“Black heritage. Whoo hoo! That is teh awesome. I goin' be try'n escpe from de massa's house to be goin' to dis heah black her'tge trail. Y'sm sir!"

Donald Douglas, an associate professor of political science at Long Beach Community College in CA, seems contemptuous of black heritage, or of Boston's Black Heritage Trail, at least.

“Black heritage. Whoo hoo! That is teh awesome. I goin' be try'n escpe from de massa's house to be goin' to dis heah black her'tge trail. Y'sm sir!"

[Posted by Donald Douglas to THE SWASH ZONE: BLACK HERITAGE TRAIL, BOSTON, MASS. at 10:27 PM, February 17, 2010] (This comment was subsequently removed by a blog administrator.)

The post to which he appended that comment seems anything but controversial or partisan. Much of the post quotes the same "black heritage trail" link I used above. (A fact I did not know when I chose it.) Whatever the reason Donald Douglas chose to affect a mocking "black" dialect and reply so nastily to the post, it wasn't disagreement with the politics of it, because there were no politics in it.

I'm frequently amazed and appalled at some of the things Dr. Donald Douglas says and does, and his "faux black dialect" commentary is among the most offensive stuff he posts. Half black or not, the guy talks like a racist, and taken together with his penchant for attacking men with whom he doesn't agree by suggesting (if not actually saying) that they're gay--apparently believing that gay men are not "real" men and thus less worthy of respect--exposes him as the bigot he is. (And that's to say nothing of his anti-muslim posts & commentary.)

So, it certainly doesn't surprise me that he would post something as offensive as the comment quoted above, but--as frequently happens with things Professor Donald Douglas posts--I am left wondering why he would stoop so low. (I mean, I know what I think... As with most things outside of himself--and while he claims to be a black man when it suits his political meme, culturally, his story (& photo, too) is mighty white--Donald Douglas mocks and attacks anything & everything he does not understand or agree with, from homosexuals, to those to his political left (including moderate Republicans), to stereotypically black culture. Donald is a bigot, sexually, politically, and in some ways racially, as well. That much is obvious... What I wonder is, what was he thinking, that would make him say such a thing?) Is he opposed to Black history and heritage? Does he have something against the trail in Boston? Does he think it's unamerican to speak of slavery, because it reflects poorly on America and the necocon catechism of American exceptionalism in all things? What exactly was his motivation? And the answer is... ...I haven't a clue. All I know is that he went out of his way to append a pretty mockingly racist comment to a non-controversial post on a liberal blog.

That isn't the end of the story, of course... After the author of the post removed the offensive comment, Octopus, one of my former compatriots, both here at AmNi and at The Swash Zone, struck back: THE SWASH ZONE: THE RACIST BIGOT WHO TEACHES AT LONG BEACH CITY COLLEGE

Yesterday, an abusive troll posted a bigoted comment under Shaw’s article. One would think a white supremacist would post such a comment. What makes this incident more shocking; a professor of political science who teaches at a public community college posted the comment. One would assume the same institution employs and educates minorities.
...
Professor Douglas is no stranger to the Swash Zone. He makes regular visits to harass our writers and readers and trash our beach. Usually, our ever vigilante Swash Zoners delete these comments.

The post ends with info to contact various people at Long Beach City College to register a complaint.

Now, while there's no love lost between Donald Douglas and myself, I have to come out against contacting his employers directly. It's one thing to blog about his offenses, and even go so far as to post that the relevant folks at Long Beach City College should make themselves aware of the things he's writing online, should anything he says reflect poorly on the institution and it's reputation, legally or otherwise. (Dr. Donald Douglas is the only professor at Long Beach City College I know anything about... But if I were to know someone who was considering attending and had a choice, I would certainly advise against going there, on the off chance they ended up having to take a course with the guy. And were I a parent of a prospective student, I would be sure to make the admissions department aware of that, too.)

But knowing about the things that Donald Douglas (and all their employees, for that matter) is doing that may reflect poorly on Long Beach City College is their responsibility. While I certainly agree that Donald's bigotry is a matter about which they ought to be concerned, those of us on the blogesphere who disagree with him don't have the underlying grounds to speak to the school about it. We are not students or the guardians of students. He is not being a bigot or trolling our blogs in his capacity as a Long Beach City College employee. (The closest he comes is whipping out his position as a college level PoliSci associate professor and essentially yelling "respect my authoritay!!!" in his best Eric Cartman voice...which in my experience over the years, generally leaves folks saying "He's a professor? Really?!?)

When he's blogging, he's just another private citizen, albeit a bigoted one. And just as we wouldn't want anyone contacting our employers because they disagree with the political or social views that we post in our spare time, we shouldn't be hounding Donald at his job for the blogging he does as a private citizen... ...not unless we have a good reason, anyway (such as being the parent of a student at the school, or God forbid, in one of the man's classes, for instance.)

I'm not saying that Long Beach City College shouldn't be aware of what Donald Douglas says and does in public, or care how his words and deeds may reflect on the institution... I'm just saying that I don't think it's our place to tell them quite so directly, if they don't already know...

Of course, Donald Douglas was quick to reply, as well: American Power: Swash Zone's Cyber-Bully Harassment Escalates!

A few quick things:
1) Donald Douglas' calling anyone a cyber-bully is highly pot/kettle. Barely a day goes by that he isn't attacking someone--often personally, with name-calling and insinuations that have nothing to do with the subject at hand--for what they believe and say politically or socially. And because of that...

2) seeing Donald Douglas once again playing the victim card -- even though I agree with him to a certain extent, as far as this subject goes -- strikes me as pretty damned hypocritical and sad. While I agree that contacting his place of employment without grounds to do so (being a LBCC student/parent) is wrong, his whining about it as though he does nothing to provoke such reactions in people (part of the very definition of a troll) is nuts.

3) I notice that in his AmPow post, Donald Douglas does not defend--or address in any way--the bigoted comment he made at The Swash Zone Blog that resulted in the "RACIST BIGOT" post.:

“Black heritage. Whoo hoo!

That is teh awesome. I goin' be try'n escpe from de massa's house to be goin' to dis heah black her'tge trail. Y'sm sir!"

[Posted by Donald Douglas to THE SWASH ZONE: BLACK HERITAGE TRAIL, BOSTON, MASS. at 10:27 PM, February 17, 2010] (This comment was subsequently removed by a blog administrator.)

-------------------------

Regular readers are aware that this is not the first such squabble about Donald Douglas, blogging, and folks talking to Long Beach City College about his internet antics. Indeed there have been a several, back and forth, between Donald Douglas and Octopus, and on another occasion, Donald Douglas and ED Kain. Those interested in the history can follow the links below:

2/12/2009 - American Nihilist: DEFAMATION - DONALD STYLE
2/15/2009 - American Power: (O)CT(O)PUS = CYBER-BULLY
6/7/2009 - American Power: Blogging Anonymity and Blogging Ethics
12/14/2009 - American Power: E.D. Kain Alleges Defamation: True/Slant Blogger's Workplace Intimidation Attempts to Shut Down American Power!
12/15/2009 - American Nihilist: Donald Douglas stamps his feet in a(nother) petulant frenzy

And finally: Some thoughts posted here were copied (though in some cases, revised and extended, a bit) from comments posted at Immoderate Monk: Confronting Bigotry, While Respecting Personal Expression, & offered at the "racist bigot" Swash Zone post, as well (link #1 & link #2)

And as of this post, one more alleged reply to this situation from Professor Donald Douglas (though it fails to address much of anything on this topic, really (not even the comment to which he claimed to be replying "planning to murder Rush Limbaugh when I suggested he be fired"? Not the link you offered, Don, but this one: American Power: Executing Rush Limbaugh?)... Just Nazi references and another in his seemingly endless series of liberal "enemies lists," including yours, truly, natch...): American Power: As Disgusting as Joseph Goebbels? UPDATE: While I offered this last bit--about his addressing the wrong link--as a comment at the "Goebbels" post, Donald chose not to allow it to appear.

Another UPDATE: (In reply to a link to this post from American Power)):

Professor Douglas paints a very odd and contradictory picture with this Jeff Goldstein Knows a Thing or Two About Low-Life Leftist Scum post.

The story is thus, according to the opinion piece from FoxNews.com, to which Donald links:

Right-wing blogger Jeff Goldstein maintains a well-respected site entitled Protein Wisdom. Left-wing Deborah Frisch maintains the south(west)paw blog. She prides herself on attacking 'right-wing nuts' -- or 'wingnuts' in blogspeak -- by posting insults on their websites. (Left-wingers are referred to as 'moonbats'.)

An exchange on Protein Wisdom between Goldstein and Frisch turned so nasty that it landed in the mainstream media. On July 12, Brit Hume of FOX News reported, "Deborah Frisch escalated a foreign policy argument with blogger Jeff Goldstein last week, writing that if 'someone shot you and your 'tyke' it wouldn't slow me down one iota.' She also wrote that she hopes 'no one Jon-Benets' the child -- a reference to the brutal murder of a young Colorado girl ten years ago -- and made disturbing sexual remarks about the boy."
...
On July 8, the columnist Michelle Malkin reposted some of Frisch's comments on her own blog. Other conservative sites linked to Malkin and the matter snowballed.

Malkin also nominated Frisch as "Unhinged Academic of the Year." That's because Frisch is an adjunct professor of psychology at the University of Arizona. Or, rather, she was. In backlash against her gleeful and graphic speculation about sexual contact with a 2-year-old, emails poured into the University. On July 8, Frisch 'resigned' her $32,861-a-year part-time position.

Phoenix Democrat, a blogger at Daily Kos (to whom Donald also links, but misidentifies as Markos, himself--which is pretty typical... All liberals look alike to Donald, and this isn't the first time that he's maligned the wrong one--in fact his usual MO is to just tar everyone who ever read or commented there, from Markos on down, for the "evil" words of whatever Kos blogger he's on about) continues the story:

Yet, after her apologizes, the attacks against her by anonymous conservative cowards intensified. These trolls, who are no better than white supremacists who engage in these same kinds of tactics, have flooded Debroah Frisch's blog and her former employer with online posts and E-mails that were vile and threatening.

Here are some excerpts courtesy of the (Tucson) Arizona Daily Star:

"Deborah Frisch's comments on the Web site (name of Web site deleted) created such a furor she has been lambasted on countless conservative Web sites. Her boss at the University of Arizona also received irate E-mails calling for her termination, she said.

"Alfred Kaszniak, head of the psychology department, said he has received close to 300 E-mails about the incident. 'The majority were very angry and many of them were using similar kinds of language that she is alleged to have used, accusing myself and the university of all sorts of things,' he said.

"Frisch, 44, said she quit her $32,861-a-year part time position not only because she fears for her safety, but because she regrets the UA ended up in the middle of what was intended to be a 'sick joke.'

"She had hoped by quitting her job, supporters of blogger Jeff Goldstein would stop their online attacks. If anything, she said, they've increased.

"'These people think I should be incarcerated, that I'm mentally ill or that I should be shot,' Frisch said during a telephone interview from Eugene, Oregon, where she is living now. 'This whole thing has been crazy to me. People have spent their whole weekend on this.'"

So who's the aggressor here? Yes, we can all denounce what Deborah Frisch said and did and not condone her comments. However, this incident brings to mind an incident here in Arizona when the son of the Democratic Senate candidate was arrested months ago for drugs. Shortly after that arrest, a conservative Republican State Senator, Jack Harper, lashed out not only at the Senate candidate but also at his entire family by saying on the Senate floor that there was a "culture of corruption" in that family.

So is it O.K. for conservative Republicans to attack another person's family and not the other way around?

Anyone who doesn't see the irony here--including Dr. Douglas--must be blind.

In the Frisch case we have a leftwing blogger and college professor who makes disgusting comments on a rightwing blog, and wingnuts respond by outing her up to then pseudononymous identity and contact her place of employment, to the tune of about 300 e-mails to her department head alone. Outrage from Professor Donald Douglas? Zero. In point of fact, he seems to be on the opposing side, justifying what his rightwing brethren did.

In the Douglas case, we have a rightwing blogger and college professor who makes disgusting comments on a leftwing blog, and when a few leftwingers respond in pretty much the same way as the rightwing bloggers above, Donald goes apeshit.

If it's wrong to hit a blogger personally or professionally for what they say on their blog--and as I've said, I believe it is--than it's wrong, no matter whose ox is being gored...

What Frisch said was absolutely reprehensible--and if anyone's wondering whether I believe what she said is worse than what he said, I do--but I don't think that that game of moral relativism is appropriate, here. Neither Professor Frisch's disgusting comment or Dr. Donald Douglas' disgusting comment warrant attacking them at their places of employment. Neither one.

For Donald to applaud one and howl about the other is just another in his long line of hypocritical "yes for me, but not for thee" mixed messages. Either it's wrong or it isn't, and Donald Douglas would do well to stop talking out of both sides of his mouth & decide what he actually stands for.