....LMB: "As American as White Supremacy II"....

January 09, 2003

We now have something of a sequel to the Trent Lott saga: the re-nomination of Charles Pickering to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (he was nominated once by George Bush I). Who is Charles Pickering? Check out this skewering he receives from Counterpunch. And in the name of fairness, you should also read this defense of Pickering.

Even the defensive article points out that Pickering "has a bad habit of injecting his personal views into legal opinions on controversial issues" and that he is "not entirely comfortable with key principles of civil rights law," which seems to suggest that as a higher court judge, he might use his prejudice to make decisions, not the law.

That's the uber-nice way of looking at him. In 1960, he drafted a law that would strengthen Mississippi laws prohibiting blacks and whites from having sex with each other. Frankly, that might be all you need to hear. Even after 40 years, would a man with that kind of disgust and prejudice be able to change into the color-blind type of person we'd want to see on the bench? Personally, I doubt it.

But it goes on. It seems that in the 1970s, Pickering had ties to the state's Soveriegnty Commission, "a kind of secret police force which worked to keep Mississippi segregated in the wake of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling. The Sovereignty Commission, often employing KKK thugs, spied on civil rights organizers, politicians, preachers and rockers (including B.B. King, Elvis Presley, James Brown and the Rolling Stones) ... The Commission also helped to cover up attacks on blacks and civil rights workers by the KKK and other vigilantes." As a Mississsippi state senator, he voted to both give money to these thugs and to keep their records sealed from the public on two different occasions each (although perhaps his reasons for support were not racist. In 1972, he asked the Commission to spy on an active labor union in Pickering's home town. So maybe it was about secret power to fight strikers instead. Or not)

So after reading about this fellow, I ran across a number of other articles about the fine state of race relations in the U.S.

Have you heard of Matt Hale? He is the founder of World Church of the Creator, a neo-nazi "religion" who's goal is to bring about RaHoWa- Racial Holy War. They hate just about everybody, claim the Nazi Holocaust never happened, etc. You can find your own link to their site, cuz I ain't putting it here.

Matt Hale's gotten a lot of press, arguing that he's being persecuted, that his First Amendment rights are being attacked, and so on. When he keeps his rhetoric turned down to the mild tones of "white pride" and "celebration of white culture," he's somewhat convincing. But when non-racists aren't looking, he's just the rabid, fire-breathing nazi you'd expect.

Oh, and he's currently under arrest for trying to have a judge assassinated. Pardon me, for trying to have a "kike and nigger-loving judge" assassinated. Happily, according to the sidebar of this article, Hale's "church" seems to be falling apart.

But I'm going somewhere with this.

The recent Trent Lott scandal strongly suggested that conservative politicians were using code words to win over the votes of racists without arousing the suspicions of non-racists (well, non-overt racists). But we haven't looked at this phenomenon from the racists' point of view. Do they see politicians pandering to them covertly? Let's ask Matt Hale. I'll reprint this short blog entry from David Neiwert:

Here's an excerpt from from an interview Matt Hale gave a columnist for the Greenwich Village Gazette Aug. 8, 2000:

The caller also told me that he was now leaning toward Bush and that his victory in November would give him and the white-supremacist movement "cause for celebration and hope."

The man calling himself Mr. Hale told me that he was persuaded by Bush after watching both party conventions this summer.

"The conventions left me with the impression that the Democrats actually mean it when they say they want a diverse tent and the Republicans are like 'OK, this is a way to get some votes so let's go throw bait to the blacks.' So they trot out their yard (N-word) for show and dress them better than black democrats could ever dream of.'"

Bush was endorsed by Hale, David Duke and Don Black of Stormfront [another white supremacist group]. This is not to imply that Bush is racist. Rather, it is clear that he makes enough gestures that are interpreted by extremists as sympathetic to gain their votes.

So yes, I guess that racists are getting the message soft and clear.

Back in 1998, during a parade in New York City, three firemen dressed up in blackface, "threw chunks of watermelon and fried chicken to parade goers and made it appear as if one of the men in blackface was being dragged ... the same summer that a black man in Texas was dragged to his death from a pickup." Mayor Giuliani fired the three men. Well, now those three men are suing to get their jobs back.

And finally, Atrios posts a casting call for a new "reality" dating show on NBC. The interesting bit:

MEN SHOULD BE 26-34 YRS OLD & CAUCASIAN
AND
WOMEN SHOULD BE 21-34 YRS OLD & ANY ETHNICITY

Um.

Kinda interesting. Only white guys, but women of any race. I suppose this one is an easy answer. Women of different races on television are non-threatening, as they are usually just different "flavors" of T&A. But men are a different story. To me, the most glaring example is Asian men. I've seen a jillion movies and TV shows with sexy Asian women as characters, but very, very rarely with sexy Asian men. C'mon Hollywood, let's give our Asian brothers a little love.