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Clint Eastwood sent out his dog whistle to the GOP wing-nuts in the nation during the Republican National Convention when he had his stage conversation with an empty chair that supposedly had an invisible President Obama sitting in it. Texas Republican Bud Johnson heard the dog whistle and took the skit to a disgusting level, by lynching an invisible Obama in a chair.
Any American recognizes that lynching is a direct reference to the racial strife in this nation when African Americans were lynched (primarily in the Southern states) by racist whites. Homeowner Bud Johnson has a “lynched” empty chair on display in his front yard to depict President Obama.
When asked about his front yard display, Johnson was unapologetic. [SOURCE]
“I don’t really give a damn whether it disturbs you or not,” Johnson said. “You can take [your concerns] and go straight to hell and take Obama with you. I don’t give a shit. If you don’t like it, don’t come down my street.”
I guess that our President must be getting used to the racist backlash to his presidency. At a GOP Convention in Montana, birthers put on a nasty display to demonstrate their disdain for President Obama by setting up an outhouse labeled 'Obama’s Presidential Library'.
A photo of an anti-Obama bumper sticker, labelled 'Don’t Re-Nig In 2012,' above smaller print that read, 'Stop repeat offenders. Don’t re-elect Obama!' went viral in March.
In addition, President Obama has also been referenced as a tar baby and un-American, which many consider code speak for 'not one of us' because he’s Black.
I rarely hear Mitt Romney or his supporters speak in an affirmative and positive way about what he will do as president of the United States. His wife and others let us know that he is a nice guy ... but, there has not been much policy discussion about what Mitt Romney will do in the next four years that is any different from what the Republicans and George W. Bush did in 2001-2008.
On the other hand, Mitt Romney and his supporters ... including actor Clint Eastwood ... spend a lot of time denigrating and disrespecting President Obama. A Massachusetts business man spent his own money to produce two anti-Obama campaign sign in Hanson MA. [SOURCE]
One of the billboards shows a young girl giving the middle finger to the president and calling him a 'jerk'.
The other billboard is even worse. It has a picture of our president with the statement: "Somewhere in Kenya a village is missing its idiot. Obama One Big Ass Mistake America, Vote Mitt Romney for 2012!" This campaign sign includes two images of the hammer and sickle, which are symbolic of communism, on Obama’s shirt collar. I 'spose that this billboard would make GOP wing-nut Christine O'Donnell happy.
I am trying to remember if I've ever heard a Jewish leader accuse another Jewish leader of wanting to be a Nazi sympathizer. I can't recall that ever happening. That would be insulting and disrespectful and a sign of a person with a true lack of character. Rep. Allen West (R-FL) showed himself to be a disrespectful Black man without any true character a few days ago when he made the following statement:
“He does not want you to have the self-esteem of getting up and earning, and having that title of American. He’d rather you be his slave,”
Is Allen West so desperate for the approval of white folks in the Republican Party and in his congressional district that he will stoop to any level of nonsense in his effort of a government title?
Did you see where a U.S. district judge in Montana thought it would be funny to forward a racist email indicating that President Barack Obama's mother practiced bestiality? [SOURCE]
In his email, federal judge Richard Cebull writes: "Normally I don't send or forward a lot of these, but even by my standards, it was a bit touching. I want all of my friends to feel what I felt when I read this. Hope it touches your heart like it did mine."
The forwarded content states: "A little boy said to his mother; 'Mommy, how come I'm Black and you're white?' His mother replied, 'Don't even go there Barack! From what I can remember about that party, you're lucky you don't bark!'"
I imagine that we will see more and more of these types of stories as we get closer to the presidential election. Our nation is not post-racial yet. The judge wasn't sorry about sending the email when it went out on February 20th. However, once the email got leaked to the media Cebull realized that he had phuqued up big-time.
"The only reason I can explain it to you is I am not a fan of our president, but this goes beyond not being a fan," he said. "I didn't send it as racist, although that's what it is. I sent it out because it's anti-Obama."
If Cebull was willing to share his prejudice and racist opinions so freely within his email to his buddies ... you wonder if that same prejudice and racist attitude has shown up in some of his rulings on the court? Cebull has been a federal judge since being nominated by President George W. Bush back in 2008.
Am I unfair to label this guy as a racist? Perhaps he is just a well-meaning guy who made a mistake, huh? What say u?
You have to wonder if the Republican Party in the southern part of the United States is making a conscious effort to piss off African Americans so that they can gain support from bigoted white folks? Has the GOP decided that the best way to beat President Obama in 2012 is to play the race card over and over again?
Can there be any other explanation for the recent actions of Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) or Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS)?
Gov. Scott had a Gov. Rick Scott welcomed Black legislators to lunch earlier this week at the Governor’s Mansion. His intentions may have been good. However, during his welcoming remarks, Scott implied that all Black lawmakers grew up poor and lived in the projects. [SOURCE]
“I grew up probably in the same situation as you guys,” Scott said to the group of 20 Democrats. “I started school in public housing. My dad had a sixth-grade education.”
Rep. Betty Reed, D-Tampa, said she was offended by the remark, but did not protest at the time because she said it was more important to have a productive dialogue with the new governor.
Afterward, she said, “He assumed that everyone [in the room] was poor and that can only be because you’re Black.”
It is much worse over in Mississippi where the state is considering a proposal to issue specialty license plates honoring Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
The Mississippi Division of Sons of Confederate Veterans wants to sponsor a series of state-issued license plates to mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, which it calls the "War Between the States." The group proposes a different design each year between now and 2015, with Forrest slated for 2014. [SOURCE]
I wonder if these wingnuts realize that the Confederates lost that war?
For those villagers who may not know -- Forrest, a Tennessee native, is revered by some as a military genius and reviled by others for leading an 1864 massacre of Black Union troops at Fort Pillow, Tenn. If it happened today, we would call it a 'war crime'.
Forrest was a Klan grand wizard in Tennessee after the war.
Gov. Barbour hasn't stepped in to end this discussion about honoring a war criminal and racist KKK grand wizard with his own license plate. Is Barbour being a racist? Or is he just ignorant about the way that African Americans would react to seeing a KKK grand wizard honored on the back of every car in Mississippi?
It appears more and more that the Republican Party is willing to play the race card to try to regain the White House in 2012. What say u?
The GOP candidate for New York governor, Carl Paladino, is a guy who sends out racist and pornographic emails to his GOP buddies. He's also made controversial statements such as teaching welfare recipients job training and "personal hygiene" while housing them in converted prisons and calling outgoing Gov. David Paterson a drug addict.
South Carolina heavy-hitters in the Republican Party hosted 'The Southern Experience' at the Country Club of Charleston a few days ago. SC Gov. Mark Sanford and SC Senate President Glenn McConnell (shown in the above photo) hosted this event in which the only Black people present were dressed up as slaves.
I have never voted for a Republican candidate on a state or national ballot. The policies, actions and culture of the Republican party never appealed to me. I don't feel any different about the Tea Party. They seem like a bunch of folks who strongly believe in white privilege and who've never interacted on a professional or personal basis with a Black person in America.
I don't like the way that the GOP and Tea Party have taken such a personal and pre-meditated hatred of our nation's first Black president and turned it into a 'Just Say No' or 'birther' or 'socialist' mantra over the past year. The GOP leadership is now calling our president a 'con' and a man with a 'Kenyan, anti-colonial world view'. What kinda shyt is that?
How can a Black Republican have so much self-hate in them that they would want to be associated with these racist wackos who have no love for people of African descent living in America?
I've always wondered what could possibly drive an African American man or woman to join the Republican Party. As I watch the extremists in the Republican Party fan the flames of racism it makes me wonder what goes through the minds of Black GOPers?
Rep. John Lewis is called the 'n-word' ... Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver is spat on ... President Obama is depicted with Hitler-like mustache and worse in Tea Party signage ... George Lambus and Alan Keyes have demonstrated that they are racially confused ...
... and now we have some self-hating fool, CoreyPoitier, jumping on the racist bandwagon in a recent speech to a mostly-white audience:
"Listen up, Buckwheat — this is not how it is done!" Poitier blurted out, obviously in an attempt to win points with the mostly white audience.
Poitier knew what he was doing when he made the comparison of our nation's first African American president with the character in the 1920 'Little Rascal' ... just as others in the GOP know what they are doing as they seek to recreate the environment that existed in our country when Reconstruction was brought down over a century ago.
It is one thing when closet-supremacists like John Boehner, Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh and others start ranting and rallying the racist fringe elements of the Republican Party ... but for a Blackman to be an agent for this racism is sad and dangerous.
"The press has run amok with this, and turned me into a racist," Poitier told reporters complaining of receiving no media attention prior to his irresponsible comments. He added, "I've never seen Buckwheat as a disparaging character. People love Buckwheat."
Villagers ... do you know anyone that loves Buckwheat?
In another interview, the confused candidate stared down at his own hands to further demonstrate he meant no racial slight.
"This isn't a spray tan," Poitier said of his skin tone. "This is real."
I imagine that Jesse Lee Peterson is heading down to support Poitier's campaign as you're reading this. I 'spose that Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice are shakin' their head as they see what this Black GOP candidate is doing.
Do you know any Black Republicans? What do you think they are saying about the 'Buckwheat' comment?
Last weekend, Tea Party Patriots gathered in the Capitol and showered racist and homophobic abuse on Democratic Congress Members supporting healthcare reform. As I watched the images on my television I was reminded of another time in our history ... Reconstruction. That was a time when Black leaders were taking on leadership roles in Congress. White folks got upset and begin to yell racist insults at the Black leaders. Today, we have a Black man making historic changes in the White House ... and racist insults and threats are being hurled at him and other Black congressional leaders.
One Tea Party protester called the former civil rights leader and current Atlanta Congressman John Lewis the "n-word". John Lewis was spat on and called the n-word when he marched on that bridge in Selma, AL over 50 years ago. Now as a respected member of Congress he has to endure it again.
Another spat on Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, also an African American.
The more things change ... the more they stay the same.
Republican leaders publicly denounced Sunday's ugly scene, but they failed to acknowledge that this is only the latest incident in a pattern of violent rhetoric, racially charged imagery, and paranoid conspiracy theories at Tea Party rallies. Many Tea Partiers aren't simply about dissent -- they use fear and hatred to assault the very legitimacy of our elected leaders. It's the worst America has to offer.
All things rise and fall with leadership. Watch the following video and tell me which leader you want to follow?
John Boehner and his GOP cronies know that this past weekend wasn't an isolated incident.
Villagers remember the rallies held to protest tax day last year, Tea Partiers carried signs that announced "Obama's Plan: White Slavery," "The American Taxpayers are the Jews for Obama's Oven," and "Guns Tomorrow!"
The Republican National Committee had endorsed the rallies, and RNC Chairman Michael Steele encouraged Tea Partiers to send a "virtual tea bag" to President Obama and Democratic Congressional leadership. After reports of the fear-mongering signs surfaced, Steele did nothing to distance his party from the lunatic fringe. He has even gone so far as to say that if he didn't have his current position, he'd be "out there with the tea partiers." Some Republican governors even planned a "Tea Party 2.0" for the following month in an effort to build on the rallies' momentum.
The Tea Party's venomous rhetoric picked up steam over the summer, when angry mobs flooded town hall meetings legislators had organized as sites for rational, civil debate on health care reform. After one meeting in Atlanta, a swastika was painted on the office of Congressman David Scott (D-GA), who had also received a flier addressed to "nigga David Scott." Some protesters showed up at town hall meetings carrying guns, including at least one man who was armed at an event where the President was speaking. Again, Republicans responded to these tactics with silence, doing nothing to denounce them.
Similarly, there was no public outcry from Republican leadership when Mark Williams, a leader of the Tea Party movement, was exposed for having described the President as "an Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug and a racist in chief" on his blog.
Instead, we see members of the GOP continued to show up to and endorse Tea Party rallies. And as recently as Sunday -- the day that the historic health care bill passed the House -- Republican members of the House riled up the same Tea Party crowd that had earlier harassed their fellow members with hate and bigotry.
It is time to put a stop to the hate. I encourage all villagers to sign the petition recently created by ColorOfChange.org. Do it now!
Soulclap to Media Matters for pointing us to this story. Republican wingnut Pat Robertson's unique brand of race-baiting flared up again today.
PAT ROBERTSON: And, you know, Kristi, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, "We will serve you if you will get us free from the French." True story. And so, the devil said, "OK, it's a deal."
And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other. Desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It's cut down the middle. On the one side is Haiti; on the other side is the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, et cetera. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have and we need to pray for them a great turning to God. And out of this tragedy, I'm optimistic something good may come. But right now, we're helping the suffering people, and the suffering is unimaginable.
KRISTI WATTS (co-host): Absolutely, Pat.
Where does the Republican Party find these fools?
In the meantime, I encourage all villagers to provide your prayers and other tangible ways to help our brothers and sisters in Haiti.
UPDATE: Eddie Griffin provides a great responseto Pat Buchanan. Check it out! A villager recently wondered what the conversation about race looks like when only white people are talking about it. Pat Buchanan decided to let us peek behind the curtain in his column entitled, 'A Brief for Whitey'. Buchanan's response to Barack Obama's historic speech on race: "We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?"
Discussing Sen. Barack Obama's speech addressing race and controversial comments by his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, Pat Buchanan wrote in his syndicated column: "Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American." Buchanan then asserted that "no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans,"
Buchanan asserts, "America has been the best country on earth for Black folks. It was here that 600,000 Black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity Blacks have ever known." Buchanan continued, "Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American." Buchanan then asserted that "no people anywhere has done more to lift up Blacks than white Americans."
Buchanan lets us know how right-wing white folks feel about race relations. There doesn't appear any room for an open discussion. Rather, Buchanan informs us that "...no people anywhere has done more to lift up Blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the '60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African American community into the mainstream. Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks - with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas -- to advance black applicants over white applicants. Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks".
I guess this is where African Americans are supposed to bow our heads, get down on both knees and say 'Thank you Mr. Charlie ... Thank you sir for all the good things you done did for our peoples'. Is it just me, or do you get the feeling that Patrick Buchanan and his supporters would just assume see Black folks back in chains?
As for presidential politics, I wonder if this is what John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton think about race relations as well? Maybe that is why Team Clinton continues on in the race. Hillary and Bill must not feel the gratitude from Barack Obama for just being allowed to live in America in the first place.
Pat Buchanan appears to be pulling out every racist stereotype about African Americans that were ever uttered as part of the thesis in his column. But, perhaps I'm over-reacting. What is your take on Pat Buchanan's race relations column?
Drumbeats from Pam's House Blend directed us to this video clip of Chris Wallace calling out the biased reporting on Barack Obama by the folks at Fox and Friends. Props to Chris Wallace for being an honest journalist.
I've listened to Don Imus on & off since I lived in New York back in 1996-1998. I think that he came into my consciousness because I was in New York and he broadcast his show from that town. I don't think his radio show is carried in Cincinnati. In any case, I don't listen to him on the radio. However, I do watch his MSNBC simulcast on a semi-regular basis in the morning. I watch the show more regularly during political campaign season as he brings some good guests ... including political candidates ... on his show. I enjoyed his overt campaigning on behalf of Harold Ford in his run for the U.S. Senate.
On the April 4 edition of MSNBC's Imus in the Morning, Imus referred to the Rutgers University women's basketball team, which is comprised of eight African American and two white players, as "nappy-headed hos" immediately after the show's executive producer, Bernard McGuirk, called the team "hard-core hos." Later, former Imus sports announcer Sid Rosenberg, who was filling in for sportscaster Chris Carlin, said: "The more I look at Rutgers, they look exactly like the [National Basketball Association's] Toronto Raptors."
McGuirk referred to the NCAA women's basketball championship game between Rutgers and Tennessee as a "Spike Lee thing," adding, "The Jigaboos vs. The Wannabees -- that movie that he had." McGuirk was presumably referring to Lee's 1988 film, School Daze (Sony Pictures), though co-host Charles McCord misidentified it as "Do the Right Thing" (Criterion, June 1989)."
Personally, I feel that anytime white folks try to pit us against ourselves it is in line with the message from the Willie Lynch letter many moons ago. Imus and his cronies try to pit us against each other. It won't work this time.
NBC had to apologize for Imus in 2004, after he called Palestinians "stinking animals" and referred to an Iraqi executed by a U.S. soldier as a "bobby-trapped, raghead cadaver." Imus' awful racial remarks, included calling the highly-regarded black journalist Gwen Ifill a "cleaning lady" when she was sent to cover the White House for the New York Times. Imus admitted to 60 Minutes that producer Bernard McGurk was brought on "to do nigger jokes," called Patrick Ewing "the missing link," Shaquille O'Neal "a car-jacker in shorts," and the Knicks "chest-bumping pimps."
NABJ called for us to boycott his show. But, in my view, Imus should either resign or be fired from his radio show. There is no place in the media for a bigoted jerk.
I see that MSNBC and CBS Radio suspended him for two weeks from the simulcast television show. In my view, a two-week suspension isn't enough for the repeated pattern of racist comments that come from Imus and his colleages. Methinks that Imus' career in radio and television is over. Any good that he does with causes such as autism, cancer or care for our veterans is overshadowed by his continued degradation of African Americans. Period.
I know that you are thinking that I look for any excuse to share photos of Serena here in the Village for prurient reasons. But, that is not the case this time! Native Son beat the drum to share news that Serena was the victim of racist comments during her tennis match earlier this week.
“The guy said, ‘Hit the net like any Negro would,’ ” Williams said, later explaining she had cleaned up the language for the news conference and that he actually used the N-word. “I was shocked. I couldn’t believe it. I had to do a double take. I think I hit a double fault on that point.”
You know that we live in a rough environment you cannot escape racism and racist comments even while doing your job ... as Serena was doing on the tennis court. If being Serena Williams doesn't exempt us from such negativity ... how can we expect it in our individual lives?
Yet, we must continue to uplift one another. As the famous philospher, Rodney King, once said, "Can't we just get along?" Well Villagers, any comments on the latest incidence of racial intolerance?
