The politics of racial insult
Michelle Malkin’s latest column explores civil rights leaders who feign outrage over racial insults — only in order to gain financially and/or politically.
As for the members of the Jena Six, they seem to have learned to do the victim hustle quite well from mentor Sharpton. The Chicago Tribune’s Howard Witt reported this weekend that some of the defendants are literally rolling in dubious dough. Robert Bailey, one of the Jena Six youths, posted photos of himself mugging for the cameras with $100 bills stuffed in his mouth and covering his bed. “[C]ontroversy is growing over the accounting and disbursing of at least $500,000 donated to pay for the teenagers’ legal defense,” Witt reported. “There are definitely questions out there about the money,” Alan Bean, director of a Texas-based group, Friends of Justice, told the Tribune. “I hate to even address this issue because it inevitably will raise questions as to all of the money that has been raised . . . “
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The inexorable rhythm of the politics of racial insult is interrupted only when the insulter doesn’t fit the left-wing grievance narrative. Which explains in part why former GOP Sen. George Allen’s infamous “Macaca” gaffe was covered by the national news media like it was Armageddon, while a female Louisiana Democrat who this week called a black civil-rights leader’s mother “Buckwheat” (after the stereotypical “Little Rascals” character) barely warranted a blip on the outrage-o-meter. No pockets to pick, no bribes to extract from protesting a case of abject stupidity that can’t be spun into institutional racism for partisan gain.
Related link: Where did all the Jena 6 money go?
