Tag: Ku Klux Klan

Categories
Blog

What We’re Fighting About When We Fight About Racism

A few days ago the Q-Center, Portland, Oregon’s aspiring LGBTQ community hub, hosted a discussion about racism. The event was organized in response to a mostly-online fight that erupted over a local gay bar’s Facebook ad for a performance by white drag performer, Chuck Knipp.

Knipp’s bread and butter is the character, Shirley Q. Liquor, whom he describes as “an inarticulate black welfare mother with 19 children.” I’ll spare you video. The act is performed in black face and plays to damaging and hurtful stereotypes for laughs.

Hundreds weighed in on whether Shirley Q. Liquor is an example of racism, … Read more “What We’re Fighting About When We Fight About Racism”

Categories
Blog

More on the Accidental Racism of Brad Paisley

Yesterday I wrote about Brad Paisley’s Accidental Racist, his musical response to accusations of racism he faced for flying the rebel flag on his chest. Its message? The past is the past. Let’s get over it and move on.

But the song is worth further dissection because I think it reveals a great deal about why the GOP’s racist Southern Strategy was successful, and why it’s going to be tough for them to simply re-brand that strategy away in order to meet the challenge of demographic change.

For the uninitiated, the Southern Strategy was built on the ruins of … Read more “More on the Accidental Racism of Brad Paisley”

Categories
Blog

More on Racially Profiling Whites

A friend (who I’m lucky to know because he’s so much smarter than me) commented my my post “Why Don’t We Racially Profile Whites?” pointing out that there is a white racial profile.

The white racial profile is the other side of the story of the way people of color are profiled. So, for instance, where welfare is concerned, Blacks are undeserving entitlement junkies, but whites are deserving needy people facing temporary setbacks, and that’s just among those who are able to put “white” and “welfare” together at all. Some would say whites are profiled as over-burdened taxpayers subsidizing freeloaders.… Read more “More on Racially Profiling Whites”

Categories
Blog

The Trouble With Nazis, White Nationalists, and Other Assorted Extremists

Today’s Huff Post story about KKK Grand Wizard and Bonner County, Idaho sheriff candidate Shaun Winkler hosting a cross burning got me on a rant today. Clearly, we’ve got a problem with populism of the right wing variety in America.

According to a 2011 report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of hate groups in the U.S. has been steadily climbing for the last 10 years. White nationalist Patriot groups, first organized in reaction to the violent government crackdown on dissident groups at Ruby Ridge, Idaho and Waco, Texas in the early 90s, went from 149 groups … Read more “The Trouble With Nazis, White Nationalists, and Other Assorted Extremists”