Are black people really abandoning Obama?

Fairly frequently, the Sentinel prints editorials by Star Parker. They're always pretty full of self-delusion and crazy god-babbling nonsense. I suspect that her main appeal is that she's an ultraconservative black woman, which allows other conservatives to claim they're not racist or sexist if they agree with her. That's just my theory, though. She might just be cheaper to syndicate or something, due to sucking.

Today we get a prime example of just how flawed her thinking is. It's actually pretty remarkable. The editorial in question is entitled Blacks are changing their minds about President Obama, and as we'll soon see, even the title is wrong.

Let's begin with the quoting!

Americans of all political persuasions agree that the nation has problems. Big problems.

And here's where we all part company. The political left, who now control our government, thinks we need more government -- a lot more. Those on the right see our problems as the result of excess government and want to move things in the opposite direction.

That's about the most superficial and inaccurate assessment of the political divide that I've ever seen, but whatever.

The important part, and the premise of the editorial, is the idea that blacks are abandoning the president. Here's what Star argues:

According to the Pew Research Center, the president's approval rating nationwide is now 10 points lower than last April. Included in this is a three-point drop in his approval among blacks.

You might say, Star, a drop in approval ratings among blacks from 95 percent to 92 percent is trivial. But I say not so.

If we assume this reflects the 16 million blacks who voted for Obama last November, a three-point shift means there are about a half-million blacks who now have buyer's remorse.

Star Parker does not understand polling at all.

You can see the study she's talking about here (pdf). If you go down to the race part, you do see that Obama's approval has dropped from 95% to 92%.

Of course, if you go down to the bottom of the whole thing, you find this:

For the total sample, the margin of error attributable to sampling that would be expected at the 95% level of confidence is plus or minus 2 percentage points. The margin of error for subgroups will be higher.

So we've got a 2% margin of error on the whole thing, and higher than 2% on subgroups, one of which is race. Which means a 3% "drop" is utterly meaningless. It could be an actual 3% drop, or it could be no drop at all, or it could be an increase. There is no discernible change that you can detect from this poll.

It sure as hell doesn't mean there are half a million blacks with "buyer's remorse."

So, Parker's entire premise is fundamentally flawed, because she either doesn't know how to interpret polling data or chooses to misrepresent it in order to promote her own deluded thinking. With such a faulty premise already debunked, it's almost unfair to continue to point out how dumb this editorial is, but there's a part that just can't be ignored.

Parker babbles on for awhile about how blacks supposedly can't not be Democrats, because the big Democratic goon-squads will make fun of them. Or something like that, anyway. She apparently thinks that it's social pressures that keep them in the Democratic party, and not the fact that it's always Republicans who do shit like this (view the whole slideshow, it's fun!).

Here's the part that really gets me, though.

According to a Pew Research Center report, almost a third of blacks consider themselves conservative. [*]

However, these folks have always been inclined to be quiet because of the social pressures and intimidation.

But this is changing.

Despite slurs, intimidation and widely reported physical attacks from union thugs, a few brave black souls have shown up at tea party protest rallies.

What. The. Fuck?

Parker is actually suggesting that it's the left keeping black people from going teabagging? I had to read it a few times to make sure that's what she was suggesting, but it must be. She's not blaming the right for intimidation or slurs, and she certainly doesn't consider unions to be conservative, so she must be blaming the left.

That picture up at the top of this post is from a teabagger event. The following pictures are also from teabagger events:





These are the people that Parker thinks blacks are being prevented from hanging out with, by those nasty liberals in the unions.

Doesn't that look like an inviting environment? If I were a black man, I'd definitely want to run right out to teabag with all those people! No damn union thugs could keep me away from the warm and loving embrace of people who think that a tax decrease for the middle class equals "white slavery"!

Ms. Parker, after you finish reading "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Margins of Error" you might want to consider the idea that the people keeping blacks away from teabag parties are the teabaggers themselves. Most people don't seek out locations where they're going to be treated like shit by a bunch of racist assholes.

Parker craps out some closing bullshit about abortion and Israelites and so forth at the end, but it's the same impenetrable drivel she usually produces and not really worth commenting on. This is a mind not in touch with reality. Not even close to it.

That's really all you need to know about this editorial. It has a false premise and ridiculous conclusions, and my dog has a better understanding of race relations than Parker does.

No, black people are not abandoning Obama. Star Parker has simply abandoned reality.



* While 32% of blacks do indeed self-identify as conservative, it's worth noting that this Pew study makes no differentiation between social and fiscal conservatism. Generally, the black community tends to skew towards social conservatism, with more liberal economic views.

Queen of the Birthers!

This is really remarkable. I knew that Orly Taitz is crazy, but I had no idea just how crazily she presents herself. This is the person at the head of the whole birther movement!



I can only imagine how insane (or racist) a person has to be to watch that and think "Oh hey, she made some really good points!" Pretty insane, probably.


[Addendum:] In case you're wondering, "Dr." Orly Taitz is a dentist. Which just goes to further confirm my theory that crackpots who prominently identify themselves as "Dr." never have a doctorate in anything even remotely related to what they're talking about. It's all about giving themselves an undeserved air of credibility.

[Addendum 2:] Hey, it's Obama's birthday today! Here is a card for him, courtesy of Progressive Fitchburg's official Chronologically Aware Correspondent!

(click to embiggen)

Racism maybe not actually gone?

Thanks to another of those terrible "local leaders weigh in on _____" articles, today we get to learn what local officials think about the arrest of Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, Jr., a situation that you're probably already aware of.

For this we will turn to the Sentinel's catchily-named article: Gates' arrest draws variety of views.

This is probably going to hurt.

The controversial arrest of renowned Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. has sparked a conversation throughout the country, including in North Central Massachusetts, where leaders are offering diverse views about the incident.

Police arrested Gates in his Cambridge home after he allegedly berated them and told them they didn't know "who they were messing with," when they came to his home to investigate a possible break-in.

Well that's not a very complete description of events! You get no context, you get only the officer's side of the story, and Gates is immediately portrayed as the bad guy.

Never mind that this whole incident should have ended the moment that Gates showed ID proving that he was in his own house. The guy was rude!

Apparently we're supposed to believe that it's a crime to be rude on your own property. I have no idea how I've stayed out of jail so long.*

Gates believes his arrest was motivated by race, while some, including Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley, who arrested Gates, maintain the professor's belligerent tone, not his skin color, got him arrested.

This part of the tale is actually somewhat annoying to me. I don't know if the arrest was racially motivated or not (though I suspect it was to some degree). But really, it doesn't matter. It's not a crime to be a dick. We also don't know if Gates actually was a dick or not, but for the purposes of argument let's just assume he was.

Okay, enough of the setup, what do local leaders think?

Adrian Ford, the executive director of local community advocate group Three Pyramids, said the answer may lie somewhere in between.

"What I've found in working on these types of issues for 40 years is that we all have subconscious views and opinions that rise to the surface when we're not aware," Ford said Thursday. "It doesn't mean there's a conscious racism there, but this sort of thing is very common."

Yay, a smart person to start off with! I agree with Ford, and this sort of thing is unquestionably very common.

Now on to the dumbassery.

But Westminster Police Chief Sam Albert said police officers deserve more credit.

"I think trends are changing, the job is changing, and officers are becoming more educated," Albert said Thursday.

Well, that's nice. Those things are probably all true. They just have nothing to do with this case. You can be educated and still be a racist asshole or a power-hungry cop. Education doesn't fix those things.

Then the article gets sidetracked into talking not about the case, but about President Obama's statement that the cop did something stupid. How dare the president say such a thing!

The comments from Obama -- a personal friend of Gates' -- surprised most local leaders.

"It shocked me," Fitchburg community activist Yvette Cooks said. "I didn't expect that."

Cooks, an African American, is a member of the city's Human Rights Commission.

Okay, I guess that's nice too? But it doesn't tell us much. I'm a little surprised he weighed in on this too, but I also absolutely agree with him. And really, he only weighed in because he was asked about it at a press conference.

Who else has something to say? More cops? You know they'll give an unbiased opinion, because who's ever heard of a cop reflexively standing up for another cop even when they're clearly in the wrong?

John Collins, general counsel for the Massachusetts State Police Chiefs Association, called attacks on the Cambridge Police Department -- as well as Obama's comments -- "premature."

"It doesn't add anything to the situation, and knowing (the Cambridge Police Department) as I do, I suspect they'll address any issues quietly, and not necessarily in the newspapers," Collins said Thursday.

Oh, that's great. Yes, let's please keep important discussions about race and police misconduct quiet. It's not like we'd actually want to do anything about these issues.

Let's add yet another cop!

Chief Bourgeois, like Chief Albert, shot down Ford's assertion of "subconscious" prejudices.

"We train all our officers regarding any kind of racial profiling," Bourgeois said. "Officers approach every call objectively, no matter race, color or religious preference."

Okay, this is just blatant bullshit. There's no way even Bourgeois could believe this, unless he's the most naive man in the world.

Just because you "train" people not to be assholes doesn't mean they won't be assholes. I don't know what sort of training actually takes place, but does anyone with half a brain believe that it can eliminate the problem?

What's more, you can't just train subconscious prejudices out of people. That's sort of what subconscious means. They're not even aware of their prejudices, so how do you expect to train them out of them?

Also from the Obama part of this story, we had this:

Lancaster Town Administrator Orlando Pacheco said the White House "is too far from the situation" to comment.

Now, let's listen to Pacheco comment, because he is obviously right in the thick of things!

But minorities reported they sympathized with Gates, whether or not they considered Cambridge police racist.

"Profiling definitely happens, and I deal with it even in Lancaster," Pacheco, who is Dominican, said. "And it's not just races. Gays and lesbians, in some ways, are discriminated against even more."

When asked whether she has ever felt profiled by police, Cooks did not hesitate.

"Oh my God, yes," she said. "From police, from everybody. It's common."

Dang, that was actually a good comment. What the hell was his problem with Obama commenting? Also, yay our surprised friend Yvette Cooks is back! She's now relegated to the "minorities say this" part of the article, but at least she said something decent. I guess her surprise from earlier was similar to mine.

We'll also give Adrian Ford a little more to say, what with him being a minority and all:

Ford said profiling occurs regularly, and dismissed as "stupid" the notion that America has overcome racial tension by electing an African-American president.

Holy crap Adrian! Didn't you learn anything from Obama? Now everyone is going to get all mad at you for daring to call a stupid idea stupid.

See?

But Fitchburg Councilor at-large Dean Tran disagrees.

"The majority of people in this country have spoken, and voted for an African American, which means that race doesn't play as big a role," Tran said.

Tran is, of course, an irredeemable idiot.

He's actually using the exact same argument that the racists I profiled back in November were using (and will undoubtedly be using in the comments section of the S&E article).

Others have made this argument too. Here's a quote from an email that was sent to the W.E.B. Dubois Institute this week**:

"you can't possibly claim racism, don't you know we have a nigger in the white house?"

Presumably Tran didn't send that email, but he's making the exact same argument.

Never content to stop at saying one stupid thing when there's an opportunity to get even stupider, Tran continues:

Tran, who is Vietnamese, said he has never experienced profiling.

"For me, all this situation does is make me very fearful that police will be hesitant in responding to incidents that involve people of color because they will be afraid of something like this happening," Tran said.

Yeah, I'm sure that minorities (who are of course fully and respectfully served by the police now) will now suffer with sub-par police service because Skip Gates was arrested for being loud at his own home.

Talking about police abuse of power will make the cops scared of doing their job? Only if they're abusive cops.

Dean, you seriously need to take your own Twitter advice and look up "clueless."

Okay, enough of dumbass Tran. Perhaps there's someone out there who's not stupid?

Christina Gonzalez, youth development supervisor at the Cleghorn Neighborhood Center, said electing Obama doesn't mean a society has overcome its racial history.

"That's like when someone tells a racist joke and then qualifies it by saying, 'It's okay, I have a black friend,'" Gonzalez said. "You still feel a certain way about those people. It still shows in your facial expression."

Thank you, Christina Gonzalez! What you've said is totally honest and self-evident to all thinking people. Sadly, we seem to be lacking in thinking people right now.

Let's wrap this up:

Ford questioned Gates' vocal reaction and his call for an apology.

"This is an opportunity to create a learning experience, and a leader's job is to influence other people," Ford said. "(Gates) needs to step back, make this issue less about him, and approach it from a less emotional standpoint as a chance for everyone to learn. That's not happening. All we're doing is perpetuating divisions."

Adrian, I think you've got your wires crossed somewhere.

Here's what Gates said in an interview (emphasis mine):

I've received thousands of e-mails and Facebook messages; the blogs are going crazy; my colleagues at Harvard are outraged. Allen Counter called me from the Nobel Institute in Stockholm to express his outrage. But really it's not about me-it's that anybody black can be treated this way, just arbitrarily arrested out of spite.

Now, you could argue that he's making it about him despite saying that, but in the end it really isn't about Gates no matter what he does.

In fact, I'm not even sure that the arrest itself is the really interesting part here. The arrest was absolutely stupid, but whether it was racially-motivated or not is hard to know for sure. Personally, I see it more as another authoritarian cop (and there are lots of those) arresting someone for "contempt of cop" than as a pure racial issue. Of course, minorities are arrested with those sorts of charges at a disproportionately high rate, so there's no reason it can't be both.

Rather, the part that's revealing when it comes to race is not the arrest, it's the reactions. It's the guys sitting behind their keyboards screaming about "reverse racism" and utterly denying that the real problems exist.

It's the total failure of people to appreciate that if they had just come home after a 20-hour trip back from China and a cop started treating them like a criminal in their own home, then maybe they'd get pretty pissed off too.

It's the inability of people to realize that yes, there are cops out there who will arrest you for things that aren't illegal, and will justify those arrests however they feel they need to.

We shouldn't be asking ourselves "was the cop right" or "was Gates a jerk"? We should be asking ourselves what we'd do in Gates' situation. Whether we'd feel that we were being protected and served, or intimidated and harrassed.

More importantly, we should realize that for every Henry Louis Gates, Jr. who gets arrested for no reason, there are a few thousand normal, everyday people (of all races) who suffer the same treatment, but don't have the means or influence to draw attention to it.

Whatever you think of this particular case, it's unquestionably true that people do get arrested for the crime of being black. It's unquestionably true that some cops are keen on showing how "tough" they are by mistreating those they are meant to serve.

If nothing else, Gates' arrest should be a wake up call. Like Adrian Ford desires, and like Skip Gates has said, it's not about Gates. It's about all of us.



* That's a lie. Of course I know how I've stayed out of jail: I'm white and I'm scared of arguing with people who could shoot me.
** Check it out, I have a contact! Take that, journalists!

Racism now dead! (According to racists.)

There's one thing about the media coverage of Obama's victory that's been really getting on my nerves. It started basically as soon as his victory was announced and hasn't stopped since. It's the excessive focus on the fact that a black man is the President Elect.

Yes, it's historic. Yes, it represents a milestone. Yes, it's deeply meaningful, especially to those who lived through segregation. It's fine to recognize those things.

What's not so good is to pretend like this represents the end of racism. Obama is not the first black man to achieve great things, he's just the first black man to be elected President. Racism hasn't gone away.

Even more annoying is when the people claiming that Obama's victory represents the end of racism are blatantly racist themselves.

Let's go to my new favorite source of crazy idiots and swipe some comments from the S&E's commenting forums!

Here's a lovely one to start off with!

i better never again hear j.jackson ,al sharpton or the commie press say america is a racist nation or ill take my mc cain signs and put them where the sun dont shine.

Yeah, clearly it's not a racist nation. It's just one where some impotent jackass threatens to sodomize black leaders with campaign signs for saying things he doesn't like.

Surely that's just one nutjob, right? He probably got condemned by all the other posters in our new non-racist America!

Or not:

I hear you, what will Black people say now we have a Black president??. No more Moaning, no more Whitey is holding me back.

I wont hold my breath though!!

Yeah, stupid whiny black people!

Wait, I've never actually heard a black person say that (except perhaps ironically). Have these idiotic commenters ever actually talked to a black person? My bet is no.

And there's yet more support for our initial comment. Here's someone else who's creepily eager to sodomize black leaders with yard signs.

Let me know when you do I'll take some of those signs! and help you place them.

From the same author of that comment (someone who goes by "QEII" and claims to have voted for Obama, while also predicting the Illuminati will kill him in six months. Seriously.), we get this gem:

I am hearing a lot of feedback that the blacks are making this racist.

Damn those blacks for causing racism! Don't they realize that if they'd just be white there would be no racism at all? It's all their fault!

It gets much worse. Here's some poor discriminated-against white dude whining about how much black people suck:

well, I've been discriminated against since i was a teenager and the funny thing is I'm white! The people to blame for the bad habits of the black people is their parents, parents parents, and so on. Older black people will tell their children "See that white kid? Knock them down cause your grandmother was knocked down."
Give me a break blacks! I never did anything to you and all of you are living the past.....already this morning; there is discriminating going on. Whoopy that a 102 year old black woman got to vote! Why didn't she vote for the Presidents before? Take advantage of your rights when the white presidents got them for you instead of waiting for a black President is in office.....so, who is the stupid race? Gosh! Stupid, dumbest dang people ever....oh! And you are not African American unless you moved here from Africa! And on top of that; i wouldn't be advertising that your African American just to the fact that the place is a disease for all and rapes happen along with Aids. Yeah right! Whey would I want to state I came from Africa!??!!? That's embarrassing! Get a life and get out there and pick cotton like your should be doing!

There's nothing I can even add to that. I'll just move on, while hoping this individual lives a long and profoundly miserable life.

Want some more nonsense? Sure!

Bill Bennet on CNN said it BEST

This is a great Country......Lets "hope" he is at "least" a good president.

I totally agree,....I didn't vote for the big-O, but I am glad he has one cause now "we are no longer a Racist-country!"

time to get rid of Quota's, Equal-Oppurtunity, and all the other special programs......Obama either showed us that Hard-work and perserverance got him there..........or he got there by not having to be the best, just very tan.

Yeah, most of that is gibberish, and I'm not even entirely sure what he was trying to say. Still, it's another racist douchewad saying America isn't racist. Better yet, he's trying to use Obama's victory as an excuse to do away with "Equal-Oppurtunity" [Sic]!

Listen, morons. If anything, Obama won despite being black.

Did some people vote for him because he's black? Yes. Just like some people voted for McCain because he's white. Or more significantly, just like some people voted for McCain because Obama is black.

I can't say I know just how many people fit into each category. I do strongly suspect that far fewer people voted for Obama because he's black than voted for McCain because Obama is black. But really, race isn't a significant deciding factor for anyone but a small group of people.

Yes, Obama got the overwhelming majority of the black vote. So did Kerry. So did Gore. So has every Democrat for the last few decades. That matters a whole hell of a lot more than race. So does political skill. There are reasons that Alan Keyes, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton never became serious contenders. If people really voted for Obama based on race, wouldn't they have done better?

I could pull more quotes from that forum, but I'm sure you get the idea.

Obama being elected President doesn't mean racism isn't still a problem in this country. Hell, there were white supremacists who supported him.

In fact, many white supremacists are hoping that Obama's election will set off a "white backlash".

PEARL, Miss. — They're not exactly rooting for Barack Obama, but prominent white supremacists anticipate a boost to their cause if he becomes the first black president. His election, they say, would trigger a backlash -- whites rising up, a revolution of sorts -- that they think is long overdue.

He'd be a "visual aid," says former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, in trying to bring others around to their view that whites have lost control of America. Obama's election, says another, would jar whites into action, writing letters, handing out pamphlets rather than sitting around complaining.

Yeah, racism isn't dead. It's alive and well.

Obama's victory may mark a milestone in race relations, but it sure as hell hasn't ended racism. There's a lot of work left to be done, and a lot of bigots standing in the way. Hopefully we'll get there one day, but it's going to take awhile. Pretending things are better than they actually are doesn't benefit anyone.

Are these morons getting dumber or just louder?

"Dumber, sir."


Exhibit A:



Exhibit B:



Exhibit C:



Exhibit D:
Dead bear covered with Obama signs left at WCU


Case closed.