Countdown Special Comment on the Tea Parties and Race
From Countdown Feb. 15, 2010 Special Comment: Tea Parties And Race:
I happen to be filling the few spare hours of this past week by re-watching my friend Ken Burns' Jazz documentary and was literally pulling my shoes on to head over to the hospital yesterday when it came to the story of the great Billie Holiday and the still-startling anti-lynching song "Strange Fruit."
Not long ago, my father, who abandoned baseball because his team traded his favorite players (Yankees; Steve Souchock, George Stirnweiss; 1948, 1950; yes, we carry grudges), mentioned to me that he'd seen Satchel Paige pitch at Yankee Stadium, for the New York Black Yankees. "It never occurred to me, it never occurred to anybody I knew, that he couldn't play for the other Yankees. We just assumed he didn't want to. That none of them wanted to."
Fatal racism, passive racism, self-rationalized racism. It all blended together for me yesterday, and it led me to think about the Tea Party group, who they are, who they aren't, and what they're afraid of. Read on...
The Teabaggers just want their country back, you know the one run by white folks - I mean non-socialists.
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
I can't stand his B.S. anymore than I can stand O'reilly and his venom.
Teabaggers as racists is BS?
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
I see you've swallowed the right wing meme about Keith hook, line and sinker.
I'm thinkin...not so much.
Keep looking...
PS. I believe you're getting warmer ;)
Study the symptoms not the virus...
Disingenuous, manipulatively distracting, and utterly stupid as Hell.
What part of this particular comment did you have a problem with?
...comment, "truthhater" falsely tried to equate Olberman with a notorious racist and liar in a failed attempt to nulify the credibility of Olberman's argument.
I had a problem with everything that racism apologist said.
Ohhh, I'm sorry, I misinterpreted your post. I read your comment as:
I didn't realize you were attacking the comparison you quoted, I thought you were making it. My mistake.
We all need each other. :)
the messenger. Won't fly here.
"The greatest tyranny is censoring information in order to be better able to control people." - Cristina Saralegui
You sound just like a crazy republican. They don't understand the difference between truth and honesty like Keith was telling, and lies and bullshit like oliar spews on the air.
republicanism/conservatism is a mental illness!
...it's Glenn Beck. You have two men, obviously well-educated, both prone to getting over-emotional, and capable of an erudite turn of phrase while drawing upon history through an intellectual veneer (I say 'veneer', because while Olbie's is genuine to the point of occasional snobbery, Beck's jars more with his portrayal of himself as a 'common man').
Except Glenn Beck gets it all slightly wrong. Whereas Keith's best comments are conceived from observation based on historical precedence, Glenn is all about symbolism - that something happens to be 'true' because it resembles another idea. If history is indeed repeating itself, you can demonstrate that to your audience. But if, whether true or not, nobody else can see the symbols you're seeing, you just end up looking like a loon.
Good observation.
The difference between the two, then, is ideology (Beck) versus reality (Olbie)
Lady Sings The Blues was on tv last weekend and I'd actually forgotten about the song Strange Fruit. The first time I saw the movie, the scene where Billie sees a black man hanging from a tree as they traveled through the South, was shocking. In the movie, it was after seeing this "Strange Fruit" hanging from that tree that she began doing drugs. I always wondered if that was actually what triggered Billie Holiday's drug use or if it was something else. Anyway, each time I hear that song, I get very said, and then I get angry. It's a very dark, sad, and haunting song.
including a history of sexual abuse, but I imagine dealing with the racism at that time must have been very traumatic and had to have weighed heavily on her...
"The greatest tyranny is censoring information in order to be better able to control people." - Cristina Saralegui
People like Beck and others saw this group of people were out there and he with others knew what their anger was really all about. They saw a group or people or a product they could play to for their own benefit. It was sort of an unspoken untity of attitudes toward a black president. With the leadership of Beck and others, the tea party people were given an outlet for their anger. Of course it was disguised as anger toward the government when in reality the anger was not so much at the government but at the leader of the country. He just doesn't look like they do and their feelings of self/white superiorty in in danger. They want their country back they say, but what they really want back is reconfirmation of their white superiority.
Keith as usual nails it down tight.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
@patricia - you are absolutely right! The weekend of the Tea Party convention I caught a Klan documentary on the History Channel Friday night and the TP event on CSpan on Saturday night - there wasn't a lot of difference between the rhetoric and it was obvious. The Tea Partiers sound a lot like the Southerners after the end of the Civil War, justifying why they needed to terrify and lynch former slaves.
You guys would be surprised at exactly how alike the teabaggers arguments are compared to the arguments made by the defeated Confederates, Check out the Bloody shirt, it will give a pretty good example.
When angry, count four, when very angry, swear.
-Mark Twain-
with cultural literacy tests? I'm convinced such tests would primarily exclude the teabaggers.
Most of them would also fail a civics test. However, I bet Rush and Beck would pass. They are only channeling the anger to make money.
A simple matter of who gets to decide what questions are asked and what the answers are. You assume that the 'correct' answer to the question "what is Socialism" will be the textbook definition of Socialism.
These people don't think you should pass a test, they think they should get to create the test YOU have to pass.
As far as civics goes, our citizenship is what conveys the right to vote (which is precisely why I object to felons having their voting rights stricken), and citizenship comes with birth on American soil.
U.S. law dictated that Americans of African descent were 3/5 of a person, so it was this terrible flaw at the heart of the Constitution from which all other legalized bigotry flowed. Once the humanity of slaves & their descendants (such as myself), was codified, it provided a foundation from which Jim Crow laws, like poll taxes & tests, could be challenged in court.
This is the very basic history that far too many Americans don't seem to understand, once again proving that Santayana & Aristotle et al. were right.
Keith's Special Comment was spot on and long overdue. The MSM just ignores this aspect of the teabaggers. They never even ask any of the people at these rallies who they voted for in the Presidential election of 2008. It's like the press doesn't want to ask them because they know that these people are bascially sore losers who voted Republican in 2008 and lost! When Bush won, the left didn't stage a weekly protest to stop that idiot from governing. I'm African American and I don't use the word racist to describe people I disagree with but, if you look at the issues the teabaggers claim to care about, higher taxes, which they haven't been hit with, government spending, this administration is not responsible for all of the spending that got us into this mess; that leaves only one other possiblility. THEY'RE RACISTS!
Is the complicity of Tea Party sympathizers like Angela McGlowan, an African American woman - who spoke at the TP convention. HOW can she be so clueless as to participate in this?
I have an older brother. We share the same parents (one "Black" & one "White"), & the same upbringing in a very liberal part of Canada. I'm a radical and he's liberal, but bigoted when it comes to certain ethnic groups (among others), because he absorbed the Canadian anti-First Nations poison. I used to wonder how he could have such absurd blind spots in his thinking, until I realized that no matter how similar we were, ultimately his experience of the world is uniquely his own.
Each of us is the sum total of our genetics + our experiences. For some people, outsider status conveys lessons that supersede others, for other people it doesn't, but it's folly to continue assuming that "race" must always be the dominant paradigm for People of Colour. Neither you nor I know the sum total of conditions that created Ms. McGlowan's politics & personality, but I can guarantee you that they were not limited to her genetics (i.e. her "race").
When we assume that a person should think or feel a certain way because of their ethnicity or gender or sexuality or class, etc., we are replicating the same stereotypical thinking that leads to bigotry.
lies in waiting in all men, not only white men.
"Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them."
Edward R. Murrow (1908 - 1965), television broadcast, December 31, 1955
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
Sure, but prejudice alone does not convey the ability to act on it. In Social Science, the classic formula is:
Prejudice + Power = Oppression
In other words, each of us is racist/sexist/classist/etc. because we live in a fundamentally racist/sexist/classist/etc. society which inculcates it into us. However, there are widely varying degrees of prejudice and a highly disproportionate balance of power. So, for example, us working class folks may hate & despise rich people, but without the power to codify the hatred into law, they can't oppress rich people. Further, we're more likely to have internalized class-based self-hatred, which tends to make us participate in the system & therefore in our own oppression.
Under the guise of patriotism.
I certainly don't think all people who belong to the Teabaggers are racists. But, I have to say, the people who are running this thing are.
They are preying on peoples fears. Hey, the rank and file teabaggers are not that bright. If they were, they wouldn't be teabaggers.
What is your conceptual, continuity?
I'd have clicked "like" on this one, mudshark!
It is interesting to note not only the overwhelming color of the tea party but the age of them as well. Most seem to be middle age or older and white. Interesting.
Most people aren't capable of looking into themselves and seeing the ugly fears and prejudice that lie within or to look at what they are truly capable of doing.
If you are honest with yourself you will find, like the vast majority, that you have had sexist, racist, homophobic thoughts. Again, if you are honest.
Did you act on them or recognize them for what they are?
I was raised in a racist, homophobic, sexist family. Those things were taught to me all my growing up years. At a point I realized that having those feelings was ugly and baseless. I put those feelings behind me and rethought my own gut feelings. I decided to rise above what I was taught and instead of judging people by my past teachings, I would instead accept people the very same way I would hope they would accept me. I would respect everyone as long as they deserved my respect and granted me the same favor.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
"I was raised in a racist, homophobic, sexist family."
Me too. So many of my extended family are still the same hate filled jerks - petty and wallowing in their own filthy lucre of negativity.
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
I grew up in Montana in the 50's. We had no black families in the valley. Or anyone else of any race. Not untill I moved to Seattle did that bring me up short quick.
"Let's talk dirty to the animals"
"At a point I realized that having those feelings was ugly and baseless. I put those feelings behind me and rethought my own gut feelings." (Profound)
I decided to rise above what I was taught and instead of judging people by my past teachings, I would instead accept people the very same way I would hope they would accept me. (Intelligent)
I would respect everyone as long as they deserved my respect and granted me the same favor. (Reality)
Uh-Huh
tendencies. I loved my father, but for someone who was mixed-race himself and had an even more mixed daughter, he had some blind spots and and failings...
Anyway...the sad thing is that it is easy to absorb those attitudes because there are so very few people of Jewish descent in the area I grew up in. And I'm sad to say that I did absorb some of those attitudes. I realized I had absorbed them in high school once I had regular internet use and began to make friends who happened to be Jewish. It shocked and dismayed me to realize some of the thoughts I had, and since then I've learned from the experience.
"The greatest tyranny is censoring information in order to be better able to control people." - Cristina Saralegui
The tea baggers are going to be a problem for the republican party for a while to come. The republicans almost have to hold their noses and embrace them if they want to retake congress. The democrats have their faults too, but they do not have to kiss the tea party people's asses. If nothing else, they can take pride in that.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
I've never taken pride in being a Democrat as much as I take great pride in being anti-GOP.
The GOP has been insane for decades now - it is only getting worse.
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
The GOP has just about run out of people to use. During Bush's first presidential campaign, they used the religious right. They continued that "use" for his re-election. A lot of those people came to the reality they were indeed being used after 04 and some of them walked away. Now what is left is the tea party people and the GOP knows they have to play to them. They have gotten themselves into a corner and the only way out is by bowing to this very politically unattractive group of people.
Michael Steele is about to meet with some of the heads of the tea party and they are going to demand that the republican party does things their way or else they will walk away from the GOP. Does he give in to their demands or does the GOP say no to them, opening the way for a splitting of their political ticket?
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
that he wrote that, Republicans were the liberal party. Mencken was a conservative, although by today's standards, many of his views would be considered liberal. He was against censorship & religion, and he embraced science, particularly Darwinism, but he was an isolationist and opposed wellfare. Today, he would probably be a Libertarian.
Not only does the crowd look all alike, so do their heroes:
OReilly
Beck
Gingrich
Hannity
Cheney
Ailes
This is seriously little more than a "gang" of old, fat, frightened, arrogant white men who really want to put on powdered wigs and be served by the coloreds.
Good for Keith. He is sometimes over the top with his commentaries but this was on the money. Too bad it won't shame the rest of the media into some sense of reporting in full context what is going on with this group.
The NY Times has a front-page piece today that treats these poor, mis-guided fools with sympathy as if it were kind of cute that lost older women and others get "all excited about standing up for their country." They will even buddy up with militia members so they can fight for what is "right."
I bet the baggers are mostly the older frustrated Paultards - a very racist bunch of kooks.
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
the pics of the audience at the Palin TP speech were all balding and gray (and white).
are neocons not libertarians. And for the record Glenn Beck is definately GOP insider scum positioned to re-capture any opposition conservative voices.
is to look and act like an ass so the left will dismiss REAL conservatives out of hand. It's a two-pronged approach.
If the idiot tea baggers ever figure out who really is screwing them (GOP), god help those corporate fascists.
Unfortunately, I'm not getting those vibes.
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
UNTIL these questions that Olbermann raises are answered, ALL Tea Parties have instantly become American Ku Klux Klan rallies and should be viewed that way. If the cross burning begins, then people start going to jail.
Yes, I think you're right as rain.
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
Agreed. See my earlier comment about the similarities between the KKK and the TP.
Bra-vo.
...let's give this voter literacy test more thought...
http://www.prosebeforehos.com/image-of-the-da...
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/resources/2008...
http://www.pensitoreview.com/2010/01/04/photo...
understand what draws people to what are called "tea party" events.
Like pop, I grew up in the segregated south in a family of highly prejudiced adults, whose attitudes included bigotry based on race, class, religion and a host of hated "others."
Olbermann starts from the premise of trying to analyzing what motivates their fear, instead of analyzing how their fear is manifested. I think fear is the promblem. Racism is a symptom.
Clearly what you see in the current tea party aspect of this show is the racist angle. They would not be doing this in the form it is taking without a black President. But the fear is there and it is to be played upon by those cynical enough to want to profit from it.
"Folks, this is not your father's Republican Party."
Joe Biden
There may be some fear, but I think anger is the driving force. Like I said up thread, they have lost their white superiority and that's the country they want back. The country where being white was superior to all else.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
my pissy one.
"Folks, this is not your father's Republican Party."
Joe Biden
"But the fear is there and it is to be played upon by those cynical enough to want to profit from it."
From an email:
I CANNOT AND WILL NOT SUPPORT HIM JUST BECAUSE HE IS BLACK. I OWE MY ALLEGIANCE FIRST TO GOD AND COUNTRY, NOT TO A MAN OR MY RACE! HELP ME GET THIS MESSAGE OUT TO ALL THE OTHER RIGHT THINKING BLACK PEOPLE WHO ARE PERSECUTED FOR DISAGREEING WITH OBAMA. HELP ME TO LET THEM KNOW THAT THEY NEED NOT BE SILENT! WE WILL STAND WITH THEM!... Bishop E.W. Jackson is President of STAND... -- Staying True to America's National Destiny.
Study the symptoms not the virus...
The book Idiot America by Charles Pierce has helped me gain some perspective as to what the Tea Party Movement is all about. I kept asking myself how these people can believe the disproven non-sense that they spew. I kept wondering why Palin's demonstrably false claims about the Obama Administration were embraced by Tea Partiers when proven false over and over. For those that are interested, this book is worth the read.
Btw,, I have no interest in promoting this book other than I believe that it is germane to the topic.
I disagree with everything the teabag party stands for. I do not like those who have latched on to the movement (Beck, et al) but I can not help noticing through all these messages that we are as prejudiced against teabaggers as they may be against those who are not like them.
Despite being progressive I too am afraid. I really don't have much hope for this country. Politically, there are two parties: the one that cares but has no balls and the other....the party that wants only power and, even in the minority, has the balls to fight. When some group emerges that cares about people and has the balls to stand up for what's right, I will again support them. Until then, I have more in common with teabaggers than any other Group.
with some Caucasian mixed in. I don't see why I shouldn't be prejudiced against teabaggers when they lap up every word of what Tom Tancredo said, which was clearly race-baiting against at least one minority group I belong to, as well as race-baiting against other minority groups.
I have nothing of value in common with them. They hate me because I'm young, literate, Latina, and an Obama voter. I hate them not because they are old, poorly educated, white, Republicans, I hate them because they are racist. Huge difference there.
"The greatest tyranny is censoring information in order to be better able to control people." - Cristina Saralegui
Tea parties is a major joke
One of Olbermann's best commentaries. Maybe the best, becasue it involves seeing both deep trained thoughs and seeing globely, simultaneously, and thus to see and feel and think with a part of the mind and heart that has been reborn.
we won't see the end of prejudice in our lifetimes. It'll be dilluted over generations. Many who are don't know it. My grandparents had it bad but knew no other way. My Parents think they are above it but are very- very prejudiced. I know I am above it but find myself slipping, my siblings are about the same, the Republican ones I worry about. My 8 year old daughter is amazingly color blind thanks to a public school system that I insist on rather than a religious(racist) school setting. Living in the northeast I'd say we are a generation or two ahead of some whites in other parts of the country. We have to realize this will be a long time coming and the incremental improvements will have to be lived with. The Tea Baggers ARE those that are generationally behind so they feel threatened as the world passes them by. WE need to tolerate the ignorance and try to show them the error of their thinking, some will understand, most won't but they will ultimately die off. The evolution they deny is leaving them behind.
Freedom Evolves.
The button is another issue...
Study the symptoms not the virus...
I think Keith is spot on. The tea party activity I see in Northern California is definitely white and is more anti-immigration (and of course anti-tax). Of course, they don't see it as racism - no they claim it is about enforcing the law. So, when I ask "How would you go about enforcing immigration laws? I ask for details... Would we go after big businesses hiring illegal immigrants first? How would we handle the children of these illegal immigrants if they were American citizens? Should we pass a law denying citizenship to children born of illegal immigrants in the US? Do we require all citizens to carry proof of their citizenship on them at all times and then hire INS officials to check? They never have a good answer for me. They ramble on about a fence to keep out illegal immigrants. I counter with "What should the fence be constructed of? How many new agents do we hire to patrol the fence? Where will the money come from? Are you willing to pay a new tax to pay for this enforcement? They never have answers, but these are the questions that need to be asked.
Progressives all over the country need to stand up and start demanding answers from these "tea partiers" and their "leaders" in the Repuglican party. Maybe then we can actually start a real conversation about immigration, taxes, race, whatever.
Ever notice how irons have a setting for permanent press? I don't get it.
Steven Wright
so it is the teapartier's fault that almost no black people attend? and not only that, it makes them racist?
what a bunch of nonsense. olberman might have a point if there wasn't another very good explanation that there are very few black people there:
most of them voted for obama.
I would have a hard time protesting against someone who I voted for a few months ago, too.
even if I thought I was misled a few months ago.
to oppose Obama period, forget his actual policies. They embrace Latino haters in their midst. None of it goes unnoticed by people of color, and it's why those amongst us who may hate Obama's policies are nonetheless repelled by tea party racism and will not go near the movement with a 50 ft. pole.
"The greatest tyranny is censoring information in order to be better able to control people." - Cristina Saralegui
His agrgument of racism would be much more valid had he shown that "people of color" were at least discouraged from joining. You will find few in places like comic book conventions or even crooksandliars.com.
That's probably racist.
I think the signs being held up there, as well as previous ones depicting offensive imagery, are proof enough of that.
Somehow I can't picture Spike Lee and Malcolm X relaxing together over a steaming cup of Lady Grey with lady fingers, and a Bach string quartet.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Lady Grey and Bach are elitist, remember! :P They are more the Budweiser and Toby Keith types...
"The greatest tyranny is censoring information in order to be better able to control people." - Cristina Saralegui
How about some m****r f*****g iced tea?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
The anger arises from the fear. Civil rights advanced in the 60'2 because the economy was good enough that a black man getting a job did not mean a white man lost his.
How often do you hear a teabagger type complain about an immigrant taking a job that HE wanted? No, he wouldn't be willing to labor in the fields or cut fish. So he complains that they don't pay taxes, ignoring the fact that their taxes are deducted but they don't file to get refunds.
9/11 intensified the fear of "the Other," and the selfrighteous mythology that we have done nothing to incur such hostility. ("They hate us for our freedoms.")
Two things are needed. !. Address the fears driving American belligerance. 2. Entertainment, especially movies and TV dramas that humanize those that are feared. That's why "social conservatives" hated "Brokeback Mountain." It portrayed same-sex love realisticly, instead of as a perversion.
Similarly, fear drives al Quaida. They see western culture threatening they way they have lived for centuries. They are insanely threatened by the sight of a woman's body, so it must be covered up. Fear of the power of a woman to tempt a man, so they don't learn to control themselves, but hide the temptation.
Granted that American men can get pretty insane over a woman's body, but we aren't provoked to rape by a gal wearing pants.
Agreed, but I would change the third paragraph to one that challenges political correctness, and of course, that I have never heard of a concerted conservative response to "Brokeback Mountain".
I am not saying there were no comments from the right and even possibly of any Black-Californians who opposed the gay- marraige issue. Sorry, same sex...
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