RACISM, BY DEGREE
I appreciated David Frum's Andrew Breitbart obituary -- Frum concluded it by saying, "It's difficult for me to assess Breitbart's impact upon American media and American politics as anything other than poisonous," and by arguing that Breitbart was representative of a generalized poison in our political culture. But Zandar flags this:
Because President Obama was black, and because Breitbart believed in using every and any weapon at hand, Breitbart's politics did inevitably become racially coded. Breitbart's memory will always be linked to his defamation of Shirley Sherrod and his attempt to make a national scandal out of back payments to black farmers: the story he always called "Pigford" with self-conscious resonance.
Yet it is wrong to see Breitbart as racially motivated. Had Breitbart decided he hated a politician whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower, Breitbart would have been just as delighted to attack that politicians with a different set of codes. The attack was everything, the details nothing.
Zandar's take:
Frum is basically saying that Breitbart did racist things, used racist phrases, and played on racial fears and stereotypes, but he wasn't a racist because he was either playing a character or that he hated everyone equally.
To which I again cry "bullshit". That is such astonishing white privilege as to be shocking, and it's all the more terrible because Frum clearly admits in his obituary piece that Andrew Breitbart did really unforgivable things, and still calls him a "loyal friend". He wasn't a bad person, he just was playing the game that he helped to create, and it's really heart-rending that the discourse is in tatters right now, but hey, it's okay, he wasn't a racist, he hated women and Muslims and liberals and academics and environmentalists too, so it's all good.
Sorry Frum. You don't get to dispense this particular plenary indulgence. You don't get to posthumously absolve him of his sins. You don't get to play the "loveable bastard" card. He was a darkness on the American political media scene, and his death left behind a country where you think it's okay to treat people like animals, objects, or worse just because you feel you can just explain away the behavior as acceptable due to "you can't prove intent".
Look, what's the definition of first-degree murder? Murder that's both willful and premeditated? So, fine -- you're arguing that Breitbart hated Barack Obama first and only then, seizing on the blackness of the object of hatred, attacked that object of hatred in racist terms? Attacking Obama or Shirley Sherrod in racial terms was an afterthought?
Sorry, but even if we accept this view of the racial feelings in Breitbart's soul, his attitude didn't cease to be racism just because it wasn't (as it were) first-degree racism. At best it was racism in the second or third degree. It was still racism.
8 comments:
Precisely, and the very same can and should be said of Judge Cebull's e-mail. For him to admit that the e-mail he read, liked & disseminated was racist, while denying that he is a racist, is the height of bullshit.
I don't understand (well, alas, I do) how this line is supposed to be exculpatory. It used to be that doing something you knew to be evil, in the pursuit of personal or political advantage, was considered the height of hypocrisy and foul dealing. Now it's some kind of sign of true commitment to your cause -- which in turn excuses the evil. Write your own comparison.
And yeah, racism includes being willing to throw black people under a bus to gain money and power. Being willing to throw other people under a bus doesn't make you less of a racist, just more of an unethical person.
I think Frum's mistake there (and it's a common one when white people talk about race) is getting into motivation at all. The practical effect was racist; whether that racism was cynical or heartfelt is wholly irrelevant.
That said, I think that's the one real flaw in Frum's piece, which on the whole was a shockingly smart and sensible assessment of Breitbart.
Yup -- and a lot better than Dave Weigel's, which boiled down to "He was really intense and friendly and sincere and accessible and he liked to talk endlessly about cool music!"
I think the issue is,"is racism equally bad when it's a tool of convenience used to attack ones enemies (those who one would attack no matter their race) as when it's the motivation for attacking someone?"
I think the answer is yes.
These guys are trying to say something nice about an awful guy because they are forced to. Thats all! They are the pundits they have to belly up to the bar with these gruesome characters. They find them to be kind and friendly so they become blind to who they really are.
Frum was saying B wasn't a racist but was perfectly willing to exploit the racism of others.
And Frum condemned him for doing that.
But how would he know that?
And hasn't F been burning a lot of bridges linking him to the American conservative movement, of late?
Is he done with US politics, then?
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