On another blog someone posted this article by Tim Wise entitled "Jeremiah Wright, Barak Obama and the Unacceptability of Truth -- Of National Lies and Racial America".  It was such an excellent article I thought I would link to it here also.  The full article at Counterpunch.org.  An excerpt:

"But white folks have a hard time hearing these simple truths. We find it almost impossible to listen to an alternative version of reality. Indeed, what seems to bother white people more than anything, whether in the recent episode, or at any other time, is being confronted with the recognition that black people do not, by and large, see the world like we do; that black people, by and large, do not view America as white people view it. We are, in fact, shocked that this should be so, having come to believe, apparently, that the falsehoods to which we cling like a kidney patient clings to a dialysis machine, are equally shared by our darker-skinned compatriots.

This is what James Baldwin was talking about in his classic 1972 work, No Name in the Street, wherein he noted:

Wrote a few posts at Daily Kos, Folkbum and MAL Contends about the racist Jim Broussard cutting down and stealing an American flag on someone's private property in Reno, Nevada, last week, while brandishing a military knife, and daring anyone to take the flag back.

Most of the hostile e-mail and comments spoke indignantly of the failure of "they (Mexicans)/them" to assimilate into our country, and misstating First Amendment doctrine and the rights of freedom generally. Below is an e-mail that is my personal favorite and the most revealing.

The e-mail still has me wondering if someone can actually be that dumb, and it sounds like something a couple of friends would say when they mock racists and other assorted ignoramuses:

- via MAL Contends

  X-off has a nice piece noting that Republicans have a ways to go to reach Latinos.  

Here’s a piece of advice for Republicans: Don’t call them “roaches,” like the leading rightwing luminary Ann Coulter just did in Human Events.