Recommend Unrecommend Add to Blog. Edit Tags. Done Editing Tags. Share this article. From the piece: Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC. This content was created by a Daily Kos Community member. Make YOUR voice heard! Log in or create an account. Comments are closed on this story. L Recommend r Reply. More hints When that prominent black commentator and his sister — who also works for the organisation — defended the bigot as a good guy who was misunderstood and 'going through a tough time in his life', would anyone accept their excuse-making?
Would that commentator still have a place on a mainstream network? Because that's what happened in the real world, when Pat Buchanan employed as executive director of his group, America's Cause, a blatant racist who did all these things, or at least their white equivalents: attending white separatist conferences and attacking a black woman while calling her the n-word.
Imagine that a black radio host were to suggest that the only way to get promoted in the administration of a white president is by 'hating black people', or that a prominent white person had only endorsed a white presidential candidate as an act of racial bonding, or blamed a white president for a fight on a school bus in which a black kid was jumped by two white kids, or said that he wouldn't want to kill all conservatives, but rather, would like to leave just enough — 'living fossils' as he called them — 'so we will never forget what these people stood for'.
After all, these are things that Rush Limbaugh has said about Barack Obama's administration, Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama, a fight on a school bus in Belleville, Illinois, in which two black kids beat up a white kid, and about liberals generally.
Imagine that a black pastor, formerly a member of the US military, were to declare, as part of his opposition to a white president's policies, that he was ready to 'suit up, get my gun, go to Washington, and do what they trained me to do'. Imagine a black radio talk-show host gleefully predicting a revolution by people of colour if the government continues to be dominated by the rich white men who have been 'destroying' the country, or if said radio personality were to call Christians or Jews 'non-humans', or say that when it came to conservatives, the best solution would be to 'hang 'em high'.
And what would happen to any congressional representative who praised that commentator for 'speaking common sense' and likened his hate-talk to 'American values'? After all, those are among the things said by radio host and best-selling author Michael Savage, predicting white revolution in the face of multiculturalism, or said by Savage about Muslims and liberals, respectively.
And it was Congressman John Culberson, from Texas, who praised Savage in that way, despite his hateful rhetoric. Imagine a black political commentator suggesting that the only thing the guy who flew his plane into the Austin, Texas, IRS building did wrong was not blowing up Fox News instead.
Imagine that a popular black liberal website posted comments about the daughter of a white president, calling her 'typical redneck trash' or a 'whore' whose mother entertains her by 'making monkey sounds'.
After all that's comparable to what conservatives posted about Malia Obama on freerepublic. Imagine that black protesters at a large political rally were walking around with signs calling for the lynching of their congressional enemies. Because that's what white conservatives did last year, in reference to Democratic Party leaders in Congress.
In other words, imagine that even one-third of the anger and vitriol currently being hurled at President Obama, by folks who are almost exclusively white, were being aimed, instead, at a white president, by people of colour. How many whites viewing the anger, the hatred, the contempt for that white president would then wax eloquent about free speech and the glories of democracy?
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