Mugged: Racial Demagoguery From the Seventies to Obama

  CHAPTER 16: THE MEDIA CRY “RACIST” IN A CROWDED THEATER

  1. Douglass K. Daniel, “Analysis: Palin’s Words Carry Racial Tinge,” Associated Press, October 5, 2008.

  2. Countdown with Keith Olbermann, MSNBC, August 4, 2008.

  3. Katie Couric, CBS Evening News, July 31, 2008.

  4. Jacob Weisberg, “If Obama Loses, Racism Is the Only Reason McCain Might Beat Him,” Slate, August 23, 2008, available at http://slate.com/id/2198397.

  5. Timothy Noah, “What We Didn’t Overcome,” Slate, November 10, 2008.

  6. See David Paul Kuhn, “Exit polls: How Obama Won,” November 5, 2008.

  7. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, “How Racist Are We? Ask Google,” New York Times, June 9, 2012.

  8. See, e.g., Hannity & Colmes, Fox News Network, November 3, 2008.

  9. The coal interview story was broken by Brent Bozell’s Newsbusters; P. J. Gladnick, “Audio: Obama Tells SF Chronicle He Will Bankrupt Coal Industry,” Newsbusters, November 2, 2008, available at http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2008/ 11/02/hidden-audio-obama-tells-sf-chronicle-he-will-bankrupt-coal-industry#ixzz20YouLcsF.

  10. Chris Dickerson, “Coal Official Calls Obama Comments ‘Unbelievable’,” West Virginia Record, November 2, 2008.

  11. Tim Kane, “Who Are the Recruits? The Demographic Characteristics of U.S. Military Enlistment, 2003-2005,” The Heritage Foundation, October 27, 2006, available at http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2006/10/who-are-the-recruits-the-demographic-characteristics-of-us-military-enlistment-2003-2005.

  12. See, e.g., “Talk of the Nation: The Tea Party, a Modern Movement,” National Public Radio (NPR), April 29, 2010.

  13. Kate Zernike, “Doing Fine, But Angry Nonetheless,” New York Times, April 18, 2010.

  14. Jonathan Gurwitz, “A Tea Party Movement That’s Strong, More Focused—and Much Different from Its Caricature,” St. Paul Pioneer Press (Minnesota), April 17, 2010.

  15. Joe Schoffstall, “Poll Shows Support for Tea Party Movement Continues to Grow,” cnsnews.com, April 22, 2010.

  16. The Ed Show, MSNBC April 13, 2010.

  17. David Weigel, “Tea Party Infiltration Done Wrong,” Slate.com, August 9, 2010. Available at http://www.slate.com/content/slate/blogs/weigel/2010/08/09/tea_party_infiltration_done_wrong.html.

  18. Alex Pappas, “Infiltrator Trying to Pass as Rand Paul Fan Wrote Column Bashing Tea Party,” the Daily Caller, August 11, 2010. Available at http://dailycaller.com/2010/08/11/infiltrator-trying-to-pass-as-rand-paul-fan-wrote-column-bashing-tea-party/#ixzz20OTrMFgt.

  19. Lachlan Markay, “Far-left Think Progress Fabricates Examples of Tea Party Racism for Bogus Video,” Newsbusters, July 16, 2010, available at http://newsbusters.org/blogs/lachlan-markay/2010/07/16/far-left-think-progress-fabricates-examples-tea-party-racism-bogus-v.

  20. Glenn Beck, Fox News Network, July 19, 2010.

  21. Hardball with Chris Matthews, MSNBC, July 18, 2010.

  22. Kyle Drennen, “MSNBC: ObamaCare Protesters ‘Racist,’ Including Black Gun-Owner,” Newsbusters, August 18, 2009, available at http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2009/08/18/msnbc-no-mention-black-gun-owner-among-racist-protesters#ixzz21KhK8M00.

  23. The Ed Show, MSNBC, April 19, 2010. Available at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36663015/ns/msnbc_tv-the_ed_show/t/ed-show/#.T_6BQo5Sbao.

  24. “Editorial: They Want to Make Voting Harder?” New York Times, June 5, 2011.

  25. Washington Watch with Roland Martin, TV One, June 5, 2011.

  26. Simon van Zuylen-Wood, “Why Did Liberal African-Americans in Rhode Island Help Pass a Voter ID Law?” New Republic, February 7, 2012.

  27. David Scharfenberg, “Who Passed Voter ID?” Providence Phoenix, May 16, 2012.

  28. Simon van Zuylen-Wood, February 7, 2012.

  29. David Scharfenberg, May 16, 2012.

  30. Simon van Zuylen-Wood, “Why Did Liberal African-Americans in Rhode Island Help Pass a Voter ID Law?” New Republic, February 7, 2012.

  31. Complaint in U.S. v. Missouri, U.S.D.C. (Western Dist of Mo Central Div) available at http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/vot/nvra/mo_nvra_comp.php; U.S. v. Missouri, U.S.D.C. (CD MO) (2007) (case dismissed for naming wrong parties—state instead of counties—under National Voter Registration Act of 1993). Available at http://www.sos.mo.gov/elections/laughrey_ruling.pdf.

  32. The Ed Show, MSNBC, May 22, 2012.

  33. Steve Benen, “What’s the Matter with Arizona?” The Maddow Blog, May 18, 2012.

  34. See, e.g., David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (Oxford University Press, 1991) at 6372–6375, e-book edition. (“The first Africans appeared in the colony [of Virginia] as early as 1619; a census of 1625 enumerated 23 blacks. There were fewer Africans in the Chesapeake than in New England or New Netherlands. Their legal status remained very unclear.”)

  35. Countdown with Keith Olbermann, September 15, 2009.

  36. Mark Finkelstein, “Massachusetts: Olbermann Cries Racism,” NewsBusters.org, January 19, 2010, available at http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein /2010/01/19/massachusetts-olbermann-cries-racism#ixzz20Mqfv855.

  37. Countdown with Keith Olbermann, MSNBC, February 15, 2007.

  38. Jeff Poor, “MSNBC Guest Suggests Romney’s Use of the Term ‘Kitchen Cabinet’ Is Racist,” the Daily Caller, July 12, 2012, available at http://dailycaller.com/ 2012/07/12/msnbc-guest-suggests-romneys-use-of-the-term-kitchen-cabinet-is-racist/#ixzz20X52N2PB.

  39. John McWhorter, “Racism in Retreat,” New York Sun, June 5, 2008.

  40. John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime (Harper, 2010) at 36.

  41. “The Chris Matthews Show,” (syndicated) March 7, 2010.

  42. See OccupyWallStreet.org (“Occupy Wall Street is a people-powered movement that began on September 17, 2011, in Liberty Square in Manhattan’s Financial District”); Jillian Dunham, #OccupyWallSt Roundup, Day 59, November 14, 2011; Just Like the Tea Party: A List of Occupy Mayhem Sorted by Type, November 16, 2011, Verum Serum, available at http://www.verumserum.com/?p=33490.

  43. James Bennet, “Clinton, at Meeting on Race, Struggles to Sharpen Debate,” New York Times, December 4, 1997.

  44. Eric Foner, The Story of American Freedom (W.W. Norton and Company, 1999) at 193 (“Under Roosevelt’s guidance [in 1932], the Democratic Party was transformed from a bastion of localism and states’ rights into a broad coalition of farmers, industrial workers, the reform-minded urban middle class, liberal intellectuals, and, somewhat incongruously, the white-supremacist South, all committed to federal intervention…) (emphasis added)

  CHAPTER 17: WHITE GUILT KILLS

  1. Fred Siegel, “Ground Zero for Big Government,” The American Enterprise, June 1, 2002.

  2. As usual, it was white liberals who drove a truck through this hole. A Lindsay aide hired “Yippie” leader Abbie Hoffman as a “community liaison” and Hoffman responded “by writing giant ‘F—k You’s’ on the walls of Grand Central Station.” Fred Siegel, “Ground Zero for Big Government,” The American Enterprise, June 1, 2002.

  3. Jurgensen at xviii.

  4. E. J. McMahon and Fred Siegel, “Gotham’s Fiscal Crisis: Lessons Unlearned,” Public Interest, January 1, 2005.

  5. See, e.g., Ralph Blumenthal, Black Youth Is Killed by Whites; Brooklyn Attack Is Called Racial, the New York Times, August 25, 1989.

  6. Don Kowet, A close-up of race issue as media spectacle, the Washington Times, May 15, 1990 (reviewing “Seven Days in Bensonhurst,” PBS’s Frontline).

  7. Elizabeth Kolbert, “Youth’s Funeral Focuses on Racial Divisions,” the New York Times, August 31, 1989.

  8. Ibid.

  9. Walter Goodman, “Review/Television: Examining the Bensonhurst Killing,” the New York Times, May 15, 1990.

  10. Elizabeth Kolbert, Youth’s Funeral Focuses on Racial Divisions, August 31, 1989.

  11. M. A. Farber, “In Son’s Slaying
, a Father Finds His Mission,” the New York Times, September 28, 1989.

  12. Celestine Bohlen, “Dinkins Stresses His Appeal for Harmony,” the New York Times, September 7, 1989.

  13. Ken Auletta, “Mayoral Flight’s Ready for Takeoff and I’m Getting on with Dinkins,” the New York Daily News, October 29, 1989 (quoted in Jared Taylor, Paved With Good Intentions: The Failure of Race Relations in Contemporary America (Carroll & Graf Publishers 1992) at 265.

  14. Fred Siegel, The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life (Encounter Books 2006) at 74.

  15. Ibid.

  16. Michael Tomasky, “The Day Everything Changed;” New York Magazine, October 6, 2008.

  17. “Clinton Hits a Nerve on Race,” the New York Times, September 30, 1993.

  18. Margaret Wente, Interview: Shelby Steele, Harvard Academic And Black Conservative, Globe and Mail (Canada), October 20, 2007. (“Q: ‘Is there any prominent black figure who doesn’t wear the mask?’…Steele: ‘Clarence Thomas. He wears no mask at all. He’s not a bargainer or a challenger. He’s his own man. He has deep and profound convictions. You can take them or leave them, but he is unwavering. He is a rather heroic figure—the freest black man in America.’”)

  19. “The Crisis of Black Political Succession,” Washington Informer, May 8, 2002.

  20. Sean Gregory, Why Cory Booker Likes Being Mayor of Newark, July 27, 2009, available at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1910983,00.html #ixzz20RI8sz6K.

  21. Ibid.

  22. Glenn Townes, “Booker to deliver State of the City address,” New York Amsterdam News, March 1, 2012.

  23. See, e.g., Douglas Martin, “Patrick Chavis, 50, Affirmative Action Figure,” the New York Times, August 15, 2002; Abraham H. Miller, “Clinton’s Silenced Dialogue on Race,” World and I, June 1, 1998.

  24. This is a paraphrase of Peter Brimelow’s remark on the first page of his book Alien Nation: “There is a sense in which current immigration policy is Adolf Hitler’s posthumous revenge on America.” Peter Brimelow, Alien Nation: Common Sense About America’s Immigration Disaster (Harper Perennial 1996) at xvii, available at http://www23.us.archive.org/stream/Alien_Nation/alien-nation-peter-brimelow_djvu.txt.

  Index

  A

  Abortion, as constitutional right, 151–52, 154

  Abrams, Robert, 62

  Abu-Jamal, Mumia, 89–90, 99

  Abyssinian Baptist Church (Harlem), 144–45

  Accuracy in Media, 124

  Ackerman, Spencer, 234–35

  Adams, Eric, 143

  Adams, James Luther, 75

  Adams, John, 189

  Affirmative action

  Bakke decision, 142, 260

  Bill Clinton on, 251

  Clarence Thomas on, 104

  and Republicans, 173

  Africa, John, and MOVE, 88–90

  Africa, Ramona, 90

  African Americans

  civil rights granted. See Civil rights laws; Racial desegregation; specific laws

  in Civil War, 195–97

  colonial era arrival, 248

  and criminal behavior. See Crimes by blacks; Criminal justice system

  culture, Southern roots of, 7–10

  and Democratic policies. See Democrats; Liberals

  as Democratic voters, 2, 9–10, 20–21, 107–8

  dialect, origin of, 9

  discrimination and racism. See Racial discrimination; Racism against blacks

  family, demise of, 11–14

  gay marriage, opposition to, 12, 76

  instability, creation of, 10–14, 107–8

  justice for criminals, call for, 97–99, 101–4

  marriage rate decline, 11–12

  as Obama voters (2008), 76

  OJ verdict, impact on, 15–16, 56, 127–28, 137–46

  post-Civil War legislators, 175

  post-slavery strengths of, 11, 14, 107–8

  in presidential campaigns, 139–40

  racial unrest. See Race riots; Racial turmoil

  racism of. See Racism against whites

  and Republican policies. See Republicans

  slave experience and present, 8, 11, 12, 14, 17, 107, 229–30

  three-fifths clause, 204

  voter ID laws, 247–48

  and welfare state, 10–14, 107–8, 122

  Agnew, Spiro, 4, 98, 172–73

  Aid to Families with Dependent Children, 11

  Ailes, Roger, 113

  Alaniz, Roberto, 132

  Albanian Bad Boys, 66

  Allen, Barry, 100–101, 126

  Allen, Bryant, 117

  Allison, Anne, 159

  Alter, Jonathan, 199, 238–39

  American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

  Democratic party connection, 19

  on Joyce Brown case, 12

  Amirault, Gerald, 189

  Andre, Rudy, 78–79

  Anti-Semitism

  and Al Sharpton, 64–65

  and Jeremiah Wright, 92

  Armstrong, Louis, 107

  Assassination

  of Bush, references to, 217–18

  non-racially motivated attempts, 218–19

  of Obama, fear of, 207–17, 219–22

  Audacity of Hope, The (Obama), 91

  Auletta, Ken, 258

  Axelrod, David, 17, 228

  Ayres, Bill, 238–39

  B

  Bailey, Dorothy, 118

  Bailey, F. Lee, 128, 130

  Baker, Howard, 171–72

  Bakke, Allan, 142, 260

  Baldwin, Alec, 100

  Baltimore, race riots, 98–99

  Barbieri, Paula, 137

  Barkley, Charles, 231

  Barnes, Cliff, 190–92

  Barnes, Fred, 235

  Barry, Marion, 42–44

  Bazelon, David, 94

  Beame, Abe, 256

  Beatty, Jack, 51

  Beck, Glenn, 245, 249

  Beckel, Bob, 5, 252

  Bell, Kathleen, 129

  Bennett, Bill, 141

  Berns, Walter F., 101

  Bernstein, Carl, 6

  Biden, Joe, 154, 250

  Black, Hugo, in Ku Klux Klan, 172, 176, 178, 183

  Black Armed Guards, 20

  Black church

  Jeremiah Wright, 29–230, 91–92

  as Jim Jones model, 84

  liberal approval of, 75–77

  Southern traditions in, 8–9

  Black cults

  MOVE and John Africa, 88–90

  Nation of Islam, 78–83

  Peoples Temple, 83–88

  Black Liberation Army, 255–56

  Blackmun, Harry A., 152

  Black Muslims. See Nation of Islam

  Black Panthers, 100

  Black rage insanity defense, 74

  Black Rednecks and White Liberals (Sowell), 7–9

  Blackwell, Ken, 145

  Blum, Dominic, 51

  Bob Jones University

  George W. Bush speech at, 193

  interracial dating ban, 193

  Booker, Cory, 260

  Borjas, George, 150

  Bork, Robert, 178

  Bozell, Brent, 234

  Bradley, Bill, 139–40

  Branch Davidians, 90

  Bratton, William, 143

  Braun, Carol Moseley, 140

  Brawley, Tawana

  defamation suit against, 141–42

  rape hoax, 40, 62–63, 131, 156

  Breitbart, Andrew, 243

  Brennan, William, 94, 97

  Breslin, Jimmy, 51, 100

  Brewer, Contessa, 112, 246

  Brimelow, Peter, 192

  Brinkley, David, 141

  Briseno, Theodore, 116

  Britt, Maurice, 171

  Brokaw, Tom, 141

  Brooke, Edward, 203–4

  Brookhiser, Richard, 158

  Brown, Carlton, 132

  Brown, Denise, 135

  Brown, Edmund, Jr., 84


  Brown, Janice Rogers, 183, 259–60

  Brown, Jerry, 84

  Brown, Joyce, 12

  Brown, Michael, 196

  Brown, Rap, 99

  Brown, Scott, 249–50

  Brown, Willie, 84, 85

  Brownmiller, Susan, 162

  Brown v. Board of Education

  Democratic resistance, 2–3, 170–71, 180–81

  Republican enforcement of, 2–5, 4–5, 180

  Bruce, Blanche, 203

  Brunn, James von, 215–16

  Brzonkala, Christy, 155–56

  Bumpurs, Eleanor, 22–23

  Bureau of Public Assistance, 11

  Burke, Edmund, 133

  Burton, Bill, 212

  Burton, John, 84

  Burton, Phillip, 84

  Bush, George H. W.

  restrictive covenant accusation, 192

  Southern vote for, 170, 270

  as WASP, 158

  Willie Horton ad, 189–92

  Bush, George W.

  assassination, references to, 217–18

  Bob Jones University speech, 193

  and hate crime legislation, 202, 204

  on Rodney King verdict, 118

  as WASP, 158

  Butts, Calvin, 144–45

  Byrd, Harry, 177

  Byrd, James, 202, 204

  Byrd, Robert, in Ku Klux Klan, 174, 178

  Byrne, David, 100

  C

  Cabey, Darrell, 100–101, 103

  Cain, Herman, 219, 252, 259

  Califano, Joseph, 85

  Calloway, Bo, 172

  Campbell, Barbara, 45, 56

  Campbell, Naomi, 100

  Cannon, Lou, 118

  Canty, Troy, 100

  Cardillo, Phil, 78–82

  Carlin, George, 130

  Carmichael, Stokely, 99

  Caro, Robert, 174

  Carter, Jimmy

  campaign kickoff and KKK, 188

  and Peoples Temple, 83–84, 86

  on Republican racism, 187, 249

  Southern vote for, 168, 170, 268–69

  Carter, Rosalynn, 83–85

  Cartmell, Suzanne Jones, 87

  Carver, George Washington, 107

  Cato, Gavin, 28

  Center for American Progress, 245

  Center for Individual Rights, 156

  Central Park jogger, 26, 142

  Chafe, William, 159

  Chambers, Robert, 47–48, 50

  Chambers, Stan, 123