LEMON: OK. So we are going to continue our discussion now over the health care rallies and the tone of what’s going on in the country. Tim Wise joins us. He’s frequent here on the show. The author of “Between Barack and a Hard Place” and among the most prominent anti- racist activist in the country. Thank you, sir. Always good to see you.

TIM WISE, AUTHOR “BETWEEN Barack AND A HARD PLACE”: You, too.

LEMON: You heard the chairman from Florida say no, it is not race.

WISE: I did.

LEMON: It does a disservice. You heard David Sirota say it is the elephant in the room.

WISE: Right. Well like I said in the show before, it is the background noise of a lot of the opposition, not all of it but a lot of it. You know, when you have someone like Glen Beck saying as he did about a month ago that the health care debate isn’t really about that. It is just reparations for black people, where you have Rush Limbaugh yesterday on the air saying first that community service is the first step towards fascism, which is bizarre even for him.

And then almost immediately after that saying one of the problems with America is too much multi culturalism [This is one of local talker Michael DelGiorno's favorite lines!]. You wouldn’t say that unless you are trying to stoke white racial resentment. And so when you say those things, I want to know when are Republican leaders going to condemn that kind of rhetoric because that is where race is being interjected. It is interjected by us, it’s interested by the leading talk show hosts in this country.

Read the rest of the transcript.

Hat tip: Crooks and Liars

So, if being dismissive of Sarah Palin’s accomplishments or “substance” is “sexist,” does that mean that being dismissive of Obama’s accomplishments is racist? If so, then the entire GOP convention was one racist orgy of racially offensive racism.

Excellent point. And while we’re thinking about racism. Let’s take in Tim Wise’s latest, which strains the last two weeks of election coverage through his white privilege filter:

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re “untested.”


….

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you.


…

White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was “Alaska first,” and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you’re black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.


…

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates America.


Oh, there’s more…

*Friend of Liberadio(!)

• Part 1 – It’s a pre-Super Twosday recap and we talk to Caspar, our FOL* from Denmark, who gives us the view of our presidential election from abroad (the audio is a bit low for the first minute or so of the phone call). Plus, President Bush has some choice words to describe the economy in the Onion’s WeeklyRadioAddress.com.
• Part 2 – Interview with anti-racist activist and author Tim Wise, who breaks down the presidential race for us from a different angle – has the country transcended race now that an African-American is running for president? Which is worse the misogyny against Senator Clinton or the racism against Senator Obama? What’s up with Bill Hobbs of the TN GOP? What’s up with Gloria Steinem? How is white privilege affecting the race? What’s the danger of having a white guy play Barack Obama on the TV? And what is Oprah getting away with?
• Part 3 – We continue our discussion of race with our callers who update us on the noose and epithet incident – now incidents – at Poplar Grove Middle School in Franklin.
• Part 4 – Interview with Councilman Erik Cole of the Fightin’ 7th! Councilman Cole is chairing the Budget and Finance Committee in what he describes as a “tight fiscal year,” so we discuss the budget process with him – including some of the stickier points like metro general hospital, storm water, water services, and public schools. We also get to the bottom of the controversy surrounding his middle name. We think he’s not from around here…
• Part 5 – Speaking of middle names, it’s the Media Matters for America Smackdown with Elbert Ventura! How’s the mainstream media handling the email smear campaign aimed at one particular presidential candidate? By repeating the assertions with no questions asked and inviting Republican’s to spew the same smears on national television, of course!

*Friend of Liberadio(!)