More PC Enforcement From Obama—Making A Monkey Out Of His Supporters
Last year, Newsweek editor Stuart Taylor
wrote in The National Journal that an Obama
presidency "should tell black children everywhere
that they, too, can succeed, and they do not need
handouts or
reparations" and help end "the
myth of continuing African-American victimhood."
Obama has been doing his part in encouraging this
fantasy. As Ann Coulter
noted after his
"race transcending" speech in Philadelphia, "Obama
hinted that we might have one way out: If we elect
him president, then maybe, just maybe, we can stop
talking about race."
If Obama`s response to the
Geraldine Ferraro (he accused her of practicing
"slice-and-dice" identity politics)and
Jeremiah Wright (he blamed his
white grandmother, not the Reverend) controversies
hasn`t dispensed this silly notion, the latest episode
of imaginary racism should make it crystal clear that
chanting "race doesn`t matter" at a campaign
rally does not give you a get out of jail card from the
PC Police. (To his credit, Taylor has
come to his senses.)
As both an Obama delegate and a Hispanic
open borders advocate, Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski has
impeccable multicultural credentials. Her
crime was to tell some African American children who
were climbing a tree near her house in Carpentersville,
Illinois to “quit playing in the tree like monkeys.”
Any rational observer would understand that she
compared them to monkeys climbing in trees because,
well, monkeys climb in trees. Unfortunately, we do not
live in a rational society and the parents of the kids
called the police who charged Ramirez with
disorderly conduct with a $75 dollar fine.
Initially the Obama campaign
asked her to resign because the comments were
"divisive and unacceptable." Despite initial reports
indicating that she stepped down, Ramirez refused to
quit, and the Obama campaign
is now willing to let her stay to avoid a backlash.
Despite this reversal, the fact that she was charged
with a crime and that Obama initially pressured her to
resign is telling.
In some respects this is similar to the
case of David Howard in 1999. Like Ramirez, Howard
was a member of an officially designated victim group
(homosexual) and supported a black liberal (DC
Mayor Anthony Williams.) In budget talks, Howard
used the word "niggardly"
and a semi-illiterate black colleague was
offended. Despite his normally protected status,
Howard resigned. Both Williams and Obama ended up
reversing their actions once the incidents became an
embarrassment.
There is an important contrast between the two
incidents. Although Howard`s antagonist showed
astonishing ignorance by assuming "niggardly" was
related to "nigger" that slur is quite different
than "monkey."
Although blacks will use "nigger" or "nigga"
freely, it has always been seen as a racially demeaning
word. In contrast, "monkey"—even when applied to
humans—is rarely seen as racist.
A simple look at a
dictionary will see monkey defined as "a person
likened to such an animal, as a mischievous, agile child
or a mimic," "an addiction to narcotics,"
"to mimic," "to play or trifle idly;" Phrases
like "monkey bars," "monkey business,"
"monkey around" are part of our vernacular.
In a few cases, like "porch
monkey," it can be racist, but the word is also
used against other ethnic groups. Jonah Goldberg and
other neoconservatives often call the French,
"cheese eating surrender monkeys"—a
phrase taken from The Simpsons.
Thomas Nast`s 19th century cartoons would
often
show ape-like Irishmen next to sympathetic looking
blacks. Many leftists compare Bush`s physical appearance
to chimpanzees with websites like
bushorchimp.com and
smirkingchimp.com aimed at the president.
In my last
column, I examined how the
Thought Police have moved from swastikas to nooses
in the list of officially outlawable "hate symbols".
The same thing is happening with words. It would be
futile to even begin to catalog all the people whose
careers have been destroyed for
uttering "nigger" or even words that sound
like "nigger" no matter the context. It has gone
beyond media/academic/business thought police to the
city of New York officially
banning the
use of the word.
That completely innocuous words like "monkey"
are getting the same treatment is another step forward
towards what Sam Francis
anarcho-tyranny, the state where the police won`t do
anything about armed robbery, but will be happy to
police
verbal expressions of "hate."
The Ramirez case is not an isolated incident. In the
2005 Martin Luther King Day celebration in Columbus
Ohio, a black woman
complained that police officers were
eating bananas:
"Well, it seems that in
the context of the march, she took the officer`s banana
eating to imply an analogous racial slur relating black
people to apes.
"Such a comparison would
not be uncommon in the parlance of racist propaganda,
particularly in the old days. But these days that kind
of talk is pretty rare—and pretty obvious, too, when
someone really means it.
"So as racial slurs go,
simply eating a banana now has to be considered rather
subtle, for this particular area."
Then Columbus Mayor Bob Poydasheff
apologized to the woman.
This is not to say that Ramirez is a paragon of free
expression. When the Minuteman came to her town she
complained, "I think it`s a travesty that they
are here, they have NO business here.". It would be
easy to engage in
schadenfreude over her plight, but as I`ve
said with Hillary Clinton: If this is what the Obama
camp is doing to a left wing Hispanic activist, imagine
what they have in store for us.
If you`re preparing for an Obama presidency, make
sure to find
a new source of potassium. Bananas won`t be safe to
eat.
Marcus Epstein [send
him mail] is the founder of the
Robert A Taft Club and the executive director of the
The American
Cause and
Team America PAC. A selection of his articles can be
seen
here. The
views he expresses are his own.
