On a related note, I just heard the Beck/Limbaugh healthcare reform=reparations meme yesterday. Now THAT’S racist.

Colbert had a funny line this week as well, that Nick and MR will enjoy. “Sadly, every time a racist criticizes the President, someone cries ‘Racism’”! I’d suggest watching his The Word segment from Sept. 24th for an especially acerbic take on the discussion.

blackoutyears,
Modern racists are trying very hard to bring people into their movement by setting up legitimate front-operations, and using overtly non-racist rhetoric that leads to racist conclusions.

They depend on the fact that most Americans will give them the benefit of the doubt. By the time they figure out the SCV is full of racist crackpots, or that the European Cultural Festival is actually a front for the KKK they like are in hip-deep. Some leave, but others decide racist crackpots can’t be all that bad and join up.

In this case it’s clear Wilson is either an actual SCV racist, or that he doesn’t mind SCV racist behavior. It’s also clear that he’s the only Congressman in the history of these United States who interrupted the President with a cat-call, and that the President he interrupted happened to be black…

It ain’t easy for me to see how any logical observer could look at this evidence and conclude anything but that Joe Wilson is a closet racist, who relies on Americans tendency to not judge his racism to maintain high political office.

Captcha: yesterday’s gaol. And today’s apparently. lol

@Nick, I believe I made it clear that I was familiar with Wilson’s history, but thanks for rehashing. As I said, I don’t see your point. Even if you knew that Wilson’s outburst was racially motivated he’s one man. And I find your *evidence* tenuous and atypically conjectural; your posts are usually more thoughtful than this. As for your remark that you don’t get to Wilson’s position by making bad political moves, have you studied the House of Representatives much? Not exactly a collection of the brightest minds our nation has to offer. Lynn Westmoreland alone is proof that a box of hair could get elected. Jean Schmidt, the anti-savvy, is my congresswoman. Let’s not give these people too much credit. Anyone with money, connections and a gerrymandered district can get elected to the House.

Fact is, we can’t know his motivation (short of his admitting it), so it’s all conjecture, no matter how self-evident you deem it to be.

Fact: Joe Wilson is from South Carolina, a state that seceded to protect slavery, and continues to celebrate this fact.

Fact: Joe Wilson supports celebrating this history. He associates with the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a formerly legitimate group that has been taken over by pro-slavery whackoes.

Fact: In the history of the Republic no Congressman has heckled the President during a speech.

Fact: The above fact changed the very first time a black President gave a speech before Congress. The heckler was Joe Wilson.

In theory it’s possible Obama’s race had nothing to do with Wilson’s outburst. But to believe that you have to believe that no Congressman has disagreed with a President more than Wilson disagrees with Obama, and/or Joe Wilson is the biggest asshole to ever be elected to Congress.

Good luck with that one kk.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/shortstack/2009/09/health_care_race_and_political.html

As evidence of the link between health care and racial attitudes, we analyzed survey data gathered in late 2008. The survey asked people whether they favored a government run health insurance plan, a system like we have now, or something in between. It also asked four questions about how people feel about blacks.

Taken together the four items form a measure of what scholars call racial resentment. We find an extraordinarily strong correlation between racial resentment of blacks and opposition to health care reform.

Among whites with above average racial resentment, only 19 percent favored fundamental health care reforms and 57 percent favored the present system. Among those who have below average racial resentment, more than twice as many (45 percent) favored government run health care and less than half as many (25 percent) favored the status quo.

The piece validates my position in part but adds nuance.

It would be silly to assert that all, or even most, opposition to President Obama, including his plans for health care reform, is motivated by the color of his skin. But our research suggests that a key to understanding people’s feelings about partisan politics runs far deeper than the mere pros and cons of actual policy proposals. It is also about a collision of worldviews.

This paragraph while directly countering part of my position supports my contention that this is not about a specific policy.

The data was apparently collected before Mr. Obama’s election or in any event before he took office. So it does not address racist reaction to Mr. Obama himself but rather correlates racism and general opposition to health care reform.

I would argue that Mr. Obama’s assumption of the presidency sharpened the underlying racism and white panic and that these are part and parcel of the eruption of the spittle-flecked rage that has characterized the townhalls and the tea parties.

Where’s your response? I’ve never seen one. I’ve brought that up every time republicans claim that there is no racism, and I never get a response.

Of course it’s possible to be both a racist and yet ideologically opposed to Obama. That’s never been the issue to me.

The question is whether, in the absence of underlying racism, we might be having a more rational discussion. Racism adds a strong note of crazy to the proceedings. Discussion of the issues has been all but obliterated by scare tactics involving granny-killing and so on.

Of course this is deliberate on the part of the GOP. They fire up their racist wing in service to the health insurance industry contributors. This routine is as old as race in America. Wealthy interests exploiting race to ensure the loyalty of a frightened underclass is one of the constants of American history, particularly in the south, but in the north as well.

The point is that in the absence of race hatred and race paranoia we’d be having a very different discussion. But so long as a substantial portion of the GOP is racist, and so long as their leaders willfully exploit that racism, we’ll be paralyzed in attempts to solve actual problems.

Republicans insist on pretending-away the very thing they use for political leverage. I insist on pointing an accusing finger. The reality of the GOP’s exploitation of bigotry (on race and on gay issues as well) is not tangential, it is central. And it’s a reason the young and the better educated are fleeing the GOP.

For those here making the claim that Joe Wilson’s heckling had something to do with Obama’s color, I can only see that it strikes me as far less cut and dried than you propose. I’m aware of Wilson’s *issues*, and it would not surprise me in the least, but then I think you’re still missing the point to some degree. Fact is, we can’t know his motivation (short of his admitting it), so it’s all conjecture, no matter how self-evident you deem it to be. More to the point, even if we did know those motives I’m not sure how helpful it would be. Is it possible in your minds for someone to be both racist and ideologically opposed views to Obama? To what degree does one influence the other? Which one is taking precedence in driving demonstrations and outrage? One of the (many) problems with labeling someone racist is that it relieves them of complexity. Opinion becomes null under the label. All ameliorating *good* characteristics are subsumed. I think of Todd Solondz’s Happiness and the character of the psychiatrist who is a pedophile but also a sensitive, patient, wonderful parent who loves his son very much. It’s one of the more poignant juxtapositions I’ve seen. Let’s all endeavor to be a little less reductive. Let’s all be a little less quick to condemn what we can’t really know.

Nobody’s saying Joe Wilson would support health care if only Obama were white. But do you honestly think Joe Wilson would have interrupted a Joe Biden speech on health care with a cat-call? I don’t. That was a very dumb political move, and you don’t get elected to represent 750,000 people if you’re in the habit of making very dumb political moves.

Most of the time racism is not what people do, it’s how they do it. You tell hate crimes from other crimes by looking at the severity of the victim’s injuries, what the criminal says, and how he acted in general. That’s one reason I don’t like debating about it. It’s an inherently subjective subject.

That said I’d be stunned to hear any reasonable person say that they think Joe Wilson would have heckled a white President, in the middle of his speech, on national TV.

Anti-liberalism has a cousin, and its name is anti-conservatism. If you have that dread disease, then you think that everything that CAN be attributed to racism MUSR be attributed to racism. I find it a painfully skewed view of the world.

I really don’t know how such folks (anti-liberals or anti-conservatives) get through a productive day, what with all the weeping about the deep enduring injustice of it all. I guess it’s the self-righteousness that provides the sustenance.

It’s not much of a jump is it? Starting with the election, most of the fear that was generated was based around his race, or his ancestors. If he was a white guy named John Smith from Ohio, no one would be clamoring for his BC, or saying he’s a muslin* (not that i see how that matters). So even if the people originating those fear mongering lies aren’t inherently racist, the people that eat them up are.

*on purpose

A quick Google search shows me referring to myself as a “good phenomenologist” as early as February 2007. Of course it’s been closer to 30 years, but the point is no, I didn’t pull that out of the air.

I’m a fiction writer. It may not be an admirable trait of fiction writers, but we observe and to some degree exploit everyone we encounter. I’ve created literally hundreds of characters and plots (150 books, give or take) and I have to get my raw materiel from somewhere. Not that I lift actual characters from real life — that doesn’t work for me — but bits and pieces of this and that, habits of speech, attitudes, interactions, modes of thought, so on.

In HUNGER I deal quite a bit with the need of the kids to create a monetary system. Donklephant writers and commenters contributed some intellectual DNA to that. In LIES (coming this fall to a store near you) I have a lot about the question of “government” secrets. Again, thanks to D’Phant and many other sources.

We all try to get what we need from life, KK. Some of you come here for a sense of community, or to practice writing skills that may not be a part of your daily life, or to push an agenda, or like me, to test out ideas. I don’t see why my trying to squeeze some useful truth out of my human interactions is a bad thing. Not especially friendly, but not bad.

Blackout gave me something useful with the anecdote about his wife. Not sure how or whether I’ll use it, and certainly it will never be in that form, or maybe even on that topic, but it plugs in, it makes up part of the web, and I’m grateful for it. My profit, but not his loss. And I suspect he had some takeaway value as well.

It’s not nice to use people overtly as guinea pigs. As Blackout points out, there are many ways to attribute motive. That you jump to attribute anti-obama motives to racism IMO reflects poorly on you. Especially because you admit in your phenomenology discourse that you are primarily interested in what YOU can gain in understanding. Then later, maybe you deign to share your understanding, after you’ve pissed a bunch of people off.

And of course, maybe your phenomenology justification is simply regularly practiced post facto confabulation that you undergo after you notice you’ve been behaving badly. Clever people are great confabulators. Don’t anyone tell my wife. :-)

I’m certain that at least some of the anti-Obama crowd harbor racist impulses. I”m just as sure that many of them are simply opposed to the constellation of liberal/progressive ideas and the folks who support them, and that this opposition may be largely visceral and so not founded on a basis of critical thinking which is subject to adjustment to incorporate new facts.

So Mike, how does a phenomenologist tell the difference between racism and anti-liberalism?

You have steadfastly refused to consider the GOP’s race issue seriously. Little Green Footballs takes it more seriously. Rick Moran takes it more seriously. Republicans more thoughtful than you take it seriously.

You think it’s funny. Pshaw. Pish posh. Tee hee.

You refuse to even address the videos, the pix, the quotes from the 9/12 rally and from townhalls. You haven’t answered questions, such as:

Why did a large number of Republicans object to the president speaking to school kids? For the first time ever?

So, yes, that makes you an enabler. Your party needs racists so your party enables them.

But I regret including those Republicans more serious about the issue than you. There are a few Republicans willing to squarely confront the GOP’s 40 year flirtation with racism. You’re not one.

Well I’m still waiting for the party to call out the racists and loons. hasn’t happened yet.

Taking the last – first:

@blackoutyears
Your quote from “The Corrections” is spot on. Thanks.

@fert
I was explicit in the note at the end of the post that, as you surmise, the idea for this piece came from that comment thread. In fact, I link to the very thread you are quoting.

A couple notes – First, you have a typo in the comment and attribute the first quote to me, when it is actually MR. Easy to do with the surfeit of M’s in that thread.

Second – I am in general agreement with your reading of the thread, but will take issue with the implication of your question “Who is generalizing?” I don’t think I am misreading MR one iota in that thread and would point to yet another recent example from this comment thread:

We have one political party. And then we have a collection of racist loons and their enablers. – MR

No equivocation. No qualifiers. Every single person in the GOP is a racist or an enabler. For all the sophistry about finding truth trough provocation, this is actually about one thing – de-legitimizing any and all opposition argument.

I do agree that this particular debate does seem to devolve to absolute statements about the opposition and their motivation from both sides, while spawning strawman arguments almost immediately. But, to the extent you see it from me, I should point out that I am only seeking Truth Through Provocation ™.

@Kranky
I am indifferent to the characterization of satire vs. sarcasm and perfectly happy with either. I only used the “satire” tag because Justin does not have a “sarcasm” tag for us to use, and I thought I needed to telegraph the intent of the post (see Frank Hagan’s comment). Frankly – I don’t really know the difference in definition between the two, but if it is as you suggest – FWIW- I crack myself up every time I read it. But then – I am easily amused.

@MR
For the comments that were directed at me, I find nothing that requires anything more than what I said and quoted in the first comment in this thread. I am perfectly willing to let it stand at that.