Flannel Shirt

Racist finds out he's 14% black

It's really not that surprising. Follow the link for pictures and a video.

The white supremacist attempting to turn a small North Dakotan town into a ‘white enclave’ has undergone a DNA test which proves he is of Sub-Saharan African heritage, MailOnline can reveal.

Craig Cobb, 62, submitted to the test as part of The Trisha Show’s ongoing Race in America series and was given the results of the DNA Diagnostics test by the host, Trisha Goddard, to the whoops of her studio audience.

On hearing the results Cobb, who insists he is not a white supremacist but a Creator, a religion which favours ‘racial awareness’, immediately dismissed the news that genetically he is 14 per cent Sub Saharan African, 86 per cent European, as ‘statistical noise.’

War, or the threat of it, is what the residents of Leith fear, Cobb has brought to their doors.

His plans for the tiny North Dakotan town of Leith came to light earlier this summer. Then, amid a fury of local and national reaction, it emerged that the wild-haired eccentric who had been living in the town for more than a year, was a hate crimes fugitive who had quietly bought up lots of land with the intention of turning the community into a haven for white supremacists.

But now, after an immediate flurry of rallies and town meetings, residents fear they are powerless to halt the man whose plans they regard as ‘pure evil,' and who has put up a sign condemning their town as  'The Village of the Damned.'

Since his plans were exposed, they say, he has goaded and harassed them in an attempt to provoke them into violence and open the way for him to bring charges or a civil suit.

The town’s only bi-racial couple Sherrill and Bobby Harper have come under particular pressure. Bobby is the only black man in town. A note pinned to the couple’s door recently read: ‘What are you doing “married” to a Negro?’ and demanded Sherill leave her husband and ‘join Mr Cobb’s movement.’

Two weeks ago Mr Cobb confronted the Harpers on The Trisha Show, demeaning their relationship with the words: ‘She has her pet you see.’

Speaking to MailOnline Mr Harper was philosophical and dignified. He said he was 'better' than Cobb but expressed his belief that the situation was 'going to get worse.'

In an interview with MailOnline Mr Cobb referred to African Americans as ‘jungle bunnies’ and ‘Orks’ and said that black people were: ‘Strolling biological early warning devices. They look bad, they sound bad and often times they smell bad.’

In what he referred to as a ‘better world where we are in charge,’ he said that all black immigrants to America would be instructed on arrival: ‘If you try to have sex with our white handmaidens we will hang you.’

He used profoundly offensive racist and mysogynistic language saying he was 'very proud' to do so as he regarded the terms as 'holy words' enshrined in the 'White Man's Bible,' in which, as a Creator, he believes.

In a recent town meeting Cobb singled out Leith town councilman Lee Cook, 49, the founder of the town’s Legal Defense Fund established to pay for their fight against Cobb.

Thirteen years ago Mr Cook’s 17 year old daughter, Crystal was murdered by the then boyfriend of his ex-wife. Now remarried and with three children by second wife Heather, his move to Leith was, in part, a bid to escape the painful associations of the Washington town in which the murder took place.

Cobb suggested that Mr Cook was in some way responsible for his daughter’s death. According to Mr Cook: ‘He hoped to get me to beat him up so that he could sue me. He wants to look like the victim but this is all his doing.

‘It was an evil attempt by a demented individual to aggravate me.’

Today Mr Cook sleeps with a loaded by his side and has bought his wife a firearm.

In a desperate bit to prevent Cobb from fulfilling his dream in Leith, the town council have voted through a string or ordinances putting a moratorium on building, instituting standards of potable water and sewerage and prohibiting anyone living in a trailer on Leith land for more than 10 days straight. 

But ultimately, Mayor Ryan Schock, 38, admitted: ‘We don’t know what comes next.’

One family of White supremacists have already responded to Cobb’s call for followers and have moved into his ramshackle home on what passes for the town’s main street.

Kynan and Deborah Dutton, both 28, moved to Leith from Oregon on 23 September. Their five children aged between 11 and four are home-schooled by former teacher, Deborah.

Dutton, a Marine Corps veteran who served in the Iraq war in 2004 and 2005 is proud to call himself Cobb’s Sergeant in Arms. He puts flags, including that of the Third Reich, The National Socialist Movement, and one symbolising the right to bear arms, in front of Cobb’s home each day.

He takes them in at night because, he said: ‘The native Americans are notorious for coming and stealing them.’

With just 16 residents in the town Cobb is confident that his bid to outnumber the locals with his followers and take over the council will succeed.

He claims another family is on their way and has threatened to bring member of the ‘hard core Aryan Nations’ group to the town and ex-convicts who have ‘been in Federal prison for 20 years.’

He said: ‘We will become the majority there is no doubt. Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for Leith.’

Hostages

An excellent essay about what this is all about. I've always said that racism is a means to an end. The author agrees.

When I have described the well-considered, coherent political and economic strategies of the conservative white South, as I have done here, here and here, I am sometimes been accused of being a “conspiracy theorist.” But one need not believe that white-hooded Dragons and Wizards are secretly coordinating the actions of Southern conservative politicians from a bunker underneath Stone Mountain in Georgia to believe that a number of contemporary policies — from race-to-the-bottom economic policies to voter disfranchisement and attempts to decentralize or privatize federal social insurance entitlements — serve the interests of those who promote them, who tend to be white Southern conservatives.

Just as a strategy is not a conspiracy, so it is not insanity. Ironically, American progressives, centrists and some Northern conservatives are only deluding themselves, when they insist that the kind of right-wing Southerners behind the government shutdown are “crazy.” Crazy, yes — crazy like a fox.

Another mistake is the failure to recognize that the Southern elite strategy, though bound up with white supremacy throughout history, is primarily about cheap and powerless labor, not about race. If the South and the U.S. as a whole through some magical transformation became racially homogeneous tomorrow, there is no reason to believe that the Southern business and political class would suddenly embrace a new model of political economy based on high wages, high taxes and centralized government, rather than pursue its historical model of a low-wage, low-tax, decentralized system, even though all workers, employers and investors now shared a common skin color.

So the struggle is not one to convert Southern Baptists to Darwinism or to get racists to celebrate diversity. The on-going power struggle between the local elites of the former Confederacy and their allies in other regions and the rest of the United States is not primarily about personal attitudes. It is about power and wealth.

For some time, the initiative has rested with the Southern power elite, which knows what it wants and has a plan to get it. The strategy of the conservative South, as a nation-within-a nation and in the global economy, combines an economic strategy and a political strategy.

The economic strategy is to maximize the attractiveness of the former Confederacy to external investors, by allowing Southern states to out-compete other states in the U.S., as well as other countries if possible, in a race to the bottom by means of low wages, stingy government welfare (which if generous increases the bargaining power of poor workers by decreasing their desperation) and low levels of environmental regulation.

The political strategy of the Southern elite is to prevent the Southern victims of these local economic policies from teaming up with allies in other parts of the U.S. to impose federal-level reforms on the Southern states. Voter suppression seeks to prevent voting by lower-income Southerners of all races who are hostile to the Southern power elite. Partisan gerrymandering of the U.S. House of Representatives by conservatives in Southern state legislatures weakens the votes of anti-conservative Southerners, if they are allowed to vote.

If voter suppression and vote dilution strategies fail, the Southern conservatives can still try to ward off unwelcome federally-imposed reforms that might weaken control of the Southern workforce by Southern employers and their political agents, by policies of devolving federal programs to the states, privatizing federal programs like Social Security and Medicare, blocking the implementation of new federal entitlements like Obamacare or a combination of these strategies.

To date the response of progressives and centrists, as well as moderate conservatives in the North (who have a quite different tradition) to what might be called the Southern Autonomy Project has been feeble and reactive. The South acts, the rest of the country reacts.

Here Midwestern Republican legislatures or governors try to copy the South’s anti-labor “right-to-work” legislation, and labor activists and liberals react.  The legislatures in the South and their allies elsewhere pass voter suppression laws, and civil rights groups scramble to counteract them. Now the Southern-dominated Tea Party in the House shuts down the government and threatens to force the federal government into default. In this game of “Whack-a-mole,” the Southern right and its neo-Jacksonian allies in other parts of the country always has the initiative.

Instead of waiting for the next Southern conservative outrage, and treating it as a single, isolated example of inexplicable craziness, the rest of America from center-left to center-right should recognize that it is dealing with different aspects of a single strategy by a regional elite — the Southern Autonomy Project. It is time for the non-Southern American majority, in alliance with many non-elite Southerners of all races, to target and attack every element of the Southern Autonomy Project simultaneously. If the neo-Confederates want to wage political and economic war, their fellow Americans should choose to respond with political and economic war on all fronts, not on the terms and in the places the Southern conservatives choose.

Setting political difficulty aside, it is intellectually easy to set forth a grand national strategy that consists of coordinated federal policies to defeat the Southern Autonomy Project.

A federal living wage.  At one blow, a much higher federal minimum wage would cripple the ability of Southern states to lure companies from more generous states which supplement the too-low present federal minimum wage with higher local state or urban minimum wages.  (Strong national unions could do the same, but that is not a realistic option at present.)

Nationalization of social insurance.  Social insurance programs with both federal and state components, like Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), allow Southern states to be stingier than many other states, creating more desperate workers who are more dependent on the mercy of employers and elite-dominated charities. Completely federalizing Medicaid (as President Ronald Reagan suggested!) and other hybrid federal-state social insurance programs would cripple the Southern Autonomy Project further.

Real voting rights.  Using the authority of the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Congress should completely federalize voting requirements for all federal, state and local elections, making it as easy as possible for U.S. citizens to vote — over the objections of kicking and screaming neo-Confederates.

Nonpartisan redistricting.  Partisan redistricting by majorities in state legislatures should be replaced by nonpartisan redistricting commissions, as in California, New Jersey and other states.  The redistricting commissions should be truly nonpartisan, not “bipartisan” arrangements in which incumbent Republicans and incumbent Democrats cut deals to protect their safe seats from competition. (Electoral reforms like instant run-off voting and proportional representation are struggles for a more distant future).

Abolish the Senate filibuster.  The filibuster is not part of the U.S. constitution. It has been used by Southern white conservatives from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first to preserve Southern white power and economic privilege. This relic of premodern  British parliamentary politics should be abolished. Democracy means majority rule. If the Southern Right loses a battle in Congress, it can try to round up allies and win next time. It should no longer be able to paralyze the Senate, the Congress or the federal government as a whole.

Abolish the federal debt ceiling completely.  The federal debt ceiling is another institution like the filibuster which has now been ruined by being abused by Southern conservatives. Now that the Southern right is trying to turn it into a recurrent tool of hostage-taking when it loses votes in Congress, the federal debt ceiling should be abolished. The federal government should be authorized to borrow any amount necessary to fund spending appropriated or authorized by Congress, if there is any shortfall in tax revenues.

Put all these policies and perhaps others together, and you have a National Majority Rule Project capable of thwarting the Southern Autonomy Project. The best defense is a good offense.

Does saying this make me, a white Southerner, a traitor to the South? Among the beneficiaries of a National Majority Rule Project, if it succeeded, would be middle- and low-income white Southerners, whose interests have never been identical with those of the local oligarchs. Particularly among the Scots-Irish of Appalachia and the Ozarks, there have always been many Southern white populists and radicals — from the West Virginian and Kentucky Unionists of the Civil War to New Deal liberals in Texas — who have understood the need to ally ourselves with non-Southerners in national politics to defeat the local Nabobs, Bourbons and Big Mules. The true Southern patriots are those of us who want to liberate the diverse population of the South from being exploited as wage earners and from being disfranchised or manipulated as voters. Another term for the National Majority Rule Project might be the Southern Liberation Movement.

Will the initiative remain with aggressive Southern reactionaries, as their fellow Americans try to appease them or react on a case-by-case basis against a feint here or a diversion there? Or will an aroused national majority, tired of being pushed around by a selfish Southern minority of the shrinking American white majority, finally fight back?

Today's KKK

Interesting photo essay about today's KKK.

Jason Whitlock says something sensible

About Riley Cooper.

Riley Cooper, a receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles, did and said something very, very stupid and disgusting. Drunk and partying in a sea of whiteness, Cooper apparently lashed out at a black security guard and threatened to "fight every n****r here".

A cellphone camera captured Cooper’s ignorance. It took a month, but the blogosphere unearthed the video and broadcast it to the world. The Eagles reacted responsibly, fining Cooper and forcing him to confront his mistake publicly with the media and privately with his teammates.

I don’t expect the media to respond as responsibly. Too many of us will think the solution is for NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to suspend Riley Cooper. Too many of us will think Riley Cooper in no way reflects on all of us.

Well, I’ve been young, drunk, filled with athletic testosterone and partying in a sea of blackness. I’m glad there were no cellphone cameras then. I’ve been middle-aged, drunk, filled with non-athletic cholesterol and partying in a sea of blackness. I’m glad no one recorded the foolish thoughts I’ve uttered when I assumed no one around me would be offended.

Maybe most of the people working in the media are perfect, immune to impure, biased thoughts or actions. I’m not. And no one I know is. What happens with age and maturity is we get better at combatting our biases and keeping them from spilling out of our mouths. When we intellectually evolve, we get better at seeing the stupidity of our biases and not letting them dictate our actions.

I’m extremely distrustful of anyone who claims they’re free of biases. They’re dishonest or delusional.

For the most part, Riley Cooper handled his apology flawlessly. He forthrightly expressed the proper remorse and humbly answered every question.

“This is the lowest of lows,” Cooper said. “This is not the type of person I want to be portrayed as. This isn’t the type of person I am. I’m extremely sorry.”

There’s no room for Cooper to be totally honest. The media — social and legitimate — won’t allow Cooper to be transparent. What was captured on tape is a reflection of what type of person Cooper is.

He’s flawed. He’s a product of America’s conflicted melting pot. That is not a knock on America. We have racial issues because we’re the most diverse nation on the planet. We have trouble working through those issues because dishonesty and simple-mindedness are rewarded.

Like all of us, Riley Cooper is biased. He needs to admit that to himself so he can adequately combat his biases and be a force for positive change.

I used to be proudly homophobic. I used the F-word regularly. In 1998, while sitting in the New England Patriots press box, I got in a back-and-forth exchange with Pats fans and cracked a “joke” that ended with me asking, “Drew Bledsoe gay?”

The ensuing controversy started the process of me recognizing and realizing the utter ignorance of my homophobia. I used to be offended when people analogized the struggle for gay equality with black people’s struggle for equality. I now get it and understand their struggle benefits our struggle and the overall fight for fairness.

I hope Cooper is allowed to evolve. I hope we don’t demonize him to the point that he becomes John Rocker II and more entrenched in bigotry. I hope Cooper confronts who he is. He didn’t threaten to fight every n****r because there’s no bigotry in his heart and mind. He did it because he has failed to deal with who he really is.

He’s in the same denial most of us are in. I’m talking about all of us — black, white, brown and yellow.

I want to make one other point before I finish. Cooper’s transgression isn’t much of a locker-room issue for the Eagles. There are bigots of every color on sports teams. The beauty of sports is that teams force participants to put aside their biases and work together. Working together is different from liking or respecting each other.

Cooper isn’t a coach or executive with the power to hire and fire people based on his racial biases. Cooper is a player. He’s a 25-year-old kid with immature thoughts. His teammates will move on as long as he plays at a high level.

Racial slurs fly on football fields somewhat regularly. It’s a violent game that brings out the worst in people. My junior season at Ball State, I played against a white Northern Illinois defensive tackle who N-bombed me most of the afternoon. I kept shouting at his mostly black defensive teammates about why they would tolerate such a flaming idiot. The next year, the same guy was the most courteous opponent I played against all season.

Let’s help Cooper evolve and mature. We might be surprised by the results.

 

But demanding they tap dance bojangles-style between courses was the final straw

Here.

Paula Deen ordered African-American workers to “dress in an old-style Aunt Jemima outfit” and ring a dinner bell, according to a woman who is still employed at the disgraced cook’s Georgia restaurant.

Following Deen’s dramatic fall from grace after her admission that she had used racial slurs, The New York Times‘ Kim Severson went to Savannah to check out the former food network host’s crumbling empire. Severson spoke to Dora Charles, a black cook who helped Deen open her Lady & Sons restaurant over 20 years ago.

“She said, ‘Stick with me, one day if I get rich, you’ll get rich,’” Charles explained. “It just passed me by. You know, I’m not going to run behind her and say, ‘You promised me, you promised me. Where my half? Where my part?’ You know? It wasn’t all about that. Actually, all I was looking for was a good salary.”

But Charles said that when Deen launched her Food Network show, she was was only getting paid $6.50 an hour.

“I told her, at times, I didn’t even have enough money to buy my own medications,” she recalled, demonstrating how Deen once casually tossed a $100 bill at her when she complained that she couldn’t afford her medical bills.

“She was sitting across the table and she said — it didn’t reach me — and she said, ‘Here’s a hundred dollars, go buy your medicine.’”

Severson noted that Deen had admitted during a May 17 deposition that she had wanted to dress waiters likes slaves for a Southern-style wedding.

“Yeah, she wanted [Employee Ineata Jones] ‘Jellyroll’ to dress like that as well,” Charles remarked.

And the slavery theme wasn’t just limited to Deen’s wedding fantasy, according to the Times:

Ms. Deen used Ms. Jones for restaurant theater. At 11 a.m., when the doors opened at the Lady & Sons, she stood in front and rang an iron dinner bell, something she had asked Mrs. Charles to do as well. An image of Ms. Jones doing just that was turned into a postcard sold at Paula Deen stores.

Ms. Jones was also in charge of making hoecakes, the cornmeal pancakes served to every guest. Ms. Deen had designed a station so diners could watch them being made. At both jobs, Mrs. Charles and other employees said, Ms. Deen wanted Ms. Jones to dress in an old-style Aunt Jemima outfit.

“Jellyroll didn’t want to hear that,” Mrs. Charles said. “She didn’t want to do that.”

“I said, ‘I’m not ringing no bell,’” Charles insisted. “That’s a symbol to me of what we used to do back in the day.”

“Do you feel like Paul Deen is racist?” Severson wondered.

“I do, I do,” Charles admitted after a long pause.

“Have you ever heard Paul Deen use the N-word?” Severson asked.

“I’ve heard her used the N-word,” Charles replied. “She say, ‘I tell all y’all n*ggers, that’s what’s wrong with y’all n*ggers now today.’”

Deen’s public relations team has argued that no employee was ever made to dress up like Aunt Jemima and ring a dinner bell.

“Fundamentally Dora’s complaint is not about race but about money,” they said in a statement. “It is about an employee that despite over 20 years of generosity feels that she still deserves yet even more financial support from Paula Deen.”

Both the Times and and New York Magazine, however, obtained promotional photos from Lady & Sons of Ineata Jones wearing an Aunt Jemima-style apron and ringing a dinner bell.

At the time of publication, Charles was reportedly still employed by Deen’s Lady & Sons restaurant, but she said she realized that her time there was almost over. She hopes to one day open her own restaurant.

Should we stone Paula Deen?

God Spam, a religious blog I check in with occasionally, has an article up about what to do with Paula Deen. 

In reality none of us really have to do anything. But it's an interesting take on the public discourse.

Did you guys see that Today Show interview with Paula Deen? The one where she looks directly into the camera and urges us to throw a big stone at her head and kill her? Yeah. I think we need to talk about that.

Here's what Deen, who is hemorrhaging money in the face of revelations that she's kind of a big racist, actually said. "If there's anyone out there that have never said something that they wish they could take back. If you're out there please pick up that stone and throw it so hard at my head that it kills me. Please, I want to meet you. I is what I is, and I'm not changing."

The celebrity chef is a Baptist, and she's quoting (sort of) John 8:7.This is the story in which Jesus tells an angry mob to stop stoning awoman to death for committing adultery. Except he doesn't tell them to stop. What he says is, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." And one by one, they walk away.

There are quite a few interesting things going on with this passage. First of all, it should be noted that many scholars don't believe it waspart of John's original text. There's decent evidence on both sides. It's possible, though, that this story was apocryphal, taken from another source and applied to Jesus. It's a pretty tidy anecdote with a good punchline. You can almost picture it popping up on the ancient Middle Eastern version of Snopes. 

Nevertheless, it's one of the most-quoted things Jesus ever said. Thephrase "cast the first stone" is still in common usage, alongside with its secular descendent, "people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." 

I say it's one of the most-quoted things Jesus ever said. I should clarify: we actually don't know everything that Jesus said in John 8.

Before and after he says the thing about stones, Jesus is writing on the ground. In fact, that's his immediate reaction to the situation: he bendsdown and starts writing with his finger in the sand. The men then start "questioning" him, according to John. Eventually, Jesus stands -- or just looks up, depending on your translation -- and questions whether they should be throwing stones. Then he goes back to writing, and the dudes decide to leave the poor woman alone.

What was Jesus writing? Nobody knows! This is the only time in theBible we see it happen. Some scholars believe he is drawing, not writing, since a peasant from Nazareth would probably not have known how to read. (Depends how much time you believe he spent in the temple, I guess.)  Often it's suggested that it's the act of writing that's important, not the content; it denotes divine authority, much like God inscribing the Ten Commandments. Another popular theory: he was re-writing the words of a prophecy, specifically Jeremiah 17:3. The obvious theory, perhaps, is that he was writing down the sins of the men with the stones. Or the sins of the woman, in order to forgive her. Or both.  

(Another important bit of context: we're told that this situation Jesus finds himself in, is a "test" from the Pharisees who are seeking an excuse to lock him up. It was a Catch-22: if he said that the woman should be killed, he would be undermining the authority of the Roman government, because Jews didn't have the right to enforce this penalty. If he objected, he'd be in violation of the Hebrew law -- the law of Moses -- which ordered adulterers to be stoned. But Jesus did something they couldn't have predicted: neither.)

With her plea to the Today Show audience, Paula Deen is casting herself in the role of the woman. (Forgot to mention that this woman is often interpreted as being the prostitute Mary Magdalene. There's no concrete textual evidence for that, though. Back to you, Matt Lauer!) Deen is saying, "I made a mistake. I said something I shouldn't have. If you've never done it, you can cast the first stone." She is begging for mercy. And yet she concludes her statement by saying, "I is what I is and I'm not changing."

What makes me uncomfortable is how heavily Deen is playing the victim card.  In our modern eyes, Jesus stopped the stone-throwers from delivering an outsized punishment, and a judgement that only God could pass down. Paula Deen lost a sausage endorsement after years ofracist behavior. Doesn't seem like the most over-the-top punishment to me. 

Also, she didn't seem at all apologetic about using the N-word until she started losing money over it. She still doesn't seem especially sorry for her actions, or aware of why people were hurt by them. There's no forgiveness without repentance. Maybe that's why her apologies all ring hollow.

In another sense, though, the moral of John 8 applies. Jesus is saying that people have no right to judge what only God can judge. As a culture, we are so quick to condemn celebrities who are accused of wrongdoing, and for the most part, we do not forgive. I'm sure Paula Deen is experiencing a fan backlash that's wildly disproportionate to the crime, because that's the norm these days. "I'll never buy a Paula Deen cookbook again" is a reasonable fan response. Tweeting "Paula Deen needs to die" is not. No wonder she's feeling persecuted.

So WWJD about Paula Deen? In the story, he tells the adulteress that he doesn't condemn her, saying, "go, and sin no more." If I were Paula Deen's shoes, I'd take that as a cue to cut my losses (go) and rethink the way I treat other people (sin no more). But I'm not a diabetic Southernchef, and that's why I don't plan on picking up any stones. 

The stupidest man in Washington, DC

Louis Gohmert.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) knows that Republicans may lose some votes at first after the party kills immigration reform, but he is predicting that Hispanics will then wake up and realize that “Republicans really like me.”

In an effort to block all efforts at comprehensive immigration reform, Gohmert joined with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Rep. Steve King (R-IA) to explain to the conservative website World Net Daily why so-called “amnesty” would be bad for the country.

Gohmert said that Republicans needed to make it clear to immigrants that comprehensive reform was being stopped to “preserve a country that Hispanics will want to come to.”

“If we are not willing to follow the law, we’re going to lose that, and I’m afraid that people do not realize how serious things have gotten,” the Texas congressman said. “But, yeah, we could possibly pay in the polls in the short term. But just as you’ve had more and more African-Americans realizing, ‘Wow, we have one party that’s pandered to us, doled out government benefits, kept us from reaching our God-given potential.’”

Republicans, however, Gohmert said, wanted Hispanics to learn English “because we want you not to be a ditch digger because you can’t communicate. We know you are smart enough to be president of this company and to be president of this country if you’re born here.”

“And if we don’t communicate that message we could pay for it,” he warned. “We could in the short term, but in the long term, I think you will see people start waking up and go, ‘Wow, I’m Hispanic, these Republicans really like me.’”

3 things

Is the South more racist than the North?

The short answer is yes.

The New York Times recently ran a story describing the Savannah, Ga., defenders of Paula Deen. Deen, of course, is the recently disgraced television chef who was fired by the Food Network due to her admissions of casually using racial slurs and planning an antebellum plantation-themed wedding for her brother. The Times’ story is laden with quotes from a number of white Southern patrons of Deen’s restaurant offering defenses of their region and some barbs for their Northern critics. For example,

“Everybody in the South over 60 used the N-word at some time or the other in the past.”

“I don’t understand why some people can use [the N-word] and others can’t.”

“We have lived with each other and loved each other here for a long time. Sometimes I think there is more prejudice in the North than there is in the South.”

So what’s the story? Few would question that the South was home to some of the world’s most virulent white racism just a few decades ago, but similarly, few would doubt that the region has made tremendous strides to overcome that legacy. Is there still more prejudice in the South than in the North?

Political scientists and pollsters used to have an easier time identifying bigots in surveys; Americans were once very upfront about their discomfort, distrust and even hatred toward people of other races. Over the past half-century or so, though, a social desirability effect has become apparent. Even if a person fundamentally dislikes members of another race, he knows not to say this publicly, or even in response to a private survey. It’s simply not part of the acceptable parlance anymore. But that doesn’t mean racial animus has disappeared.

Political psychologists instead look for evidence of “symbolic” racism. These are instances of individuals using code words that tend to indicate racial animus without being overtly racist themselves. For example, a white person might complain about immigrants, welfare queens, food stamp recipients — populations that are disproportionately racial minorities and portrayed as unjustly taking something from other Americans — but still deny that they have any problem with non-whites. (For a rich example of this, see Newt Gingrich’s exchange with Juan Williams during the 2012 Republican presidential primary debates.) Oh, and if you’re complaining that you aren’t allowed to use the N-word while other people get to? You just might be a symbolic racist.

Follow the link to read the whole article.

I'm really embarrassed

A relative of mine on a social media site linked to a very racist, ignorant webpage. It's embarrassing. Here's a sample:

Apparently, there are still people, I'm presuming mostly older white people living in the former Confederacy, who think that Obama was born in Kenya. Many think he is an anti-Christ (although at the site there was some disagreement on when the end times were coming), that he wants to take away their guns and all sorts of other crazy things. For example, Paula Deen didn't get fired from the Food Network because she was oblivious to events of the last fifty years regarding race and society and was saying offensive things that hurt the network's ratings, but rather because her high-calorie recipes offended the First Lady. Actually, the website didn't use "First Lady" but an offensive term which I won't repeat here.

When I was in the army at the end of the Vietnam War I was stationed at Fort Devens in Massachusetts. I was a clerk but was temporarily assigned to the Headquarters on base to help with a race relations program the army was instituting then. Racial tensions were boiling in the military and someone in Washington decided it would be a good idea to spread some sensitivity and understanding among the troops.  When I returned to my job in personnel the warrant officer in charge of my unit was extremely cool to me. He wouldn't release me to work full-time for race relations because I was "too valuable" but as soon as he saw the opportunity he moved me to an engineering battalion to be their company clerk. The base commander plucked me up within a week and assigned me as an instructor with the race relations program. 

During the week I was in the engineering company I had to pull CQ duty one Saturday. CQ means "charge of quarters" and by definition means defending the base or something, but it really meant that I sat in the battalion headquarters and answered the phone while everyone was off for the weekend. Someone must have known of my teaching role because the desk where I was assigned was covered with racist literature. I moved it all to the side and did my shift. A week later I was reassigned to the base headquarters and finished my active duty in the army as an instructor in race relations. 

That was forty years ago, in 1973.

1973 was the last of George W. Bush's six years he contracted to serve in the Air Force National Guard. While I was in Fort Devens George W. Bush was in Harvard's Business School forty miles to the east. He wasn't attending National Guard meetings. He hadn't done that for quite awhile. He wasn't excused from his commitment. No, he was AWOL. Actually, when you're AWOL over thirty days you're considered a deserter, but when your dad is a rich man with powerful political connections someone somewhere papers over that kind of thing. 

At some point during his time in the National Guard, before he stopped going to meetings and doing his service commitment, he was relieved of flying. Why? There's some evidence that he had lost his nerve. Then again, there was some evidence that he couldn't pass the drug test. There is no evidence that Obama ate a dog while he was growing up. 

So what do I do? Do I ignore the racism and ignorance this relative is spreading around? Mostly, that's what I do. But sometimes I can't. I'm embarrassed for my relative. But at this late stage in our lives there is nothing I can do to change her. 

It's too bad because there are plenty of things to discuss politically. I've got plenty of complaints about the Obama Administration, but when my relative deals in fantastic, insane fear-mongering instead of what's actually happening in Washington, D.C. there really is no point of engaging in a dialogue. The shame of it all is that she is now at an age where she is dependent on things like Social Security and she keeps voting for the same people who keep voting to cut it. (Really, look at Paul Ryan's budget that the Republicans passed in the House.)

These two illustrations, and many more, were at that website. It's not just the "media" that calls Obama the President. It is a majority of the voters, the Electoral College, and it's the rest of the world. Except for those living in the Confederacy of the Mind.