Woman killed at K.K.K. initiation

This one physically made me sick.  From the New York Times yesterday:

An Oklahoma woman invited to a rural Louisiana campsite for a Ku Klux Klan initiation ritual was shot and killed after she asked to be taken back to town, the sheriff of a parish near New Orleans said. Eight people were arrested after the authorities found the woman’s body hidden under some brush on the side of a road several miles from the remote campsite, about 60 miles north of New Orleans. Investigators found weapons, several flags and six Klan robes at the campsite, Sheriff Jack Strain of St. Tammany Parish said. Sheriff Strain said the group’s leader, Raymond Foster, 44, shot and killed the woman after a fight broke out when she tried to leave. Mr. Foster was charged with second-degree murder.

Sunday morning cartoons

In honor (?) of the Bush administration’s attempt to rush through last minute legislation to open the Grand Canyon area to uranium mining:

Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune, 11.07.08

 A combo shot at the new puppy and Rahm Emanuel:

Jimmy Margulies, The Record (NJ), 11.08.08

 A little more on the historic nature of the election:  from Rosa Parks to Barack Obama:

Jack Ohman, The Portland Oregonian, 11.07.08

 On the dichotomy of the Obama win v. the ban on gay marriage in California and other defeats of civil rights measures for gays and lesbians in Arizona, Florida, and Arkansas:

Mikhaela Reid, 11.07.08

This one was jarring … because it’s from Sweden:

Riber Hansson, Sweden, 8.17.08

And, finally, to begin the recognition of Veterans’ Day.  Remember, political cartoons (and children) frequently confront us with a truth we don’t want to face:

Rick McKee, The Augusta Chronicle (GA), 11.08.08

 If you’d like to help, visit the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans.

After Friedman, TWiB

So after we acknowledge Thomas Friedman’s assertion (correct, I think) that Obama’s election puts one final nail in the coffin of the Civil War, we should engage in a discussion of whether or not the election means that this country has become “post-racial.”  I have one word for my opinion:  bullshit.  This Week in Blackness has lots of words:

Friedman: Obama victory final end to Civil War

Where I live, the Civil War is sometimes frequently referred to as the “late great unpleasantness.” In the New York Times this morning, Thomas Friedman argues that the Civil War could not have truly ended until the election of Barack Obama, or someone like him:

And so it came to pass that on Nov. 4, 2008, shortly after 11 p.m. Eastern time, the American Civil War ended, as a black man — Barack Hussein Obama — won enough electoral votes to become president of the United States.

A civil war that, in many ways, began at Bull Run, Virginia, on July 21, 1861, ended 147 years later via a ballot box in the very same state. For nothing more symbolically illustrated the final chapter of America’s Civil War than the fact that the Commonwealth of Virginia — the state that once exalted slavery and whose secession from the Union in 1861 gave the Confederacy both strategic weight and its commanding general — voted Democratic, thus assuring that Barack Obama would become the 44th president of the United States.

This moment was necessary, for despite a century of civil rights legislation, judicial interventions and social activism — despite Brown v. Board of Education, Martin Luther King’s I-have-a-dream crusade and the 1964 Civil Rights Act — the Civil War could never truly be said to have ended until America’s white majority actually elected an African-American as president.

Yes we did.

Cause and effect

Quick shout out to the BAG for a great connect-the-dots piece between the fear mongering coming out of the McCain campaign and the two jackasses arrested yesterday for a plot to kill Obama.  Check it out:  Cause and Effect?

Yeah, haven’t blogged on these guys who wanted to shoot a bunch of people.  Not into the whole 15 minutes of fame thing.

WAWP

There’s a lot of good stuff on the blogs this morning.  Over at TooSense, he’s taking it to Whinin’ Ass White People (WAWP).  Check this:

Memo to my white brothers and sisters: we own 95% of the fucking country, you morons! We have the best jobs; the best land; the best schools; the most tax breaks; and generations of accumulated material wealth. All but two Supreme Court Justices have been white, and every single President so far has been white. The vast majority of elected officials in this country have been and are white. The vast majority of media figures are white. Almost every wealthy person in this country is white (seriously, take away Oprah and Bob Johnson, what’s left?) HOW THE FUCK IS ANYONE SUPPOSED TO BE OPPRESSING US WHEN WE OWN EVERYTHING?

Stop whining, white folks. There’s nothing worse than a WAWP. White people whining is exactly like those spoiled little girls on “My Sweet Sixteen” screaming because daddy only got them a Hummer instead of a Lexus. It’s not just disingenuous, it’s obscene.

We’re not victims, we’re not oppressed, we’re not disadvantaged. Nobody is holding us back from anything because of our race. We’re in the catbird seat. We won the wars, the toys are ours. We have nothing, absolutely nothing, to justify crying in our beer. Individually, a lot of us are hurting because of the state of the economy. But collectively? We have the cow, the milk, and the cream. So shut the fuck up about being victims, okay?

What he said.

 

In case you *still* think we’re making this up

H/T Ta-Nehisi Coates. 

This might piss some people off

You know what?  I’m “totally comfortable with that.”  (Warning:  not worksafe.)

This Week In Blackness, Ep #10

Olbermann takes it to McCain

Last night, I wanted to send Rachel Maddow champagne.  Tonight, it’s a bottle of scotch for Keith Olbermann.  Keith took it to McCain for the race baiting, hate and fear mongering campaign he is carrying on, while trying to make himself out to be the victim.  It’s clear, at least to me, that McCain is playing to the Klan element of his party by continuing to wholesale reject John Lewis.  Tonight, Keith did some yelling for those of us who are _ just _ so _ done.

To post or not to post?

I struggled with this one.  I couldn’t decide whether or not to post this and, if I did, what to say.  My friend Seth solved it for me.  I’ll quote his opener and encourage you to go to his site and read the whole thing:

Don’t watch this video if you’ve eaten recently.  It’s one of the most disgusting things I’ve seen during this whole campaign season.

That, it is. 

The one encouraging thing is the chant, over the cackles of the GOP crowd, of “racist” from the Obama supporters.  At least there were sane people there to call him what he is.

**Update:  Ta-Nehisi Coates hits it on the head:

There is nothing troubling about one lone racist nut in a crowd. What’s troubling is the crowd. Dig how they just look on and smile uncomfortably. No one confronts him. This is the banality of evil, no? It isn’t the guy doing the deed. Its the enablers who give comfort and haven to spew his hatred. On one level, I’m thankful for them. Anyone, who wants to now say that an Obama election proves that racism is dead will have to contend with this last week. And it isn’t the nuts that this person must contend with—it’s the crowds, the crowds who silently, and sometimes not so silently, just stand by and let it happen. They are all, to a man, cowards.