Institutional racism in the Democratic and Republican parties - discuss

In an effort to save DT's 2016 thread, I'm hoping we can move the racism discussion that has sprung up over there and move it here.

Cutlass said:

Putting a black candidate on the ticket won't swing votes for the Republicans. Probably the only black Republican in the country that would take a sizable part of the black vote at this point is Powell. And he's not running. None of the others really appeal to black voters. They just alienate the white Republican vote.

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Cryptic_Snow said:

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Cutlass said:

If you don't think that a sizable portion of the Republican base is highly motivated by racism, you don't know what the Republican base is. There is a reason so many Republican candidates and elected officials take positions that blacks and hispanics hate them for.

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VRWCAgent said:

The misconceptions of others are not our fault. I support deporting illegal immigrants because they broke the law.

Contrary to democratic opinion, the republican party isn't the HEY IT'S THE DARKIES AND BROWNIES, KEEP 'EM OUT party.

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Antilogic said:

It might not be yours (and that's a good thing!), but from personal interaction with my old grandparents and old Georgia neighbors (the north side of Atlanta, you know, rich whitey side), it is a significant element of some Republican voters' opinions.

People can reach the same conclusions from different perspectives, which makes party coalitions work but can also lead to some misunderstandings.

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Cryptic_Snow said:

No, I don't. Whites elected Obama to office, many crossed over from the Republican party to vote for him. Independents turned out in droves for him. He did extremely well with younger white voters (18-30), college-educated white voters, and suburban white voters.

Herman Cain was leading the republican primary at one point, I know because I visited his campaign tent for shits and giggles. They might be simple, but not racist.

Ben Carson, a much more respectable person and potential candidate, was a rock star at CPAC.

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Cutlass said:

This post in no way addresses the fact that a sizable part of the Republican base is racist to the core, and that most Republican candidates pander to that as a result.

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VRWCAgent said:

I simply do not accept that. Yes, obviously there are racist in the GOP, just as there are in the Democratic party. To suggest anything beyond that is just partisan posturing... which hey, that's fine, I do that too, but it doesn't make it true.

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Cryptic_Snow said:

That hasn't been my experience in the party.

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Cutlass said:

Then what's your explanation for the fact that 90%+ of blacks simply won't vote for a Republican? And a growing number of Hispanics the same.

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GhostWriter16 said:

Of course you frame the question in such a way that if you dare to suggest the problem might be with them, you're a racist

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EDIT: If I missed a quote, apologies. Just redo the post. I did this fairly rapidly to try to get it done before more posts were made.

I'll just insert the standard point that racism isn't all devious moustache twirling and outright hate.

The Republican Party -especially the leadership- suffers from the issue of being not racist, but #1 among racists.

Arwon said:

I'll just insert the standard point that racism isn't all devious moustache twirling and outright hate.

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Indeed. It can be subtle things like convincing people they are worthless without government assistance and must support affirmative action and other such programs for their own good.

What an odd thing to say.

Arwon said:

I'll just insert the standard point that racism isn't all devious moustache twirling and outright hate.

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Yeah... pretty much.

I'm not sure if there's anyway to peg actual stats of racism to a political party, considering that's impossible to poll. We do know that African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and other non-white groups tend to support Democrats pretty strongly. That's at best a reflection of poor Republican policy towards them, and at worst, a reflection of continued racism. My cursory argument would be the racist strains exist both more prominently in the Republican party and the constituency, given both policy, ideology, and soundbites, although it also depends on the groups at large (for instance, Islamophobia runs pretty rampant in both parties). Still, from policies regarding food stamps, drug testing for welfare, crime and punishment, etc., the Republican policy is pretty full of smoking-gun type evidence as being at times explicitly racist.

Republicans obviously have well reported strategies up through the Reagan years (maybe even W years) with advisors that directly cited racist policies, alienating minorities, etc., and would try to hide it under the premise of government spending cuts.

In the northern suburbs and areas that are not considered the Republican conservative strongholds; like Detroit, St. Louis, etc., the racism was more subtle, perhaps, but every bit as dangerous. Urban policy, 1949 Housing Act, white flight that ran up through the turn of the last century, and other policies were segregation-based policies done in a very efficient way.

Perhaps the more dangerous reality is that America is still a very racist country, and the white majority have managed to convince themselves that they are facing the brunt of it.

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VRWCAgent said:

Indeed. It can be subtle things like convincing people they are worthless without government assistance and must support affirmative action and other such programs for their own good.

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That's very rarely (if ever) the dialogue surrounding said programs. Considering that welfare programs are also income based (as opposed to ethnically based), this kind of accusation has little standing.

Cutlass is the most partisan american poltiical agent on these boards, i ain't surprised he is pounding the republicans on the racist line. He is the real anti-american with his "half the country are rasists" stuff.

Maybe he was right in 1976 but not anymore.

Is there a perception in the USA that there exist welfare payments simply for being a particular ethnicity?

Quackers said:

Cutlass is the most partisan american poltiical agent on these boards, i ain't surprised he is pounding the republicans on the racist line. He is the real anti-american with his "half the country are rasists" stuff.

Maybe he was right in 1976 but not anymore.

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Cut is not anti-American in the least. He's a good and decent gent whom I am proud to call friend. He's just got some confused political views.

Arwon said:

Is there a perception in the USA that there exist welfare payments simply for being a particular ethnicity?

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Yes. There is a fairly prominent strain of belief that African-Americans are abusing/living off of/stealing from "others" (aka white people) via welfare, as if it does not exist in other corners of society and that only African-Americans can abuse it.

That's not true. I live in an area that is like 98% white, and trust me it is my white trash neighbors that abuse the system. Severely.

VRWCAgent said:

That's not true. I live in an area that is like 98% white, and trust me it is my white trash neighbors that abuse the system. Severely.

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Sorry, my wording wasn't perhaps the best. To clarify; there is a more prevalent belief that minorities abuse the system rather than white people. It's easy to find passed around mainstream culture via jokes about reservations, black welfare queens, lazy immigrants, minorities being "good at swearing" or "doing drugs" and other weird beliefs.

The white trash stereotype exists, sadly, but it's rarely made its way into actual public policy or political discourse.

VRWCAgent said:

That's not true. I live in an area that is like 98% white, and trust me it is my white trash neighbors that abuse the system. Severely.

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This seems incongruous with the instant leap you made above from my post about racism being often structural, subtle and unconscious, to talking about welfare.

It is obviously true that the Republicans use racism to gain votes to anyone who knows any political history (and Dems pointing it out to gain minority votes is not the same). The leaders have admitted it in various candid moments. How racist any given Republican politician is I have no way of knowing, but it is part of the Republican electoral strategy to appeal to racist sentiment. How did the South go from solid Dem to solid Rep? What was the Southern Strategy?- the dixicrats were absorbed by the Republicans. And please don’t tell me this is history. Sure things are on an improving trajectory but these attitudes don’t change overnight or even in a generation. It is now just antisocial to express them but they have not disappeared.

-I- didn't say welfare, I said affirmative action and other like programs, a program specifically designed to perpetuate the image of minorities being incapable of achievement on their own. Someone else mentioned welfare and associating it with racism and I simply pointed out that that isn't the case.

What did you mean by "government assistance" programs then? You mentioned affirmative action separately so what else could it be?

Arwon said:

This seems incongruous with the instant leap you made above from my post about racism being often structural, subtle and unconscious, to talking about welfare.

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I think you're off base with VR here, but lets roll with it just for fun. Is there a reason that in a system of subtle, unconscious, and structural racism that poverty, unemployment, SNAP, and welfare might be legitimate and on-point topics regarding racism? Would not wage parity be a legitimate and on-point topic regarding sexism? I don't get why you would find this incongruous even if VR had been talking about welfare.

VRWCAgent said:

Indeed. It can be subtle things like convincing people they are worthless without government assistance and must support affirmative action and other such programs for their own good.

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You know, I'll bit and say yeah, there's loads of institutional racism in the democratic party. Racism isn't a red state issue, and traveling the country has made me realize how appallingly racist New York can be.

The difference between the democratic and republican party is that the democratic politicians are perceived to be if racist, less willing or eager to pursue policies that hurt the black community disproportionately.

Given a choice between racists that have unpleasant beliefs about you but offer material aid, or racists that have unpleasant beliefs about you and offer material harm, which would you chose?

As is pointed out elsewhere, it's actually an issue with welfare in general, and the "you need welfare because of your ethnicity" thing is not actually a real narrative.

Most obviously, diagnosing welfare dependency as a destroyer of communities has cause and effect almost exactly backwards. *That's* the reason it's not usually a real narrative when talking about social equity.

It is a bizarre leap that the first thing someone would mention as an example of structural racism is welfare dependency. I guess I just get confused when people bring up examples that are untrue or don't make sense.

I have not linked welfare and race once except to say in my experience it is the whites around me that are abusing it. heh, self-racism I guess, if you like. I was, again, talking about affirmative action, which is not a welfare programs, so please stop saying I am linking welfare with racism.

By government assistance, I was again meaning affirmative action. The government telling minorities that they are worthless and inferior and cannot hope to succeed without the assistance of government in leveling the field for them. How can you call that anything but racist?