Look, I think it's important to talk about black male violence, or at least as important as it is to talk about any other important social trend. I don't think we should be squeamish about discussing it in a responsible and fair-minded way, despite what the politically correct say. But good grief, Limbaugh is up to something wicked. He's plainly trying to rally white conservatives into thinking that now that we have a black president, blacks are rising up to attack white kids! Christ have mercy, what is wrong with these people?
This is possibly the first time I have ever heard the word "wicked" deployed in a public debate, and boy, is it on target. It is perfectly true that if the races had been reversed, Al Sharpton would probably be out there saying this was a symptom of America's lynching culture, and also perfectly irrelevant. The response to Al Sharpton's antics is not to emulate them. Race-baiting is not a team sport that anyone should want to join. And I assure Limbaugh, from vivid memory, that horrible bullying also took place in Ronald Reagan's America, and every other America since at least 1978.
The only decent thing for me to do now is apologize and note that at the time, I really did not think it was possible for me to like Rush Limbaugh any less. Now I realize that I was mentally excluding all sorts of activities from the realm of the possible, like murdering boatloads of Guatamalan orphans, or this sort of vileness. It won't be the last time I'm wrong, but I certainly hope it's the last time I'm that wrong about talk radio's capacity for socially destructive quasi-populist virulent nonsense.
An actual quote from Limbaugh would be helpful for those of us wanting to make up our own minds.
An excerpt from the broadcast may be heard here.
How about "take that bone out of your nose?"
Troy @ 3:27pm just below here posted the transcript of the entire monologue. It's clear Rush is being sarcastic. No doubt he received a couple hundred emails, IM's, and calls about this story and used it to illustrate the absurdity of the MSM's calling people who disagree with Obama's healthcare plan racist. Megan this is pathetic. You don't like Rush, fine, but at least make criticisms in good faith. This is clearly not about the kid's on the bus. The kids on the bus are being used to analogize the Media's treatment of the tea-party folk. Unprovoked and unjustified attacks. Honestly, your hysterical bad-faith post here is a better analogy and I'm sure he would have used it if it had existed at the time. You're emulating Clyburn here and not in the good way.
I know that there are regular listeners to Rush who desperately want to defend him against all attacks, but this is beyond the defensible. You are right that he does use these types of situations to satirize the way the media can jump to conclusions. However, it is clear to those who are not enthralled by him that his style is designed to both entertain one segment of his audience while at the same time indoctrinate those who may be unable to think as critically about what he says. He knows exactly what the effect of his words will be on some of his listeners and so should you.
In this case he is purposely trivializing the long and shameful history of white on black racism that has been motivated by both fear and hate. It is clear to me his words are meant to reinforce that fear and possibly incite some kind of action from those people that are susceptible to the suggestion that Africans Americans are dangerous.
Ask yourself a few simple questions. Do his words help or hurt race relations in this country? Do his words make it more likely or less likely that more violence will take place? And didn't you, even as a Rush supporter, feel just a little uncomfortable when listing to what he had to say?
Mike Burns
http://www.disorderlyreport.com/
Limbaugh seems to be taking the deliberate strategy of repeating things he heard from the other side during the Bush administration. I lost count of the times I heard some form of "Bush is like Hitler" or "this could only happen in Bush's America".
.
This is a good example of what goes around comes around. Remember when Kanye West was a hero for saying GWB hates black people? Notice how all sorts of people are coming out of the woodwork to say opposition to Obama is based on racism?
I think it is foolish, but Rush is proving that sword cuts both ways.
Isn't this largely Megan's point? It's not that Rush is necessarily incorrect - it's that "two wrongs don't make a right."
A very strong argument can be made that Obama's handling of the Gates fiasco was racist. As in "racist on the part of Obama and Gates, not the Cambridge PD." And, as you point out, the Kanye West thing can *easily* be attributed to Kanye's being a racist.
Which isn't to say, in either case, that it's true.
We have become a nation of BUT YOU DID IT FIRST'ers, even when "it" is stupid. We are, in fact, jumping off the bridge just because everyone else has.
GWB *did* spend like a drunken sailor. This should NOT give Obama, Pelosi, and Reid justification for doing it more.
We've gone from slavery to Jim Crow to Race Baiting. This should NOT give Limbaugh justification for arguing "the sword cuts both ways," any more than it gave Jimmy Carter justification for accusing a man he doesn't even know of being a racist.
We are cutting off our nose to spite our face. It's madness, and it's creeping into every corner of our lives.
There are reasons I refer to myself as libertarian and not conservative. The primary one is that I identify with Freedom being the best answer for most of society's questions. Not every one, but most of them.
There are lesser reasons that, at times like this, I cherish: I don't want to be identified with people like Hannity, Limbaugh, Levin, or (gasp) "Savage."
I respect that they are right more than they are wrong simply because liberals are wrong almost all the time. As people, however, they are often loathsome.
If Rush were saying, "I can play the race card now because the Democrats did before," this would be a case of what goes around comes around. But that's not what he's doing. This is satire to say, "See how stupid this stuff sounds when it's not about someone you're prepared to unthinkingly demonize?" Which makes it a bit discouraging to see how many people are taking this seriously. Honestly, once he asserted that a white person was racist by birth, it should have been enough of a clue for anybody who knows anything at all about Rush to know that what followed was making fun of how other people think, not serious discourse.
Oops... "someone you're not prepared to unthinkingly demonize."
Good Grief, Megan!
It would be a different matter if you actually quoted Rush before you chimed in to criticize him. It's quite another to quote a critic to make your point.
Of course you don't actually listen to Rush (or read the transcripts) because you don't like him. So, how can you possibly complain about something you think he might have said -- without actually doing a little research.
I am certain (from long experience) that Rush didn't actually say what Dreher claims (or imputes).
But, I'm happy to be wrong. Let's roll the tape and compare.
Shame on you, Megan
Norman, Norman, Norman, remember that when you wag your shaming finger there are three more wagging back at you. I found both Dreher's post AND the transcript from Rush's show (in the comments) by following the link Megan provided above. Are you quite positive that Megan didn't read the post AND the comments, including the transcript? I was able to find both on the link she provided, in about 4 minutes.
Here's the transcript, plucked from Dreher's comments. For those interested, later in Dreher's comments there's a different transcript from later in the show of Limbaugh responding to news from a caller that the police chief backed off of his statement about the attack being racially motivated.
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: "Hey, look, folks, the white kid on that bus in Belleville, Illinois, he deserved to be beat up. You don't know about this story? Oh, there's video of this. The school bus filled with mostly black students beat up a white student a couple of times with all the black students cheering. Of course the white student on the bus deserved the beating. He was born a racist. That's what Newsweek magazine told us in its most recent cover. It's Obama's America, is it not? Obama's America, white kids getting beat up on school buses now. You put your kids on a school bus, you expect safety but in Obama's America the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, "Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on," and, of course, everybody says the white kid deserved it, he was born a racist, he's white. Newsweek magazine told us this. We know that white students are destroying civility on buses, white students destroying civility in classrooms all over America, white congressmen destroying civility in the House of Representatives.
We can redistribute students while we redistribute their parents' wealth. We can redistribute everything. Just return the white students to their rightful place, their own bus with bars on the windows and armed guards. They're racists. They get what they deserve. Newsweek magazine told us this, post-racial America. I wonder if Obama is going to come to the defense the assailants the way he did his friend Skip Gates up there at Harvard. I mean the assailants are presumed innocent due to the white racism we all know runs rampant in America. The Drive-By Media is ginning up all this criticism of Obama. Again today it's all based in racism, the criticism of Obama's health care plan or whatever, it's all based in racism and so, if he's going to apologize for America, Obama needs to apologize for the right reasons. White Americans are racists who have created what they call free markets that really just enslave the rest of America and her trading partners. It was white Americans that ran off Van Jones.
Let's just follow Eric Holder's advice and not be cowards about all this. Let's have an open conversation, an honest conversation about all of our typical white grandmothers. You had one, I had one. Obama had one. They're racists just like our students are. ACORN, hey, nothing but racism fueling the pursuit of ACORN. Greetings, folks. How are you? (interruption) What do you mean you can't look at everything through a racial prism? Obama does. And his media is looking at everything through a racial prism. The left looks at everything through a racial prism. Hey, they hit us; we hit back twice as hard. Greetings, folks, Rush Limbaugh behind the Golden EIB Microphone and the telephone number if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882.
Look, this thing on the bus cannot possibly be a hate crime. The cops are probably lying about what happened even though we have the video. The video was probably doctored and edited. We all know that cops are liars, racist pigs and that the white kid deserved it. I mean that's modern 2009 going into 2010 America."
Clearly, this is sarcasm. If you ever listen to Rush, this is a favorite tactic he uses to show how ridiculous liberals can be. I suspect the Dowd column and other comments about Joe Wilson being a racist brought this on. So, get a grip, people (especially you, nu-toast).
Wow, you are right. Jonathan Swift really did say that we should eat Irish babies! That's horrible and I immediately repudiate Swift in the most strenuous terms possible! (disclaimer: I shamelessly ripped off another Swift comment below). I don't listen to Rush but I'm tempted to start. He is absolutely destroying progressives.
First off, go reread my comment, I don't think I took a position on what Limbaugh was saying, just noted that Norman was making unwarranted assumptions about whether Megan had done her homework before posting her critique.
But since you brought it up, I have to say that I don't see how this is a parody. Sarcasm and parody are not the same thing. I understand that he's being sarcastic about the notion that we live in a post-racial society above. But where's the parody here?
Megan,
I wish you had a "view all comments by this person" feature. I'll be looking forward to Norman's retraction/apology.
Well, Troy, most of us assume Megan isn't a complete idiot. Since only a complete idiot could read the above as being serious, as being anything other than "A Modest Proposal" ("We can redistribute students while we redistribute their parents' wealth. We can redistribute everything. Just return the white students to their rightful place, their own bus with bars on the windows and armed guards. They're racists. They get what they deserve"), Norman took the position that clearly Megan could not of actually read what she was whining about.
Not, if you actually read that, and thought it was in any way serious, then I pity you.
Greg, I'll try again. Limbaugh is obviously not being serious here, and I've never suggested he was. He clearly doesn't mean for us to take this straightforwardly.
So how does he mean us to take it? Many people are claiming this is some kind of sophisticated parody. All I hear is sarcasm. Specifically, sarcastic hyperbole. In other words, he's taking what he sees as a real trend -- in Obama's America, all white people are considered racists and deserve to be treated as second-class citizens while blacks get away with whatever they want -- and is rhetorically taking that idea over the top.
That's sarcasm and hyperbole. Underlying the over-the-top rhetoric is a straightforward, honestly held belief that whites are getting screwed over in favor of blacks because Obama's America hates racist whites which they define as all whites. That belief is, indeed, wicked; it's dishonest, it's destructive to our public discourse, and the kind of thing citizens like us should denounce when a public figure with significant influence like Limbaugh suggests it.
Some here, however, disagree with my reading of the above. They say that Limbaugh was attempting some kind of sophisticated parody of the way the Left reacted to Bush. In other words, Limbaugh doesn't think treating white people as second class citizens while letting black people do anything they want is happening, or he thinks it's happening but can't be blamed on Obama. But because liberals blamed Bush for everything that went wrong in our society, Limbaugh is pretending to be like them and blaming Obama for stuff that's obviously not his fault. Or something.
I've listened to Rush enough that I think the sarcasm and hyperbole explanation is the much more likely explanation. I just don't see the parody.
Here's the link:
http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/limbaugh-in-obamas-america-black-students-cheer-beatings-of-white-classmates.php?ref=fpblg
He clearly says that now that Obama is president, white kids are getting beat up on buses by black kids, while black kids cheer. The idea is that this never happened before, that it wasn't typical high school bullying, and that this is part of a rash of black-on-white violence caused by Obama being president. It's disgusting and inflammatory, and I really look forward to hearing your defenses of it.
Actually, to me it looks more like "sarcastic" than "disgusting and inflammatory".
Why does it have to be one or the other?
While I don't listen to Rush either, I did read the transcripts for this episode.
IMHO it was sarcastic.
He was reflecting on the current Newsweek cover showing a (white) baby with the word RACIST in bold letters across the front.
He was referring to Maureen Dowd recent column calling Joe Wilson a racist for his boorish outburst during President Obama's address to the joint session.
He was echoing President Carter's assertion that any opposing President Obama's agenda is racist.
I attended the recent 9/12 rally in DC. My favorite (homemade) sign said "It doesn't make any difference what I write here because it will still be called racist."
There is something going on and Rush in his usual bombastic way is just bringing it to our attention.
For those who actually want to know what he said.
Norman and Fraggle:
Here you go - are you less "certain" now?:
"Hey, look, folks, the white kid on that bus in Belleville, Illinois, he deserved to be beat up. You don't know about this story? Oh, there's video of this. The school bus filled with mostly black students beat up a white student a couple of times with all the black students cheering. Of course the white student on the bus deserved the beating. He was born a racist. That's what Newsweek magazine told us in its most recent cover. It's Obama's America, is it not? Obama's America, white kids getting beat up on school buses now. You put your kids on a school bus, you expect safety but in Obama's America the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, "Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on," and, of course, everybody says the white kid deserved it, he was born a racist, he's white. "
More here:
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_091509/content/01125106.guest.html
Per Dreher's post, Limbaugh is "plainly trying to rally white conservatives into thinking that now that we have a black president, blacks are rising up to attack white kids!" I say Limbaugh's words are accurately characterized by Dreher.
I mean, what does this bus fight have one iota to do with Obama and "his" America? Kids, unfortunately, have been beating each other up, since the beginning of time, for all sorts of reasons. Having a black president has nothing do with it.
Seeing the actual quote, I'm quite certain about what I posted below: This is over-the-top parody.
"He was born a racist" is a clear reference to the way Obama even characterized his grandmother as a racist. The other stuff is just yet another hearkening back to things like the claims that New Orleans was abandoned because Republican racists didn't care what happened to black people.
You may not find the parody funny - it's actually a little sad. But having lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for the last seven years, I'd say it's a spot-on spoof of how people I know attributed every bad thing that happened in America since 2001 to the evil and indifferent policies of a racist, warmongering Bush administration.
gbarto has more sensitivity to irony than either Megan or Rob Pollard.
Many Obama-supporters implied and many who voted for him seem to have believed that electing Obama would "cure" racism in America.
I'll add 1) that "He was born a racist" is in reference to Newsweek's or Time's upcoming article that declares babies differentiate between race as early as two weeks of age.
2) Rush also made a point today that I also mentioned to someone this morning: Mareen Dowd and Jimmy Carter both say Joe Wilson's outburst was founded in racism. But Jefferey Goldberg and Andrew Sullivan are declaring that two black kids thrashing a white kid on a school bus as other black kids cheer them on HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH RACE, AND SAYING IT IS IS RACEBAITING.
3) Rush predicted that under Obama's presidency, every criticism of him would be chalked up to racism. This has now occurred.
I did not hear the show, but the phrase, "Obama's America," made me think of this:
A quick googling of "In Reagan's America" turns up things like this:Very often Rush takes the reasoning behind things that the left says and turns it on its head as a form of parody. I did not hear the show, so I cannot be certain. But it would be my guess that Rush does not think blacks are beating up white kids because Obama's president, but he does think that if this had happened 3 years ago with the races reversed, there would have been a lot of nattering about ascendant racism in America because of a culture of meanness and intolerance fostered by 6 years of Republican rule. See, for example, the claims made about black people being left to die in New Orleans when Katrina hit.So that's how evil is mitigated. Interesting.
Sometimes we must laugh or else we'll have to cry.
- Figaro, in the Barber of Seville by Beaumarchais
As I recall, evil really did get itself mitigated by the time the sequel was over.
Oops, overgeneralized the original:
Je me presse de rire de tout, de peur d'être obligé d'en pleurer.
Is the evil the beating of the kid? Is it charges of racism leveled at Obama's critics? Is it Rush's attempt at satire that links these things? What is the evil you refer to?
Reading the link to the entire transcript of what Limbaugh actually said, it was pretty clear he was mocking the Left's use of "in Bush's/Reagan's, etc.'s America" as well as the way some of Obama's supporters have likened any criticism of him to racism.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_091509/content/01125106.guest.html
Somehow, I doubt Andrew Sullivan will allow the entire transcript to alter his perception of Rush Limbaugh.
Depends on if he rolls it up and smokes it. That would certainly alter his perceptions.
Somehow, I doubt Rush Limbaugh would care about Andrew Sullivan's perception of him.
Dreher and Megan are referring to this.
Amen to that. What I don't understand is, why radio?
Check out the Mediaite ranking for radio hosts. Limbaugh. Beck. Hannity. Savage. Levin. Bill O'Reilly was indeed the left of talk radio.
And their weekly audience is estimated in the millions, more than 10 millions for the most popular programs. Who is listening to this crap?
Perhaps some people don't think it is crap.
Based on the numbers you cite, I'd estimate the people listening to this "crap" include about 80% of the people not batshit-crazy enough to believe some form of Trutherism.
Live in the "Nobody I know voted for Nixon!" cocoon at your political peril.
That's what I suspected, but felt good hearing it from someone else.
It makes you feel good to know that you're in an echo chamber?
Yes, this seems pretty low. As low as the NAACP implying that George W. Bush was racist and wanted James Byrd, Jr. to be killed by those freaks who dragged him behind a truck, since GWB supported the death penalty for those guys but not hate crimes laws.
Just because I've heard equivalent stupidities doesn't make it right to join in, however much Limbaugh is an entertainer and thinks he's parodying statements made about "George Bush's America."
Have you watched the video of the white kid on the bus being beaten repeatedly?
It was posted on Drudge - gone now - but probably still on YouTube.
It was visceral and shocking.
The beatings were bad enough, but the CHEERING from the rest of the black kids pushed it over the top.
To paraphrase our President ...
"While I was not there and do not know what happened, the white kid acted stupidly."
--The beatings were bad enough, but the CHEERING from the rest of the black kids pushed it over the top.--
Funny, why no mention of the black kids who stepped in to help the white kid? Why no mention of the other unharmed white kids on the bus who were cheering? Oh, right...because we shouldn't let facts get in the way of race-baiting.
I will not defend Limbaugh, whom I've probably heard for no more than 15 minutes total. But I will ask this: If it is awful for Limbaugh to make this racially charged comments - and, unless he was speaking sarcastically, I believe it is - why is it not as awful for the left-of-center commentariat to be making racially charged comments of their own that impute racial motivations to any opposition to Obama's plans? Where's the outrage for Maureen Dowd, Courtland Milloy, the Congressional Black Caucus, Andrew Sullivan, and others?
Sullivan, showing his increasingly evident lack of self awareness, asked yesterday, "And why, by the way, does someone immediately go to the racial angle when looking at such a tape?" Good question. though a better would be "Why, by the way, does someone immediately go to the racial angle when confronted with fervent opposition to the President's policies?" It's more important to the health of the body politic - or at least I think it would be.
"why is it not as awful for the left-of-center commentariat to be making racially charged comments of their own that impute racial motivations to any opposition to Obama's plans?"
You must not know about the hundreds of years of black oppression at the hands of evil white men. This has resulted in the situation where anything bad that happens to black people -- up to and including opposition to Obama's well-intentioned restructuring of our health system -- is the fault of white racism.
Anything bad that happens to white people is just the random pitfalls of life.
When bad things happen to black people explicitly at the hands of white people this is a visible, visceral manifestation of the plain fact that little has changed since the days of Jim Crow (or possibly even since the days of slavery) and is a clear indication that we are always on the cusp of a national outbreak of klanism fueled by the seething racism that lurks beneath the surface of every white face.
When bad things happen to white people explicitly at the hands of black people, it sometimes is just the random pitfalls of life and sometimes is just a natural reaction to the centuries of oppression that black people must deal with each and every day.
The simple rule of thumb is that pretty much everything white people do is racist on some level -- at the very least they are constantly trying to uphold the existing oppressive power structure. Black people by definition cannot be racist. To the extent they ever seem to be acting on the basis of race, it is clearly a just and understandable response to the oppression and racism they must struggle against every day. It's perhaps unfortunate that this struggle occassionally escalates into violence, but is still ultimately the fault of white racism.
To return to the case at hand, the beating of a white student by a group of black students while other black students cheered them on, pace Megan, I think we'll ultimately learn that this was not just "typical bullying." Rather, we shall learn that the school these children attend is postively suffused with racism and that this was just an understandable reaction to that, if regretably over-the-top. Unfortunately, we might not learn this vital information if the story just peters out.
Hopefully the local Bull Connor will attempt to discipline the black kids providing the impetus for the leaders of our national conscience (Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, et al) to shine a light into the dark dens of these racist whites and let us see why it is always justified for black people to beat up white people.
Blighter - "The simple rule of thumb is that pretty much everything white people do is racist on some level -- at the very least they are constantly trying to uphold the existing oppressive power structure. Black people by definition cannot be racist."
I think you just made Rush's point better that he could possibly imagine.
And I really don't think that you were being sarcastic.
Thank you.
LOL you haven't been paying attention to blighter's comments, have you?
Megan, I think if you'd bothered to read the entire passage before getting your East Coast, upper-class panties in a twist, you'd understand that he's Limbaugh was caricaturing the fact that a range of liberals including maureen Dowd, Chris mathhews, Rep Hank Johnson, and Jimmy Carter are all trying to paint legitimate opposition to Obama's policies as...wait for it...racism.
I'm pretty sure that Limbaugh is not trying to incite a race war or recruit for the KKK.
I honestly thought I could not possibly have less respect for your critical thinking skills...I can only apologize and note that, at the time, I thought you could read.
This is from the transcript you couldn't be bothered to read before indulging in self-righteousness:
CAMPBELL BROWN: (music) ...vicious, racist imagery attacking our first African-American president.
LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: (newsroom noise) Gentleman Joe Wilson has done much to make the racist history of South Carolina jump back into our present consciousness.
CANDY CROWLEY: (b-roll) Critics think this is about resistance to a black man as president.
JAMES CARVILLE: People are upset with President Obama because of the color of his skin. Who cannot believe that?
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Could there be a refusal to accept the legitimacy of Barack Obama as president because of his race?
WOLF BLITZER: A small but disturbing minority within the tea party movement is also blatantly anti-black.
JOHN RIDLEY: When you talk about racial image, this is not just standard debate.
ELAINE QUIJANO: (b-roll) A small but passionate minority is also voicing what some see as racist rhetoric.
JOHN AVLON: Hitler. Communism. Racism. All this ugliness is bubbling up.
ANDERSON COOPER: There is an undercurrent of racism in some of the criticism of the president.
JUAN WILLIAMS: An attack on somebody because you really don't like the fact that they are president or because of their race.
ROSS DOUTHAT: Clearly Barack Obama's race plays some role in the kind of anxieties that are roiling the political right.
CLARENCE PAGE: (outdoor noise) People are not just mad at Obama. They are mad at Jesse Jackson. They are mad at Reverend Wright. They are mad at Al Sharpton. They are mad at people who have nothing to do with Obama except they all happen to be black.
RUSH: That's Clarence Page there at the end. So you could see my progressive logical thinking here is that if all of this criticism of Obama -- look at this, now. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this health care bill, there's nothing wrong with cap and trade, there's nothing wrong with card check, there's nothing wrong with owning the automobile -- nothing wrong with any of it, it's all racism, every bit of opposition is racism.
Oddly enough, a business client is paying for me to spend two nights in a motel room, which means I have cable TV for the evening, presently tuned to CNN, and Campbell Brown just got through with a panel discussion segment entitled "Are Obama's Critics Racist?"
I'll also apologize for my typos and note that I've spilled coffee on this keyboard and need to replace it.
As much as I like Rod, Megan, you'd be well-advised to go to the source (preferably an audio source) to make your decisions. Rod's penchant for excitability are well-documented, especially with respect to talk radio.
I've heard the clip, and it is clearly a parody. It's called caricature, as Galt pointed out above. The race-baiting tendencies of the left turned on its head. (Noticed the race hysteria over the last several weeks? It's even topical!)
It's really easy (and socially applauded!) to run down Limbaugh, and disdain his trogolodite audience. It's entirely another to approach his provocations with intellectual honesty, rather a willing disregard for the nature of the provocation.
Listen before you judge.
Not to mention that the link is to Andrew Sullivan, who is a "Trig Truther" and dope smoker.
Not exacly "reliable sources."
Sully broke the law and has some uncomfortable questions to answer on the N-400 and this may eliminate the possibility of his naturalization. Now he has to suck up to powerful friends. The last shred of truth has left his building.
From the actual quote, it's pretty clearly a parody--and anyone who bothered listening to a full episode of the Rush Limbaugh show would know that. It's a textbook example of the method that he's described as, "demonstrating absurdity by being absurd." If you find this wicked, maybe you should take a look at the folks on the left who use these lines seriously (and, to be fair, Glenn Beck on the right usually isn't joking when he talks like this.)
Oh, sorry, forgot to add that despicable anti-semite Jimmy Carter to the list. Shouldn't his comments merit a rebuke from somebody who claims to be outraged by Limbaugh?
Antisemitism is back in vogue. Why would you expect Carter to be rebuked by people who agree with him?
Jeebus, did Dreher and McArdle lose their parody detectors? I mean, did they NEVER hear the lefties make outrageous claims about "Bush's America", "Reagan's America", "Gingrich's America", etc.?
(Or is it, instead, that Dreher and McArdle go out of their way to use any excuse - even treating something said clearly as parody as sincere - to attack the right? I think the latter.)
Why all the qualifiers before "virulent nonsense" ?
Is there some sort of VN of which you approve ?
Eh, I don't have a lot of use for Rush, but I heard some of this bit yesterday and he was clearly speaking tongue-in-cheek as he often does.
Rush's schtick here was a mirroring of the lefty argument that every white person is born racist -- the "white privilege" argument. By that argument, beating up white kids makes sense -- after all, they're racists. Obviously this is ridiculous, which was Rush's point.
And then we get Sullivan once again telling what a real conservative looks like. Dear Lord.
I'm pretty sure a "real conservative" doesn't look like this:
http://web.archive.org/web/20010606105110/milkyloads.tripod.com/bareback/index.html
movertyperguy, I don't get that link. What are you saying, exactly? Let's be specific.
That's Andrew Sullivan's personal ad.
How do you know that's Andrew's?
Yes, Limbaugh is completely wrong. After all, the presidencies of Mugabe and Mandela had the effect of reducing black-on-white violence in their respective countries... right?
So true. If only apartheid had continued, everything would have been fine. Incredible.
It's OUR America now!
"It came after a family night of celebrating America and freedom with a fireworks show at Firestone Stadium. Marshall, his family and two friends were gathered outside a friend's home in South Akron.
Out of nowhere, the six were attacked by dozens of teenage boys, who shouted ''This is our world'' and ''This is a black world'' as they confronted Marshall and his family." [1]
[1] http://www.ohio.com/news/50172282.html
But you have to know whether there is more or less of this kind of thing now then before. I grew up in downtown Philly and there was plenty of black on white violence by black kids pissed off and looking to take it out on whites. I wonder if there is more violence from that kind of motivation because of a feeling of empowerment or if tensions have eased because of a feeling of empowerment.
I think a lot of white folks voted for Obama expecting the latter, but I have a feeling that we're going to get the former.
Selective coverage of these events can make it look like there's an epidemic when there is none (vis a vis the "shark attack" media meme a few years ago) -- you tend to see things more when you're looking for them. That's why it's unfortunate that we can't really verify this statistically due to the media's reluctance to identify the race of victims and perpetrators in crime reporting.
@Gbarto, @John Galt, @John Thacker, @outback, @tsotha, @richao and basically the rest of the rationalizers
I think Megan already clearly covered your defense with her quote:
"The response to Al Sharpton's antics is not to emulate them. Race-baiting is not a team sport that anyone should want to join."
Try defending Limbaugh's speech on it's own merits and see how far you get.
If you believe (as many people seem to) that Rush was engaged in parody, then he wasn't emulating Sharpton or engaged in race-bating. And what's more, the people you call out were defending Rush on the merits, by pointing out that the "merit" of his speech lay not in its literal meaning, but in its very absurdity.
I don't think I could pick Rush's voice out of a lineup, so I can't say if it was parody or not.
You really doubt that those with a historical grievance against another racial group won't become emboldened when a representative of their group is in power? And that this new-found confidence won't lead to violence against that ethnic group in the form of "payback"?
It's a shame that the media goes to such great lengths to obfuscate race in their reporting of black-on-white crime. Otherwise we could compare the number of incidents to years prior and prove or falsify his statement.
Wow. By your logic, only white men can be in leadership positions, because the rest of us will be so emboldened by "one of our own" being in a leadership position that we will have to attack all you white fellas.
No, that's your logic, not mine. Maybe an increase in black-on-white violence is an acceptable cost for electing a black president? It's not for me to decide.
Dude, seriously, Al Sharpton's antics are not parody. Sorry, try again.
Thanks for pointing this out.
Unless you're arguing that Al Sharpton's career has been based on parody, (and if so, my irony detector was surgically removed by the same doctor who did Megan's), Limbaugh was clearly engaging in an OPPOSITE tactic from those used by Sharpton.
Limabugh was clearly caricaturing the liberals. Is it your position that Sharpton intentionally engages in parody also?
You misunderstand. This isn't a "you did it too!" argument, it's a "this is a parody" argument; it's not meant seriously and no reasonable listener would take it seriously.
It would be just as foolish to claim that Steven Colbert is a race-baiter when he plays one on TV to lampoon right-wingers.
The "it's obviously a parody" argument seems like a poor justification to me. For one, if you have to defend it as a parody (when it should be obvious what the target is), it kind of didn't do it's job up front, right? Second, where is the evidence that "no reasonable listener would take it seriously"? Rush has what...15-20 million listeners a week? What percentage of them take his talk seriously? None of us can know, can we? What's parody to some is literal truth to others.
Transcripts are problematic, just as any written representation of speech is problematic: inflection, manner, emotion - these don't come through well. Reading Limbaugh is nothing like listening to him. He also starts many of his segments with something like, "It is I, with talent on loan from God" - at which the credulous and the non-listeners too often gasp and cry heresy. But if you LISTEN to him, you realize that the way he says it - "talent... on loan.... from GAW-duh" - is unmistakeably humorous.
Limbaugh is a radio entertainer with a long-standing and growing audience; his words are meant to be heard, not read, and cannot be adequately judged from transcript, any more than a movie can be adequately reviewed from reading its script. Furthermore, they're meant to be heard in the context of his prior programs. Every now and then he revisits some of his old bits for the benefit of new listeners, but overall he presents every program as if his audience has been with him for a good part of the whole two decades he's been on top of the ratings.
So, the "it's obviously a parody" argument is not a justification, but rather an observation that you're reviewing, say, a single episode of a comedy series (make no mistake, Limbaugh does comedy more than he does anything else) - and possibly just from reading its script.
Try defending Limbaugh's speech on it's own merits and see how far you get.
They can't. Look at all the people coming to defend him here(and don't forget Rushbo's "Barack the Magic Negro" nonsense). And people wonder why the Republican Party is in the crapper right now. The Republican Party truly is the Party of Limbaugh.
Cite?
No one came here who wasn't here before. Rush was also popular when the Republicans controlled the Presidency and the congress so what is your point? Rush's schtick hasn't changed. Finally, I remember reading David Axelrod talking about internal polling data and they decided that it is no longer useful for them to paint the Republicans as the Party Of Limbaugh. If you are looking to help Obama you should check to see if it is good politics to make that charge at the moment. From what I can glean I think the current gameplan is to call critics of Obama racists - Rush may or may not be useful for that charge.
Proof?
"Obama the 'Magic Negro'
The Illinois senator lends himself to white America's idealized, less-than-real black man.
By David Ehrenstein
L.A.-based DAVID EHRENSTEIN writes about Hollywood and politics.
March 19, 2007"
"Rushbo's "Barack the Magic Negro" nonsense" was a parody of the fawning Ehrenstein piece cited above.
I think everyone else has done a good job pointing out why your comment is silly. But let me ask this as a side question. For a moment let's pretend Rush was dead serious. Why is it during the Bush administration every rhetorical excess on the left was excused away as a result of "understandable anger", but now everything has to stand on its own merits? Why the double standard?
The merit of a parody or satire lies not in its arguments, but in whether it plainly reveals the foolishness or wrongness of that which it lampoons. Its argument rests not on its words, but on an invitation to the reader or hearer to spot what's wrong with it and consequently realize that similar arguments made by others are also wrong. A proper challenge to a parody is not whether the argument is wrong - that's the point - but whether the fundamental differences between the parody and that which it mocks are sufficient to say that it missed its target.
Given the outrage over Limbaugh's statements by those who didn't catch the joke, I'd say it's safe to say that Limbaugh has shown the wrongness of 1) accusing one's critics of racism at the drop of a hat, 2) imputing every social ill or evil to racism, sexism, etc. on the part of people with power and 3) taking isolated incidents as symptomatic of broader social trends just because it fits a particular storyline. This would suggest that he at least came close to hitting the mark.
Don't feel bad if you missed it, though. Some people though Swift really favored eating babies too.
I just read the transcript of the entire segment. It seems like he is making the opposite point that Megan attributes. He is not straightforwardly saying that Obama is inciting black violence - he is saying that the accusations of racism against Obama's critics are obviously false and dangerous - as false as any justification of beating up the white kid. The analogy he sets up and fleshes out in the ongoing paragraphs of the transcript is that the white kid getting beat up represents Obama critics and the black kids those in the media making accusations of racism. He satirizes the idea that in Obama's America, Newsweek and others - Pravda of the Obama administration incited the teenagers to beat on the white kid for his racism - and that the kid must deserve it. This seems obviously satire because who believes those kids read Newsweek etc? Who believes that anyone thinks the one kid deserved it? Talking about race in an inflammatory way is dangerous and can be done irresponsibly. I think that this is part of Rush's point even as he traffics in it himself.
He is lampooning the very thing Megan is decrying. At one point Rush says, "And his media is looking at everything through a racial prism. The left looks at everything through a racial prism." If critics of problematic policy initiatives of the president are racists how can we not interpret this video through the prism of race? If you refuse to see a bunch of kids of one race beating one kid of another through the prism of racism but see it in critics of card check and cap and trade, what does that mean? If these other tenuous and unconnected events are linked by racism why not this beating?
I think the analogy of the kids on the bus is flawed in a lot of ways but I don't think this is as simple as Megan paints it out. That is my take off a written transcript. Maybe it would come off differently on audio.
He also points out this is ironic after we have supposedly entered a post-racial era. I don't think Joe Wilson is a great example of a critic without racial baggage but the interjection of racism as motive for critics predated his shout of "Liar".
Rush piece has a bombastic and aggressive tone. I also think that there is the problem that some segment of his audience won't take it as satire and analogy but as truth. I don't know if I think this obligates him to talk in a more measured and nuanced way. It isn't as if measured tones cannot be just as poisonous. Krugman recently wrote an op-ed that in subtle and nuanced language painted much of the opposition of Obamacare as racist dupes. It is probably easier to push bad ideas and racial hatred under the cover of polite language.
"I also think that there is the problem that some segment of his audience won't take it as satire and analogy but as truth."
Because, as the Upper Class, Bi-coastal elite are always happy to point out, the yokels in Flyover Country are easily duped and prone to violence (why else do they bitterly cling to their guns and their religion)?
I think that was the point Megan was trying to make.
PS, I live in flyover country.
I still think it is a problem that some segment of Rush's listenership will draw the wrong lessons. It may not be Rush's problem. As I said I don't think that other people's stupidity invalidates or should deter Rush from making his point. Or that you can't push poisonous racial ideas with temperate language (Krugman).
I also know that Rush is listened to a lot of places other than flyover country. I do think it is true that Rush's coastal critics aren't as concerned about the racists in their midsts (remember that union boss who gave a speech about voting for Obama despite his raace). Most of the usual cultural crusaders for the left do not harp on whatever racism resides in democratic constituents.
I grew up in Philly and that place had a lot of union democrats - blue as blue could be - and also full on racists. They tended to be white ethnic (italian, irish etc.) There was a lot of black racism too. I recall a friend of mine's cousin telling me about Yacub (sp?) the blond haired, blue eyed devil and that I wasn't like most whites - not evil, that is. There really is racism everywhere but it is getting better.
Making accusations of racism is something that should be done carefully. I really like Megan's writing but I have to say that she was pretty cavalier about hurling such an accusation. Maybe she is familiar enough with Rush that she didn't feel like she had to vette this particular situation. I haven't looked at her other writings on Rush but if they are all like this she should maybe rethink things.
I'll take you guys at your word, that you honestly see this as some kind of sophisticated parody of media attitudes. Frankly, I think you're all filling in an awful lot of the blanks on Limbaugh's behalf here. Which maybe is why the various explications read a bit tortured and inconsistent -- one person says the kid somehow represents the media, another says the bullies represent the media, etc.
But people hear what they hear, and I don't think you guys are lying. But I can tell you that parody is not what I hear. I hear sarcasm, I hear analogies, and I hear race-baiting. But I don't hear parody. Jonathan Swift, this ain't.
Johnathan Swift is still being read over a hundred years later. I don't think that producing writing of that level is a reasonable benchmark for calling something a parody.
I think it is a bit confused because he is attempting to conflate a ton of sources. If he stuck to just parodying the pseudoscience of the Newsweek all whites are racists due to this study on babies, or stuck to Reagan's America/Bush's America stuff, or stuck to the whole melange of racialist invective we are finding ourselves in the midst ofduring this post-racial presidency it would be clearer I am sure.
Still, we are in the midst of a storm of racial accusations. Almost without fail my liberal friends inject race into discussions about Obama's policy objectives. It deserves parody.
I get it now. Rush is not a race baiting ass. Just a really lame comedian. Oh yea, and the left did it too. See, they used the phrase "in Reagan's America" from which all equivalency flows ever so naturally. Oh and Kanye West's idiotic comment which completely missed the point of Bush's epic incompetence (and lies (who could have known?) regardless of race serves to completely and effectively counter balance years of Rush's verbal diarrhea.
I don't think you do get it. The defenders of Rush here are not offering a Tu Qoque defense (i.e. the left did it too). Also, I didn't read anyone who argued that Kanye West and Rush were flip sides of the same coin.
ajwpip has it exactly right. We're not arguing that the left did it too. We're arguing that the left does this - period - and that Rush's over-the-top satire reveals why the willingness to casually vilify whites as racist today is a new species of the noxious racism that once poisoned our land, not its antidote.
Rush aside, I think a lot of Americans are understandably confused by why the Congressional Black Caucus, for instance, is not considered a racist organization. A Congressional White Caucus is utterly inconceivable.
There seems to be a double standard here: whites must be colorblind, minorities get to band together on the basis of ethnicity.
I can understand there might have been a justification for this 30 years ago, but today it just sows insularity and division.
Most people my age are like the kids in the classic South Park episode who have no idea why a black man being lynched on the flag is racist. We judge people on the content of their character, and the notion we have to treat people better or worse based on the color of their skin seems intuitively wrong.
While I can appreciate your feeling of confusion, I think it stems in part from a.) not knowing the full history of race relations in this country and b.) not having experienced the kind of insidious racism that still exists in some places. I don't say this to accuse you of being ignorant because you come across as thoughtful and smart. I just wonder if sometimes people of all colors don't put themselves in someone else's shoes enough. Whites often don't think about what it's like to be black today - what it might feel like to be consistently judged by the color of your skin. And I think there are blacks who can't put themselves in the shoes of whites who are facing many of the problems they are, too.
I know a lot of people on this forum are against Obama for policy reasons, but surely most everyone can agree with what he said in Philadelphia during the primaries:
First, he assesses the view of racism from many in the black community:
Then, TallDave, he addresses the point you made in your comment above:
And he predicts this very debate (because we were living through it back in 2008, as well):
Finally, he offers a solution:
Policy differences aside, why can't we find the wisdom in these statements?
Policy differences aside, why can't we find the wisdom in these statements?
I do, but I also fail to see how they help in an instance like this. The question I have is who gets to decide if something is racist or not? (aside from obvious cases).
Isn't this just a 'conversation on race' that Obama wanted?
Derek
I think there's much wisdom in what Obama has to say here. What I'm confused about is what in here contradicts the point of Limbaugh's satire, namely that seeing the world through the twin prisms of race and racism poisons our discourse and diminishes us all.
I think yours is a valid point, and Limbaugh is free to make any point, satirical or not, that he likes.
The problem that I see is that parody from Limbaugh isn't particularly helpful. He's not known for his empathy (maybe he is a very empathetic person ... but perception can be reality), and I feel like what Obama's speech called for was empathy. In other words, all sides of this debate should stop jumping to conclusions and listen to what others have to say. So, those on the left shouldn't jump to the conclusion that Joe Wilson and his supporters are racist just because he shouted "You lie" at the President. Those on the right shouldn't assume that Clyburn is playing the race card when he talks about his perceptions of race as a black politician in South Carolina.
Race relations in this country are sufficiently complex that both sides in this debate can sincerely believe in what they're saying and sincerely want to move forward. The problem is that no one knows how to talk to each other. It sometimes seems like the right's solution (and I'm sorry to generalize because I know the political reality is much more complex than left and right) is to say, Well, let's not talk about race at all because, as you put it, gbarto, that "diminishes us all." But my feeling is that this ignores the real experience that many people - black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, you name it - have had with race. We are all people of color. We all have some kind of racialized experience in this country - not necessarily everyday, not necessarily bad. But to ignore race is not to make the tension go away.
But you probably aren't asking anyone to ignore it. Maybe what you're asking - and what I'm hoping - is that we can get to the point where we can talk about it as one of several factors in how our political and social system works, though not the only factor. Coates talks about this on his blog; he's made several insightful analyses of the Wilson incident that suggest that race isn't the primary factor - that there's a lot more going on here. Just as it's important for people on the left to think deeply about issues before suggesting that race is a primary factor, it's equally important for those on the right to be wary of suggesting that a black caucus is the same as a white caucus, to use Tall Dave's example above.
Again, I mean this as no disrespect to Tall Dave. But that comment, to me, suggests that he doesn't recognize the power imbalance that exists in this country. Yes, we have a black man as a president. But when the DOJ can publish stats like this one, I think we need to acknowledge that something is not right in our system: "Based on current rates of first incarceration, an estimated 32% of black males will enter State or Federal prison during their lifetime, compared to 17% of Hispanic males and 5.9% of white males." (http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/crimoff.htm)
History DOES matter; the injustices of the past continue to exist in the institutions of the present. I'm not saying that the criminal justice system is completely racist, but I am saying that we need to think about all that goes in to creating crime in this country: our education system, availability of jobs, environmental factors, legal codes, and yes, the criminal justice system. I don't think there's a cabal of old white men out there attempting to send all black men to prison, but I do think the system has legacies of racism built into it.
So, I guess what I'm taking too many words to say is that Limbaugh's parody might have made him feel better for the many times he and other listeners have felt as if they've been called racists. But it doesn't really add to the conversation. It's just a bit of revenge. I feel like Obama's speech (and yes, I'm terribly biased, I know) at least tried to invite each of us to practice a little empathy, to step in each other's shoes and say, What would it feel like to be black and then to be told that racism is no longer a factor when I've experience racism? What would it feel like to be white and to feel as if every time I disagree with Obama, I'm being called a racist?
Replying to Christina K, below:
I think this has been a pretty rough time for rational discourse. We've got two sets of "birthers" - those who question Obama's citizenship and those who question Trig Palin's parentage. We've got the claims that Obama is a secret communist vs. the claims that anyone opposing him is a closet racist. Etc. It seems that no matter where you look, you can find someone either to the right or to the left who is willing to believe even worse things about fellow citizens and our leaders than the last guy. It's a touchy time. The problem is that on both sides, the extremes aren't trying to push the discourse forward; they're trying to stifle it. Fifty years ago, there was no worse accusation than to call someone a communist - it put people beyond the reach of polite society. Today, accusations of racism can sometimes have the same effect, especially in certain settings. And just as the McArthyites burned themselves out when they started seeing a communist behind every curtain, we can only hope that the casual dispensation of accusations of racism will run their course. However, I think things have to get louder before they get quiet, the same way that an unruly classroom sometimes has to get really out of control so that when it is calmed, it is not by force but by the students themselves realizing they're no longer comfortable with how far they've pushed things. Otherwise, the story will end not with a maturing of the political discourse, but with its dissipation.
Since we're talking about Limbaugh today, I think a little history is in order: Fifteen years ago our so, Rep. John Conyers gave Atty. Gen. Reno one hell of a grilling in the hearings, IIRC, about Waco. Rush said that Conyers had gone too far and called for a little respect. A few days later, Pres. Clinton went to a fundraiser and joked that Limbaugh had only defended Reno because she was a white woman being attacked by a black man. A few years later, at my alma mater (for my M.A.), Clinton gave a speech about the Oklahoma City bombing in which he hinted pretty strongly that it was the hatred of talk radio that had caused the bombing. So, does Limbaugh go overboard sometimes? Yep. Does his humor not always register with those who don't listen to him on a regular basis? Yep. Does he have some cause for feeling like an effort has been marginalize him as a threat to the Republic and not just a dissenting voice? It's not beyond comprehension to see how he'd feel a need to push back in whatever way gets his message across.
It's not just Limbaugh anymore. In the past few months, the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader have suggested that I'm unAmerican - I've written online about where I think the current health reform will take us in the long run and it hasn't been universally complimentary. Now a former president has suggested that those who oppose Obama are motivated not by legitimate disagreement, but by racism. Am I a touch sensitive about that? As Palin would say, ya betcha.
Does this mean that all is lost - the left out of control, the right out of control and the country stuck in the middle? Nah. American politics are rough and tumble and with good reason. There's a lot at stake. What's more, if you can convince yourself that a) the country will fall to terrorism if your Patriot Act doesn't pass or b) innocent people will die in the streets if your health care reform doesn't pass, it's understandable that you might stumble into the notion that the ends justify the means and painting your opponents as a) soft on terrorism or b) closet racists is a small price to pay for the greater good. This is ugly stuff. The nice thing, though, is that we're having a good, loud, free conversation about it, which means that instead of one side getting shut down by the other, we're going to keep talking till we get worn out on the nonsense and look for a way to step back from the politics enough that we can get back to our real lives of friends, family, work and community.
Part of the reason why things are so hot on this topic, though, is that it's not really race we're talking about. We're talking about whether one side of a political argument can be declared racist, sexist, fascist, communist or whatever and whether, if that happens, people with sincerely held viewpoints will be told that they're no longer entitled to their opinions. In his rant, Limbaugh was pushing back on the idea of racism because he knows what it's like to be told that his opinion on a whole range of subjects is unworthy of hearing because he's been accused of believing something bad or unpleasant about a completely unrelated issue, even, as I noted, to the point where his efforts to defend a sitting Attorney General were rebuked by the President who appointed her.
The question of race and racism is a separate question, but it's one where I'm actually relatively optimistic. It's true that humans innately distrust difference, but it's also true that they can learn. It's not as though we live in caves because the first human never saw a house, and it's not as though we can't move past racism. The thing is, I don't think a national conversation is the answer, because as we see anything that enters the national conversation gets sucked into the right-left push-pull. Fontenelle had a great phrase about "unmaking the eyes of habit." Every time we meet a person of another race who seems not unlike us, we do this. Every time we meet a Republican who seems to actually be a nice person or a Democrat who seems not to be a dupe, we do this. All the time, by the simple act of living in a society where people of diverse backgrounds come together, problems like racism, classism and sexism slowly fade because experience makes the unknown known and so we come to know better.
My response, I know, is a bit of a ramble, but to distill it to its essence, Limbaugh probably didn't contribute much to the national conversation because those who understand him already knew what he was saying while those who don't were all too prepared to take it the wrong way. Unfortunately, this is true of much of the political discourse today. The good news, though, is that while we yell and scream at each other online, on television and at rallies, a lot of people have the capacity to be perfectly civil human beings face to face, which is why at a certain point you have to take what's going on at the national level as theater - ugly theater, unpleasant theater, potentially dangerous theater, but theater all the same. Remembering this, you can know that Carter leveled his accusations of racism in the hopes that something he believes in - Obama's reform agenda - would pass, and Limbaugh responded in the hopes of something he believes in - his right to speak up and offer an opposing viewpoint. And so it goes...
gbarto, thanks for your thoughts. You raised some interesting points!
not knowing the full history of race relations in this country
The history of race relations is the problem. It needs to be forgotten, not endlessly poked at.
We're here now. Tabula rasa.
Also, the "lack of economic opportunity" is a bunch of crap. If you study and work hard, you get ahead, no matter who you are. If you aren't getting ahead, you aren't studying and working hard.
Dear lord,
If it IS a lampoon and parody, it's not a very good one when you have this many people who can't see the parody. So either Limbaugh is a disgusting political hack, or really crappy at parody, or both. Take your pick.
Seems to me that virtually everybody DID get that it was a parody. Everyone, that is, except for those professionally inclined to be outraged - OUTRAGED - at Rush Limbaugh.
And it's a cautionary tale for everyone:
If you get your news from Talking Points Memo ... if you get your news from Andrew "Trig Truther" Sullivan ... then you're not making good media choices and you're bound to be uninformed, as Megan is in this post.
Neither, more likely the correct answer is “people who get off on pretending to be offended will feign outrage accordingly.”
How many of the people who "can't see the parody" listened to the segment, and how many of them are reading heavily edited transcripts or (in the case of readers of this blog, at least until you dive into the comments), zero primary source material at all?
That is likely the largest division. Those who saw a quote with editorial comments have one take. Those who actually read/heard the whole thing another.
Where you been, Rob Lyman? I'm not thoughtful, articulate, or active enough to cover the gun-toting libertarian Southerner angle.
At my grandfather's funeral. Plus, I'm neither a Southerner nor a libertarian, so you're pretty much on your own there.
I guess NC doesn't really count. Given the references to hunting, self-sufficiency, etc. you could become a Southerner without much effort though.
As to the libertarian, I was just confused. You're definitely not a lover of expansive govt unless you're all about parody and I'm missing it, which is always a possibility.
In any case, sorry about your grandfather and glad to see you posting again. You're much less hyperbolic than many of the rest of us.
You have to remember, too, that the man isn't writing this so much as speaking on the radio. I haven't listened to Rush in a decade, but it's pretty clear from his inflections when he's trying to be a smart ass. That's not clear in the transcript, and it's a major reason people who've never listened to him find him quite a bit more outrageous than he really is.
What if pretending to not get it allows you to maintain your self-righteous opinion that Republicans are all racists? Protecting delusions of superiority is a pretty strong motivation.
Maybe Limbaugh isn't funny or maybe the liberals who hate him are humorless ignoramuses. Limbaugh obviously doesn't mean that the white kid was "born racist" and that "we know it because Newsweek says so." He prefaced the entire segment by listing liberal accusations of racism against Obama's critics. He was satirizing that nonsense, just because liberals don't get it doesn't mean that isn't what he was doing.
query_tool,
Well, if you read John Galt carefully, he's making an argument that Megan did not cover - namely, that Limbaugh was speaking sarcastically, parodying much of the rhetoric on the left. I don't know, won't listen, and won't defend him on these grounds, but I would be interested in hearing whether you would consider such a Swiftian response as a mitigating factor.
As for my point, I just find it odd that Limbaugh provokes so much rage, even among my favorite bloggers, when those racialists I name above are even now (as opposed to Sharpton, who doesn't seem to be in the news right now) lobbing charges of racism across the aisle and arguably created the environment that prompted this intemperate response from Limbaugh. Does the fact that they lob them from the ramparts of the right-thinking media establishment make them less offensive?
It seems more and more likely to me, with every burst of outrage against Limbaugh and Beck and others for doing what folks on the left have done for years and are now doing, that the relative rage that greets Limbaugh's comments from even bloggers I like is fundamentally about class. For all his success, Limbaugh is an outsider to Megan and Rod and others. He's crass and brash, and we coastal elites (yes, I am one myself) find the style offensive. But let a Maureen Dowd or Andrew Sullivan make essentially the same arguments, and we laugh it off, or if we criticize it, we do so mildly, because that's how one responds to social transgressions by a member of one's own class. Limbaugh may be rich and influential, but I think we can all agree that he's definitely declasse, and that means that even those of us who are generally categorized as being on the right will come down on him with the harshness that, for example, nobility has always used against the moral and social failings of even the most successful members of the merchant class.
As a transplanted coastal elite (live in the SF Bay Area but grew up in small-town Michigan), I think you've got this about right. The elite are quite convinced that they know what jus' folks kind of people need, but they have no idea who such people are or how they think. A little time in flyover country will show that while there are some real pieces of work out there, even people who didn't go to the right pre-school sometimes prove to be a lot sharper and more sophisticated than you'd guess. They can even listen to Limbaugh and discern the use of irony.
Just to follow on the thought: Which reveals more sophistication? Recognizing the phrase, "transgressive performance art," in the NYT Style section or recognizing this thing itself when you hear it on the radio?
Next up - Dreher and McArdle are outraged - OUTRAGED - that there was a play on Broadway (and movie) that uses Nazi symbols.
It's A NEW LOW for Broadway!
bloodstar,
Actually, those of us who grew up in the religious right were always scorned by our cultural betters for not being able to distinguish between parody and serious discourse. But when folks on the left can't understand parody, it's because the delivery was poor. Must be nice: Fundamentalists snookered by parody are just Christianist dimwits; ostensibly well read media types snookered by parody are merely the victims of poorly executed comedy. Gotcha.
IIRC, Swift also caused a great deal of confusion with A Modest Proposal, even among the educated classes. Apparently because he was a lousy comedian.
If it was satire/parody then it might be a good idea for Rush to not do satire/parody in the future since he seems to fail at it...plus many of his listeners do not get it and will think a white kid was beaten up by black kids for no other reason then that he was white and that the President is probably ok with that.
(In reality he was beaten up because teenagers can be douchebag bullies no matter what their race is and when there is a fight, teenagers cheer it on. Teenagers can really suck that way. It would be nice if the conversation would move towards bulling and the kids being picked on because they are different.)
And puhleeezzeee I live in Arkansas and I can tell you that SOME of the crazy over the top anger directed at Obama (I want my country baaaaccckkkk*) is all about his skin color and fear of the other. These people were promised a conservative evangelical "God's man in the White House" type of majority for the next 20 years by Rove and dammit, where is it?
They are pissed.
So, so pissed.
So pissed they will ascribe all kinds of falsehoods to Obama, but have no problem with a sleezebag like David Vitter being a Senator.
Many of them are not out and out racists, but they would rather not have blacks as neighbors or dating their daughter or as their President....but man the like that Denzel Washington.
Don't even ask about their feelings on the "Mexicans".
The thing is they (and a number of smart people here who seem to think that there is NO racism involved in the crazy beam focused on Obama) are just being played by folks like Rush or Dick Armey or Hannity or Beck or Rove. This is all about making the President seem like a pretender, to invalidate this Presidency. Maybe this is a game that is played every for or 8 years and it just seems more crass and ugly when race is mixed in.
Hopefully it will backfire, maybe not, but in the end they are harming the country and the respect the Office of the Presidency is supposed to engender.
and I'll admit one of the reasons I hated Bush was my unreasonable dislike of swaggering Texans and frat boys. Yep, that's the way i roll.
(*yes, I live about 10 min from the gal who cried that out at Rep. Vic Snyder's town hall. Hell, I've probably seen her and her mamma at WalMart. These folks are my neighbors, people my husband works with and the stuff they say in private when they think you agree with them is some ugly, ugly stuff.)
I find this thread interesting in light of the one over on Ta-Nehisi Coates post about race and Joe Wilson. I guess that is what makes The Atlantic and interesting site.
There is no one who does not think that there is some actual real racism in this country. It seems from your own post that race was mixed in during Bush's presidency. The question is how do we talk about it and should we question the motives and decency of Obama's critics. I don't think this is all about Rove. Plenty of this is coming from Axelrod et al. And some of it isn't about directives from our political masters above.
I live in Maryland, next to Price Georges county (we live in Calvert county.)
I am in my 60's. Both my wife and I are afraid to driving thru Prince Georges after dark because we are white (actually kinda pink.)
Prince Georges county voted 97% for Obama.
You dandy fop. I've lived in Maryland all my life (Frederick and Annapolis) and PG county is nothing to be scared of.
I can't imagine what a miserable 60-odd years you've had going through life terrified of everything.
I seem to recall two black members of the Bush administration being referred to as "plantation slaves". Oh wait! Those references were made by other blacks. My bad.
I actually replying to spidergoose - not ajwpip.
Spidergoose doesn't have the courage to allow replies.
From Southern Maryland Online Newspaper http://somd.com/news/headlines/2007/5809.shtml
"Baltimore, Prince George's Reign as State's Murder Capitals"
Baltimore, Detroit, Prince George's ... sweet places to visit!
And oh yea, Prince George's county also has the highest car jacking rates in the state.
Jules - If you're in Little Rock, where the mentioned town hall occurred, then you're in one of AR's solidly blue counties. Pulaski County went 55.1% to 43.5% for Obama. Are you saying your fellow Pulaski County residents harbor more secret racism than those of us in Benton County (67% - 30% McCain)?
Can't resist having fun with you. I'm from Pine Bluff. Jefferson County is even bluer than Pulaski,(62% - 36% Obama), and I know exactly what you're talking about. Nevertheless, I have to say I've heard a fair amount of bigotry from some very liberal and tolerant individuals. People in NW AR don't confide those private statements in me the way those reliably blue AR voters from my youth did. Could be I'm not giving off the right vibe, though.
Election Results: http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/ar.htm
Nope.
Saline county.
and you are right, I am surprised by some of the crap that comes out of the mouths of liberals too...especially the sexisim from liberal dudes.
Of course that's why speaking in generalities never works.
Is some of the Obama crazy due to an inability to trust a man with black skin as President?
Of course.
That does not mean that it is ALL due to fear of the black man.
But Rush and his idiocy does not help any conversation that might be going on.
plus many of his listeners do not get it
Wrong. Dreher and his "sophisticated" critics didn't get it. I live in Los Angeles and I can tell you that a lot of the hatred of George Bush was out and out hatred of Christians by secular liberals. So what. Liberals are playing the race card, Limbaugh was making fun of their flailing logic and now, liberals are trying to manufacture outrage. I used to think liberals were playing dumb when they did stuff like this but it is becoming apparent that they really are that dumb.
Let's not forget Bush was from a Connecticut family. I'm sorry you don't like Texasans; we're actually really nice people. I agree about the frat boy thing, but they are in every state.
Oops, I guess you can hate us because we can't spell...Texans. I don't know what a Texasan is
HAHA! Oh Rush, what a kidder! Hey, remember that time Rush tried his hand at sports commentary and said the only reason anybody thought Donovan McNabb was any good was because he was black?! HILARIOUS!
Perfect - you, like Megan here, are relying on someone else for your Rush info and getting ti wrong.
Hey, buddy, it's parody. OK? Jeez you guys...
Obligatory link.
In the context of how this story was played up in the Drudge Report and via Michelle Malkin, etc., and in the context of Rush's previous idiotic statements on race (thanks for that reminder on the McNabb "analysis", danthefourth), I don't see why anyone should be giving him the benefit of the doubt about the sincerity of his "satire."
Those who are defending him here seem to think he's mocking the logic--and hypocrisy--of those who play up racial grievance on the left. That's true, up to a point. The problem is, judging from the history of his entire career of playing upon white grievance, I think he's illustrating that he's just the flip side of the same coin as the people he's mocking, and this mockery comes so easy to him. A real satirist would mock the racial double standards of the right as well. I don't think I'll hold my breath waiting for that.
Here's the problem--there is nothing remotely comparable in the claims of grievance from white people, as a group, to blacks and other minorities, as groups. I think most Americans spend entirely too much time whining about their grievances anyway (from the people here, it seems to come from fears of big-government bogeymen and being taxed too much), but it's particularly distasteful coming from people who don't have the intelligence or imagination to see the difficulties minorities, as a group, face in this country.
I don't listen to Limbaugh and don't care to track down the audio to make my own judgment, but judging by the inability of anybody to dispute that it's parody, I'm guessing it's safe to assume the people arguing that it's parody are correct???
In which case, so far, the best argument in response has been the one above: Other people have missed the point, and b/c Limbaugh has been a jackass in the past, I don't have to have a logical reason to be upset about his statement.
Also, isn't it time for a mea culpa here (again, assuming it was parody)? I don't think it's that big of a deal to make this type of mistake in a blog format; there simply aren't the same expectations for fact checking and research of primary sources. And to me it's a fair price in exchange for more posts, but that's assuming that the mistakes are acknowledged when they're made.
And it seems like somebody needs to either explain why the statement was unacceptable or explain that they generally think Limbaugh is a jackass and apologize for that resulting in them spreading misinformation in this instance. Again, not a huge deal, but some type of follow up seems to be in order.
Smitty for the win.
I hope that, because of the Invocation of Past Racism, we can all agree that Limbaugh is not allowed to comment in the public forums and we should all support legislation, not on its merits, but becuase White People Did Bad Things 50 Years Ago.
Here's the problem--there is nothing remotely comparable in the claims of grievance from white people, as a group, to blacks and other minorities, as groups.
Comparing claims of past grievance is stupid and counterproductive. Our ancestors all suffered at the hands of somebody sometime, but we're all here now.
people who don't have the intelligence or imagination to see the difficulties minorities, as a group, face in this country
I'm tired of people self-righteously claiming this crap. Asians and Arabs have higher per capita incomes than whites in this country. If you have difficulties in this country, it's because of how you're living your life, not the color of your skin.
"Comparing claims of past grievance is stupid and counterproductive. Our ancestors all suffered at the hands of somebody sometime, but we're all here now."
Look: there is a bit of truth here, but not entirely. i myself can't stand conversations that basically end up being "I am/or was more oppressed than you!!" between blacks, browns, whoever. Just to out myself here: I am of Mexican ancestry. This line of thinking can be taken too far, for sure. That being said, there is a blindness here I am getting, implied by your own post: that racism is not a factor at all, that discrimination does not matter and that no one of color suffers from discrimination in any way in this country currently.
"I'm tired of people self-righteously claiming this crap. Asians and Arabs have higher per capita incomes than whites in this country. If you have difficulties in this country, it's because of how you're living your life, not the color of your skin.'
I can tell you what's really tiring: this "model minority" stuff. As if police brutality doesn't exist, as if the death penalty doesn't adversely affect people of color, as if discrimination is a total joke. And really? you want to claim that just because Asians and Arabs make more money that whites on average, that they are never discriminated against, in any context? Not true.
I've said this before in any other forums and I will say it again: my grandparents and great-grandparents came to the U.S. from Mexico for a better life, and thank heavens they did. I'm not gonna sit here and pretend that just because my life is economically better than it would be if my family stayed in Mexico, that racism and discrimination does not exist in some fashion against Mexicans and people of Mexican heritage. How one responds to discrimination and racism, to me, is an individual responsibility. Difficulties due to racism and discriminatio and just plain willful ignorance doesn't have to crippling. It really depends.. I dont' think my life is entirely shaped by racism I don't. What I do think my life is affected by more than anything, is ignorance and blindness along cultural lines, assumptions about Mexicans that are stereoytpical and thus very annoying. I can't go into it more here because obviously not my blog, too complex to go into here.
But this is my point: this is a complex issue. I thnk TallDave, your comment implies a type of stark dichotomy that does not exist.
As if police brutality doesn't exist,
Of course police brutality exists. It always has. We didn't invent it just for minorities.
as if the death penalty doesn't adversely affect people of color,
It affects people who commit capital crimes. If vastly more men than women are committing capital crimes, then more men are executed. But oddly I don't hear anyone complaining men are a class being discriminated against.
you want to claim that just because Asians and Arabs make more money that whites on average, that they are never discriminated against, in any context?
Sure they are -- by affirmative action programs. You actually get a penalty on SAT scores for being Asian.
It's not a perfect world. It's full of ignorant people who discriminate for all sorts of irrational reasons, most having nothing to do with race. The way to fix it isn't with more discrimination.
Smitty - "Here's the problem--there is nothing remotely comparable in the claims of grievance from white people, as a group, to blacks and other minorities, as groups."
I'm sure the mother of the white kid who got beaten repeatedly on the bus will be relived.
...and I'm also sure that will be of some comfort to the black kids who tried to help him.
Judging from the response of lefties, they haven't ever actually listened to Rush. I hear maybe a few hours in a year and I can tell you most of his show is schtick like this. The guy is basically an entertainer whose niche is conservative politics. Half his appeal is the fake pomposity of his "Excellence in Broadcasting" spiels.
The moral of this story is don't get your news from sources left of the MSM, because they tend to be crazy.
How many Dems/Libs have to go on the air to apologize to Bill Maher? We've heard several repubs groveling on radio after insulting Rush. Just an entertainer? Maybe? But then the right should find some genuine leadership outside of the entertainment biz.
I don't think Limbaugh and Maher are a reasonable comparison. Limbaugh reaches, what, 20 million people every week? What's the biggest audience Maher had? Is it even over a million? Does he even have a show now? That's an honest question.
Republicans in office are scared of Limbaugh for the same reason Democrats are scared of him - he's got a really big microphone for three hours every single day. He's the radio version of the the old newspaperman who you weren't supposed to pick a fight with because he buys ink by the barrel.
Don't be ridiculous. Everybody knows political correctness is a far graver danger to white people than racial animus is to black people.
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. If not, I'm going to print this out and put the paper in a safe place because it's one for the record books.
C'mon, Buzz. Give me a little credit.
I'm the slow one, not you. Well done, sir.
Political correctness is creating racial animus in all directions.
Yeah. It's almost impossible for white, Christian males to get a fair shake anymore. Or ever for that matter. WTF?!
It's almost impossible to avoid the obsession with race, no matter who you are.
Just to stir the pot a bit and bring Andrew back into the thread ...
Imagine Sully saying the following: "It's almost impossible for white, Christian males to get a fair shake anymore."
a) In a federal courtroom
2) In an airport bathroom after being rejected
Yes, I know I'm being bad.
sulks away with head lowered ...
First off, Jasper's being sarcastic, which by the standards apparently in use around here, makes him an evil race-baiting traitor to his country, at least as bad as Rush Limbaugh or Hitler.
Second, the existence of one evil, even a very great evil, does not justify the imposition of another evil, even if the second one is much smaller. It may be just awful to be a black man in Obama's America, but that's not a justification for calling me a racist.
And in conclusion, it is clear that the Democratic Party needs to nominate a white guy if they want to get health care "reform" passed. The last two black presidents have hit serious obstacles which all literate people agree are racially-motivated. So they need to bite the bullet, pander to the racist voters, and get it done.
"The last two black presidents have hit serious obstacles which all literate people agree are racially-motivated. So they need to bite the bullet, pander to the racist voters, and get it done."
That got a chuckle, Rob, well done.
Sorry to hear about your grandfather, btw. Glad you're back.
Gosh, I sure hope our racism-riddled country can become more enlightened.
Maybe, someday, we could even elect a black man President!
Probably too much to hope for.
Oh yes, because now that Obama is president that means no racial discrimination ever again, and all of racism has magically vanished. you can make an argument that we are less racially divided and racist country than we were in the 1950s for instance. I think there have been definite improvements for sure. That doesn't mean there is no racism at all in this country, just because we have one black man in the white house.
We had at least two will Van Jones got kicked out. What does everyone's internal racism sensor say about that?
"what does everyone's internal racism sensor say about that?"
it says nothing. And "internal racism sensor" Yeah...sure...
What is wrong with "internal racism detector"? For Krugman, Carter and Dowd etc. this seems like what they use to justify accusations of racism. They can just tell when someone is a racist.
Does anyone doubt that the same people accusing Obama's critics of being motivated by racism also believe that conservatives went after Van Jones because he is black? The fact that he was recently an actual communist and a 9/11 truther being excuses?
I don't remember anyone claiming there was "no racism at all." That sounds like an unattainable utopia.
But there can't be a whole lot of it.
Yes it's true that Rush was being satirical, and in this sense he was clever enough to set this trap so people who didn't look into it would "falsely" jump all over him and he could play the superior being. One point for you Rush.
But Rush loses many many points because it is also true that SOME portion of his audience WON'T get this as satire. That's an empirical question, but even if 10% of his audience doesn't get it, your still talking a million or two idiots that will be inflamed by this.
But perhaps worse than this "accidental" misintepretation is the fact that the thrust of his satire is dead wrong. He is basically saying "it's completely absurd to think that race is a part of anyone who opposes the president". He makes fun of the concept that most people are racists to some degree.
Rush is dead wrong because it is clearly true that racism is SOME part of the hatred generated on the right for OBAMA. Is it the largest part -- likely NO, but Rush is acting like it's absurd to believe this obvious fact.
And Yes, Rush, there is way more racism in way more people than anyone wants to admit to.
You want facts? I teach at the college level and every term I give students a measure of implicit racism and these tests consistently reveal subtler forms of racism in 20 years old students.
Think about that -- these are among the most progressive segments of our society -- young and educated and they STILL show racism in a subtle form. Can you imagine how much more of a problem this would be in a 60 year old white person (on average -- I'm not talking about your wonderful aunt Mabel specifically).
I completely agree that the media has overplayed the racism in the anti-obama forces, but to deny that race is part of this is just being ignorant.
Things are complex -- Many who hate Obama do so primarily based on policy, but a substantial minority oppose him on deep seated fear of the OTHER, and in many cases they aren't even aware of why their fear is so great. I know it's dangerous to say what's in other people's heads, but research strongly supports this idea -- people devise explanations that make sense to them so they can appear better than they are -- we all do it.
When Rush promotes the idea that it's absurd to think that Race MIGHT be an issue, then he's ignoring a real problem in America.
Rush also makes fun of Obama's couragesous attempts to speak about race in an adult an truthful way -- his speech about his "typical white grandma" was amazing in that it captured the TRUTH about racism -- that people can harbor these subtle but important racist beliefs despite the fact they are generally very good human beings.
Most of the people who post here are very interested in the truth , and many defended Rush because he has been misrepresented in this example -- but if you listen to his show (and I do fairly often to see what he is saying), you quickly find that there is an incredibly amount of misinformation coming from his show -- he is constantly attributing causes that are patently absurd to the events of the day. He is the exact opposite of what you would want, and yet he is wildly popular among a portion of the US and that should scare the crap out of a person who thinks the truth is a good thing.
his speech about his "typical white grandma" was amazing in that it captured the TRUTH about racism -- that white people can harbor these subtle but important racist beliefs despite the fact they are generally very good human beings
Corrected.
Many who hate Obama do so primarily based on policy, but a substantial minority oppose him on deep seated fear of the OTHER, and
Oddly, I never heard this as an explanation of why any minority group voted against Bush.
Or McCain, for that matter.
Once again, STEVE wins the ARGUMENT becuase he is a college PROFESSOR who can CAPITALIZE words at INAPPROPRIATE times.
I'm SURE you can CREATE a TEST that shows your students are MEMBERS of the COMMUNIST PARTY and are also MARTIANS.
Now that's just poor form.
I didn't make up the test and it's been used for a very long time and it's validity is well established. If you are interested, look up the "implicit association test".
Are you saying that science has nothing to offer us? And you're comment about the idea that "I can create a test that shows anything I want it to" is pure BS.
Is your counter argument? Name calling?
And, yes, the fact that I capitalized some words completely destroys the validity of my arguments -- everyone knows that TWO PLUS TWO IS FOUR is 100% wrong.
I didn't make up the test and it's been used for a very long time and it's validity is well established
The stest doesn't mean what you and your ilk are claiming. It's just a reflection of higher crime rates in some ethnicities. The hindbrain doesn't care about being PC, it just wants to survive.
"Is your counter argument? Name calling?"
I owe you an apology, steve. I should have remembered that calling you a college professor is about the dirtiest thing I could have said.
The stest doesn't mean what you and your ilk are claiming.
1) I have no ilk. I'm just a guy trying to bring up evidence for the claim that racism is subtler than most people think.
2) The test shows that people have negative views/feelings towards certain groups of people
3) How many times have you performed the test? I've seen used it on hundreds of college students
It's just a reflection of higher crime rates in some ethnicities.
That's not an established explanation of the effect. When you use words like "just", it's usually an oversimplification.
1) I have no ilk. I'm just a guy trying to bring up evidence for the claim that racism is subtler than most people think.
Your ilk are the people looking under every rock, desperately searching for racism.
2) The test shows that people have negative views/feelings towards certain groups of people
But it fails to ask whether those negative feelings may be grounded in reality, and how they actually affect any decisions.
3) How many times have you performed the test? I've seen used it on hundreds of college students
Which matters because...?
That's not an established explanation of the effect.
No, it's just an incredibly obvious explanation that doesn't fit the "racism" narrative.
Tall Dave,
Your ilk are the people looking under every rock, desperately searching for racism.
It's intersing -- we are both making claims about the causes of behavior, the only difference is the amount of evidence that supports those claims.
You claim that I am 'desperately searching' for racism.
I claim that racism can be a subtle but significant cause in behavior.
The problem is that you have absolutely no evidence of your claim. I have no desire to see racism, I teach students about how the mind works and part of that is showing them how we can measure something like racism. In fact, I was quite surprised how this test revealed subtle racism when I learned about it 10 years ago. I have no investment in "searching" for this fact any more than I do in searching for the fact that we perceive colors with three sets of color detectors.
In all my classes, I teach students a lot of information and, despite your erroneous accusations, my sole agenda is to present our best understanding of how the mind works.
We seem to both agree that the test does reveal negative feelings, but you seem to think that these negative feelings won't have any effect on decisions or behavior? You're saying we can dislike people, but that we can completely put this aside? Are you living in the same world as I am?
The hindbrain doesn't care about being PC,it just wants to survive
We agree on this one. I never said that these racist associations were something that we can control -- I'm very careful to point out to my students that these associations are a necessary outcome of our cognitive architecture and the environment we live in. For example, we are subjected to a lot of negative information of african americans from a multitude of sources, some of which is more 'valid' (such as higher crime rates) and some of which is completely 'invalid' (openly racist parents,grandparents and friends in some cases).
It's important to understand the complex roots of racism, but you are trying to explain it all away with 'just higher crime rates' and 'anybody who suggests racism is pervasive has a hidden agenda' and "it's just an incredibly obvious explanation".
There's nothing 'obvious' and 'simple' about this complicated issue -- can we at least agree on that?
steve,
The problem with the test is that you could generalize it to anything people would rationally have a greater fear of.
I claim that racism can be a subtle but significant cause in behavior.
And that's where it devolves into liberal bullhooey. It isn't racism, it's a generalized danger-avoidance mechanism.
If you run the same test for Asians, what do you find?
What can you conclude from these results?
If you want to tell people "Hey, don't generalize to individuals when making decisions!" I think that's fine and great. But let's leave the racist bogeyman out of it.
Did you read my post?
I wrote
"I completely agree that the media has overplayed the racism in the anti-obama forces, but to deny that race is part of this is just being ignorant."
Yes, I read your post. I guess the disagreement is over the degree. I suppose there are a small number white people out there who will oppose Obama because he's black. I think that percentage is negligable. To say the media has "overplayed" the racism angle is being far too generous. A more accurate way to say it is "the media is assuming racism where where it doesn't exist in the vast, vast majority of cases." To pretend, for example, Joe Wilson is a racist because he thinks Obama is a liar is ridiculous.
The problem is that we don't know what the degree is. The media should be providing is with more information than anecdotal incidents and selective viewings of signs. Is it that hard to survey a couple of hundred of people at a rally to get a good idea of where they stand?
A problem is that Steve is giving academic cover to outrageous accusations of racism. He may be unaware that this is one effect that he is having but there is certainly a positive feedback loop between liberals in academia and in the media. The media is also helping professors like Steve as well by seemingly making his work relevant and important as well as keeping the political will for subsidies to academia going. Whatever objective value his testing holds it over interpreted inside academia and then simplified and used as a cudgel outside of academia.
A problem is that Steve is giving academic cover to outrageous accusations of racism.
The demonstrations of subtle biases revealed in the tests are hardly 'outrageous racism'. I perform the same way on the tests and I'm aware of the racial biases I have. This doesn't make me a monster just as it doesn't make other people with racial biases monsters -- people are complicated in case you haven't noticed.
Of course, you've made another error of assumption -- the tests are in no way "My work", just one of 50 different things I teach my students, almost all of which you would have no disagreement with (would you be inflamed that I teach my students about the motion after effect?).
People who use the results as a 'cudgel outside of academia' are no friends of mine. These effects have to be presented very carefully as I do to my students.
You want facts? I teach at the college level and every term I give students a measure of implicit racism and these tests consistently reveal subtler forms of racism in 20 years old students.
I really hate these tests and the whole concept of searching for "subtle" forms of "implicit racism." The idea our subconscious brains should be politically correct is silly.
We evolved a neocortex for a reason.
John Tierney had a fairly interesting discussion of some of the issues around IAT tests on his blog last year:
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/how-do-you-measure-bias/
Too bad evolution passed you by.
These "implicit" racist beliefs are real and they affect people's judgments of others.
When the neocortex and the more primitive parts of the brain fight, the neocortex usually loses. In truth, the neocortex is usually the slave to these parts -- look at the heated exchanges in comment sections and see how the neocortexes are recruited to battle for the anger and the fear beneath...
In truth, the neocortex is usually the slave to these parts
For sex and food, yeah. Not for higher decision-making.
If you're Jesse Jackson walking down a street and you're relieved to see it's not a black guy running up behind you, sure. For deciding which candidate for a highly skilled job gets the position, not so much.
These "implicit" racist beliefs are real and they affect people's judgments of others.
For the record, some of the most racist people I know are liberal Democrats.
Also, since you are such an expert on the thoughts of others, to what degree did secular liberals' hatred of evangelical Christians contribute to their hatred of George Bush (despite the fact that he isn't an evangelical and even Jon Meacham admitted that Bush was nowhere near the "Christianist" that he was portrayed to be)? I know the answer here on the West Side of Los Angeles. It was a lot. I stopped taking note after the hundredth time I heard a liberal tell me that they hated Bush because he was an "ignorant Christian" and that they think Christians are "creepy", etc.
For TallDave,
For sex and food, yeah. Not for higher decision-making.
Sure about that? How about this?
You are in a fight with your spouse. In the midst of the fight, your neocortex is easily enlisted to lay out very complicated arguments why your spouse is evil/wrong/stupid and why you are good/right/smart. This happens all the time.
If your neocortex can be commanded to create arguments supporting the idea that the person you value more than any other is a total ahole, is it a stretch to think that this same neocortex could be enlisted to believe that a group of people who you don't really know are somehow 'scary'.
There is a huge body of evidence showing that we all have a huge tendency to seek out evidence that only confirms our beliefs -- a hideous flaw in the neocortex when it comes to critical thinking.
You want more evidence the neocortex is a slave to the lower brain regions? Consider your own reactions (and mine) to our little "discussion" here and tell me in all honesty that you are not at least partially motivated to kick my ass to show your 'superior' intellect/status. Sounds pretty primal to me. Come on, tell the truth...
One more suggestion, and this is likely the most important thing I have to say to you. If you really want intelligent discussions of race (and other matters), check out the blog of Coates on this site. He is a very thoughtful african american and the posters are great.
For jt007,
Also, since you are such an expert on the thoughts of others, to what degree did secular liberals' hatred of evangelical Christians contribute to their hatred of George Bush
Knowing a basic fact about social psychology research does not qualify me as an expert.
Fuuny coincidence, I live in West LA. I didn't hate Bush because he was an 'ignorant Christian', I hated him because he was ignorant. Read any of the books by former insiders and they all tell the same story -- he was a guy who made up his mind with his gut and then used all of his resources to sell his decisions. That got us into a lot of trouble. He shat all over the constitution and was manipulated by Cheney and folks into doing really stupid things in the name of country.
To be fair, I do think that being a devout Christian encourages ignorance (or maybe you can call it faith if it makes you feel better). Religion is largely anti-analysis and that's a bad thing for a president who has to make very complex decisions. I don't think most Christians are 'creepy', many of them are some of the nicest people you would want to meet. In fact, the Christians who are the most creepy are the ones that are the most unchristian in their actions. Take Bush -- if he were a devout christian, he wouldn't have been bending the constitution to torture people. In what universe would Jimmy Carter have behaved like Bush? Sure Carter was a crappy president, but he's a damn good christian (look at his behavior since leaving office).
steve,
The neocortex is hardly a "slave" to the hindbrain.
We fight with our hindbrain all the time, suppressing urges we know are destructive, from not having that doughnut to not grabbing that attractive woman on the subway to not killing that annoying co-worker.
It's what separates criminals from law-abiding citizens.
When you are making decisions about the best way to satisfty the hindbrain's urges, your neocortex rules. Your neocortex is smart enough to realize asking the pretty woman on a date will lead to a better outcome than groping her.
Judging people on the basis of their hindbrain's urges is therefore somewhat asinine. Of course we have a greater fear of people that are statistically likely to be more dangerous. If our hindbrain couldn't make that kind of judgement our ancestors wouldn't have survived to produce us, with our more sophisticated brain that can say "This black man in front of me is highly intelligent and a better fit for the job than any white candidates."
Take Bush -- if he were a devout christian, he wouldn't have been bending the constitution to torture people
I think being a liberal makes you anti-analytic. Tnis is a perfect example -- waterboarding isn't anything like what we would have considered "torture" circa 2001, but liberals have conflated the two because of their irrational hatred of Bush. Nor does the Constitution have any protections for terrorists -- we were summarily executing them in WW II.
Being a Christian doesn't mean you can't give Khalid Sheik Mohammed an unpleasant interrogation to save thousands of lives.
Being a Christian doesn't mean you can't give Khalid Sheik Mohammed an unpleasant interrogation to save thousands of lives.
Sure about that?
"But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."
not
"But I tell you, Resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, temporarily drown him and make him feel as if he is going to die"
I think being a liberal makes you anti-analytic. Tnis is a perfect example -- waterboarding isn't anything like what we would have considered "torture" circa 2001, but liberals have conflated the two because of their irrational hatred of Bush. Nor does the Constitution have any protections for terrorists -- we were summarily executing them in WW II.
And of course, everyone who was mistreated, jailed,etc. was completely proven to be a terrorist - oh wait, they were just suspected . That's the problem with this approach, it assumes guilt with no trial and then allows for all kinds of heinous deeds in the name of security. You see no problem there?
I agree that security is a tough issue,but it relies upon the judgment of the leaders to draw the line in the right place that balances are values with security -- and most people agree that Bush drew the line too far -- how is that not analytical?
Talldave,
Did you see the video when MANCOW got waterboarded? He didn't describe it as 'unpleasant'. When was the last time you were waterboarded?
"But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."
Again, you're thinking very poorly. Christ was talking about personal relations. By your logic, being Christian means we should have surrendered to Japan and Germany 50 years ago.
And of course, everyone who was mistreated, jailed,etc. was completely proven to be a terrorist - oh wait, they were just suspected .
And again, very poor thinking. Police jail innocent people all the time, and innocent people suffer abuse in jail all the time. It's tragic, but it's a poor argument for not jailing anyone, ever.
The three people that were waterboarded were senior AQ. They weren't innocent, and they had knowldge of plots to kill innocent people.
Did you see the video when MANCOW got waterboarded?
Did you see the video where they cut Daniel Pearl's head off?
Did you see the hot irons, the mutilations, the throwing people off roofs, the acid, the rape rooms in Saddam's Iraq? It's asinine to equate real torture with waterboarding. It's a false moral equivalence to put U.S. interrogators on the same moral ground as torturers and frankly disgusting.
I hated him because he was ignorant.
At least you admit that you are a hateful person. I don't care enough about Obama to hate him, I just oppose his attempt to take over the health care system, his desire to weaken our national defense etc., etc.
I do think that being a devout Christian encourages ignorance
This is laughable coming from a liberal. Liberalism requires massive amounts of ignorance and deceit. At least Christians have faith in something that is truly an article of faith. Liberals have a religious faith in government despite the manifest failures of the Great Society, public education and every centrally planned economy that has ever existed. Liberals just scrunch up their chubby little faces, put their hateful thoughts about conservatives on temporary hold and they just know that this time socialism really will work. Empirical evidence to the contrary, be damned.
Things are complex -- Many who hate Obama do so primarily based on policy, but a substantial minority oppose him on deep seated fear of the OTHER, and in many cases they aren't even aware of why their fear is so great.
A substantial majority of liberals hated Bush because he was a "stoopid Christian" even though he wasn't an evangelical. The media's bigoted characature of him was successful because liberals were such a willing, bigoted audience.
You indict of Bush for not being a real Christian because he (with the full approval of Congressional Democrat leadership) authorized the waterboarding of three people in the aftermath of 9/11. Liberals conveniently forget about the Clinton Administration's creation of the policy of extraordinary rendition in order to outsource real torture to the Saudi Arabian, Egyptian and Syrian intelligence services. Michael Scheuer is on the record that these rendered suspects were tortured and that the Clinton Administration (including that liberal icon Al Gore) knew all about it. I would ask you, does a true liberal endorse torture? The appalling answer is yes. Modern liberalism means that the end justifies the means. So before you moralize about Bush and his lack of Christian integrity, you should look in the mirror and scrutinize your liberal integrity. I suspect you don't really care about the torture sanctioned by Democrats. And Jimmy Carter is bitter old man who still can't get over the fact that the American people just didn't apreciate his greatness and threw him out of office after four years. As for his accomplishments after leaving office, how did that "agreed framework" work out with North Korea?
Again, you're thinking very poorly. Christ was talking about personal relations. By your logic, being Christian means we should have surrendered to Japan and Germany 50 years ago.
It's not my logic, it's christ's logic. I agree with you that surrendering to Japan would have been stupid (But I'm not a Christian), but it would have been consistent with Christ's words -- he was the son of god wasn't he? Who are you to twist his meaning -- it's pretty clear what he was saying.
Do you have another passage where he says "That stuff about turning the other cheek only applies on a personal level, when you get into a war, then you can totally do whatever you want -- kill as many people as you need to to protect yourself" -- is that in the lost "Talldave" gospel?
And again, very poor thinking. Police jail innocent people all the time, and innocent people suffer abuse in jail all the time. It's tragic, but it's a poor argument for not jailing anyone, ever.
I didn't say we shouldn't jail anyone, I just said that if you are going to pick up people without trying them, then you need to be careful about defining rules of treatment. And if you sign international agreements about torture, then you should hold to them or get out of them.
Of course the aholes did worse than we did, but I thought we were supposed to be a lot better than aholes. Maybe you don't think so.
At least you admit that you are a hateful person. I don't care enough about Obama to hate him, I just oppose his attempt to take over the health care system, his desire to weaken our national defense etc., etc.
Yes I do hate people when they do things that diminish this great country, but I also love a lot of people, does that make me "loveful" as well?
Tell me you don't honestly believe that Obama has a "desire" to weaken the national defense. I've already admitted to hating Bush, but I would never claim that he was trying to hurt America, just that his arrogant incompetence did that -- his motives were good but his execution was a disaster.
This is laughable coming from a liberal.
This is second time on this blog that I have been so easily pigeonholed despite my varied positions on a number of issues that no one ever asked about. If you're interested to see how your caricature of me is wrong, see my repose to ajwpip below.
I don't have a "religious faith" in government, I think it has a role to play in some areas and should stay out of others. I am guessing by your tone that you think we should abandon medicare and social security because those are government programs.
You are right when you say that public education does suck in a lot of places and I think that is a huge failure of local/state government. I live in Los Angeles and the public schools are awful. But at the same time it is not a given that public education must suck , I grew up in Massachusetts and I got a very good public education. And there are still lots of places where public education does work, it's up to smart and honest people to figure out why it works well and emulate that if possible. Your "all public education sucks" idea is way too strong.
Liberals just scrunch up their chubby little faces, put their hateful thoughts about conservatives on temporary hold and they just know that this time socialism really will work. Empirical evidence to the contrary, be damned.
The chubby face comment is hilarious even though I have no idea how one's political position creates fat in the face.
You present things in black and white -- socialism yes or no despite the fact that America is partly a socialist state already (and people like that, especially those on social security and medicare, ironically some of the same people at the tea parties protesting the government "takeover" of health care). Can't we have a reasonable debate about the proper role of government without resorting to such polarizing terms that really don't reflect the positions of liberals or conservatives?
A substantial majority of liberals hated Bush because he was a "stoopid Christian" even though he wasn't an evangelical. The media's bigoted characature of him was successful because liberals were such a willing, bigoted audience.
I think you're wrong on this one. Most liberals I know who hated Bush did so because he dragged us into a terrible war on false premises, politicized institutions like the justice department that had traditionally been relatively apolitical, went too far in the interrogation of suspects, and labelled anyone who disagreed with him as someone who 'emboldened the terrorists'.
I agree with you that anybody who hated him primarily because he was a christian was an idiot and deserves to be scorned for being lazy and stupid, but I think you are vastly overstating the number of people like that.
You indict of Bush for not being a real Christian because he (with the full approval of Congressional Democrat leadership) authorized the waterboarding of three people in the aftermath of 9/11.
I completely agree that the congress was culpable to some degree for not standing up to him, although he bears the greater responsibility because it was his policy.
Liberals conveniently forget about the Clinton Administration's creation of the policy of extraordinary rendition in order to outsource real torture to the Saudi Arabian, Egyptian and Syrian intelligence services.
To the degree what your saying is true, I complete agree with you -- it's a heinous policy no matter who does it.
Michael Scheuer is on the record that these rendered suspects were tortured and that the Clinton Administration (including that liberal icon Al Gore) knew all about it.
I have very mixed feelings about Gore. He was a terrible candidate for president, although he is a blustery windbag, you have to give him credit for raising awareness about global warming (unless of course you think it's a hoax -- please don't tell me you think it's a hoax).
I would ask you, does a true liberal endorse torture? The appalling answer is yes. Modern liberalism means that the end justifies the means.
Anyone who supports torture when it is convenient is missing the point, that would include liberals as well as conservatives.
So before you moralize about Bush and his lack of Christian integrity, you should look in the mirror and scrutinize your liberal integrity.
I have no liberal integrity, but it's a very easy case to make that allowing torture is completely inconsistent with the teachings of christ. In fact, the teachings of christ (have you read them) are inconsistent with a lot of current american conservatives and much more consistent with the accusations of socialist/communist being hurled at Obama.
Evidence in support of Jesus being a communist/socialist:
He was fine with everybody getting the same amount, even if they showed up at the last hour. That's pretty Unamerican.
He thought everyone should take care of their brothers
He thought you should forgive your enemies, not drown them or put them in stress positions.
Anybody who was a true christian could never be president, most presidents (obama included) have to be christian to get elected. Carter was probably the most truly religious recent president despite the fact that he is saying stupid things now about race. When I spoke about his post-presidential work, I meant how hard he has worked to continue making things better, compare him to all the other presidents in this regard and he comes out with an A for effort, even if his results are not always good.
And Jimmy Carter is bitter old man who still can't get over the fact that the American people just didn't apreciate his greatness and threw him out of office after four years.
That's not Carter. He's an honest and admirable guy, even if he is wrong in his judgments, and I don't see him as bitter at all, but I don't know him that well so I could be wrong.
Steve - "every term I give students a measure of implicit racism"
I got my degree in engineering and must have been sick the day they gave that test.
Just exactly what kind of teaching do you do?
Psychology. I use the test in a lab class to show how we can measure implicit attitudes and beliefs. If you ask people about their beliefs/attitudes regarding race, they will usually give you the socially desirable answers.
Steve - ilk is perjorative but you really are a type. West side psychology academic who seems to hold every shibboleth of your context as true.
What might be an interesting topic of discussion is what does the literature have to say about group think and confirmation bias in communities with overwhelmingly conforming political cultures - like say LA academia?
See - we can all play a game where we invalidate each others beliefs using pseudo-science. I say pseudo-science because our grasp of neurology and the mind is still in its infancy - something that you should know better than most.
I had to look up shibboleth, so I did learn something today. Thanks for that.
You claim is that the IAT is pseudoscience, and this is based on the claim that
See - we can all play a game where we invalidate each others beliefs using pseudo-science.
This is perhaps the greatest myth out there. This aint how science works. In fact, this is the reason why science works, because the best ideas win and you can't just make shit up. The scientific method is the insurance policy against making shit up.
Since you are an expert, tell what your standards are for "science" and how they differ from "pseudo-science" -- do you accept any of the psychological research literature as valid -- or is it all made up? A serious question.
Our grasp of neurology and the mind is still in its infancy - something that you should know better than most.
Is your argument that because we don't have complete explanations for every detail of the mind then none of what we do know is valid in any way? Do you also reject evolution because it does not explain everything? Or quantum phsyics? Or any other explanation of any other phenomena?
Sure it's okay to talk about issues regarding the IAT and what it means, but to dismiss it as pseudoscience is completely unfair and intellectually dishonest.
West side psychology academic who seems to hold every shibboleth of your context as true.
This one is hysterical and offensive at the same time. The most important thing to me is trying to figure out what's true. If the IAT revealed no racism, and other people were saying that the test was invalid, then I would be telling them that they were full of crap. I also teach my students about the fact that race affects IQ and how we're not sure why that is. I talk about the factors of environment and genetics and how those might interact, but I tell them the best answer now is "we don't know for sure" why african americans score lower than whites who score lower than asians. I teach them this because it's my best understanding of the research. So much for me holding every "shibboleth" of my context as true.
I have no investment in conforming to the "political culture" because I am not even a part of it. I teach classes but I do no research. In fact, I have very little interaction with other faculty. None of my friends are academics, so the concept of "political culture" doesn't make sense to me.
My political positions are diverse and not consistent with the "typical" ones you likely have in mind. For example, I would be in favor of the death penalty if it could be applied fairly , but unfortunately the evidence speaks very much against a fair application. I am pro-choice but I can sympathize with pro-life people because if I thought that a fetus was a human life, I'd behave the same way. I think unrestricted abortion is wrong. I think Jimmy Carter is an idiot for saying what he did. I think pelosi is a horrible speaker of the House. Reid is also an idiot. The democrats are terrible at governing. I like Obama and it's nice to have a smart guy trying to make things better, but he has botched quite a few major things. His handling of health care has been pretty bad.
Yes it is true that I think that many of the republicans are horrible fear mongers and appeal to the worst in people, but many are honestly interested in smaller government. I like Judd Gregg and I think Newt Gingrich has a lot of smart things to say. I hated Bush because he shat all over the constitution and his policies were the best recruiting device Al-queda could ask for. He encouraged the binary "for us or against us" thinking that is a major problem in the thinking of many americans. He deserves credit that we had no attack in 8 years. He did some great work in Africa. Sarah Palin is the worst example of what american politicans could be and a large portion of this country loved her despite the fact that she made ridiculous statements over and over again, at least Rush is intelligent...
But of course, you knew all this, so I am sorry I wasted your time...
To understand this Limbaugh commentary one must be familiar with Newsweek magazine and its recent covers and coverage. Obviously Rush is taking some risks here, because no one reads Newsweek anymore.
"Obama's America" is a Newsweek cover. And there's a reference to another Newsweek cover: Is your baby racist?
As I read it Limbaugh's point isn't that white kids get beat up, but that they deserve it, because they're racist.
Megan you've really jumped the shark with this one. Are you trying to burnish your credentials with Charles Johnson?
Liberals are just in denial that the people don't want liberal policies. They deny this fact by suppressing it in a racialist victimization framework. Don't let them get away with it, it's important to rub in the salt over the failure of liberalism in modern America.
Exactly. The whole racism nonsense from Dowd and Carter is a big face saving hedge in the event Obama fails to sell his policies to a skeptical public.
I heard the tape; I agree with gbart and others. This is clearly Limbaugh's brand of parody. He is in no way saying that more white kids get beat up now than formerly (though I see how someone could misunderstand him to be saying that). He is saying that in every black/white encounter, the white is going to be pegged as the racist.
He did it clumsily, though; a little opprobrium might do him some good.
The most offensive part of the whole thing, and the sentiment that informs it, is the claim that Obama plays the race card. Just because he's, you know, black. Being black, apparently, automatically plays the race card.
Sarcasm, what many have called it, is the opposite of the truth. I say, "GREAT job" when someone actually did a bad job. So please tell me the "opposite" truth that he is expressing using sarcasm?
He does use a mocking and bombastic tone as his goal is to express to his listeners that they are right to fear and hate black people, (they will beat up your kids on the bus!) while still claiming victimhood, ("they are the racists for assuming US to be racists!")
At the end of the day, ask yourself this, did Limbaugh's speech lesson or enlarge racial tensions? Do this almost exclusively white listeners walk away thinking that we can all get along, or do they feel that they are being both labeled as racists and physically attacked by members of another race?
I do not think there is anyway to listen to the tape and conclude that Rush has lessened the racial fears amongst his listeners.
I think his listeners pick up on his tactics--using the left's own statements to twist against them. He is rejecting all the assumptions of racism the left is pumping out lately to try and shore up Obama's failing plans.
Limbaugh used satire to illuminate the hypocrisy inherent in this issue. Apparently, he got your attention, which was his goal. But the problem isn't Limbaugh, it's what happened to that kid and its long term consequences. I'll bet he doesn't grow up loving black people if that happens to him every day. You're possibly watching the gestation of a new skin head here.
The way I see it, we were promised that if President Obama was elected, we would thus have a post-racial society.
By no stretch of the imagination could that event be considered post-racial.
Generally, if people behave badly and are punished, that sort of behavior decreases as the certainty, frequency and severity of punishment increases.
But if bad behavior is not punished, then the bad behavior increases.
Black men with weapons threatened and intimidated white people at a polling station, and the charges were dismissed by the Obama administration without explanation. In fact, they are currently stonewalling attempts to understand why. There are a number of other examples of President Obama and/or his administration failing to act in a post-racial manner, but rather choosing actions and speech (or lack thereof) to support and defend bad behavior in racial issues.
President Obama and his supporters/enablers need to take responsibility for their promises. I won't hold my breath.
Megan,
Having listened to Rush before, I was pretty suspicious when I read your headline. I was expecting spin, some sort of angle where you tried to argue uphill. Instead it was just sad.
This is satirical parody. I think it is pretty obvious. If you can't see that, see it instantly, then I am well and truly dumbstruck.
Lesson # 1: If it's parody then it can't be racist
Lesson #2: Racism, especially in its subtler forms, is a manufactured issue used by the left for political gain.
Lesson #3: Reverse racism, especially claims that the Limbaugh's of the world indulge in racist rhetoric for political gain, is all too real.
#1 - No parody can be racist? That's a good one.
#2 - You should read this experiment
#3 - Reverse racism is real. Unfortunately, people around here apparently think it's a much bigger issue than plain racism. It seems victimization is not by any means confined to minorities.
Limbaugh in particular has learned very well to walk the line in his "parodies". In this parody, he brings up (and links the video in his site so we can all watch and be horrified) the white kid being beaten up by black kids, sneakily mentions redistribution (teh blacks are stealing your money!), says that Obama "looks at everything through a racial prism", etc, etc.
How does this Limbaugh sentence fits his parody theme?
We know that white students are destroying civility on buses, white students destroying civility in classrooms all over America, white congressmen destroying civility in the House of Representatives.
It full of irony, like the rest of his ranblings! So we must conclude that black students are the ones destroying civility in buses and in class rooms across America.
"Reverse racism is real."
There's no such thing as "reverse racism". Only racism. "Reverse racism" implies that only white people can be racist.
Here's why it isn't symmetrical: because the entire world system we live in was pretty much created by European conquest in the 16th through 19th centuries, and in the process, theories of race were developed and deployed to explain why colonizing almost every square inch of the non-European globe they could get their hands on was important. Slavery was just one part of that process (albeit a huge one.)
There are many racial chauvinisms. Some, I believe, rise to the level of hatred. But "racism" was, for centuries, a widely-held system of "scientific" and religious beliefs upon which the very foundations of the modern world were created. What gets called "reverse racism" could also be called "reactive racial chauvinism." Which doesn't exculpate it. But it puts the whole idea that racism is some kind of simplistic misguided grudge against people who don't look like you to rest. Racism isn't a character flaw, it's an ideology.
I was summing up the nonsense on this thread. These are not my opinions. I should have been clearer.
To the commenter above who mentioned the white baby on the front cover of last week's issue of Newsweek, I believe that a) there are multiple versions of the cover w/babies of other races on the front and b) with the actual article, there are pics of babies of multiple races. There's no singling out of white children as especially racists; the piece is how ALL kids are perhaps genetically predisposed to racism.
If it really is about policy rather than race then how would an Obamanite know? Well he knows because it couldn't possibly be so. (Or perhaps sarcasm should be printed in a different color so everyone can recognize it.)
Whatever else you want to say about Limbaugh, you have to admit that he knows exactly how to get under the skin of liberals, and in doing so, he makes them look like morons.
The piece in question (and I not only read the transcript, I listened to the audio) was satire, pure and simple. The target of the satire wasn't even the assault on the student- that event was only the launching point for his real target, the constant refrain that racism is the motivating factor for opposing Obama's policies. What he was doing, and he apparently did it brilliantly, was to show that the claim that the boy got beat up because he was a racist was just as ridiculous as the things people like Jimmy Carter, Maureen Dowd, and others have written in the last month about the opposition of liberal policies of the current president.
One can question whether or not it is wise for Limbaugh to attack the issue this way, but I am hard-pressed to find a better way than satire to illustrate the stupidity of people like Dowd, Carter, or Rich. However, only the completely clueless could call it wicked.
Satire? I read the transcript myself and didn't get that. If that's satire, than he is bad at it.
"One can question whether or not it is wise for Limbaugh to attack the issue this way"
O.k. i'll do it: I don't think it's wise for Limbaugh to attack the issues this way because i don't think it's satire at all.
But suppose you are right? I'm gonna pretend that I think it's satire. O.K...No... I Still think it wasn't a good move on Limbaugh's part because that means he is a bad "satirist" and didn't talk about the issue in a way that makes it clear what the heck he is talking about.
I find it incredulous that some people here think he is doing satire on par with Stephen Colbert. Right...
I use to watch his television show back in the day but that was in the early 90s, and that's when I stopped listening to him too.
Because you claim you're too clueless to get the joke, you think Limbaugh should not be aloowed to make such jokes?
Do I get a similar veto on liberal commentators if I claim to be an idiot? I think David Letterman wants to rape Sarah Palin's underage daughter and he should be put in prison.
Kudos to you for one thing, though, for admitting to your own cluelessness in contrast to other commentators who think it's "those idiots in flyover country" who don't get the joke and will take this at face value as an incitement for genocide.
Sorry for being clueless, Yancey, but I think Limbaugh and Beck are trying to stir up racial hatred. I feel the same way about Lou Dobbs, though his targets are Hispanics rather than African-Americans. I don't agree with Rod Dreher and Megan McArdle very much, but on this topic they're right. What Limbaugh, Beck, and Dobbs are doing is wrong, and it's sad that people like you can't see it.
Stan,
Then, you are clueless along with Megan and Dreher. The "racial hatred", so to speak, is being stirred up by the Left with the constant smearing of opposition with the racist label. Limbaugh's bit was an attack against that. Like I wrote, one can question whether or not this type of satire was wise- a lot of people will completely and utterly miss the point of the satire.
A lot of people want to miss the point, because it allows them to trash Limbaugh without dealing in substance.
I agree with you, Stan. It's really sad the way Jimmy Carter, the Congressional Black Caucus, and so many other lefty race-baiters are trying to stir up racial hatred. As Ann Althouse so astutely noted: "Racism is revolting, but so is the notion that we aren’t allowed to criticize a President!"
It's not the color of his skin that bothers me, it's the thinness of it.
If you can't stand the heat, get out of the Oval Office.
The actual video provided by the police shows that Rush's description of the bus incident to be accurate. If you Rush haters think the incident is non-racist, you are too far gone to understand what is happening with the liberal establishment presently in charge of political correctness.
http://videos.stltoday.com/p/video?id=6172583
No, it was not a parody. What you people don't get is liberals really do think this way. I got a lot of the same treatment as a kid and my McGovern-voting mother's attitude was I had done something to deserve it.
For those who defend Limbaugh, an interesting tidbit from a show I caught a while ago (Yes, I do listened to him to see what the appeal is and I am still trying to figure it out).
He aired in an interview with Michelle Obama where the interviewer asked her reaction to some hateful comments about Obama.
Her reaction was dignified, something like "we can't worry about stuff like that because we need to work hard for the american people".
Rush's response was that she must be on some good meds to be so stable in her reaction. In his world, everything Obama and Michelle does is evil/wrong/stupid/drugged. Can you imagine anybody saying that about Laura Bush if she made a comment like that?
Note this is the heart of his problem. He tells his listeners why things are happening and that's where the distortion/lying comes in. When he sticks to facts, he's actually providing a service, but when he starts telling you why things are happening, look out...
Especially when he is so sneaky to trot out more evidence to support his claim, directly from the subject's own words. That's unfair!!!!
Can you imagine anybody saying that about Laura Bush if she made a comment like that?
Um, I remember jokes about Laura Bush being heavily drugged or on loads of tranquilizers being pretty common. It's such a weird charge to throw at Mrs. Obama, who comes across as more energetic than Mrs. Bush, that my guess is that Limbaugh's response was in fact an implicit reference to the jokes about Mrs. Bush being in a constant state of sedation. Don't listen to him, so I can't say for sure. But, yeah, I can imagine people saying that about Laura Bush, because they did.
This parody explanation is pretty convenient.
1) Is Rush actually using parody when he goes on and on about government taking over as we march to socialism? Is he making fun of the big uproar of cries of scoialism when Bush expanded medicare? (Oh, yeah, that didn't happen). Is he making fun of glenn beck?
2) I heard a lot of venom spewed at GWB in 8 years and I rarely heard anything bad about LB, I never heard anything about mental illness. it could have existed, but certainly not at a national level that was generally reported.
Re: #1
You seem to be arguing that a person has to be sarcastic all the time or they can never be?
As far as marching towards socialism goes;
Do you think the government consumes a larger or smaller % of GDP compared to 30 years ago?
As far as Rush criticizing Bush, I don't listen to him much at all ( he's on the same station as another program I liked ) so I can't say. But I'm curious whether you apply the same standards to those on the left. Did you criticize Al Gore, for instance, when he said that George HW Bush should have gone all the way to Baghdad and taken out Saddam? Or did you criticize Gore when he flip flopped and opposed the second Iraq war? Can you point me to any prominent leftist leader who took a principled stand and criticized Gore when Gore took a view opposite theirs on the war? Or is it only conservatives (or those who try to appeal to conservatives) who are supposed to be principled?
Please don't get the idea that I'm endorsing Limbaugh. Again, I don't listen to him, and I have no idea what his takes on the things you mention in 1) are, but I doubt they're very nuanced.
I certainly don't remeber anyong claiming Laura Bush was mentally ill, either. But I enjoy reading Wonkette, and I remember frequent jokes such as: "One local shopkeeper said Laura Bush 'has a quiet peace about her,' which we assume means she’s crosseyed on horse tranquilizers," etc. Googling around to refresh my memory, I find that there was some controversy in 2006 when Sandra Berhnhard apparently referred to her as "heavily medicated" on the View-- which I imagine has a larger audience and a more mainstream image than Limbaugh's show. That sort of thing was mildly funny, I thought, in that Laura Bush's public persona did seem unusally subdued. You'd have to be an idiot to think people were seriously accusing her of being doped up, but those jokes did get made, and often-- so it's hardly unprecedented to facetiously attribute a first lady's poise to good meds.
You seem to be arguing that a person has to be sarcastic all the time or they can never be?
No, I'm saying that the parody argument is being conveniently overused to justify a sutation where Rush was just being an ahole. Maybe it was parody, but then I'd go back to my previous argument where I would find it hard to see as parody because it was consistent with all the other non-parody remarks hurled at Michelle.
I guess I missed the Bernhard incident -- although I have to say that Sandra Bernhardt has about 1/1,000,000 of the political sway as Rush Limbaugh, does that make a difference...
Did you criticize Al Gore, for instance, when he said that George HW Bush should have gone all the way to Baghdad and taken out Saddam
Don't recall that as I wasn't very politically aware at the time, but yes, I would have been critical. Gore was an awful candidate -- a decent democrat would have beat Bush.
I must admit I am not familiar with the "flip-flop' although I worry greatly about that term as it was so often used to indicate a pandering when it might just indicate modifying one's position based on new information.
Did America flip-flop on the Iraq war when it changed it's mind about it just because the war took many years longer, many thousands of lives more and a trillion dollars more than was promised?
Given the right's insistence that the 'liberals' are all drinking the cool-aid on Obama, how does one explain the serious dissension inside the democratic party on health reform? Many far in the far left think Obama is selling out by abandoning the public option.
All parties support their leaders more than they should, but I think the left is more fractious and may be more likely to fight with their leader than the right -- look at all the conservatives that played along with the Bush despite the fact that he was a horrible conservative -- spending a trillion dollars in Iraq "nation building" is not exactly william f buckley....
I love you Megan, but you really got your knickers in a twist over nothing here. Maybe you should turn the outrage meter down a notch or two so that next time, you can actually think about stuff for a minute before going off on a full-tilt spleen-venting over nothing.
I can't believe that everyone missed that Megan's post was sarcasm as well.
If that is true - she is the dryest wit I have ever encountered and something of a comic genius.
BTW, didn't Limbaugh once work for ESPN?
http://espn.go.com/gen/news/2003/1001/1628537.html
It's been quite long enough.
Isn't it about time for Megan to add an UPDATE to her post, admitting her error?
Just asking.
Euewwwwww! For those of you keeping track, that first link in Megan's post takes you to Andrew "beach stoner" Sullivan's blog.
I say Euewwww! because I studiously avoid clicking on his blog, EVAH!
Nice. Hover over the link and you can't even see that it's some kind of content-feed link redirector piece of crap.
Thanks Megan. What are we now hiding our links to fake people out? Yuck.
Rush has been going on lately about how Maureen Dowd, the cover story of Newsweek, and Jimmy Carter are telling us we're all racists. Then the irony of this story, and yes, the what-if it were the other way around. And now the administration and their lackeys are calling people racist if they criticize Obama's ideas and policies.
Surefire way to ensure a non-white President is never elected again in America--pretend that being a minority exempts one from the rough and tumble of real politics. Sorry, if you can't stand the heat, and all that.
And I'm absolutely serious about that. The left deploying this tactic might be something they feel would be effective in the short run; however, it will ensure that the First Black President (TM) will also be the Last Black President.
The left deploying this tactic might be something they feel would be effective in the short run; however, it will ensure that the First Black President (TM) will also be the Last Black President.
I had exactly the same thought. Carter, especially, is an utter idiot for chiming in. A lot of voters in the future are going to shy away from minority candidates because they don't want all the hassle.
I like Rush and listen every day while working.
What he's saying is that Obama the racial healer has had the opposite effect, and Obama admirers should address that blind spot.
Racial harmony had never been better until the first criticism of Obama's policies came up, and then it was all division again.
As to not liking Rush, his larger than life persona is actually self-deprecating humor; and his popularity is among people who get that.
Unfortunately he has weak spots: sometimes he goes off on a moralising kick that lasts a couple of weeks, when he drops the larger-than-life and the humor and becomes uninteresting; and he's not good at economics. He's on the right side, but can't articulate the right reasons. So that's painful to sit through too.
Despite my best five minutes of Googling, I can't find Al Sharpton quoted stating that the Tawana Brawley incident is what happens to black people in Ronald Reagan's America. He's rightly and wrongly seen racism in various events in his career, but I don't think he's tied it to the President any time recently. This is despite the fact that there really was a time that this was the sort of thing that white kids did to black kids in a couple dozen Presidents' America.
Sharpton's done some stupid shit, but this is more racist than anything I've heard him say. And that's frightening since we know the violence that Sharpton unintentionally/irresponssibly inspired in a couple cases.
I don't think Rush is a racist. But as a 20 year listener I cringed and turned the radio off halfway through his commentary on the bus beating.
Yeah right moby.
"As to not liking Rush, his larger than life persona is actually self-deprecating humor; and his popularity is among people who get that."
You're so right. It's his shy side that I really love. I see him as the new Hugh Grant.
Funny, I read two books by insiders (one of whom was a Clinton appointee) and I did not get that impression at all. What I read is that he seriously tried to understand what was going on and learned as much as he could before making a decision. Both authors disagreed with some of his decisions, but neither thought he was making decisions in bad faith or was ignoring reality or didn't want real input or information.
Paul O'neil. Scott McLelland. These are two examples of people who were not happy with the way decisions were made. But of course they are sore losers and trying to sell books and should be ignored.