Here’s a picture of a guy at Glenn Beck’s Rally last week, which we’re told had nothing to do with race or anything really except “faith…”
Which raises the obvious questions:
Hey jackass:
1. What does this have to do with the rally you were attending?
2. What does this have to do with anything?
3. Why can’t you spell Mauritania?
Clearly the answer to question 3 is easy: for the same reason he probably spells America “Amurka”
But as for questions 1 and 2, well, that’s a bit more complicated. I’d say it’s because deep down, this is how lots of white folks deal with (or rather, refuse to deal with) racism and white supremacy in this country: by deflecting attention onto other crimes, committed by other people, in other lands. Which is about as mature as saying to your mother when you were 11, and broke a window playing ball, “But Billy did it too!” Momma didn’t care about Billy, Skeeter. And Mauritania doesn’t relieve the U.S. of dealing with the legacy of our crimes.
Painful to watch, but necessary: this is evidence of the clearly low standard that white folks set for ourselves when it comes to elected office. No person of color could be this damned incapable of stringing words together and get elected to anything. But for us? No problem…In Brewer’s case, for someone who is so inept at the English language, she has some nerve sweating Latino migrant labor from Mexico, that’s for sure…Bottom line: The real sign of white supremacy’s demise will be when black and brown folks are allowed to be as utterly mediocre as white folks and still gain positions of power and influence
First, an excerpt of what looks like it could be her best book yet: Bright-Sided by Barbara Ehrenreich, in which the author critically examines the uniquely American tendency to elevate “positive thinking” to the level of both a coping strategy and social movement. Lots of good insight here.
Then, a piece that is both informative and sobering about how African American faculty deal with stress in the college classroom, which is here:
Then a very interesting piece on the psychological stresses and impacts of acculturation on the part of Asian Americans, including some fascinating insights on the harms of the model minority myth, which is here:
Today’s social science roundup comes from my friends at Racism Review, and particularly Jessie Daniels, who put together a great post today on the various scholarship on Katrina, race and racism, five years later. Check out the post as there is lots of fantastic material here.
Every now and then I’ll be posting links to new academic research/studies related to race, racism, discrimination, etc. Whenever possible I’ll try to link to stories about these studies that don’t require you to get some kind of crazy paid subscription to an academic site. This is the first installment of this feature, and includes some links to pieces that came out a while ago, but are worth checking out in case you haven’t seen them before. Thanks to the great blog Restructure! for these entries:
It has been said that even the Devil can quote scripture for his purposes. So too, apparently, can conservatives quote Martin Luther King Jr. for theirs. To wit, Glenn Beck, who has perfected the craft of cribbing from Dr. King, thereby debasing the majestic prose of the latter, and distorting King’s intentions to a point that would have been unrecognizable to him.
And so, after his weekend rally, which coincided with the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, Beck explained that while he disagrees with the part of the civil rights movement that was about social justice and economic equity — which is to say, he disagrees with pretty much all of it — he agrees with the other part. You know that one line, literally, one line from King’s “I Have a Dream” speech: the one about how we should judge people on the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin.
Special thanks to Gina Misiroglu of Red Room, who connected me with the folks at AOL: one of the great ways she’s connecting avid readers with Red Room authors, including myself.
It is not often that one gets to read the words of a literary genius, fresh, long after his death. But this is one of those times when the uncommon becomes at least, possible. It is with this in mind, that I recommend to you the uncollected essays and all-around linguistic genius of James Baldwin — the finest writer ever to come from the United States (and possibly from anywhere) — in the just-released collection The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings, and more than recommend it, suggest strongly that you get a copy, read it, commit it to memory, and above all else, allow it to remind you of the power of words.
To be angry with Glenn Beck would be easy. So too, to conjure an ungenerous spirit of contempt for his acolytes who came from around the country to attend Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally this Saturday, would hardly take Herculean effort. His demented narcissism and their cult-like devotion to the man who once said he was just “a rodeo clown,” to whom one should hardly pay attention — but who now suggests he is on a mission from God to save America — are both worthy of the highest derision.
Yet, rather than anger or contempt — however deserved — it is sadness that animates my thoughts today. Sadness that so many would feel the country so besmirched by the first 19 months of the Obama Administration that they would take it upon themselves to march on Washington. Not for jobs or peace. But to restore some vaguely defined sense of national integrity, and, to hear Beck tell it, to “reclaim the civil rights movement.” As unsightly as it can be to witness any man’s ego explode with self-absorbed mendacity all over the pages of history — as we observed this weekend, what with the rally coinciding with the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech” — it is especially so when that ego belongs to one as craven as Beck. That Beck thinks the civil rights movement needs “reclaiming,” and that so many others apparently agree, speaks to the miseducation of the American people (especially large numbers of white Americans), and it is this, which saddens.
As the nation gears up for Glenn Beck’s absurdist rally in DC Saturday — on the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington — and as he continues to lie about and distort the way in which conservative philosophy is in line with Dr. King’s teachings (and thus, how it is appropriate for them to “reclaim the civil rights movement” from the evil progressives who, in his mind, have hijacked it), perhaps it would do us some good to remember a few things.
First, let’s remember (with the help of the good folks at Media Matters) what that original march was really about, and thus, how far removed anything involving Glenn Beck must be, by definition. Suffice it to say, people like Beck weren’t there and wouldn’t have been. The only person in attendance that day, of any prominence, who we might call conservative was Charlton Heston. And that was when he was still a liberal.
That it should even be necessary to point this stuff out is tragic, and indicates how perversely pathetic the system of American historical education is. That anyone could possibly believe that Dr. King was a conservative, or that somehow the right is the real inheritor of his legacy, suggests how little the nation’s people know, even about one of its icons: about one whom they “celebrate” every year on his holiday, but about whom they apparently know nothing at all, except for some oft-misunderstood words about the “content of one’s character,” and the whole non-violence thing. Sadly, most schools today pretty much focus on the non-violence, not in the context of resistance to oppression, but as a way to get kids to “not fight” and “not join gangs” because “Dr. King wouldn’t have wanted you to join a gang.” Well yeah, no kidding: and he also wouldn’t have wanted them to join the police or the military, or the gang known as corporate America in all likelihood either…but we forget that part.
Gee, who could have guessed that with all the Muslim-bashing coming from the right, and especially regarding the “Ground Zero Mosque,” some jackass would decide to act out in a violent act of hatred? Amazing: words have consequences. Who knew?
Nor is it surprising that some right-wing white blowhard, like Rep Roy Blunt, of Missouri, would compare the building of the so-called Mosque to Dr. Laura’s racist rant. Not comparing the racist and religiously bigoted rants of the Islamophobes to Dr. Laura (which would be more appropriate), but the construction of Cordoba House itself. Typical, typical, typical…
