THE RACE ISSUE: VOLUME 12, ISSUE 22
WORLD PIG BAIT
by Malik Isasis
Evan Thomas, a Newsweek writer, stated in his cover article “Memo to Obama” that “race is difficult to talk and write about”. This was his opening sentence, which set the tone for the rest of the article. Race is difficult to talk about, for white folks. Political hacks like Thomas and his ilk are always projecting and displacing their difficulties with white supremacy, constantly, and annoyingly trying to normalize the notion that it universal to feel uncomfortable to discuss racial matters.
If Thomas were to stand up straight so that his head would pop out of his ass, he’d notice that it isn’t difficult at all, for neither whites, nor blacks to discuss race. Lou Dobbs over at CNN as well as others, has made it a personal crusade to use the broadcast airwaves to spread fear of a Mexican conspiracy to over take America; and over at Fox News where on a daily basis blacks, Muslims and Arabs are caricaturized for public consumption, as grounds for discrediting their political views, wholesale.
Whites folks don’t have a problem with race when it is they, who are framing the debate. Like this “Memo to Obama” tripe. When black folk or other People of Color are framing the white supremacy debate that's when “race is difficult to talk and write about.”
Thomas like his brethren has put the problem of white supremacy on the backs of brown and black folk. It is somehow our fault that poor whites do not like us; folks like Thomas like to ignore the elephant in the room by ignoring the corporate media’s, Republicans’ and Democrats’ roles in flaming the xenophobic nature of white fright with daily dehumanization campaigns of job-stealing Mexicans, violent and oversexed blacks, and barbaric Arabs and Muslims.
Thomas says of Obama “The good news is that you have all but won the nomination. The bad news, if we are willing to face reality, is that the country—some parts of it, anyway—may not be ready to elect a black president of the United States. It is hard to get a precise fix on the problem.” The precise fix on the problem is the corporate media’s and politicians’ coddling of the white supremacist philosophy of people in the Deep South, and Rust Belt of America.
Legitimizing Bigotry
Thomas’ analysis is shit paper.
But the message of change, of a new world order, is unsettling to some voters, particularly older ones. Far from Appalachia, there are some disturbing pockets of fearfulness. A New York Times front-page story last week was headlined AS OBAMA HEADS TO FLORIDA, MANY OF ITS JEWS HAVE DOUBTS. Some whom the Times interviewed suspected that Obama was not sufficiently pro-Israel, while others mentioned the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. fiasco or Michelle Obama's remark that your electoral success made her "for the first time" in her life "really proud" of her country. The article quoted Ruth Grossman, the 80-year-old resident of a gated community, saying, "They'll pick on the minister thing, they'll pick on the wife, but the major issue is color." Grossman told the Times she is thinking of voting for Obama, but said, "I keep my mouth shut." True, only 5 percent of Florida voters are Jewish. But you need them: while Clinton currently leads McCain in Florida, you trail him.
A part of becoming a national figure in politics is kissing the ring of Israel. One has to prove him or herself to be a loyalist to Israel and all of Israel’s policies in the Middle East. The idea of being a loyalist or be marginalized (in many cases, facing a fierce campaign by the Israel Lobby) is unbelievable to me and should be disturbing to any American.
What Thomas does in this paragraph is place blame on the person who is the recipient of white supremacist attacks and for Thomas to suggest that Obama submit to an ideology of moral superiority puts an extraordinary burden on the victim rather than the perpetrator. But this is how white supremacy works, those who are not white must satisfy an irrational fear and mistrust in the white populace before they are blessed with being legitimate. Black and brown fear is often met with skepticism and charges of race baiting, or paranoia. Since there is a false sense of superiority, ideology outside of white supremacy is irrelevant.
Put on your goulashes, I’m getting ready to walk you through more bullshit…
Still, telling your story can be a little difficult. The fact is, your father's family was Kenyan; you grew up, in part, abroad in Indonesia (and Hawaii, which is a foreign land to some), and you went to Harvard…
Again, the burden is being placed on Obama to tell Americans that he is indeed an American. Does a white person have to pass a loyalty test when running for higher office? Did Arnold Schwarzenegger have to prove his mettle? Was his patriotism questioned?
The corporate media and political elites such as Thomas love to put poor Working Class ® whites on a pedestal, massaging their ignorance and lack of education by putting down the education of others so that it provides political cover for conservatives to call progressives elitists and Out-of-touch ®. Being ignorant is nothing to be proud of, but it is the key to why Republicans consistently win the South and Rust belt parts of this country. Working Class ® whites are bitter about their situation and have been taught to blame brown and blacks rather than the real culprits. Therefore, they vote with arrogance against their own interests to stick it to those blacks.
“It is hard to get a precise fix on the problem” says Thomas. No, it’s not hard, just pop your head out of your ass, and maybe—just maybe you’ll get a more precise fix on the problem.
Whites resent being accused of racism for remarks they regard as innocent or innocuous. It's hard to think of what would turn off whites quicker than playing the thin-skinned victim. One of the strengths of your campaign has been to get past the old-style politics practiced by the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and other "race men" who use skin color as a political tool.
Whites resent being accused of racism for remarks they regard as innocent or innocuous, huh? Blacks hate being shot 50 fucking times for acts that they regard as innocent or innocuous. Or how bout this: Iraqi civilians hate having their limbs melted and fused, or mutilated by white phosphorus weapons for acts that they regard as innocent or innocuous.
Just as every white political operative and hack, Thomas couldn’t go too long without evoking Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. It is what people like Thomas do to discredit black people wholesale. Discredit their leaders, and you discredit their grievances, right Thomas? Conservatives to muzzle Obama are playing this strategy of praising him for being unlike Civil Rights leaders of the past. It is a polite threat. It doesn’t take much for the corporate media, conservatives and so-called progressive writers and commentators to show their contempt toward political and Civil Rights activists. The media has anointed Sharpton and Jackson leaders of the American Negro, ergo; they serve as the firewall for black America, absorbing the corporate media’s vitriolic contempt toward blacks in this country.
The rage projected onto Sharpton and Jackson in the media is laser-focused contempt from the corporate and government institutions toward African Americans. When the corporate shills dismiss, discredit and marginalize Sharpton and Jackson, it is because they believe they represent black thought.
You need an issue that plays against prejudice or typecasting. Affirmative action is deeply unpopular with white, working-class voters who see African-Americans bestowed with privileges long denied poor whites. You've suggested—obliquely, but nonetheless provocatively—that you might prefer seeing affirmative action for disadvantaged whites rather than black elites, noting that you wouldn't expect your private-school-educated daughters to need an admissions break at college. Taking a stand for affirmative action based on socioeconomic class rather than race would send a powerful signal.
Affirmative Action came about as a result of 400 years of American slavery and apartheid, it is a poor and inadequate way to address the four-century head start white folks got on black folks. Affirmative Action has failed as a corrective action against centuries of genocide, apartheid and dehumanization because a large portion of the black population is still living in developing world conditions.
Thomas continues to perpetuate the idea of blacks and browns taking away opportunities from poor whites, when in reality, blacks and browns ABSOLUTELY have no access to the political infrastructure, banking and financial infrastructure, or military infrastructure to take things away from white folks. A large portion of blacks are still stooped in poverty too, attending poor schools and have very little chance of going to college. The game he is playing here is Divide and Conquer. Let’s have the poor people in general, fight over a small piece of the pie. The state of black people in America was witnessed during Hurricane Katrina. Black folks sure looked upwardly mobile when they were drowning and climbing the roofs of houses to save their lives.
Thomas should have addressed Corporate Affirmative Action. He didn't because he is a corporatist. He should have addressed the corporate subsidies that take things away from poor whites, like factories.
Thomas is the scariest type of white supremacist because he sees himself as thoughtful, and maybe even progressive, but he believes his gospel and is blinded by his own false sense of superiority. His memo to Obama is nothing short of racist dribble, with no advice for the working white poor, who really should bare the burden of their condition, which is to take responsibility for their own failures, stop displacing their anger and self reflect on the Republican Party’s objective, which is to keep them poor and angry so that they can use them just as they have for the last 40 years.
Working Class White Voter your real grievances are the policies that keep you from earning a livable wage, having health insurance, an inability to afford gas…black and brown people have nothing to do with any of those things. Corporate America, Republicans and Corporate Democrats are the reason for your condition.
WORLD PIG BAIT
by Malik Isasis
Evan Thomas, a Newsweek writer, stated in his cover article “Memo to Obama” that “race is difficult to talk and write about”. This was his opening sentence, which set the tone for the rest of the article. Race is difficult to talk about, for white folks. Political hacks like Thomas and his ilk are always projecting and displacing their difficulties with white supremacy, constantly, and annoyingly trying to normalize the notion that it universal to feel uncomfortable to discuss racial matters.
If Thomas were to stand up straight so that his head would pop out of his ass, he’d notice that it isn’t difficult at all, for neither whites, nor blacks to discuss race. Lou Dobbs over at CNN as well as others, has made it a personal crusade to use the broadcast airwaves to spread fear of a Mexican conspiracy to over take America; and over at Fox News where on a daily basis blacks, Muslims and Arabs are caricaturized for public consumption, as grounds for discrediting their political views, wholesale.
Whites folks don’t have a problem with race when it is they, who are framing the debate. Like this “Memo to Obama” tripe. When black folk or other People of Color are framing the white supremacy debate that's when “race is difficult to talk and write about.”
Thomas like his brethren has put the problem of white supremacy on the backs of brown and black folk. It is somehow our fault that poor whites do not like us; folks like Thomas like to ignore the elephant in the room by ignoring the corporate media’s, Republicans’ and Democrats’ roles in flaming the xenophobic nature of white fright with daily dehumanization campaigns of job-stealing Mexicans, violent and oversexed blacks, and barbaric Arabs and Muslims.
Thomas says of Obama “The good news is that you have all but won the nomination. The bad news, if we are willing to face reality, is that the country—some parts of it, anyway—may not be ready to elect a black president of the United States. It is hard to get a precise fix on the problem.” The precise fix on the problem is the corporate media’s and politicians’ coddling of the white supremacist philosophy of people in the Deep South, and Rust Belt of America.
Legitimizing Bigotry
Thomas’ analysis is shit paper.
But the message of change, of a new world order, is unsettling to some voters, particularly older ones. Far from Appalachia, there are some disturbing pockets of fearfulness. A New York Times front-page story last week was headlined AS OBAMA HEADS TO FLORIDA, MANY OF ITS JEWS HAVE DOUBTS. Some whom the Times interviewed suspected that Obama was not sufficiently pro-Israel, while others mentioned the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. fiasco or Michelle Obama's remark that your electoral success made her "for the first time" in her life "really proud" of her country. The article quoted Ruth Grossman, the 80-year-old resident of a gated community, saying, "They'll pick on the minister thing, they'll pick on the wife, but the major issue is color." Grossman told the Times she is thinking of voting for Obama, but said, "I keep my mouth shut." True, only 5 percent of Florida voters are Jewish. But you need them: while Clinton currently leads McCain in Florida, you trail him.
A part of becoming a national figure in politics is kissing the ring of Israel. One has to prove him or herself to be a loyalist to Israel and all of Israel’s policies in the Middle East. The idea of being a loyalist or be marginalized (in many cases, facing a fierce campaign by the Israel Lobby) is unbelievable to me and should be disturbing to any American.
What Thomas does in this paragraph is place blame on the person who is the recipient of white supremacist attacks and for Thomas to suggest that Obama submit to an ideology of moral superiority puts an extraordinary burden on the victim rather than the perpetrator. But this is how white supremacy works, those who are not white must satisfy an irrational fear and mistrust in the white populace before they are blessed with being legitimate. Black and brown fear is often met with skepticism and charges of race baiting, or paranoia. Since there is a false sense of superiority, ideology outside of white supremacy is irrelevant.
Put on your goulashes, I’m getting ready to walk you through more bullshit…
Still, telling your story can be a little difficult. The fact is, your father's family was Kenyan; you grew up, in part, abroad in Indonesia (and Hawaii, which is a foreign land to some), and you went to Harvard…
Again, the burden is being placed on Obama to tell Americans that he is indeed an American. Does a white person have to pass a loyalty test when running for higher office? Did Arnold Schwarzenegger have to prove his mettle? Was his patriotism questioned?
The corporate media and political elites such as Thomas love to put poor Working Class ® whites on a pedestal, massaging their ignorance and lack of education by putting down the education of others so that it provides political cover for conservatives to call progressives elitists and Out-of-touch ®. Being ignorant is nothing to be proud of, but it is the key to why Republicans consistently win the South and Rust belt parts of this country. Working Class ® whites are bitter about their situation and have been taught to blame brown and blacks rather than the real culprits. Therefore, they vote with arrogance against their own interests to stick it to those blacks.
“It is hard to get a precise fix on the problem” says Thomas. No, it’s not hard, just pop your head out of your ass, and maybe—just maybe you’ll get a more precise fix on the problem.
Whites resent being accused of racism for remarks they regard as innocent or innocuous. It's hard to think of what would turn off whites quicker than playing the thin-skinned victim. One of the strengths of your campaign has been to get past the old-style politics practiced by the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and other "race men" who use skin color as a political tool.
Whites resent being accused of racism for remarks they regard as innocent or innocuous, huh? Blacks hate being shot 50 fucking times for acts that they regard as innocent or innocuous. Or how bout this: Iraqi civilians hate having their limbs melted and fused, or mutilated by white phosphorus weapons for acts that they regard as innocent or innocuous.
Just as every white political operative and hack, Thomas couldn’t go too long without evoking Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. It is what people like Thomas do to discredit black people wholesale. Discredit their leaders, and you discredit their grievances, right Thomas? Conservatives to muzzle Obama are playing this strategy of praising him for being unlike Civil Rights leaders of the past. It is a polite threat. It doesn’t take much for the corporate media, conservatives and so-called progressive writers and commentators to show their contempt toward political and Civil Rights activists. The media has anointed Sharpton and Jackson leaders of the American Negro, ergo; they serve as the firewall for black America, absorbing the corporate media’s vitriolic contempt toward blacks in this country.
The rage projected onto Sharpton and Jackson in the media is laser-focused contempt from the corporate and government institutions toward African Americans. When the corporate shills dismiss, discredit and marginalize Sharpton and Jackson, it is because they believe they represent black thought.
You need an issue that plays against prejudice or typecasting. Affirmative action is deeply unpopular with white, working-class voters who see African-Americans bestowed with privileges long denied poor whites. You've suggested—obliquely, but nonetheless provocatively—that you might prefer seeing affirmative action for disadvantaged whites rather than black elites, noting that you wouldn't expect your private-school-educated daughters to need an admissions break at college. Taking a stand for affirmative action based on socioeconomic class rather than race would send a powerful signal.
Affirmative Action came about as a result of 400 years of American slavery and apartheid, it is a poor and inadequate way to address the four-century head start white folks got on black folks. Affirmative Action has failed as a corrective action against centuries of genocide, apartheid and dehumanization because a large portion of the black population is still living in developing world conditions.
Thomas continues to perpetuate the idea of blacks and browns taking away opportunities from poor whites, when in reality, blacks and browns ABSOLUTELY have no access to the political infrastructure, banking and financial infrastructure, or military infrastructure to take things away from white folks. A large portion of blacks are still stooped in poverty too, attending poor schools and have very little chance of going to college. The game he is playing here is Divide and Conquer. Let’s have the poor people in general, fight over a small piece of the pie. The state of black people in America was witnessed during Hurricane Katrina. Black folks sure looked upwardly mobile when they were drowning and climbing the roofs of houses to save their lives.
Thomas should have addressed Corporate Affirmative Action. He didn't because he is a corporatist. He should have addressed the corporate subsidies that take things away from poor whites, like factories.
Thomas is the scariest type of white supremacist because he sees himself as thoughtful, and maybe even progressive, but he believes his gospel and is blinded by his own false sense of superiority. His memo to Obama is nothing short of racist dribble, with no advice for the working white poor, who really should bare the burden of their condition, which is to take responsibility for their own failures, stop displacing their anger and self reflect on the Republican Party’s objective, which is to keep them poor and angry so that they can use them just as they have for the last 40 years.
Working Class White Voter your real grievances are the policies that keep you from earning a livable wage, having health insurance, an inability to afford gas…black and brown people have nothing to do with any of those things. Corporate America, Republicans and Corporate Democrats are the reason for your condition.
posted by Malik Isasis at
12:12 AM
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