Friday, March 15, 2013

Slavery Was Good For the Blacks: At CPAC Angry "Disenfranchised" White Men Are the Real Face of the Tea Party GOP


I love a good car wreck. The Tea Party GOP is a white racist organization. From the Southern Strategy to the present, white racial resentment--and overt racism--are the political meth which it is addicted to both as an organization and a public.

The white nationalists who attended the laughably titled “Trump The Race Card: Are You Sick And Tired Of Being Called A Racist When You Know You’re Not One?” panel at CPAC are a symptom of a bigger problem facing the Tea Party GOP.

A political party is a type of brand name. It signals meaning and values to its members on overt, implied, and implicit levels. By example, if "Honda" or "Toyota" signal "reliability" to their buyers, "Tea Party" and "Republican" signals "white" and "whiteness" to the American public. The latter signal is heard by supporters and opponents of the Tea Party GOP. The racism of the Tea Party GOP is not a dog-whistle. It is an air raid siren. And until the Republicans can learn to mute its klaxon they will continue the slide towards political obsolescence.

Because CPAC is a carnival and Right-wing Woodstock it is a safe space for members of the tribe to present themselves for an act of political coitus with their prospective suitors. All attendees are ostensibly friends and family so why not just let one's political freak flag fly high?


Therein lies the problem. In a surveillance society where cameras are ubiquitous the divide between private space and public space has been largely erased. We the people--be it at Mitt Romney's 47% quip fundraising dinner or at CPAC--can see the Tea Party GOP for what it really is, an organization that is both plutocratic and racist.

The “Trump The Race Card: Are You Sick And Tired Of Being Called A Racist When You Know You’re Not One?” panel, and the white racists in attendance, are the equivalent of the annual family party where everyone dreads if Uncle Jimmy is going to get drunk again and act the fool. They cannot tell him "no" because he is family. Each year Uncle Jimmy promises to behave. Inevitably he gets drunk on cheap beer and rubbing alcohol from the bathroom medicine cabinet before picking a fight with his ex-girlfriend of ten years ago's new boyfriend/husband. Matthew Heimbach is Uncle Jimmy.

Why does the Tea Party GOP consistently fail in its efforts to reform their racist habits and bad ways? The answer is not complicated. White racism and contemporary conservatism are intertwined in the Age of Obama and the post-civil rights era. Asking the Tea Party GOP to publicly disavow the white racists in its midst, and to sever all ties with racist conservatives (white, black, and Other), would be like amputating your foot with a spoon coated in wasabi and without either anesthesia or a tourniquet. It ain't gonna happen. Such willpower is beyond the reach of most mortals.

The Tea Party GOP at this year's CPAC have once more shown us who they really are. They are the white racially resentment fueled Borg, asking them to purge the racists, those sick with white racial resentment, and who are generally hostile to anyone that is not a "real American" is not possible:


Two questions. One, how can the black garbage pail kids black conservatives who participate in these events (i.e. K. Carl Smith) look at themselves in the mirror with any pride or self-respect? What levels of denial and self-hate makes them seek out acceptance from a racially chauvinistic anti-black and brown white political organization?

Two, which group is more "wizzable" and perplexing? Black Republicans or Gay Republicans? What drives them to be the "best black" or "best gay" friend of the white herrenvolk Tea Party GOP?

14 comments:

DocAmazing said...

The racism of the Tea Party GOP is not a dog-whistle. It is an air raid siren.


A Ku Klaxon?

! said...

Good lord. This is insane. Did you read the update on the story?

"K. Carl Smith, the panelist from Fredrick Douglass Republicans, released a statement following the media storm related to the racist outburst in his panel. Astonishingly, he reserves the brunt of his criticism for the female reporter who raised objections to the comments being made in the room:

I was invited by the Tea Party Patriots to conduct a breakout session entitled: “Trump The Race Card” and share the Frederick Douglass Republican Message. In the middle of my delivery, while discussing the 1848 “Women’s Rights Convention,” I was rudely interrupted by a woman working for the Voice of Russia. She abruptly asked me: “How many black women were there?” This question was intentionally disruptive and coercive with no way of creating a positive dialogue.

In addition, a young man who wasn’t a Tea Party Patriot, made some racially insensitive comments, he said: 'Blacks should be happy that the slave master gave them shelter, clothing, and food.' At the conclusion of the breakout session, I further explained to him the Frederick Douglass Republican Message which he embraced, bought a book, and we left as friends."

Just love the random use of the term "coercive" for the reporter asking about black women's role in early feminism - I suppose we don't have to wonder why he doesn't call himself an Ida B. Wells Republican. I can only wish that "further explained to him the Frederick Douglass Republican Message" is a synonym for "kicked his ass for 2 hours like Douglass did to Covey" though.

Bigg Donn said...

Slavery was indeed the natural order of things. Perhaps replacing means tested benefits and prisons with slavery would balance the budget again.(could use a couple around here, we'd whup their azzes into shape...)..

Anonymous said...

Write mоre, thats all I have to say. Lіterally, іt seems аѕ though you relied on the video to mаke your point.
You clearly know what youre talκing about, why waste your intelligence on
ϳust postіng videos to уour
weblog ωhen you could be giving us something еnlightening
tο read?

My page dom

Friday Foster-ABWW said...

That Uncle Tom is delusional. I wonder how much his new white supremacist friends would love Frederick Douglass if they knew he dumped his wife and married a white woman?

Buddy H said...

I don't think he "dumped his wife" to marry a white woman. Unless I'm mistaken, his first wife passed away, leaving him severely depressed. Two years later he married the white woman. Frederick's response to critics like Friday Foster-ABWW? He said that his first marriage had been to someone the color of his mother, and his second to someone the color of his father.
I'm waiting for Spielberg to direct a movie bio-pic about Frederick Douglass.

SabrinaBee said...

K. Carl Smith is delusional and has an bloated sense of self if he thinks a mere off-camera conversation is going to make this poor victimized white man no longer wish he was back in slavery or voting in Africa. Did you see the response he gave? He was more upset that at some woman asking how many black women were there than at the man who him to thank his ancestors for food and clothing. WTF! That has to be some sort of mental illness manifesting in black conservatives. A sort of brain-washing that erases all triggers of self-respect. By far they are the most perplexing of the two groups. It's been too much and too blatant, as of late, to feel good about belonging to the party as a whole. I mean, how much IS your dignity worth?

Friday Foster-ABWW said...

Common knowledge was that the relationship was ongoing way before he was a widow. His father raped his mother. I would not see that as a rational explanation for an interracial relationship. He also praised his father's wife and seemed more amenable to her situation than the black women who were brutalized around him everyday. Sadly, Douglass always had a thing for white women.

CSM said...

And dig this:

"Chad Chapman, 21, one of the few black attendees, said overall he enjoyed the event — except “there were lots of interruptions, mainly because of the woman."



Damn.

chauncey devega said...

Remember, the slave drivers on the plantation were black. This Frederick Douglass stuff is a hot joke. Those white folks would die if a brother did a Covey on them--my favorite part of the book. Or if they read "What is the 4th of July to a Slave."

Anonymous said...

�Before start writing test cases, become familiar with the (AUT) Application Under Test.
Make a list of all the books you would like to read.
In this 398-page, these authors study the psycho-social aspects of different types of jobs in various industries.



Also visit my blog post :: sach hay

Dubious Brother said...

Chauncey:


You and I both know there is no faster promotional mechanism of upward mobility in the post-Clarance Thomas era available to blacks than the conservative wing of the republican party. This is the most potent form of affirmative action known in the U.S....Period.

The party will take you from relative obscurity locally to a household name on the national stage in the blink of an eye--all for towing the party line.

The Republicans can take mediocre, unheralded academics, middling jurists and unknown pundits and make them superstars. They have even co-opted blacks who were stars in their own right, excelling in their chosen fields before they were "discovered" by the Conservatives. (I'll let you judge who among them were "made" before they were "discovered"). Here's a short list, going back about 30 years:


Colin Powell
Clarence Thomas
Shelby Steele
Thomas Sowell
Alan Keyes
Armstrong Williams
Larry Elder
J.C. Watts
Condolezza Rice
Michael Steele
Herman Cain
Ken Blackwell
Allen West
Tim Scott

The irony here is that several of these people listed have very strong academic credentials, advanced degrees, and the like (could any tell you who the "talented tenth" are? Maybe a couple. Do any give a damn? That's for another discussion.). All would likely be the first to tell you they'd rather been judged by the "Content of Their Character" evident by their achievements, rather than grouped simply on the basis of race. They must say this to truly fulfill their role, to validate their own achievements.

These folks will be the first to tell you they are iconoclasts who don't subscribe to group think, and that they have transcended the "outmoded" concept of race--and placed duty ahead of racial politics. Some have even disavowed their former paymasters, with the perspective of hindsight.

The irony here is that they all were held out as exemplary negroes by their party, object lessons in bootstrappingness for us all to cherish; these were the enlightened ones. These were the ones on the fast track to that elusive goal of "success".


The pipeline is filling, and the spigot allowing these "forward thinking" blacks advancement is now wide open, given the racial politics of today (see Dr. Ben Carson--in January, for most, it would be "who is he"?).


These folks serve a very important purpose, perhaps the most: They deflect charges of race baiting and discriminatory practices within the republican party, and they and their ilk will be the trojan horses of rampant privatization.


I believe there will be more and more of these types coming--at a faster rate, and on varied media outlets, and that you'll see them in areas where racial politics tend divided by black/white, instead of where they are black/white/and increasingly brown.

stardreamer42 said...

Oh, I am so stealing that.

chauncey devega said...

I am! Bad on you :)