I do not subscribe to that school of thought.
True, only the zaniest of the zany liberals even take notice of Garofalo. The rest of us generally do ignore her, as we would ignore the crackhead that we encounter on the street corner, pacing about as he incoherently babbles on about God knows what. But the sheer inanity of Keith Olbermann and Janeane Garofalo's recent little pow-wow sends this conversation to an other-worldly level. Stupidity the likes of which can only be cultivated by the prevailing pseudo-intellectualism of modern progressives.
According to Garofalo, conservatives have a good reason to back Herman Cain. She says that conservatives support a black presidential candidate because they are trying to hide their racism against black people.
"People like Karl Rove liked to keep the racism very covert," she says. "And so Herman Cain provides this great opportunity say you can say 'Look, this is not a racist, anti-immigrant, anti-female, anti-gay movement. Look we have a black man.'"
Let it be known- this is not the first stupid thing Janeane Garofalo has said regarding racism in America. I once heard her vehemently deny that the Democratic Party offered the staunchest opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In her mind, Republicans are invariably the bad ones, not Democrats. Always have been, always will be, "truth" and "history" be damned. Lousy God and gun clingers. Fostering equal rights for minorities, how dare they!
But, to be sure, this rant is even more ridiculous. The meat of her argument is that racist conservatives don't like Barack Obama because is a black man, but they love Herman Cain because he is a black man.
If you're scratching your head at that, don't. All you need to know, Garofalo says, is that our country is more racist now than ever before- now that we have a black president, "how could it not be?" Of course, this black president won a popular election at a national level, signifying "less racism," but don't get hung up on that- such cohesion only mucks up Garofalo's logic. So you probably also don't want to consider that for the first time in history, significant swathes of diametrically opposing political parties in America are both considering a black man for leadership.
But hey, I guess she figures with eyeglass frames and an elitist tenor that thick, Americans would just believe any damn thing she says without such considerations.
So what are we to make of Garofalo, really? It's not hard. She's just following Spencer Ackerman's formula that came to light in the Journolist scandal, where he suggested that calling Republicans racist is the best way to discredit them:
Take one of them [on the right] — Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists. Ask: why do they have such a deep-seated problem with a black politician who unites the country?Beyond this, she proves herself to be something of a racist. So focused is she on the fact that Herman Cain is black that she finds it impossible that conservatives could support him based upon his ideas, or the substance of his achievements, or the character he exhibits. No, they must be just looking at him as a "black guy to be supported so they can hide white guilt."
[...]
What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger’s [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear.
And perhaps the funniest thing of all? She derides FoxNews and others as having "zero credibility"- in the very moment that she mounted the edifice of relevance and took a 10-story swan dive right into the pavement.
And I loved every second of it too much to not comment.
William Sullivan
Video found here.
After seeing what happen to Mr Cain and the Trayvon Martin case would you still believe that America is not racist. Post on movie blog sites stating that now they realized that a character was black her death isn't so tragic. The worse thing that people like you do is attempt to sweep it uder the rug just because you have a half black president. Walk a week in a black persons shoes and your eyes will open.. Widely..
ReplyDeleteYou'll note, of course, that I never once write, "there's no racism in America." I suppose it doesn't help to tell you I'm Hispanic, either, considering that Zimmerman is also Hispanic and he's become the poster child of White American racism. But no, Trayvon Martin case has not exposed any epidemic of violent whites targeting blacks or institutional racism. The case has exposed the media for altering evidence to create racial tension. It exposed our justice system for not prosecuting vigilantism and incitement to violence upon a man that, according to our justice system, is innocent until proven guilty. The man has been charged, and the truth will come to light. I, unlike you, will not assume that Zimmerman is a racist boogeyman who took a stroll one night hunting black kids because I allowed the media to whip me into a frenzy over the issue. Particularly when I am capable of considering the FACT that he participated in activism w/ the NAACP and mentored black children.
ReplyDeleteAnd as my other work clearly suggests, I have tremendous respect for Mr. Cain, and he and I share many ideological similarities, including as a matter of race relations. Considering he's walked a lifetime in a "black person's shoes," I wouldn't hold my breath in thinking that my spending "a week in a black person's shoes" will make me conform to your position on race relations.
W
I find her comments spot on. If someone analyzing politics, do not in this see a poster child in Herman cain, then either they know nothing of human nature or are blinded by her or his ideology, what Sartre would call bad faith.
ReplyDelete