When losing, play the race card

It's not a surprise that many Americans are so race-conscious.

Schools have been touting ethnic pride as a noble goal for years in the belief that minorities will engage more if they emphasize and celebrate their roots. It's no surpise they turn out race-focused individuals.

Affirmative action advocates have with some success sought to privilege college students and contractors of color while denying a chance at fair competition to whites.

The media trump up any incident involving a person of color and the police. Born trouble-maker Rodney King got beat for his inability to obey laws and follow police orders, not because he was black. But the media forced the race card on us. Professor Gates forgets to take his valium one day, screeches racism when a decent cop tries to protect his home for him, and then we have to have a televised presidential pow wow and a national debate on whether we're a racist society.

If a hurricane wipes out the gulf coast and kills hundreds, it's an act of racial hatred.

We even have former presidents like Jimmy Carter attributing the dissent against Obamacare to race. What a genius.

I honestly don't get it. We seem to be mixing it up with our genitalia, and most of our offspring and their offspring are on their way to a more uniform shade of tan. I don't know how people can really even decide anymore what their ethnic identity really is. Am I really white, whatever that is? Is Obama black? If I wanted to hate another race, how would I tell, exactly?

The use of logical fallacies indicates that one has taken a logically indefensible position.

Scholar wrote:

We even have former presidents like Jimmy Carter attributing the dissent against Obamacare to race. What a genius.

Yah, I herd ol' Van Jones was ah sittin in tha audience while ol' Jimmy blamed all ah dem meetins on white's hatin black's.

Ol' Van Jones was said to say. "I may be a 9/11 truther, but this hear Jimmy fellar is a reel kook."

I'd like to send out a hollar to my 'ol buddee Mike woo learks in da back ground on thez threads postin undar his Spanash sur name "Hector" or Migeal.....not sure which..

Yoo bin made....

Meenwhile, has you'all herd bout that fallar named bin Laden woo came out wid his own must reed book club?'Ol bin Laden is ah wantin us all ta all pick up 'ol Jimmy Carters' books an given too of em ah reed. Kind ah like the Ofra book club....

Carter was the worst President in history (next to Obama). He should have stuck with peanuts and stayed out of politics.

To say that most folks who disagree with Obama are racist is just adding fuel to the fire, and making his credibility less than it already was after his horrible stint as our commander in chief.

Note to Jimmy: SHADDAP!

Carter Was The WORST wrote:

Carter was the worst President in history (next to Obama). He should have stuck with peanuts and stayed out of politics.
To say that most folks who disagree with Obama are racist is just adding fuel to the fire, and making his credibility less than it already was after his horrible stint as our commander in chief.
Note to Jimmy: SHADDAP!

Butt thats wut ol Jamee O'Neel says to..... He woodnt tell us lies wood he?

Jamie Oneel is a loser, who when losing a debate stoops to the race baiting and constant childish name calling.
It was not long ago in this country a pig such as this would have been tarred feathered run out and told never come back.
Okneel is exactly the loser who would debase and condescend to this juvenile state.
If the Post had a staff with any scruples, Oneel would be fired.

Get real wrote:

Jamie Oneel is a loser, who when losing a debate stoops to the race baiting and constant childish name calling.
It was not long ago in this country a pig such as this would have been tarred feathered run out and told never come back.
Okneel is exactly the loser who would debase and condescend to this juvenile state.
If the Post had a staff with any scruples, Oneel would be fired.

We can only be thankful that there are people like you who maintain such high standards of civility, and would never resort to calling names. And thank God there are no racists ringing in on this subject, and that the entire health care debate has remained so firmly focused on the issues, and we have such brave and unbiased men like Joe Wilson who will call out the president when he says there is no provision for treating illegal immigrants in the proposed bill. Although the president was telling the truth about that, it's always appropriate for a congressman to call the president a liar if that president a) speaks words that may negatively affect a politician's campaign contributors, and b) a African-American who has the audacity to get uppity and propose things the big money people might not like.
Nah, there's just no racism left in this country anymore. It's gone with the wind. Can't find a shred of it anywhere, and no one would ever play a race card on the right.(Anyone remember Beck telling everyone how Obama "hates white people," or how Sotomayor "hates white people," or Limbaugh playing "Barack the Magic Negro" every day during the primaries? Why, hell, if anyone had done such a thing, they'd have been tarred and feathered and run out of the country.

Let me get this straight. Ordinary intelligent people are appalled at the blatant racism being fomented and encouraged by both the right wing media and right wing politicians, yet are somehow at fault for complaining about it?
The hysterical rabble seen at the Fox “news"/United Healthcare ("Freedom"Works) funded and promoted Astroturf events are only missing their white sheets in their overt demonstrations of naked bigotry.
Sure there are economic issues and unfounded fear at play here as well, but to deny the plainly race based component to the criticism being leveled at the President is willful blindness on the part of the author.
He has obviously cocooned himself in the up is down, lie a minute fantasy world created by the alternative reality manipulators on his AM radio and the fifth column, enemy of the American people, Fox.

Russ, I hope you're taking note of some of the non-racist support your column has drawn by such redneck dolts as "Buford," who gave us this little bit of non-racist "humor": "Yah, I herd ol' Van Jones was ah sittin in tha audience while ol' Jimmy blamed all ah dem meetins on white's hatin black's."

Be careful, Russ, or you'll be known by the company you keep. And if you can't see the racism that's been obvious at some of these gatherings, and in their comments ("the real great white hope is sickle-cell leukemia," etc.) then you're either being willfully blind, or you're too complacent about racism when you see it.
I do love it, though, the way you always define how "liberals" think, and then knock that straw man down. When I read your columns that disparage liberals, I never recognize my ways of thinking in your oversimplifications and generalizations. It would be good for your arguments, however, if liberals were as monolithic and kneejerk in their reactions as you always claim.
Of course all reactions to health care reform or Obama aren't based on his ethnicity, but I don't see how it can be denied that some of it is, or that a guy like Joe Wilson, a guy with lots of racism in his background, would have been less likely to show such disrespect to a white president.
But believe as you like, Russ. Just don't make an unintentional parody and unwarranted assumptions about what other people believe.

"...it's always appropriate for a congressman to call the president a liar if that president a) speaks words that may negatively affect a politician's campaign contributors, and b) a African-American who has the audacity to get uppity..."

Let's leave the absence of a verb after b) out of the discussion for the moment.

Sorry, Jaime. I don't see an ounce of evidence in your post that Wilson thought Obama was an uppity N.

Saying things doesn't make them true, Mr. Journalist.

jaime wrote:

Russ, I hope you're taking note of some of the non-racist support your column has drawn by such redneck dolts as "Buford," who gave us this little bit of non-racist "humor": "Yah, I herd ol' Van Jones was ah sittin in tha audience while ol' Jimmy blamed all ah dem meetins on white's hatin black's."

Yah, butt yoo left offn thar tha end of what 'ol Van Jones said,
Ol' Van Jones was said to say. "I may be a 9/11 toother, but this hear Jimmy fellar is a reel kook."

Buford replies wrote:

<quoted text>
Yah, butt yoo left offn thar tha end of what 'ol Van Jones said,
Ol' Van Jones was said to say. "I may be a 9/11 toother, but this hear Jimmy fellar is a reel kook."

dude, you'd come out better using proper english...you sound like an idiot and it takes you longer to type that bull-ish than to type regular words

And as far as that thar Jamee fellar sayin whut he sayz about the "death panels" not being true ...well... Maybe, just maybe, it was the president's own words....

The problem is BIraq Whose Sain? Obama’s own words…“Maybe this isn’t going to help, maybe you’re better off not having the surgery but taking the pain killer.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch...

1Atlien wrote:

<quoted text>
dude, you'd come out better using proper english...you sound like an idiot and it takes you longer to type that bull-ish than to type regular words

Yah, butt dis weighs moe fun!!!

Great column Russ
Racism exists and will continue to define a comparatively (very) small percentage of individuals. That isn't the case however, for the vast majority of people in America who oppose President B. Hussein Obama and his actions. There are reasons the 'race card' is played. Following the money trail, race is used by those who make a very good living through extorting favors from businesses through intimidation. The second reason is even more insidious. That's when it becomes the excuse for failure. But perhaps the most deceptive reason for playing the race card is the dehumanizing practice that slimes innocent people by racially charged, ad-hominem attacks (like we witness by some writers in these threads) as though by virtue of their outcries somehow shows that they themselves are not racists.
I'm getting sick and tired of people for whom every issue defaults back to racism. To me, that is a sure sign that they themselves are the racists they accuse others of being. Fortunately, as I said in the first line of this post, racists like these are a small percentage of individuals in the vast American scheme of things.

jaime wrote:

<quoted text>
We can only be thankful that there are people like you who maintain such high standards of civility, and would never resort to calling names. And thank God there are no racists ringing in on this subject, and that the entire health care debate has remained so firmly focused on the issues, and we have such brave and unbiased men like Joe Wilson who will call out the president when he says there is no provision for treating illegal immigrants in the proposed bill. Although the president was telling the truth about that, it's always appropriate for a congressman to call the president a liar if that president a) speaks words that may negatively affect a politician's campaign contributors, and b) a African-American who has the audacity to get uppity and propose things the big money people might not like.
Nah, there's just no racism left in this country anymore. It's gone with the wind. Can't find a shred of it anywhere, and no one would ever play a race card on the right.(Anyone remember Beck telling everyone how Obama "hates white people," or how Sotomayor "hates white people," or Limbaugh playing "Barack the Magic Negro" every day during the primaries? Why, hell, if anyone had done such a thing, they'd have been tarred and feathered and run out of the country.

What an idiot you are, if there are any racist remarks, comments or gestures made by anyone why don't you post a thread or a film or two?
Because you can’t.
It's just the same old inept foolish cover up for Barry's failure.
You liberals are the ones generating the racist hate here because you are losing.
You liberals are creating a huge divide in this country with your false allegations.
Lets see here, I remember PMS NBC calling a man at a rally a racist because he was carrying fire arms, but if you scroll up, by golly it was a black man. Gee oneel what do you have too say about that? You racist puke, you.

Great logic there, Publius. If someone finds a racist comment to be racist, then the person who found that comment to be racist IS, ipso facto, the racist.
So, the guys who carried those racist banners at the little DC gathering depicting Obama as a witch doctor ain't racist, just the people who pointed it out. And the congresswoman who hoped the Republicans would come up with a "great white hope" to beat Obama wasn't appealing to race, just the people who thought her choice of words was a racist use of the race card.
Logic. That's what you're good at, Pub. And I know you're getting "sick and tired" of people calling your guys on their nonsense (like your own use of Hussein in place of argument against Obama, and a way to demonize him, and make him "other than" good American white folks like yourself) How nice the world would be if we could all go back to overt or covert racism without people speaking out against it. Boy, those were the days. Archie Bunker lives.
But I do think you're right in one regard. All the hysterics and racists who are screaming and whining about Obama the socialist and Obama the witch doctor are a minority, whipped up by Rush and Beck and other paid hysterics who work for the big pharma and insurance companies against the public interest. The media have given way too much attention to the fringe, the nuts and the racists who make better TV and better headlines. Still, it's fun to watch you think, Publius; it's such a tormented process to see you turn black to white, and then back again. A kind of intellectual alchemy.

jaime wrote:

Great logic there, Publius. If someone finds a racist comment to be racist, then the person who found that comment to be racist IS, ipso facto, the racist.
So, the guys who carried those racist banners at the little DC gathering depicting Obama as a witch doctor ain't racist, just the people who pointed it out. And the congresswoman who hoped the Republicans would come up with a "great white hope" to beat Obama wasn't appealing to race, just the people who thought her choice of words was a racist use of the race card.
Logic. That's what you're good at, Pub. And I know you're getting "sick and tired" of people calling your guys on their nonsense (like your own use of Hussein in place of argument against Obama, and a way to demonize him, and make him "other than" good American white folks like yourself) How nice the world would be if we could all go back to overt or covert racism without people speaking out against it. Boy, those were the days. Archie Bunker lives.
But I do think you're right in one regard. All the hysterics and racists who are screaming and whining about Obama the socialist and Obama the witch doctor are a minority, whipped up by Rush and Beck and other paid hysterics who work for the big pharma and insurance companies against the public interest. The media have given way too much attention to the fringe, the nuts and the racists who make better TV and better headlines. Still, it's fun to watch you think, Publius; it's such a tormented process to see you turn black to white, and then back again. A kind of intellectual alchemy.

So now in your inept feeble little mind calling or depicting someone as a "witch Doctor" is racist?
Please explain your lunacy of how calling someone a witch doctor is racist.
Can't wait to hear this.

So in 44 days it will be halloween, and you are going to tell me Jaime that any white child that dresses as a "Witch Doctor" is nothing but a racist?
What a jerk.
I'm still waiting for your wonderful explanation of how that is racist???