The Racism of Frame

Wow.

Ta-Nehisi Coates on The Racism of Frame:

On Friday I joked on twitter, the other day, that biggest problem with attempting to write smart is that you end up attracting people who really are smart. And sometimes they write in to tell you you’re wrong. And sometimes, In such cases, your forced to acknowledge their point.

Continue reading “The Racism of Frame”

Proud to Be Cynical

Proud to Be Cynical:

Mike Huckabee, in 2011, on Natalie Portman having a child with a man she’s engaged to, before they’ve actually married:

‘One of the most troubling things is that people see a Natalie Portman or some other Hollywood starlet that boasts of, hey look, we’re having children, we’re not married, but we’re having children and they’re doing just fine.’

‘There aren’t really a lot of single moms out there that are making millions of dollars each year by being in a movie’

‘I think it gives a distorted image that not everybody hires nannies and caretakers and nurses. Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can’t get a job, and if it weren’t for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and would not get healthcare.’

Mike Huckabee, in 2008, on Bristol Palin having a child with a man she was engaged to, before they’d actually married:

‘It ought to be a reminder that here is a family that loves one another. They stuck with each other though the tough times and that’s what families do.’ … Huckabee said the surprise pregnancy announcement should not affect vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s support in the conservative and religious right communities. … ‘I’m grateful for the way she’s being supported by her family.’

There is a lot wrong here which I’m sure you guys can tease out. That last ‘most single moms’ sentence is heinous.

But again facts don’t really matter here. This is a strict ideology built on an alternate reality. You can’t reason with people who not only believe their president is Kenyan, but need to believe he’s Kenyan. The belief comes first. The casus belli of white populism is resentment of those not like us. Facts are mere materiel meant to be invented, discarded, smelted and recast in service of the cause.

It’s very hard to love these people.

Loud and Wrong

Proud Of Being Ignorant:

“What runs through Adam’s point, and Andrew’s point is one of the common threads of white populism–a rejoicing in not knowing things. It does not much matter to Huckabee that Obama wrote an entire book investigating the lack of a relationship between him and his father. It does not matter that Obama’s father and Kenyatta were ultimately of different factions. And most damning of all, it does not matter that every year on July 4th the country which Huckabee claims to love effectively throws national anti-colonial bash celebrating its liberation from the British.

The easy claim to make here is that the difference between American anti-colonialist and British anti-colonialist is skin color. Were it so simple. More likely, I think, Huckabee just doesn’t much care. A significant portion of the conservative base fundamentally believes Obama, not simply to be wrong, but to be an outsider to the American tradition.”

(Via Ta-Nehisi Coates :: The Atlantic.)