Well, I was wrong. I thought that Heartiste would be the first Manospherian to come to the defense of fallen Fox News hero Cliven Bundy. Nope. Turns out it was W. F. Price of The Spearhead, who blamed Bundy’s fall from grace not on his crude racism but on the fact that the white rancher with the guns and unpaid bills … talks too much like a black person.
No, really.
Here’s Price’s argument, such as it is:
What I find highly ironic about the recent condemnation of Cliven Bundy is that he is being pilloried for speaking more like black Americans than urban whites. Even his name would sound black if you made a slight change from “Cliven” to “Clayvon.”
Well, no. Bundy talks a lot more like, well, a cowboy-hat-wearing white rancher at war with the government than he does a “black American” – as if all “black Americans” talk alike.
And are you really arguing that his name “would sound black” if it were a different name?
Mr. Bundy’s American English is so archaic that he still uses “Negro” (also used more by blacks than whites) and says “they was able to” and “didn’t get no more.”
And this is supposed to be how “American blacks” all talk? Phrases like these are common in various Southern/rural dialects spoken by more “American whites” than “American blacks.”
Hell, they’re common amongst a lot of urban whites. I lived in Chicago during the years in which our mayor was a fellow named Richard M. Daley, a man with what you might best describe as a casual sense of grammar. I’m pretty sure he’s never figured out the difference between “was” and “were.”
Also, if you read the complete transcript of Bundy’s remarks, you’ll see that he also referred to blacks as “colored people.” That particular usage isn’t very popular with anyone but white racists.
The content of Bundy’s message, which wouldn’t have been all that controversial if spoken by a black preacher, was deemed hateful partly because he didn’t say it in the proper, coastal elite way.
Well, no, it was “deemed hateful” because he suggested, among other things, that he was some kind of expert on “the Negro” because he once drove past a housing project. He also posited that these Negroes “abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never, they never learned how to pick cotton.” And that they might have been “better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things.”
And then, in a move reminiscent of his magical transformation of “Cliven” to “Clayvon,” Price provides “translations” of Bundy’s remarks into what he thinks would have been more acceptable “newspeak.”
He thus proves conclusively that if Clayvon Bundy had said something different than what he actually said, without the word “Negro” and all those obnoxious references to “picking cotton,” it wouldn’t have been quite as obviously offensive as what he actually said.
Though it still would have been pretty fucking racist.
Here, for example, is one of Bundy’s remarks, untranslated:
Are they happier now under this government subsidy system than they were when they were slaves, and they was able to have their family structure together, and the chickens and garden, and the people had something to do?
Here’s Price’s “translation.”
How can one say that the federal government serves African Americans any better than plantation owners under slavery, when at least they had families and the opportunity to work the land under that system.
Really? Regardless of how it’s worded, that’s an odious and ignorant argument. Slavery made stable family life impossible for slaves. For many years, slaves were forbidden to marry, and even after they were allowed to marry, couples were often separated from one another, living and working on different plantations; children could be sold to plantations apart from their parents. Slaveowners raped slave women and girls and enslaved the children born from these rapes.
It’s really kind of hard to have a decent family life when SOMEONE ELSE OWNS YOU AND YOUR SPOUSE AND YOUR CHILDREN. Or, even worse, several different someone elses.
Oh, but these days single black women sometimes raise children on their own. And living in big cities they don’t have the wonderful opportunities to garden that their enslaved ancestors had.
Price later seems to suggest that Bundy may be less racist than white New Yorkers in part because he doesn’t have to deal with black people as much:
In fact, Bundy, who probably has little if any negative interaction with black folks may be more positively inclined toward them than the New Yorker.
Apparently, in Price’s world, white racism is caused by interacting with black people. The more contact white people have with blacks, the more they hate blacks! Who knew? Maybe this whole “desegregation” thing was a horrible mistake!
In the comments, DruidV wins himself some upvotes by declaring that:
Bundy has the guts to say what a lot of critical thinking Americans have been thinking for over 150 years now. Namely: which form of slavery made American blacks happier.
After all, you didn’t see them running around gunning each other down (along with lots of police and innocents) while hopped up on crack or “lean” or whatever illicit drugs, pre Union war of aggression.
Laguna Beach Fogey, meanwhile, declares that “there’s something admirable about Bundy.”
And minor Manosphere celebrity The Fifth Horeseman, with some sadness, writes that
Cliven Bundy is a metaphor for the self-reliant, small government America being displaced by the big government, feminist, obese America.
The end of an era both inspiring and natural, into a sordid, misandric, obese one.
I’m not quite sure how obesity fits into all this, but evidently Mr. Fifth Horseman here hasn’t noticed that Bundy is himself, well, obese. Hell, his belly is even bigger than mine. He’s not being displaced by obese America. He is obese America. Just like me.
Anyway, all this is yet another reminder that, in the Manosphere, as elsewhere, bigotries (and bigots) flock together.
P.S. After I wrote this post, I discovered that Davis M.J. Aurini, the self-described “author … strategist … neoreactionary monarchist, and … entrepreneur” who blogs at Stares at the World has offered up a dramatic reading of Price’s “translations” of Bundy’s remarks, along with an impassioned defense of Bundy, whom he declares to be a misunderstood hero and “the best friend that the blacks have right now.”
The convincingness of his argument is undercut slightly by the fact that Mr. Aurini’s “look” is basically “young Anton LaVey,” and that he also seems to be a graduate of the William Shatner School of Overemoting.
Also, it’s interesting to note that the commenters on YouTube who seem to like his video the most are actually pretty straightforward black-people-haters; one of them is the creator of a racist video “warning” about the supposed “health risks” to white women of interracial dating; another praises Birth of a Nation and agrees with the film’s stance that “the klan was justified in trying to stop all of those murderous blacks.”
Anyway, enjoy.
But an intrepid reporter discovered his family bought the land in the 1940′s,
Link please? I mean, setting aside the whole part about how even if he were telling the truth, he’s saying his ancestors murdered the people who already had the land to take it. Because there was no federal government to stop them.
I shared this with some friends. They all agreed – “wat”.
This is a neat little illustration of the different levels of racist stupidity. The smarter racists have figured out they can get away with saying racist stuff if they couch it in the right euphemisms and dog-whistles. Then the stupider racists pick up on the intended message and repeat it back in plain English, making it clear how racist it is.
Say, for example, you’re a Fox News pundit and you think the only thing wrong with American slavery was that white people were too generous in giving those lazy black people food they didn’t deserve. You’re probably smart enough not to use that exact wording, and will instead go on about welfare as “modern slavery” and so on. Also, when pointing to which Americans you specifically consider lazy and underserving, you probably know not to use any of the commonly recognized racial slurs.
If you’re Bundy, you watch Fox News, agree with the message, and call a press conference to repeat it back with the slurs left in. And everyone acts shocked and pretends they’ve never heard prominent conservatives make the exact same argument.
What I didn’t know until today was that there’s an even stupider level of racist who thinks they’re really clever for being able to translate from Racist English to Racist Euphemisms, and will helpfully explain the process to the rest of us. Like we don’t already know that’s what they’re doing.
Lord. My mom is supporting Bundy. She is under the impression (like many other supporters) that the government is encroaching on Bundy’s land or some bullshit. She liked a page on facebook, and if you are ready I have some really “great” comments from these supporters:
“Go Cliven! You simply pointed out they would be happier if they had jobs and earned their way. It’s the only way they can rise up out of poverty.”
(slavery isn’t a “job” nor is it “earning” anyone but the slave owners anything)
“The only people that considering his comments who are young and uniformed. I am 75 and when my generation was younger, saying Negro was totally acceptable. What was. Unacceptable was fraudulent use of plans to reward for not working. Everything My wife and I have accumulated is in jeopardy by the country’s Debt and the give away programs that are currently being provided to a class of people, white,black, Latinos and Muslims. Get over yourself and do what many generations before. You have done. Remember God heps them that Help themselves.”
(it was okay to use racially offensive terms in my day, you young people are so uninformed)
“We need to get white and black spooks off the welfare system period and if means slavery, then so be it. Tired of paying for lazy welfare slums……………”
(slavery is better than the welfare system)
“However crude the language, it doesn’t change the fact that he accurately described a debilitating problem in America. He was stating exactly what Hannity, Beck and Rush have all alluded to, just different language. Everyone knows this is a problem, so why does his comment illicit such ire from the guys mentioned above who have said the same thing in different ways? Using this logic, Rush must be a misogynist for calling Sandra Fluke a slut if Mr Bundy is racist for stating a fact about welfare.”
(Rush IS a misogynist, thanks, and all of the men mentioned are racist.)
“Sounds like he has compassion for the people that are stuck in a system that provides the bare essentials. He would like them to have more and a purpose.”
(a purpose like slavery, huh?)
“He only compared bring slaves to a government is as bad being a black slave!”
(Yes, he did. And therein lies some racism.)
“Mr. Bundy is what America should be, its what America once was he is a proud American and I stand with him”
(Ah yes, all Americans should be racist, lying, tax-evading gun-nuts)
“Cliven isn’t the racist in this situation, Obama is the racist.”
(???????)
“I saw his comments as factual our government has created a slave state for Blacks. Now confined to inter cities. They had more freedom on the cotton farms.”
(Ah yes, slavery was SO freeing for African Americans)
God, this is why I hate talking to my mom. She gets involved in these movements and refuses to learn the facts about what is happening and continues following them even when everyone supporting are racist (or sexist) idiots.
My first thought was that Bundy had no understanding of the daily reality of chattel slavery. Not if he thought that slave families could count on being allowed to stay together. People who lived during and shortly after slavery in America made many interesting observations. One was that few slaves knew their exact birthdays. When their births and deaths were recorded, it was on a plantation business ledger. Sometimes the only way to trace antebellum black genealogy is via probate records – they were that level of property under the law. There were cultural sentiments about how they ought to be treated, but no third party oversight or enforcement.
James Thurber, in writing about his family life, records some interesting vignettes. In his early years he would sometimes encounter black workers who remembered slavery and the civil war. Conversely, one of their black maids was a New Englander with no southern accent.
People have a lot of criticisms of the welfare state, some justified, but I’ve always been told that the largest number of welfare recipients are, and have always been, white. This makes sense, considering the percentage of black people in America. Bundy has apparently never heard of the black middle class. I encountered them while growing up and ever since then, and they are widespread and a force to be reckoned with. They are often politically powerful, highly educated, and prominent in business. Are the Cliven Bundy’s of this world even aware of them?
A dude who is feeding his cattle on the taxpayers’ dime has no damn call to bitch about “the welfare state”.
“Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.” Abraham Lincoln, from an address to an Indiana regiment, 1865.
Wait, they planned to hide behind women (and children) and sacrifice them first. Remind me again, isn’t this a terrorist tactic?
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bundy-ranch-women-human-shield
AH !Lea, that’s exactly right. The whole time during my little rant I was seeing it, but not seeing it. Let’s change that to “they want everyone under their thumb who is not White and male”, just like those good ol’ days the’yre always going on about. (Yeah! Good Times!)
Please! I would just like to see them try to convince Black people to become slaves again. That’s so infuriating that it just gets hilarious.
What I find hard to understand is how utterly convinced and outraged they are at the idea that Blacks are the only ones recieving government money when many of them are on SSI, or Medicaid or Farm Subsidies themselves.. The’yre so deeply concerned about the pittance people get from Welfare and Food Stamps, but neverseem to get around to acknowledging the several kajillions that plenty of Whites (and others ) get for doing nothing at all.
How convenient that their deepest concerns in the world happen to coincide with whatever FOX News tells them.
I’m just going to take their little rants to mean this: WWWAAAHHH! I’m not relevant anymore. Nobody listens to me or thinks what I have to say is important! WWWAAAHHH!People are just running around,having culture and doing stuff without consulting me first, like they used to have to do! Civilization has moved on without my input and things ain’t like they were when I was a kid WWAAHHH!
Nobody can “waaahhhh!” quite like a straight white dude who feels like people are ignoring him.
neoreactionary monarchist
What. WHY. HOW?
*crawls under bed*
RE: rilian
“the opportunity to work the land” as if the work itself is good, rather than the income you get from it,
I’ve encountered this shit a lot as an artist. It’s so fun, I should just be grateful to draw shit for people, never mind MAKE MONEY FROM IT.
RE: AK
I didn’t know you worked in agriculture! Good on you.
Here you go: http://www.8newsnow.com/story/25302186/an-abbreviated-look-at-rancher-cliven-bundys-family-history
Harry Reid’s been calling them terrorists, and the tea party is mad at him again. Still.
First of all, the New Deal was racially exclusive. It helped lots of white people go from poor to middle class. It was denied to black people. If you white and from a middle class family, it wasn’t bootstrapping that got your family there. It was the New Deal. AKA socialism!
Second of all, our national debt to GDP ratio was much higher during WWII and right after. Yet somehow, (white) people managed to prosper and the economy boomed. Middle class white people are not financially threatened by our national debt nor are they threatened by poor white people, non-Christians, or people of color. They are threatened by stagnant wages, deregulation, outsourcing of jobs, union busting and low taxes on the rich which means we can’t afford a robust public sector and the cost of college has shifted from states onto students. Middle class white people, along with everyone else are only being kept down by the oligarchs.
Ugh, smh.
I know I’m pretty much preaching to the choir here. Just felt like a bit of a rant. I wish people weren’t stupid enough to let the divide and conquer strategy of the ultra rich work.
RE: WWTH
I always love these guys. They seem to assume that disabled people like me should just have the decency to drop dead and decrease the burden on the government. “Ask not what your country can do for you…”
Speaking of bootstraps and money, hey guys, thanks to cloudiah, my writeathon is having a bonus sketch poll! Feel free to throw in your lot to say which story gets art!
Not only does Bill Price hate women, he also hates black people. Well, that’s a shock.
New slogan for the Greatest Human Rights Movement in the History of EVAR:
(White) Men’s Rights…because women and non-whites WANT to be some white dude’s chattel again!
(Come on, fellas, be honest…you’re thinking it, aren’t you? Just as you’re thinking of that OTHER n-word when you say “Negro”.)
Bina – You forgot cis and straight. The Greatest Human Rights Movement in the History of EVAR™ doesn’t really care about GSMs.
Not quite–based on this Washington Post article, it’s not that he hasn’t paid fees, it’s that he hasn’t paid fines–he’s not supposed to be grazing his cattle there at all (though in the past he was allowed to do so):
March 1993: Near Las Vegas, the Bureau of Land Management designated hundreds of thousands of acres of federal land for strict conservation efforts. “Among the conservation measures required,” according to the Post’s coverage, “are the elimination of livestock grazing and strict limits on off-road vehicle use in the protected tortoise habitat. Two weeks ago, the managers of the plan completed the task of purchasing grazing privileges from cattle ranchers who formerly used BLM land.”
Many people were not impressed by the new conservation plan. “Cliven Bundy, whose family homesteaded his ranch in 1877 [I guess that’s been proven wrong–thanks, Unimaginative] and who accuses the government of a ‘land grab,’ are digging in for a fight and say they will not willingly sell their grazing privileges to create another preserve.” …
Bundy has repeatedly been fined for grazing his cattle on the protected land, fines he has not paid since 1993. The Bureau of Land Management, which oversees about 800 grazing areas in Nevada, responded by revoking his permit. Bundy has not applied for a new one.
It’s like the equivalent of someone renting storage space in my attic, then I decide I’m gonna use my attic as a workspace to make abstract paintings, then the person who’s been renting the space says, “Abstract art is stupid. I’m not gonna move my stuff so that you can make stupid abstract art.” And then I sue him in civil court and he gets fined and ordered to remove his stuff from my attic, but he refuses both to pay the fines and to remove his stuff.
He’s also really stupid (or thinks the person he’s talking to is):
[Bundy] also thinks the co-habitating cows and tortoises could have a beautiful, symbiotic relationship if the government would let them. “The tortoises eat the cow manure, too. It’s filled with protein.”
Yes!
Viscaria, those quotes are from DruidV, but yeah.
emilygoddess and Shaneon, I agree completelyI wish I’d written some of that in my post!
Oops! I forgot to check Heartiste’s twitter feed. Turns out he did have things to say about Bundy. After first sort of supporting him, he decided that Bundy was … “soft” on Mexicans, retweeting a link from racist site Vdare arguing that, and amplifying wiith these tweets of his own:
https://twitter.com/heartiste/status/459745483439616000
https://twitter.com/heartiste/status/459751703508570112
So, to whoever is doing the rankings, Heartiste is officially more racist than Cliven Bundy. Good to know.
“White depression about black dysfunction”? WTF?
Oh sure, call it anything but racism, and it’s automatically not racist. Uh-huh.
Also, who is Shartiste to decide what’s “normal”?
Well, I just…..I mean…..I’m sorry, but there are NO words that I have the kind of incredible jackassery espoused by Mr. Price. It is just *THAT* dissonant from reality(I assume it’s okay to use the word “dissonant”, btw?).
People (or at least decent people with a sound moral compass) are getting pissed off at Bundy because he purposely broke the law and misused the land and, moreover, was being a complete racist ass.
Oh, another Heartiste tweet. Before he decided that Bundy was too “soft” on Mexicans, he made this tweet, which seems to be a reference to the fact that the Gawker reporter who wrote about Bundy’s press conference is … Jewish.
https://twitter.com/heartiste/status/459348856132866048
So I guess writing about Bundy’s racism was a Jewish plot, at least until Heartiste decided that Bundy wasn’t enough of a racist towards Mexicans. So is it not a Jewish plot any more? Maybe Gawker’s Adam Weinstein is secretly Mexican? Racist conspiracy theories can be so very confusing.
@Dave: “Racist conspiracy theories can be so very confusing.” Yep, I’ve noticed that too, TBH.