Republican Racism

An interesting thing happened today... something that revealed the racist nature of the Republican Party. Not that I think the party at large has anything against minorities, but they use race as a political tool. The late Johnnie Cochran made it famous... the GOP loves to play the race card. For example, we saw hints from people like George Allen (not exactly a fan of minorities himself) that Democrats who opposed Alberto Gonzales and Condoleeza Rice were supposedly being racist. Of course Democrats were objecting to their being unfit for duty, but the GOP said otherwise. It is fairly obvious that the Bush administration likes to nominate extreme right-wing idealogues who happen to be minorities just so they can play the race card if things don't go their way. This is blatant exploitation. Sure, the Democrats can sometimes be guilty of taking minorities for granted, but we tend to do so because our goals are the same as many minority constituencies. What the GOP is doing is using minorities as means to the end of gaining power.

So, anyway, there's quite a large "Draft Condoleeza Rice" movement on the internet. In my IM away message, I linked to one of the sites and said "Please God let this happen." I got a reply from a former President of the PC College Republicans, who stated, "And the Republicans are said to be the ones that don't want blacks and women to succeed." What's wrong with this picture? I want Condoleeza Rice to be nominated because she has an abhorrent record on foreign policy and I don't think she could campaign her way to a school board, much less President. The Republican automatically assumed that I did wanted to face Rice because she is a black woman.

Not only does this not make any sense (why support someone who would potentially attract Democratic votes), but this Republican made inferences about a racist comment when there were none. Obviously, this person would find Condoleeza Rice more favorable than I would, but the immediate jump to racism is amazing.

A few readers probably can figure out the Republican I am talking about, but I want to iterate that I know this person and I know that this person is not a racist. But as a strong GOP supporter, what he has done is absorb GOP culture, which of course comes from the top. Just as we look to John Kerry, Howard Dean, Harry Reid, Barack Obama or whomever as our political role models, this person looks at Bush, Cheney, Frist, Allen, etc. This person who commented on my away message is obviously echoing his leadership. To immediately jump to racism and sexism as a conclusion is fascinating, and shows just how much the GOP, as a whole, has adopted racist tactics lately.