“9/11/2009, 3:25pm EST”
“Make no mistake, had they been old enough in those days, [Glenn] Beck and every modern-day movement conservative would have stood with the segregationists, with the bigots, with the mobs who burned the buses carrying freedom riders. They would have stood with the police in Philadelphia, Mississippi, even as they orchestrated the killing of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Mickey Schwerner. They would have stood with Bull Connor in Birmingham. How do we know? Easy. Because not one prominent conservative spokesperson of that time did the opposite. Not one. That’s who they are.”
— Tim Wise, in a provocative article for Red Room. For us young’uns, it’s a nice context for the conservative witch hunt that recently caused Van Jones, a black intellectual, to resign from his position as special advisor to the President’s Council on Environmental Quality. Late Update: A commenter points out that self-identifying conservatives spoke out against racial injustice during the civil rights era in the United States. Several “conservative” politicians voted to enact such reforms, for example. But Mr. Wise does seem to be referring to “spokespersons,” which I interpret to mean the commentators and “intellectuals” (Glenn Beck an intellectual — ha!) who, via their prominence, do the most to promote the ideologies to which they claim adherence. And however we interpret Wise’s “spokesperson” label, and though he probably should have been more careful with his words, the broader point remains: We have every reason to think that Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh (etc.) would have opposed any attempts at giving non-whites equal rights and fair opportunity 50 years ago because they still do so today. Their obsession with racial identity and desire to maintain lingering racial power inequity is thinly veiled at best. And the racializing effects of their words upon their listeners — cosmopolitanism’s discontents — is as thinly veiled as a teabag right in your mouth.
Never leave home without it.
