Breasts. Breasts, breasts, breasts, breasts, breasts. Breasts. Breasts, breasts, breasts. Breasts! Breasts, breasts, breasts, breasts, breasts, breasts, breasts! Breasts, breasts, breasts. Breasts, breasts! Breasts. There. Now, if Ann Outhouse wants to…

But, I want to follow up on Pam’s excellent comments . . . that a valuable opportunity is being wasted here.

In a sense, this entire kerfuffle began when Jane Hamsher posted that gawd-awful graphic of Joe Lieberman in blackface, in the arms of Bill Clinton in a Huffingpost blog about a week before the CT primary. An image that was posted all over the rightwing blogs–starting with Drudge, and gave Dan Gerstien some very nasty ammunition. As far as I can tell, Liza Sabater was the only person who had the guts to call her on it. Now, I wouldn’t go so far as to call Hamsher an idiot, but it cannot be denied,that using that image showed an abysmal lack of judgement. Right after that, Jane Hamsher was no longer “close” to the Lamont campaign . . . I figure that the Lamont campaign had no choice but to ask her get as scarce as possible asap.

So then this . . . and Liza lashes out a Jane again. Again, perhaps she could’ve been a little more tactful, but to criticize Liza for her temper when Jane and Christy both routinely lash out, quite nastily, at people who get under their skin is ridiculous. It looks like a huge double standard, and it is.

So, all this to lead up to the real point I want to make. I am a white person, but I am the mother of a grown POC daughter, so I have had to learn to see things that I would not have easily seen as a white person.

In my view, it is impossible to grow up in this country and not be somehow psychologically scared by the rampant racism which exists wthin this culture. Much of it is very subtle. In liberal, well-meaning types who abhor injustice in any form, like myself, it tends to manifest unconsciously — ie, it is not seen or even known about. So, POC see it, feel it, experience, but the “perpetrators” don’t. And when faced with an angry reaction, they feel victimized and misunderstood. One of the commenters above pointed an example of this kind of thing out when white liberals go on and on ’sympathetically” about the “poor” “uneducated” minorities.

I think this is why Jane Hamsher (and darkblack) were unable to understand (either before or after) why posting the blackface image is so offensive. They didn’t have the personal experience, or really understand the history of blackface in this culture. Which is ok — none of us are perfect. But what is really egregarious is the fact that they seemed so uninterested in understanding why it is such a reprehensible and learning from the mistake.

The blackface image - in a similar way in which a swastika (which is originally an ancient and sacred sanskrit symbol) is - symbolizes “deference.” Joe Lieberman is rightly being attacked for his deference to Bush. I was shocked that Hamsher was insinuating that Joe was a subservient minstrel, that is, it could be read that african-americans are akin to Joe Lieberman. Now, I realize that that was not Hamsher’s conscious intention, but that is how unconscious communications work. And so when trex told Liza Sabater to stay in her place and respect her betters (with Jane’s overt approval and support) the same point was being made, only this time a little more overtly.

I would love to see someone who is better equipped than I deconstruct this whole thing further.

One more thing. Liza’s anger. Anger is never pretty. But it does have its place. And if I could count the times when I was dissed by some man and then told to get over myself by some other man when I pushed back, bitched about it, or simply refused to be “nice” about it. It’s really exactly the same thing: a person of privledge (and Jane does have whiteness, money, a bit of fame, and influence) telling a more marginalized person to shut up and be nice. It is also the way in which school yard bullies behave, and Jane Hamsher like the most creepy has a huge pack to unleash to do her dirty work.

At any rate, I will not be going back to fdl anymore. I have been disturbed by the “tone” there for a lot of time, but it is a great source of info and I have really really wanted to believe that they weren’t really all that bad. This incident has put that hope to rest.

Beyond that I can only say that I might have been mistaken, and if I was I’m sorry for the implication that it was removed in retaliation.