No matter how certain diarists try to couch it, they are bigoted towards a minority of people in this country.
Like the notorious Bell Curve authors, they extrapolate false assumptions from data to perpetuate negative stereotypes against this minority and take the worst anecdotes to use as an example of the whole.
The decision by some to mock, deride or write off an entire class of people is not just bigotry at its worst. It is stupid politically.
I’m talking about the views espoused by DHinMI and others regarding Appalachian Americans.
UPDATE: (Here's a link to one example from DHinMI. Here's another, How Kentucky, West Virginia and racism could screw up the Clinton exit although DHinMI claims in the comments here: "You filled in racism, and my supposed blanket condemnation. It's not in what I said or implied." I wonder where I got that idea?
Like the racists who latch on to the Willie Hortons to tar all African Americans, DHinMI and others have selectively used quotes from mainstream media reporters – you know, the same ones we deride often for their poor grasp of situations when it comes to Iraq and other issues – to tar an entire region.
To claim that Hillary Clinton is leading Barack Obama because Appalachia is racist and has "an Obama problem" is not only insulting it’s bad logic. Should we write off California because it has "an Obama problem?" According to the Souther Poverty Law Center, Los Angeles has the largest collection of hate groups. And California went to Clinton. What about New Hampshire? New York? Any of the other states that voted for Clinton? No. We recognize other factors are involved.
Yet when it comes to West Virginia, DHinMI and others latch on to the most superficial answer: racism.
This is because they cling to negative stereotypes of Appalachia which colors their view. We would not find it acceptable for someone to present such negative stereotypes of African Americans or gay Americans without condemning them. But somehow it has become ok to hold such views when it comes to Appalachia. Why?
Does DHinMI rely on any polling data about the views of race in the election? No. He relies on maps on unrelated topics and extrapolates from them a result that yo and behold fits in with his premise.
Because some on Daily Kos have a problem dealing with economic class issues.
Rather than confront the fact that Barack Obama’s healthcare policy is not as good for the poor as Hillary Clinton’s they’d rather blame people in low income regions as being racists for supporting Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama.
Rather than admit that Hillary Clinton is a strong candidate in many ways, they are so invested in being dismissive of her that they’d rather blame her supporters of being racist.
Rather than take the time to explore the complex issues of class and poverty in Appalachia caused by decades of exploitation by outsiders, they’d rather rely on the simple, superficial stereotypes. It makes the accuser feel good about himself. The accuser can pat himself on the back for not being "racist" like those in Appalachia while ignoring his obliviousness to the plight of those living in or just above poverty.
So what does it "accomplish" politically to write off an entire region as having an "Obama problem?"
First off, the people in the region feel like that once again they are being looked down upon by outsiders. Because that’s exactly what is occurring.
Secondly, it demonstrates in an irrefutable way that the outsiders have no interest in understanding the real issues facing the region or of listening to what the voters in the region are saying.
"I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks. We can't beat George Bush unless we appeal to a broad cross-section of Democrats." Howard Dean.
Do you want to know why a state that went for Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, and Bill Clinton, but went for George W. Bush twice even though four out of five of the Congressional caucus are Democrats, the governor is a Democrat, nearly every statewide office holder is a Democrat, it’s because instead of listening, Al Gore took their votes for granted. And as much as I liked John Kerry, he could not get over his habit of telling people what he was going to do instead of listening to them.
You want to write off Appalachia, go ahead, label it racist.
Fortunatlely Barack Obama is much smarter than that. He gets it. He showed he gets it when what some labeled his most controversial statements regarding people being "bitter" and "clinging" to guns and God.
Because he was spot on. He recognized it was about class. Barack Obama has invested in Appalachia, sending large numbers of field staff to work this state despite the polls and demographics showing Hillary Clinton with an insurmountable lead.
Barack Obama answers the Appalachian bigots like DHinMI better than I can.
At the county conventions, his efforts paid off large dividends with West Virginia Democrats overwhelmingly voting for their fellow Appalachian residents to serve as delegates for Barack Obama at the state convention in June.
Hillary Clinton is going to win big here in the primary. That's not about race. That's about Clinton, who very well could have been our Democratic nominee.
As Cliff at Sadly No! wrote:
See, here’s the thing: the reasons that Republicans have been winning elections in rural southern and midwestern states is because they’ve become extremely adept at exploiting cultural differences between small-town Americans and big-city Americans. We’re all familiar by with what this entails: portraying Democrats as Starbucks pastry-buggering windsurfing Yanni fans.
Now it’s true that there are real cultural differences between people who live in cities and people who live in small towns. It’s also true that these differences are present in just every country that’s ever existed. City life and country life are different from one another, and thus it’s perfectly natural that people who live in fundamentally different environments would adopt different cultural norms and mores.
What’s more, I think these cultural differences are relatively small. Yes, cities have a smaller percentage of people who attend church every week, but atheists like me are still way, way outnumbered by people with religious beliefs. For instance, even though Boston has a reputation as a den of atheistic eeeeeeeeevil, it has like a gajillion Catholics living in it. Let’s face it: the cultural differences between rural and urban Americans pale in significance to our similarities.
And this brings me back to why Oliver’s take on this is so stupid. Dude, we’re trying to convince people to support Team Blue in the fall. Stereotyping everyone in West Virginia as a brain-dead goober is a poor strategy for getting them to vote for our candidate. Instead of simply dismissing all Clinton supporters as bigoted hicks, folks in the Obama camp should examine how her emphasis on progressive domestic policy issues such as implementing universal health care and placing a temporary freeze on subprime foreclosures has helped her win over white blue-collar Democrats. And while I’m sure there will be a small, insignificant minority of Clinton supporters who won’t vote for Obama because he’s black, I think the vast majority of them will be receptive to him if he can make his case.
But we can't help him make that case if we have to fight both those who hold bigoted views of Obama - and those who hold bigoted views of Appalachians.