Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume XIV: Charlie Hebdo

A few days ago, there was a bombing at a Colorado NAACP branch office. Some folks noted that this event seemed undercovered in the news media. Today, a dozen people were killed after terrorists stormed the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine. This has gotten plenty of coverage, and Phoebe Maltz Bovy immediately picks up on the inevitable:

Yes, the NAACP attack should get more coverage. No, the fact that the Paris attack (killing 12, as vs thankfully zero, and with major international implications) is more in the news isn't unreasonable. Nor (ahem, Twitter) should it be interpreted as evidence that The Zionists control the media.

To be fair, I didn't actually find any examples of this myself -- Phoebe says she read such claims on this thread but that they've apparently been taken down. I trust Phoebe, so I'm running with it, but if you'd like we can devote this comment section to "Things People Blame the Jews For: Making Up Sources."

In any event, assuming there is a Jewish conspiracy to overcover Charlie Hebdo at the expense of the NAACP bombing, well, be careful what you wish for -- we might not want too much attention to be put upon the former event. Greta "Reading Gilad Atzmon makes me awfully glad I was raised a Methodist" Berlin knows who really was behind the French strike. Two guesses as to who!

It's the Mossad. I gave you two guesses because "Shin Bet" was also a live possibility.

I do want to give Berlin credit for her celerity. When Ellie Merton won the prize for being the first to blame the Jews for the Anders Breivik massacre in Norway, it was a full two days after the event. Berlin was already pumping her conspiracy theory out in a matter of hours. That's the type of rapid-reaction anti-Semitism that today's on-the-go social media consumers deserve.

Boobirds

Mitt Romney delivers a speech before the NAACP. Mitt Romney promises to repeal "Obamacare". Mitt Romney is met with a chorus of boos.



My favorite part is how the video cuts just as Mitt Romney starts to mention "a survey of the Chamber of Commerce." That'll win 'em back, Mitt!

In any event, I'm curious what the impact of this booing will be. The odds are nothing -- it's no news that Black people disagree with Republican policies. But assuming we do care what Black people think, there is something notable about this. Sometimes a politician can go into a group's backyard, elicit boos, and come out ahead -- spin it as telling "tough truths" or "tough love". But that doesn't quite work here -- the GOP's attack on the ACA hasn't been that it is good for some but ultimately unaffordable. It is that it is a moral catastrophe loathed and despised by everyone. That narrative can't really countenance people booing at eliminating it -- it's predicated off of pretty universal disdain for the program.

Die Another Day Roundup

Terrible Bond flick, but it did contain perhaps the best one-liner in the series ("How's that for a punchline?").

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Rep. Steve King (R-IA) wants folks to know we have an "urban" President.

The DADT report is out, and it looks good for team anti-discrimination.

Best quote from a soldier in that report? "We have a gay guy [in the unit]. He’s big, he’s mean, and he kills lots of bad guys. No one cared that he was gay."

The NAACP is hosting a summit on the growing resegregation of our schools.

TNC on the "secession ball" neo-confederates are planning on hosting.

What makes food safety the one thing that actually managed to secure GOP cooperation this term?

US condemns Palestinian pseudo-science which denies Jewish link to the Western Wall.

Federal court judge issues a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of an Oklahoma law which would forbid courts from considering international or shariah law.

From the WIkiLeak: Qatari emir says he "can't blame" Israel for mistrusting Arabs.

Speaking of the WikiLeaks, I haven't been following them that closely, but I read somewhere that the one party whose private communications contained no surprising revelations is Israel. They're communiques with America apparently relay much the same things as what they say in public. So much for shadowy Zionists.

What Fools They Were To Trust The Website I Write For

In the wake of the Shirley Sherrod scandal, it became known that Noah Jonathan Joel (so many Pollaks!) Pollak -- the soon to be crushed election opponent of Rep. Jan Schkowsky (D-IL) -- is a contributor to Andrew Breitbart's website. Schkowsky, seeking to make some hay, asked Pollak to stop writing for Breitbart. Pollak demurred, saying he would continue his association, but released this statement:

"Andrew [Breitbart] used intemperate language in his debate with the NAACP, which was wrong," Pollak said in a statement. "It was even more wrong for the White House and the NAACP to punish a woman for alleged racism without conducting a full and fair investigation."

Beautiful. "Sure, the website I write for released a spliced-up, wildly misleading video in order to smear a woman and a prominent civil rights organization as racist," (I assume that's what "intemperate language" means, though Lord knows that's an A+ demonstration of weasel-wording). "But even worse was that the White House and NAACP were dumb enough to trust that something posted on it can be taken at face value. I mean, come on!"*

Honestly, I need to genuflect for a moment at this, because ... wow. It's just in a class of its own, isn't it?

* Not that I disagree entirely -- it is bad that the Department of Agriculture rushed to fire Ms. Sherrods without fully investigating the charge, particularly given that the source was, um, Andrew Breitbart. But it is a bizarre standard that the entity that initiated the lie should be judged less harshly than the entity that got taken in by it.

In any event, we've all learned a valuable lesson in trusting things posted on Andrew Breitbart's website -- including those, I imagine, posted by Noah Jonathan Joel Pollak. As Pollak has reminded us, we'd be fools to trust anything he says at this point without undertaking an independent investigation of our own.

The Redemption Scenario

Cross-posted to The Moderate Voice

The scandal of the day was the story of a USDA employee who appeared to indicate that she gave less than full help to a White farmer in an incident over 20 years ago, on account of his race. She told the story at an NAACP dinner, hence the contemporary hook -- conservatives (or at least segments of them) are still on their kick that the NAACP is the true racist organization in America. As it turns out, the employee was actually telling the tale as a redemption scenario -- she realized her prejudice was wrong, threw her full support to the White family, and ended up saving the farm. Hence why the family has consistently intervened to give her their full support.

When I first saw the story this afternoon, I didn't have time to blog about it, which is good, because I didn't know the full context and, like the NAACP, would have been at risk of getting "snookered". But I did know that the incident happened over 20 years ago. And that got me to thinking.

When the United States finally repudiated Jim Crow in the 1960s and 70s, it did not come with any purges. By and large, the same bureaucrats who managed our racist system in 1950 still managed the more egalitarian system that had emerged by 1970. There are lots of reasons for this, starting with the fact that firing every single person who had participated in America's brand of racial apartheid would have effectively left us without a civil service, and ending with the fact that America never really has managed to wrap its head around just how deeply the sins of racism had enmeshed itself in the system -- a full accounting of which would have extracted its pound of flesh from virtually each and every man and woman alive in this nation.

In any event, these bureaucrats took many forms. Some undoubtedly had opposed racism even at its apex, others really didn't care about it one way or the other. Some were loyal disciples of Jim Crow who later realized the error of their ways, and some had no guilt at all regarding their role as agents of apartheid, but adjusted to the new social order all the same. And some, of course, were entirely unrepentant and maintained a belief in White supremacy, but suppressed that outlook just enough to keep their job.

The point being -- this nation has a long history of employing the formerly racist. The best case scenario for such employees, usually, is that they come to see the light and dedicate the remainder of their professional lives towards remedying racial inequality and securing racial justice. And that story -- a story of redemption -- appears to be the story of Shirley Sherrod. It's not the worst tale in the world. To the extent that this country has moved forward on matters of race, it is, in fact, the quintessential American tale.

The Tea Party Resolution

Ta-Nehisi Coates has a good take on it. And like I pointed out yesterday, nothing has done more to legitimize the NAACP resolution than the response of the TP leadership. It is unbelievably outrageous.

The Tea Party Has Always Been Against Racism

As many of you know, the NAACP recently passed a resolution criticizing the Tea Party for tolerating racism in its movement. Top Tea Party leaders insist the charge is bogus. They are loud and vociferous in condemning racist organizations in America. Look at how they reacted to one of the most notorious racist organizations in America, the, um, NAACP:

[MARK] WILLIAMS: You’re dealing with people who are professional race baiters, who make a very good living off this kind of thing. They make more money off of race than any slave trader ever. It’s time groups like the NAACP went to the trash heap of history where they belong with all the other vile racist groups that emerged in our history.

Would a racist organization have said something like that? I don't think so! They don't pull any punches when it comes to opposing racism.

Mr. Williams, who is perhaps best known for saying Muslims worship a "monkey god" (then apologizing to Hindus for the slight), also declared that he was "disinclined to take lectures on racial sensitivity from a group that insists on calling black people, 'Colored,'" once again showing the deep, sophisticated grasp of racism and prejudice possessed by the American right.

Monday Evening Roundup

Forgive me, I've been busy.

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A host of leftist luminaries, including Noam Chomsky, have lent their imprimatur to a book which, among other things, effectively denies the 1994 Rwanda genocide. Well, let nobody accuse folks of singling out the Jews anymore, at least.

The internal IDF probe of the Gaza flotilla incident (distinct from the independent Terkel commission) has found mistakes in the operation, but fully sanctioned the use of force by the commandos. One of its observations was that there aren't really that many ways to stop a ship from going someplace without boarding it, and there aren't that many ways to board a ship whose crew is violently resisting without yourself using some violence.

Whoever wrote the screenplay for this World War II thing I keep seeing on the History Channel needs to find a new profession. I mean, sheesh.

It's not nice to kick folks while they're down, but Matt Yglesias I think is appropriately harsh to journalists just now discovering that John McCain is 95% hack. He didn't really change, you just weren't paying attention.

Switzerland refuses to extradite Roman Polanski, bowing to an international outcry that punishing a convicted child rapist is a gross injustice when the rapist is friends with important to people.

Adam Serwer has a good post on the Justice Department dropping voter intimidation charges against the New Black Panther Party.

The NAACP is considering a resolution condemning racism in the Tea Party movement.

The NAACP's White Chapters

A neat article about one of the few predominantly White chapters of the NAACP -- the one chartered at a Maine state prison. The article kind of talks about the NAACP's efforts to reach out beyond its African-American base, though it doesn't give many details. And the background of the chapter itself is likewise pretty sketchy -- the White president of the chapter mentioned only that the NAACP seemed to have more outside support than any other prison-allowed organizations, but it is unclear how tied in he is with the group's broader history and ideology.

Still, neat.

Civil Rights Roundup: 10/08/08

Your daily dose of civil rights and related news

A Federal judge has ordered the release of several Chinese Muslim detainees from Guantanamo who have been cleared of links to terrorism for several years. The judge demanded that the men be admitted to the United States immediately, and ordered that immigration services not interfere with them in any way. The US filed an emergency appeal to stay the order, with White House spokeswoman Dana Perino saying that allowing admittedly innocent men wrongfully detained for years in a lawless prison might make us vulnerable to terrorism (I wish I was kidding).

Low income residents of DC are being deprived of legal services, and many don't know where to turn for help.

The anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 has made a comeback and is now shown to be leading in the polls.

As a result, gay couples are flocking to the altar ahead of the November vote on their rights.

President Bush signed into law a bill which would establish a task force to try and crack cold civil rights era cases.

The Supreme Court has a few cases being argued this term that have big implications for the future of the Exclusionary Rule (illegally obtained evidence cannot be admitted into court).

The AP has gotten its hands on documents showing that American officials knew that their detention policies had driven some detainees "nearly insane".

Gay and lesbian candidates for political office are looking at a banner year.

A Rabbi has notified police after receiving thousands of threatening emails from a campaign sponsored by PETA, protesting a ritual by which he sacrifices a chicken in order to atone for his sins.

The NAACP is criticizing hiring practices in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

Civil Rights Roundup Returns! (09/30/08)

Okay, here's the scoop everybody. The civil rights roundup is back. But it will be on a significantly modified schedule. For starters, this is likely the only Tuesday you'll see it, as I have class with only a lunch break straight through from 9:45 - 4 that day. Most days, though, a probably abridged roundup will show up by mid-afternoon.

And with that, away we go!

The trial of a South Carolina state trooper accused of ramming a fleeing suspect with his car has begun.

A group of pastors gave political sermons in an effort to provoke a showdown over whether the IRS can withhold tax-exempt status to religious bodies which engage in political activity.

A prosecutor has been appointed by Attorney General Michael Mukasey to continue the investigation into the US Attorneys firings.

Early voting has been approved in Ohio.

The NAACP claims racial profiling is on the rise in the Seattle area.

Civil rights leaders are targeting Greenbelt, Maryland's at-large election system as diluting the power of Black voters.

A Montana woman whose same-sex partner adopted a child has gained parental rights, a first in Montana.

The Governor of Colorado has come out against the efforts to ban affirmative action in that state.

A Lowell man has plead guilty to hate crimes after beating someone due to his perceived sexual orientation.

A sex discrimination case against major glass manufacturer will move forward after the presiding judge rejected a motion to throw out the case.

Smaller school districts are beginning to encounter the language barrier.

Efforts to register veterans are foundering on a mess of red tape. But maybe they're "phony veterans" anyway?

This Boston Herald story commits the typical universalist fallacy of assuming Whites' views of Blacks, and Blacks' views of Whites are equally groundless.

American Airlines has endorsed the Employee Non-Discrimination Act. And here comes another boycott!

Civil Rights Roundup: 08/13/08

Your daily dose of civil rights and related news

Gay and lesbian Latina/os are finding it more difficult to claim asylum due to improving tolerance in their home nations.

A Virginia court has given the state's first "writ of innocence" after new evidence cleared a man incarcerated on a gun charge. Virginia has until recently been perhaps the most aggressive state at seeking to suppress the admission of exculpatory evidence after conviction.

The NAACP is frustrated with the pace over an investigation about an inmate's death in a PG County jail.

Peter Beinart thinks that Obama can and should neutralize the race issue by calling for a replacement of race-based affirmative action with class-based systems.

The WaPo wants to enhance privacy protections for laptops crossing the border.

The Houston Chronicle reports on immigrants who prepare for immigration raids like the rest of us might prepare for a natural disaster. Ironically enough, ICE supports these preparations.

The Orthodox Jewish community has rightfully come under fire for its tepid response to the massive abuses of worker's rights reported at the Postville Kosher meatpacking plant.

One of the Jena Six defendants will not be returning there for school, instead attending a Connecticut boarding school.

Yet another study dispells the link between abortion and mental illness. I wonder how many copies Justice Kennedy has received in the mail?

The US government is working to reduce the time it takes for citizenship applications to be processed.

Riots are brewing in Malyasia over a proposal to curb advantages for the majority (but poorer) Malay ethnic group.

Real Clear Politics interviews a large swath of America's experts on race and asks them how they think the Obama campaign will affect their field of study. It's a really great article.

I've got a better deal for Ramesh Ponnuru: Americans stop being racist, and the Republican Party might legitimately be able to appeal to more than just White folks.

Prop. 209 may have banned efforts by California universities to reach out to minority students. But it can't stop student volunteers from taking matters into their own hands.

Gay tourism is on the rise in Israel, which does not thrill some of its more conservative, religious elements.

Denver voters have passed a law which would target suspected illegal immigrant drivers.

The Seattle Times asks: Are White Voters Telling the Truth when they say they'll vote for a Black candidate?

Civil Rights Roundup: 07/17/08

Your daily dose of civil rights and related news. I'm going to New York this afternoon and won't be back until late tomorrow, so the roundup will be off until Monday

What is the world coming to when hippies attack the homeless?

An Arizona sheriff is being accused of racial profiling in his aggressive efforts to roundup undocumented immigrants.

The University of Texas is working to make sure websites which document human rights atrocities don't disappear.

Prison guard fired for wearing a beard in accordance with his religious obligations.

Missouri ordered to bolster efforts at registering low-income residents to vote.

ACLU will defend Amish in suit over how to label their horse-drawn buggies.

Census won't count gay marriages.

Latino squad earns respect at Watts basketball tournament.

A 3rd Circuit panel held that removing disruptive Christian protesters from a gay pride event was constitutionally permissible. In an opinion joined by the third justice on the panel, Judge Dolores K. Sloviter justified the removal because the protesters went beyond distributing literature and waving signs, and actively attempted to drown out the proceedings. A concurring opinion also would have upheld the removal, but on the grounds that the protesters used "fighting words" when they referred to a transgender woman as a "she-male" and told her she would be going to hell.

The NAACP was cordial but not exactly warm when John McCain came visiting.

One oft-repeated (by me as much as anyone) refrain about racism is that overt racist sentiment is not really expressed or actively believed much in modern America. Some 2004 survey data seems to indicate we're too optimistic about that.

Civil Rights Roundup: 07/15/08

Your daily dose of civil rights and related news

This is a theme I've been seeing a lot of lately: Immigrants being mistreated at detention centers.

Obama continued to hit the responsibility theme in his speech before the NAACP. It was a message met with "loud applause" by the influential civil rights groups.

On that point, Ta-Nehisi Coates (who is a strong supporter of the "responsibility" meme) is sick of media coverage that acts as if this message is something new and transgressive for the Black community.

Though I doubt Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) is actually in any serious electoral peril, I do expect the new wave of African-American politics to start flexing its muscle against the old guard shortly.

The NAACP will continue to push to have South Carolina remove the Confederate Battle Flag from the statehouse grounds.

IUPUI has finally apologized for disciplining an employee for reading a historical book about the KKK in his break room. At one point, the university said his actions constituted "racial harassment".

The DREAM Act is really in my opinion a no-brainer piece of legislation. John McCain, on the other hand, appears to be of many minds on the subject.

A White talk show host called Barack Obama an "oreo" the other day. Is it just me, or are Whites as much if not more invested in the view of Black culture as anti-achievement than the stereotypical arbiters of "authentic Blackness" are?

The Chicago Police Department has failed in its bid to fire an officer who beat a man handcuffed to a wheelchair.

Some federal agencies are looking to expand Title IX beyond sports, and into an even more macho realm: Science (Carleton College can show you how it's done).

A growing set of discrimination claims are centered around employers' beliefs that women with young families can't be good workers.

Italian driver forced to re-take road test because he's gay.

A Chicago Tribune editorial responds to the question: Why are there "Black" groups out there like the NAACP or the Black fraternities and sororities, but no comparable White groups? The answer: Because Blacks historically weren't allowed to join the "just-plain-American" groups.

In related news, my review of the upcoming movie "Bama Girl" is up on the LCCR's website. I say related because anybody who thinks there are no all-White sororities anymore has no experience with the University of Alabama.

An affirmative action success story responds to Stephen Carter.

Civil Rights Roundup: 07/14/08

Your daily dose of civil rights and related news

In today's no kidding file: NAACP head: Obama win won't solve racial injustice.

The Washington Post has an article about out gay youth.

The nation's oldest Black sorority is celebrating its 100th anniversary.

Historians to judges: Stop pretending to be historians. You suck at it.

Seattle is settling its third excessive force case in less than a year.

The Seattle Times opines: "Dump Don't Ask Don't Tell".

A translator gives an inside account of a massive ICE raid.

The Cincinnati Enquirer interviews local Black residents and finds they've got more on their mind than just the high-profile civil rights issues. Cincinnati is hosting this years NAACP conference.

Teens attacked a shelter for gay and trans youth -- fortunately it looks like the assault was broken up before it got too far out of hand.

The San Francisco Chronicle comes out in favor of reforming the juvenile justice system.

Georgia's residency restrictions for sex offenders (including, in this case, a woman who had oral sex at 17 with a 15 year old) really lead to absurd results.

Strip-searching a 13 year old girl to look for Advil not okay, says the 9th Circuit (in a 6-5 ruling, amazingly enough).

Civil Rights Review: 07/03/08

Your morning roundup of civil rights and related news. The review will be off for July 4th, and will return to action Monday morning.

The NAACP has made its way to Utah to fight mortgage discrimination.

A Texas death row inmate's execution has been delayed again as he tries to get courts to consider DNA evidence that might prove his innocence.

Gender gaps persist in Houston's fire department -- particularly at the upper levels.

The Justice Department is looking at endorsing profiling by the FBI -- even when there is no individual suspicion of wrongdoing.

A Texas grand jury declined to indict a man who shot and killed two burglars who were robbing a neighbors home. The Houston Chronicle has a good editorial on the matter.

AlterNet reports on folks who are changing their middle name to "Hussein" to combat intolerance.

A lawsuit has forced the release of a detained legal immigrant who alleged that her health problems were received negligible attention from federal authorities. The government denies wrongdoing, but the NYT reports that they have instituted new reporting requirements regarding the deaths of immigrant detainees (this woman, thankfully, did not die -- though from the reports of her condition she came pretty close).

Shorter David Broder: There's no actual evidence that increased diversity is undermining American "identity". But since some conservatives said that was happening, I'll repeat all their talking points anyway.

This is a great example of a technically accurate headline that still probably was a poor choice: "Bushmen denied visas to build mud-huts in Va."

San Francisco has reversed its "sanctuary policy" for illegal immigrant children. The city remains adamant, however, that the young men and women are "victims" and alleges that many of them were effectively pressed into slavery by local gangs. "We have a duty to defend these kids, zealously," said Patricia Lee, manager of the public defender office for juvenile court.

A transgender woman was just found murdered in Memphis, the apex of "a string of hate crimes against the Memphis transgender community."

Civil Rights Roundup: 07/02/08

Your morning roundup of civil rights and related news:

This is a frankly bizarre story of an unidentified White murder victim whose burial has been indefinitely delayed because the county is reluctant to bury her in a "Black" cemetery.

Redundant headline of the day: Judges rip Texas courts in death penalty case. At issue is the failure of Texas courts to even grant an oral hearing as to whether a convicted death row inmate is mentally retarded (and thus ineligible for execution). Three tests have placed his IQ below 70.

Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, claims he lacks the authority to turn over illegal immigrants to the feds.

A new push to encourage immigrants to become citizens and then vote. Civic engagement: it's a good thing.

America's torture regime: hand-copied from Chinese communists.

Civil rights saves: The rapper T.I. -- imprisoned on gun charges -- is now working with Atlanta mayor and civil rights hero Andrew Young (yes, I'm aware of the controversy around him) to help reduce gun violence. T.I. cites his exposure to the works of leading civil rights leaders as critical to his new focus.

Yay revisionist history! The Claremont Institute has a charming apologia attempting to rehabilitate the institutional right's stance on civil rights in the 60s. Incidentally, anyone who thinks the right was happy to support "Integration and black progress ... when they were the result of private actions like the boycotts of segregated buses or lunch counters" needs to have Will Herberg's "Who are the guilty ones?" article shoved in their face.

WaPo columnist Courtland Milloy urges Black civil rights leaders to get tougher in situations where the perpetrators as well as the victims lie in their own community (the example here being Prince George's County).

The NAACP's youngest ever leader is set to take office. It's a good move for the venerable but aging organization, which is losing ground to hipper new movements like Color of Change. I think the CoC does fantastic work, but we need every bit of cachet, reputation, history, and manpower we can get to win this fight.

Springfield News-Leader: "Even if there were no minority students in Springfield schools, the kids would need minority teachers."