Generally, when I am working hard and fast, as I am now, I fall completely out of touch with what is happening in the real world. Every so often, I will pop my head up in what I have described in the past as "not un-meerkat-like" and check in, just to see if anything interesting is happening. World still on its axis? Check. Gravity still the law of the land? Check. Excellent. But every so often, something else will catch my eye and when that happens, I have to comment. Why? Because I'm me. So, yes, I am late to this party. I have been under my rock in Lambert Falls. However, that being said...
Shame on you, Andrew Breitbart. You are an intelligent man. If you weren't, you wouldn't have bothered to edit the video so well. You wouldn't have bothered to spin Shirley Sherrod's story. You wouldn't have managed to pull off the racist bullshit that you did.
Call it what you will ~ a misunderstanding, misconstruction, not meant as a personal attack, whatever. It was deflection. It was a low blow. It was racist. And it was racist in the ugliest, most insidious of ways, couched in trying to seem helpful, educational, to bring information, fairness, and objectivity into a situation that had none. Bullshit.
You knew better. You had to have. You orchestrated it all too well for it to have been accidental. And even now, instead of being willing to stand up and say "you're damn right I did it" you are backing off, still trying to shine the exposing-the-wolf-in-sheep's-clothing light on all of this. In other words, handing us more deflection, another low blow, and continuing the (insidious) racism. You are intelligent. Stop insulting ours by pretending this didn't play out exactly the way you'd planned.
No wonder I prefer my fictional worlds.
4 comments:
Sorry you had to meerkat up for that, but yeah, what Breitbart did to Sherrod (and he meant to, and he didn't care about destroying a perfectly decent person's life) is an attention-getter. There are still right-wingers saying that she's wrong to point out his and some Fox News commentators' racism, like saying their actions are racist is worse than railroading a 60-something woman out of a job she's good at just to make a half-assed point.
Oh, and that asshat got my mother to arguing with my brother (who, BTW, is a white farmer), too. And then I had to hear about it. My mom's still saying "He only meant to expose the NAACP, and look how they reacted to that part of her speech." Vomit!
I like your fictional worlds much better than this one, too. I gave up on my dystopia for a while simply because I'm starting to feel like I'm in the beginning of one, and Breitbart and his apologists don't help.
Racist white people spinning lies to discredit POCs.....and in other news 1+1=2.
But you know what though, no matter what happens, he still got what he wanted because even if Sherrod is vindicated, even if his lies are exposed, Breitbart is still getting all the press, attention and name recognition he was so clearly after to begin with.
Meerkatting should be a verb. But to meerkat and have to put up with drama like this... I am a white male living in North America. As such, I live a life of luxury and ease historically heretofore unheard of. I know this. I know the gears of industry favour me over others of differing gender, ethnic origins, and nationality. I know its not fair. So I don't understand the vehemence of racism against whites. i have all the advantages. That's not my fault, its the way the world is. But to expect others to not be resentful or to try to change it... to cry foul over something as paltry as Sherrod's comments, or about the applause of the audience... its just stupid.
I hate to ignore this post Pobble, but holy shit on the previous one. Ha. But yes, you've got the courage and still have enough time to pull it off too.
My hat (if I wore one) would be off to you. Write away. Let the pages run and here's hoping they are ones you absolutely love this time.
And have a good weekend too. :)
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