Tavis Smiley's Criticism Comes Across As Petty

Tavis Smiley

It seems clear now ... the ego has landed.

Tavis Smiley may have some legitimate beefs with President Obama and his policies, but his arguments are lost in a storm of egomania.

Smiley, in his media tour with noted scholar Cornell West taking shots at President Obama, offered this beauty during criticism of President Obama:

“Once he got elected and my critique of him about holding him accountable to various things didn’t sit so well with him or the people around him, he has not at this point come on my TV or radio programs one time since he’s been in the White House. This is the first president in my professional career that hasn’t invited me to the White House.”

Smiley, who has a long history of taking shots of Barack Obama, has to be better than this kind of seemingly petty criticism. One of the reasons he has to be better is that one of the primary criticisms of Tavis Smiley is that he is an egomaniac who is in it for himself. If he is truly interested in the bigger picture then he can't look like he is whining about not getting an invitation to the White House ... as if he is some kind of a big shot.

Sure, there is room to legitimately criticize President Obama (pandering too much to the far right, continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, continuing tax policies that benefit the rich, not doing enough for people who are hurting, etc.).

Smiley's message, however, gets lost in a vast sea of what appears to be self promotion on his part.

One gets the feeling there is a little haterism in Tavis Smiley ... coveting the kind of spotlight that President Obama enjoys (not unlike what some people believe the Rev. Jesse Jackson suffered from back in 2008).

Tavis could be doing so much more in a positive way if he could cut down on the hate and turn it into some kind of a positive.

Tavis is a hate addict when it comes to Barack Obama. Tavis, you're an addict, jack.

Player Hatin' On Michelle Obama's Trip To Spain

When I think of all the haters coming out to take shots at first lady Michelle Obama for her trip to Spain it makes me laugh.

First off, I could care less where she goes on her vacation. It's her right to go on a vacation and, if she so chooses to go to Spain, then more power to her.

If the haters don't like it then they should get off their asses and do something so they can make such a trip ... and quit hatin' on the first lady. Rush Limbaugh, of course, wasted little time as he took his customary racial shot at Michelle Obama. Leave it to Limbaugh to turn someone taking a vacation into something that gives him a green light to introduce slavery, reparations, yadda, yadda, yadda...

It's a manufactured controversy.

They've accused him of going on apology tours.

They're crying these days about an Obama trip to Spain.

They cried over his trip to Germany.

They cried when the Obamas went to New York.

They cried when Obama went to Hawaii to visit his sick and dying grandmother.

Basically, they want him to stay in the White House and maybe go to Chicago once in a while.

So, get used to it Obamas.

This is the kind of haterism that exists these days.

It all got me to thinking about a blast from the past.

This whole nontroversy reminds me of the opening from the 2Pac rap, "Holla at Me." (Parental guidance suggested):

Niggas out there jelous cuz we be bailin' with Death Row
They try to playa hate
but they can't fade us tho'
We be mobbin' through tha neigborhood
Yeah
with that funky sound (so funky)
we be throwin' down)

That's right Michelle ... keep throwin' down. Let the haters hate and let the players play.

Limbaugh Again Uses “Uppity” Code Word To Imply President Obama Is Out Of Line

Conservative leader Rush Limbaugh is at it again accusing President Obama of being “uppity” in the way he carries himself. As I’ve written before, the term uppity is a code word that several far-right (and prominent) conservatives have been using to attack this president. It’s a way of describing a black man who has overstepped his bounds and gotten out of line with a white man or white men who are perceived to know more than him, be in a higher social position or be flat-out better. It’s a term from a long-past era that many far-right conservatives, like Limbaugh, would love to see make a comeback.

Face it: “Uppity” is a term that has race written all over it and that is why Rush Limbaugh continues to come back to that term. Among Limbaugh’s goals are to agitate, degrade, inflame racial tension and create conflict.

This is from Media Matters for America:

LIMBAUGH: From InsideHigherEducation.com, you will not believe — well yeah, you will believe it. Everything that used to be unbelievable is not only believable it is happening. “Barack Obama has been called a lot of things since he hit the national stage: Celebrity, elitist and even one who ‘pals around with terrorists.’ But as his poll numbers come back down to earth, and an emboldened conservative movement sharpens its attacks, the label that seems to be sticking to Obama as much as any lately is that of ‘professor.’ Speaking to Tea Party activists in Nashville last week, Sarah Palin did her part to keep the ‘professor’ dig in circulation. The 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee told a frenzied crowd, ‘They know we’re at war, and to win that war we need a commander in chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern.’ The use of ‘professor’ as a term of derision may have hit its stride in the 1950s, but it dates back to scolding characterizations of Socrates, according to Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguistics professor at the University of California at Berkeley.”

OK, fine. Frankly, I didn’t know that “professor” had become the number one dig. But if it is, fine and dandy. Now get this: “Charles Ogletree, Harvard law professor, founding and executive director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for race and Justice says that he sees the ‘professor’ label as a thinly veiled attack on Obama’s race.”

Yes, my friends, you heard me read that. I heard myself read it. So now when we call Obama a professor, we are racist. “Calling Obama the professor walks dangerously close to labeling him uppity, a term with racial overtones that has surfaced in the political arena before, Ogletree said. Describing his divisive confirmation hearings as a circus, Justice Thomas called the proceedings a high tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deigned to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas. It’s perhaps ironic, then, that the Ogletree, who represented Anita Hill, now sees a bit of the ‘uppity’ label being placed on Obama.”

This is two different kinds of uppity that are being discussed about here. So now is professor the P-word? We’ve got the N-word, we have the R-word, and now we have the P-word? We can’t — we gotta — we gotta speak in code? And only people who don’t know what P-word is will understand what we’re saying.

“The idea that he’s not one of us, Ogletree says of the professor label. He has these ideas on that are left-wing that are socialist, that he’s palling around with terrorists. Those are buzzwords, but the reality was that they were looking at this president as an African-American who is out of place.” You know, Professor Ogletree, I hate to burst the balloon, but the single most important reason Obama was elected was his race.

A bunch of white people who thought electing a black president would assuage all of their guilt and erase our racial past voted for Obama. They couldn’t of cared less what he thought, what he said. He didn’t think of his as uppity, they were being selfish. They didn’t like feeling guilty over our racists past, slavery, and so they thought pulling the lever for Obama would absolve them. It wasn’t for his policies, as we are now quickly learning.

What Clarence Thomas meant by uppity, meaning he wasn’t a liberal black. When Clarence Thomas said uppity black thinks for himself means he’s off the reservation, so to speak. He’s not following the civil rights speech codes set forth by the Reverend Jackson and Al Sharpton and whoever else is in charge of them. But nobody — Obama is uppity, but not as a black. He is an elitist. He does think he’s smarter and better than everybody else. That’s what he was taught. He’s a Harvard man.

The fact that he needed to qualify his use of the word uppity by saying “not as a black” shows he had a full understanding of the racially-inflammatory nature of his words. He is playing into the undercurrent of racism he hopes is continuing to flow in this country to use it as a method of attacking President Obama.

Limbaugh then loses credibility stripes for quoting Clarence Thomas in regard to civil rights.

He also essentially calls white people (I am assuming liberal white people) stupid for voting for voting for a black man to be president of the United States of America.

While most people see a man who rose from humble roots to do great things, it’s clear Rush Limbaugh has an issue with what he sees as an uppity Negro in the White House.

It’s also clear that when most black people accomplish something in life he sees it as being the product of affirmative action (or white guilt) while when white people accomplish something it’s because they worked hard.

Black Extremists Protest President Obama; Some Conservatives Label Them ‘Leftists’

Originally, as I heard the story of a group of 200 black protestors marching on the White House, my sense of interested became elevated. Contrary to popular belief, not all black people like President Obama (as you will see below). Perhaps naturally, I wanted to learn a little more about the topic to try and understand the motives of these protestors. It was at that point I saw an Associated Press story that described the protestors as seeing President Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States of America, as “white power in black face.” So, like a good number of people, I shook my head in disappointment. I was not shocked, but I was fairly disappointed with such a march (even though there are marches of all kinds that take place in Washington D.C.) as the one that took place on Saturday.

This group views the president as largely continuing policies it deems to be “imperialist” by nature and symbolic of the way this group seems to view the United States of America.

Here is one quote (of many) that grabs attention from the story:

“We recognize that Barack Hussein Obama is white power in black face,” civil rights activist Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black is Back coalition which arranged the protest, called into a megaphone as the group marched outside the mansion’s gates.

“He is a tool of our imperialist enemies and we demand our freedom. And we demand that Obama withdraw all the troops from Afghanistan right now.”

The story goes on to talk about how protestors want the president to pull troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan (among other issues members of this group were upset about). Now, these individuals representing extremist groups are entitled to their Constitutionally-protected opinion, but they are not entitled to our approval.

Here is another passage that is amazing:

Charles Baron, a New York city councilman and former member of the Black Panthers, a Black Power movement in the mid-1960s and 1970s, attacked the president for turning a cold shoulder to the plight of African-Americans.

“We’re not satisfied with him, and… this hope and change rap has not been a reality for black people,” Baron told AFP during the demonstration.

“We are glad that Barack Obama broke up the white male monopoly on the White House, but we were not looking for a change in the occupant of the White House from white to black, we were looking for change in foreign policies and domestic policies,” he added.

“To have a black person exploiting me just like a white person, that’s no easier pain.”

Wow, that is enough to make you want to shake your head and wonder what if anything could possibly satisfy some people.

So, what about the reaction of some people who read this story (people who might have had a different take on the issue). So, I stumbled upon this headline from the blog Booker Rising:

Black Leftist Protesters: “Obama Is White Power In Blackface”

So, again, I became curious. By the way, we should be cautious with those kinds of labels.

The blog entry starts off with this passage:

Decrying U.S. President Barack Obama as “white power in blackface,” hundreds of leftist African-Americans marched on the White House today to protest policies of America’s first black president, and demand that he bring U.S. troops home (hat tip: Robert Oliver). More than 200 people gathered for the first public demonstration by African-Americans against the Obama administration since his historic inauguration in January, and slammed the president for continuing what they described as Washington, D.C’s “imperialist” agenda around the world.

In the words of the ESPN Monday Night NFL Countdown crew, “C’mon, man!”

This is not about left or right. Is a Ku Klux Klan march or a neo-Nazi rally automatically symbolic of right-wing values (because they may share some basic beliefs)? Of course not. I realize there are some who want to desperately show that not all black people love President Obama, but this was the wrong case at the wrong time to make such a disappointing statement.

Fox News Attacks White House Communications Director Anita Dunn

Fox News now is on the attack against White House communications director Anita Dunn who made some strong comments about the right-wing leaning of the conservative network. Dunn was on the money in her comments about Fox News and the network now is using its platform to smear Dunn and try to portray her as a communist or socialist by linking her to Mao, the man behind the communist movement shaping China. This is evidence that Fox News is not a legitimate news organization. A true and legitimate organization does not use valuable real estate on its Web site to attack the communications director of the White House in retaliation for comments she made about the network when questioned.

This is from Fox News (using its position as a “news” organization to attack Dunn):

What Americans want is a robust competition of ideas, and they ought to be willing to go out there and mix it up with some strong conservatives on Fox, just as there are strong conservatives on CNN like Bill Bennett.”

Bennett expressed outrage that Dunn told an audience of high school students this year that Mao Tse-tung, the founder of communist China, was one of “my favorite political philosophers.”

“Having the spokesman do this, attack Fox, who says that Mao Zedong is one of the most influential figures in her life, was not…a small thing; it’s a big thing,” Bennett said on CNN. “When she stands up, in a speech to high school kids, says she’s deeply influenced by Mao Zedong, that — I mean, that is crazy.”

This article is retaliation (specifically the mention of Mao) and irresponsible journalism.

Notice how Fox tries to (like a low-life pimp) use some pundits from CNN (for its own nefarious purposes) to try and attack Dunn (and thus attack the administration and thus attack President Obama). Irresponsible Fox News is using CNN to try and legitimize its attacks on Anita Dunn>the administration>The White House>President Obama.

The White House should not stand by and take these attacks from Fox News.

This is not a risky strategy for the administration because Fox News has been all-hostile-all-the-time against the administration of President Barack Obama and because Fox News is widely viewed as the public relations firm of the Republican Party.

The Red Scare now is en vogue again.

Some of us will never learn from our history.

It’s Probably Good The Far-Right Nuts Will Not Be At The Crowley, Gates, Obama Beer Summit

The far right wing has been angry since President Obama invited Sgt. James Crowley and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. to the White House to talk about things in the wake of the controversial arrest that stirred racial tensions nationwide.

Naturally, the conservative nuts do not think Crowley should attend until President Obama submits to their will and offershis best Kunta Kinte impersonation (apologize profusely and say exactly what they want him to say … loud enough so that everyone else can hear it … to be made an example of). The conservatives, even some black ones, are saying they would not go to the meeting if they were in Sgt. Crowley’s shoes.

But, I suppose that probably makes some sense asI doubt the White House was going to be serving much Hater-ade (which would disappoint career haters such as the ones in this Media Matters for America video).

Media Matters:
http://mediamatters.org/research/200907300024

Pittsburgh Steelers Player James Harrison Gives Us A WTF Moment

James Harrison, a linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers, had this to say about his turning down a visit to the White House to be honored for winning the Super Bowl. This is a long-standing tradition for teams to be honored by the president of the United States at the White House. Why should tradition or this team function mean anything to James Harrison when he can put the spotlight on himself (and place his interests above that of the team) by refusing to participate in this team function.

Said Harrison to WTAE, a local Pittsburgh television network:

This is how I feel – if you want to see the Pittsburgh Steelers, invite us when we don’t win the Super Bowl. As far as I’m concerned, [Obama] would’ve invited Arizona if they had won.

If that is true then maybe these are true too:

1. James Harrison would never participate in the Pro Bowl because the Pro Bowl only invites you when you have a great season. The Pro Bowl obviously should invite players when they have bad seasons, too.
2. James Harrison would never accept a long-term contract since long-term contracts generally are only given out to very good players. Teams should also give long-term contracts to players who are not very good, too.
3. James Harrison would not accept a large signing bonus since you would not give out large signing bonuses to players unless they were very, very good. Obviously, teams should give large signing bonuses to players who are not good, too.
4. James Harrison would have refused to be drafted since teams only draft players who they feel can help their franchise. Why draft the good players when you can draft the bad players?
5. James Harrison would not have accepted a college athletic scholarship since they only award those to people who have a demonstrated history of success and the potential for more success down the line. They don’t give scholarships to players who are no good … so, what’s fair is fair.
6. James Harrison will not hold the Super Bowl trophy since that is only awarded to the winning team.
7. James Harrison will not participate in the victory parade and rally since only the winning team holds a victory parade.
8. James Harrison will not accept a Super Bowl ring since only the winning team gets Super Bowl rings and the losing team doesn’t.

It was dumb when he declined to meet with George W. Bush and it is dumb today. Sadly, this guy has learned nothing since the first time he made this same idiotic decision.

Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/18/james-harrison-snubs-obam_n_204865.html

It Always Goes Back To Race For Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh, the conservative commentator who has assumed a prominent leadership role in the Republican party, is up to his old tricks. Nothing fires up Limbaugh’s extremist and blood-thirsty base than attempting to portray minorities as lazy and shiftless individuals who are all too eager for an undeserved handout.

Here is what Limbaugh said on his nationally syndicated show:

LIMBAUGH: As the economy performs worse than expected, the deficit for the 2010 budget year beginning in October will worsen by $87 billion to $1.3 trillion. The deterioration reflects lower tax revenues and higher costs for bank failures, unemployment benefits and food stamps. But in the Oval Office of the White House none of this is a problem. This is the objective. The objective is unemployment. The objective is more food stamp benefits. The objective is more unemployment benefits. The objective is an expanding welfare state. And the objective is to take the nation’s wealth and return to it to the nation’s quote, “rightful owners.” Think reparations. Think forced reparations here if you want to understand what actually is going on.

Limbaugh is an old-school conservative who likes trying to portray minorities in this stereotypical way. The tired reparations debate is an old and obviously controversial one. Conservatives like to go to this weapon because it makes it easier for them to push their case that minorities want something they don’t deserve or are just whining about issues of the past (such as slavery). Of course, now that we have a president of color in the White House (Barack Obama) you can bet this will not be the last time we hear this kind of talk from conservative Republicans. This is another way of trying to rile up conservative white Republicans by pouring gasoline on the fire (telling them that undeserving people of color are attempting to take from them what they have “earned” through their lives).

Think Progress:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/11/sessions-limbaugh-unemployment/