Racism Watch - 6/21/12

"I Call Him A Monkey". Last week, right-wing radio host Barbara Espinosa of Arizona took to the airwaves and declared that she won't call Barack Obama "the first black president," explaining: "I voted for the white guy myself. I call him a monkey." And then she defended that statement, saying it was "prompted" by a cartoon someone sent her of Obama as a monkey. As Ta-Nehisi Coates put it: "One thing I've never seen is a bigot cite actual racism as a defense against their own racism."  Espinosa's naked bigotry brought to mind something ABC's Sam Donaldson wrote after the Daily Caller's Neil Munro shouted nativist idiocies disguised as questions during the president's immigration statement last week. Tucker Carlson defended his heckler-cum-reporter by comparing him to Donaldson, which irked the ABC newsman, who wrote to Huffington Post's Michael Calderone: "Never once did I interrupt a president in any way while he was making a formal statement."

Donaldson also made a larger point about the "incivility of the times:"

There is one more factor, let's face it: Many on the political right believe this president ought not to be there -- they oppose him not for his polices and political view but for who he is, an African American! These people and perhaps even certain news organizations (certainly the right wing talkers like Limbaugh) encourage disrespect for this president. [MORE] 

And More Ugliness from the Right: Fox News Guest Under Investigation after Advocating for Demolition of Mosque. The South Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SFL) today called on the FBI to investigate a call by Pamela Geller, the leader of an anti-Muslim hate group, to demolish a mosque in that state. Geller, who appears as a regular guest on FOX News, posted an article on her blog, titled “Obama’s DOJ secretly drops terrorism charges in Taliban Case,” calling for a Florida Mosque to be demolished. This comes after the Department of Justice dropped charges against Irfan Khan, one of the defendants that was recently arrested and indicted on terrorism support charges.  “Calling for the destruction of a mosque may incite people to commit acts of violence against ordinary Muslims,” says CAIR-SFL Executive Director Nezar Hamze. “We are taking this call for the destruction of an American house of worship very seriously and have reported it to the FBI for review.”

Geller recently forged ties with the racist English Defence League (EDL) in Britain. She previously applauded the alleged desecration of Afghan corpses by U.S. Marines. On her hate blog, Geller wrote: “I love these Marines. Perhaps this is the infidel interpretation of the Islamic ritual of washing and preparing the body for burial.” Desecration by urination is a favorite Geller theme. She has posted images on her blog that include a fake photo of President Obama urinating on an American flag. [MORE] 

Natioinal Park Service's "Slave for a Day" program is by no means racist.  The July 8 event, which park ranger and event organizer Angela Roberts-Burton said is part of the historical site’s monthly black history educational series, caused a stir on the Internet for what some believe was insensitive wording. “By no means am I trying to, or are we the Park Service, trying to assimilate the atrocities that slave African-Americans endured,” Roberts-Burton said Wednesday. “This is just a glimpse of the hard work, being out in the heat and sun,” she said.

In the initial event description on the Hampton National Historic Site website, which was online until Tuesday, Roberts-Burton used the “Slave for a Day” heading. The release also used exclamation points to note that it was the “first time ever at Hampton!” and participants could “carry buckets of water with a yoke on your shoulders!” [MORE] and [MORE] 

Noose found at Calif. high school being investigated. California police are now investigating a large noose made of elastic tubing that was hanging off a football goal post at Davis Senior High School last week. They are trying to discover whether the incident was meant as a hate crime or a bad joke, CBS Sacramento reports. The Davis Join Unified School District believe that someone hung the noose between Thursday evening and Friday morning, shortly before it was discovered by a school employee. For the past few years, the northern California city of Davis has reportedly seen its share of hate crimes, including swastikas allegedly being hung on the campus of University of California, Davis. Activist Dr. Jann Murray-Garcia said "a noose is a symbol of terror," she said. "You can't let these incidents go unresponded."