I've been working on an extremely long post for
my blog about Red State racism (and how it is embedded in the code-word "values"), using Alabama's refusal to wipe segragationist language from their state constitution as an example. I'm not painting all Bush voters with the broad brush of racism, nor do maintain that "values" is synonymous with racism. However, for many Red State voters, "values" is representative of resentment at what they perceive as cultural decay, a decay that they associate with gay rights, women's rights, and, yes, the progress of non-whites in US culture.
The hysterical reaction to the Nicolette Sheridan/ Terrell Owens "Desperate Housewives" ad on Monday Night Football is just one example of this. Look at Creator's Syndicate (the same syndicators that carry Bob Novak, Michelle Malkin, and about every other conservative columnist in the country) columnist
Samuel Francis's reaction to the ad and he states explicity that the attack on values was, "...not just to hurl a pie in the face of morals and good taste but also of white racial and cultural identity. The message of the ad was that white women are eager to have sex with black men, that they should be eager, and that black men should take them up on it."
It gets worse. Surfing around a little more today, I happened to catch this about the appointment of a high-ranking member of a Confederate heritage group who once sold anti-Semitic books to the South Carolina's Board of Education:
Ron Wilson, a former commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, was selected by a 4-3 vote of the Anderson County delegation to the General Assembly.
"This should send chills down the spine of all South Carolinians," said Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, which tracks racist groups.
Wilson once sold textbooks to parents who home-school their children. The books included "Barbarians Inside the Gates," which touted a discredited theory that Jews are working toward world domination.
He praised the book -- which the SPLC called "a viciously anti-Semitic tome" -- on his personal Web site.
As a member of the state board, Wilson will help determine which textbooks are used in S.C. schools.
The South Carolina Board of Education didn't seem to concerned that a purveyor of hate literature would be deciding what text books go into the schools. They weren't even concerned that Wilson was considered an extremist by many in the Sons of Confederate Veterans (not exactly known as a bastion of racial sensitivity):
While Wilson led the national Sons of Confederate Veterans from 2002 to 2004, he was accused of purging more than 300 politically moderate members.
"He led the attempted takeover of the SCV by extremists and is a very important player in the radicalization of that group," Potok said.
Go to the website
Save the SCV and you'll see a litany of Wilson's extreme views including the SCV's disgust at:
The John Wilkes Booth Camp: Leaders in Ron Wilson's SCV - No better example of poor taste, stupidity and thuggery can be found in CIC Ron Wilson's radicalized Sons of Confederate Veterans than the so-called John Wilkes Booth Camp #4-14-`65 that celebrates the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Red State racism is moving out of the dark and into the light; these people are no longer ashamed of their unevolved racist views and are getting bold with it. The fact that South Carolina's Board of Education would elect such a blatantly racist sack of crap is just one example of how bold.