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Monday, June 09, 2008

The unofficial Republican campaign

The underground Republican campaign, 2008

A friend of mine forwarded an e-mail to me, the text of which I'll comment on belong. I doubt he reads this blog. But I'd like to think he didn't read that e-mail very carefully before he forwarded. It's a little essay, or rant, called "Proud To Be White". You can guess the gist of the content.

I've said before that if Obama won the Democratic nomination, we would would see some raw stuff pouring forth from the Republican id. And the spew seems to be kicking into high gear: Obama is a Muslim; Obama hates Jews; Obama hates white people; Obama is a megalomanic cult leader; and, of course, true-blue white folks (or I guess that's true-red; this color thing confuses me) all know to refer to Obama by his full name or by his two-letter initials, "B.O." ("B.O. Git it. Yuk! Yuk! It shore is fun makin' fun of black people, ain't it?")

It's only a matter of time before Powerline blog is revealing to us the disturbing story of how Obama personally sacrifices innocent white babies to Moloch or whatever. (Is there a strain of bigotry on the globe that doesn't eventually get around to the sacrificing babies line?)

This is your Republican Party on OxyContin.

Now, before I go through the thing, I should mention a couple of points. The purpose of these things is mainly to validate racist invective. The form of the letter is an old favorite, the whiny-white people lament. Growing up in Mississippi, this is a very familiar literary form to me. If there are people in the world who can whine more than Mississippi white folks when they put their minds to it, I've not encountered them. But there's no regional limitations on this stuff.

Dave Neiwert has pointed out that one of the things that Democrats have missed over the last few years is how prevalent and influential toxic political e-mails are among Republicans. Democrats have been known to forward spam, of course. But for whatever reason, these viral e-mails don't seem to carry the same weight on the Democratic side of the line. These e-mails for Republicans are one of the main ways of getting memes started that eventually percolate up to FOX News, OxyContin radio and to Timmy Russert reporting on the "rumor".

Here we go.

l bet this doesn't go very far on the email circuit. Unfortunately, it is so very true.........

Proud To Be White

Someone finally said it.

How many are actually paying attention to this?

Too many, I'm sure.

There are African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans, Native Americans, etc. .....And then there are just - Americans.

You would think that White Power partisans would have heard about Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, German-Americans, Serbian-Americans, and a few other varieties that tend toward lighter skin. But I guess some of them haven't.

You pass me on the street and sneer in my direction. You Call me 'White boy,' 'Cracker,' 'Honkey,' 'Whitey,' 'Caveman,' .....And that's OK.

Now, maybe my own experience is eccentric. But my skin is so pale I get sunburned just thinking about going out into the sunshine. And I've lived for going on nine years in a city with large black, Latino and Asian communities in which whites are a minority. Heck, whites have been a minority in all of California for a few years now.

But I just don't remember ever seeing people sneering "in my direction". Come to think of it, I'm not sure how you sneer in someone's direction exactly, so maybe I just missed it. Or having random passers-by call me any of those names. Nobody's even called me a "maldito yanquí". By the way, when did "Caveman" become a racial epithet for white people? Jeez, I guess I'm behind the times.

I have been referred to in Europe as an "Ami". But that's not really that pejorative. And it was always white people saying it. So I guess that doesn't count.

I use "cracker" myself, though. Mainly for the kind of people who write e-mails with titles like "Proud To Be White".

But when I call you Nigger, Kike, Towel head, Sand-nigger, Camel Jockey, Beaner, Gook, or Chink, .....You call me a racist.

Gosh, can't you just feel their cracker pain here?

You say that whites commit a lot of violence against you, so why are the ghettos the most dangerous places to live?

A bit of advice to honkies who don't visit the big towns very often: If you're in a neighborhood where all the homes and businesses have bars on the windows, you're probably in one of the more high-crime areas of town. And if you think it must be different in some areas like that where the residents appear to be white, well, that would make you a dumb honky cracker, I would say.

You have the United Negro College Fund. You have Hispanic History Month. You have Martin Luther King Day. You have Asian History Month. You have Black History Month. You have Cesar Chavez Day. You have Ma'uled Al-Nabi. You have Yom Hashoah. You have Kawanza. You have the NAACP. And you have BET.

I'm sure the author would be relieved to know that the two Presidents honored on President's Day (Washington and Lincoln) are white. In fact, all the American Presidents up to now have been white! The things you can learn studying history.

The writer would probably also be happy to know that lots of white people, as well as most blacks and Latinos, celebrate a winter solstice holiday known as "Christmas". But then, that holiday celebrates the birthday of a Middle Eastern Jew, so that may not be a "white" enough celebration for them.

By the way, last I heard, we actually had a European-American History Month in California. Maybe not. A couple of Yahoo! searches came up dry.

I used to think the idea was dorky at best. But after Germany and France had the good sense not to go along with the Iraq War, the whole concept of "European-American" started seeming a lot more benign to me. I wonder if the White Pride writer knows that France and Germany are European.

If we had WET (White Entertainment Television) .....We'd be racists.

I can see the advertisements know: "The all WET network!" "Your WET dream has arrived!"

A good majority of my own TV watching is on Telemundo. If the English-language WET networks can come up with shows as entertaining as Zorro: la espada y la rosa or La tración - say, by giving Jennifer Garner a new series to star in - I'll watch them more often. I do still like the Law and Order franchise, though.

If we had a White Pride Day .....You would call us racists.

That would be the day where us white folks would all celebrate our descent from people in Germany and France and Spain and places like that? Those wimp countries that don't believe in just going to war because Dick Cheney thinks it's a good idea, where they have gay marriage and stuff like that, where most people don't wet their pants when they hear about a scary black preacher?

If we had White History Month .....We'd be racists. If we had any organization for only whites to 'advance' OUR lives, .....We'd be racists.

This is not such a bad idea. As a matter of fact, for five years running now, every April on my blog I've been celebrating Confederate "Heritage" Month by posting daily about mostly issues around the Civil War, where those smart and patriotic Southern white slaveowners decided they would commit massive treason against America by attmepting to overthrow the government with force and violence and thought it would only take a few weeks or so to do it.

Yes, let's do have White History Month!

We have a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, a Black Chamber of Commerce, and then we just have the plain Chamber of Commerce. Wonder who pays for that?

Uh, the businesses that belong to it?

If we had a college fund that only gave white students scholarships .....You know we'd be racists.

Yes, that would be very different than the scrupulously strict merit selection process that a fine Christian white boy like George W. Bush had to go through to get into Yale and Harvard Law School, wouldn't it?

There are over 60 openly-proclaimed Black-only Colleges in the US, yet if there were 'White-only Colleges' .....THAT would be a racist college.

Good news for the White Power Club: any college or university whose degree would be worth having admits white students, too, even if they are traditionally black colleges. One thing though, most of them do require entering students to be able to read at higher than the fifth grade level. I'm just saying.

In the Million-Man March, you believed that you were marching for your race and rights. If we marched for our race and rights, .....You would call us racists.

Because, you know, whites as a group in America are being so oppressed by, uh, wait...

You are proud to be black, brown, yellow and red, and you're not afraid to announce it. But when we announce our white pride .....You call us racists.

I'm confused. I thought anyone that didn't fit the non-Caucasian categories listed at the start were "just - Americans".

You rob us, carjack us, and shoot at us. But, when a white police officer shoots a black gang member or beats up a black drug-dealer who is running from the LAW and posing a threat to ALL of society .....You call him a racist.

Actually, no. Not usually. Unless they do something like, say, gun down some unarmed guy with dozens of bullets. As has been known to happen.

By the way, trigger-happy cops have also been known on occasion to shoot white people, too. In the big city, things aren't like they were in the backwoods South in 1955 or something. So you might not want to be encouraging lawless violent behavior by cops. And, I know it may come as a surprise, but not all cops are white. If you think that those other races are so violent and inclined to lawless behavior, encouraging vigilante cops really might not be so smart. Good cracker boys from the Master Race could wind up getting hurt, too.

I am proud. .....But, you call me a racist. Why is it that only whites can be racists?

It's not clear what the writer is proud of here. The deep thinking that went into his little essay, I suppose.

Again, maybe it's just me, but I can't recall a single time in my life where I heard somebody claim that "only whites can be racists". But, hey, maybe I've led a sheltered existence.

There is nothing improper about this e-mail. Let's see which of you are proud enough to send it on...

I don't often get even spam that the writer finds it necessary to explain, "There is nothing improper about this e-mail." Wonder why he felt that might be needed.

Maybe they can round up some white folks, or "just - Americans", or whoever, and march for their "race and rights" in support of a Whiny White People's History Month. Sounds like a winner to me.

Tags: racism

posted at 8:23:00 PM by Bruce Miller

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