Discussion for article #221039
āThis is not a witch hunt," Walden retorted. āI donāt want the IRS targeting any group, whether itās liberal or conservative.ā
Jeez, this is so idiotic. If the IRS ātargetedā groups from both ends of the spectrum and in between then they werenāt ātargetingā any group. They were simply doing their jobs to investigate whether or not groups were engaged in inappropriate political activity. This is all part of the GOP culture of perpetual victimhood, where the IRS doing their due diligence in investigating groups applying for tax exempt status is somehow some plot by scary black president to somehow undermine their freedom.
And just once when someone plays the Benghazi card, Iād like someone to ask them how much investigating this Congress did in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting which resulted in the deaths of 26 people, 20 of which were babies.
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"But to a significant extent, the Republican base does have elements that are animated by racism, and thatās unfortunate."
Sometimes I think the real America can be found in comments, and not just on Fox, but TPM, WaPo, Atlantic, New Yorker, TNR, etc, where the racist conservatives come out in full racist mode. (You know theyāre Republicans because they bash Democrats in the same comment.)
Unfortunately, I think youāre exactly right. Iām glad more Democrats are calling them out on it instead of continuing to pretend this is all ideological when it clearly isnāt. I especially like the fact that itās white Democrats doing it (except with Eric Holder) because I think white folks are more likely to take these charges more seriously when it comes from white folk.
I wish the calling out would be taken seriously no matter who is doing the calling out, but alas ā¦
But why do you say racism isnāt ideological? Iām not saying all Republicans are racists, but clearly the people who are overtly racist belong to the Republican party. So wouldnāt that make racism ideological, or am I missing something?
I think maybe I wasnāt very clear. What tends to happen all too often is that some of the nastiest opposition to the president is chalked up to understandable, ideological differences when they clearly arenāt. I donāt think racism is in and of itself ideological. Iāve seen on the left what I would categorize not as racism so much, but extreme white privilege (Firedoglake, Iām looking at all yaāll). I donāt think racism is just for the right. I think there are a few factions on the left that are just as racist but for different reasons. There are some on the left that infantalize black folk the same way that the right does, only it doesnāt come from the same place. Itās not because they think weāre inherently bad, but because they think weāre inherently stupid. A good example is the debate on the left about the drug war. Many of the black men locked up behind the drug war need to be locked up and were terrorizing their neighborhoods before they caught a drug charge. See: Ricky Kelly of Louisville (brilliant, truly gifted sociopath who leaves a graveyard of bodies in his wake).
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Got it, thanks. And I know that the some of the nastiest opposition isnāt about policies but about racism.
I agree about the white privilege found everywhere, including the left. Iām not sure why weāre still so unaware, but I will say that experiencing an eye-opening encounter with it made me much more teachable on the subject. Even with that, Iām pretty sure that Iām still not aware of the totality of it.
One of my pet peeves is so called āreverse racismā, but Iāll spare you the rant, Plucky.
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Itās funny, seashell, I didnāt know about the āwhite privilegeā until a few years ago. I just knew my white friends didnāt understand things like I thought they should, but I didnāt know there was a name for that. White folk school me about race almost as much as black folk.
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Plucky, I think the term āwhite privilegeā has been around for awhile, but mostly in the halls of academia. Somehow it escaped and filtered down to the rest of us, only to be fiercely attacked by the very people it describes so well. And then thereās the Republicans. Sigh.