Why I love Ta-Nehisi Coates

On the Lunatic Right:

Leaving aside political cynicism, this entire affair proves that the GOP is not simply still infected with the vestiges of white supremacy and racism, but is neither aware of the infection, nor understands the disease. Listening to Liz Cheney explain why Harry Reid's comments were racist, was like listening to me give lessons on the finer points of the comma splice. This a party, rightly or wrongly, regarded by significant portions of the country as a haven for racists. They aren't simply having a hard time re-branding, they don't actually understand how and why they got the tag.

These guys are lost. But Michael Steele's "off the hook" strategy will, presumably, point the way back. Not for nothing, I offer the wise and venerable words of my people: Negro, please.

Right-Wing Racism

Here, right here, besides a wryly droll picture, we have a post that distills the true nature of the American Right -- the reason so many of us dislike and distrust it so deeply, as well.

People who lived in freer societies (little or no slavery) with more democratic governments (annually elected local officials) were more comfortable with taxation than people who lived in less free societies (lots of slavery) with less democratic governments (appointed local officials). Liberty and democracy actually produced better and higher taxes in early American history!

During winter break, I spent some time with my family, during which I did my very best not to get in any fist-fights.  This is difficult, as I am, as readers of this blog know, an atheist and a socialist, and many of my relatives are fairly far to the right, not to mention fucking Christians -- or, even, those who aren't fucking a Christian, Christians themselves.  It's a dread neighborhood.

But I drank a certain amount of rum and bit hard on my tongue and behaved.  No, really, I did.

It was only this one incident....one conversation...where I was informed that certain relatives of mine using the n-word, that was no different that me and my friends using the f-word.  Just a difference in fashion, see?  It was the fashion in my circle to say fuck, and it was the fashion in that other circle to call people n*gg*rs and what was the difference?  Nothing, and I was an idiot if I thought otherwise.

I recollect a time when my kid was a toddler, when one of my brothers said fuck around her.  "Oops," he said.  "I guess I shouldn't say the f-word around your kid."

"Say fuck all you like around her," I said.  "Just don't say the n-word around her."

Because there is a difference, frankly, between these two words, and it has nothing to do with fashion, though yes, it does have to do with the ethics and the mores of the two social circles.  I don't deny that.

One circle -- that would be mine -- has stopped fretting about using words that are marked as vulgar due to class.  These would be words like shit and fuck.  They also don't worry about words that are marked as obscene for religious reasons.

The other circle would never use low-class words like fuck, though I imagine they might say shit if pressed.  Probably they don't take Jesus's name in vain.  Laws no. But racist words are dandy.  God, you see, outranks them.  Brown people are below them.  It's all status to this lot, I suppose.

This is why I believe they're wrong: they're creating harm in the world with their racist epithets.  When they use those terms, they teach their children, and each other, that (brown) people have less value than other people: that it's all right to denigrate them.  Each time they use these terms, they devalue the common humanity of their fellow humans a bit more -- I know probably they don't actually believe black and brown people are human; not they way they are human and their children are human; but this is why they don't believe it: because they talk this way, and were raised and encouraged to talk this way.  That is what is wrong with that sort of speech.

Anyway.  I didn't launch into this diatribe at the time, as much as I wanted to, because, well, what would have been the point?  And I didn't want a fight.  But I've been sulled up about it since, so.

So y'all had to listen to it, like you need to hear it, I know.

Gah.

Punked

This is funny.

A young man calling himself “Robert Erickson” stood up at a teabagger rally that was organized to protest immigration, and made an anti-immigration speech.  He baited the audience with boilerplate nonsense about immigrants taking jobs and bringing crime, and then he started to tip his hand when he indicated that they also bring disease, namely small pox...then he led the crowd in chants of "Columbus, Go Home!"

Here in Pork Smith, as in much of the South, where the myth of Liberal Revisionism Rides high, it's a big deal in our elementary schools to push Columbus and his "vision" and the "real" story of Thanksgiving and all the rest of teh Red State mythos about America.  

(Hell, for awhile our school, which you'll remember is a Montessori school, where I pay way too much of my own money to have the kid indoctrinated in liberal values, was singing that appalling Lee Greenwood song in music class -- the one with the lines about thanking God he's an American, where at least he knows he's free?  The kid hated it for many reasons, but first and foremost because, as she kept pointing out to the music teacher, it started with the lines "if I had to start again with just my children and my wife," which, as she told the teacher, was sexist. [No, I did not tell her it was sexist, she figured it out on her own.]  It's just a song, the teacher kept telling her, and she kept reporting this reply to me, and I kept telling her to complain again, because nothing is just a song.)

Where was I?

Oh, yes, Columbus.  Well, we don't hate on Columbus, here in this socialist household, but I do point out to the kid that Columbus did not, in fact, discover America; that plenty of people were here when Columbus arrived, including many of her own ancestors; and that those ancestors were, many of them, damaged by the arrival of the Europeans.  

Then she goes to school, where her teacher will not allow this reading of history at all -- Columbus found America, don't speak about the Native Americans, or the South American indigenous people and what happened down there, that is not the point of the lesson.  The point of the lesson is to talk about the great things Columbus did.

Since we've raised the kid to argue (well, she's a Jewish kid, her job is to argue, as we often tell her) this does not sit well.

So I reckon she'll like this story.

Look! More Conservative Respect For Women!

Ah, I can't even work up a comment about this one.  Gah.

streiff: I was an evaluator on a live fire exercise back in 84 when a herd of free range cattle moped into the impact area and about 200 troops decided they were much more fun to shoot at than 55-gal drums filled with dirt. I wish I had pictures of the outcome of that because that is what her photo op is like

Neil Stevens: Streiff: You aren’t comparing Dede with a cow are you? Because that wouldn’t be right. 

streiff: actually, I was thinking of one particular cow that had a rear leg chopped off by an M-60 machinegun

…no, that image wasn’t pretty: then again, neither was this

Most people realize that everything these guys say about feminism is bullshit, but it never hurts to be reminded.

Oh, yes: and notice that these tools respect our troops just about as much as they respect women. 

Scum.

Peak Wingnut?

I begin to think Peak Wingnut is an impossibility.

Jeezus.

This is not, apparently, a spoof, either. It's an actual, for reals, site.

You can't even make fun of the Looney Right anymore. Just too sick.

(More here.)

What's Wrong With Our Press?

It's on a leash, that's what.

Exhibit One: Glenn Beck. Way too many people in this country are starting to think this whackjob makes sense, and articles like the recent loony bit in Times explain why.

No, Not Racist

Really, it's all they have left.

Here is the story Drudge is pushing and the Right-Wing (which, in case you need reminding is not racist, no, no, no!) is buying with big wide eyes and  both hands: this home-schooling, charming family of Xtians in Akron, Ohio, who were off at a 4th of July Celebration, Celebratin' teh Freedom, as they manage to make clear about 15 times in this here news clip, claim that on the way home from their 4th of July Freedom Celebratin' they got Attacked by...a Black Mob.

Fifty! Black! Kids!

Yeah, you heard it right.  And they were, like, yelling, "It's a Black World!"

And they punched and kicked Daddy in the head and when sweet 90 pound daughter sprang to his defense, they knocked her down and kicked her too!

Daddy says he spent five nights in intensive care!  That's how badly he was beaten.

Yet you'll notice in the news clip...hmmm....no bruises on any of them?  Not a nick or a scratch?  Nor, well, jeez...none of them look particularly upset?

Also, they claim they were coming to the aid of a threatened buddy, yet the buddy isn't here to say, yeah, it happened just that way?

Anything seem odd about this story to you?

Me, too.  But not to the Right-Wing, who are all, oooo, wooo, those Black People!  How come no one calls this a Hate Crime?  See, See, see!  Just what we've been SAYING!  They're roaming the streets in MOBS!

And BTW

Stuff like this is really getting on my last nerve.

(Not the LGM response, but Megan's spew that prompted it.)

Anti-Choice Wingers love to compare the battle over the right to choice to slavery, which, you know, it sort of it, but not the way they think.  They've got some weird knot in their head where the fetuses are slaves in this analogy (how? What? whose selling those fetus down what river and exploiting them where, now?) and what they never do seem to see is the real exploitation and enslavement: the woman, whose body gets owned, if they have their way, not just for nine months, but often for the rest of her life.

Clearly, though, for that nine months: if the right-wing forced birthers have their way, the woman is enslaved, by them and the state: forced, by the state, to bear a child for the state.

I believe this is both immoral and illegal, under our laws.

I believe even a right-wing Christian could see that, if he or she could first see a woman as a human being: which, of course, he (and she) never actually can.

That's the root of the problem. I guess you know who I blame.

WTF

Some time ago I had a commenter take me to task because I seemed to be implying, with my tea bag posts, that many Republicans were racist and sexist.

Geez, don't know why I would think that.

And last night, on Bill Maher, I don't know if you saw this one: John Bolton claiming that Sotomayor violated her oath -- she says, after all, that her life and her history and her ethnic background has an influence on what she thinks, how she decides things.  The oath, Bolton tells us, pompously reading it aloud for the ignorant masses who don't know what the oath says, clearly says one does not distinguish between rich and poor, one class or the other: Justice must be blind!

Hill Harper took exception to this interpretation of the circumstances; as did Maher, who pointed out, reading from a citation he had ready, that Justice John Roberts had, in his decisions, sided with the corporations, with the prosecutors, with the state -- in other words, with the patriarchial, white male side, his culture's side -- in every single decision he had made.

Zoomed right over Bolton's head.  See, that's not cultural bias, because white guys don't have cultural bias.  White guys are the culture.  Only people that aren't white guys have cultural bias.

It's like the white hegemonic argument that is getting made over there at RaceFail: we don't want to read SF where the story/characters are all concerned with race or sex, the (white hegemonic male straight) folk are saying.  We just want a good story!

A good story about a white male hegemonic straight culture, doing things of interest to white male hegemonic straight people -- because that's the real culture, those are real people.  That's the only unmarked state, that's the only real POV, to someone like Bolton, and the other Republican, Heather Wilson, who was much more polite, but was saying the same thing.

This came out when Maher brought up Proposition Eight.

Why, he asked, should the religion be involved the business part of marriage at all?  It should, he said, obvious be a civil matter.  The religious part should be entirely separate.  

Heather Wilson came up with a sweet little Right-Wing talking point, which she had obviously used before: "Because," she said, "though we are not all a faithful people, we are all people of faith."

She was going to go on, but Maher, and this is why I keep watching him even though he gets on my nerves sometimes, cut her off: "I'm not," he said.

This unnerved her.  "Well," she said, and was quiet.  Obviously, this line had always worked before -- what to do when it didn't.  After a second she said, "Most of..."

"I'm not," he repeated, "and plenty of America is like me.  More and more."

(I can't find a transcript -- here's his page, maybe you can -- so I'm working from memory.)

"Well," she said again.  "Most Americans--"

"I just don't think you can say we all are," he said.  "We aren't all."

"I am," she said, sweetly, bravely, standing up to the infidel.  "And I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman."

"All right," Maher said, and moved on -- nicely, I thought, instead of pointing out to her, as he might have, that that was all very well, but the country was founded precisely so that she could believe what she wanted, and do what she wanted in her own personal life, not so that she could impose her religious beliefs on the rest of us.

I mean, I'm an atheist.  I don't insist she raise her kids as atheists, do I?  Even though I do think they'd be better off that way?  (And I do, in fact.)

My point -- and I do have one -- is that Wilson and Bolton both have been marked by their culture and their race.  That they don't recognize that flat truth does, in fact, make them less wise as well as less able to make good decisions than Sotomayor, or any other person, of color or otherwise, who is minimally self-aware and introspective.

Sorry.  It just does.

PS/Update: Oh, I forgot the funniest bit of Bill Maher last night: how neither John Bolton nor Wilson would speak against the Sainted Rush Limbaugh when Maher asked them to!  Maher, citing how looney Limbaugh's side of the Republican Party had become, and then mentioning what Colin Powell was trying to do -- create a more sane branch for balance -- asked Bolton and Wilson whether they thought Limbaugh or Powell was the better approach, and neither would say a word against the Great and Powerful Limbaugh.  No! No! One does not take the Name of Rush in Vain!

Hee!  These people are such tools.

Oh, well, okay

Bush is the Law.  Glad to have that cleared up!

Over here, Condi Rice explains to a student (whom she spends some time lecturing about his ignorance -- do your homework, do some reading, dear, she says, before you come talking to me) that anything George W. says goes.

You see, Ms. Rice explains to us peons who have not done our homework and have no idea what the pressure was there at the top during all those rough days after 9-11 (shit am I sick of hearing them play the 9-11 card): You see, if George W. says it isn't torture?  Well, then it ain't torture.

So just sit down and shut up.

Please ship me a railway car full of bleach now

I need to scrub out my brain.

So will you if you go read the comments on the piece of written by York, which I linked to yesterday, the one where he slips up and shows the real worldview of white male privilege in America (black folks shouldn't count, given that they aren't actually human, just like women aren't).

What is sickeningly ironic, and I mean the sickening bit literally, is the commenters who claim that racism is dead, even as they spout the most racist filth I have read in, well, years.

Living in the Academy has, apparently, protected me from some evil.  

God, these people are scum.  

Ooo! Banned!

I've been banned by RightWingI'mMissingASparkPlug!

Just because I questioned her morals when she posted this, where she suggests that Jesus kills Mexicans to put Obama in his place. Odd how those on the Right can't take anyone who talks back, isn't it? Their kids they just bat around until they shut up. Prisoners, they torture. I guess I'm lucky I just got banned. So much for the Marketplace of Ideas.

But never mind her! Look here! Hannity has offered to be waterboarded for charity! Let's all give him all our nickels! Hey! It's for the Troops!

It's just LIKE being on the Swim Team...

Waterboarding, say the Torture Apologists on the Right, is just like joining the swim team.  Or watching a speech in the rain, or bobbing for apples, or sixteen other things.

Over on No More Mr. Nice Blog he's linked the famous Hitchens' clip again, the one where Christopher Hitchens agrees to be waterboarded, to find out if it's actually torture.

Go watch that puppy and talk to me about how it's just like playing in your daddy's hose in the backyard and so how is that torture, exactly?  

Okay, Just So I'm Clear

What's Okay With The Right-Wing 24%ers (or is it 19%ers now?):

• Torturing prisoners for bogus information
  
• Starting Wars Against Populations that Have Not Attacked us for No Good Reason
• Beating children (but only if they have it coming)
• Beating or raping women (only if they ask for it)
• Forced Pregnancy (only for sluts)
• Depriving Women of the Franchise
• Shooting Black People (Only if the Shooting is a Police)
• Depriving Poor Children of Health Insurance

What is Not Okay With the Right-Wing 24%ers

• Raising the tax rate on those making more that $250,000 by 3%
  
• Keeping the Estate Tax for those leaving more than seven million dollars behind
• Helping out families about to lose their homes by giving them some help with their mortgage payments
• Electing a black guy to be President, especially if his middle name is Hussein
• Muslims

Okay, then.

Who Knew?

Ellen Degeneres hates America!

Details here.

(Via Pandagon)

Now What Now?

I can't help it, this cracks me up.

(Via Pharyngula)

I'm always telling students in Arkansas that the U.S. really has two major competing religions, Christianity and Capitalism, which wholly contradict each other, and that this is why we're a fucked country, which is when they start howling at me -- nuh-uh, nuh-uh, we don't worship money, we don't, and anyway, it's nothing WRONG with being rich, God wants us to improve ourselves (cause getting rich is improving yourself, dude) --

But this!

Here is a quotation from the charming woman who called for Christians to pray at at the golden bull, btw, and save all of America's fatted money:

On September 29 last month, the US stock market went down 777 points in one day. Cindy says it was no coincidence that this happened on the first day of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah.

“This is so severe in the economic area because we are facing judgment from the actions, not only for our stance towards Israel, but our blatant sin against Him in passing laws such as the one allowing homosexual marriages,” Cindy said.

Well, okay then. So long as it's also about hatin on the Jews and the Gays.

Good News Again!

I've been off working on my portfolio -- I'm going up for promotion to Associate Professor, which is actually sort of interesting and almost fun, albeit a ton of work. It involves getting together everything I have done for the past six years, and writing "narratives" for the promotion committee about how I teach and how I "innovate" in the classroom, explaining my assignments and how I respond to assessments that show my teaching isn't working -- anyway, it's turning out to be cool, since I get to talk (write) about what I like best, teaching and how it works, only, yikes, exhausting?

And everything has to be documented.

And put in a binder, which requires operating a three-hole punch.

And tidy. I could be better at tidy.

And it's due November 1.

So I've been occupied.

But here is some good news I have found for you: although it did not look like good news at first, since you'll see at the opening that it confirms more Right-Wing Religious Parents indoctrinating their kids against science/evolution (evil-ution, as my students often spell it); but look how the instructors are dealing with the problem: wisely!

A few years ago, Pratt started holding meetings – open to parents, students, church members and others – to address their questions about evolution. She holds the annual session a few weeks before she begins the unit and gets about 200 people.

“It used to be that the whole unit was a struggle, and we were butting heads,” Pratt said. “This meeting helps everyone understand that science teachers are not the enemy. Now, the kids are showing up ready to learn about evolution.”

Other teachers said they try to fix students’ misconceptions. They explain how humans and apes share a common ancestor that no longer exists, not that humans and apes evolved from one another. They say that while “theory” may describe a hunch in everyday language, in science it is defined as an explanation supported by factual evidence to describe events that occur in our world.

That's how our side wins: enlightenment.

Their side has fear and ignorance. Our side has education. We will always win in the end. (Well, that's my hope, at least.)

Ah Reality

So in my comp class this morning, where I was teaching grammar and format, how important it was to run the spell-check and be certain you have checked for run-on sentences and haven't misused semi-colons, all of that, before you submitted a paper --

"Why?" I asked.

I always ask this. I want them to think about why surface errors matter. "Certainly it matters if you have an excellent thesis and excellent arguments and you support those arguments with lots of solid sources. But suppose you do all that, and then your paper is riddled with lousy spelling and you've got two misconstructed sentences in the first paragraph and you can't manage to use semi-colons correctly. What happens to your reader? What's he do, twenty words into your argument?"

"He decides you're an idiot and quits reading," says my football player from the back row.

"Absolutely," I agree. "It's like if you show up for the job interview in cut off jeans and a nose ring and your hair stick up all over your head -- well, does it matter how many degrees you have or how qualified you are?"

My very intelligent but home-schooled student in the front row raised his hand. "How you explain, then," he asked, "how well John McCain is doing? Considering he's not that articulate, and he doesn't speak nearly as well as Obama? Why is he doing so well in this election?"

I stared at him, bemused. Then I glanced around the classroom. Then I looked back at him. "Well," I said, gently, "he's not, is he? The latest polls have him down what, fourteen points? He's at 38%? That's not so good."

He gave me the bemused look I had just given him. That couldn't be right, could it?

"Anyway," I said, "that's not really the scope of this class..."

And I moved them on.

But apparently, in the world these folk live in, McCain is doing well -- even winning the election.

It's that Republican Alt.world again.

Yay McCain!

A Racist Tool in Kentucky has hanged Obama in effigy, with a Star of David spray-painted on his head. Though he declines to be interviewed on camera, he says flat-out to the reporters that he has done this because he doesn't want a black guy to be leading his country.

And in school yesterday, as has frequently happened over the past weeks, my daughter had to hear about how Obama wasn't an acceptable candidate because he wasn't a Christian.

She's ten, you know, and she's tough, but she's being driven to the brink: she shouted at the punk who came up with this argument that first, yes, Obama is a Christian, and that second, dude, not everyone in America is a Christian -- for instance, hey, Jew here?

Her friends supported her. They got told not to gang up on the poor punk.

Yes, see, because that's mean. That's persecuting the poor Christians.

We can't have that.