Though we didn't talk about it here, Senator (and GOP Presidential hopeful) George Allen got into a little trouble when he referred to an Indian American photographer as "Macaca" which most people agree was a racial slur. Allen has apologized, but as it turns out, he may have more apologies coming. This picture of Allen mugging with the Council of Conservative Citizens is trouble. For those who don't know, this organization is the cleaned up version of the old segregationist White Citizen's Councils that ruled the segregated South. These are the real problem people, because they were the business and political leaders who combined to make sure that African Americans stayed "in their place." Read Local People by John Dittmer if you want more on this.
This is the Republican problem. The Southern strategy is oft mentioned, but the reality of it just as often avoided. The GOP of Bush and Dobson is also the GOP of the racist South--people who believe the Civil War isn't over and that Lincoln was a tyrant and that slavery wasn't bad. No doubt, the Democratic party has its problems with race. But the GOP has made racism its winning ticket and the Religious Right doesn't want to acknowledge that. They want to focus on the gays and the abortions and ignore that their great Republican leaders are meeting with people who think that the Civil Rights Act was a huge mistake.
3 comments:
Streak,
Hmmmm... Seems like some generalizations going on in this post. As a conservative Southerner, I am not still fighting the Civil War nor am I a racist.
I stood up for the hispanic population in a town in Texas when other churches wanted to stop having bilingual community religious services, because they said to stop and interpret every other sentence upset the "flow" of the service. I performed an interracial mariage ceremony in North Carolina because I supported the right for the man and woman to marry if they chose to do so.
While living in Chicago in the late 1970s, I heard more racist remarks than I have ever heard in North Carolina.
I think that's one of the problems in America today. We portray racism as a regional issue and not a national issue. We stereotype each other instead of assuming that each person has positive qualities of his or her own, regardless of cultural upbringing.
My friend, I don't believe we're ever going to defeat racism until we acknowledge that it is everybody's problem, not a conservative or liberal problem, not a North or South problem, but an American problem.
I believe there is only one race: the human race. After all, the Bible says that we are all of one blood (Acts 17:26).
Have a great day!
Les
Les,
I don't think that is what I said and I am a little unsure how you got an attack on the South from this. I completely agree that racism transcends region, and am not surprised at all that you ran into racist remarks in Chicago or any other region of the country. We have historical evidence of race riots and disturbances from around the country.
But that wasn't what I was addressing here. True, absolutely true that racism is not unique to the South and there is no doubt that many Southerners are incredibly sensitive to the race issues, but I was addressing a particular strategy and particular aspect of Southern society. Those White Citizen's Councils are not made up, nor is their influence as they morphed into the Councils of Conservative Citizens. Nor is the Southern strategy made up, where conservatives play off southern racial tensions to control the region.
That is my beef--that religious conservatives who themselves would never embrace that kind of racism are looking the other way when someone like John Ashcroft praises these groups, or when George Allen does the same.
How did you take that as an attack on the entire South? Or an implication that all Southerners are racist and non-Southerners not racist?
Streak,
Thanks for the clarification. Maybe I had a brain cloud or something.
Regards,
Les
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