Quit cheapening the term "Racism"

Update 8/30/2010: Reason has discovered this story (although, not from here) while covering DCist. Turns out that the "big fat conservative racist", according to the MSM, is a big fat Democrat donor!

This is the big "controvercial" and 'racist' passage that the left-wing echo chamber is having a fit about. While you are looking at that, you might miss out on a gay/lesbian rumble in a Metro station!

Safety and Mores

DC's population includes refugees from every country, as the families of embassy staffs of third world countries tend to stay in DC whenever a revolution in their homeland means that anyone in their family would be in danger if they went back. Most taxi drivers and many waiters/waitresses (especially in local coffee shops like the Bread and Chocolate chain) are immigrants, frequently from east Africa or Arab countries. As a rule, African immigrants do not like for you to assume they are African Americans and especially do not like for you to guess they are from a neighboring country (e.g. Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia) with whom they may have political or military tensions. It's rare to meet anyone who gets really offended, but you can still be aware of the issue.

Many parts of DC are safe beyond the areas I will list here, but why chance it if you don't know where you are?

If you are on the subway stay on the Red line between Union Station and Shady Grove, Maryland. If you are on the Blue or Orange line do not go past Eastern Market (Capitol Hill) toward the Potomac Avenue stop and beyond; stay in NW DC and points in Virginia. Do not use the Green line or the Yellow line. These rules are even more important at night. There is of course nothing wrong with many other areas; but you don't know where you are, so you should not explore them.

If on foot or in a cab or bus, stay in Bethesda, Arlington (preferably north Arlington), Crystal City, Falls Church, Annandale, or Alexandria, or in DC only in northwest DC west (i.e. larger street numbers) of 14th or 16th streets, or if on Capitol Hill only in SE Capitol Hill (zip 20003) between 1st and 8th Streets, not farther out than 8th (e.g. 9th, 10th etc). (Or stay on the Mall and at the various monuments.) Again there are many other lovely places, from the Catholic University of America to Silver Spring, Maryland. But you don't know where you are so you cannot go, especially at night, unless you take me with you.

All good advice without racism! I travel to DC on a regular basis and stay aware of where I am. One thing with the Green Line.  It is on the same tracks as the Yellow Line part of the time and that might be something the writer was trying to warn people about.  Several times I got on at the Archives to go to Crystal City or Alexandria (King Street or Eisenhower Avenue) thinking I was on the Yellow line, but I was on the Green line and headed for Branch Avenue.  Figured out what I did wrong by the Navy Yard, went back to L'Enfant Plaza and switched to Yellow.

Imagine someone who does not know anything about the area showing up in Anacostia or wandering around the Branch Avenue station? (Linked to a crime reports page).

Suki Series tie: In the first series, DC is a pretty rough town in the 2030's.  Suki gets tickets for smoking in public and prostitution (trumped up!), but Virginia is safe.  In the second series, Crystal City has its own rough neighborhood to avoid.

UPDATE: Since this is getting new traffic in 2012, here is Bill Maher and Progressive Codewords

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Limbagh was on the Maddow Show? Really?

Possibly related to the Ogletree story, but probably not.  This is just getting stupider and stupider.  Stories are getting all sorts of attention without listing sources or implying false ones.  Take a look at Casey Gane-McCalla of NewsOne For Black America

Rush Limbaugh recently discussed Professor Charles Ogletree’s statement on the Rachel Maddow Show which implied that Palin was deriding Obama by referring to him as a Professor. He went into a long discussion about Clarence Thomas and the word “uppity,” before calling Obama “uppity.”

Only one little problem with that.  Limbaugh does not appear on the show's guest list.  Ogletree does, 8 FEB 2009.  What Gane-McCalla is talking about are Limbaugh's comments from Limbaugh's own show and Gane-McCalla misrepresents them too.  Maybe just bad wording?  If you read the above enough and know Limbaugh was not on the Maddow show it reads okay.

Oh, wait, I get it! The Higher Ed story didn't attribute the Rachael Maddow Show with the quotes!  When I was going through that story I was wondering where the quotes came from.  Jack Stripling never mentions.  I had the impression that he had interviewed Professer Ogletree, but then I found out Ogletree had been on the Maddow show.

No, that's not it.

Maddow begins talking to the professor at 7:39, then they mention Palin at 10:17.  No talk of implying professors are uppity.  The talk is about Tancredo's stupid speech calling for literacy tests.

Maybe I missed it on the video.  How about the transcript?  Palin is mentioned twelve times on the page, only ten in the transcript.  Uppity does not appear.  Professor Ogletree speaks about Palin here for a bit:

What‘s important about all of this, Rachel, I think, is that the majority of Americans, black and white, see that this president is trying to do a good job. They‘re not going to play the race-baiting. They‘re not going to—and Sarah Palin on Saturday, I heard her talk about, “We don‘t want a professor of law who talks about the Constitution and rights. We want the commander in chief.


What‘s the difference? Isn‘t the law meaningful? Doesn‘t it mean something? Doesn‘t the Constitution mean something?

I think we need to go back to a 101 constitutional law test or civics test for folks who are going to talk about that, for everybody to understand that we are a society who believes in equal justice under the law, one person, one vote. And if you get more than, more votes than your opponent, you win. It‘s over. Get over it and let‘s move forward.

Still nothing like what Ogltree is implied as saying by Jack Stripling at Inside Higher Ed.

Maddow tosses the racism bomb at Palin here, when chatting with David Weigel:

MADDOW: And I am fired up about the Tom Tancredo call for the return to literacy tests thing, not so much that he would do it because he does stuff like that all the time, but that people would cheer for it. And I guess I see the choose Ron Paul versus choose Sarah Palin test as kind of a litmus test for the politics of the tea party movement. That combined with cheering Tancredo on this, I think, very racist appeal makes me feel the modern tea party movement is an outgrowth of the sort of angry people we saw frustrated during the McCain/Palin campaign, saying un-politically correct things at rallies. Not an outgrowth of the people who had done tea parties before.

So, where is Stripling getting this stuff?

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