Credit where it’s due: Joel Pollak does an excellent job keeping his composure in the face of attempts to belittle him and diminish the importance of the story under examination.
Note: We don’t need to apologize for vetting Barack Obama. We don’t need to let Soledad O’Brien try to redefine and neuter critical race theory and dissemble about what its aims were. We don’t need to fear smirking innuendo that, because we have actually read and understood what “theorists” like Professor Bell advocate, we are somehow pasty racist pussies afeared of the revenge of Mandigo.
We are allowed to reject those premises — and rather than take the easy way out and try to avoid being put into positions where thinly-veiled accusations of racism are levied against us (we’re still being counseled to watch what we say, so as not to draw the attentions of those whose very goal it is to comb our political speech for snippets they can remove from context and use to create false narratives about what we believe, which they pin back on us) — we need to make our political opponents express their indictments directly, and then beat them back forcefully until they come to understand that the ease with which they launch these smears has the consequence that the public recognizes just how cynical and disingenuous and ideologically motivated they are.
And as an aside, here’s a note to Jay Thomas: in your attempt to marginalize Whites who don’t engage in knee jerk paternalistic defenses of Black academics, you are in fact presuming to speak for those Black academics and take ownership of what it is they believed in order to try to protect them from the scrutiny they themselves invited by the very fact of their works and theoretics.
That is to say, by trying to diminish scrutiny of their scholarship, you are treating them as a plantation owner might the chattel he wishes to “protect”.
Which I’m sure has never even occurred to you, so convinced are you of your own rote liberal rectitude.
It goes beyond the soft bigotry of low expectations; it is the overt bigotry of the falsely pious. And the times, they are a-changin’…
(h/t Pablo)
we are somehow pasty racist pussies afeared of the revenge of Mandingo.
*sigh of relief*
At least you didn’t say “sluts.”
“Why are you afraid of black people?”
“You mean like my wife?”
Perfection, Joel.
Soledad: “. . . in support of racial equality among the faculty . . .”
It isn’t as though there is going to prove a dearth of material to examine, particularly when the mainstream media will generously generate new material as we go along in the initial examination.
May we just say: Tarbaby, briarpatch.
That reminds me, I need to score some helium.
That and he’s quite stupid. That was a truly embarrassing performance.
But, you know… Jeremiah Wright, so: off-limits. We did Wright in 2008 and found Obama blameless and virginal. It’s the associative property of political absolution, but you must be a congregant of the liberal church to partake. Doesn’t work for you cons. See “Hagee, John.”
Did’ja hear about the San Antonio school sports event where chanting “USA! USA! USA!” was deemed raaaaacist?
Is critical race theory as a body of teaching still regarded to be a fruitful approach to law studies today, is it gaining proponents and gaining steam as an avenue of research and study; is critical race theory taught here and there but largely ignored as a cul-de-sac backwater of dated political activism; or, has it been abandoned quietly altogether and therewith been relegated to the dustbin of historical research into silly theories men once held, like phlogiston or ether studies?
I’m just asking, since I’ve no idea, lacking any association with the halls in which the dither would dithery-do.
Hey now I got called out for that term.
It was white people, McGehee. White people are racist. QED.
A partial transcript is here at Media-ite.
“Be not afraid” a wise man once counseled.
And sdferr is a hatey hater what hates
but the Minstry of Love shall save him from himself
D: “Why are you afraid of black people?”
R: “You mean like my wife?”
D: “Okay then, why are you afraid of AUTHENTIC back people ?”
R: “And what the fuck is that? ”
D: “As I expected, more ignorant uneducated racism.”
R: “My inauthentically black wife thinks you are an obnoxious, self hating brainwashed white guy and a clueless, delusional imbecile.”
Critical race theory looks into the intersection of race and politics and the law and as a legal academic who would study this and write about it, he would advance the theory about what exactly happened when the law was examined in terms of racial politics,” O’Brien explained. “There is no white supremacy in that. It is a theory. It’s an academic theory and as one of the leading academics at Harvard Law School, he was one of the people as part of that conversation. So that is a short definition.”
The sad part is that Pollak’s definition and hers, to her, are identical.
K, watched the video, and Mr. Goldstein, where is the implosion of CNN?
I’m just not seeing it. It was just a typical news piece, some smart people sitting down and discussing Obama at Harvard law school, actually very genial, I don’t see any implosion Mr. Goldstein, can you help me out here?
Kidding.
Seriously? I don’t think one of those smart people ever did understand the indictment was against them. They’ve gotten so comfortable in their role as not journalists trying to get news out there, but rather the Gatekeepers of Information, the concept of putting everything out there comes across as pig ignorant. Like a patient presuming to tell his doctor it’s malpractice if he doesn’t get a prescription of heroin. That’s just crazy talk!
If Obama gets re-elected, look for the internet to come under very heavy fire. Probably no matter who gets elected.
Breitbart and his organization consider the media to be their main enemy. Since Obama, the Democrats and all their crony operations can’t exist with out the media shield that focus will yield excellent results if it succeeds.
Getting them to directly lie on tape is part of the process.
Iterative processes are the best kind!
[…] goal in NHL history. Beyond his direct racialist assault on Pollak, as Jeff Goldstein writes at Protein Wisdom: And as an aside, here’s a note to Jay Thomas: in your attempt to marginalize Whites who don’t […]
[…] Wisdom: “The Vetting: CNN Implodes Over Breitbart’s Obama/Bell Video”: Note: We don’t need to apologize for vetting Barack Obama. We don’t need to let Soledad […]
That was Jay Thomas? The guy needs to take a seriously long break from the Costco-sized bags of cheese doodles.
You know, I took Soledad’s advice and Googled “Critical Race Theory”. First hit was to Wikipedia, so I went there, and lo, there in the first paragraph, was this:
So: yes, she’s right; it is totally Google-able. But she’s got it completely wrong, at least until the hordes of reality-based community descend on Wikipedia and instantiate a different reality.
Thomas Sowell talks a bit about Bell, contemporaneously to the episode at Harvard itself.
Geoffb, it’s even worse than simply shielding Obama. For the most part, the public is content to let the MSM decide the conversation. That almost never works out good for conservatives.
It just hit me–HappyFeet is gone.
Was there a specific blow up or was it the Cum Sluts and cupcake fetish?
He said “bye” and left. It was nothing specific.
Watching the tape.
I worked with Errol Louis for a few years at the NY Sun. He’s a great guy. His politics? Eh. Of which the same could be said of my other colleague Ben Smith.
Actually, I think I only worked on a daily basis with one other conservative.
No, Roddy! The political is teh personal! Bad politics = bad guy, good guy = good politics.
Are you sure you’re a journalist? I mean, an authentic one?
That guy Pollak is one cool cucumber.
If I recall from my days in the Time Warner megaplex, Soledad O’Brien was a morning anchor person, which, it needs be said, makes her an excellent conductor of the 90-second interview of the smokejumpers putting out wild fires in Montana in the 8:15 block (before the Tide detergent commercical.) In other words, the possessor of the skills necessary to craft an accessible definition of critical race theory in a partisan atmosphere.
Insty on her other qualifications.
Yes. Therein lies a long tale.
The Cliff’s Notes version is that in doing Business/Financial Investigative work, I did the stuff that was hard and dangerous, which earned me a lot of respect. It was only later that anyone found out I wasn’t a Leftie.
The Libs covered the Media and run-of-the-mill Govvie shit. About as complex as ordering a burger.
The first time I remember her was on MSNBC when it was “Micro Soft NBC” hosting some show on computer tech.
Here it is, “The Site“.
Those are good qualifications sdferr. The President shares them. It’s how he can speak authoritatively about his white grandmother…as a black man.
I’d suggest we notice that Thomas Sowell mentions a law-review article penned by Randall Kennedy against Derrick Bell’s views, and suggest that looking at Kennedy’s views might just be worthwhile. But better and more knowledgeable folk than I may ought to do that [as to the law review article, that is].
Looking at Kennedy’s wiki page, I see no mention at all of any contretemps with Bell (though I do recall hearing Kennedy’s name in press coverage of the incident back in the day), and further that Kennedy’s book Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal, while mentioned by name in the wiki, is not detailed by substance at all there (which doesn’t mean it’s necessarily connected to the incident Sowell mentions, but doesn’t mean it isn’t either — merely that it’s suggestive). Indeed, Derrick Bell shows up in the wiki praising Kennedy! [“Over the years,” wrote Derrick Bell, “Professor Kennedy has become the impartial, black intellectual, commenting on our still benighted condition and as ready to criticize as commend.” cited as “Bell. Ibid“, which link goes to an empty page at William Patterson University, no earlier citation of the document being in evidence in the wiki. ]
There is a link to an NPR interview by Michel Martin with Kennedy on Sellout when it was just appearing in publication, which again mentions but does not detail his own experiences with the charge:
and
But we have to notice too, that while Kennedy in his book and interview is concerned with the question of a black group identifying “sellouts” in a correct and nuanced way, (and taking significant regard for their intentions, by the way, though he says those intentions won’t be all that’s necessary to think about), Sowell’s charge isn’t about race, but about an “ideological” lockstep being forced on Kennedy from the Bellian quarter. That ideological lockstep would, we can suppose or assume, be concluded on the grounds of “science”: of a necessary and certain political “science”, which alone has the truth. And who would want to “deviate”, to be a “sellout” from the truth?
And who, we may wonder, is Thomas Sowell to take offense on behalf of scholarship?
Talking back to Mini-Tru like that IS crazy-talk.
Be a good boy and maybe you and sdferr can share a cell underneath Mini-Luv while you’re waiting to be cured.
[…] But it doesn’t matter, he acted like the jackass that I’m sure that he is. Jeff at Protein Wisdom has more on […]
It may have had something to do with the fact that the opinions of social conservatives weren’t being ridiculed to his satisfaction.
Tune in for the accessibility.
Stay tuned for the inaccuracy.
Bell, on C-span in interview with Brian Lamb about Bell’s book Faces at the Bottom of the Well.
How to appear smart on TV. When I read the transcript I thought that this was what was done.
Now that people are looking up “Critical Race Theory” it’s time to rework the Wiki to cover up some items.
Smart, albeit very perishably so. Twenty minutes pass and the whole world gets to see she’s reading a cheat sheet. heh.
And worse, I guess I should have said, not even reading it thoroughly and hence, credibly. Is there such a term as putzess?
Soledad, you ignorant slut.
I looked up the translation of “soledad” as a Spanish word. It means “solitude.”
California has (used to have?) a prison at Soledad, which I first found out about as a kid when there were reports of a prison gang known as the “Soledad brothers.”
Seems to me every cell in that place should have been solitary confinement.
Tell me the parents of the O’Brien parents weren’t front-loading the kids for the college application process when they named them, huh?
strike one of those “parents” to make that sentence make sense, kinda
Jay Thomas has auditioned or me a few times for voiceover gigs. Poor guy. Having to deal with casting calls is like running a marathon in three feet of vomit, but it really makes my day when a liberal celeb shows up who can’t keep his/her fucking mouth shut about politics.
Abe,
Next time just turn the ire extinguisher on him;)
Heh. You have a remarkable memory, Danger.
Something about NYC pub crawls leaves an impression, Abe;)
Hmmm, apparently Jay Thomas actually was a celebrity. (He said, after returning from Google.)
This is a game where we guess the decade, right?
This one sounds right.
Cheers, 1980s.
I was guessing Tony Danza’s crazy brother* from Who’s the Boss.
*Sometimes hijinx but occasionally he’d instead be on scary drugs like crack or super-crack so that we might all learn a lesson at home.
[…] Wisdom: “The Vetting: CNN Implodes Over Breitbart’s Obama/Bell Video”: Note: We don’t need to apologize for vetting Barack Obama. We don’t need to let Soledad […]
[…] Bell: Liberal Whites Are Oppressors.” But check Jeff Goldstein, who brings the heat, ““The Vetting: CNN Implodes Over Breitbart’s Obama/Bell Video”“: We don’t need to apologize for vetting Barack Obama. We don’t need to let Soledad […]
I think it had more to do with constantly being ridiculed as a troll and a griefer because he like to ridicule social cons.
It was something to do with sluts, I am pretty sure.
I hope Rush learned his lesson. Never, NEVER hire an electric hamster high on cupcake sprinkles, no matter how cute he may come across in the interview.
Me? I’m all choked up.
A million, million people are happy, bright and gay.
Bells are ringing in the steeple, it’s a public holiday.
Take it, Soledad…
Hooray !
Hooray !!
It’s a public holiday !!!
It had nothing to do with his constantly ridiculing social cons per se. It had more to do with his repetition of the same tropes for attack while all the time pretending no one had ever answered the charges he was making. And this would go on in nearly every thread. To the point where I truly believed his goal was merely to derail every conversation, and to bring down every conservative candidate.
So I told him so. And he decided to leave voluntarily. There’s been no ban.
The end.
Just wanted to note that early on in the interview, Joel did EXACTLY what Jeff is always pushing for here… when Soledad tells him “you’re mistaken, but let’s move on”, Joel refuses to continue but instead, immediately pins her down and makes her define what exactly he was he mistaken about, and then proceeds to demolish her argument until it’s crystal clear to the audience that it’s Soledad who has no idea what she’s talking about, rather than Joel.
Bravo! OUTLAW!!
happyfeets is busy living happily ever after at Patterico’s, where stupid arguments repeated ad nauseam are more or less business as usual.
I don’t understand Soledad O’Brien. She got a taste of Bell-style racialism and was upset about it when Jesse Jackson indicated to her that she wasn’t black enough so she didn’t “count.” (http://bit.ly/9NPD20)
Maybe I should explain a bit how she was subjected to Bell-style racialism by Jesse Jackson. Jackson sees her as a token black anchor at CNN and not even a worthy token, at that. Bell would say that she confirms everything he theorized about whites, that they would only elevate blacks if those blacks were white in their thinking, or in this case, white in complexion. Jesse Jackson gave her a real taste of critical race theory, and it left a mark. Apparently, such scars fade with time.
To close, here’s a pertinent passage from that classic epic poem, “The Idiossey” by David Burge:
But lo, the Southside people shunned him, slamming doors and mocking sad Obamacles.
“O people of Chicago, why do you shun me so?” he lamented.
“I have a bachelor’s degree and I am here to organize you.”
And then Obamacles heard from behind a voice of such fury and anger
that he was frozen in fear for the very first time.
It was the Jeremiad, the fire-breathing Monster of the Pulpit, who roared:
“You stupid ass foo, it because you white!”
Excellently put ChicagoXile, most excellently.
Down the darkening rabbit hole.
I didn’t know O’Brien was black. Kind of blows up the whole “white man holding the black man down” trip when folks who are passing are getting pissed off the people don’t notice they are black.
Same here B Moe. From her name I’d assumed Irish/Hispanic but it made no nevermind anyways.
Neither did I. Maybe she’s passing?
Yes, gas.