Tag Archives: racism

entertainment news, national news

'Selma' lays racism bare

“Selma” may be one of the more important films of the past decade.

It tells the story of Martin Luther King Jr.’s efforts to rally a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. It’s gripping in the extreme.

But my wife and I took the same feeling away from the film as we drove home this evening from the theater. It was the presence of the Confederate flags being waved by counter protesters who did and said some nasty things aimed at the marchers.

Proud sons and daughters of the Confederacy keep saying — with all earnestness — that their pride rests in their heritage and that it has nothing to do with race. They contend, for example, that slavery was not the reason the Confederate State of America seceded from the Union.

But those Confederate flags waving at the Edmund Pettus Bridge and in Montgomery, where the marchers ended their trek tell a different story — at least to my wife and me.

This enduring symbol of the Confederacy often is displayed by those objecting to African-Americans’ calls for equality. Why is that? How is it that the Stars and Bars has become such a symbol of groups that remain dead set against equality for all Americans based solely on the color of their skin?

We watched the film tonight with our son and his girlfriend. Our son said the film is “tough to watch,” but said it is “worth the time.” We all liked the film very much.

For me, the toughest elements to watch in the movie were the brutality inflicted by law enforcement on the marchers seeking to cross the bridge — and the sight of those Confederate flags waving amid the hideous insults being hurled at Americans who were demanding the right to vote.

Yes, indeed. “Selma” is an important piece of moviemaking.

 

national news

Racism, or mistaken identity?

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Take a look at the picture of first lady Michelle Obama attached to this blog post.

It shows her shopping at Target in 2011. She’s dressed casually, with a ball cap and sunglasses. The first lady said during a “highly publicized” shopping excursion, the only person who talked to her was a woman who asked her to take something off a shelf.

The first lady used that encounter as an example of the racism she and her husband, the president, have experienced over many years.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/12/17/michelle-obama-i-was-asked-to-get-something-off-the-shelf-at-target/

I guess my confusion is rooted in a single question: Would I have recognized this woman as the first lady of the United States had I seen her pushing a shopping cart through a mid-level department store?

I’m not so sure.

The only giveaway that she is a very important person would be the presence of security personnel wearing ear pieces, dark suits and perhaps handguns bulging from the side of their jackets.

Yeah, that would tip me off that she’s the first lady.

There can be zero doubt that President and Mrs. Obama have felt slights — large and small — growing up in the United States. They are laying some of that experience out in a lengthy People magazine interview. It is wrong for it to have happened in any context … ever!

However, I am a bit puzzled by the example cited by the first lady.

The only thing I can figure is that the Secret Service agents were keeping a considerable distance away when the woman asked the first lady for some help.

Am I wrong to think this?

 

national news, political news

Here's how you start a firestorm

Mention the n-word in the context of someone from a political party using against the president of the United States and you’re bound to start major-league hissy fit.

I did that today by posting something that was broadcast on C-SPAN.

Here it is:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/c-span-scrambles-n-word-article-1.2001484?utm_content=bufferfe0c3&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=NYDN+Facebook

An idiot from San Diego, Calif., called in on the “Republican line,” and identified himself as a Republican. He then said “Republicans hate that (n-word) Obama.” Steve Scully, the C-SPAN host, cut the caller off immediately in a remarkable display of dispassion.

My tweet asked whether the moron spoke for “other Republicans.”

Then the fire started blazing on my Facebook news feed, where my tweet was posted automatically.

I have many conservative friends, and a few of them are quite active on Facebook. They took a lot of time suggesting that I labeled “all Republicans” as racists. I didn’t do that.

I asked what I believe is a straightforward, fair and legitimate question: Did the C-SPAN caller represent “other Republicans?”

This is what happens when we talk about race in America. We’re supposed to be living in what are calling a post-racial period. I don’t believe that’s the case. The election of Barack Obama as president has shown that racial politics is alive and well.

He’s made race an issue on occasion. When the topic comes up, his foes declare he’s a racist. When the president’s foes argue their point, the president’s allies declare that they are the racists.

And when people such as yours truly ask a simple question about a moronic caller who’s use of the n-word was broadcast on a national cable TV news program, then we see that race remains at or near the top of many Americans’ conscience.

I believe I’ll refrain from commenting any further on racial politics for the time being.

I’m a bit worn out from the battering I took today.

national news, Sports news

Racist rant brings right response

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Donald Sterling, the former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers professional basketball team, was caught saying some hideous things about African-Americans. His response? He fought tooth and nail to keep control of his team. He failed in that effort.

Bruce Levenson, owner of the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks, has admitted to sending out racist emails two years ago. His response? He announced his intention to sell his majority interest in the Hawks, he has apologized to NBA fans everywhere and is vowing to bow out quietly.

Which man did the honorable thing?

Of course you know the answer: Bruce Levenson.

http://time.com/3292250/atlanta-hawks-selling/

Levenson’s email reportedly said some derogatory things about African-American fans. “I’m truly embarrassed by my words in that email and I apologize to the Hawks family and all of our fans,” Levenson said in a statement. Levenson said he had “trivialized our fans by making clichéd assumptions about their interests” based on their race and ethnicity.

The NBA, which has demonstrated its zero-tolerance policy on racial matters, was quick to commend Levenson for thinking first about the NBA, the Hawks and “the Atlanta community.”

That, folks, is how you respond to an incident in which you have shamed yourself.

 

 

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Cuban speaks the truth … bluntly

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Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks pro basketball team, can be labeled many ways.

He is brash, loud, at times brusque, occasionally inarticulate.

He is not a racist.

Thus, he is getting hammered unfairly over some remarks he made recently in the wake of the Donald Sterling brouhaha over whether Sterling uttered racist remarks in that recorded phone conversation with his gold-digging girlfriend/aide/pal V. Stiviano. Sterling did show his racist colors and the Los Angeles Clippers owner has been banned from pro basketball for the rest of his life.

Cuban popped off this week about what he’d do if he saw a young African-American male wearing a hoodie and droopy pants. He said he’d walk to other side of the street. Cuban also said he’d precisely the same thing if he saw a tattoo-marked, white kid with a shaved head and pierced jewelry stuck in his ears, nose, lips and eyebrows.

http://www.realclearsports.com/2014/05/23/cuban039s_views_not_scary_censorship_is_120250.html

Does any of that make Cuban a racist? No.

I’m not the first to acknowledge this in print — although the thought occurred to me the moment I heard about the controversy over Cuban’s remarks — but the Rev. Jesse Jackson said virtually the same thing some years ago.

I don’t need to stipulate, but I will anyway, that Rev. Jackson is African-American and he was talking about the discomfort he feels when he encounters young black men on the street. Jackson said he doesn’t feel as safe as he does when he encounters young white men. No one in their right mind accused Jackson of being a racist then.

Mark Cuban deserves the same presumption now.

He was speaking a blunt truth about human beings. “While we all have our prejudices and bigotries, we have to learn that it’s an issue that we have to control … not just kick the problem down the road,” Cuban said.

Mark Cuban is not in the same league as Donald Sterling as it relates to racism.

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Sterling 'baited' into saying those things?

I’m going to need some help processing this “apology.”

Donald Sterling, the disgraced Los Angeles Clippers professional basketball team owner, says he’s sorry for saying those racist things to his — what shall we call her? — girlfriend/assistant/”silly rabbit.”

He said he was “baited” into uttering those disgusting remarks. Baited? Does that mean he was lured into saying things he didn’t mean? Was there some promise or payoff if he declared in a phone conversation that V. Stiviano — the said “silly rabbit” — shouldn’t be seen in public with African-Americans? Did little ol’ V. put a gun to his head and make him say those hateful things?

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/11/us/donald-sterling-interview/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Well, now he tells Anderson Cooper of CNN that he’s sorry. He declares “I am not a racist,” which of course is the usual dodge from those who actually do have racist tendencies.

The National Basketball Association has banned him for life from the game. He can’t take part in any basketball-related operations; he cannot attend Clippers games; he cannot attend league meetings; he’s going to be pressured to sell his team. He’s a pariah.

The players want him gone. His fellow owners want him out.

This is a disgraceful episode that so far has produced only one bright, shining moment: the swift and decisive action by brand new NBA Commissioner Adam Silver to banish Sterling from the NBA.

The timing of the “apology” also is suspect. He was revealed to have said these things about three weeks ago — and now he offers his mea culpa?

This individual said some truly awful things. That’s no longer in doubt. There will be plenty of explanation required now to persuade many of us that he didn’t really mean what he said.

I do not believe this “apology” is going to fly.

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'R-word' surfaces yet again

There goes that pesky “R-word” being bandied about as politicians debate the presidency of Barack Obama.

The latest uttering of it came from former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who used to be a Republican but now is running for his old office — as a Democrat.

Why did he leave the Grand Old Party?

Crist says it is because too many Republicans just can’t stomach the idea of an African-American serving as president of the United States. He calls those critics racist.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/charlie-crist-racism-drove-me-from-gop-106442.html?hp=l10_b1

Is it true? Is Crist correct to assert that GOP criticism of Obama is based mostly — if not solely — on the fact that his father was a black African and his mother was a white Kansan?

Crist leveled a pretty heavy barrage against his former party in a TV interview. “They’re perceived now as being anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-minority, anti-gay, anti-education, anti-environment,” he said of Republicans.

Crist told interviewer Jorge Ramos he couldn’t tolerate that kind of view. So he switched parties.

Republicans, not surprisingly, say Crist left the party to become an independent initially because he couldn’t beat GOP Sen. Marco Rubio in the 2010 election. Again, I cannot know someone’s motives.

Crist, though, is speaking aloud about a chronic, nagging problem that is dogging the Republican Party. Are Obama critics fueled by racism? At the very least, is the president’s racial background factoring at some level into the intensity of the criticism being leveled at him?

I haven’t a clue. The issue, though, is worth a thorough national discussion.

Bring it on.

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NBA boss earns his spurs by banishing owner

Adam Silver has been commissioner of the National Basketball Association for just a few weeks.

Today he earned his spurs, showed his chops, manned up and did quite well to punish an NBA team owner for revealing some truly disgusting views on race.

Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling has been banned from team and league activities for life; he will have to pay a $2.5 million fine and will be pressured by the NBA Board of Governors to sell his team.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/donald-sterling-punishment-clippers-lifetime-ban-fine-racist-comments-adam-silver-042914

That was the decision announced today by Silver … and it has drawn widespread praise from around the NBA and indeed the country. Given the terrible battering that has come over Sterling’s remarks, the league needed something off the court to cheer.

Sterling’s comments came in a phone call with his quite young girlfriend. He said he didn’t want her associating with African-Americans in public and said he doesn’t want African-Americans attending games involving the team he has owned for three decades. The sum total of the man’s tirade betrays a disgusting view of a wealthy team owner toward the vast majority of the athletes who participate in the NBA and a good many of the coaches who lead these young men in their athletic endeavors. Most of the players are black, as are a hefty number of the head coaches.

FoxSports.com reported, “Sterling still owns the team, but going forward he is immediately barred from attending any NBA games or practices, being present at any Clippers office or facility, participating in any business or player personnel decisions involving the team, or being part of any league business.”

The league cannot take the team away from the owner, but 75 percent of the league’s owners — for whom Silver works — can endorse the sanctions against him and can force Sterling to sell the team, presumably to someone who doesn’t hold this individual’s disgusting views.

And what will happen to the $2.5 million Sterling will pay? It will go toward organizations whose mission is to fight bigotry and intolerance; the NBA and its players association will select the organizations.

The action taken today by the NBA is the brightest light shining over a league thrown into turmoil. Its players have performed magnificently in light of this team owner’s bizarre rant and they deserve credit for continuing their excellence on the competitive court.

The new commissioner, though, has shown a remarkably stiff spine and an equally suitable outrage over what one of his bosses, Donald Sterling, has been caught saying out loud.

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NBA team owner in serious trouble

Someone will have to explain this one to me … slowly.

Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling allegedly is overheard telling his girlfriend that she shouldn’t hang around with African-Americans and that she shouldn’t bring them to watch a sport dominated by, um, African-Americans. Sterling’s girlfriend also is of mixed-race heritage: half Latina, half (yep!) African-American.

Did I mention he owns a National Basketball Association team and employs African-American athletes? Oh, and it’s coached by an African-American gentleman who used to play a pretty good game of basketball himself.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/nba-investigating-disturbing-and-offensive-remarks-allegedly-made-by-clippers-sterling-042614

I used the term “allegedly” because it hasn’t yet been determined that the man’s voice actually is that of Sterling. I’ll bet that it is. I’ll also bet that the owner actually said what’s reported he said and that a pending NBA investigation is going to result in some serious sanctions against this guy.

What a weird and astonishing story.

The Clippers are involved the NBA’s playoff season now. Their coach, Doc Rivers, said today he had a team meeting over what’s been reported and added that the Clippers remained focused on their attempt to win the NBA championship. Everyone on the team is upset at what they heard, Rivers said, but he added that the athletes are solidly committed to their mission as a team. Good for them.

As for Sterling, his rant is as hideous as it gets. The link attached to this blog reports on what he said … allegedly. I’ll let his words speak for themselves.

Sterling no doubt will say — once the NBA determines it’s his voice — that his remarks were taken “out of context,” or that he’s been “misunderstood,” or that he’s “not a racist.”

I heard the context. I understand completely what he said. And racists usually are those who deny it in the first place.

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Is race a factor?

Leonard Pitts Jr. poses an interesting question to President Obama’s critics who contend their criticism ha nothing to do with his race.

What would the criticism look like if race was a factor?

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2014/apr/21/leonard-pitts-jr-what-would-it-look-like/

Pitts, of course, is African-American, just like the president. So, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist is likely to be more sensitive to specific elements of the criticism that has been leveled at Obama since he took office in January 2009.

I have many friends and acquaintances who tell me time and again that race has nothing to do with their dislike of the 44th president of the United States. However, here is what Pitts wrote in a recent column:

“I mean, we’re talking about a president who was called ‘uppity’ by one GOP lawmaker, ‘boy’ by another and ‘subhuman’ by a GOP activist, who was depicted as a bone-through-the-nose witch doctor by opponents of his health care reform bill, as a pair of cartoon spook eyes against a black backdrop by an aide to a GOP lawmaker and as an ape by various opponents, who has been dogged by a ‘tea party’ movement whose earliest and most enthusiastic supporters included the Council of Conservative Citizens, infamous for declaring the children of interracial unions ‘a slimy brown glop’; who was called a liar by an obscure GOP lawmaker during a speech before a joint session of Congress; and who has had to contend with a yearslong campaign of people pretending there is some mystery about where he was born.”

Interesting, don’t you think?

No other prominent politician in my memory ever has been called such things by his or her foes. It’s the tone, the intensity of which defies reason.

Those who dislike the president can hide behind their policy differences, they can say all they want that race doesn’t matter to them one little bit.

I try like the dickens to accept what they say and accept that they simply disagree with his policies. To be clear, none of my friends ever has used the language that Pitts cites in his column. However, he is spot on to call attention to these statements that have been whispered and shouted at the same time.

Is race a factor in this intense loathing of the president? I have to say “yes.”