Update:
Racism in all its forms is an important issue, and I don't want it minimized. While this diary sits at the top of the Rec list it saddens me that I see another NFTT diary sliding off.
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The most recent diary addresses the service of another minority, our women.
Our Women Suffer Too--Hearing Their Voices
Even if you can't donate right this moment, a rec and some words of encouragement are just as good. Many thanks, Oke.
Representative Joe Walsh of Illinois opened his closet and showed his white sheets when he shared why he believes President Obama was elected.
Three guesses and the first two don't count......
In an interview with Slate:
“Why was he elected? Again, it comes back to who he was. He was black, he was historic. And there’s nothing racist about this. It is what it is. If he had been a dynamic, white, state senator elected to Congress he wouldn’t have gotten in the game this fast. This is what made him different. That, combined with the fact that your profession”—another friendly tap of the bumper sticker—”not you, but your profession, was just absolutely compliant. They made up their minds early that they were in love with him. They were in love with him because they thought he was a good liberal guy and they were in love with him because he pushed that magical button: a black man who was articulate, liberal, the whole white guilt, all of that.”
emphasis mine
This is racism out in the open. It is also what the dog whistles that have been blowing louder and louder for almost four years now in regard to Obama.
update:
In reading a Think Progress piece on this I see that he slams Jewish Americans, too.
In the past week, Walsh has made a number of outrageous statements, most infamously his admonishment that American Jews “aren’t as pro-Israel as they should be.”
When you've been a loser and your seat was bought and paid for by the likes of Americans for Prosperity and other Tea Party hacks you don't have many values to start with.
And oh my, another damn actor.
"Nobody thought Walsh would win. He'd worked for the libertarian Heartland Institute for a while, run for Congress in 1996, lost, run for state assembly, lost, then gone into the private sector but didn't make too much money. (His net worth, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, is negative $317,498.) Before doing this, he'd taken acting lessons—"stage, film, a little TV." He raised only one-quarter as much as his Democratic opponent, Melissa Bean, who had seemed to turn the Republican-leaning district into a blue zone, even though a third party candidate kept splitting the vote. In mid-October, the Rothenberg Political Report confidently assessed that Walsh was not "good enough to take advantage of a strong Republican year." He got no money from national Republicans—not even the third-party groups that poured in cash for other longshot candidates."
The promotion of this racist meme from an elected official should not and cannot be permitted. This needs to be shouted about far and wide and Walsh needs thrown the hell out of office.
Update:
An essential piece of this issue is addressed in this comment from Aji:
And before anyone jumps in . . .
to defend Walsh on grounds that what he said is his opinion, not necessarily racist, because we don't know what's in his heart, not suitable for analogy to hoods and sheets, yadda, yadda, yadda:
Birther dogwhistle:
"Look," he says, "I don't think this is complicated. He doesn't really have a history. I say all of this respectfully—he is the least well-known guy we have ever put in the presidency, and there's no one even close. He's probably got easily the lightest résumé of anybody we've elected."
The "Obama's an unintelligent child-man"
/"Obama's a Muslim extremist who hates Teh Jooz" two-fer combo dogwhistle:
"Woo!" says Walsh, slapping his hands together and hot-footing it to his seat. His own energy level is at least 100 volts higher than the rest of the room. "It was a masterful speech! He taught us all a history lesson, like he taught the president last week. And is so refreshing to hear a leader"—he pounds the table—"a giant, in that room." He gives the crowd a preview of a column he's just written about how President Obama is "not Israel's friend"—that's its headline when it is published the next day—with some eye-popping words about why American Jews are so liberal. It's sensational and it gets plenty of attention.
The Freudian slip:
He racks his brain for any more reasons he's on TV. "I mean, I'm a white male freshman congressman. There are a lot of those! I don't know."
Let's put to rest, once and for all, the tired old trope that you can't call someone a racist based on words or deeds, because you don't know what's in their heart. Bullshit. All we have to go on is words or deeds, and I don't fucking care whether someone says/does racist things because they hate/fear/resent/envy/whatever people of color or not. If you say racist things, if you engage in racist behavior, you are a racist. Period. Because you're willing to subjugate the interests of people of color to whatever your selfish interest/fear/resentment may be. Walsh is a racist.
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by Aji on Fri May 27, 2011 at 10:41:22 AM PDT
Any questions on Walsh's Tea Party affiliation is clarified by Bachmans list of the sanctified.