August 4, 2010

Racism, Schmacism Illustrated, Part 2

My old pal Dave Weigel continues his series on Slate today filling in more examples to illustrate themes in James Edwards' book Racism, Schmacism, which I reviewed for VDARE.com on Sunday

On Sunday, I wrote:
But, in general, conservatives fatally remain vulnerable to panic over accusations of racism. Edwards points out a recurrent weakness of conservative organizations:
"In a futile attempt to pander to blacks and get the media to stop calling them ‘racists,’ they elevate just about any black person that shows up to a position of prominence. As soon as they come on board, the white leadership starts promoting them in the vain hopes the movement won’t get called racist, which never works.”

Michael Steele, the inept chairman of the Republican National Committee, is only the most obvious example of this. Edwards writes:
“Then the black ‘conservatives’ start talking about how the Democrats are the real racists who want to keep blacks on the liberal plantation, etc., etc., etc., and before you know it, the whole movement has been derailed, and the focus turns to how the other guys are more racist than we are, and we’re better for blacks than the liberals are, etc.”

In Slate today -- after explaining yesterday about how if Republicans were to cite the concurrent corruption trials in the House of two famous House Democrats, Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters, the first House trials of sitting members since the 1980s, it would be racist -- Weigel writes:
Black Tea
African-American conservatives explain that the only racists are those who worry about race-based prejudice.
By David Weigel

Posted Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2010, at 7:26 PM ET

When the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People introduced a resolution calling on the Tea Party movement to "condemn extremist elements," I wondered what possible good it would do. How might it help liberals who felt frustrated, increasingly, that their attacks on "racism" in the new conservative movement were never taken seriously?

The resolution didn't do much for the NAACP, but it did plenty for liberals. Three weeks later, after the Shirley Sherrod mess, and after the implosion of Mark Williams, spokesman for the Sacramento-based Tea Party Express, conservatives are still bristling at the charge of Tea Party "racism." On Wednesday morning, Williams' old organization organized a two-and-a-half-hour event at the National Press Club in order to rebut the charge the best way it knew how—with a chorus line of black conservatives attacking anyone who dared call the Tea Party racist.

Of course, Alan Keyes was there. After all, what's a more proven winning tactic for Republicans than rolling out Alan Keyes? Just ask Illinois state senator Barack Obama (D-Hyde Park) who thought he had the U.S. Senate seat wrapped up in 2004 until the canny GOP unleashed current U.S. Senator Alan Keyes (IL-R) on him.

Back in the Fifties, the GOP slogan was "Unleash Chiang" (referring to that unstoppable military juggernaut Chiang Kai-Shek, by then huddling on Formosa 200 miles offshore behind the U.S. Navy). In this century, the GOP motto is "Unleash Keyes."

(Personally, I liked George H.W. Bush's peptalk to himself while playing tennis: "Unleash Chang!" It was a tribute to 1989 French Open Champ Michael Chang.)

7 comments:

Conservative said...

Back during his 2004 Senate run against Barack Obama, Alan Keyes' big idea was to exempt blacks from federal income taxes. He ended up with about 27% of the vote.

Clearly, the man understands and resonates with the public. After Michael Steele is retired/expelled from his position, the next logical move for the Republicans should be to make Mr. Keyes the new RNC Chairman.

Whiskey said...

The whole fallout of the Sherrod Affair, is fairly obvious, to everyone BUT the Press.

"I did JUST ENOUGH so he couldn't say I didn't help him."

That's what Sherrod did. Supposedly, she had some epiphany, where she relented, and 7 days before the White farmer lost his farm, finally did something.

But the fallout is clear to any White person paying attention. The chance of any Black official simply giving into racial animus against Whites is high.

Moreover it cannot be proven.

Moreover when it CAN, by video statements, the punishment is ... a promotion. And an apology from the First Black President.

Conclusion: every White person who saw the video knows that there is a very good chance that any Black official will screw them over due to racial hatred of Whites.

Therefore, either keep government irrelevant or small, or purge all non-Whites from Government.

Either way, (as I wrote on my post about Sherrod in my blog), a massive conflict is set.

Udolpho.com said...

Republicans will keep losing because, let's face it, they're pussies and hypocrites.

A Republican is never more delighted than when he can call someone to his left a racist, no matter how weak the premise. And of course he shrinks into a ball the moment he gets boilerplate lefty flack over anything to do with race.

Republicans famously will never "go there"--perhaps they're still ashamed of Lee Atwater--and so on an increasing number of issues, from gay marriage to racial profiling of immigrants, they can only spout inanities.

They're useless and the party should be dismantled. I'm not sure anything great would replace it--maybe just Tea Party populism--but it sure does deserve to die.

Anonymous said...

Steve, do you have a source for the "Unlease Chang!" reference? I find it amusing (I'm related to him by marriage). The most reliable source so far seems to be this Reason article, which references a bunch of other sources. http://reason.com/blog/2005/09/19/chang-is-missing

Mr. Anon said...

"Truth said...

Yes, every White person...EXCEPT THE ONE WHO'S FARM ACTUALLY GOT SAVED BY THIS BLACK OFFICIAL YOU HALF-WHIT DICK-WADD!"

Sherrod is a beauracrat. Her job is handing out other people's money. She doesn't "save" farms.

Nitwit.

epobirs said...

Although Keyes is a bit whacky, it's unfair not to mention that he was a last minute replacement for the real GOP candidate the Obama crew managed to eliminate with a fake scandal. Or has everyone forgotten about Jack Ryan and the bizarre divorce court claims that were supposed to remain sealed? If Jeri Ryan had been offered immunity from perjury charges, Obama's rise to power might have been thwarted.

Udolpho.com said...

Sherrod is all race, if you listen to her whole speech it's typical race man rhetoric. It's Jesse Jackson stuff. Conservatives once again proved to be useless because they didn't push back on the (dumb) claim that Breitbart's video was totally out of context...it really wasn't.