This is a follow up to the post about the deceptive and misleading characterizations of Tagg Romney’s statement that he wanted to “take a swing” at Obama.
It was perfectly clear from the full sentence that it was not a threat but simply a comment about the frustrations a family member feels in a political campaign.
Yet that did not stop Lawrence “Tough Streets of Boston” O’Donnell from challenging Tagg to a fight.
It also provided an opportunity for some to inject race into the issue based on “White Privilege.”
The first was by Ta-Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic, It’s Funny Because We’re White:
Mitt Romney’s son jokes about assaulting the president ….
Yes because a good whippin’ would teach that Obama boy to mind his place.
It’s worth trying to imagine any black man associated with a credible black candidate for the presidency, joking about beating down the incumbent president of the United States. Racism isn’t just in what you do and don’t say, but in the terrain you walk. It is baked in the cake — a fact which is hard to understand when you are the party of white people.
Sorry, but this was a total miss. Tagg Romney didn’t joke about assaulting the president, he joked about how frustrating it was to feel as a family member that you wanted to take a swing at someone but knew you couldn’t.
The key words, which Coates did quote but many others cut off, were “because that’s the nature of the process.” To construe this as a racially-based or racially-permitted threat was beneath Coates.
William Sirota at Salon.com went several steps further, into full blown Lawrence O’Donnell territory, Tagg Romney: Mr. White Privilege:
One of the hallmarks of White Privilege is the unquestioned and largely unchallenged assumption that white people can say heinous things about people of color without blowback or even mild criticism — things that people of color rarely dare to say about white people, for fear of serious retribution. Tagg — aka Mr. White Privilege — proves the point perfectly. He feels totally comfortable fantasizing about committing physical violence against an African-American man….
To know that’s a reflection of the new intensity of White Privilege is to witness the relatively muted reaction to the episode from a media that otherwise treats every microscopic nuance of the presidential race as a “breaking news” event. What’s more, this is a country where, whether in an election season or not, any threat of violence against any president of either party is a potential federal crime and thus covered as a major news story. That is, of course, before Obama, a black man, became president, and representatives of his white opponent started joking about physically harming him.
First of all, there was no “fantasizing about committing physical violence against” anyone.
The reason the media reaction was so muted is because the threat of violence was a fiction, no one listening to it reasonably could conclude it was so. The whole White Privilege narrative was created to place a fiction on top of a fiction.
And the notion that threats to a president started with Obama is a deliberate disregard for the vitriol hurled at Bush, including violent imagery.
You can’t make that “White Privilege permits white people to speak violently against Obama” argument if you ignore the fact that both white and non-white people treated the “White President” as rudely if not more rudely. Facts matter.
Romney’s reaction used less violent in its imagery than when Michelle Obama expressed similar familial frustrations in making comments about scratching Bill Clinton’s eyes out:
In Wisconsin, I asked her if she was offended by Bill Clinton’s use of the phrase ‘fairytale’ to describe her husband’s characterisation of his position on the Iraq war. At first, Obama responded with a curt ‘No’. But, after a few seconds, she affected a funny voice. ‘I want to rip his eyes out!’ she said, clawing at the air with her fingernails. One of her advisers gave her a nervous look. ‘Kidding!’ Obama said. ‘See, this is what gets me into trouble.’
I don’t think Michelle Obama threatened Clinton anymore than Tagg Romney threatened Barack Obama. They each expressed the normal human frustrations at seeing a family member called names.
Are cheap racial plays all that is left for Obama supporters?
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“Are cheap racial plays all that is left for Obama supporters?” Well, Big Bird and Binders didn’t seem to work, so it’s back to basics.
That’s right! That’s why I love this site, which concentrates exclusively on the important issues!!!
HUH?
Avi: Just think, starting in 2013 you can listen to your MSM heroes whining about how unfair it is that Romney is getting credit for the recovery that is the direct result of Obama’s policies. They will not explain it…just say it. But you and your brethren will sop it up, because that is what you do. You blame others for what goes wrong, and take credit for what goes right, even though you had everything to do with the former and nothing to do with the latter.
The story of The Little Red Hen should be required reading in all Gummint Schools and Universities. Especially the latter.
Racial equality means that a man who (for cause) needs a good ass whipping…regardless of color…will get it without any question of his race coming into play.
And it is apparent who the racists are in your quotes, Prof.
Anti-white racism is inherent and operational in Coates’ remarks and all similar remarks we hear constantly from the left in their bogus, trumped-up cries of racism.
It is amazing that this is seldomly noticed.
“One of the hallmarks of White Privilege is the unquestioned and largely unchallenged assumption that white people can say heinous things about people of color without blowback or even mild criticism…”
And then he goes on to criticize and gives lots of blowback.
These people ,no matter the color , are truly people of the “Mud”. They certainly love to wallow in it even when it is laced with the monkey feces they love to extrude ,then indescriminatly fling. Mmmm! ,finger likkin good !!
Heavy stuff here…..lots to think about.
Let’s see….Moochele said she wanted to rip the eyes out of a white man….Tagg said he wanted to take a swing at a half-black man.
Would it have been better if he had said that he wanted to rip out his tongue?
Oh wait, that wouldn’t work either because then he would be insulting a form of traditional Muslim punishment.
How about a showdown at the OK Corral?
Oh, never mind.
I’ve said for a while that if we truly want civil discourse, then bring back the duel.
🙂
Yes, yes, yes. I can hear it now. Joe Biden to Paul Ryan, “I challenge you to a duel!” Paul Ryan says, “I accept. Since you have challenged, I have the choice of weapon. I choose a duel of brains.” To which Biden replies, “That’s not fair. Mine’s not loaded!”
I’ll be so happy when Obama is gone, and the race pimps are relegated back to the fringe, where they belong.
“Are cheap racial plays all that is left for Obama supporters?”
Mitt Romney thinks they don’t have much left:
“‘Have you been listening to the Obama camp lately? They have no agenda for the future, no agenda for America, no agenda for the second term,’ Romney told a crowd of thousands who gathered in a band shell just off Daytona Beach. ‘They’ve been reduced to petty attacks and silly word games. Just watch it — the Obama campaign has become the incredible shrinking campaign.'”
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/danieldoherty/2012/10/20/new_romney_ad_the_obama_agenda
The engine room is knee-deep in water. If it goes any higher, it will lap over into the boilers and SS Obama 2012 will be dead in the water. Axelrod is furiously baling with a chamber pot, it seems. Plouffe is trying to force the once loyal stokers back into the fire rooms to shovel more coal. And all the while, Cap’n Obama is playing shuffleboard on the Lido Deck, while Moochelle is loading the nice china and the good silverware into a lifeboat. Meanwhile, Harry Reid was caught, disguised as a woman, trying to sneak into a lifeboat with D.W. Schultz disguised as his poodle.
Folks, we just need to keep reloading the torpedo tubes. They ain’t sunk yet!
Trooper, you are now my BFF! I wanna buy you a beer. 🙂
Uh hoh my god this is hilarious.
O’Donnell made a complete fool of himself doing a scene from The Departed as if people aren’t laughing at him.
I think what is going on here is that these guys are expressing their frustrations that they cannot browbeat Mitt Romney into going easy on Obama like they could with McCain.
They see the election slipping away and they are angry.
‘Take a swing at’ sounds a lot like a punishment, penalty.
I prefer a “tax on arrogance”…circa 2012.
You can’t make that “White Privilege permits white people to speak violently against Obama” argument if you ignore the fact that both white and non-white people treated the “White President” as rudely if not more rudely. Facts matter.
Exactly so, Professor … and if I could have six bits for every time I heard Dubya Bush called that racist term — “a cracker” — during his time in office, I’d retire to a chateau on the Amalfi Coast tomorrow.
One word: assholes.
Slow Joe Biden can play the, “they gonna put y’all back in chains” card to a mostly black audience and nothing is said. But if Tagg Romney’s words can be selectively misconstrued to create an imaginary racial construct, it’s a legitimate exercise in Obama’s “post-racial” America.
Words are neutral. Even clear, contextual meanings of those words when they are used in certain combinations are conclusive. However, there is a certain “entitlement” assumed by the perpetually-offended classes, whereupon they can construe any words to their purposes, and the perpetually guilty class (i.e. white liberals) allow them to do it. In my opinion, this whole dynamic and its impure output is just another reset of the soft racism of low expectations endemic to the whole Left.
Have you seen the little piggies
Crawling in the dirt
And for all those little piggies
Life is getting worse
Always having dirt to play around in.
Have you seen the bigger piggies
In their starched white shirts
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt
And they always have clean shirts to play around in.
And in their styes with all their backing
They don’t care what goes on around
And in their eyes there’s something lacking
What they need’s a damm good whacking.
Who knew the Beatles were racists ?
Don’t you just love that “Mr. White Privilege”? Here is the son of a guy who pretty much made his millions on his own; therefore, he has gone beyond the pale. He is not one of us any more. Where do they get these ideas? This is the American dream in spades. It is only the jealous and stupid who trash such accomplishments. You know, the ones who won’t work or educate themselves so they could do more for themselves. No, they are content to bask in the government trough or stay in jobs where there is no advancement because of lack of education or will for all their lives. These people hate anyone who succeeds. I have no patience with this kind of envy. Most of these people want success and money handed to them on a silver platter and feel shortchanged if they don’t get it. These are the ones who fall for obama’s cr*ap because they are like minded. If you don’t like your lot in life see what you can do to better it. Don’t sit back and gripe about the ones who do try or act like they are some alien species because they didn’t stay in the muck. Of course, if obama is elected and hehas his way, everyone will be poor. He’s already made a start.
Oh, please. His father was George Romney, Governor of the state of Michigan and Chairman of General Motors, of course he was privileged, just like any one of the Kennedys. The difference between him and Bill Ayers is that he made use of his advantages in a positive fashion,
Obama was also privileged. His problem is that he was a slacker that let everybody push him, and gave nothing back, ever. His momma flew here and there, had all the opportunities of higher education, which she spend on pot and guys.
Anyone who would like to know what Southie was like during the time that Mr. O’Donnell would have you believe he was a street tough would enjoy reading Howie Carr’s book, The Brothers Bulger.
Not only does it reveal a side to the city that is just gruesome, but also gives great insight into how the underworld and Massachusetts politics is really one and the same.
O’Donnell’s tomfoolery on television, if directed at Whitey Bulger, would have had Mr. Bulger doing a little free dental extraction for him.
Read the book. You won’t be disappointed.
High Chair Pounding with their girlish fistums and sternly wagging those scrawny, manicured fingers(AND, that’s just the Boyos of the Left..!)is so beyond Tiresome,’Yo.
Barry…Your Infantile Majesty…Young Princeling…Boy King,’Yo! You’re OUT!! Buuu-Byeeeeeeeee…!
Leftists like Choates and Sirota and Chait and O’Donnell and the rest are corrupt to their very souls, if any. There is not a single shred of honesty or integrity to share among them.
It is very safe, if you value your time so little as to fritter it away reading their drivel, to assume that, just as Mary McCarthy said of Lillian Hellman, “… every single word is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’.”
In both quotes is the direct and indirect implication that “white privilege” and “racism” are inborn – genetic, even. I cite Ms. Coates:
These people are steeped in the idea that ONLY “whites” can be racists……. I’ve seen this all too often before. They themselves exude racism, racialism, and prejudice, then they project to point out “white people’s” supposed raaaaacism. The sad thing is that these people BELIEVE their misguided, wrong-headed foolishness!
If ANYBODY had called his Dad a liar – especially on TV in front of 65+ million people, Tagg Romney would have felt THE SAME WAY. It had NOTHING to do with the skin color of the person speaking (or sex, or age, or any other demographic descriptor!!).
I can’t wait till Nov. 6th!!! At least I hope this will begin to end. I hope and pray.
Cheap racial plays are pretty much all the Dems have, with or without Obama. Without the virtually unanimous support at the polls of African-Americans — of every income level, every educational level, every occupation, every region — their party would be in deep trouble. While 90 percent or more of the Black vote is a strength, keeping it really demands incessant portrayals of the nation as irredeemably racist, Blacks as helpless victims dependent in Dem protection and largesse, and Republicans as Simon Legree.