I read Dan Riehl’s latest ‘tiny violins’ post and laughed right out loud. It pairs nicely with this video (which you should play while you read the below excerpt):
lgf blogger Charles Johnson has finally made it fully into the arms of the left with his post attacking me, which gives him enough links and attention to result in this.
What’s sad is how willing Johnson has been to throw away everything he seemed to once understand about the media and turn on so many once friends to do it. Worse is the race-based ignorance of so many blacks I’m seeing in attacking me, when they should be criticizing the media, instead.
~snip~
Johnson, the many progressives and now many blacks who have been attacking me over it are being played and they don’t even know it. If anything, blacks especially should feel insulted and upset at the media, including the AP – not me. My whole point questions their judgement and worldview, not Trayvon Martin’s, or Zimmerman’s.
By seeming to prefer using a lighter image of Martin to further fuel the story line that he was a total innocent in the encounter and Zimmerman is guilty before all the facts are clear, my concern is that they feel that making Martin look less black in the eyes of the their readers, somehow makes him look less guilty of something.
Every post I’ve done on the shooting has been focused on the media’s handling of the incident, not what may, or may not have happened on the street in Florida. I have no way of knowing that. But rather than see the potential for racism in the media’s judgment (lighter = better, darker = worse), for a now unhinged blogger like Johnson, progressives and many blacks, it seems easier to focus their anger and hate on a white conservative with a blog. Worse, my link to the late Andrew Bretbart makes it a trifecta for them. It’s especially sad in Johnson’s case, as he once understood what blogging was all about, along with the various games played by the mainstream media.
As for the many blacks attacking me, when it’s actually the media, including the AP, who appears to be saying to them, lighter is better, while darker is bad, and they aren’t even able to see that, the pre-judgment and ignorance on display is just sad. [Dan, the AP is using the original photo. The photo which you think makes Trayvon look guiltier is not the original photo. Stop being stupid. -ed.]
As I Tweeted last night in response to so may Tweets like these below, ultimately, if anything, this whole affair only re-affirms my loathing of the race baiters like Jackson, Sharpton, Farrakhan – and now, even Obama.
~snip~
Said leaders, I use the term loosely, seem only interested in fueling outrage and a mob mentality for political gain. It’s sad to see so many black Americans still falling for it after so many decades. Their minds haven’t been freed, all that’s changed is the owners of the plantation. Too many would be black leaders are too happy to lead them down a path through a cotton field of ignorance and hate ending at the ballot box, before just going on and on with no real end in sight.
Ah yes… the cotton field of ignorance. That’s my favorite cotton field. I once walked the path through the cotton field of ignorance. I was startled when I got to the Reverse Racism Roundabout. You see that’s where all the white folks who are being unfairly accused of being Racist turn around and accuse black people of being The Real Racists™. I don’t know how it happens — it’s some sort of rift in the fabric of race and time. We’re still looking into it.
Now you’re probably asking yourself, why I would allow myself to be led down Cotton Field Lane by race-baiting black leaders like Al Sharpton and President Obama? Well, what had happened was, I had heard a story that there’s a grape drank fountain of youth in the cotton field of ignorance. Grape Drank is my kryptonite.
All jokes aside, Dan Riehl is aggressively stupid.
(h/t TBogg)
[via Aggressively Stupid Person’s Blog]
[cross-posted at ABLC]
Bago
The kind of idiot that thinks you can up-res (made up word because it doesn’t really work on a single photo) the photo…
Brian S
Dan Riehl, Larry Pratt and the Sanford Police Chief should be put into a burlap bag with a cat, a rooster and a snake and dumped into the Tiber. It would take a big bag, but it would be worth it.
dp
Typical wingnut attitude: The only people capable of racism are black people. What was it Jesus said about the mote in your neighbor’s eye?
Joey Maloney
I thought this Riehl creature was one of those pious Christians that so prized civility and brotherly love. Nothing says Christian love like accusing people who disagree with you of having tertiary syphilis.
Oh, and nothing says “dumbass” like misspelling “syphilis”.
Steve
It’s always breathtaking to watch stupid people insist that it’s actually everyone else who is stupid.
Jeff Spender
People like this are endemic in the conservative movement, and I have seen shit like this before.
Why, then, does it still hit me so profoundly? The levels of cognitive dissonance and pure ignorance are breathtaking. In a decent world, people like Riehl would be held up as examples of people who lack the ability to think critically.
Also, in a decent world, Mass Effect 3’s ending wouldn’t suck. Such is life.
gnomedad
Riehl works tirelessly to enlighten Black people, and what thanks does he get?
jp7505a
Amazing how the white guy can read the minds of what 20-30 million afican-americans. Wonder that his head doesn’t explode!!
Frankensteinbeck
Okay, I think I see the logic. You have to start with the belief that only conscious ‘I hate black people’ attitudes are actual racism. Subtle racism doesn’t exist. You may or may not go a step further back and start with the belief that the conservative CANNOT be racist, which is why only conscious, specific hatred of blacks is racist. Once you’re there, anyone who brings up race as an issue in any issue where no one confesses ‘I shot him because he was black.’ MUST be the racist. It’s the only logical motivation for bringing up race all the time!
It fits pretty well into conservative reasoning and morality overall. Absolutely superficial, what you consciously think must be reality.
Citizen_X
Ah, the cotton field of ignorance: is that right next to the watermelon patch of welfare dependency, behind the fried chicken stand of reverse racism?
Keep digging, Dan.
PS: can we celebrate the redesign by adding “the cotton field of ignorance” to our rotating tag lines? (At least, that’s the excuse I’m using.)
FlipYrWhig
@Brian S: It wouldn’t take that big a bag if you folded hard enough.
Kristin
Uh, Dan? The only person who suggested that “lighter skin = more innocent” was you.
He projected his belief onto the pictures, used that to make an assumption about what the media had done and is now claiming that the result is a “fact” which he merely reported. The head, it spins.
Of course, this is a guy who spells kids “kidz” on Twitter, but wants to be seen as serious. I can barely believe he is real.
wrb
@Bago:
You can actually. It is amazing technology. When
it first came out I remember reading a discussion
of how it works which I can’t remember clearly but it had
something to do with NASA or DOD research, waves
and fractals.
http://www.fixerlabs.com/EN/upsize/sizefixer.htm
ellennelle
@Kristin: @Kristin:
kristin, i made the same point just now in that earlier thread (oh yeah, slow on sunday):
not sure about the timing, but whatevah – great minds think alike.
;-)
Mr Stagger Lee
Ah LAWDY LAWDY, Tank you Mr Dan, for freeings mah mind from those Slave catching Gun Men like Sharpton, Jackson. and that cruel Oberseer Obama. Oh Lawdy I’m free from the chains of MSNBC and from the Plantation Owner Big Massa. ED and his mistress Mizz Rachell. Tank you MR.Dan Tank you ghost of Uncle Andy Breitbart now Breaking bread with Moses and Abe Linkun. Fox News mah new untergroun railroad!
(Snark do not try this at home)
Kristin
@ellennelle:
I think it’s just a “great minds” moment, as I hadn’t read the other thread. :)
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
I got in a fight on the Reverse Racism Roundabout, when I confused the racists by pointing out that they were the real racists. they couldn’t understand why a white folk would say that, and tried to scrub my skin because they were sure I was really black. It went downhill from there.
scav
Just over in the corner giggling to myself that by this criteria, then some of the worst racist literature I’ve ever seen are newspapers and newsletters from Nigeria produced by and for Nigerians by still more Nigerians that figured that if they had access to photo manipulation tools then, by Ogun, they would get their full Naira’s worth of random manipulation out of them.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
@Frankensteinbeck:
ah yes, when people apply the concept of plausible deniability to themselves and their actiions.
hey i wasn’t thinking that these mortgages derivatives were a big bag of shit i was thinking sell sell sell.
therefore i couldn’t have known they were a big bag of shit.
i blame john grisham, he lawyered up the subconscious of america.
lamh35
I posted this in the previous thread, but I think it fits here better.
Ugh,
There’s a line in a Family Guy episode, where Stewie offere a toast and says “to the black man for taking it all in stride”.
This case is exposing the racist among us much more than even the election of Obama ever did.
Good Lord. I tell ya what, certain parts of the population should be really glad that there isn’t more “race war” lashing out than there could be.
This case hits way close to home for me. I have a 12 year old nephew, a 15 year old godson, beaucoup Black male cousins, uncles, etc that everytime I think about this case, I see their faces.
It’s really getting to the point where I just have to daily get away from reading ANY thing more about this case.
I’m not really one to shy away from discussing stuff with friends, white or Black, but this case I’m sorry to say has me not even willing to bring up the case to my more conservative white friends, cause i kid ya not, I consider some of these people nicest people I work with, but I swear to God that if I brought up this case and any of them bought into the RW framing of this case…the anger that I feel is just simmering at the surface, and I may just blow up at them.
So I just don’t bring it up.
ellennelle
@Kristin:
no doubt; i mean, we’re both stating the obvious, right?
what a colossal catastrophe this is, all this nastiness about a dead young kid. but i do hope something good will come of it. exposure of all this surging racism is certainly a start.
SIA
I checked out commenter Rome Again’s site and found (s)he highlighting two atrocious cartoons. This shit just does not stop. I think that’s how the racists and wingers so often win. They just wear everyone the fuck out. (good catch RA).
Patricia Kayden
@Mr Stagger Lee: BEST COMMENT EVER!
Iam not going to waste time reading Danny Boy’s post, as I can figure out what a Rightwinger is going to say from what they always say. No surprises.
I’m just wondering what’s taking the police so long to arrest and charge Zimmerman.
Mayken
@Brian S: That would be unfair to the cat, rooster and snake.
ellennelle
@lamh35:
my favorite reply to wingnutty comments is this:
my, how profoundly – christian of you.
when they then squawk and squirm, it’s easy to just shake your head in pity as they continue to make your point.
fasteddie9318
Remember, if you’re going for a walk in the Cotton Field of Ignorance, please pack a snack for the trip. I recommend the Fried Chicken of Existential Despair, or the Collard Greens of Hapless Remonstration. If you’re in the mood for sweets, try the Sweet Potato Pie of Abject Terror.
ABL 2.0
@fasteddie9318: win.
Spaghetti Lee
This happens so often it’s almost a cliche, some rightblogger popping off with “why don’t those stupid lazy n***ers see that we conservatives are their real friends? Guess they’re just too stupid and lazy to vote in their self-interest.” But it still astounds me. Do they not hear the words coming out of their own mouth?
But hey, rightbloggers, here’s a friendly tip, non gratis: If you don’t want people to call you racist, a good place to start would be not immediately squealing like stuck pigs about how you’re the real victims and how mean old President Obama and Al f’cking Sharpton (seriously, aren’t there any new bogeymen in the last 30 years?) are so mean to you, in the aftermath of a white man shooting an unarmed black kid to death. Maybe try not making every fucking thing in the world about you and your precious hurt feelings, and maybe realize that the bullshit you see in every right-wing blog has real world effects, like this, instead of running and hiding. That would be a great start.
erlking
A “rift in the fabric of race and time.” I love this line so much I want to steal a spaceship with a faster-than-light drive and plunge into a black hole–where else?–and carry it through to an alternate racetime, where it can be my queen.
Felanius Kootea
@gnomedad:
I know right? Here he is trying to get us Black folks to see that lighter images equal pictures of innocence and we’re all like “Dan Riehl has a truly fucked up and bigoted mind” when it’s really the media who took a photo of a poster and … um … what was he talking about again?
@scav: Hey, leave Ogun out of this. He happens to be my favorite deity.
double nickel
Guns don’t kill people, hoodies kill people.
Chris
Racist news alert: Iraqi woman beaten in her California home dies.
It happened last Wednesday and her body was found with a “go back to your country you terrorist” note next to it. Sorry if anyone linked to it previously, but it’s the first I hear about it and thought it was worth posting here.
Frankensteinbeck
@Chris:
Ugh. Just ugh.
Ben Cisco
@fasteddie9318: But you simply MUST include the Chitlins of Morose Acceptance as well as the Cornbread of Endless Sorrow.
the Conster (f/k/a Cat Lady)
@Kristin:
These people project so much it’s amazing they don’t walk around with a movie rating on their face. So, I can only guess that Riehl also has syphilis (which would explain a lot actually). It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
fasteddie9318
@Chris: Sounds like an obvious case of self-defense, unless you’re one of those racist people who make everything about race.
Donut
I can’t even bring myself to wish Riehl would die in a fire. That is too good an end for such a useless piece of shit like him. I am so angry and sick of this constant stream of racist bile from these people. They will never accept democratic (sic) ideals. They are awful. Less than human. I don’t want to live in the same country as these people. Can they just go away now?
Nikta
This is not merely stupid. This is industrial-grade stupid.
handy
Who is this moron and why are people paying any attention to him?
Donut
@lamh35:
You are saying what I’m thinking. I mean, minus the part about having nephews and god sons who could be Trayvon. I’m not black, but am not white, either, but beside that point, I look at my kids and think how would I feel if Trayvon were my little boy, and I just feel so sad and angry, on a basic human level. I don’t understand how people can react so flippantly or try to actually flip this around and say black folks are some how the problem here, or hey, maybe the kid had it coming for some reason. I just can’t wrap my head around that right now. But certainly I appreciate seeing the racists exposed now. It’s just going to get more intense as the year goes on. I have expected that, but what a tragedy that a kid like Martin has to be the focal point, rather than an adult who is alive and kicking. So unfair to his family to have this burden, too. Ah, fuck it, this whole thing is just so awful. I don’t know what to say or what language to use to express myself any longer.
60th Street
Whoa. A new Juice! Does this mean no more mobile theme headaches?
Also, too, “grape drank fountain of youth” made me LOL.
I know I’ll probably regret saying this, and be proven wrong in about five seconds, but I seriously think right wing crazies defending George Zimmerman in all the unabashedly stupid ways I’ve seen today might just be PeakWingnut™. It might just be.
That is, aside from calling 9-1-1 in every second of your spare time and literally capping that off by actually hunting and killing an unarmed black teenager and calling him a “fucking c**n” while you’re on the phone with 9-1-1 dispatch.
Donut
@60th Street:
Wish it were so that Peak Wingnut has arrived, but the President is a black man and they just cannot fucking deal with it. It will not let up during this election year. No way. It’s getting worse all the time, IMO.
greenergood
Proofreader OCD attack: you are not ‘lead’ down a path, you are ‘led’ down a path; you can ‘lead’ someone else down a path. Now I will go back and read everything else on this post – it’s just one of those days …
Chris
@60th Street:
It seems to be the policy of most Balloon Juicers to regard Peak Wingnut as a myth and/or an unachievable goal that, like perfection, mere humans can strive for but never attain.
Wingnuts will never cease to be crazy. It’s possible, however, that the amount of the population that’s offended by their nuttiness will grow to a point where their nuttiness will become irrelevant. But that remains to be seen.
Ash Can
It’s actually pretty entertaining to read the ravings of Charles Johnson’s former RW colleagues that he highlights on LGF. We all know that the wingnuts flipped their shit when Obama was elected, but they also flip their shit something fierce over people who see the light and turn on them. I mean really, some of these people clearly need to be on meds.
Julia Grey
Applause.
Chris
@Ash Can:
I remember when he was not “a,” but the voice of Islamophobia in the wingnut blogosphere: the guy all the other wingnuts would link to when trying to prove to me the ultimate eebil that was Islam, the kind of guy who inspired Andrew Breivik, the kind of guy who could take that murder story I linked to above and turn the victim into the culprit while lecturing us about how all the real terrorists were Muslim and if we paid any attention to the victim we were providing aid and comfort to the enemy.
Losing Charles Johnson wasn’t just losing some two-bit blogger: this guy was a star in his day. No wonder they’re so sore at him.
Ferd of the Nort
The parade of stupid could have been short circuited by Mr. Riehl simply actually reading Mr. Johnson’s post.
Mr. Riehl GOT IT WRONG. The lighter photo WAS the original. To simply compound the error with vile accusations of pedophilia and this, ummm… cotton fields thing. Well. Indeedy.
My mother always said, “Never get angry. Get polite.”. She would get very very polite and very slow as she would explain the error in excruciating detail so very slowly.
I believe that some-one needs to be very slow and polite with Mr. Riehl. Very, very.
Steve
@Ferd of the Nort: The eternal liberal fallacy is that they would surely come around to our point of view if we explained ourselves a little better. You’re dealing with someone who very aggressively refuses to understand.
Ferd of the Nort
@Steve: No sir. I am recalling a mother who was often so very polite it screamed in tones louder than rage. Polite condescension , slow speaking for the hard of thinking.
One does not rage in the face of a ragegasm. One simply is amused. And polite. As they become spent, for all -asms are relatively short though intense, one can interject a few polite words.
It is not for THEIR benefit of course. They do so want the audience.
It is an art that I wish I could perfect. And express. Sadly, I must deal with “stakeholders” (not, by the way, assistant vampire hunters, regardless of what your mental image might suggest). I must remain affable and approachable in the face of awesome stupidity. I must not comment very aggressively on the “natural state of blacks and latinos as criminals”, lest I be accused of developing a pre-judgement against an employer.
One does not wish to convert the truly stupid. Then one must be responsible for educating them. One wishes to publicly RIDICULE them. Then the audience can truly understand the depths of imbecility being paraded before you.
Calling Mr. Riehl a names does not illuminate. I would point out his remarkable allegorical skills on using imagery as evacuative to black people as “cotton fields of ignorance”.
His exacts words are stunningly evocative when simply highlighted as individual excerpts. One needs no excess verbiage. Such as:
“fueling outrage and a mob mentality” would that be equivalent to a “lynching”
“all that’s changed is the owners of the plantation.” since mob mentality and outrage was such a common feature of the plantation life…
“the race-based ignorance of so many blacks”, since of course they are…
“my loathing of the race baiters”, which is why he does it?
It is a remarkable bravura performance of high speed pirouettes into a leaky septic field. A verbal reverse peristalsis of projectile proportions.
El Cid
I got lost heading out of the tobacco field of insolence when I was trying to get to the magnolia grove of disrespect, which is supposed to be about a mile down from the briar patch of lunacy.
rikyrah
they think somebody is playing with them.
NOBODY is playing with them.
jenn
Ha! From LGF:
__
ABL tweets:
“Leading you down the path through the Cottonfield of Ignorance.” is now a rotating tagline. Thank you, @DanRiehl! #p2 #TFY #ABLC
__
DanRiehl responds:
DanRiehl @DanRiehl
__
@AngryBlackLady You’re welcome. Perhaps a few brave, independent souls will get it. Been sad watching the manipulation ovr the years
__
Oh my goodness. ABL’s snark just whooshed right over that bastard’s head! :-)
Liberty60
Y’know, I actually did play the yakety sax tune while reading, and it does make it go down better.
Although my personal pairing would be “They’re Coming To Take Me Away (Ha Ha)
Steve
It’s certainly not impossible for people to be tricked into voting against their own interests. But to believe that over 90% of an entire race of people has been tricked into voting against their own interests… man, you must think that’s one stupid race of people if that’s what you believe.
Gus diZerega
@Brian S: What do you have against cats, roosters, and snakes? All are honorable animals that do the best they can, unlike the humans you want to curse them with as they die.