Socialist. Communist. Fascist. Hitler. Witchdoctor. Muslim. Pal of Terrorists. Purveyor of "death panels" and would-be killer of Grandma and Trig.
Is this racism??
The short answer is YES..
So why are some confounded?? Why do we need to keep asking as CNN did earlier today Obama as witch doctor: Racist or satirical???
Because the issue is intentionally clouded.. Because we must crack the codes of "Color-blind Racism"
One of the major challenges of the post-Civil Rights era involves confronting the ludricous notion that racism is over. Many whites were content to believe that once de jure segregation ended - that once the "colored only" signs were taken down from walls - everything was magically equal. This of course requires denial of deeply rooted de facto institutional racism and centuries of cumulative advantage for whites/disadvantage for people of color. Racism is embedded in every social institution- from economics to education from religion to law. As noted sociologist Joe Feagin puts it in Racist America
There is a tendency on the part of many Americans, especially white Americans, to see racism as an individual matter, as something only outspoken white bigots engage in. Yet racism is much more than an individual matter. It is both individual and systemic. Indeed, systemic racism is perpetuated by a recurring patterns of discrimination within institutions and by individuals but also an alienating racist relationship – on the one hand, the racially oppressed, and on the other, the racial oppressors.” Feagin 2000
Any doubt of the persistence of racial disparities can easily be dispelled with a glance at statistical data in any of these arenas. The recent diary
Dowd misses it. Here's the real work of racism is an excellent example of this sort of analysis..
But that is another series of diaries....
To uphold this notion of a now "level playing field", the ideology and rhetoric of "color-blind racism" emerged. “Color-blind racism” explains contemporary racial inequality as the outcome of nonracial dynamics “Color-blind racism” allows whites to equate racism with prejudice, ignoring the institutionalized and systemic racial structures that sustain and reproduce white racial privilege.
“Color-blind racism” is supported by a racial ideology that allows whites to claim that they “don’t see race”, that they “aren’t racists”, while attributing persistent inequality to other factors or speaking in codes that implicitly indict people of color without ever mentioning race (e.g. high crime neighborhoods, welfare moms, “crack epidemic”, unwed teenage mothers, gangs, “ghetto”).
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, the leading and award-winning scholar on color-blind racism has a large body of work devoted to deciphering these new racial codes.What follows are what he describes as the central ideological frames that support the new racism
• ABSTRACT LIBERALISM – appeals politically to “equal opportunity” and economic individualism and “merit” (e.g. In the United States, success is primarily the result of individual merit and hard work; Regardless of race, class, gender or sexual orientation, all have equal opportunities to excel)
• NATURALIZATION – explains social phenomena as natural occurrences(e.g. Racial and economic segregation in neighborhoods and schools is natural and nothing to be concerned about; If my friends are of the same race as me it is simply because I find more in common with them)
• CULTURAL RACISM – reliance on cultural explanations for racial inequality (e.g. People of color could have more success if they had a better work ethic; People of color would have more success if they would try to speak standard English)
• MINIMIZATION OF RACISM – argument that discrimination no longer has a major impact on the life chances of people of color (e.g. Racial discrimination is no longer a major problem; People of color need to stop “playing the race card” whenever something goes wrong for them; Racism is the result of prejudiced individuals)
These frames are furthered by rhetorical devices that are designed to cover racial intent.. In Color Blind Racism:How to Talk Nasty about Blacks Without Sounding Racist, Silva notes:
Today using words such as N&gger” and “Sp%c” is seen as an immoral act. More signicantly, saying things that sound or can be perceived as racist is disallowed. And because the dominant racial ideology portends to be color blind, there is little space for socially sanctioned speech aboutrace-related matters. Does this mean that whites do not talk in publicabout nonwhites? As many researchers have shown, they do but they do so but in a very careful, indirect, hesitant manner and, occasionally, even through code language..
color blind racism, the central racial ideology of the post-civil rights era, has a peculiar style characterized by slipperiness, apparent nonracialism, and ambivalence. This style fits quite well the normative climate of the country as well as the central frames of color blind racism. I document... the stylistic components of this ideology, namely, (1) whites’ avoidance of direct racial language, (2) the central rhetorical strategies or “semantic moves” used by whites to safely express their racial views, (3) the role of projection, (4) the role of diminutives, and (5) how incursions into forbidden issues produce almost total incoherence among many whites.
Yes we are seeing and hearing racism. The Republicans and the right are relying on the codes of color-blind racism in combination with overtly racist imagery to make their case. And the refusal to call it out -- on the part of media and liberals - is to be complicit
There have been efforts to 'crack the code". To their credit, CNN actually quotes scholars in the aforementioned article...
African-American studies professor at Princeton University, Melissa Harris-Lacewell
Harris-Lacewell points out that Obama made his African father a part of his campaign narrative. Now his critics are trying to mock that heritage.
"This witch doctor image is racist in a very specific way because of his proximity to Africa," she said. "You can imagine there would have easily been a time when [Jewish New York Mayor Michael] Bloomberg would have been portrayed in anti-Semitic ways. You can go back to political cartoons when Irish Democrats were mocked, Italians were lampooned."
Spelman College history professor William Jelani Cobb
points out the original Boston Tea Party was driven by colonists who frequently declared that they had been "enslaved" by the king of England. The men who led that revolt dressed up as Native Americans when they dumped the tea into Boston Harbor in 1773. Hard to pin down and a seeming catch-all for general anger at the government, the modern Tea Party movement is grounded the belief that the federal government should stay out of state business. But "states' rights is also an argument with a history tied to racial segregation during the civil rights' era," Harris-Lacewell said. And so it comes full circle
and of course Tim Wise in
Red-Baiting and Racism: Socialism as the New Black Bogeyman (the bold is mine)
Fact is, the longstanding association in white minds between social program spending and racial redistribution has been well-established, by scholars such as Martin Gilens, Kenneth Neubeck, Noel Cazenave, and Jill Quadagno, among others. Indeed, it was only the willingness of past presidents like FDR to all but cut blacks out of income support programs that convinced white lawmakers and the public to sign on to any form of American welfare system in the first place: a willingness that waned as soon as people of color finally gained access to these programs beginning in the 50s and 60s. But even as strong as the social program/black folks association has been in the past, it has, until now, never had a black face to put with the effort. With a man of color in the position of president, it becomes far more convincing to those given to fear black predation already. It isn’t just that the government will tax you, white people. It’s that the black guy will. And for people like him. At your expense.
So there it is. Yes it
is racism. This is what the Tea Party crowd, their token apologist props like Steele, and their media supporters are saying :
"Obama is just another criminal black/illegal/other welfare king who will steal your money and kill your grandma. Bring back Jim Crow."
To mitigate, to qualify, to deny, to fail to call it out --is tacit support..
I leave you with Tim Wise
Unless the left begins pushing back, and insisting that yes, the old days are gone, white hegemony is dead, and deserved its demise, and that we will all be better off for it, the chorus of white backlash will only grow louder. So too will it grow more effective at dividing and conquering the working people who would benefit–all of them–from a new direction
