What's supposed to follow from this? The Dems change the nominee to Clinton, because she's white and has a lot of connections, and the rightwing would never say anything unfair about her?
Could you maybe restrict yourself to one post credulously parroting Larry Johnson's unsubstantiated attacks about what a scary angry black lady Michelle Obama every 48 hours?
Larry Johnson? Really?
Michelle's caught a lot of bullshit for a virtual civilian, IMO.
whitey's obsessed with Louis Farrakhan
she's so black! and uppity! and look, there's a typo in her college thesis!
Obviously, he wants to drag this out as long as possible
So now we know a little bit more about Larry Johnson. And while Farrakhan isn't helpful, it's hard to believe he'll hurt much post-Wright. If Farrakhan's even on the tape; it might be just a black guy with a tight hair cut and glasses.
This is called bait and switch.
"Don't blame me. Someone else told me that it said whitey. Look!!! Farrakhan! SCARY!!!"
i for one am glad for the update. It's not like I regularly read comment threads.
Farrakhan's grandson is going to UVa. How much more white can the Farrakhan's be?!?!!?!
(note that Johnson not only doesn't claim to have seen it, but he doesn't claim to have spoken to anyone who's seen it. He has spoken to people who say they have have spoken to people who have seen it.)
I'm not sure if I feel more soiled when I follow ogged's links to Larry Johnson or those to WWTDD?.
you people are pretty tightly wound about this.
Whitey's angry.
I second 9. I checked the NYTimes front page - nothing about it - then came over here. Potential controversy averted.
Also, 7.1 seconded. What a creep. (Johnson, not you, Tim)
12. being born white, you're born so soiled that I can't imagine how you manage to notice a little bit extra
it might be just a black guy with a tight hair cut and glasses
Brilliant! Obama needs to have several of these decoy Farrakhans on staff and on camera, so when he appears with the real one no one can tell.
Whitey. Jesus, do people really think Michelle Obama is a character from a 70's blaxpoitation movie?
So where can I get my "Whitey for Obama" t-shirt?
Dude, if Obama showed up with Brother Mouzone, we'd all be wetting ourselves and voting for whomever he said.
If unhinged Clinton supporters fade away in the next week or so, without any rationale to continue, they'll leave a hole in the culture as experienced on the blogosphere.
Will they fight on even if HRC stops?
where can I get my "Whitey for Obama" t-shirt?
I so want one of these.
I think this is like all those videos of West Virginia voters saying, "White people have been bad to black people for a long time. Maybe Obama will make us sit on the back of the bus." It's a whole new kind of white guilt I'd never really considered. Like, "You're right, whitey did all that, and I voted for whitey, and I really hope we don't get our comeuppance until I'm dead, thanks."
#17. Man. If only Michelle Obama were Foxy Brown or Cleopatra Jones.
Obama needs to have several of these decoy Farrakhans on staff and on camera, so when he appears with the real one no one can tell.
Recalling how New Hampshire phone-jammer Allen Raymond confessed to using recordings of Black men with gruff "ghetto voices" to make GOTV calls to white households, I'm thinking of a great dirty trick that the GOP could use for the fall.
Hire a bunch of clean-cut black guys to dress up in dark suits with white shirts and thin ties and stand around white neighborhoods in swing states holding Obama signs.
Anticipating that it might be difficult to find enough black republicans to make the trick feasible, it might be necessary to set up a front organization (I'm thinking "The Nation for Obama") in order to hire people who think they are canvassing in good faith.
25: That would be some seriously good ratfucking.
I just went to Obama's site, and it told me I need to upgrade my Flash player. Typical elitists. I'm voting for McCain.
Can you imagine if it had been MO rather than CMc who had robbed her own charity to feed her pill addiction? Holy god.
Or Obama rather than McCain who was on his second or third (I've lost count) wife?
Well, why did he? Isn't the answer "because he's whitey"?
Am I the only person thinking of Leslie Nielsen in one of the Naked Gun movies, going undercover in prison and ingratiating himself with his fellow inmates by immediately hitting the bars of his cell with his tin cup and yelling "No prison can hold me! Attica! Attica! Kill Whitey!"
This is clearly revenge for when that white aide to the DC mayor got fired for using the word "niggardly."
That would be some seriously good ratfucking.
It's almost too easy, isn't it? Yet I can't think of a similar way to go after McCain. A bunch of Vietnamese? Mexicans? Maybe billboards with a picture of McCain and a slogan in faux Spanish (ideally it should be nonsensical to a real Spanish-speaker) like "Por la Amnesty. Por el licenso de vehiculo para los Mexicanos. Vote John McCain."
33: Didn't Bush and Rove wield an (extremely racist) weapon against McCain in South Carolina in 2000?
i've lost count
he is not going to divorce her b/c of farrakhan?
coz until now he was quick to get rid of anything which could be perceived harmful to his campaign
trying to be too clean, too flexible
can't he be whoever he is with all his real or not connections and get nominated or elected
Didn't Bush and Rove wield an (extremely racist) weapon against McCain in South Carolina in 2000?
Right, but I'm thinking of ratfucks for the general election against Obama, where the charge of having a Black child out of wedlock is not going to move many votes to the Dem column.
Maybe you could persuade some voters to stay at home by circulating e-mails with a picture of McCain and his family (with the child photoshopped to look a litte darker, if required) and some paens to tolerance
So, ogged, the reason this is ludicrous has already been spelled out in the alicublog comments, but to summarize: the idea that a college educated, extremely successful black woman's speech immediately reverts to a dated white caricature of black dialect just because she thinks she's "among her own kind" speaking from the pulpit of one of the most prominent churches in the city of Chicago is self-evidently absurd. When you head home from work and close your browser window do you then pick up the phone to call your mom and rail about how the pig-infidel jew will die in holy fire when you martyr yourself? Do you send letters to Al Jazeera along these lines? Do you have a secret beard and Shalwar Kameez that you keep tucked beneath your North Face? Then why should we assume that Michelle Obama occasionally transforms into the spawn of Angela Y. Davis and Cleopatra Jones? Because there's a totally obvious smear backed with zero supporting evidence from people who aren't completely in the tank partisans to that effect?
So racist, goofball.
until now he was quick to get rid of anything which could be perceived harmful to his campaign
That's not true, although it is a popular right-wing talking point.
Do you send letters to Al Jazeera along these lines?
I send them for Ogged, so he can maintain plausible deniability.
When you head home from work and close your browser window do you then pick up the phone to call your mom and rail about how the pig-infidel jew will die in holy fire when you martyr yourself?
You can't really expect me to answer that.
why should we assume that Michelle Obama occasionally transforms into the spawn of Angela Y. Davis and Cleopatra Jones
Because if that sentence ended "... and fights hate crimes" it would be kind of awesome.
Oh noes! Not clean-cut black men in suits! The party could never withstand that!
Maybe dashikis and afros?
When you head home from work and close your browser window do you then pick up the phone to call your mom and rail about how the pig-infidel jew will die in holy fire when you martyr yourself?
You seem so confident that he doesn't.
i don't read the right wing blogs, do not watch tv that was just my impression from your discussions
his speech on racism was great though
I'm having trouble picking up a good wifi signal from here in the back of the bus.
It's almost too easy, isn't it?
I think it would be pretty hard, actually. Recruitment would be hard and details would leak quickly. It's one thing to go after a white Republican on racist grounds in the South Carolina primary; it's quite another to go after a black Democratic candidate, nationwide, in the general. As I recall, African-American outreach in the Republican party of late was a result of a realization that the party's reputation on race relations harmed it with some set of white women.
White people in the back of a bus? What next, an alligator with sunglasses?
I like how the side bar says, Whitey comments on "Whitey". That is a good description of this blog.
Yeah, I think the fake-Nation plan would backfire in a big way, partly because it's so hilarious and reportable. On the other hand, it is hilarious, so I hope it's attempted.
Remember at the end of that Kiss movie, how real Kiss had to battle Evil Robot Kiss? In November we could have a huge NOI vs. Fake NOI showdown. Hot.
You have to love that the image of the Obamas toggles so easily from "arrogant Ivy League elitists" to "don't know standard English." As noted above, there's something awesome about this new Foxxy Brown-style Michelle Obama -- much more fun than the Princeton cum laude and Harvard Law grad.
In addition to the grammatical problem with the Jena sentence, it's nonsensical to say "whitey put us in Iraq for no reason" if this is a rant about what white people do to black people, as opposed to what GWB & Co. have done to America generally (including that 45% of Medicaid enrollment that's white and 26% that's Hispanic). There are some puzzled white soldiers in Iraq wondering who that was addressing the UN Security Council in February 2003, or holding the job of National Security Adviser.
a dated white caricature of black dialect
I'm not sure that's right.
there's something awesome about this new Foxxy Brown-style Michelle Obama
Imagine MO as the protagonist of the "Lady E" anecdote, for example.
Since everyone else is so scornful about this non-story, I feel it's only fair that I admit when I firs ot wind of it (which was days before Ogged posted about it) my first response was dread, not incredulity.
I'm not sure that's right.
I await in anticipatory horror your explication of modern black dialects and the currency of "whitey" therein.
54:
To be completely honest, I don't find it impossible that Michelle Obama might say "Why did white people let New Orleans drown? Why did white people do nothing about Jena?"
Perhaps it's my own elitism speaking, but I do find it very implausible that Michelle Obama would say "Whitey do nothing about Jena."
Seriously, I have no reason to think that Mrs. Obama has trouble speaking English.
54: I'd filed it under "sure sounds like bullshit", not "absolutely, positively bullshit," but when you combine that with the terrible sourcing...
my first response was dread, not incredulity
Of course. You're a Democrat.
Seriously, Sifu, two points:
1) I assume that there's a lot more racial animus than people see across races and like I said upthread, I've said "whitey" within the past year.
2) If you've ever talked to a crowd, or even speechified to a group of friends, or even, you know, had a blog where a lot of people basically agree with you, you know that there's a real pull to overstate your case or say something inflammatory just because you know the audience will eat it up; it might not even reflect your considered beliefs.
Perhaps it's my own elitism speaking, but I do find it very implausible that Michelle Obama would say "Whitey do nothing about Jena."
True, but the specifics of the quote weren't available when Sybil had her first impression. I had the same reaction as Sybil.
56: Except that the pulpit might be the rhetorical platform where that sort of flair is called for or expected.
You know, if Obama's lead is small enough he could really need the 5% Nation in the fall.
The South Carolina rumor spreading was a last-minute fly-by-night operation in just a few key areas, involving the activation of rumor mills and the distribution of a few unsourced leaflets. As I understand, one of the strengths of Rove's ratfucking was that his database allowed him to target only a few selected areas where he needed votes, so that the ratfuck could be customized to the neighborhood.
This grammar bit is strained. When the story was initially circulating, it was said that she gave a speech where she frequently accused "whitey" of a variety of things. There was no evidence one way or another about conjugation of verbs until the actual why'd he" vs "whitey" elision became apparent. It's clearly absurd now.
I've never heard a black person say "whitey." Maybe on television, never otherwise. That's what makes it so implausible.
I'm with Sybil. The Rev. Wright problem was with a specific kind of preacher rhetoric that white preachers also use, but which sounds bad in a sound bite. Michelle Obama is highly educated (Harvard Law) and has worked as a lawyer, board member, and administrator, but I have no idea what her church rhetoric is like.
No. It's cartoonish language, that's why it's implausible.
I await in anticipatory horror your explication of modern black dialects and the currency of "whitey" therein.
Go to a bar with a fair number of black people in it, hang out for a while, repeat for a few days, get drunk, and start talking about race. In the past, I've heard the term thrown around by black men about a decade older than Michelle Obama. This was a while ago, but I'm not sure to what extent people update their vocabulary once they've hit a certain age, or to what extent changing circs make such language less likely. Finding out that black people bitch about white people should be right up there with finding out that women bitch about men. That black people might use terms like "whitey" should be up there with finding out that women call men "dogs" and similar.
Perhaps it's my own elitism speaking, but I do find it very implausible that Michelle Obama would say "Whitey do nothing about Jena."
I absolutely agree with that. More to the point, she's not going to make that mistake on a stage while her husband is a big deal politician. She's not an idiot.
No. It's cartoonish language, that's why it's implausible.
Great. Now you just insulted all the eloquent black people who do say "Whitey".
72: Here's Whitey himself to explain!
59: but this isn't a group of friends! This is a large, politically important congregation, an address that was being videotaped, and all happened within the context of her husband aspiring to national office. The woman's not an idiot.
I have, in fact, said inflammatory and basically unsupportable things in front of national TV cameras, but I knew exactly what I was doing, because that's the kind of environment that makes you consider your goals; unless you're John McCain, you don't just glibly plow ahead if you're saying something the crowd likes, you think about what you're trying to accomplish, and the idea that Michelle Obama prioritized getting the crowd fired up over every single other priority in her life is deeply silly.
62: look, if anybody was going to say something like "Whitey gonna pay!" it would be Pastor Wright. And did he? Even his angriest statements are a hell of a lot more nuanced than that. It's a caricature, and an absurd one.
I was called whitey and honky a bunch of times before I was even 15.
72: "this old drunk dude at a bar said it" does not seem dispositive, Honkbot.
66:
McCain 43, Obama 40, Barr 6
vs.
McCain 39; Clinton, 34; and Barr, 6.
So Barr's share remains the same, but Obama increases McCain's share as well as bringing out more Democrats. Neither spread adds up to a hundred, of course.
Honky is funny though. It's got a K. Like cracker.
I was called a "short white bitch" just this morning! Guilty on all counts!
before I was even 15
The age at which one officially blossoms into full honkitude.
but this isn't a group of friends!
That was just one possible scenario, and there was nothing in the original accusation to fix the date of her comments, so I'm not sure where the argument that she wouldn't say this with her husband running for national office is coming from. He lost to Bobby Rush, in part for not being sufficiently down with regular black folk, and this could have been from that era, for all we knew.
I don't find it impossible that Michelle Obama might say "Why did white people let New Orleans drown? Why did white people do nothing about Jena?"
I do find this impossible.
I've never heard a black person say "whitey."
70- No, there's good logic here. In my hometown, this term is largely outdated. Not to say it's not used, but impossible that MO did.
77: Dispositive of what? Whether any black person has ever used the term outside of blaxploitation films? I think it pretty much is. See, also, #76.
76: The age of honkitude is 12, lady. You have no case.
83, etc:
I really don't see how any white person can possibly know whether the word "whitey" is still in circulation or not. Black people edit their speech around you.
I think that the best strictly rhetorical argument against the possibility is that the diction sounds really wrong. Whitey let New Orleans drown? Whitey do nothing about Jena? There's no cadence to it; if you were going to say it that way, you wouldn't phrase it as a series of questions.
look, there's a typo in her college thesis!
Which--according to Fox and Larry Johnson--was on The White Devil.
Sheesh.
I don't even know what the word is for someone who complains about "Political Correctness" because now they can't use clearly racial slurs and then puts words in an opponents mouth to claim she has used a racial 'slur' which to this whitey isn't even a slur.
I was thinking this was irony but now I'm just thinking this puts the 'aye ess ess' in A$$-holiness.
I haven't seen reasoning so garbled since my Dad said "that's like looking a dead horse up the ass" which at least had no political motive and was unintentionally funny.
I repeat - sheesh. Sometimes I am just really embarrassed to share the human race with some others.
86- I hate when I say this, but my hometown is at least 40% black.
87: Nobody thinks the description of the video is true anymore, do they? There are lots of reasons not to believe that it is. I don't think there's a need to settle on just one.
And yes I know I used "they" as first person singular indeterminate gender goddammit.
What a way to start the week.
(old man grumble)
I think there needs to be an entry on "Stuff Educated Black People Like" about "Educated Ways to Refer to Whitey." I favor "the predominately Caucasian politicoeconomic power structure."
90 - So's mine. But my family isn't.
(Which doesn't make total sense as a refutation. But I do think that unless you're the only white person in an ongoing situation, like a black school or workplace, you're probably not going to hear exactly what black people say when you're not around.)
90- Hate it in the sense that it sounds like a trump card cred. But the fact is I have many black friends who speak very freely with me. If MO said 'Whitey', I'll ban myself from Unfogged. There is absolutely no way.
Note to unfogged - I've left plenty of Easter eggs in 89 and 92. Enjoy. I really need to get my coffee.
92: Posted by: Tripp the Pendant
Tripp, when worn about the neck, delightfully accesorizes the flowing sundresses fashionable this season.
Whitey permit the subprime mortgage crisis.
I've been called "white honky", and not in an ironic manner, in the past month. So some black person somewhere using the term "whitey" is not surprising.
On the other hand, the "Why'd he" explanation makes ense of this whole weird story. It explains the origins of the story, and explains why information about the tape is only spreading via rumor.
Like just the other day, me and the honkies were standing around, and one of them said, "blackey stole my fleece pullover."
That happens all the time.
Whitey give a rambling, nonsensical, terrifying pep talk.
101: yes, because race relations are completely symmetric.
I have, in fact, said inflammatory and basically unsupportable things in front of national TV cameras
Do tell.
BTW, can the white folks on this thread give me some ranking of the most offensive terms to use about white people? (Sorry if this is too much like the Chevy Chase-Pryor sketch.) I can't tell if white people find these funny or are bothered by them.
Honky
Whitey
Gringo
Gaijin
American (this is how some immigrants will refer to white people)
I thought gringo couldn't be too bad because I was driving through some fairly white areas recently (through Western Connecticut and Western Mass) and noticed a Mexican restaurant actually called "Gringo's."
I have many black friends
COMITY!
105: you missed "cracker" and "peckerwood".
Whitey keep Karl Rove on the job after the Plame leak.
I really don't see how any white person can possibly know whether the word "whitey" is still in circulation or not. Black people edit their speech around you.
Speak for yourself. In my lengthy studies of the Black Man, I have come to know his unique but savage ways, costuming myself in his raiment and walking amongst him undetected to chart his sociological and lexicological world.
I can't think of any racial slurs for whites that I would find offensive, because they all sound so dated that they can't help but come off as ironic.
Oh, and "(slice of) whitebread".
110: Someone didn't go to Oakland Public Schools.
Whitey tell her the pink gloves were stupid.
Okay, I am officially done now.
Korean "mi gook" means beautiful people. I think the Koreans probably want to take that back now.
I suppose I could look this up, but I was told "Gringo" comes from American soldiers in the Mexican War singing while marching "Green go the rushes, O" So historical bad associations with national humiliation and the loss of about half of its territory.
I will say that I've heard the term "whitey" kicked around, but never unironically. I believe my ex's father referred to me as "honkey", but it was somewhat affectionate.
I would not be surprised if the term "whitey" still had some currency, but for all the entirely sensible reasons given in this thread, I would gargle bleach if Michelle Obama ever did anything so daft as lumping together all white people in bit of fiery oration.
104: oh, I said I wanted every 8 year old in the world to take our software, go out there, and hack some websites.
It's interesting to me that white folks here have recently-ish been called "whitey" or whatever. I certainly never experienced that nor knew of anyone else who did during my long tenure in D.C.
Which is not to say it doesn't happen, just that those don't seem to be street epithets in the areas I frequented, which were mostly not in Southeast but also not in Upper Caucasia.
Any other D.C. honkies heard those used in a serious way?
OK
Yes, I steal shamelessly from the best. So sue me.
Ranking the 'whitey' racial slurs - umm, none of them ever bothered me. Now being called a Mother-effer in a threatening voice, yeah, that got to me. But that wasn't a racial slur. As far as I know.
This plugs into a more interesting debate about whether black people can be racist toward whites, or whether it's even a problem if they are. I think A) they can, and B) it can be a problem, but I've gotten into big arguments with left-wing friends about this.
On second thought, maybe that question is fodder for a grinding 500 post thread that makes everybody miserable.
Also, I'm unsure what to do now that there's a new PG poster who has taken the first two letters of my acronym. I no longer feel distinctive. For now, I'm going back to my full moniker, while reflecting on other options.
120:
Yikes. Html took out the best part! Please insert this after the OK:
We all know there is nothing to the "Whitey - Why'd he" thing but I know for a FACT that when people say things like "Why'd you do that?" they are really saying "Why'd JEW do that?"
...I was driving through some fairly white areas recently (through Western Connecticut and Western Mass)....
Guilty.
Hey, Tripp, Jew have your coffee yet?
Stuff Whitey Likes:
Cutting Medicaid
Drowning New Orleans
Ignoring Jena
Invading Iraq
Opium
Cucumber water
Blackberries
I certainly never experienced that nor knew of anyone else who did during my long tenure in D.C.
I think there's a tremendous amount of black/white resentment in DC, more than any other place I've lived actually, but it's the silent, smouldering type.
The main time you hear racist stuff is when you're young and your social status is unclear. Then you get these turf things, especially in school. As you get older you arrange your social world arranges itself to minimize informal interaction across class boundaries. Especially if you enter white-collar, college-educated land (to the extent Sir Kraab is doing hands-on organizing this might not be as true).
The time when I was most exposed to racial frictions was going to a public high school that was 50/50 black + white, and also as a young guy living in very low rent neighborhoods, travelling Greyhound, etc. Since then I've lived in a lot of urban areas that are close to the gentrification border and always interacted with lots of blacks, but now that I'm the middle-aged white guy the whole thing seems to be more distant and polite.
Hey, Tripp, Jew have your coffee yet?
What do you think, Ricky Retardo?
In some ways I miss Eastview Elementary. Alognquin Jr High was better though. I still recall the fight song:
"Algonquin, where the Indians fight for Red and White . . ."
Being the 60's and good little future bleeding-heart pinko commie fag liberal (sorry to swear) unfoggedatoids we changed that to:
"Algonquin, where the Indians fight for civil rights . . . "
Stick it to the man baby!
118: No announcement of terrorist manifestos dedicated to getting on TV? Pussy.
128: that was on NPR. Possibly I did that in front of the cameras, too; I don't remember doing it, but I was pretty drunk.
"This plugs into a more interesting debate about whether black people can be racist toward whites, or whether it's even a problem if they are. I think A) they can, and B) it can be a problem, but I've gotten into big arguments with left-wing friends about this."
Less that I think it's impossible for black people to be racist than that the overwhelming % of accusations of black racism are part of the game in which acknowledging the existence of & attempting to do anything about racism are characterized as "reverse racism," "playing the race card," etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. For instance: Michelle Obama's college thesis talks about racism. Therefore, she hates whitey. Hey, did you hear how there's a video of her complaining about Whitey next to Louis Farrakhan in Reverend Wright's church? It's not so much that she can't have used the term "whitey" as that this story sounds SO much like the paranoid racial smears of Michelle Obama that have been going on for months, and is so poorly sourced, that it ought to have set off people's bullshit detectors.
(also: I think it by far most likely is that no tape, Whitey or "why'd he", Farrakhan or no, of Michelle Obama preaching at Trinity exists at all. For some reason this doesn't seem yet to have even occurred to ogged; he's posting as if the Farrakhan rumor is probably true & the tape definitely exists even after Johnson's big new revelation!!! turns out to be a third-hand report that the damaging tape is REALLY damaging.)
126: I wasn't suggesting that there isn't plenty of racism in D.C., just that I'd never been called a honky.
125: Blackberries are objectively delicious with cream. You can't blame Whitey for that one.
105: my favorite is "casper"
Wonderful, but pretty time-bound. Has that show been on in 20 years? Are the comics still made?
Seriously though, unless a white person is either a)in school, or b)living in the ghetto, there's little opportunity for him to get racially slurred, so unless one of these conditions holds, it's unlikely to bother him. "Whitey" is now an abstract concept to me, living as I do in opulence, and like "The FBI" or "OPEC", it's got fuck all to do with me. I forgot caspar though. That's a good one.
Blackberries are objectively delicious with cream.
Nonracist.
Do we have a frame-by-frame analysis of the non-existent, unseen/unheard tape yet? I know Johnson hasn't seen it of it exists, does Booman claim to have seen the actual tape? Doesn't everyone realize how crazy all this speculation sounds?
As I said, I just watched Don Cheadle play Petey Greene. Of course, the main story of the movie was about the great Chiwetel Ejiofor as Dewey Hughes, who started as the ambitious button-down tightass Oxford grammar speaking project escaping role model and with the help of Petey Greene, wrll, let's just say he changed and grew.
Barack & Michelle have been liason between the University of Chicago and their black community for what, twenty years? And yeah, they have repesented Wright and Farrakhan, who doesn't scare me at all. Austan Goolsbee scares me. Somehow I doubt that Obama talked about "Ronald Reagan's great ideas" when speaking to both crowds.
On the Tonight show Petey Greene said he had nothing to ay to white people. Larry Johnson doesn't think someone who is comfortable around black nationalists can get elected President. Sometimes I think this crowd is so scared of other's racism that they want Dewey Hughes before he met Petey Greene, but Obama's core constituency, which ain't you, has always had more in common with the white working class of Appalachia than with the Ivy-League aspirationals.
Obama has said so pretty explicitly, in the resentment speech. I just think by trying to keep his University of Chicago types from getting the vapors, he has lost the real opportunity to bridge the racial divide that has done the damage in this country.
If Michelle Obama really sat next to Farrakhan and went into a diatribe against "whitey" I know she wasn't taking primarily about me, and I will know she is on my side. Right now I think Obama is on Andy Sullivan's and Matt Yglasias' side.
131: My recollection is that the distinction is between racism and bigotry, and that African-Americans can be bigoted but not racist because the community lacks sufficient power to enforce its invidious desires on the white majority. You used to see the same distinctions made about sexism and pernicious beliefs held by women about men. I don't think it really matters much--I think the various ism-related vocabularies increasingly need an update to be useful--as long as you acknowledge the difference in relative power of the relevant groups. Or, as KF Monkey pointed out, on Jan. 21, white Americans will still own everything even if we have a black President, so don't sweat it too much.
I think they made a Caspar movie about 10 years ago, but no one saw it.
Personally I wouldn't get offended just by the use of any of the words in 105, but obviously they might be used with aggressive intent - I can't think of any instances, but I'm pretty sure I've been called some version of "whitey" in the last decade, in a situation where denigration was clearly intended.
Anyway, "cracker" is probably the closest analogue to n-, particularly since it's comfortably used by crackers themselves (and is a recognized architectural style in the FL panhandle), but at least some crackers get pretty offended if it's used as an epithet (by outsider whites, as well; if I went to rural Leon County and called a poor white "cracker," he'd probably get his back up).
Around here, a lot of people seem to dislike being called "White."
"(and is a recognized architectural style in the FL panhandle)"
really?
Old black people can be racist as fuck, but not quite so racist as Jewish immigrants from Bavaria, in my experience. I think you need a certain level of oppression before the serious racism kicks in.
On preview, totally pwned by Tim, but I'll blather on anyway.
121: This is the kind of thing that was debated endlessly at O/b/e/r/l/i/n. The formulation I've always found most helpful is that we should use a different term for -- to represent a different way of understanding -- hostility from a a member of a disadvantaged group (by race or sex or any of those things) toward the advantaged than the reverse, because power is a critical piece of the equation. Even if one thinks that there's such a thing as black-on-white racism, it just isn't the same thing.
unless a white person is either a)in school, or b)living in the ghetto, there's little opportunity for him to get racially slurred
I live in a city that's 45% white, 43% black and I don't live in the ghetto. The opportunity to get racially slurred--in either direction--is there at any public place, but it just isn't something that happens much any more.*
*Offer may be void at Duke lacrosse parties.
136, 140: It's really time to give up the generic masculine, you honkies.
Over 140 comments and no Annie Hall?
Jew eat yet?
One of, only one of many, stories of racism in this country is about how white elites of both parties deliberately turned working class whites against working class and poor blacks in order to keep the lower classes divided and impotent and their own paths to power exclusionary.
That, I think, is the real background of this primary, and probably the general, and a story that isn't being told.
at least some crackers get pretty offended if it's used as an epithet
See, racial slurs don't really work with white people. Oddly, the only epithet that consistently does raise white people hackles is "racist".
145: Damn, I should have used the classic "you male chauvanist pigs."
105: Is "gaijin" limited to whites, or does it include black Americans too?
107: This shows how white I am: I wasn't even aware that "peckerwood" was a racial slur.
121: I'd say yes to (A), of course, everyone can be or could be, we're all a little bit racist, etc. And to (B), I'd say yes, it can be a problem, but in the real world it is nowhere near as big a problem as racism against blacks. It's rarer*, it's less institutionalized, it's less culturally ingrained, it's less justified**, and so on. Unless the topic is some specific criminal case, I usually find accusations of black racism about as meaningful and credible as accusations of anti-Catholicism.
* In absolute numbers, at least, given that blacks make up such a minority of the problem.
** Not to necessarily imply that any racism at all is justified, but I think the life experiences of a black person are more likely to point them to irrational negative sentiment towards white people than the reverse. As Chris Rock said about Rev. Wright, "Do you realize his entire third grade class was lynched?"
Oh, I'm sure this conversation will end well.
It might be useful to separate the personal failing from the harm it does in context in order to mark the fact that a person's race by itself doesn't determine whether the character flaw of racism/bigotry does real harm or not.
For example, look at SCMTim's
the community lacks sufficient power to enforce its invidious desires
Since there are contexts where the black community does have power to enforce things, the race-based racism/bigotry distinction is kind of clunky.
I've heard that Bush is banging Bachman on a regular basis, but is annoyed by Michelle's clinginess and insistence on making a public show of things. She has all of Laura' Stepford qualities, but she has a charismatic lewdness that Pickles can't even approach.
141: really?
I actually just last week met with a potential client who showed me drawings of the cracker-style house they'd had built in Florida. I instantly recognized the style, and they used the term.
Aww jeez, I skipped a lot of this thread, but now I see people are absolutely certain about what Michelle said. Would somebody give me a link, or the comment where is the link to the tape is given?
clunky
When whitey tries to get funky.
Any other D.C. honkies heard those used in a serious way?
In my bike riding through Shaw to get to my girlfriend's uptown, 'white motherfucker' is most popular.
145: You're right. I actually usually pay attention to it, but, in my defense, I was imagining yelling at a cracker in a pickup truck, and him kicking my ass.
Actually, now that I think of it, "cracker" is, in my mind, a very gendered term. I don't have any kind of mental image of a cracker woman, even though it is a complete, distinctive (sub)culture with deep historic roots.
I must try to be more inclusive in my epithets.
141: Really. Think tin roofs and houses two feet off the ground to get some circulation under them. I once read an article claiming this was the new thing for the very rich to co-opt.
at least some crackers get pretty offended if it's used as an epithet
These days, "cracker" is more likely to be used as a classist epithet. Cf. "white trash."
These days, "cracker" is more likely to be used as a classist epithet. Cf. "white trash."
Which has the advantage of not being gendered.
Since there are contexts where the black community does have power to enforce things, the race-based racism/bigotry distinction is kind of clunky.
Yeah, I don't like the distinction either. But I do think that the question "Why do I care?"--as implied by KF Monkey--gets at something. As you suggest, there are situations when you care and situations when you don't. For me, at least, there have been a lot more of the latter than the former.
Equal opportunity classism. We're making progress.
I recently found out that my HS team was called "Indians" until 1948 or so, when two sisters who worked in the schools got it changed to avoid the racial stereotype. My son's HS in Portland changed their name from "Indian" about 1990. Score: Wobegon 1, Coastal Elitists 0.
107, thanks for the cracker reminder. Why is peckerwood a slur against white people? I assumed it was just a slur against men (b/c of the pecker part). Is this an actual type of wood that is very pale in color? Also, does "wigger" qualify as an insult against white people?
121,
Sorry about the acronym/ initials encroachment. I could add an asterisk to indicate that this PG is not properly ranked in the Hall of Fame alongside previous PGs.
Re: ability of blacks to be racist, of course they can be. Everyone's a little bit and all that. I fully believe that there are black people still using all these slurs, unironically (and there are plenty of white people -- within the Democratic Party, probably Hillary Clinton supporters -- who are not keen to find things ironic); I just doubt that a senator's wife would use them in public.
Score: Wobegon 1, Coastal Elitists 0.
No coastal elitists actually think that Portland is coastal elitist.
161: or, to be more dickish about it, it's so racist to assume that black people are always on the short end of the power dynamic.
I once read an article claiming this was the new thing for the very rich to co-opt.
I don't even know what to do with a statement like this. It's completely true, in a sense - Seaside, the original New Urbanist utopia cum resort community, has some cracker houses, and its successors in the area have a lot more - but I'm completely flummoxed by "co-opt."
Cracker houses are a wonderful, vernacular response to very specific climatic conditions. Building a cracker house in northern FL is no more "co-opting" than building a Cape Cod in MA or a (true) adobe in NM. What's offensive is people building Cape Cod saltboxes in FL or cracker houses in NM.
I understand that it can be jarring to see a vernacular - read "poor" - style used in a big, fancy house, but there's nothing inherently wrong with it (it can be poorly done, of course). It's not as if there's some innate Very Rich architectural style that very rich people should use wherever they build.
Aww jeez, I skipped a lot of this thread, but now I see people are absolutely certain about what Michelle said. Would somebody give me a link, or the comment where is the link to the tape is given?
Wobegonians know that Portland is coastal elitist.
167: Uhhhhhhhh....okay, "borrow"?
Wrt gaijin being used for black as well as white foreigners, I'm not sure -- I don't know off the top of my head of any black friends who have spent time in Japan and would have been able to encounter that. Frankly I've heard enough about the socially-accepted racism and sexism in some parts of Japan that I doubt I would want to live there.
(Not that Japanese people are more racist or sexist, just that it seems to be less culturally acceptable to kick up a fuss when you are mistreated; the idea seems to be that racism and sexism are bad, but so is demanding redress through the courts instead of working the levers of the society. At least in the U.S., when I encounter racism and sexism I have someone to sue.)
168: Isn't your last name "Astley"?
164.1: Well, crows and blackbirds used to be slang words for black people, so black people found another bird metaphor, I guess. Pretty weak sauce, I know, but it gains force with repetition. Oh, and also force: it gains force with that, too. In any case, when I was going to HS, that was the worst thing a black kid could say to a white kid.
166: At least with African-Americans, there is remains enough effective segregation, by whatever mechanism, that drawing the lines is often relatively easy. Women, gay people, various other ethnic minorities, mixed race folk, etc. make it even harder. No wonder we hate them so much.
168:Thank you. Explains everything.
gaijin means gai-outside, jin-man, person
so refers to all foreigners regardless of their race
though the polite word is gaikokujin, a man from a foreign country
I do think that the question "Why do I care?"--as implied by KF Monkey--gets at something. As you suggest, there are situations when you care and situations when you don't. For me, at least, there have been a lot more of the latter than the former.
To me, this is implicitly saying you're living in an area where black-on-white street crime is never an issue and you don't expect your kids to go to integrated public schools. If whites and blacks are actually going to *live together* as opposed to the de facto segregation that replaced the de jure kind over the past couple of decades, then you'll care whether the people you live with hate you or not. I've lived in numerous urban areas that have just emptied out due to white flight, and I've watched it happen. White flight of course is a vicious cycle that has a lot to do with white racism, but crime is a factor as well.
The white racist part of this is that it so easily slides into blaming the victim. Katherine was correct in 131 about how this gets used.
168:
Responding to request for Whitey video -- best use of RickRolling?
I get (cat-)called "snowflake" on a regular basis, in DC. I don't know if that is hair-and-eye-color specific or used for any white girls
I think my HS still calls their teams the Indians, but they seem to have purged it pretty well from their official pages. Sites of the specific teams still refer to the Indians.
I have a relative who grew up with racist Italian parents who would often say "Jew me down." She learned the saying but didn't understand the context, so she always talks about bargaining as trying to "chew you down," as in get you to cut some money off your price.
168: are you sure that's not a Sam Graves ad? Looked like San Francisco values to me.
180: Your uniqueness is being recognized, as though you were a frozen embryo.
you're living in an area where black-on-white street crime is never an issue
It's much less of an issue most places now. It's true that he area that I live happens to be one of those places.
and you don't expect your kids to go to integrated public schools
Schools vary, as do black populations. My general sense is that there are lots of integrated schools where people still clump by race, but where race isn't an enormous issue. Perhaps I'm wrong about that.
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Yves Saint Laurent, Bo Diddly... who will be the third?
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Also, before anyone else responds to 178 by pointing out that the emphasis on crime as the only place where blacks hold power over whites is racist -- if you live in a genuinely integrated area, there's a non-trivial chance of working with a black supervisor. E.g. integrated school systems will and do have black principals and white teachers, etc.
This is a bigger issue for working-class than for upper middle class whites, because they were less able to buy insulation from urban problems by moving out to the suburbs. As McManus points out in 147, this was used very effectively by conservative elites in the 70s as a tool to split the liberal coalition. Obama discusses this history in his first race speech.
183: aww! I knew I liked being catcalled!
there's a non-trivial chance of working with a black supervisor.
This is going to vary a lot by area and industry, as is the ability to go around such a supervisor to his or her boss.
Why'd he do nothing about Jena?
Has anyone explained the context for this? Is it referring to his daughter? What was GWB supposed to be doing about Jena? Why is the Jena issue up there with Iraq and New Orleans?
Has anyone explained the context for this?
I assume it is in reference to the Jena 6.
The Jena Six, which became a national controversy in 2007, after Obama declared for the presidency, which is yet another reason why there's probably no secret video in existence of Michelle Obama denouncing "whitey's" reaction to it on stage with Louis Farrakhan.
Why is the Jena issue up there with Iraq and New Orleans?
cause she's a SNOWFLAKE, obviously.
178,
184 is right. I went to integrated public schools after private elementary school. They were the only schools available in the town, which was about 60% white, 25% black, 20% Latino, population 32k. The high school was still under desegregation court order when I graduated, but did get it dropped in 2000 or so. Going through the gifted/ AP track, I encountered many more white kids than black ones, and had run-ins with a few white kids that involved bigotry; none with black kids. So the idea that an "integrated public school" necessarily will put one in contact with black racism is not true for everyone. (E.g., those minorities who apparently rouse more antagonism from whites than from blacks.)
Rich,
146:
Over 140 comments and no Annie Hall?
Ahem. I read your comment. Why didn't you read mine(122)?
John Emerson - It is not fair to compare Wobegonoids to Portlandites because here in the land of 10,000 lakes we get the chance to actually see the people we slur. I have no idea what is up with the "Fighting Sioux" of North Dakota although I suppose they can claim the term 'Sioux' is not racists. I still think it is kinda mean to kill a bunch of people, take their land, and then honor them with the title "Fighting" but what do I know?
As for "white" racial slurs I can't really think of any that hurt. "Casper" is kinda a weenie but I can't take offense at that. I like "crackers" and "white bread" so I don't mind being called them. Call me a Yankee and it just reminds me of how we kicked the South's butt when they needed it. And silly me I thought "peckerwood" meant an erection like getting a woodie in your pecker. "White trash" is probably the most offensive term I can think to use but I don't find it very racist.
It's ridiculously implausible because it's so self-evidently the terrified wet dream of racist goons to believe that a woman like MO (or anyone, really) would rant about "whitey" in a black church. Embarrassingly so.
you know that there's a real pull to overstate your case or say something inflammatory just because you know the audience will eat it up
Sure, but there's a difference between saying inflammatory things ("Larry Summers is a dick") and sounding like a fictional straw woman ("Larry Summers might as well just rape women scientists and mathematicians!!").
Once playing pickup basketball in college I played center and kinda shoved people around. In a game against an all black team a guy from that team came up to the only black guy on our team and said in a southern accent "Tell that fat white boy to quit fouling everybody!"
Since it was kinda true (although I think I was more 'big' than 'fat') I took no offense and now it is a funny story in our family.
My slogan is if you can smell pot on their breath you can most likely muscle them out of the middle. Since I couldn't shoot anything other than bricks it was about the only contribution I could make for our team.
a fictional straw woman ("Larry Summers might as well just rape women scientists and mathematicians!!").
I do not think that phrase means what you think it means.
184, 193: there might be a generational difference here. My school district had a tough time with integration not that long before I went there, which involved some minor rioting (during a riot at my HS, a student fractured the principal's skull). When I went there were still some racial tensions but everything had calmed down considerably and it was a good learning environment. (There was one racial brawl when I was there, but it was between the Vietnamese and the blacks, no whites involved). Junior high was much more chaotic. In HS the AP program was pretty new and was already creating de facto tracking.
#105: BTW, can the white folks on this thread give me some ranking of the most offensive terms to use about white people? (Sorry if this is too much like the Chevy Chase-Pryor sketch.) I can't tell if white people find these funny or are bothered by them.
Honky
Whitey
Gringo
Gaijin
Personally, I find "Gaijin" highly offensive.
I wonder what would happen if Michelle Obama told someone to "shove it."
I look forward to the inevitable 'Sofa King' video...