I found this via P.Z. Myers' blog and have to share it. No comments necessary. You get bonus points if you can watch it to the end. It's Grady Warren, Tea Party candidate in Florida.
An amusing story has been making the rounds: Malawi is banning public farting!
I have to confess that I fell for this story when I first saw it. But then I thought, "Wait a second ... you're supposed to be the meme expert. Are you falling for this without even a little skepticism?" This Malawi farting-ban story has all the earmarks of a classic viral meme. I suspected there was more myth than truth in this amusing story.
And I was right: it's just an amusing myth that grew out of a twisted version of the truth. But the success of the "Malawi farting-ban meme" turns out to have some interesting racist overtones.
I don't know about you, but I didn't even know exactly where Malawi is. I had to look it up – it's in southeast Africa.
Just a couple mouse-clicks revealed the true story, which is far less interesting than the farting-ban meme. The real story (from the BBC) is that Malawi is trying to curb air pollution. The language of the bill reads:
Oh, this is rich: Sarah Palin is coming to Dr. Laura's defense! According to Palin, whom we all admire so much for her towering intellect (not!), is quite sure Dr. Laura is not a racist even though she used the n-word eleven times (here's the transcript) on her broadcast.
Ironically, I agree with Palin (amazing, isn't it). Dr. Laura isn't a racist. She doesn't discriminate against blacks – she seems to hate everyone equally!
And I have to ask: Why did it take the n-word to get Dr. Laura off the air? She's been saying hateful things about gays and lesbians for years, yet no mob came after her about that. Why is the n-word the n-bomb, the only thing that can get a bigot to resign from the airwaves?
I wonder if Sarah Palin realizes that she's not doing Dr. Laura any good by coming to her defense. Dr. Laura's mistake wasn't being racist. It was lacking intellect and kindness.. Just like Sarah Palin. So I guess they're two of a kind.
Maybe they can both get jobs on the Fox Noise Network.
Have you ever worried that the "dogs of color" are threatening our safety? Do you believe that black horses are less intelligent than white horses? Do you believe that black and brown cats are more likely to commit acts of violence than white cats? Or that dark-colored cows are more likely to get high by eating loco weed than white cows?
Why do these questions seem silly, yet for centuries, racist attitudes have persisted in America about people with certain superficial physical characteristics?
And what does any of this have to do with religious violence?
It has long been my belief that racism arises primarily out of fear — fear that the racist really is no better than those against whom he directs his/her irrational beliefs. Why don't we fear black horses, black dogs, cats, or cows? Because we know that we're their masters. We only fear that which is a genuine threat. We don't have to make any loud proclamations of our superiority to animals of any color, because there's no question which is the dominant species.
So when the racist starts proclaiming loudly about the inferiority of others, it is not a sign of superiority, but rather a sign if fear and weakness. When racists commit violence, it is a sure sign that they feel very threatened. In their hearts, they know they are wrong, and it frightens them.
Modern religions are showing these same symptoms. The recent hijacking of the United Nations, describe here very nicely by Pat Condell,
is an example of this effect. Various nations (apparently all Islamic dictatorships) are trying to criminalize "defamation" of religion worldwide – that's right, they want to criminalize free speech everywhere in the world if it might insult some religion.
This sort of reaction has, at its root, the same fear that the racist feels: Deep down, the religious people trying to ban defamation have no confidence. Deep down, they are afraid they are wrong. If their God was such a certain thing, they would have no need to be aggressively defensive.
Truth is immune to defamation. Say what you like about gravitation, relativity, quantum mechanics, or the roundness of the Earth, and it won't change the facts. You don't see anyone passing laws to protect these well-established branches of science. There is no need, the truth speaks for itself.
The aggressive, fear-based defense you see of Creationism, and now this anti-defamation attempt by Islamic politicians, is clearly a sign of fear. It shows that the believers, deep in their hearts, are not so certain as they'd like to believe.
Could President Obama have been elected without Bush's incompetence? I'd like to think so, but realistically, I doubt it. I think it took TWO events to get Obama elected: His overwhelming competence, and Bush's overwhelming incompetence.
Racism is so widespread in America that I never thought Obama had a chance. He was clearly one of the most intelligent, articulate, well educated and accomplished candidates I've ever heard, a true inspiration. Yet, having lived in New Orleans, and spent considerable time visiting relatives in the farm country of Texas, I was skeptical. Even here in Southern California, the first house I bought in San Diego County had "CC&R's" ("covenants, conditions and restrictions") on the property that prohibited any Blacks or Jews from purchasing a home in my neighborhood (this clause had long since been declared illegal and unenforceable by the US Supreme Court, but the peculiarities of the law prevent the CC&R's from being removed from the property's deed, and in fact my neighbors were Jewish). The neighborhoods in the East part of our county are still a notorious hotspot of the Ku Klux Klan even today.
George W. Bush's legacy is horrifying: 150,000 civilians killed by American bombs in Iraq, hundreds of billions of dollars wasted, the world economy in a shambles, the United States' reputation as a moral and political leader completely in the toilet, domestic spying on law-abiding journalists ... the list is appallingly long.
Barack Obama was unquestionably qualified to lead this country, and I can't tell you how inspired I am by him. But I thought Americans were too racist to elect an African American president under normal circumstances. It took the utter chaos created by George W. Bush to make Americans angry enough to forget their racism.
I hope that now that the last barrier has been broken, we can put this racist nonsense behind. Won't it be a great day when candidates are judged purely by their qualifications?
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