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Jordan Kushner writes,
The
Star Tribune article's contains an explanation by Stewart for the spoof website which I believes puts it in proper context,
provides justification for accusing her and her campaign of racist appeal (obviously the link to the KKK was not meant to
be taken literally), and brings out a huge double standard where it is ok to make thinly veiled racist appeals but considered
outrageous to try to explicitly discuss race (even satirically) in order to expose racism.
[Doug Mann responds] I
publicly supported Keith Ellison, and agree with what Keith Ellison's campaign spokesman said about the "parody" of Tammy
Lee's web site. It is tasteless and clearly goes over the line. It is a personal attack. I have been at the receiving end
of plenty of them, and am not amused, even though in this case the attacker was trying to be funny. It is never justified.
It cannot advance the 'progressive' political agenda that Ellison's campaign is supposed to be about.
It should be
noted that the DFL school board candidates ran as a team, and that team was pretty tight with the Ellison campaign. What does
Pam Costain and the rest of the team have to say about the "parody" web site. And why on earth did Pam Costain want Chris
Stewart, the conservative, on the team? Same agenda?
During the late 1980s the Democratic Party began to sound a lot
like right wing Republicans. The people who run the system are telling those who are victimized by the system to not
blame the system, "blame yourselves." The schools have been getting more racially segregated and unequal, with black students
being heavily concentrated in the worst schools. And there is only token enforcement of fair housing and employment laws.
With the Democratic Party doing such a good job of advancing the KKK's agenda, who needs the KKK?
Mark Snyder
writes,
Also, someone commented about the web site being hate speech rather than satire and how there's a difference
between satire and hate. For those of you who believe that, I would suggest you try watching the Carlos Mencia or Dave Chappelle
shows on the Comedy Central cable channel. Both of these performers do a lot of race-based comedy. It's funny and a lot of
what it involves is satire, not hate speech. Making a reference to the KKK is not automatically hate speech.
[Doug
Mann responds]:
There is a fake Frontlines documentary about a black KKK leader, portrayed by Dave Chappelle, who is
blind, was raised by a white family, and didn't know he was black until he unmasked himself at a Klan meeting. It was a shock
to his followers.
The fake Frontlines documentary described above was a hoot, and quite different in nature from the
fake Tammy Lee for Congress site.
There is also at least one real news story, on MSNBC, about an African American KKK
leader:
African-American cop infiltrates the KKK:
Ron Stallworth speaks about his experience with the Klansmen
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10928153/
Stallworth
joined a KKK group in Colorado in the 1970s, and became a leader of the group.
I have occasionally seen one or more
African Americans dressed in Klan uniforms at demonstrations, along with white Klansmen, including the March 24, 1975 'march
against racism' sponsored by the Boston, MA chapter of the NAACP. The Klansmen were against, and the NAACP was for racially
integrated schools. I was there as a supporter of the NAACP.
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