Watchdog Group Calls Column Racist
Sam Francis, syndicated columnist and former Heritage Foundation analyst, wrote a piece railing against the a controversial and racy Monday Night Football promo that featured Nicollette Sheridan and Terrell Owens.
In his Nov. 26 column, Francis decried the MNF spot not only for its implied nudity and implied sex, but for racial reasons. (Sheridan is white and Owens is black.) Francis wrote, among other things: "Breaking down the sexual barriers between the races is a major weapon of cultural destruction because it means the dissolution of the cultural boundaries that define breeding and the family and, ultimately, the transmission and survival of the culture itself."
As a proud participant in a "mixed race" marriage, I am more than a little bit pissed off. If this is where we are going, then soon Team Rapture will be adding Miscegenation to blasphemy, heresy and treason on my growing list of sins justifying my burning.
By all means, be horrified. Be outraged. But think twice about asking for his head. Because Sam Francis is the tip of the racist iceberg, willing to say what millions feel but are too cowed to voice by the politically correct culture they so deeply resent. Smack this asshole down, and the racist next door will stay hidden.
The sad fact is that this kind of antebellum nonsense is still, 140 years after our Civil War, a pervasive stain on this country. And part of the seamy underside of the red state antipathy to the John Kerrys of the world is the way in which the civil rights movement made traditional racism unfit for polite company. The ugliness is generally sublimated so far that it pops out in other incoherent ways, like the re-election of George Bush.
As Atrios pointed out,
Yes, Francis is entitled to his opinion that "Breaking down the sexual barriers between the races is a major weapon of cultural destruction." Creators is entitled to syndicate it. Newspapers are entitled to publish. But, expressings concerns about breaking "down the sexual barriers between the races" is not a broaching a "senstive topic," it's fucking racism.
I won't waste time probing the ugly corners of Mr. Francis's psyche. But I have this funny feeling that part of why the commercial upset him is because, way back in his private space, the idea of Owens having his way with a white woman gave him a chubby. Wouldn't it be fun to pull Mr. Francis's Netflix records and see how many times he rented Mandingo?
In his Nov. 26 column, Francis decried the MNF spot not only for its implied nudity and implied sex, but for racial reasons. (Sheridan is white and Owens is black.) Francis wrote, among other things: "Breaking down the sexual barriers between the races is a major weapon of cultural destruction because it means the dissolution of the cultural boundaries that define breeding and the family and, ultimately, the transmission and survival of the culture itself."
As a proud participant in a "mixed race" marriage, I am more than a little bit pissed off. If this is where we are going, then soon Team Rapture will be adding Miscegenation to blasphemy, heresy and treason on my growing list of sins justifying my burning.
By all means, be horrified. Be outraged. But think twice about asking for his head. Because Sam Francis is the tip of the racist iceberg, willing to say what millions feel but are too cowed to voice by the politically correct culture they so deeply resent. Smack this asshole down, and the racist next door will stay hidden.
The sad fact is that this kind of antebellum nonsense is still, 140 years after our Civil War, a pervasive stain on this country. And part of the seamy underside of the red state antipathy to the John Kerrys of the world is the way in which the civil rights movement made traditional racism unfit for polite company. The ugliness is generally sublimated so far that it pops out in other incoherent ways, like the re-election of George Bush.
As Atrios pointed out,
Yes, Francis is entitled to his opinion that "Breaking down the sexual barriers between the races is a major weapon of cultural destruction." Creators is entitled to syndicate it. Newspapers are entitled to publish. But, expressings concerns about breaking "down the sexual barriers between the races" is not a broaching a "senstive topic," it's fucking racism.
I won't waste time probing the ugly corners of Mr. Francis's psyche. But I have this funny feeling that part of why the commercial upset him is because, way back in his private space, the idea of Owens having his way with a white woman gave him a chubby. Wouldn't it be fun to pull Mr. Francis's Netflix records and see how many times he rented Mandingo?
posted by bluememe at 12/08/2004
1 Comments:
Rent? It's a good bet that it occupies an easily accessed spot in his personal film library.
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