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The Black Phone is Ringing

There was a curious op-ed in yesterday's New York Times, and it struck me as the most blatant example of stereotypical racism I've ever seen in the media. Orlando Patrick is alleging that the now-infamous Hillary Clinton "3 A.M." campaign ad "had a racist sub-message."

In case you missed it, here's the video:



What was racist about the ad? There were only white people in it, of course. Patterson blames the attempt at a racial divide on Hillary's low polling numbers in Texas among whites, and compares Clinton's daisy ad to the white supremacist film Birth of a Nation. He states:

"I couldn’t help but think of D. W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation,” the racist movie epic that helped revive the Ku Klux Klan, with its portrayal of black men lurking in the bushes around white society."

You fracture the world and your reality when you see people as group-identities. You are the racist.

The danger implicit in the phone ad — as I see it — is that the person answering the phone might be a black man, someone who could not be trusted to protect us from this threat."

Keywords: "as I see it." This is important, because Orlando sees only what he wants to see. What else would he write about?

The ad could easily have removed its racist sub-message by including images of a black child, mother or father — or by stating that the danger was external terrorism.

Well, we already know how Clinton feels about "outsiders:"



I have no idea what Obama would have to say during an urgent call from a world leader, but I can probably take a bet on Hillary's response being "Bill, it's for you."

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  • Anonymous Anonymous said:
    Wednesday, March 12, 2008  

    Is this a joke? I can't believe NYT is publishing this crap. So America's biggest fear used to be black people, now it's Muslims. Don't get it twisted Orlando. Orl? Can I call you Orl? Thanks dawg. What? Oh, no no I call everyone dawg. That's just how I talk, ya know? Buddy? top

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