“In some cases, such as the bitter infighting between McCain aides and Palin, the book adds detail to what long ago leaked to the press. Former McCain advisers Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace, who obviously served as sources, found that Palin’s “concept of rudimentary facts and concepts was minimal. Palin couldn’t explain why North and South Korea were separate nations. She didn’t know what the Fed did.” In a screaming match after the disastrous Katie Couric interview, “Wallace could barely fathom Palin’s hissy fit.” But is it fair to cite unnamed aides as wondering if Palin “was mentally unstable”?”
Actually there’s no need of anonymous aides when it’s painfully obvious that the party in question is at best “Low Normal.”
But it’s against the law for “Mainstream” journalists to speak ill of Republicans, or truly analyze the party from whence they came.
However when it comes to Democrats. . .
“The reporting on John and Elizabeth Edwards provides the starkest contrast between public smiles and private hell. The book depicts the former senator as a self-absorbed egomaniac who fired a staffer for questioning whether he was having an affair with videographer Rielle Hunter. And the authors are especially harsh on what they call “the lie of Saint Elizabeth,” saying the candidate’s cancer-stricken wife was seen by insiders as “an abusive, intrusive, paranoid, condescending crazywoman.” They describe her as ridiculing John as a “hick” and, in a scene in an airport parking lot, tearing off her blouse and wailing to her husband, “Look at me!”
Either journalists were unaware of this backstage animosity or some of them, sympathetic to the ailing Elizabeth, looked the other way.”
Heaven forfend anyone show sympathy to a woman with terminal cancer! Especially one with a husband whose adultery ruined his chances for the Presidency — adultery being far more important that the wars in Iraq and Afganistan, the earthquake in Haiti, global warming, poverty, unemployment, AIDS, et.al.
And there’s no doubt they’ll look the other way when it comes to curling irons.
“Skin color among African Americans is not to be discussed in polite company, so Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s newly disclosed remark about President Obama — that voters are more comfortable with him because he’s light-skinned — offended decorum. But it was surely true.”
As indeed it was and is.
“Color bias has always existed in this country. We don’t talk about it because we think of color as subordinate to racial identification. There are African Americans with skin so light-hued that only contextual clues speak to the question of race. I remember once looking up some distant cousins on my father’s side. They were so fair of hair and ruddy of cheek that I thought I’d gone to the wrong house, until one of them greeted me in what I guess Reid would call “Negro dialect.”
Utilized so memorably by whites here –
And rescued so heroically by blacks here –
“Forgive me if I am neither shocked nor outraged. A few years ago I wrote a book about color and race called “Coal to Cream,” and the issue no longer has third-rail status for me. What I would find stunning is evidence that Reid’s assessment — made during the 2008 campaign and reported in a new book by journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin — was anything but accurate.”
“Advertising is a reliable window into the American psyche, so look at the images we’re presented on television and in glossy magazines. The black models tend to be caramel-skinned or lighter, with hair that’s not really kinky — which is how I’d describe mine — but wavy, even flowing. A few models whose skin is chocolate-hued or darker have reached superstar status, such as Alek Wek and Tyson Beckford, but they are rare exceptions.
Skin color could hardly be a more conspicuous attribute, but we don’t talk about it in this country. That’s been a good thing.”
And that’s not to mention –
Who can forget Vanessa Williams on (the shortly to be cancelled) Ugly Betty lamenting “Just what IS it with white people and Taye Diggs???!!!!”
“I became interested in perceptions of color and race when I was The Post’s correspondent in South America. On reporting trips to Brazil, a country with a history of slavery much like ours, I kept running across people with skin as dark as mine, or a bit darker, who didn’t consider themselves “black.” I learned that at the time — roughly 20 years ago — fewer than 10 percent of Brazilians self-identified as black. Yet at least half the population, I estimated, would have been considered black in the United States.
This was because American society enforced the “one-drop” rule: If you had any African blood at all, you were black. In Brazil, by contrast, you could be mulatto, you could be light-skinned, you could be “Moorish” brown, all the way to “blue-black” — more than a dozen informal classifications in all. Color superseded racial identification. In Salvador da Bahia, I met a couple who considered themselves black but whose children were lighter-skinned. The children’s birth certificates classified them as branco, or white.
The Brazilian system minimized racial friction on an interpersonal level. The American system fostered such friction, through formal and informal codes that enforced racial segregation. But our “one-drop” paradigm also created great racial solidarity among African Americans, while maximizing our numbers. We fought, marched, sat in, struggled and eventually made tremendous strides toward equality. The most recent, of course, was Obama’s election, which is difficult to imagine happening in Brazil — or, for that matter, in any other country where there is a large, historically oppressed minority group.”
This was of course the beating heart of Orson Welles’ great unfinished It’s All True. Nelson Rockefeller, the main mover and shaker behind the so-called “Good Neightbor Policy” — a propaganda effort to ensure that Post-WWII Latin America didn’t go totally Nazi encourgaed Hollywood to do its part. Disney came through. With Welels it was more complicated, as the footage he sent back reveelaed that Bazil was full of balck people — like the Kind of the Samba Grande Otelo
Hollywood preferred the fabulous but more complexion-friendly Carmen Miranda –
who was dressed in an outfit traditionally worn by Brazilians much darker than herself.
“Brazil has now begun addressing long-standing racial disparities through affirmative action initiatives. But the upper reaches of that society — the financial district in Sao Paulo, say, or the government ministries in Brasilia — are still so exclusively white that they look like bits and pieces of Portugal that somehow ended up on the wrong side of the ocean. “
That’s one way of putting it.
“American society’s focus on race instead of color explains why what Harry Reid said was so rude. But I don’t think it can be a coincidence that so many pioneers — Edward Brooke, the first black senator since Reconstruction; Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court justice; Colin Powell, the first black secretary of state — have been lighter-skinned. Reid’s analysis was probably good sociology, even if it was bad politics.
Much worse, as far as I’m concerned, was the quote the new book “Game Change” attributes to Bill Clinton. In an attempt to persuade Ted Kennedy not to support Obama, Clinton is supposed to have said that “a few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.”
I guess the one-drop rule can still trump Harvard Law.”
And that in turn brings to mind my favorite episode from the late, much-lamented series Frank’s Place entitled Frank Joins the Club. Written by the great Samm-Art Williams this episode found our reluctant-retauranteur hero (the teriffic Tim Reid) invited to join a local men’s club looking to “open-up” its membership. As this was a black businessman’s club Frank wasn’t quite sure what this meant. He soon discovered its members were highly “high” gentlemen who referred to themselves not as black but “Creole.” He was then told by his restaurant’s staff that membership in the club required that one pass the “paper bag test.” A paper bag was held up to your face and if you were darker than the bag you couldn’t get in. Frank was of course darker than the bag, but declined pointing out that in the past he’d found himself the only black member of all-white clubs but was “going to be damned if I’m going to be the only black member of an all-black club.”
President Obama couldn’t have passed the “paper bag test.” Don Lemon would have sailed through with flying colors.
But would America object to the news were it delivered not by Don but rather by Taye Diggs?
Or would his hotness prove too distracting ? And All That Jazz. . .
Sir — As a playgoer of forty years standing, may I say that I heartily agree with Peter Pinnell in his condemnation of Entertaining Mr. Sloane.
I myself was nauseated by this endless parade of mental and physical perversion. And to be told that such a disgusting piece of filth now passes for humor!
Today’s young playwrights take it upon themselves to flaunt their contempt for ordinary decent people. I hope that the ordinary decent people of this country will shortly strike back!
Yours truly,
Edna Welthorpe (Mrs.)
“My family and I were extremely offended by the “musical act” of Adam Lambert on the ABC broadcast of the AMA’s on Sunday, November 22, 2009. The imitation of oral sex with men and women during the performance was obscene, disgusting and uncalled for. The entire show pushed the limits of good taste, especially since this program was billed as a “family show.” There was nothing “family” about it.”
“Please note that we watched ABC American Music Awards and I could not beleive what I had to watch with my 11, 13, and 16 year old. We had to send my son to bed who actually opted to goto bed because he was disturbed, my 16 year old who was disgusted, and my 13 year old who really does not like Adam Lambert. This was not tasteful watching another man go down on him, macking out with a person who was either a man or a woman, touching the croutch, um 50 cent contenstly being bleeped out, omg R U KIDDING this was not good. I cannot beleive that they are not going to be fined for this behavior. I am not a fan of Howard Stern but this was crossing the line and I will not watch this event again. i cannot believe that this was on national televeicion that this was on ABC and not MTV. You should be imbarrassed that you control this tv. Enough is enough. Where did the television standards go. Guess what there is none. Please make this stop and go back to better family standards. Cause this had NONE.”
“ABC/AMA promoted “an unbelievable performance” by Adam Lambert the entire duration of the show, they were right on. I can’t believe what was broadcast. In my opinion, it makes the Janet Jackson wardrobe incident trivial. During the coarse of Lambert’s performance he staged having oral sex performed on him by a male dancer/extra, and played with a ring or something between a womans legs. The performance promoted excessive sexuality with a touch of s&m. Their were children at that show, how many children saw that on tv! I am just shocked and dishearten by the broadcast.”
“Adam Lamberts performance was indecent, simulated oral sex on stage is outrageous, this was a Vegas, Burlesque performance that was inappropriate. Please investigate and fine ABC. I am actually a big fan of Adam Lambert, again the choreagraphy was inappropriate”
“I want to join the ranks of the millions who are filing complaints against ABC for the Adam Lambert “performance” (if one could call it that) during the AMA awards tonight. What I witnessed (particularly where he groped a woman’s crotch, and also where a man simulated oral sex with him) was completely inappropriate. Someone should have warned the public in advance that this performance would be inappropriate for younger viewers. Many of us feel assaulted. I hope you will join us in taking action. Thank you.”
“I would like to lodge a complaint against Adam Lamberts performance on the ABC’s American Music Awards show that aired during prime time tonight. His performance was way past what should be seen on tv. Gay sex acts were simulated, along with sticking his fingers in the crotch of one of his female dancers. His whole performance belonged in some S&M sex show, not on prime time TV. I had to remove my daughter from the room it was so shocking. Enough of this, where are our morals going to.”
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