GreNME
Philosopher
- Joined
- Sep 16, 2007
- Messages
- 8,276
I think this is a question that gets too easily answered on both ends of the spectrum, and the real information out there is just not a slam dunk for either end to claim as absolute. But before I get into it I'd like to suggest watching this TED presentation by Nate Silver on the effects of ethnicity in politics, particularly the presidential vote in 2008. The reason I suggest watching it is because it offers interesting information on how racism did affect a certain number of people, but based on the popular (and electoral) votes alone it's fairly obvious that racism played less of a factor than some would prefer (and more than what others might prefer).
There are a number of threads in this subforum on the racist elements of the Tea Party or instances where a politician has done or said something that is blatantly (though possibly not intentionally) geared toward racist sentiments. An easy dismissal of these threads would be to state that the ideological left persons who are bringing up these accusations are playing a race card, and while that precise statement may not have been made here on this forum that general accusation has been made more than once. The Southern Poverty Law Center released report called Rage on the Right that focused on the rise of militia and hate groups, whose rise has been predominately on the right, which discusses the increase in hate-group activity over the past few years, focusing somewhat on the last year and a half since Obama was elected. Most of us have seen the loads of photographs of racist or race-baiting signs that some people at Tea Party rallies have been waving, as well as the infamous founder of TeaParty.org with the sign mis-spelling the n-word. There have been at least a couple of threads (in this or other subforums) that have pointed to the protesters during the votes in Congress on the healthcare bill screaming the n-word and "fag" at congressmen. As a sort-of microcosm of the general American population, the SPLC has noted an increase of white power folk making their way into the military, both as a report in 2006 as well as pointing to individual cases on the issue-- though it's worth keeping in mind that the military does have a policy technically blocking ideological hate groups from joining, and that the actual presence of these groups in the military is likely the same or lower than the presence of them in the general civilian population, which is also quite a low percentage. Another note on the SPLC articles: they've been reporting this to the State Department and Pentagon for a while, but they've gotten little back in response; this is likely because the military branches already have policies disqualifying people with a history of hate group activity, but it becomes political fodder in articles like these that imply that the government is doing nothing about the issue.
Essentially, what I'm saying is that the presence of racism in American political discourse seems pretty undeniable, it just isn't a primary factor for the large majority of people out there-- it seems to be growing, but it's growing from a single-digit percentage of the population to a slightly higher single-digit percentage of the population. And like it or not, a lot of the racist or race-baiting rhetoric out there is popping up in the right-wing extremes, particularly within the Tea Party movement (despite their claims otherwise), which my not reflect the more mainstream right-of-center viewpoints out there, but when representatives like Michelle Bachman and others are courting these groups for support it begins to reflect back on party lines despite the extreme or hate-group attitudes not being a staple of the party themselves. For anyone who has seen accusations that the 9/11 Truthers reflect poorly on the Democratic Party due to a couple representatives courting them-- and yes, I'm aware that non-liberals like Ron Paul and Jesse Ventura have also courted them-- the same logic being applied to the racism being exhibited and the courting going on with the Republican Party shouldn't be coming as an intellectual shock (or incredulity). It's fairly clear that there are extreme ideologues like some of those in the Tea Party who have a desire to drive the Republican Party (see the last part of this article for an example), and regardless of whether such designs are realistic the connection of political ideology is fairly obvious.
So the question I have is to those who may think that racism isn't playing a role in political discourse today: given the increased prevalence of racist rhetoric over the last few (or some would say several) years, do you assume that such rhetoric is being ignored in the larger discourse, is not strong enough to effect the discourse, or some other negating factor? If you need a specific type of policy, then immigration would be one that's gone on for longer than Obama has been president-- can you you say with (intellectual) honesty that you don't think that racism has had influence on the larger discourse that's gone on in this country, particularly in the past five or so years? If so could you explain, particularly given the reported rise in racist and white supremacist activity over the past 5-10 years? I'm open to other input from people who may agree with my assessment above-- basically that it has some effect, though small, and seems to be growing in the more extreme circles-- to those who think my assessment is a bit strong, but I'm mainly interested in seeing how the perception of American political discourse differs from my own and how that reflects ideologically and politically from my own views.
There are a number of threads in this subforum on the racist elements of the Tea Party or instances where a politician has done or said something that is blatantly (though possibly not intentionally) geared toward racist sentiments. An easy dismissal of these threads would be to state that the ideological left persons who are bringing up these accusations are playing a race card, and while that precise statement may not have been made here on this forum that general accusation has been made more than once. The Southern Poverty Law Center released report called Rage on the Right that focused on the rise of militia and hate groups, whose rise has been predominately on the right, which discusses the increase in hate-group activity over the past few years, focusing somewhat on the last year and a half since Obama was elected. Most of us have seen the loads of photographs of racist or race-baiting signs that some people at Tea Party rallies have been waving, as well as the infamous founder of TeaParty.org with the sign mis-spelling the n-word. There have been at least a couple of threads (in this or other subforums) that have pointed to the protesters during the votes in Congress on the healthcare bill screaming the n-word and "fag" at congressmen. As a sort-of microcosm of the general American population, the SPLC has noted an increase of white power folk making their way into the military, both as a report in 2006 as well as pointing to individual cases on the issue-- though it's worth keeping in mind that the military does have a policy technically blocking ideological hate groups from joining, and that the actual presence of these groups in the military is likely the same or lower than the presence of them in the general civilian population, which is also quite a low percentage. Another note on the SPLC articles: they've been reporting this to the State Department and Pentagon for a while, but they've gotten little back in response; this is likely because the military branches already have policies disqualifying people with a history of hate group activity, but it becomes political fodder in articles like these that imply that the government is doing nothing about the issue.
Essentially, what I'm saying is that the presence of racism in American political discourse seems pretty undeniable, it just isn't a primary factor for the large majority of people out there-- it seems to be growing, but it's growing from a single-digit percentage of the population to a slightly higher single-digit percentage of the population. And like it or not, a lot of the racist or race-baiting rhetoric out there is popping up in the right-wing extremes, particularly within the Tea Party movement (despite their claims otherwise), which my not reflect the more mainstream right-of-center viewpoints out there, but when representatives like Michelle Bachman and others are courting these groups for support it begins to reflect back on party lines despite the extreme or hate-group attitudes not being a staple of the party themselves. For anyone who has seen accusations that the 9/11 Truthers reflect poorly on the Democratic Party due to a couple representatives courting them-- and yes, I'm aware that non-liberals like Ron Paul and Jesse Ventura have also courted them-- the same logic being applied to the racism being exhibited and the courting going on with the Republican Party shouldn't be coming as an intellectual shock (or incredulity). It's fairly clear that there are extreme ideologues like some of those in the Tea Party who have a desire to drive the Republican Party (see the last part of this article for an example), and regardless of whether such designs are realistic the connection of political ideology is fairly obvious.
So the question I have is to those who may think that racism isn't playing a role in political discourse today: given the increased prevalence of racist rhetoric over the last few (or some would say several) years, do you assume that such rhetoric is being ignored in the larger discourse, is not strong enough to effect the discourse, or some other negating factor? If you need a specific type of policy, then immigration would be one that's gone on for longer than Obama has been president-- can you you say with (intellectual) honesty that you don't think that racism has had influence on the larger discourse that's gone on in this country, particularly in the past five or so years? If so could you explain, particularly given the reported rise in racist and white supremacist activity over the past 5-10 years? I'm open to other input from people who may agree with my assessment above-- basically that it has some effect, though small, and seems to be growing in the more extreme circles-- to those who think my assessment is a bit strong, but I'm mainly interested in seeing how the perception of American political discourse differs from my own and how that reflects ideologically and politically from my own views.
