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Thanks for posting that; it seems there is no bigot he won’t bend over backwards to defend.
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That’s going to be, by necessity, the new fashion soon.
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Judge Figures, 70, passed away on January 22, 2015. At the time of his death, Figures was serving as Municipal Judge for the city of Mobile. A position former Mayor Sam Jones appointed him to in 2007.
And yet he was still a sitting municipal judge at the time of his death. Perhaps Mr. Rather told him to study his law books, to cling to his integrity?
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And one certainly can’t take such accusations as an opportunity to reflect upon one’s behaviour to see what might lead others to think of them as racist. Can’t be done.
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Bouie has become one of my go-to writers/thinkers of late, along with Ta-Nehisi Coates (and especially the latter when I feel like I need a kick in the informational/opinion ass). I may like both of them even more because when I hear them speak/write, they make me think back to that certain subset of kids who were ALWAYS in the library reading something, and they ALWAYS had a kick-ass critique or angle that hadn’t occurred to me. Smart people writing smart things that challenge my views, both of 'em.
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I am not even convinced that, in this case and others, those making the accusations of racism even believe the accusations themselves. Cory Booker is now outraged at the extreme racism of Mr. Sessions, but last year he was proud to work with Sessions in sponsoring civil rights legislation.
One does not need to be racist or engage in racist behavior to be accused of racism or antisemitism. One needs only to be seen by the Democratic party as a potential rival. Remember when Bernie Sanders was sexist and racist?
http://www.npr.org/2016/03/07/469545384/bernie-sanders-faces-criticism-over-comments-on-race
I don’t think he is even capable of expressing a racist statement. But he campaigned against Clinton, so it began.
Remember when Hillary was not in control of the DNC, but campaigned against someone who was?
I am not putting this out there to claim that I believe any of these smears have any truth to them. But when the DNC accuses every single potential opponent of being racist/sexist/antisemitic as a matter of course, there is not much to reflect on, except that they really play dirty. And the downside of this is when an actual racist shows up, nobody will take the situation seriously.
Let’s set aside Cory Booker and the Clintons. Politicians do indeed say things they don’t mean for advantages. Do you think that I don’t think Sessions is racist? Do you think that the other commenters on this board don’t think Sessions is racist?
That article about Sanders “being racist” was actually an article about how he made some racially insensitive remarks. It has the remarks in it, they were racially insensitive. I get what he was trying to say, but I need to read some of that into it. The article didn’t jump into calling him racist, but pointed out that he probably needed to do better to avoid putting people off.
The Salon article echos my point exactly: Sanders wasn’t being called sexist or anti-woman, he was being made to look bad because he was shouting about other people not shouting, and that created a particular image in the minds of women who have experienced that kind of thing from men before. As the author says:
In light of all this, the smart thing for Sanders to do is to stop being so defensive about this. Sure, it wasn’t a clear-cut example of sexism, but few instances of sexism are. Rules-lawyering over this—complete with the implication that women are just imagining things if they were put off by Sanders’s “shouting” comment during the debate—isn’t helping.
Again, not calling him sexist, but saying that he needs to do better because his current approach is putting some people off. I don’t see how that isn’t valid criticism to level at a political candidate, and criticism that inherently recognizes that we can accept people even if they say the wrong thing sometimes.
The Slate article quotes Bill Clinton agreeing with the point you are making:
Bill Clinton said of the Obama campaign. The former president went on: “This is almost like, once you accuse somebody of racism or bigotry or something, the facts become irrelevant.”
If racism is such an impossible accusation to deal with, how was it that Clinton, apparently branded a racist while campaigning against Obama, managed to win the nomination that next time it was available? How is it that celebrities who have their careers ruined by one racist remark seem to make remarkable comebacks (see Michael Richards, Paula Deen, Mel Gibson)?
How is it that people who are victims of demonstrable racism just have to suck it up? How is it that police just keep killing young back men with impunity?
Or, in the case of Sessions, people call you racist and you become the Attorney General.
There is a clear defense against being called racist. It’s saying, “I’m not racist” and then letting a swarm of people on the internet say things like, “The real power of the accusation of racism is that one can never really disprove such accusations.” Problem solved.
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And that it’s far worse to be CALLED a racist rather than to experience the effects of racism…
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Even if this were true and not just a lazy generalization you’re trying to use as a smokescreen it wouldn’t nullify all such claims.
It’s not “playing dirty” to accuse someone of that which they are demonstrably guilty, although you have a history of only seeing guilt where you want to regardless of evidence or the lack of it.
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I believe that those on this forum are honest about their beliefs and feelings. But in this case, those beliefs are based on what appear to be biased and distorted reports, often submitted by people who actually know better. The people who supported the accusations against Sessions in 1996 knew perfectly well that the three people who Thomas Figures claims witnessed Session’s racial remarks were interviewed, and denied that such remarks were made.
Clinton is no longer perceived to be a racist because her status within the DNC changed from “disfavored” to “favored”.
And I am not talking about actual racism, faced by regular people trying to live their lives. Or even non-political figures.
I am addressing my comments very narrowly to anyone seen as a threat to the DNC. I have no doubt that if Mel Gibson ran for office against a favored DNC candidate, he would would be labeled as worse than Hitler. In his case, there would be actual antisemitic statements to bring up again and again. But Gibson is not currently a threat to the DNC, he acknowledged his antisemitism, and made an attempt at atonement.
You know, for a political party working to dominate the political landscape in America through dirty political tricks, the DNC do seem to be out of power literally all across the country. They are just about to take it all back through lies and racism, right? The GOP is really on the ropes right now…
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Yes. That’s unheard of. Madness. Cats and dogs living together—mass hysteria!
A Citigroup exec, on the other hand, why that’s just sound government.
Trump’s picks are terrible, obviously, but acting shocked, shocked that Wall Street bankster types end up as secretaries of the treasury strikes me as disingenuous at best. Henry Paulson. Jack Lew. Everyone does it. And those who aren’t execs before certainly are execs after.
So no. In that one respect, Trump is going to leave Obama’s legacy of kowtowing to the robber barons of Wall Street completely intact.
Oh joy.
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And yet since this has neither happened nor is likely to happen you’re just making stuff up and expecting others to accept it as true.
Your own prejudices are showing.
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I don’t think any of us are acted shocked that he’d do that - I’m sure many of us expected it. We all realized he do that. We also weren’t the people shouting “DRAIN THE SWAMP” at Trump rallies…
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Well yeah, but only a short eight years ago, they were riding high in much the same position as the GOP is now, having won everything over the shrieked protests of their political foes. Besides, if you read Palast, say, you’ll see that the overriding desire of apparatchiks is power within the party. Outside power is nice, but they’ll always choose having their position inside the party secure over it. This is doubly true in America where most politicians don’t really campaign against their political opponents since they are in a nice safe seat with an incumbency re-election percentage north of 90%. No their one fear is a challenge from within their own party.
That’s why the DNC is such a snakepit of corruption—that’s what it is for.. And it is corrupt. The GOP is better because it blew up recently when the tea party thing got well, well out of hand, and they haven’t had the time to get things sorted again. Snakes are on order, pit’s the wrong depth. You know how these things are.
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I’m also talking about the slow creep in state houses and governorships in GOP hands, not just the more volatile congress and presidency, which have a long history of sort of flipping regularly. The insane gerrymandering has not helped here.
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Oh, I’m not denying he’s stabbed his electorate in the back. Repeatedly.
I just think that putting Rick Perry as Secretary of Energy really is something new (and idiotic) while his secretary of the treasury pick, far from being designed to ‘destroy Obama’s legacy’ ensures it.
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