Thursday, February 23, 2006

Alterman Defends Bennett, The Racist

Pretty unbelievable:

That thing Bill Bennett said about abortion, which was just fine in context, I thought


Or, not. This is Eric Alterman we're talking about here - not exactly a black person's best friend. Not necessarily a black person's worst enemy, either, but still.

Bennett's 'about all black babies' comment may have been technically true - but his intent was racist - implying that black babies are predisposed to commit crimes.

The other thing that struck me about the comment was that he would never have been able to get away with saying 'white babies', as opposed to 'black babies'. There would have been an uproar. Too many white people in America claim not to be racists, but there is 'KKK racism' (the kind that Robert Byrd used to participate in) and there is 'passive racism', where whites just accept bad things that happen to blacks because those white people are 'passively racist' - they don't think of blacks as being fully-qualified human beings - i.e. 'passively racist' white people don't see black people as people, but as some human-like things less deserving of all the human rights which all humans deserve.

Not trying to hate - just speaking the truth - with love. I'm far from perfect, too - but I'm not about to defend racist Republicans who call for the elimination of the black race.

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