links for 2010-10-20

"Meet Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and leader of Liberty Central, a sort of ersatz Tea Party that aims to combat the 'tyranny' of President Obama. The New York Times has learned that on October 9 of this year, Thomas telephoned Anita Hill, a former aide to Clarence Thomas who accused him of sexual harassment—a charge he denied—during his 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings. In a voicemail, Ginni Thomas said, 'I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought. And certainly pray about this and hope that one day you will help us understand why you did what you did. O.K., have a good day.'”

'It's more than just an arcane, off-the-wall problem,' said David Blight, a professor at Yale University. 'This isn't just about the legitimacy of the Confederacy, it's about the legitimacy of the emancipation itself.' Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James McPherson of Princeton University said, 'These Confederate heritage groups have been making this claim for years as a way of purging their cause of its association with slavery.'"

"I can only imagine his 'team' getting him prepped for the debate and making sure he was ready for the dreaded "environmental" question with a "Native American Proverb"–showing he's both multicultural AND environmentally friendly!"

"And while much was being made of Nenshi being what’s believed to be the first Muslim mayor in a major Canadian city, experts, supporters and even leaders in Calgary’s Muslim community were playing down the role Nenshi’s faith played in his election.

“'I think it’s an overblown situation,' said Calgary Imam Syed Soharwardy, the founder of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada.

“'He’s a Muslim. Yes, well so what? Why does it have to be identified that we have a Muslim mayor? I think the most important thing is we have a new person who has been elected by Calgarians.'”

Still, Soharwardy couldn’t deny the impact Nenshi’s election will have on Calgary’s cowboy conservative stereotype.

Traditionally, this is where some idiot decides to jump in and whine about people being 'offended'. Racism, or any other -ism, is not bad because it offends people, it’s bad because it degrades and dehumanises people, and this has real consequences. Returning to the 2005 Sydney race riots, whether or not the Lebanese Muslim community were offended by the white community stereotyping them as rapists and terrorist sympathisers is irrelevant next to the fact that, by stereotyping them as rapists and terrorist sympathisers, the white community were able to justify forming mobs and using physical violence to try and force anyone vaguely swarthy out of 'their' country. It’s infuriating to hear these things discussed as if they’re a purely academic debate about whether or not we’re too politically correct, when in reality it’s people trying to deal with something that’s real, immediate and dangerous."

"The prosecutor in a hate crime trial needs to prove intent beyond a reasonable doubt. Often even the use of racial slurs has not been enough to convince the court. So undoubtedly crimes are committed regularly where hate crime enhancements could not be applied, simply because the proof did not exist. (Or the proof did not convince the important somebodies who needed to be convinced, but whatever.) Criminals can think all the hateful thoughts they wish. They may even act on these thoughts. But it is the combination of criminal action and provable intent that is addressed by our legal system.

Additionally, hate crime laws do not value any group of people over another. It is not the victim’s status that is protected. You might be a straight white guy, but if you get the crap beaten out of you because your attacker thinks you’re gay, hate crime enhancements can be added."

"At parties, we were sought out. We knew the dances. The songs. “Please make sure you come to my mitzvah, because I heard you were absolutely hilarious at last weekend’s.” We were cultural tutors, laughing at the novices while they cheered us for our novelty. This was exchange. We thought it to be a fair trade.

In the end, prep school forced us all to think about the way in which we would engage the world—passively, or aggressively. While we were always knew that we were different from the people with whom we went to school, we also understood that “difference” is not inherently bad, or less valuable. "

“I think some white women are extremely attractive” and “I’m completely enamored and in love with black women” aren’t mutually exclusive concepts. In fact, they’re the complete opposite of mutually exclusive, they’re, ummm, whatever the complete opposite of “mutually exclusive” happens to be.

Anyway, this—a black man can’t possibly prefer to be with a black women if he thinks any white women are attractive—is definitely one of the three most prominent things everyone knows to be true about black men…that totally aren’t true at all."