Sorry, dealer’s all out of race cards

[DarrinS]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...s=rss_opinions

Predictable as rain, the race card has surfaced just in time to stir up electoral passions, justify outcomes and explain away inconvenient truths.

Just days from Election Day, the zeitgeist belched up one of its least attractive — and least defensible — memes. (Was it the weather?)

Preemptive theories, in no particular order, include: Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama because they are both black (according to Romney surrogate John Sununu); if Obama loses Florida, North Carolina and Virginia, all of which voted for him in 2008, the old Confederacy will be restored (Daily Beast commentator Andrew Sullivan); Americans still harbor racial bias even if they don’t know it (recent online poll, Associated Press).

Anyone reading headlines related to the poll might infer that white Americans are biased against black Americans. Extrapolating, given the current election season, it follows that if some voters prefer Romney, it is because Obama is African American.

But a review of the poll reveals something not quite so definitive or sinister. Overall, the findings suggest that most Americans are moderate, fair-minded and, for the most part, don’t see things one way or the other based on race.

Some of the questions themselves, on the other hand, were unnecessarily provocative and biased. That is, their design was based on an assumption of racial bias.

For example, the AP poll asked people whether they agree or disagree with the following statements: “Irish, Italians, Jewish, and other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without special favors.”

What kind of question is this? Who doesn’t believe that everyone should work his or her way up? The underlying assumption is blatantly racist, implying as it does that blacks don’t work and do expect special favors.

It is heartening that the majority, perhaps perceiving the trap, neither strongly agreed nor disagreed.

Another statement read: “It’s really a matter of some people just not trying hard enough; if blacks would only try harder, they could just be as well off as whites.”

Why not just ask people when they stopped beating their children?

The poll posed similar questions about other races and ethnicities. I selected these two because they were among the most egregiously biased and were most pertinent to the current election. It should be noted that most of those polled expressed a preference for Obama to win on Nov. 6, even though the figures have dipped somewhat since 2010, when the AP polling began.

Oh, and most identified themselves as white Christian (though not necessarily born-again) Democrats — and most were from the South. So much for the racist-Republican Confederacy, which never dies in the eyes of some political commentators. Sullivan, declaring a Cold Civil War, found “fascinating” the recons ution of the Confederate states, should Romney win the three previously mentioned. But the obvious implication, Sullivan’s protests notwithstanding, is that people who vote for Romney in those states are necessarily racist.

What else could he have meant by mentioning the Confederacy in the context of a black in bent president being rejected by three Southern states that previously embraced him? Operative words: “previously embraced him.”

What happened? Did all those people who voted for Obama in 2008 suddenly become racist? Or have they lost confidence in Obama four years later? Obama had a 70 percent approval rating early in his administration. Did all those people suddenly become racist?

We are not a nation naive enough to think race plays no part in our perceptions and responses. And where there are humans, there will be racists. But this nation also elected an African American as its president. By an overwhelming majority, Americans like him and wanted him to succeed.

If Obama loses, it will be his own undoing. Meanwhile, no one questions why 95 percent of blacks support the president. Is it racial? Or is it simply that most African Americans happen to be Democrats?

Sununu implied the former, hinting that Powell chose Obama out of racial loyalty. I wish Sununu hadn’t gone there. Had Powell endorsed Romney, he’d be a GOP hero, just as he now is to Democrats who have managed to overlook his convincing support for the weapons-of-mass-destruction hypothesis in Iraq.

So it goes. But even the netherworld of politics should have standards. To preemptively label people racist for favoring a candidate who happens to be white, and otherwise advancing a narrative that will create only racial animus should Obama lose, is implicitly biased, unfair and a breach of good faith. Stop it.

[DarrinS]

Sadly, in the same paper

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...314_story.html


What America will we pick?

Alternate le: White Men are Evil

This election is only tangentially a fight over policy. It is also a fight about meaning and iden y — and that’s one reason voters are so polarized. It’s about who we are and who we aspire to be.

President Obama enters the final days of the campaign with a substantial lead among women — about 11 points, according to the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll — and enormous leads among Latinos and African Americans, the nation’s two largest minority groups. Mitt Romney leads among white voters, with an incredible 2-to-1 advantage among white men.

It is too simplistic to conclude that demography equals destiny. Both men are being sincere when they vow to serve the interests of all Americans. But it would be disingenuous to pretend not to notice the obvious cleavage between those who have long held power in this society and those who are beginning to attain it.

When Republicans vow to “take back our country,” they never say from whom. But we can guess.

Issues of race, power and privilege are less explicit this year than they were in 2008, but in some ways they are even stronger.

Four years ago, we asked ourselves whether the nation would ever elect a black president. The question was front and center. Every time we see the president and his family walk across the White House lawn to board Marine One, we’re reminded of the answer.

The intensity of the opposition to Obama has less to do with who he is than with the changes in U.S. society he not only represents but incarnates. Citing his race as a factor in the way some of his opponents have bitterly resisted his policies immediately draws an outraged cry: “You’re saying that just because I oppose Obama, I’m a racist.” No, I’m not saying that at all.

What I’m saying is that Obama’s racial iden y is a constant reminder of how much the nation has changed in a relatively short time. In my lifetime, we’ve experienced the civil rights movement, the countercultural explosion of the 1960s, the sexual revolution, the women’s movement and an unprecedented wave of Latino immigration. Within a few decades, there will be no white majority in this country — no majority of any kind, in fact. We will be a nation of racial and ethnic minorities, and we will only prosper if everyone learns to give and take.

Our place in the world has changed as well. The United States remains the dominant economic and military power; our ideals remain a beacon for those around the globe still yearning to breathe free. But our capacity for unilateral action is diminished; we can assert but not dictate, and we must learn to persuade.

Obama’s great sin, for some who oppose him, is to make it impossible to ignore these domestic and international megatrends. Take one look at Obama and the phenomenon of demographic change is inescapable. Observe his approach to international crises in places such as Libya or Syria and the reality of America’s place in the world is unavoidable.

I’m deliberately leaving aside what should be the biggest factor in the election: Obama’s policies. It happens that I have supported most of them, but of course there are legitimate reasons to favor Romney’s proposals, insofar as we know what they really are — and the extent to which they really differ from Obama’s.

In foreign affairs, judging by Monday’s debate, the differences are too small to discern; Romney promises to speak in a louder voice and perhaps deploy more battleships, but that’s about it. Domestically, however, I see a clear choice. I consider the Affordable Care Act a great achievement, and Romney’s promise to repeal it would alone be reason enough for me to oppose him. Add in the tax cuts for the wealthy, the plan to “voucherize” Medicare and the appointments Romney would likely make to the Supreme Court, and the implications of this election become even weightier.

Issues may explain our sharp political divisions, but they can’t be the cause of our demographic polarization. White men need medical care, too. African Americans and Latinos understand the need to get our fiscal house in order. The recession and the slow recovery have taken a toll across the board.

Some of Obama’s opponents have tried to delegitimize his presidency because he doesn’t embody the America they once knew. He embodies the America of now.

[RandomGuy]

rss_opinions[/url]

Thanks boutons, er Darrin.

RSS feeds and chain emails. I see you are upping your game.

Wake me up when you have your own opinions.

[boutons_deux]

"If Obama loses, it will be his own undoing"

The donors of many $100Ms, $1B+ ?, of dark money, of 1% money, of UCA money, of Wall St don't agree.

[boutons_deux]

Thanks boutons, er Darrin.

RSS feeds and chain emails. I see you are upping your game.

Wake me up when you have your own opinions.

trash talking use of RSS? WTF?

Do you assholes really visit every site and dig through all the and ads?

[DarrinS]

Thanks boutons, er Darrin.

RSS feeds and chain emails. I see you are upping your game.

Wake me up when you have your own opinions.

Obama has been a disappointment. It has nothing to do with his complexion. You have officially been awakened.

[TeyshaBlue]

trash talking use of RSS? WTF?

Do you assholes really visit every site and dig through all the and ads?

Yes. It requires thinking tho.

[TeyshaBlue]

It's not the RSS Feed, per se. It's the idiotic application as a confirmation bias blanket.

[DarrinS]

It's not the RSS Feed, per se. It's the idiotic application as a confirmation bias blanket.

Did I not post two differnt points of view?

[TeyshaBlue]

No, you didn't.

[Spurminator]

Predictable as rain, Darrin posts a race card thread.

[DarrinS]

It's strange how pointing out Dem's use of playing the race card and hearing "dog whistles" is, in itself, playing the race card.

[ChumpDumper]

Race only seems to be a dog whistle for Darrin around here tbh.

[George Gervin's Afro]

so much fail by darrins... all in one day!

[ChumpDumper]

He's just posting the threads he is told to post.

[DarrinS]

He's just posting the threads he is told to post.

What is that supposed to mean?

[ChumpDumper]

What is that supposed to mean?

What part did you not understand?

[Winehole23]

you suggested someone tells Darrin's knee when to jerk; it's entirely possible that isn't necessary.

[ChumpDumper]

you suggested someone tells Darrin's knee when to jerk; it's entirely possible that isn't necessary.

True, he could very well just be a self-sustaining talking point bot.

[Spurminator]

It's strange how pointing out Dem's use of playing the race card and hearing "dog whistles" is, in itself, playing the race card.

No, you're playing the victim.

[DarrinS]

On a recent Hardball with Chris Matthews

NEW YORK – This afternoon on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, host Chris Matthews revealed a photograph of what he claims is the book that contains Republican racial code words. The photograph shows an old and worn leather bound book that appears to have several hundred pages. Matthews said the photograph was sent to him by a former Bain investor who told him the book pictured is the one that Republicans, including presidential candidate Mitt Romney, have used as a source for racial coding since the Reagan era.

After showing the photograph Matthews exploded with emotion.

“We now have the proof that exposes Mitt Romney and the Republican party for what they really are, a bunch of rich white guys who use coded language to tell the American people that Barack Obama is a black man. In this day and age, how is something like this possible?”

Matthews looked at the photo of the book with disgust.

“How can we Americans look at our reflections in the mirror when the horrors of racism are still looking back at us? I’m ashamed! I’m ashamed of my country and I’m ashamed of my ancestors who could have been slave owners.”

Matthews wiped the spittle off his hands, sleeves and desk.

“I want to welcome my all-star panel tonight: Washington Post’s African American columnist Eugene Robinson, Salon editor Joan Walsh and NBC political director Chuck Todd. Let’s play hardball!”

After a commercial break the show resumed with Matthews holding up the photo.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Eugene Robinson, the picture of this book tells us with certainty that racism is alive and well in the Republican party.

EUGENE ROBINSON: It’s a shocking photograph. And it’s a shame that Republicans are exhibiting the same level of racism today against African Americans that your ancestors did, Chris.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: I don’t have an easy time sleeping, Eugene, you know that.

EUGENE ROBINSON: I know, Chris.

CHUCK TODD: How do the code words work?

CHRIS MATTHEWS: How do they work? Racists hear a certain word being used and they understand the speaker is referring to our black president in a derogatory way.

CHUCK TODD: But how do they know the code words?

JOAN WALSH: They all have a copy of the book.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: From what experts have told me, there are as many as 100 thousand racial code words being used by Mitt Romney and the Republicans.

CHUCK TODD: That’s astounding!

JOAN WALSH: My head is spinning!

EUGENE ROBINSON: Romney uses so many code words his speeches sound like Klan meetings. Yesterday he called a group of Ohio factory workers hard working people who deserved a better economy.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Oh God.

JOAN WALSH: Or in code speak, President Obama is a weird black man.

CHUCK TODD: This morning Romney told reporters that his thoughts and prayers are with the Gulf coast residents in the path of the hurricane.

JOAN WALSH: Or in code speak, President Obama wants to give more food stamps and welfare checks to African Americans.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: What about Romney’s disgusting and horrible joke during his hometown speech that nobody needs to see his birth certificate?

EUGENE ROBINSON: It made me throw up.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: We all know he meant that Obama is a black foreigner who is different than the rest of us.

JOAN WALSH: I’ve been told by reliable sources that it also means Obama likes to play golf, which is code speak for he likes watermelon.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Do these people have no shame?

CHUCK TODD: Last week Paul Ryan told supporters that Obama hadn’t done anything to ensure job creation.

JOAN WALSH: Or in code speak, black men want to have sex with your white daughters.

EUGENE ROBINSON: And the Republicans just lap it up.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: What’s going to happen to African Americans if by some chance Romney wins the election?

JOAN WALSH: Well, they’ll have two months to pack up and get the out while they can.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Where are they going to go? Where are you going to go, Eugene?

EUGENE ROBINSON: I might go to Iceland.

JOAN WALSH: What about our Olympic sensation, little African American, Gabby Douglas?

CHRIS MATTHEWS: I wasn’t going to bring that up. Are you guys thinking what I’m thinking? Do you you think a Romney administration will take away little Gabby’s gold medals?

EUGENE ROBINSON: I have no doubt it’s the first thing Romney will do as president.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Oh God! And this is the rich white man Republicans want to be president of the United States, Joan?


JOAN WALSH: We haven’t even taken into account his plan to populate the country with rape babies.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: We can only hope that my photograph of their racial code book will help stop Mitt Romney and the Republicans from taking away Gabby’s gold medals. Hopefully the American people will come through for poor little Gabby Douglas on November six.

EUGENE ROBINSON: I think I’m going to be sick.

Chris Matthews comforted Eugene Robinson as the show went to commercial.

http://www.thedailyrash.com/chris-ma...cial-code-book

Just a joke, but not that far from reality.

[George Gervin's Afro]

No, you're playing the victim.

lol

[TeyshaBlue]

Crhis Matthews is an idiot. He's practically made of straw. To use him to illustrate anything meaningful is like using bouton's. It's a study in futility.

[RandomGuy]

trash talking use of RSS? WTF?

Do you assholes really visit every site and dig through all the and ads?

RSS is convenient, but when it becomes simply another method of reinforcing confirmation bias, maybe one should start sifting. It isn't the tool, but the user.

[RandomGuy]

It's not the RSS Feed, per se. It's the idiotic application as a confirmation bias blanket.

Dammit.. You beat me to it.