Ben Stein's brain takes the day off.

When I first heard the comments attributed to Ben Stein (Bueller?... Bueller?... Bueller? ), I must admit that I thought that it was satire. But sadly for my conservative friends, it would appear that he was serious.


"It’s been almost three weeks since unarmed teenager Michael Brown was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri and we are just now finding out what the teacher from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off has to say about the whole thing. According to actor turned conservative commentator Ben Stein, Brown was armed, with his “incredibly strong, scary self.”


“The idea of calling this poor, young man unarmed when he was 6’4″, 300 pounds, full of muscles and was apparently, according to what I read in The New York Times, on marijuana — to call him unarmed is like calling Sonny Liston unarmed, or Cassius Clay unarmed,” Stein told NewsMax’s Steve Malzberg on Wednesday. “He wasn’t unarmed. He was armed with his incredibly strong, scary self.”


If by “armed” Stein means Brown had arms, like Sonny Liston, Muhammad Ali and nearly every other human, then that is one thing. But in this context, “armed” usually means holding a firearm, something that could definitely be said of Officer Wilson, but not of Brown.


Moments later, Stein said that we as a country have moved from “lynching” of African-Americans to similar “lynchings” of police, as evidenced by Attorney General Eric Holder weighing in on the case. And, he also seems to think that George Zimmerman was a “policeman.”" [Source]


Man, how many dumb racist things can you say in one interview?


And to think that folks on the right get mad when they are painted as clueless racists. Well they are painted that way because of the musings of great conservative thinkers like Ben Stein.


Speaking of clueless racists, I love the Charles Blow takedown of FOX VIEWS personality, Bill O'Reilly.


Bill does not seem to think that there is such a thing as "white privilege."


"Blow begins by quoting O’Reilly:

“Last night on ‘The Factor,’ Megyn Kelly and I debated the concept of white privilege whereby some believe that if you are Caucasian you have inherent advantages in America. ‘Talking Points’ does not, does not believe in white privilege. However, there is no question that African-Americans have a much harder time succeeding in our society than whites do.”

“It is difficult to believe that those three sentences came in that order from the same mouth,” Blow writes. Once you admit that it’s “harder for blacks to succeed,” he argues, then the converse for whites must be “a form of privilege.” He adds, “When one has the luxury of not being forced to compensate for societal oppression based on basic identity, one is in fact privileged in that society.”


RELATED: A Lesson for Bill O’Reilly on ‘Asian Privilege’
After quoting O’Reilly’s most recent use of the term “race hustlers” to describe those who “blame white privilege” for any problems that African-Americans face, Blow concludes:

No, Mr. O’Reilly, it is statements like this one that make you the race hustler. The underlying logic is that blacks are possessed of some form of racial pathology or self-destructive racial impulses, that personal responsibility and systemic inequity are separate issues and not intersecting ones. 

This is the false dichotomy that chokes to death any real accountability and honesty. Systemic anti-black bias doesn’t dictate personal behavior, but it can certainly influence and inform it. And personal behavior can reinforce people’s belief that their biases are justified. So goes the cycle. 

But at the root of it, we can’t expect equality of outcome while acknowledging inequality of environments. 

Only a man bathing in privilege would be blind to that." [Source]

Palms raised to the sky and looking for the offering plate.


Church!