What separates all of these outrageous preachers from Barack Obama’s? You guessed it. They’re white and Reverend Jeremiah Wright is not. If it’s not racism that’s causing the disparity in media treatment of these preachers, then what is it?

I’m willing to listen to other possible explanations. And I am inclined to believe that the people these preachers go after are more important than the race of the preacher. It’s one thing to go after gays, liberals and Muslims – that seems to be perfectly acceptable in America – it’s another to accuse white folks of not living up to their ideals.

I think there is another factor at play as well. The media is deathly afraid of calling out preachers of any stripe for insane propaganda from the pulpits for fear that they will be labeled as anti-Christian. But criticism of Rev. Wright falls into their comfort zone. It’s easy to blame him for being anti-American because he criticizes American foreign and domestic policy.

If Rev. Wright had preached about discriminating against gay Americans or Muslims, there probably would not have been any outcry at all. That falls into the category of “respect their hateful opinions because they cloak themselves in the church.”

But one thing is indisputable – the enormous disparity in how the media has covered these white preachers as opposed to Rev. Wright. Have you ever even heard of Rod Parsley? As you can see from what I listed above, all of these white preachers have said and done the most outlandish and offensive things you can imagine – and hardly a peep.

If the disparity in coverage isn’t racist, then what is it?”

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/80253/

 

Here’s Another Surge – the Ku Klux Klan Rides Again

You can blame it on the times, I suppose. Gay marriage, the immigration problem, that thing with the Islamists, globalization, any number of reasons but the outcome is the same – there’s a resurgence being staged by the Ku Klux Klan.

According to the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center, Klan membership is up – somewhere between 5,000 and 8.000 in some 180 chapters. Worse than that, however, is that the Klan is getting much more active and is spreading into new territory with new chapters in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Nebraska, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

The Christian Science Monitor reports that, “…it is the increase in activity, including rallies, recruitment drives, and distribution of racist literature, and the partnering with skinheads, neo-Nazis, and other kinds of hate groups, that civil rights groups find troubling.

“As it did from its founding, the KKK views itself has having a religious dimension. Members see “lighting” a cross as a symbol of faith. Today, Christian Evangelicals are much more likely than mainstream Protestants or Roman Catholics to believe that “newcomers threaten traditional American customs and values,” according to the Pew Research Center.

“It is this trend in attitudes that the Klan hopes to use in recruiting new supporters among those opposed to US immigration policies and practices, according to Klan leaders and expert observers.

“‘While we generally think of it as a white supremacist organization, the Klan at its peak was virulently anti-immigrant, particularly with regard to Catholic immigrants, Irish, and southern European,’ says Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.

“But, he adds, ‘The whole nature of hate group membership has changed with the advent of the Internet. You can take bits and pieces from whatever group you like without necessarily becoming a card- carrying member.'”