Islam And The Notion Of Race

Caption: From left, Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, and Dzohkar Tsarnaev. None of them "look Muslim", and two of them aren't. (see NOTE 1)

Image credit: Wikimedia. See expository links for details.

Recently, I've noticed a trend among atheists to deny that their discussions of Islam and its dangers are not motivated by racism, because Islam isn't a race. Both Sam Harris and Jerry Coyne have recently expressed this view, which as that first link notes, Richard Dawkins has also supported in Twitter messages. To which I can only reply: Horse pucky. Perhaps that's not erudite enough given the caliber of folks I'm arguing with here, so allow me to rephrase:

It's smug nonsense.

Let's start with definitions, shall we? Here's what Websters, generally considered the reference on American English, has to say about what racism means:

1: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary: racism

As you can see from the italic emphasis, all it takes to be a racist is to like your race over all the others.

Just to avoid accusations of parochialism, here's the Oxford Dictionary's online definition of racism:

The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.

Oxford Dictionary of English: racism

Once again, I added the italic emphasis.

Belief that one's own "race" (a term I have to put in quotes these days for reasons anyone familiar with how arbitrary the notion of who belongs to what race can be) is the one with better qualities is, in fact, racism. This is a point made in at least some of those articles decrying "racism" against Muslims. Most Muslims are not white. Many Westerners, including Dawkins, Coyne, Harris, are. Christopher Hitchens, often mentioned along with Dawkins prior to his death, was white as well. They're right to wonder whether it's some subtle manifestation of racism, especially when Harris' deeply unfortunate comment that we know who "looks Muslim" is taken into account.

I don't believe for a second that Dawkins or Coyne are racists. I've read their writings for too long to think so. I have my doubts about Harris at times, but he and Hitchens strike me as more xenophobic than racist, with the "xeno" here implying a strange religion and culture, not just the looks of people. Nevertheless, this is a reasonable thing to wonder if you're not familiar with their work. Preference for one's own "race" is as much racism as is prejudice against another.

Plus, as this unfortunate young woman found out while trying to attend a cocktail hour at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, sometimes that racism isn't subtle at all:

As I left the hotel and my husband went to the ballroom for the dinner, I realized he still had my keys. I approached the escalators that led down to the ballroom and asked the externally contracted security representatives if I could go down. They abruptly responded, "You can't go down without a ticket." I explained my situation and that I just wanted my keys from my husband in the foyer and that I wouldn't need to enter in the ballroom. They refused to let me through. For the next half hour, they watched as I frantically called my husband but was unable to reach him.

Then something remarkable happened. I watched as they let countless other women through -- all Caucasian -- without even asking to see their tickets. I asked why they were allowing them to go freely when they had just told me that I needed a ticket. Their response? "Well, now we are checking tickets." He rolled his eyes and let another woman through, this time actually checking her ticket. His smug tone, enveloped in condescension, taunted, "See? That's what a ticket looks like."

When I asked "Why did you lie to me, sir?" they threatened to have the Secret Service throw me out of the building -- me, a 4'11" young woman who weighs 100 pounds soaking wet, who was all prettied up in elegant formal dress, who was simply trying to reach her husband. The only thing on me that could possibly inflict harm were my dainty silver stilettos, and they were too busy inflicting pain on my feet at the moment. My suspicion was confirmed when I saw the men ask a blonde woman for her ticket and she replied, "I lost it." The snickering tough-guy responded, "I'd be happy to personally escort you down the escalators ma'am."

My Racist Encounter at the White House Correspondents' Dinner

Seema Jilani is, as she noted, a native-born American. She is also a Muslim, but if her description of events is not complete fiction, it's hard to imagine that the guards would have questioned any of those white women about whether they were Muslims. Appearance alone seems to have determined her treatment. She could have been an atheist, or possibly even a Christian, and received the same treatment.

That's what "looking Muslim" means in America these days. And yes, that's racism. I can't blame American Muslims, many of whom "look Muslim", for wondering if what all those white folks believe about their religion might not be motivated by racism, too.

That's why I termed the attitude of these particular atheists as "smug nonsense". The world looks a lot different when you're the one who is treated like shit just because of the way you look.

NOTE 1: Tsaernov's guilt has yet to be demonstrated in court, and thus should be considered a possibility rather than a certainty. Let's face it, though, he doesn't "look Muslim", either.

Afterword: Anyone who has taken more than a cursory glance at the atheism or religion keywords here ought to realize that I think all religions are nonsense. Most have a bit of wisdom wrapped up in that nonsense, but you'd probably do better at finding wisdom by reading comic books or watching television. Still, in America we don't have freedom from religion, we have freedom of religion. That means that, as long as they are functioning and law-abiding members of our society, all people are supposed to be treated equally no matter what their beliefs. As I've mentioned before, the Constitution only mentions religion in two places, and in neither place does it say that there's a right or wrong choice in that realm. It just says we all get to be Americans, and government officials, no matter what our convictions are.

Which, as long as people are as they are now, is how it should be.

I've also objected in the past to the over-use of the word "racism", as this article and this one, among others, should make clear. That over-use cheapens the word. It has been used to characterize just about anyone who criticizes President Obama, for instance, as a racist. That's not what's going on here. Right or wrong, this is a different conversation. It's about people being mistreated, if not demonized, because they look a certain way. To say this isn't helpful to either our country or its relations to the rest of the world is beyond obvious.

What Courage Means

Yesterday, as I was enjoying a rare glimpse of baseball on the MLB's site, I saw these players all sporting numbers they don't normally wear:
Caption: Cincinnati Reds relief pitcher Aroldis Chapman faces Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins in the top of the ninth inning in Cincinnati, April 15, 2013.

Image credit: Screenshot of Major League Baseball video by Cujo359

Yesterday was Jackie Robinson Day, when all players in Major League baseball wear Jackie Robinson's number to celebrate his leading role in desegregating baseball.

What did Robinson have to endure to do this? It doesn't take much imagination to realize that he would bear the brunt of taunts from both the fans and his fellow players. Any fan of the game would know there would be lots of physical intimidation from the latter. What most of us might not have imagined was what was probably the hardest part of Robinson's experience:

[Dodgers general manager Branch] Rickey had warned Jack – that’s what his friends and family called him – that the worst kind of race-baiting would come his way, and that he’d have to keep his cool.

Are you looking, Robinson asked Rickey, for a black man “who is afraid to fight back?”

“I need,” Rickey replied, “a player who has the guts not to fight back.”

Jackie Robinson and Remaking of Baseball

Caption: Jackie Robinson in 1954.

Image credit: Bob Sandberg/Look/Wikimedia

That was the deal Rickey and Robinson struck. For the first year, Robinson couldn't retaliate. As that quote implies, this wasn't in Robinson's nature. He was a former football player, and someone used to responding to force with some of his own. Yet in the Major Leagues of 1947, he'd have to endure bean balls, spikings, and more for an entire season, and not retaliate. Rickey knew that if Robinson did retaliate, then they would be blamed, not the bigots and racists who committed the offenses.

Why did Rickey do this? No doubt, part of the answer is that he thought it was the right thing to do, but part was that the Dodgers were always the also-rans in New York City baseball behind the more successful Yankees and Giants, and black ballplayers were an untapped resource of talent. Why did Robinson do it? Reading his Wikipedia bio, it's clear that part of the reason was that he wanted to do something for his fellow African Americans. He was in the March on Washington long after his playing days were over. He remained both an outspoken critic of baseball's racism and a proponent of its reforms. But part of the answer also had to be that he loved playing the game.

Rickey and Robinson had personal and self-serving reasons for doing what they did. That doesn't change the fact that what they both did, particularly Robinson, took a lot of courage and fortitude. We seem to have a paper cutout idea of what courage means - that it only takes courage to do good things, or to do them for someone else's benefit. Nothing could be further from the truth. Courage is knowing it's likely you'll be hurt and suffer abuse, but doing what you need to do anyway. Courage is sometimes not hurting someone else, even when every part of your being screams that you should. Even if what those two men did had only been for their own self-interest, it still made our lives better, and it still would have taken more courage than many of us have had to summon for so long. That's why we honor them.

Jackie Robinson's life had many things to teach us, but in light of recent events, I think the most important lesson it taught us is what courage is, and how powerful a force it can be.

What's In A Name?

There are quite a few objections to team names I don't understand, but this isn't one of them:

All major Native American organizations have called for the Washington pro football franchise to end its team's despicable name. Why? Because it's a racial slur and – no matter how many millions it spends trying to sanitize it and silence native peoples – the epithet is not, was not, and will not be an honorific.

Washington 'Redskins' is a racist name: US pro football must disavow it

I seem to remember objections being raised about the names of the Atlanta Braves and Cleveland Indians baseball teams, for instance, and I really don't get that. This I get. Would anyone name their team, say, the "Indianapolis Honkies"? I don't think so. The closest I can come to an offensive stereotype in team names is Notre Dame's "Fighting Irish", and even there I'd have to say that it would probably be best for those offended by that name to acquire a sense of humor. Aggression, after all, is considered a good thing in many sports.

But the name of our nation's capital's football team is singularly offensive. Not only has the term been a historically demeaning one, but it reminds us of the long, sad history of relations between the indigenous population of the United States and those of us who came afterward. Maybe it's good to be reminded of that once in a while, but I'd rather we came to realize that it was a bad thing, that racist attitudes of some of the newcomers were a big part of that reason, and we don't think those racist attitudes were OK.

This is why, on the rare occasions when Washington's team does something notable, I've refused to refer to it by its team name, and will continue to not refer to it that way.

It may not rank high on the list of crimes committed by America these days, but I agree that the NFL ought to change it.

A Moment Of Zen. Or Not...

It's been a while since we've seen the Phillie Phanatic here, so I thought I'd provide a fresh moment of zen:

Video credit: Major League Baseball

Then it occurred to me to wonder why he was dancing with Ugandans. There isn't a large Ugandan population in Philadelphia that I'm aware of. It turns out there was a logical explanation:

The first team from an African nation to win a game at the Little League World Series visited Citizens Bank Park today as guests of shortstop Jimmy Rollins. The Uganda Little League Team received custom hats as part of their visit to the clubhouse.

Rollins hosts Uganda Little League team

Rollins, an African American, has been a fixture in Philadelphia for almost a decade. He was the league's Most Valuable Player in 2007, and he's one of the Phillies players whose jersey number is quite often visible on the backs of fans at their home park. None of this sounds terribly remarkable nowadays, but anyone who remembers how things were for black players on the Phillies roster when I was growing up would probably have a different perspective.

Back then they had a young player named Dick Allen. Allen was strong, had quick hands, good baserunning skills, and was at least an adequate fielder, despite having been converted to third base in his rookie season. As Wikipedia notes, however, things were very rough for him while he was playing in the City of Brotherly Love:

Non-baseball incidents soon marred Allen's Philadelphia career. In July 1965 he got into an infamous fistfight with fellow Phillie Frank Thomas. According to two teammates who witnessed the fight, Thomas swung a bat at Allen, hitting him in the shoulder. Johnny Callison said, "Thomas got himself fired when he swung that bat at Richie. In baseball you don't swing a bat at another player—ever." Pat Corrales confirmed that Thomas hit Allen with a bat and added that Thomas was a "bully" known for making racially divisive remarks. Allen and his teammates were not permitted to give their side of the story under threat of a heavy fine. The Phillies released Thomas the next day. That made the fans and local sports writers not only see Allen as costing a white player his job, but freed Thomas to give his version of the fight.

...

Some of the Phillies' own fans, known for being tough on hometown players even in the best of times, exacerbated Allen's problems. Initially the abuse was verbal, with obscenities and racial epithets. Eventually Allen was greeted with showers of fruit, ice, refuse, and even flashlight batteries as he took the field. He began wearing his batting helmet even while playing his position in the field, which gave rise to another nickname, "Crash Helmet", shortened to "Crash".

Wikipedia: Dick Allen

Allen was said to have a bad attitude, but throw enough batteries at most people and their attitude can go bad.

Another black player, Curt Flood, refused to be traded to Philadelphia, because the atmosphere was so bad for African-American ballplayers. Ironically, Dick Allen was one of the players involved in that trade.

So, fast forward from that situation to today, and it does seem a little amazing that a Phillies mascot would be dancing with a bunch of African kids during a game. It's even a bit amazing when you discount the fact that they somehow persuaded all those kids to dress like the mascot.

You can look at this as a sign of progress, and I think it is. Unfortunately, just a few miles away from the Phillies' spring training camp in Clearwater, Florida, some attendees to one of our major parties' political conventions reminded us that we still have a ways to go:

Tampa, Florida (CNN) – Two people were removed from the Republican National Convention Tuesday after they threw nuts at an African-American CNN camera operator and said, “This is how we feed animals.”

Multiple witnesses observed the exchange and RNC security and police immediately removed the two people from the Tampa Bay Times Forum.

Two people removed from RNC after taunting black camera operator

Racism doesn't affect me in my day to day life. I'm white, and I live in one of the more enlightened regions of the country. Still, every once in a while I'm reminded that it still exists in America, and there are still clearly places where people feel no reluctance to express those feelings.

It's a bit sad that a bunch of people dancing around in green felt have a lot more sense than some of the people who are attending one of the conventions that will choose our next President.

But that's the story of America in the early Twenty-First Century in a nutshell, isn't it?

Another Sign Of The Fall: American Spectator Edition

The American Spectator is a rag that is mostly devoted to supporting the Republican Party, if the "news" items it keeps e-mailing to me are any indication, at least. Still, every once in a while, someone writes something there that actually makes sense. This morning's flash by William Tucker is an example:

Personally, I can't wait until Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum get offstage so we can start running a Presidential campaign that isn't based on trying to alienate the vast majority of Americans over irrelevant issues.

I'm referring of course to the Trayvon Martin case, where Newt and several other conservative loudmouths have managed to take a case that had absolutely nothing at all to do with Republicans and turn it into another brouhaha where the GOP are the bad guys.

Count Me Out On Trayvon Martin

He goes on to note that if Gingrich in particular hadn't decided to put his foot in his mouth on the issue, it would probably have remained another tragic example of what happens when the system fails to protect someone. Instead, it's something that just about everyone is paying attention to, despite the uncertainties that aren't likely to be addressed until at least the grand jury inquest that will start in a couple of weeks.

Plus, of course, this has been yet another example of how, even though the Democrats seem to be determined to hand the White House and Congress back to the GOP, the latter just can't help but embarrass themselves. For those of us who don't particularly care which group of authority-worshiping morons and pants-pissing accessories happen to install their corporate whore in the White House, it's another troubling sign that we really have no leadership worthy of the name in our political parties. It would be one thing of Gingrich, Romney, and Santorum were eccentrics no one paid any attention to, but that's not the case. Gingrich was the Speaker of the House at one time, a position of considerable power for those who choose to exercise it. Yet he seems unable to restrain himself from saying the stupidest things imaginable, even to his fellow conservatives. Romney's a two-faced corporate whore, the pale mirror image of the current President, and he's their front runner. The less said about Mr. Unfortunate Google Result the better.

Progressives have only themselves to blame for the lack of appealing choices, as far as I'm concerned. They've demonstrated over and over that they will vote Democratic, no matter how bad that choice might be. As long as they do, we aren't going to like the offerings of the two parties any better than we do this time.

Newt Gingrich And The Fallacy Of Inversion

Caption: No, the word "if" is not misspelled. Click on the image credit link and then hover your mouse cursor over the cartoon to see the clever hidden message.


Image credit: xkcd

It's not every day that a prominent American politician gives us an unambiguous example of logical fallacy. No, that's actually not true. It's a rare day when an American politician doesn't provide an example. What's unusual is that xkcd provides a good illustration on the same day.

Yesterday, President Obama had this to say about the tragic death of Trayvon Martin, a young African American who was killed by an armed "neighborhood watch" participant in Florida:

"When I think about this boy, I think about my own kids," Obama said in the Rose Garden. "I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this. And that everybody pull together."
...
"My main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. You know, if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon," Obama said. "All of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves."

Obama: 'If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon'

Which was to say that he saw a resemblance to his own children, and so the thought of the young man being killed for no good reason hit him especially hard. I'll simplify this thought to an easily parsed sentence for reasons that will become clear a bit later:

This boy resembles my own children, so I feel sympathy for him and his family.

This seems to have offended Newt Gingrich. He had this to say, according to Politico:

“It’s not a question of who that young man looked like. Any young American of any ethnic background should be safe, period. We should all be horrified no matter what the ethnic background," Gingrich said. "Is the President suggesting that if it had been a white who had been shot that would be ok because it didn’t look like him?"

Newt calls Obama's Trayvon Martin comments 'disgraceful'

Anyone who hadn't slept through his introductory philosophy course would have been able to answer Gingrich with something like this:

No, that's the fallacy of inversion.

The logical inverse of my characterization of the President's statement is this:

If someone doesn't look like me or my kids, then I won't feel sympathy for him or his family.

This is an elementary fallacy of logic, as this website explains:

The fallacy of the inverse states that if a first even[t] implies a second event, then the opposite of the first even[t] occurring will cause the opposite of the second even[t] occurring. You must be careful of this flawed thinking and actively train your mind to oppose it.

Ultimately, the fallacy of the inverse is our minds confusing the notion of cause and effect.

The Fallacy Of The Inverse

Which is something politicians get away with doing pretty often. Wikipedia describes the fallacy this way:

Denying the antecedent, sometimes also called inverse error, is a formal fallacy, committed by reasoning in the form:

If P, then Q.
Not P.
Therefore, not Q.

Arguments of this form are invalid. Informally, this means that arguments of this form do not give good reason to establish their conclusions, even if their premises are true.

Wikipedia: Denying The Antecedent

Both articles provide good examples of why this is true. I think to really understand why Gingrich is wrong, though, all you have to do is be a human being. People who resemble people we love will tend to evoke more compassion in us than those who don't. Most of us understand that, when it's not convenient for us not to, at least.

The case of Trayvon Martin's death has been another one of those events that spawn far too much of what I call Molestus hoc, ergo propter hoc reasoning, meaning "this annoys me, therefore it's the cause". Whether it's racism, or kids wearing those hoodies, everyone seems to have an opinion about this. Newt Gingrich sees persecuted white people. What I see is another person who should not have had access to a firearm in that circumstance foolishly causing the death of an innocent person. The difference between me and these other people is that I know it's possible that I'm wrong, despite the reasonable-sounding nature of my hypothesis.

I'm not going to rush to judgment on this matter, as I think no one should. We all have our opinions, and just because something looks like something we're familiar with doesn't mean that it's caused by the same thing. Nor should we, as Newt Gingrich has done, forget the basic rules of logic we should all have learned in high school.

Do Bigots Love Slurpees, Too?

It might have a reputation as a liberal oasis, but Seattle has its share of bigots. One of them was out there on Monday night at a local convenience store, making America safe from people who wear turbans:

A 35-year-old Seattle man is facing assault and hate crime charges following allegations that he accosted a clerk at a Queen Anne convenience store.
...
"For unknown reasons a person threw change on the floor near the victim's feet then punched the victim on the left side of the head," the detective said.

"After the suspect struck (the clerk) with his fist he said, 'You're not even American, you're Al-Qaeda. Go back to your country.'"

Charge: Seattle Man Attacked Shopkeeper, Calls Victim A Terrorist

The victim's offense was wearing a turban, which isn't a piece of Arab headgear. It's a piece of Sikh headgear:

A national Sikh organization came out in support Tuesday of a Seattle convenience store clerk attacked in an apparent hate crime.
...
In accusing Stainbrook of committing a hate crime, King County prosecutors asserted he targeted the clerk in part because he was wearing a turban. Turbans -- dastaars, to Sikhs -- are considered an article of faith to adherents of the religion, which originated in South Asia more than 500 years ago.

Sikh org on clerk attack: 'Americans must be free to practice their faith without fear'

According to the Seattle Weekly, the man who did this is a local criminal who has a history of violence and drunkness. That history includes:

According to court records, Stainbrook has prior convictions for assault, trespassing, public intoxication, DUI, and two separate convictions for making "terroristic threats" in Hawaii.

Man Charged With Hate Crime For Attack At 7-11

[emphasis mine] The man knows his terrorists, it appears.

Unfortunately, this is the sort of person who is likely to be set off by the hateful rhetoric that various charlatans and opportunists have been using against Muslims. If you wonder why I have criticized Democratic politicians for being so mealy-mouthed about this, here is an example of why. This guy didn't get the idea that we have an Al Qaeda cell in a 7-11 entirely on his own. It's possible that if he hadn't been deathly afraid of turban-wearing terrorists at that moment, that he just would have victimized some other person, but that strikes me as debatable.

Josh Marshall summed this up pretty well:

It's not enough that we have American Muslims facing a new wave of Islamophobia on the American right, hyped up to greater extent by the coming November election. But it appears the we now have another case of a Sikh who's fallen victim to backwoods American cultural illiteracy.

AWS (Americaning While Sikh)

Well, except that this guy doesn't seem to be from the backwoods. He doesn't even have that as an excuse.

There are days I think that you could replace half the brains in America with cabbages and not lose a bit of intellectual capacity.

Heroes, And Goats

Caption: Shirley Sherrod speaking at the NAACP meeting.

Image credit: Screenshot of NAACP YouTube video by Cujo359

It may be that the most tragic thing about the Shirley Sherrod firing is the true origin of that story she told at the NAACP, which until this evening I had not seen:

For all the over-warped speed in initially getting that bogus version of the Shirley Sherrod story out there and pushing her our the door at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, other details in this story have been surprisingly slow to emerge. In particular, I'd been waiting to hear more about a comment from Sherrod on CNN that her father had been murdered by a white farmer in 1965.

Now we know a few details. Her dad was named Hosie Miller, and he was a deacon at Thankful Baptist Church in Newton, Ga., toward the southwest corner of the state. He was also a farmer who, according to CNN, grew corn, peanuts, cotton and cucumbers and raised hogs, cows and goats. Forty-five years ago, Hosie Miller was shot to death -- in the back, no less -- by a white farmer in what his daughter now describes as ostensibly a dispute over a few cows, although the exact circumstances were murky.

Hosie Miller: Shirley Sherrod's Dad, And A Casualty In A Forgotten War

Recall that in the speech that Andrew Breitbart published in edited form, Ms. Sherrod was telling the story of how, many years ago, she almost decided not to help a white farmer save his farm. As I'm sure many people did, I just assumed it was some attitude about whites that she'd acquired early in life that contributed to her initial desire to just do the minimum that was required. Of course, I didn't write about that, because I really had no idea what was actually going on.

If only Andrew Breitbart, the NAACP, and the Obama Administration had demonstrated a similar level of restraint.

The tragedy of all this is that what Shirley Sherrod was saying in that speech to the NAACP was that this was the wrong attitude:

That's when it was revealed to me that y'all, it's about poor versus those who have, and not so much about white -- it is about white and black, but it's not -- you know, it opened my eyes, 'cause I took him to one of his own and I put him in his hands, and said, OK, I've done my job. But, during that time, we would have these injunctions against the Department of Agriculture and -- so, they couldn't foreclose on him. And I want you to know that the county supervisor had done something to him that I have not seen yet that they've done to any other farmer, black or white. And what they did to him caused him to not be able to file Chapter 12 bankruptcy.

So, everything was going along fine -- I'm thinking he's being taken care of by the white lawyer, then they lift the injunction against USDA in May of '87 for two weeks and he was one of 13 farmers in Georgia who received a foreclosure notice. He called me. I said, well, go on and make an appointment at the lawyer. Let me know when it is and I'll meet you there.

So we met at the lawyer's office on the day they had given him. And this lawyer sat there -- he had been paying this lawyer, y'all. That's what got me. He had been paying the lawyer since November, and this was May. And the lawyer sat there and looked at him and said, "Well, y'all are getting old. Why don't you just let the farm go?" I could not believe he said that, so I said to the lawyer -- I told him, I can't believe you said that. I said: It's obvious to me that he cannot file a Chapter 12 bankruptcy to stop this foreclose, you have to file an 11. And the lawyer said to me, I'll do whatever you say -- whatever you think -- that's the way he put it. But he's paying him. He wasn't paying me any money. You know, so he said -- the lawyer said he would work on it.

Full Video Vindicates Sherrod, Destroys Breitbart's Accusations Of Racism

The farmer's lawyer, even though he was also white, wasn't helping his client. The poor white farmer was being screwed by the system much the same way she'd seen black farmers treated. To most white people, this isn't too terribly surprising. To the Shirley Sherrod of this story, twenty or more years ago, this apparently was something of a revelation.

What Shirley Sherrod did was recognize that there was someone who needed her help, despite the fact that he was a white farmer, who she believed had treated her with less respect because she was black. The prejudice she saw him demonstrating no doubt reminded her of the sort of men who killed her father. She had plenty of potential excuses to not lift a finger for this man. Yet she did something that is so rare in America that it's heroic - she got over her prejudices, and then got over herself, and then gave this man help because that was the right thing to do.

Then she told that story as a cautionary tale to others, and for her doing that her worthless jackass of a boss fired her without even taking the time to find out what really happened.

We sometimes lionize people in America for the strangest reasons. We treat some celebrities and athletes as if just being better looking or better at sports than most everyone else is a sign of heroism. People on the political right lionize Andrew Breitbart, when the man is clearly someone who doesn't give a crap who he hurts with his lies. Yet we so often treat the real heroes so shabbily. Whistle blowers are prosecuted. Activists are ridiculed, often mercilessly. And people who try to do the right thing are fired by people who just don't give a shit about anything but their own problems.

Whatever her flaws, Shirley Sherrod has more humanity, and far more integrity, than Andrew Breitbart and the people involved in her firing put together. It's too bad she can't find bosses who are worthy of her.

(h/t Thers at FireDogLake)

Afterword: Oh, and it looks like Glenn Greenwald scooped me on this one. Oh well, this thing just drives me crazy, and it's good to vent.

How Silly Does It Get?

It's hard to imagine that we could be witnessing an even more absurd talking point from Washington, but today it apparently happened:

Republicans called on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to resign his leadership post over remarks he made in 2008 about then-presidential candidate Barack Obama, adding to the Nevada Democrat's political troubles.

Mr. Reid, who supported Mr. Obama's candidacy, said in private remarks during the campaign that the country was ready for a "light-skinned" African-American president with "no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." The remarks are recounted in a new book, "Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime."

Reid Is Under Fire for 2008 Remarks

As usual, the Republicans seem to feel the need to ratchet up the indignation a few orders of magnitude over what is warranted. Near as I can tell, the problem is with the phrase "Negro dialect", which might be thought a bit dismissive or insensitive. I'll leave to the people he's referring to to decide how offended they are.

However, it's nowhere near equivalent to what the GOP seems to want it to be equivalent to:

In a refrain echoed by other Republicans, party chairman Michael Steele said Mr. Reid should be held to the same standard as former Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. Mr. Lott was forced to resign his leadership post in 2002 after suggesting the nation would have been better off had it embraced the segregationist policies of presidential candidate Strom Thurmond more than a half century ago.

Reid Is Under Fire for 2008 Remarks

How wacko do you have to be to equate using an insensitive phrase with longing for the good old days of segregation?

There are plenty of things to fire Harry Reid over. His allowing the Republicans to slow the Senate to a crawl, his irresponsible extension of surveillance, and his boning middle class America with the health care "reform" bill are three things that he ought to be fired for, just to pull some off the top of my head.

This rates no more than an apology.

It's a measure of how silly our political discourse has become that anyone would suggest otherwise.

UPDATE (Jan. 11): At FireDogLake, Blue Texan has an anecdote about Lott's racist associates. It's from 1992, not from the Jim Crow days.

Since James Ala left a comment along these lines, let me just point out that I'm aware that this is a Republican strategy. Of course, they're trying to equate Reid with Lott, because they know there's a basically thoughtless part of their base that will reliably take up the chant. That doesn't mean this isn't silly rhetoric. In fact, it borders on hysterical.

Getting All Hot And Bothered About Sweaty Brown People

Updated at 8:50PM PDT

Biden: It's OK, Nance. Wilson's just ranting about the brown folks again.

Image: Screenshot from this video by Cujo359

I was beginning to believe I would never see the day. Rep. Joe Wilson (SC-02), who shouted "you lie" at President Obama during his speech last night, apologized later that evening:

Midway through the speech, as the president was defending his plan to a chamber packed with members of Congress, Rep. Joe Wilson, a South Carolina Republican, shouted, "You lie!"

Senior Republicans, including Obama's opponent in last year's election, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., quickly called for him to apologize. About 90 minutes after Obama finished, Wilson issued a statement saying he had "let my emotions get the best of me."

"My comments were inappropriate and regrettable," the statement said. "I extend sincere apologies to the president for this lack of civility."

Rep. Joe Wilson Apologizes, Calls Outburst During Speech 'Regrettable'

Republican politicians and their supporters shout so many outrageous and stupid things these days that it barely counts as news. Apologizing for it, though, is something generally left to Democrats.

No, I really don't expect that this is the start of a new trend. It's more likely that they'll just avoid shouting nonsense during nationally televised speeches. Even that would be an improvement.

While we're on the subject, let's examine the content of this apology. Recall that Rep. Wilson shouted out this insult while the President was saying that illegal immigrants would not be benefiting from this plan. Of all the moments for what Wilson describes as an emotional outburst, why this one? Was he upset when Obama said that tens of millions of Americans are doing without health care? Was he mortified that people die every day from lack of such health care, and that this pitifully inadequate plan wouldn't be implemented for four years? Was he upset because a public option might conceivably mean that insurance companies won't suck every possible cent out of the health care system? No, he wasn't upset by any of those human or fiduciary tragedies. He was upset because he thought there was a chance that some of those sweaty brown people who enter the country illegally might be getting health care.

As Blue Texan notes at FireDogLake, avoiding the appearance of racism isn't high on Wilson's list of political priorities:

Long before Joe Wilson (R-SC) made a complete ass out of himself and his party on national television, he fought to keep the Confederate battle flag flying over South Carolina.

The flag came down that year [2000] after Republicans in both houses went for a compromise that would put it on Statehouse grounds at the Confederate Soldier’s monument. The “Magnificent Seven” of Senators who voted to keep the flag up included current Congressman Joe Wilson...

That's right -- Wilson was one of only seven members of the South Carolina Senate to vote to stick it to the blacks keep the battle flag. It was finally brought down under intense national pressure and from an NAACP boycott, which cost the state millions in tourism revenue.

South Carolina Congressman Who Screamed at President Obama Fought to Keep Confederate Flag

[links and emphasis from original]

In a more enlightened constituency than Rep. Wilson apparently represents, these would be unflattering observations.

UPDATE: Fixed the time of Wilson's apology. Originally, I'd said he apologized today. I also added the quote from Blue Texan.

UPDATE 2: Thers over at FireDogLake deserves the last word on this thing, if only for the title of his piece:

All I'm saying is that the problem with the "You Lie" thing is that it was crazy horseshit, not that it was impolite, even though it was impolite. [Washington Post writer Dana] Milbank is shocked, shocked at the lack of decorum at "what was supposed to be a sacred ritual of American democracy." Milbank is thus upset because an Unwritten Law of Washington Protocol was violated -- far more so than he is about anything like who is lying and who isn't about this "illegal aliens" race-baiting intentional-distraction nonsense.

The Shocking Lack of Civility in Our National Discourse, In My Considered Opinion, Sucks Hairy Baboon Ass

I couldn't agree more.

They've Lost Wal-Mart

Glenn Beck, the raving lunatic who not too long ago called President Obama a racist and then contradicted himself two minutes later, has lost yet more advertisers, according to Think Progress:

Eight more companies — including Allergan, Ally Bank, Best Buy, Broadview Security, CVS, Re-Bath, Travelocity, and Wal-Mart — have agreed to stop advertising on Glenn Beck’s Fox News show.

Eight More Companies Stop Advertising On Glenn Beck

When you're too much of a reactionary for Wal-Mart, you're really reactionary.

I'm of two minds on this boycott. On the one hand, it's nice that gross stupidity and arrogance can have consequences once in a while. On the other hand, the guy is speaking what passes for his mind. One of the great things about television is that anyone can tape it. When some clown like Glenn Beck says something stupid, and then tries to walk it back a minute or two later, it's there for anyone to see. As The Daily Show did a few days later, it's possible to make such things known well beyond Beck's audience. Showing the vapidity of what is said on these shows is instructive.

There's a danger that anything that's unacceptable speech to a large number of people will be squelched. It's bad enough that you don't hear views that aren't acceptable to the people who run these networks. When any large, well-organized group can also prevent views from being expressed on the air, it's time to worry. YouTube has recently had a spate of people complaining about any video that criticizes religion, claiming the videos insulted their faith. The videos were blocked pending review. Fortunately, YouTube realized that the videos in question were merely criticism, and made them available again. Suppose they hadn't been so discerning, though, or worse yet, that they actually had been insulting and YouTube declined to keep them on site. Why shouldn't a video insulting a religion have the same right to be aired as a video extolling that religion's virtues?

Similar complaints have come from some right wingers. I don't know the eventual disposition of these complaints, but if this is happening on one of the premier places for people to express themselves in video form, it is discomfiting, to say the least.

Freedom of expression means that people are allowed to say things you don't want to hear. That's how it has to work or it isn't freedom.

The just end for many of these videos, certainly the stupid ones, is obscurity, not banishment. I'd feel a lot better about the future of the human race if that was how it usually worked out, in fact. Whether they want to, or they're just trying to avoid trouble, communications media that filter what appears at their sites limit the opinions and works that the rest of us can be exposed to.

So, while I think Beck is getting his just desserts, I wonder about the rest of us.

UPDATE: Added a couple of links about YouTube pulling or banning videos, and a bit more in the conclusion.

Quote Of The Day

Image credit: Screenshot of The Daily Show by Cujo359

Larry Wilmore on The Daily Show about white fears of becoming a minority: "No one gives back America. You keep it until someone takes it from you."

Go watch the video. Wilmore has a gift for making our crazy attitudes about race funny.

Memo To Robert Gibbs

Image credit: Cujo359

There are such things as transcripts, which are pieces of paper or hard disk that contain the words a President says in a press conference.

This morning, Robert Gibbs, President Obama's press secretary, was quoted as saying this at this morning's White House press conference:

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reports that President Obama does not regret his comments last night about the arrest of Prof. Henry Louis Gates -- and that Obama was not calling the officers stupid.

"Let me be clear," said Gibbs. "He was not calling the officer stupid, okay? He was denoting that . . . at a certain point the situation got far out of hand, and I think all sides understand that."

Gibbs: Obama Did Not Call Police Officers Stupid In Gates Case

Here's what the President said last night, according to both the transcript by Lynn Sweet, the reporter who asked the question, and CBS:

Now, I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that, but I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge Police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there is a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That's just a fact.

Transcript: Obama's News Conference

[emphasis added]

The President accused the police of doing something stupid. There's no doubt about that in the mind of anyone who clearly understood what he said. There are really only two honest choices here, either:

• Admit the statement was wrong


• Stick to it, until and unless you've been proved wrong to your satisfaction

Trying to weasel-word your way out of it isn't going to do it.

I'm not trying to defend the actions of the officers involved. I explained my attitude about these sorts of incidents a few months ago:

Police work is stressful and potentially dangerous. As part of their work, police officers often have to ask questions and do things to us citizens that we find annoying or even painful. People who can't do that work without losing their composure and behaving emotionally or irrationally shouldn't be doing it. Any police department that can't or won't investigate complaints against its officers is a potential danger to the people it's supposed to be protecting. In a time when both the presence of law enforcement and their power to monitor us are on the increase, it's especially so.

Today, We're All Driving While Black

I have no patience for police departments that don't try to rein in or weed out officers who can't do the job properly. That's part of the reason I find the quote from Gibbs so irritating. It only serves to make the President less authoritative on this subject, and we need both clarity and certainty here, not waffling.

Unfortunately, President Obama admitted that he was speaking without knowing all the facts. I can't imagine why the police thought a small, middle-aged man who walks with a cane and was clearly inside his own house was a danger to the public, but it's possible they had reason. Without knowing that part of the story, I'm going to reserve judgment on this, and the President would have been wise to do the same. Nevertheless, he spoke, and trying to pretend he didn't say what he said isn't going to help.

This is yet another example of how you can't have things both ways. Maybe it's time President Van Pelt stopped trying.

UPDATE: At FireDogLake, bmaz writes from the point of view of an attorney who has experience with false arrest cases:

Via Rayne's link to DKos in comments, and the Boston Globe, the Statement of Facts from the official police report [(PDF)] in the Gates arrest:

On Thursday July 16, 2009, Henry Gates, Jr. ___ of ___ Ware Street, Cambridge, MA) was placed under arrest at __ Ware Street, after being observed exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior, in a public place, directed at a uniformed police officer who was present investigating a report of a crime in progress. These actions on behalf of Gates served no legitimate purpose and caused citizens passing by this location to stop and take notice while appearing surprised and alarmed.

Signed: Sgt. James Crowley

And therein lies the problem for Sergeant Crowley and the Cambridge PD. It was a patently illegal and insufficient arrest from the start. Gates is arrested for disturbing the peace - of Sergeant Crowley. See the words "directed at a uniformed officer"? This is the epitome of contempt of cop, and that is an illegal and unconstitutional arrest. What is not contained in the statement of facts is any reference to an identifiable citizen/member of the public being disturbed. None whatsoever.

Henry Louis Gates’ Contempt Of Cop

[link from original]

I've read the links I provided earlier, plus some other news reports, and I've decided. This was a case of stupid police work. The cops should have walked away. It's a tough thing to do when you're just doing your job and catching crap for it, but that's what they should have done.

That doesn't change my mind about either what President Obama said last night, nor about the attempt to retract it this morning. The former wasn't handled well, and the latter just makes it all look really silly. Stick to your guns or admit you're wrong - people will respect that. They won't respect trying to have it both ways once you've said something like this.

Martin Luther King Day

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons.

On the eve of the day when we inaugurate the first President with African ancestry, it's especially important to remember the words of one of the people who helped bring that event about:

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

Martin Luther King: I Have Dream

That last sentence is particularly noteworthy. As historian Simon Schama said the other day in an interview on Bill Moyers' Journal:

America begins with an act ... of profound bad faith. Jefferson writes the Declaration of Independence in which liberty and equality are offered as the defining principles that make you American, while he is himself a slave owner. And then the Constitution is made at the moment in which African Americans are defined as three-fifths of a human in order to give the South enough clout to perpetuate slavery.

And, you know, Lincoln's conversion coming up to the Civil War and then during the Civil War, from someone who found it morally loathsome but pragmatically had to be kept that way, to someone who, for whatever reasons, to win the war or not, was responsible for the Emancipation Proclamation, was an enormous change.

Lincoln, simply in the end, found it unbearable to hold up his head as an American and keep that act of bad faith going. But then we had a hundred years of Jim Crow and we had the civil rights movement. So this moment, it does seem to me to finally wipe clean that original sin, that profoundly repellent act of bad faith at the very beginning.

Bill Moyers Journal: Transcript for January 16, 2009

The provision in Article 1, Section 2:

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

U.S. Constitution

is as close as we as a nation come to original sin. That "other Persons" in the phrase I emphasized meant "slaves". It was as if the framers wanted to have as little to do with this dreadful idea as possible in a document that was to guarantee the freedoms of the rest of us. The Fourteenth Amendment did away with that provision, by declaring that no state could allow the rights of Americans to be abridged without cause.

In his most famous speech, Dr. King remarked:

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

Martin Luther King: I Have Dream

I'd be the last to suggest that we're now living in a land where "all men are created equal". As a society, we still view people who are members of other ethnic, religious, or sexual identity groups as being less American somehow. But in the half century that I've lived, we've come a long way. Had Barack Obama lived fifty years ago, people would have argued whether he could stay in a "white" hotel, or use a "white" restroom in many states in the Union. When it occurred, his parents' marriage would have been illegal in almost half of the states. Yet today, many think it only mildly remarkable that we have elected a black man as our President. Many probably wonder why it took so long.

Martin Luther King's life is an example of why it took so long. The history of the American civil rights movement is a long, inspiring tale of standing up peacefully to grave injustice, and persevering. Those people who he referred to having been in jail included him. His letter from a Birmingham jail was a ringing denunciation of the idea that the fight for civil rights should only be waged in the courts and legislatures. In the end, his view prevailed, and the shameful laws known as Jim Crow laws that codified racist discrimination, were repealed.

Tomorrow, we will finally ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, and remove the mark of our original sin. We have Dr. King and his supporters to thank for that. At the same should also thank them for demonstrating how remarkable a people we can be.

UPDATE: Added link about miscegenation laws, and altered the text to reflect the number of states that had them.

Looking For Hate In The Wrong Place

[Updated below, with a link to a response by David Neiwert.]

Yesterday, David Neiwert, a reporter with a well-deserved reputation for exposing hate groups and racists, wrote this at FireDogLake:

Two days ago, a gunman walked into the offices of the Democratic Party in Little Rock, Arkansas, and shot the state's chairman to death. The motives are still unclear, but it is starting increasingly to look like yet another case in which an unhinged wingnut decided to "take out" more liberals.

Looking For Hate In All The Wrong Places

As I commented there yesterday, I find that article's title ironic. In fact, the picture I see emerging is that of a man who was barely stable and isolated from his community. Local TV station KARK wrote:

KARK has also learned that [assailant Timothy Dale] Johnson was fired from his job in Conway before the shooting Wednesday.

Conway police were called to the Target just before 8 a.m. Wednesday, because of some anti-target graffiti he had written on the wall. Employees there say he was irate, but he left the scene before officers arrived.

More Information on Gwatney Shooting Suspect

The Searcy, Arkansas Daily Citizen offers some troubling details:

A property receipt from the Little Rock Police Department, filed in White County District Court, Searcy Division said police had confiscated a personal computer, a bottle of Effexor XR medication in the name of Tim Johnson, a sticky note with “Gwatney” and a phone number, various paperwork, two sets of keys with the Gwatney dealership emblem on them, the last will and testament of Timothy Johnson, a Smith and Wesson gun box and 14 guns. Two guns were found in Johnson's pick-up after he died.

Evidence Suggests Planned Shooting

Effexor XR is an anti-depressant. Both depression and the the effects of anti-depressant drugs can be dangerous, as the website on Effexor XR points out:

Patients and their families should know that both adults and children taking an antidepressant medicine should be watched closely for signs that their condition is getting worse or that they are becoming suicidal. Pay close attention to any changes (especially sudden changes) in mood, thoughts, or feelings. This is very important when an antidepressant medicine is started or when the dose is changed. All patients should be watched for becoming agitated, irritable, hostile, aggressive, impulsive, restless, or anxious. Such symptoms or any new or sudden changes in mood, thoughts, or feelings should be reported to the patient's health care professional right away.

Taking EFFEXOR XR: 10 Things to Know

Johnson lived alone and had little interaction with his neighbors. If he'd had some of these reactions it's quite possible no one, including his doctors, would have noticed.

What evidence is there that Johnson was a right wing nutjob? Very little, it would appear:

Several people said they had not heard him make any overtly political comments or criticize Democrats. According to the Arkansas Times, Johnson was a former member of the Cleburne County Shooting Club, where he participated in rifle competitions.

Johnson did not indicate his party preference on his voter registration, but he voted in the Republican presidential primary earlier this year, according to records at the White County registrar. He voted in Republican primaries in 2002 and 2004 and in a Democratic primary and runoff in 2006.

Evidence links killer to Arkansas Dem chief

Johnson sounds like what passes for "independent" these days. The NYT article also indicates that the police found no literature in Johnson's residence that would indicate a political motive.

There seems to be no reason to believe that Johnson's actions were any more than a result of the unfortunate combination of a depressive personality and firearms. He could have felt as though he, or an acquaintance, was cheated by one of the used car dealerships Gwatney owned. In any event, there is no evidence linking Johnson to any of the sorts of right wing hate-mongers Neiwert mentions.

I can understand Neiwert's apprehension. As he wrote in that article:

Two weeks ago, another gunman walked into a liberal Unitarian Universalist church in Knoxville, Tennessee, and began shooting, killing one man and wounding several others before he was tackled. He had written a manifesto before the rampage indicating his belief that "all liberals should be killed." At his home, investigators found books attacking liberals by the likes of Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, and ... Bill O'Reilly.

Looking For Hate In All The Wrong Places

There is no doubt that liberals and progressives are the target of hateful rhetoric these days. There is no doubt that, at least on occasion, there are unstable people who take that rhetoric too seriously. Our case isn't helped, though, by unsubstantiated charges. If anything, the reverse is true. This article is the sort of thing that those same hateful people will use later as evidence that we don't know what we're talking about.

When people aren't inclined to believe you anyway, crying wolf never makes them any more interested in what you have to say.

UPDATE: Corrected spelling of David Neiwert's name.

UPDATE 2 (Aug. 17): David Neiwert has written a response to this article. He points to an interview done by another local TV station with one of Johnson's classmates:

[Arkansas State University at Beebe classmate Reggie] Tucker graduated from ASU Beebe in White County, but during the 2007 spring semester Tucker had two or three computer technology classes with 50-year-old Timothy Dale Johnson, the man who murdered Bill Gwatney.

Tucker explains, "He was socially awkward and made weird comments that kind of gave you pause but didn't make you think he is going to come after us you know."
...
Tucker says he and other classmates do recall Johnson being vocal about his views.

"I would always remember going to class and I would see that he had a Bill Clinton anti-campaign sticker [on his car] that says I don't miss Bill. "He would surf the internet and he would see that a Democrat had died and he would laugh about it."

Update: Shooter's Classmate Speaks To Today's THV

This article was posted "one day ago", according to the information at the top of the page. The blog article that pointed to it was written yesterday afternoon. It wasn't available when Neiwert wrote the article I was referring to. I might have found it had I looked hard enough. The publication time for the blog article was Aug. 15, 4:37 PM (Central Time?). Neiwert's was at 8:21 AM (PDT) on that same day.

While I'm not surprised at the sentiments Johnson expressed here, it only suggests that this was his motive. His ownership of a large cache of guns, and presumed sympathy with National Rifle Association positions, doesn't strike my as prima facie evidence that his motives were political, just more suggestion. There are progressives who have similar views. They're just a rarer than conservatives who feel that way.

It looks as though we'll never know for sure what Johnson's motives were, but will only be able to list, and maybe rank, his possible motives. Based on this new (to me) interview, I'd say that political hatred has a higher ranking than it did two days ago.

UPDATE 3: Interesting eyewitness account from the Associated Press:

When the elevator door opened, Johnson was standing there. Instead of lunging at the man, [Arkansas Baptist Convention building manager Kirby] Martin held the door open and Johnson stepped in. Martin pushed the button for the first floor. And on the ride down, he never looked at the gunman's hands, only his face.

"In his face, I saw just a pale, lost-looking, desperate man," Martin told the newspaper. "He was wearing khakis and a nice shirt. He was well-groomed. What came to my mind was that he was a pastor or staff member of a church that was in serious trouble."

Before the elevator door opened again, Martin asked Johnson: "What is it?"

Johnson got out of the elevator, walked toward the front door, and as he was walking out of the building, he answered: "I've lost my job."

Building Manager Recounts Horror of Arkansas Gunman

While it might have been the event that started this, there's no explanation there of why Johnson chose Gwatney as his target after losing his job.

Scarves And Bigots - A Dangerous Mix

Image credit: Monsters and Critics

Like Martha Stewart before her, I've largely missed out on the whole Rachael Ray thing. She seems like just another beautiful woman who's at least moderately good at some domestic tasks like cooking or making pottery, and is thus a candidate for all sorts of endorsement opportunities. She has her own line of somethingorother, which she may or may not have had a hand in designing. I'm sure her fans could fill me in on all that should they choose.

I think the important point here is that as threats to the American way of life go, Rachael Ray is at best small potatoes. Most of us wouldn't consider her a threat at all. And yet, she's managed to make some people very nervous. How did she do it? Apparently, through an item of clothing that the fashion-conscious would probably term an "accessory":

Dunkin' Donuts said in a statement, "In a recent online ad, Rachael Ray is wearing a black-and-white silk scarf with a paisley design. It was selected by her stylist for the advertising shoot. Absolutely no symbolism was intended. However, given the possibility of misperception, we are no longer using the commercial."

Dunkin' Donuts yanks Rachael Ray 'terrorist' ad

That's the scarf in the photo at the head of this article. Note that it is, indeed paisley. It's also a bit, ummm, what's the word, frilly? I'm sure there's a better fashion term for it, but I'm a bit out of my element here. Also note that Ray is wearing it around her neck. I had to look around quite a bit to find a photo that was large enough to see what this scarf actually looked like. Here's another one, by the way. Why is that? It would appear that there are lots of people who operate based on what they fear these days, including the press:

Critics, notably conservative commentator Michelle Malkin, said the scarf looked reminiscent of the black-and-white checkered kaffiyeh, the traditional Palestinian scarf. To some, such garments symbolize Muslim extremism and terrorism. Dunkin' Donuts said no symbolism was intended.

Rachael Ray ad pulled by Dunkin Donuts

Monsters and Critics quotes Malkin as saying:

Fox News right-wing columnist Michelle Malkin explained, "The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad. Popularized by Yasser Arafat and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant and not-so-ignorant fashion designers, celebrities, and left-wing icons."

Dunkin' Donuts yanks Rachael Ray 'terrorist' ad

That's it. They don't even bother to point out the obvious factual errors.

Just as an aside, fans of logic will note that Ms. Malkin has managed to insult the intelligence of people who don't believe her, engage in some guilt by association and fear-mongering, and name-call all in one paragraph. Most of us would have to work to accomplish that much in so few words, but I'm sure Malkin wasn't even breathing hard at the end of it. It's her bread and butter.

Let's do what an inquisitive journalist might do and explore the basis for Malkin's assertion, shall we? Here's what a kaffiyeh looks like, when modeled by an international terrorist, courtesy of Wikipedia:


Note that it's not paisely, nor is it frilly. It's also worn on the terrorist's head, not around his neck. He does have brown skin, though, so I suppose there's some resemblance.

In short, Ms. Ray's scarf resembles Mr. Arafat's about as much as the French flag resembles the American one.

This, believe it or not, is what's had a sadly large portion of America checking on their supplies of fresh water and MREs this week. Once again, I feel that I'm on the wrong side of an historical arc.

Why is that? It's because apparently, there is a group of people out there who are both blind and unobservant enough to confuse these two articles of clothing. What's worse, they then can make the utterly daft connection that somehow a woman who has never displayed any political leanings whatsoever is expressing sympathy for terrorism because they can't tell the difference between a frilly, paisely scarf and a non-frilly checked one. To make things really, sadly pathetic, they then felt motivated to share this fear with an advertiser who was just trying to sell some ice coffee.

What's really frightening, though, is the deference shown to these people by the American press. Here's what Market Watch has to say:

The matter is more than an embarrassment to Ray and an inconvenience to Dunkin' Donuts.

It also underscores the potential perils of employing celebrity endorsers. Dunkin' Donuts was eager to capitalize on the legitimacy of Ray, a celebrity chef, in its ads. But in a way, her fame worked against the interests of the food company.

Rachael Ray ad pulled by Dunkin Donuts

Yes, because as any marketer knows, allowing your spokesperson to wear clothing that some group of boneheads might mistake for a different article of clothing is just the sort of thing that will typically kill an ad campaign for a soft drink. It then continues:

Celebrities can make consumers pay closer attention to products because ordinary people want to identify with them. But when the celebrities run into criticism, the company that hired them can pay a price by getting unwanted publicity.

Rachael Ray ad pulled by Dunkin Donuts

I'm inclined to observe that this is probably helping Dunkin Donuts more than it's hurting. I wouldn't have even known they were serving ice coffee if it hadn't been for this incident. A few fools will be turned off, but a few others will say to themselves "Hmm. Ice coffee and donuts. Sounds like the perfect combination for a hot summer day." Where's the harm?

Denver's CBS affiliate intones:

Critics, including conservative commentator Michelle Malkin, complained that the scarf looked similar to the black-and-white checkered kaffiyeh, the traditional Palestinian scarf. Critics who fueled online complaints about the ad in blogs say such scarves have come to symbolize Muslim extremism and terrorism.

Rachael Ray ad pulled by Dunkin Donuts

The emphasis is mine, of course. One would think that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of critics were rallying round Ms. Malkin on this one, instead of a particularly clueless and vocal band of wingnuts.

At least in Chicago they haven't lost their minds. The Tribune writes:

And so, Malkin's pattern-recognition sensors kick in: Palestinians!

According to her, if Ray's scarf looks like a keffiyeh, the traditional scarf worn by Palestinians, then it must be a keffiyeh.

So what if it were?

Well, she further argues that, unbeknownst to the world, keffiyehs are actually a symbol of terrorism, hence her insinuation that the ad promotes terrorism.

Malkin then proceeds to educate the world about Palestinian keffiyehs, when they are worn, by whom, and why.

Not surprisingly, she gets it all wrong: In reality, the average Palestinian is much more likely to wear a keffiyeh than a terrorist.

Think about it: would the keffiyeh really be your preferred disguise if you were a terrorist and wished to walk incognito into a Tel Aviv bus or pizza parlor?

Probably not.

The blogger, the chef and the terrorist

If you want to be frightened of something, I'd suggest examining how rare it is for news agencies in America to point out the foolishness of these fear campaigns. They'll bend over backwards to avoid honking off these people.

I suppose I should really thank Ms. Malkin for stirring up all these idiots and getting them to do something completely useless for a while. Instead of keeping us safe from a 5' 3" spokesmodel for housewares and domestic appliances, they could have spent that time and energy fucking up something important.

I Understand Where I Am, Part II

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my own experiences relative to racism and prejudice, entitled I Understand Where I Am. Today, while visiting Pharyngula, I ran into this nugget:

The publishing company that owns the Curious George image says it is considering legal action to stop the sale of a T-shirt depicting Barack Obama as the monkey from children's books.

The T-shirts are being peddled by Marietta bar owner Mike Norman at his Mulligan's Bar and Grill in Cobb County. They show a picture of Curious Georgie peeling a banana, with the words "Obama '08" underneath.

Curious George publisher may sue over T-shirt

Hmmm, bananas, monkeys, does this imagery strike anyone else as familiar?

Norman acknowledged the imagery's Jim Crow roots but said he sees nothing wrong with depicting a prominent African-American as a monkey.

"We're not living in the (19)40's," he said. "Look at him . . . the hairline, the ears -- he looks just like Curious George."

Curious George publisher may sue over T-shirt

It certainly struck me as racist imagery, and as my befuddlement over the reaction to Tony Snow's tarbaby remarks should demonstrate, I'm not always quick to pick up on these things. But one person's humor is often another's bad taste, so let's give Norman the benefit of the doubt here, and consider the point he makes.

Yes, it really would be nice if we could all just make good-natured fun of each others' differences - "Be careful out in the sun there, Paleface", that sort of thing. It would also be nice if we didn't live in a country where people are still shot at or harassed for being where they "don't belong" due to their ethnic makeup. It would be nice if we didn't live in a place where more African-American men are in prison than in college. But that's the place we're in today.

In short, we're not there yet, and on some level I understand why. Anyone attempting this sort of humor should be very sure of the ground they're standing on.

UPDATE (May 15): While it is dated May 13, this article was actually finished and published today. I wish Blogger had a better means of dating articles.