DA (Quaker): Your Honor, I object!

Judge: Overruled

You re another moron…How could your head be so big and so empty…You a – hole…

But mind you, frameone, Frank never, never resorts to personal attacks.

Ever.

How could your head be so big and so empty at the same time.

“Branding”? You a – hole.

I don’t what or who turned you into the Black’s “Great White Defender”, but if they could read your posts of late, they’d probably say, “Step off, Chuck Brother, I got this.”

Okay. But let’s get one thing clear. Bennett is a racist. Got it? He’s had his chance to apologize and so far he hasn’t. It shouldn’t take a day. He should have apologized as soon as he realized what he said and he should have realized what he said as soon as he said it. We are calling Bennett out because he is a racist. Now it’s time to see where everyone else stands. You don’t agree with what Bennett said. Great.
Do you want to say something else? Do you have some other point to make?

What should we do about people that are racists? Ignore them. Mock them. Call them what they are. But in doing so, make sure that we are calling them out for what they are, rather than what some perceive them to be.

How’s this for a jumping off point: Problems in society are caused by institutionalized imbalances of power. There are some people, and groups of people, who work to maintain and strengthen those imbalances, and there are some who work to eliminate them. Which one are you? Which one do you want to be?

The calm, considered discussion you want so dearly to have begins with this: What Bill Bennet said is utterly reprehensible and should be condemned by anyone who claims to care about decency, fairness and the American Dream. That’s it. Period. No let’s look at the context, let’s try to understand it from Bill’s point of view. Because the discussion that’s important here isn’t whether Bennett was right or wrong or taken out of context. He is wrong and nothing else he said mitigates the ugliness of what he said. The FACT that Bennett’s comments are racist is the beginning of the real discussion which is: WHY does he equate blackness itself with crime and how can we, as a nation, counter this belief in a constructive manner? We can’t censor Bennett but we can get together, conservatives and liberals, to limit the damage and appeal of this kind of pernicious thinking. But he ground rules are clear and obvious: What Bennett said was beneath contempt even as a hypothetical. We start from there, no exceptions, or there is no discussion. Because if all you want is to defend or mitigate what Bennett said then you are part of the problem and should be lumped in with him. That’s it. Period.

We got Bennett and you who think there’s some reasonable and acceptable excuse for what he said. That’s two conservatives I’ll call out as racists. Anyone else want to step up for the branding?

And the Democratic Party is absolutely responsible for racist actions in the past. There’s no argument about that. But our party went through a spiritual crisis in the 1960’s and decided we didn’t want to be like that anymore. We left the bigots behind for the Republicans to harvest, and electoral politics haven’t been the same since.

I am beginning to think your ardent desire for a discussion was really just a ruse. You have been offered several chances now, by a couple of different people, and you haven’t taken any of them. It seems all you really want to talk about is how mean liberals are …. and that’s kind of boring.

Show me where I am a racist. Was marrying a minority a racist act? Was having a child of mixed races some action attributable to some underlying racism?

Make the Republican party stop being racist? Apparently the actions that you attibute to one side do not apply when the others have done so. Which party has former Klan members in leadership positions? Which party did Bull Conner belong to? How about Governor Wallace?

Fine. Judge me on the things I say. Judge me on the things I do. Judge me on the things I defend. Judge me on the company I keep. I do not need your approval.

He said, basically, if we committed genocide on black people crime would go down. “Not that I’m saying we should …”

That’s not a qualifier it’s just weasel words. If he didn’t mean “kill black people, black people are the cause of crime,” then why did he say it? He can’t have it both ways.

And no, Bennet’s words alone are not being used to convict all Republicans of racism. Bennet’s words are nothing compared to a long-standing pattern of words, policies, actions, and inactions on the part of the Republican Party that go back for decades.

If Republicans are serious about removing the stink of racism from their name it’s going to take a lot more than self-pity and whining on the blogs.

Self pity and whining? Some are simply pointing out that uber-partisan like yourself prefer to peddle blanket stereotypes over entire clasees of people rather than actually having a discussion.

Making references to pitchforks, unjust convictions and yes, “blanket stereotypes” is self pity and whining.

You don’t like being called racist? Good, stop being racist. Better yet, do what you can to grab the Republican Party by the collar and make it stop being racist. Then maybe we can get somewhere in this country.

I think I understand where you are coming from because I know a lot of people like this. You think to yourself “I don’t feel racist. I have no personal animosity towards the handful of black (Asian, Hispanic, whatever) people I encounter in my daily life. Therefore I must not be a racist.”

But you know what? You’re not the one who gets to make that call. Other people will judge you on the things you say and do, the things you defend and the company you keep. If you don’t like their judgement, tough. Either change your behavior or get used to it.

Bennet said something bad about black people (with a huge qualifier that has been ignored), and this is all the “evidence” needed to convict all Republicans of being racists.

Makes sense? No.

Will it ever end? Not around here.

The lack of civility, in which I have admittedly been guilty of in the past, is one of my most fundamental problems with politics today.

As I said, I do not attempt to defend Limbaugh. He says what he says, and he can defend himself. I loathe Savage, from the few times that I have listened to him. Fact is, I would rather listen to Franken and Garafalo than Savage. However, their personalities were not my point.

So I return to my thought. Can we have an honest discussion about race without the rhetorical bombs? So far, I have been accused of being a racist and a bigot, and asked to defend Limbaugh and Savage, for criticizing Bennett, and then posing a more of a meta-type question about communications in regards to issues involving race.