The Slow Motion Lynching of President Barack Obama

 By Frank Schaeffer/Patheos

I’ve watched liberal and right wing commentators alike blame the president for being lynched. They say “he’s not reaching out enough” or “he’s too cold.” It’s the equivalent of assuming that the black man being beaten by a couple of thug cops must have “done something.”

I am a white privileged well off sixty-one-year-old former Republican religious right wing activist who changed his mind about religion and politics long ago.  The New York Timesprofiled my change of heart saying that to my former friends I’m considered a “traitorous prince” since my religious right family was once thought of as “evangelical royalty.”

I’ve just spent the last 7 years writing over 200,000 words in blogs and articles in support of President Obama. My blogs on the Huffington Post alone would add up to a book in support of the President of over 300 pages. Weirdly, I just realized that through all my writing, this has been the first time in my life I’ve personally gone to bat for a black man. It just happens that he’s a president. But my emotional stake in his life is now personal.

So I’ve changed from a white guy who used to read news about some black man getting shot or beaten by cops or stand-your-ground types who assumed that the black man must have “done something,” to a white guy who figures that the black man was probably getting lynched. I’ve changed ideology but I’ve also changed my gut intuitive reactions.

I’ve changed because if this country will lynch a brilliant, civil, kind, humble, compassionate, moderate, articulate, black intellectual we’re lucky enough to have in the White House, we’ll lynch anyone. What chance does an anonymous black man pulled over in a traffic stop have of fair treatment when the former editor of the Harvard Law Reviewis being lynched?

One famous liberal commentator wrote a book on how Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neil could disagree and still be friends. Why, he asked on many a TV show promoting his book, couldn’t President Obama be like that? Because, I yelled at the screen, those two men were white Irish Americans and part of a ruling white oligarchy.

Because, I yelled, you might as well ask why Nelson Mandela didn’t talk his jailers in South Africa into seeing reason.

Because, I yelled, the President is black and anytime he’s reached out he’s pulled back a bloody stump.

Because, I yelled, liberal white commentators have been as bothered by a black man in the White House, who’s smarter than they are as much as right wing bigots have been bothered.

Because, I yelled, President Obama has been lied about, attacked, vilified, and disrespected since Day One.

Because, I yelled, this country may have passed laws so blacks can vote and eat in a white man’s world, but in our hearts we’re stuck in a place more like 1952 than 2013.

We’ve been watching a slow motion lynching of a moderate brilliant family man, a father, and faithful loving husband. The Republicans in Congress are so dedicated to lynching the President they’ve been willing to shut down our government and risk the future of our economy.

Evangelical “Christians” have been so stuck on putting a rope around this black man’s neck they have denied their faith and been the backbone of the lying Tea Party who spawned the so-called “birthers” and the rest of the white people driving our news cycle.

Roman Catholic bishops have denied their tradition of helping the poor and been so eager to destroy this president they aligned themselves with white Evangelical bigots and tried to stop health care reform, all because the President wants to give women a fair shake. The bishops even called him “anti-religious” because the president wants insurers to pay for contraception.

This is a slow motion lynching of a black man who is so moderate and centrist that he favored Wall Street enough so that the Left is all over his case. He’s so “radical” and “leftist” and “hates America” so much, and “coddles our enemies” so much, that he killed bin Laden and used drones to kill our enemies. He’s such a “socialist” that he presided over the revival of our economy from the worst recession since the Great Depression, and led us to the present day stock market boom. President Obama is such a “Marxist” that he tried to give insurance – not socialized medicine – to all Americans.

President Obama never answered back to the disgusting southern right wing rubes from the former slave states that have tried to belittle, mock and stymie his presidency shouting “You lie” in a million ways, while actually meaning “You lie, nigger!”

And did the “enlightened” Left have President Obama’s back? No. They carp about his “failure” because a website was slow to get running! The white privileged “progressive” few were too busy blaming him for getting lynched and telling him how to craft policy while a rope was put around his neck again and again and tightened with each filibuster, each lie told on the radio, each self-defeating scorched earth action to stop him from succeeding, even if it meant taking us all down too.

We don’t like to admit who we really are. So we make excuses and blame the victim. I’m ashamed for our country, a country my Marine son fought for in two stupid wars this president has been working to end. And I’m still rooting for the best, smartest and most decent man who has been president in my lifetime. I pray for his health care reform to succeed. I pray for his immigration reform to succeed. I’m amazed he’s gotten anything done, but he has, even while the lynch mob gathers again and again to laugh, lie and spit and claim he’s “failed” while “liberal” commentators nod sagely and talk about his “mistakes” as if President Obama has been playing on a level playing field.

We have a lot to do to heal this country of the damage done by the right wing Obama-haters and the Left wing know-it-all pundits who did not have his back because they don’t have the honesty to admit that we still live in a backward racist swamp of prejudice. Maybe in 50 years our country will be worthy of someone of President Obama’s forbearance again. For now we can just hope that the hatred of the Republican Party for our first black president doesn’t drive us to the brink of ruin again as they strip food from the mouths of the poor, and try to get people to not sign up for health care, just to get even with the black man they swore to destroy from the day that “uppity” black who is smarter than all of them put together took the oath of office.

God bless you Mr. President. I’m praying for you. I am so very sorry. But take heart, in the long reach of history the door you opened will stay open for the millions of Americans of all colors, genders and beliefs who will follow you. They will bless your name. So will history.

Anti-Muslim Activist: Republicans Can’t Attack Obama Because ‘The Color Of His Skin Is Black’

BY TARA CULP-RESSLER/Think Progress

At a conservative conference this weekend that drew several GOP presidential hopefuls, one of the speakers told the crowd that Republicans have been too nervous to criticize Obama “because the color of his skin is black.” The comments came just two days after the nation commemorated the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I Have A Dream” speech.

David Horowitz — a right-wing operative who heads a think tankthat works to discredit the Islamic faith — was one of the most passionate speakers at the Koch-backed “Defending the American Dream Summit.” In his address, Horowitz called the president “the most brazen and compulsive liar to ever occupy the White House” and said there’s an “obvious” reason that his opponents are hesitant to attack him.

“No one will say it out loud. I will: It’s because the color of his skin is black,” Horowitz told the predominantly white crowd on Friday. “It is because Obama is a minority that nobody will hold him to a standard or confront him with what he has done.”

This weekend’s conference was funded by Americans for Prosperity and attracted a number of influential conservative activists. Along with Horowitz, several potential Republican contenders in the 2016 presidential election — including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA), and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) — also spoke at the event. As the Washington Post reports, the GOP lawmakers considering a presidential run likely hoped to take the opportunity to make their pitches to the Tea Party base.

Although focusing on the color of Obama’s skin may be an effective tactic among Tea Party conservatives, it’s not exactly the strategy that the mainstream Republican Party has been attempting to emphasize recently. Afterconsistently losing the minority vote in the last several election cycles, Republicans have attempted to pursue a better minority outreach strategy to expand their voter base beyond white, male Americans. So far, that hasn’t been going very well for them — partly because of conservatives’ consistent use ofracially insensitive language.

Despite what Horowitz claims, Republicans haven’t actually been shy to attack Obama because of his race; in fact, many of the president’s opponents have repeatedly used racist dog whistles when speaking about him. From deriding him as the “welfare president” and the “hip-hop president,” to suggesting hewasn’t actually born in the United States, to claiming he’s “race baiting” when he speaks about his personal experience as a black man, conservatives have had no shortage of criticisms rooted specifically in the color of Obama’s skin.

GOP’s rodeo of racism blows up

BY JOAN WALSH/Salon

It’s been quite a week for anti-Obama racism. At the Missouri State Fair Sunday, rodeo fans cheered to see a “clown” in an Obama mask get run down by a bull. On Friday in Florida the president faced a gaggle of protesters on the way to address a disabled veterans’ group; one carried a sign reading “Kenyan Go Home.” Three days earlier, Arizonans protested Obama’s visit by singing “Bye Bye Black Sheep.” One man mocked him by calling him “47 percent Negro;” another held a sign that read, “Impeach the Half-White Muslim!”

Also on Sunday, the same day as the Missouri State Fair incident, ABC’s “This Week” hosted the birther-in-chief, Donald Trump, who was fresh from a visit to the right-wing Family Leadership Summit in Iowa and a golf outing with GOP House Speaker John Boehner. When Jon Karl asked him, “You don’t still question [Barack Obama] was born in the United States, do you?” Trump let loose his tiresome birther spew. “I have no idea,” Trump replied. “Was there a birth certificate? You tell me. You know, some people say that was not his birth certificate. I’m saying I don’t know. Nobody knows and you don’t know either, Jonathan.”

With Republicans like Boehner and Iowa’s Family Leader embracing Trump as a loyal and treasured party figure, and mainstream media figures like Karl treating him like a legitimate newsmaker, it’s clear that the party, and some of the media, learned nothing from its 2012 drubbing. Reince Priebus’ infamous “autopsy” has itself gone wherever it is that fraudulent ideas go to die. Calling for more “inclusion,” the report didn’t outline policy change but rather better communication strategies to avoid repelling young voters, women, African-Americans and Latinos. “Our policies are sound, but I think in many ways the way we communicate can be a real problem,” Priebus said in March.

But now they’ve given up even on changing the way they communicate.

It’s not just Trump; one candidate after another in Iowa demonized Obama, and/or his electoral coalition. Rep. Steve King, he of the “calves the size of cantaloupes” remark, told the audience to ignore guidelines on what churches can do politically and “go ahead and defy the IRS.” King is said to be mulling his own 2016 presidential run; we can only dream. Sen. Ted Cruz got big ovations for advocating the repeal of not just Obamacare but the IRS.

But the scary demagogue award has to go to Cruz’s father, Rafael, an immigrant from Cuba who accused Obama of trying to eliminate God and impose socialism on the U.S. After all, he’d seen it happen before. “A young charismatic leader rose up, talking about ‘hope’ and ‘change,’” Cruz yelled, as the crowd booed. “His name was Fidel Castro.” Got it? Obama = Castro. Cruz doesn’t mention that he actually supported Fidel Castro’s revolution against Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, then turned against him. Now we know where the Texas senator got his penchant for demagoguery and distortion. (Imagine replacing Marion Robinson in the White House with Rafael Cruz.)

Although the Iowa convening didn’t feature anyone in an Obama mask being chased by bulls, or “Kenyan Go Home” signs, and nobody sang “Bye Bye Black Sheep” to the president, it made clear that the GOP project of inclusion is a farce. Judging from Iowa, the 2016 primary field is set to be every bit as extreme as in 2012 but without even the patina of diversity provided by Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann. And it will play to an increasingly shrill and xenophobic primary base where three nasty racist anti-Obama events can take place in one week, with near-complete silence from Republican leaders.

I should note that the Missouri State Fair rodeo was so sickening that Republican Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder had to denounce it as “disrespectful” to the president, adding, “We are better than this.” Fairgoer Perry Beam told the Associated Press that “everybody screamed” and “just went wild” when an announcer asked if they’d like to see “Obama run down by a bull.”

“It was at that point I began to feel a sense of fear. It was that level of enthusiasm,” the 48-year-old white musician said. Another clown approached and began to play with the lips of the Obama mask. “There would have been no reason to play with his lips if he were a white president,” Beam said. “They mentioned the president’s name, I don’t know, 100 times. It was sickening. It was feeling like some kind of Klan rally you’d see on TV. I’ve never seen anything so blatantly racist in my life,” he added. “If an old country boy picks up on something like that, imagine what a person of color would think.”

Meanwhile, John Boehner golfs with birther-in-chief Trump, while he headlines ABC’s respected Sunday news show. The GOP seems content to live on the fumes of Obama-hatred. It’s not a strategy for a post-Obama politics, but they seem to reckon there are enough rodeo clowns out there to get them through 2014.

Obama Protesters Sing 'Bye Bye Black Sheep,' Rail Against 'Half-White Muslim' In Arizona

By Nick Wing/Huffington Post

A raucous crowd of supporters and protesters from both ends of the political spectrum showed up outside President Barack Obama's appearance in Phoenix, Ariz. on Tuesday, with some of his detractors turning to racially charged attacks to express their opposition.

From the Arizona Republic:

Obama foes at one point sang, "Bye Bye Black Sheep," a derogatory reference to the president's skin color, while protesters like Deanne Bartram raised a sign saying, "Impeach the Half-White Muslim!"

The Republic reported that hundreds of people gathered outside Desert Vista High School as Obama unveiled a plan to overhaul the nation's mortgage finance system. Some protesters came from Obama's left, urging him to reject the Keystone XL oil pipeline and take other actions on climate change. But a prevailing theme among many in the protest appeared to be issues of race. Some even suggested that Obama himself was to blame for racial tensions.

“We have gone back so many years,” Judy Burris told the Republic, arguing Obama had taken the nation back to pre-Civil Rights era levels of racism. “He’s divided all the races. I hate him for that.”

Others carried signs calling for Obama to be impeached, Tucson News Now reported, though despite the negativity, the majority of those in attendance were Obama fans.

Inside, Obama's speech focused primarily on the housing market, though he did at one point attempt to link his proposal to immigration reform, arguing that Congress -- which is now in recess -- could help housing prices rebound by finalizing legislation that has already been passed by the Senate.

Limbaugh,Hannity and O'Reilly change the conversation on race

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The Wicked Irony Of Fox Hosts Accusing Others Of Creating Racial Division

 ARI RABIN-HAVT/Media Matters For America:

On last night's episode of The Five, host Eric Bolling claimed Democrats strategically create racial division as a political strategy. Asked by fellow host Bob Beckel whether he believes that "we sit around in the Democratic Party and want to have racial division," he replied, "I do, yes."

It was an absurd charge coming from Bolling, whose racial invective has included referring to the President of Gabon's visit to the White House as "a hoodlum in the hizzouse" and suggesting that President Obama was "chugging 40s" during a state visit to Ireland. 

Bolling wasn't the only one on Fox claiming that racism is largely being drummed up by liberals. Co-host Greg Gutfeld chimed in claiming that "racial warfare right now is the crack cocaine of CNN, MSNBC, and most college campuses."

Later in the evening Bill O'Reilly told his audience that civil rights leaders want "to divide the country along racial lines because that's good for business."

Oh the irony.

There are few in American politics who have done more to strategically divide this country along racial lines for political and financial gain than Fox News chief Roger Ailes.

While producing town hall style events for Richard Nixon in 1968, Ailes sought to exploit racial tensions at the time by reportedly including "[a] good, mean, Wallaceite cab driver" on the panel of people who got to ask the candidate a question.

"Wouldn't that be great," Bolling, Gutfeld and O'Reilly's boss told reporter Joe McGinniss. "Some guy to sit there and say, 'Awright Mac, what about these n****rs?' "

In 1988, Roger Ailes again used racial tensions to his candidate's advantage, producing the infamous Revolving Door ad for George H.W. Bush's campaign that was widely criticized for its racial overtones. The commercial depicts a line of inmates entering and exiting a prison yard swinging around a metal gate. The ad "was calculated to emphasize the one African-American" said ABC News anchor Sam Donaldson. 

Running Rudy Giuliani's first mayoral campaign against David Dinkins, Roger Ailes attempted to guide his candidate to victory by stoking tension between New York's black and Jewish communities. He "placed an ad in a prominent Yiddish Newspaper, The Algemeiner Journal, that featured an image of Guiliani's opponent David Dinkins -- who would become New York City's first African-American mayor -- alongside Jesse Jackson. The ad also displayed a photo of Giuliani with President George H.W. Bush, and the headline stated, 'Let the people of New York choose their own destiny.' "

Howard Kurtz, writing in 1989 for The Washington Post, quoted Ira Silverman, vice president of the American Jewish Committee saying that while Ailes had used a "legitimate campaign tactic," it was "troubling" because it "prey[ed] upon the fears of the Jewish community."

Fox News has followed Roger Ailes'lead, using race to divide, from the networks obsession with the New Black Panthers to most famously Glenn Beck suggesting the president himself was a "racist" with a "deep seeded hatred of white people and white culture."

When Fox hosts wish to complain about those who benefit from racial division, perhaps they should stop by the second floor of 21^st Century Fox's Manhattan headquarters and deliver the message in person.

O'Reilly talks race and civil rights

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Tea Parties Use Verdict to Further Attack Trayvon, Reproduce Racism

By Devin Burghart/IREHR

The facts of the case are straightforward.  Trayvon Martin was walking home when he was accosted by an armed vigilante who scuffled with the teenager and then shot him at close range.  The vigilante was an unofficial “neighborhood watch” volunteer, who was advised by a police dispatcher to not give chase, but did so anyway.  Despite the fact that Trayvon Martin was guilty only of “walking while black,” some Tea Party leaders had already convicted 17 year-old well before the trial, rather than George Zimmerman who shot him.

As IREHR previously noted, shortly after Zimmerman killed Martin on February 26, 2012, white nationalists and other bigots concocted false allegations, and slandered Martin. After the Zimmerman “not guilty” verdict, and particularly after President Obama publicly discussed the issue of race in the Trayvon Martin situation, many Tea Partiers used the occasion to place blame on the victim, amplify racist stereotypes of black men, and reproduce that racism in the civic arena.

For example, just hours after the July 13 verdict, the Florida Tea Party sent an email blast to supporters entitled “Black Teens Murder White Baby For The Fun Of It.” The brief, brutal story had been news from Brunswick, Georgia the previous March. But the Tea Partiers regurgitated the story in July in an attempt to deflect blame away from Zimmerman on to black men

The Florida Tea Party was not alone in this regard. Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips, repeatedly weighed in during the trial with attempts to demonize the dead African-American teen. In a July 15, 2013 Tea Party Nation website piece entitled “From Sinner to Saint,” Phillips fused many falsehoods and distortions into a vicious and bitter piece of propaganda.

Trayvon Martin was well on his way to a life of crime, a life that would feature at best, the revolving door of the criminal justice system or possibly even a lifetime stay at a penal facility.  Or, at worst, a shortened life, ended by someone else.

Trayvon Martin was a product of American liberal social policies.  A single mother raised him.  His school was more concerned about appeasing the civil rights hucksters than whether Trayvon Martin was either educated or taught basic responsibilities.

The story of Trayvon Martin’s life is not irrelevant.  It is the major cause of what happened that night he encountered George Zimmerman. The left has tried to demonize Zimmerman and has tried to canonize St. Trayvon.

The truth is Trayvon Martin was a 17-year-old thug who was the architect of his own demise.

That is the story that should be told.  Perhaps if that story and the truth about Trayvon Martin is told, it might prevent the next Trayvon Martin.

Later Phillips wrote, “The George Zimmerman trial was a travesty to begin with. It never should have happened” and called for the head of State’s Attorney Angela Corey, claiming, “She is an individual unfit to be a prosecutor, unfit to be a lawyer and unfit for a job anymore significant that asking, “Would you like fries with that?”

It should be noted that by openly articulating the type of bigoted clap-trap that is usually said only behind closed doors, Phillips both invests these ravings with a certain legitimacy while re-establishing his own racist credentials.  Indeed, Phillips Tea Party rhetoric mirrors closely the words of white nationalist demagogue Jared Taylor of American Renaissance, who wrote “Five white women and an apparent Hispanic have acquitted George Zimmerman on all counts. The facts and the law clearly required that it do so. However, this is a just conclusion only to a case that should never have been brought, and that casts a harsh and damning light on black race hustlers, crazed white liberals, and a vilely irresponsible media.”

From another angle, Lloyd Marcus, the Deltona, Florida paid spokesperson for the Tea Party Express, who describes himself, parentheses included, as a “(black) Unhyphenated American,” also chimed in. In an article entitled “Political Correctness: Bring Me the Head of George Zimmerman!” Marcus emphatically declared “I was elated upon hearing the not guilty verdict in the Zimmerman trial. It gave me hope that America has not yet totally succumb to the tyranny of Political Correctness. It is refreshing that the jury was not willing to sacrifice the life of an innocent man on the alter[sic] in worship of Political Correctness enforced by the mainstream media and the Obama Administration.”

Marcus also pushed a notion that is popular in Tea Party circles that “the Obama Administration unlawfully conspired to ‘get George Zimmerman.’” As he often does, he attacked the NAACP and concluded that “had Zimmerman been sentenced to prison to appease PC, it would have been a dark day for all Americans – further empowering PC to imprison and enslave us.”

Tea Party reiterated old and tiresome attacks against the NAACP and others civil rights organizations and leaders, calling them a “racial grievance industry.” Over at the Patriot Action Network, for instance, one frequent commentator on the Tea Party site wrote, “George Zimmerman has been found not guilty by a jury of his peers. However the NAACP and the jury of the Society of Perpetual Race Baiters® is not persuaded. They will continue to hound George and use him as an example of racial injustice for decades to come; thus the tragedy of one young man’s death becomes the tragedy of character assassination and ruination of another young man’s life. So here’s our official halftime score: American Justice System 1, Race Baiting Prosecutors Acting Stupidly 0. Official Race Baiting outrage to follow.”

This kind of talk was old before the Tea Parties were invented.  It goes hand in hand with the Confederate lie that slavery was good for African Americans.  But when it is re-articulated in the 21st century, it renews and reinvigorates racist behavior.

Not satisfied with just defaming a dead teen, TheTeaParty.net (the same group which sponsored the .223 Day of Resistance Gun rallies in February), tried to use the verdict to attack the Obama administration (and raise cash). This group described the president the Attorney General Eric Holder as “race baiters.”  They were supposedly involved in a conspiracy, according to this group. “Obama's DOJ, led by Holder, actually facilitated organized protests and rallies against George Zimmerman following the death of Trayvon Martin BEFORE Zimmerman was even brought up on charges!”

In a fund-raising pitch, the group pressed against those who believe that the Justice Department should charge Zimmerman with civil rights charges.  TeaParty.Net demanded that “HOLDER MUST RESIGN AND BE PROSECUTED!”[Emphasis in original] They added, “We cannot continue to look the other way and not call out the likes of Barack Obama and Holder for being manipulative, dangerous race baiters. Their tactics are dirty. Their tactics are insulting. Their tactics are destructive for America.”

Two days later, in another fund-raising email, the group spun the conspiracy even further, announcing that “Eric Holder is declaring war on the American people and he's using George Zimmerman as cover.” Two days after that, in another fundraising email, TheTeaParty.net lambasted Obama’s remarks as “distraction, smoke screen” designed to cover up the IRS (non) scandal.

In a similar fashion, after President Obama’s remarks on Trayvon Martin, many Tea Party websites were flooded with racist comments lashing out against Martin and Obama, including fantasies about the President being killed.

For example, at the website of the 1776 Tea Party, Steven G. Elliott of Manns Choice, PA responded to the text of Obama’s remarks by comparing Obama and Martin, “One dope-head thug talking about another dope-head thug.” Linda Lee Kenney of Louisville, KY followed “I'm so sick of this jihadist trying to divide our country.  He needs to go back to freakin Kenya!” Robert William Velon of Penryn, CA followed with “He needs to go back to Kenya in a box...  I had hoped that his vacation to Africa would have promted[sic] him to buy a mud hut so he could move back.... Trayvon was a punk he was not the victim..... [Ellipses in original]” Jack Lamberson of Crawfordsville, IN added “He just proved he is racist and wants riots so he can declare marshal[sic] law and come after I guns.  I sure wish it was him 35 years ago, we would all be much better off.” George Zornetsky of Beacon, NY also wished that the president was dead, “Too bad Obama isn't more like Martin, six feet under where that sonofabitch[sic] belongs.” There are many, many more comments like these on numerous Tea Party websites post-verdict, with scant voices challenging the racism.

Of course, this sort of guttural racism isn’t confined to Tea Party ranks or the white nationalist fringes. Conservative pundits like Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter have all used the verdict in the same manner. Racism and white privilege then are not simply a “left-over” phenomenon.  It is, instead, a new and continually reproduced disease.

This horrid rhetoric provides further evidence of the depth and persistence of racism in this country.  It should also serve as a wake-up call for all those who have given the Tea Party movement a free pass, and let it persist in the notion that it is simply a conservative cause concerned only with taxes and budgets.  It should tell any decent hearted soul that this racist movement needs to be opposed as the bigots and racists they really are.

National Review Tells Young Whites To Avoid Blacks, Again

By Zack Beauchamp/Think Progress

A top conservative publication published a column on Wednesday advising young white children to stay away from black people, despite firing a columnist roughly a year ago for writing a very similar piece in a different publication.

Victor Davis Hanson, a scholar of military history and longtime National Reviewforeign affairs columnist, has a habit of dipping his toes into racially uncomfortable water. In a past column, for example, Hanson accused President Obama ofattempting to victimize white people for political gain.

His column today, however, directly echoes the now-infamous piece by self-described “race-realist” John Derbyshire that National Review deemed a firing offense. Derbyshire’s TakiMag piece, the conceit of which was that the author was giving a white equivalent of “The Talk” that black parents give their children about racism, included gems like “avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally,” “stay out of heavily black neighborhoods,” and “if accosted by a strange black in the street, smile and say something polite but keep moving.”

The thrust of Hanson’s argument — black men are criminals and you should stay away from them, my son — is largely indistinguishable from Derbyshire’s. “Be careful if a group of black youths approaches you,” Hanson quoted his father as saying before a move to San Francisco. “After some first-hand episodes with young African-American males,” he continued, “I offered a similar lecture to my own son.”

Hanson’s piece included some weak caveats seemingly aimed at distinguishing himself from Derbyshire. “Note what [my father] did not say to me. He did not employ language like ‘typical black person.’ He did not advise extra caution about black women, the elderly, or the very young…In other words, the advice was not about race per se, but instead about the tendency of males of one particular age and race to commit an inordinate amount of violent crime.”

This is bollocks. Hanson, like innumerates Richard Cohen and Kathleen Parker before him, is relying on a common mathematical fallacy, called the base rate error, to draw fictitious conclusions about the danger posed by black men. Even if black men are more likely to be violent, and that’s a big if, it still doesn’t follow that all others should avoid them: because the absolute rate of crime is extremely low, any individual black man is almost certainly not going to be a criminal. But, as Ta-Nehisi Coates puts it in a sterling critique of Hanson, “one of the effects of racism is its tendency to justify stupidity.”

The point, then, is that any supposed difference between Hanson and Derbyshire is a smokescreen. Both improperly manipulate crime statistics to make incorrect generalizations about the criminality of entire groups of people based largely on the color of their skin. The fact that Derbyshire is blunter about it makes no substantive difference.

When National Review editor Rich Lowry dismissed Derbyshire, he wrote that Derbyshire was advancing views with which “we’d never associate ourselves.” But Wednesday morning, they did just that.

Zimmerman Verdict Reactions Prove That The New Initials Of Racism Are G.O.P.

By: Rmuse/politicususa

Whether most Americans like to admit it or not, there is still belief among a large segment of the population that race determines superiority, or inferiority, and that a person’s inborn biological characteristics predetermines their social and moral traits. Racism’s primary characteristic is the belief that another person is less than human based on skin color that they presume reveals the basic nature of that person, and there are indications that when George Zimmerman set out stalking Trayvon Martin the night he shot and killed him,  racism played a key role in the tragedy.

Without knowing what went through jurors’ minds when they elected to acquit Zimmerman, it is only conjecture that they considered the teen’s race when weighing whether or not Zimmerman was justified in ending Martin’s life. What is abundantly clear, is that it is time to call out the blatant racism that has been in vogue since the day after Barack Obama was first elected President, and instead of being a turning point in racial America, it ushered in a new round of racial animus Republicans took advantage of when Congress defunded ACORN, continued unabated with Republican’s African American voter disenfranchisement the racist conservative Court gave their blessings to, and punctuated with Zimmerman’s acquittal last Saturday in Florida.

President Obama said that “we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken” and that “we should ask ourselves, as individuals and as a society, how we can prevent future tragedies like this.” The President certainly is right a jury spoke, and Americans do have to accept it, but they do not have to like it and unfortunately there is little any American can do to prevent future tragedies like Trayvon Martin’s death. Regardless the Florida laws that led to the jury’s decision, it is the mindset among racially motivated Americans that informs racism and racial profiling is a plague on this nation and it is legal to stalk and kill unarmed African American youth, because that is the signal the “nation of laws” jury sent the public. The President wisely said he would not get involved in the Department of Justice’s decision to investigate the stalking and murder as a civil rights issue because he is aware that just speaking to the nation about the case inflamed the racists as much as his occupancy in the White House. If Americans have learned nothing else in the four-and-a-half years President Obama has been in the Oval Office, it is that despite the rampant racism in the population and GOP in particularly, it is forbidden to point out racial animus among a larger percentage of the population than anyone likes to admit.

The legitimate fear among many Americans that the Zimmerman verdict gives racially driven vigilantes free rein to kill unarmed African American youth is in part because of the institutionalized racism plaguing this country. Republicans and extremist conservatives have called for race war, Confederate states pant to secede over an African American occupying the White House, and Republican opposition to everything the African American President supports are indicators racism is alive and thriving in America. The rise of White Supremacist hate groups across the country and conservative pundits and Republican politicians taking up a Ku Klux Klan’s slogan are all demonstrable signs that racism is on the ascendance and unlikely to change making the President’s plea to seek ways to prevent tragedies like Trayvon Martin’s killing a touching sentiment, but that is all it is.

There is statistical proof that America is geared toward racism based on some indisputable facts, and that it is institutionalized in the Republican Party is best noted by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s claim that the GOP’s primary mission was limiting President Obama to one term. Regardless the President supported myriad Republican policies, Republican obstruction was meant to portray the African American President as incompetent to teach the rest of America that white supremacy is indeed a verifiable fact of life and that an African American was incapable of leading the nation. There are plenty of other statistics that bear out many pundits’ contention that institutional racism is widespread such as there are more African Americans are in prison now then there were slaves in 1870, or in South African prisons during the height of Apartheid.  African Americans are four times as likely to be arrested and convicted for something as benign as marijuana possession than their white counterparts despite they use the weed at similar rates according to the American Bar Association. It is also not happenstance that African American students are more likely to be suspended or have their public schools shuttered that is not  happening to their white cohort in states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Washington D.C., and those are probably representative of more states than Americans are aware of or the media reports.

That racism is prevalent in America cannot be understated, and as a law professor at the Ohio State University, Michelle Alexander, so aptly noted the problem with the Trayvon Martin killing is not that George Zimmerman should have been found guilty, but his “mindset that views black men and boys as nothing but a threat, good for nothing, up to no good no matter who they are or what they are doing” must be condemned. However, there is another segment of the population that is founded in the belief that the white race is inherently superior and it has been propagated by Republicans over the past four-and-a-half years with their claims the President of the United States is illegitimate and “nothing but a threat, good for nothing, up to no good no matter who he is or what he is doing” and it is part and parcel of a long-festering belief in supremacy of the white race and why, despite the President’s plea, Americans will never prevent tragedies like the Trayvon Martin killing from recurring over and over again.

It is time high time for Americans to call out white supremacy and racism in all its forms regardless the certain attacks by conservatives and Republican Party faithful screaming those identifying blatant and dog-whistle racism are racists. They have controlled the narrative for too long and it is why a man like George Zimmerman saw an African American boy walking down the street and told a police dispatcher he was “real suspicious” and “up to no good. He’s just walking around, he looks black…late teens” and then proceeded to stalk, confront, and kill him. It is an abject tragedy that many Americans with Zimmerman’s mindset will find millions of young African American boys  “just walking around” and automatically assume they are “real suspicious” and “up to no good,” and with the proliferation of guns and stand your ground laws to protect them guarantee that the events the led to Trayvon Martin’s death will be repeated all over America. President Obama’s appeal “to respect the call for calm reflection” was important and well-heeded by everyone except conservative white supremacists who were certain African Americans would be rioting in the streets and it informs that they are the Americans who are “real suspicious and up to no good.

For Zimmerman Trial, A Right-Wing Race To The Bottom

ERIC BOEHLERT/Media Matters For America

With final arguments underway in the trial of George Zimmerman, who is accused of killing unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin last year, most observers might focus on the central question of whether the neighborhood watch volunteer was guilty of murder, or whether he acted in self-defense the night Martin died. They might also ask why it took prosecutors six weeks to charge Zimmerman with any crime, even though he admitted to killing the youth.

But from the crooked perspective of the far-right media, the trial represents something far more insidious than justice on display. Unfolding beneath the sinister specter of President Obama's pugnacious interference, the Zimmerman hearing is being denounced as a Soviet-style show trial, by Lou Dobbs on his July 9 program, anda hoax in which the defendant is the real victim.

It's the defendant who faces a perilous future even if found not guilty we're told; a defendant who's being persecuted by "the race industry." And it's a trial that allegedly operates under the ominous threat of "riots" if Zimmerman is found not guilty.

In other words, the trial, and the irresponsible right-wing commentary surrounding it, represents the latest example of how the conservative press remains incapable of dealing honestly with issues that the nation grapples with, and especially any issue that involves race when an African-American (Democrat) sits in the White House.

Instead, the right-wing media once again gleefully stirs the cauldron of racial animosity. Uninterested in letting justice unfold in the courtroom, the far right mob has been obsessed with making Obama a central player in the saga. A Breitbart writer this week condemned the president for his "direct insertion" into the story, referring to the time, 16 months ago, when Obama answered a single question about the Martin controversy. Obama's quote was supposedly part of a larger, menacing White House plot "to gin up charges of racism" surrounding the case, according to the site.

Given that level of obsession, it's no surprise the right-wing press manufactured a story this week that allowed them to cast Obama as an essential villain in the Zimmerman controversy. Pointing to a report that confirmed the Department of Justice's Community Relations Service unit (CRS) had been dispatched last year to Sanford Florida, the scene of the Martin killing, most of the right-wing noise machine trumpeted the revelation as proof that Obama's Department of Justice was guilty of staging "anti-Zimmerman" rallies.

All of that, of course, was completely false.

The CRS employs peacemakers who work with civic and religious leaders when tensions flare up within communities. Its presence in Sanford was hardly proof that the Obama administration had taken sides in the case. And none of it was even news. As Media Matters noted, both the Miami Herald and the Orlando Sentinel wrote about CRS's presence in Sanford last year and detailed its efforts to successfully facilitate peaceful protests.

In other words, the Department of Justice under Obama did its job and helped keep the peace in Sanford at a time when community tensions were running high. Therefore Obama is guilty of fueling racial tensions in Florida? Of "instigating race riots," as Limbaugh put it. (For the record, there were no "race riots" last year in connection with the Martin controversy.)

It's classic Obama Derangement Syndrome, in which the president's professional opponents contort reality to place him at the center of every possible controversy, even murder trials, and cast him as an all-powerful thug. It's a hypnotic force that overrules common sense.

Note this opening sentence from a recent Breitbart News item, which suggested danger was lurking in Florida:

On Wednesday, Sanford Chief of Police Cecil Smith told Breitbart News exclusively that there is "nothing out there" suggesting civil unrest will take place in the city following the George Zimmerman verdict.

So after getting a quote from the head of Sanford police confirming there's no indication there will be civil unrest following the Zimmerman verdict, Breitbart then hyped a story about how officials are bracing for civil unrest following the Zimmerman verdict.

Talk about remaining committed to a race-baiting narrative.

This week Breitbart also trumpeted a piece headlined: "Broward County Sheriff's Office Prepares Zimmerman Verdict Riot Plan," claiming Florida law enforcement "released a video calling on the public not to riot."

But that wasn't the case.

The youth-oriented public service video released by police made no mention of fending off a "riot." It simply discouraged individuals from expressing anger through an act of violence. ("Raise Your Voice, Not Your Hands.") Getting angry and getting arrested does not constitute rioting. So why the right-wing echo chamber obsession about looming riots? On this show Monday night, Bill O'Reilly couldn't stop talking about the threat.

And note how O'Reilly couched most of his trial coverage.

From the Washington Post's Erik Wemple, who contrasted O'Reilly's complaint that the only reason the trial was getting so much attention was that  "it's a light-skinned Hispanic against a black kid," as compared with the coverage on The O'Reilly Factor [emphasis added]:

Last night, O'Reilly delivered an editorial monologue on the George Zimmerman case; then he discussed it with commentators Kimberly Guilfoyle and Lis Wiehl; then he sat down with another guest, Jacques DeGraff, and talked about it. Much of the discussion concerned race.

On Monday night, O'Reilly discussed the racial aspects of the case with LeVar Burton. In another segment on the same show, he discussed the case with Juan Williams and Mary Katharine Ham. Much of the discussion concerned race.

Last Wednesday night, O'Reilly convened a panel with Wiehl and Guilfoyle on the trial.

Last Tuesday night, O'Reilly blasted actor Jamie Foxx's Trayvon Martin T-shirt in a segment with Alan Colmes and Monica Crowley. That was all about race. 

But in terms of unfiltered race baiting, nobody has matched Rush Limbaugh's invective about the Zimmerman case, and the talker's obsession with portraying Obama as a driving force in the story. Latching onto the phony spin surrounding CRS, Limbaugh accused the president of "promoting racial strife" so that the "rest of us can get a taste of" slavery.

The confirmation that the right-wing media's loudest voice was using the murder of a young, unarmed black teenager to suggest America's first black president was trying to fuel racial tension so white Americans could "get a taste" of what the crushing pain and humiliation of slavery felt like, really does defy common sense and civility, ever for a confused hate merchant like Limbaugh.

With the Zimmerman trial, Rush Limbaugh had once again won the race to the bottom.

Right Wing ‘Daily Caller’ Posts Racist Tweet, Then Quickly Deletes It

Sky Palma/Americans Against the Tea Party

According to a report from White House reporters, there is an aspiring rapper who calls himself “Rhymes Priebus” somewhere in Chicago. The name is a play on the name of Republican National Committee Chairman, Reince Priebus. The White House reporters were driven around by the 26-year-old rapper as part of President Obama’s motorcade on a trip to the Windy City today.

The conservative website Daily Caller did a write-up on the story, but it’s a promotional tweet that’s getting the site some unwanted attention, rather than the story itself.

Click on image to enlarge

The tweet was quickly deleted, but not before it was screen-captured and posted on Twittersoon after.

The acronym “HNIC” is internet slang for “head n*gger in charge,” according to the Urban Dictionary.