SM readers Kabes and Sriram let us know that the NRSC (National Republican Senatorial Committee) have made weak Lemon Drops out of the lemons they received from the stupendously-awful erstwhile Senator from Virginia, George Allen. Allen, if you have been in a coma, tried to get re-elected last year. He had a great chance– until he dissed a desi and was outted for the bigot he is. Losing bad. Winning good. To that end:
The Macaca moment has morphed into an official learning tool for the Republican establishment.
It’s right there, on pages 18 and 22 of an Internet guide from the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee that its chairman, Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), hopes will become scripture for the 2008 candidates…
The guidebook, 39 pages long and distributed last week to GOP Senate campaigns, underscores attempts by Republicans to level the Web-based playing field after Democrats, in Ensign’s view, leveraged their Internet savvy into electoral wins. Republicans remain almost haunted by their 2006 missteps, particularly the way the macaca incident exposed chasms in their new media campaign strategy.
Two years after their peers across the aisle recognized the need to reach out to and monitor online communications, the G.O.P. are having a “Eureka!” moment:
“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” said Matthew Miller, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “I’m glad the NRSC discovered the Internet in 2007.” [Politico]
And discover they did. The guide tackles YouTube (predictable), MySpace (porntastic), Facebook (yeah, that’s just creepy) and it urges candidates to make like Oprah and get personal, especially on a video blog (does anyone use the term “vlog”??). With the alacrity of a sloth, the G.O.P. have realized that rather than merely consider the “internets” a punchline to an anti-Gore joke, they need to wake up to Web 2.0.
DCist doesn’t think that the guide gets it at all:
But the real problem is that the “macaca” moment is hardly a “paradigmatic example” of the need for an “early warning system.” The “macaca” moment is a paradigmatic example of the need to not run candidates whose disturbing racial worldviews lead them to say crazy-ass things that make ordinary voters feel all sick to their soul. To say nothing of not running candidates who think their magic football will distract people from finding out that they are cornpone douchebags. [DCist]
I consummately agree.
You know, I could have saved the NRSC a ton of trouble and time. Instead of 39 pages of Allen-inspired instructions, try these five magical words; be ye not an idiot. The world is watching and the blogs are buzzing. Today, there is no mercy for the stupid.
well if a white man benefited from state sponsored discrimination, would you doubt his authenticity if he turned around later and tried to outlaw such actions? you can question clarence thomas’ judgement without bringing his race into question.
My problem with Clarence is he reaped the benefits of Affirmative Action but would not stand up for the rights of other blacks to benefit from it.
My problem with Clarence Thomas is that he is a damn fool. He doesnt participate in oral arguments and he is generally not a very bright guy.
He doesnt participate in oral arguments and he is generally not a very bright guy.
Heh! Give him some credit, ACfd…he’s bright enough to ride Scalia’s coattails at least! 🙂
in a world where liberal cartoonist pat oliphant has portrayed condi rice as a big lipped parrot, where “gen “powell is called a house nigger, and where clarance thomas was subjected to a high tech lynching…i call out pravin on his racism, first aimed at blacks, secondly aimed at indians who stray off his liberal plantantion”
High tech lynching? WTF are you talking about? This is what cartoonists do. If you want equal treatment than this is it. He got the same treatment as a shit-load of other politicians who somehow lost the support and protection of their puppet-masters for a while. If they (press, Congress) had ignored Anita’s complaints, there would be accusations of ignoring sexual harrassment of black women. He ended up no worse than any of the others, and by the way he is a sleaze ball, like so many of the others. Blackness doesn’t confer innocence.
Carciatures exaggerate characteristics. That is what they do. If you’re sensitive about certain characteristics, then that’s what you see. That’s why caricatures of women seem particularly nasty–women are so sensitive about noses or whatever. In the case of women it’s because looks are such a sore point, more than for men. In the case of non-majority groups, physical characteristics are a sensitive point because they highlight differences. ALL peoples’ features are exaggerated in cartoon caricatures. As for Rice, the worse insults I ever read applied to her, or to blacks in general, were in Chinese newspapers. They were incredibly insulting, and in my opinion, unprintable. I even felt sorry for her and I consider everybody in this administration to be the essence of evil.
Heh! Give him some credit, ACfd…he’s bright enough to ride Scalia’s coattails at least! 🙂
True. Thats a commonly held belief but I did hear someone make the argument that supposedly Thomas does not follow Scalia and is actually leading Scalia. It was very late at night on C-Span. I cant remember the name of the guy who was making this argument but he had an interesting argument nevertheless.
I tend to agree with the notion that Thomas is Scalia’s lackey. The only redeeming quality of Thomas is that he makes otherwise lowly legal grunts like me feel good about the fact that I might be smarter than a Supreme Court Justice.
Not exactly. Uncle tom is a statement on behavior, and action, something that can be changed. It’s not an essence of being. Sidarth was called macaca, not because he pointed a camera at Allen, but because his skin was darker than an average European immigrant.
If “brother” Dinesh Dsouza was holding the camera, he would have been called macaca all the same, irrespective of his bullshit political viewpoints, and selective reading of history.
True. Thats a commonly held belief but I did hear someone make the argument that supposedly Thomas does not follow Scalia and is actually leading Scalia.
I’ve heard that too, and from a number of different sources (including one of my former law school professors who clerked for Thomas). I think it’s based on the idea that Thomas is actually a much more “faithful” textualist than Scalia, the latter sometimes allowing outcomes to drive interpretation.
The only redeeming quality of Thomas is that he makes otherwise lowly legal grunts like me feel good about the fact that I might be smarter than a Supreme Court Justice.
In that case, I lament the fact that Harriet Miers never made it to the bench.
sounds like you’re making an argument against affirmative action
well he exaggerated a feature that’s stereotypical to blacks but not condi in particular (her lips aren’t particularly big). add to that she’s a parrot, controlled by bush. but for some reason cheney and rummy are bush’s puppet masters. why?
it is a behaviour, but it betrays the racist belief that blacks have a certain authentic behaviour or thought process. it denies them the diversity inherent in being human.
this is the true white privilege. They are allowed to transcend race and embrace any political ideology without anyone accusing them of self-hatred.
when you can’t see someone as an individual but only a representative of their race, i call bullshit.
Manju says in response to Al Chutiya “sounds like you’re making an argument against affirmative action”
Affirmative Action doesn’t mean one can guarantee a fool won’t get through to the next level just as merit based hiring still leads to dummies being hired at big companies without any need for Affirm. Action. Many Indians get into medicine over here because of the role models we have in our community. But a lot of Indians in India do not get into medicine if you check out the percentages. Everyone has their own rationale for AA. Mine is not necessarily the same as others. Mine is part reparations, partly to make up for crappy schools, partly to provide role models in a segmen of the population to encourage future generations of that segment, partly to make up for lack of adequate networking opportunities. It is not in the country’s interest to have a permanent underclass.
Sure, there will be inefficiencies in the short term, but it is for a long term payoff. Goodling and her kind in the Bush Justice Department are not exactly highly qualified personnel. THe Bushies hired a bunch of people from Pat RObertson’s law university. So there are a lot of hiring decisions that are made without any consideration to merit.
Oh please , give me a break manju. When we bash Condi Rice, it’s not because she is a conservative black person. I bash her because she has done a terrible job. Same with Dinesh D Souza. Ramesh Ponnuru really made a fool of himself with his last book and it’s ridiculous title, but I found him a little more reasonable. If these guys wrote like PJ o Rourke , then I wouldn’t care what race they were.
I have no use even for people like that female writer from India (forget her name, all of a sudden, starts with an A) who keeps bashing western powers and doesn’t balance it out with criticizing some of the despots in the eastern regions, especially former communist countries.
FOr the record, I am the type who believes in school choice and death penalty. You are hardly dealing with bleeding heart liberal stereotypes here.
condi does have spectacular legs though. oliphant could’ve portrayed her as a long legged giraffe or something. but he chose big lipped parrot, to emphasize her blackness and the stereotypical subservience of the house n—-r.
i never criticized you for bashing rice. bash way.
I haven’t read the book but it was Jan Crawford Greenburg on C-SPAN and her book was ‘Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court)’
{Link}
I never thought I would say this but I feel sorry for you Americans for lack of a great choice in 2008. I like John Edwards, but I’m afraid he won’t be the Democratic choice in 2008. Funny for the 1st time here in Canada we finally have leader that we can be proud of.
Of course there is one option for 2008 that can save you country, but I’m afraid Lou “THE TRUTH” Dobbs won’t be running in 2008.
sorry wrong topic
ak, I don’t like macaca either. I think there was a huge long discussion about this. I don’t think it’s equivalent to n– in its connotation and history of violence, but it is definitely racist. I guess in that way they’re one and the same.
Manju, this is ridiculous. The phrase “Uncle Tom” does not mean a “traitor to one’s race” or any of the other things that have been going back and forth. It has the same connotation as “house n–” from what I’ve heard. The critique underlying it is not that a person of color has conservative values. It is whether or not someone has decided to promote decisions that hurt people from the same (marginalized) community for their own personal or professional gain. It’s like the ruler of a kingdom who sells his people as slaves to boost his own disposable income. There is an expectation that one should not continue to do harm to a group, especially if you have a history or familiarity with similar struggles. It is certainly not the same as Allen calling someone “macaca.” In the context of the U.S. and the examples people have listed, both terms refer to people who promote a vision of a relatively exclusivist America that denigrates others and champions Anglo-American supremacy (in which being an “American” is generally equated with being white).
68 Camille:
Camille, there are a number of problems here, but I will listen before I opine.
1) Do you really think that “desis” in the US are truly marginalized? Be careful about terminology– do you mean desi people or desi culture? Is one of the two more acceptable than the other? Do you look at class similarly– for example, would a desi taxi driver supporting a anti-union, rich desi libertarian a “class traitor”?
2) Is “Anglo-American supremacy” about “Anglo-American people” or “Anglo-American culture”? That is, is a desi who supports Samuel Huntington’s ideas about American nationality an Uncle Tom?
Torpedo,
That said, I don’t expect people to agree with me, and certainly not Manju — we are clearly sitting on different sides of an auditorium on issues of race. That said, I do not believe that calling someone a macaca (which reinforces the paradigm of white supremacy in the U.S.) is equivalent to calling someone an Uncle Tom (which criticizes an individual who chooses to further white supremacy at the expense of other members of his/her ethnic community).
So Nehru and his daughter, whose socialism and license raj enriched his caste at the expense of marginalized people was an uncle tom? Indain americans who oppose outsourcing and globalization are uncle toms? Is castro an uncle tom? why do the charges go only one way?
why are champions of free-market capitalism championing anglo-american supremacy but fabian socialists not? are marxists german supremacists? The values and politics that d’souza and thomas advocate has resulted in asian immigrants surpassing anglos by many metrics. with the rise china, india, and the pacific rim all partially due to conservative family values mated to free market politics and the “protestant” work ethic, i fail to see how thomas and d’souza can be call anglo-american supremacists, anymore than max weber could be considered an anti-catholic bigot.
i agree the phenomena of the uncle tom exists, but its being used today the way mccarthy used communism. old joe was profoundly unamerican, and some of the politics of authenticity, since it denies us the diversity of thought that whites take for granted, is profoundly racist.
ah yes, that old canard. Would you let a convicted felon teach in the criminal justice department? Or a Marxist in the business school? Or a fellow who believes the UN to be largely unecessary as your ambassador to said useless institution?
The answer is obviously no. That kind of diversity is undesirable.
D’Souza and Thomas advocate ‘pulling yourselves up by your own bootstraps’ but don’t supply the instructions on how to do so.
They believe that if only the godless, baby-killers on the left would stop glorifying gays, gender studies and science and start thinking about strict constructionist interpretations of the constitution, we’d be living in a utopian society.
have you read The End of Racism yet?
Not exactly again, this goes back to your entire “MLK was an integrationist!, he didn’t believe in the black identity!” When in fact, the opposite is true. It’s not a certain behavior that I claim minorities should all subscribe to, it’s the neglect, dismissal, and downlpaying of a shared experience is the the behavior that I repudiate. Saying that ‘blacks/indians/minorities” should be aware of a collective, shared experience in no way denies individuality, or human diversity. For someone to deny a shared racial experience (which MLK, Malcolm, Medgar Evers, , never ever suggested) is, in my view, not equivalent to saying they are solely represented by their race. Race is part of who you are, and given the history of this country, a shared experience exists (whether one chooses to pay attention to it or not) that cannot be denied.
White’s cannot be accused of self-hatred, because there is no “self” to hate, in a racial sense. They can hate themselves for being short, tall, etc.. , but the white race is based on a concept of privilege.
That’s like saying, “he was a father, but was deciding whether or not he had a child” – taken at face value (without metaphors, etc..) it makes no sense, by definition, being a father means you have a child.
Manju- I was quite surprised to see your name next to the comment that reads it is a behaviour, but it betrays the racist belief that blacks have a certain authentic behaviour or thought process. it denies them the diversity inherent in being human this is the true white privilege.They are allowed to transcend race and embrace any political ideology without anyone accusing them of self-hatred..I would very much agree with that comment. However on a different topic this same discussion of “Acting White/White Privilege” came up, and you stated
You posted a link to a study this study: from that article:
I think that last sentence would be in line with what I think is a “libertarian” POV this institution has, am I right? Education should be paid for–in fact ‘the market’ even helps underachieving black kids. To me that indicates an economic paradigm not a race issue; people who pay for a good will probably pay more attention to the outcome that someone who gets it for free. At any rate you contradict yourself here- by stating that it is “white privilege” that allows for whites to think subscribe to any political ideology, which would include academic achievement in my book, with out sacrificing their identity. I don’t deny that I have heard and understand the term ‘acting white’. However I have NEVER heard it expressed by my African American peer group- in that way, in regards to education. That was not the case when I was in HS. When I and the 9 other [white] students who where also national merit semi finalist- none of us where on the cheerleading squad/football team or part of the homecoming court. In fact the whole genre of “teen films” in America does NOT celebrate “smartness” or nerdiness as a path to being popular.
Three years ago I mentored/tutored young kids(6-14 yrs old) from a large housing projects—the real bad kind,not the ones you speak of with “hidden wealth”- in this one kids where justifiably afraid of being jumped on, or worse , for not joining a gang. This place was the definition of underachievement, drug/gun crime, single parent families, poverty of aspiration etc. In all my interactions with the students /parents/grandparents- I never head the term ‘acting white’. For one ,there have been no “whites” to emulate in generations in this setting. No one[in the ghetto] talks like that.
You demonstrate that you are able to appreciate and articulate what “white privilege” is,than why not be mindful of it in all of its manifestation , not only when defending politicians etc you agree with. I don’t see how it’s in any person of color interest to continue to conflate race and or class/political ideology. I also think that the larger white and ‘other’ communities are complicit,if not active, in continuing the ‘acting white’ meme.
Being successful should not have to mean being white.
I believe the demonstration was a tad facetious. He describes the “true white privilege” when whites can go “outside their race” and not be called “uncle toms” which, in a morbid round about way, is actually true – but not for the reasons he states, rather because there is no “outside their race”
You’re probably right, I wasn’t sure about all the ‘wealth‘ he was talking about here either. But let’s stop talking about him- he might think we actually pay attention to his
nonsenseno nonsense approach (smile)i agree the phenomena of the uncle tom exists
Who are the current Uncle Toms in your opinion?
dilettante: i being consistent. as is apparent on this thread, it is blacks/browns that impose upon blacks/browns a code of authenticity, which often intersects with traditional racists notions like black academic underachievement or the much used of example of hip hop as the modern day minstrel show. this is especially disturbing in the political realm since it would deny non-whites the necessary pre-conditions (free-markets) for economic empowerment. i don’t see the contradiction.
maybe that Scythian fellow. any black/brown that supports aparthied. a jew who collaborated with the nazis. but a black man who opposes AA? no, that’s a debatable subject and it is not at all obvious that AA benifts those to whom it is designed to benifit, anymore than socialism benifited the working class.
look, jesse jackson endores a lot of policies that i think keep blacks down and he enriches himself in the process, but i wouldn’t call him an uncle tom.
BTW, there’s a new biography out on Clarence Thomas. The NY Times review paints a far more complex and interesting picture of him than I had ever been aware of.
then i don’t see how thomas or D’souza are uncle toms since they don’t deny a shared experiece but rather break from the mainstream on how to fix it. perhaps they don’t see raciam as the major probem facing ethnic minorites in the US today, either do i, but this is a far cry from denying the past.
in bears noting that malcom x labled mlk an uncle tom in no uncertain terms. think about that.
Of course, Malcolm X realized his folly later. He made his mistakes so you wouldn’t have to. But i guess history must repeat before moving on.
Dude, you’re like a minnow swimming with a shark. While this nod of who made what mistake is quite well known, you’ll also be interested to know that MLK and the SCLC made acknowledgements to the NOI and “black nationalists” in how better to attune their strategies, and further acknowledged. Furthermore, Malcolm X was well aware of the white media (and their current minority vestiges) attempts to further this wedge between them, and he refused to be manipulated in this way:
“Now my feeling was that although civil rights leaders kept attacking us Muslims, still they were black people, still they were our own kind, and I would be most foolish to let the white man maneuver me against the civil rights movement”, Autobiography, pg 274
Secondly, likening myself to Malcolm, and Dinesh (or you or whoever) to MLK is ludicrous on both counts. To honestly say that Dinesh Dsouza acknowledges a shared history and encourages community based action and awareness is ridiculous for someone who’s written a chapter called “two cheers for colonialism”
Then what is? rotten cole slaw? an inherent committment to keeping one’s community down? Dsouza has repeatedly spoken of “pathologies in the black culture” in “the end of racism” And here is the ultimate irony. What he and many other conservative commenters say are, “Racism doesn’t affect ethnic minorities, it’s that they’re lazy!” How can you say this attitude doesn’t speak of denying the past? If it’s not denying the past, I have no clue what is.
I’ve read that that was a stratagem of Malcolm’s to push the ‘mainstream’to see things MLK’s way by denouncing him.(as confessed by Malcolm, to MLK’s wife shortly before X’s assinatation)Sorry can’t find a link for that-I sometimes read non digital media. It was like a “preemptive warning” of what’s to come if they couldn’t get their act together.
Maybe I read you wrong, but I’m sure you have heard yourself(?) or other/non black/brown people describe a “successful”, black person as ‘different’ or somehow less black because by definition success=white, has no one ever’coded’ you yourself as ‘white’ becuase you are successful? Laters.
i think the quote in 82 speak for itself. short of dilettante’s machiaveliian interpretation being true, I always read X’s life as one of almost fanon like transformation from racist to universalist, which may expalian the quote you provide.
two is the operable word. normally if you endorse something its 3 cheers, after all. so he’s acknowledging the problems of colonialism while cheering it bringing liberal democracy to india. we’ve had these discussions on SM before and i believe amardeep has been called a sahib for exploring this notion. perhaps 1 cheer is more appropriate. lets call him a nephew tom and leave it at that 😉
he’s not denying that racism is why blacks/browns are down, its just not the reason we are not getting up. colonialism knowcked india down, socialism kept her down, and capitalism is getting her up…to sum it up.
y’know, so did malcolm. my impression is many blacks are perfectly comfortable speaking about this…they just don’t want whites listening.
i haven’t heard this but i don’t doubt it exists or that people think this way. as i said, i think the new racism–the politcs of authenticity–often intersects with the traditional kind.
actually, i’ve been coded white by indians for been lazy, unstudious, decadent, and unconventional.
All this back and forth aside, Manju, your examples of Nehru and Castro would not qualify for the “Uncle Tom” label because the label isn’t so broad to encompass every aspect of someone selling out people for their own benefit. It is specific to the U.S. and to U.S. race relations. The political leanings are not the underlying issue in the examples you described. It’s not really that difficult to parse apart the class argument from the race argument. For example, was Stalin a despotic, sick, human rights violating maniac? Yes. But the term “Uncle Tom” hardly applies.
Also, I don’t know where a conversation can begin when someone is an apologist for D’Souza’s work. He’s short on empirical information and long on the vitriol, particularly when it comes to pandering into the model minority myth and playing up the denigration of African Americans in the U.S.
Damn, I hope I don’t marry and have kids with a woman whose brother is named Thomas. Would lead to lots of awkward moments at the dinner table…
Both are not mutually exclusive. Malcolm did indeed comment about how “whites first called MLK a socialist, anti-American, etc.. then when Malcolm X came along, they thanked god they had a MLK” Such comments were tongue in cheek, but certainly did contain a huge amount of truth in where Malcolm saw the civil rights struggle going. As for the ‘transformation’ you speak of, Malcolm never, ever once denied the existence, and of a black identity, he only believed that it should extend beyond the US. After visiting african heads of states and hearing what he felt were lies being fed to them via the US state department, he urged blacks in the US and blacks/browns/nonwhites outside the US to unify. In this way, he was a universalist.
ONe of his most famous quotes: “Whites can help us, but they can’t join us. We cannot think of uniting with others, unless we first unite with ourselves” He didn’t turn into a “everyone is equal whopee!” type person. He recognized past difference and injustice caused schisms that existed clearly in the present.
Please. Absolutely disingenuous. Malcolm’s statements are always in the context of it being in a white driven society. Even as he formed the OAAU (post dating his trip to Mecca and transformation), he addressed this point: “Where the really sincere white people have got to do their proving of themselves is not among the black victims, but out on the battle lines of where America’s racism really is – and that’s in their own home communities ; America’s racism is among their own fellow whites. That’s where sincere whites who really mean to accomplish something have got to work”
In fact, it was only after being in Africa and the Arab world he realized that it was white American society that caused whites to act that way, not any inherent biological flaw. There isn’t even a hint of it being “inherent” to the black people, Dsouza et all, are have this insintuation replete in their statements.
By the way, the quote I provided, was made by macolm before his trip overseas, and subsequent “transformation” The point is, it’s not as cut and dry as you say.