March 24, 2008

March 24, 2008. I’m black and mad... Nothing makes [white people] more skittish than realizing that there are angry black people in their midst... guys such as Rush Limbaugh and Don Imus are paid to be mad. But, of course, white anger is seen as fundamentally reasoned and righteous, and Americans have an almost limitless capacity to forgive it when it isn’t... Imus was kicked off the airwaves for a racial insult he made against black women in May, but he was back at the mike in 6 month’s time; Limbaugh’s many transgressions hardly raise an eyebrow, including taunting Obama as “Barack, the magic Negro,”... William Buckley was eulogized as a genteel genius a few weeks ago, his sanctioning of Jim Crow laws in the South in the 1950s written off as a forgettable faux pas. Buckley’s real genius was dressing up white anger in the guise of intellect. Black anger is never seen as intellectual in nature, merely primal, and black public figures therefore have no such latitude (unless, of course, they’re in the conservative camp already, in which case they can rail to their heart’s content.) Erin Kaplan, LATimes SBT B7

--Efforts [by Circuit City] to cut expenses and improve results by reassigning some store employees and replacing 3000 higher-paid workers backfired last year as sales of high-margin home-theatre systems, warranties and accessories declined in the hands of a less-experienced staff. Instead of an expected upturn, the company now sees a “modest loss” for the fourth quarter that ended Feb. 29 and a pretax loss of between $100 million and $200 million for the full year. WSJ C2