When Mike Huckabee or any other destructively dumb leader on the Right make paranoid statements about where Obama grew up, where he was born, how his relatives indoctrinated him, or how he was brainwashed by hearing the Muslim call to prayer, it is because you can’t call black people “niggers” anymore to sell your books. Mike Huckabee might not personally hate black people, but he’s pandering to the most vile elements in the electorate with code words to drum up resentment and fear of the Other. It’s called the Southern Strategy and it appears it will once again be fully employed in the next presidential race.
Like many in my generation, I grew up being taught that America had come through the Civil Rights struggle of the ’60s a stronger, kinder, and more united place. While that may well be true in some aspects of the American experience, the past two-plus years have demonstrated that there’s still a very dark and ugly side to American politics that we’ve simply swept under the rug for lo, these many years.
It hasn’t been fashionable to talk about racism because collectively we’ve managed to convince ourselves that we’ve risen above racism, that we now live in a post-racial America in which the color of one’s skin matters less than the contents of one’s character. Except that the campaign, and subsequent election, of Barack Obama has demonstrated that racism is still very much alive and well in America. It was just cleverly camouflaged.
It’s been disappointing to have to admit that there are still folks (Haley Barbour, John Boehner, Newt Gingrich, etc., ad nauseum, ad infinitum) out there willing to invoke the language of racism (whether overt or of the dog-whistle variety) to advance their political prospects. I don’t know why I’m surprised, really; this strain of political thought has never really gone away. I suppose I was just naive enough to think that we’d finally managed to move past racism in public discourse. All one needs to do now is to go to a Tea Party rally to understand just how far we haven’t moved past it.
Mike Huckabee and his ilk are smart enough (with the possible exception of Haley Barbour) to not engage in language that would get them branded as overt racists. They’re also smart enough to understand how to speak in the code words that bigots and racists recognize. They’ll deny their racism from here ‘til sundown, but they want and need the support of those who still judge a man by the color of his skin.
It’s easy to understand why politicians traffic in the rhetoric of hatred and racism. It’s much easier to sell someone on the idea of hating and fearing a Black man in the White House than it is to talk about solving the problems that face this country. People identify with hatred and racism because it’s emotional, it’s quick, and it requires little in the way of rational thought. You might not understand something, and it’s a far easier thing to fear what you don’t understand than to try and come to some sort of understanding.
Yes, in some respects we have come a long ways…but to say that racism is no longer part of American discourse is simply delusional. The past two-plus years have demonstrated that. What’s really and truly sad about this is the number of politicians out there who are still ready, willing, and able to exploit racial fear and hatred for their own benefit.
We’re better than this…aren’t we??
