Democratic homey (and fellow Bulldog) Blake sent me this article today to see if I would find it as offensive as he did. Consider me offended, though not in the "How rude!" sense so much as the "Blehh, human nature never fails to disappoint" sense. More "Democrats hate the military/family/God/babies" rhetoric, and not only is it silly, it's not even original. (Well, except for the "anti-baby" part -- can't say I've heard that one before. I've always gotten along pretty well with babies, though maybe they were just getting along with me for fear that as a liberal I would try to drink their blood or, failing that, sell them into white slavery or something.)
Most of Jesse Lee Peterson's inane rhetoric I won't dignify with a response, given that Peterson is as wacky a drama queen as they come (he accuses Jesse Jackson of ordering a hit on him and then proceeds to call Jackson the attention whore . . . uh-huh, sure, whatever). But Peterson's whole "The Democratic Party has black people totally fooled" shtick struck a nerve with me, and it didn't really hit me why until I thought back to right after the smoke from the 2004 election cleared. Remember how much umbrage conservatives took at that "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" headline in the UK's Daily Mirror? Remember how mad they were -- and rightfully so -- that those elitist liberals would think they only voted for Bush because they were too stupid to know better? You do? OK then. So how is it any less condescending -- and how is it not kind of subconsciously racist -- for conservatives (whether black or white) to grouse that African-Americans only continue to vote Democratic because they're dumb enough to be easily fooled?
After posting the above-linked GWBWYPGN?! post, I got yelled at by a libertarian-leaning friend for calling the Bush voters "misinformed," which he deemed unfair and condescending. My response was that "misinformed" is a perfectly accurate description of people who believe in statements like "WMDs have been found in Iraq" and "Saddam helped plan 9/11" that have been declared categorically false by the authorities assigned to investigate such things, but OK, being a nice guy and all I'll stipulate (for the purposes of this example) that "misinformed" is a condescending description and I'm basically just being an asshole. If that's the case, then how is it any less condescending and assholish to say African-Americans are easily duped marks who only vote Democratic because they haven't bothered to figure out the "real truth" (whatever that is) about what the Democrats believe? Is it possible that, somewhere, somehow, a few African-Americans have bothered to examine both sides' positions on the issues, think about how those positions stand to impact their daily lives, and come to an independent decision that Democrats do the best job of representing their interests? If you somehow don't think that any of them are capable of doing that, doesn't that kind of make you a huuuuge freaking racist?
I got a deal for you, conservatives: I'll stop calling your white voters dumb if you stop calling our black voters dumb. M'kay? I mean, you can keep calling our black voters dumb if you want, but it's kind of a dick move if you ask me, and if you're gonna be all assy like that then you shouldn't get your Underoos in a wad when Howard Dean observes how few black people seem to be voting for you.
7 comments:
How can we forget....
Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean stirred up controversy when he said he wanted to be the candidate for "guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks."
AP
How can we forget? Everytime I drive to work I pass two or three of those trucks. Dean reaching out to all Americans is a good thing. If the repugs want to just reach to the rich, the Christian Coalition and the Oxycontin addicts that's fine by me.
Also, a confederate flag does not necessarily stipulate a racist...if that is what you are implying AP.
The confederate flag still stands as a symbol of pride for a lot of people in the south. And it isn't their fault that a bunch of white-hooded, mullet wearing rednecks adopted it as their symbol of hate.
Eh, I'm a conservative life-long southerner, but you wouldn't catch me with a rebel flag. It wasn't originally a symbol of hate, but it has certainly morphed into that - and it's our (white non-racist southerner's) fault for letting the racist groups co-opt it for so long. They've sapped whatever good will was in it to begin with.
That said, the first person to protest the "Dukes of Hazzard" movie because the rebel flag offends them gets a boot to the teeth. Especially if they're colored.
Just ask how brother Jesse feels about this comment.
Colored? Now you've done it! You'll get the rail treatment for that non-PC comment.
It wasn't even the Confederate flag. The Stars and Bars normally called the confederate flag was actually the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia. It never flew over the South as the flag of the Confederacy. It wasn't a flag of hate, heck the plantation owners loved thier slaves.
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