Apparently, if you're Bill O'Reilly, lynching a black woman is no big deal. Then of course there's the non-apology apology that is a Bill O'Reilly trademark.
And let's not forget the sheer mendacity of his original statement: that a black woman would have no reason to believe that America in the past wasn't perfect and has come a long ways since. Bill Orally knows better. Shit, he lived through the race riots in Boston where the Irish population went on a rampage against blacks after court-ordered desegregation. That wasn't the 1800's. That was fuckin' 1977, for cryin' out loud, when Bill Orally was a grown man (well, as grown as he'll ever be, anyhow). He sure as hell knows from first-hand experience that things back then weren't good for blacks for a long, long time in most of America. Duluth, Minnesota. That's where the picture in the top right is from. Not someplace in the deep, deep south. We're talking about typical America, anywhere in America for centuries, where a black man could get lynched for just about anything. Bill O'Reilly knows this. He's not a stupid man. He knows things for black people are a lot better now, that outright blatant racism as vs. subtle racism is now so unpopular that the notion of a black man as President isn't sending half the white population into heart arrest, and that this is something to be proud of on America's behalf. Bill knows this truth that Michelle Obama stated. When he says otherwise, he's just flat-out lyin'.
Now, there's some folks who say we just ought to ignore racist hacks like Bill O'Reilly. Well, I got an answer for that notion. Seems to me I recall some other feller who had similar racist ideas. But folks in his nation were just too polite to laugh and point and make fun of him and his dumb ideas. So anyhow, this feller, he was a short feller with dark hair and a funny mustache, he got power and did what he'd been promising to do, which was kill a lot of racial minorities. Yeah, ignoring Adolph Hitler sure did work wonders, didn't it? Point is, ignoring might be a viable solution if we're dealing with a naughty five year old throwing a tantrum in a grocery store. But when we're dealing with evil, ignoring is never right. And racism -- looking at folks by any criteria other than the content of their character -- is one of those evils that should never be ignored, because that picture up above tells you what happens in the end when we do ignore that kinda evil. Those poor kids got hanged and burned and it turned out they hadn't even done nothin', except be black in a mostly-white town. That's where evil ends up, always, and why evil can never be simply ignored. Even laughing and pointing and making fun of it at least is something, but you ignore evil, and folks forget how to tell good from evil. And we all know where that ends up.
-- Badtux the Multi-Colored Penguin
Hat tip to the Raw Dawg Buffalo
White rioters in 1977? Yikes.
ReplyDeleteO'Reilly notwithstanding, not every tinpot racist nutjob is automatically Adolf Hitler. Remember that even before he was elected, he was fielding a very large militia - over two million strong in the late 1920s - which was also extremely violent.
This is in no way the equivalent of the local chapter of the Jewish Defense League, number of members two, or the beer-swilling trio of KKK losers from the wrong side of the tracks.
Now, Father Coughlin, and Governor Wallace, and that pitbull-using sheriff from Alabama - Bill Connors? - these were somewhat vicinity. But O'Reilly? Please. Mockery is the answer.
sounds like a new kids book.
ReplyDeleteTHE NON APOLOGY APOLOGY
by Bill O'Rally
LOL u are wild, and i told u u had me reading the confed constitutio a few weeks ago
Like I said, point and laugh. But don't ignore. You ignore evil, it just grows. And grows. And grows. Until you have two million violent brownshirts in the streets and suddenly pointing and laughing becomes woefully inadequate.
ReplyDeleteO'Reilly is more a Goebbels than a Hitler. Thing is, the evil is the same either way, and when you see that evil, you gotta at least point and laugh.
Uhm, yeah, 1977 wasn't the last white riot against blacks in America. There's a whole lot of history that doesn't get put into the history books or make international news. Or even the local news, sometimes.
- Badtux the History Penguin
Bill is a heck of a good speaker. And convincing to many people.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what his religious views are but I suspect that he is a fucked up christian and doesn't know it.
You give Billo too much credit when you call him "a Goebbels". He is more in the mold of Julius Streicher, a notorious jew baiter and publisher of the racist "Der Sturmer". A good buddy of Adolph, he was never one of the inner circle even though he was hanged at Nuremberg (and deserved every minute it took for him to die).
ReplyDeleteExcellent post Penguin. You are absolutely right.
ReplyDeleted.