Dana Milbank sees some hopeful signs in the fact that a few “conservatives are now calling out those who pronounce on “sluts,” “wetbacks” and “filthy” gays.” But the larger question is whether the Republican Party can exist if it isn’t constantly fanning the flames of real, existing, sources of racial resentment. Take, for example, the renaming of an Philadelphia institution: Chink’s Steaks. This cheesesteak joint opened in 1949. It was named for it’s owner, Samuel “Chink” Sherman, whose almond-shaped eyes had caused people to call him “Chink” all the way back in grade school. Protests against the name began in 2003, and the controversy has resurfaced on a regular basis for the last decade. Yesterday, the name was formally changed to Joe’s Steaks & Soda Shop. A lot of white folks in the neighborhood are resentful about the outside pressure and political correctness that forced the change.
In Wissinoming, however, once almost exclusively a white working-class enclave, the passing of Chink’s has stirred deep resentment. Defending the rightness of the name and the right to maintain it, residents mourned times when, they said, everyone had thicker skin and people were not forced to walk on verbal eggshells.
“I just think it’s ridiculous,” said Eleanor McGonigal as she sat on a step, watching the sign come down. “C’mon,” said McGonigal, a 60-year-old warehouse worker who has lived in the neighborhood all her life. “Cracker Barrel hasn’t had to change their name. I mean, that could be made into a racist thing.”
It would be a mistake to think the controversy is limited to the name of this restaurant. It’s rooted in a broader change in the neighborhood, the city, and our society.
“This place has a tan,” said [William] Ulrich, a 51-year-old postal worker, who wore a wireless phone device in his ear and shorts that revealed a large cross “in the colors of the American flag” tattooed on his calf.
Over the last 15 years, he said, crime has soared, and he blamed African Americans and Hispanics who have moved in, especially those in government-subsidized housing.
“If you say anything, you’re a racist, when you’re just a realist,” he said. “You’re supposed to be politically correct? Try walking down Torresdale Avenue after 8 p.m. without getting robbed.”
I don’t have statistics to bolster or rebut Mr. Ulrich’s claims that crime has exploded in his neighborhood, nor to address his claim that blacks and Latinos are primarily responsible. My point is that his worldview connects the crime problem with race and the name-change with cultural defeat. These feelings are real and they are widespread in our cities and in our suburbs and rural areas. The question is whether these feelings should be exploited for political benefit. Should these resentments be stoked and turned into political passions? Should a political party do its best to exacerbate racial tensions or to examine the causes of those racial tensions and seek to mitigate them?
For too long, the Republican Party has sought to drive a wedge between voters like Mr. Ulrich and the Democratic Party by pandering to his worst instincts rather than trying to do things that would actually benefit him, like reexamining the Drug War or going after straw-purchasers of the firearms that have flooded Philly’s streets or finding ways to make smart urban investments that will lead to better options for our street kids than gang life. The GOP has basically abandoned any urban policy other than charter schools and disinvestment.
It’s a cynical strategy than seeks to benefit by increasing people’s dislike for each other. And, after forty-five years of constant use, this strategy is so ingrained in the conservative movement that it isn’t clear that it can be unlearned. But when conservatives talk about doing minority outreach, what they need to do is to go into our city neighborhoods and really talk to people, including the white folks. They need to take their problems seriously and stop just demagoguing the crime issue and playing on racial fears and resentments. They need a progressive/reform urban policy that is inclusive and that seeks to pull people together. As long as our demographically diverse cities are pitted as the enemy of conservatism, minority outreach will be little more than a bad joke.
They would do these things if they cared about policy and about country. But the wedge issues they have used to split America so successfully has seen people who are the product of that wedging elected to office. It is who they are now. They care about resentment and about power for “their” tribe.
The cynicism is not limited to Republicans. To the cynicism of Republicans like Rick Snyder who plan to evict black residents from black majority cities like Benton Harbor, Pontiac, and Detroit so that the land can be retaken and gentrified, you can add the cynicism of Rahm Emmanuel who is pursuing the same strategy by acting as an emergency manager instead of a mayor. One appeals to the coarse racism of white working class resentment. The other appeals to the polite racism of white elite greed.
Well, your post gets to the real foundation of the problem, and makes clear the abject hypocrisy of this latest phony Repub “rebranding” ploy, which even itself is fake.
The “conservative” movement has for decades now not sought to lift up its adherents, but instead worked to drag them even deeper into the shit. To sympathize with every racial resentment, coddle it, and to present fake(d) data to support and increase the resentment. Heightening racial tension in an increasingly (and irreversibly) plural nation is simply a recipe for disaster. Nothing productive can come of it, for anyone, duh. But the plutocrats don’t care because they think they can have their abusive tax cut cowboy ride the bitter white horse.
For centuries, and certainly since the founding of this country, the white race has been telling itself that it is “superior” to all other races. Openly and without shame. Whites were superior to blacks and hence slavery was “natural”. Whites were superior to native peoples, hence they should be treated worse than cattle and if they ended up exterminated via Manifest Destiny, well, that was God’s Plan. Asian workers were subhuman and couldn’t possibly be citizens. Etc, Etc Etc. It was a White Country, all evidence to the contrary was deemed inferior.
White superiority was the whole ethos of the race, and white Americans especially made a lot of money and felt pretty good about bein’ at the top of the food chain—it was “natural”. It was the absolute cultural message of this country until well into the 60s.
With that (recent) cultural history, it’s not a big surprise that basic civil rights for all races took forever in this country and that the moral bases for the advances weren’t too ingrained (or even accepted) in many, many people. Now that things are starting to fall apart economically for working class whites, and their God-given “superiority” isn’t so clear anymore, the resentment is starting to build up steam. And let’s just say the Repubs aren’t doing anything to tamp it down. Far from it.
White resentment is a dead end, but these white folks don’t know it. Where does it go, policy-wise? What does it want to accomplish? Simply cutting back on all those many abusive gub’mint benefits these whites think exist only for negroes isn’t going to get them anywhere. Destroying programs for the poor is not gonna get them back in the driver’s seat. Bitter whites like postman Ulrich are resentful, but what exactly is their “solution”? What exactly is the “solution” of any of these White Resentment politicos like Steve King and Gohmert?
Fueling this sort of shit is very dangerous. But that’s “conservatism”….Repubs will have a lot to answer for as they strive to enable every reactionary element in this country, solely for the economic benefit of a few thousand plutocrats.
For too long, the Republican Party has sought to drive a wedge between voters like Mr. Ulrich and the Democratic Party by pandering to his worst instincts rather than trying to do things that would actually benefit him, like reexamining the Drug War or going after straw-purchasers of the firearms that have flooded Philly’s streets or finding ways to make smart urban investments that will lead to better options for our street kids than gang life.
And what have the Democrats done in the past 30+ years to benefit him? Welfare reform? NAFTA? That’s right, a lot of Democrats don’t want to stop straw-purchasers either!
OT(I just saw this because Chris Bowers tweeted it):
http://www.contracostatimes.com/breaking-news/ci_22916804/silicon-valley-congressional-battle-takes-
shape-ro-khanna
I’d love to hear comment on this. Look at the names involved. Democrats my ass!!
Team Obama’s idea of ‘mo betta Democrats. Wonder what Nancy Pelosi has to say about this.
Obama and Pelosi have already come out and endorsed Honda, for what ever it’s worth, according to the article.
The article did state that Obama had endorsed Honda, but this is likely more accurate:
Pre-primary, intraparty endorsements in CA tend not to come this early in an election cycle if they are made at all.
Where does it say Obama is personally involved in this? A few members from his campaign staff and it’s Team Obama vs. Pelosi? Give me a break.
give me a break. A whole team of national-level consultants parachutes into a California congressional election, but it’s not news? This is totally about replacing one of the region’s few remaining old fashioned liberals with a modern business-oriented “Democrat”.
Amen! And some wonder why Democrats aren’t totally cleaning the Republican’s clocks in the voters opinions.
It’s because they don’t see Democrats helping the middle class barely any more than Republicans. The Democrats just talk about it. But it’s all talk and no action. It’s all social issues for the Democrats. Gay marriage, gun control, immigration, etc. No progressive economics at all.
Except for a few old-fashioned progressive populists, the Democratic party represents the same people as the Republicans…the haves and havemores.
“A few members of his campaign staff:”
Easier to read politics if one follows the money and relationships and not most of the carefully vetted public statements.
Well, as a result of recent hints of some small amount of reflection and possible moderation among a few mainstream Republicans here in my state, it looks like the Tea Party is making it’s move here in Ohio. This should be a very interesting event. A coalition of Tea Party activists in the state recently said that they had concluded that the Ohio GOP had “betrayed the party platform”. So they are going to try and take over the top spot.
Apparently, this is being painted at an effort at “unification and reconciliation” within the GOP. My guess is that is anything but that.
How did more than half of these comments turn into anti-Obama rants. Fucking weird.
Noticed that too.
that article made it into our Piggie of the Week. Oy, what an embarrassment, from the comments to the uncritical nature of the reporting.
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