This is part of what I was getting at here:
Filmmaker Spike Lee on Tuesday announced he is making a film for HBO about the post-Hurricane Katrina flooding in New Orleans, and said he wouldn’t be shocked if conspiracy theories of intentional government involvement in the flooding proved true.
Lee’s appearance on CNN, to promote his new co-authored memoir/biography, Spike Lee: That’s My Story and I’m Sticking To It, followed a report on the rumors circulating among evacuees that the government somehow engineered the flooding of the largely black and poor Ninth Ward section of New Orleans.
…
Asked about the possibility that the rumors of government involvement had any truth, Lee said it wouldn’t surprise him.
“It’s not too far-fetched … I don’t put anything past the United States government,” Lee said. “I don’t find it too far-fetched that they tried to displace all the black people out of New Orleans.”
Also don’t miss this ridiculous article by Jesse Jackson.
I can’t wait! Finally someone is courageous enough to tell the truth about how the Bush administration installed Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin in office to further its secret but obvious agenda of harming black people.
And I just bet Karl Rove is involved. Somebody subpoena him! This is going to be big!
…when the oil pipeline gets built across the 9th Ward, the truth will be known! Thanks Spike!
No blood for gumbo!
It is interesting that these implausible conspiracy stories have so much currency in Black America. Low radius-of-trust societies sieze on conspiracy theories to explain things. The world is seen as a concealed engine of animosity directed against them. The number of African Americans who believe that the AIDS virus was created by the US government to kill off black people is amazing. I remember law school classmates who were intelligent people who nonetheless took this to be a matter of historical fact so well-known and obvious that it was beyond discussion. I wonder if these beliefs are really “beliefs” or more like signals of solidarity and militancy, rhetorical exaggeration which is understood as such. I hope it is the latter, but I’m not sure.
He can call his documentary “the Protocols of the Elders of Halliburton”.
I’m sure that the man who proudly reported that he gives hate stares to inter-racial couples is eminently qualified for the job.
Ralf, the comment filter rejected my comment for the word “interr*cial”.
The comment filter rejects quite a few legitimate terms that also tend to show up in spam. The term you tried to use is one of them. Sorry, but that’s the way it is. I may remove that particular term from the filter list, but my general advice in such situations is to improvise, use a hyphen or whatever works (e.g., inter-racial).
Campus militancy is alive and well at my law school. They REALLY hate Bush and those evil Conservatives. You can’t really debate dogma. Almost every lunch lecture has been some looney left wing cause. The Federalist Society tries to put up a good show, but when you’re running 90% liberal, traction is thin.
The point of the Federalist Society at a law school like that is to keep the other point of view alive and in front of the students. It is actually easier if most of the students are either liberals or going along with the trend. “The few, the proud” become an embattled band of brothers, which can be fun. Of course, I would say get your first year grades in before you do anything else, both to avoid distraction and because some professors will despise you if you are a known conservative. So establish yourself as one of the “smart kids” and get on law review. Then, you are probably safe to come out of the closet if you want.
It is of course true that so many in the black communityh have conspiracy theories as to what the white folks are up to, much as so many in the white community believe in alien kidnappings,gods that resemble Walt Whitman, weapons of mass destruction hidden in Iraq.
There are historical reasons for suspicion. That said, the gratuitous and snide remarks of these comments suggests in some measure the unfeeling and indifference accorded blacks and their sad history that grew from slavery in America, a condition that even so staunch a proponent of states rights as William Faulkner noted was a blight upon our history that would neve be removed.
Austin Downcast,
I don’t know about you but I would much rather people respect me enough to tell me I am being stupid to my face than to have them pat me on the head and say its not my fault I do stupid things because I am just not capable of understanding how things work.
Frankly, your soft racism nauseates me. All the more so because you are so damn proud of it. Treating people with respect means treating them as equals and that includes a willingness to criticize.
To many African-Americans let themselves be bamboozled by racist paranoia. An African-American elite is recapitulating the same corrupt race mongering that generations of Southern white elites used to maintain their hold on power to the detriment of everyone else. They use calls for racial solidarity and routine racist accusations that non-African Americans cannot be trusted to shield themselves from the political consequences of incompetence or outright corruption. As we saw recently in New Orleans, it is African-Americans themselves who suffer the most from this type of leadership.
We you love somebody and you see them repeatedly doing something you tell them, often in brutal terms. It is the indifferent stranger that remains silent.
Only your friends will tell you when you stink.
Austin,
Does the fact that someone ridicules a conspiracy theory about alien kidnappings suggest that he is unfeeling and indifferent toward white people?
Or that one has contempt for Oliver Stone?
You contend that slavery was “a blight upon our history that would never be removed.” Given the pretty universal historical presence of slavery, this would make any condemnation of any silly kind of thinking pretty much impossible. (Faulkner speaks about its interwoven nature in the culture he knows best & chooses as his subject; more importantly, he describes the universal tragic and even tainted nature of man. I doubt very much if he would say that that would mean any old lie should be respected.)
This site’s respect for pragmatism & the marketplace of ideas assumes that assessing the truth of those ideas (rather than the color of the skin of the person putting them out) is important and eventually leads to better lives for all of us. You may not think that is right. I am curious why you think believing in lies is a sensible thing to do.
By the way, I didn’t see the “snide” remarks as alluding to skin color. I suspect the often white move-on and answer people were more in the mind of these commentators. (Indeed, I suspect the thought was as much to the “Keep Austin Weird” crowd, capable of buttonholing someone on the Drag and raving about Halliburton.)
Austin is funny. Believing in flying saucers has pretty much zero political importance. Believing that the government is literally trying to murder you, does. One set of stupid ideas is more dangerous and important than the other. Anyway, I said “Low radius-of-trust societies sieze on conspiracy theories to explain things.” This includes many Black Americans, and lots of White Americans, many of whom believe that the Vatican or the Jews are behind all their troubles. Those details weren’t relevant to the post, but I have talked about Jacksonian America’s tendency toward conspiracy theories elsewhere on this blog. The only “gratuitous and snide comment” here is Austin’s. I suppose I was supposed to suddenly feel pangs of liberal guilt because his feelings are hurt. I don’t. Free speech requires thick skin.
Austin, if you want to have a civil conversation, we’re here. If you want to snidely suggest we are racists, you are wasting your time.
Austin Downcast wrote “much as so many in the white community believe in alien kidnappings”
How about Farrakhan and his black-crewed flying saucers which will some day soon descend to deal justice on the filthy Jews and white devils? That’s a flying-saucer delusion that DOES have political consequences.
“There are historical reasons for suspicion.”
And there are vastly more reasons to abandon such suspicion. Why do you want to excuse or justify hate and paranoia?
“gratuitous and snide…comments suggests…the unfeeling and indifference accorded blacks”
So a dislike of racist demagoguery is a sign of racism? As Mr. Spock used to say, fascinating.
Farrakhan’s hate-mongering has consequences–just ask the people of Toledo, Ohio and that poor 80-plus-year-old man whose bar was torched. Or consider the people in New York whose murder was incited by the “Reverend” Al Sharpton–another man who ought to be a pariah.
Lex wrote: “Low radius-of-trust societies…”
Which reminds me of an African-American I knew in college who would not shake hands with whites, and this on a campus as squishily liberal as you could wish. A white student behaving that way towards blacks would have quickly been ostracized and, in fact, asked to meet with the Dean. But since he was black his loony hatefulness was tolerated. I see no sane or just grounds for giving such foolishness special tolerance. I would rather ask what sort of damaged mind wants to turn friends into enemies.
After reading what this director is going to portray new orleans, i am not excited at all. I am from plaquemines parish(lower than new orleans) where the hurricane first touched and it is not all black and trashy like the ninth ward, where people get shot and raised horribly. Why don’t you show some real compassion in your movie and show real families! One of my best friends is black and she even agrees with me that this movie is going to be a abosulutly horrible.