Those darn black people

-- by Dave

It's one of those things that seems perpetually to mystify Republicans: Why the heck don't black people vote for them more often?

After all, about 90 percent of the black vote in most presidential elections since the 1960s has favored Democrats, and the prospects of changing that this year are dim to none.

A lot of this, of course, has to do with the paucity of black Republican candidates to begin with. Periodically, the GOP makes a weak stab at changing that, as they did in 2006, when three black Republicans ran for prominent positions in Ohio, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.

All three, of course, got creamed.

That has a lot to do with the larger underlying reasons: Conservatives have, since the 1870s, demonstrated a palpable animus toward black voters -- in the South, they passed Jim Crow laws to keep them from the polls -- and with the complete takeover of the Republican Party by conservatives in the 1970s, that has translated into a lopsided Democratic black vote.

Still, Republicans seem perplexed by this. Witness, for instance, Bridget Johnson's recent piece bemoaning the "lost opportunities" to gain the black vote in the current election:

This is the profile of America’s minority communities: not politically or ideologically homogenous, willing to consider new solutions, and willing to listen to new ideas and voices — if those voices would bother to make the effort to show up.

However, this election season is shaping up to be yet another year when the Republican Party quickly kisses off the black vote, and halfheartedly reaches for at least a decent portion of the Latino vote. It’s a mistake with the same script every time, like a political “Groundhog Day.”

And it could particularly be a colossal failing to ignore minority communities this election season, when the flap over Barack Obama’s questionable associations has seen the racial debate taken in a disturbing direction that strays from the colorblind, hand-in-hand path of brotherhood envisioned by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

As always, these concerns come from someone who is somewhat melanin-challenged herself. But you know, she's deeply sympathetic to black issues. Really.

Now, you could call the conservative response to the Obama "pastor problem" controversy "veering off the path", I suppose, if you envision the path as situated along a sheer high cliff. Because it's clear that Republicans are just writing off blacks altogether and leaping anew into the abyss of good ole fashioned right-wing bigotry.

Take, for example, Pat Buchanan's column on the Obama flap, titled "A Brief for Whitey":

It is the same old con, the same old shakedown that black hustlers have been running since the Kerner Commission blamed the riots in Harlem, Watts, Newark, Detroit and a hundred other cities on, as Nixon put it, "everybody but the rioters themselves."

Was "white racism" really responsible for those black men looting auto dealerships and liquor stories, and burning down their own communities, as Otto Kerner said -- that liberal icon until the feds put him away for bribery.

Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America.

Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.

Ah yes. Anyone who's been around racial politics for any length has heard all about how black civil-rights advocates are in fact "race hustlers." And it isn't just Buchanan making this kind of remark about Obama: So, for that matter, have those sensitive folks at Powerline. A Townhall blogger even called Michelle Obama a "race pimp."

But really, the richest line in Buchanan's column -- the one that no doubt resonates most with black voters -- was this one:

We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?

Damn, I'm sure most black people forgot to be grateful for segregation, the lynching era, sundown towns, and the continuing discrimination they face both in employment and in residence. Because the institutional conditions created by those decades of bigotry have in fact gone largely unchanged, though to white guys like Buchanan, that simply isn't a factor:

Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America? Is it really white America's fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?

Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?

Well, I'm sure black voters are convinced by that argument. After all, it's obvious that the matter of continuing discrimination is just an illusion in their heads.

Meanwhile, another conservative icon, Rush Limbaugh, is following a similar line:

LIMBAUGH: "Typical white person"? What does this reveal finally about Obama? He is not transcendent on race. Obama is telling us he is a black American first and an American second. Typical white -- his grandmother, who raised him, is a typical white woman? And that these kinds of inordinate fears are bred? I have a question: I wonder how white college students at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, are feeling these days.

I wonder if they are nervous walking down the street, and they see a couple of black boys dressed in baggy clothes with their hats on backwards swaggering toward them. I wonder how they feel. I wonder if it makes them fear that they're going to be shot in the face for their ATM cards and their PIN numbers. Obama, do you think there might be reasons here rather than this being inbred?

... And so, Obama, in dealing with this, has thrown his white grandmother under the bus, and then, yesterday, drove the bus backwards and ran over her, where he threw her under the bus, by calling her a typical white woman.

So, all -- typical white what? Typical white -- no? Typical white woman -- typical white person. Whatever. Typical white person. And now, it is clear -- now, this is the stuff, this is the part that might bother some of you. It is clear that Senator Obama has disowned his white half, that he's decided he's got to go all in on the black side ...

What you'll notice in all this, of course, is that all these folks really aren't concerned about black people at all. They're talking to white people, and basically reinforcing the stereotypical view that there's just something wrong with those black people. Why else can't they see that conservatism is really about their greater good?

Folks like Limbaugh and Buchanan and Bridget Johnson like to complain that when blacks vote for liberals en masse, they're engaging in "identity politics". As always, they forget that "identity politics" in America was in fact created, and deeply institutionalized, by white people.

And there's no small irony when the efforts of the historical victims of identity politics to break down those institutions are denounced as merely members of a racial identity group defending their own narrow interests. That's what we call the "projection strategy."

As always, this means that Republicans are giving us a warning about their own upcoming strategy. So when they begin accusing Democrats of indulging racism, we can be quite certain that the forthcoming election season will be nothing less than a full-on onslaught of Republican racism -- excused, of course, by the claim that "they do it too."

The Republican right's Moonie problem

-- by Dave

A number of folks -- notably Ezra Klein and Glenn Greenwald -- have already pointed out quite adroitly that while the media have had little compunction about whipping up a phony controversy about Barack Obama's "pastor problem", there's almost nothing that white evangelical pastors can say that might bring down similar approbation. John McCain's "spiritual advisers" Rod Parsley and John Hagee really are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this.

As Glenn puts it:

The phrases "anti-American" and "America-haters" are among the most barren and manipulative in our entire political lexicon, but whatever they happen to mean on any given day, they easily encompass people who believe that the U.S. deserved the 9/11 attacks, devastating hurricanes and the like. Yet when are people like Falwell, Robertson, Hagee, Inhofe and other white Christian radicals ever described as anti-American or America-hating extremists? Never -- because white Christian evangelicals who tie themselves to the political Right are intrinsically patriotic.

But the Republican right's biggest problem with having "America haters" as leading exponents of movement conservatism is someone who not only has claimed to be a spiritual mentor but is also a major financier of Republican causes: the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

As John Gorenfeld explains in delightful and excruciating detail in his new book Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon Created the Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right and Built an American Kingdom [which we'll be discussing in greater detail tomorrow for the FDL Book Salon], Moon has a long history of saying ugly things about the United States and about Americans.

And yet simultaneously, the largesse he spreads about the conservative movement has won him all kinds of friends, influence, and defenders, if not followers. Certainly, there is no one in the mainstream media who bothers to mention this, let alone play endless tape loops.

The Republican Right’s Moonie Problem

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]

A number of folks — notably Ezra Klein and Glenn Greenwald — have already pointed out quite adroitly that while the media have had little compunction about whipping up a phony controversy about Barack Obama’s "pastor problem", there’s almost nothing that white evangelical pastors can say that might bring down similar approbation. John McCain’s "spiritual advisers" Rod Parsley and John Hagee really are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this.

As Glenn puts it:

The phrases "anti-American" and "America-haters" are among the most barren and manipulative in our entire political lexicon, but whatever they happen to mean on any given day, they easily encompass people who believe that the U.S. deserved the 9/11 attacks, devastating hurricanes and the like. Yet when are people like Falwell, Robertson, Hagee, Inhofe and other white Christian radicals ever described as anti-American or America-hating extremists? Never — because white Christian evangelicals who tie themselves to the political Right are intrinsically patriotic.

But the Republican right’s biggest problem with having "America haters" as leading exponents of movement conservatism is someone who not only has claimed to be a spiritual mentor but is also a major financier of Republican causes: the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

As John Gorenfeld explains in delightful and excruciating detail in his new book Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon Created the Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right and Built an American Kingdom [which we'll be discussing in greater detail tomorrow for the FDL Book Salon], Moon has a long history of saying ugly things about the United States and about Americans.

And yet simultaneously, the largesse he spreads about the conservative movement has won him all kinds of friends, influence, and defenders, if not followers. Certainly, there is no one in the mainstream media who bothers to mention this, let alone play endless tape loops.

Here are some of the things Moon has said over the years, as Gorenfeld has detailed:

The whole world is in my hand, and I will conquer and subjugate the world. I will go beyond the boundary of the U.S., opening up the toll gate, reaching out to the end of the world. I will go forward, piercing through everything …

When we are in our battle against the whole nation of the U.S. — if you are truly in love with this nation, and if you love this nation more than anyone else, this nation will come into God’s possession, and Satan will have nothing to do with it. … With that as the bullet, we can smash the whole world.

Individualism is what God hates most, and Satan likes best.

God likes the idea of a monarchy, because it removes the cycles of election after election which can obscure the focus and direction of the nation.

The whole world is in my hand, and I will conquer and subjugate the whole world.

The time will come when, without my seeking it, that my words must serve as law.

We will be able to amend laws, articles of constitution, if we wish to do so.

Telling a lie becomes a sin if you tell it to take advantage of a person, but if you tell a lie to do a good thing … that is not a sin … Even God tells lies very often.

I have met many famous, so-called famous, Senators and Congressmen; but to my eyes they are nothing. They are weak and helpless. We will win the battle. This is our dream, our project. But shut your mouth tight.

After the demise of communism and the destruction of democracy, all that will remain will be the True Family and True Children system, centered upon True Parents [Moon's title for himself and his wife]. That is what is happening now.

America may boast of its virtues to the world, but look, democracy is now reaching the end of its rope. People thought democracy is the final anchor of the free world, but it is reaching its end. So what is left? America has been telling the weaker nations that they have to accept democracy, forcing them to receive so-called democracy. But look at America. It is rotten, top to bottom. There is nothing to be proud of, not their way of walking or talking or thinking.

When you hear me putting America down, your ears are not pleased. But if we continue living in this hub of the satanic world, this New York-DC area, we are in the darkness.

When Clinton and his policies come into being, the first opposition must come from Christianity. But Christianity has lost its center and its hope. For that reason, they have lost their power, and that is why Clinton was allowed to win the election. It was the failure of Christianity. This nation which is supposed to be Christian has been turned into almost a model nation for Satan, losing everything precious. People are losing their own identity, losing brotherhood, losing their own parents, and losing God. This nation has really become a playground for Satan.

Those "patriotic" conservatives have not fled screaming from Moon for saying these kinds of things. They have not denounced him. They have not even discussed them — nor, for that matter, have the media.

No, they not only continue to sturdily defend him and his many operations — most notably the Washington Times Moon’s newspaper, which has employed many leading conservative pundits — they positively embrace him, mostly because of his money. The most significant of these has been his embrace by the Bush family.

George H.W. Bush has appeared at major Moon-sponsored events and taken large sums of his money. Neil Bush has toured with him and also enjoys his considerable largesse. And President Bush has gone so far as to name a former Unification Church leader — Josette Sheeran — as his undersecretary of state for economic, business, and agriculture affairs.

But have the mainstream media dealt with any of this? Er, no. In fact, when the subject of the Bush clan’s ties to Moon have come up, people like the New York Times’ David Brooks — who got his start as a pundit at the Washington Times — call it a "bizarre assertion" and an instance of the "paranoid style in American politics."

Obviously, you don’t get to watch Moon’s "hateful" and "anti-American" remarks being replayed endlessly on CNN and Fox, nor watch every media outlet in the nation obsess over whether Republicans should repudiate him.

Funny how that works, isn’t it?

Strangers In Our Living Rooms

-- by Sara

Dave's post below points up just how complicit the media has become in perpetuating the kind of sticky, pernicious racial conflicts so much of the country is trying hard to get past. The deeper problem here, of course, is that conflict sells -- you really can't have any kind of dramatic narrative, fiction or non-fiction, without it. And it's very hard to get the American media to give up on a conflict narrative that's served so many social and political interests so reliably for so long -- even when it's become patently clear to everyone that that narrative is now savaging the soul of the country.

And the infuriating part of it is: It doesn't have to be this way. To prove the point, I'd like to offer two examples of how other countries are using media constructively -- and incredibly powerfully -- to actively help people get past this stuff, instead of staying stuck in it.

The first example comes from Greece. Two summers ago, my son and I went to Athens for a couple of weeks, where we stayed with my grandmother's very best friend -- an elderly Greek woman we'd absorbed into our family clan decades ago as a shirttail aunt. The second night after we arrived, Menie cut dinner short and shooed us all over to the TV. It was time for her favorite show, The Borders of Love. Apparently, it was the biggest TV phenomenon in both Greece and Turkey that year; in both countries, everybody hung on every episode and discussed it in the shops and streets for days afterward. So we gathered in the front room, and settled down to watch.



The Borders of Love was a Romeo-and-Juliet tale of Nazli, a beautiful young Turkish woman, who falls in love with Niko, a dashing Greek man. The series followed the various social dilemmas this unlikely pairing caused -- the cultural clashes between the two of them, issues with co-workers, bosses, neighbors, and friends, and (especially) the huge upsets this caused within their respective families. Dramatically, this isn't anything particularly new -- but there was an interesting twist that made it remarkable in a world-changing way.

Nazli's part of the story was scripted in Turkish, with Greek subtitles supplied. Niko's friends and family all spoke Greek, with Turkish subtitles supplied. And the show was shown -- and became a massive hit -- in both countries. Young Greek men snapped up posters of the elegant Nazli; Turkish girls swooned over handsome Niko.

But the show caused a shift that went much deeper than that. As Greeks and Turks found themselves rooting for the young couple to make it through (which they did: their wedding show was a landmark TV event on both sides of the Bosporus), many of them began to question the thousands of years of mutual animosity that, in most cases, had become nothing more than a reflexive habit. People from both countries began seeking each other out and having civil conversations (often with their fondness for the show as the opening piece of common ground). New trade initiatives were launched; the amount of business between the two countries soared. Greeks and Turks on the street realized they had more in common than baklava and belly dancing; that, as neighbors, they were stuck with each other -- and that might not, in the end, be an awful thing. If Nazli and Niko could make it work in the face of their crazy families, they decided, maybe the rest of them could give it a try, too.



The second example is much closer to home -- in my case, literally. These days, Wednesday nights will usually find me curled up on the couch at my house in Vancouver, eagerly devouring the latest half-hour installment of Little Mosque on the Prairie. I've become unreasonably engrossed in the charming tale of a small town on the Canadian prairies that finds itself welcoming an influx of Muslim immigrants (which, in fact, is happening on the prairies) -- and the sitcom that gives us weekly lessons on how this culture clash can be worked out with mutual respect, humor, and sometimes even love.

The show -- which was created by Zarqa Narwaz, a Muslim writer in Toronto --features Amaar, an attorney from Toronto who abandons his practice to become the imam for the Muslims of the tiny prairie town of Mercy. The show's romantic tension comes from his relationship with Rayyan, the observant yet very feminist Muslim woman who serves as the town's doctor. (Rayyan wears hijab with such stylish flair that Muslim women all over Canada flock to websites showing how they can replicate her fabulous look.) It's love-hate between Amaar and Rayyan, but you know these two handsome, brilliantly-educated professionals are destined for each other.

Amaar's congregation gathers in unused space in the Anglican church (the "little mosque" is really a converted fellowship hall furnished with prayer rugs) which is graying and needs the rent money to keep their church operating. His co-existence with the good reverend -- and the encounters between their respective flocks -- makes for some cute plot twists, as do the various situations in which Canadian culture has to scoot over to make room for the newcomers. Parks & Rec can only find a male instructor for the women-only swim class -- and suddenly, the Muslim women have to cover up in the pool. (Further hilarity ensues when it comes out that the instructor is gay.) Orthodox Muslims struggle to come to terms with sending their kids out on Halloween, but find a way to make the holiday their own. Fatima, the vast and traditional Nigerian woman who officiates at the town's diner, creates medical havoc with her old-country cures -- and Rayyan scrambles to undo the damage. There's even a local hate-radio host who keeps trying to foment resentment toward the newcomers ("What have they got against dogs?") -- but can barely admit his overwhelming crush on Fatima.

This is all frothy sitcom stuff -- but it's smartly and compassionately written, and Nawaz and her writers deftly skewer the most absurd and extremist elements of both cultures. The result is a valuable civics lesson for a country that's reeling under the largest immigrant flow of any nation in the world -- a historically English and French culture that's now absorbing vast numbers of people from Asia and the Middle East. These days, everybody in Canada is working through these same kinds of cultural glitches together, every day. But when CBC offers us this weekly lesson showing how it all can be worked out if we keep relying on the same good will and good humor that have always been at the core of Canadian culture, it really does help the rest of us find our way.

The need to perpetuate a certain racial conflict narrative -- and the unquestioning enthusiasm with which American media as a whole is now buying into the right wing's "culture war with Islamofascism" frame -- pretty much guarantees that you're not going to see Little Mosque on the Prairie on any American network any time soon. After all, a show that like this has the potential to blast through two decades of carefully-cultivated anti-Islam stereotyping in the space of two months. (Interested Americans can acquire the first season on DVD here. Season Two is due out shortly.)

And it's a huge loss, because TV has always been a potent tool for changing the way people all over the world viewed the Other. The rising black upper-middle class was legitimized and made visible through the 70s and 80s when Americans embraced the Jeffersons and the Huxtables. Attitudes towards gays began to soften when we all got to know Jody Dallas (played by a very young Billy Crystal) on the 70s' sitcom Soap. TV has always had a magical ability to bring people we'd have never meet otherwise into our own homes, and making them part of our families. And once you know Jody or Cliff and Claire or Amaar and Rayyan or Nazli and Niko, it's far harder to objectify them, to keep seeing their tribe as something irredeemably different from your own.

That's the opportunity America's corporate media is forfeiting now with its continued insistence on reinforcing conflict-based racial narratives. As any Greek, Turk, or Canadian can tell you, TV can do more than just sell us Ziplock and Coke and Ford. It can also sell us new and better ways of co-existing in a diverse world. Our own media's obstinate refusal -- or, perhaps, lack of imagination -- in using their power to provide visions and models of other, more constructive ways of dealing with these issues is just one more way in which they are failing us, both culturally and politically.

If we're going to change the way Americans approach the Other in our midst, we need to start by demanding that those who produce our media give up on their divisive old stories, and instead start showing us all new and better ways to get along. Our TV producers used to do this so well -- but now, it's just another front on which the rest of the world now has us beat.

The media's race problem

-- by Dave

Probably the most remarkable aspect of the recent feeding frenzy about Barack Obama's so-called "pastor problem" -- besides the agility and smarts that Obama has displayed in handling it -- is not as much what it reveals about the state of race in America as what it reveals about the state of the American media.

The Washington Post's report on Obama's speech observed that this was a controversy that "threatens to engulf his presidential candidacy." Yet as far as anyone can tell, it was having only a marginal effect on the polls in the race before it blew up on the networks, and it was not generated by either of Obama's political opponents, or by any particular interest groups.

No, this is a controversy cooked up almost entirely within the media realm. Once they sank their fangs into it, the whole zombielike corps of pundits, cable talking heads, and radio talk-show hosts couldn't let go of it. And equally remarkable was the bias that was on display in discussing it: News anchors and talking heads flatly referred to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's videotaped remarks as "anti-American," "hate-filled," "vicious," "offensive," and so on and on.

It's telling that none of them also observed that, for the most part, Wright's remarks (aside from his conspiracist comments about AIDS, which were indeed inexcusable, but which received little or no play before Obama's speech) were factually accurate, and deeply reflective of a reality that most African Americans live with -- and which most white Americans do their best to ignore, deny, and forget. The remarks that were broadcast all over YouTube and replayed endlessly on the cable talk shows were, no doubt, were impolitic, but they were also largely true.

The Media's Race Problem

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]

Probably the most remarkable aspect of the recent feeding frenzy about Barack Obama’s so-called "pastor problem" — besides the agility and smarts that Obama has displayed in handling it — is not as much what it reveals about the state of race in America as what it reveals about the state of the American media.

The Washington Post’s report on Obama’s speech observed that this was a controversy that "threatens to engulf his presidential candidacy." Yet as far as anyone can tell, it was having only a marginal effect on the polls in the race before it blew up on the networks, and it was not generated by either of Obama’s political opponents, or by any particular interest groups.

No, this is a controversy cooked up almost entirely within the media realm. Once they sank their fangs into it, the whole zombielike corps of pundits, cable talking heads, and radio talk-show hosts couldn’t let go of it. And equally remarkable was the bias that was on display in discussing it: News anchors and talking heads flatly referred to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s videotaped remarks as "anti-American," "hate-filled," "vicious," "offensive," and so on and on.

It’s telling that none of them also observed that, for the most part, Wright’s remarks (aside from his conspiracist comments about AIDS, which were indeed inexcusable, but which received little or no play before Obama’s speech) were factually accurate, and deeply reflective of a reality that most African Americans live with — and which most white Americans do their best to ignore, deny, and forget. The remarks that were broadcast all over YouTube and replayed endlessly on the cable talk shows were, no doubt, were impolitic, but they were also largely true.

Hacktackular Howie Kurtz, the Post’s "media critic," in his column today — while notably failing to critique the media for its performance — essentially admitted that this was a media-driven frenzy:

[I]t wasn’t until last week, when Fox News and ABC News bought DVDs of Wright’s sermons from the church, that the simmering controversy reached full boil. The recordings have long been sold by the church, but journalists did not seek them until now.

Kurtz’s description also encapsulates the blinkered bias that was at play in not just the discussion leading up to Obama’s speech, but in the general response to it:

To their credit, the network newscasts ran four or five sound bites to evoke Obama’s broader argument that while the anger of older blacks like Wright, 66, is understandable, the country needs to move beyond the racial wounds of the past. But Obama, 46, is trying to win the Democratic nomination, so the anchors kept returning to one core question.

"Is it enough to reassure white voters?" ABC’s Charlie Gibson asked.

"Does it make too many white voters uncomfortable?" asked CBS’s Katie Couric.

Their entire preoccupation, indeed, was with how Wright’s remarks might discomfit whites — while never examining the deeper questions of whether white complacence about race might be something worth challenging, as well as their own roles in failing to make that challenge.

So let’s examine the remarks by Wright that whipped up this frenzy. The controversy largely centered around these quotes:

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people," he said in a 2003 sermon. "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

In addition to damning America, he told his congregation on the Sunday after Sept. 11, 2001 that the United States had brought on al Qaeda’s attacks because of its own terrorism.

"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye," Rev. Wright said in a sermon on Sept. 16, 2001.

"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost," he told his congregation.

And there was more outrage over these quotes:

In one sermon in October 2005, Rev. Wright addressed the racial elements at play in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

"The winds of Katrina blew the cover off America. The hurricane exposed the hypocrisy," Rev. Wright said, "protecting white folks’ property took priority over saving black folks’ lives." He continued, "This storm called Katrina says far more about a racist government than it does about the wrath of God."

In April 2003, Rev. Wright told his congregation that "the United States government has failed the vast majority of our citizens of African descent."

"For every one Oprah, a billionaire, you’ve got five million blacks who are out of work," he said. "For every one Colin Powell, a millionaire, you’ve got 10 million blacks who cannot read. For every one Condoskeeza [sic] Rice, you’ve got one million in prison. For every one Tiger Woods, who needs to get beat, at the Masters, with his cap-blazing hips, playing on a course that discriminates against women. For every one Tiger Woods, we got 10,000 black kids who will never see a golf course."

What Wright is talking about here, of course, is the long and ugly history of white prejudice against African Americans, a history that continues to this day.

Regardless how much Obama may concede that Wright’s language was "anti-American" or "hateful," the reality is they can only be construed as such if one believes that any criticism of the USA, and of prejudiced white Americans particularly, is unpatriotic or vicious. It’s akin to the long-running right-wing notion that America is like a beloved mommy, and any criticism of her whatsoever means that you "hate America."

Wright may indeed have been short-sighted in failing to acknowledge that there has been progress made, but the reality is that the progress has not only fallen far short of where we need to be, but white complacence over that progress is itself a significant roadblock for creating a real bridge to cross the nation’s racial divide.

The racism he’s talking about is the lazy, blinkered notion that somehow whites have already overcome racism — that they are not responsible for the years of institutional racism, embodied in Jimi Crow, segregation, and the "sundown towns" phenomenon that created the continuing residential and professional segregation that enables young white people to form the networks and connections that are the foundations of economic and social success while leaving young blacks, Latinos, and other minorities out in the cold.

Obama, to his credit, attempted to tackle this in his speech:

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.

Legalized discrimination — where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families — a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

Obama is hardly the first major political figure to address this. Back in 1995, President Clinton said something remarkably similar:

The rift we see before us that is tearing at the heart of America exists in spite of the remarkable progress black Americans have made in the last generation, since Martin Luther King swept America up in his dream, and President Johnson spoke so powerfully for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy in demanding that Congress guarantee full voting rights to blacks. The rift between blacks and whites exists still in a very special way in America, in spite of the fact that we have become much more racially and ethnically diverse, and that Hispanic Americans — themselves no strangers to discrimination — are now almost 10 percent of our national population.

The reasons for this divide are many. Some are rooted in the awful history and stubborn persistence of racism. Some are rooted in the different ways we experience the threats of modern life to personal security, family values, and strong communities. Some are rooted in the fact that we still haven’t learned to talk frankly, to listen carefully, and to work together across racial lines.

… The two worlds we see now each contain both truth and distortion. Both black and white Americans must face this, for honesty is the only gateway to the many acts of reconciliation that will unite our worlds at last into one America.

White America must understand and acknowledge the roots of black pain. It began with unequal treatment first in law and later in fact. African Americans indeed have lived too long with a justice system that in too many cases has been and continues to be less than just. (Applause.) The record of abuses extends from lynchings and trumped up charges to false arrests and police brutality. The tragedies of Emmett Till and Rodney King are bloody markers on the very same road.

Still today too many of our police officers play by the rules of the bad old days. It is beyond wrong when law-abiding black parents have to tell their law-abiding children to fear the police whose salaries are paid by their own taxes.

And blacks are right to think something is terribly wrong when African American men are many times more likely to be victims of homicide than any other group in this country; when there are more African American men in our corrections system than in our colleges; when almost one in three African American men in their 20s are either in jail, on parole or otherwise under the supervision of the criminal justice system — nearly one in three. And that is a disproportionate percentage in comparison to the percentage of blacks who use drugs in our society. Now, I would like every white person here and in America to take a moment to think how he or she would feel if one in three white men were in similar circumstances.

And there is still unacceptable economic disparity between blacks and whites. It is so fashionable to talk today about African Americans as if they have been some sort of protected class. Many whites think blacks are getting more than their fair share in terms of jobs and promotions. That is not true. That is not true.

The truth is that African Americans still make on average about 60 percent of what white people do; that more than half of African American children live in poverty. And at the very time our young Americans need access to college more than ever before, black college enrollment is dropping in America.

These are uncomfortable truths, of course, but they are also truths. And the media have as much a role in the failure of white Americans to honestly and forthrightly confront them.

The reason we haven’t done so is that we whites have done our damnedest to ignore them. We have effectively wiped the memory of sundown towns from our memories, making us almost purposefully ignorant of them and their surrounding history of ugly violence and vicious bigotry.

Indeed, as we have seen throughout the Obama controversy, the media have been consistent in encouraging white Americans to forget them. Meanwhile, the black people who have to live with these realities cannot.

Spiting our faces

-- by Dave

Among the folks have been (shall we say) particularly amused by Americans' current fetish about keeping out "illegal aliens" are Native Americans -- who of course have a somewhat unique perspective on the issue, having themselves long endured an "invasion" of "outsiders" and the subsequent "cultural change" that followed.

But of course, we've now found a way to treat them like "illegal aliens" too, as the AARP reports, in a piece about how a Republican-inspired policy intended to keep those awful "aliens" from stealing health-care benefits has actually turned into a way to keep the most native of Americans from getting them too:

Bernice Todd's Choctaw family roots are sunk deep in the soil of Oklahoma, a state whose very name is Choctaw for "red people." But in the middle of a debilitating battle with cancer, Todd, a 39-year-old who cleans homes at a trailer park and baby-sits for a living, lost her state Medicaid health care coverage because, although she's a Native American, she could not prove she is a U.S. citizen.

While Todd's case is rich in irony, she is one of tens of thousands of Americans who are falling victim to a new federal rule—aimed at keeping illegal immigrants off the Medicaid rolls—requiring that recipients prove their citizenship and identity with documents many don't have.

Naturally, the idea for the rule change behind this travesty came from the nativist wing of the GOP:

States have always been required to check a Medicaid applicant’s eligibility, which includes citizenship. But a July 2006 rule, enforced by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), now demands specific documents as proof, such as a passport or a birth certificate, driver's license or military record. States face fines if they don't comply.

The rule, which neither CMS nor the Bush administration requested, was adopted by the Republican-dominated Congress in 2005 despite the fact that there was no evidence that undocumented immigrants were falsely claiming U.S. citizenship to get Medicaid.

"This rule was the answer to a problem that really doesn’t exist," says Donna Cohen Ross, an analyst with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, a nonpartisan research organization.

In fact, the year the rule was passed, Mark McClellan, then the administrator for CMS, said that a report by the CMS inspector general did "not find particular problems regarding false allegations of citizenship, nor are we aware of any." Most states agreed with that assessment.

"In 2007 we added $1 million to our budget just to handle the cost of this new rule when we had absolutely no indication there was a problem with illegal immigrants getting Medicaid in Kansas," says Andrew Allison, Kansas Medicaid director and deputy director of the state Health Policy Authority.

Of course, as we recently pointed out, this is all being done to address a problem that doesn't exist:

Just a small fraction of America's health care spending is used to provide publicly supported care to the nation's undocumented immigrants, according to a RAND Corporation study issued today.

Overall, immigrants to the United States use relatively few health services, primarily because they are generally healthier than their American-born counterparts, according to the study by the nonprofit research organization.

And unsuprisingly, the rule has done next to nothing in terms of stopping "illegal aliens" from getting benefits:

So far, he says, Oklahoma has uncovered no illegal immigrants on its rolls. And Arizona, where immigration is a huge issue, has filed two reports since the rule went into effect, each saying the state uncovered "zero" illegal immigrants among its 1 million Medicaid recipients. Kansas has found one illegal immigrant on its Medicaid rolls.

A U.S. Government Accountability Office survey of the states last year found that that the requirement caused eligible U.S. citizens to lose Medicaid coverage while increasing administrative costs. A close analysis of six states, the report says, showed that for every $100 spent to implement the rule, only 14 cents was saved.

In fact, nationwide the rule has added millions of dollars in administrative costs.

As Skemono puts it:

So, because we were worried that foreigners might be using up our precious medical supplies (which was one of the top concerns over immigration on this poll, and of course isn't true), we have adopted a "solution" that instead deprives thousands of actual citizens of health care. Brilliant.

But then, that's really the problem with the nativist approach to immigration in general: Not only is it fundamentally irrational, it is also perforce going to result in travesty upon travesty.

Being responsible

-- by Dave

"This is an acknowledgment that we need to fundamentally change what our conversation about national security and war looks like in order to be able to move forward."
-- Darcy Burner

I felt a real burst of old-fashioned Northwesterner pride yesterday watching Darcy Burner lead a contingent of Democratic congressional candidates announce their "Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq" before the Take Back America Conference here in D.C. Not only was it clear that Darcy was the sparkplug and leader for the group -- and it was an impressive group -- but all the reasons to support her congressional campaign were on full display: the razor intelligence, the fearlessness, the natural leadership qualities.

But Burner herself must take a back seat to the plan, which is perhaps even more impressive: a thorough, comprehensive approach not just to solving the immediate issues around the Iraq conflict but also the systemic issues that go deeper. The idea is not just to end the war and bring peace and stability to Iraq, but to keep such a blunder from happening again.

The ResponsiblePlan.com site has the details:

Restoring our Constitution:

Many mistakes were made in the course of this war, and our systems of checks and balances have failed us at critical moments. To prevent repeating those mistakes, we must repair the underlying Constitutional framework of our republic and provide checks to executive authority. Balance must be restored between the executive and the judicial branch (for instance through the restoration of habeas corpus), between the executive and the legislative branch (for instance through clarifying that the President does not have the Constitutional authority to unilaterally alter legislation through signing statements), and between the executive and the people of the United States (for instance by clarifying that the Fourth Amendment requires probable cause and a warrant for the government to spy on Americans).

Restoring our military:

Repairing the damage done to our military will require reforms in contracting procedures, restoring benefits for members of the military and veterans, and investment in repairing or replacing damaged military equipment.

The need for contracting reform is substantial. Private militias have direct incentives to prolong the conflict rather than resolve it; their use needs to be phased out. Contractors must be legally accountable for their actions. War profiteering must be stopped, and those who have engaged in it need to answer for their actions.

The safety of our men and women in uniform requires that we adhere to international standards with respect to treatment of prisoners. We must also make it clear that the United States does not torture, and that we do not send people to other places to be tortured, either.

The military is having substantial difficulty with recruiting and retention; we could begin to help by delivering on more of the promises the original Montgomery G.I. Bill made and by delivering on our promises regarding healthcare for veterans.

Restoring independence to the media:

The consolidation of our news media into the control of a relatively few corporate entities stifled a full and fair discussion and debate around Iraq. A more robust debate could be encouraged by expanding access to media.

Creating a new, U.S.-centered energy policy:

Finally, we are clearly tied to Iraq through our dependence on oil, which makes us vulnerable. Moving away from that independence is necessary for strategic, economic, and environmental reasons.

Here are a couple of videos:




Dave Reichert, Darcy's opponent, offered up a lame retort:

Reichert opposes committing to an immediate drawdown of U.S. troops, Shields said. And Reichert also is against massive U.S. spending in Iraq, an oil-rich country that has plenty of resources of its own, he said.

Reichert aide Mike Shields said, "I think both sides would agree we have the same plan: We want our troops home as soon as possible."

But Reichert "wants them to withdraw based on the situation on the ground," Shields said. "This plan wants them to withdraw based on the domestic political situation in the United States."

Of course, the plan in fact is wholly predicated on realities on the ground in Iraq -- namely, the understanding that the healing cannot begin until our troops begin withdrawing.

As the plan observes:

Responsibly ending the U.S. military action in Iraq and returning control of the country to the Iraqis is a critical step in enhancing U.S. security. This solution requires that no residual U.S. troops remain in Iraq. The continued presence in Iraq of so-called “residual” forces beyond the minimum needed for standard embassy-protection would be a serious mistake. Any such troops would become a magnet for insurgent attacks and unless they did nothing at all would inevitably become players in Iraq’s domestic political disputes, thus forcing the United States to continue to play referee to Iraq’s civil conflicts. Soldiers tasked with training missions would, to be effective, have to be embedded in Iraqi combat formations necessarily involving them directly in combat, thus continuing to hold American strategic fortunes hostage to events in Iraq that are beyond our control.

In any event, it's an exciting moment in the evolution of the movement to end the war, as well as the progressive movement generally. It has the chance to be a definitive moment for the nation -- especially if we seize the opportunity and make it happen.

More immigration facts

-- by Dave

For anyone interested in supplementing the information we've been discussing in debunking the persistent nonsense about immigration, be sure to check out the "OnPoint" section put together by ImmigrationPolicy.org.

Among the highlights: a roundup of facts about immigrants and crime, an examination of how far short of anything effective the Social Security Administration has fallen, and a rich section on immigration and the economy.

This is a terrific information resource, which I'll be adding to my blogroll.

All Latinos are illegals

-- by Dave

One of the reasons terms like "illegal alien" and "illegal immigrant" and their shortened version, "illegals," are so noxious is that, as I've discussed, it's such clear form of dehumanization. And once it gains ready circulation, it becomes a reflexive thing.

So much so that, nowadays, you'll find half-thinking media nabobs calling Latinos living in their own country "illegals."

Exhibit A: Wonkette last week:

We cannot write a better introduction than this: "A town in South America is living in fear after several sightings of a 'creepy gnome' that locals claim stalks the streets at night. The midget -- which wears a pointy hat and has a distinctive sideways walk -- was caught on video last week by a terrified group of youngsters." This sidling wicket goblin, who is terrorizing Argentinian Mexicans, made one teenager "so scared after seeing that thing that we had to take him to the hospital."

Hmm... a hobbit gnome terrorizing illegals? This is no mystery at all.

You have to wonder if Wonkette has ever even looked at a map of Latin America -- because, you know, that might help her to understand that Argentina and Mexico are a long ways away from each other.

But you have to wonder about the intellectual capacity of anyone who would refer to villagers in their native land as "illegals."

[Via LatinoPundit.]

UPDATE: Several commenters have pointed out that Wonkette is a satirical site, and of course, it's obvious that the post was intended to be satire. Unfortunately, it's also so badly done that whatever satire was intended is buried in the underlying stupidity of the post.

Finally: A plan for Iraq

-- by Dave

Nearly every liberal -- and for that matter, nearly every person of conscience -- has been frustrated to the point of anger and rage over the inability of congressional Democrats to make any progress in ending the war in Iraq since their electoral victories of 2006. Most of us feel that Dems have allowed themselves to be outmaneuvered at every turn by Bush and the Republicans, largely because they've lacked the real vision needed for change and the backbone to make it happen.

That's about to change, because there is a group of Democratic congressional candidates whose politics are the reverse of the "Bush Dog" Dems who have stymied progress on ending the war. They're about to make a splash by proposing a concrete plan for ending the war, and then running on it.

One of the leaders of this group is our own Darcy Burner, who is announcing the plan today at the Take Back America convention in D.C. As her release explains:

The plan sets out, in some detail, the steps that Congress can take to convert our current military involvement in Iraq into a comprehensive political, diplomatic and economic effort to assist the Iraqi people through a difficult transition. It also details the many areas in which we need to take action to deal with the serious damage this misguided war has caused.

I'm at the TBA this week and will report more on the details of the plan tomorrow.