Tired Republican Trope: Hey, Black People, Vote For A Democrat And It's Back To The Plantation For You!
Charles M. Blow writes in The New York Times:
Why do Republicans keep endorsing the most extreme and hyperbolic African-American voices -- those intent on comparing blacks who support the Democratic candidates to slaves? That idea, which only a black person could invoke without being castigated for the flagrant racial overtones, is a trope to which an increasingly homogeneous Republican Party seems to subscribe.
Aaron Laramore, who happens to be black as well as "reluctantly Republican," blogs:
Let's get it straight here and now: Living under the liberal policies of the Democratic Party willingly embraced by most blacks is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like living under a racist terror state where your labor is stolen from you under the threat of violence and your family can literally be sold to punish you. Choosing to vote for and support the liberal agenda of the democratic party DOES NOT REMOTELY resemble being owned by another person, treated like an animal, forbidden to marry, bred like an animal, beaten like an animal, being sold away from your family or forbidden to learn to read and write on pain of death or torture.This metaphor is moronic and ignorant in the extreme and it is beyond unfortunate that it has become a standard rhetorical trope of the right. If you are a white conservative and you use it, you immediately brand yourself as someone who is more interested in pummeling black folk with your political ideas than engaging them. If you are a black conservative and employ this metaphor, you show yourself to be not only ignorant of your history, but dismissive of it, for the sake of being provocative.
Oh, and P.S. And no, it isn't just the Republicans who do this. Jason L. Riley writes in the WSJ:
Prominent blacks who do not share Mr. Blow's left-wing views are regularly referred to by Democrats as "Uncle Toms," a reference to the enslaved title character in Harriet Beecher Stowe's antebellum novel.Al Sharpton has referred to Colin Powell and Condi Rice as "house negroes . . . while the rest of us [blacks] are in the field," an allusion to the division of slave labor on a plantation. Political cartoonist Jeff Danziger has depicted Ms. Rice as Prissy, the ignorant slave girl in "Gone With the Wind." And during last year's presidential campaign, Vice President Joe Biden told a largely black audience that Republicans are "going to put y'all back in chains."
Somehow, such examples were left out of Mr. Blow's column. Maybe he ran out of space. But if slave imagery is an inappropriate debating tool, so is Mr. Blow's inference that only his political opponents use it.
via @blackrepublican
"Going to put y'all back in chains."
Unless Joe Biden personally knows black people who are over 160 years old, they never were in chains. Ditto with "back to the plantation" and other such assorted references to slavery.
Patrick at May 25, 2013 2:12 AM
You just don't understand. When Republican politicians comment on black issues it is demeaning and raaaacist. But, when Democrat politicians do the same it is compassionate and well meaning in the interest of the common good.
I hope that clears everything up for all you racist mean spirited non liberals.
Jay at May 25, 2013 6:52 AM
OK. All 3 commentators are correct. Democrat policies do not equal slavery. So what do they equal? Answer: Dependency; a step up from slavery, but degrading nonetheless; robbing people of all colors of their dignity and self-worth. And for what? Answer: for votes. Shame on democrats.
Jim Simon at May 25, 2013 7:07 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/05/25/tired_republica.html#comment-3720156">comment from Jim SimonOnce you take the inflammatory, pandering language out of this -- as you did, Jim Simon -- this can be rationally discussed. Well, more rationally, anyway.
Amy Alkon
at May 25, 2013 7:12 AM
How's the black family unit holding up after 45 years of a "Great Society"?
I R A Darth Aggie at May 25, 2013 7:25 AM
How's that "War on poverty" working out after gazillions of dollars?
Jim Simon at May 25, 2013 7:34 AM
I would imagine that more blacks have been murdered under the Democrat free abortion policies then ever died under US slavery.
ParatrooperJJ at May 25, 2013 8:30 AM
"Going to put y'all back in chains."
yeah. chains of dependency. Democrat vote-buying.
Jim Simon at May 25, 2013 8:56 AM
It doesn't help the democrat's cause when they say crap like this....
"I'll have those n*ggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years."
-- Lyndon B. Johnson to two governors on Air Force One according Ronald Kessler's Book, "Inside The White House"
dragonslayer666 at May 26, 2013 9:56 AM
Look at it from the viewpoint of a Republican candidate: "OK, here's this potential audience, but 97% of the time they vote for the other party. My campaign resources are finite. How much time and money do I want to spend on an audience that's probably going to vote for my opponent no matter what?" If you're a campaign manager, you just can't make a cost-benefot case for it. I still recall seeing the Alabama precinct listings after the 2008 election, and noting the precinct in downtown Birmingham where about 2200 votes were cast, one of the heaviest-voting precincts in the state... and not one single vote for McCain.
Cousin Dave at May 28, 2013 8:53 AM
Charles Blow is a hackosaurus progressive apologist who cares not at all about black people. So let's take his complaint (which is directed at other blacks, BTW) seriously!
Where was the sniffy disapproving commentary all those years and decades and centuries while Democrats freely and frequently deployed virulently racist and personally insulting language to keep blacks in line, voting Democrat? You're only pointing it out now as counter-ballast to your gratuitous and stupid scolding about the use of the term plantation. By blacks, about blacks. Calling the DNC a plantation is a metaphor, a figure of speech. It's fair albeit intense commentary, but it's not personal. What Dems do is personal, shaming individual blacks who dare to deviate from the Party line with whatever rhetoric comes in handy, from "Uncle Tom" to "hyperbolic," whatever does the trick. That's what Charles Blow is doing. Fortunately, this tactic does not work on free-thinking and free-speaking people.
AMartel at May 28, 2013 2:19 PM
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