Forbes Avenue » racism

The Cleveland Show isn’t racist, it just sucks

griffn — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:00:43 +0000

John McWhorter at the New Republic thinks The Cleveland Show sucks– which I agree with– and that it is therefore racist– which I don’t:

The show is basically Family Guy in blackface – and what isn’t black in it is so shamelessly ripped off from Family Guy that it’s hard to believe it’s the product of creators who are usually so studiously “post-” obvious stunts of the sort. …

The question is: would the Family Guy people create a show where a white supporting character – say, paraplegic Joe voiced superbly by Patrick Warburton — moves to another town and settles in with retreads of the Family Guy characters? No – it’d be seen as folly to let that get beyond a conversation over beers. The reason it felt right to pull this with The Cleveland Show is because of a sense that blackness is so much a “thing,” so diverting in itself, that painting the Family Guy people brown makes artistic and commercial sense. …

Popular culture is long past black characters held up as a genuflective novelty in their brown skin alone, à la Franklin in the Peanuts comic strip or even Homer Simpson’s drinking buddy “Carl,” with a dopey white working-class voice, and “black” only in tint, as a gesture of diversity 1989-style.

First of all, let me just say that network television is so devoid of quality black programming right now that we’ll pretty much take what we can get. And I’m only half joking about that. But I think McWhorter makes some valid points. Society is pretty much past seeing blackness as a novelty in and of itself. There’s a reason why Barack Obama is president while Michael Steele continues to be a running national joke. If just being black is all you’ve got, people are going to figure it out pretty quick.

Thing is, I don’t think this entirely applies to The Cleveland Show. I don’t think race has much to do with the fact that it sucks. I think it just doesn’t work because it doesn’t work. Cleveland isn’t funny, none of the supporting characters are funny, and the smart-mouth baby who’s obviously meant to be the show’s scene-stealing star would only be funny if Stewie Griffin or the Boondocks comic strip never existed. McWhorter, in between his points about racism, admits as much:

[T]he show itself is dishwater, and part of the reason is Cleveland. A Type B Droopy-Doggish fellow, he’s no lead. …

It feels like something Family Guy itself would venture in one of their ironic cutaways, in which case it would have been a choice one. But this is intended as a franchise that will run for years, stacking up something like 200 episodes and running endlessly in syndication. In which case the joke will wear off, and in fact, by my lights, become irritating.

It’s actually funny that McWhorter mentioned the Family Guy cutaways, because there’s one The Cleveland Show reminds me a lot of. It’s the one where Julia Louis-Dreyfus is pitching a new sitcom called Now It’s Just Getting Sad where she throws a bunch of comedic elements against the wall, hoping desperately that people will find a few of them funny: “Okay, okay, hear me out. My character is a therapist who’s living in the city, but I’m married… to an elephant.” (You can listen to the hilarious audio of the scene here.)

I think Seth MacFarlane’s pitch for The Cleveland Show probably went along those same lines. “Okay, okay, hear me out. Cleveland is living next door to… a family of bears.” Yeah. I don’t think this says nearly as much about race as it does about how badly out of fresh ideas MacFarlane is, and his unwillingness to let that stop him from cashing FOX’s checks.

Simply put, MacFarlane threw a bunch of stuff against the wall (many of it the same stuff he threw against the wall for Family Guy) and virtually none of it worked. The fact that one of the things he threw up there was that the show centered around a black family doesn’t make the atrociousness of the show rise to the level of racism.

Top 10 newspaper front pages from Obama’s Nobel Prize win

griffn — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 06:38:12 +0000

One of my favorite things to do after major world events is head to Newseum the next day to check out the newspaper reactions from around the world. Here are the ten best front pages from Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize win.

10. Kleine Zeitung (Graz, Austria)
Yeah, I just won a Nobel Prize, I bought this Flavor Flav sized peace medallion to celebrate, and my head is twice the size of my body, so what? Say something about it. You like the tie? Huh? With the stars and stripes? Say something, I dare you.

9. Super Express (New York, New York)
I have no idea what language this newspaper is in, but I’m pretty sure “Za Co?!” translates to “The F*ck?!” It’s also fun to guess what the story on the right is about.

8. The Ottawa Sun (Ottawa, Canada)
I can’t prove it, but I’m almost positive this front page is racist. “City wins in bus spat?” An obvious reference to how the Ottawa Sun wishes the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott had turned out. And Obama looks like winning the Nobel Prize is the funniest joke he’s ever heard. ‘CISM!!

7. Publico (Lisbon, Portugal)
Clearly, Obama’s only next logical step is to defeat Russia’s genetically-engineered boxing machine in a 15-round death match. Or, wait, that’s Rocky. I’m getting my 1980s Cold War propaganda mixed up.

6. Gulf News (Dubai, United Arab Emirates)
The Middle East version of The Drudge Report.

5. Correio Brazilense (Brasilia, Brazil)
Either Tiger Woods also won a Nobel Prize or this newspaper needs to hire a new cartoonist.

4. Die Tageszeitung (Berlin, Germany)
How do you say “WTF” in German? Za Co?!

3. The Beaufort Gazette (Beaufort, South Carolina)
This front page tells you all you need to know about the local priorities in Beaufort, SC. Top story: Golfer in stable condition after gator attack. Oh, and the President won a Nobel Peace Prize.

2. The Jakarta Post (Jakarta, Indonesia)
Check out the headline for the Nobel Prize story: “Some like it, some don’t.” I love how it gives you absolutely no information and could easily be applied to any other story in the newspaper. “Dodgers beat Cards– Some like it, some don’t.” “Police kill two brother outlaws– Some like it, some don’t.” I also love how they made it look like Obama is checking out Miss Indonesia.

1. The Dispatch (Casa Grande, Arizona)
This might be the most awesome front page ever. The President just won a Nobel Peace Prize. Marge Simpson just got the cover of Playboy. How can we link these two stories? I’d give anything to have been a fly on the wall of that editorial meeting.

Good Morning Forbes

negrostotle — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:00:22 +0000

Words to live by.

Everyone is reporting that Justin Timberlake and Jessica “Shelf” Biel have parted ways. Then we saw pictures of them together. Now? pretty believable analysis on why they’re actually separated.

Jessica Alba has been cast in the third Fockers movie. Why is there a third movie, and why is she in it?

Fox News Evening Ratings are actually trending at the same rate as they were during the ‘08 election. Not to jump to conclusions…but this definitely means that the whole country is racist.

Getting your blog on? Should you use a localized domain name, or not?

I don’t know about you, but I always love my “So you think you can dance” with a side of vagina. Look, my prayers have been answered! SYTYCD, now with “Forbidden Lady Parts”. Probably not safe for work, unless you work in the porn industry…in which case…dude, you’re going to be so desensitized, there’s no reason to click anyway.

Jets fans get creative and dirty with their customized Mark Sanchez jerseys.

A prominent conservative site advocates a military coup “to resolve the Obama problem.”

Republican National Committee leader Michael Steele thinks Obama should have better things to do than fly to Denmark to lobby for the Olympics to come to America. The White House’s brilliant response: Why does Michael Steele hate America?

The most boneheaded play in high school football history gets immortalized on YouTube.

Good Morning Forbes

Exposing Beck, Limbaugh, and other racist Obama critics

griffn — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 18:22:05 +0000

I have to admit that Stephen Colbert’s right-wing pundit parody The Colbert Report doesn’t usually work for me. It’s kind of like a one-note joke that never ends. But every now and then he nails it, and his fake support of conservative talking points reveals how hypocritical and ridiculous some of them actually are.

Yesterday, he “defended” Obama critics like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh against Jimmy Carter’s assertion that their criticism was fueled by racism. Here’s Colbert responding to Beck and Limbaugh’s claims that health care reform would amount to reparations for black people:

Those guys aren’t racist. They’re just saying a program that helps the poor is actually a secret plot by African-Americans to steal white people’s money. A racist would say it’s a secret plot to steal white people’s women.

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

The Word – Blackwashing

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor

When you see it like that, you realize how insane it is that the White House gave people like Beck and Limbaugh cover by insisting that their criticism was not fueled by racism. Like, what exactly do they have to say to qualify? Saying that Obama wants to steal white people’s money and give it to black people isn’t enough? Calling Obama a “racist” who has “a deep-seated hatred for white people” isn’t enough?

This brings to mind a post Andrew Sullivan made yesterday, an e-mail sent to him by a reader of his blog about what the right-wing hysteria about SOCIALISM! and COMMUNISM! actually means and why they never complained about it under Bush or Clinton. It’s worth printing in its entirety:

Of course they are screaming ’socialism’. They’ve been doing that since the 50s at least. They’re not talking about economic redistribution of wealth – they never have been. They’ve been talking about redistribution of privilege this whole time. They called MLK a communist because he wanted blacks to have the same rights as whites, and to them that was a redistribution of the privilege that whites had ‘earned’.

In their view, white, Christian, heterosexuals have earned something that gays, non-Christians, and non-heteros have failed to work hard enough at. It’s been a class war from the outset, just not one based around income or net worth – mostly because the whites in the south were economically pretty bad off and blacks in the north were catching up to them.

This picture shows they were pushing the same buttons half a century ago that they are today. Anti-christ, communism – it’s all the same as it is today and is well known code. It’s why the protesters will decry socialism today but wouldn’t have under Bush – it’s all tied to race and other social objectives and has nothing really to do with taxation, deficits, and big government. You probably missed it when you came to the US, but this is pretty old game – particularly to guys like Carter that grew up around it.

Supreme Court should force Redskins to drop racist name, legacy

griffn — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:00:08 +0000

Last week, a group of Native American leaders asked the Supreme Court to rule that the Washington Redskins team name is too offensive to be protected by U.S. trademark law. The law states that trademarks will be refused if they consist of “matter which may disparage … persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute.” The Redskins franchise has argued that the name is not meant to be offensive. Native American writer, lecturer and curator Suzan Harjo, the lead plaintiff in the case, has summed up the debate like this:

“The argument has always been the same,” Harjo said. “‘We are honoring you,’ they say. ‘No, you’re not,’ we reply. ‘Shut up,’ they say. That’s pretty much the divide for 17 years.”

The Redskins can claim the name is not meant to be offensive, but consider this. It was chosen by their first owner, George Preston Marshall, a virulent racist who pushed to segregate the NFL for a decade (from 1934 to 1945) and refused to sign black players to the Redskins until 1962, when he was forced to by the federal government. According to Wikipedia:

[Marshall] is best known for his intractable opposition to having African-Americans on his roster. According to professor Charles Ross, “For 24 years Marshall was identified as the leading racist in the NFL”. Though the league had previously had a sprinkling of black players, blacks were excluded from all NFL teams just one year after Marshall entered the league. Ross asserts that Marshall propelled the NFL to institute a “color barrier” akin to that of its baseball brethren. …

While the rest of the league began signing individual blacks in 1946 and actually drafting blacks in 1949, Marshall held out until 1962 before signing a black player. Moreover, the signing only came when Interior Secretary Stewart Udall issued an ultimatum – unless Marshall signed a black player, the government would revoke the Redskins’ 30-year lease on the year-old D.C. Stadium (now Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium), which had been paid for by government money and was owned by the Washington city government…

The flipside of this argument is that Marshall picked the name Redskins to honor the team’s Native American coach William “Lone Star” Dietz, and thus the name was not originally meant to be offensive. Bill Poser, writing for a University of Pennsylvania’s blog on linguistics, argues:

I think that it is well established that redskin is taken by most people today to be disparaging. What is more interesting is whether it has always been so, as Harjo et al., as well as various others, claim. One interesting piece of evidence is the origin of the name Washington Redskins. In 1933, George Preston Marshall, the owner of the team, which was then located in Boston, renamed it the Boston Redskins in honor of the head coach, William “Lone Star” Dietz, an American Indian. When the team moved to Washington in 1937 it was renamed the Washington Redskins. George Marshall clearly did not consider the name disparaging.

Notice that Poser begins his argument in favor of the name Redskins by acknowledging that the name is “disparaging” to most people today. Really, that’s the end of the discussion right there, since “matter which may disparage” is not protected under trademark law. As for whether the name was always disparaging, it doesn’t matter. American history is filled with words that were acceptable 70 years ago that are not today. Whether a racist like Marshall considered the name disparaging in 1933 is irrelevant. At the least, it speaks to a man who saw everything through the prism of race. Marshall could have named the team the Washington Lone Stars, after Coach Dietz’s nickname. Instead, he chose to single out Dietz’s race. What would the response be if the Rooneys “honored” head coach Mike Tomlin by changing the Steelers name to the Pittsburgh Coloreds? (Another word that has evolved over time.)

But the worst thing about the Redskins name may be that it forces millions of fans to be complicit in the franchise’s history of racism. It’s one thing to be a fan of a team with an ugly past– most Major League Baseball teams fall in that category. It’s another thing to preserve and pass down that legacy to fans too young to remember commercialized racism and segregated sports leagues. Every dollar that goes to the Redskins is a validation of George Marshall’s belief that basic respect of other human beings is secondary to entertainment. It’s an embarrassing testament to the unwillingness of Redskins fans and ownership to face up to their franchise’s original sin.

There are already a number of newspapers around the nation who refuse to use the word Redskins, and most of them are in areas with significant Native American populations. There’s no question the name is disparaging. In 1962, it took an act of federal government to force George Marshall to integrate his team. It’s amazing that 47 years later, long after his death, it may take a Supreme Court ruling to finally put his ugly legacy to rest.

UPDATE: Gather round, kids, it’s analogy time. It’s not a perfect one, but it’ll do. Here’s what anyone who defends the name Redskins basically amounts to.

Imagine we’re living in the Jim Crow South and segregated drinking fountains have just been outlawed. And imagine there’s a large group of people who want to keep the “Whites only” and “Coloreds only” signs over the fountains, even though the signs no longer have any power. People can drink from whatever fountain they want, they just want to keep the signs up because they’re a part of our history and it would be too much of a hassle to change them. Of course, African-Americans feel angered and humiliated by the signs, and they fight for decades to get them taken down, but that’s only because they don’t realize the signs aren’t meant to be offensive.

That’s what Redskins fans and ownership amounts to. They’re people who see no problem with keeping “Whites only” and “Coloreds only” signs over the fountains.

Good Morning Forbes

negrostotle — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:00:39 +0000

It seemed so innocent when we were younger, didn’t it?

Christina Milian has a new song out…If you guessed that she talks about being better than everybody else and having haters…well then you listen to pop music, cause they all say the same thing.

Its a Ray Allen sneaker scavenger hunt!

Fox News is getting sued…a lot. It is awesome.

Much to the delight of old people, and chagrin of the young, Jay Leno’s show may (that’s a big “may”) do well.

Floyd Mayweather pulls out the racism card.

After weeks of being watered down and compromised to death, the latest version of health care reform could very easily make things worse for low-income workers. Luckily, it’s looking like the Democrats won’t support it.

Chris Brown starts his 180 days of community service.

A.C. Slater is wearing lingerie for his new role on Nip/Tuck, and it’s every bit as terrifying as you could possibly imagine.

Barack Obama is wielding a lightsaber for some reason.

And in other Star Wars news, Stormtroopers at a bar discuss where they were on the Death Star’s 9/11.

Good Morning Forbes

negrostotle — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:00:18 +0000

Ben Affleck may be cheating on Jennifer Garner with the above pictured Blake Lively. *whispers* I think its the Mom jeans that does it for him.

Jimmy Carter thinks Joe Wilson’s disrespect of Obama was “based on racism.”

Stuff only Pittsburghers care about: Former Steelers tight end Jay Riemersma is running for Congress.

TMZ has the audio of Obama calling Kanye a jackass.

Yeah, this is late…the internet went out. Anyway…

Good Morning (morning somewhere) Forbes.

Joe Wilson, Kanye West, and conservative priorities

griffn — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:08:02 +0000

Just so we’re clear on conservative priorities…

White man interrupts the President of the United States during a nationally-televised speech to Congress: not so bad. Black man interrupts pop singer during speech to fake awards show audience on cable television: kind of a big deal. I’m not saying Kanye isn’t a jerk, I’m just saying relax, everybody. It’s not that serious.

By the way, my favorite defense of Joe Wilson:

But is this actually the worst of times in congressional politics? Not really. When the going gets tough, congressional politics has often gotten ugly. Throughout much of the 19th century, legislators disliked each other so much they often got into fistfights on the floor.

Yeah, also throughout much of the 19th century: slavery. So is the 19th century really the best barometer for modern-day values and etiquette?

In conclusion, this might be the greatest sub-15-second YouTube video ever:

On Politics and the Sorry State of Affairs (or, you know, the Democrats)

tigger500 — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 17:54:41 +0000

I’ve been having a hard time figuring out what to say about politics of late.

Part of it is that life gets in the way and a brotha ain’t always got time to sit down and take stock of everything that is happening. And part of it is that I’m losing faith that we liberals always taking to the innanets is even effective.

But this was a big week, folks. Big education speech. Big health care speech. White folks still freakin’ out about the fact that the president got some melanin. And one of the tried and true liberal visionaries lost his job, leaving Obama with pretty much no one on the Left with which to work.

Time to say something.

But what do I say that I haven’t said already? I wrote a few months ago about my frustration with the Democrats? But I wanna take it a step further:

I do not believe there is a progressive movement in this country, which is why I think the Democrats are so ineffectual.

To wit: Brilliant reporting on how the Democrats fucked up health care from jump.

To wit:

I identify completely with Maher’s core message, which is that Obama and the Democrats won the last two elections and that gives them some license to do what they think is right.

Who is standing up for the millions of Americans who do want health care reform? Who is standing up for the millions of Americans who want to address global warming, mandatory minimum sentencing, our crumbling infrastructure, and the sorry state of our schools?

Or, to put it the other way, who is holding their feet to the fire so that they can do these things?

There are 59 Democrats in the Senate. There is a solid Democratic majority in the House. And the President is a Democrat.

President Barack Obama, flanked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev. on Capitol Hill in Washington Jan. 5, 2009. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Can we get something done?

You know, I read the liberal and mainstream blogs and there is passion to spare. I just don’t know why it doesn’t seem to make it to the Halls of Congress. Maybe Democratic members of Congress really don’t give a shit about their constituents and so our passion falls on deaf ears. Maybe our passion is misdirected. We get outraged at the other side’s racism, but when it looks a bit like something we’d do or say ourselves, we are a lot less quiet.

When are we going to take the Republicans as seriously as they take us?

There is a real, palpable fear of the most powerful man in the world being a Black man and it continues to be the driving force behind the Republican party’s MO. What that means in practical terms is hard to describe. And because it is hard to describe, so many of us think that means it’s probably not a big deal, it’s probably just the (mis)perception of old school black politicians and black nationalists who hate Whitey, and it’ll die out because “the demographic trends are in our favor.”

And while we take the “wait it out” approach, The Second Reconstruction is ending.

We are gutting the Voting Rights Act, ruling that if you have to choose between discriminating against black folks or leveling the playing field for everyone (which, actually means that everyone has about the same chance of getting screwed), eh, go for the discriminating against black folks.

We haven’t given voting rights to D.C. residents, we haven’t passed a bill to keep people in their homes (which, by the by, wouldn’t cost the taxpayer anything), and we are screwing up the health care and energy bills. Oh – also we have them 59 votes in the Senate, but the Republicans are holding up many of Obama’s executive branch and judicial nominees, like Tom Perez and Dawn Johnsen.

Oh but we do something. As Bill said, the other side whines and cries or outright lies about something and Democrats capitulate. Van Jones should not have resigned. Single payer should never have been off the table. We should be investigating the extent to which torture was sanctioned and take it all the way to the top.

Why? Because we have to stand for something.

It’s foolish to think we can hold onto a majority by playing it safe and not getting anything done. There is a whole lot of room to move between playing it safe and being crazy single-minded drones like Republicans. No one is saying we should copy their MO, just a little of their conviction.

When we lose seats in 2010, as is highly likely, then we’ll all take to the blogs whining about how the Republicans are ramming stuff down our throats that we don’t like. What the fuck are we doing now?

Ugh…you know, the truth is that though Democrats are supposed to be the liberal party, the party of opposition, they are not. They truly are a hodgepodge of people who don’t like the modern Republican Party. That doesn’t necessarily equal liberal or progressive.

So we have one party and a bunch of people who don’t like that party. That’s it.

I like diversity as much as the next guy. But it seems to me that every group within the Democratic rank and file likes having different folks around, long as those folks don’t get in the way of what they want. So teachers’ unions can hold up education reform. And Blue Dogs can hold up anything that isn’t “fiscally responsible.”

But this is what you get when the only thing your party can agree on is that you don’t like the old White guys across the aisle.

It really is enough to make you want to disengage. I like to listen to the president speak. I’m even moved, mostly. But I really think the time for speeches is over.

I think its time to govern.

I refuse to watch MSNBC until they fire Pat Buchanan

griffn — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 18:21:21 +0000

And I don’t mean let him go quietly. I mean, fire him in the most public and humiliating way possible.

I’ve felt this way ever since last year when then-candidate Barack Obama– responding to the Reverend Wright controversy– gave his speech on race in Philadelphia, where he recounted America’s long, complex history on race.

Some people liked it, some people didn’t, but Buchanan’s response stood out among all others. In an article titled “A Brief For Whitey,” Buchanan argued that black people should be thankful for slavery and that every social program the government has ever instituted– from welfare to student loans to Medicaid– has been nothing more than a handout for blacks. Observe:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known. Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.

Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks — with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas — to advance black applicants over white applicants. Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks. We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?

Never mind the fact that just a cursory glance at statistics would tell you that whites are overwhelmingly the beneficiaries of most of those programs, including affirmative action, which rightfully put more white women into the workplace than any other group. Worse than that, Buchanan believes that black people should be thankful for the 400-year transatlantic slave trade that killed as many as 10 million Africans, because if it wasn’t for slavery, they wouldn’t be living in our modern-day “black utopian” America.

This is the equivalent of saying that Jews should be thankful for the Holocaust. But ironically, I don’t even need to make that stretch because Buchanan just happens to be a card carrying Hitler-apologist as well.

Last Thursday, on the 70th anniversary of Germany’s invasion of Poland, Buchanan celebrated by writing an article titled “Did Hitler Want War?” in which he argued that historians have misunderstood Hitler’s peaceful intentions, that Hitler was not bent on conquering the world, and that he actually wanted to end the war in 1940, “almost two years before the trains began to roll to the camps.” Buchanan’s argument– which he has made before in the past– is that World War II wasn’t worth it and that the Holocaust was Britain and Poland’s fault, not Hitler’s.

Which brings us to MSNBC, where Buchanan is given a nationally televised platform and has collected a steady paycheck for years as a political contributor. Last week, Buchanan’s Hitler article was being promoted on MSNBC’s website. They took it down once the criticism and complaints began coming in:

David A. Harris, President of the National Jewish Democratic Council, condemned MSNBC’s promotion of the “deplorable” column and urged that it be removed from MSNBC.com. Well, now the network has pulled it. (Indeed, the old link is dead).

Harris, in second statement, said that “MSNBC took the responsible action and removed Pat Buchanan’s column,” while adding that “no worthy news organization should employ and promote a commentator who engages in such vile fiction.”

An MSNBC spokesperson issued a statement to POLITICO: “An editorial decision was made to remove the column from msnbc.com. Pat is a contributor to MSNBC, his syndicated column does not speak for the network or represent the views of MSNBC”

But here’s the thing. MSNBC can play the old “the views expressed by so-and-so do not necessarily represent” card all day. But when you are paying someone to express those views, promoting those views on your website, giving those views a steady national platform on cable news, then those views do represent the views of MSNBC. If they truly don’t, then prove it; stop paying the guy and find another commentator.

It’s not as if Buchanan’s views on blacks and Jews (and women and gays and immigrants and every other segment of the population that isn’t white males) are a secret. Fair.org put together a comprehensive list of Buchanan’s own words on these subjects and it reads as if he has learned absolutely nothing from any progress made in America since about 1850. Keep in mind that this list (click the link above just to see how long it is) was put together in 1996 and doesn’t even include all the things he’s said in the last decade. Here’s just a sample of Buchanan’s quotes:

▪ White House adviser Buchanan urged President Nixon in an April 1969 memo not to visit “the Widow King” on the first anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination, warning that a visit would “outrage many, many people who believe Dr. King was a fraud and a demagogue and perhaps worse…. Others consider him the Devil incarnate. Dr. King is one of the most divisive men in contemporary history.” (New York Daily News, 10/1/90)

▪ In a 1977 column, Buchanan said that despite Hitler’s anti-Semitic and genocidal tendencies, he was “an individual of great courage…. Hitler’s success was not based on his extraordinary gifts alone. His genius was an intuitive sense of the mushiness, the character flaws, the weakness masquerading as morality that was in the hearts of the statesmen who stood in his path.” (Guardian, 1/14/92)

▪ Trying to justify apartheid in South Africa, he denounced the notion that “white rule of a black majority is inherently wrong. Where did we get that idea? The Founding Fathers did not believe this.” (syndicated column, 2/7/90) He referred admiringly to the apartheid regime as the “Boer Republic”: “Why are Americans collaborating in a U.N. conspiracy to ruin her with sanctions?” (syndicated column, 9/17/89)

▪ “Rail as they will about ‘discrimination,’ women are simply not endowed by nature with the same measures of single-minded ambition and the will to succeed in the fiercely competitive world of Western capitalism.” (syndicated column, 11/22/83)

So why does MSNBC continue to employ someone who believes, in his own words, that Martin Luther King, Jr. was “divisive” and Hitler was a “genius,” that women aren’t “endowed by nature” with the brainpower to succeed in our society? If the guy in working in MSNBC’s accounting department came into work expressing these views to coworkers, he’d be fired on the spot. If an MSNBC job applicant had these views on their Facebook page, they wouldn’t pass the first background check. So why does Pat Buchanan get a pass?

The truth is that MSNBC believes that Buchanan’s views are worthwhile– worth airing and worth discussing. They believe he represents a segment of angry, aggrieved, conservative white males in America, who happen to be racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, xenophobic, jingoistic, and completely unapologetic about all of it. MSNBC believes that this buffoonish caricature of conservatism is one worth giving a platform to.

Well, here’s what I believe. I believe that people like Pat Buchanan should be isolated and marginalized as much as possible. I believe that if you want to hear what someone like Buchanan has to say, it should not be as easy as turning on your television or pulling up the website of a major news organization; it should take a Google search and a lot of scrolling. I believe that when someone walks in the door arguing that women are naturally inferior and white rule over blacks is not inherently wrong, that we shouldn’t sit around and hear this person out, we shouldn’t give them a national platform to debate their views, we should escort them back out the door as quickly and as loudly as we possibly can.

And I refuse to watch MSNBC until they do just that.

Specifically, until this man does just that: Phil Griffin, President of MSNBC: phil.griffin@nbcuni.com.