Far-right talk show host Rush Limbaugh, a veteran hater on the airwaves, might be proud to know his messages of hate and divisiveness have finally touched some people: white supremacists. Limbaugh got this whole thing started when he turned a story about two black kids who beat up a white kid into a hate crime (the local police authorities have not indicated that this attack was motivated by race). Even with no evidence, Limbaugh has been pushing the notion that this was some kind of a racial hate crime. Now, that is not necessarily a bad thing (since people are entitled to reasonable opinions … even the right-wing people who trashed President Obama for coming out in support of Harvard University professor Skip Gates early in that conflict). Famously, Limbaugh had a hate-driven on-air tirade during which he talked about how this is (as documented by Think Progress) what happens to “white kids” in “Obama’s America.” Limbaugh continued as he proclaimed, “We need segregated buses.”
LIMBAUGH: In Obama’s America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, ‘Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on. I wonder if Obama’s going to come to come to the defense of the assailants the way he did his friend Skip Gates up there at Harvard.”
The way Rush sees it, all people of color (he might say “colored people”) stick together.
During that comment, Limbaugh mocked what he seemed to think was the way black people talk, but he seemed to be stuck in the 1970s with his vision of how black people talk.
Still, it’s shocking to hear garbage like this in 2009.
These are the kinds of comments we heard from racial segregationists 40, 50, 60 years ago.
Here is what Think Progress said about the white supremacists marching in Belleville, Ill., “On Saturday, members of white supremacist groups marched in Belleville holding signs echoing Limbaugh’s rhetoric that said, “It was a hate crime.”
Here is an excerpt from the story:
While a police sniper watched from the roof of the police station, 22 members of white supremacist groups, shouted obscenities and made obscene hand gestures. One man, who had a crew cut and wore a black uniform, told the crowd of onlookers, “Wake up white America!”
“We were out there to denounce the violence,” said Belleville resident Jason Bonn, who is a corporal with the National Socialist Movement, a group with a name similar to the Nazi Party of Germany during World War II. Bonn’s group is “fighting for white civil rights.”
While a police sniper watched from the roof of the police station, 22 members
Where are the right-wing moderates standing up to condemn Rush Limbaugh? Can you imagine the outrage that we’d be hearing from Bill O’Reilly if black men like Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton said something like this about segregated busses or this is what happen’s in Bush’s America? Remember the hate that came down on Kanye West when he made his infamous comments about President Bush after the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina?
WEST: I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, “They’re looting.” You see a white family, it says, “They’re looking for food.” And, you know, it’s been five days [waiting for federal help] because most of the people are black. And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite because I’ve tried to turn away from the TV because it’s too hard to watch. I’ve even been shopping before even giving a donation, so now I’m calling my business manager right now to see what is the biggest amount I can give, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there. So anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help — with the way America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible. I mean, the Red Cross is doing everything they can. We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way — and they’ve given them permission to go down and shoot us!
MIKE MYERS: And subtle, but in many ways even more profoundly devastating, is the lasting damage to the survivors’ will to rebuild and remain in the area. The destruction of the spirit of the people of southern Louisiana and Mississippi may end up being the most tragic loss of all.
WEST: George Bush doesn’t care about black people!
West was blasted in a lot of circles and, to some extent, still suffers from the impact of those words. Farrakhan, Jackson and Sharpton are routinely hammered by men like O’Reilly for controversial things they’ve said (even stuff that is 20 years old or older), yet people like O’Reilly let Limbaugh off the hook for his hateful commentaries.
Think Progress:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/09/28/white-bus-limbaugh/
