Jay Smooth breaks down Rand Paul’s laughable yet frightening interview on the Rachel Maddow Show, in which he revealed that he would have opposed the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act:
Rand Paul may or may not be a racist. But he is certainly striving to make it easier for other racists to harass and discriminate against people of color. This makes him an ally to racists, whether or not he agrees with their bigoted beliefs.
The fact that he won’t straight up acknowledge this makes him, as Jay so aptly puts it, a weasel.
As Jay-Smooth says of John Mayer’s recent buffoonery:
There’s so much wrongness there, you can just swim in it.
As true as this is, Jay doesn’t want us to drown in it. Getting sucked into media soundbites about race can draw us away from the most immediate issues at hand. Jay goes on:
A lot of the most important race issues are institutional, systemic, structural issues. Questions like:
Why in 2010 do Black people not have the same educational opportunities, the same access to health care, the same economic and employment opportunities?
Why are Black people so disproportionately affected by this recession?
Why, in 2010, does it so often seem like on an institutional, systemic, structural level Black people are still disproportionately affected by almost everything thats bad?
Those questions cannot be answered by analyzing the racial awkwardness of a YouTube video. Answering those questions means figuring out how we can change public policy and pressuring the government from inside and outside to make those changes.
Damn. Who wants to listen to John Mayer, anyway, when you can watch Jay-Smooth spit the truth? Check him out at his new site, Nil Doctrine.
says Jay Smooth in a killer post at Ill Doctrine. Check out the video below to learn why our obligation to join with the Haitian people goes much deeper than pity:
This not only a nation of poverty and desolation…this is the nation that taught our hemisphere what it means to be a freedom fighter, and what it takes to break the chains of slavery. Its only when you see that full scope of Haiti’s history that you understand what our obligation is. That we need to act not because Haiti is some nation of perennial victims that we need to have pity on. We need to act because Haiti is a nation of heros. And we need to repay them for what they’ve given us. THAT is what our responsibility is.
Damn. That gave me chills. Looking at it in this way gives so much more meaning, not only to the suffering we see in pictures and on the news, but to our deep connection and responsibility to the people of Haiti.
Jay goes on to suggest four different ways to get involved, and stay involved, in the solidarity effort:
Like many folks, I’ve contributed what I can afford financially, but Jay’s post gave me a swift kick in the ass to step it up in other arenas. I’ve provided links to the categories above to help us get started.
Sometimes I get overwhelmed by the magnitude of suffering around the world, but thats no excuse for inaction. If you’re like me and need a reminder of both our responsibility and power to act, re-watch Jay Smooth’s video and kick it back into gear. There is much work to be done.
