Putting Current Discussions of Race, Into Context

I came across this video that digby posted earlier today of Joan Walsh on Hardball with Chris Matthews. I agree that the point that Walsh makes is a very important insight into the whole issue of race in America and how it permeates into other issues that are discussed:

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and digby's usual quality insight:

Joan is right about this. I've written about it many times myself. There has to be a reason that the US, of all the industrialized nations, the richest country in the world, is so hostile to social welfare programs. There are a lot of contributing factors, not the least of which is our vaunted individualism. But one of the fundamental reasons America is so resistant to programs that provide for the common good is that there is a long tradition of rejecting any proposal that taxes white people to pay for programs that benefit non-whites.

Joan talked about all this in the context of a question Matthews asked about whether or not the GOP was using race to block Obama's agenda. As Joan, points out, that's fairly obvious. When you have the fatuous gasbag leadership all calling Obama a reverse racist (the new black in conservative circles) and even questioning his American identity, it's pretty clear that they are yanking the racist American id pretty hard.

But it really goes to their essential philosophy which says that the government is taking away "what's yours" and giving it to the undeserving (blacks and browns.) The fact that Obama himself is black only adds to the atmospherics, it doesn't create them. This tribalism is so deeply entrenched in American culture that its racial nature has long since been disguised in less obvious terms such as "liberalism." Obama's race simply makes it impossible for the hard core wingnuts to hide their real intent.

Also relevant is a post that digby wrote back in 2003, most notably the following:

Racism is the original sin of the American experiment and progress in expunging it is slow going, especially in its ground zero, the south. It may even be that some of our most cherished beliefs about ourselves --- individualism and self-sufficiency --- are partially grounded in an ugly reaction to slavery and the fallout from it. White Supremacists and neo-confederates are exactly what they appear to be and more subtle aspects of their philosophy play themselves out in the multitude of ways that people rationalize their beliefs about government social programs and many other things in American culture.

[...]

But if we think we can make any headway with working class whites (particularly in the south) who currently vote Republican by making an appeal to their class solidarity with blacks, we are going to be disappointed. Their resistance to that idea is one of the main reasons they reject government social programs in the first place. We don’t help blacks or whites by failing to understand that and we certainly won’t win any votes by ignoring it.

This cuts through the normal discussions that are typical of television debates about the issue of race and certainly cuts through all of the simplistic divisive nonsense that people like Glenn Beck continue to spew.

Joan Walsh Spars with Bill O'Reilly

Salon.com columnist, Joan Walsh got Bill O'Reilly pretty angry when she wrote this last Wednesday:

If there's a through-line between any of these acts of terrorism and the right-wing rhetoric that abets it, of course, it's the one linking Bill O'Reilly to Scott Roeder, the man who murdered Tiller. O'Reilly more than demonized Tiller; night after night he called him a baby killer, compared him to the Nazis, and suggested that he must be stopped. Roeder stopped him, all right. If I were O'Reilly I'd feel terrible for putting a private figure in my public sights night after night, simply for doing his lawful job. But O'Reilly has no conscience, so he's proud of it.

So, O'Reilly invited Walsh on his show and Walsh agreed to go on. Here is the segment below:



What a mess! Things start out calmly enough but quickly devolve to a level that everyone knew we would get to eventually. O'Reilly is his normal bullying self (telling Walsh to "stop talking" at one point) raising his voice to yell at his guest and delivering this amazing statement:

"My constitutional rights say I can say what I say, you can say what you say, as vile as you say it, you can say it, and I would never condemn you for saying it. You are misguided, you have blood on your hands because you portrayed this man as a hero."

Of course he would never condemn her for what she says...except when he calls her vile and says that she has blood on her hands.

Now Walsh did get in some good points although the middle portion where they go back and forth about who has blood on their hands wasn't her finest moment, but it is clear that O'Reilly never had any intention of having an actual discussion with Walsh on this matter. He first states "you're wrong by the way" at 1:19 seconds into the clip and things go downhill from there. For those who are interested, Walsh posted a piece about her experience on the program that you can find here. Here is a portion:

His producers also helped by doing that thing they do: "Hey, Bill really respects you for coming on the show! He wants to have a conversation! It'll be fine!" (And they promoted my appearance on the show by identifying me on the Web site as "Joan Walsh of Slate.com.")

Well, it was so not fine. I think the high or low point was when he shrieked at me, "You have blood on your hands!" At one point he also either told me to "Shut up" or "Be quiet," I can't remember. (If I'm wrong about that, when I see the clip, I'll correct it. UPDATE: Actually, he shouted "Stop talking!") He called me "vile." I think I said he was vile, too. There were a couple of "I know you are but what am I?" moments that I'm not totally proud of. It was a kaleidoscopic nightmare, a TV acid trip, and I don't do acid. It almost seems like O'Reilly does, but I don't think so. The man is driven by demons. God bless him and save him.