An Honest Discussion About Race

Just about every day I dose myself with a heaping helping of right-wing opinion mongering. It’s like a bad acid trip. It feels like torture while you’re going through it, but the suffering helps you to achieve important insights. A feeling of catharsis then follows, like you’ve purged the demons from your soul.

In the wake of the Zimmerman trial, between Rush Limbag, Fox News and the rest, the right has done a lot of demon purging themselves. Well, actually, they haven’t been purging their demons as much as letting them out for a brisk walk and some fresh air. Then the demons are brought back home where they are comfortable and provide conservatives with the fuel they need to keep their anger and hatred burning.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I think conservatives have had a lot of legitimate things to say during this whole affair and the libs have been acting atrociously, as well. I just need to comment on the right-wingers’ comments on President Obama’s comments on the Zimmerman affair.

The cons are just livid. Outraged. There he goes again, using this as yet another opportunity to divide the country along racial lines by fomenting racial animosity. How dare the country’s first Black President try to explain the point of view of many Black people who have to go through life with the burden of being a ‘suspect’ (as Zimmerman described T. Martin.)

Yes. Dividing the country along racial lines. Fomenting racial animosity. It’s just like Barack HUSSEIN Obama, the Kenyan, Muslim, community-organizing, ACORN, Chicago ghetto, Food Stamp President -- who hates White people and is getting even for slavery by putting all Black people on welfare – to use race like that.

I had Fox News on the other day and I’m witnessing the symptoms of full-blown Obama Derangement Syndrome as the pundits describe the evil that lurks in the heart of the President. How dare he remind us that he’s Black by saying that something like what happened to Trayvon Martin could have happened to him thirty five years ago?

It’s amazing. Obama simply states something that is obviously and undeniably true in a calm and non-accusatory manner in order to present the point of view of most Black people, but those conservatives can only see a hateful race-monger. Meanwhile, those same conservatives constantly say racially charged things about the first Black president (see the second paragraph above) in angry, yelling tones that are obviously and undeniably false. Yet, the only racism they can see is coming from Obama.

Then there’s "The Wonder of Rush" (as his announcer occasionally reminds his audience.) Limbag took advantage of the opportunity the Zimmerman trial provided to have one of those honest discussions about race. Yes, the bloated blowhard gave his audience a ‘little history lesson’ on race and slavery. He said: “If any race of people should not have guilt about slavery, it's Caucasians”

Click here: Limbaugh: "If Any Race Of People Should Not Have Guilt About Slavery, It's Caucasians" Video Media Matters for
http://mediamatters.org/video/2013/07/22/limbaugh-if-any-race-of-people-should-not-have/194999

Now Rush wasn't dividing the world along racial lines, or fomenting racial animosity -- he was just giving the facts.
You see, the White race’s brand of slavery was way better than any other race’s, by far. “The white race has probably had fewer slaves and for a briefer period of time than any other in the history of the world.”

Mr. Oxycontin compared the White race’s slaving to the Chinese, the Arabs and Black Africans’ slaving. These races couldn’t even come close to the Whites. My gosh, folks, the Whites were better than the rest of the world combined. Whites had more better slavery in their little finger than the rest of the races had combined. In other words, when it comes to enslaving other races, the White race is the superior race.

Rush singled out American Indians as being particularly bad at the slaving. Rush has long resented the American continents’ original inhabitants’ undeserved image as "the embodiment of perfection." Over the years Rush has taught us that they weren’t ‘noble savages’ at all. There was nothing noble about them. They were just savages.

Now, unlike Mr. Dimbulb, I’m not an expert on the history of slavery. But I am skeptical about his self proclaimed vaunted historical knowledge. I feel this way, not least of all, because he seems to think that Caucasians’ participation in slavery began with the ‘discovery’ of the continent (which was already inhabited) that they named after an Italian explorer (after they named those inhabitants after the people of South Asia) -- and ended with the Civil War.
Also, during his presentation of the evidence for all the other races’ inferiority at slaving, he seemed to forget that the Romans were Caucasians.

Rush went on to credit Whites with being the only race to fight a war for the purpose of ending slavery.
That’s interesting. I always thought that Whites were the only race to fight a war with the purpose of preventing slaves from becoming free. But now I see that you can look at it the other way, too.

So half the country fought to end slavery and the other half fought to keep it.
Actually, at least half the country was OK with Negroes being slaves. Most of the other half didn’t give a shit one way or the other. The real credit belongs to the abolitionists (both White AND Black) and the free Blacks and slaves they worked with. Their efforts gave rise to the liberal intellectual elite that made the abolitionists’ goal a reality through the political system, despite ferocious opposition from the conservatives of the day.

So if Rush was born in the eighteen hundreds, what side do you think he’d be on?

Re: Dad, who are you voting for for mayor?

I haven’t written any posts since April 9th because of a realization that became apparent during the gun control debate which caused me to become very dispirited. I did write an article for this blog explaining how and why I became so dispirited but I have not posted it yet. I wanted to share this email correspondence with my daughter Jessica first.

She wrote to me asking who was I voting for for Mayor, then wrote the following:

I like de Blasio, and it's not just 'cause he's Italian, or 'cause he changed his last name to his MOM's last name, or 'cause he went to SIPA! or 'cause he's married to a black woman, or 'cause they send their kids to public schools. it's because he seems the most progressive.

To which I responded:

I like you, Jess. Does Bill not capitalize the 'de' in his name? Did you know that Weiner is thinking about single-payer med insurance for NYC? That would be wonderful, it would mean that your mother would not have to work forever before she's eligible for Medicare. If Bill 'of' Blasius (Blasio being a derivative of the Latin blaesus [stammering] which was used as a byname for someone with some defect, either of speech or gait. Gotta love those pejorative Italian surnames.) is also for single-payer then I guess I would have to base my vote on the other factors concerning these two candidates.
Do I go with the ethnic-pandering, ivy-league/ivory-tower one world government elitist, color-barrier crossing, practice what he preach, politically correct guinea dago wop?
Or do I go with the social media and sexting pioneer, Anthony Weiner?
Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Oh, by the way, Weiner is a surname originating in the German language (wein meaning wine) which was adopted by German Jews of Ashkenazic descent for reflecting the prominence of wine in the Jewish Scriptures and Jewish ceremonies. Interestingly,in English, it is also a slang expression that is used as a euphemism for a word that I am not comfortable using in an email to my daughter and for which I can find no other suitable euphemism other than the word 'weiner.'