Deciphering their racist code words

[DainBramaged]

IN RECENT days, John McCain has been lambasted for telling outright lies in his campaign ads--from the claim that Barack Obama called Sarah Palin a pig to the absurd charge that Obama insisted on sex education for kindergarteners.

The media and the pundits--even the king of dirty campaigning himself, Karl Rove--criticized the untruths underpinning McCain's increasingly vicious ads.

But most have been silent about another aspect of McCain's campaigning--an increased willingness to invoke a new lexicon of racist code words, aimed at stoking bigotry among white voters.

While McCain and the other Neanderthals in the Republican Party can't get away with calling Obama a criminal or a welfare cheat, they're using new terms to get the point across--he's Black, he's urban, and he's out of step with the "rest of us." And the us, of course, are "hard-working white Americans," as Hillary Clinton put it toward the end of her failed bid to win the Democratic presidential nomination.

Last month's Republican National Convention was a cesspool of thinly veiled racist invective aimed at Obama. Sarah Palin, the Republicans' vice presidential candidate, sneered about Obama's history as a community organizer. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani likewise derided Obama for his work "on the South Side of Chicago."

A few hours before McCain gave his acceptance speech, Republican bigot Lynn Westmoreland, a member of Congress from the former slave state of Georgia, referred to Michelle and Barack Obama as "uppity," saying, "Just from what little I've seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they're a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they're uppity." Given an opportunity to clarify, Westmoreland said, "Yeah, uppity."

"As a native of the South," said political commentator David Gergen, "I can tell you, when you see this Charlton Heston ad, 'The One,' that's code for, 'He's uppity, he ought to stay in his place.' Everybody gets that who is from a Southern background."

For those who have never heard of Westmoreland, all you really need to know is that in 2006, he and 32 of his other Southern white brethren voted against renewing the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which, among other things, guarantees Blacks the right to vote.

http://socialistworker.org/2008/09/17/deciphering-their-racism

[opihimoimoi]

1. Despite their despicable efforts they will see their McCreep lose his ASS

[Earth Bound Misfit]

2. GREAT article, Thank you for posting this

:kick: & R

[Iterate]

3. Someday, after the election

I look forward to a long and thoughtful conference and maybe a book or two that will look more deeply into the use of code in this election. Maybe Michelle Obama would contribute, if she's not too angry.