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    JohninLATom Scocca
    7/16/13 4:39pm

    Here was finery and taste...

    For some reason, this struck me as the most insulting of all the Cohen-isms referenced above. I'm not sure why.

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      yvanehtniojJohninLA
      7/16/13 4:43pm

      It's like when Bill O'Reilly went to dinner in Harlem and then gushed about how civilized everyone in the restaurant was. "There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, 'M-Fer, I want more iced tea.' "

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      Tom ScoccaJohninLA
      7/16/13 4:50pm

      I totally agree with this assessment! Columns about how it was right to be scared of black teens were common stuff back then. But the one about how amazingly classy black people can be ... that's a fascinating document.

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    FrietagTom Scocca
    7/17/13 5:30pm

    I never knew any of this.

    Why? Because nobody else in the press ever brings it up.

    That's because "Cohen is usually classified as a 'liberal' ... writes for the Washington Post and is broadly sympathetic to Democratic policies."

    That's it. I guarantee you.

    If Cohen were registered Republican, he would have received an "education by getting canned from the Post" for any of the offenses listed.

    Think about it. Imagine if he were a Republican (like, say, the Post's token Republican, Jennifer Rubin). Imagine him writing those things, or doing those things, and keeping his job. Rubbish. He'd be terminated for cause.

    But he's useful to the Left, because he writes for one of our biggest newspapers and always supports the Left on financial policies (and let's face it, on virtually everything else). So they don't target him the way they would target Jennifer Rubin.

    Sigh.

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      Tom ScoccaFrietag
      7/17/13 6:02pm

      "The Post's token Republican"? The Post employs George Will, Kathleen Parker, and two Bush speechwriters, Mark Thiessen and Michael Gerson—and those are just the full-time opinion columnists. And they routinely write things that are spectacularly offensive to liberal sensibilities. The Post's opinion section is fanatically dedicated to "balance," in the sense of airing the establishment views of both major parties. They have an entire section of their website dedicated to presenting right-wing views without interference from liberal views (and vice versa). Where does this totally unsubstantiated Republican victimological bullshit come from?

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    TheOneDaveTom Scocca
    7/16/13 5:34pm

    Being Tom Scocca must be great. Whereas most writers have to have "ideas" or "arguments" or "insight", Tom can spend an afternoon Googling someone, sarcastically call them names for 1200 words and cash the check.

    Bravo, sir.

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      Tom ScoccaTheOneDave
      7/16/13 5:42pm

      It's OK.

      It was more Nexis, though.

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    Sparkle_MotionTom Scocca
    7/16/13 4:40pm

    Richard Cohen is a racist nitwit.

    He's also deeply, deeply afraid of hooded sweatshirts. From the same piece:

    . . . I also can understand why Zimmerman was suspicious and why he thought Martin was wearing a uniform we all recognize. I don’t know whether Zimmerman is a racist. But I’m tired of politicians and others who have donned hoodies in solidarity with Martin and who essentially suggest that, for recognizing the reality of urban crime in the United States, I am a racist. The hoodie blinds them as much as it did Zimmerman.

    I hope Cohen never visits a college campus in October. He'd think it was overrun by gang-members . . . .

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      cheerful_exgirlfriendSparkle_Motion
      7/16/13 4:51pm

      The uniform was his skin - Michael Eric Dyson

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      Sparkle_Motioncheerful_exgirlfriend
      7/16/13 4:54pm

      That's haunting and nauseating and so so very sadly true . . . .

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    Graby SauceTom Scocca
    7/16/13 4:58pm

    It's one thing to acknowledge that black people disproportionately feature in crime statistics as victims and perpetrators.

    It's another altogether to ignore the fact that the vast majority of black people don't feature in either.

    Cohen (presumably) lives in the DC area with tens (hundreds?) of thousands of educated, upwardly mobile, non-criminal black people. He works at the Washington Post with scores of black people. He ignores all of those non-criminal black people and their similarly upwardly mobile, non-criminal kids to try to justify his fear of black youths.

    If we feared the worst of every race that presents disproportionately in certain criminal categories, we'd assume every white person we met was a racist mass murderer who will steal money right out of our bank or retirement accounts.

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      SetFiretoTheRoomGraby Sauce
      7/16/13 5:13pm

      I don't understand how he manages to write things like this and then look his colleagues in the eye. Do you think he's secretly afraid that one day Eugene Robinson is going to knife him in the hallway? That Colbert King will mug him on his way out to his car at night? That Courtland Milloy has just been WAITING all these years to stick it to whitey?

      I mean, it's fine, they're all black men, so such a fear is totally understandable.

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      sui_generisGraby Sauce
      7/16/13 6:43pm

      Not to mention that when it comes to crime and violence, economic class is the most valid predictor, not how much melanin someone has in their skin.

      I'd be a lot more worried about being mugged by a mob of poor white people than by a mob of middle-class black people.

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    ItsARampageLanaTom Scocca
    7/16/13 4:30pm

    If I may quote Alex Pareene, late-ish of Gawker,

    I sometimes ask myself, who is the intended audience of a Richard Cohen column? Who reads a Richard Cohen column and thinks to himself, “Yes, I agree with this”?

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      NotGodotItsARampageLana
      7/16/13 4:35pm

      A lot of Democrats, actually. Particularly in cities like New York and San Francisco, or in Academia.

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      frieda406NotGodot
      7/16/13 4:54pm
      Facts, please.
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    PredatrixTom Scocca
    7/16/13 4:33pm

    Somebody must have hard numbers on how many adults each year are killed by teenagers. I suspect the number is minuscule, even before you break it down by race. Wasn't this super-predator bullshit debunked years ago?

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      kimbersaysTom Scocca
      7/16/13 4:57pm

      In my experience (having lived in LA, DC (Logan Circle in the early 90s), downtown Baltimore and now Austin), I have been treated with more courtesy, respect and safety by African-American men than by the likes of Richard Cohen. To wit: when I was pregnant, I lived in Baltimore and rode the MARC commuter train to my job near the Farragut West Metro station. Every day for about three months, I took a written tally of who offered me their seat on the Metro, broken down by race and gender. Number one by far were young African-American males and white males were the worst. One white middle-aged guy shoved me out of the way as I was boarding the Metro and I had to step back to the platform to avoid falling. I was 5'3" and hugely pregnant. Yes, I missed that train. But AAs were-to a person-courteous and polite. To be clear, I didn't always need to sit after sitting for an hour on the MARC; I just found it a very interesting exercise. Conversely, who makes me feel unsafe? Large groups of white frat boys. They unnerve me. (By the way, I'm white.)

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        thailandrebkimbersays
        7/16/13 5:45pm

        who's the one doing the racial profiling now?

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        Valerie Jokimbersays
        7/16/13 6:02pm

        This is my experience, too, and I'm white. Not the pregnancy, but... I've had personal experiences that were the reverse of what someone like Cohen would expect. Black men helping with a flat tire on a lonely street, white men attempting an abduction on a lonely street. The funny thing? I knew the black guys were ok by looking at them, and I knew the white guys weren't - even though the whites looked clean cut. It wasn't the race or clothes that told me who to trust, it was something else, something intangible, that let me know that the black men were just a couple of regular guys out for a walk and the white guys were predators.

        The first time I went to the mall with a black friend was my first experience with overt racism. I did not know that people like Cohen just let it fly when they're out in public. Oh, they do it quietly, a little aside as they pass by, lips barely moving, sneakily getting in their racist epithets... my god. Just unbelievable. Hey, if anyone thinks this is post-racial America, just ask a black person to hang out with you at the mall or some other public place. Wake up and smell the pure venom and hate.

        As a white person I have a few stories of institutional racism as well. I guess since I'm white, I'm supposed to understand and agree? Well, I don't. I'm just sickened by it all. Tired and sick of seeing bad people win.

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      UncleCCClaudiusTom Scocca
      7/16/13 4:31pm

      Newborn Rat Colored Power!

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        blackintrovertTom Scocca
        7/16/13 4:47pm

        "Richard Cohen views women as sex objects and black men as dangers."

        I don't want to know what his views on black women are, but I think I have a pretty good idea: we're completely worthless.

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