Perhaps I am not able to parse the words enough to manage to get Dean's recent comments about southerners who sport the "stars and bars" flag bumper stickers to mean what anti-Dean detractors and "liberal" purists think is untouchable language.
Perhaps I am not able to parse the words enough to manage to get Dean's recent comments about southerners who sport confederate flag bumper stickers to mean what anti-Dean detractors and "liberal" purists think is untouchable language.
But what Dean said, and in the context in which it was delivered is anything but racial or regional stereotyping. In fact it is plainly an attempt at reaching out and reconnecting disparate parts of our social fabric.
"I want people with confederate flags on their trucks to put down those flags and vote Democratic--because the need for quality healthcare, jobs, and a good education knows no racial boundaries. We have working white families in the south voting for tax cuts for the richest 1% while their children remain with no health care. The dividing of working people by race has been a cornerstone of Republican politics for the last three decades--starting with Richard Nixon. For my fellow Democratic opponents to sink to this level is really tragic. The only way we're going to beat George Bush is if southern white working families and African American working families come together under the Democratic tent, as they did under FDR."
So how is the above racist?
How is the above divisive and anti-ethical to bringing economic and social justice to all groups within our society?
It clearly reads as an attempt to reach out to people with what should unite us all in common purpose, our collective economic and social welfare. It is not a pandering code-word message seeking to appeal to, or gloss over racial segregationist views, nor is it confederacy apologia.