The one thing I do want to know is whether or not the NAACP suspected that this would happen:
If you haven’t heard about this, here’s the story: The NAACP hosted a forum/debate for Republican candidates and out of nine invited candidates, only one (Tom Tancredo) showed up. For a similar forum hosted for Democrats, all the candidates showed up.
Whether or not they expected this result, the message is clear—racism is still the bread and butter of the GOP and most Republican candidates would rather come across as big, steaming racists rather than risk pissing off their base that bases so much of their vote on hate. So good for the NAACP for drawing attention to this fact, which is desperately ignored by a good deal of the punditry on the left and the right. Which can in turn create some giant judgment errors in those who would offer advice to the Democrats.
For instance, Digby catches Amy Sullivan drawing exactly the wrong conclusion about Barack Obama and the Bible-thumpers.
Sullivan interprets the poll results to mean that more people think Obama is religious because the Democrats have always “outsourced” their religion to the negroes. Maybe she’s right. But Sullivan seems to think this means that Obama is going to get a lot of red state Republicans to vote for him. I’m not kidding. She honestly believes that because Obama is a religious guy that Republicans will vote for a black liberal from Illinois and bring home those red state electoral votes. All roads lead to church, trumping every other signifier.
It’s important to remember that the religious right as we know it started in opposition to Brown vs. the Board of Education and other civil rights decisions and legislation. (Remember that Jerry Falwell was on the records as saying civil rights were better called “civil wrongs”.) Jesus is a cover story. It’s an excuse to plug racism, sexism, homophobia, and American imperialism under the guise of religion.
I think it’s hard for a lot of liberals to remember how critical racist resentment is for maintaining the GOP base. There’s sort of a polite nodding and taking code words like “rapper” and “welfare mother” on face value, and a short memory about how the modern Republican party really came into being with the influx of Dixiecrats after the Civil Rights Act.* But that resentment is right there, easy to spot. Check out Jonah Goldberg throwing a temper tantrum about civil rights:
What’s refreshing about this is that Yglesias is honestly and correctly admitting that liberals have no problem imposing their morality on others via a powerful and intrusive state. I wish that most liberals were as honest.
The imposed morality is not of a personal sort like your reproductive rights. Nope, Goldberg is whining about the civil rights movement and other anti-discrimination legislation, which, last I checked, was not a matter of personal morality so much a matter of social justice. Now, I’m splitting hairs from a white supremacist sexist point of view—after all, what the white man does with his women and his black people is his business, right? It’s not like they’re citizens and not property, right?
Okay, fish in barrel, sure, but a solid reminder that without all these racist resentments to exploit, the GOP’s base would drift away. And they know it, which is why the redoubling of efforts to insult the NAACP, particularly now that they’re realizing that the War on Terra wasn’t as big a check as they hoped and the War on the Red Menace is yesterday’s news.
*Funniest result of the memory hole: Conservatives, usually quite racist themselves, who try to make a big deal out of the Democrats who fought civil rights legislation (who, like Strom Thurmond, often later became Republicans) or wielding the name of Abraham Lincoln, as if the Emancipation Proclamation bought them a bankful of good will so they get to screw black people over willy-nilly for many decades to come until they run in the red.
79 Responses to “They can’t afford to antagonize their base”
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Do liberals have a hard time remembering how much racism is a huge part of the Republican base? Really? It’s right up there with misogyny and homophobia– it’s always at the forefront of my mind and their politics. I didn’t think you could miss it.
By the same token, though, I did get into an argument the other day over whether or not the Republican party is inherently racist. And I was pretty shocked then to realize that I would face opposition in that area. I mean . . . come on.
I think that our society is purposely blind to racism, even when it’s staring them right in the face. Of course, racism and ugly and so most white people are a lot more comfortable pretending that it’s over. I’m white, and it’s infinitely frustrating to discus racism with any of the not-overtly-political white people I know.
It seems to me that the republicans are actually trying to extend their racist base with their couched language about immigrants and muslims. They have been pounding on these two groups particularly hard for the past few years . Certainly it is more socially acceptable to display racist attitudes towards the less politically empowered, but I am surprised that the Republicans would so ignore the NAACP, given that the Religious right has been courting the African American community so hard.
Huh? After the tantrum the hardcore right threw over Bush not demonizing & gitmo-izing immigrants?
I dunno what liberals you’re talking about. Honestly, a person could hardly miss the upfront sneering racism of about 2/3 of the conservatives one talks to, though of course those running for office try & avoid plain speaking. And the other third…well, they are crazy.
Crazier. Something.
Funny…in 2004 I lived in Detroit. There was a town hall meeting held for THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES. The only one who showed was Al Sharpton. Remember…only degree, not kind. The difference in degree between Dem & Rep can be huge, mind you, and is now. But still.
There is racism, and there is racism. Some racism is hate. Other racism is entitlement & privilege all wrapped up in a pretty “color blind” package.
As a lib born in ‘82 and educated primarily in public schools, I’d say that most of my contemporaries are only beginning to see hints that racism -still exists,- let alone recognize how deeply entwined it is with politics. We were taught that the era of racism ended with the efforts of MLK, Jr. (being racially homogenous, it was hard to tell otherwise). A comfortable belief which lets you blame the actual symptoms of racism (such as all those blacks in prison?) on other things (they need to own up to responsibility!–oops, is that racism?)
Of course, “waking up” to the facts of our nation depends on a number of things. The person has to be paying attention in the first place, which quite a consideration, considering there’s a damn good chance that this is the time it’s hand-to-mouth, whether theywent to college or not. Also, they have to be personally willing to face ugly truths, which many people simply aren’t. A new world view often brings with it uncomfortable realizations concerning past actions and beliefs (“I was such an ass to make that joke about affirmative action to Joe…and I have no way to apologize anymore.”), and when one adjusts one’s moral/ethical code to the new beliefs, this may demand high standards of behavior (“Do I have to do everything I can to help the homeless man with the sign to food and shelter?”). It can also bring about ostracization (“Well, I can’t stand by and not say anything about how blatantly sexist and wrong this is, but I’m going to lose friends over this…this is going to suck.”).
While I think that the media refrains from calling Republicans racist, I don’t think that most people do not understand that there is a lot of racism on the right…regardless of their assertions that they are color blind. (depicted with perfect irony by Mr Colbert!)
I wish that picture was seen on the front pages of many newspapers, for one need say nothing about the Republicans, their absence says it all.
“Do liberals have a hard time remembering how much racism is a huge part of the Republican base? Really?”
Actually, given that the GOP tries to fight back by saying “zomglol Dems are teh real rasists cuz Robert sheetz Byrd wuz a kkkleagle 60 yearz ago!!11!!!1! and we r teh party of lincoln, k3n blackwell, michael steele and cond1 r1ce!!11!” I think a lot of Dems ARE wrongly buying the idea that Repubs might not be too much into racism.
Well, to be honest, neither party is inherently anything. Prior to the civil rights movement, the Democrats were the party of the Jim Crow South, not to mention the party of anti-abolitionism. The Republicans were at least founded on anti-racist principles. Both parties are happy to flippity flop any way that will keep them in power.
Are modern-day Republicans, as people, probably inherently racist? Yeah. But the party itself is no more “inherently” anything you can think of, any more than the Dems are.
The Republics are reaching the critical mass and the end result of Nixon’s “southern strategy.” This is the strategy of doing outreach to all the racist/sexist/homophobes in the south who were hollering “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, it left me.” Starting with Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats up through the folks like Trent Lott and Richard Shelby.
As for myself, a southern born and bred proud liberal, all I can say to them is good riddance and I’m quite glad that my party left the racist/sexist/homophobic haters behind. It is going to pretty much assure the total marginalization of the Rs as a regional party for decades to come.
BTW, Tancredo is no great shakes but he was given a standing O for just showing up.
The Republican Party executed a hostile takeover of the white racist vote in the 1970s from the Democratic Party that had largely owned that block in the South. The Republicans largely won that block, and now perversely attack the rump Democrats for not having surrendered that racist block to the GOP sooner. They don’t say it precisely that way but that’s the logical conclusion: “you evil Democrats did not surrender the racists to us sooner, you racists!!?? HAHAHAHA. Robert Byrd Robert Byrd Kleagle Kleagle hahaha…” You know the drill.
Reagan started his 1980 campaign in Philadelphia, MS, for a reason. No one accidentally starts anything in Philadelphia, Mississippi. It’s near nothing. It’s en route from nothing to nothing. It takes two planes and a rental car to get there. Even the people who live in Philadelphia, Mississippi don’t go there, so to speak. It’s not Jackson, it’s not Oxford, it’s not Biloxi. It’s nothing, except a gravesite for civil rights workers got murdered by right-wing presumably theocratic state’s rights terrorists. Reagan needed the voters who wanted to go easy on the poor terrorists. Reagan was doing nothing but plucking fruit from the same tree that Nixon had pruned.
What others have missed is the Nixon-going-to-China effect of Tancredo’s appearance. Tancredo’s credentials as a severe racist are so secure that he can get a pass. Plus Tancredo is going nowhere anyway; he would have to campaign very hard to come in 5th or 6th.
Not to mention that Tancredo’s main policy plank is that he is so anti-immigration he makes Michael Savage look like Jane Addams. His M.O. in showing up is to lure disgruntled black workers into his pocket by telling them the immigrants are stealing all their jobs.
Bruce/Crablaw makes an interesting point about Tancredo and the Nixon-going-to-China effect. I really that’s brilliant insight Bruce, the fact that Tancredo is the one who showed up really blindsided me, and Bruce’s analysis is quite satisfying.
Saturday Night Scattershot — Open Thread –…
One thing I always liked about Saturday night surfing is the too-little employed life tactic of laying low, you know? When it’s you and the pixels all night very little or no money will be spent, no risks taken on the open road, no exposures to patho…
That’s what I was talking about, Opoponax, and my statement in the actual argument that took place was that Republicans were racist, not the Republican party. I think that when we say “the Republican party,” it’s generally understood that we’re talking that modern day political party, so I do feel pretty comfortable saying that the Republican party is racist. I suppose that my comments here, using the word “inherently” with regard to the party was sloppiness, and I agree with your comment. I just wanted to make it clear what I was trying to get across, and how I worded it in the actual argument I was referring to.
No biggie, Cara. Just playin’ pedant.
The strange fruit. Those of us who know the names Cheney, Schwerner and Goodman know exactly what Reagan was doing and to whom he was appealing.
The NAACP calls for treating college applicants differently based on the color of their skin. That is, by definition, racist. Therefore, the democrats have 100% racist candidates, and only one third- or fourth-tier republican candidate is racist.
It’s good that the racist NAACP brought this to light.
MA Jeff - yes, you stuck that perfectly.
has lurker ever added anything of value to a thread?
thanks Bruce/Crablaw.
I agree with the folks who think that explicitly calling the republican party racist would require most white liberals to (at least briefly) confront the racism inherent in their own lives. White privilege is hard for a lot of people to admit to.
And “We’re trying to get better and they’re not” doesn’t seem terribly rousing. (Which of course brings up another element of white liberal privilege, namely the belief that we constitute the democratic party…)
But of course the whole society bein permeated with racism and oppression and basically every white person benefiting from it and the relatively RECENT history of making sure that blacks didn’t benefit from the middle-class wealth building…none of that’s racist, or implies that to heal the whole society we need to do anything in particular except pretend there’s no such thing as racism except for that of the NAACP…right.
So important that the only privilege based on race be that of white folks, isn’t it?
MAJeff, the God of Biscuits asks:
No.
This has been another case of simple answers to simple questions.
Richard, oh wonderous supplier of simple answers:
Should Lurker be bunnied?
And to think that, two years ago, the RNC chairman addressed the NAACP convention, apologizing for the Republican Party’s past behavior and asking black voters to give them a chance… truly a heartfelt moment! But the electoral bacon wasn’t forthcoming in the ‘06 election, and old habits have kicked back in.
You’d think that Muslims and Mexicans would be enough to satiate their hatred, but right-wingers will always have a special place in their hearts for African-Americans. For the Republican brand, they’re like the classic series of footwear or soft drinks: very reliable — products to fall back on when the business cycle is at an ebb. You don’t even have to worry about marketing; people know what they’re buying.
One can only hope that, having basically alienated every demographic group aside from white Christians, Republicans are going to fall into a downward spiral of pandering to the hardcore reactionaries, showing their true faces in the process, and scaring everybody off (I’m thinking of the politically lazy soccer moms and affiliated suburbanites, who’re beginning to wake up after years of Republican misrule).
The comments on Jeffrey Feldman’s post about this are as ugly as they’re predictable. Gee, the NAACP are the real racists? Oh, do tell.
MAJeff, the God of Biscuits asks:
Works for me!
Honestly, I think Tancredo showed up because he’s too fucking stupid to realize that he didn’t have to. Seriously, the man makes Sam Brownback look like a Rhodes scholar.
Your ass has had a busy day, it seems – what, with all those stats pouring out of it.
The politically lazy soccer moms and affiliated suburbanites…yes. And some others.
I have a pal who was raised in a nice liberal household. White Catholics, eight fuckin kids, mother college educated & member of NAACP, father a horrible son of a bitch who left…leavin mom to raise em all on welfare. Now, imagine my dismay when my pal became a goddamn Reaganite. She blames Carter. He was weak, you know. Gotta have that strong fucking hand on the foreign policy tiller.
She says “Carter made me a Reaganite.” I don’t know what to say: “Christ, I’m so sorry” doesn’t seem to do anything but piss her off. And she stayed with the Republicans up to and including Bush.
I have a hard time forgiving these people. A tiny child with a slight knowledge of history should be able to see through these motherfuckers, and should have done so before all the damage was done. It took an unconscionable length of time before they finally woke up and finally admitted there was a problem. And they’re still pissing about the horrible Iraqis who are both pleading with us to stay and protect them and part of the huge muslim conspiracy to take us all down.
One thing I do know: they REALLY REALLY HATE IT when the US is blamed for any situation; it doesn’t matter if our policies led to the problem or not, blame is not something these people can stomach. They have no problem blaming the entire middle east & all of the Muslim world for the actions of say Sulieman the Magnificent, mind you, but events put in motion by the US in the 50s are off limits.
Fuck. I have convinced myself that I hate my friend. Now what?
Well, with some of the soccer moms & etc perhaps Bush is the Carter of the Republican party: enough to make the mass of people despise them for decades. It’s a chance, a bare chance. But only if enough of them had authoritarian gits for fathers…
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Oh yeah baby. I’m barely able to stand to read second-hand accounts of off-brand fascists…Newt’s shit would kill me dead.
Does Goldberg get to wear a green triangle like the kapos?
Shell Goddamnit,
One thing you might try with your friend is how it takes a lot of strength of will to NOT go batsh*t crazy and bomb everything in sight like a spoiled little boy who doesn’t get his way as a contrast of Carter against Ray-guns and The Chimpenfuhrer. Remind her that under Carter, we lost a total of eight service members in anger during his admin and those men died while trying to affect a rescue mission of the hostages. Contrast that with the nearly 250 marines killed in Lebanon by terrorists during the Ray-guns admin.
And all those dastardly Iranians that Carter didn’t nuke to Kingdom Come? Those are the same Iranians that Ray-guns and his staff conspired with to keep the hostages until after Carter left office. And they are the same Iranians that Ray-guns through Ollie North and others sold weapons to so that they could use the money to fund the right wing death squads in places like Nicaraugua.
Jimmy Cartr tried to get us to live up to our professed ideals no matter how difficult that may be.
Ray-guns made people feel good about all their hates and prejudices which is the path of least resistance.
Carter had far more moral strength than Ray-guns ever dreamt of having.
Hey there, rock on Amanda!
/me puts on the TROLL cap…
White people are the primary victims of racism. They are the primary source of the rewards systemic racism enables. What white people do to black people is part of the SHOW, not the POINT. True, white privilege gets you all those cool baubles, at a slight discount (at least in the South and West…the North and NE gets straight up privilege).
Look we can’t really get far until whites as a rule percieve systemic racism as a game, with real costs for participation, and which participation isn’t exactly voluntary (as anyone who’ve ever lived in what was essentially a police state in Jim Crow South can attest).
If you might have questions,
think firstly with the concept of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon
European elites have always been fascinated with this concept and of general control of the masses, especially as religeon began to retreat as a valid source of legitimacy for heavily oppressive systems, after Napoleon.
Now jump closer to the present.
The measure of Martin Luther King’s success in civil rights, as well as the general civil rights movement since the end of WWII owe no small measure to The Soviet Union and to the American Communist Party. The cold war, and the post war expansion made the more overt elements of racist society unnecessary and expensive. So check this book out…
http://www.amazon.com/When-Affirmative-Action-White-Twentieth-Century/dp/0393328511/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-9467978-7697657?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1184463605&sr=1-1
One thing people shouldn’t underestimate, is the propensity for many white elites to think of themselves as protectors of the white race. Is there a The Man? No, but there are a lot of sad fools with too much money who think they are. Woodrow Wilson, Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and the many industrialists who supported the Nazi regime are just some of the people over the times have thought of themselves as protectors of the faith. Despite this, there isn’t, and haven’t ever been a The Man. That’s for kooks. Sometimes the elites drink their own koolaid to an excessive extent. Or not know that the drink is spiked.
Let’s go back further…
http://www.amazon.com/Forever-Free-Story-Emancipation-Reconstruction/dp/0375702741/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-9467978-7697657?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1184464155&sr=1-1
In order to understand much at all about the current nature of race in america, some degree of familiarity with Reconstruction is a must. Yet very few liberals understand how the deal was done with the south wrt Hayes. Or understand that the North was eager end reconstruction, not only because of the racism of the nativists there (and war weariness on all part), but elites who were concerned about the deeper implications of the abolition and the laws surrounding it. It was fueling union sentiments…
And even further back, understanding the import of the Triangle Trade, and how that determined the political institutions needed to maintain it is also crucial. And, um, you’ve got to also be familiar with Napoleon. The French Revolution and Napoleon put the utter fear of God into the elites of Europe, and so many things flow from the Napoleonic era, it should not be a surprise that updating the means of control of the masses (Why do you think Bismark, who is a crusty, mean old reactionary, supported new social institutions?). One of the really big lessons learned by all parties. Keep the masses fed, and keep them distracted. One of the big lessons learned by the British…dude, be generous in sharing the loot with local elites, there’s enough for all! After all, Napoleon got as far as he did because none of the continental elite was all that happy with the Brits.
So, how can you do that, feed your own, and offer foreign elites swag for being in your grand political alliance? It takes alot of very hard work for a farmer to make enough food for one family! And if some clever fellow invented a new productive way to farm, the peons would just expand in population and eat the gains! And any ole’ country can farm enough to feed their own and allot the elites with a few trinkets. Well, if you’re draconian enough, like the elite of Denmark, you can dragoon enough work to allow some craftsmen to be freed up for export work. That doesn’t work in the long run (people gets pissed off, you can only export so much based only on the land that the country had). You need LOTS of land and LOTS of cheap labor that can’t or won’t rebel. Which Europe by and large didn’t have. So…colonialism and mecantilism rules!
okay, here’s a little secret. It’s not much of one, but it appears to be one. People aren’t all that much better than one another, natively. What John Little can do, Iwan Liau can do just as well, or *gulp*, better! People are almost never in a position to control supremacy, though we all natually think otherwise. Why is this important? Import Substitution is the key concept.
http://www.planning.unc.edu/courses/261/drucker/index.html
Why is this important? Industrialization and military power is not sustainable without suppressing import substitution activities at the fringes of the core society. People get tired of trading cotton, or grain, or timber to the proto industries in the big cities for the pots and pans. Ideas spread, and people figure out how to build their own pots and pan, and the big cities lose markets before the proto industy is capitalized enough to zoom on towards full industrialization. With the New World, and with slavery, NW Europe got the chance to industrialize with cereals and cotton from the New World. Even then, this was no easy event. Europe had several serious food crises during the slave trade era. So it should be no surprise the extent of which the English wished to prevent New England from industrializing. The attitude carried over to the US domestic politics. There was every care taken that areas with primarily resource extraction industries like farming and mining stayed that way. There was also every care taken that labor remains cheap.
How does racism come to play? Like the Spartan example, an area in which the populace is wary of a majority, or a large minority, it is easy to enact laws aimed at black people, or at mexicans, or helots, but enables an state sanctioned oligarchy, as in the spartans, or soviet system, or whathaveyou. In any event, it allows that good ole’ boy system to repress economic activity that might endanger the profits of certain interests from other parts of the country. The War on Drugs is a very good national example of this game. Selectively applied, it allows for greater control of the populace. And local greedheads are great for preventing people from being really successful, natch!
Racism also prevents the cost of labor from rising, such as the deal with dixiecratsto prevent the new deal from being fully effective, or no effective welfare nets, or no universal health care at that. It plays a crucial role in preventing effective communication or transportation (and lowering the costs for owning homes or making it easy to commute to work, or finding information you need efficiently…if everything is wink wink, nod nod just be sure you’re in the club before hearing…).
All of these costs are considerably more massive for white people than they could ever be for blacks or mexicans (in dollar cost, of course only in dollar cost! Certainly not emotionally or physically). The Waltons + Paris Hilton thanks every white person for believe racism is something that happens to black people, and not them…
Thanks for reading a long, rambling post. It’s just a really complex issue that isn’t subject to quick bits of info.
Well fuck yeah! And that’s why we hated Carter. By “we” I mean the stupid, the venal, and the frightened, of course. Please note also that in my opinion Carter was no saint - he was part of the ruling paradigm and never so far as I know questioned the rule of capital or fucked with corporations except in trying to prevent them from directly robbing the government till. Another reason to hate the Carter-haters…they had no goddamn real excuse. Same thing with Clinton…what the fuck did these people hate him for? He was a fucking moderate Republican. The venom was always incomprehensible except in the “our team!!!! RAH!” way.
This is our sin. The USA is not a nation. It’s a football team.
Richard, I appreciate your tryin to help me with my pal, by the way. But her viewpoints in my opinion do not have, and have never had, any basis in you know actual reality. She has other sources of truth. She has a gut like W’s, plus an illusion that she’s a historian and can take the long view. Ha.
If “long” means “as long as I want to hold a grudge” that is.
Shell Goddamnit: in addition to Richard’s argument, in case your friend still wants some stories of tough, hard-nosed foreign policy, tell her that it’s Carter’s National Security Advisor who initiated and oversaw the funding and arming of the mujahideen in Afghanistan. That strategy ultimately led to the Soviet defeat (and the subsequent rise of al-Qaeda during the 90s, but that’s the cynical part).
was there an NRA candidates night or a hookers convention scheduled at the same time as the NAACP hosted debate?
Couple of very smart explanations in the comments here but this picture ought to be on every politics page of every newspaper tomorrow. won’t need no ’splainin’.
Ding ding ding: Tancredo’s game is divide and conquer: poor blacks against poor hispanics. Charles fricking Barkley could see that.
Cute.
Lurkers don’t add anything to a thread, by definition.
In that sense, Lurker is aptly named.
My view on religion is that back in the Navy, we had a designation known as an ESWS. It’s a designation that takes months of study and interviews with all kinds of fellow crew-members amd finally an hour-long oral exam. It’s a real feather in one’s cap to get it and people who get one put a (SW) after their rank/rate designation and it makes promotion likelier. Here’s the big feature of an ESWS: An ESWS means exactly the same thing everywhere in the fleet. No matter where you’re stationed, on what kind of vessel, everybody knows what it took for you to get an ESWS.
Religion? Not so much. I knew a fellow in a men’s group of mine who had a cross on his ball-cap and talked about Jesus from time to time. Where did he get the ball-cap? Did he get it from his parents? Did he get it from his church? Did he get it from some convention? Did he simply pick it up from a gas station while on the road somewhere? Nobody knew (I could have asked him, but never got around to doing so) and as he wasn’t all that impressive a Chrisitan, no one really cared.
Unlike an ESWS, which actually has a clearly-defined meaning, a cross on your ball-cap doesn’t mean much of anything. Both my minister in my local church and James Dobson wears relgious vestments. What do those vestments mean? Frankly, I consider my own minister MUCH more genuinely religious than Dobson ever was or ever will be.
Thinking that since a few days have passed, MAYBE something would be out there about the no-show debacle, I decided to search for this story via MSNBC and CNN. (No sense checking on Fox…)I really wanted to read JC Watts’ take on this; he usually has lots to say against the Democrats and I’d like to hear his justification of his party.
NOTHING. ANYWHERE. WTF is going on that the mass media is so controlled that NO ONE has the cojones to at least MENTION, that “oh by the way”, the NAACP invited the Republicans out and got stood up? This is very disturbing.
As much as “Crossfire” used to have me throwing things at the TV, I do miss the direct Dems vs. Reps volleyball…
Shell,
If it was even a football team, that’d be one thing. The parties are like teams - the country’s a bloody football game, full of popular pretty jocks fighting it out and only associating with the pretty cheerleaders, while those with enough ’school spirit’ cheer from the sidelines and the unpopular kids get excluded and just stay home.
One of the best/worst things George W. Bush ever did for the Republican Party was cement the fact that they could safely ignore black people.
The bare minimum standard for Republicans, after the abortive late-90s/early-00s “vote Republican to show Democrats they can’t take you for granted” push, is that they recognize the existence of black people. That’s it. The GOP of 15 years ago could at least find a J.C. Watts to run. These days, Vernon Robinson is a top-tier black Republican candidate. Michael Steele has to hand out signs saying “Steele Democrat”.
It’s great for Republicans because it perpetually sets the bar lower for them in terms of perceived racial sensitivity and because it allows them to kowtow to their base through inactivity rather than active avarice. It’s the continually improving efficiency of ingrained racism - Reagan had to show up in backwater Mississippi to make his point, now Republicans can simply drop a shittily-written op-ed off to PowerLine and pop off to a fundraiser.
Bzzzt! I have the Random House Webster’s, 3rd edition, here on the desk at work.
Thus, even as fuzzy and culturally compromised authority as the editors of dictionaries focus immediately on the salient point–racism is about ranking perceived subdivisions of humanity in an essentialist way, and about power in society.
As I gathered from reading the Autobiography of Malcolm X (and other sources) the doctrines of the Nation of Islam were, and probably still are, racist, in that Elijah Muhammed’s cult argued that white people were an inferior and perverted offshoot of the basic black human stock created by short-sighted and evil magicians in antiquity, and therefore subhuman. (Malcolm X of course eventually broke with this cult and traveled to Islamic countries where he learned Islam teaches no such thing.)
Hitler’s doctrines were racist (and particularly bizarre in the case of German Jews, who had to be “identified” in many cases by extensive historical research (or the malign say-so of rivals) because German Jews were in fact well-integrated into German society and often did not realize they might be considered Jewish).
I have the impression the Imperial Japanese were racist in that they believed themselves to be the uniquely favored descendents of the Sun Goddess.
In all of these cases, in or out of power, the point was to claim that the underlying, fixed nature of certain divisions of humanity were grounds for one segement to rule and exploit (or exterminate) others.
Mainstream America is generally racist, because we are raised to believe, consciously or unconsciously, that “white” people are uniquely gifted as the creators and bearers of modern civilization, and variously defined others are inherently less able to master its arts, and so it is justifiable to have double standards in practice, whatever the law and official rhetoric may see. I have learned to recognize this training in myself and see it in others, even though I was raised to believe I was not racist. Certainly we have many “practices” based on racism, beginning in my personal experience with a lot of avoidance of inter-”racial” contact.
The scare quotes on “racial” mean that I think it is perfectly well established that there is no scientific basis for racism or even “racialism” whatsoever. (”Racialism” being a more recent academic coinage for the abstract concept that there might in principle be actual human subspecies, without any presumptions of “superiority” for any of them. In theory we might have evolved that way–but in fact we didn’t, and even as a fictional possibility for aliens or parallel universes, the idea of subspecies for intelligent humanoids seems very improbable to me.)
But racism in practice–policies and practices based on the fiction of differential abilities, taken as fact–certainly does exist. Taking it into account, in order to combat it, certainly not only allows but requires recognizing the deluded but socially significant racial identifications a society assigns, and policies and practices intended to dimimish or eradicate racist ones often must do so as well.
No surprise here at all.
The major republican candidates need to show contempt for the NAACP to shore up their value with the wingnuts. Tancredo, who puts his rhetoric squarely in the “I’m not a racist, but we need to throw the wetbacks into concentration camps” shows up to “prove” that he isn’t a racist. Drive in he immigration wedge and hope for the best.
has lurker ever added anything of value to a thread?
A reminder that for some people, hate is the reason to get out of bed and live. Without women to hate, black people to hate, gays to hate, Mexicans to hate, Lurker would have no reason to live, really. Think about it; most of us who are addicted to politics are positive-minded. We may mock the opposition, but at least we do so with the mind of being creative and having fun and amusing our allies. Lurker just regurgitates robotic hateful talking points in the comment thread here. It’s not creative or amusing or productive in any way. Why does he do it? Because if you took away his hate, he’d have nothing less, be less than a shell of a man.
Also, it gave Mark an awesome opportunity to make me type: w00t! Lurker got PWND!
Mark in LOLcat form:
Oh yeah, those politically lazy soccer moms & suburbanites.
Do you know any mothers or suburbanites? Or is that just a stupid, easy target for lazy Pandagon commenters?
My particular suburb in VA turned a red state solidly purple, and the state may, just may, go blue in the next presidential election.
And if such a miracle should occur, it won’t be because of the free-thinking, non-racist liberals in our capital city of Richmond.
It’s because of us politically lazy soccer moms and suburbanites.
Oh, wait — I know, you weren’t talking about ME and MY ilk. You were talking about…those OTHER politically lazy soccer moms and suburbanites.
Do you even get the irony here? Jump up, grab onto a self-serving meme, and hold on for dear life. Sounds like another party I know.
Love your handle, Humorless Feminist.
“..the religious right as we know it started in opposition to Brown vs. the Board of Education and other civil rights decisions…”
Y’know…I didn’t know that.
I’d assumed that that demographic
‘had always been with us’ — like black mold or ..dust.
So…thnx
Not to mention that Tancredo’s main policy plank is that he is so anti-immigration he makes Michael Savage look like Jane Addams. His M.O. in showing up is to lure disgruntled black workers into his pocket by TELLING THEM THE IMMIGRANTS ARE STEALING ALL THEIR JOBS” (my caps)
Well, here in Los Angeles, with the largest percentage of illegal Mexicans in the nation, it’s true that Black jobs have been stolen and/or their wages depressed because of the influx of mostly Mexican illegal immigrants, who have not only appropriated their jobs, but their neighborhoods as well (including the small black-owned neighborhood businesses that serviced them).
And any Liberal who claims they want to effect policies to help blacks overcome the economic disparity between them and the rest of the population, should be OUTRAGED at the porous borders that have negatively impacted Black communities throughout the southwest.
Sorry humorless feminist, but that Webb/Allen race was a wee bit too close to inspire my confidence in the suburbanites of VA, the ones outside the Beltway at least. Seems of lot of them were untroubled by the bigoted spew of Felix Macacawitz.
As for those politically lazy soccer moms, I guess the truth hurts. I beat my head against the wall more than once in 2004 trying to get through to the ones I knew. But wolf ads, color coded terra alerts, and the fact that John Kerry windsurfed (which is bad for some reason I cannot fathom) carried the day. Millions of suburban women voted for Bush because he strutted around an aircraft carrier in a flight suit and that made them feel warm and fuzzy and safe. Had they bothered to do an iota of research or an ounce of critical thinking they would have seen it for the risible bullshit that it was.
But Jay, immigrants aren’t stealing jobs from black people. White people are, by hiring people they know they can exploit. The reason immigrants are “stealing” the jobs is because who would work for $2.50 an hour and the constant threat of deportation, if they didn’t have to? And of course the reason they have to is because white American capitalists are making sure that Latin America is a hellish place to live with a shit economy.
Immigrants are not to blame for a paucity of acceptible jobs for blacks — whites are.
Also, forgot to add: “Divide and Conquer” has been the order of the day at least since the Civil War. As long as conservative capitalists can keep the working class whites worried about the blacks stealing their tiny bite of pie, the blacks worried that the immigrants will beat them to it, the immigrants aware that at least they’re better than the poor white trash and blacks, the middle class thinking they’re One Of Us, all of them keeping their women in check, and everyone collectively hating Teh Fags, none of us will realize that together we seriously outnumber them.
serves as a sobering picture of the polarization of politics and their basis in hate in this nation since nixon.
Yay, a member of the base showed up.
Wanna see even better examples? Check out this thread of, yes, slavery apologists over at Ed Brayton’s place.
Racists are so cute, aren’t they?
YES! This is why I wanted to vomit when I saw the endless coverage of his endless funeral. And I still get nauseated whenever I hear someone trying to get his face carved on Mount Rushmore or something.
Bill Cosby is a gasbag who made some fairly funny comedy albums in the 1960s, and who has made a lot of money since then by telling white people what they want to hear. It’s no accident that his ridiculous TV show was one of Ronald Reagan’s favorites. A visitor from Mars whose only experience of black people was watching Cosby’s show would conclude that the only problem they ever faced was having too many kindly, avuncular figures come over for dinner.Hay guyz, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the “lazy soccer mom” a sexist stereotype?
(hint: the answer is yes!)
I think the more appropriate non-gendered way of expressing the same idea would be “depoliticized bougie suburbanites”. See how easy that is?
You don’t have to lack a Y chromosome not to give a shit who’s running the country as long as you can still afford that Land Rover.
has_te,
A large number of the Christianist schools and other “private” academies, especially throughout the south, were direct results of integration. Couldn’t have little janey or johnny corrupted by unpure people doncha know
It’s not that Tom Tancredo isn’t a racist, it’s just that he may not be racist against black people.
Of course, you already knew that.
Oh yeah, those politically lazy soccer moms & suburbanites.
Do you know any mothers or suburbanites? Or is that just a stupid, easy target for lazy Pandagon commenters?
“Politically lazy soccer moms & affiliated suburbanites” was ironic, and targeted the whole suburban crowd, not just women or mothers or something. (Otherwise, why would I have written affiliated suburbanites?) And yes, I know a number of suburbanites, and yes, they do tend to be politically lazy, in a “I just want low taxes and no commotions” kind of way.
My particular suburb in VA turned a red state solidly purple, and the state may, just may, go blue in the next presidential election.
As I said, the suburbanites are beginning to wake up, and are trending blue. It seems that they’ll vote for the Democratic candidate in ‘08, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Things do look good, but given that Clinton is demonspawn!, Edwards is a rich lawyerly lawyer! and Obama is a black!man!, I’m not overconfident either.
Oh yeah, those politically lazy soccer moms & suburbanites.
Do you know any mothers or suburbanites? Or is that just a stupid, easy target for lazy Pandagon commenters?
“Politically lazy soccer moms & affiliated suburbanites” was ironic, and targeted the whole suburban crowd, not just women or mothers or something. (Otherwise, why would I have written affiliated suburbanites?) And yes, I know a number of suburbanites, and yes, they do tend to be politically lazy, in a “I just want low taxes and no commotions” kind of way.
My particular suburb in VA turned a red state solidly purple, and the state may, just may, go blue in the next presidential election.
As I said, the suburbanites are beginning to wake up, and are trending blue. It seems that they’ll vote for the Democratic candidate in ‘08, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Things do look good, but given that Clinton is demonspawn!, Edwards is a rich lawyerly lawyer! and Obama is a black!man!, I’m not overconfident either.
And if such a miracle should occur, it won’t be because of the free-thinking, non-racist liberals in our capital city of Richmond.
It’s because of us politically lazy soccer moms and suburbanites.
And that is a testimony to their demographic weight, not to their insight, which is sorely lacking.
How did I do that? Wierd.
Republican Candidates Visit the NAACP…
Actually, that’s not quite accurate. I’ll let this picture explain why….
how can “soccer moms” NOT be targeted toward women?
And the Webb/Allen race was brought in by women. In the suburbs. Some of whose children play soccer.
As for anecdata, when I served as a poll worker in the 2006 elections, the only poll workers at my precinct were — wait for it — women! Lazy, soccer mom women! In the suburbs! And 80% of the people at the training class for poll workers were…well, you know.
But I understand your not wanting to come out of your comfort zone to challenge, examine, and perhaps ultimately reject such a, well, lazy stereotype.
Thank goddess for all you city folk. Gawrsh, the country would shore be goin’ to hell in a handbasket if it weren’t for y’all!
Oh, wait…
Humorless feminist:
Thanks for the new word–I bet I’ll get some use out of “anecdata” around and about. Relatedly, there’s a saying in my family (and probably elsewhere) that you may appreciate; “The plural of anecdote is not ‘data.’”
Hey richard, that was pretty cool about you mentioning the seperate private school system…
The interesting thing, an all private school system dependent on the middle and lower class white people to pay for their function…well, that system doesn’t actually have the money to do a great job teaching.
But it DOES help stop support for an adequately finance school system in Miss and Al. Funded in part by the upper class and the business elites ?:~)
Man, is it just like that health care situation, or what?
The GOP base is 100% racist, 100% misogynist, and 100% homophobic. Basic things for all of you to remember. Why else do you think the wingnuts are fighting against Clarendon County and other counties in this country with a black majority and fighting for Lexington County and other counties with a white majority?
100% is a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s definitely over 50%.
While I am sure race is a factor, it is not quite that simple.
Clarendon County is majority black. Lexington County is majority white
Clarendon County is fairly poor, while Lexington County is relatively affluent.
Nor surprisingly, Clarendon County is a Democratic stronghold and Lexington County overwhelmingly Republican.
So, are the Republicans fighting for Lexington County because they are white, because they are affluent, or because they are loyal Republican voters? Good question.
Well, here in Los Angeles, with the largest percentage of illegal Mexicans in the nation, it’s true that Black jobs have been stolen and/or their wages depressed because of the influx of mostly Mexican illegal immigrants, who have not only appropriated their jobs, but their neighborhoods as well (including the small black-owned neighborhood businesses that serviced them).
Wow, that’s the stupidest interpretation of what’s going on here in Los Angeles that I’ve ever heard in my life. Do you even live within the county limits, or are you sitting up in Thousand Oaks going, “Fuckin’ Mexicans stealing all the jobs”?
As many, many, many others in this thread have pointed out, it’s not the illegal workers who “stole” jobs from African-Americans. It’s people like you who didn’t want to have to pay minimum wage and decided it would be much better to pay some poor non-English-speaking illegal worker $2.00 an hour, especially since you could stiff him on his pay half the time and he would have no one to complain to, unlike an American citizen worker who could take your ass to court.
So, no, Mexicans and other Central and South Americans haven’t “stolen” anything. YOU handed those jobs over to them because you were a cheap son of a bitch who thought that paying $5.25 an hour for a dishwasher was just too much money.
This isn’t the only forum that most of the Republicans have missed. Every Democrat except Mike Gravel managed to attend the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) forum, but Duncan Hunter was the only Republican who showed up.
So it looks like you’re right: no Republican candidate who has a shot at the nomination will risk spoiling his chances by associating himself with blacks or Hispanics.
I would really, really like to think that at least some religiously-motivated voters vote for the religious right not because of racism but because they’re being duped.
Those are people we can…well, save for lack of a better term. I’m not sure what to with the hardcore racists.
And YES - The fact that more and more people live in the suburbs and are totally disconnected from political life has a lot to do with the ascendacy of the right. No, humorless feminist, it’s not really about you. There’s a fairly wide class of people who might be called “soccer moms”, and has it occured to you that most of them propably wouldn’t even want to have anything to do with someone like yourself who self-identifies as a feminist?
How do you think those of us who have to fly in and out of Washington National Airport feel? [shudder]
I will never refer to it as Reagan. It’s always “National.”
how can “soccer moms� NOT be targeted toward women?
It was ironic because there isn’t really such a thing as “soccer moms,” in the sense of a unified body of like-minded women. Moreover, as far as I can tell, most of the soccer moms’ purported opinions can be ascribed to men as well. Perhaps there was a grain of truth to the concept back in the 90s, but these days, I think it’s barely above David Brooks-level journalism. In my post, I was doing the whole politics-as-marketing thing, and the “soccer moms & affiliated suburbanites” was part of the theme.
I was criticizing suburbanites in general. (And no, this doesn’t mean that 100% of suburbanites are politically lazy. Just as criticism of Republicans isn’t criticism of all Republican voters. Same with Christians, etc.)
And now I’ve gotten all convoluted. That’s how classic rock died. Fuck it.
Amanda wrote:
“But Sullivan seems to think this means that Obama is going to get a lot of red state Republicans to vote for him. I’m not kidding.”
I’m sure you’re not kidding. But you’re also not reading Sullivan correctly. She’s interested in getting *enough* swing voters to switch. You and so many others can’t stop jerking your knees every time Sullivan speaks. You’re doing a great job of identifying heretics, instead of looking for converts and allies, like Obama is doing. Successfully, I might add. There’s already a few conservative groups supporting Obama.
Rich wrote:
“Both my minister in my local church and James Dobson wears relgious vestments.”
Oy. Dobson is a psychiatrist.
About Mexicans and immigration, Niewert was recently talking about preservation of white privilege. The Democrats want strong unions, which, in places like Iowa packing plants, would preserve white privilege.
And regarding the supposed racists origins of the Religious Right, don’t forget the eugenics origins of the pro-choice movement. It is beyond ridiculous to think that teh Religious Right could have become what it is today on race. Abortion is what really fueled it’s rise.
[…] This week at the Faith and Public Life web site, Pastor Dan Schultz of Street Prophets comments on the Amy Sullivan column: I think we can’t let the vision of history put forward in these Time articles go unchallenged. Nowhere in Amy Sullivan’s column was there a mention of the role race played in bringing together the Religious Right, for example. Were it not for the Carter administration’s challenge to the tax-exempt status of segregated “Christian Academies” throughout the South, it’s unlikely that the Religious Right would even exist in the form we recognize it today. […]