I have some reservations about Anthony Bourdain.

*I like Anthony Bourdain, I really do. I consider him to be a world citizen who, for the most part, gets it when it comes to understanding the world and the people in it.

Which is why it pains me to write a post ripping him for his latest pronouncement about the white working class and politics in this country.

"Anthony Bourdain, an outspoken critic of President-elect Donald Trump, has called out "privileged Eastern liberals" - including himself - for their "utter contempt" of working-class Americans that he says made Trump's presidency possible...

When people are afraid and feel that their government has failed them they do things that seem completely mad and unreasonable to those of who are perhaps under less pressure,....

I've spent a lot of time in gun-country, God-fearing America," he added. "There are a hell of a lot of nice people out there, who are doing what everyone else in this world is trying to do: the best they can to get by, and take care of themselves and the people they love. When we deny them their basic humanity and legitimacy of their views, however different they may be than ours, when we mock them at every turn, and treat them with contempt, we do no one any good."

I have been seeing a lot of this kind of commentary since the election: Sympathy for the "poor working class white guy" who has been left out of the political mainstream by the political class and the elites in Washington.

I call bulls**t.

First, they are white, and let's not kid ourselves, they are not missing out on any of the privileges in this country. The government, as it is currently structured, did not fail these people. They have, for the most part, failed themselves. They have held twenty and thirty dollar an hour jobs working in mines and steel factories for years, and they failed to see the global revolution coming. No one is denying them their basic humanity or mocking them. They are properly represented in Washington and the halls of power by a very conservative and republican legislative body.

I am sorry, unlike Bourdain and the other apologists, I view "God-fearing America" and "gun-country" a little differently than they do. To me, there is nothing "God-fearing" about these people. Their history tells me something quite different. 

I suspect that the reason trump did so well among them had nothing to do with him running as an outsider who is going to shake up Washington, but had more to do with him running as the candidate for certain kinds of white people who was supported by the likes of David Duke and the folks in the alt-right movement.  There is nothing wrong with wanting your race to be recognized and properly represented , but let's not pretend that it is something else. Trump built his political career on a campaign to delegitimize the president and has drawn like-minded people to his movement.  

"We should be breaking bread with each other, and finding common ground whenever possible. I fear that is not at all what we've done."

Mr. Bourdain and others should be lecturing them, not us. I suspect that they don't want "common ground",  they want things the way they were, and there was nothing "common" about that.

*Image from ModernMom.com









     

From George, to David, to Donald.

I I  sure hope you Negroes know your history, because you are going to have to understand American history to know what type of times we are living in.

Think of the backlash against blacks during the radical reconstruction period from 1867 to 1877, a time when blacks were finally gaining political power in the South. Think of 1964 when race was the dominant issue in American politics, and Lyndon B Johnson, fresh after getting the civil rights act passed, was facing serious backlash from Southern whites.

1964 also brought us George Wallace and "Goldwater rallies".  The democratic party, as we know it, changed, and so did the republican party.

We forward now to the year 2016, and,sadly, I am afraid that America is once again in that place.

We now have Donald trump, and he has done something that David Duke and his crew could not: main stream bigotry.  Is it any surprise, then , that we have incidents like this, and this, and this, day in and day out?

If you know your history all of this will come as no surprise, and you will be able to get through these tough times by practicing proper Negro survival skills.

Finally,

"CNN host Don Lemon scolded a Donald Trump supporter on Thursday for insisting that Donald Trump’s birther remarks about President Barack Obama were not racist and that “only liberals on television” felt like that was the case.

“Here’s the thing I said about the campaign being tone-deaf,” Lemon told Andy Dean, before urging him to look at his monitor and consider that both he and panelist Van Jones were African-American.
And to a lot of African-Americans they interact with, he explained, Trump’s allegations that Obama was not born in the US “is an issue that they have a problem with, that they see racist, that they see as delegitimizing the first African-American president when your candidate is trying to reach out to African-Americans. We as African-Americans are telling you this is an issue that we see as racial and you’re saying ‘no it’s not.’ That is being tone-deaf. Don’t you understand that?”

“Throughout American history, there’s been questions as to peoples’ birthplaces,” Dean responded. “It has nothing to do with his skin color, as evidenced by the fact that five other individuals have gone through this.”

“You didn’t hear anything I said,” a perturbed Lemon replied. “You didn’t hear anything I said. You may not think it’s a race issue. I’m telling you how African-Americans feel about it and you’re denying how African-Americans feel about it.”

Earlier in the evening, Trump’s campaign released a statement — attributed to a spokesperson — saying that the former reality show host believed that Obama was born in the US, hours after he told the Washington Post that he would address the issue at another time. For his part, Jones described the statement as an attempt to save face

“He kind of stepped in the doggie poo with the Washington Post,” said Jones. “Hillary Clinton smacked him for it. He had somebody push out a statement for him, try to stop a little bit of the bleeding. At some point he’s going to have to stand up in front of the American people like you want anyone else to do with his own mouth and say that he was wrong. And it would be great for him to apologize.”

Jones also said that Trump’s campaign to get Obama to release his birth certificate felt to Black Americans “like it was a cheap shot at somebody who had a different skin color.”

“Apologize, show you’ve got some empathy, you might go somewhere with this,” he urged Trump. But Dean rejected the idea." [Source]

Still waiting on that apology, Donald.

Because Stevie Wonder himself could see that the entire birther thing was racist.  

*Pic from democracynow.org 

A black writer tries to help the republican nominee get some black votes.

The Field Negro education series continues.

The following essay was written by Maya Rockeymoore  for theroot.com. 

"Donald Trump, thank you for thinking about us in the black community so much over the past few weeks. It means a lot to know we’ve got a true winner fighting for us on the road to the White House. But listen: You’ve stumbled a few times before, so I want to make sure you’re armed with a foolproof plan for winning over the skeptics among us. Yes, it’s a little late in the game, and yes, it’s going to be an uphill battle, but I’ve condensed your to-do list into three easy steps that will get you the black vote in no time.

Step 1: Take back everything you’ve said about race since you announced your presidential campaign. And ever, actually.

It may come as a surprise, but some of your comments on race have made black folks wonder if you have the slightest clue what it’s like to be a person of color in America in the 21st century.

For example: In November you tweeted an image with a number of false “statistics” about homicide rates, including one claiming that blacks had killed 81 percent of white homicide victims in 2015, that came from the fictitious “Crime Statistics Bureau” in San Francisco. That same month, you told Fox & Friends that a Black Lives Matter protester deserved the physical beating he got from your supporters during a rally in Alabama.

Then, in February, you refused to say whether you’d reject the support of David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan, a noted white supremacist and a hate group.

In May you implied that a federal judge could not fairly preside over a case on Trump University because of his Mexican heritage, which House Speaker Paul Ryan called “the textbook definition of a racist comment.”

Now that I’m thinking about it, let’s not limit this to just the past year. Your thinly veiled racist business practices have led to lawsuits by everyone from black casino workers in Indiana to the Justice Department—twice. You’ve openly voiced an opinion that “laziness is a trait in blacks.” You encouraged New York to reinstate the death penalty in order to execute five teenagers of color who were accused—falsely, as it turned out—of raping a woman in Central Park.

Once you’ve taken every single one of those positions back—unequivocally—you’ll be in a great position to launch into the next step. Only two more to go!

Step 2: Speak to some black people.

And I’m not talking about Omarosa.
The campaign staff with which you’ve surrounded yourself doesn’t have a good record when it comes to race. And the audiences you’ve chosen to address are overwhelmingly white—even when you first discussed your plan to get black voters on your side in Wisconsin.

By “speak to some black people,” I mean seriously engage with black thought leaders, policymakers and families and incorporate their perspectives and experiences into your platform. Swaying to the music at a black church doesn’t count. Maybe then, black voters will understand that you’re “the least racist person” out there.

So if you really want the black vote, get out there and speak to some black people. You can start with me, which leads to the final step.

Step 3: Adopt a progressive and inclusive policy platform that includes real reforms to reduce inequality and lift up communities of color.

In December I asked you to specify the steps you would take to close this country’s racial wealth gap, in which white households have a median net worth more than 15 times larger than that of black households and more than 13 times that of Latinos. This gap is the result of centuries of second-class citizenship and is perpetuated by the economic and physical exclusion of people of color in every community. It has bred and reinforced segregation in education, housing and opportunity and contributed to a violent culture in which black Americans are more than twice as likely as whites to be killed by the police.

You didn’t answer.

I encourage you to do so now, and to pledge to fight for inclusive policies that will move our society toward the equal-opportunity nation you claim to desire. That means taking bold actions like closing the wage gap, expanding Social Security, preventing the restriction of voting rights and pushing other elected officials to value America’s diversity instead of pushing it aside.

And that’s it. Who knew it would be so easy to court the black vote? Just three steps and I have no doubt you’ll get, as you predicted, “over 95 percent” of us on board in no time. No need to thank me. Just stop trying to plant the false idea that voter fraud—which is largely nonexistent—in majority-black areas is going to cost you the election, and focus on making these last two months count. See you in November!" [Source]

I could add a few more to that, but for now I will just add one: Apologize to the president for your disgusting birther charade. 

*Pic from politicsusa.com

The head birther comes clean. Sort of.

       In a way, trump's press conference and statement that the president was born in America was even more offensive than his ridiculous birther campaign to say that he wasn't.

He was forced to do so after letting his true colors show to the Washington Post , which left his handlers scrambling to play clean up.  

What he did not do was apologize, and he had the audacity to blame his years of race baiting and dog whistle messages ---sent to his David Duke like friends--- on his general election opponent.

He carried it on for years, and he tweeted about it, and he talked about it to anyone who would listen or read. So now, sadly, this disgusting episode in American life--- which was a sordid attempt to delegitimize the first African American president in the history of this country--- falls squarely in the lap of  Herr trump. 

Today, with the rest of the country looking on, he was forced to pivot, and to declare to all the world that the president was in fact born in this country.  He crusaded for seven years as the leader of the birther movement, and he took two minutes to tell us to just let it go, and in doing so, told another big lie.

Watching that spectacle that was supposed to be a press conference (just trump promoting his new hotel) you got to see trump's arrogance on full display. 

He did not have the decency to apologize to the president for being the leader of this reprehensible and racist movement over the years, and he quickly got through his proof of life type delivery as if his handlers were holding a gun to his head. 

To black folks this entire birther sham  was personal. I say shame on him. And shame on every  American who supports him as well. 

*Pic from mediamatters.org.

  

A friend indeed.

           Now that America (not to mention people in his own party) is learning more about Donald trump and his true feelings  about people of other races, I believe that the following article might be somewhat relevant.

"Donald Trump needed validation.

At a rally Friday, Trump was discussing racial violence at his events and the perception that nonwhite people are against him, when he singled out a black man in the crowd.

“Look at my African American over here,” Trump said, pointing. “Look at him. Are you the greatest?”

The gesture — reminiscent of Trump eating a Cinco de Mayo taco bowl at Trump Tower and tweeting “I love Hispanics!” — was as respectful as if he had just instructed the crowd to “look at my Irish setter over here.” And it was as clumsy as if he had tried to validate his pro-Israel position by saying, “Look at my Jew over here,” or to neutralize his general intolerance by saying, “Say hello to my lesbian,” or, “Take a gander at my Chinese American.”

It turns out Trump’s African American, Gregory Cheadle, says he’s not a Trump supporter. He said he wasn’t offended by Trump taking possession of him, telling NPR it would have been worse if Trump followed “my African American” by saying, “What’s up, dawg?” or the N-word.

Small consolation.

A confluence of three factors has caused a sudden and sharp change in Trump’s fortunes. The media scrutiny has increased significantly since he secured the nomination, and journalists, rather than chasing his outrage du jour, are digging in to report more on Trump University, Trump’s stiffing of charities, his lies and his racism. Hillary Clinton has, finally, made the shift to attacking Trump vigorously over his instability. And Republicans are, belatedly, discovering that their presidential candidate wasn’t putting on a show during the GOP primaries: He’s an actual racist.

You know you’re in trouble when you’re being lectured on sensitivity by Newt Gingrich. The former House speaker, a frequent Trump defender, emailed The Post’s Dan Balz to say that Trump’s claim that a federal judge had a conflict of interest because the Indiana-born jurist is “Mexican” was “completely unacceptable.” (He softened his criticism of Trump on Monday.)

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) concurred that Trump’s attack on the judge and his claim that a Muslim on the bench also couldn’t judge him fairly was “absolutely unacceptable.” After an initial effort to rally around the nominee, Republicans are trying, awkwardly, to keep their distance. Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Bob Corker (R-Tenn), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, complained to George Stephanopoulos when asked a question about the border wall with Mexico: “I thought this interview was going to be more about the foreign-policy arena.” The host reminded Corker that the relationship with Mexico is foreign policy.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, just one day after endorsing Trump, said on a radio show that Trump’s remarks about the Hispanic judge were “out of left field.”

Sorry, Mr. Speaker, but that’s nonsense. The things Trump is doing now — disparaging the “Mexican” judge, disqualifying Muslim judges, calling somebody claiming Native American blood “Pocahontas” and singling out “my African American” — is very much in line with what he has been doing for the past year, and before.

More than six months ago, I began a column by proposing, “Let’s not mince words: Donald Trump is a bigot and a racist.” His bigotry went back decades, to the Central Park jogger case, and came to include: his leadership of the “birther” movement suggesting President Obama was a foreign-born Muslim, his vulgar expressions for women, his talk of Mexico sending rapists into America, his call for mass deportation, his spats with Latino news outlets, his mocking Asian accent, his tacit acceptance of the claim that Muslims are a “problem” in America, his agreement that American Muslims should be forced to register themselves, his call to ban Muslim immigration, his false claim about American Muslims celebrating 9/11, his tweeting of statistics from white supremacists, his condoning of violence against black demonstrators and his mocking of a journalist with a physical disability." [More]

Donald trump just gave a teleprompter driven speech that was obviously written for him to calm the waters with republican leaders, and to convince them that he is not insane.

It might or might not have worked, but the delivery needs some work. A scripted trump takes some getting used to. I love the part where he urged Bernie's supporters to come over to the dark side. Good luck with that.

Anyway,  there is one group in America that Donald can always count on, and he just has to hope that there is enough of them to swing the election for him in November.

"Today on his radio show, former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke took some time to defend Donald Trump, who is in the middle of quite the kerfuffle over his now-defunct “Trump University.” Not only is he being sued for fraud, but he’s been saying racist things about the judge overseeing the case.Duke doesn’t think any of this is fair. He thinks it’s all the work of Jews in the media." [Source]

Yes, the same media that has been so friendly to him over the past few months.

Mr. trump  better be hoping and praying that nothing has changed. 

Hating in America again, and sleeping while black.

       The funniest part about the Donald trump David Duke flap is watching folks like Joe Scarborough act as if  him (trump) not quickly disavowing Duke and the Klan will actually hurt him in the South.

Scarborough and his co-host seemed shocked this morning when he talked about trump thinking that disavowing Duke would somehow hurt him among Southern white voters. Not.

He just got the endorsement of Jeff Sessions (Google this man when you get a chance) who is a known segregationist that called the  NAACP a "commie" organization for crying out loud.

Say what you will about trump, he knows where his bread is buttered, and he knows, like the rest of us who observe racial issues in America, that not disavowing Duke and the Klan will actually help him among white voters in the South.

Sorry Joe, this is what your political party has become.

Give credit to Jake Tapper (the man who initially lobbed what he thought was a softball question to trump about Duke, but got the non- answer which is causing this latest media flap) he knows that this will only help trump among GOP voters. The right- wing media is already jumping to trump's defense, and to them this as just another case of liberals going after a good man. Give me a break!

Anyway, trump is now blaming his actions this past Sunday on a bad television earpiece.

"I'm sitting in a house in Florida with a very bad earpiece that they gave me," Trump said on NBC's Today show regarding an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN's State of the Union. "And you can hardly hear what he was saying."

 (Yes, because it's so hard to understand the words Klu lux Klan) 

Maybe Mr. trump didn't want to disavow the Klan because he has deeper ties to that organization than we first thought.

If papa trump was still alive I suspect that he would have been mixing it up in Anaheim, California on Saturday. That is where a bunch of Klansmen and their supporters were mixing it up with some other folks.

I say that because it seems that papa Trump was brawling back in the day with some Klansmen and it got him in a bit of trouble.

"A newly surfaced report from a 1927 edition of the New York Times suggests Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump's late father may have had a connection to the Ku Klux Klan.

A man named Fred Trump was among those arrested in a massive brawl between KKK members and police at a 1927 Memorial Day parade in New York City, according to a contemporaneous Times article surfaced Wednesday by the blog Boing Boing.

The Times article listed the arrestee's address as 175-24 Devonshire Road in Jamaica Estates, Queens. Past local news reports noted that the Republican presidential frontrunner's father.....lived at that address. Donald Trump's German immigrant grandfather, who anglicized his own name to Fred Trump, died nine years before the incident occurred.

While six other men arrested in the brawl faced charges, the Times report noted that Fred Trump was discharged. All seven of the men who were arrested were represented by the same team of two lawyers, according to the Times report.

The Times reported that police said the brawl broke out because the Klan reneged on an agreement not to wear any of their symbols to the parade. The Klan members, for their part, accused the police of exceeding their authority in trying to keep them out of the parade, according to the report.
The elder Trump was born in 1905, which would put him in his early '20s when The New York Times covered the brawl. His wife, Mary Anne, didn't give birth to the couple's son Donald until 1946.

Donald Trump's presidential campaign did not immediately return Boing Boing's request for comment. Similarly, the campaign did not immediately return TPM's request for comment.
It's unclear to what extent, if any, Fred Trump was involved with the group, based on the New York Times report. As the incident happened nearly 20 years before Donald Trump was born, it's also unclear whether the real estate mogul knew anything of his father's youthful arrest.

As TPM has reported, many self-styled white nationalists have voiced their support in recents weeks for Donald Trump, particularly his hardline immigration platform. Their support does not make Trump himself a white supremacist. The billionaire's former adviser, Roger Stone, also told TPM in a recent interview that he would disavow the support of white supremacists." [Source]

Of course getting their support does not make trump himself a white supremacist, but not being clear about denouncing them sure makes him look like one. 

Finally, the next time someone tells you that the Black Lives Matter movement is a bunch of crap, tell them about the following story:

"A young black couple who were killed in a police shooting last week were reportedly “unconscious” inside a vehicle when officers first arrived.

Inglewood, California Mayor James Butts Jr. revealed these startling details at a press conference, to NBC Los Angeles. The mayor would not comment on what specific action triggered police to use deadly force.

The victims have been been identified as Kisha Michael, 31, a single mother of three sons, and Marquintan Sandlin, 32, a single father of four daughters.

Butts told NBC Los Angeles the police tried to “rouse” the couple for roughly 45 minutes, something he described as an attempt to ‘de-escalate’ the situation.

Officers first reported that the woman inside the vehicle had a gun in her hand, which caused officers to retreat and then engage the couple with their guns.

–“Obviously at some point they were conscious because somebody felt threatened,” Butts said.

Friends and family of the two victims said they didn’t know why either would be in possession of a gun. The specific reason why deadly force was used is still unknown at this time." [Source]

So let me get this straight, they were actually sleeping while officers tried to wake them for 45 minutes and that caused for a "de-escalating " of the situation. 

My lord! What were they doing? Snoring too loud?

Now we can add sleeping while black to the list of practices that have become all too dangerous in our current American police state.

*Pic from change.org

Disavowing Duke.

 Unfortunately for some of my black brothers and sisters jigging can carry a burden. In the case of folks like Pastor Mark Burns, jigging for the likes of Donald trump can cause a crisis of conscience.

Knowing what he knows about David Duke , it is making it tough for him to keep supporting a man who has refused to disavow him and his endorsement.

So now, as any good house Negro would do, Pastor Burns is trying his best to rehabilitate his master to the masses by helping him do a little damage control.

"COLUMBIA, S.C. — Pastor Mark Burns is planning to have a talk with Donald Trump about the Ku Klux Klan on Sunday.

 

Burns is one of a number of black pastors who supports Trump’s presidential campaign and met with him last December. Since then, Burns has been traveling the country and speaking at Trump’s rallies. Yahoo News called him on Sunday to ask about Trump’s interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper in which Trump declined to condemn the KKK and former KKK grand wizard David Duke. Burns, who was at an airport flying between Trump campaign events in Tennessee and Alabama, said he had a “brief conversation” with Trump about the issue on Saturday night and planned to discuss it further at a meeting Sunday.

 

“We do have a meeting today about that very thing. … We’re leaving one rally and flying to … Huntsville,” Burns said. “We had a brief conversation last night prior to this interview. … We were going to discuss some things that need to be spoken so that he continues to be a unifier and be a president for all the people.”

 

Burns said he “absolutely” will be advising Trump to explicitly denounce the KKK.

 

“That’s one of the reasons why I am here, so I can help be that ear for Mr. Trump to make sure, you know, that he is coming across, because obviously … he wants everybody’s vote. Obviously, he wants to win. We want to win,” Burns said. “We want him to become the next president of the United States. But at the same time, he is not going to endorse any hate group, any hate group. And so, if that means coming out and saying, … ‘I don’t stand behind what the KKK stands for or what David Duke stands for,’ then that is what he’s going to do and say. That’s our advice.” [Source]

 

My "advice" to you Pastor is to stop jigging and save your breath. Donald trump knows exactly what he is doing.   

 

Finally,  there has been a lot of cases of killings in the news lately. We all know about the despicable acts of Cedric Ford, the man who took out the rage he felt after getting  served with a Protection From Abuse Order on innocent citizens and co-workers.  

 

Then there is that Uber driver in Michigan, the slaughter of that family in Washington by a family member, and the tragic way a rookie police officer lost her life on the first day of the job while responding to a domestic violence call in Virginia.

 

All these killings are sad and horrific, and they all have a familiar theme. 

 

A friend of mine who happens to be a homicide detective here in Philly, once told me that over 90% of homicides occur because of love or money. And my life experience tells me that this is true. It always comes back to those two things. Whether it's a drug dealer killing a rival for moving in on his corner, or a husband --or boyfriend--- being angry because his relationship isn't turning out the way that he wants it to.

 

Sadly, I suspect that we will soon learn that the Uber driver in Michigan killed for one of those reasons as well. If he didn't,  his actions might be the most disturbing of all.  

 

*Pic from salon.com

 

   

 

 

 

  

 

     

 

 

Mr. Trump needs a running mate.

I wonder what our friend David Duke is up to these days. The Donald could sure use him right about now. My man must be thinking that he will be needing a running mate soon since there is a very good chance that he could win the GOP nomination for president.

Lately Donald has been acting like Duke's soul-mate, and he has been doing his best to reach the same base that almost carried Duke to the Governor's mansion in Louisiana.

The latest sign that Donald is either a flat out racist or someone who is embracing the Lee Atwater school of political strategy is his ignorant and bigoted tweet about crime created by some American Nazis. Or, better stated, the tweet endorsed by his campaign.

Here is what Mother Jones had to say about it:

"The fascinating thing is that instead of a blaming the tweet on a subordinate—something they haven't been shy about doing in the past—the campaign has chosen to stay silent about it. They have apparently made the political calculation that it would be worse for Trump to acknowledge not sending the racist tweet than to endure a few days of stories about how racist he is. 
It's 2015, and if you're running for the Republican nomination for president, saying racist things doesn't hurt your poll numbers. "

Yep, that's kind of scary.

Now might be a good time for a little cut and pasting of Paul Waldman's article in the Washington Post:

"As you’ve probably heard by now, Donald Trump had quite a weekend. First he claimed on Saturday that “I watched in Jersey City, N.J., where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as [the World Trade Center] was coming down.” Confronted with the fact that this is completely false, Trump insisted on Sunday, “There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey where you have large Arab populations…that tells you something.

Then on Sunday he (or someone from his campaign) tweeted out a graphic with phony statistics purporting to show how murderous black people are (and illustrated with a picture of a young black man with a bandana over his face, pointing a gun sideways, gangster-style).

Both of these happenings are receiving plenty of attention in the media today. The problem is that the media doesn’t know how to handle this kind of blatant race-baiting from a leading politician.
And just to be clear, it is race-baiting, and nothing else. In neither case is there even the remotest connection to some kind of legitimate policy question. When Trump says falsely that thousands of people in Jersey City (which has a large Muslim population) were celebrating the destruction of the World Trade Center, he isn’t making an argument about Syrian refugees. He’s simply saying that you should hate and fear Muslim Americans. When he tries to convince people that most white murder victims are killed by black thugs (again, false), he isn’t arguing for some policy approach. He’s just trying to foment racism and convince racists that he’s their guy.

So how do the media deal with this? One thing they don’t do is call it by its name. The first approach is to report on it as just another campaign controversy (“Trump takes heat for tweet about black murder rates“). That kind of story sticks to the who-what-where-when approach: Trump tweeted this, he was criticized for it, here’s how it was inaccurate, here’s Trump’s response. Any value judgments that appear will be spoken by Trump’s critics (though not his primary opponents, who for the most part are dancing around any criticism of what Trump said).

The second approach the media takes is to address Trump’s comments through fact-checking, something we have gotten pretty good at. Interestingly enough, fact-checking as a formal genre of journalism can be traced to another campaign that prominently featured Republican race-baiting, the 1988 election. In the wake of that election, many news outlets felt they had been manipulated by George H.W. Bush’s campaign into not only focusing on distracting issues that had little or nothing to do with the presidency, but also into becoming a conduit for ugly attacks with little basis in fact. Over the following few years, many decided to institutionalize fact-checks, at first for television ads in particular, and later for all kinds of claims made in politics. Eventually sites like Politifact and FactCheck.org were created, and major news organizations like this one devoted staff solely to fact-checking.

In the process, journalists acquired both an understanding of how to separate the accurate from the inaccurate from the subjective, and a language to talk about different kinds of claims. While there’s plenty of slippage — you still see claims that have been proven false referred to as “controversial” or “questionable” — the existence of the fact-checking enterprise has allowed reporters to be clearer with their audiences about what is and isn’t true.

So if you want a fact-check of Trump’s claims, you’ll have no trouble finding it (here’s the Post’s). What you’ll have to look harder for is reporting that puts what Trump said in a context that goes much deeper than the campaign controversy of the week.

To be clear, I’m not arguing that there’s a simple template reporters should follow, one that will allow them to easily separate the merely “controversial” from the clearly racist (though wherever the line is, passing on phony statistics about murderous black people from neo-Nazis is definitely on the other side of it). But they wouldn’t violate any reasonable conception of objectivity by making the nature of Trump’s arguments clear.

When David Duke nearly won the governorship of Louisiana in 1991, it was reported in the national media as a story about racism, with a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan garnering a majority of the white vote as he lost a runoff election. Few in the media hesitated to call Duke a racist, in large part because even at the time he was perceived as representing yesterday’s racism,antiquated for its explicitness (even if Duke did try to clean up his views for the campaign).

Trump represents one face of today’s racism (though not by any means the only face). It simultaneously insists that Muslims can be good Americans, and accuses them of hating America and says their places of worship ought to be kept under government surveillance. It says that some Mexican-Americans are good people, and says most of them are rapists and drug dealers. It says “I think I’ll win the African-American vote” and then tries to convince voters that black people are murdering white people everywhere."[More]

That sums up Mr. Trump to a tee. If he becomes President Trump America Americans will get  just what they deserve.

Pic from salon.com/By Burt Steel of the Associated Press. 

The house majority whip gets some support from a couple of house Negroes.

So now the spin begins for Steve Scalise. According the latest conservative talking point, he did not really speak to a white supremacist gathering in Metairie, Louisiana back in 2002. Apparently it was all a huge misunderstanding, and the liberal blogger who broke the story didn't have a clue what he was talking about.

Well....not so fast.

"Congressman Steve Scalise apologized earlier this week for speaking to a group of white supremacists in 2002. You would think that would settle the question of whether Scalise spoke to a group of white supremacists.
But no.

Two days ago, Slate ran a piece quoting Kenny Knight, a close associate of David Duke, who booked the room for the white supremacist group, known as EURO. Knight claimed that he invited Scalise to speak to the “Jefferson Heights Civic Association, which was largely comprised of elderly people who lived in his and Scalise’s neighborhood.” The meeting of the civic association, Knight said, just happened to be held in the same room as the EURO conference held later that day. Knight told The Times-Picayune that he “was not a member of EURO and did not arrange for any speakers at the 2002 conference.”

The right-wing ran was the story, billing the entire controversy as little more than a hoax.

But, as it turns out, Knight was lying. Not only was Knight a member of the EURO group but “documents filed with the Louisiana secretary of state’s office list him as treasurer…” He is also listed as a member of the group in a 2002 news release for the conference in question, where he was scheduled as a speaker.

Asked about the discrepancy and the state document listing him as treasurer of the group, Knight hung up twice on a reporter for The Times-Picayune. Eventually, Knight said “Is that 15 years ago? I don’t even remember that. I’m not communicating any more with the news media. I’m finished with y’all.”

If you have any further questions, ask David Duke. In an interview with the Washington Post, Duke said he “recalled Knight reaching out to Scalise in the weeks before the conference to come and update attendees on state affairs, and that Scalise accepted without reservation.” [Source]

Don't you just love when folks try to cover for racists?

I think it's especially egregious when some of these slave catching Negroes jump over each other to protect the honor of the racist. No one asked them, no one told them that they had an obligation to look into the heart of the racist and say it is pure, they just felt a need to jump into the fray and do a nice little jig for us all because...well...that's what house Negroes do. (I see you Cedric Richmond, more on you in a minute.)

Take my man Ron Christie, for instance.   

"What I find ironic is that Scalise is being excoriated for one speech before one group in which the gentleman in question professed no knowledge of white supremacist ties—while the current occupant of the Oval Office had to have known about the racist invective Pastor Wright issued from his pulpit each Sunday.

Have you ever heard of the “Black Value System” adopted by the Trinity Church in 1981, some seven years before President Obama joined their congregation? Chances are you haven’t, as I hadn’t either.  Scrolling through this hate-filled manifesto for the first time made the hairs on my arm tingle with discomfort.  There is reference after reference to the “black community,” “black worth ethic,” and adherence to the “black value system.”

Can you imagine the outrage if Representative Scalise had spoken before a group in Louisiana whose attendees vowed fealty to a “white value system?”  Calls for his resignation and an investigation from the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice would have been swift and immediately forthcoming." [Source]

Nothing "ironic" about it Ron. If you understand the history of racism in this country and the role of the black church in trying to overcome it, you will not find Pastor Wright's sermons or his manifesto to be that troubling.

I suspect that you already know all of this, but there are slaves to catch, jigging to perfect, and you must do whatever it takes to please massa.

Which brings me to  my man Cedric Richmond. A man I have hung with on occasion and used to have some respect for. Not anymore. Not after he jumped through hoops to defend Steve Scalise when Steve Scalise himself did not ask him to do so.

Not when I learned that there is a prominent African American group in Baton Rouge, Louisiana who has been begging Congressman Richmond to speak to their group for the past few years and he keeps refusing.

I suspect that if Mr. Scalise asked him to address his church group or some of his constituents, Cedric Richmond would jump at the chance.

If it turns out that there are more sheet covered skeletons in Mr. Scalise's closet, I wonder what Congressman Richmond will say then.

Pssst, Cedric, I know that you used to pitch for Morehouse, and that your colleagues like to feature you in various athletic events in D.C., but that does not mean that they don't  talk about you and your people behind your back.

If republicans aren't rallying around your boy, and if even wingnuts like Sean Hannity are calling for the Speaker to step down because of this and other issues; you might want to reconsider jumping out in front of this story and playing the good Negro friend for your fellow Nola politician.

Anyway, there might be some good that comes from all of this. Apparently David Duke is threatening to expose other politicians who tend to see things  the way that he does.

"Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke issued a warning to Republicans who have criticized House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) for speaking to a white nationalist group in 2002, saying they "better be looking over their shoulders."

In an interview with Fusion, Duke said he has ties to politicians on both sides of the aisle, and he is ready to release names if criticism of Scalise continues:

Overall, Duke was rather flabbergasted by the new focus on Scalise. He said he has hosted both Democratic and Republican legislators at everything from conferences to his children’s birthday parties. He said he has met with Democratic legislators at least 50 times in his political life. 

And he delivered a warning to both Republicans and Democrats: Treat Scalise fairly, and don’t try to make political hay out of the situation. Or he said he would be inclined to release a list of names of all the politicians — both Republicans and Democrats — with whom he has ties.  

“If Scalise is going to be crucified — if Republicans want to throw Steve Scalise to the woods, then a lot of them better be looking over their shoulders,” Duke said." [Source] 

Oh ohh, it looks like  Ron Christie and Cedric Richmond better work on their moves. They might have a lot of jigging to do over the next few days.


*Pic from ArtMaggot.