James O'Keefe's race problem: "there's definitely way too many black people in Ohio,”

[kpete]

Wednesday, Feb 3, 2010 09:04 EST
James O'Keefe's race problem

By Max Blumenthal


......................

His right-wing admirers don't seem to mind that O’Keefe's short but storied career has been defined by a series of political stunts shot through with racial resentment. Now an activist organization that monitors hate groups has produced a photo of O'Keefe at a 2006 conference on "Race and Conservatism" that featured leading white nationalists. The photo, first published Jan. 30 on the website of the anti-racism group One Peoples Project shows O’Keefe at the gathering, which was so controversial even the ultra-right Leadership Institute, which employed O'Keefe at the time, withdrew its backing. But O'Keefe and fellow young conservative provocateur Marcus Epstein soldiered on to give anti-Semites, professional racists and proponents of Aryanism an opportunity to share their grievances and plans to make inroads in the GOP.


James O'Keefe, photographed at a white nationalist conference by One Peoples Project.

According to One Peoples Project founder Daryle Jenkins, O'Keefe was manning the literature table at the gathering that brought together anti-Semites, professional racists and proponents of Aryanism. OPP covered the event at the time, sending a freelance photographer to document the gathering. Jenkins told me the table was filled with tracts from the white supremacist right, including two pseudo-academic publications that have called blacks and Latinos genetically inferior to whites: American Renaissance and The Occidental Quarterly. The leading speaker was Jared Taylor, founder of the white nationalist group American Renaissance. "We can say for certain that James O'Keefe was at the 2006 meeting with Jared Taylor. He has absolutely no way of denying that," Jenkins said. O'Keefe's attorney did not respond to a request for comment on his client's role in the conference.

O'Keefe's racial issues can be seen in many of his prior stunts, of course. The notorious ACORN videos highlighted images of himself dressed as a pimp, deceptively edited through hidden camera footage as he baited African-American office workers into making statements that could be perceived as incriminating. There were also lesser-known but equally inflammatory spectacles like the “affirmative action bake sale” O’Keefe and his conservative comrades held when they were students at Rutgers University. During the event, O’Keefe stood at a table in the center of campus offering baked goods at reduced prices to Latinos and African-Americans while whites were forced to pay exorbitant amounts. (Native Americans, he announced, would eat free.)

................

Meanwhile, O’Keefe lost his job at the Leadership Institute in 2008 for a prank call he made to an Ohio-based Planned Parenthood clinic. During the call, O’Keefe offered a donation to the clinic on the condition that it would be earmarked to pay for aborting African-American fetuses. “Because there's definitely way too many black people in Ohio,” O’Keefe remarked to the receptionist. “So, I'm just trying to do my part.”

more:
http://www.salon.com/news/james_okeefe/index.html?story=/news/feature/2010/02/03/james_okeefe_white_nationalists

..............

UPDATE for those of you with ?s about pic (yes above was photoshopped using pic from below, duh):


...........this picture has surfaced of a now familiar face attending the forum - James O'Keefe. That's right, before the ACORN videos he produced, before the arrest for interfering with a Senator's phone lines, and just a few months after he graduated from Rutgers to work for the Leadership Institute, O'Keefe was manning a table at a forum of suit-and-tie Nazis. O'Keefe became dead letter to conservatives the moment the cuffs were slapped on him last week, but if he ever shows up again in respectable company, we hope he has explained this little outing before he pulls any more race-based stunts.

http://www.onepeoplesproject.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=309:hey-james-okeefe-about-that-white-racist-forum-you-attended-in-2006&catid=34:ye-olde-white-power-chopping-block

[spanone]

1. this young man is Trouble....with a capital T

[malaise]

14. It's all good

The more he hates the better.

[Bitwit1234]

30. Yep Yep cause when he goes to jail those black people

who happen to be in the same block that he is, will remember this.

[SpiralHawk]

23. He is the Compleat Republicon

The full embodiment of their Pharisee Family Values...

[roguevalley]

85. his eyes look dead like his soul. what a pathetic person

[Ken Burch]

93. Have to say it....he could be your central casting "Hitler Youth" with that look

n/t.

[jcollins]

2. Isn't his buddy/coconspirator Stan Dai Chinese?

[formercia]

5. Dai was reportedly born in China.

Now that would be something.

[blogslut]

24. So?

Are you trying to say that because he has a Chinese acquaintance that somehow disqualifies him as a racist?

[JI7]

54. yeah, and Strom Thurmond had a black daughter while campaiging on segregation

[Xipe Totec]

94. Honorary Arian n/t

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. He has that low forehead Neanderthal look.

In the right proportions it can make a man look dreamy, but this guy looks comatose.

[Quantess]

34. Um, he's the OPPOSITE of dreamy.

Nice low-set ears, too. The guy is flat-out ugly. If he were nicer, maybe I'd feel bad about saying so, but in his case I have no hesitation saying so.

[AspenRose]

52. Looks like the theory proves itself yet again

Those most inclined to scream about white supremacy are usually the worst examples of it.

[PSzymeczek]

67. He looks drunk.

Or high. Or both.

[Selena Harris]

109. "High" on Hate

[Quantess]

4. From what I understood about his comments to Planned Parenthood,

He was race-baiting. He was aware that he was being a racist asshole, and was trying to harrass PP while doing so.

[aquart]

8. Being aware of what you are, doesn't mean you aren't.

[LeftinOH]

6. As much as I dislike this little prick, that "photograph" is fake as hell. n/t

[KittyWampus]

12. the one in the OP looks like it's been superimposed on a headline.

[Occulus]

13. It's a mock-up

They put the white jacket on him in an image editor. Presumably, had they used the more appropriate cloak and hood, we wouldn't be able to recognize him.

I was wondering about the picture, too, until I read further down the article. Once you do that, it makes more sense.

[MUAD_DIB]

20. It still doesn't help by making the photo look doctored.

[Occulus]

86. As the second reply to my post mentions,

he himself doctored the ACORN videos.

It's only fitting that he be 'shopped into a Klansman's dinner jacket- especially considering that the source of the original is a white supremacist meeting of some sort.

Layers of irony. This story is like baklava.

[Selena Harris]

50. Well, Karma is a b---h

Wouldn't it be like karma squared if all O'Keefe's splicing and dicing had come home to roost for the ACORN chronicleer,himself?

[MUAD_DIB]

17. Delete. Message echo.

[MUAD_DIB]

18. Yes, undoubtedly.

Part of it (the coat) looks like it is an illustration.

:rofl:

[Chiyo-chichi]

101. I thought he was auditioning for one of those Charles Schwab animated commercials.

:rofl:

[Ishoutandscream2]

7. Everytime I look at this priviledged punk, I want to hit him

I know. I shouldn't be that way. But what an ass he is.

[Blackhatjack]

9. "There are obviously too many idiots like O'Keefe in this country..." n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. What a slime

[Kingofalldems]

11. Kick all Watergate II threads

[sufrommich]

15. I hope Salon isn't really saying that is a photo of O'Keefe

at the conference.Yikes,looks more that a little shopped.

[blogslut]

27. Yes

The face was photoshopped for the Salon article. However, the photo of him at the conference is real:



link: http://www.onepeoplesproject.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=309:hey-james-okeefe-about-that-white-racist-forum-you-attended-in-2006&catid=34:ye-olde-white-power-chopping-block

[madmax]

56. He looks STONED! n/t

[Winterblues]

16. I sure hope he does get some prison time but I bet he finds there are way too many blacks

there to suit him. And when they find out what he has to say about aborting black babies they may just have some words of their own for him..

[izzybeans]

19. I was a grad student at Rutgers when O'Keefe was an undergraduate

The Centurion was filled with white resentment, so this doesn't surprise me. If anyone remembers why he was fired from the Targum, I'd like to know. I remember a story about some racism on the editorial page but I don't know if it was related to him or not.

[DemoTex]

21. I wonder if O'Keefe has any connections to Louisiana racist David Duke ..

David Duke

[uppityperson]

33. KKKlassy KKKookie sale picture of his....

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/f/g/fgdesign/2010/01/okeefes-affirmative-action-bak.php
"This from Mr. O'Keefe's many albums online here. "
http://community.webshots.com/user/featherofsteel/profile

[Quantess]

51. It takes a lot of work to be that much of an asshole.

[Selena Harris]

46. What about the guy they stayed with in New Orleans?

Does anybody know of racist background on him? He's attending Loyola there,now, and was O'Keefe's mentor.

[Selena Harris]

75. Tony Perkins (Family Research Council )link to Duke

Was Landrieu's Office Set Up By Operatives Like Family Research Council? ... be a major set back, certainly pushing the bill into next year. ...
www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all...

Tony Perkins is head of Family Research Council.

Tony Perkins had bought David Duke's voter mailing list to use in a political campaign on behalf of an opponent of Mary Landrieu's some years ago.

[TheWebHead]

22. well I think the whole pimp outfit was a dead giveaway

about his racial beliefs

[seeinfweggos]

25. K+R nt

[Blue Owl]

26. why this turdburglar

is Karl Rove's pride and joy.

[tanyev]

28. Make him do his community service work in Ohio!

And require that he wear his fetching pimp-o-rama costume while he does it.

[H2O Man]

29. Definitely recommended!

Many thanks for this!

[kpete]

35. always

peace, kp

[starroute]

31. There are many racist connections among O'Keefe's backers

The OP mentions the Occidental Quarterly. The publisher of Occidental Quarterly is William H. Regnery, an unabashed white supremacist who got into the news several years ago when he proposed starting a whites-only dating service.

Regnery's name appears on a list of the officers and executives of the Intercollegiate Studies Association which I found a few years ago and which probably dates from the late 90's. The Collegiate Network which funded the conservative college papers founded or edited by O'Keefe, Basel, and Dai is part of ISI.

The president of ISI, T. Kenneth Cribb, is an old-school southern racist. Something I saved a while back that's no longer online mentions "Edwin Meese, who was President Ronald Reagan's attorney general and so anti-civil rights that, according to the Washington Post, Reagan aides James Baker and Michael Deaver called him 'Big Bigot' and his top assistant, T. Kenneth Cribb, 'Baby Bigot.'"

The list of ISI officers isn't online any more either -- but I found it at the website of the Capital Research Center, a group founded in the 80's at the instigation of the Heritage Foundation which has done more than any place else to promote scurrilous stories about ACORN. (Some of O'Keefe's statements about ACORN use language that appears to be drawn directly from CRC.)

A list from 2001 of CRC's own trustees and advisers includes both Cribb and his former boss, Ed Meese. This is important, because it suggests that CRC's anti-ACORN agenda is explicitly racist and not merely motivated by a dislike of any group that helps poor people or supports the Democratic Party.

In addition, Cribb and former Heritage Foundation president Edwin Feulner are long-time friends, and Feulner's name also appears on that ISI officers list. And Cribb is associated with Young America's Foundation, another group with roots in the Reagan era which gave O'Keefe's faux-hooker pal Hannah Giles a "Young Activist" award. (http://www.politicususa.com/en/O-Keefe-Landrieu)

For that matter, Meese himself has just re-surfaced as head of something called the Conservative Action Project. (http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/020210.html)

So what's behind O'Keefe (and probably paying for his top-level lawyers) is a dense network of old-line ultra-conservative groups with multiple racist overtones and extensive funding from right-wing foundations. Clearly O'Keefe's own racism is no anomaly.

[Selena Harris]

45. Some excellent info on Values Voters Summit and Race

Overshadowed by Tea Party Movement, the Christian Right Scrambles ...42 posts - 6 authors - Last post: Oct 20, 2009
The Tea Party movement has the juice as the religious right is on the wane. Survival may mean joining up, but that presents an image problem ...
www.alternet.org/.../overshadowed_by_tea_party_movement,_the_christian_right_scrambles_to_claim_it_isn't_racist - Cached - Similar

Tags: tea party movement | AlterNetOvershadowed by Tea Party Movement, the Christian Right Scrambles to Claim It Isn't Racist. Adele M. Stan, AlterNet. September 22, 2009. ...
www.alternet.org/tags/tea%20party%20movement/ - Cached

[AspenRose]

53. Regnery...as in Regnery Publishing?

Same outfit that publishes Ann Coulter and Newt Gingrich books? Any connection?

[Selena Harris]

55. Regnery publishes Malkin and Carrie Prejean books,also...

Breitbart.

[starroute]

62. Same family, but he's not directly connected with the publishing

There was a thread here back in 2004 when William came to people's attention.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x631259

It looks like an earlier William started the far-right publishing firm in 1947, and his son Henry and Henry's son Alfred continued in the publishing business. The current William is Alfred's brother but has not been part of the family business.

(I think the family lost control of Regnery Publishing at some point and now has a different publishing firm -- but I'm kind of rusty on this stuff.)

At any rate, there's a lot of interesting information in that thread -- everything from the elder William's ties to the Bush family to Alfred's connections with Ed Meese.

[grasswire]

87. excellent research -- kudos to you

There ought to be a repository of all these tidbits somewhere.

[Kingofalldems]

32. Kick this so all the freepers can see

[proud patriot]

36. Woo Hoo I get the pleasure of sharing this all over Facebook

:woohoo: Wheeeee !

[uppityperson]

New "fan" club on facebook. Since we all got banned off his other one...

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fans-of-James-Pussy-For-Hire-OKeefe/279644942868?ref=nf

[Quantess]

44. "O'Keefe is one of the biggest tools on the planet"

:rofl:

[Zoeisright]

37. Can we sew his fucking ugly little rat trap shut yet?

I mean, what a complete waste of oxygen.

[Dr.Phool]

38. Little David Duke O' Keefe.

This should be spread as far and wide as possible.

Fuck the little racist, fascist asshole.

[Selena Harris]

47. L'il ' "Duke" Liddy

[opihimoimoi]

39. The perfect ICONIC GOP Posterboy...paste his pic everywhere...he is a closet Nazi

[Hannah Bell]

40. very good catch.

[Kingofalldems]

41. Kick this one time

[marmar]

42. Jaundiced-looking piece of shit.......

nt

[NICO9000]

43. A racist Republican? I'm shocked! Shocked, I tells ya!

:eyes:

[nikto]

48. E-V-I-L

That's what O'Keefe's behavior IS.

This is not an opinion.

Slam-dunk FACT.

[Selena Harris]

49. Just in time for Black History Month

This guy is a gift from the GOP that just keeps on giving.

[secondwind]

57. this SOB looks just like Timothy McVeigh. And probably cut from the same cloth, too!

[PSzymeczek]

68. That's it!!!

I was trying to remember who he reminded me of! You nailed it!

[yourout]

58. I bet momma and papa are really proud of this loser.

there's definitely way too many white racist assholes in the USA.

[BlueIris]

59. Yeah, it really makes you wonder what kind of monsters

he had as parents.

[muntrv]

60. Bring this up at his trial. Goes to credibility of the witness.

[Selena Harris]

71. Can they charge him with hate crime?Racially motivated?

[Jeffersons Ghost]

61. K&R!

[mochajava666]

63. I'm liking the way this story is unfolding.

Embarrassment for the GOP and FOX. I hope this hurts Vitter, too.

[billancourt]

105. embarrassing gop and fox

speaking of embarrassing the gop and fox, what a week. the lunch, obama tongue lashing the mentally challenged. jon stewart verbally rapes o'reilly, then i just saw, i swear to god, glenn the fat ratings whore beck say that the word IRAN means aryan in farsi the persian language. aryan in the obtuse racist hitler sense. this is of course like everything else said on fox, garbage. 49% of America trusts fox news, then we got us some work to do. fox is an international embarrassment to America. the democrats have got a lot of problems but the gop ! boehner, head honcho, couldn't even say hello to the POTUS without the insulting "democrat party" thing. it's going to be trouble because ignorance is difficult to counter. like they say "it's difficult to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man"

[mochajava666]

106. Is schadenfreude OK when it comes to the GOP?

It's really hard not to feel good about the GOP's bad week, although when the Republicans show schadenfreude about all of the times we shoot ourselves in the foot, I find them petty and petulant.

I guess I can live with that, because I feel great about this week - especially since it was at the expense of the GOP.

I really hope that this O'Keefe, "Louisiana Watergate" story has legs. So far, so good.



Welcome to DU.

[DissedByBush]

64. He may be racist, but that quote is out of context

He was trying to get Planned Parenthood to go along with a blatantly racist request, and they did.

[Caretha]

65. No they didn't

Link please :)

[lolly]

98. Of course!

I'm sure Planned Parenthood took his money and earmarked it for abortions of African American babies!

THINK before you buy their drivel.

[Ranting_Wacko]

66. Steve Martin moment here...

Is it wrong for me to indulge in Schadenfreude regarding Mr. O'Keefe's predicament?

Should I feel just a bit guilty about loving every single little tidbit of information that is now coming out about his past associations and antics?

Isn't it wrong that I find myself deeply amused that this information about him being associated with White Nationalists just before he is about to go on-trial in the predominantly African American city of New Orleans?

*pause*

Naaaaaaaaaaaaah!

[Starry Messenger]

69. He looks dead behind the eyes.

I'm glad he got exposed. I'm sure Fox was rubbing its hands with glee, grooming this hateful dustrag for a spot on their news team.

[Kingofalldems]

102. Special Prosecutor kick

[Mopar151]

70. Sadly, this piece of crap is mainstream for a supremacist.

William Pierce, the dean of the supremacist movement, complained of the "defective humans" in the movement to his protoge, Erich Gliebe. Gliebe had also shown himself intensely loyal to Pierce, who viewed him as a son. That was made apparent once more at an April 20 "leadership conference" held at the compound, during which Pierce gave his last speech.

While some Alliance members were taken aback by Pierce's fierce attack on the "defective people" who make up other hate groups, Gliebe was not among them. Maybe because he worked with Kevin Strom.
Federal agents arrested Strom near his home in Stanardsville, Va., on Jan. 4, after he was indicted for allegedly having pornographic images of children on his computer between Oct. 17, 2005, and last Aug. 4.If convicted, Strom, 50, would face up to 30 years in prison. Strom was for almost two decades a deputy to William Pierce, who founded the neo-Nazi National Alliance and wrote The Turner Diaries, a book that served as the blueprint for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. One 2003 E-mail, discussing even then Strom's apparent taste for young girls, suggests the despair that such episodes engender.


"Why can't we have so much as one single leader who is just simply NORMAL? Why must there always be these weird little kibbles and bits, these little oddities, these little bits of quirky behavior lurking in the background of everything we do?" the E-mail from "Peter Dromgoole" to Bill White's website asks plaintively. "Why do we even bother? Is this really, truly, THE BEST WE CAN DO?"
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=92
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=757

I've read up on these losers for years, thru the SPLC's Intelligence Report - mostly out of morbid curiousity. You'll find them on the fringes of most far-right movements, trolling for recruits and money, hoping to "be somebody". IMHO, Pierce was right about "defective people" - including himself.

[Forkboy]

72. When I was there I didn't see enough.

[Carnage251]

73. He better pray that he isn't put in his future jail's general population

He won't last one day.

[Jefferson23]

74. He is so GOP, isn't he? n/t

[Hassin Bin Sober]

76. Fucking K and R!

[sakabatou]

77. Douche-bag extraodinaire.

[defendandprotect]

78. We need Congress to hold hearings on the ACORN/O'Keefe affair, etal ---

Thank you for getting this info out -- but I doubt the public will hear all of this

story -- the real facts about the ACORN videos -- and about O'Keefe's racism and links

to racist organizations.

[Selena Harris]

82. The Stinger is now the Stingee-ACORN fights back

ACORN mounts campaign to 'sting the stinger' - SilobreakerFeb 3, 2010 ...

ACORN mounts campaign to 'sting the stinger'. Community organizing group ACORN is calling on attorneys general in California and Maryland to ...
www.silobreaker.com/acorn-mounts-campaign-to-sting-the-stinger-5_2263207416726290432 - 7 hours ago

[defendandprotect]

103. Hi -- thanks -- so far I'm not getting thru on that link, but will try again later ---

may be me?

I had heard that they were planning to fight back --

but the Dems should be ashamed of having let this get this far along ---

especially considering how valuable ACORN proved to be in registering people

for the last election!

Unfortunately, I think ACORN is seen as the enemy not only by the GOP by by the

corporatist Dems!!

[Selena Harris]

107. Here's a different link with more info

ACORN MOUNTS CAMPAIGN TO STING THE STINGERFeb 3, 2010 ... ACORN MOUNTS CAMPAIGN TO STING THE STINGER ... urged supporters to "join in and help sting the stinger" by writing a letter to the attorneys ...
www.onepeoplesproject.com/index.php?...acorn...sting-the-stinger... - Cached-----------------------

This is a website that keeps tabs on hate groups . Some terrific additional information on the suits ACORN has ALREADY filed in two states for the surreptitious filming in ACORN offices .

It is also worth noting that the Rotten ACORN campaign a while back,was traced back to anti-unionist PR guy Rick Berman. IMHO, all ot of this anti-ACORN is to dismantle organizing (of ANY kind )and empowerment of working class people.

[The Gunslinger]

79. he should be refered to as "teabagger spokesperson" James O'Keefe

[eleny]

80. What a thundering loser

[alp227]

81. A better comment: There's too many ignorant buttheads in America.

I say this comment without regards for race, religion, or political beliefs.

[live love laugh]

83. Another conservo-dullard--I think Scott Brown when I see him. Dumb. Dumber. nt

[Name removed]

84. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Miss_Underestimated]

88. He'll probably get a talk show on FOX or Clear Channel.

:eyes:

[OnyxCollie]

89. K&R. nt

[JoeyT]

90. I'm amazed

that there aren't yet any concern trolls griping about how unhelpful it is to point out the bigotry and racism of racists and bigots.
Usually there are at least a few by now.

[era veteran]

91. Reminds me of a lot of YR's I knew back in my youth

I knew a lot of Young Republicans since I was one until Watergate. He owns the same smirk of the privileged bastards I knew. Prison will be a long race relations seminar for this puke. Drunk enough too.

[SeattleGirl]

92. James, maybe there are too many WHITE people in Ohio.

I kid, really.

But I have a question: What does "too many people" mean in this context?

If you were talking about too many people (of any color) in a store, restaurant, movie theater, etc., well, I could understand.

But how in the bloody HELL can there be too many people of a particular skin tone or tones in a certain area?

I'm serious.

Could you explain it to me?

Because, truly, I don't understand, unless I let myself believe that you are a sick fucking asshole with WAAAAAAY too much time on your hands.

Oh wait...

You ARE a sick fucking asshole with WAAAAAAY too much time on your hands.

Okay.

Got it.

You're excused. You may now return to the dank underground from which you came.

May you rot there, asshole.

[spicegal]

95. This guy is such a total puke. He needs to be exposed. Of course Fox is out there treating him

like a hero.

[Vinnie From Indy]

96. Photoshopping O'Keefe is a stupid idea

Why in the world would anyone give the defenders of O'Keefe a gift like this? His defenders will simply claim that any photo produced that they do not like was photoshopped. Stick to the facts, they are bad enough.

The reason the photoshop in the above OP is inappropriate is that it is offered as proof that he was at the conference. Photoshopping O'Keefe as a horse's ass or a Klansman or whatever is fine, but the above photoshop is not because it is being passed off as something else.

[progressoid]

97. Exactly. Let him dig his own grave.

Soon they'll be claiming it's all a big liberal media conspiracy or some such crap.

[rucky]

99. He needs a serious beat-down. n/t

[Kingofalldems]

100. Another kick for the repub apologists

Funny, they are nowhere to be seen on this one. :shrug:

[billancourt]

104. sean hannity's buddy

poor little hannity wannabee. i hope that there's a hidden camera in the showers. good luck scrawny hate monger your'e going to need it.don't be upset the bigots can't always win. reminds me of deliverance, kind of sweet revenge for this little maggot.

[NewJeffCT]

108. I bet millions of Republicans out there feel similar to O'Keefe

There are too many black people in ______ (meaning, wherever they live)

[Kingofalldems]

110. Has Fox covered this angle at all?

:shrug: