Yeah, so here’s a quick message to white politicians everywhere: Racial epithets actually sound waaaaay worse when you say them out loud than they do when you say them silently in your head. Really doesn’t matter if you have a D in front of your name or not.
Oh yeah, and before I forget: You should also probably avoid the “c” and “b” words if you don’t care for Justice Kagan’s opinion on something down the road.
That one’s for free.
Representative Winkler “did not understand ‘Uncle Tom’ as a racist term,” he tweeted of himself later.
Riiiiight.Report
I think the terminology is a bit of a distraction. The real issue here is the idea that someone is obliged to subscribe to or promote a particular ideology because of their race. This is racism in the most literal sense of the word.
And to preempt the “Liberals Are the Real Racists” snark, it’s not the only kind of racism, or even the worst kind. But it is one kind.Report
Well said.
The way that certain liberals think they can just tee off on Thomas and other black conservatives is really disturbing. Attack their politics all you want. But don’t assume that a disagreement on politics gives you carte blanche to attack their race.Report
What “certain liberals” are you referring to?Report
The liberals that demonstrate that tendency. I didn’t mean to imply that exists an identifiable subset that I won’t identify. But I do think there are liberals who have no qualms launching racist/racialized attacks on black conservatives because they present a real challenge.
See the jive-talking Michae Steele muppet, I believe from “The Daily Show”.Report
While I understand your general point, I thought that muppet was quite appropriate. When the real person spouts malformed lame hiphop-isms as substitute for, y’know, suggesting the party move towards policies that’d actually appeal to the types he claimed to want to get to vote GOP…
I saw it as more “old Republican trying laughably hard to sound ‘hip'” than a racial thing.Report
I also think it matters that Wyatt Cenac, the comedian who did the Michael Steele bit, is African American – in the same way Stewart doesn’t show up as an anti-semite when he makes jokes about Jewish stereotypes.Report
Yeah, that wasn’t a good example of what Kazzy is talking about.
I seem to remembee thinking the attacks on Herman Cain were racialized, at least in some rare cases, but I can’t remember what, specifically, I was thinking about.Report
Steele did try to talk change. Then abruptly had to walk it back.
He may be a party loyalist, but he at least knew a bit of what he was doing.Report
Winkler should just have called Thomas “Hitler”. It’s the respectable way to insult a black man.Report
We just had to wait a day.Report
There you go. It’s nuts but at least it’s not racist.Report
To be fair, if Thomas had known his place, Winkler wouldn’t have had to put him in it.Report
space awesomeReport