More On Race by tgirsch

Given recent discussions here about racism, code language, etc., I thought this response to Bruce Bartlett’s crap OpEd was a good read and worth linking:

First, to the extent that Bartlett is attempting to make a logical argument (personally, I don’t think logic is the goal) Yglesias pretty much rips the argument to shreds here and here. As Bartlett surely knows, the American political parties – while keeping the same labels – have shifted dramatically over the past 200 years. As every seventh-grade American history student knows, the white supremacist coalition (largely but by no means exclusively Southern) voted Democratic until the civil rights era when it moved to the GOP with helpful nudges from Goldwater, Nixon and Reagan.

It would be great of course if Bartlett were sincerely concerned about America’s historical racial legacy. But he’s not. That’s not the point of his book. The point is to win modern political points for the GOP and smear the Democrats. If he can get the question aired, he largely wins. (Chris Matthews: Tonight’s panel will discuss if the Democrats are racist. Joining us are …”)

…snip…

In a perverse way, Bull Connor is almost reassuring. That’s because his very existence at least validates the historical reality. We know the history is real because Bull Connor exists – because he unleashes the dogs. And as long as he is the enemy, he will lose in the end.

But the second wave – the post-Connors (Nixon, Atwater, Rehnquist, etc.) – are far more clever and insidious. That’s because they do something worse than unleashing dogs – they deny the historical reality. Their preferred tactic is to convince people to ignore it, or to pretend like it’s been magically fixed. To them, the consequences of racism aren’t the problem anymore. The problem is that you, white person, are being discriminated against. It’s this latter argument that has been so ingeniously effective. It allows people (non-racist people) to ignore historical reality – “The Reality” – and to oppose civil rights legislation not for racist reasons, but for reasons of perceived self-interest.

Our friend Bartlett – while well short of people like Nixon and the vile Rehnquist – falls squarely into Camp #2. I’m not accusing him of racism. It’s far more banal than that. He just thinks he’s found a rhetorically clever way to bash the hated Democrats. His sin here is not racism, but indifference. The problem is not so much the dishonestly itself, but that this particular dishonesty shows a callous indifference to “The Reality.” Bartlett pretends to care, but isn’t really acknowledging the problem. Otherwise, he wouldn’t strain logic to (1) score points for the party with the wretched racial record and (2) wound the party who’s actually been trying to make these things better.

I still think Publius is too eager to give people like Bartlett a pass on racism — he usually is — but the larger point holds. The effects of past institutionalized racism continue to linger on today, and people like Bartlett intentionally work to help people ignore that reality. That may not rise to the level of burning crosses, but that’s still an active form of racism, in my book.

UPDATE: Be sure to read the comments over there, too. A lot of good discussion.