Proof is in the Racist Pudding

Perhaps you may have thought that I was being a meanie liberal ideologue when I said that Santorum and Gingrich's racist statements revealed how they truly feel, that it was not a misstatement, and that it was a rare glimpse into the depravity of their ignorant worldview. Did you think I was being a bit presumptive or hyperbolic?

QED:

JUAN WILLIAMS: Speaker Gingrich, you recently said black Americans should demand jobs, not food stamps. You also said poor kids lack a strong work ethic, and proposed having them work as janitors in their schools. Can’t you see that this is viewed, at a minimum, as insulting to all Americans, but particularly to black Americans? 

GINGRICH: No, I don’t see that.

Weird, no one could have predicted that Gingrich's overtly racist statement was intentionally and overtly racist.

The 'Black Friends' Defense

See? Newt's statements weren't racist, because he has black friends:

LAMOTHE: My question to you is, do think blacks represent an American problem. And if you don’t think that, when you start using blacks in general as a stepping stone or a punching bag – 

GINGRICH: I didn’t say that. I just want to say that frankly this makes me very irritated. The Democratic National Committe took totally out of context half of the sentence, OK? I mean clearly somebody who’s served with Colin Powell, who has served with Condaleeza Rice, I have a fairly good sense of the fact that African Americans have many contributions to America.

Conservatives love that line.

Not At All Racist

I don't expect much from the modern GOP in terms of racial issues, but this is a special gem:

GINGRICH: More people are on food stamps today because of Obama’s policies than ever in history. I would like to be the best paycheck president in American history. Now, there’s no neighborhood I know of in America where if you went around and asked people, “Would you rather your children had food stamps or paychecks,” you wouldn’t [SIC] end up with a majority saying they’d rather have a paycheck. 

And so I’m prepared, if the NAACP invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps. And I’ll go to them and explain a brand new Social Security opportunity for young people, which should be particularly good for African-American males — because they’re the group that gets the smallest return on Social Security because they have the shortest life span.

Spoiler alert for Newt - the NAACP is probably not going to invite you to their conference so you can say, "Hey all you freeloading n*ggers - you should demand paychecks instead of welfare, you lazy fucking assholes."

Never mind the fact, as Think Progress notes, that the majority of food stamp recipients are white. Facts/reality do not play into the conservative psyche. All lazy people and welfare queens are unequivocally black/brown and otherwise non-white. Remember - racism is dead because we have a black president.

Fuck these people. 

It Was a Ruse, You Big Dumb Idiot!

No one could have predicted that the faux controversy over the opening of a mosque in lower Manhattan was just a clever ruse to rile up the GOP's most reliable voting constituents in advance of the 2010 elections: the old, the uninformed, the white, and the racist. 

Never hear much about it any more do we? Funny how that works.

Sheriff Joe: Racist Asshole

"Legitimate complaints" my ass:

Infamous Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio does -- which is why he announced a five-person "Cold Case Posse" that will delve into the issue of President Obama's birth certificate.
The posse follows a request by the Surprise, Arizona Tea Party, who Arpaio met with on August 17. The Surprise Tea Party believes that the long-form birth certificate released by President Obama in April -- which put the issue to rest for pretty much everyone -- could be a forgery. 

"The Surprise Tea Party is concerned," they wrote, "that no law enforcement agency or other duly constituted government agency has conducted an investigation into the Obama birth certificate to determine if it is in fact an authentic copy of 1961 birth records on file for Barack Obama at the Hawaii Department of Health in Honolulu, or whether it, or they are forgeries." 

[...] 

"This investigation does not involve politics," Arpaio told WND. "I listen to all the residents of Maricopa County who come to my office with complaints, regardless what their politics are. 

"My door is open to everyone, and I don't kick them out. If a complaint is legitimate, I don't dump it into the wastebasket," he continued. "When I get allegations brought to me by the citizens of Maricopa County, I look into the allegations, just like I am doing here."

Uh-huh. So if myself and a bunch of other ignorant mouth breather types demand that Sheriff Joe investigate Gov. Jan Brewer's and the private prison industry's suspicious connection to the drafting and passage of immigration bill SB1070, I am sure he will jump right on it, because after all, this is not about politics! His door is open and actions will be taken if a complaint is legitimate!

Fuck this guy and the people who keep putting him into office. He is a disgrace, a complete failure at his job, and uses his office and badge for little more than to wage political wars against brown people and anyone else he deems an enemy. 

Terrorist Until Proven Innocent

This is exactly the kind of shit that I was talking about in my post about the shameful legacy of our piss pants reaction to 9/11. 

And note how blithely the FBI spokesperson states that the public prefers that they overreact rather than under react. Personally, I would rather prefer they act with a modicum of sanity and not use heavily armed SWAT teams to drag innocent citizens off of an airplane for no reason other than they are brown. And let's be honest with ourselves - that is exactly what happened here.

The Onion, excellent as usual, nails it here.

That Didn't Take Long

Remember what I said the other day?

In the meantime, we will be stuck with Fox News and the Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks of this world completely losing their shit, spewing hate speech as they watch their precious grip on America continue to unravel as a new generation rises up and rejects their ignorant worldview.

Well, that was fast. Good ol' GB just couldn't help himself:

On his radio show today, Glenn Beck tackled a particularly sticky issue when it comes to race. How does it make any sort of sense, he wanted to know, to refer to all black persons as "African American," particularly when so many black individuals don't live in the U.S.? 

[...] 

So is the term "colored," Beck and co. wondered, really such a "bad thing" as we're lead to believe? "Only here," he lamented, referring to the U.S. "Why are we made to feel bad?"

Yeah, it's so tough being a white man in America, because we are guilted into not calling people "colored" anymore. I mean, why is the n-word such a bad thing either? Black people say it right? Why can't we? Why are we made to feel so bad?

Don't worry, it gets better:

"African American" was not made to do anything except try to create a super man. "Oh don't you dare feel bad about yourself! You're African American!" No. You're an American. Instead of building the country up and saying, "Lookit. We all have the right, here in this country... Look at what happened with Martin Luther King. That makes you an American. 'Judge not by the color of your skin.'" And you weren't over in Africa! Your great-great-great grandfather was, your great-great-great-great grandfather may have been, but you weren't!And sure this country sucked for blacks. Sucked. Beyond sucked, for a long time. But it doesn't now. It doesn't now. Be proud to be an American.I am sure that Glenn Beck knows firsthand just how bad the country "sucked" for African Americans. He emphasized it twice, just to show how empathetic and understanding he is. And it doesn't anymore! Racism is over because of Obama's election! Just be proud and wave the flag!

Fuck that guy. I don't really know what else to say. It's appalling that he has a national audience of millions of people.

Also too, meanwhile:

Minorities accounted for 98 percent of the population growth in the nation’s largest metropolitan areas over the past decade, according to a new report, as the country’s white population continued to stagnate, and in many places, decline.
Hispanics and Asians led population growth in the country’s 100 largest metropolitan areas over the past decade, growing by 41 percent and 43 percent respectively. The population of blacks grew by 12 percent, and the aging white population was largely flat, increasing by less than 1 percent.
William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution and the author of the report, also said the United States had reached a demographic milestone: About half of all recent births were to minority parents, a shift that will have broad policy implications in the years to come.
The country’s largest cities are changing the fastest, Dr. Frey said, and provide a snapshot of what the country might look like in the future. 

[...] 

“Where these large metro areas are now is where the rest of America is headed,” he said. “The old image of the white and black American population is obsolete.”

You could say maybe this is why the redneck tea bagger white fringe of the Republican party is so unhinged and why they want their country back. They are losing it to an increasingly tolerant, multi-cultural, and diverse America. They could welcome it, but they choose not to because they are scary, other, not like them, not white, and not real murkins.

The GOP's Future Demographic Doom

It's not exactly a novel observation that the GOP is increasingly becoming a rump minority party dominated by whites, Christians, Southerners, and bigots. And don't forget the stupid vote either - they rely on the bull shit they feed daily through Fox News to brainwash the low information types, GOP-leaning "independents,"  or people who otherwise are easily misled and can't be bothered to sift through the noise to find the truth. 

But this is just going to absolutely savage their future electoral prospects: 

The crop of students moving through college right now includes the largest group of mixed-race people ever to come of age in the United States, and they are only the vanguard: the country is in the midst of a demographic shift driven by immigration and intermarriage.

One in seven new marriages is between spouses of different races or ethnicities, according to data from 2008 and 2009 that was analyzed by the Pew Research Center. Multiracial and multiethnic Americans (usually grouped together as “mixed race”) are one of the country’s fastest-growing demographic groups. And experts expect the racial results of the 2010 census, which will start to be released next month, to show the trend continuing or accelerating.

Yeah, an entire generation of scary, non-white, mixed race degenerates are coming to take the country away from all the Jebus loving real murkins. The totally-not-racist-whatsoever tea baggers already want their country back, so I don't know where they will go from here when this group enters the polling booths, the workplace, corporations, and government. And I am sure that this same generation isn't the least bit disillusioned with the constant race baiting of the GOP and the way in which they have gone after President Obama almost daily for not loving America enough, not seeming presidential enough, or for not being born here. You know, because he is black and has a Muslim sounding middle name.

This also proves that Marvel and the Spider-Man writers are clearly out of step with mainstream America and evil liberals that just made the new hero a mixed race individual out of a deep seated hatred for white America. Or they "affirmative actioned" Spidey. Or something.

The only unfortunate thing is that we're years away from these individuals truly integrating into voting blocs and society writ large. In the meantime, we will be stuck with Fox News and the Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks of this world completely losing their shit, spewing hate speech as they watch their precious grip on America continue to unravel as a new generation rises up and rejects their ignorant worldview.

Should Have Let Them Secede

Seriously, fuck the South.

And let's not forget that a plurality of respondents to a poll in Mississippi still think interracial marriage should be illegal. 

Not All Republicans Are Racist

But if you're racist, you're probably a Republican:

A comedian impersonating President Obama who was hired to perform here on Saturday at the Republican Leadership Conference delivered racially tinged remarks about Mr. Obama’s heritage and offered a mocking assessment of the Republican presidential candidates.

The impersonator, Reggie Brown of Chicago, opened his act by joking about Mr. Obama’s family history, referring to his white mother from Kansas and his black father from Kenya. He said that he was born in Hawaii, adding, “or as the Tea Partiers like to call it, Kenya.”

He said that Michelle Obama, the first lady, enjoys celebrating all of February, Black History Month. He said the president celebrates only half the month.

“My mother loved a black man and, no, she was not a Kardashian,” Mr. Brown said later, referring to the family that stars in reality shows. Khloe Kardashian, who is white, is married to Lamar Odom, who is black and plays for the Los Angeles Lakers.

The audience, which was nearly entirely white, watched with befuddlement as the impersonator told them to look into the future to see what the Obamas will look like when they are retired. An image of a feuding husband and wife, from the TV show “Sanford and Son,” was flashed on screens in the ballroom.

The GOP hates Obama. That much is glaringly evident. They only hired the comedian; they didn't prepare his material. But I think the fact that he instantly went to the issue of race to mock the President is pretty telling. There are countless other ways that he could have lampooned the Obamas, but he chose race. He was simply playing to his audience. 

And this quote is pretty good:

Doug Heye, a party strategist and former communications director for the Republican National Committee, criticized the hiring of Mr. Brown. As word of the performance began to spread online, he wrote in a message on Twitter: “Wonder why many minorities have problems with G.O.P.? Our own fault.”

Yes, because this incident of hiring a racist comedian for your Southern White Oligarch Conference is the primary reason why "many minorities" have problems with the GOP. It has nothing to do with the fact that since January 20, 2009 the GOP has spent every waking moment blowing racist dog whistles as they decried Obama's "otherness," that he is a Marxist socialist Kenyan secret Muslim that hates Jesus and America, that he does not believe in the same America that good ol' white folk believe in, that he has a deep seated hatred of white people, that he's secretly taking over the country through union thugs and his minority-laden election stealing army at ACORN, and the pervasive dissemination of these talking points (both explicitly and implicitly) to keep the not-at-all-racist teabaggers frothing at the mouth. But these are just principled differences! They only disagree with Obama's politics. The racially undertoned invectives being hurled at our first black president have nothing to do with his race.

There are plenty of reasons for "many minorities" to take issue with the GOP, but I would venture a guess that this barely registers as so much as a blip on how they view the GOP. This is nothing new, but rather a continuation of the modern GOP's excellent track record on race relations.

(h/t Steve Benen)

Why is the Right So Mean to Michelle?

I'll give you a hint: because her last name is Obama. Also, she is black.

And The Gulf of Mexico Is Pristine and Free of Oil Because No One Talks About It Anymore

Different topics, similar lines of reasoning:

KEYES: Do you think that the Fair Labor Standards Act, for instance, would pass constitutional muster?

JOHNSON: I think that they do go overboard, that these protections do really exist. We elected a black president. I think that we clearly have shown that we are colorblind. Colorblind and we’re not a discriminate (sic) nation.

Asshole. This is from Gary Johnson, the Republican governor of New Mexico and a potential GOP 2012 presidential candidate. Although Haley "I Don't Remember The Civil Rights Era Being That Bad" Barbour seems to have realized that there isn't much room for stupid white racist candidates, so maybe this dipshit will come to the same conclusion. Johnson's statement is so patently ignorant that I won't spend much time showing the many ways in which racism is alive and well in our body politic, but rather simply point out what I've already said: our first black president has been subjected to an endless media-cheerlead shitshow about his birth certificate and inundated with accusations that he was born in Kenya. The birther issue is absolutely all about race - they may as well just start calling him the n-word at this point. The Very Serious people at CNN even held a special investigation into Obama's birth certificate. Just to lay the matter to rest, I'm sure! It would probably be too difficult and improper to and mean to simply call birthers for the stupid fucks that they are and move on/refuse to give any further credence or air time to the issue. And not to mention that when the birth status/presidential eligibility of a certain grizzled old white male was called into question, it was categorically and immediately dropped following his campaign's response:

During the 2008 campaign, questions about John McCain's birth in the Panama Canal Zone on a U.S. military base prompted some to ask whether McCain was eligible to be president, since the Constitution stipulates that anyone not born in the United States is not eligible to be president.

Amid a flurry of news reports, McCain's own campaign announced in February 2008 that it was conducting an investigation. When a bipartisan pair of lawyers announced the following month that McCain was indeed eligible, the issue virtually died--apart from a Senate resolution that pretty much laid the question to rest by attesting to the facts surrounding McCain's birth and citizenship.

Does anyone even remember McCain's birthplace coming up during the 2008 campaign? Because I don't, and I pretty much live and breathe current events. It goes to show you how much of a non-issue it was - because he is white. And worse yet - Obama has actually given in to the crazies to some extent and released his so-called "long-form" birth certificate, which of course is now full of forgeries, inaccuracies, and is not good enough. Obama seemed genuinely pissed at the press conference following the release of the document, but I have to believe that it was more or less a shrewd move by his political team. They know that birtherism is a political loser for the GOP, and releasing the document has kept this vile issue in the news and stirred up the crackpots anew. Lucky for us, many in the GOP do not seem to realize that this is a no-win issue for them:

Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, declared Tuesday that while he has no doubt that President Obama is an American citizen, it was not his place to tell Donald Trump to drop the issue.

“Trump and the candidates can talk about it all they want, but my position is that the president was born in the United States,” Mr. Priebus said. “I don’t think it’s an issue that moves voters.”

It's absolutely an issue that moves voters, you ass, which is why you won't come out strongly against it - because it roils your base of ignorant racist white degenerates, upon which your party depends heavily for electoral success.

But regardless, this is a day to celebrate. Thanks to the election of Barack Obama and the erudite wisdom of wingnut morons like Gary Johnson, we can rest easy knowing that America is officially racism free.

Also, new tag (shamelessly stolen from Colbert).