The Racial Quid Pro Quo
The (unwarranted) ousting of Shirley Sherrod & the cover-up that's following are both examples of Racial Quid Pro Quo: basically, a small group of people from one race (who claim to be/act like political experts) that use race-based tactics to get their political views across. Usually they (or their mentors/admirers) were accused of being racist in the past. Their ideas tend to be linked to racist concepts, and for whatever reason they separate the racial aspect from the idea.
An example: suppose someone who shares your political point of view wants to say that President Obama isn't really that popular, so they write an article stating that lopsided demographics are skewing the overall picture. But instead of doing this by using less controversial demographics, like income, age or political ideology, they choose race. Naturally, people (mostly left-leaning) will start calling that person's article racist.
Now you catch wind of this and you think: I'll show them; I'll catch someone on their side spouting off about race in an unpleasant light, and then we'll be even. But just catching some random blogger or even a nameless Congressman won't do: you want something big. Something that can be tied to the President, if you can do it.
Granted, in this case the "you" was a person who should have never been trusted in the first place, but politics is like comic book characters: some people always seem to be able to come back, regardless how many time they've got caught doing something bad.
As I've mentioned before, the factions against the Obama Administration tried to avoid race during the 2008 campaign, but ended up embracing it because they couldn't figure out how to rally enough people by just talking issues. Just about every attack that has been in the news cycle -minus the BP spill- has has a hint of race attached to it. The difference between those attacks and this issue is that actual recordings have been far and few between (ironically or not, the last one with a recording was the ACORN story).
But once someone found a tape of someone else saying/doing something questionable, all it took was some creative editing and the faith that Democrats fear their opponent's base more than their own.
And this is just the short game. The long game is to dilute the word "racist" until political commentators can say the "N-word" without worrying about any repercussions.
An example: suppose someone who shares your political point of view wants to say that President Obama isn't really that popular, so they write an article stating that lopsided demographics are skewing the overall picture. But instead of doing this by using less controversial demographics, like income, age or political ideology, they choose race. Naturally, people (mostly left-leaning) will start calling that person's article racist.
Now you catch wind of this and you think: I'll show them; I'll catch someone on their side spouting off about race in an unpleasant light, and then we'll be even. But just catching some random blogger or even a nameless Congressman won't do: you want something big. Something that can be tied to the President, if you can do it.
Granted, in this case the "you" was a person who should have never been trusted in the first place, but politics is like comic book characters: some people always seem to be able to come back, regardless how many time they've got caught doing something bad.
As I've mentioned before, the factions against the Obama Administration tried to avoid race during the 2008 campaign, but ended up embracing it because they couldn't figure out how to rally enough people by just talking issues. Just about every attack that has been in the news cycle -minus the BP spill- has has a hint of race attached to it. The difference between those attacks and this issue is that actual recordings have been far and few between (ironically or not, the last one with a recording was the ACORN story).
But once someone found a tape of someone else saying/doing something questionable, all it took was some creative editing and the faith that Democrats fear their opponent's base more than their own.
And this is just the short game. The long game is to dilute the word "racist" until political commentators can say the "N-word" without worrying about any repercussions.
Comments