Washington Monthly Political Animal: “He Denied It Was Racist”

Washington Monthly Political Animal

“He Denied It Was Racist”

For the most part, I try to steer away from accusations of racism. I’m usually more interested in changing people’s minds, and that tends not to happen when I call them racists, since they suddenly feel the need to convince me that they are not, in fact, about to excuse themselves for a moment and reappear in Klan robes. It’s not conducive to genuine engagement.

Sometimes, however, it’s hard to see what other word would do the trick:

“A local newspaper columnist, in a spoof of Obama’s platform, wrote in one recent piece that the Democrat would hire the rapper Ludacris to paint the White House black (a reference to a pro-Obama song by Ludacris), and divert more foreign aid to Africa so “the Obama family there can skim enough to allow them to free their goats and live the American Dream.” He joked that Obama would replace the 50 stars on the U.S. flag “with a star and crescent logo,” an Islamic symbol, and that his policy on drugs would be to “raise taxes to pay for Obama’s inner-city political base.” 

The columnist, Bobby May, is also treasurer of the Buchanan County Republican Party and was listed in a July news release as the county’s representative on McCain’s Virginia leadership team, though he said his column reflected his views alone, and he denied it was racist.”

 

You can read the actual column here (pdf). (One note: the passage above says that it describes Obama’s position on drugs as “raise taxes to pay for Obama’s inner-city political base.” In fact, it’s “raise taxes to pay for free drugs for Obama’s inner-city political base.”)