I'm sure you've all now heard of Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) - cuz of course, Alabama - who said that it has be Democrats - yes, Democrats - who've been staging a "War on Whitestm". A fact which seems to be entirely lost on the most of the Democratic Party itself, because as it happens most of them happen to be, White. Also.
So does that mean their waging a War on Themselves? If so, they don't seem to be losing it. Or winning it. Or...whatever.
First he said this on the Laura Ingraham Show.
Brooks: This is a part of the war on whites that’s being launched by the Democratic Party. And the way in which they’re launching this war is by claiming that whites hate everybody else. It’s a part of the strategy that Barack Obama implemented in 2008, continued in 2012, where he divides us all on race, on sex, greed, envy, class warfare, all those kinds of things. Well that’s not true. Okay?
"The Democrats routinely make appeals based on race and they get away with it. It's repugnant to ever make an appeal based on race," he said.
I'm quite sorry but the Barack Obama I remember from the 2008 campaign was the one who said "There is not a Black America, there is not a White America -
there is the United States of America". The Barack Obama I remember from 2008, got up after the Reverend Wrong Meltdown and gave a pretty good, very balanced, fair and
frankly insightful speech on Race in America that recognized that not only did Black people have some legitimate concerns about ongoing discrimination and being
wrongly accused of being a criminal, but that many White (and other) people had more than a bit of legitimate concern about actual crime and
being wrongly accused of being Racist. He argued, quite convincingly, that we ought not be divided by race, or by class but rather, that we are One.
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.
Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.
If anything, he went miles and miles
and miles out of his way not to attack, antagonize or demonize White people. Quite simply there is no legitimate case to be made that Barack Obama has ever attempted to "Divide the Nation on the Basis of Race".
That simply hasn't happened. Ever. But he gets accused of it constantly even if it is completely delusional for daring to say truthful things like "Police acted stupidly to arrest Skip Gates [for not committing the crime of breaking into his own house], because they DID, and "If I had a son, he could look like Trayvon Martin" because he probably WOULD.
As we've now grown to duly expect, after making his first statement the usual "chastisement for making ridiculous hyperbolic and hateful statements" we've all grown to expect members of the GOP to receive Brooks has - of course - much more to say on the subject, and naturally what he has to say the second time around is ever more ridiculous than what he said on the first iteration.
Via TPM.
On Tuesday, Brooks told USA Today that "if you look at current federal law, there is only one skin color that you can lawfully discriminate against. That’s Caucasians — whites."
And in an interview on NewsmaxTV's "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Tuesday, the congressman made a similar comment.
“Embedded in federal statutes, what is the one race that can be discriminated against? As a matter of law. What is it?” he asked, according to a clip recorded by Mediaite.
“White males?” Steve Malzberg asked in response.
“Not just white males, but all whites," Brooks then responded.
So now it's not just Democrats and Barack Obama who are waging this mystical stealth
War On Whites, it's Federal Law itself. Somewhere, somehow in some place somebody passed a law that says "Whites Must Sit at the Back of the Bus" or that any White Man accused of a crime must go out of his way to
Prove His Innocence beyond the Shadow of a Doubt, that there is some type of epidemic of White Guys getting blocked from receiving loans, housing, rental property and jobs - so that everyone else can have them and that these FEDERAL LAWS voted on and passed by Congress and signed by an Actual U.S. President are currently and actively on our books.
Riiiight.
Not surprisingly instead of demanding this "lawmaker" - if that is truly what he is - tell us where exactly within either Title 42 or Title 18 or other portions of the U.S. Codes do these dastardly laws reside, instead of demanding that he recite and specify them for all to see, exposing the noxious perfidy to the masses - he gets to spout this derp-filled red-meat to the unquestioning and unwaveringly White GOP base without comment or contention by a Media that seems totally incapable of rubbing a brain-cell and half together.
In point of fact U.S. Code › Title 42 › Chapter 21 › Subchapter II › § 2000a discusses the issue of Equal Access to Public Accommodations thusly.
(a) Equal access
All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.
(b) Establishments affecting interstate commerce or supported in their activities by State action as places of public accommodation; lodgings; facilities principally engaged in selling food for consumption on the premises; gasoline stations; places of exhibition or entertainment; other covered establishments
Each of the following establishments which serves the public is a place of public accommodation within the meaning of this subchapter if its operations affect commerce, or if discrimination or segregation by it is supported by State action:
When it comes to State Agencies
Title 42 › Chapter 21 › Subchapter II › § 2000a–1 says this.
All persons shall be entitled to be free, at any establishment or place, from discrimination or segregation of any kind on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin, if such discrimination or segregation is or purports to be required by any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, rule, or order of a State or any agency or political subdivision thereof.
When it comes to Employment
U.S. Code › Title 42 › Chapter 21 › Subchapter VI › § 2000e–2 says this:
(a) Employer practices
It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer—
(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or
(2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Admittedly these examples are not exhaustive, but even so it would seem to me that the plain reading of these statutes doesn't in any way support Brook's claim that the "Law allows you to discriminate against Whites" because in point of fact - it doesn't. The plain fact is that if there's a flaw in these laws it's that their a little too neutral and a little too specific about what kinds of discrimination, and justifications and rationales for discrimination that can't be used anymore.
"Race" can't be used as a justification for discrimination - it doesn't say "Race - except for the White Race", but that doesn't mean that it's complete.
Not all of these statues mention sex or gender discrimination as being prohibited. Clearly none of them mention sexual orientation. They don't address persons who are differently able-bodied. They don't all address Veterans. Some subsequent laws such as the Violence Against Women Act, the Equal Pay Act, the American Disabilities Act have expanded some of these protections incrementally - but few of any have recognized that what may truly be needed is something that addresses the potential for any majority faction to override and abuse the rights of any individual who may stand apart from that faction, simply because they are apart and different.
Most cases of potential discrimination or abuse are not simply across a racial, gender, religious, or orientation axis - most of them are majority vs minority. The many ruling over the few, or the one. If we are to protect the rights of each and every individual we must realize that it is the abuse of majority rule - aka mob rule - that has to be occasionally curbed and limited in the same way that we may limit the impact of a Monopoly to abuse it's position using an Anti-Trust Action. It should never be about takings sides, it should be about protect those vulnerable to exploitation, coercion and abuse. The reason for that abuse should be secondary.
If we do no limit the abuse of majority power it could be true that Blacks or Latinos could use that power to discriminate against Whites if they were to achieve majority numbers. They haven't yet done either IMO, but I don't see how the law gives them a "pass" if they tried.
Similarly if Whites - when they are the local factional or financial majority - continue to believe they have a innate majority right to dictate to everyone else, they will sometimes find those "rights" curbed in order to protect the rights of individuals. In that sense the only way that Brook's claim is "justified" is if he believes that it is discriminatory against Whites to require they STOP discriminating and dictating to everyone else.
And I don't bring that analogy up idly, that's essentially the position we've seen from those who support the Hobby Lobby decision, which is that the collective religious rights of the corporate majority (in management) trump the individual personal and human rights of their employees.
It's also not the case that Democrats are constantly claiming that "Whites Hate Everyone Else", no - what they've said sometimes is that some Republicans - who also usually happen to be overwhelmingly White, and/or White-Centric - happen to adopt and advance Polices that are Hateful to Everyone else.
No one in the Democratic Party has made Phil Gingrey freak out over "Kids from Guatemala bringing Ebola to the U.S.". No one in the Democratic Party made Steve King accuse most immigrant kids who've been here since 2007 and are eligible for the DACA program of being Cantaloupe Calved Drug Mules. No one in the Democratic Party made Newt Gingrich call Obama the "Greatest Food Stamp President", particularly when the uptick in the use of SNAP occurred at the end of the Bush Presidency as a result of the Great Recession, not because of anything that Barack Obama had any control of at the time. Nobody in the Democratic Party made Republicans in 2012 boo and jeer an openly gay Service Man serving overseas who simply wanted to ask a question of their candidates.
Nobody in the Democratic Party made Rush Limbaugh Blatantly Lie about the content of Sandra Fluke's Congressional Testimony and call her a "Slut" for nearly a week. Nobody in the Democratic Party has forced Republican Legislatures and Governors to pass unnecessary T.R.A.P. laws to close Women's clinics, to force medically unneeded vaginal ultrasounds on women, to implement mandatory drug testing for those seeking government assistance and restrictive and unneeded voter-ID requirements that disenfranchise young, minority and elderly voters from the polls.
Most Republicans may be doing all of this for partisan reasons, because they know that demographically these groups, the young, Blacks, Latinos, Asians, most Women and LGBT are very likely to vote against them - it's not because Democrats have "made them" or "tricked them" into disliking Republicans.
Democrats didn't cause any of that to happen, they just happened to have noticed all the above, and tend to have pointed out that it all seems a bit bigoted. Some of it seems a LOT bigoted. It's not that Democrats simply say that Republicans seem to Hate People who aren't White [or male] - it's because so many of them just, simply, Act Exactly Like they Do.
This isn't "Democrat Creation", something that Dems did to Republicans. It's more like a paraphrase of one of my favorite lines from Obi Wan Kenobi in the Episode III of Star Wars.
They Have All Done That - To Themselves.
Vyan