Thursday, January 13, 2011
*Target* Market
t’ain’t us
All this bleating about “violent speech” from “Tea Partyers” “supporting” political violence—it isn’t meant to honk off Tea Partyers, or rational people. It may do so, but that’s a bug gravy. It’s meant to motivate someone else.
Zombie reports: At the Oakland CA candlelight vigil “for Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and other victims of violence." Co-sponsored by Cal Berkeley Democrats, Courage Campaign, CREDO Action, the city of Alameda Democratic Club, East Bay Democracy for America, NWPC-AN, South County Young Democrats and the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club, Jonathan Bair, of the East Bay Young Democrats said “it is ‘a nonpartisan event’ and also will include clergy and other community leaders.”
This is part of the keynote speech by Roy Wilson, Program Director of Oakland’s Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center:
[video here
“Dr. King enters this struggle boldly. He says, ‘Violence anywhere is a threat to violence everywhere. An injustice anywhere, is a threat to injustice everywhere. Rhetoric inciting violence anywhere, is a call to rhetoric to incite violence everywhere.’
Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, others in the Tea Party trend, claim that political events tied to violence and rhetoric tied to violence are not causing the division in our nation.
Tens of thousands of African-Americans have been lynched in a sea of rhetoric dripping with racist blood. Workers have been shot down on the picket line, drummed under by the rhetoric of mis-accusations. Students have been shot down protesting for peace under the rhetoric of unamericanism. Tens of thousands of Native Americans have been annihilated under the rhetoric of White American exceptionalism.
We have to act.
Dr. King says that ‘Courage is the ability to go forward in spite of frightening situations. Cowardness’ he says, ‘is a submissive surrender to circumstance.’
We’re asking everyone to ask all of our elected officials at the municipal level, the county level, the state level, the federal government, to pass laws that prohibit the use of rhetoric and actions and campaigns that incite violence.
We ask that we all go back to our organizations of faith, our unions, our schools, our high schools, our middle schools, our elementary schools, and create statements demanding that there be communication and debate based on love, based on peace, based on community, based on a stronger democracy.
Now, we have to be courageous because some of may say that’s just not enough, or why, that might not make a difference. Remember, words make a difference. I’ve just asked all of us to do some things and put words in the public, put words with the official seal of our government, put words under the titles of our schools, that say “We are family.”
[bold emphasis in original—paragraphs and italics added by me for clarity and ease of reading—e~C]
That seems key; that phrase: “We have to act.”
If anyone actually believed that “Tens of thousands of African-Americans have been lynched in a sea of rhetoric dripping with racist blood,” they would be completely irresponsible as a human being if they did not act. “Tens of thousands of” people “lynched”?!? What the hell kind of animal would not “act” to stop such a horror?!
The only problem is that, by most glooogled reckonings, lynchings of black people numbered under 3,500 and took place over 100 years ago. [I don’t think Beck’s or Palin’s parents were born yet] What kind of act do you recommend?
But this fellow apparently believes that “Tens of thousands of African-Americans have been lynched in a sea of rhetoric dripping with racist blood.” And he wants those listening to him to believe it. And then he urges them to “act.”
The specific act he names is “demanding” [on penalty of what, he does not say] laws “that prohibit the use of rhetoric and actions and campaigns that incite violence.” Calling for the prohibition of “rhetoric,” or “the art of influencing the thought and conduct of an audience,” by citing “Tens of thousands of African-Americans have been lynched in a sea of rhetoric dripping with racist blood,” kinda begs the question.
Ok—I see this guy is clearly inadequate to the task of leading anyone to the local coffee shop; but in Oakland he has risen to the post of Program Director of Oakland’s Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center, an important post in the mostly black Oakland area. People would understandable listen to the Program Director of Oakland’s Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center. So would the local TV coverage. Until they actually heard him…
...note carefully what happens at exactly 1:20 in the video. You’ll notice that the lights which had been illuminating Roy Wilson are suddenly turned off, right when it becomes obvious that he’s going to continue his inappropriate political rant. What you’re seeing at that moment is a TV camera crew, which had been filming Roy Wilson’s speech for possible use as a soundbite in that evening’s news broadcast, realizing that the guy was going off-message — so they simply switched off the camera’s photo lights and stopped filming him...
Zombie—always worth your time.
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