Barbara Ransby: The Rot of D’Souza’s Rant
[Barbara Ransby is a professor of history at the University of Illinois-Chicago, the author of Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision and a founder of the activist group Ella's Daughters.]
For the past 30 years, Dinesh D’Souza has fought against virtually every demand for social and racial justice that has emerged. From his 1981 outing of closeted students at Dartmouth to his ridicule of the anti-apartheid movement to his vitriolic attacks on affirmative action, D’Souza has proven himself as the Right’s favorite hitman.
In his latest rant, The Roots of Obama’s Rage, D’Souza offers—courtesy of Forbes, which adapted part of the new book for a cover story—a kooky biological theory of politics. Because Obama’s father held certain beliefs, according to D’Souza, Obama holds those beliefs. He apparently only read the title of Obama’s autobiography, and then snipped convenient half-quotes to try to dress up his otherwise raggedy argument. D’Souza’s strategy is to conjure up images of primitive immorality and licentious Africans, and thereby stoke nativist fears that are already at a boil. Obama, we are told, was inspired by “the dreams of a Luo tribesman,” a man who was a reckless and drunken polygamist and a deadbeat father. We are then urged to swallow that narrow depiction of the senior Obama and project it wholesale onto the son. It’s in the blood....
While we all have been socialized to gravitate to reductionist solutions, and simple sound bites, I hope something visceral in all of us will yearn for a bigger truth, will nag at us to say, “This is not quite right.” It is this instinct that will put us on the path to a more hopeful and just future—and away from D’Souza’s colonial nostalgia.
Read entire article at In These Times
For the past 30 years, Dinesh D’Souza has fought against virtually every demand for social and racial justice that has emerged. From his 1981 outing of closeted students at Dartmouth to his ridicule of the anti-apartheid movement to his vitriolic attacks on affirmative action, D’Souza has proven himself as the Right’s favorite hitman.
In his latest rant, The Roots of Obama’s Rage, D’Souza offers—courtesy of Forbes, which adapted part of the new book for a cover story—a kooky biological theory of politics. Because Obama’s father held certain beliefs, according to D’Souza, Obama holds those beliefs. He apparently only read the title of Obama’s autobiography, and then snipped convenient half-quotes to try to dress up his otherwise raggedy argument. D’Souza’s strategy is to conjure up images of primitive immorality and licentious Africans, and thereby stoke nativist fears that are already at a boil. Obama, we are told, was inspired by “the dreams of a Luo tribesman,” a man who was a reckless and drunken polygamist and a deadbeat father. We are then urged to swallow that narrow depiction of the senior Obama and project it wholesale onto the son. It’s in the blood....
While we all have been socialized to gravitate to reductionist solutions, and simple sound bites, I hope something visceral in all of us will yearn for a bigger truth, will nag at us to say, “This is not quite right.” It is this instinct that will put us on the path to a more hopeful and just future—and away from D’Souza’s colonial nostalgia.