Great White Hopes: Race and the Right
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One of the high privileges of being white in America is to be able to speak of race in coded terms and language—or by allusion to “broader” political issues, critiques, and concerns—and then profess innocence (“plausible deniability”) when called out for one’s racism.
Recent gatherings of the Tea Party and the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) provide a case in point, as do almost daily sound bites from so-called Congressional leaders determined to prevent the Obama Administration from moving forward on any agenda. Tea partier and former Congressman Tom Tancredo called for a return to Jim Crow-era voter literacy tests, declaring the President was elected by “people who could not even spell the word ‘vote’ or say it in English.” CPACers Mitt Romney declared that “President Obama fails to understand America,” while Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty suggested taking a nine iron to the “window of big government,” as Tiger Woods’ wife had done to his vehicle. House Minority Leader John Boehner told CPAC that, “Voters thought they were electing a commander in chief; instead they got a finger-wagging professor.”
While Tancredo’s remarks were over the top, as usual, those of Romney, Pawlenty, and Boehner are considered “run of the mill” political jibes. Unpacked, they are—to the contrary—racially laden to the core. Romney may just as well as have said what he really meant: that Obama “fails to understand OUR America,” the white America he and the CPACers want back in their hands. Pawlenty may just as well have said, “It’s time to take a golf club to this African American President who has cheated OUR white nation.” And Boehner—well, he may just as well said, “No African American can be either the commander in chief or a professor who thinks he’s better than WE are.” He may have just as well used the “uppity” epithet often attributed to African American men.
To grow up white in the U.S. is to be immersed in racially-charged language from childhood, to know the “code words” implicitly. Those attempting to coalesce the political right are becoming ever-more adept at coding this racism—“OUR country” comes to mind here—in their critiques of and attacks on this President. Language is power. It is the means by which we describe and define, demean and diminish, categorize and characterize. Racially coded, it is another means by which dominance is maintained, advanced, sought, or secured.
Bararck Obama is by no means above criticism. The President and the Democratic Congress have not delivered. In the face of entrenched and unwielding opposition and the rise of race on the right the task has not been easy. No one said it would be.
But amidst all the analysis by the political and pundit classes, one seldom reads or hears about the role of race in the current state of disarray in Washington. No one really wants to touch that rail, even though the political right is riding it all the way to November and beyond.
When Black heavyweight champion Jack Johnson ruled the boxing ring in the early twentieth century, white fans yearned openly for “the great white hope,” “their own” boxer who would take Johnson down for the count. Republicans now speak openly of Obama’s “failed Presidency.” When U.S. Representative Lynn Jenkins (R-KS) spoke of “a great white hope” for the GOP at a conservative gathering in her District just last August, her “slip” barely raised a political eyebrow. Oops. Didn’t know, didn’t mean, didn’t intend… anything by it.
Such “slips” are rather unusual, actually. After all, the racial code suffices quite nicely when speaking of this President (recall “You lie!”?), and most white politicians are smart enough to avoid such blatant missteps. But put your ear to the ground and listen to what is really being said by the Tancredos, the Romneys, the Pawlentys, the Boehners, the countless other who know full well how to use the code to their advantage.
Listen carefully—what you’ll hear is that race and the right go hand in glove, like the one that today’s “great white hopes” are using to win back “their country.”
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