Flaylo
Handsome Devil
Bob Cesca: Right-Wing Bullies Continue to Attack Children
Who's gonna be next?
Trayvon Martin is the latest in a long roster of conservative targets. This week, various conservative media sources have made specious accusations about the character and motives of an unarmed kid who was shot dead. Arguably the easiest target in America is a dead black teenager: unable to posthumously defend himself and whose race makes him a lightning rod for all sorts of slack-jawed character assumptions, racial stereotypes, backhanded "unintentional" racism and white resentment.
So the far-right has naturally taken the path of least resistance here and is thumbing through Trayvon's tweets and photos -- and even his menswear -- to determine whether he had it coming.
Geraldo Rivera thought Trayvon's clothing might have invited the shooting. Rush Limbaugh and others have tried in earnest to connect Trayvon to the Black Panthers via, strangely enough, President Obama. Drudge posted sensationalistic headlines about Trayvon's past while illustrating the links with a "grills" photo of Trayvon which was obviously meant to feed anti-black "gangsta" stereotypes. Tucker Carlson's The Daily Caller released what are purported to be Trayvon's tweets. Glenn Beck's The Blaze posted an entire list of infractions Trayvon might have committed at his high school. The list includes homicide, sexual harassment and armed robbery. The absurd notion that somehow Trayvon's unsubstantiated "record" might somehow justify George Zimmerman's actions are totally indicative of the kind of bullying and racial dog-whistles we've observed from these people on countless occasions. And, by the way, it's this kind of behavior that's dooming the far-right to the margins of reasonable debate while fracturing the Republican Party.
As I wrote earlier, this isn't the first time a child has been targeted by the right. There's a long history of far-right aggression against both children and adult "noncombatants."
Sandra Fluke, whose reputation was assassinated in the right-wing media, is an ordinary citizen who simply delivered some brief remarks to members of Congress. For her obvious crime the right-wing media, and most notably Rush Limbaugh, declared war on a woman who hadn't ever appeared on cable news or talk radio or even maintained a blog. Easy, then, for the far-right to draw blood by means of overwhelming the so-called enemy with the full force of right-wing radio and television. How can anyone new to the scene, irrespective of age, race or gender, expect to fight back against a trained and monied right-wing attack machine? Limbaugh and others know this, so, to them, it's an easily winnable fight.
Who's gonna be next?