Just One Black Man's Tweets

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Dangerous hatred in the US?

Blackman says: Posted without comment.

By Rob Reynolds, senior Washington correspondent

Michelle Bachmann, the US Republican Representative for Minnesota, tells a radio interviewer she believes Barack Obama, the US president, plans to set up mandatory "re-education camps" to indoctrinate young Americans.

Glenn Beck, a television personality working at the Fox news network, says on the air that Obama is a "racist" with a "deep-seated hatred for white people".

Comparing Obama to Adolf Hitler, an Iowa man named Tom Eisenhower speaks up at a town hall meeting held by Republican Senator Charles Grassley, and says "The president of the United States, that's who you should be concerned about."

"I'd take a gun to Washington if enough of you would go with me."

Retired FBI agent Ted Gunderson, a prolific writer and speaker about conspiracy theories involving devilish sex cults and the Illuminati, tells a gathering of right-wing "Patriots" in Florida that the federal government has set up 10,000 internment camps across the country and is storing thousands of guillotines for mass executions.

Mel Sanger, a self-described "political researcher", offers visitors to his website a $24.97-report full of "cutting edge evidence" that Obama is the biblical Antichrist.

Tens of thousands of right-wing demonstrators march on the US Capitol waving signs reading "Bury Obamacare with Kennedy" and calling Obama a "bloodsucking Muslim alien".

Steven Anderson, the pastor of the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Arizona, preached a sermon last month entitled "Why I hate Barack Obama", in which he declared, "I'm going to pray he dies and goes to hell".

Old-fashioned racism

On August 22, I posted an article on this website (Fear, racism at town hall meetings) about the element of old-fashioned retrograde racism running through the outpouring of venom and hatred for Obama in town hall style meetings, ostensibly over his healthcare reform plans.

I received a lot of feedback from you, the readers - the overwhelming majority of which was positive, with a few obscenity-laced screeds thrown in.

The mainstream media in the US have been slow to catch up on the story of white racial hatred for Obama. But now the debate over the racist roots of the anti-Obama upwelling is out in the open, discussed on television networks and in newspapers.

"Some people just can't believe a black man is president and will never accept it," writes The New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.

"There's something loose in the land, an ugliness and hatred directed toward Barack Obama, the nation's first African American president, that takes the breath away," offered Colbert King in the Washington Post.

The Southern Poverty Law Centre, an essential US institution that researches and exposes hate groups, notes "… unmistakable signs of a revival of what in the 1990's was called the militia movement," adding that "… the fact that the president is an African-American has injected a strong racial element" into the radical right.

The rage from the right has nothing to do with healthcare reform or any other factual policy issue. It is a concerted effort to de-legitimise Obama as president. Former President Jimmy Carter summed it up concisely in an interview with NBC News:

"I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man," Carter said.

"I live in the South, and I've seen the South come a long way, and I've seen the rest of the country that share the South's attitude toward minority groups at that time, particularly African-Americans.

"And that racism inclination still exists. And I think it's bubbled up to the surface because of the belief among many white people, not just in the South but around the country, that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It's an abominable circumstance, and it grieves me and concerns me very deeply."

Fearful times


Some believe the healthcare debate has re-ignited the racial debate [AFP]
Abominable - and dangerous. The simmering potential for political violence underlies the ugly jeers and insults.

They are a motley group: white supremacists, Patriots, Sovereign Citizens, anti-Semitic Holocaust deniers, Neo-Confederates, Skinheads, Teabaggers, end-times prophecy adherents, birthers, Minutemen, New World Order conspiracists, Oath Keepers - the list is long and depressing.

Thousands of videos posted to YouTube show white militia members playing soldier - with real guns.

What they have in common - besides hatred for non-whites - is their worship of firearms and their intense paranoia about the government. They are continually encouraged in their outrage by right wing media and radio talk show hosts.

In several recent instances, right wing rage has exploded in bloodshed. In April, Richard Poplawski, who frequented anti-government and white supremacist websites and feared Obama would take away his guns, allegedly ambushed three Pittsburgh police officers, killing them with a hail of bullets from his rifle, pistol and AK-47.

The same month, Joshua Cartwright of Okaloosa County, Florida, got fired from his job, beat up his wife and headed down to the local gun club. When two sheriff's deputies arrived to arrest him for assault, he pulled out a gun and shot both men dead.

Cartwright's wife said he feared the government was out to get him and was "severely disturbed that Barack Obama had been elected president."

Last July, Jim David Adkisson of Knoxville, Tennessee wrote a vitriolic suicide note denouncing liberals, democrats, blacks, and Obama, then allegedly marched into a Unitarian church and opened fire, killing two churchgoers and seriously wounding six.

Here in Washington in June, an elderly neo-Nazi named James von Brunn allegedly opened fire with a rifle at the US Holocaust Museum, killing an African American security guard. Police found a note in his car. "You want my guns, this is how you'll get them," von Brunn wrote.

"The Holocaust is a lie. Obama was created by Jews."

America, the sorry truth


Obama, centre front, was heckled during a speech to a joint session of congress [EPA]
While Republican spokespeople and elected officials scoff at the notion that racism is behind their protests, the spectacle of a white, Republican Congressman from the Deep South state of South Carolina shouting "You lie!" at the president from the floor of the House of Representatives blatantly revealed the sorry truth that this country has not entered a "post-racial" period, as some liberals like to believe.

We would like to believe that the racist right-wingers are just the leftover dregs of hate in a society steadily becoming more enlightened.

After all, Obama won the election last November by nine million votes. That means an awful lot of white people voted for him.

But while their numbers may be relatively small, the right-wing radicals - and the media bomb-throwers who fire them up - can do a lot of damage.

A few armed lunatics can alter the course of history. Think of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber.

Think of James Earl Ray, who murdered Martin Luther King. Or think of John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.

Those last two examples were not chosen at random.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

AP source: Census worker hanged with 'fed' on body

Blackman Says: Who is suprised by this? We all knew it was just a matter of time before one of these right-wing crazies decided to take matters in to their own hands.
So I guess we'll see Glen Beck and the rest of the right-wing crowd in full damage control tomorrow.


By DEVLIN BARRETT and JEFFREY McMURRAY (AP) – 4 hours ago

WASHINGTON — A U.S. Census worker found hanged from a tree near a Kentucky cemetery had the word "fed" scrawled on his chest, a law enforcement official said Wednesday, and the FBI is investigating whether he was a victim of anti-government sentiment.

The law enforcement official, who was not authorized to discuss the case and requested anonymity, did not say what type of instrument was used to write the word on the chest of Bill Sparkman, a 51-year-old part-time Census field worker and teacher. He was found Sept. 12 in a remote patch of the Daniel Boone National Forest in rural southeast Kentucky.

The Census has suspended door-to-door interviews in rural Clay County, where the body was found, pending the outcome of the investigation. An autopsy report is pending.

Investigators have said little about the case. FBI spokesman David Beyer said the bureau is assisting state police and declined to confirm or discuss any details about the crime scene.

"Our job is to determine if there was foul play involved — and that's part of the investigation — and if there was foul play involved, whether that is related to his employment as a Census worker," said Beyer.

Attacking a federal worker during or because of his federal job is a federal crime.

Sparkman's mother, Henrie Sparkman of Inverness, Fla., told The Associated Press her son was an Eagle scout who moved to the area to be a local director for the Boy Scouts of America. She said he later became a substitute teacher in Laurel County and supplemented that income as a Census worker.

She said investigators have given her few details about her son's death — they told her the body was decomposed — and haven't yet released his body for burial. "I was told it would be better for him to be cremated," she said.

Henrie Sparkman said her son's death is a mystery to her.

"I have my own ideas, but I can't say them out loud. Not at this point," she said. "Right now, what I'm doing, I'm just waiting on the FBI to come to some conclusion."

Lucindia Scurry-Johnson, assistant director of the Census Bureau's southern office in Charlotte, N.C., said law enforcement officers have told the agency the matter is "an apparent homicide" but nothing else.

Census employees were told Sparkman's truck was found nearby, and a computer he was using for work was found inside it, she said. He worked part-time for the Census, usually conducting interviews once or twice a month.

Sparkman has worked for the Census since 2003, spanning five counties in the surrounding area. Much of his recent work had been in Clay County, officials said.

Door-to-door operations have been suspended in Clay County pending a resolution of the investigation, Scurry-Johnson said.

The Census Bureau has yet to begin door-to-door canvassing for the 2010 head count, but it has thousands of field workers doing smaller surveys on various demographic topics on behalf of federal agencies. Next year, the Census Bureau will dispatch up to 1.2 million temporary employees to locate hard-to-find residents.

The Census Bureau is overseen by the Commerce Department.

"We are deeply saddened by the loss of our co-worker," Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said in a statement. "Our thoughts and prayers are with William Sparkman's son, other family and friends."

Locke called him "a shining example of the hardworking men and women employed by the Census Bureau."

Appalachia scholar Roy Silver, a New York City native now living in Harlan County, Ky., said he doesn't sense an outpouring of anti-government sentiment in the region as has been exhibited in town hall meetings in other parts of the country.

"I don't think distrust of government is any more or less here than anywhere else in the country," said Silver, a sociology professor at Southeast Community College.

The most deadly attack on federal workers came in 1995 when the federal building in Oklahoma City was devastated by a truck bomb, killing 168 and injuring more than 680. Timothy McVeigh, who was executed for the bombing, carried literature by modern, ultra-right-wing anti-government authors.

A private group called PEER, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, tracks violence against employees who enforce environmental regulations, but the group's executive director, Jeff Ruch, said it's hard to know about all of the cases because some agencies don't share data on instances of violence against employees.

From 1996 to 2006, according to the group's most recent data, violent incidents against federal Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service workers soared from 55 to 290.

Ruch said that after the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, "we kept getting reports from employees that attacks and intimidation against federal employees had not diminished, and that's why we've been tracking them."

"Even as illustrated in town hall meetings today, there is a distinct hostility in a large segment of the population toward people who work for their government," Ruch said.

McMurray reported from Lexington, Ky. Associated Press writers Roger Alford in Frankfort, Ky., and Hope Yen in Washington contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Carter: Racism plays major role in opposition to Obama

Carter: Racism plays major role in opposition to Obama

(CNN) -- Former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday that racial politics played a role in South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst during President Obama's speech to Congress last week and in some of the opposition the president has faced since taking office.
"I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African-American," Carter told "NBC Nightly News." "I live in the South, and I've seen the South come a long way, and I've seen the rest of the country that shares the South's attitude toward minority groups at that time, particularly African-Americans."
"That racism inclination still exists, and I think it's bubbled up to the surface because of belief among many white people -- not just in the South but around the country -- that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It's an abominable circumstance, and it grieves me and concerns me very deeply," Carter said.
Michael Steele, who is the first African-American to chair the Republican National Committee, denied Wednesday that race is fueling protests.
"President Carter is flat-out wrong," Steele said in a statement. "This isn't about race. It is about policy."
Carter made similar remarks at an event at his presidential center in Atlanta, Georgia, The Associated Press reported Tuesday, pointing to some protesters who have compared Obama to a Nazi. "Those kind of things are not just casual outcomes of a sincere debate on whether we should have a national program on health care," the former president said at the Carter Center, according to AP. "It's deeper than that." Watch Carter link animosity toward Obama to racism »
He grouped Wilson's shout of "You lie!" during Obama's speech in that category, according to AP. "I think it's based on racism. There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president," he said.
"The president is not only the head of government, he is the head of state. And no matter who he is or how much we disagree with his policies, the president should be treated with respect."
The House voted Tuesday to formally disapprove of Wilson's behavior during the joint session of Congress. The resolution was approved largely along party lines, with Republicans calling the measure unnecessary partisan politics.
Wilson apologized to the White House last week, but congressional Democrats said he owed the chamber a similar statement of regret.
Steele said Democrats are just trying to divert attention from what he called the president's "wildly unpopular government-run health care plan."
"Injecting race into the debate over critical issues facing American families doesn't create jobs, reform our health care system or reduce the growing deficit. It only divides Americans rather than uniting us to find solutions to challenges facing our nation," he said.