Actually, nothing’s difficult to accept about that at all. One man’s gross naivete is another man’s healthy skepticism.
That’s why subtle appeals to racism are so reliable - it’s fairly easy to distance yourself from them. In fact, I’m sure it will be a fairly rare race in which a candidate comes out and says, “Don’t let this darkie get elected! Get off your asses and vote.”
Perhaps this is another reason why Republicans have been so successful - they’ve mastered the use of the code word, and Democrats, beset with healthy skepticism, just let each individual instance pass without comment. “Aw, gee, Wally. Does anybody really fear that their women want to have sex with black men? I dunno, Wally, I’m skeptical.”
On a tangent, I hope that the Democrats are able to move past their tendency to just cry foul and whine about how unfair these kind of ads are. I don’t want to hear the word “unfair” come out of one more Democrat’s mouth. You get sucker-punched by some punk, you don’t appeal to his good nature to regret how unfair his behavior was. You knock some squares loose.
Democrats haven’t been bringing a knife to a gun fight. They’ve been bringing a copy of the Queensberry rules to a gun fight.
:rolleyes: Yep. Those poor Democrats are just too pure of heart to make racist appeals. They just aren’t as mean and racist as Republicans. Democrats are incapable of racism.
Checking in from the Tennessee 9th Congressional district, currently represented by Harold Ford, Jr. I grew up in rural East Tennessee, which is the geographical target of these ads. Hopefully I can add some context to this discussion.
Anybody who says that racism is not a factor in comtemporary political life hasn’t been to Tennessee lately. In middle and east tennessee they call Memphis “The Captial of Mississippi.” Most of the black population of Tennessee is concentrated here. I didn’t see a black person in the flesh until a black family transferred to my school in 4th grade. I was back home in the east last month to help settle my grandmother’s estate and I ended up giving a nice-seeming older lady a ride into town as a favor. She told me one of her sons was a preacher and the other a cop. She knew my family, and asked where I lived. I told her I lived in Memphis. “They have a lot of niggers there, don’t they?” she said. In her mind, and in the mind of a whole freakin’ lot of Tennesseans, Memphis = niggers. The Ford family machine has been prominent in Memphis politics for a couple of generations, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. The 9th district seat is a “black seat”. Ford’s brother Jake is running as an “independant Democrat” against the very capable and well-qualified state senator Steve Cohen, and his main support is the Ford machine and black churches in Memphis who are appalled by the thought of a jew in the “black seat”. Jake Ford’s supporters have actually said that in so many words.
So now the Ford who has occupied the “black seat” is getting uppity and running not just for the Senate, but for Bill Frist’s seat. “Why aren’t those Memphis niggers satisfied with the seat we let them have?” says the white guy from East Tennessee. The manufacturing plant where he has worked all his life has just shut down, if he tries to go to the doctor to have that pain in his side checked out he runs the risk of bankrupting his family for two generations, and his oldest kid is getting shipped out to Iraq. If he thinks about these issues, he’s going to vote democratic. So the idea behind this ad is to make him think of the Memphis niggers. Black men aren’t supposed to date white women. Memphis niggers aren’t supposed to hold national office besides the 9th district seat. Harold Ford, Jr. is a light-skinned black man who does the first and wants to do the second. This ad is cacluated to remind the east Tennessee white voters of that fact. That’s the “meta-message.” Furthermore, the ad is coordinated with a classic Rovian whisper campaign. The rumour is that Ford has a white fiancee that he is waiting until after the elections to “spring” on everybody.
When I was home in September, there were Ford signs everywhere. I was shocked. He had a big rally in front of the courthhouse and thousands of people showed up. Ford is playing well with Bill Frist’s base, and that cannot be tolerated.
Now, just a second there, Hentor! Perhaps you don’t realize it, but you are impugning the integrity of the Washington Times, that singular paragon of non-partisan, unbiased candor. We will be in a sorry state, indeed, if we cannot be expected to accept a source that has demonstrated such a rigorous…nay, relentless!..dedication to unvarnished truth.
I am sure you will hasten to retract and withdraw any such suggestion of doubt regarding the Washington Times, which proudly maintains an unsullied reputation for, and dedication to, truthiness.
So your cite that the story is bullshit is to a Mediamatters story saying that some people didn’t see the cookies thrown? Awesome. Can I cite to another story from the Weekly Standard supporting my claim?
Regardless, even if that story is untrue (which I have yet to see an unbiased report on), you still haven’t addressed the numerous other instances of racist demagoguery by Democrats in that story. For example, calling Steele an Uncle Tom, referring to him as an Oreo cookie, and depicting him as a black-faced minstrel.
But just in case that’s not enough, here’s a similar report on Clarence Thomas:
Are those made-up?
It’s not a tu quoque. It’s a direct refutation of your statement that Democrats don’t engage in racist political attacks. You don’t have to be terribly open-minded to see that Democrats are guilty of playing to racist sentiments, too.
They certainly aren’t attributed; how do we know it was Democrats who said that, or that it was even said by anyone? Until you can provide attribution, yes, I think they are made up.
Walden Pond and the Pacific Ocean are both bodies of water, as well. And of course you can post the *Weakly Standard * as a cite, its simply a matter of your personal tolerance for mockery and derision. As you cite the *Washington Times * without so much as a blush, I expect that tolerance is pretty high.
I’m fairly sure that I didn’t say that. But, having not said it, I probably would agree to the statement to the effect that modern day Democrats are vastly less likely to appeal to racist sentiments, whereas Republicans routinely do, and in fact built a whole electoral strategy around it.
Oh, and just to recap, your summary of the Oreo story is a bit misleading. Not only did nobody see cookies thrown, but those cleaning up found no cookies, those involved reported at the time nothing about cookies, and those claiming that cookies were thrown have changed their story over time. That bad boy is one debunked piece of bullshit.
Yeah, you can quote the Weekly Standard. But then if you continue to deny that there’s racial politics being played with the Playboy ad, some knucklehead might try to point out that Mr. Steele looked hungry for dessert and that’s why open-hearted liberals were trying to provide him with America’s favorite store-bought cookie. Both are equally plausible.
I don’t know whether the Oreo thing happened or not, but if it did, that and any other form of racial insults to Steele are reprehensible. But I’ve seen the RNC ad, and I know that it is objectionable. I don’t know why you feel compelled to accuse Democrats of race baiting while defending an ad that the Republican Senate candidate himself condemned within hours of first seeing it.
I think the Oreo incident doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny. Steele basically ended up claiming tha one (or two) oreos rolled on the floor in his general direction, but I don’t think others could collaborate that.
As for the Republican guy condemning the Ford ad, did he condemn for being racist or did he condemn for it being in very poor taste?
This is your defense? You think maybe it was conservatives calling Thomas a Sambo and an oreo? Am I being whooshed? Who do you think said that? :dubious:
I doubt you actually think those statement came from conservatives – if you do, frankly, I don’t know what to say – but I’ll go ahead and provide a few sources: Here:
And here (from a liberal blog correcting an Ann Coulter column):
However, I believe this thread has proven my point. You’ll note how quick everyone (other than Ravennman) was to condemn the racist attacks against black Republicans. Nope, much better to focus on one alleged attack, try to discredit that, and then ignore the multitude of other bad acts that have been pointed out. That way, you can continue to claim that Democrats are never racist. It’s not lying if you ignore the facts contradicting it. :dubious:
I commend Ravenman for at least having the courage to condemn it when it happens.
Then could you please explain what you meant by the language I quoted above? I honestly don’t see another explanation.
Just to be clear, that is a tu quoque.
And as long as we’re providing cites, can you please give me a cite for your contention that Republicans routinely appeal to racist sentiments, and that they built a whole electoral strategy around it?
It would be fair to say that the Republicans have not made racism a major component of their electoral strategy recently, but certainly have in the past. The Southern Strategy of Richard Nixon, through Willy Horton and through the softer racism of anti-affirmative action ads, implying that blacks (or other unamed minoritys) exploit their race to elbow out white job applicants.
There is far less of that lately. You are welcome to believe that is due to pristine civic virtue on the part of the Republicans, or you might believe, as I do, that its simply less effective.