nothing to add except i love seeing the republican rhetoric deconstructed, now if only it could be done within tv time limits
What the hell is "blood equity"????
Warning: Shameless Self Promotion follows!
We whacked both of these stooges, as well.
Medved here: http://thenonsequitur.com/?p=671
Parker here:
http://thenonsequitur.com/?p=673
I find it utterly appalling that this type of thinly veiled racism and cultural imperialism finds its way to the pages of major metropolitan newspapers.
I,
Apparently, blood equity is a form of value that accrues like compound interest. With every generation that your family has been in America, you gain blood equity, that is, you are worth more as a citizen. Apparently, it is like a racial 401k plan.
"This has been the sort of move used by the Clinton campaign, for example, when referring to working class and lower middle class white voters as "hard-working Americans." This distinguishes this group of white voters from their African-American economic peers, an inference that is unpacked in part with the stereotypical racist presumption of the laziness of oppressed minority groups."
This is both they way it was commonly interpreted, and clearly not what was meant. She was trying to find a positive way to say 'working class.' You can unpack that inference if you want, but it is not implied, meant, or suggested by anything in either her speech or any other Clinton speech. It beats 'poor', 'uneducated,''struggling' etc.
It is the prejudiced stereotypes that shapes that 'inference.' Show me that Clinton shares those stereotypes (either Clinton, for that matter), show me there is any reason whatsoever that either Clinton thinks blacks are lazy, or even has any negative stereotypical views, and I will grant the point. Otherwise, it simply feeds into a common vicious ad hominem.
Obama 08!
I'm part Cherokee. Does that give me more blood equity? Or did/do the Cherokee lack the "adventurous instinct" required for it to contribute as part of my "American" heritage? And is "American" limited to the USA or do Brazilians, etc. have an American heritage as well?
That was probably a silly question...
I grew up in Kentucky and I just cringe. Even though I left for college ASAP, I'm embarrassed for the state I call home. So, I'm sure, are thousands of Kentuckians (including my parents, both retired profs. from Western Kentucky University).
I'm sad that:
1) race-baiting still seems to work
2) a Democrat is doing it against another Democrat
3) it works especially well in my home state
Hanno, give me a f*ing break...the fact that she actual said 'hard-working white people' strains the principle of charity to the breaking point.
C. Ewing--didn't the Cherokees find the "adventuresome spirit" to "go west" eventually?
Race baiting may work (what, 20% of Clinton's votes cite race) but race baiting can only win primaries. There is no chance in hell of race baiting winning the nomination.
So not only do you have to read racism into a statement from people who have a long track record of the opposite, and not a single piece of evidence that the Clintons share the stereotype, but you also have to think that both Hillary and Bill are total political idiots, so dense that they think that the strategy that Wallace lost with 40 years ago will somehow give them a victory. Say what you want about both, but that seems patently absurd.
On the heels of this excellent post by SteveG, I heard this essay/whine on NPR, contributed by (what I take to be) a Williams College, Kentucky-born student.
http://www.npr.org/templates/
sto...toryId=90694386
Actually, Hanno, I think the Clinton's have been very clever to maintain plausible deniability. And I don't question either Bill's or Hillary's track record on racial issues. But the campaign has chosen to emphasize race in subtle ways. It's not the Wallace strategy, but it's not imaginary either.
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