This is a rehash of an older blog, it is apropos, considering the latest crap that Michael Moore said about the President on The View recently.
It was 6 am on a Saturday morning, and because I couldn’t sleep, I started browsing YouTube for interesting clips. I saw a clip of Real Time with Bill Maher and Michael Moore. The exchange between them over the next several minutes made my heart drop and my stomach twist. I couldn’t believe that this tired set of stereotypes have carved their way into national discourse again. The sad part is that this is coming from other “liberals”, people who are suppose to be on the same team as me and others working for the same cause. ABL over at Balloon-Juice was just as affected by it, here’s her version of it which is similar to mine but change out cheesy toast with beer and you will get my drift.
I’m watching Real Time with Bill Maher. I just got annoyed with Michael Moore (whose films I enjoy) because he said about Obama, “With all due respect, it’s time to take off the pink tutu.“
Then Michael Moore proceeds to annoy me further by talking about how Obama isn’t doing enough: “He has the power to do so many things without Congress, and he should use that power for the next two years. He has regulatory power; he can issue edicts and orders…“ Really? Isn’t that why you hated Dubya?
And then Bill Maher interrupts and says something that literally made me choke on my cheesy toast:
“And you know why it’s so disappointing, I thought when we elected a black president, I thought two years in, I would be making jokes about “What a bad ass gangsta he was…”
I have given up on trying to figure these folks out. They are simpletons. Simpletons and stupid people make my head hurt immensely.
I can list several people who’s temperament is similar to President Obama’s and their achievements.
Can you imagine these two twits having a discussion about any of these folks and their lack of supposed “toughness”?
Moore: It’s time for Martin Luther King Jr., to take off the gloves and just let the klan and other racists have it. He needs to stop pussyfooting around with this non-violent crap. Giving beautiful speeches isn’t going to make us feel good. He just need to stop wearing J. Edgar Hoover’s dresses and grow a pair.
Maher: You know what’s disappointing, I thought that once he gave the “I Have a Dream” speech that I would be talking about how gangsta MLK is. He should be going all Black Panther on the federal government. He just keeps getting hosed, beaten, thrown in jail and writing pretty speeches. What gives?
The Democrats have prided themselves on being a big tent party by accepting everyone and their viewpoints. Big Tent party doesn’t truly make you a racially empathetic party though, now does it? Every time I read about how timid, cowardly, weak, or how PBO isn’t black enough… I have to remind myself that these dolts only account for 5% of the electorate. Most of these twinkies who call President Obama weak couldn’t hold his jockstrap.
You know whom I think is weak and cowardly, the press and pundits for their lack of a frame of reference for President Obama’s governing and political style. I can think of no President going back beyond Eisenhower who combines his technocratic governing and rhetorical and organizational genius for electoral politics. So the pundits fall for the cheap trick of pining for a swaggering tough-guy ideal. Abraham Lincoln would have suffered the same treatment by our present sorry-ass press.
That is not the first time that Maher has made that “gangsta” statement. I didn’t find it funny then and I don’t find it funny now. When I first heard it, it immediately occurred to me that this is exactly what the left was expecting from Obama. Obama gave them no reason to believe that he was “gangsta”, this is the stereotype they have of black men. And any black man who doesn’t act all gangsta must then be weak. That’s what it looks like to me and its makes me sick. This “tutu” comment from Moore is interesting considering how liberals have been painted as weak, effeminate, and whiny. Hey maybe liberals are just projecting?
When is someone going to call out Maher and Moore and the entire liberal crew that they have stereotype/race issues that THEY need to work out?
They all seems to suffer from the same affliction, “White privilege”.
Robert Jensen, a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin discusses the meaning of white privilege in his essay, “White Privilege Shapes the U.S.” According to Jensen:
White privilege is a dirty little secret that white people carry around with us everyday: In a world of white privilege, some of what we have is unearned. I think much of both fear and anger that comes up around discussions of affirmative action has its roots in thatt secret. So these days, my goal is to talk openly about white supremacy and white privilege.
White privilege, like any social phenomenon is complex. In a white supremacist culture, all white people have privilege, whether or not they are overtly racist themselves. There are general patterns, but such privilege plays out differently depending on context and other aspects of one’s identity.
Read more here.
I for one, would like to see liberals stop telling everyone else what to do and actually do something. They keep telling me that Democrats are bad at messaging, governing, and legislating and that liberals could do it better. So stop puffing up your chest liberals, stop hiding under Obama’s “tutu” waiting for him to do and say everything for you and go fight! Stop preaching to the choir and start talking to those that don’t belong to the “base”. Show the Dem party how its done or how you think its supposed to be done or just STFU! Get out in front instead of live blogging Obama’s every move.
President Obama doesn’t need to approach every situation with a tenacity of Shaft in Africa. He’s not The Mack or Superfly. There’s no need for the theatrics. It has a been exhausting(not Velma Hart exhausting) have to fight idiots on every website I frequent. I am suppose to be having a rational discussion with supposedly “open-minded, well-educated” people, but it feels as if I am talking to zombies. Last time I checked I am not certified to exterminate zombies. But for some reason, I feel like I am stuck in a scene from Zombieland or Shaun of the Dead, where all I run into all time are brain eating zombies. In some ways I have insulted zombies, because at least zombies are banded together to one thing and that’s eating brains.
So I have decided that it is my right as an educated, African-American
female to represent other fellow educated people and give tips to on how to combat the madness and to show these pretentious asshats, that as a member of President Obama’s real, live in color and flesh base that we are sick of your tired, weak ass, whiny complaints and we are going to take anymore. Here are a few of the arguments that I have consistently pushed back against on the internet.
- Speaking of violating civil liberties, why is this the hill that fauxgressives want to die upon? People don’t have jobs, we have an opposition that doesn’t want to craft anything meaningful, only to fight the President every step of the way and the so-called base wants the President to fight and fail on civil liberties and prosecuting Bush? African-Americans and Native-Americans are the two main groups that have had our civil liberties infringed upon forever. Where’s our 2,000 word screed from Glenn Greenwald? Oh, yeah…he using that to support a white supremacist and stay silent on the economic and social disparities in Brazil.
- No Social program ever established in this country was created overnight. Check medicaid, medicare, social security, etc..etc. They all started out as a shell and blossomed.
- Don’t bleat on about the President not doing anything and when people show you otherwise, like Obama’s Achievements, Congressional Quarterly, Politifact and two new ones, What the Fuck has Obama Done So Far? , and Know the Facts; only then to refute these sites as being paid shills of the Administration. Really, CQ AND Politfact are paid shills. That’s news to me.
- Quit comparing President Obama to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Comparing an activist to a elected government official is a haphazard, half-assed attempt at being obtuse. Activists by definition are an especially active, vigorous advocate of a cause. Politicians by definition are a person skilled in political government or administration; statesman or stateswoman. There is no correlation between the two. One is an elected official and one isn’t.
- Stop using the Letter from Birmingham Jail as a treatise on how PBO should do things, or on why you can’t wait for your purple cotton-candied tail unicorn. Even after Dr. King wrote that letter, it took over a year later before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed and enacted. So if you are going to co-op the Civil Rights movement, to prove your time for rights is now, at least be respectful and co-op properly. Don’t get angry and shit when people whose immediate ancestors were a part of the movement try and give you constructive advice on how to get shit done. They are not necessarily homophobes for telling you that your parade of assault by flamethrower isn’t spectacular and quite frankly sucks. Especially since the figureheads of your movement currently consist of an unhinged ex-infantry officer and ex Republican advisor. Also I don’t remember Dr. King, calling LBJ “a spineless, sniveling pussy and bigot who delights in seeing our pain”. Calling your captain names and screaming they suck sure warms the heart and minds of many right? FAIL.
- Quit with the messaging crap. It’s a cop-out. PBO has used townhalls, online video chats(Fireside Chats, 21st Century style), random people’s backyards, and filled University complexes. He even lost his voice to push his message. If that doesn’t work then nothing will. What else does he need shadow puppets? Howler monkeys playing instruments? Autotune his message on a boat with T-Pain. Seriously, what?
- Quit showing every single “exhausted” black person you can find that’s disappointed in President Obama and on my teevee. They don’t speak for all of us and they don’t solidify the stream of black consciousness.
Eugene doesn’t stutter for all of us. Velma isn’t exhausted for all of us. Maxine’s crooked wig is just… crooked. We all don’t wear cheap pearl necklaces. We all don’t feel like the lowliest hooker on the totem pole being pimped out by President Obama. Tavis Smiley doesn’t speak for us unless we want a home loan through Wells Fargo. Cornel West doesn’t speak for us, but he does speak for all of the pissed off cub scouts in America in his new book, “I am Pissed at all my Fellow Boy Scout Leader Brothers while showing them love.” Harold Ford Jr., just isn’t us and we don”t want him.
Really Harold???
Black unemployment didn’t start yesterday and neither did the education discrepancies.
As an Obot, I am not opposed to constructive criticism because PBO isn’t perfect. He hasn’t parted the Red Sea or fed 2,000 folks on a loaf of bread. He’s a human being and I am not going to agree to every thing he does. But I scrubbed out all of the criticism because most of it is so asinine and borderline delusional. I write all of this to say that governing is hard and we elected him, as Van Jones has said, it wasn’t “Yes He Can!”, it was “Yes We Can!”. We shouldn’t be sitting on the sidelines eating popcorn and peeing in our pajamas telling PBO what to do. We are suppose to be helping to move that change along.
As I have stated, I am really tired of having to repeat the same crap over and over. Even after reading this, if you call me a sycophant or talk about how I am defending “Dear Leader”, I will become too pissy for words and this comment will summarize how I feel:
Fuck Arianna Huffington and her bullshit blog. Fuck Jane Hamsher and her bullshit blog. Fuck all the other circle-jerk assholes who bleated this “caving”, “spineless” meme and their bullshit blogs. Fuck Keith Olbermann and other liberal media for chasing this meme on teevee with the panting, drooling glee of dogs after mailmen. Fuck every “oh, he’ll cave, mark my words” asshole on any thread in the blogosphere. Fuck Glenn Greenwald, for trolling the internet trying to find Obots to smash.
There. And if I’ve forgotten anybody, fuck them too.(h/t eemom)
Oh and Michael Moore is fat./end rant.
