In my last commentary (TADM #73) I discussed remarks the racially-biased blogger Dennis Marks (AKA dmarks), made concerning comments made and actions taken by President Barack Obama in regards to the Henry Louis Gates arrest controversy.
According to Dennis, "this whole beer summit matter had nothing to do with any issue of national importance" (as it would not have happened if Dr Gates wasn't one of his buddies). "It was all personal" and the president was "demagoguing it up" in the deluded mind of Mr. Marks.
Which, according to the definition of demagogue meant the president was "treating or manipulating a political issue in an attempt to obscure or distort with emotionalism or prejudice"... something I proved was total bullshit. First, because columnist Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times specifically asked Obama "what does it say about race relations in America?" Obama, put on the spot, made an extemporaneous remark that he later said he regretted.
Second, the Beer Summit occurred due to negative poll results that suggested a large number of (mainly White) people thought he handled the question badly. So - someone in the White House, most likely - put together this "Beer Summit" idea to try and smooth things over with the law enforcement community and the public. It was about optics and the "teachable moment" Obama mentioned, NOT demagoguery.
The reverse was actually the case, and suggesting racial demagoguery from a African American president is, in my opinion, racist. Very similar to when Dennis said that Obama is an "exceptionally indolent and lazy man". A sentence loaded with dog-whistles that even a dumb-dumb like Dennis has to be aware of. Seriously, I bet Dennis could go to the Stormfront website and post this comment and find a LOT of agreement.
In regards to that (Dennis hypothetically posting on the Stormfront site), I did a quick Google search and found a thread on a discussion board concerning how lazy Blacks are. One commenter wrote the following...
| ...in my past experiences, the blacks are the laziest of the bunch at work. My last few jobs... I was a minority. This is where you truly see how lazy, degenerate, and hateful to whites most blacks really are. Its like being trapped in the monkey cage at the zoo, just waiting for one of them to start flinging poop. (12/04/2008 AT 02:33am. Comment by "Twitchie" from StormFront.org). |
Commentary that sounds like what that Boston cop Justin Barrett said in his email re Henry Louis Gates.
| On 7/28, it was revealed... that Justin Barrett, a 36-year-old Boston Police Department officer who has been on the job for two years, and is also a member of the Massachusetts National Guard, sent a mass e-mail to fellow National Guardsmen and to The Boston Globe in which he referred to Gates as a "jungle monkey". Although the email was signed only JB, when he was asked about it, Barrett admitted to his BPD superiors that he was the author. According to an article in the Boston Globe, Barrett wrote the email... "in reaction to media coverage of Gates's arrest July 16", in particular to a July 22 Globe column by Yvonne Abraham, who expressed support for Gates. In the e-mail, Barrett wrote, "If I was the officer he [Gates] verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC [oleorosin capsicum, or pepper spray] deserving of his belligerent non-compliance". During the course of the message, Barrett used the phrase "jungle monkey" four times, three times in reference to Gates and once in reference to Abraham's column, which he characterized as "jungle monkey gibberish". (Wikipedia/Henry Louis Gates arrest controversy/Justin Barrett e-mail). |
Yeah, these people are worse than Dennis, but just like Dennis, Barrett (who was fired) is in complete denial regarding his racism. In a TV interview Barrett said, "I have so many friends of every type of culture and race you can name. I am not a racist". Sure, that's why you used the term "jungle monkey", because you're NOT a racist. And, note that he used the "Black friend" defense. When Barrett sued (because his unemployment was denied) the Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled that his "egregious misconduct" was "obviously intentional".
Which I think might be true about about Dennis... his misconduct is egregious and intentional. I mean, how could he NOT know that his accusations (our Black president is "indolent and lazy" and guilty of "demagoguing it up") are racist? Although I haven't seen any comments by Dennis where he says he can't be racist due to all the Black friends he has.
But what he does do is (falsely) claim that many Black people are racists. To hear Dennis tell it, it's almost always Black people who are guilty of racism. One of the only times I can remember Dennis referring to a White guy as racist was when he compared Van Jones to David Duke!
| Dennis Marks: David Duke is the Van Jones of the right. (4:48pm on an unspecified date sometime after 8/26/2011. From the blog Newspaper Rock). |
Van Jone has NEVER used any rhetoric comparable to David Duke. Never. He is a strong champion of Middle Class and working folks, regardless of race. In any case, there is one other instance I can recall where Dennis referred to White people as racist, this time in conjunction with another bash against our president.
| Dennis Marks: You should have looked at his career [Obama's] before he ran. His appointment to his Harvard Law post by supposedly well-meaning racists not because he was qualified at all, but explicitly because of his skin color. ... His listless and lazy and by any objective standard, unremarkable legislative record. (1/14/2014 AT 5:26pm). |
Even if these "well-meaning racists" selected Obama "explicitly because of his skin color" that does NOT mean Obama wasn't qualified. If this were the case, Dennis would have provided some evidence to show he wasn't. Instead he simply takes the fact that they may have been looking for a Black person to fill the position (in the interest of diversity) to make the idiotic suggestion that they did not select the best Black candidate.
Just because Obama may have been an "affirmative action appointment" does not automatically mean he was unqualified (nor does it mean that those who appointed him were "well-meaning racists"). Assuming this to be the case with no proof at all? I say that's racist.
So, that's two examples of Dennis calling out "white racists", but they are both within the context of bashing Black guys (Van Jones and Barack Obama).
What does this say about Dennis? You can draw your own conclusion, but I know what mine is, which is that Dennis Marks is one SERIOUSLY racially biased individual. As well as someone who is guilty of "treating or manipulating a political issue in an attempt to obscure or distort with emotionalism or prejudice"... or demagoguery.
Image Description: On 7/30/2009, President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Professor Gates, and Sergeant Crowley met at the White House. ...Obama said he believed "what brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart" and that after the meeting he was "hopeful that all of us are able to draw this positive lesson from this episode".
