Posted on 07/03/2015 10:26:25 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Oh. Well, my mistake then. Yesterday I thought he was saying something racist.
What did this guy think his critics were accusing him of, if this is his “clarification”?
A few fans have written wondering whether I intended to utter a racist remark by referring to Justice Thomas as a “clown in blackface.”
“Blackface” is a lesser known theatrical term for a white actor who blackens his face to play a black buffoon. In traditional theater lingo, and in my view and intent, that is not racist. It is instead part of a racist history in this country.
I feel Justice Thomas has abdicated and abandoned his African American heritage by claiming slavery did not strip dignity from human beings. He made a similar remark about the Japanese American internment, of which I am a survivor. A sitting Justice of the Supreme Court ought to know better.
The first time I read that, I thought he was suggesting that people had misunderstood his “clown in blackface” remark to be a more straightforward racial slur, equivalent to calling Thomas a “black clown.” Reading it again, he seems to be making an even dumber point, which is that the practice of “blackface” isn’t necessarily racist. I … guess that’s true — Fred Armisen’s “blackface” as Obama on SNL wasn’t grotesque and intended to demean the subject, the way blackface usually is — but it’s almost always racist and it’s certainly racist when used to denigrate the racial authenticity of someone who’s actually black. It’d be like calling Thomas a “Sambo” and then claiming there’s nothing inherently racist about that nickname, even though it’s widely culturally understood to carry that connotation. When the left calls Thomas an “Uncle Tom,” which they do much more often than you’d expect in 2015 America, they at least have the good sense to defend themselves with a simple double standard (“leftists can’t be racists”) rather than a tortured argument about the etymology of the term.
If Takei’s being honest here and not feigning stupidity as damage control, he genuinely doesn’t see the problem in comparing Thomas to a white actor playing a “black buffoon.” He’s practicing racial essentialism — if you’re black, your position on slavery and inherent dignity is as follows — and then presuming to excommunicate Thomas from “authentic blackness” because, as someone whose family experienced internment in the 1940s, he somehow has the right to do that now. That’s insulting in the abstract and even more so when applied to Thomas, who, as Sean Davis reminds us, actually grew up in the Jim Crow south and knows something about maintaining one’s dignity during oppression. I wonder if Takei knows that about him — or maybe he does know and just figures that he’s entitled to lecture Thomas anyway because, as a gay man and former internee, he thinks he’s got victim trump cards to play. Either way, we’ve reached an interesting new turn on the path of progress when someone who’s not black is once again entitled to tell a black man what to think and how to behave.
Yesterday I called Takei’s comments “high-five material for jerkoffs.” Here’s Exhibit A.
Takai is now famous for being a fudge packer. Unreal. Obama’s America is really something else.
Before spouting any further nonsense he should read “My Grandfather’s Son” by Thomas.
George did not play Sulu in the Star Trek movie “Into Darkness” for good reason.
He is a homosexual. Who cares what he thinks.
Leave it to a homosexual to be so mentally deranged.
An over-the-hill pole smoker with zero acting ability speaks. Does he realize his part on Star Trek 50 years ago was based solely on his race?
‘star trek’ material sulu isn’t ... Judge Thomas is full ‘Star Trek’ material!
The Grand Dragon of the GayKK.
You can say that homosexuality is not part of the Japanese American experience either, and Takei is Japanese-American.
Shut your ignorant mouth, Sulu; you can only make things worse by broadcasting your stupidity. At the end of the LGBT rainbow there is a pile of manure.
George Takei
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Takei
Who is Sulu?
A “fake black”????
Hey Al Sharpton, did ya hear THAT???
..... didn’t think so....
Racist.
Wasn’t he in some car racing movie back then, the ‘60s, too?
(Now I understand why Chinese Jackie Chan was cast as a Japanese car guy in one of those gumball race type movies in the early ‘70s.)
Gays obviously feel they are now above the modern rules of public propriety and unlike the rest of us are free to give their unfiltered opinion, regardless of how offensive.
Maybe it’s just my perception, but Takei seems to radiate an almost deviant homosexuality from his person each time I observe him in the media. Am I the only person that perceives this vibe?
Is there anything more pathetic or annoying than a perpetually angry 80 year old homo?
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