Race baiting and exclusionary politics...good old tricks of the trade!

[Nazgul35]

As the past two days illustrate....the tactic of using race to divide the population and suppress voter turnout is alive and well in American politics!

The recent attacks on Governor Dean and the subsequent parroting of the "Dean suggests we talk to those people, therefore he's going to screw you people..." meme was repeated over and over agian....

Never mind that most people hadn't even gone to the trouble of watching the whole speach from which the Dean quote was listed, prefering instead to round off on the Governor based upon an edited version presented by a person running against the Governor....Seems that the race-baiting ploy still works!

Perhaps the fact the the Governor is trained as a scientist that is causing so much problems.....scientist observe the world as a multi-dimensional cause and effect system. A good scientist would never label the outcome as the area to change the effect, but rather would look at the root causes and see if altering anything about those conditions would result in different outcomes....

Hence, by focusing on the things that poor and middle class whites and blacks share, he is attemtping to change the issue dimension upon which the debate is framed to alter the outcomes (vote choice)...

By continuing to focus on race as the determining factor in distributive and ideological politics, both the Dem and Repug candidates are attempting to force familiar voting patterns without actually addressing the underlying causes of what produces racism....

So the next time you receive a message to digest from a politician, not matter from what party they hail, take some time to chew it and taste it before you swallow it whole.....and maybe you won't be so easily manipulated by the elite and we can start to solve some of the problems that we have in this country....


Here's a short test....if you can summarize your thoughts about the following concepts in 2-3 sentences....you probably need to chew more....

Abortion
Homosexuality
Affirmative Action
Welfare
Taxes
War
Terrorism
Education

Do we really believe that education and a better standard of living will be bad for race relations in the South?!

[Padraig18]

1. Some here would prefer...

... that we continue our party's brilliant, 30 year-long strategy which has yielded such uninterrupted, crushing defeats over the GOP in the South. Heaven forbid that any candidate should demonstrate the sheer lunacy of suggesting that our 'Southern strategy' is flawed, in that it fails to reach out to voters who have far more in common with our party and its concerns than with the GOP. :eyes:

/sarcasm off

[billbuckhead]

2. I still want to be the candidate of those with confederate flags on their

pickup trucks is the sound bite Karl Rove will have blasting from every urban radio station right before election day. What Dean did was no different than what Rush Limbaugh did on ESPN. Dean brought the Confederate flag into a healthcare debate for no good reason just like Rush brought race into a quarterback controversy. Furthermore Dean sterotyped working class white people as having Confederate decals on their cars when very few do. Some have said he used this white racist stereotype to play to his base to raise money. Dean needs to withdraw from this race before he damages the party more.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LuminousX]

5. Attempt to meme at least

It won't go very far. This issue is already dead.

[Maddy McCall]

7. I don't think it is at all dead...

we will see when the Democratic candidates face questions from a public audience on CNN tonight, though.

And glad you guys have a new word in your vocabulary. Has it not ever occured to you that overusing the word "meme" is indeed a meme in itself?

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Maddy McCall]

6. From a Southerner's perspective--someone who lives in Mississippi--

and whose experience is more than that of an armchair observer:

"Furthermore Dean sterotyped working class white people as having Confederate decals on their cars when very few do."

You could not be more correct, and this is what bothers me the most about what he said. It is a condescending statement to those of us who work on a daily basis on race relations in our state.

We NEED a northern messiah to come straighten out our problems, no doubt. As if racism and working-class people without insurance are purely southern phenomena.

You know, regional discord might dissipate if politicians (and DUers) would quit stereotyping us in this way.

I have said it a hundred times, and I will say it again. Dean could have found better words to express his thoughts. Instead, he typecasted millions of white southerners and alienated many black supporters.

And I will add that I haven't decided on a candidate yet, but I HAVE decided which I won't support, unless he makes it through the primary, and that is dean.

[TreasonousBastard]

8. I stayed out of...

most of that brouhaha here, and I'll just mention here that I agree with this.

Dean's had a few slips of the tongue during this campaign, and they haven't hurt him much with his supporters, but are just plain dumb for a politician with so much at stake. It's not his supporters he has to impress.

I don't know what he really thinks about the South, or if he really meant to characterize it as full of rednecks, and piss off half the black vote, but if he can't watch his mouth, he's dead meat when it gets serious.

If comments like that can cause such shitstirring here, imagine what the Republican PR machine will do with them in a general election.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

17. A voice of reason.

Maybe you're not a treasonous bastard after all... ;)

[a_lil_wall_fly]

15. Oh so true

I think that Dean has hurt some of his chances with unwise choice of words.
Dean needs to walk the back roads of south to see how many voters have the flag on thier trucks and/or on the sides of the houses.
I would be amazed if it is more than 1 of 20 people that has that.

[Maddy McCall]

23. I'd say 1 in 1,000...

except for Ole Miss alumni who are probably better educated than he is.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

4. Pot. Kettle. Black.

[Nazgul35]

9. explain...

if you would....

[sandnsea]

10. The words came from an interview

Not a speech, that's the first thing.

But your point of view is just bizarre, you've just put the Republican spin on racism. Next thing you know, Howard Dean will want to talk to pro-lifers and fundamentalists and suggest we just ignore their insanity in order to gain votes. This is just nuts.

[Nazgul35]

11. actually you're wrong...

it is a quote from a speech that was included in an interview about Dean....I linked to the speech which is in the C-SPAN archive in another posts....but at this point it is hard to keep up with this silliness...

As to your characterization that my view is republican spin and bizarre....huh?

and thanks for proving my point with this sentence....

Next thing you know, Howard Dean will want to talk to pro-lifers and fundamentalists and suggest we just ignore their insanity in order to gain votes....i'm sure all the Catholics who are pro-life and vote for Democrats thank you....hope you don't support Kucinich!

As long as people continue to use simplistic language, sound bites and just plain black and white views of the world than we'll never get anywhere!

The fact that you could think that you could address all the points I raised in four sentences kinda proves the point I was making....thank you for illustrating it!

[Feanorcurufinwe]

13. No, you are wrong:

Here's what you said:

"it is a quote from a speech that was included in an interview about Dean...."

Here is the reality:

"I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks," Dean said Friday in a telephone interview from New Hampshire. "We can't beat George Bush unless we appeal to a broad cross-section of Democrats."
http://www.dmregister.com/news/stories/c4789004/22649906.html

I'm sure we can count on you not repeating your false assertion again. :eyes:

[Nazgul35]

14. yes you are right....

I miss read the post on the Dean web site....what Dean was refering to was the original qoute from the speech where this first emerged, upon which he has been repeating short bites in interviews....

Rather than rehash this argument again....dont you think about five different threads is enough....why not respond to my specific points in the two previous posts.....rather than try and win debating points....or is that the point....score points, not put out anything productive that will make peoples lives better?

[Feanorcurufinwe]

16. What points do you want me to respond to?

I'm not trying to be smarmy, I just lose track sometimes. Could you please repeat the points you wish me to respond to?

[Nazgul35]

18. sure....

many have suggested that we should just ignore those who "display the confederate flag" as they are obviously racists....something I suggests is a simplistic view of what is actually going on....

The strategy of race baiting and exclusion politics is practiced by every politician, which is why, after 60 years of the civil right's struggle, we are still dealing with race...

I suggested that we address those variables that create an environment which makes good people, many of whom are not even aware that the have succumbed to these types of appeals, vote based upon issues that are counter to their own interest....

I in fact did live in the South for a decade, long enough to meet enough well intentioned southerners who saw the confederate flag as a symbol of many things other than slavery.....it not the symbol that needs to be addressed, but the causes of this symbolism's effectiveness.....

To do this, we have to change the issue dimension on which the debate is framed, something that the repugs are actually good at (since it's easy to be simplistic and go for gut level images that produce emotions like fear, hatred and distrust)....

to combat this we need to appeal to all poor...all middle class voters by showing them that in fact, they are getting screwed....show them that when we all have good schools, when we all have affordable health care, when we all have a decent living wage in an environment that isnt slowly killing us, than the ability for politicians to use the messages of division can not take root...

especially of we actually have a frank and open debate about the variables that cause this mistrust and hatred...this open wound on our psyche....

but we can not do it, when someone who tries to reach out is met with cries of racist and innundated with cries to the African American community to "not trust this guy...or he'll undo the last 60 years of gains...."

it's nothing more than trying to instill fear in a group in order to get that group to vote a certain way.....and the real crime (as if that wasnt bad enough) is that we never get to that point when we can begin to solve the problems that undermines our dreams of egalitarianism....

Democrats as well as Repugs practice this type of electoral politics, and all we do is inject race into an election in such a way that we will never be able to solve the problems....and it's only going to get worse! By 2050, there will be no majority race in the US, and people are going to feel more desperate and more frightened as the repukes ratchet up the rehtoric...and we must undermine this now!!!!

those are my points....how is it different for Bush to call terrorist evil doers, and ignore the underlying casuses that made tthe environment fertile for them to become terrorists...

Calling out Dean as a person who "embraces or endorses" the confederate flag or is some closet racist....is only designed to try and drive African American voters away from his candidacy...and that really is a shame!

[Feanorcurufinwe]

19. Well I just think you are mischaracterizing Dean's remark.

You say is not meant to appeal to racists. I disagree. I don't think Dean is a racist so please don't put those words in my mouth. I think the Confederate flag IS a symbol of racism, just like the swastika is a symbol of racism. Perhaps not all of the people who display the confederate flag are not racists and perhaps not all of those who display the swastika are racists -- but I would guess a large percentage are.

I agree that we need to appeal to folks who have been voting Republican, but are actually closer to our natural constituency. I don't agree that those people are likely to be displaying Confederate flags. And I certainly don't think that invoking the Confederate flag will energize African-Americans, who ARE our biggest voting bloc in the South.

And just to be clear: I am not saying Dean is a racist. I am not saying Dean is a racist. I am not saying Dean is a racist.

[Padraig18]

21. Easy there, big guy!

Even though we have bitterly disagreed on this issue, I don't believe that you think Howard is a racist--- frankly, I don't think anyone here would seriously assert that. Where we all seem to be disagreeing is over what he meant/how he *said* what he meant, correct?

There are certainly some who will find his refernece to the CF offensive, but there are many who heard what he was saying in context, as well. Isn't that equally possible, that Southerners are intelligent enough to understand that he meant they should quit voting against their self-interest?

edit: typos

[Feanorcurufinwe]

22. Well, that has been the most common counter attack

so I thought I would just deflect it in advance.

Now, you are trying to imply I think Southerners are stupid by saying:

"Isn't that equally possible, that Southerners are intelligent enough to understand that he meant they should quit voting against their self-interest?"

:eyes:

What I am saying is that Dean's use of the Confederate flag to appeal to Southern voters is wrong and misguided. And I've already stated why I think so.

[DemBones DemBones]

20. In your initial post, you said

"Never mind that most people hadn't even gone to the trouble of watching the whole speach from which the Dean quote was listed, prefering instead to round off on the Governor based upon an edited version presented by a person running against the Governor....Seems that the race-baiting ploy still works!"

You went on to tell us that if we could sum up our positions in two or three sentences on issues like abortion, war, terrorism, that we weren't putting enough thought into them.

So you're castigating us for not thinking enough but your whole argument is based on your misreading something on Dean's site! Maybe you should be apologizing to us and to the Democratic candidates who've spoken out against Dean's careless stereotyping of Southerners. You're accusing the candidates who criticized Dean of race-baiting. But when Dean talks about wanting the votes of people with Confederate flags on their pick-up trucks -- and Dean supporters here say he has said this repeatedly in speeches -- it could be argued that he is the one who is race baiting. He usually goes on to talk about "them" being in the same economic boat with African-Americans. I understand that he's ostensibly trying to make the point that it's in the economic interests of most people to vote Democratic.

By mentioning the Confederate flag, though, he's injecting race into the equation. The Klan and the NAACP have brought the flag into the spotlight and made it stand for racism in the minds of many. That's ironic. As Howard Zinn points out, "... the American flag was, for most of it's history, really wrapped around the Confederate flag... " It was the federal government that initially permitted slavery and it was the federal government that allowed segregation to go on until black people demanded change. Casting stones at the South and the Confederacy is a way to divert attention from the racist policies pursued by the United States.

Maybe Howard Dean realizes this. But by saying he wants the votes of people with Confederate flags on their pick-up trucks, he:

stereotypes Southerners (most of whom don't have Confederate flags on their trucks or cars, and wouldn't have them because they know it's now seen as a racist symbol and they're not racists),

insults Southerners as being too dense to see that the GOP doesn't offer them any economic benefit,

suggests to all Americans, black and white, that he'll wink at racism.


It amazes me that Dean and his supporters refuse to see that this is what he's done.

[Nazgul35]

24. Nope...

I was wrong about where the quote comes from...not the context...which hasnt changed...just the amount of what Dean had to say about the subject...his point was still the same


As to your point about the confederate flag....having lived in the south for ten years...I saw it an awful lot fo it not being so popular....and not just on cars.....hanging on porches, at nascar races....even saw it painted on the roof of a gas station.....and I also talked to alot....ALOT of southerners who held the flag up as a symbol of heritage....and often talked about the war of northern agression....


as to your characterization about Dean's usage of the quote....using an edited quote and focusing in on a symbol that is highly charged for the sole purpose of characterizing a fellow candidate was meant for only one purpose, to scare African American voters....and that's race baiting.....

What Governor Dean was doing...and it frequently amazes me that many don't seem to understand the concept of solving underlying problems rather than continuing the politics and language that only exacerbates the race problem in this country...is trying to address the underlying problems that cause racism!!!

So what is your candidate proposing?! same old same old....the message of exclusion......?!

I think it is clear what Kerry and Edwards are doing....and it is nothing more than focusing in on a symbol that inflames hatred and appeals to the baser instinct in people...instead of their better angels.....

[Feanorcurufinwe]

25. Message of exclusion?

You say in your post that the Confederate flag is "a symbol that inflames hatred and appeals to the baser instinct in people" and I agree. Do we want to have a message that includes or excludes people who proudly display that symbol? Obviously you and I disagree about that just as Dean and Kerry do.

[sandnsea]

30. I'm Catholic

Kerry, Clark and Kucinich are Catholics. And I think my fellow Catholics who are pro-life have missed the separation of Church and State in the Constitution. Catholics, of all people, ought to know better than to mix the two. The ones who vote Democratic generally get that. And I don't think we need to pander to the ones who don't.

I also don't think we'd get very far saying that all those Catholics with St. Christopher's on their rear-view mirrors should vote Democratic to get health care and education.

[loyalsister]

32. Damn right

I fully agree no person who doesn't agree with Democrats on particular principles should be able to benefit from any of our policies. We should develop personality inventory tests to determine social attitudes in order to determine whether they should be eligible for health care or education. So glad people like you are here to remind me of what sanity should look like.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

33. What are you talking about?

The post you are replying to says we aren't the party of fundamentalists or pro-lifers. Are you actually disagreeing with that sentiment?

This really has become Bizarro world.

[sandnsea]

34. So we stand for health care and education

Racism, separation of church and state, and pro-choice are out the window. The Democrats just want everyone to have health care and education. Glad to know what our platform is.

:eyes:

[DrFunkenstein]

26. Let Me Take The Test

Abortion - safe, legal and rare
Homosexuality - total non-discrimination rights
Affirmative Action - flawed, but best we got
Welfare - flawed, but best we got
Taxes - cut pork, willing to pay for real services
War - always a last resort
Terrorism - drain the swamps economically, intelligence not military
Education - we should be teaching with golden textbooks

[Duder]

27. If you haven't already...

Read what the Progressive's Sam Smith had to say Nov.1, about Dean and the confederate flag issue.

Pickups for Dean


'During the long years of southern segregation, the white establishment managed to convince poor whites that it was blacks rather than itself that posed the biggest threat. This was not only immoral, it was a con, and a miserably effective one.

Only occasionally was the myth challenged, as when Earl Long went after black votes while holding onto his low income white constituency. When Long was elected in 1948 there were only 7,000 black voters in Louisiana. By the time he left office a decade later, there were 110,000.

It was not that Governor Long was any moral model. His language, for example, would have shocked today's white and black liberals. What he did do, and quite well, was to put together people who many at the top didn't want together. And at a time when the likes of Lyndon Johnson and William Fulbright were carefully avoiding the race issue, Long took on the White Citizens Council.

I was reminded of this the other day when Howard Dean made his comment about wanting to get the votes of people who drove pickups with confederate flag stickers. He was immediately excoriated by Kerry and Gephardt but what he was doing was simply reaching out to a constituency that Democratic liberals have too long dissed, the less successful white male. Uncle Earl would have been pleased.

By any traditional Democratic standards, this constituency should be a natural. After all, what more dramatically illustrates the failure of two decades of corporatist economics than how far these white males have been left behind? Yet because some of them still cling to the myths the southern white establishment taught their daddies and their granddaddies, the likes of Gephardt and Kerry don't think they qualify as Democratic voters.'

More...

http://prorev.com/indexa.htm

[Padraig18]

28. What a wonderful post!

Thanks for providing the link! :thumbsup:

[sandnsea]

31. Article misses completely

First, Dean didn't challenge anything. He said come on along, Confederate Flag and all, join us.

Second, this article perpetuates the struggling white male myth. Sorry guys, you now know what it's been like for women and minorities for hundreds of years, that's all.

And when he wraps it up with the gratuitous 'Democrats aren't church-goers', the mythology is complete.

This is just a typical christian-white-male-is-persecuted piece of tripe, which is what it sounds like Dean was buying into all along.

[Duder]

35. I disagree

First, I think the article makes clear that Dean has challenged presumptions:

In fact, the best way to change people's minds about matters such as ethnic relations is to put them in situations that challenge their presumptions. Like joining a multicultural political coalition that works. It's change produced by shared experience rather than moral by revelation.

Martin Luther King understood this as he admonished his aides to include in their dreams the hope that their present opponents would become their future friends. And he realized that rules of correct behavior were insufficient:

"Something must happen so as to touch the hearts and souls of men that they will come together, not because the law says it, but because it is natural and right."

Secondly, "struggling white males" have existed throughout our history. The myth that has been perpetuated by those on the top is that they are somehow better/different than minorities. One only has to study colonial Virginia as well as the history of the Irish in America, to have a grasp of the power through division. Evidently, John Kerry didn't believe it was a myth when he said:

``There exists a reality of reverse discrimination that actually engenders racism,'' he said. Later, he added, ``We cannot hope to make further racial progress when the plurality of whites believe, as they do today according to recent data, that it is they, not others, who suffer most from discrimination.''

You consider it "gratuitous" but the article wraps it up with:

The decline of liberalism has been accelerated by the growing number of American subcultures deemed unworthy by its advocates: gun owners, church goers, pickup drivers with confederate flag stickers. Yet the gun owner could be an important ally for civil liberties, the churchgoer a voice for political integrity, the pickup driver a supporter of national healthcare.

We'll never know until we try. Dean, coming off some successful approaches to black voters, has now turned to another group the establishment, including its liberal branch, doesn't really give much of damn about: the struggling white male. These two groups are primarily antagonistic because they have been taught to see life that way by those who really don't want them getting along. Instead of inveighing in the best liberal fashion against all stereotypes save one's own, Dean is mixing things up a bit. A Dean bumper sticker next to a confederate flag on a pickup may not be utopia, but it would be sure sign of positive change which, these days, would be a pretty big change in itself.

The Democratic party is a big tent but what Gephardt, Kerry and some supporters are suggesting is that they don't want inclusion of those kinds of people. Sorry, but ignoring those white boys with confederate decals on their pickups because you think you're better, won't end the bigotry and stereotypes that perpetuate from one generation to the next.

[DrFunkenstein]

36. Ouch! Ouch! Make The Spinning Go Away

<>

"A constituency that Democratic liberals have too long dissed, the less successful white male."

Um, what does being Southern and unsuccessful have to do with the Confederate flag? Besides the obvious, I mean. Is there no other way to describe this "constituency" than flag-bearers?

<>

<>

http://www.theonion.com/onion3613/south_postpones.html

[Duder]

37. Saying...

"Those extraordinarily economically deficit Southern Republicans should vote Democratic to provide healthcare to their families",
probably wouldn't get their attention, imo.



Might work on the folks in Massachusetts though. :)

[mmonk]

29. The assumptions one takes from

the imagery used to describe southerners in a highly visible race in the year 2003 will hurt him with some of my fellow southerners (at least in my state of NC). I do not hold this against Dean though. That is the imagery many people have and we have to battle through all the time. We are not all uneducated, poor, rebel flag carrying (which I'm not saying all that do are racists), racist, monolithic, etc. We are diverse and multi ethnic in 2003.

That aside, I do think Dean is trying to connect. But all the white southerners that are republican are not so because they are racists and that's why some left the Dems. They are because the republicans have done a better job convincing them their policies are good for America. We need to change that.

To me it was a mistake to use that image as a kind of all encompassing issue concerning southerners. They worry about the same things everyone else is.

Race is an important issue that does, in fact need to be talked with to white Americans in order to show the positives in things such as retaining affirmative action. That means all of white America, not just southern.

All in all a mere gaffe for Dean. It shouldn't be fatal but any smoothing of the waters without looking like pandering might be a good idea.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

38. a symbol that inflames hatred and appeals to the baser instinct in people

I think you were completely correct to describe the Confederate flag that way.