Category Archives: Race-Baiting

January 20, 2013 · 2:21 AM

Limbaugh Tarnishes Civil Rights Movement To Advance Pro-Gun Agenda

Rush Limbaugh has never espoused truth, logic or common sense.  So, surely he has no incentive to start now…

Think Progress

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh sought to equate the fight for African American civil rights with opposition to gun safety on Friday, suggesting that the movement could have better protected itself from segregationists had it been armed. Limbaugh specifically signaled out Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), a nonviolent civil rights activist who was beaten during the 1965 voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery.

“Try this,” Limbaugh said. “If a lot of African-Americans back in the ’60s had guns and the legal right to use them for self-defense, you think they would have needed Selma? I don’t know. I’m just asking. If (Rep) John Lewis, who says he was beat upside the head, if John Lewis had had a gun, would he have been beat upside the head on the bridge?” Listen:

http://soundcloud.com/thinkpro/limbaugh-on-gunsLewis has issued a response to Limbaugh, noting that “Our goal in the Civil Rights Movement was not to injure or destroy but to build a sense of community, to reconcile people to the true oneness of all humanity.” “African Americans in the 60s could have chosen to arm themselves, but we made a conscious decision not to. We were convinced that peace could not be achieved through violence. Violence begets violence, and we believed the only way to achieve peaceful ends was through peaceful means.”

Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr — a strict disciple of nonviolent resistance — was shot by an assassin in 1968. In the wake of his death — as well as the murders of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Malcolm X — Congress passed, the Gun Control Act of 1968, the nation’s first comprehensive federal firearms regulation. Unfortunately, gun advocates have seized on King’s legacy to prevent gun safety reforms and are hosting a Gun Appreciation Day for the weekend of President Obama’s second inauguration. Larry Ward, chairman of the event, claims that it “honors the legacy of Dr. King.”

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January 4, 2012 · 3:52 PM

Are Republican Front Runners Racist? Here’s Your Guide…

In my opinion, the election of President Barack H. Obama has resurrected some deep seeded  racial tension in our country.  Muslims, Hispanics and African Americans appear to be the target.

There are many people who have their opinions as to whether or not my statement is even true.  Fox news would definitely refute my thesis, as would Limbaugh, Drudge, etc. …

News One

The top GOP candidates who emerged from yesterday’s Iowa Caucus have a few things in common: They’re all white. They’re all men. And they’ve all been accused of racism. Some of these claims proved baseless, but others — we think — are  legitimate.

The News One Team put together a short list of the top GOP candidates — in the order in which they placed in last night’s voting — along with the racial accusations levied against them.

1) Mitt Romney

Washington Post blogger Elizabeth Flock wrote a Dec. 14 blog post titled “Mitt Romney is using a KKK slogan in his speeches.” Flock’s post began as follows:

Someone didn’t do his research.

On Tuesday, political commenters reported that GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney has been using a catchphrase in his stump speeches that the Ku Klux Klan favored in the 1920s.

When the white supremacist group used “Keep America American,” it was to rally people against blacks American, gay people, Catholics and Jews. When Romney’s used it, as he did in this Los Angeles Times piece, it was to promise that as president he would “keep America American with the principles that made us the greatest nation on Earth.”

There’s only one problem. The accusation isn’t true. The Washington Post Executive Editor and its ombudsman published articles pointing out errors in Flock’s reporting and her editor’s lack of oversight.

MSNBC ran a similar story and “Hardball’s” Chris Matthews went on air to apologize for it soon after.

2) Rick Santorum

Was Rick Santorum echoing Ronald Reagan’s “Welfare Queen” rhetoric of the 1980s when he told a room of mostly white voters in Iowa that he doesn’t want to “make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.”

And what about that suggestion that Obama ought to be anti-abortion because he is a black man? Was Santorum trying to evoke the emotional support of right-wing conservatives with divisive racial rhetoric?

We think so.  Political stump speeches, especially at the level of presidential politics, are well-crafted and thought-out. No syllable is left needlessly dangling for a commentator or prowling reporter ready to snatch and convert it into a mini-controversy.

That Santorum would not be aware of this, especially in light of GOP’s past with racism, seems farfetched. At the very least, he is guilty of racial pandering. He says he doesn’t even remember making either of the comments. Pretty sloppy, Rick. Just say you misspoke and move on.

3) Ron Paul

The Libertarian Congressman’s proverbial Rolodex is starting to look like a KKK roll call. NewsOne recently published a story noting Ron Paul’s ties to leaders of racist organizations. And these are not stereotypical backwoods hicks we’re talking about, either. Leading the pack is Don Black, a former Grand Wizard of the KKK and current American Nazi Party member. While he denies he himself is a racist, Paul makes little effort to disavow the views of racists who support his nomination.

And those “Ron Paul Political Report” newsletters from 20 years ago continue to hover over his campaign as well. A New York Times article states that one of the articles refers to the Martin Luther King holiday as “Hate Whitey Day.” Paul denies writing or knowing anything about any of the racially charged articles that have come to light in the past month.

When a CNN reporter asked him how he could not have known about the incendiary language spewed on the pages of the publication that carried his name, he walked out of the interview.

Not the best way to fight claims you’re a racist, Mr. Paul. Especially if you’re running for President. And while we’re on Ron Paul…

4) Newt Gingrich

Gingrich took Ron Paul to task on the newsletters during a GOP debate, but he’s had his own racial flaps. During an interview with CNBC’s Larry Kudlow, he referred to Obama as the “Food Stamp President.”  Of course, he knew what he was saying.  Newt is good ol’ boy from Georgia who knows all too well how to employ racial coding.  Gingrich prides himself on his historical acumen, so he could argue he didn’t know that “Food Stamp President” would resonate negatively with black voters and galvanize reactionary whites.

The GOP primary season is young, leaving plenty of time for more of these race bombs. Stay tuned to NewsOne as we track them…

 

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September 26, 2011 · 2:29 AM

Drudge Seizes On Yet Another Opportunity For Race-Baiting Attack

I know we should all be used to the right-wing media with their exaggerations and falsehoods about the POTUS, but this one stands out as egregious as it can get…

County Fair | Media Matters

During his speech to the Congressional Black Caucus on September 24, President Obama said to African-American leaders: “I expect all of you to march with me and press on. Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes. Shake it off. Stop complaining. Stop grumbling. Stop crying. We are going to press on. We’ve got work to do, CBC.”

Unsurprisingly, the Drudge Report used the speech as an opportunity for race-baiting.

Drudge highlighted the speech with this quote: “Obama to Blacks: ‘Put On Your Marching Shoes,’ ” and accompanied it with a photograph of what looked like black people protesting in front of the White House with their fists raised:

This would have been an innocuous enough photo if this had been any other media outlet. But this is the Drudge Report, a website that traffics in race. The fact that this was a photo depicting blacks with raised fists under what some have interpreted as “a dog whistle for race riots” tells its own tale. And this is a long-running theme with Drudge.

Gateway Pundit blogger Jim Hoft took it even further. In a post headlined, “Obama Puts on His Best Dialect & Tells Black Audience ‘Stop Complaining & Fight,’ ” he wrote:

Barack Obama told his black audience last night to “Put on your marching shoes.”

[...]

Barack Obama delivered the red meat to the big government socialists of the Congressional Black Caucus.

He was pushing his latest half trillion dollar stimulus that he insists will work… this time.

And, since he was speaking to the black caucus he broke out the black dialect.

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May 26, 2011 · 1:26 AM

Racism to blame for Obama’s problems, key Democrat says

Well, I’m just shocked!  Shocked, I tell you, to find out that racism is to blame for Obama’s problems (sarcasm).

However, I prefer to call it Obama Derangement Syndrome. You know, it sounds more politically correct.

The truth of the matter is, Rep. Clyburn is spot on!

McClatchy

House Assistant Democratic Leader Jim Clyburn, the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, on Wednesday blamed most of President Barack Obama’s political problems on racism.

Clyburn, who’s from South Carolina and is a close ally of the president, offered his views in response to a question about Obama’s re-election prospects next year.

“I think they’re improving every day,” Clyburn said. “I think the president has been a good president, a great commander in chief.”

Clyburn, who met his wife at a 1960 court hearing after spending a night in jail for having engaged in a civil rights protest in Orangeburg, S.C., then brought up Obama’s race as the first black president.

“You know, I’m 70 years old,” he said. “And I can tell you; people don’t like to deal with it, but the fact of the matter is, the president’s problems are in large measure because of the color of his skin.”

Clyburn noted that he himself got hate mail, racist phone calls and offensive faxes on a regular basis. Asked how that relates to the president, Clyburn retorted: “We have the same skin color; that’s how it relates to him.”

Clyburn described a recent racist image of Obama that received widespread news coverage.

“When he sees his face being put on a chimpanzee’s body; do you think he didn’t see that?” Clyburn said. “And I suspect they send the same faxes to his office they send to mine.”

Marilyn Davenport, a member of the Orange County Republican Central Committee in California, forwarded an email to friends last month that displayed a photograph of a chimpanzee with Obama’s face superimposed on its head.

In response to the immediate uproar, Davenport apologized but rebuffed demands from the California NAACP that she resign her GOP post.

Read more…

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May 12, 2011 · 9:03 AM

Sarah Palin: ‘Just too easy’ to criticize Common’s White House appearance

This woman has been so marginalized to the political sidelines recently, that she had to “go there” to get any attention at all. 

 This part of her statement says it all in terms of her “deep-seated” (to borrow a term from Glenn Beck) racist attitude:

“The White House’s judgment on inviting someone who would glorify cop killing during police memorial week, of all times, the judgment is so lacking of class and decency and all that is good about America with an invite like this.”

Politico

Sarah Palin threw some more fuel onto the fire of the Drudge Report-led controversy swirling around the White House’s decision to host the rapper Common at a celebration of poetry.

“It is just too easy,” Palin said of criticizing the decision, which has caused an uproar in conservative spheres. “The White House’s judgment on inviting someone who would glorify cop killing during police memorial week, of all times, the judgment is so lacking of class and decency and all that is good about America with an invite like this.”

Common has come under attack for some of his past lyrics, including those about a former Black Panther who was convicted of killing a police officer. White House press secretary Jay Carney on Wednesday defended the decision to invite Common, pointing out that the rapper has “spoken very forcefully out against violent and misogynist lyrics.”

Still, Palin was happy to jump into the fray Wednesday night in a lengthy television interview almost entirely dedicated to the controversy.

“We thought we were to be united under the leader of the free world, Barack Obama in tamping down racism and inciting violence — and cop killing certainly — and killing a former president,” Palin said on Fox News, interspersing references to some of Common’s lyrics that have been targeted by the right.

“All those things that this rapper has glorified and is known for certainly reflects a lack of judgment on the White House’s part,” she said.

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