Bob Somerby writes that Digby is ” is increasingly losing her way due to her tribal loathing.” What did Digby do? She posted a video from the American Family Association’s Brian Fischer in which he asserts that Herman Cain is “the real black man in the race.”
He can’t talk enough about how white he is and how white his heritage is. And you compare that to, say, Herman Cain – you know, Herman Cain was just joking around about being the real Black man in the presidential race and President Obama kind of helping reinforce what Herman Cain has said in jest.
President Obama is half-white, and half-black; Herman Cain is all black; he’s authentically black; he is the real black man in the race.
Digby was specifically referring to the idea that “conservatives can’t be racists because some of their best candidates are black.” This is a joke, referring to the “best friends” defense against racism (“some of my best friends are black!”). Somerby refers to this as a “dumb statement,” but I’m not sure why, since he’s made a version of that argument himself. And the point is not really whether conservatives can be racist, since it’s not as though liberals are immune to racism by virtue of being liberal (which really would be a dumb argument) but whether or not supporting Herman Cain somehow prevents the supporter from holding any prejudiced views on race whatsoever.
Somerby writes that Fischer is “a dumb, lost soul.” (He didn’t say anything racist though, because that’s a word you’re not allowed to say.) But whether Fischer is dumb or lost is almost beside the point–Republicans turn to him when they’re trying to win a Republican Party primary for president. Does Somerby think this says anything at all about some of the people Republicans allow into their tent? No. That would be “tribal loathing.”
Tellingly, Somerby doesn’t excerpt what Fischer actually said. Because if he had, his readers might know that Fischer was paraphrasing something Cain himself had said (and not in jest), which was that Obama isn’t really black. If this statement makes Fischer “dumb and lost,” what does it make Cain? Somerby doesn’t say. I am however, looking forward to Somerby’s thoughts on the anti-abortion ads Cain ran featuring black actors lamenting the prospect of “mak[ing] a little mistake with one of your ‘hos.” Surely those don’t indicate any contempt for the black Americans whose thoughts they are presumably meant to represent.
