Obama and the Death of White Power – News & Views – EBONY

Obama and the Death of White Power

by David J. Leonard

The re-election of Barack Obama to the office of President of the United States prompted a wide range of hateful reactions. From tearful Romney supporters to enraged bigots, the prospects of an African American leading the nation for another four years sent many within White America into panic mode or what I like to call “WDD:” White Delusional Disorder.

Teenagers took to twitter to hurl racial slurs without concern for the blowback; college students at Ole Miss and Hampden-Sydney (among others) took to the streets to voice their anger. In displays of violence usually reserved for sports celebrations, or disgust over an early bar closing, White males made their prejudices clear, hurling racial epithets and rocks with little fear of consequence. As editor Jamilah Lemieux said of those on twitter “the fact that there are so many people willing to publicly express these views… is troubling.”

Predictably, much of the chatter has focused on individual reactions, imagining racism in terms of emotion, anger, and frustration. The media’s shock and awe is not surprising given its failure to shine a spotlight on the resurgent White nationalism since 2008 and persistent racial inequality in the United States. Worse yet, the media has consistently portrayed racism as extreme in nature—-the extremely young, the extremely bigoted, the extremely Southern, the extremely uneducated, and the extremely low-class. But most of us know that it is more common than any newspaper may have you believe.

The anxieties, anger, and outrage weren’t so much about backlash against liberal values, but what Obama’s victory revealed about the nation. There was a clear, alarming message about demographic shifts and waning White male control. According to Keisha Bentley-Edwards, “The anger wasn’t only about President Obama and his re-election. It was overall frustration at the emerging power of diverse people in this country.”

It became yet another moment to lament “White victimhood,” a fantasy too fictitious for even Hollywood. It became an instance to mourn “the end of White America,” which for everyone from Bill O’Reilly to Donald Trump, from David Duke to White nationalists marks the demise of American civilization. O’Reilly laments “a changing country” given the increased power of “people who want things,” recycling the proven politics of White resentment.

Not surprisingly, while White tears were flowing, White nationalists seized upon President Obama’s re-election to further its movement. At Stormfront.org, the hub for global racism, readers were met with a new introduction to the website:

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Fight Fox News Bigotry: #Occupy the Media – News & Views – EBONY

Fight Fox News Bigotry: #Occupy the Media

[OPINION] With Eric Bolling’s latest racist jab, the call to bring Fox down is raised yet again

By David Leonard Writer

Racism, homophobia, immigrant bashing, misogyny and a general tone of violent rhetoric is almost commonplace at Fox. Their motto of “Fair and Balance” seems apt at this point where they are fairly balance with comments of racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia. The saturation has produced an almost normalizing effect whereupon progressives and society at large don’t even notice at this point, simply dismissing as Fox being Fox. Yet, the consequence, the pollution of the public discourse, the assault on the epistemology of truth, and an overall souring of the public airwaves with daily morsels of disgusting, vile, and reprehensible rhetoric, illustrates that “Fox being Fox” poses a serious threat to Democracy, not too mention justice and equality.

Eric Bolling brought today’s daily dose of Fox bigotry to us. In a recent speech, Rep Maxine Waters referred to Reps John Boehner and Eric Cantor as “demons,” because in her eyes “they are bringing down this country, destroying this country, because they’d rather do whatever they can do [to] destroy this president rather than for the good of this country.” In response, Bolling took to the air to once again to reveal his own racial politics, and the level of discourse coming from Fox. Telling her to “step away from the crack pipe,” he warned Waters of the consequences by referencing Whitney Houston: “Congresswoman, you saw what happened to Whitney Houston. Step away from the crack pipe, step away from the Xanax, step away from the lorazepam because it’s going to get you in trouble.” Claiming it was a joke, Bolling didn’t even offer the proverbial “I am sorry if you were offended.”

None of this should be of surprise given Bolling’s history on Fox. Referencing a visit from Gabon President Ali Bongo Odimba to the White House, Bolling once asked: “Guess who’s coming to dinner? A dictator. And “It’s not the first time he’s had a hoodlum in the hizzouse.” This is the same guy who lamented “Obama chugging 40′s in IRE while tornadoes ravage MO” and recently in a conversation compared Obama to a drug dealer who opened “Barry’s Pot And Coke Emporium.”

Bolling’s comments about Maxine Waters come on the heals of Liz Trotta warned of the potential harm that would come in allowing women “to work closer to the frontlines.” Blaming feminists, Trotta argued that efforts to integrate women onto the frontlines was part of a feminist plan and that these efforts have led to increased sexual violence, an unavoidable consequence in her estimation:

It seems they have actually discovered there is a difference between men and women. And the sexual abuse report says that there has been, since 2006, a 64% increase in violent sexual assaults. Now, what did they expect? These people are in close contact, the whole airing of this issue has never been done by Congress, it’s strictly been a question of pressure from the feminists.

Not done, she went on to argue:

We have women once more, the feminist, going, wanting to be warriors and victims at the same time” and later added that feminists “have also directed them, really, to spend a lot of money. They have sexual counselors all over the place, victims’ advocates, sexual response coordinators. … you have this whole bureaucracy upon bureaucracy being built up with all kinds of levels of people to support women in the military who are now being raped too much.

Her comments represent a disgusting normalizing of sexual violence, an effort to blame women for rape, and to otherwise put the burden on women to avoid situations where there are potential predators. Steve Benan described her comments in this way (Jon Stewart also offered a response): “To hear this Fox News contributor tell it, American women in the armed forces should expect sexual assaults; American men in the armed forces are likely to become sexual predators; and the American military shouldn’t bother to take any of this seriously. That anyone would find such attitudes acceptable is just stunning.”

None of this should be surprising. This is the same Liz Trotta, who once joked about “joking about killing Obama,” noting “now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama, um, Obama. Well, both if we could.” Her recent comments are, thus, business as usual.

In a recent column about the XXL and Too $hort, Mark Anthony Neal offered insight about strategies of resistance regarding the saturated airwaves: “Fact is that few, who are regular subscribers of XXL or regular consumers of their content will feel compelled to reject the publication, no more than those offended by statements, by say Misters Whitlock or Martin (as examples of two recent controversies) will stop watching Fox Sports or CNN (or listen to Tom Joyner).” Yet, these strategies

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