Common Controversy Makes It Easy To Ask Questions About Racism Regarding Some At Fox ‘News’

Common

The whole Fox News-generated overblown controversy regarding the rapper and poet Common is one that I’d like to say I find interesting and surprising, BUT … I don’t.

I’d like to say say that the Fox News hysteria over Common’s performance at the White House was strictly related to the network’s misguided belief that he is some sort of a gangsta rapper … or something along those lines.

Frankly, I am not going to go into a long explanation of how ignorant this whole issue is (which is pretty much a given coming from Fox News).

But, I will offer the obvious … this clearly is racially tinged (even if somewhat coded). Once again, Fox News is taking an opportunity to try and portray President Obama as some kind of black nationalist or racist (or someone who sympathizes with black nationalism or anti-white racism). To normal people, this is utterly ludicrous, but to call most of the people at Fox News normal is to borderline defame real normal people.

This whole issue with Common is largely based on race and trying to portray President Obama as an angry black man who is “not really one of us” to the highly conservative Fox News audience. This is the strategy of people like Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin. This is why they attack Common and excuse Ted Nugent.

Hannity, and this is no surprise coming from him, was comfortable with this attack on a black man (that is never a surprise from this man) and a woman running for President of the United States of America.

Nugent’s comments were OK, to Hannity, but the Fox News bigots jumped all over Common and took every shot possible at someone who has a high level of integrity and is quite the conscientious man with very positive messages.

Coming from Fox News, this is no surprise … in fact, it is ironically common.

Race, Tea Party, Barack Obama And Beyond

Rush Limbaugh Is A Divider … Not A Uniter

Rush Limbaugh, who has long since pissed away any pretense of patriotism by proudly rooting for our new president (Barack Obama) and commander-in-chief to fail. What a great way for “patriots” like Limbaugh to celebrate our great nation. Limbaugh, who has spit in the face of bipartisanship throughout his life and throughout his professional career, is now mocking President Obama as not being the person to bring the nation and the two political parties together. 

“Now this is the great unifier. This is the man who’s going to unify everybody and usher in a new era of bi-partisanship and love.”

The problem is, however, is that Limbaugh does not want to bring people together. He has made a living throughout his career of being a polarizing and hostile figure to those who are not conservative and to those who are not Republican.

Politico:
http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/0109/limbaugh_strikes_back_cefb1583-6ab1-483f-9dfb-2d564b7a41c6.html

Fred Barnes Hears Obama Called “Monkey Boy” And Is Not Particularly Bothered By Obvious Racism

Fred Barnes, most noted for his work on Fox News, seemed to have no problem when a caller referred to President-elect Barack Obama as “monkey boy” in an obvious racist cheap shot. Barnes said absolutely nothing about it and merely nodded in approval at the overall tone of what the caller was saying to him. It was the height of irresponsibility for Barnes to not at least check the caller on his racist language (even though Barnes (who was being interviewed on CSPAN) obviously agreed with the conservative pro-Bush tone of the ignorant caller’s statement.

News Hounds:
http://www.newshounds.us/2009/01/17/fred_barnes_has_no_problem_with_caller_describing_barack_obama_as_monkey_boy.php#more

Republicans: Playing Politics, Stupid Or Both With Obama Middle Name Issue

Iowa Congressman Steve King, who said some hateful things toward President-elect Barack Obama during the campaign for the presidency (including proclaiming that terrorists would be “dancing in the streets” if Obama was elected), now has shifted focus (as politicians so often do) to start to criticize Obama for the plan to use his middle name during his swearing in on Jan. 20. 

This is from a Politico story:
After telling the Associated Press last year that Obama’s middle name was among the reasons Islamic terrorists would rejoice over his election, King says he’s since been careful to avoid using it. Thus he found Obama’s decision to allow it be mentioned on the steps of the Capitol “bizarre” and “a double-standard.”

“Is that reserved just for him, not his critics?” King asked.

The congressman says he doubts Obama’s sincerity when he explained that he chose to use his middle name so as to be historically consistent with past inaugurations, when America has heard the full names of its presidents echo from the inaugural stand.

“Whatever his reasons are,” King said, “the one he gave us could not be the reason.”

He continued: “The society is a little strange about this. If you’re speaking the truth and in an effort to be objective, there should be nothing off limits in a free society, [but] there are many biases building and clearly a double-standard.”

It is not “clearly a double standard” as King puts it. In fact, I would ask Rep. King how many times he has used the middle name of Sen. John McCain? I would ask all Republicans how many times they used the middle name of McCain throughout the presidential campaign. As a matter of fact, I don’t even know what McCain’s middle name is or whether or not he has a middle name. I can guarantee you this, not a single Republican would be trying to use his middle name if it was Harry or Howard. But, because it is Hussein, it was seen as a way to use anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism as a weapon against Obama. When Obama has his middle name used, when he takes the oath of office on Jan. 20, I doubt he will be using it as many conservatives were using it (to try and scare Americans with racism).

Politico:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/17506.html

Revisionist Historian/President George W. Bush Trying To Repackage Hurricane Katrina Response Catastrophe

President Bush has come under fire for the federal government’s slow response (yeah, I said “slow”) to the catastrophe that was Hurricane Katrina back in 2005. The president was largely viewed as insensitive and out of touch as people suffered in New Orleans and elsewhere from the devastating effects of the hurricane. Watch this video as President Bush becomes ridiculously defensive and probably paranoid about what many people feel as largely hislegacy of failure/inadequacy as president of the United States of America. But, CNN’s Campbell Brown checks the president on his strange contention that the government was now slow in its response to Hurricane Katrina.

CNN Runs Story On Racism And Some People Badly Miss The Point

It amazes me how anything related to race makes some people feel so uptight and defensive. CNN has a story today (Jan. 9) on its Web site related to a race-based experiment conducted by Science, a professional journal. The CNN article was titled, “You may be more racist than you think, study says.” The study was designed to take a closer look at the racist feelings that exist inside of some people and how people react to something that is subtly racist more than overtly racist. It was an interesting story, to some extent, but there was nothing groundbreaking in the story or the study. I doubt there was much of anything in the article or study surprising except some of the conclusions about how many people the study indicated have, show or tolerate things that are racist. Here is the passage, “More recent work by Greenwald and colleagues shows that most people — between 75 and 80 percent — have implicit, non-overt prejudices against blacks.” That surprised me and I would want to see more information in regard to the study about what is and is not considered racist. But, with the experiment described in the study, I think the racism was fairly obvious, yet a large number of the people who participated in the study were not so bothered by the racist language and behavior. Now, as is the case with many online stories I read, I was interested in the reader comments. I knew that a number of people would go immediately on the defensive with regard to the story. A large number of respondents criticized the fact that there was no study of black-on-white racism. Some went hysterical and said the conclusion was that all whites are apparently racist, according to the study. It amazed me that some people could read that article and be more bothered by the fact they saw no study of black-on-white racism or some other form of racism. Apparently, some people were more bothered by that than the use of the N-word. It seems you have to be pretty moved by an item or items you’ve read to post something on a message board (even though you are mostly anonymous). Why were some people more bothered by the lack of different studies than the use of racist slurs? That, quite frankly, is puzzling to me. The article should make all of us think about the prejudices that may exist inside of us. It may be prejudices against blacks, Latinos, Asians, whites, immigrants (sometimes code for Latinos), gays, lesbians, trans gender and more that may exist inside of us. We need to examine those feelings without going nuclear and becoming uptight and defensive.

CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/01/07/racism.study/index.html

Dianne Feinstein Is To Be Commended

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has shown the kind of toughness and character that it’s a shame more Democrats are not showing these days. Feinstein has broken with her party in support of seating Roland Burris as the junior senator from Illinois to replace President-elect Barack Obama (once the paperwork is complete). Now, obstructionists in Illinois and in the U.S. Senate are trying to stop Burris, but I at least applaud Feinstein for having the character to stand up for what is right instead of trying to play politics and “look good” to the public and to try to avoid giving political ammunition to the Republicans.

Said Feinstein as quoted by Politico:

“I can’t imagine the secretary of state countermanding a gubernatorial appointment,” Feinstein said. “The question, really, is one in my view of law. And that is, does the governor have the power to make the appointment? And the answer is yes. Is the governor discredited? And the answer is yes.

“Does that affect his appointment power? And the answer is no until certain things happen.”

Later in the article, Feinstein alludes to a point I have made in that this could set a dangerous precedent for opposing appointments like this made by governors in the future. If renegade senators (like Harry Reid is appearing to be) and other politicians can decide not to seat someone because they don’t like that person, don’t like a governor or because a governor is in some sort of trouble (how much or how little is up for interpretation) then how far can this go and how widely can this be applied?

Politico:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/17118.html

Bobby Rush Pushes The Race Issue With Rod Blagojevich Appointment To Replace Barack Obama

I would be less than honest if I did not say that the comments from U.S. Representative Bobby Rush didn’t make me feel more than a little uncomfortable at times. Rush, flanked by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and former state Attorney General Roland Burris (who Blagojevich is pushing to be Obama’s replacement in the United States Senate from the state of Illinois). I’m no Blagojevich fan, but unless or until proven guilty it’s still his right to make the appointment. And, I think people should respect and judge whoever Blagojevich appoints (if he is in fact allowed to do so) without prejudice and put an end to this ridiculous notion of guilt-by-association politics we saw far too often during the presidential campaign. Burris should be judged on his own merit and should not be treated with prejudice simply because he was appointed by Burris. For those who do treat him that way they should be ashamed of themselves. Judge the man on his own record. Now, that being said, I was a little dismayed by Rush pushing the race issue so hard during his press conference. I agree that it would be nice to see more blacks in the United States Senate, but I think Rush pushed the issue too hard. I think Rush would have been best served to perhaps mention it, but work more behind the scenes to make his point. That would have been more effective and less controversial. Invoking the word “lynch” was a bit much, but Rush’s underlying point was well taken about not prejudging. I have to admit, I had not thought about Obama being the only black official in the Senate prior to his resignation as president-elect. 

Here is a quote from Rush:

“This is a matter of national importance,” Rush said. “There are no African-Americans in the Senate, and I don’t think that anyone, any U.S. senator who’s sitting in the Senate right now wants to go on record to deny one African-American for being seated in the U.S. Senate. … And so I intend to take that argument to the Congressional Black Caucus.” 

I do see his point, to a large extent, but Rush clearly could have and should have handled the situation better. Had he done that he would have been far less polarizing in this increasingly politically-correct world. Judge Burris on his own merits and how he can represent the people of Illinois.