Whistling Dixie (the remix): The Southern Strategy in the Age of Color-Blind Racism

Whistling Dixie (the remix): 

The Southern Strategy in the Age of Color-Blind Racism

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

In recent weeks, with the GOP establishment coming to the aid of Mitt Romney and because of Newt Ginrich’s efforts to sell himself as an outsider, an increasingly visible narrative has emerged: as the anti-GOP establishment.  Given Newt’s racial politics and his entire campaign strategy, it is hard to think of Newt as anything but the GOP establishment.

At the same time, there has been a growing sentiment about the hegemony of colorblind racism within the GOP.  “Colorblind racism is the new normal in American conservative political thought,” writes Edward Wyckoff Williams.  The “2012 Republican candidates are using egregious signals and dog whistles to incite racial divisiveness as an effective tool for political gain. But when confronted about the nature of their offensive rhetoric, the answer is either an innocuous denial or dismissive retort.”   The codes or dog whistle politics are not new, nor is the denial.  While the audacity of race denial may be on the rise, the clarity of the GOP’s race politics have been on full display.  No secret decoder is necessary especially as we look at the larger history of race and the GOP. 

Like so many of his fellow competitors, Newt’s racial demagoguery, his demonization of people of color, and his efforts to scapegoat have been a daily reality during the 2011-2012 GOP presidential primary. This is nothing new from Newt, who has made his career on the demonization of “welfare moms,”  “illegals” and a “food stamp president.”  In 2007, Newt took exception with bilingual education, announcing: “We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto.” 

This has continued during the current election cycle with his recycling of the Moynihan report and his policy initiatives focusing on teaching black kids a work ethic.   The language, the policies, and the centrality of race illustrate the profound ways that Newt Gingrich is the GOP establishment.  As the voice box for the racial ideologies and the torchbearer for the GOP’s southern strategy (demonizing people of color in hopes of galvanizing white voters to support a party that doesn’t represent their economic interests), Newt’s denied GOP credentials is almost laughable. 

This is the party of Nixon, whose southern strategy sought to scapegoat African Americans.  This is the same man, who talked about “Negro bastards" who "live like a bunch of dogs" on welfare rolls.  This is the GOP that was led by Richard Nixon, who one said:

Bill Rogers has got — to his credit it's a decent feeling — but somewhat sort of a blind spot on the black thing because he's been in New York," Nixon said. "He says well, ‘They are coming along, and that after all they are going to strengthen our country in the end because they are strong physically and some of them are smart.' So forth and so on.

My own view is I think he's right if you're talking in terms of 500 years," he said. "I think it's wrong if you're talking in terms of 50 years. What has to happen is they have be, frankly, inbred. And, you just, that's the only thing that's going to do it, Rose.

This is the party of Reagan, who described outrage from working Americans over the sight of a “strapping young buck using food stamps to buy T-bone steaks at the grocery store.”  When not demonizing black men, he spoke about “welfare queens” in Chicago, “who drove a Cadillac and had ripped off $150,000 from the government using 80 aliases, 30 addresses, a dozen social security cards and four fictional dead husband.”  This is the same Reagan, who started his presidential campaign in 1980 in Philadelphia, Mississippi with an “ode to state’s rights,” a theme that continued with his defense of segregationist Bob Jones University and his denunciation of the voting right act as "humiliating to the South."  As the patriarch of the party, it is no wonder that racist rhetoric and appeals are central to the 2012 campaign.  

This the party who used Willie Horton, who the Bush campaign portrayed as a dangerous super-predator, lurking in dark alleys, ready to kill and rape.  This is the party of Trent Lott, who at the birthday party of segregationist Strom Thurmond announced, “When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either.”

This is the party that brought us Barbara Bush, who after Hurricane Katrina, announced:

Almost everyone I've talked to says we're going to move to Houston...What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this -- this is working very well for them.

This is the party that has used ACORN, Jeremiah Wright, and blamed minority homeowners for the recession.  It is the party that popularized Barack Hussein Obama and used “pallin round” with terrorists with great frequency. 

This is the party of Rick Santorum, who routinely demonizes Islam, who has called for a “long war” with Muslims: “What must we do to win [against Islam]? We must educate, engage, evangelize and eradicate.”   This is the party of scapegoating “illegal immigrants,” the criminalblack man, the Arab terrorist; it is the party of fear and division, and one that is “addicted” to race-baiting.

Newt’s campaign, his constant deployment of racial codes, his demonization of communities of color, and efforts to mobilize white voters is representative of the GOP.  The frames, daily rhetoric of racism and demonization, which has been central to Republican politics for the last 40 years, is in fact the basis of his campaign. If it walks like an elephant, talks like an elephant, demonizes like an elephant, and stomps all over other people like an elephant, well he must be an elephant.

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David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis. He is the author of Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema and the forthcoming After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop (SUNY Press). Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan and blogs @ No Tsuris.