Who’s Afraid of the Big Black Republican – Racism in the Republican Party
By Conor Friedersdorf – The Daily Beast
The GOP chairman’s comment that some white Republicans are afraid of him is just the latest reminder that our politics are hardly post-racial. Conor Friedersdorf on how the GOP can repair its image—and the myths the left perpetuates.
Did you hear the one about the Republican National Committee Chairman who agreed that whites in his party are afraid of talking to black people?
No joke.
“I’ve been in the room and they’ve been scared of me,” Michael Steele said. His unusual remark is the latest instance of Republican attitudes toward race making national headlines—and causing a headache for GOP officials, who are constantly trying to reverse the perception that their party is hostile to minorities.
The right should rethink its ideological commitment to the notion that racism isn’t a real problem in America anymore, even if they disagree about how it should be fought; and the left should alleviate suspicion that race is being used as an ideological cudgel by helping to stigmatize those who frivolously play the race card.
The single time the news media obsessed about racism in the Democratic Party came during the Election ‘08 primary, when several Hillary Clinton supporters in states like West Virginia were seen on YouTube, during television interviews, and on The Daily Show saying bigoted things about Barack Obama. Soon Bill Clinton himself, sometimes praised in liberal circles as “our first black president,” found himself accused of racially questionable remarks. I wouldn’t put any politically advantageous trick past Slick Willie, but I never imagined that I’d see him being called on multicultural in-sensitivities as though he were a Republican pol. Read More »
Tags: Racism, Republican Party, RNC
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