Thank you, Laura Ingraham, for showing us who you really are. We won’t forget. I’m sure Dartmouth is proud.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Just imagine, for a minute, Al or Jesse or Barack talkin’ about the white crime rate.
The Ingrahams and Buchanans — hell, the whole Right — would explode with indignant fury at their presumption.
WTF?
WTF????
WTF???????
Even in Wingnuttia, are there no depths to which people like her will not sink? Is sticking it viciously to Those People so overarchingly vital that mere common sense, let alone decency, goes out the window?
WTF???????
No. Yes.
And by proximity, you’re giving the word “fuck” a bad reputation…
The sad irony is, even though they lard it up with hyperbole for entertainment purposes, at their core people like Ingraham and Buchanan are absolutely sincere. They have no idea at all that they, and the people they inspire and enable, are the single biggest reason why, 50 years on, most of the issues raised at the original March are still relevant. (Interracial marriage is the only one that springs to mind as almost entirely moot. Thank Gaia.)
The Buchanans and Ingrahams also have no idea why their party gets a percentage of the black vote that’s within the statistical margin of error of zero. Which is why they invented – and probably believe – that absurd racially themed narrative about people “wanting free stuff.” (Welfare mothers driving Cadillacs, updated to 2012.)
For God’s sake, even the single biggest political accomplishment of that era – the consistent, legal right to vote and have their votes count – is under relentless attack. And at least among the overtly racist people I know – I’m on a trip to visit my mother in rural Georgia last week, but the same is true in the Pacific Northwest or anywhere else – as Boo says, they genuinely believe their own bullshit. E.g., “I’m not racist. It’s not my fault blacks on average are stupider than whites. It’s just fact.” And so on. They aren’t even dimly aware that they themselves are the best counterargument. And that’s not even addressing institutional racism, which is where the most serious and intractable problems are.
I very much have a love/hate relationship with this country. The racism at the core of its DNA is one of the things I hate the most. The people who work and fight against that racism, overtly or simply by how they live their lives, are one of the things I love and admire the most. The arc of justice is slow. But it is moving.
A gunshot.
John Lewis’s voice, cut off by a gunshot.
In response to an event about Martin Luther King, whose voice was also cut off by a gunshot.
This woman should be pelted with rotten vegetables when she walks down the street.
What do you have against rotten vegetables?
I’ve got a better idea, Joe — let her wake up some morning and discover she’s black, living in a crappy neighborhood, with a minimum wage dead-end job — and fully conscious of who she was when she went to bed the night before.
And let her live with that, with no way out.
And she makes a good living with this crap. Sigh.
This is the context where it’s especially helpful to listen to this week’s edition of “Backstory”.
MEDIA ALERT: TONIGHT ON PBS, THE PREMIERE OF THE DOCUMENTARY: THE MARCH…commemorating the 50th March on Washington with archival footage of the March and video from organizers, speakers, and others who were present at the march. WATCH IT WITH YOUR KIDS.
THE MARCH | Participant personal remembrances | PBS
THE MARCH | The day of the event | PBS
THE MARCH | Harry Belafonte organizes March attendees | PBS
THE MARCH | Kennedy administrations’s concerns | PBS