A few months back I opened a new business checking account. The nice lady that helped me was about 60, white and reminded me of Clair Edwards, the character on the old Andy Griffith show. I suppose because I am white, living in Georgia and opening a business checking account she assumed I was a Republican.
While she was taking my info the conversation drifted into politics. She said; “do you know (referring to Obama) his middle name is Hussein?” “What about that,” I said. A few minutes later she said; “do you know he doesn’t even know the Pledge of Allegiance?” “That is really something,” I replied. After taking more personal info she stopped, I just got to show you this. Opening her lower desk drawer she pulled out a little stuffed monkey. “Isn’t that the cutest thing”, she said. “I’ve named him Barack.”
In January, I had a conversation with a friend who is a member of the clergy. We got into politics for a minute. He was going Democratic this year:
(Friend) I think it’s time to shake Washington up, I’m voting for Clinton.
A few weeks ago, I had a chance to talk with him again:
(Me) Still voting Democratic this year?
(Friend) NO, I’m voting for McCain.
(Me) What is wrong with Obama?
(Friend) Obama is pro-abortion and I can’t support that.
(Me) Clinton was pro-abortion too.
(Friend) I’ll be honest Obama will turn it into a black thing.
(Me) What is a black thing?
(Friend) You know how they are; the blacks will go all apes on us.
(Me) What do you mean?
(Friend) Don’t play dumb with me, you know what I am talking about, blacks can’t handle any limelight. They’ll start all that shuck and jive stuff.
Now, I could have confronted these people as being racist. More than likely that would have offended them. I call these people the ignorant racist; they are ignorant about racism. Most of them would be the first to tell you they are not racist, they have black friends and they would never discriminate against a black person. However, I’m sure the lady in the bank would never show her stuffed monkey to a black client. Just like my friend would never make comments like his to a black person.
In 1962, the good voters of Alabama voted the white racist George C. Wallace into the Governor’s office. He won in a landside and carried the white Christian vote by large numbers. Lester Maddox became Governor of Georgia in 1966. His only fame to claim was chasing black patrons out of his restaurant with a pistol. He vowed to never serve a black person in his restaurant and sold it to keep his promise. In 1964, Barry Goldwater won the vote in the south because he campaigned against Johnson’s Civil Rights Acts.
Surely this must be the south of the past, right? Nope. The voters of NC continued to vote the white racist Jessie Helms into the Senate. Helms was seen as a great Conservative Icon. Helms filibustered the King Holiday, sung Dixie to the first black female Senator, and said he would continue doing so until she cried. On the Larry King show a caller from Alabama thanked him for keeping the “niggers” down, Helms said Thank you.
In 2002, a political unknown Sonny Perdue ran on the Republican ticket for Governor of Georgia. Sonny’s selling point was to put the Confederate Battle Cross back on the State Flag. It was placed on the flag a couple of decades before during the white supremacy movement. Perdue won in an upset victory and became the first Republican Governor of Georgia since the Civil War. Although the state assembly tied his hands on the Battle Cross he out maneuvered them and placed the national flag of the Confederacy, the Stars & Bars on the state flag, which now embarrassingly flies over the state today.
“The centrality of race – and, in particular, of the switch of Southern whites from overwhelming support of Democrats to overwhelming support of Republicans – is obvious from voting data. . .More than 40 years have passed since the Voting Rights Act, which Reagan described in 1980 as “humiliating to the South.” Yet Southern white voting behavior remains distinctive. Democrats decisively won the popular vote in last year’s House elections, but Southern whites voted Republican by almost two to one. . .The G.O.P.’s own leaders admit that the great Southern white shift was the result of a deliberate political strategy. “Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization.” So declared Ken Mehlman, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, speaking in 2005. . .”
“. . .And Ronald Reagan was among the “some” who tried to benefit from racial polarization. . .”
“. . .Reagan paralleled Nixon’s success in constructing a politics and a strategy of governing that attacked policies targeted toward blacks and other minorities without reference to race – a conservative politics that had the effect of polarizing the electorate along racial lines. . .”
“Thus, Reagan repeatedly told the bogus story of the Cadillac-driving welfare queen – a gross exaggeration of a minor case of welfare fraud. He never mentioned the woman’s race, but he didn’t have to.”
“There are many other examples of Reagan’s tacit race-baiting in the historical record. My colleague Bob Herbert described some of these examples in a recent column. Here’s one he didn’t mention: During the 1976 campaign Reagan often talked about how upset workers must be to see an able-bodied man using food stamps at the grocery store. In the South – but not in the North – the food-stamp user became a “strapping young buck” buying T-bone steaks. . .”
“Now, about the Philadelphia story: in December 1979 the Republican national committeeman from Mississippi wrote a letter urging that the party’s nominee speak at the Neshoba Country Fair, just outside the town where three civil rights workers had been murdered in 1964. It would, he wrote, help win over “George Wallace inclined voters.”
“Sure enough, Reagan appeared, and declared his support for states’ rights – which everyone took to be a coded declaration of support for segregationist sentiments.”
“And because conservative ascendancy has depended so crucially on the racial backlash – a close look at voting data shows that religion and “values” issues have been far less important – I believe that the declining power of that backlash changes everything.”
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