Now he has gone even further, yesterday he said:
"A white, racist leadership of the Democrat party trying to ace out Clyburn." [...]
"Clyburn's new position: driving Ms. Nancy," Limbaugh said. "He's not in the back of the bus, he's in the driver's seat. And she's in the back of the car being chauffeured."
You can listen yourself at Media Matters
If you like, you can make excuses for Limbaugh; say something like he is not making a racist statement he is accusing the Democrats of racism. Well, I think that is bullshit. It takes a racist turn of mind to see a power struggle in a party who lost a leadership position through a lens of skin color. Republicans like to talk about being color blind but they almost never are and this is another example.
If this were the first time or the second or even the fifth time that Limbaugh has made these kind of race baiting statements there could be some kind of fig leaf to hang on to. He has repeated compared African American athletes to gang members. He uses the racial epithets like "Halfrican American for mixed race people like our President or actress Halle Berry. He even opined on the air that having a African American president will encourage African American kids to beat up white kids.
It is one thing to assume someone is a racist based on a single statement. However when a body of public statements that the person is proud of points to that conclusion you can be pretty dammed safe in your assumption. Rush Limbaugh is one of those people we can safely say is a racist.
This kind of thing get my blood boiling. I am a white man with blue eyes born in the late 1960's. My whole life I have had the benefit of overt and subtle racism. Yet it is one of the things that hate the most about this country. I do not give a good goddamn if your skin is black or brown or white or yellowish or reddish. It would not matter, except on a curiosity level if you were plaid.
Limbaugh and his ilk (of which I'll include his listeners and the cowards in the Republican establishment that will not call him out for his bigotry) are a major part of what is wrong with our country. We face real problems that can ruin this nations future for decades. It is a time when we should be looking at each other and saying "We're all in this together" and yet the Right lead by people like Limbaugh and Beck are doing everything they can to divide us, to sow doubt and distrust between groups of citizens.
This meme that "well he is just an entertainer" is weak tea to say the least. Would it be okay for Mathew Morrison, the lead actor in Glee, to say that Jews are keeping Rappers down? No, it would be the end of his career in short order. Limbaugh is not an entertainer, he is a partisan political commentator. It might be (though gods only know how) entertaining to hear his partisan view, but it is not for the purposes of entertainment that he does it. His show is designed to illicit a particular political response, and of course, enrich Limbaugh.
He himself has admitted as much in 2006. After the Republicans were defeated and lost the House and Senate, Limbaugh said "I am done carrying water for the Republican Party". That was a lie, as it soon became apparent to El Rushbo that if he stopped carrying water for them he would stop having influence and ratings.
It all comes down to this; if there is someone who can say racist crap like this and no one in your party can or will challenge him, then you are de facto agreeing with him. If you fear the anger of your base so much that you can not call racism what it is and stand on that, then your party is a to some degree racist itself.
Limbaugh is a shame to this nation, but he is a self inflicted shame to the Republican Party. Their continued association with him, their willingness to fete him at major conservative gatherings with no challenge to his awful, despicable and on going bigotry must have President Lincoln rolling over in his grave at what his party has become.
I do not let people say racist things around me. It might be part of why I was on the lay-off list at my old job, I would not tolerate racist jokes or assumptions in my presence. It is time to be angry about this. It is time to stop letting racists like Limbaugh use projection to call the Democratic leadership racist. It is time to stand tall for the idea that what color your skin is tells us exactly nothing about what kind of person you are. After all Rush is white and he is a bloated, bigoted, limp penised douche bag, that doesn't mean that all white men are like him.
The floor is yours. |
