Spread the word, from far and wide: Bigotry is cool again!
Ever wish you were a teen in the 50s when its was all the rage to pelt the "Negroes" with your malted shakes? Ever pine for the era of the segregated water fountain? Get misty eyed in U.S. history class when reading about the "yellow peril" and find yourself thinking: "Damn straight - they ARE trying to take over this country!" Do you find the phrase "reconquista" rolling sweetly off your tongue?
Then look no further - racism is COOL again in America!
What to find out how it goes far beyond "macaca"? Then join me on the flip.
Assuming you haven't been traveling abroad for the last two months in the jungles of Borneo, you are surely familiar with Sen. Allen and his use of the racial epithet "macaca" at a campaign event. (And as an aside, myself included, can we can it with the "macaca" jokes - just replace the word with "jungle bunny" and that's about the line you're crossing.)
However, the extent to which racism has become frighteningly normalized in this country goes far beyond Sen. Allen. Consider these incidents this week:
(08-30) 14:32 PDT NEW YORK, (AP) - An Arab human rights activist was prevented from boarding a plane at Kennedy Airport while wearing a T-shirt that read, "We will not be silent" in English and Arabic.
Raed Jarrar was at the gate to board a JetBlue Airways flight to Oakland, Calif., on Aug. 12 when four officials from the airline or a government agency stopped him and told him he could not board with the shirt on, he said Wednesday.
One official told him, "Going to an airport with a T-shirt in Arabic script is like going to a bank and wearing a T-shirt that says, `I'm a robber,'" he said.
Welcome to the Republican's America - where wearing an article of clothing with Arabic words on it can get you detained as a suspected terrorist. And a word to airline travelers who are Islamic - keep those Korans as home!
(08-30) 16:21 PDT DETROIT, (AP) -- General Motors Corp. has decided to end its sponsorship of CBS' hit series "Survivor," but the world's largest automaker said Wednesday that the decision had nothing to do with the reality show's controversial decision to divide its contestants in the upcoming season by race and ethnicity.
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A group of New York City officials have criticized the new format, saying it promotes divisiveness. They have asked CBS to reconsider its plans.
"How could anybody be so desperate for ratings?" City Councilman John Liu asked last week.
Show creator Mark Burnett said Tuesday that many of those criticizing the new approach haven't ever seen the show and don't understand how it works.
"By putting people in tribes, they clearly have to get rid of people of their own ethnicity," he told The Associated Press during a conference call. "So it's not racial at all."
For the first portion of the 13th edition of "Survivor," which premieres Sept. 14, the contestants competing for the $1 million prize while stranded on the Cook Islands in the South Pacific will be divided into four teams -- blacks, Asians, Hispanics and whites.
Step right up and win a prize! That's right - just queue up over here, folks. We've got a line for each of the four major food, I mean "race" groups - whites (a color), blacks (another color), Hispanics (a language group), and Asians (a geographic group.) I'm sorry Brazilians, you look like Hispanics but you speak Portuguese, so you can't play.
The Nation -- White Heat -- Bob Moser -- Nashville
"When I tell you that the area where I grew up now resembles Tijuana more than the US--well, hang on, you're about to see what I mean," says Theresa Harmon. Tennessee's most vociferous anti-immigration organizer has just picked me up, straight from work at a local construction firm, in her red 1986 Mercury Cougar--a "kicker," she calls it fondly, apologizing for the lack of air-conditioning. "Bless your heart--I'm used to the heat," she says, talking her usual mile a minute as she puffs a Misty long and noses into rush-hour traffic, headed for the South Nashville neighborhood where she grew up. "I mean, who would have ever thought Nashville would be an illegal alien magnet?" she says. "Nashville!"
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Music City has ranked first among US cities since 1990 in immigration growth, and now has the largest community of Kurdish refugees in the United States. Like the rest of Tennessee, Nashville also ranks high as a destination for undocumented Hispanics--and that's the part that rankles Harmon. "The Kurds are the nicest people you'd ever want to meet," she says. "A lot like the Hispanic folk we've had here for a long time."
Not the new ones. "Sadly, I've gotten to where I can look at a row of houses now and say, 'They're legal--they're illegal.' Simply because the ones that are legal tend to have that pride of place. The illegals? They don't give a rat's hind end about fitting in or being a US citizen. They're here because they want money, and that's it. They brought their chickens-in-the-yard culture over here with them. You see ten cars parked in the front yard, where you used to see flower beds."
Yeah - OUR Mexicans are ok, but not THOSE Mexicans. They should go back home to where they came from - like Arizona!
Welcome to the new America - where racism is cool again.