As I said a couple weeks ago, let’s yank the hood off racist America. Seriously, we know you’re out there, so let’s get it on.
As Matt Stoller reports, Texas Republicans have apparently answered the challenge. At least partly.
Good, good. But don’t hold back. Say it. You know you want to. Call Obama that name, the one that begins with “n” – you know, the one you only use when you know you’re around others of your kind.
Do it, you hateful, gutless trash. I mean, if you’re afraid to say out loud what you really believe, what kind of third-rate, mealy-mouthed patriot are you?
Categories: Politics/Law/Government, Race/Gender
Progressive Culture | Scholars & Rogues 
Nobody could have predicted that racist sociopaths would do something like this …
I’m speechless. Every time I think the Republicans have dug themselves into as deep a hole as they possibly can, they find some more dirt and a bigger shovel. It would be impressive if it weren’t so spectacularly dumb.
… and yet, I won’t be surprised if the Democrats *still* manage to screw things up enough to lose the election.
I can’t find that exact button on the reported vendor’s website, but there’s lots of other lovely choices.
http://www.republicanmarket.com/store/cat/21.Buttons
It’s like a supermarket of bigotry.
Wow, those are some crazy buttons there.
Vicious as they are, some of those buttons are clever. This one’s a classic: Lewinsky proclaiming, “I’m voting Republican. The Democrats left a bad taste in my mouth.”
Euphrosyne – I’m nearly certain that there’s just as many bigoted Democratic buttons as there are Republican buttons. And nearly as many bigoted Libertarian, Constitutionalist, Green, Communist, etc. buttons too.
Bigotry has always been bipartisan. Sad.
As this election goes on, it reminds me more and more of Blazing Saddles.
I had a guy tell me the other day that he wont vote for Obama because he’s black. I told him I wont vote for him because he’s half white.
Didn’t Chris Rock already say something like this a while ago?
So actually the white house would have to be called the “half white house.”
The President’s a Nearrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Hi All: Please sign this petition and let the Texas GOP know what we think about their racist pin: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/322079918?z00m=15489513 Thanks!
Brian, I’ll look around for some – it should be interesting. I’ve never really examined political souvenirs. Mostly I was just checking to see if that button was real… I don’t know why I found it hard to believe, but I did.
well, I’m insulated here in Austin.. I have not heard about this button but have been away from local alternative sources (or the Austin American Statesman for that matter), I cannot imagine that that can just squeek by unprotested.. EVEN here in Texas. It takes one idiot to sell something to be attributed to a group on the whole..
the worst place where I encountered (not directed at me though, I was thought as ‘one of them’ and I’m not even American but what did they know) racism was Louisiana and Mississippi.. really, I think Texas is better than that..
Ingrid
It is. So is Alabama.
Hey, I’m just down the road from you in San Antonio; I went to school in Austin.
Wait, I meant Alabama is worse, too. Fumblefingers. Or brain cloud.
Well, I think it might depend on the part of the state in question. New Orleans seems far more tolerant to me than Houston or Dallas, for instance, something John Howard Griffin noted in 1961 in Black Like Me. I’ve also found Lafayette to be pretty intermixed. If anything, they just don’t trust strangers there. I used to travel through East Texas and into Louisiana by automobile covering my territory on occasion, and if there is a difference between East Texas and West Loosiana, I haven’t noticed it.
Having said that, I’ve felt very uncomfortable in North Loosiana, which seems to me to be a very different sort of environment than New Orleans or even Baton Rouge. I’ve been all over Mississippi, including places like Philadelphia where the civil rights workers were killed, and it’s probably the place where my fellow whites were the most likely to openly express racist opinions.
JS:
Interesting take on locales of racism in the South. I found Chicago and Minneapolis to be quite racist, much more than many places in the South….not in your face racist, but a racism of a more subtoe, insidious variety. However, I do, like you, remember the Jim Crow laws in Florida. Segregation really bugged me when I was a kid, and I couldn’t understand the why’s.
Jeff
examples of what is included on Texas GOP Party Platform as of 2004. Don’t think it has changed since:http://www.theocracywatch.org/texas_gop.htm
p.8, Christian Nation: “The Republican Party of Texas affirms the United States of America is a Christian Nation …”
p.10: Celebrating Traditional Marriage calls for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, and opposes the legalization of “sodomy” ie homosexuality.
p.11 – Right to Life includes suspending use of RU 486 and commends President Bush for “banning the government funding of human embryo stem cell harvesting.”
p.15: Supports abstinence only sex education which is strongly supported by the Bush administration.
p.17: supports teaching of intelligent design (a form of creationism) and teaching evolution as merely a theory rather than scientific fact.
p.26: “The Party believes it is in the best interest of the citizens of the United States that we immediately rescind our membership, as well as financial and military contributions to, the United Nations… The Party urges Congress to evict the United Nations from U.S. soil.”
Not suprising the pin turned up. This coming from the Purple Bandaid crowd. How can we forget.
pro choice lib.. you know.. I think that a lot of moderate Republicans (texan ones) would cringe at this BUT in this country, people always seem to feel the need to stick with their party with that ‘us vs them’ mentality.. I really belong to the Independent Texans (note to Euphrosyne, check it out http://www.independentexans.org) and feel that there should be more than just two parties. The two parties would finally loose their power and the people would be more politically diverse and therefore be able to take matters more in their own hands… I’m all for multiparties, but of course, I’m originally from NL, I grew up that way..
(which school E? lemme guess.. UT?)
Ingrid
Ingrid:
I doubt the US system will ever support more than two parties the way parliamentary systems do. A small minority party in our system has virtually no power, which would leave the people who elected third-party candidates with little say, through their representatives, in the gummint. There have been a few third parties in US politics in the past, but they rarely lasted long.
“prochoicelib” has noted the following:
Would these be right up there with the so-called “Tradition, Family and Property” movement?
I’m pretty well connected in certain Republican circles, and brought this tacky racist button thing to the attention of some people in the party. I was told that there is speculation within our party’s leadership that those pins are the result of some dirty tricks from the other side. That seems plausable, much like that site you have linked on your blogroll,
http://www.shelleytherepublican.com/
isn’t from any Republican source known to anybody in the party, and think the site is a plant. My fellow Republicans might be guilty of some lapses in judgement, but we’re not stupid. Both sides have been known to engage in such behavior.
Jeff
It was real, but the Texas GOP was not amused:
Dallas Morning News
AP
Jeff: the problem the GOP has is this. Even if it weren’t true, the party has tolerated (supported? incited? insert your own word here) racism for so long that the button hardly seems implausible.
And it’s only going to get worse. It’s been a long time since I was proud of a political party – ANY political party – but by November I suspect you’re going to be disgusted with yours.
Dr. Slammy,
Like you probably share disgust with some elements of the left, I share disgust with the Religious Right, Neo-cons, and a few other groups labelling themselves conservative. As for the Republican party tolerating racism for so long, I couuld make a logical case for the Democrats racist action in the north and northeast doing the same exact thing. However, it’s better not to engage in tit for tat, and try to have fruitful, engaging, civil dialogue, and perhaps come to an agreement somewhere along the line. I remain very optomistic about our future….not just our future, but that of the entire world’s future. My big speculator friend put this chart on the web about the progress of man. Here’s the link.
There is hope.
Jeff