The controversy over the videotape of Harvard Law School student Barack Obama speaking in support of his professor Derrick Bell during Bell’s one-man 1990 uprising against the law school’s failure or refusal to hire a black woman as a professor has caused a predictable back-and-forth about what it might mean for Obama to have a favorable view of Bell. Michael Powell of the New York Times reflected conventional opinion in liberal media circles when he tweeted: “Derrick Bell, Radical? We’re to pretend our history cleansed? He fought 4 Civil Rights in Mississippi.”
It is incumbent on Powell and others, if they want to get in on the conversation about Bell, to explain what on earth is mainstream about comments he made in an eye-opening New York Observer interview published on October 10, 1994, that is not available online. Among other remarks, Bell denounced Henry Louis (Skip) Gates for writing a New York Times op-ed condemning black anti-Semitism:
I was furious. Even if everything he said was true, it was inexcusable not to mention what might have motivated blacks to feel this way, and to fail to talk about all the Jewish neoconservative racists who are undermining blacks in every way they can.
Bell went on to say, “Now, that wouldn’t excuse anti-Semitism, which is awful, but it would at least provide a context for this anger…”
It might seem nice of Bell to acknowledge the awfulness of anti-Semitism, but he didn’t mean it. The very same interview began as follows: “We should really appreciate the Louis Farrakhans and the Khalid Muhammads while we’ve got them.” Khalid Muhammad was Farrakhan’s right hand, who made a name for himself referring to Jews as, among many other things, “bloodsuckers” whose “father was the devil.” As for Farrakhan, if you need a refresher course in his vileness, look here.
Why exactly were we supposed to appreciate them? Quoth Bell: “While these guys talk a lot, they don’t do anything. The new crop of leaders are going to be a lot more dangerous and radical, and the next phase will probably be led by charismatic individuals, maybe teenagers, who urge that instead of killing each other, they should go out in gangs and kill a whole lot of white people.”
Note how he seemed to relish this prospect even as he tut-tutted it. Note also how almost unimaginably wrong he was. For no marauding gangs of black teenagers went around killing white people after he spoke; in fact, the ongoing crime drop that followed his words had its most remarkable impact in black communities, where the number of murders fell, by some counts, as much as 80 percent over the decade that followed.
And of course, 18 years after he spoke these words, a black man who gave him a nice hug back in 1990 was elected president of the United States.
Bell, in the same interview: “Blacks will simply never gain full equality in this country.”
#WAR
Who knows that Wright, in an April 2008 speech to the Detroit Chapter of the NAACP <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2008-04-28/politics/wright.transcript_1_naacp-oldest-civil-rights-organization-detroit-branch?_s=PM:POLITICS">derided Brown vs. Board of Education and endorsed the concept of "separate but equal?" (There was a lot of other baloney, some of it quite offensive in that speech.) I know this was after candidate Obama broke with him, but are you going to tell me that this was the first time Wright said those things? I'll assume that these were tropes he mentioned frequently in the presence of the future President. nIn other words, Obama's preacher rejected the milestone Supreme Court decision that galvanized the Civil Rights movement. Obama, as far as I know never challenged him on that. Is there anyone in the MSM who would dare broach this? nTo my mind the Wright connection is much worse than his association with Bell, as Wright rejects the basis of the current social contract in America.
"…no marauding gangs of black teenagers went around killing white people after he spoke…" n nQuite right. Marauding gangs of blacks that go around beating, robbing and raping white people: yes, of course, more and more each year. But killing them? Rarely.
and most of them, if prosecuted at all, are not charged with hate crimes–because everyone knows that black-on-white violence is acceptable "when you know the reasons for their anger," as Obama's prof put it so well.
To be fair, Derek Bell was a racist extremist who would have liked to see the wholesale extermination of all white people. We Jews would probably be killed early on but the rest would follow. I doubt Obama endorses this view. He would, as he typically does, 'weigh the pros and the cons of both sides of this issue'. And of course send his flying monkeys from the NYT and MSNBC to say the truly nasty stuff.
As long as there are paying audiences there will be demagogues who pander to them. n nThe Democrats under Lyndon Johnson — heeding demographics — traded the Southern constituency for the broader non-white constituency. The Party of Lincoln, eager to escape its status as permanent minority, gave the orphans a home, thinking they could use the Southern vote to gain office, while remaining right-moderate. But like the Conservatives of Germany, who thought they could use the Nazis to gain power, then coöpt them, they found out to their chagrin, that the coöptees had become the coöptors. n n“Blacks will simply never gain full equality in this country.” n nThe South brought forth on this continent the poison pill of slavery, by making it the deal-breaker for ratification of the Constitution. This is the tragic heritage we must live with and live down. Think of the nation we would be, were it not for the South and its "peculiar institution".
This is how America works. Not everything is focused on Jewish people their fears and their fate. People make a lot of noise to call attention to their cause. It gets addressed and they fade into the general population. Except Jewish people. They need to be in the spotlight 24/7 so we will never forget what ever it is we are supposed to remember.Most people are not pro or anti semitic. Most of us don't care and really are not interested. We have our own problems and would appreciate it if Israel and Jewish people would get their lives together and leave the rest of us in peace.
If it bothers you so much why do you bother with the Jews and our problems? I think if you hate Jews and our problems bother you so much you would just ignore us. But that is how your bigotry and prejudice work, right, you hate some group and accuse them of forcing themselves on you. nIf you dislike Jews so much, just walk away, no one is stopping you.
It is amazing to me that after hearing of professor Bell's apparent metaphoric story about Blacks being taken by aliens that no one connected it to Louis Farrakhan's story that he tells to his flock about a spaceship either dropping off Blacks or picking them up from earth. Please enlighten me!
I sense on the near horizon another "best speech on race ever given since the MLK Dream speech" speech. Set us all straight.
Sorry, no sale. What Obama said in greeting Bell on the issue of greater diversity in Harvard's hiring practices 22 years ago is incredibly irrelevant, which is to say! that those trying to make a political mountain out of this nothing molehill discredit themselves.
What one does to prove a hypothesis is to show more and more components of the experiment. You lay out all of your facts that back up your thesis and then state, this is my theory and these are the facts or experiments that prove them. n nObama from his childhood through his college years through his government years surrounded himself and searched out radicals, marxists and racists. He has completely sealed all records, the media covers and hides videos that prove his radical beliefs. He preaches class warfare, he preaches his radical transformation, etc. n nWhy all the subterfuge? Why all the lies? Why all the secrecy? n nThis time, we the people will vet him, we no longer need the media.
I believe it's asinine to think that any one living today could affect what happened 150 years ago. n nNor should they be held accountable. Tens of thousands of white people died to end slavery. By that definition blacks should thank the white people every day for saving them from slavery. n And to top it all off it was the muslims who were capturing the blacks and selling them in Africa to ANYONE who would buy them. Most of the slaves went to countries in South America. n Why don't you ever hear anything about that, Take your Political Correctness and holier than thou and stick it ware the sun don't shine…
Obama seems to surround himself with rather unsavory Black Liberation types like Bell and Rev. Wright, who also are afflicted with a deep and abiding strain of anti Semtism and hatred of Israel. And yet there are still those who believe that Obama is sincere when he tells all and sundry how committed he is to Israel's security while at the same time Obama does everything in his power to undermine that security.
"It might seem nice of Bell to acknowledge the awfulness of anti-Semitism…" n nWell, as an African-American, he rightfully can claim racism as tops in "awfulness" legacy – in this country, at least. There is no history in America of officially authorized anti-Semitism; treatment of black Americans was much, much different. However, with a black man in the White House, even racism seems more and more historic than vital issue. Regardless, the rest of us have long-since tired of witnessing the pointless battle of who was or is more oppressed. Usually we honkies don't mention it, but if it had a name it would be something like "guilt fatigue".
There is no reason blacks need to find approval from whites. n nBlacks can always build their own institutions, universities and hospitals-just like Jews did when Jews were excluded. n nI am sure, given the vast history of black intellectual and scientific genius, they would have no probems. n n'Guilt fatigue' for what? Being the 'fittest' at survival? n nWhites really have to dumb down, so as not to make some feel bad.
There are two books that need reading just to see how bad the situation is — the first is _Faces at the bottom of the well_ which is an articulation of critical race and gender theory by folks like Bell – the crew at Harvard who invented it. This is where they propose what it would mean if they had their way — and it is scary. The other is _The turner diaries_ which is the white racist response and equally scary. n nPeople need to read these two books — neither is long — and remember that people that apparently were sober actually think this sort of stuff. We have Bell's own thoughts in his own words and it is scary.