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View Full Version : Prof. Carol Swain's Response to the SPLC attack on her. Good stuff




bobbyw24
10-24-2009, 07:38 AM
Learn to listen to voice of dissent with respect

By Carol Swain

Tennessee Voices

Many of you have read the article published in last Saturday's Tennessean that liberally quotes an official at the Southern Poverty Law Center who has called me an apologist for white supremacy for a blurb I wrote endorsing a film titled A Conversation about Race. Janell Ross, the reporter who wrote the article, neglected to mention that my endorsement was written months before allegations of racism surfaced against Mr. Bodeker. She also neglected to mention that I recommended the film for generating debate in social science courses and that I qualified my endorsement after being informed of Mr. Bodeker's expressions of racism.

Given the potential for gross misunderstanding, I would like to elevate the dialogue a bit. I am a professor of political science and law who often teaches a popular seminar on hate groups in America. Seven years ago, I wrote a book titled The New White Nationalism in America: Its Challenge to Integration. The book warned of rising racial and ethnic conflict because of a set of converging conditions that created a devil brew for racial unrest. Since then the conditions I warned of have heightened. My position remains that racial hatred and bigotry are real and that they can rear their ugly head against any community, including the white community.

It is also true that there are –isms within communities that seek to silence defectors. Ridiculous double standards exist for racial and ethnic minorities. Can anyone imagine that white people would expect all other white people to agree on every issue? Nonetheless, minorities are expected to express solidarity in their political views.

I believe that the continuation of a peaceful American society will depend on our learning how to respectfully listen to one another. One of the most troubling facets of life today is the powerful movement by left-leaning organizations and governmental officials to engage in character assassination, by labeling anyone who disagrees with their liberal utopian vision for society as unworthy of participating in the conversation about our nation's future. A quick look at global history reveals the dangers of following such a short-sighted approach.

Today, conservatives and Christians (of which I am both) are targeted by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center that regularly seek to discredit us. The war on free speech is so pervasive that the White House has deigned to attack Fox News for unflattering coverage of the Obama administration. Americans have cause to worry.

What is happening is a bold attack on free speech and the inner workings of the Democratic process. We must not let this continue.

What we need in this country is real change. That will not happen if we continue to squelch dissent and force an undemocratic system that attacks the values and principles that made this country great.


http://www.tennessean.com/article/20091024/OPINION03/910240357/1054/Learn+to+listen+to+voice+of+dissent+with+respect

bobbyw24
10-24-2009, 11:49 AM
Be sure to comment and support her at:

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20091024/OPINION03/910240357/1054/Learn+to+listen+to+voice+of+dissent+with+respect

bobbyw24
10-25-2009, 07:01 AM
http://digg.com/political_opinion/Learn_to_listen_to_voice_of_dissent_with_respect

jmdrake
10-25-2009, 07:35 AM
Thanks for posting this! I've been meaning to contact Professor Swain (I'm at Vanderbilt). What she's expressed mirrors my own thoughts. Racism clearly is real. But much of the "wolf crying" isn't helpful. The funny thing is that I've seen the race card played more by whites this year than by blacks. (The SPLC, Jimmy Carter, Glenn Beck, Jenene Garafalo, Chris Matthews etc). Most has come from liberal whites, but some from conservative whites (Glenn Beck). My point? Clearly this is being done for political reasons more than for genuine feelings of racial oppression from the black community. (Remember, it was Jesse Jackson who said he wanted to "cut Obama's nuts off". Had that been a white guy....) That said I do see a rising tide of racism using the cover of all of the false racist allegations. It's kind of like the real wolf that finally showed up in the story "the boy who cried wolf".

As for the film, I wonder how many people who debated it recently have watched any of the film? I watched the first except. The flimmaker had an interesting point that the definition of racism is not "definite". However his conclusion that a word cannot be useful without a "definite" definition is wrong. Consider the word "pornography". Most are familiar with the Supreme Court quote "I can't define pornography, but I know what it is when I see it." As funny as that is, it's true. Clearly material sold at adult bookstores is pornographic. The porn industry proudly wears the title and uses it in their marketing. On the other hand the line gets "fuzzy" when it comes to art. Is a photograph of a man with bullwhip stuck in his butt pornographic? (Robert Mapelthorpe photo). I think so. But some call it art. (And yes I'd call it porn if it was a picture of a woman). But where do you draw the line? Is the famous oil painting Turkish Bath (http://virgo.bibl.u-szeged.hu/wm/paint/auth/ingres/turkish-bath.jpg)? Any nude painting? Just because a word is hard to define doesn't make it useful.

I do plan to watch the rest of the film. And I'm no "white supremacist apologist" by any stretch of the imagination.

Regards,

John M. Drake

bobbyw24
10-25-2009, 07:39 AM
Carol Swain may be contacted by e-mail: carol.swain@vanderbilt.edu or at the Web site: http://www.carolmswain.net.

or

www.twitter.com/cmswain

bobbyw24
10-25-2009, 07:41 AM
The Hate Industry
by Elizabeth Wright on October 23, 2009

The term “social engineering” never fit an entity better than it does the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). This intrusive, tenacious organization has spent years attempting to recast and transform American society to fit its own peculiar ideals. Its directors are missionaries in the full sense of the word, in that they relentlessly work to stamp onto the hearts and minds of the public a distinctive belief system, which teaches what is evil and what is not.

This month, black Professor Carol Swain of Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, made the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hit list. Deemed an “apologist for white supremacists” by SPLC’s Mark Potok, Swain earned this ad hominem attack because she had dared to offer a favorable review of the documentary film, A Conversation About Race. [See my review here.]

The film, produced by Craig Bodeker, is focused on interviews with a diverse group of people of various ages and ethnic backgrounds. They each get to offer their opinions on the “racism” that they supposedly observe in the world around them. It is Bodeker’s suspicion that genuine racism in today’s America is a “myth.” Many of the responses offered by the interviewees in this film confirm his hunch, though inadvertently. In spite of the SPLC’s attempt to shame her, Professor Swain stands by her assertion that Bodeker’s film would be useful in classrooms to stimulate honest discussions on the subject of race.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=216221

pacelli
10-25-2009, 08:21 AM
Nice to see even Southern Perversion Law is engaged in acts of white supremacy. How dare they pick on a black professor.

Southern Perversion Law has a long history of picking on anyone involved in the patriot movement. Morris Dees/Sleaze who was the former front man has a legal history which includes pedophilia if I remember right. Now they've got some bizarre looking squirrly guy who is called Mark Potluck/Potock or something to that effect.

bobbyw24
10-25-2009, 11:11 AM
is on the front of the newspaper--please comment there--link in OP