Yeah, those posters of Obama as witch-doctor were just figments of our imagination. And we just ignored all those Tea Partiers who spoke out against such signs at their rallies.

In reality, this kind of commentary is nothing new. We see it every time conservatives have any political moentum whatsoever. The idea is that by shouting 'racist,' these liberal columnists can make their opponents shut up. But this is a very angry and polarized political climate. By racializing issues that are not inherently racial in nature, they are fanning flames of the very hatred they oppose.

the tea party is old white assholes on medicare and social security screaming about socialism.
hes black and they cant stand it....period.

If only he were right.

I know many intelligent people who happen to be conservatives, and when they are not making sense I tend to ask comparison questions. I tend to hit an impasse ,because the folks I have talked to (people I know in meat-space, not net-crazies) don't seem to have coherent policy issues with the current president.

Generally the complaints are about "socialism" which is incoherent, or about "big government", which would implicate their heroes Regan and W to a much larger degree.

I genuinely want to know, if it's not the fact that he is black what makes this president an issue? Especially when a previous president did the same thing, but has their full support. The problem is that nobody on the right seems to be answering this question, they simply state that the question is inappropriate, inflammatory, or that this president is somehow, indefinably, qualitatively different (but despite knowing noting about the quality, that quality is definitely not melanin), none of which are really an argument.

Grassroots movements getting out of hand?

Right, because I know that whenever I'm thoroughly passionate about a topic.. I tend to spew racist remarks uncontrollably.

It's not that I lack a sound or am a racist.
I just get sooooo worked up about my country! That I..!! You know!!! >_ :: furiously looks for some racial group to hate ::

Way to go racist idiots.

>> ^burdturgler:

Way to go racist idiots.


I'm digging this new meme.

The original Ron Paul core of this movement was ideologically driven, but they've since been joined by plenty of ignorant conservative drones, many of whom are motivated by racism.

The birthers, the people who think Obama is a secret muslim or a terrorist, the people who were afraid of Reverand Wright, the people who love to listen to Limbaugh sing Barack the Magic Negro, the people who love Obama's middle name "Hussain", the people who wear T shirts with an Obama monkey on it, or who photoshop watermelons on the White House lawn.

If you don't want your movement to be considered racist, then don't tolerate racism. Unfortunately, if you take away the drones, you are going to have a much smaller tea party.

Here are some results from the first page of a 'tea party racist' google search

http://killinmesoftly.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/racist_tea_party.jpg
http://www.newyorkslime.com/tea-party-racist-signs-04-back-to-kenya.jpg
http://iusbvision.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/tea-party-acorn2.jpg
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/racism.jpg
http://washingtonindependent.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/teapartypic.jpg
http://ladylibertyslamp.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/obama-racist-latest.jpg
http://i44.tinypic.com/2j31uv5.jpg
http://simmerdown3.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/teapartysign1sm1.jpg
http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/2673/slide_2673_37538_large.jpg

found these all on google image
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=tea%20party%20racist&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

Here's something Lee Atwater, the architect of the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush campaigns and mentor to Karl Rove, said in 1981:

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can't say “nigger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

*equality

Adding video to channels (Equality) - requested by burdturgler.

>> ^NetRunner:

Building on what dft said, charges of racism wouldn't really stick if you guys stopped responded to it by saying "we condemn what you're talking about, and we'll take steps to ensure it doesn't happen again because racism won't be tolerated in our movement", instead of always saying "there's no racism here, and you're a racist for calling me a racist, racist!"


Thank you for clarifying the general message from the left. Conservatives need to fall over themselves exclaiming mea culpas, and then after a suitable period of humiliation, the left would accept the apology in some small way. What a crock.

One of Obama's good selling points was how he could appeal to the red states. I suppose Obama losing his appeal in the red states was mostly the effect of Republican dirty tricks, but MSNBC sure as hell didn't help. Indeed.

I have a video that proves that the consipiracy to promote racism by disguising it as ordinary politics extends to the left as well. I present the racist miners in their racist union:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq6zYh_wDUk&playnext_from=TL&videos=1BrOTfLk89E

How does that video prove anything?

I see an executive for a large corporation calling the union racist. It seems a little odd, and more than a little suspicious, considering the number of minority members in that union. Far more likely the veep was just looking for something nasty to say, in an attempt to keep the workers divided. You know, like claiming that workers having a -choice- between secret ballots and card checks somehow weakens workers rights.

Moving this video to blankfist's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

>> ^marinara:

>> ^NetRunner:
Building on what dft said, charges of racism wouldn't really stick if you guys stopped responded to it by saying "we condemn what you're talking about, and we'll take steps to ensure it doesn't happen again because racism won't be tolerated in our movement", instead of always saying "there's no racism here, and you're a racist for calling me a racist, racist!"

Thank you for clarifying the general message from the left. Conservatives need to fall over themselves exclaiming mea culpas, and then after a suitable period of humiliation, the left would accept the apology in some small way. What a crock.

Umm, no. What I'm saying is that us making political hay about Republican racism would be far less effective if Republicans condemned racist remarks rather than denying their existence, or defending their use.

The left is obviously gonna make the political attacks it thinks will be most effective. Calling out Republicans for supporting racism works for us because Republicans reliably respond to the charge with denials or defense (which lately include attempts to reflect racism charges back on Democrats), and not with agreement that racism is wrong and disavowal of whatever Democrats are pointing to.

The real question is, given that apologizing and condemning seems to pretty effectively neutralize these sorts of attacks, why don't Republicans do that if they really feel that racism is wrong?

>> ^marinara:

>> ^NetRunner:
Building on what dft said, charges of racism wouldn't really stick if you guys stopped responded to it by saying "we condemn what you're talking about, and we'll take steps to ensure it doesn't happen again because racism won't be tolerated in our movement", instead of always saying "there's no racism here, and you're a racist for calling me a racist, racist!"

Thank you for clarifying the general message from the left. Conservatives need to fall over themselves exclaiming mea culpas, and then after a suitable period of humiliation, the left would accept the apology in some small way. What a crock.
One of Obama's good selling points was how he could appeal to the red states. I suppose Obama losing his appeal in the red states was mostly the effect of Republican dirty tricks, but MSNBC sure as hell didn't help. Indeed.


Let me clarify further:

An apology would mean less than nothing as long as they continue to tolerate open racism within their ranks. They don't need to fall all over themselves, they need to evolve - and not for the sake of appeasing ideological opponents who will always disagree with them, but rather for the sake of their own movement. For the sake of their own dignity!

What do I care if they want to make fools of themselves in public?

Sincerely,
the not-so-left American left

>> ^marinara:

I have a video that proves that the consipiracy to promote racism by disguising it as ordinary politics extends to the left as well. I present the racist miners in their racist union:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq6zYh_wDUk&playnext_
from=TL&videos=1BrOTfLk89E


It seems you've had to go pretty far in your search for false equivalence. First, you had to leave America, and go to Canada. Second, you had to say that "the left" means unions and not political parties. Then you had to say that nationalism is racism. You also need to equate things like defiantly saying "This is a Canadian community" with stuff teabaggers say.

Even if I grant you all of the above, your real problem is that you're getting the causation backwards. In the Sudbury situation, the schism starts as a substantive ideological debate (management vs. labor), but since the ideological divide perfectly coincides with a cultural difference, some xenophobia creeps into the debate.

My argument is that with the American right, you start with the xenophobia, and have the party expressly craft their message to encourage xenophobes to adopt a political ideology because it will serve their xenophobic goals.

For that to apply to the Canadian situation, you'd need to tell me that Sudbury was already rife with anti-Brazilian sentiment, and never thought of having a union until some left-wing party came in and told them the only way to keep the Brazilians out is to scare them away by unionizing and putting in place a strong safety and environmental regulation regime. Or by trying to pool their money, buy the mine themselves, and run it as an egalitarian collective.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> The left is obviously gonna make the political attacks it thinks will be most effective.


Netrunner is saying that the real problem is the right's weak response to the left's accusation of racism. I donno.

If I parse netrunner's comment for what it says,
I agree 100%. And I want to repeat the basic message of this video. Isn't the message of this video:"The left uses polarizing accusations because they want to end any kind of rational debate."

>> ^marinara:
If I parse netrunner's comment for what it says, I agree 100%.

This selective quote of your comment which doesn't at all represent your point is what I choose to believe your message says.

Glad to see you agree with everything I say, 100%.

I'd hate for you to selectively quote me, and misrepresent what I said, and then act as though I agree with your overall point that the left is where all problems with racism are. That would be terrible.

>> ^NetRunner:

with your overall point that the left is where all problems with racism are.


You missed the point, watch video again please.

@marinara, watched it again, and again, the conclusion of the video is "the only people who are concerned about race are racists (over picture of KKK with hoods), and liberals (over picture of Frank Rich)".

He also makes the argument that it's impossible to talk to liberals because they keep making imaginary or irrelevant arguments -- like accusing people who made this picture of being racists, and asking Tea Party organizers and Republicans to condemn it, I guess.

My own counterargument is to say that the right's confusion a) is disingenuous since there are tons of clear examples of racist imagery and commentary from the right, b) conservatives don't ever quite summon up the courage to actually discourage other conservatives for using racist imagery or comments, and c) they hardly ever apologize for offending anyone, and in fact usually demagogue about runaway liberal political correctness if anyone suggests they do so.

I also think he fundamentally misses the point of liberal accusations of racism. We are not trying to shut down rational debate (as you say), nor are we trying to fan the flames of racial sentiment (as Southern Avenger says), instead we are saying that the right's insensitivity to these issues are a problem, and we want to have a rational debate about it, but they refuse to ever admit anything anyone on the right does might be racist.

Even Southern Avenger can't quite bring himself to just say "Yes, some of the people at tea parties have said racist things", and instead goes into this thing where he ponders whether any tea partier has ever said anything racist, and says "perhaps, but for the sake of argument, let's say some have", and then launches into why this is understandable because protesters by their very nature are going to be emotional, as if using racial epithets is something we all do when we're mad about government policy.

I was trying to be too meta when I talked about political strategy. I'm mad and offended (still) about that witch doctor Obama picture. The guy who sent it out apologized, but denied it was racist, and blamed Democrats for drawing attention to it by complaining about it (seriously). Republicans never really said much about it, and the guy didn't lose his job or anything.

Shit like that works as a wedge issue, it helps sort out the racists and racist apologists on one side, and the people offended by racism on the other side. It wouldn't work as a wedge issue if there wasn't a political party that took up the racist apologist half of the divide. If it didn't work as a wedge issue, liberals probably wouldn't make such a big deal about it since both sides would quickly condemn it, and there wouldn't be any big fuss. We don't like racism in any case, but we start seeing red when we see it being defended. That's my point.