Tanning Salon Tax Is Racist, Says Doc Thompson, Fill-In Host For Glenn Beck

As the White House stumps nationwide in support of health care reform, they'll talk about how they've stopped insurance companies from dropping patients due to preexisting conditions and how they've "closed the doughnut hole" and how the youngs will be able to stay on their parents' insurance until they're old enough to go on unemployment with the rest of America.

But what they probably won't talk about is how health care reform is straight RACIST in the way it imposes unfair taxes on those Americans who are insufficiently melanin-enabled. Luckily, Glenn Beck's radio show, and its colorful guest hosts, are there to talk about this tanning salon tax, and its terrible racial discrimination.

Via Media Matters:

LISTEN:

THOMPSON: For years I've suggested that racism was in decline and yeah, there are some, you know, incidents that still happen with regards to racism, but most of the claims I've said for years, well, they're not really real. But I realize now that I was wrong. For I now too feel the pain of racism. Racism has been dropped at my front door and the front door of all lighter-skinned Americans. The health care bill the president just singed into law includes a 10 percent tax on all indoor tanning sessions starting July 1st, and I say, who uses tanning? Is it dark-skinned people? I don't think so. I would guess that most tanning sessions are from light-skinned Americans. Why would the President of the United States of America -- a man who says he understands racism, a man who has been confronted with racism -- why would he sign such a racist law? Why would he agree to do that? Well now I feel the pain of racism.

That's fill-in host Doc Thompson, serving up some piss-'n-moan blues about how this tanning salon tax is just like getting spat in the face by white supremacists and whatnot. Of course, the policymakers who included this tax on dangerous fake-tanning will probably tell you that they included the provision to spare people the pain of skin cancer, as well as sparing the citizenry the cost-burden of people who go to tanning salons to burn their skin into oblivion... but so what? This tax totally benefits only "dark-skinned Americans."

So, voila! Doc Thompson is basically the Rosa Parks of squamous cell carcinoma.

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Comments

[confuciussan]

04:04 PM on 04/02/2010

Everything to Doc Thompson is racism.

He calls his ignorance "humor" and says the Constitution protects his right to be a race-baiting ignoramus.

No wonder Glenn Beck hired him.

[gridster]

10:11 PM on 04/01/2010

Harry Reid sacrifices small business owners to the AMA gods and surprisingly most on this site don't seem to be bothered by that.. This idiotic tax --- dumb on so many levels --- was substituted for the 5% tax on dangerous and unnecessary cosmetic surgery, at the last minute, in another sleazy back room deal that never really got the attention from the press. Well now it's getting attention and it spells big trouble for the Administration.

This tax is emblematic of how we were all sold out to the medical industrial complex. I guess some of us are just becoming numb to the screwing.....oh well.

[Huffionado]

07:11 PM on 04/01/2010

This guy talks JUST LIKE Glenn Beck. If no one told me otherwise, I would have thought this WAS Beck.

[musewrites]

01:15 PM on 04/01/2010

OT, but I think what's so interesting is that eons ago, "having a tan" was looked at as a bad thing, because it implied that you were out doing field work. Having fair skin back then, almost seemed to imply that you were a member of the upper class, etc. I remember reading a sonnet by Shakespeare in which in that time period, women who were fair were seen as highly desired.

Now, in the 21st century, "tans" are seen as a luxury or socioeconomic status--this is just a theory of mine.

BTW, it is also a "myth" that black people and other darker skinned people are exempt from skin cancer. Why don't we talk about how darker skinned people are treated differently when it comes to skin cancer? When skin cancer is detected, it's usually too late. It's a little harder to detect so we're always told to check the soles of our feet and the inside of the palms of our hands.

Two years ago, I noticed a mark on the sole of my foot and went to the dermatologist to get it looked at. I felt that the doctors were taking it too lightly my concern about this suspicious looking dark spot. I was told that it was "rare". After getting it biopsed, it wasn't "melanoma", but it had the potential of turning into something more serious, so I just got it removed to be on the safe side.

[Mean Green]

06:25 AM on 04/04/2010

You are so very right. I am a medical professional and blacks are not treated, medically as whites. There was a study conducted by the New England Journal of Medicine that also confirms this. But according to our white counterparts, they are the victims now. RIGHT!!

Semper-Fi

[gomezrules]

12:21 AM on 04/01/2010

If someone proposed a tax on, say, 'corn-row hair styles', we'd be reading and hearing nothing BUT that it is racist inspired. But propose one for something that (overwhelmingly) non-blacks use, and you better not dare suggest that it's racist!

Typical..

[goodtomeetyou]

03:01 AM on 04/01/2010

Since when does "corn-row hair styles" cause cancer and put a burden on health care costs?

[CynAnne]

08:00 AM on 04/01/2010

My question exactly, good - tanning beds are proven to cause skin problems, up to and including cancer...why should I have to pay extra, to cover for some vain idiots malignant growths to be lopped off...?

[kozmo9]

11:33 AM on 04/01/2010

You mean like Bo Derek?

[gomezrules]

01:02 PM on 04/01/2010

Does Bo Derek still wear one? Haven't seen her in years, so I wouldn't know. But back when she first appeared, I didn't see a lot of white chicks donning one. Maybe they were all racists!

[LDF]

10:38 PM on 03/31/2010

Clearly this tax was aimed at one particular GOP House leader.

[donniebnyc]

12:00 PM on 04/01/2010

Can you get cancer from orange spray-on tanning?

[Lulubelle1]

10:22 PM on 03/31/2010

This story is awesome!!! Best. Ever.

I've seen people here comment, "He's kidding, you f00ls!" And others show complete outrage at this microphone jockey's substitute-teacher bloviation.

But it's STILL THE BEST!

I mean, how could anyone more perfectly and efficiently demonstrate that Beck and the other Beckerheads have gone so far over the edge that one cannot distinguish sincerity from parody? Is it the best deadpan joke ever told? Performance art? Or ins@nity?

Who can tell anymore!

[msbovary]

10:07 PM on 03/31/2010

so this is from The Onion, right?

[cdub1991]

10:06 PM on 03/31/2010

And here we thought we were trying to save the lives of our white brothers and sisters and THIS is the thanks we get!

[DarkWitch]

07:27 PM on 03/31/2010

"For I now too feel the pain of racism."

Unbelievable. Honestly, people like this make me ashamed to be in the same racial group. Just when you think they can't get any more offensive, they surprise you with something as totally ridiculous as this.

[William Young]

04:38 PM on 03/31/2010

How low can the intelligence in this country go, idiots that believe this are indeed IDIOTS!!!

[OBroadhurst]

04:38 PM on 03/31/2010

What Thompson is asserting here would be that "reverse racism" exists, actually exists, when it is in fact a delusion promulgated by white supremacists.

[BuckCarson]

04:33 PM on 03/31/2010

I must be truthfull with you progressives. The only people who still think race is an issue is you.

To me all this talk of racism amoung conservatives appears like you are taking an ink blot test. Your incessent whining about it shows it still forms the foundation of your thought processes.

Put down the "National Enquirer". Put down "People" magazine. Get out and get some fresh air!

John F. Kerry can't legislate a cure for cancer, nor can Obama himself. Go out and take a course in symbolic logic, mathematics or physics!

[OBroadhurst]

04:36 PM on 03/31/2010

"The only people who still think race is an issue is you. "

Thank you for demonstrating how race indeed remains an issue, because of people like you.

[BuckCarson]

04:40 PM on 03/31/2010

LOL - you are getting almost as good at sarcasm as a conservative. FANNED.

[damilitantone]

05:36 AM on 04/01/2010

The only people who think racism doesn't exist are most white racist American who hate to be reminded of what they are. The denial of the truth eats at these folks and the make all kinds of excuses and rationalizations to justify their racist attitudes. Case in point.

[BuckCarson]

03:54 PM on 04/01/2010

I appreciate all of your input. I realize now that because I am white, male and that I side with the tea-baggers, I am uneducated, a subversive and now a racist.

On top of that I owe so much taxes, honestly, living life further is really questionable.

Best of luck.

[RABSR]

12:01 AM on 04/02/2010

You call it like you think it is.

What make you think that Caucasians hate what they are?

The only racists I run into lately have darker skin than I do. (Or are commenting on this site)

When Blacks stop seeing themselves as victims they will be able to ignore those among us who fear non-homogeneous settings and free themselves of their self imposed bondage.

What I do dislike are people like you who see racists around every corner and continue the destructive multi-generational welfare programs that only serve to institutionalize a permanent underclass.

Have you ever wondered why legal immigrants (Asians, Indian’s, Korean’s etc) do so well after only a generation or so? Maybe you should, there’s a lesson to be learned here.

Live and let live.

[karinova]

03:41 PM on 03/31/2010

[...continued]

Not that this kind of attentional bias is limited to skin cancer of course. In the US, nonwhite people d|e of ALL cancers disproportionately. Why? Because diagnosis and treatment standards are based on the physiology of white people. (In fact, the archetypal patient that the entire medical establishment caters to is a 40-to-50-year-old white male. Awesome... if you happen to be one.) Sometimes this bias doesn't matter.

But sometimes it DOES.

Consider vitamin D. We add it to milk, cereal and flour for ONE REASON ONLY: to prevent rickets in white children. (Yes, I'm serious. Look it up.) Problem? To this day, the medical community hasn't figured out whether D supplementation is good, neutral or bad for nonwhite people! Can you imagine!? Might be helpful. Might be absolutely essential. Then again, it might be really harmful (only now are they starting to check that possibility, and— surprise!— it's not looking good). WE JUST DON'T KNOW! But let's add it to a broad chunk of the food supply ANYWAY. And let's tell EVERYONE to pathologically avoid the other major way to get it. And let's base the RDA on the amount that white men need. And let's wait 50 or 60 years to check the results. What could possibly go wrong?

[karinova]

03:36 PM on 03/31/2010

Obviously this is just a "please look at me!" gambit from FNews, but the really sad part of this (to me, anyway) is that dark-skinned people are MUCH more likely to die of skin cancer than white people. Not for physiological reasons, but for INSTITUTIONAL reasons. So... yeeeah.

- - -
And for the record, I personally think a tan tax is a dvmb, slippery-slope idea. HOWEVER.
If FNews wants to go there, one could just as well argue that decades of emphasizing melanoma as a white-person problem (eg: telling people— including doctors— to look for "ABC" moles in sun-exposed places, when melanoma in dark people tends to present totally differently) was/is, in fact, rac|sm-via-negligence.

I remember the concerted public service campaign in the 80s/90s telling (white) people to stop broiling themselves and put on sunscreen. Twenty years later, a lot of dark people continue to think that doesn't apply to them— WHY WOULD THEY when the PSAs, the doctor's office brochures, and the news segments always feature white-skinned people? And while the medical community is now WELL aware of the dark-people-don't-get-skin-cancer myth and its consequences (ie: de4th)... I've seen no PSAs aimed at dark people saying "seriously: you need sunscreen too." I mean, melanoma is what took Bob Marley. TELL PEOPLE THAT!

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