Confusion in Dittoland As Limbaugh Loses Bid

[VanishingPoint]

Confusion in Dittoland As Limbaugh Loses Bid.
National Review is the center of grief and mourning for Rush Limbaugh's bid to buy the St. Louis Rams. Andy McCarthy, in a dispatch from what I have to assume is another planet, said that Limbaugh treats people "in the Martin Luther King aspiration that the content of one's character is what matters, not the color of one's skin." Kathryn Jean Lopez said Limbaugh being rejected was "an outrage," adding that Limbaugh was taken off the deal "because of his politics." On Twitter, the normally astute Jon Henke repeated this canard, asking "What would happen if NFL told Olbermann or @Maddow their political views made them ineligible for NFL team?"
Limbaugh's "political views" weren't the problem. His racial views were the problem. The players and NFL officials who spoke up didn't complain that Limbaugh was a Republican, they didn't even complain about his "views." They complained about actual things he said about black people that made him an inappropriate candidate to own a team in an organization with such a large contingent of African Americans.
The NFL is an organization made up of a lot of people who make a great deal of money -- I would guess that on average, management and ownership probably skews Republican. But it's also an organization made up of a lot of black people -- and while the right was focused on debunking racist things Limbaugh didn't say, they pretty much ignored Limbaugh's record of racist commentary, which includes not only a habit of comparing black athletes to gang members but a general hostility toward black people. Limbaugh only recently suggested that having a black president encouraged black children to beat up white children -- he's also compared President Obama's agenda to "slavery reparations," used epithets to reference his biracial background, and compared Democrats responding to the concerns of black voters to rape. In the fevered swamps of National Review, where they're still defending William F. Buckley's support of segregation, this kind of behavior is described as Martin Luther King like.
On the one hand, there's the general anxiety on the right that comes from the recognition that one can't actually treat black people this way and expect there not to be social consequences. On the other, there's actual bewilderment about the very concept of racism -- conservatives understand in the abstract that racism is bad, but they seem incapable of identifying actual racist behavior. Instead, because (a) racism is bad and (b) liberals are bad (c) racism is a quality possessed by liberals. By definition, conservatives cannot be racist, because they are good, unlike liberals, and therefore nothing Rush Limbaugh says is racist. Moreover, while liberals have sometimes intimated racial motivation for conservative criticism where there isn't any, conservatives have refused to recognize when attacks on the president become attacks on black people. Calling the president "an angry black guy" is one of those times.

This blanket refusal to evaluate their own behavior is what continues to make the GOP seem completely tone deaf when it comes to minorities -- the GOP can list as many black Republicans from the 1800s as they like, as long as they continue to adhere to the Bender Theory of Discrimination and refuse to acknowledge even flagrant racism within their ranks, and even imply that minorities are so stupid they're "fooled" into believing racism exists, they will remain a party minorities do not feel welcome in.

-- A. Serwer

[VanishingPoint]

By LZ Granderson
Special to CNN


Editor's note: LZ Granderson is a senior writer and columnist for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com, and has contributed to ESPN's Sports Center, Outside the Lines and First Take. He is the 2009 Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) award winner for online journalism and the 2008 National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) winner for column writing.
LZ Granderson says the black community should focus on its problems rather than the beliefs of Rush Limbaugh.





(CNN) -- Things ain't what they used to be.
That sentiment harkens back to a simpler day in which innocence was not met with sarcasm, a man's word was his bond and yadda yadda yadda. What a bunch of crap.
I would like to know which time period in this country's history that phrase is referring to -- during the witch hunts? Trail of Tears? Television's "Happy Days" would lead you to believe life in the '50s and '60s was all about high school dances and hot fudge sundaes, but many of us know that was hardly the case.
No, if we take an honest look at this country's 233 years, what we will find are moments of brilliance and triumphs, moral bankruptcy and hypocrisy and a great deal of denial and revision by everyone. It is because of our tendency to rewrite unpleasant aspects of our history that we struggle to make the kind of significant social progress we need to truly realize the American Dream.
In other words, ignoring the ugly of the past can stifle the beauty of today.
Typically when blacks talk of the past and about how "things ain't what they used to be," it often is a reference to the civil rights movement and the time in which my community rallied together for a common cause -- equality. We saw remnants of that synergy this week as Al Sharpton, the NAACP and several black NFLers openly opposed Rush Limbaugh's inclusion on a team trying to purchase the St. Louis Rams.
And it is true, we were more willing to be our brother's keepers 40 years ago. But if we're being honest, not all of our brothers and sisters were worth trying to keep back then.


Not every black person was willing to sacrifice self-interest for the better of the whole. Quite a few of us sold out and were more than willing to be puppets or manipulate racial tension to keep crumbs of power or money.
We still had black-on-black crime, gambling, theft, prostitution, murder.
We still had some version of Kwame Kilpatrick to contend with and it's important that we talk about that. It's important that we understand that even during the more triumphant times in our history, there were still plenty of blacks who were agitators profiting from the status quo and that the community had to overcome their self-destructive behavior in addition to systematic racism and violence.
I know, I know, we don't like airing our dirty laundry. But by not talking about the uncomfortable parts of the civil rights movement, we have forgotten that the self-inflicted wounds we face today are nothing new and can be overcome.
We were not a nobler people during the civil rights movement. We just had more vocal citizens willing to make sacrifices. But we seem to have romanticized the civil rights movement so much that we have convinced ourselves we were a perfect people then.
We keep following voices that remind us of that era because we have convinced ourselves we still need a black leader to follow. We keep talking about how "things ain't what they used to be" and we haven't taken a close enough look at our history to understand things ain't never been that way.
For example, we chastise today's black athletes for not being Muhammad Ali or Jim Brown, as if every athlete of color from the 1950s and '60s was on the social justice front line, which we know is not true. Still, that doesn't stop us from romanticizing, and those blinders are one of the main reasons why today we do disempowering things like respond to violence in our community based on the race of the perpetrator, not the crime itself.
Limbaugh tried to become a minority owner of a professional football team and some of us behaved as if he was one of the young men caught on video beating Derrion Albert to death in the streets of Chicago.
I'm not a Limbaugh fan but I'm not upset over him being involved in purchasing a team either. I would simply give his squad the same amount of support I give his other projects -- none. There are just more pressing things to focus on.
If the NAACP or NFLPA speaks with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on societal or image matters, I would rather they talk about new ways to improve the public education system in cities where NFL teams are located than give an opinion on who buys a team.
Limbaugh may be a racist, but he is not the reason there are more black men in prison than in college. We are.
Our issues did not germinate in a vacuum, but I believe the best way to get out of our socioeconomical malaise is to spend less time looking at what white people like Limbaugh are supposedly doing to us and more time looking at what we're definitely doing to ourselves. More time charting a new course based on personal responsibility, not victimhood and the retelling of stories, because let me tell you, some of those stories have been touched up so many times it's hard to know what's true anyway.
After all, somewhere along the path someone deleted the significant role gay people played in organizing the famed Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and the 1963 march on Washington.
Somewhere along the path someone Photoshopped out all of the adultery committed by some of the movement's religious leaders.
Somewhere someone shredded the mug shots of those who were arrested for real crimes, not protests.
Making those, and other uncomfortable topics, talking points in the overall discussion does not negate the good that was done. But it does remind us that life isn't black and white.
It reminds us that sometimes you have to peel back a few layers to fully understand what you're looking at.
It reminds us that to err is human, and not wanting to deal with err... well that may be the most common human trait of all.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of LZ Granderson.

[clownboy]

Uhhhh, wasn't it Limbaugh who lost his sports announcer gig for making racist comments? Isn't he also a convicted drug user caught bringing illegal drugs into the country? That right there is probably enough.

[VanishingPoint]

Originally Posted by clownboy

Uhhhh, wasn't it Limbaugh who lost his sports announcer gig for making racist comments? Isn't he also a convicted drug user caught bringing illegal drugs into the country? That right there is probably enough.

I don't really know that much about him except I don't like his views and I never listen to him. A couple of times was enough.

Even though I was a little gleeful that he lost the bid for the team, there was a part of me that felt it was wrong to ostracize someone in that way because of their views. He said it had always been a dream of his.

I heard he was a prescription drug addict at one time.

[Lucas]

I generally think Limbaugh's views and such are mostly entertainment. That said, the character he 'plays' on the air is an idiot, a complete hypocrite, and incredibly intellectually dishonest. That said, I highly doubt the guy is racist. Just as I don't think Howard Stern or Don Imus is racist. You talk for however many tens of thousands of hours, purposefully trying to be 'edgy' (in different ways, of course) you're going to have moments where some think you've crossed the line. That's kind of the nature of the beast.

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by VanishingPoint

I heard he was a prescription drug addict at one time.

He was. But that wasn't really the problem. The problem was his railing against 'drug addicts' to a ridiculous extent while in private doing the exact thing he was crusading against. And when it came out? Did ask for the 'justice' he demanded to exacted on others to be exacted on himself? Of course not. Did he even make a statement about how he was wrong to get on his soapbox and demand all drug users be sent to prison for a very long time, and apologize for his hypocrisy? No, not to my knowledge. Who cares if he was a drug addict? The problem was everything else surrounding it.

[VanishingPoint]

Originally Posted by Lucas

He was. But that wasn't really the problem. The problem was his railing against 'drug addicts' to a ridiculous extent while in private doing the exact thing he was crusading against. And when it came out? Did ask for the 'justice' he demanded to exacted on others to be exacted on himself? Of course not. Did he even make a statement about how he was wrong to get on his soapbox and demand all drug users be sent to prison for a very long time, and apologize for his hypocrisy? No, not to my knowledge. Who cares if he was a drug addict? The problem was everything else surrounding it.

I see. I also agree about him being an entertainer along with Glenn Beck. Bill O'Reilly, I have actually heard say a few accurate things but he is still a bad journalist. Remember inside edition.

[clownboy]

It's a heck of a stretch to call Bill O'Reilly a journalist, at any point in his career. He went from entertainment muckraker to commentator/editorialist.

[Underhill]

I can't say I blame the players. I wouldn't want to work for the guy.

[Dawildman]

Originally Posted by Lucas

I generally think Limbaugh's views and such are mostly entertainment.

He's an entertainer so long as you think rape jokes are "funny"...

[Lucas]

Not really. There's lots of people that are 'entertainers' whether I like them or not. My approval or disapproval does not change what they do for a living.

[potter]

Originally Posted by Underhill

I can't say I blame the players. I wouldn't want to work for the guy.

I also don't think its fair of him to foist himself, being the controversial character he is, upon the team. It could spell disaster for the team and game attendance.