The way politicians use racist code words to fan racial anxieties...

I'm going to compile a list of code words I've heard politicians utilize to speak about race issues without coming off as bigoted.

White

Average Joe

Joe six-pack

Moral voters

Independent voter

Evangelical voter

Hockey Mom

Soccer Mom

The southern vote

blue collar workers

Black

welfare recipient

Poor people

inner-city

affirmative action supporters

These are just a handful of examples of how our media and politicians (not to mention everyday people) use racialized language to refer to groups of Americans without sounding like they are mentioning anything overtly bigoted. They can use these words and say "the southern vote looks high for McCain" without saying that most southern whites will vote McCain. They can say "I don't support just handing out welfare to recipients while hard working Americans bust their asses" without saying "I think blacks are lazy and whites are industrious".

"We're past all that!"

I hear so much talk about how much better we are in terms of racism in our country. Yes, we've gotten rid of terms such as 'nigger', 'spic', 'gook' from our daily vocabulary, but have we done much in the way of conditioned messages? I don't think so, and many seem intent on keeping things this way by claiming "racism's over", "that stuff ended long ago", "get past it", et cetera.

It seems to run in common with a white tendency to not have to feel bad. I see it with mentions of Obama very frequently. "Hey, Obama's President! We have a black man in office, so now we're all equal!" It's almost like saying, "Look, we white people feel bad when race discussions come up, and we shouldn't have to feel bad (unlike everyone else who has had to endure the shit end of the stick for centuries on this continent), so here - we gave you a black president, now STFU and accept that racism is over."

It's funny how ready most liberal whites were to vote for Obama in the name of change and hope, and not to mention the fact that he's black and how this would "end racism" or some shit like that. However, a year later, when the country is back to debating issues and race becomes an inevitable facet of the discussion, we get ads like this:

which totally misrepresent quotations (the Jackson quote was referring to a specific senator, not every person who voted against healthcare), deny racism in the healthcare industry (well documented), and play on white racist anxieties by invoking the word 'racism' ad nauseum, using it as an ad hominem attack word rather than referring to the well-documented system of racial inequality that exists in our country.

And look, they even put some non-Whites in there! So it *must* be legit, since we know one black person solidifies their entire groups identity, regardless of whether there is a pattern in the group or not! (rolls eyes)

Days like today are days that make it hard to be positive about race discussions in our country.