Reverend Al Sharpton was on the radio. Since 2005 was such an unprecedented year for the masks (or, the hoods, as it were) to fall off, what with the racist freakout that was media coverage of the Katrina Disaster, we gave Reverend Al our undivided attention. He said something I really liked:
"Our problem has changed, but only slightly," (I paraphrase) "We, as black people in America no longer have to worry about Jim Crow. We have to worry about James Crow, Jr, Esquire."
From Digby at Firedoglake:
Lee Atwater discussed the GOP’s dilemma way back in 1980:‘’You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.
‘’And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, ‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘Nigger, nigger.”’
You take the Corporate Media's disproportionate condemnation of Cynthia McKinney vs. the lukewarm outrage over Accused Felon Tom DeLay, it's hard to ignore which buttons are being pushed.
You should go read all of Digby's excellent entry. He nails it.
the old rugged crosspost
