Tag Archives: bigotry

How Long Can This Continue?

The State, a newspaper in South Carolina, reports that Senator Lindsay Graham–the very right-wing South Carolina Senator who is coming up for re-election–has attracted a primary opponent. Because, you know, Graham is insufficiently insane.

State Sen. Lee Bright announced his candidacy Tuesday for the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate, calling incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham “a community organizer for the Muslim Brotherhood.”

“During the (congressional) recess, when I would hope that he would be around folks in South Carolina, getting their feelings on so many issues that affect their lives, he has instead chosen to take his time to be a community organizer for the Muslim Brotherhood and that concerns me,” Bright told supporters in a conference call. “He needs to spend more time listening to what the brothers in South Carolina have to say.”

Increasingly, I feel as though I have fallen down the Rabbit Hole with Alice, or I’m living in one of those science fiction books I used to read, where the protagonist goes to sleep only to wake up in an alternate universe.

Mr. (not very) Bright uses all the dog whistle words: community organizer. Muslim. Next thing you know, he’ll be accusing Graham of having been civil to the President (although he’d be hard pressed to find an example of Graham actually voting for something the President proposed. At this point, if President Obama suggested we endorse the sun continuing to rise in the east, most Republicans would call the very idea “socialism” and oppose it.)

I know we Americans have gone through periods of hysteria and bigotry and self-destructive behaviors before. We just didn’t have the internet and Facebook and blogs to rub our faces in every paranoid utterance, every display of aggressive ignorance and racial animus. I want to believe that this, too, shall pass…..

But I’d feel so much better if someone could assure me that we will come to the end of this cycle of crazy before the harm done becomes irreparable.

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Apples and Trees

Several media outlets recently reported that the teenage son of Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, whose given name is Tanner, used the screen name “n1ggerkiller” in an online game; he also posted YouTube comments using the word “nigger” and calling Mexicans “the scum of the Earth.” His Twitter account was littered with the word faggot, and he called a friend a “Jew” for stealing a joke.

According to a story in Slate, Nevada Rep. Joe Heck’s son Joey “posted equally stomach-turning comments to his Twitter account. In addition to his repeated use of “faggot” and “nigga,” he made anti-gay and anti-Mexican remarks, saying NFL quarterback “[Mark] Sanchez can hop the border faster than he can throw the ball” and retweeted “There are gays everywhere. Maybe that’s gods way of thinning out the population because faggots can’t have babies.” Being a politically minded young lad, he also commented that ABC’s Martha Raddatz should not have been a presidential debate moderator because she’s a woman and that Mitt Romney made Barack Obama his “slave” in a presidential debate. Heck also said that Obama’s main accomplishments as president were promoting the sports of “spear chucking and rock skipping. The sports they do in his home country…”

Both politicians were quick to disavow the posts, offering weak “boys will be boys” explanations, but as the article detailed, both Flake and Heck come from the fever swamp precincts of the GOP.

The apples, as we used to say, don’t fall far from the tree. Those of us who are parents are aware–often painfully aware–of the myriad ways in which our attitudes and language shape our children.

As the old song from South Pacific put it, “You have to be taught to hate.”

We all know that there are people like Flake and Heck, filled with animus, and twisted in ways that are hard to fathom. There have always been such people, and I assume there always will be. The more troubling question is: how do they get elected? Are the donors and voters who support them oblivious to these attitudes? Or do they share them?

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The Mystery of Michelle

So Michelle Bachmann isn’t going to run again.

I won’t add my voice to the chorus of those speculating about the reasons for her decision to quit. I don’t really care whether it was poll results, one of the federal investigations, or a personal message from Jesus.

I’m also not going to join the chorus of those who will miss having Crazy Eyes around—who are bemoaning the loss of a perfect Tea Party specimen to whom they could point and laugh (albeit despairingly).

What I want to know is how this embodiment of everything that is ludicrous and embarrassing about American politics ever got elected in the first place.

The feminist part of me suspects looks had something to do with it. A friend of mine maintains that no one would ever have heard of Sarah Palin if she looked like Janet Reno, and that is probably true of Michelle as well. If you don’t look at the eyes, she’s very attractive.

But surely, at some point, voters actually listened to her.

What did those voters think about her charge that Congress was filled with “anti-American” fifth column members? About her bill to allow light bulb “freedom of choice”?  About her rejection of evolution and climate change?  About her accusation that Hillary Clinton’s aide was a Muslim terrorist? (Cleverly married to a Jew, to throw us off the scent…)

One would think that voters who agreed with her bigotry and extremism would at least be embarrassed by her aggressive ignorance. But she was elected. To the Congress of these United States. Three times.

If that isn’t evidence that America is doomed, I don’t know what is.

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Can We Spell Clueless…

The persistence of bigotry in society is widely acknowledged, and there are plenty of examples of people who are just plain hateful. There’s a robust literature that tries to explain the roots of prejudice, and a lively debate about what constitutes an appropriate response to its expression.

But how should we react to behavior that isn’t motivated by animus, but is just stupid and/or insensitive? What do we do with the clueless?

There are a couple of videos that have been going around the internet that address this issue. One compiles embarrassingly dumb remarks white girls say to black girls, and there’s another doing the same with “shit” gentile girls ask Jewish ones. (As someone who was a Jewish girl, I can attest to the accuracy of the latter one; I still remember a high school “friend” who asked me in all seriousness whether Jews had tails.) These videos are being shared for their comic value, and maybe that’s all we can do–laugh.

But an article shared by a colleague yesterday points to some of the less laughable consequences of clueless behaviors.

In Norcross, Georgia, a third-grade math assignment used slavery as a basis for story problems–as in “If Frederick received two beatings each day, how many beatings did he get in a week?” According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, one of the math teachers decided to use a social studies lesson on Frederick Douglass as a basis for a series of story problems that were–to be kind–incredibly inappropriate. Inexplicably, his worksheet was then reviewed and used by three other teachers.

Here’s a math story problem: if one third-grade teacher has no common sense and three of his colleagues don’t notice, how many third-grade teachers are clueless?

Parents in this racially-diverse school district were understandably outraged, and the school is “investigating” the incident. But this is one of those times when people of good will are really at a loss to suggest appropriate action. Some parents are calling for the teachers to be fired, but in the absence of intentional animus, that is probably an over-reaction. (Of course, if this incident is an indication of pedagogical competence, perhaps not…)

There are things we can do to combat bigotry and racism. Combatting well-meaning ignorance is a lot harder.

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