The affirmative action dog-whistle - Matt Bai blows it hard - UPDATEx2 - (more)Matt Bai comments - he loses it
Mon, Aug 25, 2008
UPDATE - Matt Bai’s comments below. UPDATEx2 - more Matt comments below. He kinda loses it. Calls me unsophisticated. I call the wahmbulance.
Here is the next dog-whistle against Barack Obama, something that sounds nice, sounds legit, but to the angry white male, sounds like FUCK THE UPPITY NEGRO.
Matt Bai doesn’t like my assertion (which has been constant, by the way) that this campaign is about race.
The theory that race is holding back Mr. Obama’s candidacy rests on a pretty simple premise. Adherents argue that the Democratic candidate ought to be effortlessly leading by double digits in the polls at this point — and that his failure to do so can only be explained by latent racism among older voters.
He proceeds to blow the dog-whistle. Emphasis mine.
Second, Mr. Obama faces genuine obstacles that are more salient than skin color. By any historical measure, he has remarkably little governing experience and almost none in foreign policy. And he represents not only a racial milestone in American life, but also a stark generational shift. It’s hard to extricate these things from Obama’s blackness. (If older white voters recoiled at Mr. Obama when he exchanged a fist-bump with his wife, were they reacting to his youth or to his race?) There are legitimate reasons that some older white voters might reserve judgment on Mr. Obama without being closet racists.
Young guy? No experience? Also black? Anyone remember this ad from Jesse Helms?
Bai’s operative dog-whistle paragraph was gleefully picked up by Joe Scarborough on MSNBC this morning, and all the righty-pundits in Denver with him. Young, black, inexperienced?
HOW DARE THAT UPPITY NEGRO GET THE JOB JOHN MCCAIN DESERVES?
How dare he.
Let’s visit heaven for a moment. Oh look, its the former president’s lounge! Hey, let’s tell ‘em the big news! Let’s tell Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, FDR, JFK, Ike, even Nixon, that a black man is running for president! Let’s ask them what the election will be about!
Anyone believe they would give you Matt Bai’s answer? Jesse Helms might, but he’s not in heaven.
Or would they give you the real answer?
Popularity: 8% [?]
Tags: barack obama, john mccain affirmative action, matt bai, race, uppity negro
August 25th, 2008 at 10:08 am
comment from Matt Bai on my Facebook wall in response.
“I’m not sure, but I think you just called me Jesse Helms. Very nice. By the way, no one under 60 in this country has ever used the words “uppity” and “black” in the same sentence. It’s 2008, is all I’m saying.”
My response to matt on his Facebook wall
“didn’t call you jesse helms, just saying the message is exactly the same. and if you were in ohio, and talked to voters, you’d find the uppity negro sentiment is rampant.”
August 25th, 2008 at 11:08 am
oh. i get it. it’s about age discrimination now! duh.
August 25th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
bai responds to my comment with a link to a greenburg poll from Macomb county.
http://www.gqrr.com/index.php?ID=2234.
to which i respond.
“interesting link. if i believed that study was all there was to it, i wouldn’t be at all worried about barack winning this election.
however, i tend to think that the reason, as you say, the words “uppity negro” aren’t used anymore is that there are new, better, more effective words, like the ones in your column, the ones in the Jesse Helms’ ad, that produce the same result, giving people a permission slip to act on their prejudice without having to look racist.
no one is going to tell greenburg that they don’t like barack because he’s an uppity negro if that’s how they feel. they’ll tell greenburg something different.”
Then Matt loses it.
“You know, I’m not going to prolong this, but I really, really resent your again calling me racist. it’s a serious allegation presented in a flippant, unsophisticated way. Guess what? Obama doesn’t have anything like the experience of past candidates. That’s a fact. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t vote for him, but it also doesn’t make a voter racist for being concerned about it. (And if that voter is racist, he probably wasn’t going to vote for a Democrat and hasn’t since 1964.) If you’re determined to see racism in every line, then you will see it. As the old saying goes, if all you have is a hemmer, everything’s a nail.”
To which I respond.
“no one called you a racist, matt. and i’m not using a hammer. this tactic is a fine-edged scalpel, and that’s how i’m calling it out.
you may not be aware of the code words you send in your column, but you certainly sent them, maybe because you’ve spent the last 20 years listening to this argument from the right and have taken it as utterly benign.
it is not. and my identifying it as such is meant to be as surgical and targeted as the message itself.”
August 25th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Dude, don’t back peddle. You call someone a racist, and comparing someone to Jesse Helms is calling someone racist, and act like it’s no big deal? Words matter. Bai acknowledges that race is a factor - we all know that - but just because people have concerns about, say, his lack of executive experience, doesn’t make them racist. BO is running for the most powerful office in the world. His record deserves scrutiny. I am a hard core supporter of the candidate and I _want_ his record scrutinized. I want people to know everything they can about Barack Obama because people deserve all the information that’s out there so they can make their own judgments.
The era of perpetual Democratic victimhood is over, at least for the younger generation. That doesn’t mean that all problems are solved and I’m pro Affirmative Action as part of correcting those injustices. But trying to censor someone for pointing out the obvious, that BO is inexperienced, is the exact kind of ridiculous political correctness that turns off many would be supporters before they have a chance to get to know him.
BTW, you, of all people, should not be moralizing to others. Isn’t the whole reason for this blog to get people to look beyond snap judgments and assumptions in their evaluations of others?
August 25th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
not backpedaling at all, and didn’t call bai a racist.
the language is designed to allow bai to say he’s not a racist, while at the same time dog-whistling to those who hear it as such.
that’s why it’s called a dog whistle. you can blow it as loud as you want, but you ain’t a dog. but the dogs will hear it.
August 25th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Comparing someone to Jesse Helms is a dog whistle to people who want to identify others as racist. If you are such an expert in dog whistling, then you should know that. Follow your own rules.
August 25th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
here are my rules. when I want to call someone a racist, i say, “so-and-so is a racist” i have written many headlines like that.
i don’t know matt bai from a hole in the head. i know his words, which are as i describe them.
if i wanted to call matt bai a racist, i would not dance around the edges. i would write those words and stand by them. just as i do these.
August 25th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
What is the “wahmbulance?” By the way, I loved Bai’s book, “The Argument.” I don’t think (based on that book) he spends all his time listening to the Right. If you spend all your time listening to the right you get stupid, Matt Bai ain’t stupid. I do think if he spent some time with some of my homeys in Southeast (Ohio) he might think there is more to the racism in this campaign …
August 25th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
The wahmbulance is what brings you a wahmburger and french cries.
August 25th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
more comments from matt.
“Yeah, I’m a right-wing robot. very original. You should trot out the “beltway insider, never been outside of DC” line too, while you’re at it. Two things, Tim. One, please note that I am not going to stoop to remark on the irony of your preaching morality to me. Second, serious bloggers don’t post other people’s private communications on their blogs.”
i respond! ahoy!
“matt, read the post. no one is calling you a bigot or a racist. i am pointing out that your language is exactly the same as theirs. that’s different. i don’t know you. how could i know you are a bigot or a racist?
second, this is not private. it’s my wall on facebook, through which you reach 317 other people. you reach more now through my blog. i’d think that would be where you’d want to respond, i.e., in the forum in which i made the criticism.
sheesh, matt. touchy.”
August 25th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
You are stumbling all over yourself. Facebook wall posts don’t hit Google. Blog posts do. Don’t pretend it is the same. You know having a record online is different from having it on a limited access database.
You use dog whistle tactics to call someone racist, deny it, and then show a total lack of blogger ethics by sharing a private communication, all the while mocking someone who is trying to engage you.
sheesh.
August 25th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
machiavelli, stop being an idiot.
if you have a conversation in front of 777 people, it isn’t private.
dumbass.
as for blogger ethics, come back when you decide to use your real name.
August 26th, 2008 at 7:53 am
Tim:
Haven’t you argued that race is a salient factor that will hold many whites back from voting for Obama? I think you have argued that it is the issue in Ohio. And I agree with you on that point, Tim. Matt Bai seems to be making just about the same argument about race, though he dressed it up with some other factors like experience etc. By the way, I liked your reference to the former president’s lounge in heaven. But how in the hell did Nixon get in — does St. Peter take bribes?
IM
August 26th, 2008 at 9:15 am
i have argued that, bill. it is not only the issue in ohio, it’s the issue everywhere.
i think matt bai is making the argument similarly, but justifying it with a wink and a nod that it’d kina ok. it’s not. that’s why i called him on it.
as for Nixon in heaven…..MY BAD!
September 24th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
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