That’s Right Nate

Back in the first part of the 20th century in a time before Jackie Robinson, baseball in this country like all sports was a segregated game.   Some of the greatest players of the time played in what was then called the Negro Leagues.   Players like Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, and Cool Papa Bell played for teams like the Homestead Grays, Pittsburgh Crawfords, and Bingo Long’s Traveling All-Stars.  What did all those teams have in common?  Not a single white face.   The shameful secret of the Negro Leagues is that they had a color barrier that kept white players from playing.   Could white stars like Joe DiMaggio, Dizzy Dean, and Lou Gehrig have excelled playing against the best black ballplayers?  Most probably.  Unfortunately, racism prevented them from ever having the chance.

Basketball has a similar ugly history.  While the Washington Generals have a long history of allowing white ballplayers, The Harlem Globetrotters do not. Even though the Globetrotters were founded in Chicago, they chose the name Harlem Globetrotter because of the African-American connotations of Harlem.  Seth Franco didn’t break the Globetrotter color barrier until 2006.  Today, the number of white players in the basketball remains extremely small.

A group of pioneers led by Don “Moose” Lewis is seeking to rebreak the color barrier by starting an all-white basketball league mostly centered in the South.   Soon teams like the Knights and Wizards can be playing all over the South playing that type of fundamentally sound basketball that white players like Jason Williams and Chris Dudley have made famous.  Lewis stressed that he’s not racist, but merely “what we’re stressing here is a more fundamental basketball, which blatantly fits white players better.”

We here at thatsrightnate.com salute Don Lewis.   There comes a time to say, “We refuse to sit on the front of the bus”.  That time is now.

For many years, whites were not allowed to be Pullman porters

Like many Americans I had believed that racism was a thing of the past.   I had believed that if it hadn’t been ended by Bill Cosby and his constant parade of jazz musician friends on the Cosby Show, it most certainly had been ended by the election of Barack Obama.  I can see now that just below the surface of our color blind society was racism ready to rear it’s ugly head.

Racism in this country has a long and ugly history going back at least 100 years if not longer.   At first, racism was mostly something that happened to black people and other minorities, but as times changed racism has primarily been against white people.  For years, African Americans had their own baseball league called The Negro Leagues where whites were not allowed to play.   In literature, the entire Harlem Renaissance movement of the 1920s and 1930s excluded white people.   In more recent times, record labels like Motown in Detroit and Chess in Chicago all but ignored white artists.

I believe this recent spate of racism starts at the top.   Barack Obama is the most racist against white people President we have had in this country since Chester A. Arthur.   One need only look at poor Joe Wilson who has been lynched by the media for his supposedly racist act of yelling “You lie” at the President during his speech to congress last week.   I don’t see how that can possibly be considered racist.    Joe Wilson’s son defended his father.   “There is not a racist bone in my dad’s body,” said Alan Wilson, an Iraq veteran who is running for state attorney general in South Carolina. “He doesn’t even laugh at distasteful jokes. I won’t comment on former President Carter, because I don’t know President Carter. But I know my dad, and it’s just not in him.”

Joe Wilson is an honorable man.   He would never have been allowed in the Sons of Confederate Veterans if he wasn’t.   This is not the type of person who would do anything racist.  Joe Wilson has always honored our country’s troops and veterans, which is why he’s championed flying the Confederate flag over Southern state capitals in support of the brave sacrifices made by our country’s brave Confederate veterans.

I long for the days when different races can live together in peace.  I’ve mentioned before that my father marched with Martin Luther King in Chicago and while King got all the headlines for his speeches, it was my dad and his friends who patrolled the streets armed only with baseball bats  to make sure no race riots occurred.   I know that if he were alive today John Peele would make the plea to all of us, “can’t we all get along?”

The signs have been out there for some time now.   The sales of mayonnaise are stagnant in this country while salsa is flying off of grocery shelves.   Michael Jackson gets a huge funeral in Los Angeles, while Karl Malden gets a brief mention.   Even white youth are listening to hip hop and playing basketball.   The white male anchor is nearly extinct on local television as stations team up minority males and white women on their anchor teams.  We are losing the culture war.

It gets worse.   Being a white male used to insulate you from tough economic times, but now white men are barely making 20% more than the rest of society.  Even our country club swimming pools are no longer safe from mulit-culturalism.   We are soon to control only75% of the Supreme Court. You call that justice?

We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on our lawn.   Lately, it seems Pat Buchanan is the only one who gets this.  If we are going to survive in America as a people, it is important that our culture not disappear, but just as important is ecnomic empowerment.   If we support white owned businesses, they  can take that money and reinvest it in our gated communities.   By doing this, we can lift us all up.   This is going to be difficult and there are times we will have to live without.   You know I love good bbq as much as anyone, but I’m going to start shop only white owned businesses myself.  We all have to be in this together because white empowerment will lift us all.

Happy Saint Jing-Tao-Wow Eve.  As you know, Saint Jing-Tao-Wow Day is America’s newest holiday.  First created by Lou Dobbs, and promoted by myself and several other bloggers, Saint Jing-Tao-Wow Day is a celebration of the ethnic stereotypes that bind us all together.  Go on out there and indulge to your heart’s content.  I will say between the Pakistani cab drivers, Chinese drivers, and Irish drinkers–tomorrow is probably a good day to stay off the road.  As envisioned by the great Loud Dobbs, this day shows us that all Americans who enterred the country have had to deal with stereotypical bullshit as we’ve tried to find our place in this world.  Before Mexicans were taking all our jobs, it was Irish, Italians, Germans, Jews, Chinese, and Polish.  May you all have a wonderful Saint Jing-Tao-Wow Eve and be sure to toon in tomorrow for a recap of my activities for the day.  Do be sure to check out the interview with me at Zenyenta’s site. I think I did a good job explaining WASP culture for the uninitiated.  I like opportunities like this to broaden understanding.

Bill Bradley dribbles around another white guy.

One of McCain’s greatest hopes is the Double Reverse Bradley Effect.  The Bradley Effect was named after former Senator Bill Bradley.  He had a huge lead in the polls, but when people found out he was in the NBA, they decided he must be black and he did much worse at the election than the polls and lost.

The Reverse Bradley Effect is a phenomenon where people tell pollsters that they aren’t voting for a black candidate and then show up at an election and do just that.  This term was coined by Douglas Wilder and he has copyrighted it and will receive all money from Reverse Bradley Effect t-shirts.

The Double Reverse Bradley Effect is where people tell pollsters that they will vote for a black candidate even though they have no intention of doing so.  They tell all their friends that they’re going to vote for the white guy.  Then they vote for the black candidate anyway, but they do so loudly proclaiming at the voting booth for anybody standing around, “No way I’m going to vote for a blackguy!!   No sireee Bob.  No black guy should be President.”  They will then walk out to their car literally whistling Dixie or tell the poll worker a racist joke to throw them off the trail.  If there is an exit poll, they will immediately declare that they voted for the white guy.

The Double Reverse Bradley Effect could be very pivotal in tomorrow’s election.  However, the McCain campaign has a chance if they can create a Triple Reverse Bradley.

I have come close to suing Lucianne.com in the past because their logo is very close to my avatar.  However, I must admit they have an excellent article today about how black voters are supporting Barack Obama simply because he is black.  Bravo to Lucianne.com for saying what we all know, but people are too politically correct to say–that being black is a huge unfair advantage in national politics.  I’m suprised that neither of the major parties had thought to run a black candidate for President in the past considering how much easier the road is for them.

How do we know that black voters are supporting Obama only because he’s black?  Its simple math.  In 2004, John Kerry got only 88% of black voters.  It looks as though Obama is going to get 95%.  That means 7% of black people are voting for Obama that didn’t vote for Kerry.  The reason?  Quite obviously its race.

The problem for the McCain camp is that Obama is also white.  In 2004, John Kerry got 41% of the white vote while Obama is polling at 44%.  That means that 3% of white people are voting for Obama that didn’t vote for Kerry.  The reason?  Quite obviously its race.

By getting a big boost in black support because he’s half black and a big boost in white voters because he is half white Obama has a huge natural advantage that many Republicans like myself are now bemoaning.  I know McCain lives in Arizona.  Is there any chance he has some Native American blood in him?

The Obama campaign may well go down in history as the most racist negative campaign in the history of American political campaigns.  Recenltly, The Chaffey Community Republic Women, a GOP women’s organization, in California ran the above picture in their newsletter saying that unlike other Presidents, Obama’s face would be on food stamps.

Diana Fedele, President of the organization said, “I didn’t see it the way that it’s being taken. I never connected. It was just food to me.”  That didn’t stop some overly sensitive Obama types from labeling the newsletter as racist despite Fedele’s previous support for Alan Keyes.  I guess even this image is out of bounds now too. It just seems to me you have to squint really hard to notice the supposedly racist imagery.

Recently, due to an unfortunate photograph of a young black couple by the explanation of how a theoretical crack whore and carjacker could have contributed to the current economic crisis.  I apologize for the unintentional context.  However, I believe that some people have played the race card in an attempt to prevent my blog from telling the truth about the current situation in the world today.  I will tolerate neither racism nor the playing of the race card in this blog.

As a white male I have lived with racism all my life.  I know what it is like to have girls not want to dance with me because I have no rhythm or to have every eye turn to me when I enter a chain store because everybody wonders if I’m from management.   I have at times been called both the c word and the h word.

Because I am not voting for Obama does not make me racist.  I would be supporting Alan Keyes if he were running.  I have several good friends who are black.  One of them Kevin has been my employee for several years and he will be the first to tell you that I in no way treat him differently than anybody else who works for me.  There is a great elderly black couple that has lived two houses down from me for the past decade. I know the woman’s name is Ruby, but I am not sure of her husband’s name.  I think their last name is Little.  They’re great neighbors and I’m always delighted to see them.

I also am a big fan of the comedy of Wayne Brady and the music of several black artists.  In fact I like quite a bit of black culture.  My favorite desert is pecan pie.  My dream for this country is a world where a black family like the Huxtables could live in any neighborhood and belong to any country club they wished.

My father marched with Martin Luther King when he came to Chicago.  While King was protesting my dad and several of his friends helped to patrol the streets of our neighborhood and make sure there was no looting or rioting.  They took what could have been a very volatile situation and helped to keep law and order.

Can we agree to leave our own racial opinions of hatred or entitlement at the door.  Let’s help to make this blog a no racism zone where we will discuss Republican politics and values free from judgement.

Today on Face the Nation, Senator Lindsey Graham took on Representative John Lewis of Georgia, a veteran of the civil rights movement,  for playing the race card by comparing John McCain to George Wallace.  George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who only desired to exercise their constitutional rights,” Lewis said. “Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed one Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.”

I applaud Graham for taking on Lewis even though it will probably cost him dearly among the conservative South Carolina voters whose support Graham needs if he is to stay in Washington.  What Graham said succinctly was that Lewis was “playing the race card” by attempting to silence legitimate criticism of Obama such as the fact that he has a foreign sounding name and is best friends with a terrorist.

The McCain campaign has called on the Obama campaign to denounce Lewis and his divisive politics. After all you can’t judge a campaign by the one lone nut in the crowd who yells out “kill him” or the one who yells out “off with his head” or that other guy that yelled out “bomb him” or the calls of “treason” or “terrorist”.  Those are just isolated individuals.

After the Presidential Debate last night, I expected the media to be talking about the way that John McCain knocked it out of the park.  You can imagine my surprise when the media instead seemed to dwell on a gesture made by Maverick and totally misinterpret it.

What anybody with any knowledge of history would know is that Barack Obama is not the first black person from Chicago to come down to Mississippi.  In August of 1955, a 14 year old black boy named Emmett Till went down to stay with an uncle in Money, Mississippi.  A week later he was murdered.  His crime was staring at a white storekeeper and whistling at her.  At that time in the South, black people were not permitted to look a white person in the eye and risked a beating or worse if they did.

Last night John McCain attempted to use the debate as an opportunity to offer his apologies to black people who lived in the era before the Civil Rights movement.  He did this by humbling himself and not looking at Obama in the eye.  I was choked up when I saw a great man like John McCain nearly prostrating himself to make a point about his belief in inclusion an equality.  This is a man who doesn’t see color.  His nominating convention was the most diverse Republican convention ever with 36 (Wow!) of the 2380 delegates being people of color.

Uninformed people saw a Republican candidate who wouldn’t make eye contact because of the supposedly false attack ads he’s launched against Obama or because of a hatred of the man.  I saw a brave war hero who took his chance on a grand stage to make ammends for the horrible lynchings of the pre-civil rights era.