Thursday, August 16, 2012

Toure was Right, Mitt Romney is Engaging in the "Niggerization" of Barack Obama



Yes Virginia, despite what you may hear on Fox News, Right-wing websites, and talk radio, "niggerization" is in fact a real word.

I have had my issues with Toure in the past--most notably his wholesale lifting of my argument that Herman Cain was/is a race minstrel--but I can be the bigger person and acknowledge that he was spot on in his description of Mitt Romney's ugly race-baiting campaign against President Obama. Earlier today on MSNBC, Toure made the matter of fact observation that:
Yeah, that really bothered me. You notice he says anger twice. He's really trying to use racial coding and access some really deep stereotypes about the angry black man. This is part of the playbook against Obama. The otherization, he's not like us. I know it's a heavy thing to say. I don't say it lightly. But this is niggerization. You are not one of us, and that you are like the scary black man who we've been trained to fear.
Toure's only error here is when he, like many in the chattering classes are fond of doing when faced with plain truths, walked-back and qualified his claim about Romney's Southern Strategy 2.0 efforts to "blacken" Obama in the eyes of the white public in order to lighten his blow.

As I have argued here, Mitt Romney is a racist. In coming to this conclusion, I followed Marcus Aurelius' famous observation that we adopt the qualities of our deeds and actions. Romney is using overt and naked racial appeals to gin up white racial resentment, anxiety, and bigotry against the country's first black president. Consequently, he is a white racist. Q.E.D.

Toure was just afraid to close the circle. I am not. Ultimately, if you are going to put your size 13 shoe in another person's butt you might as well go all in. What is the point of pulling it halfway out?

That having been noted, Toure did commit a classic error, one that is common when folks with a great deal of expertise engage in a conversation designed for the lay public. In these circumstances, one needs to be direct, simple, and to the point. Toure has expertise in Cultural Studies, African-American studies, literary theory, and semiotics. The "academese" and technical language--what some would less kindly call "jargon"--always interferes with communicating in plain, direct, and simple tones in a public forum, for a general audience, and on a panel where you are afforded a few seconds to make a point.

Academics (and others with expert knowledge) often prefer to use one word that is dense and rich with meaning, and which pivots off of shared, inside assumptions, than to use several simpler terms to make (almost) the same point. Weapons are effective to the degree that they are deployed in the correct circumstances. Niggerization is a powerful word that perfectly captures the racial invective and stereotypes about race and representation which the Right has been systematically mobilizing against Barack Obama and his family.

Unfortunately, Joe Q. Public only hears the word "nigger." Toure just gave the Right-wing bloviators a talking point, a quill to use for writing their dishonest script that the Tea Party GOP and Mitt Romney are the party of racial equality, opportunity, and diversity, while the Democrats and Obama are the real "racists."

In reality, the Republican Party is the United States' de facto White Party. The Right and its supplicants will boohoo about "reverse racism" and "double standards" in order to force MSNBC to fire Toure. Don't worry, Mitt Romney and his surrogates will be calling President Obama an "angry black who hates America and is not really born in this country and secretly despises white people and wants to give the colored parasitic people free money and welfare at white people's expense while his wife secretly hates white people too and wants to make them eat their broccoli" by next week.

Old habits die hard. The Tea Party GOP is addicted to racism; they are unable to break the habit. The metaphorical glass pipe and that racist political crack rock got em tweaking and feenin.
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Lest you think I am kidding about "niggerization" being a "real" word, here is Cornel West using the phrase in a talk at Harvard University a decade ago. The word itself has origins that go back to at least the 1960s and The Black Arts Movement if not earlier (perhaps an intrepid etymologist could find the first use of the word in print or elsewhere and share it with us here).

38 comments:

Anonymous said...

Never heard the term "feenin" before, but it sounds like what we used to call "jonesing".

nomad said...

"Niggerization". Good word. Sounds like the phenomenon I was alluding to when I said I had often been mistaken for a nigger. But here's a question that's puzzled me for while now. And coincidentally it has to do with your race minstrel characterization of Herman Cain. Is that niggerization also? Is it okay, in this post-racial hiphop age of Obama, to niggerize if you're black? And not if you're white? What are the rules of niggerization?

Anonymous said...

With all due respect, Obama is engaging in the niggerization of America --- with his disastrous policies.

chaunceydevega said...

@pat. Nice fox news talking point. do you have any specifics? moreover, regarding these "failed" policies are there any that the GOP would have offered as alternatives that would not have been worse?

Get off the Limbaugh-Beck jenkum political meth. Bad for your mind brother.

Arm The Homeless said...

If it wasn't Obama, it would have been years of Hillary-based misogyny. Hate is the only antidote for the conservatives' flaccid philosophy.

If politics is war by other means, we may need to clone Sherman so he can finish the job. This time though we will spare Atlanta and force conservatives to ride MARTA while wearing dashikis.

Plane Ideas said...

Part of the template to elect Obama was his intentional script to disconnect his Blackness from his campaign and during his tenure after he secured the presidency.

This development is going to cement his legacy and of course tenure in the White House. Obama will throw Toure under the bus not because he was right about Romney's tactics but because right now niggerdom has no currency in any arena.

In the new world order we have no more clout and no more capital to leverage any thing Obama knew this many moons ago .Toure is playing an old hand in a game no longer revelant.

Right now Black folks are in a perilous era no longer will white guilt nor the legacy of our iconic civil rights capital have any value. We must design a new template one that accepts the truth that niggernization is passe

Anonymous said...

Here in reality, the grass is green and the sky is blue. You should visit sometime. You may prefer living in reality more than where you live now.

Jim Treacher said...

Oh yeah, you're the guy who said Herman Cain is a minstrel because he rolled up his sleeves. That was hilarious!

Anonymous said...

Number one, I ain't damn brother dick head.

Number two: here's my reply this dumb ass bullshit:

http://thoughtsandrantings.com/2012/08/16/dear-msnbc-obama-is-engaging-in-the-niggerization-of-america/

That is, if you can even read.

chaunceydevega said...

@Patrick. I am tempted to delete your comment given your hostile language and rudeness. If you are the face of contemporary conservatism it is no surprise you all are in a crisis.

I left the comment up so that folks can follow your link--which I usually don't allow either--and read the intellectual vomit you managed to dribble and ejaculate out onto the Internets. Pathetic. But typical ahistorical musings from the New Right Fox News crowd.

You all have a collective case of political encephalitis and water head. Get treatment. Now.

You have done us all a service. Thank you.

chaunceydevega said...

@Pat. Did you know you look just like High Pitch Eric from the Howard Stern Show? Striking really. Are you also afraid of fish?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QriEifEx3Mc

makheru bradley said...

Lest we forget, Joey The Clown “niggerized” Barack Obama this week. Thrasher is correct, as hard as Obama has run from race during his campaigns and his presidency here comes “Loose Lips” dragging the POTUS through America’s sordid and bloody racial history.

[Douglas Wilder told CNN that 'without question' Biden’s remarks in Danville, Virginia (though the veep seemed to think he was in North Carolina) 'were appeals to race'. He continued: 'The important thing I got out of this was Biden separated himself from what he accused the people of doing. As a matter of fact, what he said is they are going to do something to y’all, not to me. Not us. So he was still involved with that separate America. In another interview, with Fox News, Wilder said: 'Slavery is nothing to joke about. And the history of this nation’s involvement with slavery is nothing to pass off in a joke.' Artur Davis, a black former congressman who was one of President Barack Obama’s most prominent supporters in 2008 but has since defected to the Republicans, told CNN that Biden was employing 'a divisive tactic that’s insulting to African Americans'. The comments, he charged, were a deliberate racial tactic. 'I know what Joe Biden was doing. Every black person in that room knew who the "y'all" was.]


I’m certain “The Clown” received a tongue lashing from both the POTUS and the Wicked Witch of the West (HRC) during their White House meeting today. What’s the over/under on how many days before Biden’s buffoonery surfaces again?

Abstentus said...

Re the racist troll, I'll just suggest that Pat go over to Vdare, where he can find similar-minded volk to commiserate with.

And like you Chauncey, I commend Touré for going that far, and wish he completed the thought. Then again, I have no problem calling Willard out for being a racist, himself.

But to me, the best part of the vid is S.E. Cupp. I love how she just denies decades of GOP racist play. And I don't know if I can rightly claim authorship. But I call the kind of faux hysteria she emotes over the "irresponsible" insuination of the GOP being racist as playing the race card, card. As I call the general way the GOP plays the game, these days, it's Racism 2.0.

As I explained to a GOPer friend (yes I have two or three,) last night:

There is a reason why the GOP is permanently tatooed as the racist party. Two reasons actually. Make that three. (1) the stuff they think. (2) the stuff they say, and (3) the stuff they do.

My last remark about S.E. Cupp:

Ms. Cupp might be easy on the eyes, got great gams and posture, but that only makes her the prettiest little racist on TV news. Sarah Palin must HATE her!

Bruto alto said...

@ Patrick Adkins
Come on, don't get angry and banned (like other places)give me your GOP policies that would have fixed everything.

nomad said...

Oh the irony! Niggerization has two different meanings, apparently. On this side of the looking glass it means (going by context) to stigmatize with black stereotypes. In the alternate conservaverse it means to make inferior in the manner of black people. Ick!

But ain't it ironic. White racists - I mean conservatives - hate Obama because, though his policies are exactly like Bush, he's black. (Many) Black people love Obama because, though his policies are exactly like Bush, he's black.

Plane Ideas said...

Nomad

So what is the appropriate reaction to contempt for our personhood? Should we stop reacting to every slight? Should we confront every slight?

Nomad what are the best practices for Black folk in the post racial era where the economy is in a contraction where Black folk are no longer#1 minority collective in the country .

What is the blueprint for a collective within a culture that has never embraced our humanity where the domestic holocaust against our being continues to resonate and impact our present reality?

Please help me as I an old Black man from battles from beyond as I try to navigate in this new world order where in the midst of Negrophobia and tattered terrain of the civil rights wars where our youth do not care about freedom fighters and cross district busing and passin can you articulate a blueprint for an old G ?

nomad said...

I'm fading at the moment, Thrash. I'll give it some thought and get back later.

Weird Beard said...

@Thrasher
I feel that generally anything you are going to be able to hear out of the mouth of someone on a news network such as Toure is already going to be passe. The national dialog is inherently behind the times. Though you are an old G, you are still lightyears ahead of your time in your understanding of the racial state in America as compared to John Q. Public which these news programs cater. So what is passe to you is news to the unwashed masses. It sounds like you have already moved on from the conversation that Toure is having with the nation, yet the nation and Toure remain behind. It all depends on what angle you wish to work the game from, do you struggle to get the nation caught up, or struggle to set new bars at the front. It perhaps isn't glorious work to cater towards the stragglers and sloth paced masses, yet one could argue it is of value and has its place.

CNu said...

But to me, the best part of the vid is S.E. Cupp.

I'd hit it...,

Nomad what are the best practices for Black folk in the post racial era where the economy is in a contraction where Black folk are no longer#1 minority collective in the country

rotflmbao

cue crickets....,

nomad said...

@Thrasher
I used to think voting was a part of the solution. I'm not so sure about that anymore. In my hometown, we felt that the black community had triumphed when we elected our first black mayor. In the 20 years he reigned, I won't say that he did nothing for the black community, though I am hard-pressed to cite something he did do. Notice I say he reigned? He was so aloof we nicknamed him the "King". The condition of black communities declined in that 20 year interval; while the mayor was busy serving corporate interests. I, along with the other black citizens of this town had rallied to put this black man in office and it benefited the black community not one bit. So what was the point. What difference does it make if you elect a black mayor? A black congressman? A black president? If the moment he gets into office he turns white, so to speak. He doesn't turn white. He turns corporate. But that's the same thing. He is no longer working for the people who put him in office. So what's the point? Of voting? I don't know. It takes on a special weightiness with Obama 2012. Like I say, we are no longer innocent. We know what Obama will do in his second term. Its like authorizing murder, the police state and the slashing of the safety net. That's like being a good German that does not "know" about the atrocities being committed in your name. I don't know if I can stand being a good German.

Oh yeah. The King? The last time he was up for reelection, it was a 3 way race. A white woman and another black man. I so wanted the King gone I voted for the white woman, anticipating a split black vote gave her a better chance against the King than the other black candidate. You know what? The King won.

nomad said...

Kimosabe! How nice of you to grace us with your presence.

SabrinaBee said...

I wish Toure had turned to S.E. and ran down a list of blatant racial behavior and actions of her party memebers then told her that until her party calls out those players to cease the actions then, yes, the the whole party will be seen as part of the problem. There is none more adept at playing the victim than Republicans, while they simultaneously terrorize whole classes of people. Too bad he has apologized already.

CNu said...

Kimosabe! How nice of you to grace us with your presence.

lol, stop posing and deflecting and answer Thrasher's kwestin.

alternatively, STFU and simply admit that you are sans clue and need to sincerely and directly ask somebody who knows.

makheru bradley said...

Nomad, the raw elements of the White Supremacy Dynamic hate Obama because he is more effective than they are at what they do best. As a Klansman told a reporter in Mississippi in 1964, during the search for Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman, “we killed two-year-old Indian babies to take this country.” Barack Obama has proven himself willing to kill children (collateral damage) in Afrika and Asia to maintain and expand American imperialism.

For that reason the imperial elite of the White Supremacy Dynamic loves Obama, and he executes their agenda without a whimper of protest.

We know which group holds real power and it ain’t Buckshot Bubba. Interestingly though, Bubba does have the ability to pull the emotional strings of the Afrikan American body politic causing them to overwhelmingly focus their attention on his ilk. And for this Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon are deeply grateful.

nomad said...

"lol, stop posing and deflecting and answer Thrasher's kwestin."

Sorry, CNut. I like posing.

nomad said...

the@ makheru bradley

"raw elements of the White Supremacy Dynamic hate Obama because he is more effective than they are at what they do best."

True, he is more effective than they are. He has a weapon they cannot ever possess in their war on the poor brown and black here and abroad: stealth. "Yo enemy can't do you know harm, cause you know where he coming from." On the other hand, Judas kills with a kiss. I don't agree that White Supremacy hates him because of his effectiveness. If he could do what he does in a white skin, they'd love him. They hate him cause he's black.

CNu said...

lol, three blind mice - see how they run.

and that's why "you-know-whos"

don't have no clues

cain't HAVE nothin

cain't DO nothin

but whoop those gums

full of impotently furious complaint

outsmarted at every turn by the "dynamic"

or just plain outsmarted by self-serving 2nd/3rd line inheritor scum who would be King...,

CNu said...

King of the "you-know-who's"...,

Plane Ideas said...

CNu at his best always reactionary never proactionary ( hope that is a word )

I tire of people like CNu thinking they possess some special knowledge yet when a crisis happens they got nuttin

CNu said...

Thrasher, if the totality of the crisis is that you've lost your way, lost your relevance, lost your "meaning" - and the other blind mice can't offer you any assistance - that's hardly a crisis.

Simply accept the objectively obvious fact that your purpose is to serve as noisome and confused nutrient media for bacteria and fungus, period.

Oh, and that the totality of your "work" signifies nothing.

Such honest appraisal is the beginning of truth at your level of being....,

CNu said...

So what is the appropriate reaction to contempt for our personhood? Should we stop reacting to every slight? Should we confront every slight?

contempt for our personhood?

rotflmbao....,

Grow up.

Man up.

Immediately cease and desist from further endlessly emotional negrological nonsense.

The inevitable and insurmountable flaw with "scholars" - and their endlessly scholastic imitators - is that words and deeds become the same to them.

This is the basis of their confusion.

The truth of the matter is that only reality and blood are intermingled.

Everything else is merely conversation....,

Nomad what are the best practices for Black folk in the post racial era where the economy is in a contraction where Black folk are no longer#1 minority collective in the country .

What is the blueprint for a collective within a culture that has never embraced our humanity where the domestic holocaust against our being continues to resonate and impact our present reality?


Shit was obvious in 1936 when Schuyler wrote Black Empire and the Black Internationale.

Have you read it yet?

Ed addresses himself to one manifestation of the fundamental problematique....,

Plane Ideas said...

CNu

Yet again you never disappoint always there to affirm for me and others how hollow your intellect is . In some measure there is a tragic lure to brilliant people like you full of genius but unable to articulate it for worthy themes

I do enjoy the truth about how you dehumanize my value while at the same time obessed with every nuance and essence of my being. You constantly confirm how signficant I am in your tortured reality..

Really think about these truths you are a loud noise in a chatter class venue who hides behind an alias you have no public signature or presence do you come into a chat forum to inflate your empty ballon of yourself.

I own you in here CNu that truth I know just fucks you up ,..., oh yeah ... Lol lol lol

CNu said...

lol, answer my kwestin jiggaboo...,

don't get faded like staymad murphy got faded - simply by being asked a substantive kwestin...,

Mine is a whoooooole lot easier than yours - though frankly - I found your kwestin trivially easy to answer.

Have you read Black Empire/Black Internationale yet?

Yes or no?

{though we all know the answer is no, because if you had, you wouldn't conspicuously transmit the abyssal levels of ignorance and stupidity you've demonstrated as normative for you and IQ-75 L00Z3R basement boys you've pretended to keep in captivity here in the comment section at WARN...,}

Plane Ideas said...

CNu,

I read that book 4 decades ago in HS...I have forgot more facts than your brain presently has..lol,lo,lol

Observing you catch up to my intellectual capital is one of the many treats I get to digest onWARN

CNu said...

liar...,

You could not be as pathetic as you've shown yourself to be had you ever read any Schuyler.

Plane Ideas said...

More name calling from a nobody who hides behind an alias ....

I own your emotions in here ... Lol lol lol

nomad said...

So, as I was saying by way of the example given. The system is rigged. Corporations own the politicians, black and white alike. And presidents are virtually installed by the bankers.

Racism is a given. It's pervasive. The black individual combats it the best way he can. The best the average person can do is be aware of what's going on. Try to pass whatever knowledge and insights you have about the racism problem on to others.

Also, I would say that you have to guard against being manipulated by some powerful sinister forces that are using race in a very insidious way to control not only blacks but whites. The post racial age is the age of deception. We have to look behind the race ruse if we are to have any chance of staving off the tightening coils of fascism.

But that's just me.

makheru bradley said...

[The system is rigged. Corporations own the politicians, black and white alike. And presidents are virtually installed by the bankers.]-- Nomad

Let the church say Amon.


How Wall Street Killed Financial Reform

[That means all those thousands of hours of debate and fierce negotiation spent hammering out Dodd-Frank two years ago might now go up in smoke in a matter of a few quiet minutes. Of the big-ticket items that were actually passed two years ago, the derivatives reforms have been completely gutted by loopholes, the Volcker Rule has been delayed for two years, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau may be thrust under the budgetary control of Congress, which is determined to destroy it. And much of this is taking place with the assent of Democrats, for a very simple reason: because the name of the game isn't cleaning up Wall Street, it's cleaning out Wall Street – throwing a "yes" vote at a bank-approved bill to get them to pony up in an election year. "All this is aimed at the financial services industry," admits one senior Democratic congressional aide. "It's to let them know, 'Hey, you're OK, we're not going to destroy your business – and give us your money, because we're trying to raise it for an election.'"

That's the underlying problem with cracking down on Wall Street: Our political-economic system has grown too knotted and unmanageable for democratic rule. While it's incredibly difficult to get a regulatory reform passed, it's far easier – and more profitable to politicians – to kill it. Creating legislation is a tough process. But watering down legislation? Strangling it with lawsuits and comment letters and blue-ribbon committees? Not so tough, it turns out.]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-wall-street-killed-financial-reform-20120510#ixzz23xC1bNsa