Racism Chasing: Selective Outrage And Self-Generated Claims Of Racism Nullify The Credibility Of The Black Operatives

I am going to show you links to 3 stories.

You tell me which of these 3 will be brushed off as inconsequential despite the overt use of race in the context of politics:

• Politico: Democrats Imply That Race Is A Factor For Obama Foes
• NY Times: Ex-Mayor of Memphis Starts Bid for Congress, Invoking Race in Campaign
• NY Times: Dowd: Boy, Oh, Boy. Some people just can’t believe a Black man is president and will never accept it.

(Links courtesy of Black Electorate.com)

I have been listening to talk radio and it appears that the "vigor" of the White Conservative protesters that came to Washington DC this past weekend is suspect. For some reason they were not quite motivated to march against government spending back when the 43 other "White guys" were in the office of president it seems. This was the key indictment that was used by a radio talk show caller that I heard today.

Again - if someone can tell me WHERE ARE THE ANTI-WAR PROTESTS now that there is a "Black President"? Is it possible that the White Conservatives are applying their "White Supremacy" against a Black president in the same way that the White Progressives who had been protesting against the 2 wars that continue see the Black president as "inferior" and thus they don't believe that he has the full authority of Commander In Chief to stop the war - unlike his predecessor who started it?

If we are going to use "When did you stop beating your wife" type questions then why not make direct use of the twin brother of "White Supremacy" which is "Black Inferiority"?

The most frustrating thing about the line up above is that the politician that is the correct answer on the list doesn't even bother to mask his racialist antics. More importantly he knows that he has nothing to worry about if he does.

The Winner Of The Blatant Racialism : Willie Herenton of Memphis

MEMPHIS — A Congressional race in Tennessee has become freighted with racial overtones almost a year before the election, with a prominent black politician saying the white incumbent cannot properly represent black voters.

The black candidate, former Mayor Willie W. Herenton of Memphis, has argued that Tennessee needs a black voice in its currently all-white delegation. He is running a blistering campaign against Representative Steve Cohen, a fellow Democrat with a precarious hold on the majority black district.

“To know Steve Cohen is to know that he really does not think very much of African-Americans,” Mr. Herenton said in a recent radio interview on KWAM. “He’s played the black community well.”

The primary election in August 2010 pits an unlikely officeholder — a Jew in a deeply Christian region, a middle-age white man known for fighting for blacks and women — against a prominent challenger. Already, the campaign has proved how deeply race still infuses much of politics in the South, even after the election of a black president.

The candidates are battling to represent the Ninth Congressional District, a low-income area that envelops Memphis and is more than 60 percent black. The district was redrawn and renumbered before the 1972 election, increasing the percentage of minority voters, and for three decades it elected the state’s only black members of Congress since Reconstruction, Harold E. Ford Sr. and his son Harold E. Ford Jr.

But in 2006, Mr. Cohen defeated a divided field of black candidates. He coasted to re-election last year against a little-known black corporate lawyer.

The Herenton campaign argues that Mr. Cohen is an anomaly.
“This seat was set aside for people who look like me,” said Mr. Herenton’s campaign manager, Sidney Chism, a black county commissioner. “It wasn’t set aside for a Jew or a Christian. It was set aside so that blacks could have representation.”
Mr. Cohen, 60, is a well-known Memphis liberal who considered joining the Congressional Black Caucus, wrote a national apology for slavery and the Jim Crow laws, and received an “A” rating from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

“I vote like a black woman,” he said in an interview. “I don’t know the black experience, but I know about being a minority and being discriminated against because of religion.”
But his unusual identity — as one of only two white members of Congress from majority black districts — makes him vulnerable politically. In the last election, his opponent ran a much-vilified advertisement that tried to link Mr. Cohen to the Ku Klux Klan. It juxtaposed Mr. Cohen with an image of a hooded Klansman and criticized him for voting not to rename a city park currently named for a Klan founder, Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Political experts say the coming primary may be the closest and most combative yet in the district. In the heavily Democratic district, Republicans have little chance of winning the seat. Mr. Herenton, 69, a former Golden Gloves boxer, holds great sway in Memphis. He rose from segregated south Memphis to become the first black elected mayor, in 1991, and was re-elected a record four times.

“If Herenton runs a strong campaign and Cohen makes a slip or two, he could lose,” said Marcus D. Pohlmann, a political scientist at Rhodes College in Memphis. Mr. Herenton, he said, is “a very strong campaigner, and he’s proven that he has resonance with a significant portion of the African-American community.”