Let’s touch on that last point. The taking back America crowds irk the ever loving hell out of me. Not everyone in that crowd mind you, but the general idea behind it. Different folks give different emphasis on what America is for them. For some folks, it truly is a land of wonderful opportunities. For some folks it’s a land of oppression. And for some folks it is (or should be) whiter than Glenn Beck’s ass. Invariably within the “Take America Back!” crowd, there are folks who actually mean “Take America back…to a time when all these uppity Negroes/fill in your other minority/previously-not-considered-white-but-given-honorary-white-status ethnic group of choice here couldn’t do sh*t.”
I suppose my issue with the Take America Back crowd is more or less the same as the Tea Party crowd: it lacks definition. Take America back from what? And what are you trying to take America back to? Other than general anger and pissiness (let’s pretend that’s a word) towards the government/the crappy economy/unemployment/a tanked housing market/etc, what exactly are you, dear Take America Back crowd, trying to achieve?
I ask not to be snarky but because, much like the Tea Party, I’m genuinely trying to figure this one out. Thus far all of my listening to Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck has yet to help me get a grasp on this. And yes, I’ll ‘fess up to listening to both on a regular basis…it’s the old journalism major/news dork in me. I like to listen to viewpoints that contrast/conflict with my own. Gets the old brain working. Which is what I’m going to need the brains of some folks in the Take Back America crowd to do in order to better articulate what the hell they stand for other than philosophy of “we’re-mad-as-hell-and-we’re-not-going-to-take-it-anymore-ism.”
Oh, and one minor point for the folks in the “Take Back America” crowd who keep bring up Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged: y’all realize that the vast majority of you guys are the modern day embodiment of underling class left high and dry right? Unless of course you’re a captain of industry, in the Atlas Shrugged world y’all would be well and truly f*cked. Granted it’s been a good 10 years since I’ve read that 1,000+ page brick by Ayn Rand, so my interpretation could be a bit rusty and/or off. Anyone with an alternate interpretation that doesn’t involve calling me/all black folks/all minorities/all liberals/all progressive any combination of the words “elitist,” “America hating,” “socialist/communist,” “moron,” or variations thereof is welcome to leave a comment.
Cross-posted from American Black Chick in Europe.
Anyone with an alternate interpretation that doesn’t involve calling me/all black folks/all minorities/all liberals/all progressive any combination of the words “elitist,” “America hating,” “socialist/communist,” “moron,” or variations thereof is welcome to leave a comment.
ReplyDeleteABCiE, you're not holding your breath, I hope? ;)
Pissiness is the only, and best word that describes this media-created "movement". They are pissied that a Creole (aka negra, blackie, darkie, Sambo) is our president. They are pissied that they are fast becoming outnumbered by brown skin folks, who are taking away their McDonald's jobs. They are pissied that the boogieman of varied stripes is lying in wait for them. They are pissied that anyone would dare suggest that they give up their gas-sucking, heat producing Ford F250s, and SUVs. They are pissied that several billion people on the planet don't believe that America is held in God's great grace, or that Jesus Christ is the son of God. They are pissied that them Lubrals want to take their AK47s (which they only use for target practice, mind you) out of their cold dead fists. And they are pissied that America ain't (sic) no longer respected for it's kick-you-ass-you-need-freedom bullyism (another non-word, methinks). You name it, they are pissied about it.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you have stumbled on something here. A new name? The Teapissiness Party.
I have one disagreement with you: You say you like to listen to viewpoints that are different than your own.
ReplyDeleteThese people are not expressing their viewpoints. They are highly paid to spout pro-corporate right wing propaganda which neither they nor the organizations paying them believe for a second.
ABCinE - I ask not to be snarky but because, much like the Tea Party, I’m genuinely trying to figure this one out.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your charming and disarming article that tells it like it is. Yes, I am also dumbfounded by their harangues, but I am inclined to be less generous. When the bagheads start their paranoid rants about losing their freedoms and their guns, I want to ask them: “Has anyone knocked on your door lately? Taken away your guns? Exactly what freedoms have you lost?”
It is not about freedom but about racism; and who will openly admit to being a racist! Since overt racism is likely to be met with condemnation, their prejudice is more likely to be expressed in covert terms; and every epithet they hurl at the President falls just under the radar of bigotry. The frequency and ferocity of the rhetoric reveals more than they care to admit. Is there any quantifiable evidence of this?
Some bookmarks I have been saving for a future article:
Hate groups riled up, researchers say
Racial attitudes influence Tea Party movement (A University of Washington Survey)
Tea Party Gubernatorial Candidate Carl Paladino’s Racist and Sexist Email History (Warning: Graphic and offensive content).
I’ll return later with my opinion of Fox News.
ABCiE,
ReplyDeleteI am still waiting for the Navajos and other indigenous folks on this continent to "Take Back America." What is anyone else talking about? What right does anyone else have to mouth those words?
The only problem with our indigenous citizens is that their ancestors' homeland security was somewhat lacking.
Well I like to listen to the nutbags for one simple reason. I try and guess their next strategy. Admittedly I can only take so much then I have to shower.
ReplyDeleteThese idiots who want to take their country back forget one thing, It's our country too. What are you going to do with us? Death panels or interment camps.
maleeper beat me to it.
ReplyDeleteI would have written the same had I arrived here sooner.
The silliest example of "I want my country back!" was the woman I saw interviewed, blubbering on screen on cable teevee, during one of the earliest teabagger gatherings. It was April of 2009, THREE WHOLE MONTHS into Mr. Obama's substantial win in the presidential election.
I knew then what this who pissiness was about, ABCiE.
It is all too obvious.
Thanks for the great post.
ABCinE - And for some folks it is (or should be) whiter than Glenn Beck’s ass..
ReplyDeleteThis is the best line in months. Really ABCinE! You gotta do this more often. Your fan club awaits you.
Now, where was I? Oh yes, Fox News. Earlier today, I performed a Google search on the words ‘Tea Party Racism’ and came up with 1,990,000 results in 0.30 seconds. Obviously, I did not read every single link (8 tentacles but only 2 eyes, you know); however, the search result suggests a topic of uppermost concern. Among the search results, I found this Fox News report, NAACP Poised to Vote on Resolution Calling Tea Party 'Racist' (dated today).
One more statistic before I get to my point: The Fox News article devoted 222 words to the NAACP resolution and 371 words to the Tea Party reposte. Nothing like ‘fair and balanced’ as Fox News characterizes its coverage.
Word count alone may not necessarily slant a story but the he said/she said illusion of false balance can leave a biased impression.
We know the formula. There is a controversy. The controversy makes news. No attempt is made to weigh the competing claims. If evidence exists, the reporter declines to present it. In the battle of interpretations, the public is forced to sort it out for themselves.
In the he said/she said format, there are often lies and distortions, and the middle ground is not the place to find truth, especially if one of the interviewees is manipulative. Lets call this the “error of the mean.” If the news source is Fox, the story is shrink-wrapped in bias by implication.
It is admirable to seek a balanced diet of news from various sources, but Fox News is the journalistic analogue of junk food. BTW, if you are octopus, there are only 3 basic food groups – crustaceans, mussels, and bagheads.
Octopus said: "...the story is shrink-wrapped in bias...". You meant skunk-wrapped, did you not?
ReplyDeleteABCiE,
ReplyDeleteI've long thought that a hankering for Ayn Rand's blather correlates all too well with hopeless stupidity.
Yes, the silly take-back rhetoric is just too much. I remember that when I was in graduate school, some students got upset about a proposed space reallocation and began yammering about how they wanted to "take back" the cafeteria or reading hall or whatever hallowed space they felt the fascist administrators were depriving them of. Stupid as that bourgeois retro-lefty gesture was, it was less insane than today's teabaggers using the same sixties-ish radical phrase to insinuate that non-white folk and their communo-liberal fellow travelers have stolen the country from white-is-right-thinking Americans of appropriately Anglo-Saxon bloodline. And to think that they've effected this heist by voting! Oh, the nerve! Let us at once "demand arrestment of the Knaves and Dastards!" (Thomas Carlyle's translation in Past and Presentof the phrase, "L'arrestation des coquins et des lâches." Adolphe Thiers, Histoire de la révolution française, Vol. 2, pg. 198 [1844]).
To state this as directly as possible: leaving aside the hopelessly naïve souls among them, the teabaggers and their ilk seem to me expressly anti-American; in my view, their words and demonstrations betoken disdain for America's diverse population and traditions combined with its sense of unity in diversity (no doubt we are guilty of longstanding strivings towards a common culture of citizenship and genuine patriotism); they suggest alarm over the fact that black, brown, and yellow people have been so much a part of the country's building-up over the centuries; and above all, they suggest implacable hostility directed against that damned Enlightenment-inspired Constitution of the United States, which has the temerity to insist that people's rights can't be taken away just because other people don't take a shine to those rights. If the 'baggery had their way, I suspect, the national motto would be "Your Papers, Please!" or "You Can't Even Think That, Much Less Say It!"
If we want to abide take-back rhetoric at all, I think it's high time that liberals recover from today's conservative charlatans, coquins et lâches that they are, the mantle of genuine love of country and respect for the ordinary citizens who have sustained most of what's good about America. And I'm not talking only about the teabaggers. How stupid must people be if they can't discern the Republican Party's brazen contempt for those who are still suffering in a difficult economy, and for "the little guy" in any economy whatsoever?
Love it. You're classier than most at discussing this topic. You've broken down their "logic" and basically proven that their agenda is fueled by racism...because they won't admit to anything else! Thanks for the refreshing analysis.
ReplyDeleteNice to meet you ABCiE!
ReplyDeleteYou have a stronger stomach than I if you can listen to Hannity and Beck. I try from time to time in the interest of knowing thine enemy, but my blood pressure soon endangers me and I start to sputter and spew epithets.
The tea party is so often correlated with Christian morality; I do wonder what they would think of Ayn Rand if they knew a little more about her personality disorder and her personal (read: relational and sexual)life. She was one sick mutha.
Don't y'all know that Obama has undermined the Constitution? At least, that's what I've learned from the Tea Party folks. I don't know what he's done to the COnstitution but it must be something awful as there are multiple videos of female tea partiers weeping copiously at the destruction of the Constitution. There is also a lot of big government. I'm not certain how big it is, but if I could play twenty questions with a tea partier, I think that I'd start with, "Is it bigger than a bread box?"
ReplyDeleteI really don't have the patience to be thoughtful or rational about these people any more. I'm a middle age southern black woman who grew up with Jim Crow and I recognize racism when I see it. As so many of you have pointed out, these nutjobs are all bent out of shape because a man whom they perceive as black is president. How typical that even in the declaring of Obama as a black man, the racist legacy of this country is at work. His father was African; his mother was Caucasian; how in the hell does that make him any more Black than White? Only in America! I've heard the cries from those who insist that race has nothing to do with thier feelings; they just want their country back. Back to what? Where has their country gone? I'm glad that there are thoughtful voices like ABCiE because this black woman just wants to slap some folks.
Sheria, if you need some help with that slapping, let me know!
ReplyDeletejadedj - Sheria, if you need some help with that slapping, let me know!
ReplyDeleteListen y'all. Lets form an orderly line here. No pushing and shoving. Okay!
I find myself discouraged and disheartened that the human race has now passed into the 21st century and still we must deal with those who can't get past the idea that the measure of a person is not the color of their skin, their gender, their sexual orientation, their size, shape or height but the strength of their character.
ReplyDeleteWill we EVER live in a world where we recognize, embrace and rejoice in our commonality while celebrating our diversity.
Desmond Tutu once said,"One day we are going to wake up and discover we are family."
WHEN are human beings going to finally wake up!?
"I suppose my issue with the Take America Back crowd is more or less the same as the Tea Party crowd: it lacks definition. Take America back from what? And what are you trying to take America back to? Other than general anger and pissiness"
ReplyDeleteWow - It was worth the wait for this one.
The lack of definition is the power of what isn't a movement but a round up. It's like a flag in that it means what you want it to and can't be held to any specifics if you don't want it to be.
Kind of like the Pied Piper's tune, it leads all the rats, but this time it's into the town, not out.
Of course we know what it means: take it back from the scary elite people who elected a black guy as president and lets get back to doing what got us into the shit in the first place. Give us another dumbass military guy and a neurotic nitwit who thinks quitting is success and witches are causing traffic jams.