Republicans Standing Proud For Racism Nationwide
Since Republicans can no longer hide behind the orange aura of the Former Guy when it comes to promoting racism, they’re making political hay by going after people of color and Black people in particular. It’s a disinformation/gaslighting effort writ large, ripped from the playbooks of totalitarian leaders throughout history.
This “we’re not the racists, you’re the racists” schtick takes the form of accusations saying the concept of Black lives mattering is tantamount to supporting terrorism or not supporting police, and just about any action which might be attributed to advocacy for equity is an attack on white people/unpatriotic.
The linguistic jujitsu at the heart of this Republi-logic involves trying to convince the public that use of the word racism is a personal attack on each and every white person, rather than a systemic ailment rooted in history and culture.
Rather than being ashamed of their vulgarity, Republicans are counting on its amplification, as Paul Waldman at the Washington Post explains:
We’re the real victims here, they’ll keep crying, in the hope that it will heighten the salience of Whiteness and keep voters from asking what the GOP has actually done for them lately.
Locally there are tons of examples, ranging from Carl DeMaio’s KUSI meltdown over billboards urging better prenatal care for Black women, to the recall campaign against a Black school board member in La Mesa (which DeMaio also supports), to the two members of the La Jolla Parks & Beach Association’s board in opposition to the term Black Lives Matter being used by in a sidewalk chalk art project.
The other term used to promote this disinformation is “Critical Race Theory.”
The Big Lie in this instance is the claim that the superiority of Black people over whites is being promoted. This is complete nonsense, but that doesn’t stop conservative talking heads from amplifying the claim. The concept/boogeyman has been mentioned on Fox more than 550 times over the past year.
Critical Race Theory, in combination with such terms as “divisive concepts,” “race or sex scapegoating,” questioning the value of meritocracy, or suggesting that the United States—is “fundamentally racist” is at the core of more than a dozen pieces of legislation moving through state legislatures aim at purging the terms from schools and other government functions.
The state bills generally have similar goals as two executive orders the Former Guy introduced in 2020, one that called for patriotic education and one that sought to ban diversity training and training on critical race theory for federal workers. President Joe Biden has revoked both.
Setting aside for the moment the First Amendment implications of such laws, they all get squishy when it comes to applying definitions to what it is they’re banning.
Via The Atlantic:
“The vagueness of the language is really the point,” Leah Cohen, an organizer with Granite State Progress, a liberal nonprofit based in Concord, told me. “With this really broad brushstroke, we anticipate that that will be used more to censor conversations about race and equity.”
Since critical race theory is largely an academic subject in institutions of higher education, the New York Times 1619 Project is used as the example of what We Must Protect Our Children From.
The 1619 Project included a magazine, podcasts, a newspaper section, and even a curriculum designed to inject a new version of American history into schools. There are portions of it that are disputed by some historians, none-the-less, most critics are supportive of the project’s general thrust.
The Biden administration has proposed a grant program that would fund curriculum about bias, discriminatory policies in America and the value of diverse student perspectives, invoking lessons from the 1619 Project.
Project creator Nikole Hannah-Jones was awarded the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for the introductory essay to the 1619 Project, along with MacArthur Fellowship “Genius Grant.”
Her academic reward for participating in this effort was announced yesterday. Conservative pressure on the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees led to her being denied tenure at the University.
From NCPolicyWatch:
“It’s disappointing, it’s not what we wanted and I am afraid it will have a chilling effect,” said Susan King, dean of UNC Hussman.
“The 1619 Project” is a long-form journalism undertaking that, as the Pulitzer Center put it, “challenges us to reframe U.S. history by marking the year when the first enslaved Africans arrived on Virginia soil as our nation’s foundational date.” Hannah-Jones, who is Black, conceived of the project and was among multiple staff writers, photographers and editors who put it together.
The project sought to spur a reexamination of how America teaches and celebrates its own history. It caused debate among academics, journalists, even within The New York Times itself. Criticisms of its accuracy by some prominent historians led to edits and clarifications, but Hannah-Jones and the Times stand by the project, the introductory essay to which won her the 2020 Pulitzer for commentary.
Last summer, Hannah-Jones went through the rigorous tenure process at UNC, King said. Hannah-Jones submitted a package King said was as well reviewed as any King had ever seen. Hannah-Jones had enthusiastic support from faculty and the tenure committee, with the process going smoothly every step of the way — until it reached the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees.
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The non-very-subtle GOP support for racism has manifested itself during confirmation hearings for President Joe Biden’s cabinet positions.
Here’s the Washington Post, noting the pattern right out of the gate:
A number of the nominees have been labeled with language that activist groups view as racially coded. For example, Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.), Biden’s nominee to be the first Native American to lead the Department of the Interior, is being cast by Republicans as a “radical.”
Opposition to her has been so intense that it prompted two former Democratic senators — cousins Tom Udall of New Mexico and Mark Udall of Colorado — to present a defense in USA Today, where they wrote that “the exceptional criticism of Rep. Haaland and the threatened holds on her nomination must be motivated by something other than her record.”
Vanita Gupta, Biden’s pick to be associate attorney general at the Justice Department and an Indian American, is the target of a multimillion-dollar ad campaign from conservative groups labeling her “dangerous.” Heritage Action for America has focused on California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, questioning his qualifications to head the Health and Human Services Department because he’s not a doctor, which has not always been a prerequisite for that position.
“They know by using buzzwords that they’re able to try to conjure up these tropes about women of color leaders,” said Fatima Goss Graves, the president of the National Women’s Law Center. “These are code words that are used not only to distract but to conjure up an image in your mind.”
More recently, we have the example of Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn blatantly repeating falsehoods aimed at derailing the nomination of Kristen Clarke, a longtime voting rights advocate. Fortunately, she’s now on her way to becoming the first woman and the first woman of color to lead the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division since it was created in 1957.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1382354105805516802?s=20
Apparently, as Sen. Mazie Hirono tweeted last Thursday, "Republicans are smearing Kristen Clarke because they’re afraid she’ll actually enforce the civil rights laws."
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Finally--for today, anyway-- there are the 71 anti-protest bills pushed by Republicans in 29 states. They are clearly a response to the nationwide Black Lives Matter demonstrations last summer following the murder of George Floyd.
The oft-repeated claim coming from the right characterizing those demonstrations as riots is disputed by academic researchers looking at 7,305 events.
A few facts:
Police made arrests in 5% of the protest events
Police used tear gas or related chemical substances in 2.5% of these events.
Protesters or bystanders were reported injured in 1.6% of the protests.
Police were reported injured in 1% percent of the protests.
Only 3.7% pof the protests involved property damage or vandalism. Some portion of these involved neither police nor protesters, but people engaging in vandalism or looting alongside the protests.
96.3% of events involved no property damage or police injuries, and in 97.7% of events, no injuries were reported among participants, bystanders or police.
They concluded:
Given that protesters were objecting to extrajudicial police killings of Black citizens, protesters displayed an extraordinary level of nonviolent discipline, particularly for a campaign involving hundreds of documented incidents of apparent police brutality. The protests were extraordinarily nonviolent, and extraordinarily nondestructive, given the unprecedented size of the movement’s participation and geographic scope.
The misrepresentations commonly made about these demonstrations are being used as justification for the following elements, found in many of the proposed laws:
Preventing those convicted of these offenses from receiving public benefits.
Making it a felony to deface monuments if damage is more than $200.
Increased penalties for protests near “critical infrastructure”
15 bills that eliminate repercussions for a driver who runs over a protester
Nearly 50 bills that heighten the criminal penalty for blocking traffic.
Taking the lead nationally for this legislation is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a wannabe Trump acolyte reportedly looking at the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. He signed the “Combating Violence” bill in April, calling it the nation’s toughest restrictions on protests..
Here’s a snip of NPR’s reporting on that event:
Florida experienced little of the violence seen elsewhere in the country last summer following Floyd's death. But Gov. Ron DeSantis said tougher laws were needed to make sure Florida doesn't see the kind of protests that occurred in Minneapolis, Portland, Ore., and other cities. At the bill signing Monday, DeSantis said, "If you riot, if you loot, if you harm others, particularly if you harm a law enforcement officer during one of these violent assemblies, you're going to jail."
The law increases penalties for protesters who block roadways or deface public monuments. It creates a new crime, "mob intimidation." And it requires that anyone arrested at a protest be denied bail until their first court appearance, likely making for overnight jail stays.
Racism is the lead element in the Republican fear campaign. Along with fake fears about transgender humans, Joe Biden banning hamburgers, and a national passport for Covid vaccinations, these are all part of a program to keep the “base” engaged. And to keep attention diverted from the grift associated with all-too-many of their endeavors.
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