ABW vs. the Embodiment of White Privilege
All right. The time has come.
I thought about this last year sometime but dropped it because I figured the antagonists wasn’t popular enough anymore. I hadn’t seen her in a while. I thought maybe I should concentrate my efforts on that crazy woman Michelle Malkin.
That was before Ann Coulter clambered back into my view again. Before she dissed Elizabeth Edwards.
So I’m here after my long absence to say that I am revitalizing my long-dormant showdown. That’s right, kids. The Angry Black Woman is taking on Ann Coulter!
For those of you who don’t know what Ann Coulter is, just stop reading now. It’s better you don’t know. Really. She’s a vile, hateful wingnut who is the embodiment of White privilege, White Woman’s Syndrome, and gives women such a bad name I can almost understand misogyny. Not quite, but almost.
She keeps putting out books about how liberals are evil and should be shot (that’s almost not hyperbole, either). Right wingers LOVE her because she’s a complete traitor to her gender. She, like Michelle Malkin, are the type of people conservatives point to and say “But we’re not racist/sexist/batshit crazy. Ann/Michelle is on our side. You’re sexist/racist for disagreeing with her and also for saying bad things about Israel.”
Her latest offense wasn’t actually initiated by her. However, she was on television, so she deserves to be talked about. From Hardblogger:
The wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards called into MSNBC’s “Hardball” on Tuesday to confront Ann Coulter on her personal attacks on her husband and family.
Edwards: I’m calling you … in the South when someone does something that displeases us, we wanna ask them politely to stop doing it. Uh – I’d like to ask Ann Coulter — if she wants to debate on issues, on positions — we certainly disagree with nearly everything she said on your show today — but uh it’s quite another matter for these personal attacks that the things she has said over the years not just about John but about other candidates. It lowers our political dialogue precisely at the time that we need to raise it. So I want to use the opportunity … to ask her politely stop the personal attacks.
Ann hemmed and hawed for several minutes, denying that she had attacked John, then… attacking him…. and then denying again. Then suddenly she remembered that we live in America, and in America we hate it when people tell us to shut the hell up.
Edwards: I’m asking you politely to stop personal attacks.
Coulter: OK, great the wife of a presidential candidate is calling in asking me to stop speaking… You’re asking me to stop speaking, stop writing columns, stop writing your books.
Here’s what I find interesting about this ‘defense’ or accusation or whatever it’s supposed to be. Elizabeth says “stop making personal attacks” and Ann basically responds with “I cannot write anything if I cannot make personal attacks!”
Why am I not surprised?
Edwards: You wrote a column a couple years ago which made fun of the moment of Charlie Dean’s death, and suggested that my husband had a bumper sticker on the back of his car that said ask me about my dead son. This is not legitimate political dialogue.
Coulter: That’s now three years ago —
Edwards: It debases political dialogue. It drives people away from the process. We can’t have a debate about issues if you’re using this kind of language.
I love how “But that was so loooong ago!” is supposed to be a valid defense. Ann realizes she can’t win with that tactic, so she branches off another way.
Coulter: Yeah why isn’t John Edwards making this call?
Good save, Ann!
Edwards: I’m making this call as a mother. I’m the mother of that boy who died. My children participate — these young people behind you are the age of my children. You’re asking them to participate in a dialogue that’s based on hatefulness and ugliness instead of on the issues and I don’t think that’s serving them or this country very well.
[Applause from the crowd]
The audience was on Elizabeth’s side. This audience was mere feet away from DragonLadyCoulter. She may have felt unsafe. Thus her weak rebuttal after Elizabeth was no longer on the line:
Coulter: I think we heard all we need to hear. The wife of a presidential candidate is asking me to stop speaking. No.
What a pathetic woman. She’s almost not worth having a war with. Maybe I should leave the poor child alone.
…
Nah, it’s ON!
Ann Coulter, ABW vs Ann Coulter, right wing nutjobs, drag queens
Ann Coulter’s one messed up bitch.
Hello ABW!
As an ABM (which is totally illegal in the U.S.A.), I couldn’t agree with you more on Ms. Ann Coulter.
I can’t think of a more racist, hateful white woman not wearing Ku Klux Klan attire. The thing about her (or probably her handlers) is that she never shows up where there’s even a possibility of legitimate debate!
And the really sad part is, that there is a whole legion of ‘budding little white female racists’ coming over the hill!
Ann Coulter is the closest thing to the anti-christ that exists in the media atmosphere today. I find her repulsive and obnoxious and wish they would stop giving this instigating cow a platform for her to continuously spew her ugliness. SHe has nothing to contribute and she is a bully. Back in the day, the way we took care of bullies, was to do a smack down. You have to hit a bully with a harder fist than they have, and then you get respect. I would love to find out when she’s showing up in my area so I can get there and read her for the cheap trash she really is.
[she] gives women such a bad name I can almost understand misogyny. Not quite, but almost.
Heh. Well, but I bet she’d say the same things if she were a man. At some level, she’s using the pretty blond white chick thing to get away with saying some really outrageous things… but I do wonder, if she had the benefit of male privilege to go with her white privilege, if she wouldn’t be able to say even nastier things.
maybe she’s a robot? if she’s going to drag the death of a child into a “political” debate, then clearly she has no ethics, morals, feelings, or brain- she must be a robot. is there an off button?
GREAT POST!
Interesting that she sees a request for civility as being asked to “stop speaking.”
I guess for her, it is.
She’s a very hateful woman, I read one of her books “How to Talk to Liberals, If you Must,” All this woman does is spew hatred towards liberals, not only that, it seems to me that she doesn’t make a case for conservatism. I think she just looking for desperate self promotion.
i know she makes your head want to explode, but i’m not sure that you’re not hurling yourself against a wall here. coulter is out to inspire the wrong kind of dialogue–the kind that covers up issues, not the kind that reveals them.
if you engage with her you will either be talking to yourself, or, if she deigns to respond, you’ll be talking entirely at cross-purposes. neither choice will be a particularly interesting dialogue. you’ll have to say what you’ve said before a million times and no one will hear it b/c they’ll just be busy aping coulter’s listen-not/attack-much tactics.
writing about coulter, writing to coulter, paying any attention to coulter at all, is a waste of time. her disciples are people you can’t dialogue with.
the audience you should be trying to reach is people on the fence–well meaning but ignorant people who don’t have their ears blocked by wax and fox tv. they are just as turned off by liberals who engage with coulter as they are by coulter herself. they believe that both sides of the debate are crazy.
and frankly, engaging crazies in debate WILL make you seem crazy. please pick yer battles here and don’t allow yourself to be dragged down by the likes of coulter.
OMGWTF I read something by Michelle Malkin and now I must claw my brain out. ::clawclaw::
Ann Coulter is exactly what the media calls her — an attack dog. Specifically, a rabid one. You don’t reason with a rabid dog. You shoot it.
And while I’d dearly love to shoot Ann Coulter, ignoring her is just as effective.
I feel the need to point out that I am really only kidding with this. For all the reasons Claire and Nora point out, it would be absolutely useless to actually wage war on that harridan. I just needed an excuse to pull out that image I made. I worked hard on it!!
Truly, if I was going to take someone down, it would be Michelle. That bitch has to go. (Sorry to use such gendered language, but she really is awful.)
ah, internet kidding strikes again.
yes, get michelle … for all of us.
I love the graphic!
She also referred to Democratic women (at the last Democratic National Convention) as “pie-wagons” in her column, and I wondered if you had read that.
PS: Hope a Malkin graphic is coming up, as funny as that one. :)
Ann Coulter? I remember reading about what she said about the 9-11 widows. She called them Jersey Girls and said they were exploiting their husbands death. She is one nutjob, I must say. I can’t wait to come back and read more on the War with Ann Coulter.
In spite of the fact that I have made a personal commitment NOT to read or listen to anything about Ann Coulter (I have enough stuff in my brain to piss me off already), your graphic made me stop and read. It’s great!
Hello Claire,
Just a point of contention. I totally disagree with your position of basically ignoring Ann Coulter. She is continually on the airwaves and in a society that, by and large, has the attention span and memory of very small children, she, at the very least, needs to be headed off at every pass!
As far as people who are, as you describe, on the fence; they’ll always be on the goddamn fence. Imagine where we’d be in terms of the civil rights movement if we spent time trying to somehow convince the ‘fence sitters’
I saw that clip and had the same thought: that Coulter has nothing to say except personal attacks.
I’m very torn by whether or not one should bother to engage with Coulter and her ilk on any level. On the one hand, I agree with Claire. On the other hand, I agree with Ty. So there you have my firm position.
Ty, I agree that someone has to challenge her, but there’d be no point in ME doing it. My little blog here is quite popular, but I don’t get nearly the same his as Atrios or Kos or Talking Points Memo or even Pandagon. And those folks probably couldn’t get on to TV shows where Coulter shows her face. They certainly won’t let them on Fox. Chris Matthews completely panders to whoever he thinks is most powerful at the moment, so he’s no use, Coulter would never show her face on Oberman.
To take her down, you’d need to have someone who is already entrenched in the media who can fight on her turf. On the radio, on TV, in columns, in books. That person certainly isn’t me :) Though I have been on the radio!
If I actually attempted to engage her, she’d just brush me off. the most i would get from it is some more traffic as people start to wonder what the kerfuffle is about. I could send my minions to technorati and have them write a million WTF posts about me and Ann. But it wouldn’t serve to cut her off at the knees. I wish i could do that, though….
Nice post- Coutler is a nutjob! I’d like to point out that not all conservatives dig what she is spouting… my partner, a convervative, (yes, a liberal and conservative can marry and live happily!) is all-out against Coulter and what she stands for. He says exactly what Elizabeth Edwards stated: she simply takes the level of political dialouge down to a non-intellectual level and is nothing more than akin to a shock-jock.
What I think is so strange and creepy is that AC’s brand of hatefulness is so attractive to certain advertisers. She shows us that there is, literally, a market for racism, misogyny, and so on. It’s easy to forget that white privilege is not simply an attitude; people have real material interests in it. Racism is still profitable.
Ray
Ray, you bring up an interesting about her sponsors and the advertisers. By the way, does anyone know who are the major sponsors of her show? Why not call for a boycott if they continue to support her mouth diarrhea?
Hello ABW,
I understand your position. Getting an audience in the, so called, ‘mainstream media’ is almost nil, unless you’re a ‘House Negro’ (i.e., Larry Elder or Armstrong Williams and the like; bought and paid for).
However, I hope you will continue on as you are doing now. You are probably reaching many more people than you may be aware of.
There are many of us who question (if not almost completely disregard) most of what we hear and see in the ‘mm’, even CNN (long since discredited).
Voices of discontent and opposition will always find a way to be heard.
And to Ray,
You’re dead on the money!
I would only add that it always comes neatly wrapped up in the flag!
I don’t like that image. I think the ABW should be holding that harpy by the throat rather than vice versa.
Ann Coulter is a best-selling author and popular commentator — her brand of scapegoating hatred is very popular with the Far Right — so I think it would be a mistake to just ignore her. Her worldview, which more and more people buy into, is that “traitorous,” pantywaist, PC liberals are at the root of every evil in the world. Should we ignore the Ku Klux Klan or Neo-Nazis since we can’t reason with them? No, I think it’s always a good thing to expose vile and hateful people for what they are.
Take her down, ABW.
A lot of right wing talking heads make me really angry, but for some reason I have never been able to take Coulter seriously. She reminds me of Camille Paglia – a walking self-promotion zone.
Whenever people bring Coulter up, though, I always think of a blog post about her from Margaret Cho, which I recommend to your attention :-).
http://www.margaretcho.com/blog/anncoulter.htm
Angel a boycott is an interesting idea.
Evil David,
The problem is that her rhetoric and innuendo isn’t arguable; it’s not based on logic or even the laws of physics. If you point out the Mack-truck-sized flaws in her arguments she just changes the argument to something else (equally nonsensical). I truly believe she has some kind of mental illness, of which one of the symptoms is a variant of pathological lying. Schizophrenia, maybe, since she certainly seems to exist in her own personal reality divorced for that of the rest of us. How do you deal with that, really? Do you crawl into the crazyplace with her, or do you shoot her up with anti-psychotics and stick her in a padded room somewhere?
That so many people actually listen to her speaks to a dangerous tendency towards self-delusion in our society; a whopping huge chunk of our population is in the crazyplace too. I find that far, far more disturbing than the rantings of one nutjob. And I wish I knew what the hell to do about it.
Chris Matthews completely panders to whoever he thinks is most powerful at the moment, so he’s no use,
It really is amazing, the few times I’ve seen him on video it’s like watching an animated dictionary entry for “sycophancy” – but Media Bloodhound noticed something which makes it a little more complex, when it comes to the Coultergeist appearing on Tweety’s show. She’s not being published by Regnery any more, she’s been picked up by Random House. Which also has a line of Apocalyptic Prophecy stuff going now, as I noticed a few months back, but who is also publishing Matthews’ book.
Random House has been assimilated. And there might be some “marketing synergy” going on there, too.
I also don’t think she’s “crazy”, Nora, any more than Fr. Coughlin was crazy. Altho’ afaik Coughlin was at least sincere in his hate, and there’s a lot of plausible argument that AC is just playing a gig, which pays *very* well and gets her lots of kudos and drinks from her crowd.
–And gyeah, that was one of the worst ad campaigns I’ve ever seen, racism-wise. Good to see a subversive remix done on it.
I saw the clip and I saw that tool chris matthews let ann get away with that last statement about elizabeth edwards not wanting her to speak…wouldn’t it have been nice if
he tried to clarify the point instead of letting the devil’s handmaiden continue to spew her vile take on discourse?
when i see the face of ann coulter, i see the face of the duke lacrosse players who said something to the stripper to make her file a false rape charge, i see the face of the boys who sodomized a mexican-american kid in texas. Yep, i see the face of everything that makes me lose faith in humanity.
But evidently people like Chris Matthews, Chirs Cuomo, Matt Lauer et al see a friend.
I just got back from vacation and now I need to go back.
The Duke lacrosse players were falsely accused by a stripper with a criminal record.
Anyhow, lots of white people hate Ann Coulter.
I have a hard time thinking of overprivileged jocks as being innocent. And whether the woman had a criminal record or not has no bearing on anything. And lot of white people hating Ann seems to be a pointless utterance.
lots of white people hate Ann Coulter.
Not enough.
Overpriviledged jocks, yes, but that does not make them instantly guilty of rape.
My point was not every white person is a fan of Ann.
Ninja,
1. Given no one on this thread has actually called the Duke players rapists, and the person you were responding to actually said “false rape charge”, your entire point seems to be completely unncessary, unless of course you saw “Duke lacrosse players” and knee-jerked. Whether or not it was rape, or a crime, I think it’s been fairly well established that they didn’t exactly act in a particularly respectful manner that is worth the flurry of overprivileged defenders getting their pants in a twist.
2. What exactly does ‘not every white person is a fan of Ann Coulter’ achieve aside from assuaging white guilt (if not your own then someone else’s)? Seriously. What, should we give the whitefolk who don’t like Ann Coulter a cookie? A gold medal?
1. No knee jerking, not defending anyone.
2. I don’t want to be “given” anything. Just pointing something out.
Besides, it’s obvious I’m instantly hated on here for expressing an opinion. Don’t want to have a respectful discussion? That’s okay
*exits* *Yawn*
Respectful discussion begins with intelligence. If you’d come here adding to the discourse instead of just drive by mumbling, then maybe you’d have gotten some discussion. Right now we’re trying to figure out what the hell your point is.
Ninja — But I just read the whole thread and no one suggested that all white people liked her, just that she was a racist panderer.
Overpriviledged jocks, yes, but that does not make them instantly guilty of rape.
Equally, the fact that it can’t be proved they committed rape does not prove their accuser was a liar – she too is innocent until proven guilty.
wait. now we get cookies just for knowing ann coulter is evil incarnate, if we’re white! I want a cookie.
why would anyone feel the need to point out that lots of white people hate AC? Did someone here claim all whitefolk liked her? no.
Hey Ninja
the duke lacrosse boys said to the stripper when they didn’t believe that she was giving them the show they were paying for:
Tell you grandfather thanks for the white shirts.
Now if that’s not the same condescending soaked in white privilege type of comments that the Devil Handmaiden makes on a daily basis, I don’t know what is.
Hence my reason for grouping the two together.
Ninja, if you think different, please share.
arielladrake,
yeah!
also what’s funny about Ninja is how there was no comment about how the likes of Chris Matthews, Chris Cuomo and Matt Lauer seem to like Ms. Coulter.
I guess as long as the right white people like her she will continue to make money off her special brand of rancid honey.
I am interested in the direction the comments were taking before the derailment. How do we effect change by targeting advertisers and the media. Why do they continue with hateful messages in the media. Is a boycott of Random House(by myself at least) justified? Who are the advertisers involved? Since I repel at the thought of seeing AC and gang, I don’t know.
It probably didn’t make a difference during the Imus thing but I personally called all the Mercedes dealers on the east coast to let them know they were advertising on Imus’ web site. I am ready for action. Point me in a direction.
As a parent I do not bring my kids to the movies unless I am comfortable that stereotypes are not ugly. We don’t go to the movies a lot and that is a shame. Movies can have the power for good also. Thanks for your review of the Transformers. The kids will end up watching at some point but I can bring up the issues so they can see it for what is, ugly stereotypes.
Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, and their like aren’t just talking heads for reinforcing idiotic concepts from the far right. They are actually teaching other far right radicals who can’t support their thoughtless thinking with logic the impression they can support it with insults, attacks, accusations, and rudeness. Unfortunately, since these people are in the pocket of their corporate supporters they have the full might of the corporate society to spew their rhetoric and give them legitimacy. I have to give Elizabeth Edwards much respect for her ability to resist Darth Coulter’s attacks and her attempts to lure her into the ugly dark side of the Force.
Peace
Completely off-topic, TABW, if you haven’t answered the “eight things about me” meme as yet, you have now been tagged.
Yeah, it’s funny how in AnnCoulterLand, Liberals are the worst of the worst of the worstest, but she never once makes a case for Republican/Conservative causes, and the Legitimate causes that conservativism is good for. No. She shows such ignorance of her own supposed cause that her opinions of Liberals are laughable. She’s less than a shadow puppet. It’s as if she isn’t really there.
Fgrs y ppl mss th rl str hr. Nml tht Chrs Mtthws f th dyng MSM cnsprd wth th wf f cnddt t crt bzz. Cn y mgn th wf f Rpblcn cnddt cllng mgcll t Fx Nws ntrvw f Bll Mhr r sm thr tspkn lbrl nd thn xcrt thm fr th mn mn wrds th sd bt hr hsbnd? N, bcs sm ppl hv clss.
*points and laughs*
haha adrielladrake. You are one dumb stupid bitch. Any excuse to take a swipe at those who disagree…tsk