22.5.06
Fight the Future
Glenn Greenwald notes:
Good.
And - by the way, Nagin was re-elected with a substantial share of the conservative white vote.
...this spewing of racially-tinged anger over Nagin's re-election is both childish and ugly. These bloggers having their fun with "chocolate" and "flavor" jokes think they have a built-in defense for speaking that way (namely, Nagin's use of those terms), and so, like an 8-year-old who discovers some excuse for using a bad word, they just revel in it over and over. The second they think there is an opportunity to spew all sorts of racially-tinged bile, they take it. And thus, a mayoral election is spoken of in terms of "poverty pimps" and "chocolate cities" and overt claims that he was only elected because he's black."Afraid" is the right word. These idiot racists are terrified children, terrified of their own weakness, yearning for the days when White Men ruled the world. They look to the future and see that whites will not simply rule based on their Whiteness - they see in their worst nightmares a future where all men are indeed judged by "the content of their character, not the color of their skin." And for these racists - these small, awful men - they know that there will be no glory there for them.
Beyond that, the comparisons to Marion Barry are as baseless as they are telling. Barry is known for all sorts of behaviors that have long been at the crux of ugly racist stereotypes -- he's a drug addict who has been caught on camera using crack with hookers in a downtown hotel, and he then encountered all sorts of allegations of financial impropriety in connection with his political office.
None of that is true for Nagin. Nagin and Barry have nothing in common other than that they are black Mayors. It would be like comparing every white Southern Governor to Lester Maddux, or every white evangelical Christian male to Jim Bakker or every white Southern male to David Duke. It's deliberately inflammatory, and it purposely seizes what they perceive is an opportunity to traffic in racial stereotypes which they normally are too afraid to voice.
Good.
And - by the way, Nagin was re-elected with a substantial share of the conservative white vote.
perma-linky posted by jkd : 09:39
