• The following comes courtesy of Lane Crothers, a.k.a Politicalprof, a professor of politics and government at Illinois State University, in Normal, IL.:

    I remember when the lottery for higher education passed in SC. Every student that went to college received a voucher for x amount of dollars. So what do you think happened to the cost of higher education in SC. The tuition increased by the same amount as the voucher.

    This is a valid concern. There is no doubt that many universities have taken the increased availability of student loans and/or support programs from state and local governments and used them to raise their tuitions to meet the monies available. Thus, rather than economize, they saw opportunities to build “up charges” into their pricing, and get “extra” money (beyond the money cut by the state) into their budgets.

    On the other hand, as the article I linked to noted, this was more common at major research universities than it was at “mid-level” universities like mine. At places like mine, tax replacement more or less accounts for current tuition rates.

    Moreover, it seems to me that our understandable focus on tuition has left us incapable of seeing the real complexity of running a campus. Because of budget cuts in the 1980s and 1990s, for example, most campuses have huge backlogs of what we call “deferred maintenance”: the operating costs required to maintain, repair and replace aging buildings and infrastructure. When the states started chopping funding (again) in the 2000s, lots of campuses (like mine) were filled with buildings where plumbing, electric systems, roofs and other components were deteriorating quickly. So, yeah: lots of campuses took “extra” money and used it on buildings. Indeed, in some cases they used it to fix roofs; in others, they built climbing walls in elaborate student rec centers.

    I get that people feel squeezed 87 ways to Tuesday. I was unspeakably blessed to have gotten through higher ed when I did, and I am — frankly — worried at how even someone with the advantages I have will pay for college for my children when they get there … many, many years from now. I do really, sincerely, get it.

    The plain truth is that society no longer considers higher education a public good that the public should subsidize through taxes. Rather, society considers college a private good individuals should pay for on their own. This transition is occurring at a time when the existing architecture of higher education — lots of physical campuses spread around states — is aging, but no credible alternative has emerged to replace it. (Online just has too many problems to work for most people.)

    So this generation is getting squeezed on both ends: they have to pay to maintain the old system even as the public bails out. It’s not pretty.

    Sometimes I get sad.

  • I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

    The above quoted is just one of many often cited from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's iconic "I Have a Dream" speech. It's also one that's often taken out of context by many people, mainly those who want to twist the above quoted's ultimate meaning to fit their own perspectives.

    In other words, I've seen and heard instances where the phrase "content of their character" is often used to implicitly reinforce one's prejudices and preconceived notions of a particular group. During my brief lurkings at the Free Republic, I ran into constant examples of people denigrating a certain segment of black Americans as criminal-minded and predisposed to general thuggery, only to claim that they were merely looking at "the content of their character, as Dr. King would have them do."

    Then there are others who use "the content of their character" to justify their opposition towards measures developed to achieve the sort of equality that was denied for so long (and continues to be denied, in many cases.) For example, opponents of Affirmative Action may ask that if Dr. King was so intent on having people judge black Americans solely on "the content of their character," then perhaps they don't need such a measure at all, since "the content of their character" would supposedly be all they needed to integrate and thrive in the American mainstream.

    Of course, this ignores both historic and ongoing efforts to exclude black Americans from the mainstream. It's the equivalent of beating a man into paraplegia and then expecting him to win a marathon. Asking why he would need someone to push him around would be an unnecessary action.

    Personally speaking, I believe Dr. King wanted his children to grow up in a world willing to acknowledge its shortcomings and work sincerely and diligently to correct those flaws. He didn't want them growing up in a world that used the notion of "colorblindness" as an excuse to completely paper over and ignore the deep-set problems of structural and institutionalized racism.

    He also didn't want them growing up in a world where his speeches, his words and his legacy would be appropriated and perverted into unrecognizable soundbites that certain people can hide behind to mask their own inability or unwillingness to judge others solely on character and not based on preconceived notions.


    The idea of being asked to judge someone solely by their character, only to be told to help them based on something other than their character confuses many, especially if they are not cognizant of the underlying problems that ingrained and institutionalized racism pose. In fact, it seems to certain people as though black Americans want to enjoy a double-standard of sorts - help us based on race, but don't judge us based on race.

    As a result, a group of people whose socio-economic growth was deliberately throttled by a combination of sanctioned institutional action and personal prejudice are now constantly told to go about the process of recovery alone, without any sort of assistance. After all, why need a helping hand when mainstream society finally sees fit to overlook their own prejudices in favor of "the content of their character?"



    Joy DeGruy's account of her own personal character being blatantly overlooked by a cashier in favor of said cashier's own preconceived notions drives home why "the content of their character" takes on a bitter edge on the tongues of some. That people are content to judge based on their own assumptions, only to break out the "content of their character" chestnut to reinforce or explain away their assumptions shows that there's a lot of work to be done in untangling the Gordian knot of ethnic relations in this country.

    That DeGruy had to carefully consider her response without falling into the dreaded "angry black woman" stereotype before her sister-in-law, noted as able to pass for white, stepped to her defense with a heavy dose of white privilege welded against the cashier, is also an unfortunate indicator of Dr. King's dream being a distant goal.

    White privilege is being able to dress however you want and not be thrown out of a store, harassed by security guards, or assumed you’re some sort of thug.

    Every time I walk out of my house, I need to question my appearance. Do I look dangerous? Do I look like a shoplifter? Do I look like I’m up to no good? If I wear sweat pants and sneakers, will people assume I’m from the ghetto? If I dress too nicely, will people assume I bought my clothes with drug money? If I walk into a store, will the shop assistants ignore me or will security escort me out? If I speak too loudly, will people assume I’m being “sassy” or “trashy”? If I speak too quietly, will people assume I’m not very bright? And so on.

    This is what people have to deal with when others choose to judge them on assumptions and notions. Trayvon Martin and countless others were judged on assumptions about their character and not based on who they really were as people. Those who judge based on assumptions then carelessly throw around the "content of their character" to impose a "colorblind" scenario that denies black Americans the right to address their concerns and ask for assistance and recompense.

    From Dr. King himself:

    "It is impossible to create a formula for the future which does not take into account that our society has been doing something special against the Negro for hundreds of years. How then can he be absorbed into the mainstream of American life if we did not do something special for him now, in order to balance the equation and equip him to compete on an equal basis?

    It is obvious that if a man is entering the starting line of a race three hundred yeas after another man, the first would have to perform some impossible feat in order to catch up with his fellow runner."


  • August 28, 1963 marked one of the most iconic moments in the history of the Civil Rights Movement. It was the day of black American civil rights champion Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's famous speech at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., delivered from the steps of a memorial dedicated to U.S. president Abraham Lincoln, another person who, among countless others, played a role in making the so-called "peculiar institution" a bit less commonplace in the American landscape.

    More than 200,000 people were in attendance to hear the following speech, featured in the video below and in an archived transcript:



    Dr. King was rightfully appalled by the nation's continuing efforts to maintain a parallel system that effectively reduced black Americans to a second-class existence, primarily as a group to be merely tolerated when their services were needed, ignored whenever possible and denigrated, parodied and outright abused for sport. Attempts to make themselves heard and known were often met with both sanctioned and unsanctioned violence from common mobs and law enforcement.

    Dr. King's legendary speech was just one of many that laid bare the truth of America's refusal to fulfill its own claims of offering freedom and liberty to all who lived within its borders. It was - and remains today - a powerful condemnation of the nation's continued refusal to accord a significant portion of its population so much as the right to be treated with common decency and respect, regardless of their appearance or lineage.

    It's been 50 years to the day of Dr. King's moving speech at the footsteps of the Lincoln Memorial. In those five decades, the realization of the civil rights leader's ultimate dream of genuine equality for all people has been met with both triumphs and setbacks. These are signs that point to this dream as an ever-continuing work-in-progress - one that's likely to continue for as long as this country exists.

  • While the president's citizenship eligibility has always been a bone of contention among conservatives throughout his term, there's not much ado about Ted Cruz's Canadian heritage:

    When Democrat Barack Obama was running for president in 2008, Republican voter Christina Katok of Walden said she believed he was ineligible for the job.

    She reasoned that he was born in Kenya and therefore wasn’t a “natural born” American — one of a handful of constitutional requirements for the job. (Obama's birth certificate shows that he was born in Hawaii, but some critics do not accept that as fact.)

    Fast forward six years and another freshman U.S. senator, Canadian-born Tea Party firebrand Ted Cruz of Texas, is being mentioned as a potential 2016 presidential candidate. But Katok, who would vote for Cruz in a heartbeat, doesn’t have any concerns about his eligibility.

    “As far as I’m concerned, Canada is not really foreign soil,” she said. Katok said she was more disturbed by Obama's "strong ties to Kenya," the African country where his father was born. She also said she didn’t like the fact that Obama did not release his long-form birth certificate during the 2008 race.

    Cruz, who recently released his Canadian birth certificate, is at least “up front about it,” she said.

    No wonder the alternative spelling for "hypocrisy" involves the letters G, O and P.

    What's being left out of the conversation is the real reason why the so-called "birthers" were up in arms over the president's alleged Kenyan origin, despite his fulfillment of all the constitutional requirements for presidential eligibility. Cruz's Canadian birth certificate is of as little issue to conservatives as his heritage or his appearance, both which are sufficiently American enough to pass muster with birthers and Teabaggers who are chafing under Barack Obama's leadership.

    Canada isn't as foreign as Hawaii, nor is it as "dark" or "exotic," if you get my drift. Also, Eleanor Elizabeth Wilson Darragh didn't commit the cardinal sin of cavorting with black men or giving birth to a "half-breed," as Stanley Ann Dunham had done. As for his father, Rafael, he managed to bribe his way into the U.S. after realizing that a post-revolution existence in Cuba wasn't as appealing as he previously thought. After his student visa evaporated, so did the elder Cruz's residency in the U.S. Only in 2005 did he remember that his Canadian citizenship would pose problems for his son's political ambitions.

    Which should make the younger Cruz's views on immigration a bit softer than those of his contemporaries:

    "The 11 million who are here illegally would be granted legal status once the border was secured — not before — but after the border was secured, they would be granted legal status," he says. "And indeed, they would be eligible for permanent legal residency. But they would not be eligible for citizenship."

    Or maybe not. The above would turn today's illegal immigrant into an ersatz version of Japan's Zainichi Koreans - able to live in the U.S. as permanent residents, but not able to vote or otherwise participate in politics. It's fortunate for the younger Cruz that such a policy didn't exist during his younger days, otherwise his political ambitions would have been as limited as the average illegal immigrant's hopes of getting U.S. citizenship the safe and legal way.

    Out of consideration for the birthers, the younger Cruz not only released a copy of his birth certificated, but he also announced that he would renounce his Canadian citizenship - he has yet to visit a Canadian Embassy and get it all done in writing, for good.

    Being the antithesis of Barack Obama in some respects is Cruz's strongest appeal among conservatives. He's neither a "Negroid half-breed" nor was he born in some seemingly exotic locale. Unlike Mitt Romney, he's not some neo-aristocratic nitwit whom conservatives of all stripes had to hold their nose to support, nor is he a visibly batshit insane wet dream for the teabagger types. As long as there aren't any skeletons flying out of his closet, he's a shoe-in as a 2016 GOP candidate.

  • Just want to remind frequent readers that there is, in fact, an abridged version of "Different Day, Same Shit" that's updated on a near-daily basis. As originally intended, this place will play host to longer, more substantial and better though-out blog posts.

    Here's a link to DDSS Abridged. In fact, there's a link in the upper right-hand corner, right next to the Twitter link, which unlike the abridged blog is updated whenever the hell I damn well please. So there's that.



  • The above video shows exactly what a "perfect storm of abusive power and arrogance" looks like. Watch the video in its entirety. This is what a police state looks like.

    Also, note the conduct and demeanor of the deputies involved. They crack jokes, hurl abuse, intimidate and issue threats. One deputy even states, "I wish we could cane the both of y'all though." Highly aggressive, antagonistic and waiting for an opportunity to issue physical and possibly lethal violence.

    All because one of the occupants had a warrant for an overdue $1,000 civil fine, which was paid the next day.

    The Dekalb County, Georgia sheriff has already vowed to punish the seven deputies and their sergeant for their conduct. Sadly, most "punishments" involve the words "paid leave" and "suspension with pay."

    As one of the deputies barked, "there's repercussions and consequences behind everything you do!" For the deputies involved in this shameful and arrogant display, we'll see.

  • For the past few months, Koch Carbon, an affiliate of Koch Industries, stored tons of petroleum coke on a lot near the Detroit-Windsor Ambassador Bridge. This stuff happens to be a byproduct of the ongoing tar sands oil operations in Alberta, Canada. When it's not sitting idle on some industrial lot, the "pet coke" is usually shipped overseas as a cheap but nastier alternative to coal.

    Normally, this stuff is hosed down with an epoxy to keep it from blowing everywhere. The following is what happens when the epoxy stops working.



    After seeing portions of the city devolve into wastelands and crumble to bits, the average Detroiter probably thinks this is the shriveled cherry on top of a heaping shit sundae. Understandably, Detroit and Windsor residents are a bit upset over their respective cities being treated like dumps.

    To top it all off, all of that pet coke was being stored without a permit:

    After months of operating without one, the company responsible for Detroit’s petroleum coke piles went hunting for one Tuesday.

    Detroit Bulk Storage representatives faced a city panel that will decide the issue. At times, panel members were highly skeptical of the company’s actions.

    A company representative said they didn’t know they needed a permit to openly store pet coke along the Detroit River.

    It’s stopped taking additional shipments of the substance — a byproduct of refining Canadian tar sands oil — until it gets one.

    “Our understanding was that once we were moving toward compliance, we could continue our operations,” said Detroit Bulk Storage lawyer Terri Whitehead.

    A Detroit Bulk Storage representative also insists the company is using “best practices” when it comes to handling the openly-stored piles safely.

    Fantastic.

  • Spicy headlines attract readers. They also attract controversy. Chattanooga Times Free Press editor and political commentator Drew Johnson didn't expect his controversial headline to attract a pink slip and a trip to the unemployment office:

    Political commentator Drew Johnson, who had been editing for the Chattanooga Times Free Press for less than a year, was fired from the paper, after telling President Barack Obama to take his jobs’ plan and “shove it” in a headline, according to WND.

    During the President’s visit to the Tennessee town last week, Johnson decided to change a headline to “Take your jobs plan and shove it, Mr. President: Your policies have harmed Chattanooga enough,” causing the article to go viral and stir up controversy.

    Shortly after, Johnson was fired.

    At first, it seems like Drew Johnson was given the pink slip over criticism of President Obama's economic vision. Except that the meat of Johnson's article was left as-is.

    As it turns out, the Chattanooga Free Press claims that Johnson was told on multiple occasions not to dick around with the headlines. On this one, Johnson went so far as to wait until his editor was out for the day before changing the piece's original, less controversial headline to the above highlighted. Judging from the first of many tweets, Johnson wasn't seeing eye-to-eye with the bosses:


    That's a bit disingenuous isn't it, Drew?


    Drew, you knew full well the Times Free Press couldn't let that Johnny Paycheck reference slide under the radar. It's almost as if you were begging for the hammer to come down.


    Is Drew suggesting that the Times Free Press bounced him not because of their stated policy on headlines or their editorial standards, but because he had the temerity to tell the president to that his economic vision for Chattanooga and the rest of the country would make for a wonderful suppository? According to the Huffington Post, he maintains his ouster was for political reasons.

    The Times Free Press, on the other hand, stands by its decision to let Johnson go for violating the newspaper's standards:

    The language he chose was vulgar and not appropriate for this newspaper. Even Johnson himself admitted that the headline was “harsh and perhaps crass to a fault” in an editorial he wrote for this Sunday, which will not run.

    It also noted that Johnson's editorial freedom wasn't infringed upon except for obvious reasons:

    In fact the only instance when the Times Free Press ever denied Johnson the freedom to present his views was last week when he referred to pornography as a “miracle product” and touted the benefits of pornography stating that if teenagers watched pornography it would result in lower rates of teenage pregnancy.

    Porn as a "miracle product." I bet people would have paid good money to see that article.


    After doing the bit on the headline, I sat down and read the article that was attached to it. Overall, it comes off as a standard-issue conservative op-ed piece that strikes against the president and his efforts to spur job creation. Not much to it, except his article makes constant references to EPB, a non-profit utility serving the metro Chattanooga area.

    Although the big highlight of the president's visit was his brief tour of the Amazon fulfillment center, the president also highlighted the city's fiber optic network infrastructure. That belongs to EPB and it's part of a vast fiber optic network that spans a 600 square-mile, nine-county service area. But it's not just ordinary fiber optic service that skids to an abrupt halt at the last mile. If you're one of the lucky folks living within EPB's service area, that network comes straight to your front door.

    That means fast fiber optic Internet service with speeds of up to 1 Gbps. And since EPB is a public utility, that also means cheap fiber optic Internet service. EPB's slowest Internet tier is 50 Mbps for $57.99/month. Compare that to $89.99/month for Comcast's 50 Mbps "Blast Plus" service (or $69.95/month for those who take advantage of online-only 12-month pricing). And unlike Comcast, EPB offers symmetrical upload and download speeds.

    In all honesty, Drew should be glad he can get some "study material" for his piece on porn's "miracle" properties with lightning-fast speed, but alas:

    The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 helped fund the Gig to Nowhere project, a $552 million socialist-style experiment in government-owned Internet, cable and phone services orchestrated by EPB — Chattanooga’s government-owned electric monopoly.

    The Gig to Nowhere is a Smart Grid, a high tech local electricity infrastructure intended to improve energy efficiency and reduce power outages. After lobbying for, and receiving, $111.6 million in stimulus money from your administration, EPB decided to build a souped-up version of the Smart Grid with fiber optics rather than more cost-effective wireless technology. This decision was supposed to allow EPB to provide the fastest Internet service in the Western Hemisphere, a gigabit-per-second Internet speed that would send tech companies and web entrepreneurs stampeding to Chattanooga in droves.

    In reality, though, the gig, like most of the projects funded by your stimulus plan, has been an absolute bust.

    Drew also criticizes EPB for blowing taxpayer dough on its Smart Grid, which has done a lot to make electric service in Chattanooga more efficient, more cost-effective and less prone to getting knocked out of commission during bad storms:

    While the Smart Grid will cost taxpayers and local electric customers well over a half-billion dollars when all is said and done, there has been little improvement in the quality of EPB’s electric service. Worse, despite being heavily subsidized, EPB’s government-owned Internet, cable and telephone outfit that competes head-to-head against private companies like AT&T and Comcast is barely staying afloat, often relying on loans from electric service reserve funds to afford its business expenses.

    The above is the usual argument of public utilities being the business world equivalent of a clapped out Chevy Citation to the private sector's sleek, sexy and efficient Fisker Karma, as personified by Comcast and AT&T. Drew's beef is that EPB is wasting taxpayer money doing what Comcast and AT&T already do, to not only it's own fiscal detriment, but that of it's customers.

    The reality is that both Comcast and AT&T would be perfectly content to extract as much profit as it can without making but the slightest investments into their aging infrastructure. Without a public concern like EPB to make them step up their game, the major ISPs would be more than content to rest on their laurels and rake in the cash, to the everlasting detriment of customers. Which is how Internet service in the U.S. wound up so slow and expensive compared to the rest of the world.

    You can tell poor Drew has it out for EPB and for good reason. According to the former editor, his fiancé found herself out of a job after he wrote a few articles "exposing" the public utility.


    I tried to find info on Drew's fiancé and the reason for her termination, but Google-Fu's failing me. However, I did take a good look at the articles he linked above.

    The first article is a spiel that supposedly outlines how much money EPB wasted on its Smart Grid infrastructure, only to come off as an amateurish wank that ends with these choice nuggets:
    After all, government ownership of companies is the very essence of socialism.
    The true cost of the Smart Grid is liberty.

    The second article is the most interesting. It's about how Iron Labs, an upstart video gaming business, tried to partner with EPB to showcase the potential of the company's gigabit-level services and got cold-shouldered. It then offered to pay for the service and got cold-shouldered again. This led Iron Labs into the arms of Comcast, which proceeded to promote and support the startup.

    The problem? EPB only offers its $300/month 1 Gbps service to residential customers and businesses that only use a fraction of the bandwidth. For everyone else, the price of admission varies. The prospect of EPB having its bandwidth duly tested by hundreds of avid gamers running bandwidth-heavy apps was apparently enough for the company to craft a $9,000/month asking price.

    Drew bangs on EPB for doing what many other ISPs would have done when faced with the same scenario. Meanwhile, Comcast had the cognizance to put a marketing thumb in EPB's eye by welcoming them with open arms.

    Aaron Welch, the president and CEO of Iron Labs, admitted his company didn't necessarily need the gigabit-level bandwidth himself and cleared the air about the whole debacle. You can also see it in the article's comments, provided you get past the Comcast customer rep spam:

    #1. Iron Gaming won the $10,000 Warner Brothers digital media prize in the
    Gigtank Event this summer. We also receive $15,000 in seed capital that
    was funded by local and regional venture groups.

    #2. EPB valued our proposal for the "EPB Gig Gaming Center", an extension
    of the GigLabs project, at $50,000 per an email from Danna Bailey to me.

    #3. We were asking for the "Gig" only to help promote EPB in the media by
    visually showing and making a physical representation of what a "Gig" can
    do for gamers in EPB's customer base. This service would have been
    exclusive to EPB's customer base and have provided a way for Iron Gaming to
    promote our gaming league in the region. Did we NEED a gig, no. When we
    finally asked to pay for the service, we kept getting referred back to
    Danna Bailey and as of August 2 (before the end of the Gigtank Contest) we
    have not heard back from anyone at EPB.

    #4. Our relationship with Comcast has been fantastic from an Iron Labs
    (brick and mortar gaming store) and Iron Gaming (online gaming league)
    perspective. Comcast has helped open doors for us and provided a
    significant amount of support for our startup.

    #5. My only "beef" with EPB is that the people we were dealing with did
    not understand the technical details of what we were offering and therefor
    did not value what the proposal could provide them. To this day I do not
    hold any animosity towards EPB and will still do all that I can in
    supporting them and the growth of the startup community in the "Gig City".

    Aaron Welch
    President
    Iron Labs and Iron Gaming

    In the third article mentioned, Drew compares EPB salaries with those offered by the city of Chattanooga, focusing on the number of people earning six-figure incomes at both. Then he goes on to compare EPB employees to the average resident in Chattanooga. In short, those evil government workers are wasting your hard-earned taxpayer dollars by living high on the socialist hog. And I thought class envy was an affliction only liberals were supposed to suffer.

    To summarize, Drew has a beef with the EPB because:
    1. It's a public concern attempting to offer services that so-called "free market" competitors already offer, making it a juicy target for the former editor's right-leaning fury.
    2. EPB's taken federal handout money to spend on its infrastructure and other concerns, again making itself a juicy target for some good ol' fashioned conservative tongue-lashing.
    3. EPB also ties in to the president's economic vision for the nation. By now, that bullseye is about as big as Lookout Mountain itself.
    4. Drew believes his previous pieces on EPB got his fiancé shit-canned from her job. 
    But don't weep for Drew Johnson just yet. Johnson's tale of how he got burned by his former employer made him the talk of the right-wing media (despite how Johnson's viewpoints are more or less in tune with the libertarian point-of-view), judging from all the support he's gotten from conservative media and his recent appearance on Fox and Friends. He won't have long on the unemployment line - in fact, I do believe he's found himself another job.

  • Some of us have an Inner Child. Others have an Inner Nigger. Is Holder the president’s conscience? Or his Inner Nigger?

    A lot of people went off on the fine chap in the above photo for that quoted line. And why not? "Inner Nigger"? Come on, son. It was the fact that he dropped the dreaded N-word on a relatively mainstream Internet site that was beyond the pale for most folks. And I'll admit, I got caught up in the initial outrage over it, too.

    My first inclination was to jump on the laptop, piggyback on whatever open Wi-Fi hotspot I could find and just go with the flow. In the immediate days after Rich Benjamin's assessment of President Obama's post-Zimmerman trial introspective, I would have verbally whipped this D.L. Hughley-lookin' mofo's behind up and down the block like your momma did that one time, with the Hot Wheels race track.*

    But life outside of DDSS got in the way of that. So now I'm approaching this with a clearer head. Pangs of spoon-fed outrage subside with time and distance from the subject at hand.

    So let's see what this Rich Benjamin feller's piece is all about:

    Finally the president has spoken about George Zimmerman’s acquittal. Even as the country waited for his singular response – the nation’s leader and a law professor who once looked like Trayvon Martin – the president danced around the issues. And what a dramatic anti-climax, listening to the president refuse to say anything insightful or profound about the acquittal. In signature professorial style, the president gave us the “context” to the episode and to black people’s “pain.” But he didn’t offer a meaningful opinion on the episode’s hot molten core: racial profiling, vigilantism, and “Stand Your Ground” laws.

    The one complaint I noticed from those in the black community about President Obama's speech is how he didn't get down deep into the nitty gritty of what's ailing the community. He wasn't as aggressive as some folks wanted him to be. Instead of jolting America awake over the unending saga of racism towards blacks (young males especially), his speech remained, as Benjamin puts it, "safe and airy."

    I did my own review of the president's speech and what I said within still stands: the president is not just the president - he's "America's President™" and any attempt to voice his own deep-down personal outrage over this injustice would cause many Americans to tune him out. As Benjamin himself notes:

    From a tactical standpoint, it’s wise for the president to avoid discussing race and Trayvon Martin. Many white Americans don’t want that discussion. Many whites avoid that discussion due to their sincere ethical desire to wash the stain of racial differentiation from our nation; they see themselves as Reverend King’s color- blind disciples. Still others avoid the topic because they suffer from racial fatigue. They feel harassed and hectored by so-called race hustlers. Enough with that: They want to focus on the technical and legal aspects of Zimmerman’s acquittal.**

    So the president, as always, remained as presidential as he could be while attempting to address his own frustrations over Trayvon Martin's death, Zimmerman's trial and everything in between.

    But Eric Holder doesn't have to be so presidential, which is Benjamin's point:

    Meanwhile, Attorney General Eric Holder delivered trenchant thoughts on the acquittal, demanding action. Before an audience of supporters, Holder recently called for a full investigation of Martin’s death after Zimmerman’s acquittal. Holder vowed that the Justice Department will act “in a manner that is consistent with the facts and the law. We will not be afraid.”

    “We must stand our ground,” he told supporters.

    And this is where the whole "Inner Nigger" thing comes into play. In Benjamin's assessment, Holder's playing the role of Obama's so-called "blacker conscience," someone who's able to speak truth to power without worrying about being tarred and feathered with the "angry black man" moniker. But I have a bit of a problem with that.

    What if Eric Holder's just being his own man? What if the above words aren't Holder playing point man for Obama's innermost thoughts, but rather Holder's own commitment towards insuring that justice is actually served on this matter? And how come the media constantly attempts to force the attorney general into that role?


    Of course, Holder's been outspoken before. After all, this is the same guy who called America a "nation of cowards" for studiously avoiding any serious conversation on ethnic relations. After countless well-meaning white Americans patted themselves on the back for being so forward thinking in voting for a black president, this came as a grievous insult. To many whites, the whole thing just smacked of utter ungratefulness from a black community that not only didn't seem to appreciate their efforts, but went out of its way to chastise their many, often times misguided, attempts in accepting and empathizing with black Americans.

    As a result, I sense many white Americans have decided to throw in the towel on black rapport and instead are retreating into a unique form of racial cynicism. Because their often insincere, paternalistic and patronizing attempts often went over like a solid tungsten balloon, many white Americans have decided to shed their "white guilt" and instead call a spade a spade, if you get the drift.

    That's where things like "race realism" and the constant arguments about the N-word and its usage come from. It's also where guys like Rand Paul get their allure - instead of incessant black appeasement that seems to get white Americans nowhere, there's the refreshing libertarian perspective that isn't afraid to accept certain interpretations of crime stats and the belief in natural black criminality as gospel. They're no longer afraid to tell blacks to "stop whining" or wonder why blacks simply can't do as various immigrants have done and blend into the greater American fabric instead of, and I believe I'm quoting some of the darker corners of the Internet, "wallow in their own filth." Ultimately, they're free to tell themselves "it's okay to be white," as though it was some sort of curse imposed upon them as other minority groups take advantage of their generous nature.

    But enough about that. In summation, Holder's reputation as "rogue Negro" to the president's "magic Negro," whether actually deserved or not, continues to ring true in many corners. I don't think that deserves him being referred to as the president's "Inner Nigger," "repressed Id," "blacker conscience" or anything of the sort. If the president wants to break character to have a "real talk" moment, that's entirely his prerogative.

    As for Rich Benjamin, I'm not as upset with him as I was before. I understand where he's coming from. Like many folks, I wish he didn't have to resort to the N-word just to get his point across.

    On the other hand, it is what it is. How he makes his point is his own prerogative. After all, it got people's attention, mine included.

    *That shit hurts.
    **Note the bolded. When Americans claim to want a colorblind perspective of the case, this is what they mean. However, sticking to the technical and legal while disregarding the racial paints a completely different picture of the entire case, one that disregards over four centuries of ingrained and institutionalized prejudices, bigotry and anger - things that often lead to the Emmit Tills of the world being exposed to a unique and deadly form of "justice."


  • - Ariel Castro might not think of himself as a monster, but he is, at least as far as the law and the rest of America's concerned. He was sentenced to life imprisonment plus 1,000 years:

    Castro pleaded guilty to 937 counts, including murder and kidnapping, in connection with the kidnapping and abuse of Michelle Knight, Georgina DeJesus and Amanda Berry, whom he held captive for a decade in his Cleveland home. As part of the plea deal, the death penalty was taken off the table.

    - Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army private who passed over 700,000 documents to Julian Assange's WikiLeaks Foundation, was found not guilty of "aiding the enemy," a charge that could have earned him the death penalty had prosecutors not chosen to seek a life sentence instead. However, he was found guilty on 19 of the 22 charges laid against him, charges that would likely keep Manning behind bars for the rest of his life.

    - The Russian government just gave Edward Snowden asylum:

    On Thursday, Snowden was granted temporary asylum in Russia and was allowed to enter the country’s territory.

    According to the issued documents, the former CIA employee who broke PRISM spying scandal to the world is free to stay in Russia until at least July 31, 2014. Then the asylum status may be extended.

    With that in hand, Snowden cannot be handed over to the US authorities, even if Washington files an official request. He can now be transported to the United States only if he agrees to go voluntarily.

    - I bet NYPD Community Affairs Bureau chief Douglas Zeigler didn't think he would be a target for "driving occupying a vehicle merely existing while black":

    Chief Douglas Zeigler, 60, head of the Community Affairs Bureau, was in his NYPD-issued vehicle near a fire hydrant when two plainclothes cops approached on May 2, sources said.

    One officer walked up on each side of the SUV at 57th Ave. and Xenia St. in Corona about 7 p.m. and told the driver to roll down the heavily tinted windows, sources said. What happened next is in dispute.

    In his briefing to Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, Zeigler said the two cops, who are white, had no legitimate reason to approach his SUV, ranking sources said. After they ordered him to get out, one officer did not believe the NYPD identification Zeigler gave him.

    The cops gave a different account:

    When one officer spotted Zeigler's service weapon through the rolled-down window, he yelled "Gun!" according to sources who have spoken with the officers. Both cops raised their weapons and ordered the driver out of the car, sources said. Instead of saying he was an armed member of the NYPD, Zeigler shouted, "Don't you know who I am?" the sources said.

    When one cop reached over to check the identification badge around Zeigler's neck, the chief pushed him away, sources said. Only then did Zeigler tell the two officers his name and rank, those sources said.

    Zeigler, in his discussions with Kelly, said the officers never yelled "Gun!" sources said. One cop got into a heated argument with the chief even after seeing the ID, sources said.

    Even being a part of the thin blue line doesn't make you immune to the Stop and Frisk phenomenon if you happen to be the wrong skin color. In fact, your mayor might think he's being a bit too soft on you and your kind.

    - Gilberton Police Chief Mark Kessler has the next 30 days off to buff up his Second Amendment bonafides:

    In a closed meeting, the council voted 5-1 to suspended Kessler for 30 days, “for use of borough property for non-borough purposes without prior borough permission.” In one of the videos, the tiny town’s sole police officer used automatic weapons, which he was only legally authorized to do in his official capacity.

    He's already being hailed as a "Second Amendment leader" by numerous gun rights advocates. But seriously, can the town of Gilberton afford to have an individual this mentally unstable in charge of its police department?



    As a law-abiding citizen and a supporter of the Second Amendment, I wouldn't want someone like this pulling me over.

  • “Why is it when a white person says he is proud to be white he’s shunned as a racist?”

    The above quoted comes courtesy of a young chap by the name of Patrick Sharp. Sharp is not just an ordinary freshman student at Georgia State University - he's also the founder of the university's new White Student Union.

    Sharp's idea isn't a new one. In fact, he's following in the footsteps of another chap, Matthew Heimbach, who also founded a white student union at Towson University not too long ago. In Sharp's own words:

    "All we want to do is celebrate white identity. This is about being in touch with who you are as a white person and being proud of that."

    To the average person, this sounds almost word-for-word like the modus operandi of any other ethnic student union. After all, why shouldn't there be a white student union when blacks, Hispanics and other groups have theirs? Surely a Eurocentric group would make a fine addition to the 300 or so existing student unions at GSU, right?

    There are plenty of points yours truly will attempt to make as to why the idea of a "White Student Union" seems utterly unnecessary on one end and dangerous on the other:

    1. From a civil rights perspective, a white student union offers little to no utility. In the words of historian and student activism advocate Angus Johnston: "When someone asks me this, my response is always pretty much the same: 'Do you actually want to have a White Student Union on campus? Would you be active in a WSU there was one? Is there stuff you’d like to be doing that the absence of a WSU is keeping you from doing?' So far, nobody has ever answered any of these questions with a yes."
    2. The idea of a white student union exists for the same reason that the concept of "anti-white" exists - both come as a pushback against continued efforts by black Americans to call onto account genuine racist acts and behaviors conducted on a daily basis. For white Americans besieged by constant accusations of being racist towards black Americans, the opportunity to turn the tables by embracing the very sort of "victimhood" they often accuse other minorities of seems all too attractive. With this in mind, white student unions seem like an elaborate sort of "take that" against other groups.
    3. Those interested in forming and participating in white student unions ignore the reason why student unions for black Americans, women and other minority groups came into being in the first place: these groups were often shut out of mainstream organizations and, if they had the opportunity to be accepted, marginalized within them. This was especially true from the end-days of Reconstruction to the eventual dis-assembly of Jim Crow's more pernicious forms of discrimination.
    4. The very concept of "white pride" inevitably circles back towards the idea of white supremacy and its embrace of whites, at the active detriment of other minority groups. Whereas "black pride" does not explicitly exclude whites and other ethnic and national groups, "white pride" often goes out of its way to exclude blacks and other minorities. Some of the more violent white supremacist groups are more hands-on about doing just that.

    By far and large, "white pride" and white supremacist groups spawn as the result of some existential crisis to the core demographic's being. For instance, the specter of economic uncertainty and the ominous threat of immigrant labor drinking the last of an already near-empty employment milkshake is what brought the Golden Dawn to the forefront. In the U.S., most white supremacist groups get their genesis from the ever-present fear of losing their "rightful" place in American society, either through demographics, advances in minority civil rights or a noticeable shift in political power that may seem to benefit minority groups, such as Barack Obama's electoral ascendancy to the Oval Office.

    The Towson group's genesis largely has to do with the following:

    The frequent robberies, sexual assaults, and acts of vandalism at Towson University are not often reported in the local media. For those who are not Towson students it seems hard to fathom that every single day black predators prey upon the majority white Towson University student body. White Southern men have long been called to defend their communities when law enforcement and the State seem unwilling to protect our people.

    The virtue of white Christian womanhood is under attack at Towson University by degenerate criminals seeking to rob our women of their God given innocence. Through armed thuggery the money of law abiding Towson students that is earned by the sweat of their brow is stolen and their lives threatened for simply walking down the street.

    If you thought you stumbled onto a Stormfront posting, you're not alone*. The prospect of "white Christian womanhood" being irreparably sullied by ravenous hordes of mindless black bucks has always been a klaxon call for white supremacists to rally in the defense of racial purity. In this instance, the klaxon is cloaked in a call for better campus security.

    And that's what makes these and other similar groups so dangerous. The impulse to enforce and maintain racial purity is what often leads to actual attacks on minority groups. It's no wonder that the Towson White Student Union's night patrols take on the spirit of the nighttime rides conducted by the Ku Klux Klan.

    Of course, that's not the stated aim of either university's white student unions. But the attitudes, language and underlying motivations are a stone's throw away from those shared by their more upfront brethren.

    *That blog is a classic grab-bag of stupid. For instance, take this post that "honors" Mary Phagan. The author conveniently overlooks Leo Frank's innocence and instead praises his lynchers for "(resisting) outside agitators and insidious internal influences to get justice for Mary Phagan." Sickening.

  • If there's only one admirable quality to pick out from the GOP, it's persistence. When the GOP has a goal, it hones on that goal and resists deviation from the path they've set out on as much as possible. When said deviation becomes all but inevitable, they switch paths and continue onward until that goal is achieved. Or until miserable failure becomes so certain that even Stevie Wonder could read the writing on the wall.

    Unfortunately, the GOP's unique brand of persistence easily devolves into an unhealthy fixation on already-accomplished goals, For instance, the above dead horse represents the belated Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). Off-screen are several House representatives, bat in hand, standing victorious after yet another posthumous equine assault:

    The House GOP quietly blocked funding for ACORN last week, even though the anti-poverty organization has long since been both defunded and disbanded.

    The legislative assault on ACORN, which shut down in 2010, was included in a Department of Defense appropriations bill that cleared the House on Thursday. Although the bill passed by a broad, bipartisan margin of 315-97, it garnered attention for an amendment proposed by Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) that would have stopped the government from collecting masses of phone call metadata without reasonable suspicion.

    Amash's amendment failed, but language to bar ACORN from receiving any money made the final cut. Section 8097 of the bill reads, "None of the funds made available under this Act may be distributed to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) or its subsidiaries."

    Not that any of this matters, considering how ACORN and its subsidiaries have been dearly departed since juvenile delinquent James O’Keefe found his dad's old pimp suit and decided to play dress-up*.

    Between this, the GOP's constant attempts in resurrecting Benghazi as the president's Watergate analogue and its repeated attempts at obstructionist legislation, it's little wonder the GOP doesn't have the time or energy to use its persistence for the actual good of the nation.

    *According to the linked source, Jimmy didn't actually wear his pimp garb to the offices.
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)