It took something big to stir me out of my holiday reverie. I am relaxing, watching old movies on television, and working my way through a tasty care package sent to me by my sister-in-law. What was it that caught my attention today? This headline:

“RNC chairman condemns controversial Obama song”

On its face, this story seems trivial. A silly little satirical song written by a Republican satirist and spread far and wide by Republican talking heads, most notably Rush Limbaugh. I am talking about “Barack the Magic Negro.” You can find the full lyrics here. Again, on its face, not the biggest story in the world. But it points to a critical fault line in American society, a problem that could wreck the Republican Party’s electoral chances for the foreseeable future. It’s a question of messaging and being in touch with the electorate.

It’s a question about how you perceive songs like “Barack the Magic Negro,” and how you act towards people who produce and spread this kind of material. If you are a white liberal Democrat like myself, chances are you perceive this song as intensely offensive and racist. If you are an African-American, chances are you feel a lot like me except that the insult is personal, direct, and much more intense. The good news for people who oppose racism is that we seem to have reached a tipping point. A growing number of people who identify themselves as independents are able to recognize racism and reject it. If “Barack the Magic Negro” was meant to persuade these undecided voters to vote Republican this past year, then it appears to have failed.

Which leads us to the ultimate question: if you are a white Republican, and let’s face it, the vast majority of Republicans these days are white, and you hear this song then you feel . . . how?

A very large and vocal group of Republicans find “Barack the Magic Negro” and other racist songs about African-Americans hilarious, and they simply don’t care how offensive their behavior is perceived to be by others. When called on their behavior they are liable to scream “First Amendment!” “Free speech!” and “Don’t censor me!”

No one is censoring them. It is indeed a free country and they are free to be as offensive as they please. But the rest of us are free to be offended, and to express our sense of outrage on blogs, in the media, and–here’s the kicker my Republican friends–at the ballot box.

These same Republicans are liable to shout “Race Card!” when they are called out on their behavior and it leads to negative results for the Republican Party. We saw this behavior in 2006, during the Allen campaign in the aftermath of a notorious gaffe by former-Senator Allen. If Republicans are really concerned about the “Race Card,” you would think they would take some reasonable precautions to avoid giving Democrats that kind of ammunition. Republicans routinely lose the African-American vote by 90%+, but they refuse to alter their behavior and their rhetoric.

Or perhaps I should say, they have refused to alter their behavior until quite recently. The real news in the article entitled “RNC chairman condemns controversial Obama song” is that a sitting Republican National Committee Chairman has condemned the use of “Barack the Magic Negro” by another Republican seeking his job as racist, in effect calling his challenger a racist.

The chairman of the Republican National Committee said he was “appalled” by a song called “Barack the Magic Negro” on a CD distributed by one of his political rivals.

“The 2008 election was a wake-up call for Republicans to reach out and bring more people into our party,” RNC Chairman Mike Duncan said in a statement reported Saturday afternoon by Politico.

“I am shocked and appalled that anyone would think this is appropriate, as it clearly does not move us in the right direction.”

Chip Saltsman sent RNC members the parody CD “We Hate the USA” for Christmas, which includes the controversial tune. He defended his decision Friday, telling CNN the song was clearly intended as a joke.

“I think most people recognize political satire when they see it,” Saltsman told CNN. “I think RNC members understand that.”[1]

To say that there is a lot going on in these quotes is a huge understatement. For starters, “Barack the Magic Negro” first appeared in 2007. Where was Mike Duncan’s concern then? Did Duncan place a call to Rush Limbaugh and other talking heads and ask them to stop promoting the song as a Republican anthem? Somehow I don’t think he did.

But let us take him at his word that “[t]he 2008 election was a wake-up call for Republicans to reach out and bring more people into our party.” In other words, Duncan is arguing that a perception that the Republican Party is racist hurt the Republican Party. It isn’t clear whether or not any other Republicans share Duncan’s concerns. It is clear that at least one of his opponents–the one who sent out the CD containing “Barack the Magic Negro” to every single member of the RNC, thinks that the song is just funny political satire. So which is it? Offensive, “appalling” and racist, or just funny political satire?

In a narrow sense, that’s a choice that RNC members will have to make when they choose a new chairman or allow Duncan to retain his seat. But is a wider sense, it is a choice that all Republicans will have to make. What does it mean to be a Republican? What do Republicans believe? Do you have to be a racist to be a Republican? Or do you merely have to tolerate racism among some of your fellow Republicans? Is racism implicitly or explicitly part of the Republican worldview, and if so, is that a good or bad thing? Will it help Republicans get elected, or will racism hurt Republicans at the polls?

These questions are complicated and the answers can only be supplied by Republicans themselves. We will have to wait and see how Republicans will answer these questions and how it affects their ability to gain elective office. But if we can’t look too far into the future, we can at least look to the recent past for some guidance.

The current Republican worldview regarding race and racism dates from the presidential elections of 1964 and 1968. In 1964, Barry Goldwater was the Republican candidate for President of the United States. From Wikipedia:

In the 1964 presidential campaign, Barry Goldwater ran a conservative campaign, part of which emphasized “states’ rights.” Goldwater’s 1964 campaign was a magnet for conservatives. Goldwater broadly opposed strong action by the federal government. Although he had supported all previous federal civil rights legislation, Goldwater made the decision to oppose the Civil Rights Act of 1964. His stance was based on his view that the act was an intrusion of the federal government into the affairs of states and, second, that the Act interfered with the rights of private persons to do business, or not, with whomever they chose. In addition, Goldwater’s primary delegate slate from the South had no blacks, but was filled instead with white segregationists.

All this appealed to white Southern Democrats, and Goldwater was the first Republican to win the electoral votes of the Deep South states (Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina) since Reconstruction. However, Goldwater’s vote on the Civil Rights Act proved devastating to Goldwater’s campaign everywhere outside the South (besides Dixie, Goldwater won only in Arizona, his home state), contributing to his landslide defeat in 1964. A Lyndon B. Johnson ad called “Confessions of a Republican,” which ran in the North, associated Goldwater with the Ku Klux Klan. At the same time, Johnson’s campaign in the Deep South publicized Goldwater’s full history on civil rights. In the end, Johnson swept the campaign was a naked appeal to Southern white racists to bolt the Democratic Party and support the Republican Party. In return for the support of Southern white racists, Goldwater implicitly pledged to oppose civil rights for African-Americans. And Republicans wonder why African-Americans seem to bear a grudge. In 1968, Richard Nixon ran an enhanced version of Goldwater’s “Southern Strategy” and beat a Democratic Party badly divided over the Vietnam War. Four years later, in the 1972 presidential election, Richard Nixon won more than 70% of the popular vote in the “Deep South” states and Florida, and over 60% in all the other states of the former Confederate States of America.

Nixon would later resign as the result of the Watergate scandal, but Republicans had found–in the explicitly racist “Southern Strategy”–the strategy they would use to win all Republican presidential victories since: 1980, 1984, 1988, 2000, and 2004. Whether it was Ronald Reagan speaking in Philadelphia, Mississippi sixteen years after the murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner or George H.W. Bush’s invocation of Willie Horton, the Southern Strategy has always been at the center of the Republican Party’s strategy.

In Virginia, the coming death of the Southern Strategy was heralded by the victory of Democrat Jim Webb over Republican George Allen in the 2006 U.S. Senate race. Allen was a long time practitioner of the kind of “dog-whistle” racism that was the Southern Strategy’s stock in trade. But then Allen went a bit too far and an overtly racist remark by Allen cost him the election when it was caught on tape by a Webb volunteer. Overnight, it seemed, racism had stopped working as an electoral strategy. Then came 2008, and Barack Obama carried Virginia and it wasn’t even close. This despite the fact that Republican activists in Virginia did their best to get the word out that Barack Obama was, you know, a Negro. The Southern Strategy failed in Virgina and North Carolina in 2008. If Republicans like Bob McDonnell choose to associate themselves with racists, well, that’s their choice, but as a strategy for victory it doesn’t appear too promising.

Which brings us back around full circle. A choice. In January 2009, the Republican National Committee will choose a chairman. It could choose someone like Mike Duncan, who now claims to oppose racism or it could choose someone like Chip Saltsman, who seems to think racism is funny or it could choose someone who just quietly goes along with racism.

A New Year approaches and Republicans have some serious questions they need to address if they are to move their party forward. Let me repeat them again here:

1. What does it mean to be a Republican?
2. What do Republicans believe?
3. Do you have to be a racist to be a Republican? Or do you merely have to tolerate racism among some of your fellow Republicans?
4. Is racism implicitly or explicitly part of the Republican worldview, and if so, is that a good or bad thing?
5. Will racism help Republicans get elected, or will racism hurt Republicans at the polls?

The American people await your answers.

-Chip Saltsman, a candidate to chair the Republican National Committee, is in a bit of a mess after sending out CD’s of the parody song, Barack the Magic Negro” as Christmas presents. The song, which was aired on the Rush Limbaugh show during the campaign, pushes the limits of good taste, but is actually quite funny. I am thinking of penning one of my own called, “Chip of Fools.”

Categories

• Democratic Candidates (1003)
• Democratic Party (1695)
• Democratic Primary (1122)
• Republican Candidates (1379)
• Republican Party (1427)
• Republican Primary (1151)
• Submit Your Story (1)

Site Directory

• Home
• About
• Privacy
• Submit Your Story

Favorites

• freerecipesbook.com
• South Beach Diet
• Top Weight Loss Diets
• eHarmony
• Hosting Web Sites
• Websites For Sale
• Top 10 Dating Sites

Search: