Tuesday, June 24, 2008

There's a Riot Going On -- NOT!

Nothing brings out the racist inclinations in right-wingers like a line of poor black people trying to get food assistance. From exaggerating minor line-impatient scuffling into a "riot" to ignorant comments about cell phones and weight issues, the line forming on 12th and Vliet for food assistance yesterday had it all for those looking to take pot-shots at the underclass.

First of all, it wasn’t a riot. After reading that it was, I looked at the news footage from the local stations (who had their eager cameras trained on the line all day) and found nothing even slightly violent or all that unusual for a line of thousands that show up where the authorities running the show are woefully unprepared for the predictable mass of people. I’ve seen ten times worse in lines for rock concerts. You want a riot, I’ll show you a riot. This was no riot.

But that didn’t stop local embarrassment James T. Harris from calling it a riot and using it as an excuse to heap more dirt on what he says is his own community. "In one day, thuggish ugliness raised its shiftless head as Americans of African descent in Milwaukee managed to reinforce every negative stereotype under the sun." Well, only if you are there to help the reinforcement, J.T. "The riot very well could have been a rally for Barack Obama. Maybe not. Too early in the morning, and there was nothing in it for the greedy, except false hope and misguided pride." Man, you just can’t make idiocy like that up. Best of the Blogs, indeed.

But for outright racist crap, you had to hand it to gun-porn purveyor and MSM right-blog golden boy Owen Robinson. Robinson finds a picture of the line on the internets and plays the tiresome game of Find the Leaching Negro. He is outraged to see a "woman talking on cell phone." Oh, Owen, tell me it isn’t true! Is it a nice one? What kind of service does she have? How much food could she have purchased with those pre-paid minutes? Oh, the shame of it. His trained spot-the-leach eye finds a "man with designer jeans". No, not that! What are designer jeans these days, anyway? Anything other than Wrangler? Alright, Owen, now sit down and write what people looking for food assistance should be wearing. Sackcloth and ashes? If they are wearing bed sheets, will you criticize them for excessive thread counts?

And that’s not all. Robinson also sees "fat people" in the line. This is a well-tested racist device in the kick-the-fat-people-off-welfare wars of the ‘90s. What do they need food for if they ate so much yesterday? seems to be the logic. And then there is my favorite: "stylish pink-streaked hair". Methinks Robinson is a bit too easily impressed by not-in-nature hair color. Yeah, that woman definitely has it all goin’ on, doesn’t she? Are you thinking L’Oreal, Owen? Looking at it, I’m thinking cherry Kool-Aid, myself.

The fact that a long line of poor people showed up for just a little food assistance is a sign of distress, not of greedy avarice by people don’t need it. And, unlike what Harris and some of Robinson’s sheep-like commenters say, the same line – or longer – will appear when good jobs are declared available. But, again, when the opportunity for racist stereotyping knocks, Harris and Robinson are there to open the door. The real question is why both race-bomb throwers are accepted as legitimate commentators on TV or anywhere else in the mainstream media.

19 comments:

krshorewood said...

Thanks for calling this what it is Mike.

Some times us progressives have to come out and hit the nail on the head.

the guiltless gourmet said...

The best defense that can be supplied here is name calling. Racist this and racist that, but how can there be OBESE needy people who can afford
hair dye, cell phone service and
designer clothes?!? See the John Lennon quote at the top of the page. "Progressives" can't handle the truth.When it is set before them, (as in such a case) the best they can do is rattle on about "institutional" and other brands of racism rather than noting that for some reason, whether it's Zimbabwe, Haiti, New Orleans, or Milwaukee, blacks en masse are always recipe for trouble...

Anonymous said...

Yes Mike, thanks for calling it for what it is...people taking advantage of our inept system. You are correct in that I too didn't see a "riot" but when you allow a program where people don't ever have to prove that they had flood damage or owned their own home in order to get free government handouts, it's a recipe for trouble. Remember people getting into fights over Elmo and Cabbage Patch Kids at Christmas? Same thing, except that the toys weren't free.

Mike Plaisted said...

GG:

"blacks en masse are always recipe for trouble"

Wow. Talk about proving my point for me.

Zach W. said...

Mike, excellent post. It never ceases to amaze me how low some folks will go when it comes to issues of race.

AutismNewsBeat said...

At what point do Negroes achieve critical mass? Is 13 enough - Jesus and his Disciples were black. How about an NBA roster? Howard University? Do enlighten us, oh Guiltless One!

Prosqtor said...

I'm interested in your thoughts on the just-in guilty verdicts against former Alderman McGee, Mike.

Is rioting justified in the city based on the verdicts? Mind you, I'm not aware of any at the moment...more of a rhetorical question.

Anonymous said...

To heraldblog:
Do you have evidence of the race of
Jesus and his disciples? (Or evidence that they even existed?)

I really don't know if there is a
critical mass for blackness...Maybe
take a midnight stroll beginning on North Avenue on the east side and keep walking west until you feel scared...That would give you a better example than I could muster.



Here is some light for you:
Look at any majority black nation,
city, or neighborhood and the problems are often quite similar:
poverty, chaos, ignorance, etc.
While these problems may exist in areas with any given racial makeup,
they tend to be the defining characteristics of black societies.
These are observable, undeniable truths.Yes, there may be exceptions to the rule, but I don't know of any majority black place that I would drop everything and move to for its "vibrant" cultural benefits.


I think a good challenge to "progressives" would be to put down their lattes, remove themselves from their ivory towers and live in
a black majority areas for the rest of their lves, rather than for the time it might take to write a pop
psychology coffee table book that is supposed to demonstrate how "we are all the same".If that's really the case, become absorbed into a black society... Hmmm, this makes me think of Bill Clinton. I suppose I could live in Harlem too, if I had round-the-clock Secret Service protection...

for some reason, I couldn't log in...GG

illusory tenant said...

Poverty, chaos, ignorance, etc. ... tend to be the defining characteristics of black societies.

GG you should have quit while you were behind.

AutismNewsBeat said...

If there is such a thing as a critical mass of Negroes, then a simple solution would come from the nuclear power industry, where lead rods are inserted into fissionable material to absorb stray neutrons and slow down the reaction. Similarly, when you have a critical mass of Negroes, you could insert less volatile humans, say Asians or residents of Mequon, to slow the more violent reaction that occurs when Negroes are clustered together.

Do you think this might work, GG?

Anonymous said...

IT
...fails to make relevant comment.
Please demonstrate my inaccuracy.
I too seek enlightenment.



heraldblog
LOL...

questions and points still not addressed though...


GG

AutismNewsBeat said...

Guiltless, you're throwing out baseless assertions. What's to address? The onus is on you to prove your point, not on me to disprove it.

Anonymous said...

An assertion:
poverty, chaos, ignorance...they tend to be the defining characteristics of black societies.
...It's what to address...

Exhibit A:
Haiti. 200+ years of freedom
and it's a basket case as a nation.
(Despite the fact that the slave revolt that led to its independence
rid the island of the French who might have "kept them down".) What should be a tropical black paradise is instead a land of poverty, filth, corruption and disease.

Exhibit B:
Liberia
Founded by freed U.S. slaves. It
ought to be a beacon of hope for "oppressed people" everywhere, but
its state of affairs is nearly as
dismal as the much of the rest
of sub-Saharan Africa.

Exhibit C:
Zimbabwe (Formerly Rhodesia)
A former net exporter of food (when
it was governed and farmed by whites) now another depressing land
of violence, corruption, and famine.(Google Zimbabwe farm seizures for more information, if you care or dare...)


Exhibit D:
South Africa
since the end of Apartheid,
The new (black) government
has led the nation on a one way path to decline.The infrastructure
is crumbling, AIDS is rampant, as
are assault,theft and murder.

Exhibit E:
Detroit
Just visit...


Exhibit F:
East St. Louis...
Just visit...

Exhibit G:
Our own fair city.
Once upon a time a beautiful
and safe place...it still is, except for you know where...Ask anyone who who is old enough to remember living here before about 1950.

Now, is there a country with a black majority that does not have an economy based on tourism (set up and used primarily by other races)
that is renowned for being "progressive" innovative, stable, culturally and technologically advanced, and generally safe and healthy for the vast majority?


Is there a black equivalent to, say, Switzerland or Taiwan, etc?
...or even an Bulgaria or a Viet Nam?


GG

AutismNewsBeat said...

Those are your defining characteristics. Confusing correlation with causation is my defining characteristic of bigoted halfwits.

Anonymous said...

I have no confusion between correlation and causation.
Like the great hero Lennon,
I just want the truth.
This is quiet a complex subject...


Why would you choose to stoop to an
apparent personal attack rather than simply refuting at least ONE of my examples...?


GG

AutismNewsBeat said...

Why do you stoop to tired old stereotypes rather than offer real data? You are obviously cherry picking evidence, and ignoring historical precedent. Liberia is a hellhole for multiple reasons, none of which have anything to do with melanin. I've spent time in Ghana and was never in fear for my life over there. And you're ignoring the silent, largely ignored black middle and upper class in America that frequently reach critical mass in cities and suburbs all over the USofA.

GG, I don't know how to break this to you, but your time has come and gone.

Anonymous said...

The reality of those places is in
no way a stereotype. It is their grave misfortune. As far as "cherry picking" goes, I could keep picking cherries until my basket overfloweth,but for the sake of brevity, I chose a few examples.
We could also consider you Ghana
reference an example of "cherry picking"...The only random threats and assaults I've experienced have been by black people... There, you
can draw as much meaning from that as I can from your Ghana example.

I also don't believe that Liberia's situation has anything to do with melanin. I believe that it has to do with the people themselves. It seems to me that a nation's
state of being is often a reflection of its inhabitants abilities, inclinations, etc. To expand on that, I am am inclined to believe (Yes,another heretic,along with the good doctor James Watson,until he, like Galileo, was browbeaten into submission...yet it moves..) That
different human populations' evolutionary experiences played a significant role in their current mental abilities e.g., Ashkenazi Jews appear as the extreme in greater intelligence, while some
groups of black Africans appear at
the opposite end of the spectrum.

To carry this further, we could look at black domination in so many sports, particularly those in which great speed, grace, and agility are beneficial. That seems to be partly due to environmental adaptation. Blacks tend to have proportionally longer legs than other races, I think few would hesitate to deny
apparent cause and effect here, but when it comes to variations in intelligence,suddenly,"progressives"seem to plug their ears and repeat to themselves: "We are all the same!!!" and anyone who says otherwise is some sort of ignorant
"racist" "bigot" "hater" etc...

In a nutshell, any reasonable (and reasonably intelligent) person believes in the significance and usefulness of meaningful averages in developing a sense of how and
why things are as they are....

As for the black middle and upper classes, I can only wish them well. Their silence is deafening. It's too bad so many of their racial brethren here and worldwide cannot
seem to find it within themselves to follow such excellent examples.
I certainly do not have any destructive wishes towards the black race. In fact, if their general levels of achievement were
anywhere near whites (for example)
All would benefit.


heraldblog,
I don't know how to break this to
you, but the way the world is going,my time is just beginning...

GG

AutismNewsBeat said...

heraldblog,
I don't know how to break this to
you, but the way the world is going,my time is just beginning...


It's a good thing that society can accommodate the less fortunate. The sky's the limit, GG!

Anonymous said...

I see that you too have done your best...

GG