Hate

Khaled Hosseini is the author of "The Kite Runner" and "A Thousand Splendid Suns", and he has some strong opinions about the use of "Hussein" as a dirty word and a call to violence against Barack Obama :

Time for a new banner!

Last night was the second debate between Barack Obama and John McCain and boy was it awful. A "town hall" that wasn't thanks in part to the campaigns negotiating terms in which nobody can ask follow up questions and/or have a true conversation that may have their candidates veer from the pre-approved script.

In other words, a world of political crap. Well, almost.

If anything, last night's debate was a night of contrast and compare of demeanors, poise and class between the two candidates. Guess who lost. Yup, the white guy :

[ Senator McCain ] By the way, my friends, I know you grow a little weary with this back-and-forth. It was an energy bill on the floor of the Senate loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies, and it was sponsored by Bush and Cheney.

You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one. You know who voted against it? Me. I have fought time after time against these pork barrel -- these bills that come to the floor and they have all kinds of goodies and all kinds of things in them for everybody and they buy off the votes.

A lot of people had a "WTF?!?!" moment over McCain's uttered contempt for Obama. You just could smell the hate seeping through the TV screen.

Wow. Just wow.

Certainly there is much talk today about ‘what Michelle Obama’ said, and really meant. Many kinds of talk and opinion… various people have been discussing or debating or just flatly carrying on about what Michelle Obama meant or didn’t mean, and weighing in on her character, brainpower, heart, or lack of such, etc. (Her husband, later said she meant her words more narrowly with regard to the political process wherein people stood up for change.)

My thoughts however, keep returning to another matter entirely. I’m not new to scabrous words. This man’s outburst at Starbucks is not the first, but merely the elevendy-millionth time as a woman from a minority group myself, I’ve heard such or been felled by such words personally.

BUT, especially since being flash-shot by this man at Starbucks bellowing about “a nigger only gonna be president over my dead and burning body,” ….I rode the Time Machine back over the many decades I’ve be blessed to live thus far, and I see, with immediacy, how far we’ve come in this nation… meaning, that yes, any of us minority persons can be objected to publicly nowadays, and called names out loud, in print, in front of and behind backs….

but NOT immediately and with full looking away by all authorities and cronies, be dragged to the dark of the woods and dealt an ‘inch of one’s life’ beating, or death with finality, there…

...Culture Kitchen does not tolerate anti-Semitism. Not of the classic Protocols of the Elders of Zion variety. Not of the newer Israel = Nazi Germany variety. In short, we do not tolerate any flavor or variant of this:

There are plenty of criticisms to be made of the State of Israel. If someone has a problem with religious fundamentalism in general, then some practices and observances of ultra-Orthodox Judaism offer opportunities for critique, just as do fundamentalist Christianity and fundamentalist Islam. There are even a good number of Jews - Paul Wolfowitz springs immediately to mind - deserving of the harshest ridicule.

What is intolerable, however, and a fruit of the oldest hatred still alive in the world, with the stench of the gas chambers permanently attached to it, is this:

Seen through the eyes of an anti-semite, Jews are essentially alien, powerful, cohesive, cunning, parasitic, and so on.

For this view, we have neither patience nor tolerance. Expression of these or similar opinions will result in an immediate banning. If you hate Jews as Jews, or Jewish institutions because they are Jewish, this is not the place for you.

(UPDATE by Liza: Chris Chinn has claimed this text as the work of his genius. You can find the whole post at LiveJournal.)

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Yesterday I posted Part 1 of The Art of Defending Racism. Fitting for a Martin Luther King day discussion, here is its concluding section.

The Art of Defending Racism : Advanced Tactics!

The Russian Retreat (Be like Water)
Naturally, anyone who attempts to call you on a racist behavior, will probably try to also refute your defense. Fortunately for you, when your defense isn't based on actual reasons, but simply irrationality, you can switch tactics on the drop of a dime without any explanation.

Simply switch from one defense to another, randomly, and let your opponent continue to wear themselves out trying to penetrate your happy wall of racist belief!

For additional fun, you can switch to a tactic you've used previously. Half of them will not even notice they've been led in a circle, the other half will lose all hope and give up! Hurrah for ignorance!

The Wall of Whiteness
As the Greeks knew, the key to a good defense was teamwork. If you have more than one person supporting racism involved in the conversation, then all of you should use different tactics simultaneously --your opponent will have to fight on multiple fronts, and have to keep switching his or her train of thought to meet each defense. They'll wear out in no time, and, you can reinforce and protect each other's 3 beliefs.

(UPDATE by Liza: Chris Chinn has claimed this text as the work of his genius. You can find the whole post at LiveJournal.)

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This is so good, I had to repost here. This was posted at finy : Message: FWD: The Art of Defending Racism. The poster, T. Raisul Murray, says it is mostly anonymous with some parts added by him and a friend.

The whole thing is brilliant, especially the "Opression Olympics" section he added.

The Art of Defending Racism

Doing something racist is easy- you don't even have to think about it. But keeping racism alive? That takes work!

Luckily for you, racism is deeply entrenched in our society, so all you need to do is hold the gates against those who would try to dislodge it, and let them wear themselves out. You'll want to use the tactics listed below to protect your own racist behavior, as well as those of others- after all- racism works because we work together!

Winning the war against equality!
No matter what, your objective is to be able to maintain these three beliefs at the end of any exchange:

1. I'm not racist.
2. I didn't do anything wrong.
3. I don't have to change at all.

If you can hold on to that, then you win!