I'm using the expression "racial tirade" because this is the caption used by Entertainment Tonight and Larry King and some of the other TV shows.
Recently there have been tirades by Andy Rooney and Mel Gibson. These tirades are anti-immigrant, anti-foreign language speakers (including Spanish), anti-Semitism.
These people often apologize, their friends apologize, and they think this is enough.
Sneers, jeers, antipathy, whatever you call this.
Many of these people are expressing the true sentiments of people, and many are expressing their own true sentiments. Maybe these true sentiments are wrong, are unacceptable, are unpopular, have been excluded from the public debate, but these sentiments are the true, intimate and private sentiments of many peoples, and they need to be known in the "public marketplace" of ideas, thoughts, and opinions.
Every now and again they are publically expressed, sometimes in tirades and many times in the vilest and most destructive manner, whenever people feel they have an "excuse." Whether the excuse is real or imagined. Sometimes individual people become the "scapegoat" for the true sentiments.
The press is free and an aspect of free press is the these types get to express their views.
To tell the truth, we need to hear these views. If these people are truly anti-whatever, we need to hear them.
To tell the truth, anti-Semistism has been around for centuries, anti-black sentiments are centuries old. If people truly hold these ideas (and for some ideals) we need to know this.
Imagine a black talking to the likes of Michael Richards or a Jewish person talking to the likes of Mel Gibson, truly thinking these are nice people, while they are holding the most vile sentiments of Jews and blacks and immigrants, Latinos and everybody else.
Men have a lot of anti-female sentiments that women have been hearing for centuries. Women hold a lot of anti-male sentiments that men have been hearing for centuries. Or they don't hear this.
Certainly all of this is point of view. People need to hear these thoughts and to express them and to learn how to deal with them.
The problem is that when people think that these ideas allow them to be destructive to people.
Also, if wars are truly based on racism. Jews know that many of the wars against Jews have been racist wars. Some wars have been based upon true wrongs, others wars are just you don't like the people. You just don't care.
Many wars against blacks, and that continue, and even lynchings continue even into the modern era, even though people don't call them that--and blacks can be manipulated into even lynching each other.
To lynch blacks in the modern Africa world, just convince the blacks that this is some awful black that done some truly great wrong, and blacks themselves will do the lynching. Everybody that knows blacks knows this. Even blacks themselves know this. Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin joined in the lynching of Richard Wright. And then when it was time to lynch Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin they had their own curious form of lynching. Certainly, Wanda Coleman probably wouldn't find anything wrong with helping to lynch Maya Angelou just for writing some book she doesn't like and playing the celebrity poet.
Let's just all of us express these ideas and thoughts. And then let us all apologize. (Don't misread me.)
Immigrants and Spanish-speakers need to hear Andy Rooney. Jews need to hear Mel Gibson. If Jews thought his film anti-Semitic and weren't sure, well, Mel Gibson can clarify things. And this warrior from Australia is still a great film warrior, isn't he?
Even though Latinos call themselves a cosmic race for example and their racism doesn't express itself as vilely as certain others, nevertheless racism towards black Hispanics is very evident just watching the roles played on Hispanic TV like Telemundo and the various Novelas that only have light-skinned Latinos in the leading roles. I greatly admire Edward James Olmos, nevertheless, if he were a dark-skinned Latino he would certainly (perhaps) not have the leading roles that he has had in Miami Vice and currently in Battlestar Galactica. Certainly not. Nor would it be likely he would be able to be an admired elder in the Latino community.
It should be noted that many light-skinned Latinos who are allowed to be "white" in the Latino and Hispanic world, and every African American knows this, would be considered black in the African American world, and many so-called black African American are often lighter complexioned than so-called white Latinos.
And although Michael Richards in his tirade calls himself "white," nevertheless there are so-called blacks in America and around the world whiter than Michael Richards. And when they were lynching blacks in America, they were also lynching Jews. So don't forget that history.
