The Anti-Black and Glen Beck

I tell you there are days where stuff just comes looking for you, you don't even have to leave home to find it! Let me say right here, this may be a little controversial for some folks. But it landed in my lap and, being me, it's been noodling around my head all day and I have to get it out. Based upon the title you know I'm talking about race. Not because it was at the top of my topics for the day, but because someone told my nephew he's the Anti Black, and a neighbor in my subdivision wants our book club to read Glen Beck's book, Glen Beck's Common Sense. (My nephew lives in North Carolina by the by.)

Let me begin with the latter, Glen Beck. When I read the list of proposed books for the upcoming year and got to the bottom of the list and saw Glen Beck, my mouth dropped open. I was hoping against hope that it wasn't the same Glen Beck, opinionator passing as commentator, muckraker, bottom feeding agitator, crap disturber passing as nut job, on Fox News. (Talk about an oxymoron, Fox and News, like a free market health care system, but I digress.)

Alas, it was the same person. I considered for about five minutes letting it pass, not saying anything, hoping that some other brave souls will vote it out. But I was just undone. (All it it takes for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing. I really believe that.) As the only person of color in my book club, in a sub division where there are but a handful of us, it just upset me to no end to find Glen Beck on the list. Here's why. I believe that the right wing are out to incite riot, mayhem and murder. After inciting the mob they will wring their hands, moan and groan and pretend they just don't understand, "He acted alone, we abhor violence." Oh me oh my!

What's my evidence? How many people showed up to Bush's public meetings carrying loaded weapons? When Bush's actions and policies actually were treasonous, how many people showed up to public meetings shouting Traitor?

I fired off a note to the book club coordinator voicing my dismay. I can't abide Fox news and since the right wing have shown that they will go to any length to destroy President Obama, have been seriously considering boycotting their non news programs. Yes, I know, this means 24 and House, and a slew of other shows, but that is for a later discussion. All of this to say, I refuse to watch their "opinion masquerading as news programming." But Glen Beck's remarks about President Obama after the Skip Gates brouhaha sent me right over the edge. (Huffington Post, Salon, NY Times, Bill Maher and others covered it.) In case you haven't heard he said that the President has shown that he has a deeply seated hatred of white people, and in fact is a racist. WTF!

I don't know if my response, or having a provocative book on the list violates some kind of book club etiquette, but there it is. Let me be clear, I am making no assumptions here about the reason, cause, or political leanings of the book club member who proposed this book. Here's what I do know for certain though, we would need a facilitator for that discussion, we would need to actually read Tom Paine's Common Sense in order to fully understand his philosophy and thinking in order to put Beck's book in context. (Beck claims his book is based upon the principles, thinking and philosophy of Tom Paine.) And given Beck's own statements, we would have to talk about race and racism.

And then a white guy told my nephew he was the Anti-Black. What a day what day!