Rumors that black people are likely to riot after next week's election is the lowest form of fear-mongering yet by Obama's opponents. The sleaziest ones go so far as to say that regardless whether Obama wins or loses black people are going to take to the streets in a wild frenzy -
whether it's in celebration of an Obama win or outrage at a McCain upset. The inference is the same: Black people (and Obama is one of them, remember) can't be trusted to conduct themselves in a civilized manner when put to the test. And, oh yeah, as more than one anti-Obama voter has left in the comment section of my blog, whites would be wise therefore to take cover and avoid areas of their city where blacks are known to frequent lest they end up the victim of black violence. On radio and on television in recent weeks more than a few white voters have expressed some fear over what blacks are likely to do next
week.
I can't say exactly why this one gets to me.
Of all the cheap, ugly, lowdown, racist, and yes even sexist, stereotypes that have circulated during this whole election cycle, this one about blacks rioting hurts most. This is not just Barack Obama, but the whole black race that's being talked about. Drumming up memories of 60s riots by blacks over racial injustices in the country don't compare with what's happening here in this year's presidential election.
But at this late date in the campaign, it's not about truth or reality or ethics. It's about winning. By any means necessary. If reasoning with voters doesn't work, then tapping into their deepest, most irrational fears about black people will do, seems to be the logic of some.
Here's what gets me: We have white skinheads caught by the FBI in a scheme to assasinate the black presidential candidate along with dozens of innocent black students. We have a young white woman who finds someone to punch and slap her around and leave bruises on her face so she can claim she was attacked by a black male Obama supporter. We have whites growing angry and
rowdy at McCain/Palin rallies, yelling "Kill Him" when Obama's name is mentioned. But never mind any of that. It's black people who are violent and a threat to the commonwealth.
I don't dispute that the black community has its share of ugly violence to address. But black communities are not the only ones suffering from this disease. America is a violent country. Period. Americans learn early on how to use violence, and the threat of violence, to get our way. We have an epic entertainment industry that plays on our fears of others and that feeds on our fantasies of doing away violently with those we fear and who oppose us.
May those of us committed to progressive, righteous thinking step up our efforts to persuade everyone around us that not only is violence an immoral choice, but fear-mongering is a losing strategy.
Renita Weems : October 2008 Archives
Wednesday October 29, 2008
Categories: Election '08
"Them Blacks": Fear-mongering At Its Worst
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Add to StumbleUponFriday October 10, 2008
Categories: Election '08, Terrorism
"He Is Not Like Us" Crosses The Line
Where is the line in the sand that makes everyone stand up and agree that things have gone too far? That line that lets us know when a campaign has gone beyond nasty to dangerous, past negative to incendiary, past "this is the way politics is" to "things have gotten horribly, horribly out of control."
This week the presidential campaign took an ugly, nasty turn beginning with John McCain's attack ads painting Barack Obama as dangerous and too different to be trusted, followed by Sarah Palin's remarks touting Obama as a terrorist and using words like "fearful" and "afraid" when describing the Democratic candidate and accusing him of "palling around with terrorists," to Tuesday night's spectacle of McCain pointing in the direction of Obama, when contrasting how he and Obama voted on an energy bill that came up in Congress, and saying, "You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one."
Where is the line in the sand? When is enough enough? When does a campaign come up with one despicable tactic too many, one smear too many, one distortion too many? One thrown stone too many.
Negative campaigning is one thing.
Othering crosses a line. Especially when it arouses loathing and hatred in one's audience. Othering is one of those clumsy terms academics came up with to describe the strategy of accentuating differences between people, stigmatizing and denigrating the "other." It divides the world up between "us" and "them." Othering Obama reinforces the notion of him as unAmerican, less than human, or, worst, an enemy that needs to be gotten rid of.
From the Washington Post:
Where have we come as a nation that such tactics are tolerated? Someone yells out "Kill Him" at a rally and the speaker who claims to be a Christian doesn't bother to stop and morally condemn such sentiments. It's one thing for a campaign to use smear tactics to take votes away from the opponent, but stirring up hate and cries for murder is going over the line. No matter how pretty the face saying it, "he is not like us" is the sort of comment that has the potential to bring out the worst in people and catapult into some of the most despicable crimes against humanity.
Enough with "this is the way politics is." Things have gotten dangerously out of control.
I say, Enough is Enough.
This week the presidential campaign took an ugly, nasty turn beginning with John McCain's attack ads painting Barack Obama as dangerous and too different to be trusted, followed by Sarah Palin's remarks touting Obama as a terrorist and using words like "fearful" and "afraid" when describing the Democratic candidate and accusing him of "palling around with terrorists," to Tuesday night's spectacle of McCain pointing in the direction of Obama, when contrasting how he and Obama voted on an energy bill that came up in Congress, and saying, "You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one."
Where is the line in the sand? When is enough enough? When does a campaign come up with one despicable tactic too many, one smear too many, one distortion too many? One thrown stone too many.
Negative campaigning is one thing.
Othering crosses a line. Especially when it arouses loathing and hatred in one's audience. Othering is one of those clumsy terms academics came up with to describe the strategy of accentuating differences between people, stigmatizing and denigrating the "other." It divides the world up between "us" and "them." Othering Obama reinforces the notion of him as unAmerican, less than human, or, worst, an enemy that needs to be gotten rid of.
From the Washington Post:
Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."Making one's opponent out to be not just a political opponent, but an enemy of the state and scapegoat for all that's dangerous and terrifying about the world crosses over into something akin to evil. Painting Barack Obama as arrogant and a foreigner, a Muslim, and not a Christian as he alleges, someone who pals around with terrorists, and married to a woman who hates America, can not be tolerated. It's race-baiting, fear-mongering, and xenophobia at its worst.
...
The reception had been better in Clearwater, where Palin, speaking to a sea of "Palin Power" and "Sarahcuda" T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. "One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," she said. ("Boooo!" said the crowd.) "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,' " she continued. ("Boooo!" the crowd repeated.)
"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.
Where have we come as a nation that such tactics are tolerated? Someone yells out "Kill Him" at a rally and the speaker who claims to be a Christian doesn't bother to stop and morally condemn such sentiments. It's one thing for a campaign to use smear tactics to take votes away from the opponent, but stirring up hate and cries for murder is going over the line. No matter how pretty the face saying it, "he is not like us" is the sort of comment that has the potential to bring out the worst in people and catapult into some of the most despicable crimes against humanity.
Enough with "this is the way politics is." Things have gotten dangerously out of control.
I say, Enough is Enough.
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Diana Butler Bass and Paul Raushenbush both stand firmly within the Mainline Protestant tradition and, along with guest bloggers of all religious backgrounds are dedicated to the revival of religious progressivism and its influence in American politics.
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Diana Butler BassDiana Butler Bass is a commentator and scholar in American religion. She is the author of seven books including A People's History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story (HarperOne, 2009).
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Paul RaushenbushModerator of the Progressive Revival blog and the Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University.
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