I prefer my racists upfront and honest about their feelings. It’s better if they keep their hands where you can see them. And if they are looking forward to an Obama presidency, so much the better.
He will make things so bad for white people that hopefully they will finally realize how stupid they were for admiring these jigaboos all these years,” “Darthvader” wrote on the neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network web forum. “I believe in the motto ‘Worse is Better’ and Obama certainly fits that description.” Just last week, Ron Doggett (right), a Virginian who has been a key activist in the Klan, the paramilitary White People’s Party and the neo-Nazi National Alliance, chimed in with this: “I hope Obama wins because in four years, white people just might be pissed off enough to actually do something. … White people aren’t going to do a thing until their toys are taken away from them. So things have to be worse for things to be better.”
During the West Virginia primary the networks did a lot of man-on-the-street interviews and most people didn’t come right out and say anything racist. But the most common recurring theme was that Obama would look out only for black folk, which is a variation of the ‘our toys will be taken away from us’ argument. Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA), while defending his cultural group in Appalachia, explained this phenomenon this way:
“This isn’t Selma, 1965. This is a result of how affirmative action, which was basically a justifiable concept when it applied to African Americans, expanded to every single ethnic group in America that was not white, and these were the people who had not received benefits and were not getting anything out of it. And they’re basically saying let’s pay attention to what has happened to this cultural group in terms of opportunities.”
Obama actually recognizes this grievance of poor white people who got left out of the drive for cultural diversity, and has proposed including poor whites in affirmative action programs. That could upset the best laid plans of the white supremacists.
Another message, from “TheLastOfMyKind,” agreed: “Could it be that the nomination of Obama finally sparks a sense of unity in white voters? I would propose that this threat of black, muslim [sic] rule may very well be the thing that finally scares some sense back into complacent whites throughout the nation.” “Actually,” said another poster, “if Obama were to win, it would be the best thing that ever happened to the Klan. They would have massive growth.”
At least Obama’s Justice Department would have something to do. I feel more comfortable with these kinds of overt racist appeals than I do with the understated racism that is simmering just under the surface on cable news, only occasionally boiling over. Last night I was watching Dan Abrams’ show on MSNBC where they were trying discuss whether or not Michelle Obama is a political liability without calling her a nigger. They found the task quite restricting, and wound up saying things like (parapharasing) “Obama is very good at hiding his blackness but not so for his wife. That could be a problem.”
Maybe it could, but I’d rather have some leadership from our media rather than seeing them treat racism as a spectator sport. When people like Ed Koch say that they are shocked that the Reverend Wright saga “didn’t have an impact on” the electorate, they’re feeding on racism rather than working to counteract it. There is really no question that Mr. Koch was more disappointed than shocked. And his dismay was shared by the entire cable news punditry class that couldn’t believe that wall-to-wall saturation coverage of Rev. Wright couldn’t destroy Obama in the polls. All it succeeded in doing was to racially polarize the Democratic electorate, and even then, only temporarily. I find that kind of lazy, passive racism to be far more insidious than the clowns at Stormfront. I don’t think McCain can keep these folks completely at bay because he’ll find himself behind in the polls and under tremendous pressure to use racial prejudice as a wedge. But McCain is not George W. Bush, and he is not skilled at really dirty politics. He has too much personal respect for Barack Obama to countenance a full Lee Atwater/Karl Rove type of campaign. That fact already has many Republican strategists wringing their hands. They feel that McCain’s only chance is to paint Obama as some kind of radical that is only out to steal the white people’s toys.
One of our tasks in this campaign will be to hold McCain to his own high standards. Another task will be to keep on the media’s ass not to be a spectator or, worse, a cheerleader for racist appeals.
