Evidence that racism is thriving in the US arrives on a regular basis. There are the ongoing stories of institutional racism that media often fail to frame as being about racism: underfunded schools, drug wars, sentencing differentials, stop and frisk, lending disparities–the list goes on and on.
There are also the episodic stories that media are usually more comfortable with–because they’re shorter, come with names attached, can be treated as isolated incidents and often leave the reader or viewer with a feeling that the problem is at least being addressed. But even these stories, depending on who the bigots are, often go begging in corporate media newsrooms.
John Huppenthal: Arizona school superintendent by day, racist blogger by night.
Take the recent revelation that Arizona superintendent of schools John Huppenthal has been posting online racist screeds for years under assumed names (Arizona Republic, 6/25/14). Writing anonymously on Arizona’s law penalizing employers for hiring undocumented workers, Huppenthal commented: “We have a whole lot fewer Caucasians working now that the Hispanics have left. But, crime is much lower. No money and no one is stealing it.”
The story only provided more thorough confirmation of Huppenthal’s hostility toward communities of color: He won election in 2010 on a platform of “stopping La Raza” and, once in office, zeroed out state funding for ethnic studies programs and banned books suspected of promoting “ethnic solidarity” from public schools (Extra!, 9/1/12). Perhaps more disturbing: In the upcoming GOP primary, where Huppenthal faces a Tea Party challenger, he is considered the moderate in the race.
In Mississippi’s GOP primary on Tuesday, incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran narrowly defeated Tea Party challenger Chris McDaniel. During the campaign, Cochran appealed to black Democrats to cross party lines and help him defeat McDaniel, a right-wing radio host who pals around with the racist Sons of Confederate Veterans, attacks reparations for slavery, and says that hip-hop culture “values prison more than college” (Slate, 6/25/14).
Cochran’s appeal consisted mainly of reaching out to black churches and running ads in black media reminding voters that he has voted for funding for historically black colleges, and has supported social spending programs like SNAP that benefit poor communities.
In response to Cochran’s appeal, and in seeming confirmation of long-term allegations of GOP and Tea Party racism, national Republican and conservative groups flocked to Mississippi in a sort of nightmare variation on Freedom Summer. Where 1960s activists gathered to protect black voters, 2014’s right-wing activists gathered to implement “poll watching,” a traditional tool of voter intimidation and suppression. The conservative groups insisted they were only there to protect the integrity of the vote, which only seemed to come under threat with the potential of a surge in black voting. As Juliet Lapidos reported on the New York Times’ Taking Note blog (6/23/14):
Several right-wing groups have banded together to form a “voter integrity project” in response to the news that Republican Sen. Thad Cochran is courting black Democratic voters in his runoff with the Tea Partier Chris McDaniel. The Senate Conservatives Fund, Freedom Works and the Tea Party Patriots, all political action committees, will “deploy observers in areas where Mr. Cochran is recruiting Democrats,” according to a Times article. Ken Cuccinelli, the president of the Senate Conservative Funds, said these observers would be trained to see “whether the law is being followed.”
National GOP and Tea Party groups descending on Mississippi to scrutinize black voters seems like a pretty big story to me–one loaded with the sort of sensation and historical resonance that might otherwise attract journalists. But it also provides a confirmation of the charge that the GOP has a serious problem with racism, and corporate media are often loath to point fingers too directly at elite American institutions such as one of the two major political parties.
Besides the Times, which mentioned poll watching in a few stories (6/24/14) and quoted a Mississippi election expert (6/22/14) saying that it could be seen as an effort to “intimidat[e] voters from coming to the polls,” the Mississippi story was almost invisible in national media.
And John Huppenthal, the racist Internet graffiti artist who runs Arizona’s public schools? Besides a Washington Post blog post, the story pretty much didn’t exist outside Arizona.
Asia for the Asians. Africa for the Africans. White countries are for EVERYBODY! “Anti-Racists” demand that EVERY and ONLY white countries have their race & cultures utterly DESTROYED via massive immigration & FORCED assimilated “Melting Pots”.
“Anti-Racists” do NOT demand this on ANY non-white country, as they know it is GENOCIDE as defined by international law.
Diversity is a codeword for White Genocide
Anti-Racist is a codeword for Anti-White
Wow what a strange man to be in education, and really, how silly for people to say that teachers are the problem! It seems like many of Arizona’s problems start with the top people——how sad for Arizona; your problems appear to start at the top and trickle down into a flood of icky stupidity!.
Very weird. I wonder if he’s ever looked at his own state’s flag, with its 13 red and golden rays. ( Yep, the colors of SPAIN—– another Hispanic place. : ) Maybe too, he should read up on his own state’s history, and now I’m wondering—-what is the background of his own last name…Huppenthal………….could it have any German, do you think, because Ben Franklin really thought too many Germans were arriving and wow, he didn’t want to have the colonies turn into German speaking people. : ) Oh wait, HE was wrong too.
There’s a grand irony that in the MSM, the “R word” is as persona non grata as the “N word”, don’t you think?
Further irony’s found in the fact that Cochran hailed the Supreme Court decision that crippled the Voting Rights Act.
The Problem as I see it, is the people who are running the shows, in the congress and the media, have come to believe they are infallible. They can not be rasist, because they say so, and don’t you forget it. They just hate everyone equally (except for white, old, out-dated, rich, fundimentalist religious fantics; for some reason they seem to like to keep them on a pedestal.
John Huppenthal is a big whiner. No, I don’t mean in the more abstract, denotative sense. I mean, he whines… he cries, literally, in front of thousands of people, anytime he doesn’t get HIS way. That he finds fault in black people, or anyone else for that matter, is no shocker.
We held a town hall meeting to discuss what we could do about the economy, and other issues, in Arizona in the mid 2000’s. He had to practically be dragged into the church where we were holding this meeting. He had been given the questions and issues we’d be discussing beforehand, just like every other participant.
When it came his turn to answer the questions, HE THREW A TEMPER TANTRUM! That’s right, a good old whining, crying, bawling session in front of everyone. I was shocked that a state legislator could behave in this fashion in front of the public. A friend later told me I was standing there gawking, in disbelief, at the man. I simply could not believe my eyes and ears!
This is NOT appropriate behavior for a elected official. These people are supposed to be demonstrating leadership, not cowering and sulking because they don’t like the masses. This person needs to be ejected from politics permanently, in Arizona and elsewhere.
Jason, you appear to be lost. Stormfront is that way –>
The sad thing is that these “monitoring” groups only seem to be gaining in popularity. It’s such an obviously racist tactic aimed at intimidation. Now we have it happening for primaries – between two Right wing candidates, no less?
I’m sure someday we’ll have a Supreme Court decision protecting the “free speech” rights of these groups over that of the voters they’re trying to disenfranchise. Sometimes the turnings of the wheels of power are so transparent that there is no attempt to hide the underlying agenda. As the article says, the corporate media just ignores it.