Can You Spot the Difference?

let's play a a little game:

watch these two videos and see if you can spot the difference. it's gonna be harder than you think!





if your guess is "oh, one of those videos is animated!" i would disagree: the dancer booty poppin in the middle of the first video was puhlenty animated.

if your guess is "one of the videos has the white house in the background" i would again disagree to a point: Uncle Ruckus is singing at a mansion garden party. and the mansion is, indeed, large and white.

no, the major difference between these two videos is that Uncle Ruckus didn't beat around the bush. he got right down to calling a spade a "spade."

thanks for playing this edition of Can You Spot the Difference? join me for our next round:

Humanitarian Adoption or Child Trafficking? and don't forget the BONUS ROUND!

What is WRONG with these people???

south carolina. YOU again with your ol' bullshit....

At a recent town hall meeting, South Carolina's Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer criticized the children of poor families, using an impressively dehumanizing metaphor and flunking basic causality in the process.

Bauer, who is running for the Republican nomination for governor, made his remarks during a town hall meeting in Fountain Inn that included state lawmakers and about 115 residents.

"My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better," Bauer said.

In South Carolina, 58 percent of students participate in the free and reduced-price lunch program. (Source)

 
as you can see, Andre has extensive personal experience with poverty.
 
now, Andre has taken it upon himself to respond to the criticism regarding his comments by stating this on his personal blog:
 
My suggestion to require parents of children who receive free lunches to attend parent-teacher conferences is simply a common-sense idea to help break the cycle of dependency, while at the same time providing a better education and a brighter future for the children affected.
 
Requiring drug testing for adults receiving tax-funded benefits is also just good, plain, common-sense.

Yes, I am speaking out for such requirements, even though they may be “politically incorrect” in the eyes of the news media. It’s better for the children, it’s better for the taxpayers, and, in the end, offering a hand up instead of a hand out will be better for those who have become taxpayer dependents.

Americans are a compassionate people who will always help their brothers who are truly in need. But we cannot and will not allow those who are simply “riding the system” to continue to do so without consequence.

but what of the feeding stray animals only causing them to breed comment? no mention on his blog.

i'm so over this whole idea that the solution to poverty is for people to decide to stop being poor. but i must admit the whole "maybe we should refuse to feed them, then they'll be too weak to fuck" argument is a new one to me.

i can only imagine what his next suggestion might be....

just when i thought this guy was alright by me, based on his "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW" response to the Luv Guv clandestine trips abroad to be with his soulmate, he goes and proves that above all: he's a South Carolinian...and they are stupid.

i'm not kidding that i'm about sick of this state, man. if it's not for the drivers acting like assholes on I-77, it's the politishuns acting like assholes in DC.

i woulder if YaVaughnie would be willing to drop a few thou on some billboards telling them to STFU?

now isn't that interesting.

The one thing i've noticed over the last couple of days as the media has dragged out every black person they can get their mitts on to talk about the Harry Reid comment is that most of these blacks have dark skin.

For instance, on Sunday morning I saw Donna Brazille on CNN saying she's forgivin Harry Reid for his statement , referencing his glorious history of support of black folks in this country.

you know Donna, right?

And just this morning on CNN, Roland Martin talked about how Harry Reid is a nice guy civil rights has a history yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah, Colin Powell. yes, he did.

you know Roland, right?

immediately after Roland's segment, there was a news story about Mark Mcguire by another CNN reporter. and what do you know...

yeap, you guessed it: a light skinned black with no "negro" dialect.

I'm gonna go ahead and throw my hat into the ring: knowing what we know about what racism and colorism and the benefits of assimilating as black americans, why exactly are we mad at Harry Reid about?

is it what he said or the fact that his statement is the truth?

WTF, Yahoo Buzz!

i happen to use Kosmix as my homepage on my home computer. while i'm not that excited about it as a start screen, i usually give it a glance in the 3 second space between opening my browsing and going to Gmail.

at the top of my page, i have about 4 tabs from different news sources. the first tab is news from Yahoo Buzz. and in addition to a quick blurb about a story, i am allowed the chance to read the last comment left by Yahoo readers on the site.

without fail, those comments are ALWAYS offensive. i'm beginning to wonder if perhpas they should change their name to Yahoo Buzz: a Subsidiary of Stormfront. not only are the comments offensive but often they are stupid as hell.

i checked Buzz Heil today and was met with the usual.

it really makes me curious: do they just sit around all day looking for stories online to post outlandish comments to? have they no lives? have they no jobs?

well, i don't need to read this crap. today is officially my last day as a Kosmix user. i'm gonna leave these Yahoo Buzz Bastids to themselves.

i hope they choke on the vitriol.

Like it or not? I pick not.

so i read an irritating little number today on msnbc that informed me that Like it or not, name can impact your career.

it was full of anecdotes about the motel owner who made his Latino employees white-out their names. this is the same guy who states he once made his black employees do the same thing without any complaint, so what's the problem? he's a defense attorney's dream client, am i right?

and just when i thought the article was going to save itself by pointing out that “changing somebody’s name is something that could be viewed as intentionally discriminatory or not but it still could have a disparate impact on a certain group of workers," it throws itself back into the bullshsit bag with this statement:

"If, however, the employer has some legitimate business reason for asking a worker to change his or her name, he said, and is not only singling out one group, then that may be a different story."

i'm really hard pressed to think up any legitimate business reasons which would necessitate an employer asking an employee to white out his or her name. but what do i know, i only investigate discrimination for a living.

and the article presses forth on the Bullshit Express, we get this particular infuriating tidbit of advice from Bruce Lansky, a guy who wrote down a bunch of baby names and got it published. he advises:

“If you’re picking a name for your child, it’s reasonable to select a name that reflects your ethnicity but which will strike most people as ‘familiar’ or ‘mainstream’ rather than ‘foreign’ or ‘off-putting.’”

see what he did there? he set up some nice helpful synonyms for us. Familiar is to Mainstream as Foreign is to Off-putting.

BUT THERE'S MORE!!

“A foreign-sounding or highly ethnic-sounding name will have people wondering if they spoke English in the household, or if they’ll be able to get along and mix with Americans.”

soooooo, i guess the job history and educational background which are listed on an applicant's resume or application couldn't answer any of those questions, right? because we're just gonna assume someone with a foreign (off-putting) sounding name can't possibly be American. Right?

He suggested finding names that are part of your culture or ethnicity but are not too overt. For example, he said, “if you’re Irish, you could choose Kevin or Shawn, instead of Dermott or Shamus.”

Or use an Anglo-sounding name as the middle name, he noted, giving a child a choice on what to use when they get older. “It can be Abdullah and his middle name can be Henry,” he said.

the author of the article could have talked about how the certain someones in positions of hiring or authority believe they have a right to tell certain browner someones that their names are wrong, and how this is a monstrously obvious show of the privilege and power that drives Racism and Oppression in the country. but nah, why go through all that when she could let us know that she used white-out on her own name, choosing to be know "professionally" as Eve. rather than Evanthia.

"But you do mind if we call you Sal?"

the bottom line?

stop scaring Americans with your foreign, off-putting names! otherwise, you're gonna force someone to discriminate against you on your job. and why would you want to play the race card like that, Abdullah Henry??

afterall, “most people in America are not bigoted, but they do have comfort zones.”

BREAKING NEWS

Barbara Walters said she is believes black women relax their hair to look more like white women.

meanwhile, Barbara keeps getting plastic surgery to look like Madame.

Give her what she wants, God.

any questions?

i haven't had too much to say about chris brown felonious assualt on Rihanna since it all went down because 1) i don't really care like that and 2) lots of girls get beaten like Rihanna every hour on the hour: unfortunately, her victimization does not make her unique.

however, this boy over here has finally lured me out into the fray with all this stupid talking he plans on doing tonight during his ill-advised chitty chat with Larry King. The leaked quotes have definitely gotten my attention because they show a person who clearly has no real understanding of the gravity of the situation, who honestly feels like he's been a victim in this process as well, and has yet to develop a really clear sense of what  domestic/dating violence is.

some of the teaser quotes released from the upcoming interview include brown's explanation that the difference between himself and his stepfather, who brutally battered his mom, is that his stepfather "enjoyed" beating his mom, and that there was a continuous pattern of abuse.

and... this point is supposed to illustrate the difference between the two? oh, for real?

chris brown also thinks that the show Oprah Winfrey did on domestic and dating violence right after he beat up Rihanna was "a slap in the face."

oh yes, he did.

he also said he wished she had been more helpful TO HIM while he was going through being the most hated american negro since OJ.

look, man. you seem to have lost perspective.

THIS is what a slap (and punch) to the face looks like:

Oprah doing a show about weakass woman beaters where she specifically tells the woman you've battered to stay away because "if he does it once, he'll do it again" is a PUBLIC SERVICE.

if he thought he felt a great deal of hatred when he first beat her, just wait until tomorrow when he is ravaged for his statements during his sit-down with Larry King.

good day, sir.

someone "close" to Chris Brown told him it would be a good idea to go on Larry King and show the world was a remorseless piece of crap he is. he is scheduled to appear on King's broadcast on September 2, to talk about the Rhianna beatdown from earlier in the year.

one of the money quotes floating around as a lead up to the clusterfuck interview, in which he claims to not remember hitting her, is this little gem:

"I'm in shock, because, first of all, that's not who I am as a person, and that's not who I promise I want to be. I just don't know what to think. I'm just like, wow...it's crazy to me."

it figures he wants to say he can't remember beating her in that car....it's not like i'd expect someone weak enough to hit girls to not show the temerity to go on television and say he just...can't...recall...that.

to whomever it was who convinced him that doing this interview, in which he is obviously going to come across like a clueless douchebag, would be a good career move, i say well played.

let's just hope he remembers where he's supposed to show up to do his community service.

Samuel Wertzenheimer Schmidt

So Joe the Plumber....why yes, people ARE still talking to him...had something interesting he wanted to share regarding his frustration with Nancy Pelosi:

"Those kind of people, I usually took out behind the woodshed and just beat the livin' tar out of 'em."

let's deconstruct this statement shall we?

"Those kind of people.." - what kind of people would that be? women? say it ain't so, joe!

"i usually took out behind the woodshed" - is that what you usually did, Samuel? when did you stop? when they got restraining orders? when the ex moved to the battered women's shelter? when?

"and just beat the livin' tar out of 'em." - and so now we're from the south. can't you practically hear the drawl ratchet up as you read the words to yourself? now say it out loud. no you're ears are not deceiving you, you did just sound like Dolly Parton.

now, what did Nancy Pelosi do to inspire a threat of woodshedding from Joe? well, i dunno. maybe she had the audacity to have a man-type job instead of a lady-type job? you know, like one of those jobs whose title ends in the letters -ette?

word on the street is Joe the Unlicensed Plumber wants to run for public office. apparently he is taking the old down home approach of talking like he grew up in the mean streets of Appalachia. you know, the strategy that worked so well for Sarah Palin.

....or not.

all i can say is this: if i happen to see any political ads for this man where he is talking like an idiot and punctuating his statements by dropping a wink, i'll pluck my own damn eyes out.

oh, yes you are: part II

and here we go again: people acting like racists while professing their lack of racism. let's apply this logic to other scenarios and see if it holds water, shall we?

- i force children to have sex, but i'm not a pedophile.

- i steal money from old people, but i'm not an amoral thief.

- i constantly tell lies, but i'm not a liar.

- i don't eat meat, but i'm not a vegetarian.

- i wear a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus and swim under the surface of the ocean, but i'm not a scuba diver.

nope....i still cannot seem to make this line of reasoning make even the slightest bit of sense.

but here's what i know for a fact:

the use of the word nigger is designed to strip the humanity from black people and is meant to remind them of the power differential between white and black races . even a person of no financial means or little education can and do use this word to let it be known that whiteness is more valued in this country.

this truth is the rationale behind the punchline to the old "joke" what do you call a black man with a Ph.D?

i'm tired of the old "i'm not (fill in the blank) but" shell game that people like to play. that game people play right before they tell the racist/sexist/homophobic/ xenophobic/generally fucked up "joke."

so to borrow Bill Maher's phrase, here's the new rule: if you don't want to be called a racist, stop doing and saying racist shit.

seems simple, right?

What's WRONG with these people?

being black trumps being an insect.

how dare you not see anything wrong with this!

Senator Kyl is outraged that Sonia Sotomayor isn't distressed that...she's not....a white male?

whattha!

"...I don't know exactly what the difference will be in my judging but I accept that there will be some based gender and my Latina heritage." You said that you weren't encouraging that. And you talked about how we need to set that aside, but you didn't in your speech say that this is not good. We need to set this aside. Instead you seem to be celebrating it. The clear inference is it's a good thing that this is happening.

So that's why some of us are concerned, first with the [?] [?] in his speech and then this article. It would lead someone to the conclusion that (a) you understand it will make a difference; and (b) not only are you not saying anything negative about that, but you seem to embrace that difference, in concluding that you'll make better decisions. That's the basis of concern that a lot of people have. Please take the time you need to respond to my question.

so....what IS the answer to the question of "why are you celebrating your differences instead of setting them aside?"

my knee-jerk response is "yo mama."

Michael Steele, my friend warned me about you.

i have a good friend from Maryland who told me months ago, while discussing Michael Steele, that that dude is a boot-licking uncle Tom bastard. I'm paraphrasing, but you catch her drift....

i have friends of different races. i have even been accused, tried, and convicted of liking "white music," and will admit that i have kissed the lips of the Caucasian male and lived to tell the tale!

but one of the things that stick in my craw is the black person who loves their white friends to the point where they feel like they have to start making racist jokes to fit in. it not only begs the question of where is the self-love and self-respect, but also....

why don't you have better quality white friends?

CHECK out this coon right here!

"Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele told a group of young Republicans that he would reach out to black voters by offering them fried chicken and potato salad. Asked by a blogger how he would reach out to "diverse populations," Steele said: "My plan is to say 'Y'all come,' because a lot of you are already here." After someone in the audience said, 'I'll bring the collard greens,' Steele added, 'I got the fried chicken and potato salad."'

because ya see, black folks are so easily swayed and unthinking, we can have our entire political ideology shifted by fried chicken, collard greens, and potato salad.

that's how the GOP got Steele. well, that and they gave him a white girl.

oh, yes you are.

why is it that racists are always trying to hedge and say they're not racist while saying something clearly racist?

assholes and pool tables.

how about a little more Us versus Them humor, with a twist of racism and classism?

i stumbled across this juxtaposition earlier on a humor blog. and while i can agree the first video is blood-curdling in it's ridiculousness....the second video made a point i'm not entirely comfortable with laughing about.



the humor blog i found this on describes the next video as such:

This evening (Tosh) had a segment called “Whites Rule”.

Tosh.0	Thurs, 10pm / 9c
Reviewing Tosh's Assets
http://www.comedycentral.com/
Daniel Tosh Miss Teen South Carolina Demi Moore Picture

so if this is whiteness, then the earlier video is blackness, right?

i am in now way saying that the actions of the kid in the first video made any sense at all. after a while i was beginning to wonder if he was gonna pull a stack out of his hat and his ass crack.

but what makes this not even funny to me is that in order to really find the second video funny, it seems like you gotta act like something very major and important happened in this country that laid the foundation for the difference in thinking with regards to wealth building, capitalism, and education.

i had almost the same reaction recently while watching a commercial for Lowe's or Home Depot, which showed a WWII era veteran and his family moving into their first home. the commercial showed that through it all, Lowe's has been there for the family.

the veteran and his family in the commercial were white, which isn't too surprising. but what stood out to me is that during that time period, when GIs were coming back from war and were buying homes, there were whole subdivision that would not sell to black GIs. it didn't matter that they had just found for this country, they weren't allowed to live in lovely houses in the suburbs like the whites.

now if i know that, wouldn't you think that someone at the ad agency that made the commercial knew that too?

so all this being said, i think i'll be missing Tosh.0 on Comedy Central. i'm pretty sure his jokes are gonna leave me a little cold.

What's WRONG with these People??

Audra Sigler Shay and some of her friends, using some of that "humor" them Republicans love so much. Eric S. Piker really cracks her up.

oh, and Jill Catterton, i see you. shopping at walmart and looking down your nose at the "Obama faces."

Click this right here! (and don't forget to enlarge)

Centrum knows how the world works

Centrum has come out with commercials for their gender specific specialty formula vitamins. the commercial for the women's formula features a female voice-over saying "some things are meant only for women" while images of a red high heel and a tube of lipstick are shown. for some reason, that commercial in particular cracks me up....


hey, Centrum? tell me more about things made "only for women"....

What's WRONG with these People??

a south carolina gop "activist"...that's what we call them nowadays?.....discovered what what numerous 20-something-year-old entry level employees across the country discovered last year:

when you show your ass on facebook, everybody looks!

that genius right there is rusty depass. he used to be a south carolina poleetishun. now he's a facebook comedian. of course, this type of comedy leaves me cold. maybe i'm too uptight?

anyhoo, there is a bright side to all of this: at least he's old.

What's WRONG with these People??

as you have probably heard, the prez and the missus had another fantastic date night, taking in a show in NYC. here i was thinking it was a nice, romantic moment shared by two people clearly in love...well, thank the LERD for Rick Santorum, who let me know it not only served as an example but...kinda....overshot the mark?



Take it Rick!

Number one, I think it's great that the president has a date night with his wife. He's a role model.He's a role model in particular, whether he likes it or not, in the African-American community.

right on, right on...

Here we have a president of the United States who says that marriage is cool. You have respect for your wife, and you treat her with the respect and dignity that she deserves. And she is part of this team. And it's not just part of professional team, but it's also part of a personal, romantic team. I think that's all great. So I think it's important that he keeps having his date night.

yes, that is great. especially since we've never had a married president before. wait...wait, we have, but black people haven't been influenced by the marriages of white people. we only respond when we see other black people doing something. kinda like running away from a club shooting.

wait, what?

I think he has to realize that flying to New York is self-indulgent. Go down to the corner bar and have a drink, a shot and a beer. It does not matter where you go with your wife, is that it's with your wife. That's really the point... I would make the argument, the simpler the date, the more normal it is.

...did this dude just suggest that the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES should take THE FIRST LADY to a bar and just have a drink? why in the world would the man holding the most important office in our country do that, Rick?


It connects to people. Here is what you do. Here is how you do it. And it is not going to Broadway. All right, once in awhile, you do something special. But it is mundane that really makes the marriage special, but because you are with your wife the mundane isn't mundane. It's special.

so, by saying connects with people, he means black people. because black people don't go to new york and they don't go to broadway plays. and a black woman is not going to think it very special to fly her to another city and treat her to a broadway show! nah, nah, naaaaaaaah....here's what you do....here's how you do it: take her to Smitty's for a couple shots of aristocrat, then head on back to the criz-zib, play some big daddy kane, and work it OUT.

huh.

you know i just cannot take it. i cannot even begin to climb that mountain that this man has laid out in front of me. i can only say a few things before i completely degrade and start screaming at my computer:

1) rick santorum is no expert on marriage and no one asked his advice. so what's with the paternalistic, condescending attitude? why does this guy, who's about the same age as Obama, and who lost his re-election bid think he can tell the President how to date his wife?

2) by suggesting the president merely go to a bar for some shots instead of taking his wife to nyc to broadway is absurd. and i know he isn're really going to go there with something being "self-indulgent" when Dubya used Air Force One regularly to travel to and from his private ranch in Crawford, TX. do you now how much it costs to use Air Force One per hour? over $50,000. it's a 2 hour flight from DC. and he visited Crawford 77 times during his administration. do the math.

3) this script follows all too closely to what many people of color have experienced in this society by our paler, well-meaning neighbors. it's patronizing, infuriating, and biased thinking based on racist notions of the black community.

4) with regards to the usual complaints at this junction of any race conversation of someone "always playing the race card" i have this to say: if you don't want me to play the race card, quit dealing from that particular deck.