Black is as Black Does

Bundy phones FOX News to complain that the feds also stole his glasses

The batshit crazy right-wing news cycle for this week has been dominated by the travails of Cliven Bundy, a Nevada rancher and career deadbeat who refuses to pony up money he owes to the federal government because, well, he thinks he can get away with it if he wraps himself in Old Glory and claims he's standing up against the "evil" government. With an assist from FOX News, Bundy has become an ephemeral media celebrity; until, that is, he used his fifteen minutes of fame to opine that perhaps blacks were better off as slaves. Given that Bundy is an old, white rancher living in the Nevada wilderness, it shouldn't be shocking that his views on race are antediluvian. Perhaps he could blame his outburst on the radioactive fallout he grew up with thanks to those federal government atomic tests in the 1950s. Predictably, Twitter and the mainstream media reacted with shock and horror at such a naked display of racism, but this past week also saw some racist imagery (or racial stereotyping if one wants to be polite) that's being used to promote NBA basketball. Check it out:



The Toronto Raptors are in the playoffs for the first time in six years and they're decided to rebrand themselves with the "We the North" ad campaign. The first thing that sticks out about this ad is that there's a conscious effort being made to give the Raptors "street cred." Aside from the obligatory glamour shot of Toronto's skyline, the ad shows a city filled with bleak, ugly apartment complexes and grimy expressways. The people playing basketball in these settings are overwhelmingly black, with several of them bearing elaborate tattoos just to provide a hint of gangsta life. It's hard to see what the end purpose of this ad is, but the message seems to be, "Hey, looks at us, we're just like big American cities--we have lots of nasty public housing filled with dangerous-looking black men who love playing basketball." The ad only runs in Canada (as far as I know), but it feels like it's addressing an American market (complete with American-accented voice artist), asking them to please, pretty please, take us seriously as a basketball franchise. And the way to do that, the ad agency has decided, is to portray blacks in one of their officially approved roles: poor, urban and vaguely threatening.

What that ad fails to show is that the audience at Raptors games is easily is the most ethnically diverse of any of Toronto's major sports teams, so it's doubly odd that "We the North" is trying to peddle a black-centric vision of Toronto for no clear purpose. What the campaign does reveal is one of the acceptable faces of racism. People from both ends of the political spectrum find poor, urban blacks to be a useful political tool; the right uses them to attract frightened white voters, the liberal-left needs them as a stick to attack the failures of rightist government policies, and, it would appear, the Raptors use them to sell tickets. What all concerned seem to have difficulty with is seeing blacks in roles outside those traditionally allotted to them, and what's a bit surprising is how common this attitude is even amongst people you'd normally characterize as liberal, or at least enlightened. Have a gander at this trailer for Seth McFarlane's upcoming western comedy and the "joke" at the 2:09 mark:



Hilarious. It's nice to see that the black-men-want-women-with-big-asses trope hasn't died yet thanks to the diligent efforts of white comedians. And then there's Bill Maher, who's mocked entertainer Wayne Brady on several occasions for, apparently, not fitting Bill's definition of what black means. Even Steve Martin got into the act recently with a Twitter joke that backfired spectacularly. Of course, Steve was also the star of Bringing Down the House (2003), the most enthusiastically racist film since Birth of a Nation. And don't get me started on Tina Fey's 30 Rock, but please read this piece by Zeeshan Aleem in the Huffington Post for an efficient dissection of the racism in that show.

The problem with the Cliven Bundy's of the world isn't their lunkheaded, slack-jawed ideas about race, it's that their theatrical racism distracts us from the widely accepted, daily racism that lies behind the Raptors ad and the jokes from Hollywood entertainers who would probably be deeply offended to be called racists.

A Field Guide to Ford Supporters

A voter rethinking her choice of Rob Ford.

Just when you thought Toronto Mayor Rob Ford was scraping the bottom of the scandal barrel, he starts driving splinters through his hands as he begins frantically clawing right through the barrel's planks. For Rob, the word "nadir" is something glimpsed briefly in the rearview mirror as he weaves his Escalade to yet another rendezvous with some Iceberg Vodka. By this point the only way he could jolt the benumbed senses of we Torontonians is if he commits some unholy sexual crime involving a butternut squash, an endangered species, and Justin Bieber. That being said, Ford still has supporters. If you're not from Toronto you're reading that last statement and thinking, "But surely the people who wear colanders on their heads to block out transmissions from the planet Zontar can't count for much?" Unfortunately, depending on the poll and the question being asked, Ford can still get some kind of support from 20-40% of the population. Herewith is a guide for non-Torontonians to the people who constitute Rob Ford's base.

The Greedy

For some people a political philosophy built entirely around lowering taxes, bashing unions, and slashing spending forgives any and all crimes. From millionaire property developers to penny-pinching pensioners, there's an intractable core of people who will always vote with their wallets held over their hearts. Pointing out that Ford's lemonade stand economic theories are harming Toronto's long-term economic health does no good with these voters; they only see that Ford will put a few extra dollars in their pockets. The shortsightedness of all involved was very much on display when Ford scrapped a $60 vehicle registration charge. Yay! said Ford's base. And then he raised parking meter rates. There goes the $60 saving. But the most acute definition of greed in regard to Ford goes to the Sun News TV channel, which is best described as FOX News' short, asthmatic, pimply little brother. Rob and Doug Ford have been hired by Sun News to host their own show starting this Monday. So in an effort to boost dismal ratings and profits, this "news outlet" will hire a criminal and his thuggish brother and give them a bully pulpit.

The Ignorant

By ignorant I don't mean stupid. Lots of people, from the brightest to the dullest, pay no attention to politics, especially of the municipal variety. If you could do a psychic brain scan of the average Torontonian during an average day their thoughts would probably look like this:

"I can't believe they're putting up a condo there."
"I wish the TTC would get some of those people pushers from the Tokyo subway."
"The Leafs should trade Phaneuf."
"I wonder when Roll Up The Rim starts again?"

Civic politics doesn't enter the picture. Voter turnout has always been abysmally low in municipal elections, and the election of Rob Ford is an unfortunate side effect of that. When people pay scant attention to politics it's easy for someone like Ford to get his loud, simple message across. In the last mayoral election, George Smitherman, Ford's main opponent, had no clear message for voters. Ford's was crystal clear and managed to filter through the disinterest most people have for municipal issues. In addition to the people who don't care, there are a large number of Torontonians who don't speak English as a first language, and barely as a second. For these people politics can be an opaque process. Our local media is, not surprisingly, entirely English-speaking, which leaves a big group of people at a disadvantage when it comes to evaluating policies and candidates. Ford's bare bones, shouty message manages to push through the language barrier. And neither of these groups are well-served by the mainstream media in Toronto. Like anywhere else in North America, most people here get their news from TV and radio. That's not good. Talk radio in Toronto has been solidly behind Ford, and even after the past week's horror show the Fords can still find sympathy on the airwaves. TV is no better. Local news shows on Global, City and CFTO try so hard to be "fair" and "restrained" when reporting on Ford that they end up muting the sheer awfulness of the man. A case in point: this past summer, in the midst of the crack video crisis, Ford went on a photo-op salmon fishing trip with Hazel McCallion, the nonagenarian, apple doll mayor of neighboring Mississauga. Hazel (no stranger to scandal herself) hooked a fish that "almost pulled her overboard," according to the media present, but Ford jumped up and "saved" her from a watery grave. It was, of course, nothing like that (as the video footage showed), but the TV talking heads couldn't have been more charmed and bubbly over the chance to show Ford in a sympathetic light. It was as though they'd been praying for an opportunity to show Ford supporters that they like him too.

The Scared

Over the past forty years Toronto has gone from a WASPy bastion of Anglocentric culture to one of the most multicultural cities on the planet. No news there. But not everyone was happy about that, and they find Rob Ford's porcine whiteness and casual racism a pleasant blast from the past. These voters have dim memories of a Toronto that was a quiet small town in which there was no such thing as Pride parades, ethnic festivals, foreign accents or feta cheese. All these changes are terribly frightening for this Ford-friendly demographic, and for them a vote for Ford is a vote for nostalgia.

The Stupid

Well, yes, some people are just dumber than a bag of hammers, and there's no way of sugarcoating it. These voters, like Ford, are intimidated by the complexity of civic governance. They're also intimidated by search-a-word puzzles. They, like Ford, want to believe that "regular guys" who have common sense and gumption can survive and thrive in a big city. For people lacking in education and smarts, Ford is their knight in shining armour who proves that one of their own can rise to the top of the heap and show those smartypants with their university degrees and proper grammar a thing or two. This key demographic is also deeply suspicious of unions, who, they feel, are overpaid (a whiff of jealousy here) and "getting away with stuff." The "stuff" being fighting a rearguard action for a decent standard of living and preserving essential city services. Never underestimate the loyalty of the lumpenproletariat vote.

And so there you have it; the people who put Ford in power and now lurk in the wings, eager for a reason to love him again. At this point Ford is probably well past his sell-by date, even with his most diehard fans. However, he does have nearly a year in which to rehabilitate his image before the next election, and this could come to pass. If Rob were to go away and spend a month in rehab, even if it was some kind of faux addiction treatment, he could come back and claim he was "cured." That would be all it would take for a lot of his supporters to come back into the fold, and once they start trickling back Ford's media lackeys at the Toronto Sun and on talk radio would be leading the choir in praising the "new" Rob Ford. We're not out of the woods yet with Rob, but at least we can be confident that after a quiet 48 hours he's overdue for another scandal of biblical proportions. Watch out, Justin.

A Man of the (Wrong) People

One of these things is very much like the other.

As I write this, Toronto mayor Rob Ford and his administration are doing their best impression of the Hindenburg's final moments in New Jersey. Staff members are lined up at the printer to grab copies of their resignation letters, while Ford hires unqualified football buddies to take their place. All that's missing from this scenario is a bunker and a girlfriend named Eva. If you're not from Toronto, Ford and his brother Doug are nose-deep in allegations that they have used and sold drugs. This is just the latest in an epic series of scandals, blunders and gaffes that Ford has embarrassed North America's fourth-largest city with.

But what might be the most discouraging part of this cartoonish fiasco arrives in the form of a poll showing that Ford appears to have the unwavering support of roughly a third of the electorate. Ford has done everything he possibly could to prove that he's incapable of holding elected office, but he's got a base of voters who just can't say no. The problem here isn't Ford, it's the voters. It's a sad fact that a certain percentage of the general public is pleased, even eager, to put people in power who are blatantly stupid, venal, mendacious and corrupt. What's the psychology behind this? Do people enjoy being ruled by someone they feel they can look down on? Do they believe that a politician who purports to be a "regular guy," a "man of the people" gets a rain check on any number of scandals?

It's easy and tempting to blame sophisticated PR campaigns and toothless media outlets for allowing someone like Ford to assume office, but Mr and Mrs Toronto Voter should get their full share of blame as well. Clearly, democracy is wasted on a significant chunk of the population. This shouldn't, however, come as a huge surprise. Every democracy shows this potentially fatal flaw. Overtly racist and fascist parties in places like the UK, France and Greece have significant support, and the US Republican Pary is simply filled with ignorant loonies who get enthusiastic electoral support, not to mention fawning attention from outlets like FOX News. A greater problem is that parties of the left and centre don't know how to deal with the mouth-breathing portion of the population. The left likes to pretend they don't exist or that they can brought round with reasoned argument. Centrists make the crucial error of pandering to them, tossing them a few right-wing bones (more law and order!) in the hope that they can poach some votes from maniacal politicians like Ford. That only feeds the hunger and makes it easier for the Fords of the world to hold the reins of power. So until the left and centre get their respective acts together and learn how to effectively communicate with the lunkheadproletariat, Rob Ford and his ilk will always have a base upon which they can build their empires of misrule.

Some related posts on this topic:

Worst of Breed
What Makes a Conservative Conservative? 
The Madness of King Ford
 

Post-Election Ramblings

Gore Vidal famously said that there's one political party in the US and it's called the Property Owning Party. The Democrats represent the right wing of the party, and the Republicans represent the reactionary wing. Gore continues to be accurate in his analysis. Here are some other random thoughts on what went down last night:

Let the Racist Backlash Commence

TV talking heads on all the networks couldn't stop talking about the Latino vote and the GOP's inability to capture it. Watch for the more rabid, bug-eyed Republicans to start screeching about American politics being hijacked by Hispanics and blacks, who, you know, aren't really Americans.

The Republicans Score a False Positive

Rightist commentators will probably try and take comfort in the fact that the popular vote was almost a draw. That's a false positive. Obama won despite the Republicans having an unofficial propaganda wing consisting of FOX News and almost all of talk radio. Those media outlets have been flaying Obama and the Democrats for four years. There is no countervailing liberal media to negate this advantage for the GOP. If the GOP's private sector propaganda apparatus didn't exist it's likely Obama would have enjoyed a wider margin of victory.

Don't Talk About War

The taboo subject for all concerned in this election was military spending. Both candidates, not surprisingly, voiced support for "our brave men and women in the armed forces", and Romney of course wants to make the military even stronger. Nobody wanted to talk about the fact that the trillions spent on the military is the dirty secret behind America's fiscal defecit; that, and certain people hiding their money in the Cayman Islands.

Watch the Republicans Split In Two

The Tea Party section of the GOP is likely to get even more bitter and angry and eliminationist. They might feel so alienated from more moderate Republicans that they'll form a breakaway party. In same the way that the Green Party under Ralph Nader became a home (temporarily) for Democrats who felt their party was drifting right, the Tea Party people might strike out on their own. It's not hard to imagine a narcissistic publicity hound like Sarah Palin happily heading such a party.

No More Birthers!

This issue is now officially dead. If Donald Trump brings it up again he should be hauled in front of a state psychiatric board and declared incompetent.

Any Other Democracy is Better Than American Democracy

For those observing this election from next door, it once again offered proof that the American electoral process is part museum piece, part corporate exercise. Electoral College? A low population state like Maine gets the same number of senators as California? $6bn in campaign costs? Corporations can run ads against candidates?  This isn't a democracy, it's democracy-lite.

Film Review: Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970)

The most shocking thing about this film, from a 2012 point of view, is that it wears its political heart on its sleeve. I mean, when's the last time you saw a film that made a political statement in a loud voice and did it in an imaginative and entertaining way? Hollywood occasionally lobs liberal spitballs at easy targets like Big Business, but generally speaking mainstream films are politcally emasculated. You know this is true when Fox News has to attack The Muppets when they want to find a film that's anti-capitalist.

Anti-establishment films were practically mainstream in the 1960s and early '70s, especially in Europe, and Investigation is one of the best. The plot is beautifully simple: the head of the homicide squad in Rome murders his mistress and then leaves an abundance of clues pointing directly to himself. He wants to see just how far his position and power protect him from investigation. Along the way the director and scriptwriter Elio Petri neatly dissects the workings of the fascist mind. The nameless head of the homicide squad is a strutting bully to his inferiors, a worm to his superiors, and contemptuous towards ordinary citizens, especially those who are left of centre.

Investigation is far from subtle in its point of view, but the filmmaking is first-rate. The Roman locations and interiors are often from the Brutalist, fascist school of architecture, with the notable exception of the murdered woman's flat, which is a riot of Art Deco design elements. The difference between her apartment and her killer's is startling and intentional. The cinematography is fluid and clever, and Enno Morricone's score is, as usual, weird and wonderful.

The real star of the film is Gian Maria Volonte as the head of the homicide squad. Most film fans will be familiar with him as the villain in the first two Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns. Volonte never made the transition to Hollywood films (he would have made a great Bond villain), and that's a pity because this film makes it clear that he was one of Italy's finest actors. He and Elio Petri, both members of the Italian Communist Party at various times, collaborated on several films, of which Investigation is the most famous, winning the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film. It really deserves to be remade, perhaps with Kermit in the Volonte role and Miss Piggy as his mistress.