New York Times Columnist Charles Blow: Die, Whitey, Die!

 

The Smug One 

[Previously, on this writer, at WEJB/NSU:

“Is New York Times Columnist Charles Blow Trying to Incite Violence Against Mitt Romney?”]
 

By Nicholas Stix

My biggest problem with the following rant by AA Times racist Charles Blow, is the craven way The Invertebrate, aka Mitt Romney, backed off from a perfectly innocuous statement.

Not to say that I have no problem with the rant itself. It’s quite insane, and it’s only positive function is as yet another example of black racist privilege and toxically high, black self-esteem.

Blow is making such a big stink because he is a racist Obamaton. The John Doe calling himself “Barack Obama” has gone out of his way since usurping the office of President, to shower contempt on our closest and longest ally, by insulting the British Prime Minister, and even the Queen herself.

But there's no end to the ridiculousness. In rant's title, Blow's editor makes the very point that Blow is vilifying: "Anglo-Saxon Heritage."

* * *

Anglo-Saxon Heritage,

Multicultural Future

By Charles M. Blow
July 25, 2012
New York Times

On Tuesday, The Daily Telegraph, a leading conservative newspaper in Britain, quoted an anonymous adviser to Mitt Romney commenting on the so-called special relationship between Britain and the United States:

“We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special,” the adviser said of Mr. Romney, adding: “The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have.”

The paper pointed out that the comments “may prompt accusations of racial insensitivity,” and they did.

The reporter who wrote the story said later on Twitter that the anonymous adviser “was a member of the foreign policy advisory team.”

The Romney campaign sought to distance itself from the remarks. As Talking Points Memo reported on Wednesday:

“It’s not true,” Romney spokesperson Amanda Henneberg said in quotes confirmed by T.P.M. “If anyone said that, they weren’t reflecting the views of Gov. Romney or anyone inside the campaign.”

Vice President Joe Biden, in a statement about the Telegraph article, said in part:

Not surprisingly, this is just another feeble attempt by the Romney campaign to score political points at the expense of this critical partnership. This assertion is beneath a presidential campaign.

[“This critical partnership”? But “critical” is stronger language than “special.” If Biden is saying that our relationship to England is even stronger than “special,” why isn’t Blow denouncing him for “racism,” too? Because Biden is a brain-dead, racist Democrat, like Blow.]

Rebutting the vice president’s attack, Ryan Williams, another spokesperson for Romney, said that Biden had “used an anonymous and false quote from a foreign newspaper to prop up their flailing campaign.”

Whew, that’s quite a bit of back and forth, and yet it remains unclear, to me at least, what the Romney campaign is saying. If it is accusing the newspaper of misquoting someone or fabricating quotes, it should demand a retraction.
But according to T.P.M.:

The Telegraph, which stands by the piece, told T.P.M. that the paper has not received a request from the Romney campaign to retract or correct the story.

If Romney’s team is suggesting that someone in the campaign could have said it without Romney’s knowledge or blessing, then the campaign should seek to identify the adviser and dismiss him or her from any role in promoting Romney’s candidacy.

[Fire him? For what?!]

But as is often the case with this campaign and with the modern Republican Party, Romney’s team stopped short of issuing a complete repudiation and demanding a total cleansing of these poisonous ideas from their ranks.

The phrases “if anyone said,” and “weren’t reflecting the views” are weak and amorphous and don’t go far enough towards condemnation.

The reason is simple: the Republican Party benefits from this bitterness. Not all Republicans are intolerant, but the intolerant seem to have found a home under their tent. And instead of chasing the intolerant out, the party turns a blind eye — or worse, gives a full embrace — and counts up their votes.

Take Romney’s relationship with Donald Trump. Trump, one of America’s most prominent and vocal birthers, is also a Romney surrogate and major fundraiser. Just last week, after Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz. held a press conference to announce that he believed that the birth certificate that the president supplied is fake, Trump went on a radio show hosted by Fox’s Sean Hannity to say: “The fact is Sheriff Arpaio is, in my opinion, correct.”

The problem with courting or even countenancing the fringe is that it’s an incredibly short-sighted strategy. With every new gaffe the gulf between the Republican Party and our ever-diversifying nation grows.

[What “gaffes”? Note Blow’s presumption that he speaks for “our … nation.”]

As The Atlantic’s Max Fisher pointed out, assuming that the term Anglo-Saxon is a “colloquialism for the English people”:

In the 2000 U.S. census, only 8.7 percent of Americans identify their ancestry as English, which is ranked fourth behind German, Irish, and African-American.

The bipartisan National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund projects that in November the Latino vote will be almost 26 percent higher than it was in 2008. That would be a staggering increase.

[I don’t know which statement is more ridiculous: That NALEO is bipartisan, or that the Hispanic vote will increase almost 26 percent over 2008, not that it is going to be decisive, in any event.]

No amount of corporate money and voter suppression [?!] can hold back the demographic tide washing over this country. As each of these gaffes further reaffirms the Republican Party’s hostility to minorities, the shorter the party’s lifespan becomes.

[As someone recently wrote, it is the corporations that have paid for the “demographic tide washing over this country.” Blow is as phony as a three-dollar bill.]

I for one don’t believe that this is a coordinated effort. It’s the seepage from a hateful few slipping in like water through a compromised dam. But it will not be enough for the Republicans to plug the holes. They must drain the reservoir.

[Over 90 percent of the reader comments were racist vituperations in agreement with Blow. Considering the heavy hand of the Times’ censors, however, that tells us little. I was able to find three non-pc comments which the censors permitted through, so as to hide the fact that they were censoring the rest.]

1. I don't really see how saying the United States shares an Anglo-Saxon heritage with the UK is racist. Perhaps it's meant as a "code-word," but the fact is we DO have a deep shared history with Britain that has nothing to do with the percentage of people descended from English immigrants.

We speak English, our law is based on English common law, our government resembles that of England in the 1700s (except our king is elected), we've been militarily aligned with them for most of the last century, we learn the basics of English history in school, we read Shakespeare, we've practically canonized Winston Churchill (who really was racist), we eat up news about the Royal Family, etc, etc.

8.7 percent of Americans may be descended from English immigrants, but our Founding Fathers were all British subjects, our nation was born out of the British Empire, and our legal, cultural, academic, economic and political institutions are all heavily influenced by English history and thought. Acknowledging that that shared history closely links us with Britain isn't racist.

I'm not saying that there isn't racism in the Republican camp, but I don't see it in this quote.
o July 25, 2012 at 11:43 p.m.
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 Gonewest
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"I'm not saying that there isn't racism in the Republican camp, but I don't see it in this quote."

Agreed.

On the other hand, we can see a typical display of whiny identity-based PC victimism (which, thankfully, more and more people are coming to reject and disassociate from) in Mr. Blow's response to it.
 July 26, 2012 at 7:44 a.m.
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o Miguel
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"“The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have."

That's controversial? No one recalls how the White House has repeatedly snubbed the UK?

QUOTES FROM UK PAPERS:

"Gordon Brown's triumphal trip to the US to meet new president Barack Obama has suffered a setback after White House officials cancelled their expected joint press conference."

Headline: " Barack Obama snubs Britain by saying France is his biggest ally"

Picture caption: "BARACK Obama holds out his hand to a delighted Nicolas Sarkozy – after handing out a sensational slap in the face for David Cameron."
o July 26, 2012 at 9:30 a.m.
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o indolawson
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There are certainly many inferences drawn from the reported comments but they are merely inferences, and partisan at that. What is not partisan is that the UK and US do share an Anglo-Saxon heritage, along with Celtic. Without these ethnic groups there would be neither a UK nor a US. One of Mr. Obama’s first acts as president—returning the bust of Winston Churchill—confirmed his less-than-positive attitude towards the UK that was publically revealed in his semi-fictional autobiographies. This being said, what was incorrect regarding the statement being discussed?
o July 27, 2012 at 1:47 p.m.
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