The Local Crank

Musings & Sardonic Commentary on Politics, Religion, Culture & Native American Issues. Bringing you the finest in radioactive screeds since 2002! "The Local Crank" newspaper column is distributed by Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc.

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Location: Cleburne, Texas, United States

Just a simple Cherokee trial lawyer, Barkman has been forcing his opinions on others in print since, for reasons that passeth understanding, he was an unsuccessful candidate for state representative in 2002. His philosophy: "If people had wanted me to be nice, they should've voted for me."

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Read This...

...but also read the comments, and see the vile racism and anti-Indian bigotry drip off the pages of this supposedly progressive blog. Then head over to Rachel's Tavern and read comment 4, which points out something neither the original article nor the NPR story mentioned-namely that in 86% of reported cases of sexual assault against Indian women, THE ATTACKERS WERE NON-INDIAN MEN. So why do you suppose this particular facet of the story was overlooked?

Hat tip to The Native Blog for putting me on to this story.

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6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is not to give any kind of cover for those comments, because the're nearly uniformly inexcusable, but I read Huffpo all the time, and I've never seen a comments thread that sounded anything like that. There's no excuse for that kind of garbage, especially on a progressive blog, and Huffpo is usually one of the better ones.

4/27/2007 12:32 PM  
Blogger The Local Crank said...

Yeah, I've not seen thay level of vitrol at HuffPo before, either. In fact, the comments seem on average more thoughtful than you usually encounter. However, and not to play "more oppressed than thou," but I've noticed that anti-Indian racism is generally considered far more "acceptable," even in some liberal circles, than any other form of bigotry.

4/27/2007 2:18 PM  
Blogger Eric said...

I heard at least part of the NPR story during my daily commute, and I actually assumed the rapes were committed by whites, not Indians. I don't recall what if anything made me think that, but I certainly didn't get the impression the story was tarnishing Indian men or anything like that.

4/27/2007 6:08 PM  
Blogger The Local Crank said...

I don't think NPR directly implied that Indian men were responsible for the assaults, either. However, the fact that they either glossed-over or failed to mention completely the fact that the overwhelming majority of attacks were by non-Indians is a pretty glaring sin of omission.

4/27/2007 8:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Like Eric, I heard the NPR story and didn't get the impression Indian men were to blame. In fact, for some reason I assumed it was outsiders. It also looks like Huffpo was invaded by wingnuts bored with denigrating Mexicans...

4/27/2007 8:41 PM  
Blogger The Local Crank said...

"It also looks like Huffpo was invaded by wingnuts bored with denigrating Mexicans..."

Well, hey, most Mexicans are mestizo and thus mostly Indian so they're getting a two-fer. And to be clar, I'm not faulting Huffpo for the comments (many of which appear to be written not by your garden-variety wingnut, but progressives as well), but rather their superficial and shallow treatment of the story.

4/27/2007 9:02 PM  

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