Idiots on "The View"

I'm working from home, which means that about this time my wife starts to watch "The View". Usually I ignore it while I'm reading through my various documentation, but then the blond woman (I don't remember her name - I'll just call her Blond) starts to talk about the Sean Hannity "investigation" into Barack Obama.

Like - Barack goes to a black church.

No. Really.

It gets worse - this church has a value system about "black pride", and supporting "the black family". And then comes Captain Dumb:

"If this was said about White Pride, people would call it racist."

To which I'd say - yeah. It would be. But what if it was - Irish Pride? Or Hispanic Pride? Or Female Pride? Is that different?

There's a difference between ethnic or religious or community pride, and racism. I'm a Mormon. Pretty proud of it (Mitt Romney and Glenn Beck notwithstanding). So if we have a Mormon party like we had this Saturday, it's not because we hate Catholics or Jews - we're just sharing time with people with common beliefs and values.

The problem with "Well, Black Power sounds as racist as White Power" is the context. There is a clear historical context of the phrase "White Power" being a call to arms to keep other ethnic minorities down. You can have "Irish Pride", or "English Pride", or - whatever, and nobody will care because there is a specific context regarding the phrase White Power that does not exist in other ethnic/religious/community declarations .

Last time I checked, during the Hispanic Pride festival, they didn't have signs up saying "Gringo go home" - it was "Hey, this is what our history is about and the things we celebrate". The same with a black church celebrating Black Pride and Black Family - the things that they associate with being black in America.

So to make this argument of "saying Black Pride is as racist as saying White Pride" is silly because it ignores context. Sean Hannity isn't doing an "investigation" of Barack Obama - he's doing yet another neo-conservative hit job about "watch out - fear the black guy". I'm going to bet there's going to be a follow up on Farrakhan next, or on somebody who was considered a radical in the 1960's that Obama went to the same party with one time.

And for Blond on "The View" to be "so concerned" by what she's learning about Obama from Hannity just shows she has no clue where her news is coming from.

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