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Smartest Nerd in the Room: Why Melissa Harris-Perry is America's foremost public intellectual...
The Atlantic ^ | January 6, 2014 | Ta-Nehisi Coates, senior editor

Posted on 01/06/2014 9:37:38 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

On Saturday, Melissa Harris-Perry apologized on air for segment that made light of the Romney clan's adoption of a young black boy. On Sunday, Mitt Romney accepted Harris-Perry's "heartfelt" apology, noting, "I've made plenty of mistakes myself." I've watched the offending segment several times now. I can see how a white parent who'd adopted a black child (or vice versa) would find the segment flip and offensive. It would not have surprised me if those concerned about adoption, equality, and racism voiced some protest about the segment. Instead what we got was week of invective driven mostly by a conservative movement with less lofty concerns.

"Harris-Perry has been a public laughingstock for some time now," wrote John Nolte. "P.S. The Duck Dynasty family has an adopted black child. Maybe this is why the media hate them so much." Nolte was writing for the site named for the man who engineered the "Shirley Sherrod is a racist" hoax. There has never been an apology for that and there won't be one. That is because the conservative movement does not believe that racism is an actual issue to be grappled with, but sees it instead as a hand grenade to be lobbed into an enemy camp. One week we find Sarah Palin defending a man who thought my father was better off living under state-sponsored terrorism. The next we find her arguing that history's greatest monster is one Melissa Harris-Perry.

When not attempting to shame their enemies on trumped-up charges of racism, the conservative movement busies itself appealing to actual racists. We are into the sixth year of the era of a black president. In that time the conservative movement has gorged on a steady diet of watermelon jokes, waffle jokes, affirmative-action jokes, monkey jokes....

(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: blacks; mormonism; mormons; palin; racecard; racism; romney; television
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

hang on, this wasn’t satire?


21 posted on 01/06/2014 10:57:22 PM PST by GeronL (Extra Large Cheesy Over-Stuffed Hobbit)
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To: tomkat

I know, if she’s what defines “intellectual” among the left, the idiots must need to have respiration machines attached to themselves...


22 posted on 01/06/2014 11:19:17 PM PST by Axenolith (Government blows, and that which governs least, blows least...)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Sirley Sherrod IS a racist! the full video shows this: She be in da bidness of redistributing wealth to "her people". When a white guy comes to her, she initially says "no", but then realizes he can be used as an example of marxist "ends justify the means" redistribution. So her pride "takes one for the team" and she gives taxpayer money to a white man (who probably really did qualify for it) for the cause. THAT is the lesson she was trying to preach to her audience.
23 posted on 01/07/2014 12:09:47 AM PST by Captainpaintball
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To: HonkyTonkMan

She is a professor of something, somewhere, about something - maybe feminine studies, transgender studies, etc.

What a fake!

So is Coates.

Both represent what is wrong with both academia and journalism today. Racist toadies and commentators on useless racist garbage. So old school. So sad.


24 posted on 01/07/2014 12:18:35 AM PST by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
One week we find Sarah Palin defending a man who thought my father was better off living under state-sponsored terrorism.

Is this some sort of response to Phil's discussion of what he'd seen growing up with blacks?

Seems a little hyperbolic. AFAIK Phil never said blacks weren't oppressed, only that as a child he'd not seen it. Kind of the way Bill Clinton saw black churches burning on every corner when he was growing up.

25 posted on 01/07/2014 2:52:18 AM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
One of Ben Coates kids? Any relation to the Auburn wide receiver?
26 posted on 01/07/2014 3:51:46 AM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets (Doing the same thing and expecting different results is called software engineering.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Low-Information Intellectuals.


27 posted on 01/07/2014 4:35:33 AM PST by Steely Tom (If the Constitution can be a living document, I guess a corporation can be a person.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Journolist alumnus.


28 posted on 01/07/2014 4:39:44 AM PST by Madame Dufarge
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Well, she MUST be an intellectual. She’s a professor.


29 posted on 01/07/2014 4:46:42 AM PST by Fresh Wind (The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Just because you sit in a room, making stuff up, and spewing out whatever enters your pea-brain, does not make you an ‘intellectual’.


30 posted on 01/07/2014 5:10:17 AM PST by cincinnati65
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
We are into the sixth year of the era of a black president. In that time the conservative movement has gorged on a steady diet of watermelon jokes, waffle jokes, affirmative-action jokes, monkey jokes....

Monkey jokes? I've missed monkey jokes?

31 posted on 01/07/2014 6:37:26 AM PST by VeniVidiVici (Play the 'Knockout Game' with someone owning a 9mm and you get what you deserve)
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To: Mastador1

lol, someone had to say it.


32 posted on 01/07/2014 6:51:35 AM PST by machogirl (First they came for my tagline)
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To: VeniVidiVici
waffle jokes

When did waffles become racist?

33 posted on 01/07/2014 7:40:55 AM PST by techcor
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
monkey jokes....

Now that is the joke.

Monkey jokes abounded about GW Bush, a lot more than any about Obama.

Romney went on TV Sunday to exonerate this vile leftist/racist "news" show host.

Why was he so easy on her?

Because she is a Mormon.

Mormons cannot say anything bad about fellow Mormons and in fact must lie to protect them if necessary.

This woman hasn't changed, she still resents that anyone white would want a child of any color or race, especially black like her. Or 1/2 black like Obama probably. What a vile creature, I have watched her show before.

Oh and the LDS has not changed their writings OR beliefs that blacks are inferior.

34 posted on 01/07/2014 5:49:23 PM PST by Syncro ("So?" - -Andrew Breitbart --The King of All Media RIP Feb 1, 1969 to Mar 1, 2012)
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