My favorite part was the neanderthal who posted a comment suggesting that Bush withhold New Orleans aid until they came "begging for it." Just shows you what the right really thinks about African-Americans: the same thing they've thought about them for hundreds of years. This is the same mindset that informed Bush's New Orleans policy: black problems are not America's problems.

the redstate people are really on autopilot most days. it's interesting to see the destinations one arrives at. I think you're dead on that the post there is pretty much laced with every racist stereotype on the block.

I don't remember redstate being so creepily religious. Telling black folk to seek salvation from the Lord? Oh dear.

use of tragedy for political purposes?

Reagan's Funeral?

Terri Schiavo?

Hello?

Then there's the comment someone left about the "brown preacher" ... sheesh.

Why should any of this surprise anyone?  The Republican party became the hangout for all of the unreconstructed ex-Dixiecrat racists, which has been amply demonstrated.  Anyone who belongs to the Republicans these days fits that bill and don't let anybody tell you differently.  All they do is ooze resentment that somebody else might be treated more humanely than they were by their screwed-up social milieu.  A critical component of that resentment is having a target upon which they dump their rage and they insist that targets be created and maintained.  If they didn't have a target they would realize their rage is really at themselves for allowing themselves to be taken advantage of and for realizing they are the cowardly wimps they fear they might be.

Shankar Vedantam of the Washington Post had this piece about GOP racists recently:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con tent/article/2006/01/29/AR2006012900642_ pf.html

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/d8ea794e-9846-1 1da-816b-0000779e2340.html

"Hispanic immigration threatens to create a "Tower of Babel" that undermines America's national identity."

"To those who suggest that similar arguments have always been used against immigrants, Mr Tancredo, whose grandparents came from Italy, says that the difference now is one of scale. Hispanics, he says, have reached a critical mass."

Analagous to racists making the claim that they are against interracial marriages but they have several black friends.

"...I think the country has moved past this.  The right-wing though is clearly a hotbed of racism and anger."

Course it is. It's what they do. Sometimes I think it's all they really know. Clearly it's how they got where they are (coughSouthernStrategycough).

I was banned from redstate a while back for calling a racist out.  (Here's the link: http://www.redstate.com/story/2005/11/8/ 132151/390 )

I was a bit surprised when I first read that piece on that website because redstate, at first glance, seems like one of the more intelligent conservative sites out there.  Better than, say, blogsforbush or freerepublic.

But the poster who wrote the piece, Maximos, is obviously intelligent and has a strong command of the English language (or at least a firm grip on his thesaurus).

So, conservatives still have their problems with race, and it's not always the over-the-top antics that Blanton engaged in.

The question is why do conservatives still have this problem, and to what extent can it be exploited?  By which I mean what is it about the way that conservatives think that predisposes them to racist attitudes, and can that be effectively used in campaigning or otherwise to affect an election?  

Or is this just an internet fight?  (nothing wrong with that since I have obviously engaged in it.)

Red State, literally, not the website itself, is full of racists defending the status quo. Just read this piece, these are GOP constituents:

http://www.cw.ua.edu/vnews/display.v/ART /2006/02/03/43e306144fbd8

And the media and the GOP want to insult by intelligence by telling me that Condi Rice has a good shot at becoming President. I may not be a Rocket Scientist, but this idiocy does not need Rocket Science degree to be recognized. Black man "Blackwill" will not beat Strickland in Ohio which works in the Dem's favor. There are many racists in Ohio who would otherwise vote for the GOP, but will not vote for a black man under any circumstances. The same situation in PA. Black GOP candidates mean racist Republicans stay home...which means Santorum and DeWine are history. But, in TN it will work against the Dems.

The other really objectionable sentiment which underlines their racism is that they somehow believe it is all the poor's fault they are poor.

I once blogged on this.

Basically, these assholes just think they are middle and upper class solely because they were so talented and hard working, and give society and their elevated circumstances no credit for their success.  Sure, Dad made enough money that mom could stay home and raise them, and Dad could afford to send them to university but really, those damn poor people are just lazy or they would be successful!

Thus, they can look at all those poor black people and make a "logical" conclusion:  Poor people are lazy, and black people are poor, therefore black people are lazy.

We can debate how much help the poorest need, and what appropriate tax levels are for the wealthiest, and how to decide who gets helped, or whether government or private charity should be doing the helping - but I can't countenance the idea that everyone had an equal shot, or even worse - that everyone didn't have an equal shot but that's ok, too bad for the suckers. I thought social darwinism was a defeated idea, but evidently not, for how often I see the above sentiment expressed to justfiy any manner of social inequity.

I feel immodest quoting myself, but it directly relates to this.

I think the phrase you're looking for is "sense of entitlement."  hey! I'm supporting my family; isn't that as worthy of notice as leading a nationwide movement for human dignity?

eesh.

Meanwhile, we had to suffer through a week long deification of Ronald Reagan, with Chimpy and the rest of the GOP doing all they can to wrap themselves in 'Bedtime for Bonzo's' political legacy.

Red State = Hypocrites.

[quote]The prominent black spiritual leaders, like Joseph Lowery, are more interested in subsidization from The Man than salvation from the Lord. [/quote]

So it's ok to subsidize when we are giving to oil companies who are making record profits (of any industry, in the history of corporations) trillions of dollars, but when the truely needy need some help, it's not okay.  I see where the priorities of these Rethugs are (not like I needed any verification, it's obvious to any open minded person).  I just find it funny how we are cutting things for the poor, elderly, and needy (which I've seen figures that indicate over 60% affect children who have no control over their well being), yet it's okay to use TAX PAYER MONEY to "help out" BILLION DOLLAR profit corporations(in a fiscal quarter).  Ooookay, sure take my hard earned $ that we pool together for the common good (known as taxes) and use it for benefits that affect only the richest of us all...why do I pay taxes again? Isn't it supposed to be for the general good, like Roads, Education, Healthcare, giving CHILDREN an opportunity when all their opportunities have failed, left them, or been depleted?  Again, tell me why I'm payin taxes to fund the RICH CORPORATIONS, yet we are ridiculed if "God forbid" we try to use it for the common good...what a fuckin joke, I wish more people would comment about the subsidies (in the media in general) and how we RAPE the needy of programs, yet we USE THE TAXPAYER $ FOR RICH CORPORATIONS.  What an ass-backwards time we live in.  

I read a post over at b4b this morning that really made some (I shudder to think, what) type of statement about how these (redstate) people view race.  The post was from a "sylvia" (sorry, no link, but it was a comment on the King funeral), a lengthy  and poorly written screed describing in terms of an anecdotal (and seemingly made up) reference about why African Americans don't seem to prosper the way W.A.S.P's do in American society.

Reading it made one actually feel a little sorry for the poor woman (and way sorry for whoever taught her composition), I'm pretty sure the writer would be surprised (shocked) to have her comments described as "racist."  Even though they literally dripped with just about every racist stereotype and bit of class hatred one can imagine.

I think it will be hard to deal reasonably with people who have no clue that they (or they're attitudes) are the problem.

can we countdown the hours until the reverend gets a call from the irs threatening to take away his tax-exempt status?

clearly this is much worse than ministers in ohio telling their flock who to vote for...

Believe me, this stuff disgusts me, but I absolutely love it when they front-page it.  Please, Redstate, more posts like this one.

Let me just add to this a smattering of comments on this issue from a troll at Think Progress named "I-RIGHT-I":

"The man is a radical negro, oportunistic pan handler, partisan hack and an embarrasment to the Church of Jesus Christ."

"By the way, Jesus is not in favor of race based preferences, welfare, radical Negro clergy, communist fuctard ex-presidents or submitting to Allah. He is in favor of equal treatment under law, working for a living, pastors who are more concerned with the soul than the bank account and killing the enemies of the Church when they threaten the flock. Naturally I can back all of that up as I have more than just a anecdotal possession of the Word of God, something you losers can't be bothered with."

"I will admit to being a bit jaded. We just about 150,000 permanent visitors from Ray Nagin's Chocolate City and it really hasn't been working out that well for us."

"That's right. The Negroes (not all) still have a problem with that civilization thing and they (not all)aren't worth a shit at picking leaders."

"Oh, by the way, JFK and Hoover had MLK bugged because he was either a willing or unwitting dupe of the Soviets and it's all well documented in the FBI archives."

"King took them five paces forward and ten paces back. It was the Republicans in congress that moved the American Negro out of the era of Jim Crow and into the Super Bowl.

In hindsight I think Bill Cosby would have made a better leader. I doubt he would have butcher the Christian Gospel to make his political points. "

Someone else made the point I was going to -- did they not see the weeklong lovefest for Reagan? Did he object to Ron Reagan's subtle slam at Dubya during the West Coast ceremony?

As I said over at Americablog,

I hadn't heard about this, but I'm not surprised. After all, they did exactly the same thing with Paul Wellstone's funeral, turning it into another "2-minute hate" for the wingnut base.

And it worked, propelling gasbag Norm Coleman to victory over Walter Mondale, who was nominated to replace Wellstone on the ballot.

As long as there are wingnuts to be motivated, they'll keep doing this.

Doesn't make it any less despicable, of course. But we're not likely to shame them into stopping.

Recall the cartoon regarding Condoleeza Rice and aluminum tubes. Was that the work of a conservative?

"Those of us who work hard for a living to provide for our families, humbly go to church, and try to do unto others as we would have them do unto us see our values, our lifestyles, our beliefs, and our Lord ridiculed and bashed on television, the cover of Rolling Stone, and in the mainstream media."

Whuh?  Since when is lying, cheating, and stealing, and otherwise swindling money from others "working hard for a living?"  Oh, I forgot - they "humbly go to church" on Sunday to go get "forgiven" for lying, cheating, stealing, and otherwise doing "unto others" - so I guess it's all OK then.  What a delusional bunch of psychos these people are.  They need to be locked up, not listened to.

Sniveling liberal revisionist cowards forgot who INVENTED the "Southern Strategy".  That would be Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who needed southern Democrats in the Congress.  Roosevelt OPPOSED a bill to make lynching a federal crime.  

LBJ perfected the "Southern Strategy".  Read all about it in Master of the Senate, by Robert Caro.  Johnson calculated that the votes lost by Dems in the south would be more than made up by blacks in the north.

Liberals INVENTED the "Southern Strategy".  

Liberals have no objection to the "Southern Strategy" when used by those who their subjective ideological bias favors (FDR LBJ).  

SHAME SHAME SHAME.

Terrific post. Just two quibbles:

Both Bush's showed up for this national hero.

As if the Bushs' showing up was not some kind of political act in itself, designed to show moderate whites how racially "sensitive" they are? I doubt many conservative Bush supporters, or even Bush himself, really think of King as a "national hero," as the freeper posts indicate. The very act of Bush showing up was political.

Coretta Scott King's whole life was dedicated to fighting the kind of politics represented by Bush and conservative Republicans. If some conservatives think that it's not going to be mentioned at a memorial service for her, they need a head check. Nobody forced Bush to go. If he can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Don't use our funerals to score cheap political points with white moderates and think you're going to get away with it.

I think the country has moved past this.

I hope you are right, but I'm not so sure.

While President Bush was eulogizing Coretta Scott King, his administration was supporting the Republican war on minority voting rights in Georgia.

For more, see:
"Dishonoring Mrs. King."

Great post, Matt.

Free Republic commenters are just as bad.

I did a "breaking down the post" of my own on a recent one of their outrages.

Not negating your points, only adding to them.

Also keep in mind the two different kinds of funerals we're talking about here.

To the mindset of a group that is in power, a funeral is a monument to stability - that even in death, there is the continuity of the society.

People who aren't comfortable with the status quo generally have a funeral for the person, and the spoken words reflect what the person believed.  Especially if that person was a force for change.

The two views are fundamentally incompatible.

What this guy Blanton is saying may indeed by veiled racism but we can't simply jump to that conclusion simply because the speaker isn't jiggy with funerals of Black leaders or any of the statments quoted by Matt. They have a right to profess their opinions on such things regardless of how tasteless we find them to be or what underlying beliefs and sympathies we believe them to have. They have a right to consider the funeral to be a sort of media-whoring if you will. But just because they're talking about an event with Black people in a negative light doesn't mean we have to brand them as racists. There has to be an avenue of expression for topics like this and the realization that not everyone shares our beliefs about civil rights and the long hard road travelled by Blacks in this country.

They could have simply said, "I find the media-whoring of events like Coretta Scott King's funeral to be tasteless and exploitive." Were Blanton's actual comments racially sensitive and politically correct? Absolutely not but that's not required to not be branded as a "frothing racist".

There's a fine line between dumb, insensitive, close-minded and being a racist - but it's a line worth recognizing. Are the bloggers who posted in that topic at Redstates truly racist? - maybe so to varying extents but as Matt said himself, that's a pretty heavy adjective to be throwing around.

I post on a sort of left-vs-right debating forum and continually encounter people who's beliefs are so far to the right of mine that it's almost enraging. But if I was to brand these people as racists, loonies, extremists, etc., the only people I'd end up respecting would be those who were in agreement with my own beliefs.

My comments are solely based on the quotes posted by Matt. I did not go and read more at the Redstates site. I'm sure if I did I could find some real "prizes" but I'm basing my comments on what's been displayed here. If it's one thing I've learned from posting/blogging on the net is that you're going to find people with whom you feel no more commonality than your DNA but it's something you have to get used to. Complete damnation of their belief system gets us nowhere.

Great thread!  

Redstate speaks for itself, as did its owners former warblog, Tacitus.  When the war turned sour, he scampered out of the way and started Redstate.  

I think we are entitled to say that the comments in question reflect a racist sentiment.  I am tired of having the debate about whether "dumb, insensitive, close-minded" people are racist.  When they say the things that were said, I believe they have earned the tag.  And that they were it with quiet pride.

Please don't feed the trolls.  It robs them of their natural ability to forage for their normal grubs and worms.

"LBJ perfected the "Southern Strategy"."

I believe LBJ is quoted as saying "There goes the south for the next 50 years" after he signed into law the Voting Rights Act.

THe BubbaGuy is just making stuff up.