*Racism has been an integral part of Republican strategy since Obama announced his candidacy. But now the racism is so overt, and going so unchallenged first and foremost by party frontrunner Romney, that, so far as I’m concerned, all Republicans—even the most benign centrists—are tainted by it. This is your party. These are your people. And your silence is deafening.
Back
of the envelope: racism is good for Republicans.
Anything that turns people against one another is ultimately good for conservative causes. The idea is to make the demographically most privileged class of citizens feel like underdogs, to make them feel cornered by the Hispanics and the blacks and the gays. You motivate people by putting their backs against the wall, by, essentially, making them feel some great injustice has been done to them. Among those tactics is the hateful strategy of convincing white people that the nation's disgraceful legacy of human slavery was somehow exaggerated, that slavery really wasn't that bad and, shockingly, that both white and black America were better off under that heinous system. No rational person actually believes that, of course, but Republicans understand something Democrats have never quite adequately learned: the American public is exceedingly gullible and will believe whoever shouts the loudest and repeats it most often. This is why the Republican mantra, "Obama Has Failed," is being repeated over and over. And why the GOP choose to shoehorn slavery, of all things, into the political debate at every conceivable opportunity, no matter how ridiculous.
Their insipid "Marriage Vow," a nihilistic homophobic dirge intended mainly to deny civil rights to the LGBT community, begins with a preamble which wanders way off on this tangent about slavery. Why? Because they knew it would get in the news. because they could then roll out their pot-bellied, double-chinned reactionary fog horns to denounce it. The preamble was written specifically to be denounced and rejected and removed. But, as any lawyer would tell you, just having the words repeated ad nausea, as they have been, gets the GOP message out there. And, even as their candidates rush to the mics (or, better, then mics rush to them--also part of the strategy), their code has been writ large upon the collective psyche of the Republican faithful: the preamble was not about slavery, not about gays or even about marriage. It was about Barack Obama.
Republicans have waged a non-stop race war in this country since before Obama even announced. The fiendish complexity of the race question in this nation involves both White Guilt and White Resentment over the fact of slavery: guilt over the obvious fact of whites having benefited at the expense of both Native and African Americans. Resentment because no white person alive today ever owned anybody. Or did they? It's a bit naive to suggest White America does not continue to benefit from the ongoing plight of Native and African Americans. Latinos and Hispanics similarly benefit this nation, and their plight resonates here, but the conversation is historically different.
I believe Black America is focused, as is the rest of the nation, on jobs and economic survival in tough times. Bolts out of the blue like this heinous and puzzling "Marriage Vow," more or less come out of left field, leaving us wondering what on earth we'd done to deserve it. I don't hate white people and I don't blame white people for my situation, and nether does anyone I now. But nonsense like this "Marriage Vow" gets the blood stirred in both White and Black America.
The more nefarious (and brilliant) part of this scheme: Black America is not accusing White America of anything. Republicans are. Republicans are effectively selling the propaganda that Black America has been swindling White America for 400 years. That slavery wasn't so bad, and that the black community has been working this guilt-trip hustle on White America looking for free cheese and job promotions. The accusation enrages blacks because we know, on some level, the back-scratch feels good to White America, even to those who find the tactic abhorrent. Everybody wants to hear, "It's Not Your Fault," most especially when it is. There is a segment of mostly-white conservative America that believes anything the GOP says at face value, and who will process this as truth forced into retraction by the liberals. The strategy is obvious: pit White and Black America against each other. The GOP have written off the black vote in 2012, there's absolutely no use in their usual pretense at inclusiveness. Their job is to make white people feel cornered, angry and resentful over the lack of jobs and poor economic situation--standard conditions for the black community. The black community is being hit at 150% of the impact to the white community, but, on some level, there is a simmering outrage within our circle at white people only becoming angry about poor job and economic realities when it finally hits them. Black America has been in recession since reconstruction. Far as we're concerned, hey, welcome to the party, pal.
If the election were held today, Obama would still win.
It’d be
a squeaker, but he’d beat Romney, I’m sure of it. Romney is a
stiff. An absolute, obvious phony with a proven record of
flip-flopping toward whatever earns him a bump in the polls.
Betting on the economy—that it will improve or that it will
tank—is a dicey proposition. The Republican Congress is clearly
and obviously dragging its feet and being obstructionist in a
clear effort to prolong a recession that’s already gone on way
too long. The longer they can keep the economy flatlined, the
better their chances in 2012. This is simple math. A child could
figure that out. And they can deny it all they want, their
Congressional record speaks for itself. These folks are on
vacation practically all the time and have presented
zero—zero—jobs bills since this Congress was gaveled into
existence in January. They are historically lazy, dug-in, and
determined to stretch this thing out because anything they do to
help the economy, anything at all, benefits Barack Obama. And
Barack Hussein Obama Is A Black Man And They Hate Him.
The GOP strategy is to stall, stall and stall some more. Gather
White America by whitewashing the open sore of slavery while
turning blacks against whites as white folk ingest this nonsense
of the founding fathers working “tirelessly” to end slavery
(Michele Bachmann), or this ghastly and shocking idiotic pledge
which claimed black families were better off under slavery (play
audio, above). The more they say it, the more whites will
process this stuff and believe it. The more they say it, the
more black voices will call it a lie, which will be interpreted
by many whites as blacks calling them racist. Only, Black
America is not calling White America racist—the Republican Party
is. By adopting these patently evil tactics, the obvious GOP
strategy is to spark a race war for the 21st century. This race
war will include Latinos and Hispanics, the LGBT community
(which the insipid “Marriage Vow” specifically targets), Native
Americans and others.
*Racism has been an integral part of Republican strategy since Obama announced his candidacy. But now the racism is so overt, and going so unchallenged first and foremost by party frontrunner Romney, that, so far as I’m concerned, all Republicans—even the most benign centrists—are tainted by it. This is your party. These are your people. And your silence is deafening.
Christopher J. Priest
17 July 2011
editor@praisenet.org
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