A week or so back, “Turkana” posted the following user diary at dKos. It’s strongly worded, direct and well-spoken – like a good political blog post should be. And it’s very provocative. It calls the question lingering in the back of a lot of folks’ minds after the so-called “tea party” demonstrations on the 15th.
Do I think he’s onto something? Absolutely. Do I think it’s quite as straightforward as this? I’d have to say ‘no.’ Is that my discomfort talking, rather than my powers of rational observation?
You decide (reprinted with permission).
They Hate Him Because He Is “Black”
by Turkana
Thu Apr 16, 2009 at 10:34:53 AM PDT
I deliberately use the word black rather than the words African American. The latter lacks the proper emotional value. It is cultural and geographical. The former is visceral. Bigotry is not subtle. It is primal. It is not about ideas. It is irrational.
He is smarter and more educated and more articulate than they. A self-made man, he represents everything they would claim to value. But he looks different, to them. They hate him because he looks different. They hate him because he is dark. In “Western” “Culture,” the very words black and dark have powerfully negative value. They often are used as synonyms for the sinister.
Continued after the fold…
They hated President Clinton, and tried to destroy him. But one of their elected governors didn’t talk secession. They didn’t talk revolution. They didn’t attempt (and miserably fail) to launch nationwide protests against him. Bill Clinton was a lot of things. He was not black.
President Obama is no crazy liberal. He is increasing defense spending. Even Alan Greenspan is suggesting economic solutions more akin to “socialism.” Gun lovers have nothing to fear. On policy grounds, we crazy liberals have been criticizing him from day one. The radical right have been lambasting him. With the nation fighting two wars and an economic meltdown, they openly hope he fails. But they are not about policy. They are about hatred. And they hate Obama as they have never hated any president. It’s not complicated.
The Department of Homeland Security just warned:
Right-wing extremists have capitalized on the election of the first African American president, and are focusing their efforts to recruit new members, mobilize existing supporters, and broaden their scope and appeal through propaganda, but they have not yet turned to attack planning.
“Extremist” is now a corporate media phenomenon. Glenn Beck? Rush Limbaugh? Ann Coulter? Bill O’Reilly? Faux News?
They hate him not because of policy or politics. They hate him because of who he is. Not like them. By the color of his skin. It’s time to stop pretending or excusing or evading the obvious. They hate him because he is black!
Update [2009-4-16 15:43:21 by Turkana]: From kos’s front page post: Georgia’s State Senate, by near unanimous vote, threatens to secede. I don’t recall that happening, under President Clinton, either…
I remember some of the racist crap Ashcroft pulled as Governor of MO. When pointing it out to someone, I got accused of calling him a racist. I thought about this for a moment and said “I don’t know whether or not he is a racist, and nor do I care. What I do know is that he has no problem with using racism to his own political advantage.”
Many of us know that the teabagging hype is not about any sort of grassroots uprising, but it’s about top-down attempts at dragging people into the protests, disguised as grassroots. The proper term for many of those in attendance is “useful idiots.”
Many of the useful idiots are racist. Not all are, just as not all of the people attending Palin rallies were racist. They, however, had no problem with racism. They were willing to use it to their own advantage.
Similarly, there are many in the GOP who might not give a damn whether or not Obama is black, but think nothing whatsoever of using his blackness against him. Does that make those GOP members racist? Who gives a damn? Whether you are personally racist or willing to support racism as a means by which to grow your agenda (whether for policy or personal purposes), the end result is the same: you give comfort and support to racists.
Hello, my name is Marek Hirsch and I helped organize the Montpelier Tea Party. I live in Burlington, am educated, as white as they come, yet in college my most active extracurricular involvement was with my campus’s Black Student Union.
Yes there are going to be those who see such an event as a vehicle for venting right-wing extremism and come holding Take back Vermont signs, but clearly that has nothing to do with a Tea Party, but clearly I cannot prevent them from coming, no more than you can prevent the ISO from coming to Lefty events.
You have accused me of being an insecure racist, well I shall challenge that you are misinformed and are guilty of using preconceived assumptions to make the claim. Still not convinced? well then I invite you to watch this youtube clip of myself and another Tea Party founder/keynote speaker denounce Foxnews, the entity which accoring to you, forced me to create the event.
Thanks Odum: It has been pretty obvious all along that a great part of the right wing vehemence against Obama is because he is black. The unthinkable has happened in America: a black guy is now running the white man’s country. And the bigotry and racism that lie so close to the surface of the American consciousness is running scared that the black guy will do to them what they have done to his ancestors. It is never openly expressed, but it is there.
Marek: I was at the so-called tea party, though did not arrive until late due to other committments. It was interesting. I am still not sure what these tea parties were about,except for a fear of “socialism,” over capitalism, which has gotten us into the grim state that we are in now, though I wondered how many of those tea-partiers benefitted from socialistic-type programs like medicare, Catamoun, social security, FDIC, etc. and also wondered what the tea partiers would do without these programs, since capitalism greats more poverty for the many. What better way to rouse the masses to protect corporate interests than resurrrect the old scare tactics of socialism.
Smaller government. Or, rather corporate government. No one really told me what that meant. Bush sure never made the government smaller. The lobbyists ran the government. Private enterprise. that’s why, for instance, the health care system is broken. But people like Gingrich want to preserve this at all costs because it makes so much money for them, and it would not be so good for them if there were a public health care system. So what better way than have the grass roots speak for them.
Anti-bail-out. Yes, I agreed on that score. I hate to see AIG get my money for a bail-out from what they did, but it should be remembered that AIG backs up many pension systems and the like.
I saw your youtube thing. I liked how you denounced Fox News. But just because you denounce them does not mean that Fox news was not behind these tea parties, in however subtle ways. Remember who Fox works for.
The GOP was more careful about doing their full monty of hate when they were winning .
Cornered,angry and losing ,all the cards are being played until something starts to work
And, with that, all who dissent are pegged as racists and bigots. I thought dissent was patriotic. No more, I see.
It’s not that he’s Black, it’s that he’s smart and popular. I watched my liberal colleagues have the same reaction to Reagan’s popularity, while never, ever figuring it out. Reagan was as passionately hated by the left as Obama is by the right…and it got us absolutely nowhere.
They truly are just throwing up on the wall and hoping something sticks. Everyone is ignoring them except the companies who sell commercials for 24 hour news. (Notice their ratings are way down too). We’ve got too many problems to worry about BS, and 90% of Americans realize the Limbaugh set has nothing more to offer them.
“Liberal” doesn’t work anymore; “Socialist” and “Fascist” were tried (and these are the people who complain about our schools?)…”gay-bashing” is losing steam. They have no ideas, and yet their masters require them to get elected so as to deliver cash to the masters’ companies…you could almost feel bad for them if they weren’t such awful people.
It is not so much that Fox had much to do with engendering these so-called tea parties but how, in general, they worked them up and how they are using the tea parties I knew that Fox had nothing to do with the Vermont bash, and also knew that Fox tried to tank Ron Paul, as the big money was going to and coming from McCain/Palin and Fox always listens to the big money. Paul was, perhaps, too conservative for them or else he did not preach the correct line as the gop and company wanted. In any case, Obama is president and Paul never got far with his campaign.
I was glad that you and the other organizers hate neoconservatives. I was glad you interviewed Charlotte Dennet on your show. Bush is a murderer. Being a socialist:) I am not especially fond of neo-conservatives either and have found it quite difficult to associate neo or conservatism with this thing called freedom, whatever it is, and the tea partiers did not add any change this.
whoops that was “to this.”
Who is buying this line of crap.
I will agree there are racists out there and they hate Obama, but thees jackasses hated him before he was president.
I dislike Obama because of his political philosophy, not his skin color.
I also dislike Hilary, so I must be a male chauvinistic pig?
I also dislike Bill Lippert, so I must be homophobic?
Next time you appose anyone who has a different view point than you, you need to be careful because if they are different that you (race, color, creed, sex) you probably have a deep seeded hatred for that persons genetic make up.
Before you blast me, I believe that I need to disclose that I am 1/4 American Indian. If you disagree with me or my views , you must hate one of the most abused groups of people in the history of this country.
Well, I am glad that Fox news had nothing to do with Vt’s little tea party fiesta. Fox has certainly trumpeted the tea party line, though not in Vermont (I do not have a television, but visit their site a bit to read their version of the news and saw no other mention of Vermont other than that a party was happening here), whether or not they had anything to do with starting them.
It was also refreshing that you and the other partiers “hate neoconservatives,” though I was wondering how neo neo was since the partiers were all out there screaming against liberals and socialists. As a liberal and a socialist it was rather fun to be the marked one out there, though I could not get there early enough to really get into it.
Which bridges are you bridging versus which ones are you blowing up:)?
Jessica, I was actually amused at the situation. I hold my own and then some in good-humored verbal scraps all the time over a few beers with tea partiers, or tea party sympathizers, and neo-conservatives as well. I am even the sole liberal in some really conservative blogs. If anyone had said something to make my ears bleed their ears would have bled just as much in return, so I was not worried about it. Being in the enemie’s camp so-to-speak, I would have expected those reactions and signs:) If I had been able to get there earlier it would have been even more fun:)