Story of the Day

The most talked about story on the Florida blogs yesterday was the "satirical" Obama New Yorker cover. Here's what people said...

ReidBlog - Satirically speaking...

South Florida Daily Blog - Satirizing The Right

Pensito Review (Trish) - Dear The New Yorker: WTF???

BlueHerald 2.0 (Buck) - The New Yorker: Tasteless And Offensive

Bark Bark Woof Woof - Humor 101

Pensacola Beach Blog - The New Yorker's Obama Cover

Why Now? - Missing the Point

Bridging the Digital Divide

(Below is a cross-post of my first guest-post at African American Political Pundit, a gig that was an outgrowth of the NOI Bloggers Summit).

Hello, I'm the new guy. I'm Kenneth Quinnell and I regularly blog at Florida Progressive Coalition (amongst other places). At the New Organizing Institute Blogger's Summit, AAPP made the generous offer to let the rest of us grace his space to talk about issues that appeal to his audience. Sounded like a good offer to me, so I took him up on it. This is my introduction.

A quick note on me. I'm a mid-30s adjunct college professor (political science and history) who is the happily-married father of three sons under seven. I run a statewide Netroots organization and am a state and local-level Democratic Party activist. I live in Tallahassee, Florida, and the area I live in is pretty forward-looking, but much of the neighboring area is deep-South. Parts of the Florida panhandle are referred to by Floridians as L.A. -- Lower Alabama. So, I'm a Southern White Guy.

Don't get worried, I'm not that kind of Southern White Guy. There's nothing redneck about me, I have no accent, I hate the Confederate flag, and, when it comes to issues related to race, I've always thought differently than most of the people I grew up around. (And only about 20% of the stuff at Stuff White People Like are things I actually like).

I will say that I was raised around a lot of racist people. In fact, before I went to college, I'd literally say that the majority of adults I'd known in my life were either openly racist or passively racist. But from an early age, I never understood that way of thinking. Mainly, I guess, it came from growing up in lower-class, mixed-race neighborhoods where I could easily see that my African-American and Hispanic friends didn't fit the things the adults were telling me.

I was always interested in other cultures, too, and loved the idea that there were other people out there who had different experiences and thought about things differently than I did. I grew up as a big, big fan of stand-up comedy and sports (among other things) and amongst the names that my sons have been given are tributes to Jackie Robinson and Richard Pryor, two of my idols (along with George Carlin and FDR).

So, what will I post about? Well, pretty much anything that might be of interest to readers of a blog titled African American Political Pundit. There will be a bit of a Florida focus, but not overwhelmingly so. Everyone knows Florida has a high Hispanic population, but what most people don't know is we also have the third-highest black population in the country. I'll talk about the roots of white racism and interactions between the races and how all of this interacts with politics, particularly progressive/liberal/Democratic politics. And I'll respond to what others say about what I've written and whatever people ask me. Hopefully, this will be an interactive experience and we can all learn something valuable from each other. Or at least have a little fun along the way.

Your Liberal Media At Work

A good example of how the media and many Democrats have falling into the trap of repeating and reinforcing conservative Republican frames is tonight's coverage of the Mississippi primary and the Geraldine Ferraro dust-up. The phrase "playing the race card" is a conservative Republican attack phrase used to undermine legitimate claims of racism by creating a theoretically reasonable doubt as to whether or not racism is present. I don't believe I've ever heard of a single instance where someone accused another of "playing the race card," when the person using that frame wasn't defending someone who had made a racist statement or taken a racist action. We have to banish the use of this phrase and call the media on framing an issue in this conservative Republican way.

Disgusting

This is amazing:

The Republican National Committee has commissioned polling and focus groups to determine the boundaries of attacking a minority or female candidate, according to people involved. The secretive effort underscores the enormous risk senior GOP operatives see for a party often criticized for its insensitivity to minorities in campaigns dating back to the 1960s.

The RNC project is viewed as so sensitive that those involved in the work were reluctant to discuss the findings in detail.

..."Republicans will need to exercise less deafness and more deftness in dealing with a different looking candidate, whether it is a woman or a black man," Republican strategist Kellyanne Conway said. "But at the same time, really charge back at any insinuation or accusation of sexism or racism.

"You can't allow the party to be Macaca-ed," she continued, referring to a much-publicized remark made by former GOP Sen. George Allen that played a significant role in his 2006 defeat. "I think the standards are higher and the bar is lower for the Republican Party."

Republicans interviewed for this story uniformly believe they will have to be especially careful. Many expect to be held to a higher rhetorical standard than is customary in campaigns, in part because of perceptions of intolerance that still dog the party.

As Pam said, "perceptions"? If you have a report like this coming out of your party, racism and sexism aren't perceptions, they're facts.