Were tea party protesters a bunch of racist rednecks who hate having a black man in the White House? I guess it depends on who you talk to.
It’s been reported widely for the past few days, so this is sort of old news. But Janeane Garofalo, who in some quarters is considered sage, offered this wisdom in an appearance on MSNBC television:
JANEANE GAROFALO: Thank you. You know, there’s nothing more interesting than seeing a bunch of racists become confused and angry at a speech they’re not quite certain what he’s saying. It sounds right and then it doesn’t make sense. Which, let’s be very honest about what this is about. It’s not about bashing Democrats, it’s not about taxes, they have no idea what the Boston tea party was about, they don’t know their history at all. This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up. That is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks. And there is no way around that. And you know, you can tell these type of right wingers anything and they’ll believe it, except the truth. You tell them the truth and they become — it’s like showing Frankenstein’s monster fire. They become confused, and angry and highly volatile. That guy, causing them feelings they don’t know, because their limbic brain, we’ve discussed this before, the limbic brain inside a right-winger or Republican or conservative or your average white power activist, the limbic brain is much larger in their head space than in a reasonable person, and it’s pushing against the frontal lobe. So their synapses are misfiring. Is Bernie Goldberg listening?
Then a little bit later:
GAROFALO: I don’t think you do, for most of them. This is a — it’s almost pathological or elevated to a philosophy or lifestyle. And again, this is about racism. It could be any issue, any port in the storm. These guys hate that a black guy is in the White House. But they immigrant bash, they pretend taxes and tea bags, and like I said, most of them probably couldn’t tell you thing one about taxation without representation, the Boston tea party, the British imperialism, whatever the history lesson has to be. But these people, all white for the most part, unless there’s some people with Stockholm syndrome there.
For the record, at the Wichita tea party protest on tax day, I didn’t see any signs with racist thoughts, and I have about 360 photos I took that day.
The fact that MSNBC relies on a person so obviously deranged as Garafalo is one more reason why this network is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Amazingly, MSNBC provides this video served right from their website. Is this something they’re proud to broadcast?
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