Shorter Ann Althouse: Racists can’t be racist because they love their racism.
So some of Scott Brown’s staffers were caught tomahawk-chopping while war-whooping, which is absolutely not a traditional means of representing Native Americans as tomahawk-chopping, war-whooping, nothing-noble-about-them savages. There’s no history of American cinema in which Native Americans were a violent bulwark against the tide of civilizing white men eager to manifest their destiny. There’s no history of American literature in which Native Americans played the roles of “Captor #1″ and “Captor #2″ and let’s just call them “Tribe of Captors” in popular captivity narratives that identified war-whooping with lady-taking and child-killing. None of that is real because Ann Althouse said so:
Someone doing the “tomahawk chop” is himself playing the role of Indian. This Indian character making a stereotypical gesture can’t be read as expressing hostility toward Indians. The Indian is his hero.
See? “The Indian is his hero.” Whose hero exactly? According to Althouse anyone doing the tomahawk chop. Which means that she believes that performing a racially offensive can’t be considered racist because the performance itself is necessarily an act of loving emulation. For example, if one of Scott Brown’s white staffers were to create a television show called
It couldn’t be considered racist by definition because its use of the stereotypical Chinese immigrant is evidence of that this white staffer considers Chin-Kee to be “his hero.” In all seriousness, Althouse’s problem is that she’s so ignorant that she doesn’t realize that the stereotype of Native Americans that Brown’s staffers invoke isn’t historically accurate, which is why she can claim, straight-faced, that “these fake Indians, the staffers, are pretending to be real Indians,” when in actuality they’re pretending to be racist stereotypes of Native Americans.
One day I will wake up in a world in which “Ann Althouse” is revealed to be the work of an art collective trying to win a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the Longest Sustained Installation of a Person Who Couldn’t Possibly Exist. I pray that day comes soon.
In the meantime go read my other post. It’ll cleanse this stupid clear off your palate.
UPDATE [SL]: This is even funnier when you remember Althouse’s hallucinations about the subliminally racist pajamas in a Clinton campaign ad.
UPDATE II [SEK]: Wow. I mean. Just wow. Wow. I mean. Just wow. Wow.
To me, she’ll always be the person who out of nowhere just started yelling at Garance-Franke Ruta on Talkingheads. I.e. not particularly stable.
Some good screen-caps came outta that one.
Link?
Right here, from Crooks and Liars(seems apt for our mad professor)
This is the one I remember best but there were more.
Always thought this face was from that but I guess I am wrong. Wow.
That’s impressive. How does she survive such public displays of stupidity?
This is a woman who has a category of posts called Althousiana. When the world revolves around you, your survival is not an issue. Like Man U supporters.
Like Man U supporters.
Now don’t be bitter.
4 straight games with a penalty in their favor. At least they missed 3 of them
The definitive video is in fact this.
I wonder about dep’t mtgs at UWLaw School? Do her colleagues recognize that she’s a blazing moron?
I demand that the Yakety Sax one be restored by someone more competent than I.
There was also one set to the Guess Who’s “Undun” which was awesome but I can’t find anymore. Hopefully someone knows where that is or can restore it.
My only question: when Althouse posts, is she still drunk, or psychotic from the DT’s?
Her wine box will never tell.
Your question is really more of a both/and than an either/or type of problem set.
Dammit.
So by Outhouse’s “logic” (sic), Amos and Andy and minstrel shows were actually celebrations of African American culture? Excuse me while I go shoot myself.
Hey, I was late, but great minds and all that
Not to mention Stepnfetchit!
“Outhouse?” We can come up with better invective than last-name based portmanteaus, people. We’re not RedState. Not that all demeaning, nicknames are bad, ie “doughy pantload,” but this just puts me in mind of crowds of totally not-racist tea partiers screaming about “Obama, Osama” or “Nobama” or “Barry Hussein” or whatever.
Portmanteau: not the word you’re looking for.
“Outhouse” is a portmanteau, except the second half is the same in both words.
Bite me.
Althouse’s brilliant theory clearly also applies to blackface.
She should change her last name to Elk.
I speak out against that.
Shouldn’t it be “Idiot”, so she can be “Ann Idiot”? Or any similarly undesirable noun starting with a vowel sound?
Now I want that Python skit revised for pedantry, with ‘brontosaurus’ changed to ‘apatosaurus’.
that is brilliant
There is some special case about using “an” where “a” would seem to be required that I’ve encountered in British entertainment. I’m not sure if it is even meant to be grammatically correct; nonetheless, it seems to convey a sense of archness and of priggish exactitude. Whatever the strict rules are, for darn sure the Python boys knew all about how to use it.
When you wear the makeup of a Negress, the Negress becomes your hero!
Fits right in with her “People who don’t make Bobby Jindal into a racial stereotype are the real racists!” logic.
Right. And Amos ‘n’ Andy was a tribute to African-Americans’ contributions to American culture.
Dat’s right, Kingfish!
I saw a very disturbing short last week where Benny Rubin was in blackface.
+1. Holy Mackerel…
and “I don’t know nothin bout birthin no babies” was an accurate description of black midwife practices…
Is Ann Althouse the only one who knows that D.W. Griffith was the first African-American filmmaker?
Exactly where I was going. Birth of a Nation was a pro-black film!
This post is more proof that Scott is the real racist – I’m not sure how it does but I’ll link to a post from Darleen Click explaining why real soon.
I dunno about that, but John Edwards had sex with someone outside the sacred bounds of wedlock!!!!!!!!!!! [Isn't this related to the UAW's secret plan to grant amnesty to immigrants? --ed. Probably!]
Wait — what were we talking about again?
You were explaining that it’s rude to grab the horns.
In a related story, Dr. Frasier Crane is Kelsey Grammer’s hero.
In fact, that must really be his hero since he played him for 20 years.
No man is a hero to the actor who plays him
So, was I asleep at the wheel when Wisconsin went by the wayside?
Feingold ousted. Governor Walker in. Rep. Sean Duffy. Rep. Ryan. Althouse teaching at UWLS…
Surprisingly, though, her commenters are more…sane…than usual. At least on my drive-by scrolling.
You’ve got Ann all wrong! It is simply not true that performing a racially offensive can’t be considered racist. It can, if a Democrat is doing it.
The Eternal Jew? Totally not anti-semitic. Immortality is aspirational, after all. Answer that, libtards!
Ann Althouse’s favorite film, I presume.
Also, Mickey Rooney’s greatest performance, a sincere tribute to the people of Japan.
Unlike you pussified western males I call my wife oriental, chin-kee or whatever the damn pleases me. And she still totally understands that what happened to my penis is the feminazis fault and not mine.
For the record, I found this too sad to mock. Just … pathetic.
Uhh..
Semiotic…Hermeneutic…fuck you, motherfucker!
You laugh now but wait until I totally kick ass with my Kickstarter project.
I doubt it for a second. Your audience will love your breathtakingly original idea and pay handsomely to see you do it, especially now that you’re heavily armed.
It’s all fun and games until the eventual “unfortunate incident” followed by the inevitable police and social services intervention, isn’t it?
Wow, the cockslapping fool is in your field? No wonder I thought it disreputable.
Hey now, that’s uncalled for! Go comment on the other post now, or I’ll hold it against you forever.
You’ll have to. I don’t watch Game Of Thrones. Or (for very different reasons) Breaking Bad.
I remember my head pounding after reading some Noël Burch, is that enough?
Wait — does this mean that he’s been judged not quite good enough for Pajamas TV? Is that even possible?
They dropped him a long time ago. There was much drama. In a way, he’s as perpetually unfortunate as I am, except instead of handling things humorously, HE RAMPAGES AND BUYS GUNS BECAUSE OBAMA.
my subsequent work on racial theory and interpretation theory naturally moved me to the right
Always a bad sign . . .
Just for clarification: were these comments meant to at least plausibly be from the real Jeff Goldstein, with the URL presumably swapped out by SEK, or from some parodist who feels the need to remind us of Goldstein’s existence?
It’s parody all the way down. That’s not the real Goldstein, and I didn’t touch the links. I’m just having fun at his expense, because I’m an asshole.
Rule of Thumb: If it doesn’t include some threat to wrestle you to the ground and do something to you with his cock, it isn’t the real Jeff G.
If memory serves, this is the same woman who thought that a Hillary commercial from ’08 featuring sleeping kids had “nig” on their PJs. Which was probably from “night.” so to her credit, she is zealous at sniffing out completely nonexistent racism.
Has Brown been challenged about this behavior with a direct question?
“Senator, are you dick, or do you denounce”?
“Do Deputy Chief of Staff Greg Casey and Constituent Service Counsel Jack Richard still work for you?”
Remember the predictions that the mean Massachusetts Democrats were going to throw mud at kindly Scott Brown?
I keep thinking – Constituent Service Counsel. Now, I’m no Cosmo centerfold, but that job title sounds like the kind of job where one has to be counted on to represent constituent interests fairly and without discrimination. And I’m really wondering how well this guy does that.
Which raises the question: do you think Paul Ryan’s Constituent Services Director is a devotee of Ayn Rand, too?
Because that sounds like it could be awkward.
So, uhh, for these Brown campaign workers… Elizabeth Warren is their hero?
I thought that post of Jeff’s was pathetic, but here he is, on Twitter for all the world to see, begging Michelle Malkin to talk to him. It’s just painful. I mean, just when you’ve scrolled down and think it can’t get any worse, it does.
Especially when you consider responded to his first desperate plea and is obviously, if not ostentatiously, ignoring the rest. It’s a spectacle that a lesser man would turn his head from and walk away, so the question is, are you a lesser man? (Or a woman, even?)
What in the world does “Protein Wisdom” mean? Or do I not want to know?
Oh My. I think someone got into the cooking sherry.
With a rubber hose?
Don’t cross the streams.
From a recent post, I swear:
“But a bunch of petty bullshit from some “our side” — many of whom, since taking the reins as our most prominent online spokespeople, have proven persistently feckless and consistently wrong in both their promoted tactics and strategies — has kept me somewhat marginalized. Often times through coordinated agreements and secret missives, a whisper campaign, and unofficial deals with shady characters whose job it was, presumably, to elevate attacks on my supposedly malignant character while depressing my site’s visibility in search engine results, etc.”
As Edroso would say, it’s beneath my dignity to make fun of this, and I’m wearing a cardboard belt.
You know what though? It’s true! I have proof, and no, I’m not kidding. There really was a campaign to marginalize him, and did actually work. That he’s responded to it, three years after the fact, as he has is of course shameful, but he’s not actually wrong. His fellow conservatives are that petty. But maybe if he stalks Malkin for another few days, she’ll see the light, relent, and let him back into the fold?
They needed a campaign? Well, I guess when Erick Erickson can have one of the highest media slots on your team…
Well, yeah, the campaign has been as diabolical as it is devastating, planting on Goldstein’s own blog some pseudo-academic blowhard who signs himself “Jeff G” and is constantly going on and on about the anti-intentionalist assault on meaning and stuff like that. As if the way to understand America is to read a college lit class textbook, and how could any true conservative stomach an idea like that?
“At a certain level of political correctness, the tomahawk chop is considered offensive to Native Americans, but somehow it’s not offensive enough to have stopped Atlanta Braves fans from doing it.”
Yes, that’s right, Ann, it can’t be offensive because baseball fans. Also, “Atlanta Braves” is inoffensive because, baseball. Also there are no racists in Atlanta.
I’ve been to a Braves game. In Atlanta. The Tomahawk Chop, complete with music over the loudspeakers, was the most overtly racist thing I’ve ever seen a large group of people do in real life (rather than on a screen, often in old newsreels). I guess the saving grace is that there were so few Native Americans around to be offended. I wonder whatever happened to those guys?
The tomahawk chop and related imagery at Braves games is subtle and benign compared to what goes on at Florida State Seminole football games.
FSU has, like, a license to be weird and racist from 1/3 of the Seminoles, so it’s okay.
I too thought Orlando Patterson finally lost it when he compared the “3am ad” to “Birth of a Nation”. Ditto for David Gergen, re: ”Britney Spears ad”.
But then an apolitical woman in advertising explained it to me. The 3am ad was depicting a burglary. The phallic symbols in the Britney Spears one were no accident.
Advertising is different. Its not a a Bob Dylan tune or James Joyce novel. Everything is thought out. No stream of consciousness. Its all intentional. She said; “you can interpret what it means…I’m just telling what is there.”
A burgler lurking in the bushes…in an ad about foreign policy. A white woman, 2 phallic symbols, then a black man.
I haven’t examined Althouse’s “nigger” claim, but the 3am was as racist as Willie Horton. Very little is left to chance in advertising.
I tend to think this is self-aggrandizement on the part of advertising types. I’m not saying that none of it is true, but that the idea that every single aspect of an ad (which, among other things, is put together in a fairly short length of time, when we’re discussing political ads – these aren’t films put together over the course of 15 months) is premeditated for maximum subliminal effect reminds me of architecture fans who ascribe implausible levels of detail and coordination to their heroes.
it speaks!
I’ll bet you didn’t think of it that way, you losers who can’t tolerate debate, you censors, you weaklings.
So Meade is Willy Loman. “Attention must be paid!”
your typical Althouse is being stupid again
Amazing how commonplace the completely unjustified “Althouse is stupid” meme is. I’m baffled by the prevalence of this smear.
Whoa, a ringing endorsement. A quote from this should be put in the banner please.
“Althouse says our big is shit!”
*blog… messed that one up. I’m sure there are better tag lines anyways.
I think our big is shit rather gets to the alcoholism at the core of her philosophical meanderings
sounded all right to me
Wow, she wrote that after … I’m just going to link to this conversation, which should be available to the public, and leave it at that.
To remove “dick” from a Google search do this: -”dick”
That’s with the quotes.
Have a look at this, it’ll help a lot:
http://www.johntedesco.net/blog/2012/06/21/how-to-solve-impossible-problems-daniel-russells-awesome-google-search-techniques/
I get my blog contretemps confused sometimes–who’s Meade and what unspeakable horrors did you guys unleash on him?
I’d link to it, but as the above makes clear, I can’t find a damn thing, not even on my own blog. Help?
I think you want something in this neighbourhood, but Meade’s comments were removed.
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2011/03/i-would-say-marking-essays-has-done-this-to-my-brain/comment-page-1#comment-102740
He’s Althouse’s husband. He used to come over here and tell us that unlike liberal prudes, he and Annie liked the buttsex, so anti-sodomy laws had nothing to do with gays at all. Then he got banned.
No mention of Elizabeth Warren’s exploitation of her supposed native American heritage, which she used only to get affirmative action goodies when it suited her purposes?
Now THAT”S offensive.
No mention of the thing that didn’t happen?
I’m always confused by this. The wingtards HATE affirmative action, so shouldn’t they be stoked when a WHITE person games the system? [*]
[*] Leaving aside for the moment that this didn’t actually happen, etc. etc. I’m only speaking of what the wingtards
THINKBELIEVEBELLYFEEL happened.Affirmative action as used by Elizabeth Warren is a sneaky little inside nudge, nudge wink wink lets make sure don’t really change anything, all while looking like we do. That is what conservatives find objectionable about all feel good diversity bullshit. It was never intended to be anything but a cover for political activity and libs hate it when it gets exposed.
When you throw a rock at a pack of dogs the ones that yelp are the ones you hit. Libs are running around with sore ribs these days.
So, when you toss the word salad, do you dress it first?
With maple syrup, of course. But never organic, because that’d be wrong.
When you throw a rock at a pack of dogs the ones that yelp are the ones you hit.
We really have no interest in hearing about your hobbies.
There is ample proof that this did happen.
I’m not stoked when anyone games the system. I hate the system. But, the system exists and it’s supposed to “help” minorities not little white girls with big ambitions and small abilities.
There is ample proof that this did happen.
Which I’m sure you won’t be too busy to share with us.
A simple test would be, would you do it/say it/name your stupid D.C. sports team it in front of a 6’4″ 280 pound Anishinabe with poor impulse control?
If the answer is no, maybe it might be a little racist.
What if the answer is yes and the Anishinabe thinks it’s OK?
I’m descended from vikings and I don’t get my tail in a twist when sports teams are named Vikings or other names associated with the Norse. Why would anyone unless they were trying to play the raaaaacist card?
What if the answer is yes and the Anishinabe thinks it’s OK?
Be sure and let us know how that test works out for you.
Yes, it’s terrible how we put all your Viking ancestors (those we didn’t gun down) on reservations after stealing their land from them. It must be especially bitter to you since this policy led to so many of your Viking cousins living in abject poverty these days.
And then when even today people call you and your cousins lazy and stupid and dirty because you can’t overcome this systemic oppression — well! It’s mighty big of you not to resent someone naming a sports team after you, considering.
What a hero you are!
And, in the meantime a real Native American or other minority who was supposed to benefit from this action was even more set back because they didn’t get the job and the person who did get the job is a liar and a cheat.
All of which quite correctly calls into question the serious intentions of the feel good liberal crowd. These programs are designed for one purpose and that purpose is to give control to a select group of people with the correct group think. If you seriously believe most of the agitprop the left puts out you are beyond mental help and if you are cynically using it you’re some kind of subhuman.
Would you like coffee with your pancakes, or is the unfluoridated water suiting you fine?
[...] meanwhile catches the right explaining it’s all the referees’ fault. •A dubious argument from Ann Althouse that borrowing Native American imagery can’t have racist overtones. •A [...]
Scott Brown and his staffers are racist? Another lie. Ann Althouse already destroyed this lie. They were pretending to be indians for one reason or another. (Being that they were in Boston and that there is a tea party movement, it might be to represent the tea party movement, in which case they would actually be pretending to be people who were pretending to be indians, thus they wouldn’t even be pretending to be indians in the first place–they would be reenacting an event that white Americans did when they threw tea overboard.)