reverse racism: a hazarded guess

[realthog]

Apparently Rush Limbaugh today accused Barack Obama of practising "reverse racism" -- of being "the greatest living practitioner of reverse racism", if I recall the wording aright -- and ever since I read this I've been trying to work out what the term means.

Racism is discriminating against other people on the basis of what you believe to be their racial difference from you. This is, of course, a completely irrational philosophy.

"Reverse racism" thus presumably means that you don't discriminate against other people based on your perception of their racial difference from yourself.

Using this definition, it seems to me that Obama is indeed guilty of "reverse racism": his appointments seem blithely unaware of racial/ethnic/religious differences . . . which is exactly what any President's appointments are supposed to be.

So why is Rush Limbaugh so incensed? And what does he mean when he uses the term "reverse racism"?

As far as I can work out, Limbaugh is mad at Obama because the latter's cabinet doesn't include any fat, drug-addicted, racist, draft-dodging, airwaves-hogging, homophobic, ignorant, hate-mongering, hypocritical billionaire cunts.

Since that's the only demographic that Obama's appointments seem to exclude, I think I may be approaching an understanding of the term's definition.

Comments

[lonfiction.livejournal.com]

It's sadder than that.

Limbaugh, like many of his highly polarized mindset, tends to define racism as being something only whites can practice against non-whites. (He has never stated it so baldly that I know of, but this is my impression from the days long past when I used to listen more regularly.) This sort of mindset is all but incapable of seeing the world as anything other than a zero-sum game that they damn well don't intend on losing.

So for [too many] people who think like that, the opposite of racism is all too easy to deduce: anything that favors non-whites over whites. Anything that feels like a Loss, or even just Someone Else's Gain.

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

If they were honest >HA!< they would be saying what they mean, which is that Obama is an illegimate POTUS and that the only ones allowed to make appointments, much hold the office of POTUS, is THEM.

Anything less than that is racism and communism and terrorism.

Love, C.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"The Repubs are beyond caricature on this Supreme Court appointee."

Even quite a few Repugs, such as Peggy Noonan, are making this exact point.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"Wasn't she the one who wrote the column on how great Bush looked in a flight suit?"

I can't recall. There were a lot of people writing columns like that at the time. Indeed, looking back on it, it's astonishing the domestic news media fought so shy of expressing any notion -- which surely their journos must have entertained -- that the whole "Mission Accomplished" thing was, well, a bit premature.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"Yet even Chris Matthews, who's presented (falsely, I think) as an uber-liberal"

He's not a liberal at all. He's to the left of morons like O'Reilly, but he's still well to the right of centre.

And he's an idiot. He's quite astonishingly stupid. As stupid as Blitzer, which is saying something.