It's somewhat jarring to be reading, say, the
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, and stumble across the following exchange.
In gay conversation over our wine, after supper, he told us, jokingly, that he much admir'd the idea of Sancho Panza, who, when it was proposed to give him a government, requested it might be a government of blacks, as then, if he could not agree with his people, he might sell them. One of his friends, who sat next to me, says, "Franklin, why do you continue to side with these damn'd Quakers? Had not you better sell them? The proprietor would give you a good price."
"The governor," says I, "has not yet blacked them enough." He, indeed, had labored hard to blacken the Assembly in all his messages, but they wip'd off his coloring as fast as he laid it on, and plac'd it, in return, thick upon his own face; so that, finding he was likely to be negrofied himself, he, as well as Mr. Hamilton, grew tir'd of the contest, and quitted the government.
This is not to say that Benjamin Franklin was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, just that he was no more racist than other white people of the time.
People occasionally complain that the meaning of words has changed over time. But it's not just words, it's attitudes that evolve, as well. Ideas and terms that used to be completely acceptable are now things that you want to avoid.
But because it's hard to argue that racism
doesn't exist, the right-wing now has to hide, disguise, and lie about their own bigotry in order to keep pushing us boldly backwards into the 19th Century.
Now, you should understand that I'm not trying to claim that all Republicans are racist. But when you're fishing for trout, you go to a river, not a sandbox.
It’s funny how often the right wing has to apologize for calling Obama "
tar baby" or "
boy, but for some reason, they
keep using those very same terms. Why is that?
The answer, of course, is that it’s all about "dog whistle terminology" – the simple stereotypes that racists prefer; terms that they can slip into conversation or speeches to alert
other racists that they've found a "fellow traveler."
Our friends at World Net Daily are fond of the stereotype of Obama
as lazy. Last week, WND publisher Joseph Farah
wrote a column where he said "You won't hear me complain that Obama is taking his 17th vacation in the last two-and-half years... We should be grateful the man has no work ethic. Just imagine the damage he would have done to the country if he did."
That's just another example of the Republican Party’s badly-hidden language of racism. Because, in reality, we know how lazy Obama is, right?
3 comments:
Quit saying they are Racist, they say they are not!
Also, conservatives have a lock solid approach to confirm they totally not racist status. When they make off-*color* jokes, and depict the President or first lady as a Witch Doctor, or Ape or Pimp or Terrorist they are actually freeing them of the real chains of victimhood which they have allowed to be placed on themselves.
It's a brilliant approach which allows racists to feel they are being beneficent instead of bigoted.
I intended to write about this on my blog, but didn't get around to it. Frankly, with the high number of racist/racially offensive incidents by the GOP over the past couple of years, it's hard to keep up.
The Fox Nation article is what I've come to expect from one of the loudest components of the right-wing noise machine. Did you notice that they closed the comments section for that article? We know they can't have the racism of their sheeple exposed for everyone to see.
I'd be willing to bet that the Fox Nation comments section was one of the uglier piles of racist crap outside of Stormfront or Free Republic. And like you said, that's probably why they closed it off.
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