If I see somebody acting like a NAZI, I’m going to call them a NAZI.

And, a black person screaming racist every time something doesn’t go exactly as they want it to, reminds me of “the little boy who cried wolf” story. People are getting to the point where the word racist is losing it’s impact. I got labeled as a racist once because I didn’t recognize a Gladys Knight and the Pips song. Any time you disagree with a black man he screams “Racist”, even when it has nothing to do with anybodies race. What a crock of b/s.

It’s going to backfire on the people who are black. I mean the ones like professor Gates, who is actually as much a racist as any KKK grand dragon. I saw a video where Gates actually claimed that Pres. Lincoln was a racist. Of all the absurd nonsense.

It is true that even the imperialist and militarist Barack Obama must be defended from racist attacks. Equally important is the defense of all people of color when Obama himself trades in anti-black racism, as in his famous “race speech” given some months ago.

Obama’s speech appeals to liberals and moderates not only for its genuine insights into racism in the US, but because it contains much to appeal to racists. Sometimes Obama’s racism is allusive, coded, or implicit, as when he refers generically to “the welfare mom” and “the former gang-banger,” or when he evokes ghetto stereotypes in “the erosion of black families [that] welfare policies may have worsened,” families living in a “cycle of violence, blight and neglect.” But there is also in-your-face-racism in Obama’s denunciation of the politics of his former pastor, which is the heart of, and the occasion for, the speech.

Many of us would find commonplace pastor Jeremiah Wright’s condemnation of the US genocide of Native Americans, the Hiroshima bombing, and the ravages of US imperialism around the world. (Texts of his sermons are readily available on the net.) Naturally, Obama rejects Wright’s (and our) understanding of history as “profoundly distorted” and further declares, quite falsely, that white racism is not endemic in the US.

Some consider such denials of history and fact to be racist in themselves. Regardless, it is undeniably racist when Obama dismisses Wright’s political views as the distortions of an angry black man damaged by his experience of past racism: “For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. … many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons[.]” Obama also likens Wright’s views to Obama’s own white grandmother’s racism: “I can no more disown [Wright] … than I can my white grandmother … who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.”

Obama attacks Wright’s political views ad hominem, pathologizing and infantalizing black political dissent and placing it on par with expressions of white racism. This too must be denounced.

yeah, you’ve got it. though it is still a lot more acceptable to express even overt prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping of those with large bodies. nevertheless, like racial attitudes, there are implicit and unconscious aspects of the rejection of the overweight that have been measured and can be activated or “primed” by mention of certain key terms, pictures of the obese, etc.

thanks to the center and thanks for including the most thoughtful and insightful sites of both the right and the left. the only way our culture will change is if we recognize that we share common norms of proper behavior and democracy no matter what our political loyalties.

after the election, i hope that gender and sexuality based prejudice will be incorporated. body image doesn’t impact politics so much, but it is also an area of symbolic prejudice ripe for exposure.

The need for this discussion is obvious given that McCain’s and Palin’s recent speeches are triggering audience responses to kill Obama. I do not care what you political persuasion is…that should ABSOLUTELY NEVER happen in America.

Don’t believe me? Go to the Alabama Moderate:
http://almoderate.com/2008/10/07/a-frightening-look-at-the-politics-of-hatred/

Fat
Short
Tall
Skinny
skanky
Dirty
snob

the list could go on and on?
Some people HATE FAT people? and vice versa?

still trying to understand this….