Today At Big Think: This Summer I Became Addicted To The Wire

Today's topic at my blog "Resurgence" on BigThink.com:


This Summer I Became Addicted To The Wire

I became addicted to The Wire.

I know, I 'm late to the party. Very late, since the final episode aired over two years ago. But over the last few weeks I spent more time in front of the TV screen than I normally do in six months. This HBO drama that first aired ten years ago before airing its final season in 2006 has been on my list of shows to watch ever since I saw the video “100 Greatest Quotes From The Wire” on Youtube back in the spring. The hot weather, combined with a certain reluctance to sit in front of a keyboard lately, made watching one show after another a seductive proposition.

I started by watching the fourth season, which was a very compelling mix of crime, politicians, corruption, and campaign trail shenanigans that made for a full bodied story. The race between Carcetti and Royce to be the next mayor of Baltimore seemed to mirror in many ways the political climate in Atlanta, another city with an unending line of black mayors for the last thirty years whose string of victories looked like they were about to come to an end last year. It wasn’t apparent until I went back and began to watch the series from the beginning that I understood how crucial the mayor’s race and its attendant ripples throughout the city’s administration was to stoking my interest in this critically acclaimed program.



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AverageBro Gives Above Average Report On Beckapalooza Rally In D.C.

My man AverageBro outdid the media this weekend with "What Happens When A Liberal Black Man Goes To Glenn Beck's 'I Have A Dream, Too' Speech?!?" his take on the "Restoring Honor" rally Glenn Beck held in D.C. on Saturday. His "black man on the scene" pieces are some of his best work, combining a no nonsense format with pithy commentary and an abundance of photo links so well you feel like you were at the event yourself.

Common sense would tell you a liberal black man has no business at a Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin rally. And that's exactly why I went. Here are my random observations, with lots and lots of photos.

AverageBro

I watched some of the rally on TV myself, and have already put my two cents in over at Big Think on how Glenn Beck failure to be King for a day. The worst thing in the world, if you are trying to watch an event where the main activity is speaking, is attempting to watch this on a talking head channel, where the reporters try to tell you what the person is saying WHILE THEY ARE SAYING IT behind them on the screen. C-Span is the only way to go on these things, which makes AverageBro's account all the more valuable.

He chronicled the crowd size better than any TV anchor:

As much as I dislike everything these folks stand for, there's no need to knock the crowd size. Beck brought em' out. The Mall was relatively packed from the Lincoln Memorial to the WW2 Memorial. This was impressive, and I overheard quite a few people saying "this is more than Obama got". That's obviously silly. The inauguration crowd was probably 10 times bigger at least, stretching from the US Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial and beyond. I was there, I know. Still, getting 150,000 (my guesstimate, not scientifically proven) people to show up for lousy speeches on an 90 degree day is impressive nonetheless. Heck, I showed up, so I can't talk. CBS says 87,000 people showed up. I'll take their word for it.

Gave a realistic idea of the number of black people in attendance:

...if you ask me to count the number of blacks who appeared to be there specifically to partake in the rally itself, the number was pretty meager. Seriously. And I walked around probably 2/3 of the Mall/event area over the course of my 5 hours out there. Trust me, I was looking and counting like this post depended on it. If I've gotta give you a total number, I'd guess less than 100. There were probably more blacks onstage singing and giving speeches than in the crowd itself.

And provided an intimate description of the atmosphere:

Every now and then some guy would walk over and pat me on the back (as if to say "See, we welcome black folks too! The Tea Party isn't racist!) out of nowhere, which felt strangely condescending. I got random smiles from others. I also got my fair share of paranoid "Is he an infiltrator" looks, especially when I was taking photos. Just for sh*ts and giggles, I also sometimes passed myself off as a Beck supporter, an was able to get good photos of some truly ignorant t-shirts. But I was mostly just ignored.

Between this "man on the scene" account, and the "#beck" twitter feed, it was like D.C. had come to my kitchen table right here in the ATL.

"Not All Crackers Are Saltines": The Top 25 Beckapalooza Tweets

I was supposed to post these tweets I culled from the "#Beck" tweet stream during Beckapalooza in D.C. yesterday, but day old tweets should still be okay, especially when they are this funny.

I guess I'm not a real Twitterer, since I've never sent a tweet from my phone, but the only way I can make any sense of it all is by using Tweetdeck on my laptop, where everything is nice and big so I can see it.

In any case, out of all the tweets that were distinctive enough for me to retweet on Saturday, these are my choices for top 25 tweets and retweets. I'm sure somebody smarter than me could track down the original tweeters of the retweets easily enough, but that skill isn't in my Twitter toolbag yet.

Enjoy.


Fake_Dispatch
BREAKING: Glenn Beck claims another "complete coincidence" after announcing next speech to be from hotel balcony on April 4th in Memphis,TN.

JamieKaler
Glenn Beck is like the lottery for people with no hope. He's going to get ridiculously rich and they have no chance of winning.

drjettt
RT @DangerGuerrero Like MLK, Glenn Beck has also been to the mountaintop. And he'd like to thank Cash4Gold for that sweet ski trip.

timmcguire
Am galled by Glenn Beck telling people to "turn back to God" when a few months ago he mocked Social justice. See Sermon on the Mount pal.

thecajunboy
I'm not saying that Glenn Beck's the antichrist, but he is a charismatic speaker who's risen from obscurity to call for a new era to begin.

ivywriter
People accuse Black people of always keeping race at the forefront, and why? Because of people like Glenn Beck and The Tea Party.

Remroum
Breaking: Glenn Beck says Martin Luther King was actually white, just like Jesus #NotReally

PRTandWiseline
#inews9k BREAKING: Beck followers in post-rally uproar - Nordstrom refuses to take back America without sales receipt

peterdaou
Next scheduled Beck rally includes Ann Coulter as Rosa Parks, Limbaugh as Mother Teresa, Hannity as Ghandi and Dan Quayle as Einstein

devbost
Glenn Beck called Obama a racist with a "deep-seated hatred for white people." If this were 1965, he'd be saying that about Dr. King.

isaacezekiel
RT @rolandsmartin: I can't wait for the next wristbands. Forget WWJD - What Would Jesus Do. It's now WWBD - What Would Beck Do.

SupermanHotMale
RT @ryandpaul Since Glenn Beck is basically Moses now, will he and his followers now go get lost in the wilderness for 40 years?

MichaelClear
Only thing Glenn Beck accomplished was that, for the first time in decades, Washington D.C.'s population had a white majority.

steveweinstein
Goldline just sent an angry memo to Beck: It's Goldline, you idiot. Not Godline!

BrentButt
Glenn Beck tells the truth the same way a carnival barker does. Only louder. And with more spitting.

EzKool
At the Beck's rally, they applaud charity today, then discourages it tomorrow.

TiffaniPatrice
To all of the Glenn Beck ralliers who gave me dirty looks on the train...bless you!

seanhussey
Except for King and Beck both being African American, I fail to see the parallels between their marc--wait, what?

Fake_Dispatch
BREAKING: U.S. National Park Service will be strapping down the Lincoln statue so that it doesn't get up & walk off during Glenn Beck rally.

DownYonderFLA
RT @floridajewel: RT @Marnus3: I seemed to have missed the Latino delegation at the Beck Rally for Dollars.

SamSeder
Hard to say % of black folk attending Beck rally w/o knowing total crowd size but i'd put it between .00001% and .00000001%

TryceCzy
Not all crackers are saltines. Some of us have substance. I honor King today, & am disgusted with Beck.

voraciousbunny
Glenn Beck Rally sponsored by Rascal Scooters. We work with socialist Medicare to get you the mobility to protest the black president.

j_spencer
Anybody else think the Glenn Beck rally is just the biggest #whitewhine ever?

donjx@ProfMTH
Beck is the Farrakhan of white people.

 

 

Today At Big Think: Glenn Beck Tries To Be King For A Day

Today's topic at my blog "Resurgence" on BigThink.com:


Glenn Beck Tries To Be King For A Day

Glenn Beck’s appeal is that he makes it all look so easy.

I mean, all you have to do is wave your American flag, pledge allegiance to God (the white version), bake in the sun for a few hours, and you are on your way to redemption, free at last, free at last from the reluctant acceptance of any lingering guilt about your complicity in this whole racial inequality mess, because by golly, you were the ones who really began the civil rights movement, and you were the ones who have been measuring people, not by the color of their skins but by the content of their character all these years, and…

…except the reality is, you probably would have had nothing to do with the civil rights movement, not if you are the kind of person who can praise Martin Luther King Jr. in one breath and demonize Barack Hussein Obama Jr. in the next, the way your fearless leader does on his radio and TV shows.



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If Standing Up For Muslims Is Wrong, I Don't Want To Be Right

Somebody is going to be killed.

This somebody, named Ahmed H. Sharif, was almost killed by a man who asked "are you a Muslim?"

The ugliest thing about this whole incident, the thing that makes me understand even more why Emmett Till's mother wanted the world to see how her son had been savaged, is how little attention it is getting from the press, as if we are characters in a Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, in that famous scene I have never liked, debating whether or not there is a "dead Muslim storage" sign on the lawn instead of the phrase "dead nigger storage" that was used in the movie.

Is the entire country just looking the other way?

I rummaged through the front pages and the op-ed pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Chicago Sun-Times, The L.A. Times, and found nothing, nothing at all, not a damn word on Ahmed H. Sharif and this human travesty, just thousands of words speculating on the outcome of the fall elections, as if knowing their outcome two months early really matters.

My man over at Alias Bruce put it about as good as it could be said:

72% of Americans don't think it's appropriate to build an Islamic Center and mosque
two blocks from Ground Zero, a CBS poll shows.


This is horrifying, and it naturally leads to such questions as, "Should Americans be allowed to reproduce without international supervision?"


The stabbing of a Muslim cabbie, allegedly by a white man who asked the man's religion before attacking him, underlines the atrocity. And understand me: this is not just about addle-brained white Americans. As an African American, I have heard downright wicked remarks about Muslims out of the mouths of black people, including one of my own late relatives.


alias Bruce

Michael Enright

I don't know if the perpetrator's background didn't fit into the narrative the media needs to sell, because he wasn't wearing Tea Party underwear or wasn't a member of a white supremacy group, or because that tuft of blond hair reminded many of our fair haired political pundits and social commentators of their own drunken frat boy days. Whether he had liberal leanings or associations, is a member of the Green Party, or an avowed atheist, none of which would matter, even if they were true, this is still wrong.

Killing a man who is driving a fucking taxi cab for being a Muslim, as much as it reflects the perverted reality of America's long history of racial atrocities against minority groups, is not what America and Americans need to stoop to accepting, not after the long way we have come these last fifty years.

Mr. Enright, consider THIS a checkpoint - a checkpoint for the kind of backwards assed thinking that has got your ass in handcuffs right now.

As for the media, what will it take to get their heads out of their asses and write about shit that matters? Do two Muslims have to be attacked at the same time? Three? Four?

Should the next victim be a pregnant Muslim woman?

A Muslim who is an Iraqi war veteran, who came back home alive only to die at the hands of a fellow citizen?

Or maybe I haven't hit upon the narrative that your editors have posted on their wall, the one determines how much blood and gore a story about minorities has to have to equal a story on Lindsay Lohan's latest whereabouts.

All I can say is, if standing up for Muslims, especially Muslims who are here in America, is wrong, then I don't want to be right.

 

Today At Big Think: David Koch Is Tea Party's Sugar Daddy

Today's topic at my blog "Resurgence" on BigThink.com:


David Koch Is Tea Party's Sugar Daddy

I guess the New Yorker is still trying to redeem itself for the notorious “The Politics Of Fear” cartoon cover during the 2008 presidential primary that depicted Barack Obama in Muslim garb. "Covert Operations", an extensively researched article in this week’s magazine about the infamous Koch brothers and the hundreds of millions they have shoveled into political organizations, including big bucks to prop up the Tea Party brand, goes a long way towards making up for a transgression I saw as unforgivable two years ago.

A Republican campaign consultant who has done research on behalf of Charles and David Koch said of the Tea Party, “The Koch brothers gave the money that founded it. It’s like they put the seeds in the ground. Then the rainstorm comes, and the frogs come out of the mud—and they’re our candidates!”

Covert Operations – The New Yorker

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NYC Mosque Protestors Mistake Black Construction Worker For Muslim

Somebody is going to get killed.

Somebody is going to die because of these angry mobs of people who gather around to hate the minority Flavor Of The Week.

The still wet behind the ears Kyle Wingfield of the Atlanta Journal & Constitution, who is supposed to represent views the new and improved under forty version of the political right still has my eyes stretched wide over his comment last week that asserted, without a trace of irony, "The American, having been put through endless sensitivity training over the past few decades..."

Well guess what, Mr. Wingfield?

You need to get used to all the sensitivity training you can imagine plus ten percent, because it is the new way, and the only way things are going to be from now until the end of time.

I am not a second class citizen, and the people who come here legally are not going to be second class citizens, not for one second, and certainly not so your mothefucking ass can get back to passing out at UGA football games, or whatever it is political pundits who are too lazy or uninformed to understand and accept the basic principles we send people overseas to die for do when they aren't wasting good column space a real writer could be using.

It will be too late to say "I'm sorry" when people start getting killed because everybody with a public voice chooses to indulge their own protean fantasies about the way things used to be.

I'll take two illegal immigrants coming over the border in exchange for the deportation of every dumbass American citizen waving a sign demonizing Muslims.

And for public idiots like Mr. Wingfield, I'll take a whole INS busload of illegal immigrants for every one of their addled asses that is permanently ejected from the country.