The following video may be hard to watch. Pat Buchanan is happy to say things many people wouldn’t. In fact, most people, I would guess, wouldn’t even let themselves consciously think like this. But we do know lots and lots of us have implicit racist biases, along with sexist ones and others. (We talk about them quite a bit on this blog.)
One consequence is that for a lot of people the best choice among people is a white person, particularly a white man. This video reminds us of what hidden views can underlie such choices..
The personae: Rachel Maddow, American TV liberal commentator; the first openly gay American to hold a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford, where she completed her D.Phil. Pat Buchanan: Very conservative American political commentator, many shows and appearances on TV and Radio.
How Rachel refrained from ripping his face off is beyond us….what a caveman….
I agree, though I fear that there’s similar garbage in a lot of minds, just unacknowledge and perhaps hidden. But still powerful. (And I’m not supposing I’m innocent…)
Indeed hard to hear some of the statements.
It seems it would also be effective to just let the guy keep talking. Just keep asking the implicating questions without explaining or defending another point of view. The more he says, the more he reveals — that will help all of us take pause.
Easier said than done. It’s hard to keep from letting our emotions take over, and from taking sides. Both of these conditions cloud logic…
Here is a great clip of Rachel Maddow correcting Buchanan’s ‘errors’
The youtube address of the previous clip is “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t12BRViZnTc”
Great, alphaf. Thanks. I hope people watch it.