JCC Abstract & Coded: Lee Atwater and a Racism Without Racists

you've probably heard this quote referenced before and you've probably heard conservatives claim it was made up, but now the audio has finally been released, (tracked down by the same journalist who brought us Romney's 47%).

(racist using racist language, overtly even(!), ahead)



the next time someone tells you the tea party isnt racist or mitt romney isnt racist because they dont use overt racial slurs anymore, you just send em this little clip of the master pavlovian showing us how the dog whistle sausage is made

also itt let's discuss the documentary Boogie Man and Lee Atwater's legacy in what looks to be a post-rove era (rove being atwater's protege and successor). Boogie Man is available on netflix instant if you have that service and want to watch it. i highly recommend that you do if you have any interest race and politics in america

 

"Well, that's the magic word. Once you say 'racism', the other side loses automatically." - Penn Jillette

EDIT -- And what Atwater is saying wasn't exactly anything new or revolutionary. It was the same tactic pioneered by Mississippi governor J.P. Coleman and applied by other Democratic moderates during the 50s and 60s.

EDIT 2 -- It seems that the video in question only plays his answer that makes him sound worse than he really is. Wikipedia has the question posted.
Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?

And he gives a traditional politician answer: how to win the racists' vote without actually taking up the racists' cause. To infer from this (31 year old) video (that discusses winning the vote of people who are either extremely elderly if not extremely dead as of November 6, 2012) that the Tea Partiers are racists is a bit of a stretch.

 

I think the point, Lee, is that the same tactics are still being used a half century later. Especially when combined with the quite specifically racialized antipathy for President Obama seen in many conservative circles. For instance, Gingrich's acclamations about "the best Food Stamp President," and Romney's discussion of "gifts" both map pretty well onto this rubric.

 

That's not what he's saying. He's talking about how to use linguistic coding to send racist political messages without actually appearing to be racist. Then he explicitly names "states rights" and "end entitlements" as phrases that you use in place of "n******". And these are the exact same semantics being used by the right to stir up the Tea Party and others. Thirty one years may seem like an eternity in the age of the meme, but in terms of the symbolic import of a phrase its hardly any time at all. And honestly, if you can look at the Tea Party's reaction to Obama and his policies and see anything other than, at the least, latent racism, I'm baffled.

 

Perhaps, but I see Romney and Gingrich's quotes are more along the lines of "Bread and Circuses to Appease the Masses" being more about class warfare and elitist snobbery than about actual racism. After all, Herman Cain promoted the exact same sentiment back during the primaries.

 

And this was exactly Atwater's point. No matter that Romney specifically went out of his way to cite ethnic minorities like blacks and latinos. Since, technically, one could still use the same argument of "gifts" that he did without any racial import, it is unfair to suggest that there was any racial element in what he said. Thank you for demonstrating.

 

oh well if herman cain did it well then !!-!! newsflash !!-!! black people can internalize and promote racist viewpoints

 

No I really don't. Claiming the tea party is a racist organization is equivalent to saying the OWS crowd is pro-sexual assault.
A few bad apples does not spoil the entire orchard.

 

Widely lauded leaders and heroes of the Tea Party movement make racist remarks. Sites of OWS protests that had protestors inter-mingled with homeless people had reports of criminal incidents that no one celebrated. Not quite equivalence, there.

 

"This is ground control to Uncle Tom... you've really made the grade..."

 

It's not just that they're a racist organization, its that their rhetoric and actions have been defined by a pervasive latently racist ideology. OWS, as misguided as they are, do not base themselves around a rhetoric of sexual assault. Suggesting so if a ludicrous false equivalency.

 

Yes you are right, Lee Kenobi. There is no such thing as self-hate because that is completely impossible and it's not like multiple psychiatric disorders are based explicitly around this concept. Oh, wait.

 

Guys OWS is racist against large financial institutions.

 

rewrite the protocols of the learned elders of zion to be about wealthy ceos instead of jews and it would become nonfiction

 

I dunno, I think pretty much all tea partiers are whether they have a conscious hatred/fear of nonwhites or not, or at least they all use the coded language-- e.g., "take back this country!"

 

And this is exactly the sort of thing Atwater is talking about. Let's say, hypothetically, that the Tea Party isn't racist; they're still using this language to bring in racists without saying anything overt. So then people like Lee here can say, "well saying that isn't racist!" and be correct, technically, or at least feel better about themselves.

 

See but the thing is, even if they don't consciously see themselves as racist, if they're consciously using that rhetoric in order to bring in racists, then they are in fact being technically racist.

 

this is so great

 

Atwater on lead guitar.

 

*Jedi Mind Trick*

This is not to post your looking for. Move along; nothing to see here*

 

Wrong thread, Juliet316

 

no no, perfect soundtrack. leave it.

 

Why am I not surprised to find you defending the Tea Party against charges of racism, Lee?