Saturday, January 7, 2012
"Divide and rule"? Diane Abbott was right
in a society steeped in white supremacy white racists incite racism and stereotypes(an example is the racist BBC show Top Gear) is called free speech and when people of colour (POC) objects to being dehumanzed and stereotyped they are called, sensitive, politically correct, and accused of playing the race card. but when a POC like Dianne Abbot exercise the same freedoms and tell the truth about white supremacy. she is called a racist and is asked to resign and apologize.
The privileged will do anything to distract attention from their own power.
Racism, as the British National Party and its neo-fascist street imitators have been arguing for years, cuts both ways. On 4 January, a black British woman MP hammered out a comment on Twitter which could, taken entirely out of context, be interpreted as a a generalisation about white people. Diane Abbott MP is now Britain's best-known racist -- in a week when the nation's top story has been the prosecution of the murder of a black teenager by a gang of white youths and the subsequent "institutional racism" that was unearthed in the handling of the case by the Metropolitan police.
But hang on, what was it that Abbott actually said? Let's have a little look at the generalisation over which the Hackney MP got a public dressing-down from her own party. Abbott said that "white people" like to play the game of "divide and rule". That's rude, isn't it? Clearly she thinks that ordinary white people like me spend the waking hours between tooth-brushing and the office dividing and ruling. It couldn't possibly be a comment on the structural imposition of power along lines of race and class, particularly not from a veteran anti-racist campaigner, and especially not in a week where institutional racism is in the news. That would just be silly.
Dorian Lynskey's comments on the matter are worth quoting at length. He points out that Abbott, who has a track record of saying the right thing in just the wrong way -- "she should have said 'white people in power' or 'certain white people'" -- was essentially on the money.
There's a term for that tactic. The term is "divide and rule".
It's a tactic, as Abbott herself put it, "as old as colonialism" - and it's also a tactic as modern as Twitter. When those with an ideological or personal stake in defending the interests of privilege feel themselves under threat, their first line of defence is often to persuade the underprivileged that it is they who are under attack.
Rick Perry and Mitt Romney defend tax-breaks for the super-rich by telling blue-collar Americans that Democrats and union workers want to cut their paycheques: divide and rule. David Cameron denounces industrial action by encouraging low-paid private sector workers to complain that the pensions public sector workers are striking to protect are higher than theirs: divide and rule. David Willetts tells unemployed men that it's all these selfish women in the workplace who have taken their jobs: divide and rule. Ed Miliband and Liam Byrne, not to mention Ian Duncan Smith, defend the dismantling of the welfare state by persuading the working class that those in receipt of housing benefit are scroungers scamming the system. Divide, dismiss -- and rule.
Everywhere, the right fights public awareness of structural injustice by re-phrasing it as a personal attack by one vulnerable demographic on another. Structural injustice itself cannot be wedged into the story of neoliberalism, which reduces everything to a cloying moral syrup of personal responsibility lectures -- except where the banking sector is involved, of course.
What's missing from the story -- what's always missing -- is power. Defenders of privilege and hierarchy will do anything at all to distract attention from power, and to re-phrase attacks on power as attacks on the powerless. The chorus of faux-outrage over Abbott's tweet isn't just cynical; in a week when structural racism is in the news, it's a classic game of divide and rule.
The privileged will do anything to distract attention from their own power.
Racism, as the British National Party and its neo-fascist street imitators have been arguing for years, cuts both ways. On 4 January, a black British woman MP hammered out a comment on Twitter which could, taken entirely out of context, be interpreted as a a generalisation about white people. Diane Abbott MP is now Britain's best-known racist -- in a week when the nation's top story has been the prosecution of the murder of a black teenager by a gang of white youths and the subsequent "institutional racism" that was unearthed in the handling of the case by the Metropolitan police.
But hang on, what was it that Abbott actually said? Let's have a little look at the generalisation over which the Hackney MP got a public dressing-down from her own party. Abbott said that "white people" like to play the game of "divide and rule". That's rude, isn't it? Clearly she thinks that ordinary white people like me spend the waking hours between tooth-brushing and the office dividing and ruling. It couldn't possibly be a comment on the structural imposition of power along lines of race and class, particularly not from a veteran anti-racist campaigner, and especially not in a week where institutional racism is in the news. That would just be silly.
Dorian Lynskey's comments on the matter are worth quoting at length. He points out that Abbott, who has a track record of saying the right thing in just the wrong way -- "she should have said 'white people in power' or 'certain white people'" -- was essentially on the money.
[Abbott] clarified that she was referring to 19th century colonialism when, to take just one example, the Belgians colonising modern-day Rwanda strategically favoured the Tutsis over the Hutus and sowed the seeds of attempted genocide a century later. But you don't need to go back that far. The US government's efforts to disrupt the civil rights and Black Power movements are a textbook example of divide-and-rule. It is what dominant powers do. To read her tweet as an indictment of every single white person in the world requires either paranoia or malice. Most of all it means denying that power matters.The British right has always been allergic to any structural understanding of racial politics, and all week, the commentariat has been coming out in hives. A day before Abbottgate, a Telegraph leader wrung its hands over the profound impact of the Lawrence trial on racial awareness in British public life, complaining that "people" have "found themselves denounced for harmless, if inappropriate, remarks". Elsewhere, former Prospect editor David Goodhart wrote that:
If the Stephen Lawrence case may help to diminish a black grievance culture, it is likely to increase a white working class one . . . this is part of a broader story of how parts of white working class London, especially in the east and the south, felt that they had to accommodate the changes required by post-war immigration...and then had to endure lectures about racism from middle class liberals whose lives had not been changed at all.The argument that the "white working class" has had anti-racist politics forced on it by "middle class liberals" is an insult to those white working-class people who have spent years, sometimes lifetimes, fighting racism in their communities. In Barking and Dagenham in 2010, thousands of the borough's residents mobilised to stop the British National Party gaining a foothold in Westminster. Goodhart's lazy generalisations play right into the language of the modern far-right: that anti-racism is itself racist, and that any gains for black people must produce equal and opposite losses for white people, in a world in which privilege and prejudice can never be fought, only redistributed.
There's a term for that tactic. The term is "divide and rule".
It's a tactic, as Abbott herself put it, "as old as colonialism" - and it's also a tactic as modern as Twitter. When those with an ideological or personal stake in defending the interests of privilege feel themselves under threat, their first line of defence is often to persuade the underprivileged that it is they who are under attack.
Rick Perry and Mitt Romney defend tax-breaks for the super-rich by telling blue-collar Americans that Democrats and union workers want to cut their paycheques: divide and rule. David Cameron denounces industrial action by encouraging low-paid private sector workers to complain that the pensions public sector workers are striking to protect are higher than theirs: divide and rule. David Willetts tells unemployed men that it's all these selfish women in the workplace who have taken their jobs: divide and rule. Ed Miliband and Liam Byrne, not to mention Ian Duncan Smith, defend the dismantling of the welfare state by persuading the working class that those in receipt of housing benefit are scroungers scamming the system. Divide, dismiss -- and rule.
Everywhere, the right fights public awareness of structural injustice by re-phrasing it as a personal attack by one vulnerable demographic on another. Structural injustice itself cannot be wedged into the story of neoliberalism, which reduces everything to a cloying moral syrup of personal responsibility lectures -- except where the banking sector is involved, of course.
What's missing from the story -- what's always missing -- is power. Defenders of privilege and hierarchy will do anything at all to distract attention from power, and to re-phrase attacks on power as attacks on the powerless. The chorus of faux-outrage over Abbott's tweet isn't just cynical; in a week when structural racism is in the news, it's a classic game of divide and rule.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Ron Paul Supporters Release Racist Ad Depicting Jon Huntsman As Maoist Soldier
link
America has only experienced the first of many primary contests this week, and already a candidate for “most offensive campaign ad” has come to the fore, and with gusto. The group “New Hampshire Liberty 4 Paul”– supporting Rep. Ron Paul– has come out swinging against Jon Huntsman for his ties to China, asking whether he is the “Manchurian Candidate” and whether he lacks “American values” for having lived in Beijing
The ad begins asking of Huntsman, “The Manchurian Candidate,” “What’s he hiding?” It features “traditional” Chinese music and clips of Huntsman doing things in China: speaking Mandarin, taking interviews from Chinese press, walking around in China– you get the idea. It then asks a series of questions during the montage like, “American values, or Chinese?” and “Weak on China? Wonder why?” It also takes a detour to slam him for being Mormon (“A man of faith?”) before the coup de grace, a doctored photo of Huntsman in what appears to be Maoist military garb. Essentially, it makes “Willie Horton” look like Will.I.Am’s “Yes We Can” ad.
The ad is part of an account labeled “New Hampshire Liberty 4 Paul” on YouTube and appears to have no connections to any actual Rep. Paul SuperPAC or his official campaign. But it has been floating around the blogosphere and, given that the reaction in many circles to it has been something to the effect of “those crazy Ron Paul fans strike again!” rather than “This is a joke, right?” is just as much of a problem– in fact– possibly the central problem– the Rep. Paul campaign faces in this election. The predominant attitude towards this campaign is that it would, entirely seriously, have supporters who would launch attacks like this. And even in the event that this ad is revealed to be a joke, the fact that most take it at face value is indicative of precisely the challenge Rep. Paul faces and what kind of campaign many– rightfully or otherwise– believe he is capable of.
Then there is the actual content of the ad, which is problematic (though not entirely surprising) in itself. There is a long and storied tradition on American history of discrimination against far east Asians, particularly of Chinese descent. While this ad, ridiculous as it is, may remind many of you of myriad different political attacks in the election sphere, the quote that came most to mind for me was from Justice Harlan’s dissent in the “separate but equal” case Plessy v. Ferguson. In short, this is what “non-racist” people sounded like, not so long ago in America:
.
America has only experienced the first of many primary contests this week, and already a candidate for “most offensive campaign ad” has come to the fore, and with gusto. The group “New Hampshire Liberty 4 Paul”– supporting Rep. Ron Paul– has come out swinging against Jon Huntsman for his ties to China, asking whether he is the “Manchurian Candidate” and whether he lacks “American values” for having lived in Beijing
The ad begins asking of Huntsman, “The Manchurian Candidate,” “What’s he hiding?” It features “traditional” Chinese music and clips of Huntsman doing things in China: speaking Mandarin, taking interviews from Chinese press, walking around in China– you get the idea. It then asks a series of questions during the montage like, “American values, or Chinese?” and “Weak on China? Wonder why?” It also takes a detour to slam him for being Mormon (“A man of faith?”) before the coup de grace, a doctored photo of Huntsman in what appears to be Maoist military garb. Essentially, it makes “Willie Horton” look like Will.I.Am’s “Yes We Can” ad.
The ad is part of an account labeled “New Hampshire Liberty 4 Paul” on YouTube and appears to have no connections to any actual Rep. Paul SuperPAC or his official campaign. But it has been floating around the blogosphere and, given that the reaction in many circles to it has been something to the effect of “those crazy Ron Paul fans strike again!” rather than “This is a joke, right?” is just as much of a problem– in fact– possibly the central problem– the Rep. Paul campaign faces in this election. The predominant attitude towards this campaign is that it would, entirely seriously, have supporters who would launch attacks like this. And even in the event that this ad is revealed to be a joke, the fact that most take it at face value is indicative of precisely the challenge Rep. Paul faces and what kind of campaign many– rightfully or otherwise– believe he is capable of.
Then there is the actual content of the ad, which is problematic (though not entirely surprising) in itself. There is a long and storied tradition on American history of discrimination against far east Asians, particularly of Chinese descent. While this ad, ridiculous as it is, may remind many of you of myriad different political attacks in the election sphere, the quote that came most to mind for me was from Justice Harlan’s dissent in the “separate but equal” case Plessy v. Ferguson. In short, this is what “non-racist” people sounded like, not so long ago in America:
There is a race so different from our own that we do not permit those belonging to it to become citizens of the United States. Persons belonging to it are, with few exceptions, absolutely excluded from our country. I allude to the Chinese race. But, by the statute in question, a Chinaman can ride in the same passenger coach with white citizens of the United States, while citizens of the black race in Louisiana, many of whom, perhaps, risked their lives for the preservation of the Union, who are entitled, by law, to participate in the political control of the State and nation, who are not excluded, by law or by reason of their race, from public stations of any kind, and who have all the legal rights that belong to white citizens, are yet declared to be criminals, liable to imprisonment, if they ride in a public coach occupied by citizens of the white race.And that’s not even mentioned the (still totally legal!) internment of thousands of Japanese-Americans for no reason during WWII. Even when overt discrimination against black Americans became entirely socially unacceptable (some may argue it is still not entirely so), the alternative discrimination against Asian Americans was considered a responsible alternative. As far as history goes, Rep. Paul’s supporters may then be onto something here, igniting racial thoughts in voters that will cause Republicans to distrust Huntsman. But that doesn’t make it any less vile, and toxic for Rep. Paul himself should he not denounce it.
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1964 Not the Only Time Racists Hated Government
new york magazine article
A few days ago, I dismissed
the argument by Ron Paul and his supporters that he can’t be racist
because he’s a libertarian along with (the weaker version of this
argument) that Paul’s paleolibertarian ideology has nothing to do with
racism. Conor Friedersdorf has a lengthy reply at the Atlantic.
Much of the article is him complaining that I don’t write about
President Obama’s civil liberties policies, which aren’t related to the
question at hand. (Answer: I don’t have opinions on everything!) But
then the heart of it is Friedersdorf claiming that it was really just a
brief historical moment in time when libertarian anti-federal principles
aided the cause of racism:
Critics of Ron Paul-style libertarianism are right, or so I'd argue, that his approach to governing would've postponed the advancement of human freedom had he risen to power in 1960. … In the same way that neo-cons cloud their thinking and public discourse writ large by constantly evaluating every foreign-policy argument as though it's Great Britain circa 1939 -- take that, anti-war appeasers! -- critics of American libertarianism clarify nothing by acting as if the early 1960s are the only prism through which libertarian ideas should be evaluated.
Friedersdorf headlines his item, “For Critics Of Libertarianism,
It’s Always 1964.” That strikes me as an awfully strange reading of
history. The cause of white supremacy was deeply enmeshed with
opposition to federal power for well over a century. Defenders of
slavery, then opponents of reconstruction, as well as opponents of a
long line of civil rights measures from anti-lynching laws to voting
rights protections, all framed their case as principled opposition to
expansive federal power.
It doesn’t take some enormous leap to connect Paul’s ideology
with the anti-government arguments employed by white supremacists far
earlier than the sixties. Paul and his closest adherents have done so themselves, as James Kirchick explained in his seminal piece about Paul’s ideology:
To understand Paul’s philosophy, the best place to start is probably the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Auburn, Alabama. The institute is named for a libertarian Austrian economist, but it was founded by a man named Lew Rockwell, who also served as Paul’s congressional chief of staff from 1978 to 1982. Paul has had a long and prominent association with the institute, teaching at its seminars and serving as a “distinguished counselor.” The institute has also published his books.
The politics of the organization are complicated--its philosophy derives largely from the work of the late Murray Rothbard, a Bronx-born son of Jewish immigrants from Poland and a self-described “anarcho-capitalist” who viewed the state as nothing more than “a criminal gang”--but one aspect of the institute’s worldview stands out as particularly disturbing: its attachment to the Confederacy. Thomas E. Woods Jr., a member of the institute’s senior faculty, is a founder of the League of the South, a secessionist group, and the author of ThePolitically Incorrect Guide to American History, a pro-Confederate, revisionist tract published in 2004. Paul enthusiastically blurbed Woods’s book, saying that it “heroically rescues real history from the politically correct memory hole.” Thomas DiLorenzo, another senior faculty member and author of The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War, refers to the Civil War as the “War for Southern Independence” and attacks “Lincoln cultists”; Paul endorsed the book on MSNBC last month in a debate over whether the Civil War was necessary (Paul thinks it was not). In April 1995, the institute hosted a conference on secession at which Paul spoke; previewing the event, Rockwell wrote to supporters, “We’ll explore what causes [secession] and how to promote it.” Paul’s newsletters have themselves repeatedly expressed sympathy for the general concept of secession. In 1992, for instance, theSurvival Report argued that “the right of secession should be ingrained in a free society” and that “there is nothing wrong with loosely banding together small units of government. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, we too should consider it.”
Again, to correct another error by Friedersdorf, I don’t think
libertarianism or even plaeolibertarianism is inherently racist. I’m
arguing against the notion that it’s inherently anti-racist or
non-racist. As Noah Smith argues, local bullies are always going to be attracted to libertarianism:
The freedom of the individual can be curtailed not only by the government, but by a large variety of intermediate powers like work bosses, neighborhood associations, self-organized ethnic movements, organized religions, tough violent men, or social conventions. In a society such as ours, where the government maintains a nominal monopoly on the use of physical violence, there is plenty of room for people to be oppressed by such intermediate powers, whom I call "local bullies."
The modern American libertarian ideology does not deal with the issue of local bullies. In the world envisioned by Nozick, Hayek, Rand, and other foundational thinkers of the movement, there are only two levels to society — the government (the "big bully") and the individual. If your freedom is not being taken away by the biggest bully that exists, your freedom is not being taken away at all.
You can be one without the other, and certainly libertarian
principles have features that attract adherents other than permitting
local bullies, but paleolibertarianism and white supremacy are obviously
quite compatible.
Girl Wrongfully Deported To Colombia Could Return Home Soon
link
EL PASO, Texas— The grandmother of a 15-year-old Dallas girl who was deported to Colombia after giving immigration officials a fake name is questioning why U.S. officials didn’t do more to verify her identify.
U.S. immigration officials said they’re investigating the circumstances of the case involving Jakadrien Lorece Turner. But they insist they followed procedure and found nothing to indicate that the girl wasn’t — as she claimed — a woman from Colombia illegally living in the U.S.
The girl, who ran away from home more than a year ago, was recently found in Bogota, Colombia, by the Dallas Police Department with help from Colombian and U.S. officials.
The Colombian government said late Thursday that the U.S. Embassy had submitted the necessary documents for Jakadrien to return to the U.S, though it was unclear exactly when she might be back.
Her grandmother, Dallas hairstylist Lorene Turner, said she’s hoping Jakadrien will soon be home.
U.S. immigration officials deferred questions to the State Department about when the teen might return. The State Department said it was aware of the case but declined to comment further, citing privacy reasons.
According to the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the girl was enrolled in the country’s “Welcome Home” program after she arrived there. She was given shelter, psychological assistance and a job at a call center, a statement from the agency said. When the Colombian government discovered she was a U.S. citizen, it put her under the care of a welfare program, the statement said.
Her grandmother called the deportation a “big mistake somebody made” and said U.S. officials need to do better.
“She looks like a kid, she acts like a kid. How could they think she wasn’t a kid?” Lorene Turner asked on Thursday.
Jakadrien’s family said she left home in November 2010. Houston police said the girl was arrested on April 2, 2011, for misdemeanor theft in that city and claimed to be Tika Lanay Cortez, a Colombian woman born in 1990.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official told The Associated Press on Thursday that the teen claimed to be Cortez throughout the criminal proceedings in Houston and the ensuing deportation process in which an immigration judge ultimately ordered her back to Colombia.
The ICE official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to not being authorized to discuss additional details of the case, said the teenager was interviewed by a representative from the Colombian consulate and that country’s government issued her a travel document to enter Colombia. The ICE official said standard procedure before any deportation is to coordinate with the other country in order to establish that person is from there.
The girl was given Colombian citizenship upon arriving there, the ICE official said.
The Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Jakadrien was issued travel documents at the request of the U.S. National Security Agency and with information submitted by U.S. officials. Colombian officials are investigating what kind of verification was conducted by its Houston consulate to issue the temporary passport.
It was not clear if the teen might be charged upon her return for falsifying her identity in a criminal process.
Dallas Police detective C’mon (pronounced Simone) Wingo, the detective in charge of the case, explained that in August she was contacted by the girl’s grandmother, who said Jakadrien had posted “kind of disturbing” messages on a Facebook account where she goes by yet another name.
Wingo said the girl was located in early November through her use of a computer to log into Facebook. Relatives were then put into contact with the U.S. Embassy in Bogota to provide pictures and documents to prove Jakadrien’s identity.
Lorene Turner said she has spent a lot of time tracking down Jakadrien, whose family nickname is Kay-Kay.
“In between customers I’d get on the computer looking for Kay-Kay, I was obsessed,” she said.
She and the teen’s mother, Johnisa Turner, said they did not contact Jakadrien through Facebook and plead for her to come home because they were afraid.
“I didn’t want to scare her or get her in trouble with those who had her,” Lorene Turner said, adding that she feared the girl might have been caught up in human trafficking. “I don’t know. I’m just going crazy. She didn’t have any reason to leave. She lived in a nice home (with her mother and stepfather). We were very close. I don’t know why she left.”
Johnisa Turner was reluctant to go into any details about the deportation, saying she didn’t know anything. She referred calls to her attorney, Ray Jackson, but he could not be immediately reached.
“I was devastated,” she said. “When your child doesn’t come home from school, of course you go to the worst end of the spectrum. I was just hoping that she was alive and well.”
Johnisa Turner said her daughter, a freshman at a new Dallas high school, was experimenting with different hairstyles and clothes but “wasn’t a problem kid.” She said the teen was a good student but when her grades began to slip, her parents took away some of her privileges, including closing down her Facebook account and limiting the time she could listen to music.
Johnisa Turner said she was relieved that Jakadrien has been found and wants her back in Dallas.
“Whatever it is, the past is in the past. I want her home so we can move from this day forward.”
EL PASO, Texas— The grandmother of a 15-year-old Dallas girl who was deported to Colombia after giving immigration officials a fake name is questioning why U.S. officials didn’t do more to verify her identify.
U.S. immigration officials said they’re investigating the circumstances of the case involving Jakadrien Lorece Turner. But they insist they followed procedure and found nothing to indicate that the girl wasn’t — as she claimed — a woman from Colombia illegally living in the U.S.
The girl, who ran away from home more than a year ago, was recently found in Bogota, Colombia, by the Dallas Police Department with help from Colombian and U.S. officials.
The Colombian government said late Thursday that the U.S. Embassy had submitted the necessary documents for Jakadrien to return to the U.S, though it was unclear exactly when she might be back.
Her grandmother, Dallas hairstylist Lorene Turner, said she’s hoping Jakadrien will soon be home.
U.S. immigration officials deferred questions to the State Department about when the teen might return. The State Department said it was aware of the case but declined to comment further, citing privacy reasons.
According to the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the girl was enrolled in the country’s “Welcome Home” program after she arrived there. She was given shelter, psychological assistance and a job at a call center, a statement from the agency said. When the Colombian government discovered she was a U.S. citizen, it put her under the care of a welfare program, the statement said.
Her grandmother called the deportation a “big mistake somebody made” and said U.S. officials need to do better.
“She looks like a kid, she acts like a kid. How could they think she wasn’t a kid?” Lorene Turner asked on Thursday.
Jakadrien’s family said she left home in November 2010. Houston police said the girl was arrested on April 2, 2011, for misdemeanor theft in that city and claimed to be Tika Lanay Cortez, a Colombian woman born in 1990.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official told The Associated Press on Thursday that the teen claimed to be Cortez throughout the criminal proceedings in Houston and the ensuing deportation process in which an immigration judge ultimately ordered her back to Colombia.
The ICE official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to not being authorized to discuss additional details of the case, said the teenager was interviewed by a representative from the Colombian consulate and that country’s government issued her a travel document to enter Colombia. The ICE official said standard procedure before any deportation is to coordinate with the other country in order to establish that person is from there.
The girl was given Colombian citizenship upon arriving there, the ICE official said.
The Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Jakadrien was issued travel documents at the request of the U.S. National Security Agency and with information submitted by U.S. officials. Colombian officials are investigating what kind of verification was conducted by its Houston consulate to issue the temporary passport.
It was not clear if the teen might be charged upon her return for falsifying her identity in a criminal process.
Dallas Police detective C’mon (pronounced Simone) Wingo, the detective in charge of the case, explained that in August she was contacted by the girl’s grandmother, who said Jakadrien had posted “kind of disturbing” messages on a Facebook account where she goes by yet another name.
Wingo said the girl was located in early November through her use of a computer to log into Facebook. Relatives were then put into contact with the U.S. Embassy in Bogota to provide pictures and documents to prove Jakadrien’s identity.
Lorene Turner said she has spent a lot of time tracking down Jakadrien, whose family nickname is Kay-Kay.
“In between customers I’d get on the computer looking for Kay-Kay, I was obsessed,” she said.
She and the teen’s mother, Johnisa Turner, said they did not contact Jakadrien through Facebook and plead for her to come home because they were afraid.
“I didn’t want to scare her or get her in trouble with those who had her,” Lorene Turner said, adding that she feared the girl might have been caught up in human trafficking. “I don’t know. I’m just going crazy. She didn’t have any reason to leave. She lived in a nice home (with her mother and stepfather). We were very close. I don’t know why she left.”
Johnisa Turner was reluctant to go into any details about the deportation, saying she didn’t know anything. She referred calls to her attorney, Ray Jackson, but he could not be immediately reached.
“I was devastated,” she said. “When your child doesn’t come home from school, of course you go to the worst end of the spectrum. I was just hoping that she was alive and well.”
Johnisa Turner said her daughter, a freshman at a new Dallas high school, was experimenting with different hairstyles and clothes but “wasn’t a problem kid.” She said the teen was a good student but when her grades began to slip, her parents took away some of her privileges, including closing down her Facebook account and limiting the time she could listen to music.
Johnisa Turner said she was relieved that Jakadrien has been found and wants her back in Dallas.
“Whatever it is, the past is in the past. I want her home so we can move from this day forward.”
Arizona Girls Record Racist YouTube Rant about Immigration
link
n the latest, grossest example of (lacking human dignity and) not anticipating social media backlash after releasing a long-winded, hateful tirade to millions of viewers on the internet, comes a group of Arizona girls who decided to get together to talk about "Mexican immigration" and the "new Arizona law that just passed the legislator (sic)."
The video -- almost six minutes long --
was pulled from YouTube and the creators deleted their YouTube account
shortly after their inboxes and social media accounts were flooded with
video responses and hate mail.
Of course -- as
with anything that's published online -- the video was downloaded
before it was deleted and has been reposted on local and national sites
including Perez Hilton and World Star Hip Hop and has been dubbed the "az racist girl rant."
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Santorum’s Racist Welfare Rant: ‘I Don’t Want To Make Black People’s Lives Better’ With Taxpayer Money
link
GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum has been trying to pull off an upset in the Iowa caucus, but he’s drawing criticism ahead of tonight’s contest for racially charged remarks he recently made about welfare recipients:
At a campaign stop in Sioux City, Iowa on Sunday, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum singled out blacks as being recipients of assistance through federal benefit programs, telling a mostly-white audience he doesn’t want to “make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.” [...]
It is unclear why Santorum pinpointed blacks specifically as recipients of federal aid. The original questioner asked “how do we get off this crazy train? We’ve got so much foreign influence in this country now,” adding “where do we go from here?”
It’s hard to say which part of the story is stranger — that Santorum spontaneously derided poor black people in response to a question about foreign money or his explanation of why he did it.
When asked about the comments in a CBS interview, Santorum bizarrely referenced a documentary about the education achievement gap, Waiting for Superman, to explain the context. “Yesterday I talked for example about a movie called, um, what was it? ‘Waiting for Superman,’ which was about black children and so I don’t know whether it was in response and I was talking about that,” he said. The movie actually portrays students of several races.
There had originally been some confusion about whether Santorum actually said the word “black,” which he appeared to clear up in the CBS interview by acknowledging that was in fact the statement he made. (The candidate seemed to think better of his words mid-sentence, so the line comes across garbled.)
CBS points out that only nine percent of Iowans on food stamps are black — and 84 percent are white. Nationally, 39 percent of welfare recipients are white, 37 percent are black, and 17 percent are Hispanic. So Santorum’s decision to single out black welfare recipients plays right into insulting — and inaccurate — stereotypes of the kind of people some voters might expect to want a “handout.”
Attacking families who receive government aid has been a theme among many of the Republican candidates. In nearly every speech, Newt Gingrich accuses President Obama of being a “food stamp president” and even said “really poor children” have bad work habits and no knowledge of how to make an income “unless it’s illegal.” (HT: Raw Story)
African-American teen missing since 2010 mistakenly deported to Colombia
link
An African-American teen from Dallas who has been missing since 2010 was found to have been wrongfully deported to Colombia, area outlet News 8 reports. Jakadrien Turner was mistakenly deported by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) in April of 2011 after being arrested as a teen runaway.
The troubled youth had fled her family at the age of 14 under duress caused by the death of her grandfather and her parents' divorce. Having made her way to Houston, Jakadrien was brought into police custody for theft, where she gave a fake name. That name coincidentally belonged to a Colombian illegal immigrant who had warrants out for her arrest.
Jakadrien's grandmother, Lorene Turner, had been looking for her granddaughter ever since she left the family fold, seemingly having vanished into thin air. Staying up many late nights for months searching on Facebook, Turner credits messages on the social network for aiding her discovery of her granddaughter's location. She also received help from Dallas police.
Turner alerted U.S. authorities after discovering that Jakadrien had been working as a cleaner in Colombia. The Colombian government had given her a work card upon her arrival there.
After being informed by American authorities, Colombian officials took Jakadrien into custody where she has been waiting for a month in detention. It has also been discovered that the African-American teen is pregnant.
Jakadrien was deported to Colombia at the age of 15 by ICE after being fingerprinted, which should have clarified the girl's true identity. How she, as an African-American speaking no Spanish, was able to be deported failing the confirmation of her foreign national status remains a matter for further ICE investigation.
The Colombian government has refused to release the girl to her family in the United States.
In a statement regarding this case of mistaken identity, ICE Director of Public Affairs Brian Hale said:
Lorene Turner remains hopeful that Jakadrien's case will soon be resolved, as she told News 8, "I feel like she will come home. I just need help. And I need prayer."
An African-American teen from Dallas who has been missing since 2010 was found to have been wrongfully deported to Colombia, area outlet News 8 reports. Jakadrien Turner was mistakenly deported by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) in April of 2011 after being arrested as a teen runaway.
The troubled youth had fled her family at the age of 14 under duress caused by the death of her grandfather and her parents' divorce. Having made her way to Houston, Jakadrien was brought into police custody for theft, where she gave a fake name. That name coincidentally belonged to a Colombian illegal immigrant who had warrants out for her arrest.
Jakadrien's grandmother, Lorene Turner, had been looking for her granddaughter ever since she left the family fold, seemingly having vanished into thin air. Staying up many late nights for months searching on Facebook, Turner credits messages on the social network for aiding her discovery of her granddaughter's location. She also received help from Dallas police.
Turner alerted U.S. authorities after discovering that Jakadrien had been working as a cleaner in Colombia. The Colombian government had given her a work card upon her arrival there.
After being informed by American authorities, Colombian officials took Jakadrien into custody where she has been waiting for a month in detention. It has also been discovered that the African-American teen is pregnant.
Jakadrien was deported to Colombia at the age of 15 by ICE after being fingerprinted, which should have clarified the girl's true identity. How she, as an African-American speaking no Spanish, was able to be deported failing the confirmation of her foreign national status remains a matter for further ICE investigation.
The Colombian government has refused to release the girl to her family in the United States.
In a statement regarding this case of mistaken identity, ICE Director of Public Affairs Brian Hale said:
ICE takes these allegations very seriously. At the direction of [the Department of Homeland Security], ICE is fully and immediately investigating this matter in order to expeditiously determine the facts of this case.ICE also noted that lying by foreign nationals to prevent deportation has been documented in some cases. For the moment, the agency is not answering further questions regarding Jakadrien's deportation.
Lorene Turner remains hopeful that Jakadrien's case will soon be resolved, as she told News 8, "I feel like she will come home. I just need help. And I need prayer."
7 movies you didn’t realize are subtly racist
link
7 Animal House
Look, I love Animal House,
but… come on, you can’t tell me that the scene in which the boys take
their dates to a club filled with giant, menacing black dudes isn’t at
least slightly racist. Just a tad anyway. I mean, yeah, “Mind
if we dance with yo dates?” is a funny quote from a funny movie but
watching it recently I couldn’t help but think “What the hell? That’s,
uh, that’s kind of racist.” From the terrified reaction of the guys to
the meek, submissive fear shown by the white women, it’s a scene that
could never be filmed today. People would go nuts. Sure, the giant
black dudes treated the women with dignity and respect, but that’s why it’s
so racist. I mean, that was part of the joke – the dudes just wanted
to dance but because they were giant black dudes everyone assumed they
wanted to rape the white girls and kill the frat boys. How in the hell
is that not racist? Oh, also, how about all those minority students at
Faber College? Oh, wait…
6 Dangerous Minds
The plot of Dangerous Minds:
An intrepid white lady, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, braves the wild
urban jungle in order to bring civilization to a gang of inner-city
thugs and reprobates who are completely incapable of educating
themselves or finding reasons to live without the guidance of a gentle
white hand. Do I need to go on? No? Good. Also, this movie made
Coolio think that he was an important artist, which honestly is the
worst and most irresponsible thing on this entire list.
5 300
According to 300,
the Spartans – representing the defenders of Western Civilization – are
all chiseled demi-gods willing to give their lives in defense of
everything noble and right, while the Persians – representing the East –
are all rampaging degenerates, disgusting mutants, wild sex fiends with
nothing but animal lust in their hearts and treachery in their lizard
brains. Honestly, I’d rather hang out with Xerxes and his friends than
Leonidas and his boys while they polish their shields all night and
admire each other’s rock hard, uh, abs, but that’s beside the point.
The point is that in a movie in which the chief conflict is between East
and West – which let’s face it is kind of relevant given today’s world –
the forces of the East are all portrayed as inhuman monsters. Yeah,
yeah, I know the movie is about the heroic last stand of the Spartans at
Thermopylae, but to anyone paying attention it’s impossible to ignore
the subtext of the movie, which is that Westerners are all Greek Gods
and Easterners are all shifty perverts and monsters. Uh, on second
thought, maybe the racism in this one wasn’t so subtle.
4 Avatar/Dances With Wolves/The Last Samurai
I
was going to give each one of these movies a place of their own on this
list, but why bother? They’re basically all the same movie – a native
tribe tries to fend off the greedy advances of the cruel, spiritless
Western world while a single noble white man struggles with his own
place in that Western world before being embedded with the spiritually
advanced natives, who teach him their ways and then sit back while he
takes over and leads their resistance. Seriously, that is the basic
plot to all three of these movies. Whether it’s Kevin Costner fighting
Union troops on behalf of helpless Indians or Tom Cruise fighting Union
trained troops on behalf of helpless Japanese Samurai or Sam Worthington
fighting grizzled space marines and greedy developers on behalf of
helpless Indians, er, I mean Na’vi, they all have the same moral: white
people are soulless greedheads, native people are all soulful spirit
warriors and in the end, only a single spiritually evolved white man can
save their dying civilizations. Some would call these movies
progressive, but that shit is racist, yo.
3 The Passion of the Christ
Lessons learned from watching The Passion of the Christ:
Jesus is cool, Jews are all evil and would sell out their own savior,
and oh yeah, they really, really enjoy watching him get his ass beat
because, again, they are evil, just like the bad guys in Lethal Weapon. Okay, got it. Thanks for the lesson, Mel.
2 Hoosiers
What’s racist about Hoosiers?
Well, how about the fact that the whole movie is built around the
fantasy of a bunch of humble, midwestern white kids banding together
thanks to grit, hustle, teamwork, David Eckstein and a lot of other
buzzwords used by secretly racist old white dudes to champion
un-athletic mediocre white athletes, in order to defeat the unstoppable
inner-city black monsters in the end to win the state championship? Uh,
that’s at least a little racist, right? Look, I love Hoosiers but let’s face it, this movie is a Klansman’s wet dream.
1 All of the Rocky movies
The
Rocky movies are, like Hoosiers, basically a white man’s fantasy.
Every single one of them is built around the white man triumphing over
the black man, who is basically used throughout the series as a symbol
for everything that’s keeping the white man from getting his piece of
the pie. Let’s break down the series, movie by movie, shall we?
In Rocky, the villain is Apollo Creed, a flashy black dude who personifies the idea of style over substance. He wins in the end but over the course of their title fight, the world falls in love with the grit and moxie of the underdog white man, Rocky Balboa.
In Rocky II, Apollo Creed is again the bad guy, only this time Rocky triumphs in the end, once and for all establishing that the white way is the right way.
In Rocky III, Apollo has learned his lesson and now spends all his time helping Rocky train like a glorified towel boy or something. The new bad guy is a thug named Clubber Lang, played by Mr. T, a black dude with no respect for anyone or anything. Also, it’s implied that Rocky’s beloved trainer, a crusty old white dude named Mickey, literally dies because Rocky won’t listen to him and stay humble and act like a gritty white man should, which as we learned from the previous movies is the only way to triumph over the wild ways of the black man.
In Rocky IV, the bad guy isn’t black, but Russian and all the Russians are portrayed as inhuman cheaters, joyless robots who just want to crush the free spirit of the American Rocky. Also, Apollo shows up and gets killed by the Russian in a fight which sees Apollo act like such a black stereotype that it’s surprising that he doesn’t break into a little soft-shoe mid-fight.
In Rocky V, Rocky has become poor and brain-damaged from years of abuse at the hands of evil black dudes and monster Russians. He mentors a young white fighter who soon falls prey to the advances of a slimy black promoter who turns the young white guy against Rocky and forces Rocky to fight back once again against the flashy ways of the evil black man.
And finally, in Rocky Balboa, a 97 year-old Rocky comes out of retirement to whip the ass of the disrespectful and brash new champion, a flashy upstart who, shock of all shocks, is a young black dude.
I’m guessing that in Rocky VII, Rocky will finally just get it over with and join the Klan. You can argue with me all you want but just read everything I just wrote and tell me that the Rocky franchise isn’t, as the esteemed founder of Guyism – and reportedly handsome as hell – Chris Spags once stated, “a subtly racist parable for the white man’s triumph over the black man.” And that’s why it’s number one on this list.
7 Animal House
Look, I love Animal House,
but… come on, you can’t tell me that the scene in which the boys take
their dates to a club filled with giant, menacing black dudes isn’t at
least slightly racist. Just a tad anyway. I mean, yeah, “Mind
if we dance with yo dates?” is a funny quote from a funny movie but
watching it recently I couldn’t help but think “What the hell? That’s,
uh, that’s kind of racist.” From the terrified reaction of the guys to
the meek, submissive fear shown by the white women, it’s a scene that
could never be filmed today. People would go nuts. Sure, the giant
black dudes treated the women with dignity and respect, but that’s why it’s
so racist. I mean, that was part of the joke – the dudes just wanted
to dance but because they were giant black dudes everyone assumed they
wanted to rape the white girls and kill the frat boys. How in the hell
is that not racist? Oh, also, how about all those minority students at
Faber College? Oh, wait…6 Dangerous Minds
The plot of Dangerous Minds:
An intrepid white lady, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, braves the wild
urban jungle in order to bring civilization to a gang of inner-city
thugs and reprobates who are completely incapable of educating
themselves or finding reasons to live without the guidance of a gentle
white hand. Do I need to go on? No? Good. Also, this movie made
Coolio think that he was an important artist, which honestly is the
worst and most irresponsible thing on this entire list.5 300
According to 300,
the Spartans – representing the defenders of Western Civilization – are
all chiseled demi-gods willing to give their lives in defense of
everything noble and right, while the Persians – representing the East –
are all rampaging degenerates, disgusting mutants, wild sex fiends with
nothing but animal lust in their hearts and treachery in their lizard
brains. Honestly, I’d rather hang out with Xerxes and his friends than
Leonidas and his boys while they polish their shields all night and
admire each other’s rock hard, uh, abs, but that’s beside the point.
The point is that in a movie in which the chief conflict is between East
and West – which let’s face it is kind of relevant given today’s world –
the forces of the East are all portrayed as inhuman monsters. Yeah,
yeah, I know the movie is about the heroic last stand of the Spartans at
Thermopylae, but to anyone paying attention it’s impossible to ignore
the subtext of the movie, which is that Westerners are all Greek Gods
and Easterners are all shifty perverts and monsters. Uh, on second
thought, maybe the racism in this one wasn’t so subtle.4 Avatar/Dances With Wolves/The Last Samurai
I
was going to give each one of these movies a place of their own on this
list, but why bother? They’re basically all the same movie – a native
tribe tries to fend off the greedy advances of the cruel, spiritless
Western world while a single noble white man struggles with his own
place in that Western world before being embedded with the spiritually
advanced natives, who teach him their ways and then sit back while he
takes over and leads their resistance. Seriously, that is the basic
plot to all three of these movies. Whether it’s Kevin Costner fighting
Union troops on behalf of helpless Indians or Tom Cruise fighting Union
trained troops on behalf of helpless Japanese Samurai or Sam Worthington
fighting grizzled space marines and greedy developers on behalf of
helpless Indians, er, I mean Na’vi, they all have the same moral: white
people are soulless greedheads, native people are all soulful spirit
warriors and in the end, only a single spiritually evolved white man can
save their dying civilizations. Some would call these movies
progressive, but that shit is racist, yo.3 The Passion of the Christ
Lessons learned from watching The Passion of the Christ:
Jesus is cool, Jews are all evil and would sell out their own savior,
and oh yeah, they really, really enjoy watching him get his ass beat
because, again, they are evil, just like the bad guys in Lethal Weapon. Okay, got it. Thanks for the lesson, Mel.2 Hoosiers
What’s racist about Hoosiers?
Well, how about the fact that the whole movie is built around the
fantasy of a bunch of humble, midwestern white kids banding together
thanks to grit, hustle, teamwork, David Eckstein and a lot of other
buzzwords used by secretly racist old white dudes to champion
un-athletic mediocre white athletes, in order to defeat the unstoppable
inner-city black monsters in the end to win the state championship? Uh,
that’s at least a little racist, right? Look, I love Hoosiers but let’s face it, this movie is a Klansman’s wet dream.1 All of the Rocky movies
The
Rocky movies are, like Hoosiers, basically a white man’s fantasy.
Every single one of them is built around the white man triumphing over
the black man, who is basically used throughout the series as a symbol
for everything that’s keeping the white man from getting his piece of
the pie. Let’s break down the series, movie by movie, shall we? In Rocky, the villain is Apollo Creed, a flashy black dude who personifies the idea of style over substance. He wins in the end but over the course of their title fight, the world falls in love with the grit and moxie of the underdog white man, Rocky Balboa.
In Rocky II, Apollo Creed is again the bad guy, only this time Rocky triumphs in the end, once and for all establishing that the white way is the right way.
In Rocky III, Apollo has learned his lesson and now spends all his time helping Rocky train like a glorified towel boy or something. The new bad guy is a thug named Clubber Lang, played by Mr. T, a black dude with no respect for anyone or anything. Also, it’s implied that Rocky’s beloved trainer, a crusty old white dude named Mickey, literally dies because Rocky won’t listen to him and stay humble and act like a gritty white man should, which as we learned from the previous movies is the only way to triumph over the wild ways of the black man.
In Rocky IV, the bad guy isn’t black, but Russian and all the Russians are portrayed as inhuman cheaters, joyless robots who just want to crush the free spirit of the American Rocky. Also, Apollo shows up and gets killed by the Russian in a fight which sees Apollo act like such a black stereotype that it’s surprising that he doesn’t break into a little soft-shoe mid-fight.
In Rocky V, Rocky has become poor and brain-damaged from years of abuse at the hands of evil black dudes and monster Russians. He mentors a young white fighter who soon falls prey to the advances of a slimy black promoter who turns the young white guy against Rocky and forces Rocky to fight back once again against the flashy ways of the evil black man.
And finally, in Rocky Balboa, a 97 year-old Rocky comes out of retirement to whip the ass of the disrespectful and brash new champion, a flashy upstart who, shock of all shocks, is a young black dude.
I’m guessing that in Rocky VII, Rocky will finally just get it over with and join the Klan. You can argue with me all you want but just read everything I just wrote and tell me that the Rocky franchise isn’t, as the esteemed founder of Guyism – and reportedly handsome as hell – Chris Spags once stated, “a subtly racist parable for the white man’s triumph over the black man.” And that’s why it’s number one on this list.
Monday, January 2, 2012
How Ron Paul's Libertarian Principles Support Racism
New York Magazine article
The furor over the racist newsletters published by Ron Paul in
the nineties is, in some ways, more revealing than the newsletters
themselves. In a series of responses by Paul and his supporters ranging
from anguished essays to angry dismissals to crazed conspiracy diagrams (check out page seven),
the basic shape of the Paul response has emerged. Paul argues that he
was completely unaware that, for many years, the newsletter purporting
to express his worldview consistently expressed vicious racism.
This is wildly implausible, but let’s grant the premise, because it sets up the more interesting argument. Paul’s admirers have tried to paint the racist newsletters as largely separate from his broader worldview, an ungainly appendage that could be easily removed without substantially altering the rest. Tim Carney argues:
This is wildly implausible, but let’s grant the premise, because it sets up the more interesting argument. Paul’s admirers have tried to paint the racist newsletters as largely separate from his broader worldview, an ungainly appendage that could be easily removed without substantially altering the rest. Tim Carney argues:
Paul's indiscretions -- such as abiding 9/11 conspiracy theorists and allowing racist material in a newsletter published under his name -- will be blown up to paint a scary caricature. His belief in state's rights and property rights will be distorted into support for Jim Crow and racism.
The stronger version of this argument, advanced by Paul himself,
is that racism is not irrelevant to his ideology, but that his ideology absolves him of racism. “Libertarians are incapable of being racist,” he has said,
“because racism is a collectivist idea, you see people in groups.” Most
libertarians may not take the argument quite as far as Paul does – many
probably acknowledge that it is possible for a libertarian to
hold racist views – but it does help explain their belief that racism
simply has no relation to the rest of Paul’s beliefs. They genuinely see
racism as a belief system that expresses itself only in the form of
coercive government power. In Paul’s world, state-enforced
discrimination is the only kind of discrimination. A libertarian
by definition opposes discrimination because libertarians oppose the
state. He cannot imagine social power exerting itself through any other
form.
You can see this premise at work in Paul’s statements about civil
rights. In a 2004 statement condemning the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Paul
laid out his doctrinaire libertarian opposition. “[T]he forced
integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial
tensions while diminishing individual liberty,” he wrote. “The federal
government has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of
private property owners to use their property as they please and to form
(or not form) contracts with terms mutually agreeable to all parties.”
Paul views every individual as completely autonomous, and he is
incapable of imagining any force other than government power that could
infringe upon their actual liberty. White people won’t hire you? Then go
form a contract with somebody else. Government intervention can only
make things worse.
The same holds true of Paul’s view of sexual harassment. In his 1987 book,
he wrote that women who suffer sexual harassment should simply go work
somewhere else: “Employee rights are said to be valid when employers
pressure employees into sexual activity. Why don’t they quit once the
so-called harassment starts?” This reaction also colored his son Rand
Paul’s response to sexual harassment allegations against Herman Cain,
which was to rally around Cain and grouse that he can’t even tell jokes around women any more.
This is an analysis that makes sense only within the airtight
confines of libertarian doctrine. It dissipates with even the slightest
whiff of exposure to external reality. The entire premise rests upon
ignoring the social power that dominant social groups are able to wield
outside of the channels of the state. Yet in the absence of government
protection, white males, acting solely through their exercise of freedom
of contract and association, have historically proven quite capable of
erecting what any sane observer would recognize as actual impediments to
the freedom of minorities and women.
The most fevered opponents of civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s
– and, for that matter, the most fervent defenders of slavery a century
before – also usually made their case in in process terms rather than
racist ones. They stood for the rights of the individual, or the rights
of the states, against the federal Goliath. I am sure Paul’s motives
derive from ideological fervor rather than a conscious desire to oppress
minorities. But the relationship between the abstract principles of his
worldview and the ugly racism with which it has so frequently been
expressed is hardly coincidental.
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