How the Right Uses People of Color to Foster Racism

By Margaret Kimberly, Black Agenda Report. Posted April 4, 2007.

White supremacy, sensing the need to repackage itself for consumption in polite company, partially fills the demand for racist bile by outsourcing to mercenary writers of color. Michelle Malkin and Dinesh D'Souza -- of Filipino and Indian descent, respectively -- are top guns of the genre, ever eager to slander non-whites, especially Blacks, as threats to Euro-American white "civilization."

For premium fees, Malkin and D'Souza act as trusted Gunga Dins and shock troops for fascism. The corporate media makes advocates of racism and white American supremacy very rich. American racism also gives certain non-white people advantages. They are able to escape the indignity that black Americans face. They are then able to disassociate themselves and become allies with the very worst and most dangerous aspects of political life in this country.

Michelle Malkin, born Michelle Maglalang, is a dark skinned Filipino-American who loves the worst that white American civilization has to offer. Malkin is a darling of the right wing, a blogger and author who is eager to advocate invading other nations, and spewing hatred of immigrants in general and of Muslims in particular.

Malkin constantly rails against immigration, complaining about "drive by" and "accidental" citizenship attained by the children of immigrants who she and others label "anchor" and "jackpot" babies.

Malkin never told her loyal readership that her father came to the United States in 1970 on a temporary work visa. She was born in October 1970. Malkin is herself a jackpot baby, given automatic citizenship when her parents were not even permanent residents. The truth may set you free, but it doesn't get you on Fox news.

In 2002 Malkin wrote that the internment of thousands of Japanese-Americans was "wrong and abhorrent." Who knows if she ever believed those words, but times changed quickly and there was a book deal waiting for an Asian who would approve past and future efforts to profile and then incarcerate non-white people.

Malkin is not just a self-hating Asian. She is a two-faced liar, having condemned Japanese internment just two years before defending it in print. In 2004 she wrote In Defense of Internment: The Case for "Racial Profiling" in World War II and the War on Terror. When racists fantasized about interning Arabs, she helped provide ammunition:

Make no mistake: I am not advocating rounding up all Arabs or Muslims and tossing them into camps, but when we are under attack, 'racial profiling' -- or more precisely, threat profiling -- is justified. It is unfortunate that well-intentioned Arabs and Muslims might be burdened because of terrorists who share their race, nationality or religion. But any inconvenience, no matter how bothersome or offensive, is preferable to being incinerated at your office desk by a flaming hijacked plane.

White people are never "inconvenienced" by raced based incarceration, even though there are white domestic terrorists, serial killers, and shooters in schools. Apparently Malkin thinks that is just fine.

Common sense makes it obvious that Malkin's dark skin has been problematic for her and she admits as much. "Here are some of the racial epithets I've been called in my lifetime: Chink. Gook. Jap. Nigger. Slant eyes. Dog-eater." She also suffered the color consciousness created by European colonialism:

Back in the Philippines, upscale restaurants refuse to hire natives with skin darker than sand. The movie industry promotes model 'mestizos' and 'Maria Claras' -- pale as paper due to the blanching effect of Spanish blood. Lighter-skinned cousins mocked me as 'The Brownie.' Pitying aunties suggested rubbing my skin with pumice stones for a more desirable complexion.

Malkin could have used these painful experiences to fight against racism, but that is a much tougher way to live and to get paid. Being a mouth piece for white/right America is a more certain path to a fat bank account.

Malkin has partners in crime, people who have either bought the supremacy myth or who just want to be on the winning, money making team. Dinesh D'Souza was one of the founders of the racist Dartmouth Review and the author of books such as The End of Racism, published in 1995.

The demise of racism was news to everyone else, but it was a convenient notion for the Indian-born D'Souza to sell. It was also a direct attack on black America. D'Souza's thesis came straight from Racism 101. Racism is gone and black people do badly only because of their "pathologies." D'Souza also thinks the Civil Rights Act should be repealed.

Like Malkin, the Indian-born D'Souza comes from a country whose darker citizens get the cold shoulder. Try finding an Indian movie star who isn't light skinned. Imagine D'Souza's delight upon arriving in the United States. He was now part of a so-called model minority that was given certain advantages, even if the "n word" was hurled in his direction. All he had to do was sign up for the right wing propaganda machine of racism and aggression and he was home free.

D'Souza's latest homage to foolishness is called The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11:

In this book I make a claim that will seem startling at the outset. The cultural left in this country (such people as Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, George Soros, Michael Moore, Bill Moyers, and Noam Chomsky) is responsible for causing 9/11.

Like Malkin, D'Souza lies at the drop of a hat. When he was called on his bizarre hate speech, he began to back pedal furiously. "I argue that the American left bears a measure of responsibility for the volcano of anger from the Muslim world that produced the 9/11 attacks."

D'Souza apparently forgot what he wrote. The word "measured" is no where to be found, in the title or in the text:

I am saying that the cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the nonprofit sector and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world ... the left is the primary reason for Islamic anti-Americanism as well as the anti-Americanism of other traditional cultures around the world. I intend to show that the left has actively fostered the intense hatred of America that has led to murderous attacks such as 9/11." [Italics mine.]

D'Souza's book is a cynical obscenity, meant to silence the left and promote the Bush administration's efforts to dominate as much of the world as possible. He just makes things up as he goes along and then pretends he didn't write what is clear for all to see.

Bin Laden said on many occasions that he is angry about America's support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine. He was angry with the Saudi regime and its decision to allow American troops on their soil. Michael Moore, abortion and gay marriage were never on the bin Laden list of pet peeves. What are facts when there is money to be made and an ideology to support?

D'Souza's true purpose in writing this screed is to provoke hatred and legitimize violence against anyone who opposes the white/right wing agenda. His assertion that people who disagree with him are the nation's enemies is offensive and dangerous but it hasn't hurt D'Souza's career at all.

There will be more Malkins and D'Souzas as long as hatred is profitable and anti-black racist rules apply. They are just the latest in a long line of openly racist and fascist opinion makers. A quick glance at the television screen might lead one to believe that they would be on the side of the oppressed, when nothing could be further from the truth.

              

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Margaret Kimberley is a freelance writer living in New York City. She also maintains the Freedom Rider blog.

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