News Roundup — Bits and Bytes from the Past Few Days
Once again, I’ve fallen behind on posting (and comment approval — sorry about that), but am trying to catch up and post a bunch this coming week, along with a few new essays.
In the past week or so there have been several interesting stories and/or articles, bouncing around the web, that touch on race. So, in no particular order, here they are:
First, a great essay excerpted from a new book, detailing the dishonesty of right-wing claims that the housing and economic crises have been caused by lending to poor folks and folks of color under things like the Community Reinvestment Act. This racist lie has been bouncing around since early fall of 2008, and despite being debunked numerous times (and rejected by almost every serious economist in the country), it keeps coming up. White folks love us some scapegoats, apparently. Check out the essay, then the book from which it comes!
Then a well-researched piece about growing ties between certain Tea Party types in the U.S. and far-right, anti-Muslim bigots in the UK, giving the lie, once again, to the idea that all this “movement” is about is fiscal responsibility.
And finally, this excellent report from Media Matters, detailing the way that would-be assassin and wanna-be revolutionary, Byron Williams — who was injured in a shoot out with California Highway Patrol when stopped on his way to kill officials at the Tides Foundation and ACLU — was influenced by Glenn Beck and other right wing media mouthpieces. These folks are encouraging terrorism. They should be held accountable.
