(Time for a conscience check)

With the current situation of racist rants, lunatic fringe incitements and the never-ending realm of fear, I thought it might be a good idea to offer a few words from Dr. Martin Luther King, from one of his Massey Lectures recorded for The Canadian Broadcasting Company in 1967. This one is entitled "The Impasse Of Race Relations".

Dr. Martin Luther King: “I would submit two sentences written a century ago by Victor Hugo. ‘If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness'.”

I can think of several people causing the darkness right at this moment. And they are being paid handsomely for it.

Nobody promised...this would be easy.

Open Thread below...

On the roundtable discussion via ABC's THIS WEEK, the last few minutes were dedicated to the Gates/Crowley Beer Summit story. If you watched most of the news shows on this issue, they told us that that President Obama was the big loser because more people sided with the police officer. However, Gerald Seib from the Wall Street Journal made the most honest statement about the incident and used the WSJ poll to do so. Seib said what the poll really revealed was the people who are predisposed to have racist tendencies voted against President Obama.

Seib: I don't know whether this opened up any new racial rifts or just showed that they're pretty much the same way they've always been. To go back to our poll again, George, if you look at the question we asked about who's more at fault, the professor or the cop. The people who thought the professor was more at fault tended to be older people, not younger people -- they tended to be people from the South, they tended to be more Republicans than Democrats. A lot of the same divides that you would expect to find ten years ago.

Conservatives had hoped that the Gates/Crowley story would open new wounds for Democrats on the race issue, but all it did was tell us that nothing has changed.

The same people who voted against Obama are the same ones who backed the cop. Wow, what a shocker. You can draw your own, unbiased conclusions on that one. It does help to look at the demographic breakdown of a question that has racial overtones, wouldn't you think? Well, it's the media, so that wasn't the case.

In the immediate wake of Prop 8's victory in California, much of the conversation in the blogosphere was dominated by anger – real and perceived – by some gay activists toward African Americans, acrimony grounded in eventually refuted claims that black voters provided the margin of victory. While Prop 8 opponents were understandably frustrated, the way some lashed out at African Americans was counterproductive at best. Although the Right is still trying hard to drive a wedge between blacks and gay rights activists, the broader conversation has mostly moved on.

This weekend's historic grassroots protests against Prop 8, organized via Join the Impact, have people thinking about the future again. And that's where our focus belongs. Prop 8's supporters have the past on their side, but we have the future. My advice to the marriage ban supporters is to savor their victories now because they're going to find out what it's like to be on the wrong side of history.

Even in defeat we can see the signs of victories to come. According to a CNN exit poll, 61% of voters aged 18-29 opposed Prop 8, while 61% of 65 and older voters backed it. That tells you where we're headed, especially if you compare those results to 2000, when according to an LA Times exit poll 18-29 year old voters supported the anti-gay Proposition 22 by a margin of 58-42. The final vote tallies tell a similar story. Prop 22 passed in 2000 with 61% of the 7.5 million votes cast, but Prop 8 passed with just 52% of the 12 million votes cast. Prop 8 was also defeated across a much broader area of the state than Prop 22 (results by county for Prop 22 & Prop 8).

As I see it, the biggest story about Prop 8 is the California electorate's strong shift in favor of marriage equality in just a matter of years. A majority of white voters backed Prop 22 but opposed Prop 8. We'll be able to say the same thing about African Americans and Hispanics in the future if we commit ourselves now to doing the necessary outreach, education, and relationship-building activism – something our opponents have been doing for years.

The Religious Right is the real obstacle to equality. They bankrolled Prop 8 and led an aggressive and misleading campaign that convinced many voters that voting 'yes' on Prop 8 was a vote to protect their religious freedom and their children. There are millions of voters, of all races and ethnicities, many of whom are religious, who might vote today to support a marriage ban, but only because they've heard the lies spread by opponents of equality, and haven't had the opportunity to have a real conversation about the impact of discrimination on same-sex couples and their families.

We may have history and momentum on our side, but as we saw on November 4, progress is not inevitable, especially when the Right is willing to do and say anything to prevent it. It's time to learn our lessons, revise our strategies, and commit ourselves to strategic, respectful outreach to those Americans who need to hear from us.

Kathryn Kolbert is president of People For the American Way

Rachel Maddow talks to Melissa Harris-Lacewell about why so many African Americans voted for Proposition 8 and what needs to be done to change those attitudes.

[media=6752 showimage] Sarah Palin, in an interview yesterday:

We're raised up here to to know that, um -- you talk about equality? You see equality in Alaska. And so that's a good question, because I think that was a bit of a surprise on a national level, was -- what, you mean the other 49 states aren't quite there, like Alaskans are? Well come on, follow Alaska's lead and start allowing the equal opportunities and the equal treatment.

Funny thing about that. The black people and other minorities in Alaska tell quite a different story -- especially when it comes to Sarah Palin:

... Palin made clear to them through her refusal to participate in the state's traditional Juneteenth celebration, as well as her refusal to work on their concerns about minority hiring for the gas-pipeline commission and on her staff, that race relations are pretty low on her priority list. Much of this was reported a few weeks ago by Earl Ofari Hutchinson, but the impact of Palin's behavior comes home here: It's clear that the African American community in Alaska feels thoroughly disenfranchised. Then there was the news today that Palin's rural adviser has quit because of the governor's shoddy treatment of Alaska Natives. Among other items: Palin appointed a white woman to a game-board seat traditionally held by a Native.

Yeah, Alaskans are so colorblind. Just ask Sarah's pals in the AIP.

Have you noticed how all these right-wingers, like Bill Bennett, want to claim credit for Barack Obama's election as some kind of racial vindication for America, when they're the very people who were indulging the worst kind of dog-whistle stereotypes in their strenuous efforts to keep him from becoming president?

Keith Olbermann honored Rep. Michelle Bachmann, the Diva of the New McCarthyism, last night as the "Worst Person in the World" for the following remarks:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) told Politico Thursday that she was “extremely grateful that we have an African-American who has won this year.” She called his victory “a tremendous signal we sent.”

“I have not seen the United States as a racist nation,” said Bachmann, who represents Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, in the east-central part of the state. “In my district, I don’t sense racism, and that’s why I’m thankful that hopefully this will send a national signal across our country that America is not a nation made up of racists. ... On the same hand, I hope that the national media will not confuse disagreement with Obama’s policy positions with being consumed [by] racism.”

Yep, this is the same woman who thought that Obama was "anti-American." Only a day ago, she also said this:

It looks like the Sopranos. That is kind of what we are looking at. This is knuckle Chicago politics and that is what is going to be in the White House now. We have been, conservative Republicans, have felt the brunt of Rahm Emanuel this election cycle, last election cycle. It’s unlike anything anyone has ever seen or heard and now it’s going to come forth out of the White House.

Piece. Of. Work.

The video from that Sarah Palin rally in Ohio last week probably said it all -- that not only are racists herding in John McCain's direction, but that previously obscured racism among mainstream conservatives is now bubbling up at an increasing rate.

A New York Observer report from Florida tells a similar kind of story:

“I don’t believe these polls,” said America Blanca, a 44-year-old small business owner from Miami who wore a red dress and was visibly pumped up by the rally. “Not one of them. Because it’s the kids answering the polls on the computers. Their parents are not home and they are answering and they will not be voting. I think if he is losing, it is only by a little spread. Very little.” She held the tip of her pointer finger about two inches from the tip of her thumb.

Asked if her business made more than $250,000 a year, the cap under which Obama has proposed cutting taxes, she said it did. Told about Obama’s proposal, she answered, “I don’t give a shit. I will never vote for a black man.”

I half-expected to hear the same thing from "Joe the Plumber" last week when it was pointed out to him that he would actually get a tax cut under Obama's plan.

It's clear that the campaign to defeat Barack Obama -- which is what the McCain campaign has rapidly devolved into, ever since it became self-evident that McCain himself couldn't give us a single good reason to vote for him, beyond his moose-in-the-headlights running mate -- is in fact creating an environment in which these kinds of sentiments not only are encouraged, but are now considered normal.

Sure enough, the neo-Nazis and white supremacists are reporting that they're making big inroads these days:

Jeff Schoep, head of the National Socialist Movement, says the government classifies his group as a domestic group of interest, not domestic terrorists. The FBI would not comment.

Interest in the group "has really spiked up," says Schoep, who would not say by how much.

"Historically, when times get tough in our nation, that's how movements like ours gain a foothold," he says. "When the economy suffers, people are looking for answers. … We are the answer for white people.

"And now this immigrant thing in the past couple of years has been the biggest boon to us," Schoep says. "The immigration issue is the biggest problem we're facing because it's changing the face of our country. We see stuff in English and Spanish. … They are turning our country into a Third World ghetto."

Continue reading »

Normally, the story of John McCain's black family -- the ones who are planning to vote for Barack Obama -- might elicit some modest interest in terms of what it says about the complexity of race relations in America.

But what's been even more interesting has been how John McCain has responded to the story ever since it surfaced.

Initially, back when he first was doing the "Maverick" schtick in the 2000 primaries, he actually denied that the aristocratic Southerners from whom he was descended were slaveholders. But it really became impossible for McCain to deny their existence after a 2000 report in Salon in the course of which reporters showed him photographs and birth records in person and he had to concede to their existence.

One account, In the South Florida Times, describes how McCain has handled the connection publicly and privately:

White and black members of the McCain family have met on the plantation several times over the last 15 years, but one invited guest has been conspicuously absent: Sen. John Sidney McCain.

“Why he hasn’t come is anybody’s guess,” said Charles McCain Jr., 60, a distant cousin of John McCain who is black. “I think the best I can come up with, is that he doesn’t have time, or he has just distanced himself, or it doesn’t mean that much to him.”

Other relatives are not as generous.

Lillie McCain, 56, another distant cousin of John McCain who is black, said the Republican presidential nominee is trying to hide his past, and refuses to accept the family’s history.

“After hearing him in 2000 claim his family never owned slaves, I sent him an email,” she recalled. “I told him no matter how much he denies it, it will not make it untrue, and he should accept this and embrace it.”

She said the senator never responded to her email.

Continue reading »

Rush Limbaugh, somewhat predictably, isn't backing down from his claim that Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama was a product of their both being black men -- that is, that it was about race, not policy;

"I thought it should be about race," he said. "I thought you liberals thought this was a historic candidacy because finally we are going to elect a black guy…why hide behind this, why act like it's not about race?"

"This was all about Powell and race, nothing about the nation and its welfare," Limbaugh added.

Limbaugh simply doesn't get it. Obama's candidacy is historic, yes -- but what has made it possible all along is that his campaign has been about transcending race, not wallowing in it.

Obama has carefully eschewed identity politics throughout this campaign. Meanwhile, the Republican campaign has been about nothing but. And it has its most transparent mouthpiece in Limbaugh.

Limbaugh is the guy at the sports bar who carefully tabulates the racial composition of every team on the screen and roots accordingly. If a team has a black quarterback, he predicts they're going to lose. Heaven forfend that any black player demonstrate too much enthusiasm over a touchdown or a dunk or a home run, or that any black linebacker should level a white quarterback, because then the "thug" and "jungle" references come out. He hates Tiger Woods with an inexplicable venom (mostly because he's too uppity "full of himself").

We all know that guy. (Some of them are in our families.) And anyone who's even moderately serious about sports, and moderately knowledgeable about them, knows that that guy is completely and hopelessly full of shit.

Continue reading »

While Max Blumenthal was up in Alaska gathering information on Sarah Palin's background, he managed to sit down and interview two of the African-American community leaders in Anchorage who'd had dealings with Palin as governor: Gwen Alexander, the president of the African-American Historical Society of Alaska, and Bishop Dave Thomas, a distinguished black pastor from Anchorage.

As you can see, Palin made clear to them through her refusal to participate in the state's traditional Juneteenth celebration, as well as her refusal to work on their concerns about minority hiring for the gas-pipeline commission and on her staff, that race relations are pretty low on her priority list.

Much of this was reported a few weeks ago by Earl Ofari Hutchinson, but the impact of Palin's behavior comes home here: It's clear that the African American community in Alaska feels thoroughly disenfranchised.

Then there was the news today that Palin's rural adviser has quit because of the governor's shoddy treatment of Alaska Natives. Among other items: Palin appointed a white woman to a game-board seat traditionally held by a Native.

What exactly is Palin's problem with minorities? She's happy to trot them out for photo ops, but her actions on the ground speak much louder.

UPDATE: (Nicole) Uh oh. Palin Advisor quits, citing race problems...this time with the native Alaskan population.

Steve Gilliard's News Blog

School defends slavery booklet
Critic says text is 'window dressing'

Students at one of the area's largest Christian schools are reading a controversial booklet that critics say whitewashes Southern slavery with its view that slaves lived "a life of plenty, of simple pleasures."

Leaders at Cary Christian School say they are not condoning slavery by using "Southern Slavery, As It Was," a booklet that attempts to provide a biblical justification for slavery and asserts that slaves weren't treated as badly as people think.

Principal Larry Stephenson said the school is only exposing students to different ideas, such as how the South justified slavery. He said the booklet is used because it is hard to find writings that are both sympathetic to the South and explore what the Bible says about slavery.

"You can have two different sides, a Northern perspective and a Southern perspective," he said.
'SOUTHERN SLAVERY, AS IT WAS'

Here are some excerpts from the booklet:

* "To say the least, it is strange that the thing the Bible condemns (slave-trading) brings very little opprobrium upon the North, yet that which the Bible allows (slave-ownership) has brought down all manner of condemnation upon the South." (page 22)

* "As we have already mentioned, the 'peculiar institution' of slavery was not perfect or sinless, but the reality was a far cry from the horrific descriptions given to us in modern histories." (page 22)

* "Slavery as it existed in the South was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity. Because of its dominantly patriarchal character, it was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence." (page 24)

* "There has never been a multi-racial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world." (page 24)

* "Slave life was to them a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care." (page 25)

* "But many Southern blacks supported the South because of long established bonds of affection and trust that had been forged over generations with their white masters and friends." (page 27)

* "Nearly every slave in the South enjoyed a higher standard of living than the poor whites of the South -- and had a much easier existence." (page 30)

The booklet's other author, Steve Wilkins, is a member of the board of directors of the Alabama-based League of the South. That is classified as a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based civil rights group.

"Doug Wilson and Steve Wilkins have essentially constructed the ruling theology of the neo-Confederate movement," said Mark Potok, editor of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report.