The "Is It Race?" Quiz

Here are ten questions. Enjoy.

Rush Limbaugh: "We Need Segregated Buses"

Referring to an incident in which a white student was beaten by black students on a school bus, a caller to Rush Limbaugh's radio show stated that the local police concluded that the attack did not appear to be racially motivated. Limbaugh's response:
"I think the guy's wrong. I think not only was it racism, it was justifiable racism. I mean, that's the lesson we're being taught here today. Kid shouldn't have been on the bus anyway. We need segregated buses--it was invading space and stuff. This is Obama's America."

And this:

"If homosexuality being inborn is what makes it acceptable, why does racism being inborn not make racism acceptable? I'm sorry--I mean, this is the way my mind works. But apparently now we don't choose racism, we are just racists. We are born that way. We don't choose it. So shouldn't it be acceptable, excuse--this is according to the way the left thinks about things."

Hate Crime At Cracker Barrel?

From CNN: "The FBI is investigating as a possible hate crime an incident in which a woman was beaten to the ground in front of her child at the entrance to a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Morrow, Georgia, south of Atlanta." Misdemeanor battery and disorderly conduct charges and a felony charge of cruelty to children have been filed against Troy Dale West Jr. for his alleged actions directed at US Army reservist Tashawnea Hill.

President Obama On Kanye West: "Jackass"

Watch the President here.

President Carter On Race And Disrespecting President Obama

Watch President Jimmy Carter's comments on recent protests against President Obama, including his statement that "[t]here is an inherent feling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president." Read about Carter's comments here. President Obama's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, has commented on Carter's statement: "The president does not believe that the criticism comes based on the color of his skin. We understand that people have disagreements with some of the decisions that we've made and some of the extraordinary actions that had to be undertaken by this administration . . . The president does not believe it's based on the color of his skin."

Valceresio, Italy's New Black Mayor

Sandy Crane was recently elected mayor in Valceresio, Italy. Crane was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, the daughter of a black soldier and Italian mother. She is a member of an anti-immigrant political party and has been described as the "voice of Italy's right-wing party."

Rep. Joe Wilson, Meet Maureen Dowd

Says Maureen Dowd on Mr. "You Lie!": "The congressman . . . belonged to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, led a 2000 campaign to keep the Confederate flag waving above South Carolina's state Capitol and denounced as a 'smear' the true claim of a black woman that she was the daughter of Strom Thurmond, the '48 segregationist candidate for president. Wilson clearly did not liked being lectured and rebuked by the brainy black president presiding over the majestic chamber."

The President Wants To Talk To Our Children!! Run!!!!

OK, I'm late to this, but . . . Michael Wolff writes that President Obama's then upcoming speech to school children (delivered last week) was, "according to the New York Times, making concervative parents apopletic and 'igniting a revolt.'" (The first sentence in the piece: "Shit, it probably is about race.") Two friends and I were discussing and lamenting this silliness last week (their names not revealed in order to protect the intelligent). Listen up: BARACK OBAMA IS THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. RESPECT THE OFFICE IF YOU CAN'T OR WON'T RESPECT THE MAN.

Rush Limbaugh On "Obama's America"

Check out this story.

David Mamet On Race In America

Mamet discusses his current play "Race" and the nation's 230-year experiences and dialogue concerning race matters.

Rice Professor Raymond Johnson

What must this feel like? As reported in the Houston Chronicle: "There's no time to talk about how 45 years ago Raymond Johnson made history as the first African-American to enroll at Rice, and the ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit from alumni that tried to stop him. He's back at the school as a professor not to dwell on the past, but to teach new ways of thinking about complex mathematical concepts."

A Bigot Is A Bigot

Leonard Pitts writes about the beating of Brian Williams, an 18-year-old beaten after he walked his girlfriend home in Buffalo, New York. "A mob of 10 to 12 black males then stomped and kicked him and hit him with . . . concrete--all in the head and face . . . As they struck him, they taunted him. 'You white motherf___, we told you to stay away from here. These are "our" streets. We told you, stay away from our women.'" Brian is white; his girlfriend is black.

Pitts: "I loathe bigotry in all its forms, but I have a special problem with bigotry as practiced by those who, by dint of history, should know better. When Jews hate Muslims for their religion, when gays scorn straights for their sexual orientation, when blacks beat a white teenager for the color of his skin, it suggests people too dense to understand the moral of their own story, the meaning of their own passages. The minority is no more righteous in hate than the majority is."

On Judicial Diversity

See the Lawyers' Commitee for Civil Rights Under Law's "Improving Diversity on the State Courts: A Report from the Bench."

4

The number of black coaches in the 119 schools comprising Division 1A college football.

For a story on the absence of diversity in the college football coaching ranks and Tom Williams' selection as the first black coach at Yale University, click here.