YES, IT’S TRUE. I’M A DORK
At least Chris Muir thinks so.
Mr. Muir had some interesting thoughts on my criticism of his putting Hillary in black face on his cartoon during his appearance on Ed’s CQ Radio show yesterday.
I have a somewhat short (for me) response here. Mr. Muir accused me of being politically correct as well, by inference, of not being a “thinking person” and of being “ludicrous” for taking his symbolic use of black face as anything hateful.
Mmmkay…I agree Chris was not trying to be hateful. And my point is that some things are hateful regardless of context - something that Muir and most of the commenters here and on my site reject out of hand.
To buttress my case, let’s hear from 1 (one) African American blogger on this subject:
Look, white people: I would like to speak for all black people just this once and inform you that we will be happy to let you know when we think a politician or public figure is being patronizing and pandering to us racially speaking. As a group, generally we’ve got a pretty good handle on the whole racism thing. We don’t need your help in recognizing and calling our attention to it. Your help in pushing back on that person and confirming the racism is extremely helpful once we’ve called it out, e.g. Don Imus. Certainly, calling out racism using blackface as a metaphor is neither welcome nor helpful. Ever. The misuse historically of that image by white entertainers and advertisers to demean and degrade us for humor and profit is still too fresh in our minds for us to feel comfortable with you using it, even if you mean well.
Do you hear any African-Americans criticizing Clinton, Obama or Edwards for pandering to the black community? It’s just not a common complaint at the moment. We are eager to hear more from candidates about issues impacting us. For most of us, it feels like it’s about time someone paid attention and engaged on more than a superficial level with black voters. Until we start complaining, Chris Muir and the rest of you wingnuts especially — back it on up and check yourselves.
What is interesting is that the blogger makes some of the same points Muir made in his criticism of my piece yesterday - that blacks can figure things out for themselves and don’t need white people telling them when to feel bad about the use or abuse of some symbol or language.
I know…I know…I’m still a politically correct dork. So have at me again people.
April 27th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Uh, I don’t know if you knew this, but Chris Muir is black.
Just FYI.
And yes, you’re a dork. So is the “African American blogger” that you cite.
As I recall, John Walker Lindh played a black man on the internet before he became an Islamic jihadist.
April 27th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
(Also posted in comments at Right Wing Nuthouse blog:)
At his RWN blog, Rick Moran said:
“But I will continue to make the argument that yes indeed, there are some symbols and words that are just too offensive, too drenched with a history of repression and violence that the use of them in any context and regardless of intent is just plain wrong.”
What this argument fails to allow for is the fact that as time passes subsequent generations tend to form and follow new trends in language.
The “black face”, in the context used by Chris Muir, is today’s generations’ way of nailing the tag of “hypocrite” right to the target.
I’m sick of political correctness, which dredges up history from the rotting corpses that long ago should have turned to ashes. Who I am today, who we are today as a nation, is NOT defined by our history, but rather whether we have learned the -lessons- of that history and are actively growing and changing to incorporate the wisdom gleaned by past mistakes.
Putting people on a perpetual guilt trip simply because long ago generations were not sophisticated enough to recognize the destructive trends of their eras is foolish and self-defeating.
My ancestors were Vikings. And I was born and raised in Camden, New Jersey, into a very poor, very large white family. My neighbors were Blacks, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, Irish, on and on. We didn’t have to deal with racial prejudices back then because we were too racially diverse. But we shared the common bond of being dirt poor.
Shall I tell you what kind of extremely destructive and hurtful prejudices exist against poor folk, especially poor white trash? I think not. Just like any other prejudice and hardship in life, it had to be overcome.
Rather than waste time running around like “thought police”, I think you “politically correct” types would help things along much more effectively by comparing past and present, looking for the improvements that have been made, even small ones, and sharing that wisdom for all of us living in today’s very complex world.
And give positive advice and offer growth-encouraging perspectives where appropriate, instead of having knee-jerk reactionary lynchings should someone slip up.
This is the 21st Century, after all.