I think that Mark Sawyer (http://www.npr.org/blogs/newsandviews/2008/08/obama_has_no_race_card_to_play.html) has it right when he says that Obama has a lot to lose if he "plays the race card," but the more McCain gets people worried about it, the more he benefits. The fact that as the race gets closer to its end (and as McCain gets more desperate) his supporters have become more and more frenzied in their hatred, departing further and further from the excuses they were repeating earlier in the campaign.
Honestly, I didn't think as much of this was about race as I do now... until we ended up with a proudly-uneducated, ideologically-extreme, gun enthusiast mother of a teen mom from the boondocks of America. Have you notied that these qualities are feared and hated in a person of color, but are appealing and folksy from a white woman? The fact that Palin can "energize McCain's base" says a lot about what they're scared of and what makes them feel good about themselves.
That's when I started thinking about how little of this was rational, and how much of it was simply hate. And unlike the Democrats, Republicans cannot write off the racism in this campaign as the action of isolated whackos. Treating the Democrats and the Republicans as though they're equally culpable for the negative and hateful tone of the race is really deceptive.
I actually put up a whole post a while back on the subject of this particular way of rationalizing away McCain's campaign's conduct. In it I said, "Wild and stupid rumors are spreading on both ends of the political spectrum, but only one candidate is encouraging them: McCain. Grouping Obama's campaign in with McCain's is either a startling display of ignorance about what these campaigns are really doing, or it's a deliberately deceptive attempt to drag Obama down to McCain's level in the minds of people who aren't paying enough attention to know the difference."
Democrats are being shits sometimes. But Republicans are also being shits, and they're being encouraged to do so by their candidates. For a good blurb about the racism driving many McCain supporters, check out this entry also from RacismReview (http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2008/10/14/mccain-supporters-reveal-racism/). They're not just griping about McCain, and if you look one of their recent entries is about racism in Obama's campaign as well. But it's not the same.
It is nowhere near the same, either in magnitude or source. The campaign with the worst racism is also the campaign that is encouraging it. This is not a coincidence. We can agree to disagree on that, but you should know that I'm not talking out my ass from watching video of one Palin rally. I'm looking at things like what I've linked here (and keep in mind that this is just what I've already happened to come across and could track down in fifteen minutes while typing a comment), and if you were already aware of them you don't seem terribly bothered.
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Date: 2008-10-18 10:30 pm (UTC)From:Honestly, I didn't think as much of this was about race as I do now... until we ended up with a proudly-uneducated, ideologically-extreme, gun enthusiast mother of a teen mom from the boondocks of America. Have you notied that these qualities are feared and hated in a person of color, but are appealing and folksy from a white woman? The fact that Palin can "energize McCain's base" says a lot about what they're scared of and what makes them feel good about themselves.
That's when I started thinking about how little of this was rational, and how much of it was simply hate. And unlike the Democrats, Republicans cannot write off the racism in this campaign as the action of isolated whackos. Treating the Democrats and the Republicans as though they're equally culpable for the negative and hateful tone of the race is really deceptive.
I actually put up a whole post a while back on the subject of this particular way of rationalizing away McCain's campaign's conduct. In it I said, "Wild and stupid rumors are spreading on both ends of the political spectrum, but only one candidate is encouraging them: McCain. Grouping Obama's campaign in with McCain's is either a startling display of ignorance about what these campaigns are really doing, or it's a deliberately deceptive attempt to drag Obama down to McCain's level in the minds of people who aren't paying enough attention to know the difference."
Democrats are being shits sometimes. But Republicans are also being shits, and they're being encouraged to do so by their candidates. For a good blurb about the racism driving many McCain supporters, check out this entry also from RacismReview (http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2008/10/14/mccain-supporters-reveal-racism/). They're not just griping about McCain, and if you look one of their recent entries is about racism in Obama's campaign as well. But it's not the same.
It is nowhere near the same, either in magnitude or source. The campaign with the worst racism is also the campaign that is encouraging it. This is not a coincidence. We can agree to disagree on that, but you should know that I'm not talking out my ass from watching video of one Palin rally. I'm looking at things like what I've linked here (and keep in mind that this is just what I've already happened to come across and could track down in fifteen minutes while typing a comment), and if you were already aware of them you don't seem terribly bothered.