I don't think George W. Bush is a racist
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The sins of George W. Bush could keep an army of Shakespeares and Sophocleses busy forever.
The essence of his party is the tribal-supremacy fantasy of rich, white, authoritarian, nationalistic, Christian men.
As LBJ famously said when signing the Civil Rights Act, "We have lost the South for a generation." Turns out that was an understatement.
And yet, I'm unaware of any evidence that Bush judges people on the color of their skin.
He has no qualms about putting minorities into senior Cabinet positions, even those with acute memory problems.
He seems to delight in Tex-Mex culture, and I see no reason to believe he thinks ill of his Mexican sister-in-law.
The only time he was out of step with the rest of his party was when he didn't play unflinching hardball on immigration policy.
What Dubya is is a classist.
To a large extent, that can be a purely academic distinction. In a white man's world of class and privilege, skin color/ethnicity and class make a rather tight Venn diagram. Thus, his economic, criminal-justice, and military policies are effectively racist, whether or not that's his specific motive.
Further, he's evidenced zero qualms about the way his minions have exploited race to bring him to power, whether it be Karl Rove's "black baby" push polls to topple McCain or myriad dirty tricks to suppress black voting.
But all evidence suggests that he's an equal-opportunity sociopath, caring little for anyone lacking the good sense to be a well-connected Republican (ideally Judeo-Christian, though the Bushes are happy to consider many Muslim despots among their closest friends).
He's content to have policies that drown New Orleanians and Minnesotans, so long as money and power keep flowing to the moneyed and powerful.
At the very least, he's insufficiently racist for the GOP base. So, whether you agree with my premise or not, consider this: the worst president ever may be the least racist guy they've got.
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Exercise
i am not disagreeing with your point. i think above all, dubya is a privileged, scion, elitist, spoiled white rich boy (these are almost always racist, as well, but...).
just as an intellectual exercise:
1. is it possible for me to promote a minority while being racist? could you (again, playing devil's advocate against yourself) possibly imagine any less obvious (than the surface hire/not hire) motivations or consequences to such an act that would, in fact, be in line with racist thought structures or goals?
2. is it possible to celebrate an ethnic food while harboring racism against those who create it, historically? (well, that's an easy one, don't bother).
3. does racism only take the form of "judging people on the color of their skin," or does it have less obvious and more insidious forms?
___________________________
.delusions of un mundo mejor.
Answers
1. is it possible for me to promote a minority while being racist? could you (again, playing devil’s advocate against yourself) possibly imagine any less obvious (than the surface hire/not hire) motivations or consequences to such an act that would, in fact, be in line with racist thought structures or goals?
Sure.
2. is it possible to celebrate an ethnic food while harboring racism against those who create it, historically? (well, that’s an easy one, don’t bother).
Sure. Unless it contains cilantro.
3. does racism only take the form of “judging people on the color of their skin,” or does it have less obvious and more insidious forms?
Sure (it may have less obvious and more insidious forms).
bush is a classic example of a modern republican racist
he surrounds himself with uncle toms, while cutting the budgets to feed and shelter minority children. he holds hands with and kisses a rich arab ruler, while ordering the bombing and killing of hundreds of thousands of poor arabs and muslims for a lie and to enrich his friends. he hires women for a key cabinet positions, but publically denigrates his wife by calling her a "lump." i can go on and on...
today's racists have successfully cloaked themselves with the unfortunate by product of the civil rights movement- the minority uncle tom republican sell out.
but to me, bush is not just a racist sexist egomanic, he hates anyone who doesn't willingly worship and serve him and views us as inferior. so in that way he's worse than "just" racists.
Does Bush show any concern about poor white children?
If so, I haven't seen it.
Also, Bush denigrates everyone. One of his closest associates is "turdblossom."
His lack of empathy is far-reaching, from frogs, to blind and handicapped people, basically anyone who's not considered his "base." And only for the well-heeled part of that base -- it's not like he gives a crap about the white truck driver wearing a W hat.
A question -- are black Republicans de facto Uncle Toms? Ditto for Log Cabin Republicans (is there a gay term for "Uncle Tom"?). I can't quite see how they're not....
if you're a black member of *today's* republican party
the answer is yes, vl. no self respecting black person can associate with the current republican party and not be a sell out. rhetorically, factually, spiritually- republicans today use racist tactics for racist projects and goals. it's really that simple.
perhaps back in the day republicans offered something to minorities, today all they offer is a limited time on a minor gravy train, from which they will throw you in a heartbeat should it serve them.
just ask jc "get my bags, boy" watts.
I've long wondered why JC Watts took himself out of politics
After he did the 1997 State of the Union rebuttal, I was sure he was being groomed to be the most powerful evil person in the world. Were there skeletons threating to come out of the closet?
JC has enough illegitemate children to field a team
he was NEVER gonna rise any higher in the party than he already had--the peter Principle kicked in.
As his dad, ol' JC Watt senior, remarked about his son: A black man voting Republican is like a chicken voting for the Colonel!
vast- my understanding is that he got tired of being treated
like a house nigger. the quote i used, but i could be wrong, comes from an incident late in his career as a republican pol, at a gathering of republicans from all over. one or another white pol saw JC and said "be sure to get my bags, boy" or something similar, assuming that any black face at a republican gathering must be a servant.
gosh i know how that feels, tee hee AEI.
anyhoo- i may be misremembering, but even if i'm wrong, the few black republicans i know have lots of similar stories.
Watts certainly doesn't seem to have budged in his politics
Now that he's a Serious and Respected pundit.
Bush vs The Press and others: Class Distinction
It is hard for me to accuse Bush of personally being racist, but what has always seemed evident to me in his interaction with the press is that he believes that they are not of the same social class as he is.
He is invariably contemptuous of them.
And they (the press) are accepting of his disdain as they are eager for his recognition/acceptance.
This class superiority that Bush was raised with and maintained his entire life extends beyond the press to his aides, to Congress, to foreign leaders and to the American people. The only times he is respectful is in dealing with those he considers his social equals (e.g. the Saudi Royals).
The press (socially) looked down on Bill Clinton and so were happy to savage him.
They (socially) look up to George Bush and eagerly seek his approval.
I have wondered for a long time why no blogger/writer has never explored this "class" aspect of Bush's behavior toward those around him.
Yours is the first attempt I have read.
king Q: come by more often, we talk about bush's "class"
all the time: "How to be a Perfect Nelly Bottom to Tough Military Studs."
ok, i'm joking.
but you are right that this isn't often enough discusses, because class and social "station" aren't nearly discussed enough in general.
i like your formulation, but i don't think the press is wholly worshipping his "blue blood." because indeed, several members of the press class have even bluer, some of them even have more money (eg friedman). i think they suck him off so well for the access, power, and perhaps even some money (eg williams).
the Game still has an old school Establishment contingent, but in these times of uberwealthy brown people funding the US debt, i think WASP/class issues matter less than ever before.
The press has a Stockholm Syndrome relationship with Bush
I'd go one step further, KQ, and say the MSM not only accepts the abuse and neglect, that hard-to-get act attracts their fawning attention.
As CD noted, they venerate raw power, which wasn't Clinton's strong suit -- he survived on charisma and wits.
Access to power makes them feel powerful. Access to an extraordinary charismatic and intelligent person makes them feel small. And when they feel small, they turn into a pack of Heathers.
There's one key point about Bush's appointees...
Yes large numbers of them have been minorities, but they seem to have one other thing in common: they would not be considered remotely to be at the top of their fields in anything. The fact that they were minorities made this fact discomforting to mention, so it wasn't.
What on earth made Condoleeza Rice qualified for her post? Yes she had academic "credentials" but in a field of study that was obsolete before she got the job. We heard a lot about her wonderful piano playing but not so much about the fact that as a predictor of future events she was right up there with the other Sovietologists as failing utterly to see that the system was collapsing.
Abu Al Gonzales? Hack lawyer until promoted to the TX supremes and then the DOJ. Lack of sterling qualifications--even of the "best Hispanic lawyer" sort--is discomforting to mention so we hear about his humble roots instead.
Thurgood Marshall had won the biggest court case of his generation if not the century before being rewarded for accomplishment. The Bush people, almost without exception that I can think of, owed their high station entirely to their devotion to Bush.
They were nothings and nobodies (okay, a relative term--they were not changing sheets in motels before, but just midlevel minority professionals) until hitching their wagons to his star.
There are two kinds of employers: one hires the best people available, the kind who would be serious competitors if not working on the inside, and who are constantly nipping at the boss' heels, forcing the boss to work harder to stay ahead.
The other kind only hires people to whom he or she feels comfortably superior, the sort who could never be a threat. The kind you can call "turdblossom" and they'll smile and take it because they have to. That's Bush.
It's a class thing to some degree, and a racial thing to the degree that it fends off criticism from the public/media. But mostly it's a thing of the most intense insecurity. Who else worries so much about dominance except the horribly fearful?
Sheesh, we should have understood this from the first time we heard that the only way Bush could feel sufficiently superior to a fucking frog was to add chemical explosives and incendiaries to the advantages of size and weight over the creature.
that's worth its own post, xan
excellent summary.
indeed, the only thing i can add is that i suspect there is a 'special' relationship between bush and his uncle tom/assinas. i think there must be something very sick, very authoritarian, about keeping your own pet house nigger(s). having them around "confirms" so much- the ease with with PC sensibilities can be manipulated, pleasure in knowing that critics are less likely to attack them and thus you, perhaps a twisted delight in knowing that "his" minorities are in fact not really qualified, and he can mock those of us who are with these elevations.
i hope you'll come back to this, xan, and do a detail post on all bush's minority appointments. i'd be really surprised if any of them were truly exceptional in any way other than being loyal yes-people with more melanin.
Minority hires
The above two comments are right on. It's like the Republican approach to government in general. You say it never works, and then when you're elected, you make damn sure that it does not work. With the sole and partial exception of Powell, and he left, Bush's minority hires have been picked as standing arguments against diversity. They are there to justify the opinion of nonwhites that Bush has held all along.
Sunsin,
On what do you base that? You actually think that Bush keeps Condi and A-Gonz among the top government officials and among his closest associates in order to make minorities look bad?
vastleft, stop and think about this a second
you really think W wouldn't do exactly that? I mean, this IS the guy who wanted to put Harriet Myers on the US Supreme Court.
How in the name of the seven bald steers could he make women USSC Justices look worse than by doing that????
Since Bush is trying to destroy the very idea...
... that government can do good, by (among other things) installing cronies and incompetents and crooks and Christianists (sorry for the redundancy) at every level, and looting it, I don't see why he'd quibble at trashing the idea of diversity. Having swallowed the camel, I don't see what he'd strain at a gnat.
So, sorry, VL, I agree with sunsin. And Sarah throwing Harriett into the mix is an added bonus.
We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan
And Vasty, remember this isn't really "about" Bush
Bush is the public face of a much larger effort after all, the one presentable enough and "respectable" enough (family name & connections) to be electable. I'm sure he--Mr. "Guy I'd Like to Have a Beer With" and all that--personally does feel comfortable with Al and Condi and Armstrong williams and whatsisname, the (black) liason to "faith based groups" who had to quit after the shoplifting bust, and all the other minorities. He is pretty universally described by those who meet him as personable and nice to be around.
That's not the point though. Keep in mind the motives of his puppetmasters, the ones who rule through him. They really are terrified and contemptuous of minorities and women and honestly regard the White Male as the pinnacle of evolution and natural rulers of the human race.
So yeah, it would not be out of character for them to act as you describe, selecting "his closest associates in order to make minorities look bad". For the next half century any time a minority or woman is proposed for some high position it will only be necessary to point to a Bush appointee and say "yeah, look how well Those People do when you try to give them responsibility" to cast doubt on them.
Look at the one (domestic) effort they fucked up beyond all hope of redemption: "immigration reform." They thought they had a guy whose record of minority inclusion and social conservatism would finally allow significant and permanent Republican gains in that sector. But at the same time to hold the lower-class whites they whipped the country up on the Messickens Cummin To Take Yer Jobs frenzy, stirring that xenophobia so close under the surface of the American mind at the best of times.
Was this bright? No. But it serves as an example of how power always overreaches.
Sorry, this is a silly narrative
Bush does not surround himself with incompetents in order to make their genders/ethnicities and government in general look bad. This notion is too clever by orders of magnitude.
Like all of God's creatures, Bush doesn't want to look like a total asshole (despite his bodacious natural gifts in that regard).
Yes, he surrounds himself with incompetents. But a little pop psychology yields a much more plausible explanation....
As an addictive personality, he surrounds himself with enablers. These include Gonzo, Condi, Harriet, and Karen Hughes.
Bush's close associates are deeply loyal to him (albeit in a universe-destroying way), and he's deeply loyal in return (ditto). They coddle him, and he over-promotes them.
The Harriet Miers nomination is a perfect window into this.
In his little cocoon, Harriet is the matronly lawyer who caters to his personal legal needs.
Bush, who has a pathological lack of perspective, mistakes Miers's personal ministrations with fitness to be one the top legal figures in the land.
Far from wanting to embarrass her and himself, he wants to prove that his inner circle has the finest people in the world (which he surely believes) and to reward one his biggest loyalists.
When both parties responded with horror to the nomination, Bush was sent to his room, and Cheney brought in a new nominee with the appropriate gravitas and slimeball agenda.
This was a major loss of face for Bush, which was no one in the administration's agenda. Just an example of over-reach by a loyal boss with a (surprisingly diverse) B-team crew.
i dont think its such a
i dont think its such a stretch to posit that bush knows he has a winner when he hires a minority because if they do well, he looks so good that people start writing how he's not a racist and cares about minorities, and if they fail, it reinforces a bone-white narrative at the heart of the racist GOP. i dont think one has to be brilliant to act on this, even unconsciously. i dont think the GOP reinforces its racism necessarily consciously on ever move. they don't need to. that's the point of ingraining and institutionalizing racism in the methodology of their party.
but i'm really commenting again because on the "that's too easy dont bothe r with that one" i meant to link this!
and though your reply to my questions was willfully terse and bereft of further examination, obviously my point was that you did not disprove bush a racist.
altho i agree he is above all, a "classist."
___________________________
.delusions of un mundo mejor.
Nez,
The operative words in the title were "I... think."
I can't prove what's in his head, I can only judge by his actions and the company he keeps.
Sorry you were disappointed in my survey responses. Your premise was that it was possible to be a racist under certain circumstances, and I agreed with you.
White man, white bread
I think I read that in a wonderful book I read years ago called Mechanization Takes Command. Shows how the Detroit assembly line evolved from the disassembly line in Cincinatti meatpacking plants, which is an interesting sidelight on the discussion we've been having about animals...
Anyhow, it's a wonderful, funny slogan, and also encapsulates the denutriotionalizing, industrializing aspects of the process that culminated in the "squeezably soft" Wonder Bread--oh wait, that's a slogan that applies to a bathroom tissue, sorry--but I'm not sure how useful it is.
Not all "white man's" bread is white (see Pumpernickel) and last I checked, "white" nutritional memes (??? Can taste be a meme?) were infecting people of all colors with great virulence.
We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan
sure, vastleft. i
sure, vastleft. i understand. i mean...i dont preface my comments with "i think," but i hope its understood it's all coming from my opinion!
no...i wasnt disappointed so much as elucidating my "rhetorical" points/questions. it's all good. a good discussion.
___________________________
.delusions of un mundo mejor.
tell me more about 'white nutrional memes,'
lb. are you speaking of things like the KKK omlet (egg whites only) and the 'white foods diet' (eating things like rice and clear broth only) recommended to those who want to detoxify?
those are the only WNMs i know.
Gack!
No, CD, I'm kinda riffing off Nez's post here.
Just because a category (like "race") falsely mimics reality doesn't mean that can't have real effects.
We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan
W.I. Thomas, USofA's "First " Sociologist (U of Chi, @ 1925)
in a tome on the lives and times of 'delinquent' girls, remarked, on the subject of 'reality', that "That is real which is real in its consequences."
Nez,
I wasn't taking you to task for not qualifying your comments, just noting that I'd set the bar for the validity of my claim at opinion, rather than something I purported to be provable.
Thanks,
VL
Oh and...
I loved the Leviticus riff in Nez's comic.
Woody,
No one could have predicted how racist coddle-the-rich / fuck-the-poor policies would turn out to be.
the "all in the family" factor
footnote: might be noted (for whatever its worth) that Jeb Bush's wife, Columba Garnica Gallo, (and her family/parents) are from Mexico.
*
Hi farmer,
FYI, That's what I meant by "Mexican sister-in-law" in the original post.
i don't normally bash wives for the sins of the hubbies
but i do wonder about that. i mean, i can't believe poppy really wanted there to be "little brown" bushes in the clan. so what's her deal? is her father some bigtime drug dealer or arms merchant? is she connected to some mexican fascist group? or was she just golddigging, or xanaxed into submission? because jeb is as awful as his bro, and i can't understand why any self respecting brown person would marry into the bush clan.
oversight noted
FYI, That’s what I meant by “Mexican sister-in-law” in the original post.
oops. i missed that. sorry.
Columba Bush (born August 17, 1953) is the wife of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and the sister-in-law of President George W. Bush.
is her father some bigtime drug dealer or arms merchant? is she connected to some mexican fascist group? or was she just golddigging, or xanaxed into submission?
this is from a wiki entry on her background:
*
Two comments here
first, if you believe this:
Woody,
new
Submitted by vastleft on Sun, 2007-08-26 10:51.
No one could have predicted how racist coddle-the-rich / fuck-the-poor policies would turn out to be.
then you probably also believe nobody could have predicted a flood in New Orleans two years ago this week
and 2nd:
Jeb Bush's wife used to be one of his English students?
Hmm. I bet there's a story behind that ...
thnx, farmer. but you know my attitude about wiki
still, if that's true...there is a story there, and not the one i would've guessed.
Everyone's A Little Bit Racist
And W is no exception, I'm sure, but I completely agree that he's not particularly racist. Also, however, neither is the Republican Party. They may appeal to racists, but that doesn't make them racist, just like a Democrat may try to appeal to blacks without being black him/herself. I really don't think that the Republican Party itself is actually honest-to-physics racist, but the policies it promotes, against illegal immigrants (who are mostly Hispanic) and welfare recipients (where blacks are overrepresented), are hurtful enough to the groups currently hated by racists that they support it. Given the fairly wide diversity in the Republican party -- free market conservatives, religious conservatives, neoconservatives, stupid (racist) rednecks -- it's perfectly natural that there be plenty of black Republicans who, like the rest of the population, are obsessed enough to actually support some part of that platform. In fact, one of my favorite debate opponents on the issue of healthcare and the morality of the free market is a black African-born Republican/Libertarian.
On the other hand, there should not be ANY gay Republicans, and the fact that there still are some is a dark blot on the face of the American queer community. A party whose basic platform includes targeting homosexuals, blocking the Armed Forces from receiving their service, preventing them from wedding, and strengthening discrimination against them is, I'm sorry, a REALLY idiotic thing to support if you're gay. It's like a Japanese-American supporting the American concentration camps, or a Guantanamo trial-less inmate supporting Cheney and Gonzales. If conservatives have a bad impression of their gay fellow conservatives, I'm sure it's well-deserved. To use an extremely offensive term, you could call them house faggots. Yeah, I used the F-word. It upsets me to no end that these people vote against respect for themselves and for a group of people who think they're the scourge of the Earth. I hope that gay Republicans get arrested for sodomy just so that they get a taste of the intolerance they helped foster. Or for offering sex to police officers, cybering with teenagers, dealing with hookers, and so on. Schadenfreude is better when they deserve it.
::breathes::
Seriously, gay people? Don't vote Republican. You're not just hurting the whole world; you're also hurting yourselves.
Mauro,
Hard to argue with your passionate stance about Log Cabin Republican types.
In a nutshell, here's why I unabashedly consider today's Republican Party racist:
* The GOP avidly seized the mantle of redneck racism from the Dixiecrats and wear it proudly today. While not every single Repub is a Confederate-flag waver, they make it unambiguous that they are the political home for those who are.
* Their favorite targets include ginned-up pariahs like immigrants, black "welfare queens," Willie Horton, and Little Sambo McCain.
* The Repub platform is totally antithetical to recognizing and healing the wounds of American racism. The Great Emancipator's party is today the sworn enemy of Affirmative Action and any other ameliorative policies.
* They steadfastly don't give a rat's ass about the disproportionate deadly and disenfranchising effects their class-based policies have on minorities.