Michael Wolraich's picture

    Persecution Politics: Beating on White Kids

    One of the recurrent themes that contribute to right-wing paranoia is the fantasy that white people suffer from discrimination in Obama's America. This conceit erupted on the talk shows during the Sotomayor hearings and after Henry Louis Gates' arrest, when Rush Limbaugh said, "President Obama is black, and I think he's got a chip on his shoulder," and Glenn Beck exclaimed that Obama "has a deep seated hatred for white people."

    Yesterday, the "white persecution" theme bubbled up again when Drudge reported, "WHITE STUDENT BEATEN ON SCHOOL BUS; CROWD CHEERS." The police officer who described the assault as racially motivated later retracted the characterization, but it was too late to stop Rush Limbaugh from representing the incident as an example of "Obama's America":

    You put your kids on a school bus, you expect safety, but in Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, "Yeah, right on, right on, right on!" And of course, everybody says, "Oh, the white kid deserved it, he was born a racist, he's white."

    The fact that black politicians make up 7.5% of U.S. Representatives, 1% of U.S. Senators, and 2% of state governors does not register in the fantasy of white persecution. Nor does the persistent income gap between whites and blacks: $49K to $30K. The overwhelmingly white right-wing desperately wants to represent itself as persecuted, the facts be damned. Hence Limbaugh's enthusiasm to report the purported race bias on the school-bus. As blogger John Rogers cannily explains:

    One of the great secrets of human nature is that the one thing people want more than love, security, sex, chocolate or big-screen TV's is to feel hard done by. Because being hard done by is the shit. Feeling hard done by is the sweetest of drugs. If you’re being persecuted - it must mean you're doing the right thing, right? You get the mellow buzz of the moral high ground, but without arrogantly claiming it as your own. You get an instant, supportive community in a big dark scary world of such scope it may well literally be beyond rational human processing. When you are hard done by, you get purpose in a life where otherwise, you’d have to find your own. And when you ride that high, then no amount of logic, no pointing out that in actuality you and your beliefs are at a high point of popularity and influence for the last hundred years - is going to pry that sweet crack-pipe of moral indignation from your hands.

    Stay tuned for more black-on-white action in my Persecution Politics series at dagblog.com.

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    Comments

    Must white people always try to co-opt african american culture?  Geez, first blues, then hip-hop culture, and now being persecuted.  Make your own trend white america!


    you all keep saying "African American". First Africa is a continent and not a  country. People are from countries not continents. the kids that did the beatings, terror assults or racial attacks, what ever you want to call it was WRONG. These boys need to be kicked out of school and HOME SCHOOLED by their parents.  It was a BLACK on WHITE CRIME. The law needs to be color blind.


    It was a BLACK on WHITE CRIME. The law needs to be color blind.

    Love it.


    First Africa is a continent and not a  country. People are from countries not continents.

    So any person whose ethnic decent is from Europe wouldn't be called European?  How often have you heard anyone refer to a black person according to the country in Africa their ancestors come from?  (ex: Bob is a Ugandan American)  African American is a pretty widely accepted term for black people in America.  D (I think we all know what D stands for) I'm not sure what hair you are trying to split, but you fail.  Thanks for playing though!

    If you had read what Genghis wrote he in no way condoned the actions of the assaulters as you imply.  Also, if the law needs to be color blind, why bother mentioning it was BLACK on WHITE crime?  Nice use of caps btw, way to copy Kanye West.


    Also, there's that tricky little thing about many African-Americans not knowing which country their ancestors came from because they were kidnapped and brought unwillingly to this country. Or, if the ancestors were born here, they were often separated from their parents as soon as they would bring a good price.

    If your name is Doug, I won't call you Bob. Why can't we give self-identified groups of people the same consideration? How about we refer to groups using the terms those groups select and quit complaining because we didn't get to name them.


    Geez, first blues, then hip-hop culture, and now being persecuted.

    No, no, hip-hop, is still liberal and thus, fascist:

    "Hip-hop culture has incorporated a shocking number of fascist themes."

    -- Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change

    Actually, being persecuted is fascist too:

    The Jew caused our problems, and lives from them. That is why we oppose the Jew as nationalists and as socialists. He has ruined our race, corrupted our morals, hollowed out our customs and broken our strength. We owe it to him that we today are the Pariah of the world.

    -- Joseph Goebbels


    Nothing like being able to say that the lynching was in self-defense.


    so doc what your saying is that the White Boy DESERVED to be beat?? 


    No. In fact, that is not what I was saying.

    If you want to have someone say that, so you can get upset about, try someone else.


    As an openly gay liberal, I know all too well about the evils of hate.  What I find very troubling, however, is that, if I were beaten on a bus for being gay, my fellow liberals would be rushing to my defense and offering support.

    Although I truly believe that the porr victim in this account was beaten so savegely was for no other reason because of his race.  If this horrible incident was the other way around, you know we'd all be saying it was race related.

    The bottom line is this, if it wasn't race related, then we still need to push for the maximum punishment for the attackers.  If it was race related, then we need to push that the extra penalty in place for hate crimes is applied in this case. 


    Who is arguing that they shouldn't be punished? I haven't encountered anybody arguing for that.

    I also haven't seen anybody arguing for leniency.

    As for hate crimes, despite your personal coviction (which the police chief, who has seen the investigation first-hand no longer shares), how would you get a hate-crime verdict from a jury? If the attackers didn't use any racial insults, what's going to persuade a jury beyond a reasonable doubt?

     


    The point of my post has little to do with the event itself. The fact that the officer backtracked on the race bias explanation simply underscores what is the point: Limbaugh wants the assault to be racially motivated and cheered on by a busload of black children because he wants to believe that whites are persecuted. He wants to this story to represent a microcosm of his twisted view of white oppression at the hands of liberals.

    Bullying is obviously reprehensible and race-motivated bullying even more so, whatever the race of the victim. I figured that went without saying, which was foolish of me because of course Limbaugh wants to represent liberals as condoning or even celebrating black-and-white violence, the very charge that you seem to have bought into.


    My God, what has happened to the Republicans in this country? They keep highlighting liberals trying to make stuff up, liberals trying to make sure prostitution and illegal aliens and child slavery is made legal, and now they deign to highlight racial animosity shown by black kids towards some white kid! What will happen next that the Right in American can exploit? The next thing we know, some well-respected and beloved politician like Jimmy Carter will say that racism is driving the criticism of Obama. Why would anyone hate The Dear Leader? He is so good to us, he wants us to all have health care paid for by the rich and middle class bastards, he wants to tax us all for clean, green jobs, and he spent $1 trillion trying to create hundreds of stimulus jobs! Cheers for Obama...he is DA MAN!


    Right-wing sarcasm fail!

    There is a lot of fail going around today. 


    "Liberals trying to make sure prostitution and illegal aliens and child slavery is made legal..."

    When you learn subject-verb agreement, I'll spend some energy making a thoughtful argument in response.


    Ooh, grammar fail, grammarian win!


    Highlighting. You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.


    Seriously, though: if conservatives are so worried about this incident, why not back a little hate-crime legislation?

    Last time I heard from conservatives on that topic, hate-crime laws were unnecessary and an affront to justice. Now, apparently, the usual penalties dealt out to kids who beat up other kids on a school bus will not suffice.


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