This week in racism extra

Just some Americans out for a stroll

Bigotry: Out in the Open
by mcjoan
Sat Aug 26, 2006 at 11:47:57 AM PDT

Crooks & Liars has a very discouraging run-down of recent events, guest-posted by Steve Benen:

Sen. George Allen's (R-Va.) "macaca" scandal.

Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) joked about how a "nice little Guatemalan man" fixing up his house might be an illegal immigrant.

A leading congressional candidate in Florida said he knows, "from my own experience, that blacks are not the greatest swimmers, and may not even know how to swim."

Two congressional candidates and a gubernatorial candidate believe people who "appear" to be Arab or Muslim should be subjected to racial profiling at airports.

Pat Buchanan's new book argues for "an immediate moratorium on all immigration," in order to preserve the dominance of the white race in America.

And in one you may not have heard about, a Baptist church in Mississippi voted out a 12-year-old boy who "asked Jesus to live in his heart" -- because the child is biracial and church members didn't want the black side of his family attending with him.

And then you have Katherine Harris:

If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you're not electing Christians then in essence you are going to legislate sin. They can legislate sin. They can say that abortion is alright. They can vote to sustain gay marriage. And that will take western civilization, indeed other nations because people look to our country as one nation as under God and whenever we legislate sin and we say abortion is permissible and we say gay unions are permissible, then average citizens who are not Christians, because they don't know better, we are leading them astray and it's wrong.

When did this kind of public speech and action become ok again? Lou Dobbs bashes immigrants every day on CNN. O'Reilly is O'Reilly. The GOP is unleashing it's ugliness, and even so-called Democrats like Joe Lieberman use race-baiting as a campaign tactic.

Is it fear? Desperation? Arrogance? I'd like to think it's desparation, the GOP realizing it's got slight toe-hold on power and throwing everything they've got into keeping their base fearful and mobilized. But whatever the cause, the result is that the mask has been ripped off of a very ugly side to American politics. I hope the better angels of our natures prevail in November.

They missed the black kids being told to sit on the back of the bus in Louisiana and the skinhead walking away from an assault with a trip to the Holocaust Museum, some laser surgery and community service.

The GOP is flipping out because people are tired of big talk and little action and they're in their final reserves, out and out racism. Their immigration gambit failed, the war is collapsing and they have nothing left.

If I was Harold Ford and Bob Menendez, I would expect to be accused of misegenation and all manner of buggery before November

Yes, it's been an interesting week.