Francis Holland posted a justifiably front-paged piece on the new blog Political Fleshfeast titled Is the John Edwards Camp Practicing Bloglist Apartheid & Calling Obama “Kumbaya” Candidate?
Here are his opening paragraphs:
One of the reasons that many Black bloggers refuse to participate in the whitosphere is “bloglist apartheid.” Many pseudo-progressive whitosphere bloggers simply refuse to link to any Black blogs in their bloglists. Although not universal in the whitosphere, some white bloggers’ bloglists evince a clear policy of pretending that Black-operated blogs (“Black self-determination blogs”) don’t exist at all.
Tracy Joan says she “works” on behalf of John Edwards at DailyKos. Look at her bloglist. Because I’m no expert on whitosphere blogs, I cannot say with utter certainty that none of the blogs on her bloglist is Black owned and operated. I likewise cannot assert with utter certainly that none of the blogs on her bloglist is owned and operated by Latinos.
However, I am a member of the AfroSpear, the largest national group of Black bloggers, born in March and now with over sixty Black blog members from across the United States and in five countries and three continents. I can say with utter certainly that none of the blogs on Tracy Joan’s bloglist are member of the AfroSpear.
I have also reviewed the bloglists of all sixteen of the blogs on Tracy Joan´s bloglist. Among all of the blogs on the bloglists of those sixteen blogs – literally hundreds of blogs – I can only find one blog that I know with certainty is a owned and operated by a Black person. This tendency toward bloglist apartheid obviously puts John Edwards at a distinct disadvantage as he tries to reach out to Black voters.
The 96% white CIA-sponsored(?) MAMZosphere, that practices blog apartheid and bloglist apartheid, is supporting John Edwards for the presidency. That’s a blog-apartheid sponsored endorsement that will be heard loudly and clearly in the Afrosphere and in Black Democratic neighborhoods throughout America.
I can only agree.
Read on for my expression of that agreement.
Francis…
All’s you need to do to make this point visible is to find and post the classically racist (LEFT racist, ‘a course…the “good” kind) Edwards announcement of his presidential candidacy. YOU know…the one where he makes a lame stump speech with a group of black kids behind him for atmosphere? Looks like one of those ’30s Marx Brothers style musicals that used shiftless looking negroes as scenery.
I cannot find the video myself…maybe wiser heads in his hustle department decided to 86 it…but I DID find his pre-announcement announcement. Listen to how he stumbles over his words as he tries not to “misspeak”. Reminds me of the Lenny Bruce routine where he has LBJ unsuccessfully trying say the word “negro” in a speech rehearsal.
“Nigra.”
“Nigra.”
“NEEGRA!!!“
“Ah CAIN’T SAY IT!!!”
Yup.
Here is the video.
Plus some stills from the embarrassingly ineptly staged announcement of his candidacy. He even had two DIFFERENT workshirts brought in on consecutive days!!! Wouldn’t want to smell funky for the white press, would we John Boy?
I particularly like the broken awning touch in the back. Gives it that “authentic” flavor, if y’know what I mean.
I often read in musical discussions about how we must forgive Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor and rest of them for appearing in blackface, forgive the racist popular music of the late 1800s/early1900s, etc. How those things were simply “a product of their times”.
Well, Mark Twain saw through that shit and he was a product of the SAME times. Nor was he alone amongst the white population of America. Not by a long shot.
Well, Edwards is ALSO a product of his time and place.
The racist south.
He was born in 1953. Those of us who are old enough…white AND black…to have traveled through the south or lived there in the ’50s and ’60s can tell you what was up. I toured the south in a band bus with the Woody Herman Band…a racially mixed group…in 1968. (Edwards was about 15 years old at the time, and had seen the scene in great detail from his baby carriage on through the rest of his life to that point. YOU know. Those formative years.) In a red clay section of Georgia our bus caught fire on a country road between two small towns.(Yeah. I know. BAD ol’ Georgia. “I’ll never go back to Georgia” sang Dizzy Gillespie in the late ’40s/early ’50s. Coulda been anywhere south of the Manson-Nixon line in 1968. Bet on it.) We all got out safely and stood in the afternoon sun watching the bus smolder internally. Some passerby called the fire in, and an all white volunteer fire department showed up. The boss took one look at the band, shrugged his shoulders, said “Ah’m SO sorry fellers, but this just ain’t in our jurisdiction”, turned the fire truck around and left.
Yup.
We took our lives in our hands every time we went into a roadside eating place after about 10PM. Now you KNOW little John wasn’t hangin’ out with any ‘a them “nigras” in his small southern town in 1968.
Need proof?
No (visible) scars.
And ON THE EVIDENCE OF THE STAGING OF HIS CANDIDACY ANNOUNCEMENT ALONE he has no idea of what is going on in his own psyche OR in those of a vast number of other voters. Black, hispanic AND white.
Or as Duke Ellington so nicely put it, “black, brown and beige”.
So…yeah, Mr. Holland.
You’ve got it right about the white blogosphere in general, the whole pro-Edwards movement in particular and especially about Daily Kos.
But…we have to forgive them.
Right?
They are just a product of their times.
The NEW YORK Times.
It is getting to be about time for a NEW time.
I say fuck these motherfuckers.
Their time is OVER.
Because…if it is NOT over, then America’s time has just about run its course. Which is entirely within the realm of possibility, I will admit.
We shall see.
Keep telling the truth.
And we shall see.
Soon enough.
We shall soon see upon which side of the Manson Nixon line this country’s white bread is buttered today.
Bet on it.
Soon enough.
Bet on it.
Later…
AG