The Racist Right

What were two Republicans thinking, calling Obama 'tar baby' and 'boy'?
Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado and commentator Pat Buchanan, a former candidate for president, both apologized Wednesday for using racially charged terms to refer to Obama.

By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer / August 3, 2011
Atlanta --Christian Science Moniter--

The specter of two national Republican figures apologizing for calling President Obama, the first African-American president, alternately a "tar baby" and "boy" gave new fuel to speculation on the left that, underneath much of the criticism of the president and his policies, lurks the shadow of racism.

Last week, Rep. Doug Lamborn (R) of Colorado, on a Denver talk radio show, said, “Even if some people say, ‘Well the Republicans should have done this or they should have done that,’ they will hold the president responsible. Now, I don’t even want to have to be associated with him. It’s like touching a tar baby and you get it, you’re stuck, and you’re a part of the problem now and you can’t get away.”

The term tar baby comes from the 19th century Uncle Remus stories, where B'rer Fox uses a doll made of a lump of tar to trap B'rer Rabbit, who gets more stuck the more he pummels and kicks the tar baby. In more recent parlance, tar baby is widely considered racial slur.

Other Republicans, including Sen. John McCain and Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, have in recent years apologized for using the phrase "tar baby," although in reference to various government policies and projects, not a black man.

And then Tuesday night, former GOP presidential candidate and MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan, in a tête-à-tête with the Rev. Al Sharpton, referred to Obama as "your boy." “My what?” Sharpton shot back. “My president, Barack Obama? What did you say?”

Mr. Buchanan hinted that he was using a boxing analogy, replying that the president was "your boy in the ring."

Lamborn, who apologized to Obama in a letter, said in a separate statement Wednesday that he shouldn't have used a term "that some find insensitive" and meant to criticize presidential policies that have "created an economic quagmire for the nation, and [which] are responsible for the dismal economic conditions our country faces."

“Some folks took what I said as some kind of a slur,” Buchanan said on Wednesday. “None was meant, none was intended, none was delivered.”

Nevertheless, to some critics, the gaffes are illuminating bits of evidence to underscore what many believe is an essentially racist view of Obama by some in America's conservative circles.

Given that language is the primary purveyor of our deepest thoughts, as well as the fact that language use is often unconscious, "even a slip of the tongue can reflect the kind of prevalence of racism that still exists within our culture," says Shawn Parry-Giles, director of the Center for Political Communication and Civic Leadership at the University of Maryland in College Park. "Progressives would say it's part of a larger conspiracy to target voters to use Obama's race as a means to help defeat him."

For especially conservative critics of the president, on the other hand, the gaffes hint how the shifting sands of language and perception have become intensified in the not-quite-post-racial Obama era, where some attempts to criticize the president have far overshot the lines of political correctness.

Progressives and tea party members, moreover, continue to be embroiled in a war of words and images where liberals charge tea partyers with latent racism for some depictions of Obama, and tea party folks say their critics use derogatory terms tied to social class.

"You talk about intent and reception in politics, where intent does matter, but reception is everything," says Professor Parry-Giles. "In an ideal world, when these situations happen ,they can be a source of productive discussion about how language can harm and hurt, and that what may have been appropriate 20 years ago or part of the vernacular is no longer there. Oftentimes, though, it just ends up being a partisan moment on either side."

Brit pol: 'Right-wing nutters' stop debt deal
--politico.com--
By: Reid J. Epstein
July 25, 2011 06:35 AM EDT

A top British finance minister says the world’s biggest economic threat is from “right-wing nutters” in Congress who would send the U.S. government into default.

Speaking to the BBC about the European rescue package for troubled Greece, U.K. Business Secretary Vince Cable said Washington’s political showdown over the debt ceiling threatens to overshadow financial troubles on the continent.

“The irony of the situation at the moment, with markets opening (Monday) morning, is that the biggest threat to the world financial system comes from a few right-wing nutters in the American congress rather than the euro zone,” Cable said on Sunday, Reuters reported.

Cable is the second-ranking member of the left-wing Liberal Democratic Party in Parliament. The Liberal Democrats joined Conservatives to form a coalition government after the 2010 British elections.

Cable drew controversy in December when he was caught on tape saying he was “declaring war” on News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch. Prime Minister David Cameron then stripped Cable of his authority to rule over the News Corp. takeover of satellite broadcaster BSkyB and forced him to apologize.

"I’m not saying that Caylee Anthony’s death is less horrible because so many other children are killed by the adults in their short, brutal lives. But I am saying that all children who are murdered deserve attention, not just certain children."

Why I Won’t Follow The Casey Anthony Trial
Jun. 28 2011 - 6:21 pm --forbes.com--
By KIRI BLAKELEY

I admit I know virtually nothing about the trial of Casey Anthony, who is accused of killing her almost three-year-old toddler, Caylee. I find the media and the public’s obsessive preoccupation with this murder trial to be morbid, just as it was with the 1996 Jon Benet Ramsey murder case.

But, most of all, I just find it—put it politely— selective. Virtually every month in New York City a young child is murdered either by his or her mother or the mother’s boyfriend or the adult responsible for the child—and hardly any of them ever gets the kind of national round-the-clock media coverage that Caylee Anthony’s death is receiving.

In September of last year, four-year-old Marchella Brett-Pierce was found beaten and starved to death in her Brooklyn home. She’d been tied to her bed and weighed only 18 pounds. Her mother and her mother’s boyfriend, her grandmother, and even two child welfare workers who had falsified visitation documents were all arrested. Katie Couric did a small piece on it for CBS News, but there was no national outcry along the lines of what Caylee Anthony is getting.

In March, 18-month-old Louis Dewayne Mosely was beaten to death while in foster care in Brooklyn. I bet you’re asking, who? No People magazine cover for Louis like there was for Caylee. In June, 5-year-old Jamar Johnson was beaten to death by his mother for breaking the television set. She actually watched him writhe in agonizing pain for five days before he died. There will be no long lines to get into the trial of Jamar Johnson’s mother, if there ever is one, like the lines that form for the Casey Anthony trial. The New York Times even wrote on Sunday about how the trial has become a tourist destination, with people from all over the country traveling to see it.

Have I mentioned that Marchella, Louis and Jamar were all black?

I’m not saying that Caylee Anthony’s death is less horrible because so many other children are killed by the adults in their short, brutal lives. But I am saying that all children who are murdered deserve attention, not just certain children.

Kiri Blakeley writes about women, entertainment, and media. Follow her on Twitter.

Darkness falls on Hania
By Nikos Konstandaras
Tuesday January 19, 2010

Something frightening is happening in Hania, Crete. The Etz Hayyim Synagogue has been firebombed twice in 11 days and the incidents met mostly with indifference from the local community – a stance that is at odds with the values of a city that prides itself on its liberalism and tolerance of other cultures. The arsonists have not been identified, but it is believed they belong to far-right circles. In a city that does not have a strong extreme right-wing tradition, the first attack on January 5 could have been an isolated incident. The second, last Friday, shows that the arsonists could strike again with impunity.

There has been a string of recent attacks on monuments commemorating the long presence of Jews in Greece, so brutally wiped out by the German occupation. Every act of anti-Semitism – just like every act against the “Other” – should be cause for concern and should be condemned, but it can also be partly explained by the rise of far-right elements in the past few years and the legitimization of their credo by the media.

The perpetrators seem to enjoy a strange kind of impunity when they turn toward a Jewish target. This too, however, can be explained: Let’s not kid ourselves, hostility between Greeks and Jews dates back to Hellenistic and Roman times. But there were also many centuries of peaceful coexistence. With the destruction of the Jewish community of Crete in 1944, one would have thought that the least the Cretans could do was honor the memories of their compatriots. Instead, driven by anger at Israeli atrocities against Palestinians, “progressive” local leaders and the Church of Greece opposed the renovation of the synagogue.

Hania does not have a Jewish community to “make waves.” The attacks, therefore, are rooted in the Nazi-inspired concept of “collective responsibility” and pure hatred. Whatever damage the stones of the old temple suffer, what will sink Hania into darkness is that so many people are prepared to forget the past and tolerate violence and bigotry.