We at BC are not the first to note that the GOP has for more than a generation been the White Man’s Party.  In our time, the overt and covert appeals to white racism which have long been a standard and bipartisan feature of the nation’s political life, and the engine of all sorts of domestic and foreign policy misadventures have become the defining staple of Republican politics.  Leavened with populism and fake religious piety, and juiced with fraudulent war hysteria and market fundamentalism the besieged inside-the-bubble view of white America set upon at all sides has been given body and wings by the corporate media.  Hateful right wing talk radio was the first wave of the right wing's media offensive.  The second wave has been the Fox Network, and Fox News.

“Now it's official,” BC’s Margaret Kimberley reminded us last week: “Fox News speaks for Bush.”  To anybody paying attention, it was hardly a surprise.

Still, more than one BC reader took issue with Ms. Kimberley's assessment of Snow, and of USA Today's DeWayne Hickman, who seemed ready to give Snow a “he didn't mean no harm” pass for the tar baby slur he could not resist dropping in his very first press conference.

From Elwood Watson in Tennessee

I always look forward to Thursdays when I can read the most recent issue of the Black Commentator.  Margaret Kimberley's most recent Freedom Rider column where she takes USA TODAY columnist DeWayne Wickham to task for coming to the defense of White House press secretary Tony Snow was thought provoking.  I usually agree with Ms.Kimberley.  But not this time.

I see no evidence that Wickham "defended" Tony Snow.  Wickham made it clear that Snow employed a poor choice of words by using the term "tar baby" and was insensitive to the fact that most Black Americans find such a term offensive.  He further stated that Snow may actually be unsuited for his new position.  Wickham concluded his article by saying " …he ought to begin by apologizing for his innocent use of the ‘tar baby’ term, which many Blacks believe harbors an ugly embedded message."

Ms. Kimberley suggests that DeWayne Wickham is a "mind reader with clairvoyant powers."  Maybe or maybe not, but in this particular case, Margaret Kimberley lets on that she too can "read" other people's intentions.  While goodness knows that I have no use for Fox TV and its merry band of reactionary right wingers, I have read Mr. Wickham's columns for almost 20 years. There is nothing in his track record that would suggest, or even hint, that he is a "front man" (my term) for the conservative right.

It seems to me that Ms. Kimberly read too much into Mr. Wickham's article.

The reader, and Mr. Hickman too, are entitled to their opinions.  But every judgment has a context.  If this were the first time we'd heard this kind of thing issue from the lips of a Fox News spokesperson we could understand Wickham's going easy on the president's old-new mouthpiece. But it's not. From studio goons like Bill O’Reilly to Josh Gibson, who complains that American whites aren't having enough babies, Ms. Kimberley reminds us that this is part of a consistent pattern, one that Wickham seems to have missed.  Only days before his appointment, Snow identified what he thought was the number one danger facing the nation:

"People like Jesse Jackson who have committed themselves to a view that blacks are constantly victims, have succeeded in creating in the United States the most dangerous thing that we’ve encountered in our lifetime; which is, an underclass that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere."

Buff, a discerning BC reader, concurs with our Ms. Kimberley, referring us to an account of a North Carolina Fox reporter who authored an uncritical puff article on a neo-Nazi group.  Even more amazingly, the reporter later graciously accepted the accolades of white supremacists for her impartiality and unbiased reporting.  Satirical blogger Jesus General fired off a note to Fox News joining the chorus and observing:

"I can't wait to see what you come up with next. Will it be a sweeps week series on the lust brown people have for white women?  Or will you tackle the problem of Jewish control of the banking industry first?"

This is the kind of history we have to draw from every time a Fox anchor drops an apparent racist slur.  Given this, we'll take Ms. Kimberley's mind reading skills over DeWayne Wickham's any day.

Last week's Radio BC feature lifted a corner of the vast topic of Venezuela and what ordinary folks in the U.S. can do to support the progressive regime there.  Venezuela's oil company, CITGO, is owned by the people of that nation.  Under the Chavez regime it is committed to offering free health care and education to all its citizens, and using the oil profits to develop a diversified economy in that country that can deliver a respectable quality of life to all its people even after all the oil is gone.  With 14,000 gas stations in the U.S. and its own refinery complex outside Chicago, CITGO has embarked on a program to supply quantities of low cost heating oil to poor communities in several locations in the U.S.  The corporate right has retaliated with its own attempts at a consumer boycott, and the infamously oil-soaked congressman Joe Barton of Texas has threatened to investigate not BP or Exxon for price gouging, but CITGO for lowering prices.

This is a subject we intend to revisit in some detail very soon.  But it sparked a letter from a misguided reader named Alan Korman, who wrote BC Co-Publisher Glen Ford:

This is Venezuela in a nutshell: "Venezuela was ruled by generally benevolent military strongmen, who promoted the oil industry and allowed for some social reforms. Democratically elected governments have held sway since 1959. Current concerns include: a weakening of democratic institutions, political polarization, a politicized military, drug-related violence along the Colombian border, increasing internal drug consumption, over-dependence on the petroleum industry with its price fluctuations, and irresponsible mining operations that are endangering the rain forest and indigenous peoples." 

Hugo Chavez has stolen elections and turned Venezuela into a Socialist State.  Is this the type of man you honor, Mr. Ford?

Glen Ford replied to Mr. Korman thusly:

Where did you find that phony piece of "history"? One has to search very hard for unadulterated lies such as that.

We respectfully suggest that the only nutshell in the above discussion sits atop Mr. Korman's neck.  And this editor has to disagree with BC publisher Glen Ford, too.  The historical nutshell paragraph that Mr. Korman cites was in fact lifted verbatim from the CIA factbook on Venezuela.

Each week in this space we print a little of our correspondence from readers.  But some BC readers whom we wish would write, do not.  Or at least they have not yet.  Early this month, BC ran a cover story, “The Black Stake in the Internet,” in which we sketched the outlines of the corporate hijacking of a major black voting rights organization, the National Coalition for Black Civic Empowerment by corporate dollars from the cable and phone monopolies, and perhaps Wal-Mart too.  Soon afterward, we did receive an email from NCBCP's communications consultant to this effect:

Do understand that your inquiries for comment have been received and a response to your May 11th column and its content will be submitted.  While we may not at this moment agree with your perspective, we appreciate the opportunity to respond.

Thanks in advance.

OK.  NCBCP is welcome in advance.  And we still await that response.

We try to answer as much of our email as possible, and succeed some weeks better than others.  We print some of it in this space each week.  Please do send us your best, or whatever you've got. Respond to [email protected].

is published every Thursday.