Weschler is right. Late as hell, but right
They ain't taking it down. It's been up there for over a year. That's as long as I've known about it.
Question of note:
My question is, for whom is this photo gallery intended? Does anybody seriously think blacks are going to be swayed by one staged photo op after another, in which time and again their confederates are cast as the pitiable recipients of an ostentatious display of kingly compassion?
No. Black people are so not Republican that the only Black folks on their radar screen are the ones that promise to deliver the Black vote and the occasional symbolic gesture sitting by the door.
Maybe it's for the president's white supporters, anxious lest they be visited by tinges of self-doubt over their own arguable racism in continuing to support such a state of affairs.
Yup. It's for folks like the guy who left this brutally racist comment left here…that's the Discriminations blog, in case you already saw it the other day. Remember?
And, yes, blacks do have things to give in return. The ability to combine the spiritual and the sensual so characteristic of the black church is something that whites desparately need.
Anyway:
He's the Picture of Racial Compassion
The president's website is chock-full of nifty photographs. But does Bush think that images of him hanging out with black people is enough?
By Lawrence Weschler
Lawrence Weschler, author of the forthcoming book "Vermeer in Bosnia," heads the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU.
May 13, 2004
Quick. Before they take it down. Go to your computer, log on to http://www.georgewbush.com — the official Bush/Cheney '04 reelection website.
OK, now notice how running horizontally along the top there's a row of file tabs: Economy, Compassion, Health Care, Education, Homeland Security and so forth.
So, hmmm: Compassion. What could that mean? What might that involve, thematically speaking? Click the tab, and there you are on the Compassion page.
Nice big picture of Bush merrily shooting the breeze with two black teenage girls. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you'll find a quadrant labeled Compassion Photos, with the invitation, "Click here for the Compassion Photo Album." Do so.
And let's see, what have we got? First one up: short-sleeved Bush, holding a black kid in his arms, a bleacher full of black kids behind him, and he's merrily waving to the crowd. Click "next." And it's Bush at a Waco Habitat for Humanity building site, his arm draped around a black woman, his other hand tapping the shoulder of another of the black construction volunteers. Next: Bush waving to the Urban League. Next: Bush working a crowd, a black — or maybe, in this case, South Indian — kid prominently featured in the foreground, gazing on in amazement. Bush in an African thatch-roofed schoolroom.
It's incredible: The guy is so compassionate. His wife too: She doesn't seem to have any trouble reading to a bunch of kindergartners of color.
And now, there he is again, reading to a different roomful of black schoolchildren. It's amazing — photo after photo, 19 in all, and almost every single one of them giving further testimony to the astonishing capaciousness of the guy's Compassion, by which we are given to understand: He just has no trouble at all touching black people! Hammering with them, bagging groceries, tottering alongside them on weirdly high stools.
It's like Ben Hur among the lepers — the guy doesn't hesitate, he just goes and does it! Why, the Compassion page even includes a photo of him standing next to his own secretary of State, Colin Powell!
I mean, bracket for a moment some of the actual facts concerning the fate of blacks and other people of color across the years of the Bush administration. How, for instance, tax cuts massively skewed toward the wealthy favor whites, while the huge resultant deficits necessitate service cuts massively disfavoring the poor, a group that includes proportionally more blacks.
My question is, for whom is this photo gallery intended? Does anybody seriously think blacks are going to be swayed by one staged photo op after another, in which time and again their confederates are cast as the pitiable recipients of an ostentatious display of kingly compassion?
