The ‘Race Card’
Something’s (okay, many things) troubling me at the moment: all this talk of the so-called race card, and who played it first.
First, everyone knows that there’s a deep sense of xenophobia and racism built into a certain segment of the Republican base in this country. It helped propel Ronald Reagan when he launched his run for the GOP nomination in 1980; and even before that, Civil Rights legislation signed into law by Lyndon Johnson lost the South for Democrats.
The passing of Jesse Helms does nothing to alleviate deep-seeded, real racism that exists in dark corners (mostly of the South, but certainly all over the country). That’s not to say that there aren’t racist liberals. It’s just to make the point that racist liberals don’t constitute a voting bloc, per se. It’s also to say that it works to any Republican candidate’s advantage to play said card.
Second, and here’s what really annoys the piss out of me, Obama’s “dollar bill” remark, while clearly a reference to his being black, was spoken in a tone of mockery, and justifiably so (see point 1, above). He’s spoken this way before, and indeed, in the same sentence, talking about people not voting for him because of his “funny name,” or his relative youth.
What Obama is doing in bringing such factors up is to shed light on the broader attacks on him, namely that he’s “different.” He’s exposing such baseless attacks for what they are: desperation and distraction from the issues.
So seriously, pundits, talking heads, can we just leave this idiotic non-issue alone and move on? Or, better, why not cut to the true heart of the matter and do what the foreign press (BBC, al Jazeera, et. al.) did so well during the West Virginia primary and go talk to the racist population meant to be the targets of soft-pedalled racist political advertisements and speeches:
