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Please, Don't Call Me Racist: A Reply To Articleman & Boyd Reed
I am saddened and dismayed by two recent posts (here and here) greeted by what appears to be near unanimous agreement on these boards that the Clinton campaign has engaged in race baiting. The argument posits that Clinton has predicated her campaign on a pitch to white voters’ prejudice. Her apparent success among blue collar, less-educated whites, the creation of a near monolithic “white vote” in favor of Hillary, is seen as confirmation of this strategy.
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Comments (6)
Lesson in Aristotelian logic: "all racists are Hillary voters" does not imply that "all Hillary voters are racists". (cf. "all dogs are mammals")
Similarly, saying that Hillary has been either appealing to racists or allowing others to do so on her behalf (without chastising them for it), is not the same as saying that those who vote for Hillary are racists.
To the best of my knowledge, no one has called you a racist.
May 6, 2008 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wasn't taking offense at being personally called a racist. Rather, the idea of criticizing her campaign as being based upon thinly veiled racist appeals, and her supporters as being somehow manipulated by those appeals is divisive, condescending, incorrect and counterproductive. Unfortunately, my full post did not make it so I re-posted another time, again unsuccessfully, with the body of the argument as a comment. But I'm not saying there's censorship.
May 6, 2008 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hillary has managed to go from 60% to 10% of the Black vote. Barack has gone from 20% of the Black vote to 90%.
If Hillary can find the time to go to Scaife's newspaper and O'Reilly, she could have found time to address the grievances Black voters have with her compaign. She has not done so.
She will get the percentage of the Black vote that she has earned. If she is the nominee in November, African-Americans will stay at home rather than vote for a person who ran a Karl Rove Southern Strategy campaign. We'll just deal with one term President McCain.
Enjoy your delusion in the lack of race-baiting by the Clintons. There may be long term consequences for the Democratic Party.
May 6, 2008 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you ever come back to this thread, you might enjoy reading this more nuanced comment which I just discovered on the topic from early April, by an old timer member, on Carmen Van Kerckhove's thread, on whites and
"anti-racism." Member "Devon" used to participate a lot more on TPMCafe before the software change and the consequent takeover of content by the Election Central crowd. He says there that he has worked for "a variety of racial justice organizations" and I know from his comments and posts over several years that that is true and that he has a deep and abiding interest in civil rights.
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/01/why_should_white_people_fight/#comment-2699684
May 17, 2008 6:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
P.S. Devon is one of your homies, I believe, a Brooklynite. Also, that is the first time I have seen him sign a post and use his last name; that was intersting in itself, especially after his basically cutting way down on his participation here, came across as if he really wanted to communicate that directly to Van Kerchove with full force of identity.
May 17, 2008 6:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
This comment is way, way late, but I just found this post.
I'm sorry you think I called you a racist. I'm sure I didn't address anyone that way. I talked about race-baiting, which is not the same as racism.
I firmly believe that's exactly what the Clintons were doing. I just as firmly believe the Clintons are not racist. What they were trying to do was drive up their share of the working-class white vote, which was needed to offset the black vote they were losing.
June 11, 2008 2:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
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