While Josh was writing that rich, white assholes are complaining that to be called a teabagger is akin to calling a black person “nigger,” I was looking for examples of white people showing their racist thoughts outwardly in the mainstream media. And guess what! It took me less than five minutes!
Over at Talking Points Memo they’ve got a story about the Republican candidate challenging Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.). We like Grayson. He’s a little nuts, but he speaks his mind and — this is the crazy part — he can usually find an objective fact to back up what he says (except that time he was on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” when he talked out his ass on some stuff).
I digress. Here’s Navy veteran and former airline pilot Dan Fanelli telling Florida that he supports racial profiling. This is not a joke.
My favorite part is when he calls himself ripped. Humor FAIL.
And then there’s this ad:
The only good thing about the message here is that the soundtrack may be by Lalo Schifrin.
Finally, Fanelli has an ad with a doctor telling an old man that he can’t get medical treatment because he’s passed the age limit. You know, death panels! Because they’re real! Guess: Old people in Florida are shitting themselves at the Fanelli ads. Because — and this is just the experience of having grandparents who voted for Perot — old people believe everything fringe candidates tell them.
The only good thing about the racism, fear-mongering and fucking horrible human being-ness of Dan Fanelli is that he’s running against Grayson who will totally not back down from any weird shit Fanelli throws his way. In fact, this whole ad campaign was probably designed to be outrageous because Grayson himself is a little bonkers.
That being said, there’s no excuse for a person like Dan Fanelli getting to Congress. There’s no excuse for Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) either, but that’s another post for another time.
I’m not trying to start a meaningless fight that has no possible end (good or bad), but I do have to say that just because one idiot politician makes a fool out of himself doesn’t mean everyone else the same color as him is as dumb.
Also, regarding the title of your post, racism has been out in the open and acceptable for quite some time now. It’s called Affirmative Action. (It sounds great and all, but when an African American female can get into med school with a 19 on the MCAT but a caucasian male cannot with a 26, there is something very wrong.)
Yeah, I don’t want to start a meaningless fight that has no end, either, but I will say that your argument is totally reductive and, in a historical context, wrong.
So there’s that.
In regard to your statement: (It sounds great and all, but when an African American female can get into med school with a 19 on the MCAT but a caucasian male cannot with a 26, there is something very wrong.)
I just wanted to note that that’s a crock of shit. Affirmative Action is no longer acceptable and hasn’t been since 1978. Please feel free to look up the Supreme Court case: Regents of the University of California v. Bakke in which they essentially came to the conclusion that the UC Davis MED SCHOOL admissions program was unconstitutional because it excluded applicants on the basis of race.
But no no, you’re clearly right. Being white is SO HARD, I mean it’s not like they make up the majority of most major colleges and their grad school programs. How dare anyone try to right the imbalance caused by hundreds of years worth of injustice and segregation? THOSE BASTARDS.
(This is of course, not to make the assumption that affirmative action wasn’t flawed, but that’s for another day.)
Unless the “D” after Michele Bachmann stands for “deranged”, it should be changed to an “R.”
You’re right. Thanks for calling that to my attention.
(It could stand for “deranged.”)
whata the meaning of your gravatar?
No meaning. Found it on the Smoking Gun in one of their many mugshot posts.