Racist TV ad and Comments my Snow Raise Questions (472 hits)
Category: PoliticsRating: -1 on 9 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Man (View user info) at 2006-10-27 03:17:16 EDT
I just finished writing this for VirtualCitizens.com. It has many pics and videos, which limits my ability to illustrate my points. The original article is here (http://www.virtualcitizens.com/article.php?shorttitle=racist_republican_snow), but I will put url's for the videos so you all don't have to leave Ubersite. This is the first thing I've written in a while (first original for Ubersite) due to LSAT prep, which I should really be doing now, too. Hope you all enjoy!
Justin Raines
www.virtualcitizens.com
2006-10-27
While plowing around on Digg.com, I found a clip of Tony Snow making racist comments about how "(he) think(s) there is always an attempt when you have got an African-American candidate to try to attribute something to the race card."
He answered this in response to an MSNBC question about the underlying racism in a Republican National Committee attack ads against Democratic Congressman Harold Ford, Jr.
The original clip is shown here: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/26/snow-race-card/
In case you missed that, this is what they said*:
[UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Harold, call me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Harold, call me. There's a cute-I would say sexy, most people would say that-white woman, naked-naked-on the screen setting up a date with Harold Ford who is an African-American. In American society-you went to school in North Carolina. So did I for a year. Do you think in any part of the country that is not playing on racial sensitivities?
SNOW: I don't think so. I mean, maybe I'm just quaint in this day and age. But no, I think there is always an attempt when you have got an African-American candidate to try to attribute something to the race card. But no, I don't.]
What Snow does is a standard Republican technique of trying to make the very accusation of racism, itself, appear to be racist statement. Many "modern racists", as social psychologists categorize them, deny racism exists and feel that the mere mention of race, in any context, is an expression of racism, often so-called "reverse-racism".
Comedian Steven Colbert from The Daily Show spin-off The Colbert Report often jokes that he is "color-blind", that he does not see color and asks black guests if they are, in fact, black because "can't tell."
Video of Colbert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRqcz-Xa8Fc&eurl=
Modern racists are identified in social-psychology by using an index variable (where scores are totaled from a five-point Likert scale) known as the Modern Racism Scale**:
Modern Racism Scale
Indicate how much you agree or disagree with the following statements:
Strongly Disagree -2
Disagree -1
Neither agree nor disagree 0
Agree +1
Strongly Agree +2
1. It is easy to understand the anger of black people in America.
2. Blacks have more influence upon school desegregation plans than they ought to have.
3. Blacks are getting too demanding in their push for equal rights.
4. Over the past few years blacks have gotten more economically than they deserve.
5. Over the past few years the government and news media have shown more respect to blacks than they deserve.
6. Blacks should not push themselves where they're not wanted.
7. Discrimination against blacks is no longer a problem in the United States.
Scoring: Sum scores, Higher scores = greater prejudice (Range = (-14)-14).
**McConahay, J.B. (1986). Modern racism, ambivalence, and the Modern Racism Scale. In J.F. Dovidio & S.L. Gaertner (Eds.), Prejudice, discrimination, and racism (pp. 91-125). Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
The higher the score on the Modern Racism Scale, the higher the actual racism of the individual. Modern Racists are distinguished from "Old-fashioned racists" because they do not believe there should be institutional rules against blacks (or other minorities), but are still, non-the-less, quite prejudice against them.
So, give the scale a try and answer it, just for fun, from the perspective of a few of the right-wing radio-hosts, writers and bloggers.
Sound familiar? Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, George Allen and others come to mind (http://www.virtualcitizens.com/article.php?shorttitle=racist_republican_snow#modern_racists).
Modern Racism is still quite common in the United States, especially in the South. This brings us back to the attack ad from by the RNC against Ford, Jr.
Is it racist? Decide for yourself (I Report, You Decide - Empowering, huh?): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkiz1_d1GsA&eurl=
The first speaker, a black woman, says, "Harold Ford looks nice. Isn't that enough?" implying that black people will vote for other black people just because they're black. At first glance you may think that this was included to persuade black people that they should think more deeply about Ford, Jr. as a candidate, but study it further while considering comments towards the end of the clip, and you will see that this opener only serves to arouse white viewers' awareness of race during the commercial.
The commercial then goes through some bland and standard (false) Republican accusations that Democrats tax them too much for dieing and getting married. Then it brings in a white woman who talks sexually suggestively as if to Ford, Jr. This, again, serves as a racist tactic to stir white viewers' racial awareness.
The video below wraps it up nicely: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT8ukEUuSGE&eurl=
These are indeed dark, desperate times for the Republican Party.
User Reviews
Submitted by jraines (user info) at 2006-10-27 14:50:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Perhaps I should clarify some things. The legacy of racism in Republican advertisement is a long one. It is true that the Democratic Party use the be the Party of racists, but that changed with Nixon decided it would be easier to get racist, white voters in the South than it would for the Democrats, who were routinely angering them with their work on and with the Civil Rights Movements.
Still, in order to be smart about it, Republicans could not come out and be blatantly racist anymore because as more people became less racist, it was no longer socially acceptable. This signified the death of the "old fashioned racists" which I mentioned in the article.
The modern racists, though, emerged and found more subtle ways of expressing their views.
One of the most prominent and prevalent political campaigns with underlying racism is the anti-welfare campaign that started in the 1980s, leading to the most common welfare-myth of the black, Cadillac-driving, welfare mom. This appeals to racism because it infuriates backwashed, Buba that he has to pay for anything a black person might get, even though the fact is that far more white people receive welfare that black people. Refer to these questions on the modern racist scale again:
4. Over the past few years blacks have gotten more economically than they deserve.
5. Over the past few years the government and news media have shown more respect to blacks than they deserve.
[Note: there are a variety of other welfare myths. To read them go here (http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1302) and here (http://hcom.csumb.edu/welfare/resources/myths_facts.html)]
Of course the state of racism in the United States is shrinking fast, but it is still an occasional problem (i.e., the George Allen "macaca", public statement) and not one that some underhanded PR specialists are afraid to exploit.
For the record, I have no doubt that had Buba not left the Democratic Party, some underhanded Democrat PR specialists would be exploiting the same thing. This still doesn't make it right, and the more we call them on it (and even better the less voters respond to it), the less it will happen.
Submitted by livEvil (user info) at 2006-10-27 09:28:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2006-10-27 06:35:38 (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 for the effort alone.
You do make some good points
Submitted by hour_man (user info) at 2006-10-27 09:17:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Submitted by domenad (user info) at 2006-10-27 08:42:28 (#)
Ranking: -2
Submitted by zoobie2000 (user info) at 2006-10-27 07:21:59 (#)
Ranking: -2
i want entertainment on this site. not some kid who thinks he's smart.
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Sometimes, pointing out racism is proof the observer is racist, like the idiots who thought "King Kong" was racist. It was actually the observers who were admitting they think a black man looks like a giant ape.
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To be honest they do. I have more racist thoughts in one cup of coffee than this guy appears to have. Racism, sexism and prejudice is wrong...but it makes us human. Seperation and segregation, that's the way forward.
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2006-10-27 08:53:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Nigger.
Submitted by domenad (user info) at 2006-10-27 08:42:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Submitted by zoobie2000 (user info) at 2006-10-27 07:21:59 (#)
Ranking: -2
i want entertainment on this site. not some kid who thinks he's smart.
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Sometimes, pointing out racism is proof the observer is racist, like the idiots who thought "King Kong" was racist. It was actually the observers who were admitting they think a black man looks like a giant ape.
Submitted by UnderOathMeal (user info) at 2006-10-27 08:29:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
What zoobie said.
Submitted by zoobie2000 (user info) at 2006-10-27 07:21:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
i want entertainment on this site. not some kid who thinks he's smart. who cares about racism?
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2006-10-27 07:07:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
"He answered this in response to an MSNBC question about the underlying racism in a Republican National Committee attack ads against Democratic Congressman Harold Ford, Jr."
What underlying racism?
I think it is a stupid mud-slinging commercial that attacks him for things not really related to the issues.
I think it is a little underhanded.
But it isn't rascist.
Seriously how fucked up is the NAACP when they get bent out of shape because of a "hinted" interracial affair. I for one would more likely to vote for a guy who hangs out at Playboy parties. But the fact is there are a number of people who would think it is morally wrong, and it is in no way racist to point out that he did.
It is amazing to me that a group who claims to strive for equality and a colorblind society cries when they actually get commercials that are color blind.
anyone who is racist enough to get upset about a hint of interracial relationships is too racist to vote for a black person.
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2006-10-27 06:35:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 for the effort alone.
You do make some good points