by Patrick A. Howell, Executive Producer of the Black Right Radio Show with Keith Bryant (www.theblackright.com)
(Upon our live coverage of the event at Saddleback Church this weekend)
(Part 1 in a 5 part Series)
If there was one thing that struck me about the much anticipated ‘event' Pastor Rick Warren moderated at Saddleback Church, in the heart of Orange County, is the adult civility of the nuanced and evocative discourse. Supreme Court picks, abortion, off shore drilling, taxing of the wealthy, personal moral failures, American moral failures were all discussed frankly and civilly. We, the viewing audience all walked away from the forum, intellectually and spiritually enlivened. We, the American people caught a comparative glimpse of each man's leadership style, decisioning power in what amounted to a ‘behind closed doors' interview for the Presidency of the United States of America. There was no denigration. Only discourse with the spiritual affirmation of grace and forgiveness. Holy Spirit was in the house.
No doubt, moderation by a Christian evangelical minister- America's newly minted Pastor, Rick Warren- had something to do with that fact but also none of the mass caricatures as were present in the previous weeks leading to the de facto debate were present. To wit, since Senator Obama returned from Europe as ‘president elect of the world', he has been tarred and feathered as the quintessential black boogey man in hatchet job by Lee Atwater's Republican party. Alas, the race deck was thrown at Obama with such violence and abandon, it was dizzying. No doubt, there were rumors in the months preceding this epic meeting that the Republican National Machine had prepared think tanks solutions to tearing down Senator Obama should he become the Democratic Party nominee. Their objective: to tear down Senator Obama's character. Their chosen weapon of war: racism.
The imagery of a handsome, charismatic black man between to iconic symbols of white female frivolity was unmistakable code language for southern ethics, post Civil War, pre- Jim Crow. Further the consistent usage of ‘him v. us', ‘American v. Un-American', ‘exotic' by Senators John McCain, Joseph Leberman, Sean Hananity and the Fox News crew were all nuanced nooses at evoking puritan racism in the heart's of the most prosaic and peace loving Baby Boomer. It is like the Pavlov film of flowers, green fields and birds, spliced with horrific film bits that make an un-mistakable mark on the psyche. It was as if to say, "Black is bad, bad, bad. White will save us."
There are those who will dismiss such interpretations as cockamamie but they would do well to remember Sen. John McCain's unmistakable, firm, personal and angry denouncement of Sen. Barack Obama, when Obama forecast to crowds in Missouri Senator MCain said, "that the McCain campaign was going to try to scare voters about him by, among other things, pointing out he doesn't look like other presidents whose faces have been on our money." Stated Senator McCain, markedly angry and paternalistically, Obama took dealt the "race card ... from the bottom of the deck".
It is as if to say, "Senator Obama may not use the Race Card but we will use our Race Deck." Over the past week , I had to google John McCain and Klu Klux Klan to see if the ties between the RNC and the John McCain machine were implicit or explicit. At the very least, it is un-civil.
John McCain's line of attack are not, ironically, unlike those Karl Rove has doled out when he stated, "He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone." Karl prefaced the statement telling Republicans that Obama is "coolly arrogant."
I believe the issue both John McCain and Karl Rove have is dealing with a cool, confident "Black" man who does not answer to anybody, least of all, them. I've seen this paradigm of racism time after time, when African Americans refuse to fit into a stereo type straight jacket that has been assigned to us. Further, as part of that establishment of the past and those politics of the past that has habitually engaged racism as a common tool for qualification of the haves and have nots, Karl Rove and John McCain are no doubt disturbed, if not psychologically jarred by Senator Obama's success. Note: this visceral line of attack commenced exactly upon Senator Obama's return from Europe, a radically successful world tour, which McCain months previously had derided Obama for not taking. It is as if their inability to take Obama off his A game, drives them mad.
If all of this race baiting is so, the Republican National Party took their notes, cues and live experiments from Bill and Hilary Clinton's campaign and their hatchet man, Mark Penn. Imagine Willie Horton divided by a denominator of Sistah Souljah to a factor of Lee Atwater multiplied by Swift Boating and you have a mathematical equaition for the Obama Nation.
Willie Horton/ Sistah Souljah(Lee Atwater) * Swift Boating
=
Jerome R. Corsi's Obama Nation
(next in a 5 part series)
Black Boogey Men and Dealing with Demonization
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Comments: 6
Yeah, sad but predictable. Absolutely- we are all mixed. I hope he calls them on it. Using his own code language, of course. Can't call them "racist". But he can say they are taking their game straight from Lee Atwater's play book, straight from Karl Rove's ethics and that he refused to get dirty with them, that he refuses this politics from the past, that he will be a president for all Americans, not marginalized by them and their narrow expectations. He has to fight back defensively, not offensively, and just stop it.
I suppose that is the downfall to the McCain campaign not paying attention to race, they run the risk of those who only see Obama's skin color and will use that against him. If Obama is to be the post racial candidate he claims to be, his supporters should drop the vail attempts to compare any criticism of him as being racist. All they are doing is magnifying their own racist tendencies, while allowing McCain to take the high ground.
Deborah- sounds good to me. I bet you are basing your evaluation upon the policies on those real issues- Republicans as based upon the George W. Bush administration don't have a lot to run on. Economy, out the window. War, energy... doesn's work.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/struggle_president.html
We are definitely at a crossroads of sorts.