Regression
Posted on February 5, 2010 | 25 Comments
I… I don’t even know what to say:
On the opening night of the Tea Party convention, Tom Tancredo, former Colorado congressman and presidential candidate, said that:
Obama was elected because “we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.”
A “literacy test,” as he’s using it in this context, refers to a nasty and horribly racist part of America’s past:
As used by the states, the literacy test gained infamy as a means for denying suffrage to African Americans. Adopted by a number of southern states, the literacy test was applied in a patently unfair manner, as it was used to disfranchise many literate southern blacks while allowing many illiterate southern whites to vote. The literacy test, combined with other discriminatory requirements, effectively disfranchised the vast majority of African Americans in the South from the 1890s until the 1960s. Southern states abandoned the literacy test only when forced to by federal legislation in the 1960s. In 1964, the Civil Rights Act provided that literacy tests used as a qualification for voting in federal elections be administered wholly in writing and only to persons who had not completed six years of formal education. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 suspended the use of literacy tests in all states or political subdivisions in which less than 50 percent of the voting age residents were registered as of 1 November 1964, or had voted in the 1964 presidential election. In a series of cases, the Supreme Court upheld the legislation and restricted the use of literacy tests for non-English-speaking citizens. Since the passage of the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, black registration in the South has increased dramatically.
Think about this: Tom Tancredo, with full knowledge of both the history of and the implications of the term, is in favor of reinstating the literacy test, and, without shame, expressed this desire in a public forum. In 2010.
Tancredo also said:
“This is our country. Let’s take it back.”
Here’s what I would like to know: who is “we”? Who is he referring to here? Who are the teapartiers referring to when they say that they are speaking for “the American people”? Because they’re certainly not referring to me or to anyone I know. I can say with certainty that I would never, for one second, be part of or have any connection to any organization or group made up of individuals who express and/or encourage such vile and dangerous rhetoric. I know that if I had been present when Tancredo made that statement, I’d have immediately walked out in disgust. And I believe that I can safely say that everyone I know would have done the exact same thing. By choosing not to leave or to otherwise register their disapproval, Tancredo’s audience showed their approval of this ignorant and bigoted nonsense and they share with Tancredo the responsibility for the potentially dangerous and/or violent consequences of his appalling rhetoric.
In addition to feeling disgust at this vile racism, I find it so depressing, disheartening, and upsetting that this country isn’t doing more to oppose and combat this nasty, faux-populist, bigoted, and anti-intellectual movement. I fear that too many of us don’t understand or don’t want to think about the level of influence and power that this movement has and thus are tempted to brush them off as a nasty-but-ultimately-harmless extremist fringe. But they’re certainly not harmless. And, everyday, more and more people are finding within the movement a place in which their ignorance and bigotry are both welcomed and encouraged.
All of this makes me very pessimistic about the future of this country. We’re regressing, to put it mildly, and I fear that this regression won’t be stopping anytime soon.
Comments
25 Responses to “Regression”
February 5th, 2010 @ 4:27 pm
“This is our country. Let’s take it back.” That sounds like something Glenn Beck would say, with a tear in his eye.
Our former Prime Minister, John Howard, had a rallying cry when discussing “queue jumping boat people”*: “we will decide who comes to our country, and the circumstances under which they come”. These people are overtly racist, yet they prosper.
Bring on the literacy test. That will cancel out the teabaggers for a start.
*most non-sanctioned immigration in Australia happens by air. Demonise the other, much?
February 5th, 2010 @ 4:52 pm
I can’t believe any Republican can have the audacity to make comments about voters’ educational standards after TWO terms of Dubya. Maybe I’ve been fortunate with the sample of Americans I’ve encountered over the last few years, but I’ve not yet met any one who liked the guy, let alone voted for him!
As you say, there’s a horrible right-wing undercurrent whose sole aim is to undermine Obama – and he’s already been unfortunate enough to take over in very difficult circumstances. The racism aspect is just another weapon in their armoury (armory?) to appeal to the mindless bigots and it really is despicable “below the belt” tactics. From outside the US we can see all this happening like a car crash in slow motion, but just hope that there are enough sane, reasoning campaigners, voters and pundits to stop the loonies from taking over…
:-(
February 5th, 2010 @ 5:51 pm
I think there’s a case for arguing his point in re the election of W the President. In those instances, however, a simple literacy test without any civics element would have sufficed.
February 5th, 2010 @ 7:32 pm
I think the comment may have been more stupid than maybe intentionally bigoted. Not a defense, I loathe republicans. I just always go by “Never attribute malice where incompetence will do.” Am I giving too much of a benefit of the doubt?
February 5th, 2010 @ 10:04 pm
stupidity and malice are so generally related that to attribute one in deference to another seems like semantical hairsplitting. not withstanding the possibility that one or the other be more politically correct some things are just plain hostile because they’re ignorant and ignorant because they’re so hateful. either way, no matter how twisted, one is not a very sturdy defense of the absence of the other.
February 5th, 2010 @ 11:09 pm
@reasonablehank: Exactly! And what’s up with Beck’s crying? Seriously. It’s more than a little creepy.
@Andy Pickering: Yes, their collective lack of self-awareness is just staggering. And, as you say, racism is such a big part of their movement, yet, if confronted with that fact, they’ll vehemently deny it, despite the overwhelming evidence of/examples of racism. It’s the elephant in the room: even though it’s the core of their movement, they refuse to admit that such bigotry even exists. It’s such ridiculous and cowardly denial. I hold the same hope as you, and am an eternal optimist, but there are some days (today was one of them) where it seems that they’ve already won.
@Roger Sizemore: But it’s more about his use of this particular phrase in this particular context: he knew perfectly well that it’s a loaded phrase with clear racist implications and knew that his audience would eat that up.
@Wallace Finch: Yeah, if Tancredo wasn’t such a nasty bigot and racist with a long history of expressing such attitudes, I’d be more than willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But this isn’t out of character for him and he clearly knew that he was using a very loaded, racist phrase in a room full of people who would eat that up. The whole convention is just ridiculous and creepy. At least Palin’s speech may end up being unintentionally amusing ;)
@Pete: Yes, and Tancredo chose a well-known phrase that holds such nasty racist connotations. He surely could have made his point (whatever it was) without using that specific reference. Yes, quite stupid and quite malicious. Ugh.
February 6th, 2010 @ 1:37 am
“We” is code for “we white people” with the Teabaggers and similar repressive idiots.
February 6th, 2010 @ 8:35 am
@Ray Moscow: Sadly very true. It’s mind-blowingly hateful. Check this out, if you want a good laugh/to be horrified: http://www.teapartynation.com/ For fuck’s sake!
February 6th, 2010 @ 12:18 pm
This whole tea party thing is kind of disturbing. It basically popped out of nowhere. It seemed to start during the 2008 election, before Obama was elected. McCain started the whole omgsocialist thing, and the teabaggers copied it without even thinking about it. I don’t get it. There’s nothing socialist about Obama. The healtcare reforms are common sense, centrist stuff. Obama’s NASA plans are also about partly privatizing some of the space programs. That’s the direct opposite of socialism! And let’s not forget Obama cut taxes very early on… something the Taxed Enough Already crowd curiously refuses to acknowledge.
I don’t think the teabaggers are racist, although they might be, but I do think this has to do with Obama being black. I think it’s about people not being able to identify themselves with the president, who is not an old white man. For example, if you had a big city liberal in the White House, the small town conservative would not easily be able to identify with that person. That’s not racism either. So this is partly about having people running the government… who they feel is kind of alien to them… or something.
Still, it’s quite shocking to see how utterly dumb these people are.
February 6th, 2010 @ 2:59 pm
@Harman Smith: Agreed.
February 6th, 2010 @ 5:32 pm
If I may paraphrase the fictional Florida governor Robert Ritchie from The West Wing, “Idiots. Boy, I don’t know.”
February 7th, 2010 @ 8:53 am
I know these idiots are racists by the coded, veiled language they use. Growing up I noticed the way some American Whites will engage in “double speak”, a pseudo-dialect switched on when people of color are in the room and switched off when they are not. For some reason, some forget that I’m in the room (which as a Black Hispanic I find quite amusing and interesting) and revert to racist language. My point is that the Teabaggers and the rest of loon core of the Right speak the same dialect that I’ve grown up hearing! They are( to be colloquial for a second) full of shit! It’s patently and painfully obvious to anyone with a brain!
I too despair when I see how much money and influence they have and I believe that we on the Left share some responsibility due to our abandoning of the public square and the sin (heh heh) of losing our moral high ground.
February 7th, 2010 @ 9:22 pm
Bring on the literacy test. Have it be based on undersanding of constitutional law, and let Tom Tancredo submit his answer and President Obama submit his answer to an independent panel of judges who do not know whose answers they are judging. Let the panel score the constitutional literacy of the answers the two men give, and only after independent verification reveal which man gave what answers. I'm fairly confident that President Obama would fare well and Tom Tancredo would look like an utter fool.
February 8th, 2010 @ 9:40 pm
Indeed. And she even said “hope-sy change-sy”! OMFG brain now broken bah
February 8th, 2010 @ 9:44 pm
Yes indeed- it's a mess and, depressingly enough, I really don't know how they can be stopped, unless they self-destruct. I try to always remain optimistic, but it's very, very hard to in the face of such hateful idiots
February 8th, 2010 @ 9:45 pm
Yes, indeed- excellent point
February 9th, 2010 @ 12:09 am
@alethias. @miranda.
I have visions of “answer me these questions three”, and Tancredo shooting off over the horizon, yawping, “NOOOOOooooooo……”
February 9th, 2010 @ 1:59 pm
Ha, totally!
September 9th, 2010 @ 4:41 am