alexanderpf asks: What exactly do you find so problematic about Brad Paisley's song Accidental Racist? I'm originally from Germany but moved to Alabama at a young age. Have you ever had a chance to travel through some of the more rural parts of the Southeast? While there are definitely still some very vocal racists -- most people find themselves in a middle school dance type situation of socially expected segregation... and I think the song really speaks to that.
» SFB says: Race is a difficult subject to discuss, and when it’s handled poorly, it shows. The song, simply put, handles a delicate subject poorly—no matter what part of the country you live in. I used to live in a part of South Carolina that was decidedly not urban. I lived there long enough that I understand what you’re talking about, but I think at the same time that doesn’t give Brad Paisley a pass. It’s a clumsy treatment of a clumsy topic. Plus, I mean, how does something like this get on an album? There were people at his label that signed off on this and didn’t see the problem. That’s a huge problem. — Ernie @ SFB
EDIT: This commentary on the subject says everything you need to know.
Today In Bad Ideas: Some guy named Brad Paisley recorded a song, with LL Cool J, talking about how hard it is to be a white man who just wants to wear the Confederate flag in peace. It’s called “Accidental Racist”, and you can find the (completely problematic) lyrics here. source
EDIT: Video was removed, here’s an updated clip.
Greek soccer player Giorgos Katidis has been banned from his national team for life after giving a Nazi salute while celebrating a goal in the topflight league.
Today in awkward stares in response to awful salutes.
Many of our crime stories involving robberies include a description of the suspects when provided by police. White, black, Asian, it doesn’t matter. If that description helps with an arrest, we are glad to help. But lately, when the suspect was black, it brought out the most vile, repulsive and offensive comments we have ever had on our website. In fact, it has now got to the point that we are turning off commenting on crime stories when they appear on our website.Mike Johnston, the editor of DunhamRegion.com, discussing why the site chose to turn off comments on crime stories. (ht Romenesko)
It’s not just local eyes that are looking. It’s the international eyes that are looking too. Sometimes you can fall weak and can’t stand upon your own feet to fight a battle, but people look at that battle and fight it for you. And that’s what happened in Sanford.Sanford, Fla. resident Shantree Hall • Discussing the international scrutiny her town has received in the year since 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was killed at the hands of George Zimmerman—a story which, in the past year, has become a key talking point for the issue of race in the United States. Martin died one year ago this week, with many of the circumstances around his death, including the Skittles he had just bought from a local convenience store and the hoodie he was wearing, becoming catalysts for public protests. In the year since the shooting, Sanford has slowly started to heal and recover from the months of public scrutiny that followed the case, but Zimmerman’s case is still pending in court with a trial date set for June.
Al Haase, president and CEO of AGC, issued a statement early Sunday that, while not referring to Hundley by name, called reports of behavior by one of its executives on recent personal travel “offensive and disturbing” and said he “is no longer employed with the company.” Keeney would not say whether Hundley was fired or resigned. Hundley was president of AGC’s Unitech Composites and Structures unit.
Hundley was charged last week in federal court in Atlanta with simple assault for allegedly slapping the 2-year-old boy during the Feb. 8 flight. His attorney, Marcia Shein, of Decatur, Ga., said Saturday that Hundley will plead not guilty. The charge carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail.
When speaking to the mother, Joe Rickey Hundley reportedly told the child’s mother, Jessica Bennett, to “shut that (N-word) baby up” before slapping him, adding an extra level of messed-up-ness to the story.
Joe Rickey Hundley, of Hayden, Idaho, has been charged with simple assault. His attorney said he will plead not guilty.
Bennett, 33, told authorities her son was crying as the Delta Air Lines flight prepared for landing. Hundley, 60, was sitting next to her and slapped the boy in his face, causing a scratch under his right eye, she said.
Hundley “told her to shut that (N-word) baby up,” FBI special agent Daron Cheney said in a sworn statement. “Ms. Bennett received assistance from several people on the plane.”
The mother of the child, Jessica Bennett, says that her son has become apprehensive to strangers in the wake of the incident. Hundley, the president of Unitech Composites and Structures, was suspended by his employer in the wake of the incident, though he denies the allegations against him. The incident took place as the plane landed in Minneapolis Atlanta.
My party, unfortunately, is the bastion of those people — not all of them, but most of them — who are still basing their positions on race. Let me just be candid: My party is full of racists. The real reason a considerable portion of my party wants President Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with the content of his character, nothing to do with his competence as commander-in-chief and president, and everything to do with the color of his skin. That’s despicable.Retired Army Colonel and former aide to Colin Powell, Lawrence Wilkerson • Diving headfirst, in the most blunt terms possible, into the media dust-up kicked off last Thursday by Romney surrogate John Sununu. Responding to news that former Secretary of State Colin Powell had endorsed President Obama, Sununu suggested that Powell had a “slightly different” reason for doing it than politics – namely, his race. Sununu reversed course on this today, saying “I do not doubt that it was based on anything but his support of the president’s policies,” but not before Wilkerson unleashed this incendiary attack on some of his fellow Republicans. An attack which, frankly, seems destined to generate a lot more heat than it does light. source
As I’ve said many times, I’m not big on comparisons unless they’re awfully close parallels, and I fail to see any relationship between war and the name of a football team.
And here, I also agree very strongly with The Star’s longtime policy on this matter. I remain unconvinced by every argument I’ve ever heard that the name is not a racial epithet, plain and simple. And I’ll even break my usual rule about commenting on issues outside The Star’s journalism to say that I find it inconceivable that the NFL still allows such a patently offensive name and mascot to represent the league in 2012.
I almost always come down on the side of publishing a word when it’s the crux of a debate (as I did here in the first paragraph). It isn’t healthy for discourse to pretend any words or thoughts don’t exist.
But I see no compelling reason for any publisher to reprint an egregiously offensive term as a casual matter of course. As brighter minds than mine have noted, nobody would be surprised if a newspaper or website decided not to name a team that used any other racial slur. I don’t understand why this should be any different.
The paper is from a region that also has a team with Native American themes, the Kansas City Chiefs. Think this is a good policy? (ht USA Today)
Remember conservative blogger Pamela Geller? Oh yeah, her. Well, her organization released these ads all over the New York subway system to tell people how awful Islam is. (FWIW, the NYC subway system only allowed them to run after going to court over the ads.) Understandably, people reacted strongly, defacing them and covering them with stickers that say things like “RACIST.” You can see why they might do that considering the content of the ads. Well, it looks like these protests have led to an arrest — and it was actually someone sort of famous. Well-known Egyptian-American journalist and activist Mona Eltahawy was arrested for spraying graffiti on one of these ads Tuesday evening. “I’m an Egyptian-American and I refuse hate,” she said in a video of her arrest. (photo via Mondoweiss)
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The incident would be ugly anywhere, but it is especially troubling for a party whose nominee attracted 0 percent of the black vote in a recent NBC poll.
In case you didn’t hear about this, this is perhaps the lowest point of the entire 2012 campaign.
Fear of a Black President
As a candidate, Barack Obama said we needed to reckon with race and with America’s original sin, slavery. But as our first black president, he has avoided mention of race almost entirely. In having to be “twice as good” and “half as black,” Obama reveals the false promise and double standard of integration.
Read: The Atlantic
Three lines that really grab you in this piece:
1) “The moment Obama spoke, the case of Trayvon Martin passed out of its national-mourning phase and lapsed into something darker and more familiar—racialized political fodder. The illusion of consensus crumbled.”
2) ”The president’s inability to speak candidly on race cannot be bracketed off from his inability to speak candidly on everything. Race is not simply a portion of the Obama story. It is the lens through which many Americans view all his politics.”
3) Regarding Shirley Sherrod: “In her new memoir, The Courage to Hope, she writes about a different kind of tears: when she discussed her firing with her family, her mother, who’d spent her life facing down racism at its most lethal, simply wept. ‘What will my babies say?,’ Sherrod cried to her husband, referring to their four small granddaughters. ‘How can I explain to my children that I got fired by the first black president?’”
Adidas ‘shackle’ shoes cancelled amid slavery controversy
Adidas has dropped its plans for a sneaker with a shackle-like ankle cuff after critics complained the shoes were racist and reminiscent of slavery.
They promoted the shoe with the line: “Got a sneaker game so hot you lock your kicks to your ankles?”
For what it’s worth, here’s an image of My Pet Monster, the toy that inspired fashion designer Jeremy Scott to shackle these still-pretty-bad-idea shoes:
They wanted to know if the display was a threat against the President,” said Jones, adding the interview lasted a half-hour. “We told them we are by no means life threatening but we do, of course, wish the death of Obama’s political career.Pastor Terry Jones lynched effigy of Obama: Secret Service questions Terry Jones after hanging effigy of Obama - Orlando Sentinel (via brooklynmutt)
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