Reverse Racism Rears Its Ugly Head

Make no mistake, please.  I don't like this woman one bit.

Like the rest of that herd of broadcasting right-wing "pundits," Laura Schlessinger is unbearably self-righteous and rude as hell.

I'd lose absolutely no sleep if I never saw or heard another obnoxious word from her ever again.  But as we've all seen this week, one word in particular got her in a whole lot of trouble on Tuesday.

Schlessinger had scintillating "Mama Grizzly" Palin later swim to her aide, too.  The Huffington Post reported last Thursday:

Sarah Palin has used Twitter to share some advice with Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the talk radio host who apologized and decided to retire from her highly-rated program after using the N-word on the air 11 times in 5 minutes.
Palin's advice: "don't retreat...reload!"

It's a breathtakingly tone-deaf bit of provocation -- even by Palin's standards.

Dr. Laura, as she's known on her radio program, quickly came under fire for her remarks of a week ago. She immediately acknowledged the mistake and soon announced that she would end the show once her contract expires later this year. She currently commands the largest audience of any woman in syndicated talk radio and overall her ratings are among the top five hosts in the nation.

Palin, once the governor of Alaska and Republican nominee for vice president in 2008, has been using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to push her messages in recent months. She fired out two messages about Dr. Laura on Wednesday night, the first reading:

"Dr.Laura:don't retreat...reload! (Steps aside bc her 1st Amend.rights ceased 2exist thx 2activists trying 2silence"isn't American,not fair")

That was quickly followed by:

"Dr.Laura=even more powerful & effective w/out the shackles, so watch out Constitutional obstructionists. And b thankful 4 her voice, America!" 
 
I'd likely join a multitude and "b thankful" if Constitutional Law Guru Palin would kindly suffer some regular bouts of both laryngitis and arthritis so there might be some blessed relief from her insufferable blathering and tweeting.  Just maybe Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, and the other neocon troglodytes might do the same.
 
But there's a bigger elephant here in this room and I think a whole lot of people can hear it roar even louder than "Dr. Laura's" apparent capital crime.
 
That's the very much whispered-about issue of REVERSE RACISM.  Yeah, let's put it in upper case so we can at long last cut all the damn whispering and start talking about it.
 
For instance, is it any mystery, indeed, how this clever little double standard works?  Simple, really; you just need to have the correct skin pigment (tan or brown or black, etc.) and ya got an automatic license to sound out "Nigga" to other black people, be it in private or public settings.
 
No, I realize you've never, ever seen this REVERSE RACIST occurrence, right?  
 
Notice the modification of this offensive word.  My PC is clearly alive and kickin'.  After all, do I want to take a chance gettin' pilloried like that upstart honky girl, Dr. Laura?
 
One of the things she did say in her "rant" was:  "If anybody without enough melanin says it, it's a horrible thing. But when black people say it, it's affectionate. It's very confusing...."
 
 

Hmmmm, confusing it is.  Take Chris Rock, as our favorite case-in-point.  This wildly hilarious man will scream that "Nigga" word 100 times plus in his stand ups, then the laughs (from aggrieved black audiences) will continue all the way to one of his many favorite banks.
 
Oh, of course, it's cause he's a comedian, with the required skin color.  Just like those "gangsta" rappers, who stick the word into their charming little raps with a vengeance.
 
Again, while Schlessinger IS an insensitive, meglomaniac talking head, you can bet the farm that had she looked like Oprah, or Chris Rock, it wouldn't have been The Problem it turned out to be.
 
And The Problem is the one called reverse racism.  I experienced  first hand racial hate politics as a white kid growing up in the 60's & 70's era San Francisco Bay Area, as a student in one of the most racist school systems in creation, my hometown of Berkeley, where those ever-thoughtful left-wing politicians imposed forced busing to try an instant experiment to change the racial atmosphere. 
 
The black woman caller, "Jade," who was mistreated by her oafish host made the outrageous claim later to CNN that ONLY minority people could ever know what racism and discrimination felt like.
 
Not quite.  My experience was five years of a "Burn, Whitey, Burn" living hell in the Berkeley Schools Unified District, perpetrated by militant administrators, teachers, and a whole lot of hostile black students.  I got heaping servings of racism, each and every nightmarish day.
 
Reverse racism.....that nasty ol' elephant is still rampaging around our national living room.  Go on, you can keep on looking away.
 
I'll conclude with this important link to some perspective from a black man who I'd enjoy sitting down to coffee with to compare notes on the pathology of both racisms. 
 
Maybe you'd like to join us.