The G.O.P.’s "Black People" Platform

Gays aren't the only citizens that the Christianist/Tea Party base hates and despises. There are Hispanics who the GOP likes to depict as menacing illegal immigrants who all recently stole across the Rio Grande under the cover of darkness. There are Muslims who are collectively depicted as would be Al Qaeda assassins. And then there are blacks. Here in the South (in places as close as 25 miles or less from where I sent typing this post) the mind set among the good ole boy crowd can be easily summed up: "I'm not against blacks- every white man ought to own at least one." Despite the claim - heard less and less of late - that the GOP is a "big tent," in truth the GOP is best defined as a party of hate and anger. And the hate and anger is aimed at everyone who isn't white and a conservative Christian. Charles Blow has a column in the New York Times that looks at the GOP platform for blacks. Here are some highlights:

As we’ve gotten around to casting votes to select a Republican presidential nominee, the antiblack rhetoric has taken center stage. You just have to love (and despise) this kind of predictability.

On Sunday, Rick “The Rooster” Santorum, campaigning in Iowa, said what sounded like “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money.”

Newton Leroy Gingrich has been calling President Obama “the best food stamp president” for months, but after plummeting in the polls and finishing fourth in Iowa, he must have decided that this approach was too subtle. So, on Thursday in New Hampshire, he sharpened the shiv and dug it in deeper, saying, “I’m prepared, if the N.A.A.C.P. invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.” On Friday, Gingrich defended himself, as usual, by insisting that exactly what he said wasn’t exactly what he said.

The comments from Santorum and Gingrich came after a renewed exploration of Ron Paul’s controversial newsletters, one of which said in June 1992 about the Los Angeles riots: “Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began.”

Now to the singling out of blacks. The largest group of SNAP beneficiaries is by far non-Hispanic whites. However, it is true that the rate of participation is much higher among blacks than whites. Put the emphasis where you wish.

Finally, as to the false dichotomy of “food stamps” versus “paychecks.” First, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, most SNAP participants are either too old or too young to work. Forty-seven percent were under age 18, and 8 percent were 60 or older. Second, “nearly 30 percent of SNAP households had earnings in 2010, and 41 percent of all SNAP participants lived in a household with earnings.”

But race is usually less about facts than historical mythology, which evokes the black bogyman, who saps the money from the whites who earn it. Ever since blacks first arrived on these shores in chains, they have been perceived as lazy and dependent on whites — first as slaves, and then as “entitled” citizens.

Folklore or fact, this is the way many have viewed blacks in this country throughout history and even now: with scolding disdain and shocking blindness. In 1935, W.E.B. DuBois’s “Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880” pointed out that one of the major themes that American children were being taught in textbooks about that period was that “all Negroes were lazy, dishonest and extravagant.” The themes are eerily resonant of today’s Republican talking points on welfare.

Racial politics play well for Republicans. Santorum and Paul finished second and third in Iowa. Time will tell if Gingrich rebounds. Playing to racial anxiety and fear isn’t a fluke; it’s a strategy that energizes the Republican base.

Kevin Phillips, who popularized the right’s “Southern Strategy,” was quoted in The New York Times Magazine in May 1970 as saying that “the more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans.”

The GOP attitude toward minorities of all kinds is disgusting. The inability to see any common humanity with others unless they are exactly like the Christianists/Tea Party members in looks, religion, and race is extremely disturbing. It's little wonder why this crowd is so anxious to go to war against Iran. Racism and religious extremism are the twin pillars of today's GOP.

And as for those who might claim that I'm anti-South, rest assured that I'm not. I have my own Confederate ancestors. I do believe, however, that after 150+ years we need to move own. Better yet, that we'd have learned something.