Zaphod for President

Here is the latest “Lou Dobbs is a racist” video going around:

Note how he almost says “Cotton-picking” in reference to “any politician”, but quickly stops himself, as a picture of Condi Rice is shown beside him.

The irony of course is that this clip proves the very point Mr. Dobbs has been trying to make- we are happy to talk about race, just extremely fearful of the backlash that often comes along with it. “Cotton-picking” was clearly a poor choice of expression, and clearly, Lou Dobbs realized this mid-sentence.

Here’s an interesting question: did Lou Dobbs use “cotton-picking” as a racial slur, thus revealing a Freudian slip?

I don’t think he did. As a matter of fact, I think Lou Dobbs is so progressive that he didn’t realize the potentially racist connotation of that phrase until he was halfway through speaking it.

Am I the only one who remembers the old Looney Tunes cartoons starring Bugs Bunny? Was Bugs a racist? Must be: he used to say “cotton-picking” all the time. Oddly enough, until just now, my mind had never connected the phrase “cotton-picking” to slavery before. In retrospect, this phrase is clearly racist in origin, but as my niggas already know, like most words, it has radically changed in meaning throughout time. I had always assumed it was a meaningless rant used by angry cartoon characters. Is that an inaccurate description? I’m not so sure.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand who the “cotton-pickers” were, and why it is a bad idea to use this term to describe blacks. Even so, Dobbs was referring to “all politicians”, not specifically to Condi Rice.

Of course, Lou Dobbs is already considered a racist by most self-described progressives because of his stance on illegal immigration. Clearly, say the racist-hating progressives, Dobbs is anti-Latino, and this is the logic behind his anti-illegal immigration stance.

Of course, this is unquestionably true. As a matter of fact, Lou Dobbs hates Mexicans so much that he married one. Oh, you didn’t know? The Mexican-Hating Lou Dobbs has a Mexican-American wife. Schizophrenia? Or maybe, just maybe, he is telling the truth when he explains that illegal immigration is an economic issue, not a racial issue.

But what about Bugs Bunny? Could it be that my beloved cartoons are in fact bastions of hate speech?

Skip ahead to the end for a shocking revelation:

Who knew? Lou Dobbs married a Mexican, and Bugs Bunny wishes the Confederacy won. Strange days indeed.

Note to self: find better role models.

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