SEK: When I Said Ed Morrissey “Knowingly Baits” “Racist Comments” from His Readers, I Wasn’t Slagging Him for Race-Baiting!
Via an email conversation, it’s come to my attention that if you only read the title of this post, you’d come away with the impression that I was slagging Ed Morrissey for race-baiting. Because that charge is so loaded, I want to make it absolutely clear that I wasn’t.
Go ahead and click the hyperlink above. That’s the part where you see the words the title of this post.
Now read the title of the post. That’s the title that gave you the false impression that SEK “was slagging Ed Morrissey for race-baiting.”
Once you read the title you’ll see how silly that notion is.
Go ahead. I’ll wait right here.
Back? Good. Here is the title I saw:
Be nice, now. The English language is not Ed Morrissey’s strong suit, and he at least makes a show of reining in the racist comments he knowingly baits from his audience.
Who could have possibly read that as SEK “slagging Ed Morrissey for race-baiting”?
How dare you read what he wrote?!
Racists
Literacy and logic remain CrimeThink.
Mitch (e40959) — 11/29/2009 @ 9:30 pmYou seem surprised, Patterico. But the “sensitivity for me but not for thee” is kinda his thing.
Don’t worry. Soon he will say that people who like Morrissey need to toughen up.
Perhaps you should have a series of titles that don’t really insult the man.
I also like the “knowingly” business in particular. Because even though he doesn’t like people making assumptions about his own motives, he has no trouble doing it himself. That or he is a telepath.
Because he is good, you see. Which makes people who disagree with him…well, you know.
Eric Blair (c8876d) — 11/29/2009 @ 9:33 pmThe irony in that sentence — in the context of his subsequent denial — is breathtaking.
aunursa (862c19) — 11/29/2009 @ 9:44 pmSEK sees racists everywhere but his own backyard. Curious.
daleyrocks (718861) — 11/29/2009 @ 9:57 pmSEK knowingly makes unfounded accusations of racism.
Which is not to accuse him of making unfounded accusations of racism. That’s a loaded accusation and I would never make it. If anything, he does it by default.
Patterico (64318f) — 11/29/2009 @ 10:01 pmYou forgot the Ivory Tower “I wrote a book but you didn’t” thing (that he trotted out when I made a funny).
John Hitchcock (3fd153) — 11/29/2009 @ 10:03 pmPatterico – SEK’s commentariat forces him to make unfounded accusations of racism by default, not that I am accusing him of making unfounded accusations of racism.
daleyrocks (718861) — 11/29/2009 @ 10:03 pmThis is all a terribly pathetic gotcha game. Race Baiting! No one really seems to mind that Obama’s black, and I guess that’s just a little hard to believe for the serially oppressed. SEK doesn’t give a flip about racial equality.
LGF still takes top honors for sockpuppetting the N Word onto Hot Air. For some reason, Hot Air really seems to attract a lot of these attacks. I guess actually discussing the content of their posts isn’t quite as secure a proposition for SEK and Killgore Trout.
Dustin (cf255c) — 11/29/2009 @ 10:10 pmHey, John, no worries. I have written more books than the man, so please feel free to sneer at him, by proxy.
That was a subtle used of irony.
Because I have never confused writing academic papers, books, or fiction with being better than anyone. And certainly never with the attempt to shut down the ideas of someone else.
How silly of me.
Eric Blair (bc43a4) — 11/29/2009 @ 10:31 pmI made all the way through SEK’s argument against Ed, but it wasn’t easy. The labor he went through to birth such a silly thread seems hardly worth it.
Worst of all, he ends with that clip of Roy Blunt telling that story of the monkeys on the Indian golf course who became part of the course rules because they couldn’t be run off the links. SEK calls that a case of “dog whistle racism.” That phrase is amusing to me, because as we all know, the only ones who can hear a dog whistle are dogs. Yet, when it comes to “dog whistle racism,” the people who hear it all the time are all liberals!
L.N. Smithee (95b20a) — 11/29/2009 @ 10:41 pmThere is that bit in “Annie Hall,” when Woody Allen’s character believes that everyone in Hollywood is anti-Semitic. As proof, he told of the fellow who said to him: “I’m going to such and such place after work. D’you want to come along?” Woody heard “Jew” instead of “Did you.”
But I like the dog-whistle thing better.
Eric Blair (bc43a4) — 11/29/2009 @ 10:54 pmHow odd. If you click through to the comments, one responder who jumped on the bandwagon, albeit in an ambiguous manner, happens to post here! They happen to be antagonistic, and counter to most reasoning we embrace. I am stunned. Not.
sybilll (839e08) — 11/29/2009 @ 10:56 pmSo when I went over to SEK’s site, I discovered this gem of inartful argumentation, polished to a high gloss finish with irony:
Well, the body of the post that SEK wrote does indeed underscore that, no matter what conservative bloggers write about the POTUS, a “...vocal portion of the Left will respond with accusations of racism.…”
Fixed that for him.
Again, it is remarkable how little self-awareness I see on the Left. I mean, I believe that SEK himself has insisted that, when Tony Snow died, and many Leftists piled on that with horrible commentary….
1. Not many Leftists did that.
2. And besides, Republicans are worse.
Sigh.
But if he gets to call the “commentariat” (did he actually use that word in a sentence?) of Right wing blogs “racists” (oh, excuse me, “utterers of racist language”), why, I think it is fair enough to call Left wing commenters mean spirited and without human compassion.
Not fair? Indeed.
Eric Blair (bc43a4) — 11/30/2009 @ 12:37 amWell, consider te name of his web site. It does mean, litterally, “brainless.”
John Costello (4cd8cf) — 11/30/2009 @ 12:50 amDo any of you think that Andrew Sullivan will point out the inconsistencies of MO’s and BO’s recollections about their daughter’s illness and go on to condemn BO for lying? Nah, neither do I.
BT (74cbec) — 11/30/2009 @ 4:38 amYou know, when I wrote that all men were created equal, it wasn’t as if I wrote that all men were created equal.
Thomas Jefferson
MunDane68 (54a83b) — 11/30/2009 @ 5:54 amSEK has a band of angry haters that will hate on his behalf. He has friends! RACISTS!!!!!
JD (b3f947) — 11/30/2009 @ 5:54 ami think it is ironic that the post also put down Morrissey’s english skills. pot. kettle.
A.W. (e7d72e) — 11/30/2009 @ 6:33 amThis is all so …. September
quasimodo (4af144) — 11/30/2009 @ 6:59 am“Who could have possibly read that as SEK “slagging Ed Morrissey for race-baiting”?”
He’s not slagging. I think he feels sorry for the guy.
imdw (c5488f) — 11/30/2009 @ 7:00 amI once had a liberal tell me that overt racism is gone–now it’s very subtle. You really have to look for it. It never occurred to her that if she had to search so hard for it, maybe it didn’t exist in her example.
You remove racism from the equation, and you remove liberals’ reason to live, and argue, and whine, and generally be a pain in the neck.
Rochf (ae9c58) — 11/30/2009 @ 7:01 amThis guy is allegedly a teacher, yes? Eric pointed out one of his lectures on YouTube to me awhile back, and to view his behavior in the classroom is, well…interesting. Their parents should be asking for a refund.
Dmac (a964d5) — 11/30/2009 @ 7:02 amPatterico once again makes the error of assuming that everyone believes in a rational 2 + 2 = 4 reality.
Reality is what they say it is. The words they write mean what they say they mean, and that meaning is not obliged to remain constant.
Amphipolis (b120ce) — 11/30/2009 @ 7:13 amWho are these jokes like sek and thor? Sek couldn’t craft a well-written sentence if his life depended on it, the circle jerk feeling is definitely in the air. Not to mention the hilarity of talking about racism while your post, comments, and the comments of those agreeing you are filled with puerile, hateful insults. That thor fellow, here’s some advice for him: this is the internet and your tough guy comments are pathetic. Thanks.
chaos (7c068a) — 11/30/2009 @ 7:20 amWait, “thor”, as in the long-running uber-troll over at Jeff Goldstein’s site?
He’s still at it? Man, I feel sorry for that guy, he’s got real issues.
Techie (482700) — 11/30/2009 @ 7:45 amprobably. The worst thing about the internet is that for people like andy sully, chuckles johnson, sek, thor, etc., it is their way to release maaad resentments they’ve been carrying. You don’t attack people the way they do unless you yourself felt totally illegitimate as a person thanks to the attacks of others so now that they have the power to try to do it they can’t resist. I’d put money down that people like the four i named did not have a good time in high school, or college, or somewhere. Their personalities are the kind definitely nurtured by social isolation and resentment.
chaos (7c068a) — 11/30/2009 @ 7:53 amwell, racism does exist, and a lawyer friend i had had a good way to put it. When talking about disability discrimination, he said, “they haven’t learned to lie about it like they do with race and sex.”
But it really does exist. i have seen it. but the hysteria over it is far greater than the actual problem.
A.W. (e7d72e) — 11/30/2009 @ 8:01 amRemind me again why anyone takes SEK seriously? The guy writes about 2000 words trying to explain how “possibly diagnosed with menengitis” means “diagnosed with meneningitis”. Seriously.
Seems to me that the English language has a common usage for the word diagnosis, which is that someone is diagnosed with a disease when they actually, you know, have the disease, and that to insist otherwise is playing word games. But what do I know? I’m not an English professor, but merely a dog whistle racist.
radar (98f691) — 11/30/2009 @ 8:16 amI will agree with A.W.’s statement, so long as he or she also admits that “racism” cuts both ways.
And most of all, that things are MUCH better than in the 1950s.
I don’t think it is possible to perfect humankind. And disliking or hating based on personal appearance or background goes far, far beyond melanin content.
This is the Left’s conceit: they believe that they can “perfect” humankind by law. And their definition of “perfection.”
Eric Blair (bc43a4) — 11/30/2009 @ 8:17 amMy own personal belief on racism – prejudice is very real and very widespread. Most of us hold stereotypes of various races, ethnic groups, religious groups, and so on. These are intellectually lazy beliefs but aren’t necessarily hurtful. Racism, on the other hand, is an active and hateful manifestation of these prejudices.
Prejudice in the form of stereotypes and generalizations is fairly, in unfortunately, common. Racism is not.
radar (98f691) — 11/30/2009 @ 8:39 amNicely put, radar. And I don’t see how to “cure” people. The only thing that works is knowing people from outside one’s own experience. Conformity is the enemy of acceptance, maybe.
We need to value the individual. The “ethnocracy” we have tried to develop in this country is counterproductive to civil rights, I think.
But I’m just a white guy, and I don’t know a darned thing, I guess.
Eric Blair (c8876d) — 11/30/2009 @ 8:50 amBut we all know it’s those evil conservatives (who created NAACP) who are racists.
It’s the conservatives who are the haters.
It’s the liberals who are all-inclusive (hymietown). “Democrats are unwavering in our support of equal opportunity for all Americans. That’s why we’ve worked to pass every one of our nation’s Civil Rights laws… On every civil rights issue, Democrats have led the fight.”
Pay no attention to the facts.
John Hitchcock (3fd153) — 11/30/2009 @ 9:14 amOf course prejudices and biases will always be with us – it’s part and parcel of the human experience. The only thing a society can do is try to mitigate those effects, but not through legislation. Per example – the Hate Crime laws have been used to penalize petty actions as compared to those they were originally intended to prohibit.
Dmac (a964d5) — 11/30/2009 @ 12:04 pmI should care about anything SEK says because?????????????????????
AD - RtR/OS! (cc9803) — 11/30/2009 @ 12:24 pmOh, the beautiful irony
These are the witticisms and loving comments of Christ’s children. Flowers and puppies for everybody…why does everyone hate us conservatives?
Well, it has nothing to do with the kind of disingenuous twaddle which claims all Republicans are “conservative” all the way back to Reconstruction! No, that sort of lack of basic historical knowledge is the sign of Enlightenment.
On a side note, it’s grand to see Patrick and Jeff together again.
timb (449046) — 11/30/2009 @ 12:39 pmIt’s time for someone to enter Re-Hab, again!
AD - RtR/OS! (cc9803) — 11/30/2009 @ 12:44 pmNow I know why the Hebrew slaves had to make bricks for Pharoah from mud without straw. timb had been hoarding all the straw for his “arguments”.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/30/2009 @ 12:46 pmAnyone surprised that the abject mendacity from SEK got the creepy crapweasel out from under its rock?
JD (54c62f) — 11/30/2009 @ 12:47 pm#37….chuckles…
AD - RtR/OS! (cc9803) — 11/30/2009 @ 12:48 pmUm. Based on timb’s previous posts, he should tread a bit lightly around critiquing anyone else’s lack of “basic historical knowledge.”
Eric Blair (c8876d) — 11/30/2009 @ 12:50 pmEric
Re: 29
> I will agree with A.W.’s statement, so long as he or she also admits that “racism” cuts both ways.
Absolutely. I think frankly you are picturing me to be a much more leftward-leaning and weenie-ish person than I am.
Nothing annoys me more, for instance, than the idiots who claim that black people can’t be racists. Yes, of course they can. Of course it helps to have a clear-eyed understanding of what racism is. I call it the opposite of MLK’s dream: to judge others according to the color of their skin and not the content of their character.
But even by that goofball notion that racism requires power, um, okay a black man is the president. How much more power do black people have to have before the sullen critical race studies type admit that black people have some power? Besides to say that black people are powerless is simply ignorant. Even the slave had power; it is a dirty little secret in the civil war that passive resistance by the slaves was a key factor in northern victory.
> And most of all, that things are MUCH better than in the 1950s.
Well, heck, me and my wife are glad that things are much better than they were before Loving v. Virginia (1967). Let’s just say we have a very personal stake in that decision.
And that is a very good example of where I think you are picturing me in a very different place than I am.
> And disliking or hating based on personal appearance or background goes far, far beyond melanin content.
Well, I will say that I practiced pretty strict equality of opportunity by race in my dating life, when I was a single man. That is right I hit on and was rejected by women of all hues and colors! *rim shot*
> This is the Left’s conceit: they believe that they can “perfect” humankind by law.
Well, the dems are well-captured by the legal lobby, so of course the law is the answer to everything. That is part of what is underneath the criminalization of the war on terror. There is a breed of lawyer who simply doesn’t understand that there is a place where law doesn’t belong (we call it: the battlefield). I am a lawyer myself, but I tend to be annoyingly contrarian (to other lawyers) in my thinking.
But that being said, there is no denying the effect of the law on racism, if only because it literally breaks down the financial incentives against equality of opportunity. I mean imagine it is 1953, and you are opening a restaurant in rural Georgia and your partner says, “I have a suggestion. Let’s serve everyone equally. As long as you can pay, you can sit wherever you want and get the same service.” In 1953, that would have been insane; all the white people would boycott it, so unless you attracted a massive black clientele, forget it. But after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it was insane to discriminate, because you would be sued. Ideally, the government can and should intervene to make sure that those who do the right thing are rewarded; and whether they do the right thing for the “right” reasons or not, is left between them and the almighty. The problem is that most of the people trying to control our lives these days don’t know how to do so intelligently. Its probably a problem of scale, too, which is why I think we need a radical reduction in the size of government.
I think the other thing to say is this. I think increasingly for young people it can be very hard to get around the mental blocks that prevent them from seeing racism. One of the biggest fallacies humans constantly engage in is to say everyone is like me. The person thinks, “I am not a racist, therefore racism doesn’t exist.” Which in some ways is a good thing: they are such non racists they have trouble seeing racism. Its like that south park where they were debating their flag, which showed 4 white guys lynching a black guy. The kids were so beyond race, they attached zero significance to the fact the lynched guy was black. So Chef rightly said it was a “beautiful thing” that the kids didn’t even understand what all the fuss was about. And maybe they are better off not knowing.
And I might add that this “everyone is like me” fallacy is part of how the left buries its head in the sand about islamofacism. I can’t tell you how many times I have tried to get liberals to understand that their reasons to hate America, or at least be really critical of it, had little to do with why bin Laden hates us. But you still get liberal idiots saying that bin Laden was building day care centers or something. You know, because bin Laden is really big on helping women juggle a career and family. /sarcasm. And you get liberal idiots who willfully ignore the president of iran (how do you spell his name? Amadanutjob?) saying he wants to wipe isreal off the map, while reaching for the nuclear eraser. Why? Because they go, “nah, no one really wants to holocaust the jews. I mean I don’t, and so he can’t. I mean he is surely a reasonable man, just like me, right?” Its completely fallacious reasoning, as any person minimally aware of human history should know. The most amazing example of that was when I debated the need to stop iran with a liberal who proclaimed that Amadanutjob would never use a nuke on isreal, because that would be “suicidal.” Sure and when have you ever heard of an islamofascist attacking when it was suicidal? /super sarcasm. 9-11 is prima facie proof that some people do not think at all like us, that they love death more than life, and are willing to kill themselves and thousands of others in their cause.
But that is enough philosophizing for now.
A.W. (e7d72e) — 11/30/2009 @ 1:38 pmI don’t recall making any of the 3 remarks you quote in an attempt to discredit me. You do understand that that’s dishonest of you, right?
chaos (9c54c6) — 11/30/2009 @ 1:46 pmHey, A.W., I don’t know you at all; I would never judge you without hearing what you thought about issues.
The way most people discuss racism make it a difficult subject.
I’m glad to hear you quote MLK’s “content of their character” speech, because that is right where I am from.
Eric Blair (c8876d) — 11/30/2009 @ 2:09 pmEric
It appears that i read some of your comments as more accusatory than intended. can i plead the fact that the internet gives rise to lots of misunderstandings of tone and tenor?
A.W. (e7d72e) — 11/30/2009 @ 2:22 pmNo problem at all, A.W. I didn’t actually see us as disagreeing very much.
Eric Blair (c8876d) — 11/30/2009 @ 2:27 pmInstitutional racism is history! I don’t think that anyone can refute that. However, there are still racists….they didn’t cease to be…or simply disappear. I have experienced both sides of the racism issue….color of skin both ways. My black girlfriend and I were discriminated against in a bar not long ago….based simply on the color of her skin.
I was discriminated against several years ago on the island of Barbados, simply because of the color of my skin.
Do we all have some prejudices? Based on simply appearances or first takes….of course we do..whether it be a prejudice based on weight, dress, apparent economic status, disability, or something else. I’m going to keep mine to myself and continue to work on overcoming them. For all of you that are unenlightened…that is what most people do.
rls (e58293) — 11/30/2009 @ 3:51 pmYou unenlightened rubes !!!
JD (355e34) — 11/30/2009 @ 3:56 pmI suffered through SEK’s post. My he’s a pompous ass. I bet he wears his ribbed condoms inside out. Of course, I’m sure his personality serves as a 100% effective contraceptive.
Bill M (e29ffd) — 11/30/2009 @ 5:02 pm