A recent Livescience.com article appearing in Yahoo! News highlighted a study by psychologist Gordon Hodson of Brock University in Ontario in which a nexus is supposedly found between being unintelligent and conservative and being racist. I presume then that, as conservatives and morons tend to be more racist, the dots between them are connected? The story not only provided an overview of the study but also links to other similar studies which appear to back up Hodson’s conclusions. Well then, there it is. We always knew that liberals are smarter and more tolerant. We just needed a study to prove it.

Gordon Hodson

At best, psychology is an inexact science, as the human brain is the most complex system in the known universe, and to try to understand what makes it tick is daunting if not impossible. But layer on top of that the possibility that the researchers themselves may harbor a bias that leads them to subconsciously steer their studies towards reaching pre-determined conclusions, and you have the makings of a sham science project … with predictable results.

Hodson’s complete study is not available for free online, so I readily admit I only know what has been made public. Apparently the researchers offered a list of questions which would measure participants’ left or right leanings based upon the answers. For example, one measure in defining “conservative” is gauging one’s level of agreement with the statement “schools should teach children to obey authority.” Then they overlaid these results with responses to questions with overtly racial overtones such as “I wouldn’t mind working with people of other races.” I guess if you answer “yes” to authority and “no” to working with others not like you, you are a conservative racist. Conversely, if you replied “fight the power, maaan” and “I want my office to look like a rainbow, my brother,” then you are a tolerant and cognitively well-adjusted liberal. Oh, if only the world were so simple. (more…)

Oops. My headline mistakenly reads “cracker” journalism.

What I meant to write was ”crack” journalism – but in a completely sarcastic way.

At the top of Politico’s front page today sits a major spread on race and its cynical use in the presidential election. The co-authors claim that their inspiration came from (a week late) Arizona Governor Jan Brewer being called a bigot for daring to wag her finger at President Obama — something the media described as Speaking! Truth! To! Power! when Bush was in office.

Predictably, the article doesn’t hold the media accountable for blowing up, digging up, and focusing on bogus claims of racism, and just as predictably, the article doesn’t bother to mention Politico’s own racial scandal that blew up after their own Jonathan — He Who Investigates Private Citizens on Behalf Of His Precious One – Martin casually tossed off the slur “cracker” on a national cable channel last week.

I guess this is Politico’s transparently desperate way of pretending that neither they nor the rest of the MSM have anything to do with creating and/or fanning the flames of these phony racial firestorms, even though the media is usually the one holding the match.  The reason Politico wants to pretend the MSM isn’t the number one generator of this stuff is obvious. They want to report and create it but take no responsibility for it. This is how they fashion that artificial shield of objectivity for themselves even as they lead this partisan crusade.

It’s just a fact that both the Democrats and their MSM allies use these trumped-up racial charges as a way to distract from Obama’s failures, scandals, and issues that matter, like jobs and the deficit. By CONSTANTLY creating racism where none exists — food stamps, finger-wagging, basketball, Juan — the MSM also keeps the narrative alive that the right is racist which, in turn, keeps us on defense. After all, when we’re on defense, we’re not getting our message out.

As we’ve documented here, Politico isn’t simply reporting on this cynical game of racial gotcha; they are playing, contributing, and amplifying it.

(more…)

- Juan Williams adds “Founding Fathers” and “Constitution” to the Big Book Of Words You Can’t Say Because They’re Racist, According to Me.

References to a lack of respect for the “Founding Fathers” and the “Constitution” also make certain ears perk up by demonizing anyone supposedly threatening core “old-fashioned American values.”

- Occupiers attempt citizens’ arrest of Fox News van. Well, at least they didn’t poop on it.

- MSNBC/Politico use racial slur, call Florida panhandle “cracker counties.” Does this include the vast amount of those in the navy who are stationed there?

(more…)

For a few days last week, the leftist media (redundant, I know) tried really hard to make a “spirited” discussion between Governor Jan Brewer (R-Arizona) and President Obama (D-Chicago) into a “something.” Luckily, they’ve cried wolf (read: racist) so many times that most people just roll their eyes, pat the little media types on the head, and tell them to walk it off. There’s no crying in politics. Stop being wusses.

via The Media Research Council

After failing to fan the racial flames again, the lefty media and blogosphere (the echo-chamber) then went with the “it was disrespectful!” angle. Apparently, it is disrespectful to point your finger at the President. Now, assuming Brewer was pointing/wagging her finger at Obama, and she was doing so in a scolding manner – let’s go ahead and ignore that the infamous photo above shows Brewer pointing up at the sky, shall we? – how is it disrespectful?

This is the United States of America. Sure, winning office grants you a certain level of respect, but are we really going to try and score political points when someone uses their hands in an expressive manner? She pointed/wagged her finger; she didn’t flip him the bird. What kind of politically correct nonsense is the media trying to pull here?

One could argue that on day one of his Presidency, Obama – or his sycophants in the media, to be more specific – commanded a certain level of respect. But there’s a history now, isn’t there? In Brewer’s case, Obama implied the now-infamous illegal immigration law she signed was racist. His Attorney General panned the law before he had ever read it. Isn’t that disrespectful to Brewer in her capacity as Governor? Where was the media’s outrage over this disrespectful behavior? There was none. (more…)

Newt Gingrich

Charles M. Blow, over at The New York Times, loves to allege that Republicans are racist, racist, racist. James Clyburn, the third ranking Democrat in the House, accused Gingrich of practicing the Southern Strategy. The NAACP piled on.

In Gingrich’s populist call and celebration of the nobility of work, they hear Nixon’s ominous “Southern Strategy.” The media alone seems acutely attuned to the racist dog whistles we conservatives are supposed to be hearing, but their dogged attempt to sully the Republican Party’s strategy in the South runs afoul of historical facts. Ironically, one commentator, Jim Sleeper, professor at Yale University, plays the race card in suggesting that Gingrich plays the race card.

In 2004, the masterly Claremont Review of Books debunked this growing media narrative in greater depth than I can venture here, but the left-wing argument rests on three key assumptions: that Republicans tailored their message to attract racists, that those of us who oppose racial preferences are somehow racist, and that, having won the South in ‘68, the Republican party continued to play to racism. This is what they believe, made clear by Dan T. Carter, author of From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution 1963-1994: “Goldwater’s vote against the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, in Richard Nixon’s subtle manipulation of the busing issue, in Ronald Reagan’s genial demolition of affirmative action, in George Bush’s use of the Willie Horton ads, and in Newt Gingrich’s demonization of welfare mothers.”

The problem with each of these instances of supposed racism is that you have to believe that the issue is racism, not principle. To wit, plenty of non-racists doubt the wisdom of busing, racial preferences, furloughing criminals, and giving lavish government benefits. This is a subtle game the media plays and as tautological as it is stupid: views are deemed racist because they are defined as racist. It’s not really an argument because it already assumes its premise.

(more…)

- Geraldo: Newt Gingrich called Juan Williams a ‘racial epithet.’

Yes, seriously. [via]

- Former John Kerry Staffer Arrested For Disclosing Identities of CIA Operatives Who Interrogated Top Al-Qaeda Leaders To The Media:

The Justice Department charged that John Kiriakou, 47, who worked as a CIA officer from 1990 to 2004, revealed the information to journalists and that one reporter passed some of the secrets onto attorneys representing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Buried in the 12th graph:

Kiriakou worked for Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) as a Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigator from March 2009 to April 2011, according to Senate records.

I’m sure the outrage over this will match the tantrum the media threw for Valerie Plame, yes?

(more…)

The other day on CNN Jimmy Carter accused Newt Gingrich has that “subtlety of racism.”

This isn’t a new argument for Jimmy Carter. He argued Rep. Joe Wilson’s charge that Obama was lying about illegal immigrants receiving health care under ObamaCare was motivated by racial animus:

I think it’s based on racism…. “There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president.”

But Jimmy Carter is one of the most racist politicians in the history of the modern South as Steve Hayward perceptively argues in The Real Jimmy Carter: How Our Worst Ex-President Undermines American Foreign Policy, Coddles Dictators and Created the Party of Clinton and Kerry.

(more…)

Ari Fleischer calls out Cornell Belcher with a smile.

BELCHER: “What Herman Cain said was a racist, bigoted statement and should be treated like a racist and bigoted person who makes racist and bigoted statements.”

FELSIECHER: “Questioning people’s motives who are trying to help is ionly going to divide people. And I think there’s too great a sensitivity about people who just say Republicans are evil, Republicans are racist, Republicans are wrong. That’s hurtful and that’s just as wrong.

BELCHER:  ”Well, you know, I, I , I, agree with my friend Ari, I wish I had the confidence, by the way, I never called Herman Cain a racist

[CROSSTALK]

FLEISCHER: “You sure did, you sure did.”

BELCHER: “No, I said his language was bigoted, I never called him actually a racist, but I understand the difference between racism and bigotry.”

(more…)

Oh Tingles. ‘Juan’s name is code for … racism.’

(more…)

- South Carolina newspaper endorses Huntsman the same day news breaks that he planned to drop out and endorse Romney.

- Wherein RT/ Russia Today / Komrade Kommuniqué doesn’t deny that they are financed and controlled by the Kremlin. They also don’t deny that they made up quotes and attributed them to Dana Loesch. Also, Everything Loesch Tweets becomes their headline news. I love the Internet. I also love that Big Journalism ceremoniously spanked their entire network in one post.

(And also, they were attacked not because they linked to audio taken of her show, but because they misrepresented her remarks. Please note that Prime Minister Putin did not sanction Komrade Kommuniqué to inform you of that.)

- Litigious bullies Righthaven slammed in court, again.

- ICYDK: No, MMfA has not written about Bill Maher and his comments on the Marines. They’re hoping this all blows over before you notice.

- Politico:

CNN touts itself as the one network without a dog in any ideological fight. But in the current media climate, where commentary is king, the center is a hard place to win ratings. Despite growth in 2011, CNN remains in third placebehind the other two networks for primetime, in part because CNN can’t be relied upon to consistently satisfy conservative or liberal appetites. CNN’s response to that challenge has been to go wide rather than long, hiring voices from farther afield on the ideological spectrum rather than building up a team of independent analysts to run a conversation down the middle.

Loesch was clearly highlighting the absurdity of the response to the Marines, which is why, after her remark, she asked, “is that harsh to say?!” as a furious response to those calling for the heads of the four Marines. Of course, this is consistently omitted. CNN has done a lot of shifting to present viewers with diverse thought and their strategy is causing many folks to reconsider the network when they once flipped past it. To be honest, I didn’t start watching the network until Erick Erickson announced that he was joining and I began tuning in regularly when the network announced the hiring of Loesch and Will Cain. Further honesty: I wanted to see how the network went to town on them, whether or not they were brought in just to serve as scratching posts and token conservatives, but I was surprised, pleasantly so. Such was the diverse thought that I watched each of the CNN debates (only one of Fox’s, which was last night’s) and during the caucuses and recent primary, kept it on CNN. Granted, my mind isn’t completely made up on CNN but I feel that they’ve been making some genuine moves to increase the scope of their audience. I hope conservatives support that and I also hope that conservatives recognize that the network has consistently stood by Erickson and Loesch throughout the regular tantrums from MSNBC sympathizers like Media Matters and Mediaite.

(more…)

Martin Bashir has situational concern for race. His remarks from his program the other evening:

“It also showed how political leaders could be responsible for either encouraging better race relations or making matters a whole lot worse by using cheap and nasty slurs Now listen to some of the things being said by these republican candidates.”

He mentions only Republican candidates using two instances: the deconstructed false flag of race on Gingrich’s remarks, and the CBS story of Santorum’s remark.

Where, pray tell, was Martin Bashir when Democrats said all this?

Harry Reid:

… Obama — a “light-skinned” African American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,” as he said privately.

Bill Clinton on Obama:

“A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.”

Joe Biden:

“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

Or this Biden classic:

“You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.”

(more…)

The ever-objective LA Times cited left-wing propaganda site Media Matters in a piece wherein the likeness of Michelle Obama as Marie Antoinette was deemed “racist®.”

The caricature of Obama as a profligate queen relies on the racist stereotype of an “uppity Negro,” which emerged among slave masters in an earlier American era.

You can’t be serious. Progressives’s incessant use of the race card to defame and libel Americans into silence as a bully tactic is what truly invokes racist comparisons. The modern day Bull Connor, ready to unleash the attack dogs on anyone who dares to disagree with the administration. Want to control your own health care? Racist®! Want a balanced budget amendment? Racist®! Believe that congress should spend within its means? Racist®! Point out statistics that more Americans than ever are on food stamps? Racist®!

Michelle Obama has received intense criticism for the flagrant way in which she spends taxpayer money and the tone-deafness she demonstrates. Two-thousand dollar dresses, wearing sneakers that cost the equivalent of three months mortgage payments while at a homeless shelter, insisting on million-dollar Hawaiian vacations while your husband simultaneously lectures Americans about scaling back, yes, the comparison to Antoinette is apropos. Those who call it racist® demonstrate the failings of public education. Antoinette was considered extravagant while France starved. Along the line of progressive thinking, heaven forbid Barack Obama ever get his likeness on Mount Rushmore for fear of defeated liberals crying out “uppity!”

The racist image appeared Tuesday on the right-wing blog Gateway Pundit; the slur was later called out by Media Matters for America.

What blows my mind about this is that the LA Times quoted propaganda site Media Matters as an authority on this. Where were the partisan hacks at the LA Times when Media Matters was paid by SEIU to attack black conservatives in the wake of the Kenneth Gladney beating? If we’re going to discuss racism, there’s a cover story right there.

(more…)

On Sunday’s broadcast of NBC Nightly News, Andrea Mitchell hosted a segment on the upcoming GOP caucus in Iowa. Referring to the state itself, she stated:

The rap on Iowa? It doesn’t represent the rest of the country. Too white, too evangelical, too rural.

Yet literally the sentence before, she mentioned that Iowa “established that Barack Obama could attract white voters” in 2008.

(more…)

The Department of Justice released a statement about the uproar caused by Eric Holder using the race card.

“That is a complete distortion of the attorney general’s comment. His comments both in the article and elsewhere made clear that he believes much of the criticism is launched against him are unfortunately the typical Washington gotcha game. A simple reading of those comments show he was referring to how he is identified with the president given their close relationship and all they share in common including their ideology. The position of the attorney general has been a target for partisan attacks, and given the critical work that this attorney general he is doing at the Department of Justice, it’s no surprise that some are engaging in such tactics. His critics rightly view the attorney general is a progressive force, and given our current political environment, there will those who use any opportunity to score political points.”

Here’s what we supposedly confused [bold my emphasis]:

Of that group of critics, Mr. Holder said he believed that a few — the “more extreme segment” — were motivated by animus against Mr. Obama and that he served as a stand-in for him. “This is a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him,” he said, “both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we’re both African-American.”

So exactly what did we distort? There’s a key word in Mr. Savage’s sentence: animus. This is Merriam-Webster’s definition:

1: basic attitude or governing spirit : disposition, intention

2: a usually prejudiced and often spiteful or malevolent ill will

3: an inner masculine part of the female personality in the analytic psychology of C. G. Jung — compare anima

I’m going with definition 2. Those of the “most extreme segment” which, let’s be honest here, include Sharyl Attkisson, Cam Edwards, Matthew Boyle, Katie Pavlich, and myself, have a spiteful or malevolent ill will towards President Obama and Mr. Holder because of their relationship and they’re African American. Could the DOJ please explain to us how that doesn’t mean he played the race card? Mr. Holder said we have a prejudiced and often spiteful or malevolent ill will against him and President Obama because of their skin color. That’s calling us a racist. RACIST. Yes Mr. Holder played the race card. He said we are attacking him because he is African American.

(more…)

Here we go with dog whistle again.

The Nation’s Lizzy Ratner surmises that it’s racist to acknowledge that a record number of Americans are on the government dole.

The deep racism at the heart of conservative food stamp critiques offers at least one clue as to why the Obama administration has been unable or unwilling to champion SNAP as a valuable recession antidote: as the nation’s first African-American president, Obama is vulnerable to racist innuendo, which his opponents are only too happy to exploit. Just two months after Gingrich made his “food stamp president” comment, another would-be president, Rick Santorum, picked up the theme, accusing Obama, absurdly, of “pushing more people on food stamps.”

Lloyd Marcus illustration

Is the below “deep racism?”

The CBO predicted that the US economy will be unsustainable by 2037 on its current path.

The IMF declared two weeks ago that the age of America will end in a decade.

One in six Americans now receive government help. USA Today says more Americans are receiving federal aid than ever. Investors’ Insight says more Americans than ever before are on the government dole.

Lastly, according to our own government statistics, more white Americans receive federal aid than blackAmericans, shattering the stereotype that led Walsh to immediately think “black people” when she heard the words “food stamps.”

Did Ratner bother to actually research welfare statistics before assuming that the critics were “racist” because she stereotypically believes that the majority of welfare recipients are black? Because the majority of welfare recipients are white.

So which is actually racist?

a) Criticizing dependance upon government for personal sustainability or;

b) assuming that all those who are dependent upon government are black?

This is a trend with progressives, this prejudiced association of welfare and black Americans.

(more…)

Apparently the folks at MSNBC have discovered the ’20s and the Klan after reading a blog post on the internet from a progressive blog. (Yes, that really is their source.) No wonder the top brass at NBC is furious.

Here’s the extract:

MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts, 11AM ET: “So you may not hear Mitt Romney say ‘Keep America American’ anymore. That’s because it was a central theme of the KKK in the 1920s, it was a rallying cry for the group’s campaign of violence and intimidation against blacks, gays and Jews.”

Predictably, Trig birther Andrew Sullivan hyperventilated, calling the slogan “McCarthyite,” from an “alleged moderate.” Never mind, for the moment, the McCarthyite tactic of race-baiting Romney. We are supposed to think that Romney is a Klansman–just as we were supposed to ignore the fact that the late, not so great, Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) actually was a Klansman.

(more…)

His name is Stephen Bloom and he teaches journalism at the University of Iowa (that’s right, he’s on the taxpayer teat). Because he sees Iowans as little more than supporting players in “Deliverance 2: The Caucus,” he hates the idea that such backwards, rednecked, predominantly Caucasian, inbred, Jesus freaks (that *ahem* handed caucus and general election victories to Barack Obama) are so influential in our presidential election process.

In doing so, however, Bloom did prove a point that at least one Iowan is backwards, bigoted, hateful, prejudiced, and intolerant — himself.

—–

AP:

Only a few weeks before the first Republican presidential contest, some Iowans are on the attack like never before.

They’re writing angry blog posts, doing research to discredit their opponent and railing against elites, but this vitriol isn’t aimed at Republican candidates. It’s focused on University of Iowa journalism professor Stephen Bloom, whose article for The Atlantic magazine’s website painted Iowans as uneducated Jesus freaks who love hunting and don’t deserve the political clout they will exercise Jan. 3….

In the article, he paints Iowa’s cities and rural areas as economic wastelands with little culture. He calls the state politically schizophrenic with Republicans living west of Des Moines and Democrats to the east. He describes rural areas as hotbeds for suicide and filled with the uneducated, the elderly and meth addicts. He calls the Mississippi River “commercially irrelevant” and describes cities along it as “some of the skuzziest” he’d ever seen.

Bloom, who is Jewish, complains that Iowans constantly talk about Jesus and hunting. “That’s the place that may very well determine the next U.S. president,” Bloom, a New Jersey native who came to Iowa in the early 1990s from San Francisco, concludes….

(more…)

I see Black and Hispanic people.

Do you see Black and Hispanic people?

Photo editing, even for a failing newspaper nobody likes, is a painstaking and deliberate process. A whole lot of thought goes into each selection. So you have to ask yourself why a left-wing outlet like The Incredible Shrinking L.A. Times would use the photo above to accompany a story about an increase in violence along the boardwalk in Venice, California.

See if you can crack the code:

The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved an ordinance to limit commercial selling on Venice Beach’s famed Ocean Front Walk.

The ordinance is the latest in a series of efforts to tame the popular but unruly attraction, which draws about 16 million visitors annually but has lately seen more than the usual number of transients and violent crimes.

[...]

But merchandise with more than “nominal utility” beyond protected speech would be prohibited. Banned items would include clothing, sunglasses, incense, perfume, lotions, candy, toys, housewares, auto parts, crystals and jewelry.

“This is a public safety issue,” said Los Angeles Police Capt. Jon F. Peters, commanding officer for the Pacific area. Since October 2010, he said, the area has experienced “a general sense of lawlessness,” with aggravated assaults up by 16%.

A cast of colorful characters, many of them longtime boardwalk denizens, testified for and against the measure in council chambers. A few speakers vowed to take the city to court, but Assistant City Atty. Valerie Flores said the ordinance incorporates definitions and standards that have held up against challenges.

To punctuate a story about an increase in violence along the Venice Beach boardwalk, L.A. Times’ readers are treated to the sight of a Mexican bandit and Black rapper in the foreground and, in the background, a menacing looking Black man in a hoodie who looks like he has murder on his mind. Behind him is another Black man.

Well, maybe the photo represents Ocean Front Walk.

Maybe it doesn’t.

Anecdotally, as someone who’s been there, I can tell you the photo is absurd. First off, Venice Beach is bright, sunny, and filled with people and families of all races and backgrounds out to enjoy the ocean, the sidewalk cafes, and, yes, the many street vendors. And the facts prove that my eyes don’t lie:

As of 2008, the population is estimated to be around 40,885. The median household income is $67,057, making it one the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city. The racial and ethnic composition in Venice is White (63.9%), Latino (22.2%), African American (5.6%), Asian (3.7%), and Other (4.6%).

What conclusion are we to make other than the left-wing L.A. Times consciously or unconsciously associates violent crime with Black and Hispanics.

To anyone paying attention, the so-called Birther, or birth certificate controversy, surrounding those misguided rumors that questioned whether or not President Obama had been born in this country, was a controversy both Obama and his MSM allies loved and maliciously stoked to keep alive. For them, it was a beautiful issue that gave them a racial brush with which to tar all Republicans and, better still, it worked as the perfect distraction to keep conservatives off message and on defense. For example, NBC’s David Gregory demands Congressman Eric Cantor take a firm stand against Birthers, and when he isn’t harsh enough to please a leftist like Gregory, that becomes the only story that comes out of a full-length “Meet the Press” interview.

All part of the plan.

And for a number of years it worked, at least until Donald Trump finally slew the Birther Dragon by turning the issue into such a negative for Obama, he was forced to finally act. After the President produced the very same birth certificate the MSM had assured us he could never get, the scalded media then attempted to spin it into a win for Obama, when in reality both they and the White House had just lost a powerful weapon both were counting on to reelect Obama. Without the shiny toy of Birtherism, conservatives might actually be allowed to get their 2012 message out and the country might actually have a discussion about Obama’s dismal record.

Today, Obama’s Media’s Palace Guards are desperately searching for new methods of distraction. So desperate are they that Politico’s Ben Smith and Slate’s Dave Weigel (both former members of the infamous Journolist) now have a regular cottage industry in coming up with anti-GOP nonsense distractions (today’s journolisting provides two perfect examples). But as diligent as those two are (What Fast and Furious?), they obviously aren’t enough.

Which helps to explain this insipid nonsense:

Many Republicans, however, don’t regard government jobs as actual jobs, and are eager to see them disappear. Republican governors around the Midwest have aggressively tried to break the power of public unions while slashing their work forces, and Congressional Republicans have proposed paying for a payroll tax cut by reducing federal employment rolls by 10 percent through attrition. That’s 200,000 jobs, many of which would be filled by blacks and Hispanics and others who tend to vote Democratic, and thus are considered politically superfluous.

Believe it or not, that’s a Sunday New York Times’ editorial attempting to make the case that wanting smaller government is, yep, racist.

Does the New York Times really believe that?

Of course not. The Times’ editorial is an obvious political tactic, not a serious policy position. The Times is intentionally toying with us, hoping to make us angry and put us on defense. ’Racist’ is the new ‘Birther.’

(more…)

“We’re going to see how open the GOP is to this black—their ‘new black friend’ when they find out he is harassing blonde women as opposed to black women. That sort of thing of black sexuality—predatory black sexuality. Very frightening. So we’ll see how that plays out.”

– Touré on MSNBC

Touré, Milton Academy Class of ’89, is out there trying to sell his book, Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? What It Means to Be Black Now.  I’m not sure why Touré —and not Herman Cain and not Thomas Sowell and not Clarence Thomas—is qualified to write about blackness, but I was intrigued, so I bought it. “You have to learn to shape your voice and find the courage to say really honest things,” he told The Milton Measure, the high school newspaper I once edited. I wondered to myself, did this mean I would I finally get that “honest conversation on race”?

It was a tough sell. You see, Touré grew up pretty privileged. We both went to the far left prep school, Milton Academy (tuition $30k a year)—he starting in kindergarten, me as a scholarship winner in ninth grade.  He became something of a tennis star. Dropping out of Emory, he started writing about hip hop for Rolling Stone and became the go-to black writer for a lot of the media. “When I write about hip hop, I want to expand the complexity of the discussion about the brilliant creators. Many people look at rappers as dumb and I know they’re not,” he told his old high school newspaper in September.

Alas, when it comes to another black American—Herman Cain—Touré has nothing but contempt. “[Herman Cain]’s totally ridiculous! I mean like intellectually ridiculous,” he told Bill Maher. Cain, according to Touré, is “unctuous,” which is to say “oily” and “anxious to please”–what normal people would call “charming.” Touré, again speaking for all blacks, tells us that Cain won’t past muster with blacks. He might want to check the returns from Cain’s 2004 Republican bid.  Cain won only two counties during that bid. His largest vote totals came from suburban Cobb and Gwinnett counties. His second highest vote totals came from Chatham, the majority-black county seat of Savannah. Cain predicts he’ll get up to a third of the black vote should he get the nomination. (more…)