So, I thought I was having a pretty horrific day yesterday until a friend alerted me to this NPR segment that is just breathtaking. Let me explain. On Tuesday, right-wing bigot Michael Savage was inexplicably invited to appear on Talk of the Nation after it was revealed that Savage had been banned from entering the United Kingdom. Yeah, just take a moment to savor the hilarity of this. Savage is in good company since included on this no-entry list were two leaders of a Russian skinhead gang, ex-KKK Grand Wizard Stephen ‘Don’ Black, the Phelps Church and Hamas terrorists. In making this decision, UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said the following-
Coming to this country is a privilege. We won’t allow people into this country who are going to propagate the sort of views… that fundamentally go against our values.
Can we give her a medal already? Predictably, Savage’s NPR appearance was absolute mayhem with his rants about those crazy Britons and their bad food and even worse teeth and of course, those intolerant liberals. Coz you know, the real tragedy here isn’t that Savage is a hate-filled bigot who spews racist/homophobic garbage to millions of listeners and actually gets paid a shit ton of money to do it. Yeah, we crazy liberals with our la-la views about tolerance and respect. The best part of the interview comes at 6:44 when a listener calls in and what follows is just….well, spectacular. Here’s a rough transcript-
Caller: Uhh, if you listen to Michael Savage, if every time he says Islam or Muslim, you insert either Jew or Christian, he would be off the air in one day. I’ve had Muslim…
Savage: Wait a minute, I don’t want to listen to this foaming lunatic. I came on the air to give you an opinion, not to listen to someone in pajamas in a mental asylum in Iowa…
(Crosstalk)
Savage: No no, you listen to me, you’re a nobody and I’m not gonna talk to you. Now, Neal, if you’d like to continue the discussion, I’ll do so. Otherwise I have more important things to do than talk to someone in pajamas in an institution in Iowa.
Neal Conan: Then go do them.
Savage: Thank you (hangs up).
Umm, wow? Now, the irony here is that while Savage blathers on about free speech, he reveals his own intolerance of speech that may differ from his, like with the poor caller. But yeah, you aren’t a real conservative unless you’re a total hypocrite. See, what Savage means is that free speech is protected only if it’s his nonsense. Everyone else can just shove it. Now, instead of retreating to the cave he apparently dragged himself out from, Savage is doing what any rational right winger would do- sue Britain, of course. Yeah, that’ll show them! You know, just this once, I would like to see narcissists like Savage expend the energy they commit to feign outrage at alleged indignities like these and actually give a shit about something legitimate, like you know, the war in Iraq or poverty. But this means that Savage would have to display some intellectual honesty and we all know that’s a losing proposition.
A few weeks ago, in an interview with the Washington Times, newly-minted RNC chairman Michael Steele discussed his plans for remaking the Republican Party’s image, particularly in order to appeal to the “youth” vote.
We need messengers to really capture that region – young, Hispanic, black, a cross section … We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-suburban hip-hop settings.”
Well, dear readers, I am proud to announce the unveiling of the first of (hopefully) many “urban-suburban hip-hop” videos by Steele. Who knew South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford could rap?!
Ok, while the video was clearly a joke, it makes a point that all Republicans should take note of- not all blacks are rap-listening gangstas. Like every minority group, they’re a fairly diverse group (shocker, I know!) and instead of superficial and offensive campaigns, perhaps Steele’s party can actually begin supporting policies that benefit young black people, instead of blaming them for all the miseries befalling them. Steele’s belief that recruiting some rap artists and planning “off the hook” pr campaigns (an actual quote) can miraculously erase the party’s pathetic record on civil rights just shows how out of touch he is with the black community (and reality).
Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) has the sort of resume that would make any Indian (including yours truly) jealous. A graduate of Brown and a Rhodes Scholar, Jindal worked at top consulting firm McKinsey and managed the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, all before the age of 30.
In watching his recent response to Obama’s joint Congressional address, there was also this sense of pride in seeing one of us receive so much media coverage (for once). But obviously, that’s where the love ends, unfortunately. Because, while I’ve always thought of Jindal’s meteoric rise as a proud accomplishment for Indians here, he hasn’t returned the love. Quite the opposite. Even before running for public office, Jindal carefully neutralized his racial and immigrant background and a large part of it was by design. Immigrants, and by extension minorities, are in a constant bind where despite attempts to “assimilate” into mainstream white America, there is a tendency to otherize us and exaggerate our differences as indicative of our inherent outsider status. Besides, in order to win in Louisiana, Jindal had to repeatedly counter some racist bullshit from Democrats as well as the general public. From his first (unsucessful) gubernatorial run in 2003-
“If there was a racist backlash against Jindal anywhere, it would be in north Louisiana, in Duke country,” Louisiana political analyst John Maginnis told Rod Dreher of National Review Online after the race. To some extent, Blanco laid the groundwork for a such a backlash herself. She dusted off her maiden name and campaigned as Kathleen Babineaux Blanco. Voters encountered the full name on the ballot, where her opponent was listed as “Bobby” Jindal, complete with quotation marks (Jindal’s given name is Piyush). Appealing to tribal instincts in the only state where Frenchness is still considered a virtue, Blanco’s packaging of herself was designed to make it clear who had the deeper roots in Cajun country.
…There was a small amount of coverage of northern Louisiana’s racial politics during the race — Adam Nossiter’s AP dispatch from last Friday, a set of quotes culled to make the town of Amite, Louisiana, sound as awful as possible (sample: “Really, you got a foreigner and a woman. So it’s a hard choice to make”), was typical — but the “Babineaux Blanco” appeal to “Duke country” has gone mostly unnoticed.
So, in that sense, I’m astounded that Jindal even won, despite the tensions. But, I can’t help but wonder if his ascendancy has come at a price. There is disappointment, to be sure, over Jindal’s silence on his heritage and racism in Louisiana. Moreover, his abysmal record on immigration seems to fly in the face of his own background and hurts the community as a whole. I worry that in criticizing Jindal, though, that I’m indulging in similar antics as when some claimed (and still do) that Obama wasn’t “black enough.” I hated those arguments and yet, here I am, trying to do the same thing to Jindal. While I’m not expecting an endorsement of the issues affecting the South Asian community, am I wrong in asking for at least of an acknowledgement? I’m not the only one, apparently.
“My children ask, ‘Why does Uncle Bobby never visit us?’ ” said Asha Jindal, who has never spoken to Bobby Jindal although she is married to his cousin. “He is a famous American now, but this is his real home.”
A few days ago, the Bloomington Faculty Council at IU passed a resolution “regretting” that General Peter Pace had been appointed the Poling Chair, a prestigious leaders-in-residence program offered by the Kelley School of Business. Pace’s appointment was deemed controversial because of his bigoted views on homosexuality. In a Chicago Tribune interview, he said the following-
My upbringing is such that I believe there are certain things, certain types of conduct, that are immoral. … I believe that homosexual acts between individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts.
My opinion has always been that it was a pretty dickish move to appoint Pace, mostly because it was a slap in the face to GLBT students in the Kelley School. I’ve actually met Pace and in our conversation, he came across as very funny and interested in my lowly college life, not the caricature associated with him. Still, his appointment was a mistake but I’m not sure the BFC resolution accomplishes anything.
That being said, there was one argument being propounded by detractors of Pace that I found interesting and it had to with race. Even one of our Indiana Daily Student op-eds made the claim that if Pace was a racist, he wouldn’t have been appointed to the Poling Chair. Coz you know the gays have it so much worse than the blacks. How I loathe such arguments!
There are two problems here with the if Pace was a racist argument, the more obvious one being that it proposes some sort of oppression hierarchy, where the discrimination faced by gays is far more acceptable than that faced by blacks. The other issue here is that such an argument assumes that racism has officially ended and that only a fool would admit to harboring racist sentiments. False on both counts. I’m not about to engage in some oppression Olympics myself but suffice to say that the legacy of racism remains etched in our institutions. To assume that we are somehow less tolerant of racism is to dismiss the vocalized incidents of racism, whether it be the highly charged NY post cartoon or the acts of violence directed against undocumented immigrants. Moreover, I would contend that minorities are often taught to internalize bigotry in order to appease the racist structures around them. So, it’s not that racism has decreased, it’s that minorities don’t want to talk about it for fear of appearing too whiny.
When gay rights activists endorse the whole racism vs. homophobia debate, they are also denying the intersection of oppression. In doing so, they are silencing the voices of GLBT individuals who identify as people of color and the whole point here is to work together, not against each other.
And while we’re at it, just replace the word gays with white women in this post and I’ve just written on the failings of second wave feminism as well.
Remember, after we elected Barack Obama, everybody was twittering about the end of racial barriers in America? Yeah, not so much. Today, the New York Post published a cartoon referencing Obama and the stimulus package, offensive even by the Post’s disgustingly low standards.
Where to begin? On matters of fact alone, the cartoon is grossly inaccurate. While it is true that Obama is the public face of the package, he’s not the author and never purported to be. More problematic though is the imagery. Depicting a black man as a monkey while two police officers stand over him with a smoking gun? Not cool and incredibly racist. Instead of apologizing for publishing this nonsense, the NY Post blamed the furor on all those whiny, over-sensitive minorities.
Col Allan, the Post’s editor-in-chief, said the cartoon “is a clear parody of a current news event.”
“It broadly mocks Washington’s efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist,” Allan said in a written statement.
I love that we’re so past racism, we don’t even need to acknowledge it any more. It’s nice living in post-racial America.
In 2005, PETA launched a nationwide tour, “Are Animals the New Slaves?” The campaign compared the lynching of blacks to animal cruelty and juxtaposed images of black men hanging from trees with pictures of slaughtered cows. In response to the controversy, the group’s founder, Ingrid Newkirk, released a statement titled “We are all animals, so get over it.”
Just two years earlier, PETA launched a campaign equating animal slaughterhouses to the Holocaust.
Most recently, PETA’s ads have featured women in various states of undress as they extol the benefits of vegetarianism, achieving the bigotry trifecta.
Therein lies the issue that animal rights groups often forget – there is a moral and ethical difference between an animal and a human being. Most people recognize this; we wouldn’t hesitate between saving a drowning woman and a drowning cat, and that’s a good thing. To even suggest that the lives of black people or Jews are comparable to that of an animal makes a mockery of the oppression these groups claim to be fighting.
