Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The Beast Of Racism
Won't Go Down Easily:
Dealing With Internet Trolls On Our Blogs


The unstated and covert mission of an Internet troll or mole is to find progressive black or white blogs and derail legitimate conversation of readers.


This places a chilling effect on the post and can end with the discussion centering around their insanity and hate rather than centering around what you, the blogger, took the time to write.

These people use the same ploys as the asswipes running McCain's ad campaign, which of late, he endorses more often as Election Day nears. They outright plant lies with the hope that less knowledgeable readers of blogs will buy into them.

There is an excellent commentary in the Washington Post today titled, Does The Truth Matter?

It shows a video of a McCain ad that is an outright lie that Obama supports comprehensive sex education for kindergartners, along with other whoppers.




The article also describes other false claims that Obama plans to raise taxes for most Americans, or that Sarah Palin opposed the Bridge To Nowhere without mentioning she supported it prior to becoming McCain's VP running mate.

This election is a grim reminder that racism is a beast that will not go down easily. Gatekeepers of the age-old Racist American Way Of Life have been very busy spreading lies and confusion in the media, in their own right wing blogs and trolling in ours.

When they visit our blogs - ours being defined as any progressive, anti-racist blog - their mission is to plant death seeds. They do this through their comments. Their intent is to kill any worthwhile conversation that commenters might have by dismissing the ideas in that post, and planting seeds confusion, misinformation, lies and/or bigotry.

One end result is that visitors get angry over what the commenter said and they discuss this, rather than the contents of the post that the blogger took time to write.

Once they get away with it, other haters visit and sprinkle similar comments in that post and future ones. One gets the idea that they are connected with one another via email or phone, and they very well may be - or they may be the same person masquerading as one.

The strategy of these Internet trolls is to put a chilling effect on the blog. Regular visitors may not want to come as often or read the comments because they don't want to get their blood pressure up from reading bullshit by the 'new regulars' who have made that blog one of their trailers homes.

In addition, they tie up the blogger's valuable time, who spends an inordinate amount of time writing a thoughtful reply to the hater, only to have it dismissed, rejected, ignored or challenged again.

This sucks away from the blogger's creativity as well. Instead of thinking about and following new ideas for new posts, he or she wastes time having an online conversation via comments with someone who is race-obsessed, and for the most part, insane.

Yes, insane.

While we all have our prejudices, hard core racism is a form of insanity. The obsessively racist person cannot be reasoned with any more than a misogynistic serial killer who hates and preys on women can be talked out of why killing them is a bad thing. If ever there was a population that should be on OCD medication, these people are the ones.


I'm addressing this issue today so black bloggers, along with liberal and progressives and particularly new ones, will know that they are not alone in dealing with this, and a suggestion on how to deal with them.

In a nutshell, don't tolerate them. Ban their racist azzes from your blog and do so without apology. When one wingnut is tolerated, more come. They hijack the post, and sometimes, the blog.

Often their comments are well-written and have truth mixed in with lies, but the tip off is their clear a right-wing agenda. These are generally not the folks in the cowboy hats who use the word nigger on your blog. Those types tend to stay where they belong: under a rock in their own slimey, Internet neighborhoods where liberals and blacks are clearly not welcome. This includes the comment newsline at Fake News, which has so many overtly racist and tolerated comments that this is a story in itself.

Instead, this Internet gang is too cunning resort to name-calling because they know their comments will be deleted. That's not what they want; they want an audience to read what they write and get suckered into their views.

HOWEVER, if you aspire to be a critical thinker of issues, it's important to tease out the difference between the commenter who has a right wing, racist agenda between one who makes an honest criticism of something in your post. Just because a reader disagrees with you is not reason enough to jump to the conclusion that they are a racist, sexist, or a nutcase.

This can be tricky. There are or will be times when a visitor or regular reader genuinely disagrees with your point of view or is upset by it but is not a malevolent person with a hate-spreading agenda. If they didn't state why they're upset or make this clear, ask them. You might actually learn something.

For example, every white person who criticizes Obama is not a racist. They may be looking at specific, legitimate issues where he has fallen short of his promises, and they're mad about it. His voting for FISA pissed off a lot of people of all races who understand that this law wipes out the 4th Amendment of the Constitution.

If these same critics, however, are running over to McCain who also supported it and in addition, supports more issues that will harm our economy, environment, and lead us into more wars, then they're lying about not being a racist.

If they're voting for McCain because they're 100% anti-abortion and nothing else is more important to them, then you, as a blogger, would be dishonest as hell in labeling them racist.

You could point out that his imperialistic war plans for the next few decades or century may lead to as many or more deaths than the unborn he'd like to save. If they think about this and weigh the pros and cons of this argument, good. If not, oh well.

They are entitled to their beliefs and wild hopes that endless wars and casualties won't happen and the GOP's privatizing and screwing up the economy 'won't be too bad.' They'll learn the hard way, just like we all have when we believed something based on pure hope rather than reality.

I truly believe that when we start hitting the delete button on everyone who disagrees with us, then we run the grave risk of only preaching to the choir and talking to ourselves. It amounts to mental masturbation.

We mistake our choir's validation for our being correct on an issue, when in actuality, we've only surrounded ourselves with like-minded people and/or suck ups who bob their heads up and down like dolls, particularly if it's a popular blog and they want to get in on the discussion. Adults aren't a lot different from high schoolers who like to hang out with the most popular crowd, even if it costs them their integrity.

To hell with that. The hits ain't worth it when it compromises your ability to learn new things that you, as a blogger, may have missed or not have seen.

Another type of blog comes to mind. I can think of two off-hand, where one 'covers' black women's issues and the other black male issues. In reality, these two do more harm to the race by demonizing the opposite gender, which in turn harms black families.

By deleting comments or attacking anyone who disagrees with them, these bloggers cater to men or women who have been victimized or feel like victims, and they do the work of the white racist by sensationalizing a handful of atrocities by black men, or focus exclusively on how black women are stupid and inferior or gold diggers, as though these stories are common behavior and applies to the general black population. I find this reprehensible and socially irresponsible.

Little to no disagreement is tolerated to their general man-hating or misogynistic approach or piss-poor investigation to the links (if any) they provide. In a misguided attempt to 'liberate' their readers, they inadvertently keep them oppressed by promoting the idea that only a few select men or women are worthy of existing on our planet, and the rest should be locked up or sterilized. If a white blogger wrote some of the shit they do, these same blacks who agree with them would be deeply offended.

Whether conscious of it or not, bloggers and commenters or any race who intentionally and malevolently disseminate misinformation
are ill with ignorance, and their narrow vision is contagious to their more vulnerable, often young adult readers.

This is also seen commonly on white hate sites and broadcast media TV and radio where the agenda is to recruit the young and/or uninformed into their line of thinking.

It unfortunately works well and is reflected in the current polls which shows that the most warmongering and least knowledgeable Presidential candidate and his VP running mate are running neck-to-neck against Obama and Biden.

If Obama were white, McCain's campaign would be the joke of the nation as it is in the UK and the rest of world. But he's not, and the reason his campaign has the problems it does is because the beast or racism won't go down without a helluva fight. The haters are everywhere and many are out of the closet, from the bigots who get paid well in their media jobs to the anonymous trolls who work so hard to sabotage our blogs.

Makes one wonder who the fuck are these people?

An Internet troll leaving offensive comments at a progressive and/or black site is sometimes the same person. One tip off is that their writing style is the same, and suddenly in one post, there will be two, three or four racists leaving the same kind of racist agenda comments. This way, they hijack the thread.

To date, I have only had to ban one person in early August who makes his or her rounds to black blogs trying to start shit. I have seen him, and last night, others like him on other black blogs. I got tired of it.

Back in August, I accepted his first comment where he didn't seem to think genocide was a problem. When he left a second long rant, I deleted it and told him he was banned. He left at five additional comments, all of which were deleted. He gave up and hasn't been back to my site, but interestingly, told me that I should be more 'thick-skinned'.

I've had a number of folks critical of some of my posts. Fine with me, because dammit, I want to grow and learn and have someone tell me that "Well, Kit, I think you're wrong because..."

I'll think about that, do some research, and maybe I'll agree, or in the end, tell them we'll have to agree to disagree.

Otherwise, I just say no if I sense they're haters, moles and trolls with anti-social agendas. I can usually spot them a mile away and I'll bet most of you can too. I feel no compulsion to give the enemies of humanity - because that's what they are - an opportunity to use my blog to spread bigotry and ruin my fucking day or yours.

As an African-American woman with a racial melting pot of genes and a multi-cultural outlook, who has been both working class and middle class, who has seen the beauty and ugliness in human nature in all races, and has been unnecessarily put through hell in my life, I thank God for the heaven here on earth to balance out the hate.

I blog first for my wonderful black people because we have been through so much and have so far to go, and then a very close second for all the other wonderful people of all races, religions and creeds in this world who want us all to just get along and be judged by our merits, not our families or circumstance of birth. We don't always agree on every issue, and that's fine, because wouldn't it be weird if we did?




It is for the good folks, the bloggers and readers of all rainbow colors that this post is dedicated to today. I wish you well and to stay strong, 'cause I said, the beast of racism won't go down easily.


Addendum @4:10 PM, same day:

I just learned that Barack finally got fed up enough to fight his own trolls. He compared McCain's economic policies to putting lipstick on a pig.

Heh-heh-heh. I ain't stupid; pork barrell economy comparison or not, I recognize it's a closely worded phrase used by Palin bragging about herself being a pitbull with lipstick. Bet she won't no more; everyone will now have this new association with it that they might not have had if she hadn't recognized her character over-reacted and had a hissy fit, crying "sexist!"

Mind you, these crocodile tears came from Palin, who allegedly was overheard by a part-Eskimo waitress saying, "Sambo beat the bitch!" in an Alaskan restaurant. In four words, Palin dissed Barack and Hillary. Well, we've learned she can dish it out but not take it.

Heh-heh-heh... I'm cracking up laughing right this minute as Neil Cavuto of Fox News (!) is challenging some offended woman by the pig comment. He's repeatedly saying there's no way one can interpret Obama's comment as an attack on Palin.

I agree it wasn't an attack on her, but I think it most cleverly and intentionally stripped away the glory of the Palin pride and tribe of her being a pitbull with lipstick. Hell, the McCain campaign may have even ordered hundreds of thousands of dollars in tee-shirts and posters to sell by now.

LMBAO!

And it gets better! Today, Obama whipped out his troll whacker and said, "I love this country too much to let them take over another election with lies and phony outrage... Enough is enough!”

We'll see.

17 comments:

  1. Great advice in this post, Kit, as always. You're truly wise, and fair.

    I do have some hope that the race-oriented blogosphere can have an overall positive impact, rather than just spinning out the same dynamics happening elsewhere.

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  2. Me too, Macon, and thank you. I don't think racial relations in our country will ever be the same after this election; I just hope it's for the better, but at the same time, think that if we don't see this immediately, maybe we will in the upcoming generation of kids and teens.

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  3. This is a wonderful post, and Kit you are a wonderful blogger. Keep up the good work, this is a fight worth fighting. Your words always make me think, and I always feel excited when I see you have a new post. You are a part of making the discourse on racism a positive conversation. Thank you for blogging!

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  4. I haven't had the pleasure of having that type of conversation on my page. But, on another blog I have on another site, it happens all the time.

    It got so bad recently that I had to block that person from even commenting on my blogs. I'm usually open to all types of comments. But when it comes down to hijacking the blog, it gets irritating.

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  5. Great post, kit. I posted saying some of the same things. Keep up the good work.

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  6. My post for tomorrow actually touches on some of the themes you've discussed. But, how do you ban somebody on blogger? I don't even know how to do that.

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  7. First, if any of you who left comments earlier return, I added an addendum to the post.

    Elizabeth, thank you. I'm only human, so it's thrilling to know that my posts are something that excite you!

    Rippa, agreed; it's so irritating to see this anywhere. When I saw this last night on another blog, I got pissed enough to write about it.

    MacDaddy, I'll swing by and check it out. Didn't see it yesterday.

    Big Man, Yeah, appears that a lot of us are sick of this. I don't know how Rippa blocks an IP address (probably not hard), but as for how to ban a particular commenter, just tell them on the thread that they're unwelcome and banned for spreading bigotry, and that any further comments they leave will be deleted. You might have to temporarily switch to comment moderation and add a note why.

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  8. K.I.T.:

    Excellent post. I'm proud to have given you your "KICK-ASS (AZZ?) BLOGGER" Award. [You haven't linked our site though! Sniff, sniff]

    The Boss, Ser Cavalor, at HELL

    http://thedisbrimstone-dailypitchfork.blogspot.com/

    has a strict no-censorship rule to which all team members, Black and White, have agreed. We like seeing the pure foolishness in the light of day and we get so little traffic anyway -- but a tremendous amount of adverstising! -- that leaving that worm's vile words up there has had no material effect other than to give the team fodder for tangential discussions.

    TORRANCE has chosen the same approach as CAV has. FAIRLANE has taken your approach with the guy.

    Your reasoning is valid. I wouldn't presume to argue. If The Boss's policy at HELL were yours I wouldn't have a problem with it.

    I am amazed though at Torrance's patience and that of his commentariat, altough Torrance does indulge me the occasional rant at the racist's musing when I find them exceptionally discourteous. But I get it. He merely dislikes me for my politics and for being "a race traitor." He HATES Black people.

    Three things have happened recently to make me think even more as you do with regard to whether Black bloggers or even mixed teams such as ours should consider barring racists.

    (1) Sarah Palin and her glowing press reviews
    (2) The closeness of the election
    (3) Ron Paul's announcement in company with Cynthia McKinney, Bob Barr and Ralph Nader of his refusal to endose McCain, suggesting that his voters instead pick one of those three instead of McCain
    (4) The Russian Navy having entered the Caribbean to protect Venezuela from the US 4th Fleet

    The choice of Sarah Palin for RepVPNom has really put this election in even starker terms than it had been before the choice. Quite simply this has been the most bizarre general election I have ever seen. Never have I seen two candidates for Pres and VP more superior on every measure than their counterparts.

    Every historical indicator ought to point to a Democratic landslide and given such a presidential candidate as Obama is, Obama by all rights should be able to phone it in from here. Quite the contrary, however, has happened. The race only slightly favors Obama. And the entire press has more or less ceded the presidency to McCain because of Palin's "likeability." While it's true that Obama is sort of a cranky guy and Biden is a very cranky guy, this "likeability" thing is a joke. McCain and Palin are far beyond "cranky". They're mean and stupid.

    The choice of Palin over Romney (clearly the superior leader) and this Ron Paul move suggest that while McCain could attribute some the closeness in the campaign to his race advantage, the absence of Romney and Paul means NO ISSUES AT ALL -- ALL RACE, ALL THE TIME. Except for...

    ...when it's about religion, war and some weird prairie populist White Class Envy. The press has helped McCain and Palin make both Barack and Michelle's academic achievements into MINUSES. The word "uppity" actually made it into the MSM! Once that happens, it's devil-take-the-hindmost. Foolishly, I had thought Michelle Obama's speech had more or less wrapped the whole thing up on Day 1 for the Democrats. Not only did it not accomplish any part of its goal, the Republicans have once again used her as a NEGATIVE!

    I've wondered time and again if maybe this wasn't a little karmic payback to Obama for his disingenous South Carolina race-based tactics to crack Clinton's lead among Black voters. The more I think about it, though, the more I realize that it was less about that than about doing whatever he could to keep Clinton from making the issue in SC the homophobic rantings of Reverend Donny McClurkin. He had to act quick and make a big enough STORY to prevent the McClurkin thing from really crushing him going forward with gay caucus voters. It's hardball. No argument. And no serious complaint about the candidate. Obama's a good one and getting better.

    The problem is the rest of the world. The rest of the world won't tolerate Obama losing. McCain made a speech last May about wanting to invade and conquer Venezuela and Bush promptly sent the 4th Fleet into the South Caribbean. This was after chashiering Admiral Fallon, of course, who wanted no part of any war. If you think we haven't been on pins and needles down here, you're wrong.

    I know Americans Black and White aren't too fond of Russian or Venezuela because the hype is only one-way: AGAINST. Those who've taken the time to study what's going on understand. So, everybody breathed a sigh of relief down here when Russian naval ships came into the area to protect Venezuela from the US. It's was a bit of "thank you, Dmitriy..." (phew!)

    It's not that I want to see the USA LOSE a battle of armadas with Russia and Venezuela. It's that I want PEACE. And it's good knowing that if McCain, enjoying the racial and media tailwind, wins the election while he and Crusader-for-Christ Palin will start another war, Russia having stymied their Iran and Venezuela plan, really can only look to North Korea and stepped up action in Iraq and Afghanistan. Syria and Lebanon have been making none too subtle overtures to sit down with Israel now just in case McCain wins.

    While I'm not so innocent as to expect peace in Iraq or Afghanistan during Obama's first administration, I am pretty positive he's not looking for any other mischief. He seems like a natural born diplomat.

    And any passing thoughts Rev Rick Warren or Biden might have put in Obama's head about more war to pull in more White support has been forestalled by Russia, as well.

    If I could vote, I'd vote in Nevada for Obama.

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  9. I have had problems with troll/s myself. I do not know if it is a group or just one person. But it has gone so far as to use another identity,IP blockers and so forth.

    The top of it was getting a post card in the mail from one of these so called "friends", not a good situation. I read an entry on my ning telling me that my license is up for renewal next year. And on a forum using my license plate as a profile pic.

    It got to the point where I do not just delete posts but have had to remove comment access altogether.

    And blocking IP's is rather hard when they are using an IP blocker on their end.

    But it is good advice not to give these fools a voice in liberal blogs. They have Right Wing News for this purpose.

    About the kindergarten thing, well as I have assumed many times the right doesn't know how to read. The bills states "course material and instruction shall be age and developmentally appropriate". Seems they missed that.

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  10. Sister Kit... Excellant post. Being an older Black male, I am late to the blogging world. Sites such as yours give me much thought about the true society we live in, Mainstream media is so bias that one will be not informed of the true feelings and positions of the African-American world. I have a Blog site (Still A Black Panther) and I feel that many will attack me and my thoughts purely on some strong beliefs. You are so right about attacks by others. I have responded to the topics and had to take additional BP medicine. Maybe soon I will "jump into the water" with my blog. Until then I will continue to be updated by my race's gifted bloggers

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  11. StillAPanther2, Thanks. You're so right about the value of having so many black blogs to read as our opinions have little voice on tv/radio/print media, which is too bad because we have so much to offer. Good luck in whatever decision you make in having your own blog published. I'm no spring chicken myself but a lot of aren't, so you won't be alone, and your BP stories of back in the day would be interesting to the young'uns... maybe the feds too so be cool about it... lol.

    Topper, oh, your experience sounds awful! Sounds like spammers want to sell you shit. As for the right wing fruit cakes... maybe by now you can re-start your blog (if you had one; I checked and didn't see one under your user name) and can turn on the moderated comments feature and ignore the turkeys.

    Kelso, so sorry about not blogrolling you! I thought I had since I have you bookmarked.

    You said, "Quite simply this has been the most bizarre general election I have ever seen."

    Yeah, no shit. I've only read two books in the past month because the Election is so damned entertaining.

    You said, "(4) The Russian Navy having entered the Caribbean to protect Venezuela from the US 4th Fleet."

    I'm not surprised but I am alarmed. This shit is progressing. I wrote in my Aug 14th post, Expect the Draft:
    "Then there's an odd story of a naval assault ship, the USS Kearsarge, heading toward South America for humanitarian purposes to dole out free medical care. Does this sound like our military of recent years? The one that's already spending millions every single day and overstretched? What is that really about?"

    I figured then what the 411 is. Over a year ago I determined that if I were a military strategist and out to conquer the world, I'd do in all in one fell swoop: nuke Iran, Syria, Venezuela and take over Cuba. Hit 'em all hard and fast and everyone will be so confused they won't know which end is up, especially with a media blackout.

    As bad as the Bush Administration is, they've been pussies when it comes to war. I'd have dropped a big one on the palace the day Dan Rather was in Baghdad interviewing Saddam Hussein back in 2/2003 and declared Iraq our 51st State instead of carpet-bombing all those innocent people, sending their city back into the pre-Industrial stage of operations and pissing off the entire Middle East and Muslim world, not to mention ruining our reputations. We had so much world sympathy from 9/11, and then the GOP blew it.

    Those mofo's do not know how to win a war. They're still screwing up with that lame act they pulled with Georgia. Shit. Russia could kill our economy with a few phone calls and never waste a bullet, and the EU wouldn't say jack because they're hard pressed for Russia's oil.

    I'm not a warhawk if I sounded like one just now, but I know incompetence when I see it. What they might be planning now with Iran will get us all F'ed up b/c I think Russia will jump in and send a few nukes over here; they have billions invested in Iran and ain't gonna let that go. Between that and our new, yet unannounced Great Depression, by 2012 a bunch of us including me might be living in a cardboard boxes by the nearest polluted rivers and eating mud pies to keep from starving.

    The WH & Pentagon missed their window of opportunity to achieve their goals and will now have to do the right thing: use diplomacy. I hope McCain doesn't get in office because I see no evidence that he's figured that out. I think Obama has the best chance of keeping a cool head and working out good deals w/o blowing up a chunk of the planet.

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  12. K.I.T.: Obama is the only chance. Peace is the only way out of the economic mess for the US because they have to tighten up both fiscally and monetarily and it seems like Bush's wars of choice would be the best cut to make fiscally which would also allow for some small stimulus that gets high velocity money into consumers' hands.

    But this Venezuela thing has been on the boil forever. McCain said in his "Cuban Independence Day" speech this past May that he wanted to quarter troops in Colombia for a ground attack into Venezuela.

    That was such a massively bad idea I think Cheney himself negotiated with the FARC to let Ingrid Betancourt go just to shut McCain up while McCain was visiting Colombia.

    These people really have no idea about other cultures. They assume because Uribe, a right-wing friend of Bush's is President, they whole country loves them. The whole country HATES the Americans and Bush especially. They call him "El Anticristo."

    I've written about Colombia a lot on my spot. There is no place on Earth quite like it. Imagine a place whose two greatest sources of income are man's two favorite stimulants, cocaine and coffee, one of them is illegal but it's not like violence doesn't attend the other as well. So, you have a pretty wealthy and diverse country with immigrants from all over but basically an orietantion that's 60%European, 20% Mestizo and 20% of a Middle-Eastern and Asian mix.

    Except that because of the political wars over coca and coffee that have been going on forever, few people expect to die of natural causes be they rich, poor or in the middle. I can't even count how many Colombians I've known who've seen people in their family killed or who have killed people themselves. I'm not talking about psychopathic criminals. I'm talking about middle and upper middle class people in normal professions.

    So, how would weekend reservists and 18 year-old recruits deal with that in a supposedly FRIENDLY country? They'd all be dead before they took a step near the border.

    So, somebody at the CIA or DoD got McCain off that particular strategy sometime in early summer. But because Republicans thrive on all that military bullshit, in comes the 4th fleet.

    You are absolutely right about the Republicans' approach to war. It's not so much that they're pussies, it's that politically they want these wars to be continuous. It's way better to be fighting two or three wars with 200,000 personnel to a draw over a long period of time than to win it quickly.

    If you win it quickly, there's no opportunities to make up all the "support the troops" ribbons and give the mawkish speeches and ridicule Democrats, Obama especially.

    The flag-officers in US military are no dummies. They're stuck with this bullshit but they know that you don't invade a Sunni country to avenge an attack by Shia! They know you can't occupy a country as large as Iraq with fewer than 500,000 people, let alone try to do it with another 100,000 in Afghanistan and MAYBE 100,000 for a South American adventure. Eventually, all of these people will get killed this way. And anytime a flag officer disagrees with the Republican Party like Casey or Fallon or even that beserker Pace they get cashiered in favor of a yes man like Petraeus.

    American children really are dying over there to add a little realism and bathos to McCain and Palin's corny speeches.

    But what do I know? I speak Spanish. Ask Lou Dobbs and the rest of the MSM how they feel about Spanish-speaking people!

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  13. (Sigh.) We've gotten a bit off-topic, Kelso, but what you've said in both comments proves the point that racism will not go away softly into the night, anywhere, at least no time soon. Thanks.

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  14. Getting back to the subject at hand, trolls racism and Obama a question was raised elsewhere...

    What *is* it about this Obama guy?

    My response was
    ---
    He's black.

    For the second time in our history, one black man has a podium and millions are listening to him.

    For the second time in history we have a black man that has gone beyond community organizer to greater things.

    And for the first time this one black man has a real shot at the presidency.

    I have a dream. The dream in some way is being fulfilled. And I wonder if those folks, those white republicans will give back Martin Luther King to those that he belongs.

    If you ask me, Obama is Martin Luther King's, and black America's dream.

    As much as I discredit Obama on things, that is the one thing I give him. And I give it to him gladly.
    ---

    And on that other thing about trolls. I had to remove toppers tap for a while to maybe get the dogs off the scent. But since this political world has been going nuts I have started it up again. I forgot that I HAD to do all this. It's fixed now. Do I dare make comments accessible? I'll have to consult my blood pressure.

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  15. K.I.T. - this was another great post. Very helpful. I think the other keys has been the continuing growth of new black blogs. I do wish so-called friendly white bloggers actually made more of an effort to read our blogs like we read theirs!

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  16. It is so hard not to respond to the trolls!!!!!!

    Racism is such a volatile topic, it will bring out the fools each and every time.

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  17. Topper, Nice and fair point of view. I can't speak for the dead, but Barack indeed appears to be ML King and black America's dream come true. Not perfect (ie FISA), but perfect in his striving for excellence and to be a President for all Americans. BTW, I blogrolled too.

    Professor Tracy, thank you, once again. I too wish more black blogs - especially ours - were more popular in the blogosphere. This is but a microcosm of America.

    Siddity, I never resist my inclination to respond to them if they come of my turf. My policy: Zero tolerance for haters with agendas, 100% tolerance for genuine critics.

    In other words, hate = poison where I can't grow, whereas bonifide criticism = challenges to my thinking which will me and my readers think harder and grow.

    Heh-heh. That's my formula. ;)

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Hi, this is Kit.

I haven't posted since summer 2010, and comment moderation has been on for a very long time.

My old blogger friends (you know who you are) are welcome to email me.

I can be reached at:
kitsmailbag@gmail.com.