Tag: Racism

America is Awash in Guns — And Fear of Them

Trish
whitecop
Guns aren’t making us safe, they’re just scaring us.

What if we’re missing a bigger issue in our musings about Ferguson and race and unarmed black men being shot by white guys, often police officers? Yes, systemic racism and a breakdown in our ability to trust police are serious problems. But are we overlooking something more basic?

It’s a rare day without a story like this one:

A white cop observes a black man cut through a parking lot to avoid a red light. He follows the car and when it starts to pull into an apartment complex, he turns on his cruiser’s lights to pull it over. The black man, 29-year-old Brian Dennison, drives further into the complex and parks in a parking space. When he gets out of the car, the cop shoots at him. Luckily, the shot missed. It was lucky because Dennison had his 6-year-old daughter in the car. And she was having an asthma attack. And her inhaler was inside their home, where Dennison was rushing when he drove around the red light.

So why did Officer J.C. Garcia get it so wrong?

[…]

Exit Polling Asked South Carolina Voters Whether Blacks Were ‘Too Demanding’ and ‘Trying Hard Enough’

Jon Ponder

WSPA.com

In an article on its website with the rather oblique title, “Exit Poll Angers Some SC Voters,” (meaning others were simply delighted by it?), WSPA television in Spartanburg, S.C., reported that questions in exit polling after the midterm elections Tuesday were framed to elicit racist responses.

Voters were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with statements like:

    screenshot-racist-questions-sc-exit-poll

  • “Over the past few years, blacks have gotten less than they deserve.”
  • “Blacks are getting too demanding in their push for equal rights.”
  • “It’s really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if blacks would only try harder, they could be as well off as whites.”

One shocked liberal voter demanded to know who had authorized the questions. Amber Lange, who said she worked for Clemson University, was surprised to learn the questions were written by a Clemson professor:

[…]

Obama Derangement Syndrome Alive and Well in Nebraska

Buck Banks
The epitome of Cornhusker political commentary: A zombie president effigy, overalls and an outhouse.

What’s a Fourth of July parade in Norfolk, Neb., without a racist, redneck float? The epitome of Cornhusker political commentary featured a pickup truck with a zombielike effigy of President Obama in overalls outside an outhouse with the words “Obama Presidential Library” on it.

To their credit, the commentators did spell all the words correctly, which means they are probably not Tea Party members.

The float apparently was approved by the parade organizers, the Odd Fellows Club, since it had an official float number in the windshield.

[…]

To Which the Audience Responded, ‘Duh!’

Buck Banks

Ninety-nine percent of all of the white people in here are going to raise their hand that they are against abortion. On the other hand, 99 percent of the whites who are sitting in here now, if their daughter got pregnant by a black man, they are going to make their daughter have an abortion.

— Alabama State Rep. Alvin Holmes (D), who is black and has represented the 78th District since 1974, quoted by the Birmingham News.

’12 Years a Slave’ Film Illuminates Racial Subtext of Obama Era

Buck Banks

This last weekend, I finally saw ’12 Years a Slave.’ It was the most powerful movie I’ve ever seen in my life, an event so gripping and terrifying that, when I went to bed ten hours later — it was a morning matinee — I lay awake for five hours turning it over in my mind before I could fall asleep. I understand it not merely as the greatest film about slavery ever made, as it has been widely hailed, but a film more broadly about race. Its sublimated themes, as I understand them, identify the core social and political fissures that define the American racial divide to this day. To identify ’12 Years a Slave’ as merely a story about slavery is to miss what makes race the furious and often pathological subtext of American politics in the Obama era.

— Jonathan Chait, writing in New York Magazine.

On British Television, Oprah Assesses the State of Racism in America’s Republican Party

Jon Ponder

Republicans do not like Oprah’s assertion that racism won’t end until the current older generation of white bigots, the vast, vast majority of whom are Republicans, dies off. But you’ll notice that the push back from Limbaugh and the rest are mostly personal attacks and criticisms of Oprah and the president, and thin on arguments against the substance of what she said. They can’t refute it, because she is right:

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George Zimmerman Arrested Again

Trish
George Zimmerman's most recent mug shot

Police in Seminole County, Fla. must be getting tired of seeing George Zimmerman’s face. The man who shot and killed the unarmed teen Trayvon Martin and was then acquitted of murder under one of the country’s most lax definitions of self-defense* was arrested again, this time for domestic violence against his current girlfriend. WESH-Orlando:

He was arrested at about 1 p.m. Monday at his girlfriend’s home on Topfield Court in Apopka following a 911 call. Neighbors told WESH 2 News that they didn’t know the woman was dating Zimmerman, and they thought the man might have been an undercover cop because he walked around like an officer.

Neighbors said they thought [Zimmerman] might have been an undercover cop because he walked around like an officer

Neighbors said his truck had been parked in the neighborhood for about a month.

Let’s review.

  • Zimmerman was let off scotfree for killing Trayvon Martin.
  • Zimmerman was let go without being issued a ticket 15 days after the end of his murder trial, when he was pulled over for speeding in Texas and told the officer he was carrying a gun.

    • […]

Sarah Palin’s Spouting Nonsense in Iowa … Again

Buck Banks

Our free stuff today is being paid for by taking money from our children and borrowing from China. When that money comes due — and this isn’t racist, but it’ll be like slavery when that note is due. We are going to beholden to the foreign master.

— Sarah Palin, speaking in Iowa and comparing the federal debt to slavery, the Des Moines Register reports. BTW, Sarah, if you have to say it’s not racist, that usually means it is.