We’ve had a lot of crazy explanations for New Orleans’ destruction from Hurricane Katrina and Detroit’s bankruptcy, but the latest one takes the cake.
According to Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir, the reason New Orleans and Detroit have suffered so much is conservative racism.
In his piece titled “Why the right hates Detroit,” O’Hehir writes, “As centers of African-American cultural and political power and engines of a worldwide multiracial pop culture that was egalitarian, hedonistic and anti-authoritarian, these cities posed a psychic threat to the most reactionary and racist strains in American life.”
Also, one suffered a once-in-a-lifetime hurricane whose destructive effects were exacerbated by incompetent and shortsighted Democratic politicians, and the other inflicted a half-century of far-left economic policies on its citizens. But who’s keeping track?
O’Hehir continues, “As payback for the worldwide revolution symbolized by hot jazz, Smokey Robinson dancin’ to keep from cryin’ and Eminem trading verses with Rihanna, New Orleans and Detroit had to be punished.”
So President George W. Bush refused to rescue New Orleans from its poor planning because of the threat jazz posed to traditional values. Republican politicians destroyed Detroit because of Smokey Robinson’s upbeat attitude. And conservatives let Detroit sink because of a duet Eminem recorded with a light-skinned Barbadian.
There’s infinitely more evidence that Democrats were responsible for the tragedies in these cities. Yet listen to O’Hehir on the left’s role in their destruction: “[T]hose in city government there inherited an unsustainable situation in a downward-trending economy, pursued their own short-term objectives and only made things worse.”
Democrats never wreak havoc on their supposed benefactors; they ‘inherit’ a bad situation and have the bad luck of holding office during a “downward-trending economy.” At most they ‘make things worse’ that were already going badly. Meanwhile, Republicans who weren’t even in power when the decline was happening bring down entire metropolises due to their disdain for jazz and rock-and-roll and the diabolical African-Americans who perform them.
O’Hehir goes on to claim that “many mainstream commentators have tried, with varying degrees of subtlety, to frame [Katrina and Detroit’s bankruptcy] as ‘black stories,’ and specifically as stories of black dysfunction and black political failure.”
I don’t know about you, but I’ve read dozens of diagnoses of New Orleans’ and Detroit’s troubles, and I’ve never heard one conservative commentator claim they were the result of “black dysfunction” or “black political failure.” All claimed that these disasters were the result of dysfunction or political failure, period — incompetent leadership, corrupt politicians, voters who refused to kick out officeholders who were ruining their cities.
As usual, the racial angle is layered superfluously on top of the truth by the Left.
How can you tell when a liberal media hack is covering for his ideological soul mates in office? When he’s seated at his keyboard.
