Saturday, October 13, 2012

"Put the White Back in the White House": How Will Conservatives Spin This Photo from Mitt Romney's Rally on Friday?



Once more, conservatives show you who they always have been and are. I couldn't care less about one data point swimming about in a sea of information. But given Romney's naked appeals to white racism, how white supremacists have heard his "dog whistles" loud and clear, Romney and Ryan's repeated assertions that Obama, the country's first black President, does not understand "American" values, and the Right's use of some of the worst and most racist stereotypes about black people in the Age of Obama, this photo which was taken at a Mitt Romney rally on Friday should come as no surprise.

Together, white racism and racial resentment are the brand name of the Tea Party GOP. Consequently, Romey's public knows exactly what they are buying coming November 2012 when they vote against Barack Obama.

Conservatives and the Right-wing echo chamber have a great gift for reframing reality. In the post-truth era, if you think a thing is true, and you believe it to be so (and say it enough) said fiction must be therefore be real. The New Right are also conspiranoids who believe in rigged public opinion polls, white victimology, birtherism, phantom buses full of "illegal" minority voters, and that the most recent unemployment numbers have been manipulated in a grand ploy to defeat Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. As such, conservatives are capable of believing whatever the echo chamber births from its mania-state of perpetual epistemic closure, and a befouled womb.

They will excuse away and make excuses for the white nationalist who supports the Tea Party GOP, what is the country's de facto White Political Party. Let's get ahead of the curve and use our imaginations to figure out how conservatives will frame the following photo as its circulates throughout the Internet and other media this weekend.

Here a few suggestions:

1. No Republican or conservative can ever be racist! Only the Democrats and liberals see race because they founded the KKK! This man must be an Obama supporter!

2. Agent provocateur! He must be a member of the SEIU and a supporter of Saul Alinsky and a fascist Marxist. Liberals will do anything to make Mitt Romney and the Tea Party look bad.

3. The Romney logo on his t-shirt is a sticker. Just like the Democrats did when they infiltrated the Tea Party rallies a few years ago, the liberals are making their own t-shirts, sending out fake protesters, and doing whatever they can to make us look bad! If he was a real racist the Romney supporters would have kicked him out!

4. Scratch a liberal and you get a racist. He must be a libtard who supports Obama!

5. Okay, let's just use our imaginations and say the guy showed up uninvited to the Romney rally. Why blame all the good conservatives there? Reverse racists, anti-white bigots on TV, black liberal bigots, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and the Internet, all hate conservatives. We have black conservatives at all of our rallies.

6. If Republicans hated the blacks why they be so prominently featured by us at our  meetings? We are the party of Abe Lincoln. The liberals are race obsessed and sick and they keep the blacks on the liberal plantation. Dems don't believe in what Dr. King said about being color blind.

7. If Obama and his supporters really cared about racism they would put the New Black Panthers in jail, prosecute Fast and Furious, impeach Eric Holder, and stop the cover-up about the embassy attack in Libya!
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What would you add to this list? How would you help the Tea Party GOP spin and excuse-make for the white nationalists and other racists in their midst?


32 comments:

Invisible Man said...

Not too long ago in Chicago, there was a tight 4th Ward Aldermanic race. The 4th Ward at that time was most poor Blacks. Yet it was also considered the "liberal bastion" of Chicago, because of it's heavy Jewish population and it being home to the super majority white University of Chicago. The same institution that helped propel President Obama into the White House. In this race was the current Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle ( a product of the University of Chicago Political Machine who is of mixed race heritage. She was running against then Black Alderman Tim Evans who was the head of the late Black Mayor's( he had passed two years before) Council majority and considered the candidate of the largely Black part of the ward. The morning of the election an Evans worker spotted 5th Ward Committeemen and Preckwinkle volunteer, Allen Dobry, (part of the University of Chicago Political Machine and Jewish) posting anti-semitic, anti-white flyers asking people to vote for Evans in both 5th and 4th wards, just to make sure every one saw them.

One of the crudely lettered flyers( again in the heavily Jewish Hyde Park neighborhood) accused Preckwinkle of being part of a secret Mayor Richard M. Daley political plan along with her white Jewish land developer husband ( who's really Greek and a good elementary school teacher) to rid the 4th and 5th ward of Black people. The Evans worker got a camera and followed Committeeman Dobry around reporting his location until the police arrived. Dobry caught red handed claimed he was not guilty of dirty tricks. Rather he wanted to inform all Hyde Parker of how Alderman Evan's constituents really feel. The problem was this was done right before the polls opened so by the time it made the news Alderman Evans had already lost. You know Lincoln's saying about the lie getting half away around the world, before the truth gets it's dress on? Well I don't know about this photo, but i do know this. In Chicago, they don't call David Axlerode The Ax for nothing. And President Obama is no short stop himself. Clearly he wouldn't have any thing to do with this Romney thing. But his campaign is run out of Chicago. Lincoln won the Democratic Nomination on the third ballot after losing the first two, because of Chicago and so did JFK. It is hard to believe that no body at that rally knew that this wacko would be national news and didn't call security. Yes It's suspicious to me. Also generally those shirts costs money. But I don't know. But I do know Chicago and how we do, especially Alexrode and his ilk

Michael Paul Goldenberg said...

Hmm. That probably reads better in the original German.

Since there is a history of dirty tactics in the Chicago machine area, it follows that any outlandish display of bias must be a Chicago Democratic-liberal-Jewish trick? Like the American Nazi Party march in Skokie, right?

Somehow, citing the election of 1860 (and even of 1960) is irrelevant. You don't need to plant a guy in a t-shirt when there are web-sites all over the place that reflect this very real mind-set. Funny, too, how quick some folks are to forget that the majority of folks who hate blacks are not exactly huge fans of Jews, either. Yes, there are right-wing, racist Jews in this country, I'm very sad to say, but really: try to show a tiny modicum of cool reason here.

nomad said...

"Put the White Back in the White House"

Hmmmm...Not a bad idea. Then we could call presidential policies that negatively impact the black citizenry by its traditional name: racism. Without, you know, looking silly to those unfamiliar with the notion 'institutional racism'; without having to explain to them that that kind of racism can indeed have a black face. It would be so much simpler if the president was white. It would be easier for people to understand. By all means, let's put the white back in the white house so that people -especially black people - can stop being deceived and stop deceiving themselves.

Invisible Man said...

Nope, I'm no German nor do I write/speak it. But my apologies, good Sir. As I know that complicated materials do tend to baffle some. Especially when the internet is rife by empty slogans and "selective" cut and pasting. And, it's fine to admit, that there are right wing and racist jews in this country,( welcome to America) but why you do so is beyond me as such wasn't part of the discussion, only power and the lengths individuals will use to obtain it. Oh, now I get! To introduce factual components( history) for context, that is not material to the over all argument, but again ads good "colour", is of course some form of anti semitism in this case right? Ohhh how petty. Sadly, I'm not surprised. However, as rational being, I will not pin sophomoric and supercilious behavior as characteristic of any ethnicity of religion. But, perhaps you are in a time zone (hopefully warmer than mine) where drinking starts earlier, which certainly gives rise to ad hominem and non sequitur "pouting". Now excuse, I'm off to prepare dinner. Oxtails, they take a while to become tender.

Regards,

I.M.

Adam GH said...

"its mania-state of perpetual epistemic closure, and a befouled womb"

perpetual epistemic closure. NICE turn of phrase.

edella said...

CDV, big fan of your's, visit the site religiously. Just gotta nit pick right now. The phrase isn't "could care less". That means there is some care left. When what you mean is there is no care left, aka, "couldn't care less". That "n't" means the world of difference.

Pet peeve rant over.

chaunceydevega said...

@edella. you are now appointed our high archon and oracle of grammar! insert smile. thanks. whenever you see a mistake do call it out.

chaunceydevega said...

@IM. Occam's razor is your friend. Toni Preckwinkle couldn't even get a ticket fixed for me. Conspiracy? Come on.

@MPG. if such a person showed up at a rally for Obama and was hating on Romney it would be on full blast and questions about disavowing him, why did the audience not force him to leave, etc. would be in full effect. Silence from the MSM on this one. The Left needs more folks willing to do the dirty deeds dirt cheap; instead they keep getting punched in the face.

What would the German be?

@Adam. We still need to get that drink!

Invisible Man said...

Damn, Devega Man, if that's a conspiracy, I'm MC Hammer,( although back in the day I did have moves like that) and you can goole that story it's common knowledge. And Preckwinkle has flexed a lot more than that getting tickets fixed when she was Alderman, she just didn't want to do it for ya. But at least I know you're a local cat. Now I just gotta put word to street and then ear to the wind and find out where you drink at or probably more likely, hold forth court. Now excuse me while I go to my court and get my swerve on as its been a long week,

Unknown said...

I've seen this photo posted all over the internet along with comments which basically say this somehow proves that all Romney supporters are racist like this guy. Assuming this guy even is a Romney supporter, do you honestly believe its fair to demean an entire group of people based on the actions of one person?

Look, prejudice is just wrong, and that's a maxim which should always apply, whether the identity of the group in question is based on race, gender, nationality, religion, sexual preference OR political ideology. For example, if a man in a NAMBLA t-shirt showed up at an LGBT event, liberals would rightly yell foul if someone tried to link that community to pedophilia based on this.

How is this any different?

Everywhere I've seen this picture posted, I've witnessed a rush to judgment based simply on the fact that a man wearing this shirt was standing among others who were waiting for a campaign event to begin!

That's all that is known by the photo, nothing else. We don't know how long he was there, we don't know if anyone in the crowd chastised him before or after this photo was taken, we don't know if campaign security noticed or removed him later after they arrived. And as I'll point out below (with reference links), there is even ample reason to be unsure about how other Romney supporters or officials reacted, and even reason to doubt if he is indeed a Romney supporter:

The picture was taken before the event began, so we don't know if anyone objected to him wearing this or if he was later allowed access into a restricted area.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/getty/article/ALeqM5hBc4Z1xzhDbWrGPjvkvByB3aP_gw?docId=154020260

The only manufacturer of shirts like this which I could find came from http://www.antipalinshirts.com

Everyone was wearing coats – it was cold that day. So why is this guy in a T-shirt? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=razX6VN1jLI

There were cameras everywhere, yet this was the only picture of this guy!

Anti-right groups exist whose sole purpose is to infiltrate right-wing events and to dress, carry signs, or act in a way that discredit the right:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20002377-503544.html
http://legalinsurrection.com/2010/04/its-their-tea-party-and-ill-crash-if-i-want-to/

If he was a Romney supporter, he would have stayed a long time, and this photographer or other media would have been on hand once campaign organizers arrived and would have taken video, or sequential photos, to show the crowd and/or campaign event staff reacting to this shirt.

Picture taken before the event began
No other pictures or videos exist
Cold day, everyone else in coats and hats
Man's face is not shown
Man is not interviewed

So perhaps you can see why I have doubts as to whether he even is a Romney supporter. But regardless, the fact that he was standing among other supporters, at that moment, waiting for the campaign event to begin, gives no justification to judge anyone except the man in the shirt.

chaunceydevega said...

@MD. I love how many white folks go out of our way to excuse make and provide the "benefit of the doubt" for racism and racists in our society. I wish that people of color who have done wrong from the perspective of the white racial frame and Whiteness at large were given such leeway and assumption of their nobility.

Romney is running a racist campaign. The tea party gop is a party based on the Southern Strategy and white racial resentment. Romney has gone beyond dog whistles in calling obama a lazy black boy welfare king who steals money from white people and is not fit to be president because he doesn't under the american tradition.

If you crap on the floor you attract flies. Romney is covered in such political feces as I like to say. The human debris that responds to his appeals and racist calls are Romney's problem to own.

fred c said...

When Romney says, "we're going to take back the White House!" he's saying exactly the same thing as the shirt says. And he says worse to encourage the people who would wear such a shirt. So who cares where this guy came from, or why he was there? Whether it's 100% verdad or whether it's agitprop cut from whole cloth, it functions equally well as truth.

nomad said...

Yeh, but a gumment that practices racism and targets nonwhite people for murder and conquest should be headed by a white president. "Put the White Back in the White House"

CNu said...

Romney is running a racist campaign. The tea party gop is a party based on the Southern Strategy and white racial resentment. Romney has gone beyond dog whistles in calling obama a lazy black boy welfare king who steals money from white people and is not fit to be president because he doesn't under the american tradition.

SMDH@CDV....,

{and there I'd given you the benefit of the doubt for having rounded the intellectual and rhetorical bend with your WWE piece.}

IM is truth!!!

Accept no substitutes....,

nomad said...

LOL! It is a very well written piece, but I didn't see it rounding any ideological bends.

chaunceydevega said...

@nomad. are intellectual bends like intellectual thoroughfares? I am confused. If that was a dig of sorts remember every essay doesn't have to be a revelation, sometimes stating the obvious is necessary, and it is easier to sit in the peanut gallery than on the stage...I meant the last part nicely as a fair reminder.

More substantively, how are my claims inaccurate or not? What substantive interventions would you make?

@Cnu. One doesn't preclude the other. One can understand the limits of the game while still playing it.

CNu said...

OT - Nomad did you see the Hon.Sis.Prof.Pundit.Melissa Harrith-Parry Lathewell-please-do-somethin-bout-them-ratchit-weave-braids this morning on MSGeneral Electric?

She was repping the straight-up Great Game propaganda with the hands-down most gorgeous of all the imperial harlots Rula Jebreal.

It makes me vomit a little in my mouth everytime it's brought home how CUH-LEARLY we're all embedded in something that's only the tiniest bit removed from The Hunger Games, and how so many well-educated and intelligent folk lack the testicular fortitude to reject and overthrow the game, and instead, do everything in their power to become color commentary on the barbarous proceedings.

I'm utterly disgusted by I've watched Melitha and Rachel Maddow devolve into.

CNu said...

by WHAT I've watched Melitha and Rachel...,

nomad said...

"If that was a dig of sorts remember every essay doesn't have to be a revelation"
Not a dig. Not even a criticism even. It was a political perspective brilliantly stated using the wrestling analogy. A perfect representation of this perspective. But the same perspective nevertheless. No bends rounded.

back later

nomad said...

Oh wait. Here's an example. Here's a bend I rounded a couple of years ago: Obama is one of the worst thing that has ever happened to black people in America.

Black Sage said...

@InvisibleM, It is hard to believe that no body at that rally knew that this wacko would be
national news and didn't call security. Yes It's suspicious to me. - InvisibleMan

@InvisibleMan, no one at Wishful President Romney's campaign event notified security nor thought
that he would make national news because he was amongst people of the same ilk. In other
words, he was with family-like members, he was comfortable, he was amongst comrades in
this national event to shove Obama's HalFrican, mostly Black-ass out of the WHITE HOUSE!
It would be the same thing if you went to your mother's house for Thanksgiving and your
for whatever reason you and your brother got into a minor argument regarding how your mom
may have over cooked the turkey. Well, I doubt that you and your other siblings would then
attempt to ban him from all future family events. Hell no ....., he's still a family member. Would
you do something like this to your brother? This is the same position that this cretin in
the picture represents. He's merely a member of the family amongst other racist family members.
The only difference here is that the guy within the photo caption had either the courage
(or stupidity) to express himself more saliently regarding his attentiveness
to hearing Wishful President Romney's dog-whistle racist appeals.

Even further, I've yet to hear Romney's campaign broadcast a bulletin or stated by him
personally that he doesn't want fringe type people to color his campaign nor his vision
in a shameful or pernicious manner and that he's wants to be the president, if elected, of all Americans.
And since I haven't heard this from Mr. Mitty himself, it's not a far-fetched idea that
this guy in the photo represents the ilk of the vast majority of Romney's supporters. After all, family
members don't chase other family members away from an event with baseball bats simply
because of the manner in which he chooses to express himself differently or because some other minor disagreement.
WHITE AMERIKKKA, quit conjuring up excuses for racist people like this idiot in the photo
and that troglodyte in Florida, George Zimmerman, who murdered Trayvon in cold blood as
if he was a rabid animal on the loose! Wake the f&ck up, White Amerikkka!

Black Sage said...

@Michael Davison, But regardless, the fact that he was standing among other supporters,
at that moment, waiting for the campaign event to begin, gives no justification to judge anyone except the man in the shirt. - Michael Davison

How befitting of a potential racist family member to provide cover for another racist family
member to make a statement that doesn't even make any sense. It would've been more aptly placed if
you had simply wrote: "he was standing among other dog-whistle hearing, racist supporters!"
It's a given that losers hang out with other losers, skin-heads hang out with other skin-heads, family
members hang out with other family members. Therefore, what's the problem with judging someone
one on account of who he or she accompany?

Durinf the 1988 campaign between Dukakis and George Bush (1), the Willie Horton issue was utilized
to color all Black men as either a rapist or murderer. The racist Republican Party capitalized
upon this incident and was able to frighten people into believing if Dukakis won, he'd expand the
work furlough program and release a plethora of Blacks from prison to rape and murder White
folks at random. Even though Willie Horton acted alone, he wasn't judged alone. Instead,
all Blacks were included in a cacophany of undertone and overtone of voices. Not one Republican stated that it was wrong to include all Black men as potential rapists and murderers. Again, there was a deafening silence on this matter. I wonder why? Could it be that the media in general and White politicians in particular become at that point and time, familial members, sort of?

Does the Black Panther Party members have monthly meetings with KKK members? Your statement
simply doesn't hold water. It's hopelessly flawed, but certainly leaning towards the racist
right, just like Romney himself and the vast ilk of his sick supporters.

chaunceydevega said...

@nomad. not the bends from going too deep underwater and not pressuring properly? do you remember that GI Joe episode? Worst thing ever? I don't see it. But I am open minded. Write up an editorial explaining that position and I will post it.

chaunceydevega said...

@Blacksage. Maybe it is home training? I was taught not to hang around with trash or you will be mistaken for it. If I went to a rally and saw all sorts of homophobic mess or anti-antisemitism I would leave.

I think the calculus by many conservatives--black ones especially--is that yes, there is some racism here in the republican party, maybe even more than a little, but i agree on the other stuff so that is okay.

voters make different calculations. i don't deny them their bundle of attitudes i simply say if you give cover for white supremacy and racism then you are in fact a racist and should own it. be proud. no biggie.

Black Sage said...

@CDV, well stated my brother, enough said!

chaunceydevega said...

"or anti-antisemitism I would leave."

what is anti-anti-semitism..duh. interesting puzzle.

antisemitism

CNu said...

If I went to a rally and saw all sorts of homophobic mess or anti-antisemitism I would leave.

uh..., why exactly you gotta pretend that sodomy and eugenics-as-ersatz religion are your natural allies and friends?

CNu said...

Obama is one of the worst thing that has ever happened to black people in America.

Nomad is truth!

Accept no substitutes...,

nomad said...

"Worst thing ever?" I actually wanted to say that, then I thought about slavery, the lynching, and Reagan, the war on drugs, rap music (just kiddin), so I had to say *one* of the worst. If he had just sold out social security, that would have been enough but he reenslaved us to corporate healthcare. But worst of all he got black people, the moral conscience of this nation, to betray their political heritage of standing for justice and made them complicit in imperial war crimes. Plus, he is facilitating the nations descent into fascism. He may not be the worst thing that has ever happened to black America, but he's a strong contender.

makheru bradley said...

The "white" never left the White House."

"They told me if I voted for McCain we’d be getting a reluctant clone of Bush’s policies. And they were right!" -- Walter Russell Mead

nomad said...

Speaking about the war on black people -I mean the war on drugs- it's your civic duty to see this documentary:
http://cryptogon.com/?p=31816

YouKnoMe said...

damn man, you said everything that they would say in your article LOL. kinda like when ms. Crowley said that Pres. Obama DID in fact say that the acts in Libya were an act of terror... I said "oooooooooooooooh! now fauxsnooze will have a field day with that one!!" SMH sad how we can tell who will say what.