Sunday, July 25, 2010

Shirley Sherrod and the Circle of Bigotry

A commentator on Pam's House Blend, Rebecca Morn, broke down the Shirley Sherrod debacle in such an awesome way that I simply have to repeat her words:

Breitbart: This woman is a racist! See! I have a heavily doctored video! She used her position as a fed in the USDA to discriminate against white people!


Wingnut Noise Machine: ALERT! ALERT! UPPITY BLACK PERSON ADMITS TO HATING WHITEY!

The Media: Ooooh! Quick, let's panic like a pack of four year olds upon seeing their first big spider. She is! She is! She weally is a wacist! Fire her ass.

The Administration: Aaaaaaaaaah! Fire her! Fire her now! Quickly! She's toxic and Glenn Beck is gonna do a story on her. Panic!


Responsible people: Like hell. Look at the rest of the video. First of all, this was like 30 years ago; secondly, she was working for a non-profit organization, not the government, and thirdly, Sherrod's anecdote was all about her realizing she had the wrong attitude, that she should stand for ALL poor people, regardless of their color or origin.

The Media: Er, um... No way we were snookered that badly. Must be something wrong with her.

The Administration: Uh oh. Activate ostrich mode!


Wingnut Noise Machine: ALERT! Those white people she helped -- they're fakes! They don't exist!

Responsible people: Afraid she's not a racist, and those farmers are totally legit. Oh, and by the way -- her father was murdered by racist bigots during the civil rights era.


The Media and the Administration: Oh crap. We gotta make this right.

Breitbart: No no -- it wasn't about HER. I was pointing out the racism of the entire NAACP. See, they were hooting and hollering at her anecdote like a bunch of... well, you know.


Wingnut Noise Machine: ALERT! NAACP -- are they total racists? Also, did they collude with the Obama Administration to destroy this woman's career? It would be irresponsible not to speculate...for hours and hours.


Responsible people: Give Sherrod her damned job back. Better still, make it a promotion. And we want to hear some apologies. After this ridiculous lynching, there better be a POTUS call, too.


The Media and the Administration (scuffing the dirt): All right... Sorry.

Sherrod is interviewed. She's kinda p.o'd at having been railroaded like she was, and for no good reason than the perfidy of the bigots and the cowardice of her supposed employers and friends. She rightly calls Breitbart on his shit, calls him a racist and someone who'd probably like to see African Americans reduced to slavery again.


Wingnut Noise Machine: ALERT! Sherrod must apologize abjectly to Breitbart! She's evil again! Black woman disrespecting white guy who nearly got away with ruining her career! Release the hounds!




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Repost: The religious right and the power of transference

reprinted from February 3, 2009:

A few minutes ago, I had a say what moment.

A say what moment is when someone says something so unbelievable that it renders you silent for a few minutes with your mouth open in shock.

Who was the culprit of this say what moment? Why my and your favorite anti-gay spokesperson, Peter LaBarbera. In a piece he wrote about the recent Creating Change conference, LaBarbera complains about a speech by Rea Carey of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

One of his points:

. . . thousands of left-wing, grassroots activists attend these annual “Creating Change” conferences; there is no parallel on the social Right for this scale of people and groups working closely together toward common goals. There are precious few organizing and political “how-to” conferences for pro-family conservatives. The Left eats and breathes politics; the Right is more distrustful of government, worse at politics, but more oriented toward God, family and church (the latter is obviously a good thing).

And thus, my say what moment.

Did LaBarbera actually say that there is no parallel on the social Right in terms of conferences and groups working together for their own agenda and the like?

Then what the hell were the Justice Sunday events in which religious right organizations whined about the courts?

Or Vision America, where pastors are "organized" to fight supposed "Godlessness,"

or those unbelievable Values Voters summits.

It's nice that LaBarbera seems to be fearful of lgbt power but his whining about organizations on his side of the so-cultural battle having no power is patently false, or to be less polite about it, a blatant lie.

At any rate, its a perfect segueway to what I wanted to write about today.

It always amazes me when I hear religious right spokespeople and organizations claim that lgbts are following some type of pragmatic plan to take over the country.

We should be so fortunate to be that organized.

I've come to the conclusion that whenever they accuse us of playing James Bond villian games, it's only to cover up just how skillful they plan and organize.

Follow me now:

The Supreme Court rules favorably for lgbts in a certain case.

One News Now, owned by the American Family Association, prints an article (biased, of course) against the ruling and quoting only so-called “pro-family” leaders such as Gary Bauer who claim that the ruling is a travesty on the country.

Other talking heads such as Michelle Malkin write columns falsely claiming that the Supreme Court ruled against them because of alleged biases of the justices. These columns are filtered
to other right-wing publications and blogs.

James Dobson (Focus on the Family) criticizes the ruling on his radio program, as does Tony Perkins (Family Research Council). Other articles are written trying to prove how the ruling will hurt America. More articles are written digging up speeches that the judges made, hinting on flimsy correlations between their ruling and so-called personal biases.

The blogs begin smear the reputations of the judges. Religious right code words (i.e. "activist judges") is repeated in columns, articles, and books.

The Traditional Values Coalition, the Family Research Council, and other so-called “pro-family” groups solicit donations making the claim that either the ruling will doom Christians and will lead to homosexuality being taught “as normal” to children or it will lead to criticizing homosexuality as being designated as a hate crime. They get people of faith who are gullible enough to believe their lies to write letters to their local newspapers (using a script of anti-gay industry talking points.)

Backdoor meetings are held and suddenly, Congressmen friendly to religious right causes begin to cite religious right talking points in speeches and on the floor of Congress.

So-called news programs (Fox News) begin debating whether or not judges have a bias against people of faith.

Talk show hosts such as Mike Huckabee have religious right spokespeople as the sole guests on their shows where they spew talking points unchallenged.

Events such as Justice Sunday fill the airwaves, scaring people of faith about a supposed plot to take away their liberties and their ability to worship.

And then they really begin to organize.


That, ladies and gentlemen, is how planning and organizing is done. And folks like Peter have cornered the market on it. 



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