Things more offensive than Harry Reid

I don’t actually consider Harry Reid to be all that offensive. Maybe I’m soft on him because it’s hard to find good LDS democrats, but I think I would be okay with his comment anyway. Sure, there was controversy, and I thought about writing on that, but I was busy, and plenty of other, more prominent people are defending him, so my voice wasn’t necessarily needed. But other stuff has come up that just bothers me so much more; so let’s just go for it.

First of all, on the comment itself, he’s not even saying that these are factors in how he would vote! He is assessing Obama’s odds of winning (accurately), which is a reasonable thing to do. With any candidate, even if they would be great at the job, they need to be able to get it. (What’s really horrible is when you have people who are bad at governing but good at getting elected. I’m still scarred.) There are really just two trouble spots.

One is Reid’s use of the word Negro, which has fallen out of common usage, but there is no reason for it to be offensive, unless we consider being Negro itself to be a bad thing. I think leads to the second issue, which is our great discomfort with talking about race. Reid admits that light skin and clean diction makes Obama more palatable to many voters. He doesn’t say that it should, or that it’s right, but that’s the way it is. It makes people uncomfortable to hear it stated so plainly.

I remember once in junior high trying to explain who a certain person was to another person. It was hard to do, more so because I was reluctant to state that he was black. I finally did give in and say it, and that cleared the issue up right away, because this was the suburbs in the 80’s. There were like six African Americans in the entire school, and that was spread out over my entire three years—so at any given time I think there were fewer. Mentioning the color really narrowed it down.

So why didn’t I go there right away? Well, it felt wrong to do so, like mentioning skin color at all would be racist. Well that’s ridiculous. Knowing that people come in different colors isn’t racist—defining their inside by the outside, on the other hand, would be.

We have made some progress since then, but I still think in large part we don’t know how to communicate effectively about race. Some people are too sensitive and easily offended, while others are too nervous, and worried about offending. The problem is that the idiots usually feel completely comfortable spewing their idiocy, so those whose hearts are in the right place are going to need to get their spine in the right place as well.

Now, there is actually an interesting topic in here about how loaded any types of physical description can become, and maybe I will get to that some other day, but this post is about airing my grievances.

First of all, I would like to express my disappointment in Michael Steele. Some of your other recent comments had led me to believe you were moving away from the rancorous partisanship and moving the party into a more enlightened (while still conservative) direction. Remember, I would like to see a republican that I could get behind. Alas, it is clearly not to be.

For all others attacking Harry Reid, you’re going to have to do better than the comparisons to Trent Lott. First of all, their records on racial issues are completely different. When your record shows you as having been against the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, and the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, it’s going to be harder for people to give you the benefit of the doubt, and that skepticism is justified.

Secondly, let’s look at the quote. On the one hand, we have Reid speculating on how racial issues will affect voters. On the other, we have Lott saying that all of the problems we have now are because the Dixiecrats, who were running on a platform of segregation, did not win in 1948, and that he was proud of having voted for him. Yeah, that’s totally all just a double standard for liberals.

And actually, I have given Lott the benefit of the doubt on this one. After all, he said “we voted for [Thurmond]. We’re proud of it.” However, in 1948 he was seven years old. He was speaking collectively, and I don’t doubt for one minute that he remembers his parents muttering about the country going to the dogs since Thurmond lost, and of course you want to say nice things about someone on their 100th birthday. I don’t think he realized he was saying that all of the nation’s problems come from integration. It is nonetheless a really bad thing to say. Sure, there are still people who believe in it, but they do not belong on Capitol Hill.

Anyway, I can’t feel too much sympathy for him. Yes, he lost his position as Republican leader, but he still served an additional five years, and he could have served longer if he had not wanted to get out in time to avoid rules that would have made him delay starting his lobbying career. That after a gaffe like that he can even be thought of as a political consultant is really kind of a success story.

If feelings are split along party lines for Lott and Reid, it looks like there is a lot more unity against Pat Robertson. Wow, Pat.

When I first read his comments, I thought, “That is amazingly ignorant.” Still, I wondered where he pulled it from, and found this:

http://withintheblackcommunity.blogspot.com/2010/01/haiti-and-deal-with-devil-setting.html

It’s fairly well explained there, but not following the worship practices of people who seem evil to you is a far cry from making a pact with the devil. Calling on God, and believing He is good and can help you, is just not a satanic ritual.

Okay, now, I do believe that as the world gets more wicked, more disasters will occur, and that these should be seen as calls to repent, so I can kind of see a point there. I also have said a few times that I think when all is revealed, we will be amazed at how much human actions led to human suffering (beyond the obvious ways), so, I am not saying I cannot see any point at all in his comments, and I guess that Robertson wants people to pray for Haiti, and that he wants good things to happen to them, is nice. And yet somehow, he still angers me. Hmmm.

I think it could be a combination of things. One, he got the story way wrong. He has a large audience, presumably he has some kind of a research staff for his show (I don’t know, maybe he answers medical and financial questions off the top of his head), and it shouldn’t be so hard to get the story straight. So what he said was not true.

Also, even if the story was true, and Haitians of over two hundred years ago did make a pact with Satan, what would be the point of repeating that story? None of the original people are there. It wouldn’t strengthen aid efforts in any way—it could turn some people off. Ultimately, it is not necessary.

Furthermore, God causes the rain to fall on the just and unjust. There is wickedness, but there are good people caught up with it, and innocent children and animals, and even bad people can have kindness in them, and something like this should generate compassion on them, and this feels very much like kicking people when they are down. So it is not kind.

Not true, not necessary, not kind—well, that would be enough to make some people shut up. But not everyone.

So the next target of my pique is probably not as serious as these two, but I’m on a roll:

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=97977

I know, I have already expressed my beliefs that if you teach your children well about God, and help them build a personal relationship with him, then you do not need every single aspect of their lives to reinforce that, so that if the Brownie meeting does not begin and end with prayer, that can be okay. Not everyone thinks so, fine. But really, you shouldn’t be buying Girl Scout cookies because you’re supporting the girls learning yoga? Isn’t that a bit of a stretch? (Which, since stretching is a part of yoga, gives it a sinister turn.)

Okay, of the examples of female role models given, there are a lot of lesbians, and I can see where that might cause some discomfort, but I have a sneaking suspicion that there are a lot of role models that did not get mentioned in this article because they were not offensive enough. Also, what’s wrong with pacifists and feminists? Yes, I believe that sometimes war is necessary, and feminism can turn into ugly misanthropy, but peace and equality for women are both good things.

To be fair, I saw this link because it was posted by my sister’s co-worker, who is a rather conservative Christian, and they do like their women submissive and in the home, so teaching them to demand equal pay is counterproductive to the end goal. I somehow hope his daughter will find many Girl Scout friends who will teach her to be assertive without being evil, and if part of that involves yoga, well, I don’t like it myself, but I know other people who do and they have managed to remain good people (and heterosexual too!).

I know, I may not have a right to any opinions, because I am childless (also a woman, so, you know, opinions bad), but I have friends with children, and they have had good experiences with both Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, so I would try either. Also, I find the 1 out of 3 statistic highly suspect. So now because some idiots are slagging on Jane Addams, I need to go buy Girl Scout cookies, is how that is playing out.

Anyhow, I would just like to make an impassioned plea for thought—thinking things through, being thoughtful of others, and thinking before you speak. And don’t forget that research is an important part of thought. Like imagine poor Dick Cheney, saying Obama is in denial about war, and then after that seeing his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize, where Obama addresses the contradiction inherent in receiving that prize while conducting and escalating a war. Can you imagine how embarrassed Cheney must feel? That kind of thing could stick you with a permanent grimace—okay, bad example, but yeah, something bad as a result of feeling terrible.