I liked the president’s remarks which were more personal and heartfelt than anything I could possibly say. And his overall point and strategy followed exactly what I’ve been saying. We need to humanize black people for a lot of white people, and there isn’t a stronger way to do that than to have the president say that he could have been Trayvon 35 years ago. That’s he’s been followed in stores and heard car locks click as he walks by. And he didn’t point fingers and try to make people feel like they are bad people or racists. He tried to get them to listen. Writ large, that is the only way to move public opinion enough to change these crazy laws on self-defense, as well as to win support for other progressive policies.
Respectful dialogue, exposure, and education. As the president noted, the kids already get it. We should listen to them, too.
As for the hyperventilating throngs of right-wing jackasses, just be happy they’re exposing themselves for posterity.
The hyperventilating is being headed by Fox News of ourse. The Fox News opinion folk are calling POTUS “Race-baiter in Chief”. RWNJs blogs are exploding as usual.
Back to Fox News, gotten so bad, that Chris Wallace is using his “voice of reason” tone so that he can still be considered a “fair and balanced” newsman.
Fox News’ Chris Wallace: No, Obama Isn’t Stoking Racial Tensions With Trayvon Remarks
The Fox News opinion folk are calling POTUS “Race-baiter in Chief”.
CNN was no better today. No wonder their ratings have gone into the toilet.
You mean like MSNBC’s?
Whose ratings have not gone into the toilet?
OK…let’s see…
Well I’ll be hornswoggled!!!
Fox beats its nearest competitor 3 to 1 in the all day ratings and almost 4 to 1 during prime time.
All day its ratings nearly equal the combined ratings of its 5 major competitors…one of which is owned by Fox. (Fox Business News) and in primetime they actually beat the combined ratings of the other 5.
Hmmmm….
Fix and Fox only have one letter of difference.
Hmmmmm……
AG
Ya know, I had to visit a retirement home friend the other day, I noticed that Fox was on in every room, the living room areas, just friggin everywhere and when I commented on it to the owner he proudly stated that Fox is on in all of his `12 facilities.
Could we talking about a count of tv’s turned on to… shall we say, empty rooms?
Or the tyranny of owners.
The Tyranny Of Owners
A great book title, TD.
Write it?
Please.
AG
All I’ve got so far, AG is the chapeter heads.
other suggestions, AG?
When your book comes out, sign me up for the first copy you sell. 🙂
Maybe I should do it as a scrapbook. Then readers could search the web and copy references to put under those themes. It was Hedrick Smith’s book 20 years ago that put me onto the infantilism of the plutocrats theme.
what aspect of their infantilism do you look at?
No.
Sigh.
I think that you have just about covered it.
Sigh.
AG
Not in many empty rooms, I’ll bet. Not as a percentage of the whole. But as the “background music” in banks, airports, waiting rooms of all sorts, fast food restaurants like Dunkin’ Donuts and millions of living rooms? You betcha.
AG
Nothing less confidence building when you have to wait for your doctor appointment with Fox on the ubiquitous TV.
That’s the idea. media terrorism. When you finally get into the office, you are so thoroughly frightened that you’ll do anything Dr. Big Brother tells you to do.
It’s not necessarily a conscious idea…it’s just the way that things worked out.
AG
Here is a link to the CNN crap:
http://pic.twitter.com/b5diXRiuTc
“As for the hyperventilating throngs of right-wing jackasses, just be happy they’re exposing themselves for posterity.”
Yes. I think Obama should appear on TV more often, just saying thoughtful things and looking normal. Not only does it humanize him, but it also goads right wingers into showing who they really are. Not just for posterity, but for today. If they do enough of these freakouts, people will realize that their racist and anti-social views don’t deserve respect, no matter how much the media tries to suggest otherwise.
sadly the moderates and independents don’t seem to tune-in to these types of events. Sure this will calcify those who hate Obama and believe that he is the Antichrist, while those on the left will feel bolstered by reminding us why we voted for him, but for those in the middle this will be one giant “meh”.
My Facebook stream is flooded with posts saying the speech brought some closure for them to the the feelings they had after the acquittal of Zimmerman. My conservative or Republican friends and my more lefty friends have not weighed in at all.
Ian Reifowitz at Daily Kos has an excellent deconstruction of the speech and argues that it was structured to speak to “those who we might call “skeptical but reachable” non-blacks might be thinking about these matters.” That is a fair assessment because those of my Facebook friends finding closure are white, black, Asian-American, and Hispanic.
The challenge will be to strip the institutions like Fox News, who profit or hold political or cultural power by legitimizing racism of their control of the conversation in large parts of the country. That is up to all of us through our personal networks.
The primary intent:
The trick is not to further inflame emotions over this case on the right. Expect that to die down in a day or two; so overall should reduce the temperature of the public space emotional polarization which is a good thing. But we shouldn’t delude ourselves that it changes anything. The next shooting massacre and the next murky instance of a “white” person killing a black youth will lead to the same people trotting out with their well-worn scripts.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/spooner-case-poised-to-go-to-jury-b9956326z1-215839731.html
He was declared guilty.
Now the trial is about whether or not he is insane & guilty- they’ll probably send him to a mental institution where Fox network plays on the TV in the lounge.
Wasn’t a focus of national attention since it occurred was it? Why not? A clearly totally innocent young black man gunned down in the light of day by an old white man — doesn’t get any more racist than that. Why not give the national racist creeps the opportunity to defend that murderer?
Did we see any demands for justice for Omar Bonilla (listed as white) who was gunned down by the younger black man Demarro Battle and given immunity under SYG. That one really screws with the hypothetical narrative that if GZ had been black he would have fried.
i think that’s a good intevetion from the president Barak Obama!
________________
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I already know that soon as I post this, another open thread will show up, but c’est la vie…lol.
Saw this guy on CNN (the rare Black conservative radio idiot) trying to say what evidence did Obama have of being profiled (which I admit Blitzer was good at shutting down by asking him, well have you ever experienced what the President described, to which the dude hemmed and hawed but said yeah of course), well here something:
Before He Was President, Mistaken for a Waiter: a 2003 Obama Meeting
2003 garden party at the Manhattan home of media luminaries Tina Brown, now editor of the Daily Beast, and Harold Evans. The gathering just a little more than 10 years ago was to celebrate Sidney Blumenthal’s book The Clinton Wars.
damn cut and paste…lol
… I was approached by another guest, an established author.
I wonder what crapbag of an author that was.
Here’s the thing about institutionalized racism: it might not be a “crapbag” of an author.
Honestly and from a white guy. I think its about how your mind responds to requests for information. Your environment, including institutionalized racism, helps shape this to a large degree. It can be hard to override especially if its being reinforced in your culture.
Here is a personal experience that has bothered me for 33 years. I was 20 and jobless went to the unemployment office. Sitting there for 45 minutes I ask a black woman of about thirty: “How long does this usually take?” She looks at me incredulous and says “I don’t know!” I’m thinking what is she so stressed about? It hit me like a second later I had just insulted her. Its ingrained especially if you grow up in a all white area. Racist stereotypes are the norm.
Its a sign your not integrated in your daily life when you do something like that. Whether you are young and stupid or a smashed author in search of another drink. Its what Obama was talking about locking car doors the whole deal.
This is a funny story about the media elite. But did Illinois Senator Obama fetch a drink or just identify himself to the nameless author (and wouldn’t you really like to know who that author was)? (The social circle doesn’t seem like it’d be David Brooks; maybe Tom Friedman?)
Probably wasn’t the first time Obama was treated like the help, so I suspect what he said won’t surprise me, he says the same thing I did (at Target), my sister (at Walmart) did, and my Hispanic friend did (white guy thought he was the valet), “I’m sorry, but I don’t work here”.
It would be interesting to know who the author was though.
I’ve actually had to say the same thing myself in some stores, and I’m a longhair geezer white guy with a beard.
Yes, the curiosity about the author is irresistable. There are so many suspects.
I’m a white guy that looks much younger than I really am, and I often get mistaken at grocery stores as an associate. People will ask me questions, but since I do all of the shopping for my family at the same stores, I try my best to help them.
There is usually an awkward moment of embarrassment when they realize that I’m not a college-kid working in the produce section, and instead just some average guy in their mid-30’s buying carrots who doesn’t know the price of avocados…
I am of easily indentifiably white, Northern European ancestry. Blue eyes, the works. I have played at quite literally many hundreds of high society/high powered events during my long career as a musician. I often wear a tux to these performances, but equally often a conservative (and not inexpensive or particularly out of style) dark suit and tie, and my physical appearance is not “lower class/working class/dropout class” in terms of stylistic choices…no wild beards, strange haircuts, tattoos or nose rings. However I am also more than a little bit uncomfortable in those situations, surrounded by the mostly brain dead (or at the very least emotionally dead) rich and super-rich that run this country at its various levels. These functions have all the characteristics of a zombie film to my eyes. The walking dead, threatening the living with extinction. I cannot even begin to tell you how many times…during break periods from playing during which I was mingling with the crowd…I have been mistaken for a waiter or security, and the eye-contact thing…the “What could he be worth to me?/How could he threaten my position?” sizing-up look that those kinds of people use the way insects use their antennae…has never once led any power-folk into mistaking me for a potential victim, ally or equal.
Not once.
Not in mixed race power scenes either. It’s kinda like what we laughingly call “gaydar.”
“Money radar”
“Power radar”
Just sayin’…
Race is just one of the factors checked by the power folks. Stance, general comfort in the scene…even being alone in a room full of small crowds…all separate the non-belongers from those to whom their entitlement beliefs bequeath a certain aura of inevitable and unchallengeable possession.
Bet on it.
You are either one of them or you are not.
Bet on it.
Obama?
He made himself “one of them” by sheer willpower and intelligence.
Why?
Is he some kind of mole in the system? The greatest one ever?
Let us pray that he is.
But let’s not count on it.
I’m not, for sure. Bet on that as well.
AG
There were a slew of books in the 1980s all claiming to teach people how to develop “the style”. The willpower and focus on how to stylistically succeed apparently worked for George Will as well.
But then, that is what the meritocratic aspects of Ivy League schools are about. Teaching ambitious students “the style” and vetting them for “national service” or “corporate America”. Most Ivy League grads who become mediocre grandgrinds missed picking up the style. And those who become gadflies of various kinds screwed up the vetting by not agreeing to the 1% ideology, which in the 1960s tolerated Keynesianism, for example, but does not today. The folks who messed up on both are never heard from in later years; they are the bulk of Ivy League graduates.
The same dynamic is true for all colleges and universities within their geographic influence reach.
What is clear about the Obama administration is that it has been transparent in ways unimaginable prior to it, and likely unimaginable by the White House staff who advocate transparency.
For example, we know Max Baucus wrote WellPoint’s health care reform act in the Affordable Care Act.
We know that the President does not have the unilateral power to close a military prison.
We know that it takes a lot of patient negotiating with the military brass to get any major changes accomplished in the military, such as the repeal of don’t-ask-don’t-tell. When the common understanding of the military is that when the commander-in-chief orders something, unless it’s illegal, they salute and say “Yes, sir.”
We know that the President is constrained by the constant threat of mutiny in the intelligence services.
We know that the Senate seeks above all to preserve the filibuster.
We know that the Congress doesn’t want to let the people see the actual wheeling-and-dealing that goes on in committee mark-up sessions.
We know that at least two Supreme Court justices blatantly lied in their confirmation hearings.
We know that all branches of government are moving quickly to shut out the influence of ordinary citizens. Or public accountability for government actions.
Speaking of that thread a few days ago about listening to each other!
I am so tired…
Lines are drawn. The Law is the Law. George Zimmerman is a righteous member in good standing of the unregulated militia of American gunslingers! These laws are in place to make non-violence obsolete.
Talkleft site is busy and close to crashing after Jeralyn Merrit wrote her commentary on President Obama’s words today.. She is so offended that the President, “a former Constitutional law professor” does not “acknowledge that the purpose of a criminal trial is not to send messages to the American public.” Apparently, she does not think it is a President’s purpose either.
She is disappointed that he and much of America won’t myopically accept that the Trayvon Martin murder was about self-defense against the use of sidewalks and fists. She is says the “most objectional part” is that he “never once expressed empathy for George Zimmerman”. Then, on the other hand, I think she mocks him saying “He has now gone from Trayvon Martin could have been his son to Trayvon Martin could have been him 35 years ago.”
Jeralyn Merrit is disappointed that the President of the United States “is using it [the case] to support those with an agenda of restricting gun rights. And she applauds Gov. Scott’s avowed refusal to change the law.
Is Jeralyn Merrit a Florida attorney, by any chance?
Jeralyn Merrit is a Defense Attorney in Colorado. She was on the Defense team for Timothy McVeigh. She conducts the website TalkLeft and during the last year has covered this case & trial closely. The site, her writing and that of a couple other lawyer/journalists are an excellent resource for the intersection of politics and law issues. However, the last months of constant devotion to the letter of bad laws (Conceal carry, SYG) and constant declarations have spoiled my appreciation.
The George Zimmerman gunslingers are members in good standing of an unregulated American militia; then people like me, living ordinary lives, are in danger.
I got booted off Talk Left in 2008 because I pointed out some hypocritical Hillary Clinton things and she was virulently pro-Clinton. Still, I was a shop steward for a couple of decades and I understand the mindset of a defense attorney. Take it into consideration.
Jesus, she actually wants him to express sympathy for a murderer?
Just because he got off?
I can remember the 2008 campaign when Merrit put up a photo of Obama that could otherwise only be found at white supremacist sites. I told her at the time and she just shrugged it off. I think I know where she stands.
OMG. I wasn’t reading her regularly- I would have boycotted immediately after slamming her in a comment too.
Jeralyn Merritt is opposed to all gun control and emphatically supports stand your ground. Of course sea saying this. Fuck her.
Not going to speak for Merritt, but there seems to be a lot of confusion around “stand your ground.” It – stand your ground – exists in most states and figures into a defense claim of self-defense. In addition to “stand your ground,” Florida has what is known as a “Stand Your Ground” law that is an expanded version of the Castle Doctrine. It’s an immunity claim and that can’t be granted by a jury. In theory it has merit as it is a check on the power of prosecutors. And like most laws, it’s has been abused.
Please read the article, I refuse to link it to give ’em the click views. I understand some on the left did not like the speech, but this article was straight up trolling.
Wow.
@AngryBlackLady 1m
When I said publish more voices of color, this wasn’t what I had in mind, @Salon.
@elonjames 1m
Wow. And @Salon–do you guys not have editors? What editor in their right mind sees “Inner Nigger” and thinks “Publish this ASAP.”
@elonjames 1m
Fuck your career. This isnt about how many hits you can get. This is so much bigger than that and muthafuckas out here trying to be popular.
Who is Rich Benjamin?
I think the relationship between the White House and the Attorney General’s office is a little bit more complicated and nuanced than this good-cop-bad-cop caraciture:
I get the defense of Holder. But does Benjamin really think he can single-handedly defang a hurtful racial epithet by using is multiple times in an article?
Some of the comments are priceless. “Richie Rich….”
By trolling, I assume you mean for page hits.
Benjamin is a Black, David Sirota admirer. But just because you are a Black guy doesn’t make it right
I agree with Elon James here:
Yep. Or effective. Black comedians have been trying since the 1960s (or maybe since forever) to defang those racial epithets. Feelings are just too deep and unrepentant white racists are just too determined to make those words continue to sting, either through the tone of the voice or with what else is said.
As I said elsewhere, conversion one at a time is difficult in the face of institutions paid to sustain racism, bigotry, and discrimination. And some point those institutions have to be dealt with.
And then there are the clueless institutions; likely Salon fits into that category. Who think in terms of controversy or cuteness or contrarianism-for-its-own-sake.
There isn’t a black person I know who hasn’t experienced what Obama spoke on. If some of the people I encountered as a young black man had had a gun at the time, I would not be here now.
Once I got on an elevator during the day and the lone white woman screamed in terror. I’ve been approached several times by Zimmerman like morons asking “what are you doing here.” I’ve been followed in stores, questioned by security, passed up by cabs so many times that, I just developed a thick skin to deal with it.
One time, after I had become a “professional,” I was at a business meeting. It was late, my contribution done, so I decided to leave to go back to the hotel. A half hour later, my colleagues came out, only to find me still outside, trying to hail a damned cab. None of them would pick me up. Surprised, they said, “what are you doing out here, we thought you were going back to get some sleep?” Too embarrassed to say what really happened, that all the cabs passed me up, I just said, yeah, I’ve been trying. And even more embarrassed about having all of us held up because of me, now that they were trying to hail a cab, I just said, its a nice night, I’ll walk.
Unless you’ve been black, most people don’t understand this stuff. I’m glad the President spoke for that reason alone.
Some of these incidents are so absurd they can border on the comical, but some can be deadly if you happen to be black, minding your own business, but in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Random thought: as frustrated as I am by some of Obama’s policies (especially on civil liberties, home and abroad), I shudder when I try to imagine how a President Romney would have responded to the Zimmerman verdict. Or a President McCain. Or, FSM help us, the Smirking Chimp himself.
The RWNJs didn’t just melt down over Obama’s speech because they’re racist assholes. What made things even worse for them was that his entire speech was based on empathy. Empathy is a nasty, dirty, Commanistik word to the modern RWNJ.
And a near-total absence of and contempt for empathy is the one defining personality trait that binds Romney, McCain, and Dubya. Of course, they’re also all ostentatiously straight, privileged white sons of very wealthy, successful men. That might have something to do with it, lol. Whether they rose to the top of their party based on their privilege, their money, or their arrogance and narcissism is a truly chicken/egg conundrum.
And a near-total absence of and contempt for empathy is the one defining personality trait that binds Romney, McCain, and Dubya.
There was one thing that separated Willard and Cranky McSame from C- Augustus. C- Augustus was able to fake it. I know a few people that were fooled by his act. Meaning they actually met C- Augustus in person.
If Barack Obama could have been Trayvon Martin 35 years ago, it also stands to reason that Trayvon could have been President 35 years hence. We’ll never know, and that’s why people of good will are marching to end Stand-Your-Ground laws and protest this verdict.