The Daily Broadside - 10/27

New hotel owner hounded by racism charges

TAOS, N.M. - Larry Whitten marched into this northern New Mexico town in late July on a mission: resurrect a failing hotel.

The tough-talking former Marine immediately laid down some new rules. Among them, he forbade the Hispanic workers at the run-down, Southwestern adobe-style hotel from speaking Spanish in his presence (he thought they'd be talking about him), and ordered some to Anglicize their names.

Obama: "I may be skinny but I'm tough"

After weeks in which he has been angrily criticized by some on the right, to the point of creating a poster image of him with a Hitler mustache, Obama told a fund-raising event that some of his supporters have been expressing concern to him.

"I've tried to explain ... just because I'm skinny doesn't mean I'm not tough. I don't rattle. I'm not going to shrink back, because now is the time for us to continue to push and follow through on those things that we know have to be done but have not been done in decades," he said.

US up to 55 mln swine flu vaccine doses short: official

The United States will face a swine flu vaccine shortfall of 45 to 55 million doses by the end of the year but half of the population could still be vaccinated, according to a senior US official.
"I don't think we will get to the original goal" of 195 million influenza A(H1N1) vaccine doses delivered during the US government's fall vaccination campaign, said Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Man who threw feces in CA courtroom gets 31 years

A man who sneaked a bag of his feces into a San Diego courtroom during his home-invasion robbery trial, smeared it on his lawyer and threw it at jurors has been sentenced to 31 years in prison.
Superior Court Judge Frank Brown on Monday sentenced Weusi McGowan for robbery, burglary and two assault charges stemming from the feces-flinging incident during his January trial.

McGowan, who attorneys say suffers from mental illness, had asked for a mistrial because he believed jurors had seen him in restraints when he entered the courtroom.

Pelosi: Health care 'public option' needs new name

In an appearance at a Florida senior center, the Democratic leader referred to the so-called public option as "the consumer option." Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., appeared by Pelosi's side and used the term "competitive option."

Both suggested new terminology might get them past any lingering doubts among the public—or consumers or competitors.

NAIL MEET HEAD: John McWhorter

McWhorter: What Should African-American Studies Students Learn?

Urban history? Blacks were penned into segregated districts and then factory jobs available to modestly educated men were moved to China. Politics? Radicalism has been most interesting, whether or not it was the source of most black success. Performance? Most resonant in how it Spoke Truth to Power.

Is that all we are? Is that all we have been? Is it irrelevant to cover how black people have triumphed against the obstacles? Especially since so many have trumphed that today there are more middle class black people than poor ones? Is the main relevance of the fact that we have a black President--ahem!!!!--that his election didn’t mean, as if anyone thought it did, that there did not remain some racist idiots here and there?

It’s time that African-American Studies departments let go of the sixties imperative to defend blacks as eternal victims of racism. Black people can do their best even under imperfect conditions--and if that reality is irrelevant to an African-American Studies curriculum, then we must question the value of said curricula to those whom they purport to speak up for: real people in this real world. This real world which will never be perfect--even for descendants of African slaves.

In 2009, the study of blackness must be the study of a race most of whose members are now victors, not victims. Certainly the victims must be studied--but only within a genuine commitment to saving them, not chronicling them as helpless until America turns upside down in a fashion no one could seriously imagine will ever happen.

Read it all here. (H/T: AtillaTheHoney)

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK: Obama and race.

White beauty queen at US black university pens plea to Obama

The "Homecoming Queen" at a traditionally black US university has sent a letter to President Barack Obama, complaining that her win had been questioned on campus because she is white.

But after her letter riled students at Hampton University in Virginia, beauty pageant winner Nikole Churchill issued a public apology, saying she had taken "the comments of a few and blew them out of all proportion."

Churchill, a tall, raven-haired woman who, like Obama, grew up in Hawaii, wrote to the president after winning her university's beauty pageant last week.

"It would be much easier to say that possibly some were not accepting of the news because I wasn't the most qualified contestant; however, the true reason for the disapproval was because of the color of my skin. I am not African American," the nursing student wrote to the president.

Read it all at Breitbart. What should Obama do with this, if anything? Would it be a smart move on his part to speak to the issue of reverse racism, or should he just ignore it?

 

How does it feel?

Via HotAir: No, I don't think the White House requested Paterson bow out because of race, but watch for the Democrats to howl at the suggestion.

The Left has absolutely no problem putting words in Joe Wilson's mouth - things he didn't say or even come close to saying - but this suggestion of Steele's will be an outrage in five, four, three, two...

Another nugget over there on a lazy Sunday - Hannah's dad sets the record straight on a number of things: No, It Wasn’t My Idea for Hannah Giles to Dress Like a Hooker and Infiltrate ACORN