Fear Drives The Movements In Arizona And Texas

I'm going to stick with the craziness in Arizona and Texas for quite a while; so, get on board.

Lately, I've been discussing the draconian law being forced upon Latinos in Arizona by a far-right governor and state legislature. Also, perhaps less discussed but no less significant, is a movement in Arizona to ban ethnic studies courses (black history, Latino history, etc.). Tonyaa Weathersbee, writing for Black America Web, has a very compelling commentary that discusses both of the issues and really gets to the heart of what I've been attempting to tell people for some time now. What is happening in Arizona is related to the movement in Texas to (forgive the expression) whitewash history and put it through a conservative filter so it doesn't make conservative whites feel so bad about what has happened in the past in this country (and, to some extent, what is happening in the present).

Specifically, the misguided attempt to ban ethnic studies courses is a way to distract from the realities of what some people refer to as white privilege.

Here is part of what Weathersbee wrote:

In other words, any courses in which the facts are too inconvenient for white folks to deal with.

The arrogance here is staggering.

First of all, it’s no secret that black people and Latinos have, throughout their history, struggled against the subjugation of a U.S. government that was run by whites. For us, it was slavery and Jim Crow, and years of being legally barred from opportunities that would have enabled us to build wealth and to create new opportunities. Latinos have also struggled with displacement, segregation and other forms of discrimination.

Yet the Texas education board and Arizona lawmakers care more about protecting the feelings of white conservatives – who never experienced the pain of legal segregation – than telling the stories of the black and Latino people who are, in many ways, still struggling with the aftereffects.

That logic only makes sense in White Privilege Land.

The thought that such ethnic studies courses may make white Americans who take them uncomfortable is precisely why we need them and why white students should take them.

These movements in Arizona and Texas are the product of fear. The fear is that this country is a changing one that is becoming more diverse by the day.

For many conservative white Americans, this is scary. What is taking place in Arizona and Texas is just the beginning of the lashing back we will increasingly see in this country as, in 40 years or so, whites are expected to no longer be the racial majority.

Black America Web:
http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/baw_commentary_news/18802

O'Reilly, Taranto Use Fox News Platform To Degrade Blacks, Attack Democrats

Leave it to Fox News conservative commentator Bill O'Reilly to provide a platform to a fellow Rupert Murdoch employee, the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto, to take a shot at black people and the Democrats. Stung by accusations of racism that has infected segments of the Tea Party movement, the far right is going overboard in an effort to defend Tea Baggers from this charge by reversing field and, in essence, attacking black people as ignorantly falling for the racism charge against America and Republicans; portraying Democrats as evil manipulators of black people and positioning the tea baggers as innocent Americans who only care about their country.It was one of the more insulting and degrading segments Bill O'Reilly has ever hosted, and that is saying something based on his history of insulting black people, lecturing black people about how bad they are and telling them what they need to do to shape up as if he is the all knowing moral integrity police.Here is the transcript from Lexis Nexis from the April 20 edition of The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News:

OREILLY: "Unresolved problem" segment tonight, the far left continues to
demonize the Tea Party as a racist outfit. And this has been going on for
months, as you know. A column today in "The Wall Street Journal" says the racist
deal is a political strategy that the Democratic party needs, because minority
voters have to be with them. And if they don't get them, they're in big trouble.
With us now James Taranto, editorial page editor of "The Wall Street Journal"
website. Now, you wrote the article and basically said, look, this is a pretty
tough charge now, Mr. Taranto. It's a pretty tough charge. You're saying the
Democratic party has to have the minority votes. And in order to keep them in
the flock, they're willing to use the racist charge. You know that for sure?

Hold it right there. First, to say the "far left" is demonizing the Tea Party as racist is not only misleading, but also ignores elements of racism that have been fairly obvious at far too many Tea Party rallies. But, you will not hear this from O'Reilly. Few people are saying, as a blanket statement, that the entire Tea Party movement is racist. What a lot of us are saying is that there are elements of racism in the Tea Party that is largely being ignored or excused by Tea Party people and Fox News. Fox News and other conservatives ignore the racism, blame critics for calling it out and then attack the critics for supposedly labeling the whole movement racist. The accusation that the "far left" sees the whole movement as racist is intentionally false to give conservatives an opportunity to point to the majority who are not necessarily racist.

JAMES TARANTO, WALL STREET JOURNAL: Well, let's start with the first half
of that, that they need the black vote.

O'REILLY: Everybody knows that.

TARANTO: Yes, I mean--

O'REILLY: Absolutely.

TARANTO: --if the black vote had split evenly between
the parties in 2008, Barack Obama would not have won.

O'REILLY: Right.

TARANTO: He would have gotten about 48 percent. And he was the most
successful Democratic presidential candidate since 1964. So they absolutely --
they're abjectly dependent on the black vote. Now, how do they keep the black
vote? I mean, it's not just that they need black voters. They need 80 to 100
percent of the black vote.

O'REILLY: Right.

TARANTO: It's a monolithic voting block. How do they keep blacks voting Democratic? They have to keep alive the idea that America is a racist country and that the Republicans are a racist party.

First of all, this portrayal of the Democrats as some Dr. Evil caricature trying to manipulate black people is just plain stupid. No white Democrat needs to tell a black person about racism in this country (particularly in the 1960s and 1970s when blacks began largely voting Democrat. This portrayal of blacks by Taranto I find as disturbing a statement from a conservative as any I've heard in quite some time. And, I don't think I can state this strongly enough. It's as if he is saying that blacks are so ignorant that whites can simply tell them that racism exists and is a danger to them and they just automatically vote Democrat ... as if blacks are just slaves. This man also absolves the Republican Party of any role or responsibility in the whole discussion (specifically in regards to why that party does not appeal to black people).

O'REILLY: When you say they, does this stretch into the upper echelons of
the party, the DNC, you know, people making those kinds of strategic decisions?
They sit around a table and they go we got to throw this racist stuff around and
keep these black voters on our side. I find it really hard to believe they would
be that underhanded.

TARANTO: I don't think that they sit around the table and say that. I
think this is a part of the culture of the party. This has been going on for 45
years. It's just something that is understood. It's a--

O'REILLY: Unspoken.

TARANTO: --fact of life. I don't know if
it's unspoken. But I don't -- it's not something they need to sit down and
conspire about. I think it's something that they understood. Understand, it's in
the air.

O'REILLY: So over the years, you submit, that the Democratic party has
used racism as a political tool to keep African-Americans in the fold? That's
what you're submitting?

TARANTO: Yes, absolutely. And I think that it's become more urgent that
they do so now. Because we have a black president of the United States. That's
something that a lot of people said would never happen or wouldn't happen any
time soon. It happened in 2008. And it's much harder to say that America is a
racist country now that we have elected a black man president. So that means
that it's all the more necessary to keep alive this idea that the Republican
party is a racist party.

Again, there is no mention of the Republican Party and why it does not appeal to black people. O'Reilly and Taranto continue to discuss the Democrats using race to, in essence, enslave black people. It is insulting and it is degrading. Also, I am always amused by how conservatives believe that racism disappeared because Barack Obama was elected president of the United States of America. Racism has instantly become a thing of the past. This is the kind of one dimensional thinking that is harmful to meaningful discussions about very real issues of race that continue to divide Americans. Again, very few people say that this is a racist country. People do say that there is an element of racism in this country that continues to serve as a barrier to fairness for all Americans. This is the kind of hysterical assertions we see from far-right conservatives. They say that some blacks think the entire country is racist so they can point to Barack Obama's election and say, "see, we're not racist ... we elected a black president." That does not mean racism is dead and buried. Few people believe the whole country is racist. That doesn't make any sense.

O'REILLY: Now, is that what the Tea Party thing is all about? Is just that
branding them as racist, so we can dismiss them and then keep people from
joining up?

TARANTO: Well, there are two elements to it. One is that left
wingers in the media and Democrats have been searching for a way to discredit
the Tea Party. So we've had this whole series of accusations there. Astroturf,
fake grassroots. They're extremists, they're birthers, they're -- the latest one
is they're a potential Timothy McVeighs as Bill Clinton implied. And so the
racist is part of that -- the racist accusation is a part of that. But it's also
part of the effort to keep blacks from leaving the party. One of the arguments
they make that the Tea Party is racist is that it's mostly white. There aren't a
lot of blacks. The Tea Party polls show between 1 and 5, which is much lower
than the black percentage of the population. Well, part of that is because of
the pre-existing partisan alignment. Blacks vote 80 to 90 Republican
(sic)--

O'REILLY: 95 percent voted for Barack Obama.

TARANTO: --Democratic rather. 95 percent voted for - Is it more telling
that 95 percent support Democrats or 95 percent oppose Republicans, and why?
Also, O'Reilly again jumps to the irrational claim that some people are
asserting all tea partiers are racist. It's just plan idiotic to state that "one
of the arguments they make that the Tea Party is racist is that it's mostly
white." That is just plain ignorant. It's not about the race of the people as
much as it is about the people in the race.

O'REILLY: (INAUDIBLE).

TARANTO: And this is a movement against the policies of a Democratic
president, who also happens to be the first black president. So blacks feel a
certain racial pride, which is a perfectly wholesome and understandable
emotion.

O'REILLY: President Obama himself rejected all of this
racism stuff, I think, very smartly. He has said, look, I was black before the
vote. You know, all of this racism, criticism of me is bogus. So he has not
bought into this.

TARANTO: He has largely stayed above the fray, I
agree.

O'REILLY: Right. Right. But does he know the fray is
happening? Do you believe that Rahm Emanuel and the other powers behind the
throne are saying, look, anybody who criticizes Obama, we can go after them as a
racist because that's been used particularly by the media when you criticize
Obama, you become suspect, maybe you're a racist. Maybe you're doing this
because he's black.

TARANTO: Well, I can't speak to what Rahm
Emanuel and company say in private. But certainly this is the case. And it seems
to me that the fact that people are vigorously criticizing Barack Obama just
like people vigorously criticized every other president of the United States is
evidence of how far America has come beyond its racist past. I mean Barack Obama
is the president of the United States. He's out there getting criticized. And
that's the great American tradition.

O'REILLY: All right. But you
do feel that the racism label is being used as a political
tool--

TARANTO: Absolutely.

O'REILLY: --by the
Democratic party?

TARANTO: And has been for many years.

Do you think O'Reilly would had this puff-piece interview with someone making a similar outrageous assertion about something or some group that is liberal? Of course not. There is nothing wrong with criticizing the president of the United States of America. But, where were the Tea Party people when George W. Bush was president? Where were these Tax Day protests when Bush was president? Where was the concern about government playing too big a role in our lives from Tea Party people when Bush was president? The Tea Party people did not organize in the current fashion until after Barack Obama was president and the birther nuts and socialism/Marxism/communism-crying nuts came to the forefront. Once again, far right people like O'Reilly take great joy in providing a platform to someone slamming black people and Democrats while hardly mentioning anything about Republicans and Republican ideology and policies that have helped drive black people away from the GOP. O'Reilly trying to play it real smooth, but there is no doubt he had an agenda with this segment and the agenda was to provide a platform to someone to take a shot at black people and Democrats.

O’Reilly Wonders Why Blacks Are So Interested In Michael Jackson Coverage

Fox News conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly appeared a little puzzled as to why black Americans are so interested in coverage of Michael Jackson. Again, this illustrates O’Reilly’s lack of knowledge, lack of appreciation for and lack of respect for the so-called black community. O’Reilly miserably fails to appreciate that black people see more than skin color when they looked at Michael Jackson. Now, that is not to say that some people may not have been disappointed by some things Jackson did during his life, but that doesn’t mean they turned their backs on him. O’Reilly fails, also, to appreciate the huge impact that Jackson had on pop culture, the black community and on the world. Contrary to what O’Reilly may content, Michael Jackson was a trailblazer and was the first to cross over on such a large scale to appeal to people from all races, as an entertainer.

Were there a lot of black entertainers on MTV prior to Michael Jackson blowing up? Uh, no. Unlike O’Reilly, I am not going to get into one of these deals pitting black entertainers who came before Michael Jackson against Michael Jackson. There were some great male and female performers who helped set the stage for Michael Jackson, but what Jackson did for the entertainers of today is virtually immeasurable.

Excuse me, I digress a bit.

Here is what O’Reilly said citing the results of a Pew Research poll:

O’REILLY: Black Americans are much more engaged in watching this stuff than white Americans, even though Michael Jackson has white children – and he chose to have white children — and the face deal, don’t even want to get into … So what’s that racial thing all about?

Black people can appreciate him (and the impact he had on so many people through his abilities as an entertainer). The fact that he had white children and his skin mysteriously ligthened does not mean that black people can no longer appreciate him and his contributions any more than white people would appreciate him more because of that.

Are having white kids and lighter skin color disqualifying factors (in terms of black appreciation)?

Here is a Pew Research Poll that talks about interest in the deaths of celebrities. Note that Michael Jackson is not even at the top of the list.

Source: Pew Research Center

It seems some of us have forgotten the intense media coverage surrounding the 2008 death of television anchor Tim Russert. The death of Princess Diana and John F. Kennedy are off the charts. I had actually forgotten how intense media coverage was of the death of Steve Irwin.

Maybe we should not act as though the coverage of Michael Jackson’s death is somehow unprecedented or ridiculously out of the ordinary.