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The Color of Disaster: Examining the Racism of the Tea Party

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Brief Author Bio: In this uncertain time, where wages are stagnating and jobs are scarce for college grads, Michael Eric Dyson teaches highly marketable skills to students at Georgetown University (tuition and fees approximately $41,000 per year), in courses like “The Sociology of Hip-Hop” where the lyrics of hip-hop luminaries are parsed for their meaning. Professor Dyson guides his students through Jay-Z's “Big Pimpin'” and “99 Problems (but a bitch ain't one)” adding a context which gradually allows his pupils to appreciate the aforementioned works alongside inferior prose like T.S. Elliot's “The Wasteland.” Today, Dr. Dyson trains his razor-sharp mind against the heretofore unexamined racism of the Tea-Party, an anti-Obama coalition whose members share a complexion with German Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler.

I have previously said that, “In the adjectival sense in which we measure racial progress, Obama is not a black president, but a black president.” Now would be a most parsimonious time to examine the verbal (and maybe even the nounal) sense in which white America is still beholden to a reactionary, racist worldview.

At a recent Tea Party event, a revanchist contingent of what Paul Krugman correctly diagnosis as “right-wing extremists” said that, “Obama needs to reel in his spending.” This statement, while seemingly innocuous (and superfluous) has a disturbing subtext. When the aforementioned protestor mentions “reeling in,” that phrase conjures up images of rope, which, as we know, was the primary method by which the Klu Klux Klan lynched black men.

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If this reasoning seems specious, consider some more obvious instances of Tea Party racism. I have previously been quoted as saying, “Try as we might to quarantine knowledge, it invariably sneezes on us far beyond its imposed limits.” Consider now this execrable sneezing refrain heard in the echo chamber which encompasses all of that flyover country between California and New York, where trailer-park denizens hold crudely-rendered placards demanding they “take their country back.”

Dismissing for a moment “where” they want to “take the country back,” we must focus our attention on the etymological (and ontological, ((and possibly entomological))) implications of the word “back.”

According to previously recorded slave narratives (and the unassailably accurate television mini-series “Roots” ((which Alex Haley did not plagiarize))) slaves were frequently whipped on their “backs.” This literal “back” is, I would argue, the same “back” which these racist revanchist Glen Beck devotees are invoking in their desire to take “their country back.”

For those who find a preponderance of empirical evidence of racism in my voracious exhumation of Red State America's crimson underbelly, I would refer you to this previous quote of mine: “Martin Luther King's speech was a clinic in the use of the vocal instrument to vibrate in swooping glissandos and poignant crescendos. King showed that there didn't have to be strife between lexis (style, such as metaphor) pisteis (argumentation and proof) as there is in Aristotle's view of rhetoric.”

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I have one last “swooping glissando” and “poignant crescendo” to leave you with, before I regrettably must catch a flight to MSNBC studios where I will share my views on the Tea-Party with fellow luminary Al Sharpton:

Many people, even supposedly “mainstream conservatives,” have complained of America's first black President's frequent trips to the golf course. For those seeking a “smoking gun” regarding white America's retrograde racial fears, look no further than this critique which is ostensibly about Obama's dalliances and druthers upon the fettered green archipelago which constitutes the Thule incognita comprising eighteen holes, otherwise known as a golf course, when in fact critique of Obama's golfing prowess is merely a smokescreen for a deep-seated (and maybe seeded) racism.

For what is a golf course but a series of holes, whose subliminal intent (“hoes”) was brilliantly divined by the NAACP when racist card manufacturers at Hallmark falsely claimed that a card celebrating graduation urged physics majors to watch out for “black holes?”

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“Hallmark call[ed] the outrage a misunderstanding, claiming that the space theme emphasiz[ed] the power the graduate has to take over the universe, even energy-absorbing black holes.” But the astute agents of the very relevant institution the NAACP were not swayed: "That was very demeaning to African-American women when it made reference to African-American women as whores," said Leon Jenkins of the Los Angeles NAACP.

Without astute doctorate-holders like myself teaching about Jay-Z's verbal acrobatics at the undergraduate level, and without intense and constant parsing of Hallmark cards for subliminally racist messages, white America will no doubt continue to harbor a grudge against our first black president, solely on the basis of his race, under the smoke-veiled rubric of demanding lower taxes and states' rights.

Or, as I put it in a previously published tome (available at amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and wherever fine books are sold): “Barry White's heterosexual boudoir bravado and elaborate orchestrations are of a piece with the bohemian rhapsodies spawned in homeoerotic fields of play.”

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Dear Professor Dyson! I'm wondering if I can use your critical race methodology to interpret this allegory of Obama holding a white poodle inside the Lincoln Memorial. I'm not sure if this kind of thinking is only allowed to brains of a certain color, and if mine doesn't meet the requirements, it might experience a fatal shirt circuit. So I thought I should ask for your permission first.

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Comrades,

I would like to attract your attention to a most reactionary book,

Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism (New Atlantis Books)

You can get it for as little as $14.27 from evil corporation Amazon. I bet that it will open you new reactionary horizons.


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Dear Professor Dyson,
I was down with your essay as it is about President Obama, and the obvious racism against him. But there is more. "President" sounds much like the word, "precedent", defined on Wikipedia as,
In common law legal systems, a precedent or authority is a principle or rule established in a legal case that a court or other judicial body may apply when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. Black's Law Dictionary defines "precedent" as a "rule of law established for the first time by a court for a particular type of case and thereafter referred to in deciding similar cases."[1]
We know that it was once legal precedent to discriminate against black people, so it is racist to call Obama "Mr. President" as it sounds too much like "Mr. Precedent." Also notice that part of this comes from Black's Law Dictionary.

Now if you will excuse me, I will return to the writing of my college dissertation (now up to 400 pages) defining what the meaning of "is" is.

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Comrade Red Square,

I'm loving my new logo. Will put it in my business cards, for real. It will become my "coat of arms". Thank you for your loving attention. No doubt, the Party thinks all the time about us little people.

Can you send me by email a bigger resolution? Spassibo in advance, comrade.

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John Frum - the larger image is here - https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Iq0HzloO9qk/ ... 529jpg.gif

It is a postcard made by an artist named ONA FILLOY - a colored cargo cult follower trapped in the body of a non-colored, pink-skinned Australian woman.

Here's another one I liked:

Prince_Charles_Pidgin.png

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I adore this guy, too. I call him King Saint Charles the Scientist. He has raised the awareness about a very sharp problem facing mankind in the very near future: scarcity of water. As an engineer I can tell you that the oceans that you see in the map are just a drop of what water lies beneath the Earth's crust.

Couldn't this poor guy say, for example, "scarcity of Neon and Helium that will cause the collapse of the Ozone layer bla bla bla bla"? I mean, still false, but much more fascinating.

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Dear Professor Dyson,
President also sounds like "Pepsident", a toothpaste designed for WHITENING one's teeth. Enough said on that!

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And at times I have thought deeply about the evil genius of the evil white rich kapitalist Romney.

In 2008 we were in ecstasy as a nation. No matter how right or wrong the Republicans were, they were going to lose to the white slate that Obama was. Ever paid attention that all Democrat winners have been white slates?

Romney was conducting a very good campaign in 2008. All of the sudden he dropped, though he was the lead candidate. Inexplicably. I explain it with the above thoughts. Now the game is totally different. And Obama is no longer white slate.

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Jeepers, racism is so institutionalized I can't even see it! I'd better read this book.

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I can see you are all ready to transcend your inherent white privilege. But you have not done enough. Step on a scale now. Whatever your weight is, convert it to metric and pay the aforementioned number in tithes to the church nearest you that teaches James Cone-style Black Liberation Theology.

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Comrade Dyson,

I came from Albania 5 years ago and quick started as a Math professor at a university in Michigan, after some 8 months of Arby's work. Before that I was a math professor in a top university in France, certainly not thanks to white privilege.

Bottom line: what do I owe you?

And no, I am not ready to transcend my inherent white privilege. Or better phrased, whatever YOU call "inherent white privilege". This "inherent white privilege" phrase bleeds of racism, but you are inherently non-racist.

Calling me racist (which I am not -- I have had many black, Asian girlfriends) won't make me recede ground. I don't give you that power. I have never had any special privilege. Maybe I have been denied jobs because of Affirmative Action.

How many black (white, Asian) students have I helped here in the USA to find scholarships and jobs? I don't feel like I have sins to atone for. I just do it out of my good heart of an evil, straight, conservative white man. I especially help veterans.

Before becoming professor in France I spent some years homeless in Italy.

How about all of the whites whose parents immigrated in the US after emancipation? How about those whites whose 300,000 fathers died to free blacks from slavery?

I could sing along and act differently. I just refuse to sing along. I can tell that you make a living out of race baiting. You are too old and skill-less to find a honest job.
Michael Eric Dyson wrote:I can see you are all ready to transcend your inherent white privilege. But you have not done enough. Step on a scale now. Whatever your weight is, convert it to metric and pay the aforementioned number in tithes to the church nearest you that teaches James Cone-style Black Liberation Theology.
Btw, those who atone and pay tenth of their weight in gold to that holy pastor, will they be finally free? Or if their children marry non-atoned people they have to do it all over again? How about those who don't settle with 22 pounds of gold from me?

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In Greek "idiot" means, by dictionary definition, "a person without professional skills". Basically, a Democrat.

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Excuse me, Mr. Frum. Before I fisk your post, I would like to remind you that you are talking to someone who has terminal qualifications of a post-doctorate nature. Please refer to me as Dr. Dyson, esq. That being said, allow me to quote you:

"I came from Albania 5 years ago and quick started as a Math professor at a university in Michigan, after some 8 months of Arby's work."

Arby's makes food products derived from the meat of a ruminant bovine, known in the parlance of those who possess a baccalaureate or less as a "cow." Cows conjure up images of cowboys. The quintessential cowboy was John Wayne, an iconoclastic figurehead to racist, recalcitrant rhubarbs whose vision of America is antithetical to the one our current leader has planned for us.

You also claim that I am "race-baiting." May I remind you sir that I once said "Race is not a card, it is a condition." Ergo, post-haste, post-office, how could I exploit my race for benefit when it is a condition inextricably interwoven into the very fabric of my melanin-enriched epidermis, otherwise known as skin?

Also, "baiting" involves hooks, which invariably calls up images of fishing lines, otherwise known as ropes used to cast out lures. "Rope" was the primary means be which white oppressors chose to lynch black men. When you call me a "race-baiter," you expose yourself as a trenchant, unreconstructed, mordant, Mordor, racist.

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Red Square-

You are free to make analogies, similes, and homilies involving Obama and the aforementioned dog, provided you make no culinary jokes regarding our first black president's culinary experimentation with dog meat, while living in Indonesia. As should be obvious by now, ridiculing Obama for eating dog meat is a tactic which has about it the patently pessimistic patois of racism. For what could it be, except the dialectic of the racist, to invoke the same carnivorous canine which comes from the same taxonomical category as the animals unleashed by the racist Bull Connor during the height of the civil rights struggle?

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I will not ask you to refer me by the whole list of academic titles that I hold and can verify. I hold a PhD in Mathematics, 2 post-docs in Mathematics, fluently speak 5 languages, am graduating second degree in Aerospace Engineering, am already registered for a MSc in Aerospace Engineering, and have plans for a second PhD in Aerospace Engineering.

Because I worked 8 months at Arby's, I am guilty of lynching, because it evokes you images. BTW, I personally have been victim of lynching, you haven't. A book has been written about it, in Albanian.

Because I use the word "bait", same as above.

You know what do we Mathematicians call this kind of logic? Monty Python logic.

It is silly all the way, but it works. And that's apparently your only professional skill.

Michael Eric Dyson wrote:Excuse me, Mr. Frum. Before I fisk your post, I would like to remind you that you are talking to someone who has terminal qualifications of a post-doctorate nature. Please refer to me as Dr. Dyson, esq. That being said, allow me to quote you:

"I came from Albania 5 years ago and quick started as a Math professor at a university in Michigan, after some 8 months of Arby's work."

Arby's makes food products derived from the meat of a ruminant bovine, known in the parlance of those who possess a baccalaureate or less as a "cow." Cows conjure up images of cowboys. The quintessential cowboy was John Wayne, an iconoclastic figurehead to racist, recalcitrant rhubarbs whose vision of America is antithetical to the one our current leader has planned for us.

You also claim that I am "race-baiting." May I remind you sir that I once said "Race is not a card, it is a condition." Ergo, post-haste, post-office, how could I exploit my race for benefit when it is a condition inextricably interwoven into the very fabric of my melanin-enriched epidermis, otherwise known as skin?

Also, "baiting" involves hooks, which invariably calls up images of fishing lines, otherwise known as ropes used to cast out lures. "Rope" was the primary means be which white oppressors chose to lynch black men. When you call me a "race-baiter," you expose yourself as a trenchant, unreconstructed, mordant, Mordor, racist.

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Too many big words at once. And I have to make good of my intentions for a second PhD, whence too much to do. BTW, I have also published research papers and a book in Cryptography.

Bottom line. New York Times, none less, mentioned Romney's dog 42 times. Is it that big of a deal? Here it is why Obama's culinary oddities matter:

https://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=105
https://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=105
(search April 24, 2012, Man bites dog)

Some of my most favorite politicians are black: Thomas Sowell, Colin Powell (fell in disgrace when endorsed Obama, making up now), Herman Cain, Allen West.

Michael Eric Dyson wrote:Red Square-

You are free to make analogies, similes, and homilies involving Obama and the aforementioned dog, provided you make no culinary jokes regarding our first black president's culinary experimentation with dog meat, while living in Indonesia. As should be obvious by now, ridiculing Obama for eating dog meat is a tactic which has about it the patently pessimistic patois of racism. For what could it be, except the dialectic of the racist, to invoke the same carnivorous canine which comes from the same taxonomical category as the animals unleashed by the racist Bull Connor during the height of the civil rights struggle?

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Michael Eric Dyson wrote:... make no culinary jokes regarding our first black president's culinary experimentation with dog meat, while living in Indonesia. As should be obvious by now, ridiculing Obama for eating dog meat is a tactic which has about it the patently pessimistic patois of racism. For what could it be, except the dialectic of the racist, to invoke the same carnivorous canine which comes from the same taxonomical category as the animals unleashed by the racist Bull Connor during the height of the civil rights struggle?

So, it's still okay to eat at Chicken and Waffles?

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Excuse me Mr. Frum,

Romney's abuse of his dog is a topic that is germane, whereas Obama's consumption of the aforementioned quadruped is beyond the pale of rational discussion, for reasons which I believe I have already enumerated. Nevertheless, allow me to reiterate in alliterative contemplation why this confabulated conclave of Grand Wizardry cyclopes should refrain from their Klux Klux clattering:

Romney's forefathers were not victims of attacks by vicious dogs merely for attempting to eat at a lunch counter. Obama's were. Ergo, ergonomically I am free to type that the word "Obama" and the word "dog" should not be typed within the same sentence, unless one is invoking the Ebonics-laden vernacular of the consanguineous, nearly connubial affection one African-American male extends to another, when he says "What's up, dog?"

Understood?

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You mean, Obama's forefathers in Africa? Because all of Obama's American forefathers are white, and slaveholders at it.

Michael Eric Dyson wrote:Excuse me Mr. Frum,

Romney's abuse of his dog is a topic that is germane, whereas Obama's consumption of the aforementioned quadruped is beyond the pale of rational discussion, for reasons which I believe I have already enumerated. Nevertheless, allow me to reiterate in alliterative contemplation why this confabulated conclave of Grand Wizardry cyclopes should refrain from their Klux Klux clattering:

Romney's forefathers were not victims of attacks by vicious dogs merely for attempting to eat at a lunch counter. Obama's were. Ergo, ergonomically I am free to type that the word "Obama" and the word "dog" should not be typed within the same sentence, unless one is invoking the Ebonics-laden vernacular of the consanguineous, nearly connubial affection one African-American male extends to another, when he says "What's up, dog?"

Understood?

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Also Mr. Frum, your invocation of PhDs and Math for the shabby pseudo-Science of "Aerospace engineering" pales in comparison to the mental mega-wattage expenditure required to attain my doctorate in theology. I am a rhetorician in the Platonic sense; you are merely a Plutocratic spermatozoa wafting through the proverbial Vas-deferens canal which matriculates men who have no real skills.

Consider my previous quote, regarding the Poet Tupac Shakur. "When Tupac said 'Nigga,' he meant "Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished.'" When I pass this sort of knowledge onto my students (for the small sum of $40,000 est.) I am helping them to remain competitive in the world of outsourcing, H.B-1 visas, and free-trade agreements. What practical use does an "aerospace" based mathematics degree confer?

Our president has already declared the primary purpose of NASA to be outreach to the Muslim world, not the imperialistic, chauvanistic, holistic conquest of outer space. Thus, your degree(s) is useless.

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So, it's still okay to eat at Chicken and Waffles?

Only with liberal and profligate quantities of Texas Pete hot sauce.

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That's the problem if you are not a Julia. People can refer to real facts from real life. Obama won the first term as a president because he was a Julia: a white slate where everybody could project whatever they needed to, without connections whatsoever to reality.

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Yet again with a Monty Python logic you proved that the useful is useless and the useless is essential. That's the problem with the liberals (as self-defined). That kind of sophisms (falsities made look true) is what makes socialism look good and freedom look bad.

Have you read the Koran? If not, you know nothing what you are talking about. If yes, I will withhold my opinion of you. I have lived 22 years in a Moslem country, and I have definite opinions about Islam. That said, I don't take the bait.

Bolden is a good scientist and a bad politician.

Michael Eric Dyson wrote:Also Mr. Frum, your invocation of PhDs and Math for the shabby pseudo-Science of "Aerospace engineering" pales in comparison to the mental mega-wattage expenditure required to attain my doctorate in theology. I am a rhetorician in the Platonic sense; you are merely a Plutocratic spermatozoa wafting through the proverbial Vas-deferens canal which matriculates men who have no real skills.

Consider my previous quote, regarding the Poet Tupac Shakur. "When Tupac said 'Nigga,' he meant "Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished.'" When I pass this sort of knowledge onto my students (for the small sum of $40,000 est.) I am helping them to remain competitive in the world of outsourcing, H.B-1 visas, and free-trade agreements. What practical use does an "aerospace" based mathematics degree confer?

Our president has already declared the primary purpose of NASA to be outreach to the Muslim world, not the imperialistic, chauvanistic, holistic conquest of outer space. Thus, your degree(s) is useless.

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Excuse me, Mr. Frum. When we speak of "Obama's forefathers" we are not prattling some dim coloratura sung to the Terpsichorean diminuendo of empty literalism. Nay, you must understand that Obama's forefathers are "figurative." This will all become patently clear when my motion demanding a Black Rushmore be instated where a paternalistic, chauvanistic, holistic pantheon to peonage currently resides, i.e. the current Mount Rushmore graced with the visages of slave-holding aristocratic white males.

Each of these hideously unpleasant personages will have the contours of their sculpted likenesses sanded and re-sculpted so that the configuration of architectural prowess displays, in order "Barack Obama, Martin Luther King, Michael Eric Dyson, and Spike Lee, replacing the execrably racist Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and Thomas Jefferson.

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That's the problem with you liberals. You are very fond of the figurative. That's your only hope to make a point. Nothing in real life corresponds to your arguments.

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BTW, all of those philosophers that you adore are dead evil white people.

A consolation at it: they were all slaveholders, but their slaves were white. Whence the word slave: Slova in Slavic languages means "word". They call themselves Slav. Slaves of those Greeks you adore were of Slavic origin. Like, hoover = vacuum cleaner.

And now, enough with the treat: in Arabic black man and slave are the same word: Abid (Abd). Wish Farrakhan knows more about this, and about the connotations that this word has nowadays (not 3000 years ago) in the Moslem world.

There are millions of black slaves today in the world. All of them in the fault line between black Africa and Islam.

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Mauritania has abolished slavery 3 times in 20 years, and still has 600,000 black slaves. Where are you, Dr. Dyson, when black slaves need you?


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Great Stalin's Ghost wrote:Dear Professor Dyson,
President also sounds like "Pepsident", a toothpaste designed for WHITENING one's teeth. Enough said on that!

Great Stalin's Ghost - thanks for the idea! I'll probably make a separate blog post with this!

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While at it, have to share my belief. I believe that Democratic Party is one big cargo cult.

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Red Square,
I'm always glad to help further the aims of the party. I bow in humility. I will have an extra glass (or two) of vodka with my orange juice this morning in celebration.

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John Frum,
Good grief! At least have the decency to wallow in guilt over being born white. Gnash your teeth, rend your garment, decry your inner (white) racist.

Every morning my family has our two minutes of guilt for being born white. We apologize for our racism in front of a shrine dedicated to Elizabeth Warren. Since my wife is a quarter Mexican however, she's only in for a minute and a half. The kids, being one eighth Mexican, are in for a minute and three quarters. Not only does this variation let the kids understand that they've been abused by Whitey, it also helps with their math skills so they will have what they need when they attend college to learn useful skills like community organizing or interpretation of Hip-Hop and popular culture.

Not to be insulting, but how many mathematicians and engineers do we really need?

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Remembered a very good nickname for O'Bummer. A black pastor calls him "long-legged mack daddy". This is the best nickname ever, very appropriate. I'd call him so henceforth.

41,000 a year, wow this is where the 1%er's kids hang out, this is 7 years pay on the Steppes. Oh well the Useful Idiot Dyson knows best. Are Condoms free for Law Students yet?

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And remember Friday is Hawaiian shirt day. Also co-founder David Webb is a white racist.
OH wow I find that censorship has begun in earnest.
It seems David Webb has been censored.

Mr. Frum, You should've realized by now that this isn't the real Michael Eric Dyson you're debating. Here's a link to his book. See the difference?
In any case, why would you continue to reply to his nutty theories dressed up in Academic lingo?

Speaking about Academics, I just read an excellent post by Comrade Sultan (not to confuse with Comrade Stalin), where he delves into the future of Academia in our great USSA.

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Comrades!

Michael Eric Dyson is vital to education!

If not for him and Priya Parmar I would have simply taught my students math. Now I know how to empower them with Alex Jones type rants. My students now are filled with hate and resentment against the USA!

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I realized at some point for how the guy jumped topic to topic. That was obviously baiting, but by whom? Certainly a guy that "superior" like Dyson wasn't going to waste breath and reputation here. The way the arguments went towards the end it became clear beyond doubt that I was ping-ponged around.
Jerry wrote:Mr. Frum, You should've realized by now that this isn't the real Michael Eric Dyson you're debating. Here's a link to his book. See the difference?
In any case, why would you continue to reply to his nutty theories dressed up in Academic lingo?

Speaking about Academics, I just read an excellent post by Comrade Sultan (not to confuse with Comrade Stalin), where he delves into the future of Academia in our great USSA.

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John Frum wrote:I realized at some point for how the guy jumped topic to topic. That was obviously baiting, but by whom? Certainly a guy that "superior" like Dyson wasn't going to waste breath and reputation here.

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Michael Eric Dyson and his type can't debate in this format.

Magicians can't perform their tricks in every setting for a reason...

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Hey everybody......... I may have skinny legs and wear ridiculously over-sized sneakers, but I believe "Michael Eric Dyson" is playing the Cube at its own game. " The Sociology of Hip- Hop " ? This is good stuff !

Nice curve ball, M.E.D. Very nice.
BTW : If you're a progressive, then I'm a fashionista !

Has anybody explained to Dyson that a black hole is not the piece he got stuck in with last weekend? If he doesn't get it, a sabbatical in Amsterdam would fix that.


 
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