Tag Archive for: Donald Sterling

Racism, Sexism, Hate-Speech: Let’s level the playing field

What is this world coming to?

While presenting a monologue on HBO in 2012, comedian Bill Maher called former republican governor Sarah Palin a “cunt “and “dumb twat”on national television. (excuse the graphic reference, it was necessary, for effect)

What were Maher’s consequences? Laughs.

No walk-out from women’s groups. No protests from feminists. No demand for resignation from anyone. No response from the FCC.

Maher is still working as an unfunny comedian, drawing audiences in theaters and on television, while the left-leaning media refer to his critics as right wing nuts or republican extremists. Instead of banishing, HBO signs him to more multi-million dollar contracts, some proceeds of which is proudly filtered to democratic campaigns, including Barack Obama.

The double-standard is nauseating.

There is no term more disgusting or vile to call any female, be it in private, or more so, for millions to hear – ON PURPOSE. It is far more vile than calling a black person the “N” word. The “N” word is prolifically acceptable in many venues, particularly by blacks themselves, including rap music, black theater, black on black in sports and entertainment, and in the streets in general. The “N” word is used far more often by blacks than by whites. Yet, whites are dumbed down, excoriated as racists should they use that same term.

If a prominent white person makes negative reference to blacks in any manner, he/she will be expelled, disbarred, disengaged, fired, castigated and hated in the media. Follow the path of banished food icon, Paula Deen, who admits that she used the “N” word sometimes in her early life. Twelve years a success on television; She’s out!

The “N” became the focus on the O.J. Simpson trial, as referred to in former detective Mark Fuhrman’s history. It had virtually NOTHING to do with the evidence of murdering two people by Simpson, yet it clouded the entire trial. The defense infuriated the mostly black jury using emotion, not evidence, as proof of innocence.

In 2007, Donald Imus lost his MSNBC talk show when he referred to the Rutgers basketball team as “nappy-headed hoes,” a term taken from within the black community and in rap music where it was often uttered. Imus was banished. Out.

But it’s okay to call a female politician a “cunt.” That’s not worth losing a job. It’s worth laughs and big contracts. Truth is, people like Maher think they’re immune from decorum and decency because they have a political constituency on their side.

Can anyone imagine that from a Johnny Carson or Jay Leno?

The “Racist” term is bandied about so much these days that it has lost it’s true meaning. People (including black politicians and journalists) who expose Barack Obama’s failings as a president, are ultimately deemed “racist.” When the president’s integrity is questioned, the convenient response is the “R” word. Cloud it up. I’ve been critical of Obama’s policies, and sure enough, I’ve been subjected to accusations of “racism.”

A 2013 Rasmussen poll found that, between blacks, whites and Hispanics, blacks are the most racist – even according to blacks.

The nation’s most prominent racist has been promoted to a commentator on MSNBC. Al Sharpton’s racist reputation came to the forefront in the now-famous Tawana Brawley case where he went after white men for raping a black girl, who lied. She wasn’t raped at all. Yet, when one black girl accuses whites of raping her, Al Sharpton is out of the woodwork. Never mind, that interracial rapes are committed far more often by blacks on whites than whites on blacks. And considering the population ratios, the odds show that white females will be a hundred times more likely to be raped by blacks, than a black females will be raped by whites. But leave it up to the famous reverend to inject “Racism” as the key adjective in anything he pursues. He was also famous for encounters with Jewish shopkeepers, using the term “white interlopers” in New York City 25 years ago. The target of that verbal assault had his shop burned down. Thank you Reverend Sharpton.

Sharpton has used the “N” word as much as any white bigot, including those directed at former black Mayor David Dinkins. Just recently, Sharpton has been exposed in video tapes from his earlier period as an FBI informant for alleged favors, an “N-word” spouting activist with no more interest in helping the black community other than raising all the support and money he can to espouse his political agenda. Sharpton, nevertheless, is admired by the president and by Attorney General Eric Holder. In other words, if you’re black, it’s ok. “If you’re white, we’ll get you.”

George Zimmerman committed no act of racism when he shot and killed Trayvon Martin in the tragic incident in Sanford, Florida in 2012. None whatsoever! Zimmerman’s entire life had been infused with multiculturalism, tolerance and friendships with blacks, including mentoring black kids. But no sooner than the “preliminary” reports came out that a white man shot a black teenage kid, the hordes of Sharptonites came out of the woodwork, demonstrating in the streets – aided by the Holder Justice Department – condemning Zimmerman, trying and convicting him in the press and then lashing him and his family with death threats. All this based on the premise that Zuimmerman was a racist, when in fact, he was not…as proven in his trial.

That was the same justice department, incidentally, that dropped the charges against the new Black Panthers in 2009 for wearing fatigues and intimidating white voters with night sticks at a precinct in Philadelphia, a clear-cut federal crime. But if you’re black, it’s ok. If that was the KKK, the culprits would still be in prison today.

It’s time for change all right. It’s time the race baiters face their own condemnation and charges of incitement.

I agree, that there is no room for racism in America. But it is just as wrong for a black to be a racist, than it is for a white.

L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling was surreptitiously recorded on a phone line that was taped, without his knowledge or approval. That’s a crime in many states, including California. When I speak to any person on a phone, I have a reasonable expectation of privacy. If that is violated, no matter my opinions of anything, (excepting threats to national security) someone should be charged and prosecuted.

The words of Mr. Sterling were prejudiced, racist and vile. But they were not boldly aired, they were intended as private. Nevertheless, now that they are public, team players are understandably outraged and consequences are undoubtedly forthcoming. But we must also remember that Donald Sterling is an American, just like you and me, who enjoys the rights provided by the First Amendment. He has a right to be prejudiced, he has a right to be a racist, he has a right to hate anyone he wants, he has a right to all his opinions so long as his views do not injure or deprive others of their due rights and entitlements.

And if we’re going to be so indignant, perhaps we should write MSNBC a letter expressing outrage they have employed a racist as a journalist, which destroys the credibility of that cable news station.

Demonizing is a two-way street. Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it.

If Sterling must go, Bill Maher must go.

RELATED STORIES:

Bill Maher Calls Sarah Palin A ‘Dumb [Vagina]‘ | NewsBusters

Rev. Al Sharpton worked as FBI informant, taping conversations with mob

What About Donald Sterling’s Right To Privacy? – NPR

Sterling, Media and the Race Card — a Confederacy of Dunces – Larry Elder Page 1

FrontPage Magazine – The Truth of Interracial Rape in the United States

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo was taken in 1989 by Cliff Wildes. It is of Cliff Wildes NBA sponsor with Donald Sterling owner of LA Clippers (center).  This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

So What if Cliven Bundy is a “Racist”?

For the record, I don’t believe Cliven Bundy is a “racist.”

For the record, I don’t even care.

Such indifference to that damnable failing, that thing we all know is the worst thing one can be, must make me a damnable man. But I am flexible. I just want equality. I’m perfectly willing to demonize “racists,” provided we give other sinners equal time.

I just want to hear, for example, “Forget the facts of the matter! The man is lustful!” or “Don’t listen to that miscreant. He’s guilty of sloth!” Or let’s say a fellow posits an opinion on, oh, taxation. Our very intellectual response could be, “Hey, didn’t I hear you talkin’ to your girlfriend about how you scarfed down four cheeseburgers at the barbecue and binged on ice cream in your easy chair? Look, everyone, he’s a glutton!”

This isn’t to say that being a bigot — the word “racist” is in quotation marks because it’s an invention of leftist language manipulators — is a good thing. Not at all. But neither is being lustful, slothful or gluttonous. Yet people who couldn’t name three of the Seven Deadly Sins and are thoroughly guilty of at least six, will claim they can disqualify a person, and his point of view, from debate based on their assessment of his moral state. What blindness — and hubris.

Bigotry is simply a sub-category of wrath, one part of one-seventh, not the moral end-all and be-all. And even if Bundy did have racial hang-ups, would it follow that he was wrong about his case or on federal power in general? Can a man be flawed, and even sinful, but yet right on a matter? Can he still have virtues? Albert Einstein could be lewd and lascivious, Galileo an irascible jerk, Ernest Hemingway was a drunkard.

This isn’t to say, as certain people with poor character once averred, that character doesn’t matter. It’s not to say a person’s vices can’t speak to motivations; it’s valid to point it out if a judge who rules that pornography has First Amendment protections habitually views porn himself. But it’s not valid to fixate on the allegedly “racist” tendencies of a judge who rules that racial commentary enjoys such protections (at least not within the context of analyzing the ruling). The difference is that since the former is wrong, there’s good reason to believe that his personal inclinations corrupted his judgment on the matter; with the latter judge, however, dwelling on the supposed flaw in question would only serve to discredit a legitimate ruling.

The point is that we all have flaws, yet all can be correct about a whole host of things. I wouldn’t have wanted Einstein to care for a teenage daughter or be president, but I wouldn’t deny that E=mc2.

Of course, it really is true that some flaws are more unequal than others — there is a hierarchy of sin — but moderns’ sense of proportion is highly askew. G.K. Chesterton said that a “Puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things.” Today we have Impuritans, complete reprobates worshipping at hedonism’s altar, who pour their indignation onto others in a vain attempt to wash their own souls clean of sin. But there is much more to being a “good” person than simply not being bigoted.

To further illustrate this askew sense of proportion, consider again the gluttony example. Gluttony is a sin, no doubt. But now let’s say that our society considered it the ultimate disqualifier. Let’s say we might scrutinize a person, asking “What are his food bills?” “Do cookbooks figure too prominently in his library?” “Does he wile away excessive time watching Emeril Live?” “Is he the one who cleared the buffet table like a hurdler?” And imagine we visited pariah status on the person after deeming him guilty.

Would you think this society’s greater fault was gluttony — or being hung-up about it? I’d think it exhibited a gluttonous zeal for eradicating gluttony.

The problem is that man always swings from one extreme to another. The early to mid 20th century saw the embrace of eugenics and racial-superiority dogma, which was then discredited by the loathsome Nazis. But now we just as zealously impose a dogma denying the reality of group differences and mandating equality of outcome among races.

This tendency toward true extremism — meaning, extreme deviation from Truth — brings to mind C.S. Lewis’ observation that evil always tries to persuade us to exaggerate our flaws, telling the militant he’s too pacifistic and the pacifist that he’s too militant. As an example, today we have Impuritans who, awash in the Great Sexual Heresy, will still lament how “Puritan” America is so sexually “repressed.” Evil tells the pervert he’s too prudish, just as it tells self-hating whites that they’re too anti-black.

But what we should be is anti-“racism.” I don’t mean what you think. We need to oppose both the word and the concept — at least how the latter is often conceptualized.

Bigotry is bad by definition, and that definition is commonly agreed upon. But “racism” often has a different meaning, one whose influence is readily apparent in the reaction to Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s much reported comments. Al Sharpton, who once used the term “white interlopers” and once said, “White folks was in caves while we were building empires…,” called for a boycott of the NBA. Former hoop star Larry Johnson reacted to a man who didn’t want blacks around by saying he didn’t want whites around, as he suggested creating an all-black basketball league. Spike Lee told CNN he wished that white NBA players would speak out against Sterling, which is a bit like John Gotti having wished that someone would speak out against racketeering. And Barack Obama took time away from destroying our world standing, healthcare system, social policy and economy to say that “comments reportedly made by Sterling are ‘incredibly offensive racist statements,’ before casting them as part of a continuing legacy of slavery and segregation that Americans must confront,” wrote CBS DC. He then opined, “When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don’t really have to do anything; you just let them talk” (you don’t have to do anything except, I suppose, “confront” a “legacy of slavery and segregation”). But, okay, I’ll just let Obama talk.

Now, opportunism is often a factor in such hypocrisy, but there is something else: a striking sense of entitlement. This is why many black people will condemn a white person for making a bigoted comment with an equally bigoted comment without batting an eye; when whites are bigoted, it’s “racist”; when blacks are, it’s something else. And, in fact, this idea is encapsulated in the definition of “racism” I alluded to earlier. It’s one you’ve probably heard:

Only whites can be “racist” because a prerequisite for “racism” is not only bigoted intent, but the power to act upon it.

And, actually, they’ll get no argument from me. As I’ve said before, the left originated the word “racism,” so they may define it. They may have it.

And if they ask, I’ll tell them where they can stick it.

The problem is that conservatives, being conservative — meaning, conserving yesterday’s liberals’ social victories — parrot the word. It’s another example of how, forgetting that the side defining the vocabulary of a debate, wins the debate, conservatives slavishly use the Lexicon of the Left.

Of course, eventually this will all be left in the dustbin of history. Movements, peoples and civilizations come and go, and we’ll get over our fixation with one part of one-seventh of the Deadly Sins. And then man will swing to another extreme, as he goes on to the next great mistake.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com

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