WTF do you mean by "Uppity" ?!

OK, what exactly do people mean when they say "elitist" and "uppity"? Lets talk about the elephant in the room: RACE. Some people may not be able to see through veiled racist comments aimed at Barack Obama or pretend to believe that America has finally attained the nirvana of equality- that the United States has finally achieved the ideal of a color blind nation. It makes me recall a conversation I had a couple of years ago with a young white female about racism when she said that "she didn't believe racism existed".  When I asked her what she meant, she stated that she chose "to believe that racism doesn't exist". I was amazed and flabbergasted at her comments. Just because someone chooses to believe that racism doesn't exist doesn't mean it ceases to exist or goes away. In this young lady's defense I believe that she is a reasonably intelligent average American who wishes racism didn't exist, but seriously misspoke and by doing so inserted her foot so far in her mouth that she was crapping shoe for a week! So I have come to the conclusion that there seems to be two types of racism going on in in the current politics of the nation. The blatant bare faced racism that was so prominent in the American south as evidenced by Richard Nixon's "Southern Strategy" up until the 1960's and then there is ignorance. Lets talk about the first one.

According to the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, the definition of Elitism is:

1: leadership or rule by an elite
2: the selectivity of the elite ; especially : snobbery
3: consciousness of being or belonging to an elite

And the definition of Uppity is:
Function:adjective
Etymology: probably from up + -ity (as in persnickity, variant of persnickety)

Date: 1880

putting on or marked by airs of superiority : arrogant , presumptuous

For the moment, let us examine the latter word and its origins. In researching the etymology (word origin) of the word uppity through the Online Etymology Dictionary I came across this information. The words' first recorded usage happened about "1880" and was "originally used by blacks of other blacks felt to be too self-assertive (first recorded use is in "Uncle Remus")." Uncle Remus was a collection of stories and folk tales about the deep south and told in a slave dialect. For you Disney fans out there, if you have ever ridden Thunder Mountain at Disneyland in Anaheim, it's the collection of stories where Br'er Rabbit came from. So when congressman Lynn Westmoreland (ok, you're a dude and your name is Lynn. Hmmm...) of Georgia uses the term in reference to Obama you know he's trying to stir up some doo-doo. For the record, this is what he said. "Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Senator Obama, they're a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they're uppity". When he was asked to clarify if he had used the word uppity, probably out of disbelief that someone could say something so blatantly racist he said “Uppity, yeah.” After he had made such a huge friggin' gaffe, he told the Associated Press that he was unaware that "uppity" was so offensive. Are you serious, dude? OK, lets look at the facts:

1. Born and raised in the segregated south on April 2, 1950.
2. According to the Huffington Post "Westmoreland was one of only two members of Congress (422-2) to vote against a bill named after the slain 14-year-old African-American boy, Emmett Till, which would provide funds to the FBI to investigate killings during the civil rights era."
3. Admitted that he voted against providing relief to Hurricane Katrina victims.
   
4. Advocates eliminating the United States Department of Education.
5. In 2006, he voted against renewing the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which, among other things, guarantees Blacks the right to vote.

You have to see the report with Stephen Colbert on his Colbert Report by clicking on this line.

Maybe I am reading way too much in this whole thing but look, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, then its probably some racist cracker spewing good ole boy "Southern Startegy" politics which exploits racism among white voters. When you take into consideration that in "West Virginia's primary, one out of every four Hillary Clinton voters actually admitted to pollsters that race was a factor in their vote" and that according to Time magazine "even in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio the figure was a troubling 1 in 10.

To Be Continued...