"Racist Fear Mongering"

Friends,

  Palin and McCain are undoubtedly raising racist babble. It is ugly and it is "un"American. They bring shame to the Republican party. But, then again, the Republican party has brought shame on the U.S. of A.

Peace, Love and Hope,

Rev O

Breaking News: It's Racism

BY KAI WRIGHT | TheRoot.com

Hate-fueled campaigning cannot be covered as mere political hardball.

"Oct. 9, 2008--To everything, there is a season. If summer is the time for civil (or close to civil) discourse in presidential politics, fall is the time for blood sport. And if you're a Republican trailing in the polls, it's the season for racist fear mongering.

No one should be surprised by the assault John McCain launched this week. His campaign is flailing—dropping out of once-contested states, defending newly insecure ones and, by one adviser's reckoning, "looking forward to turning a page on this financial crisis." Those hard realities set the stage and, on Monday in New Mexico, McCain stepped into its center with a sneering performance before a crowd that sounded more like a mob than a rally."

"Meanwhile, Palin spent the week repeating the assertion that Obama is "palling around with terrorists," citing his loose association with Ayers. (Ayers speaks for himself, by the way,here.) Obama's ties to Ayers are coincidental at best and, in any case, he long ago denounced Ayers' actions as part of the Weather Underground. But Ayers isn't so much the point as the lines that always follow his invocation in Palin's speeches. "This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America," she told donors in Colorado. "I am just so fearful that this is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America," she repeated to a Florida crowd. And on it went. By the time the "sit down, boy" and "kill him" shouts were uttered, the rally had taken on the tenor of a lynch mob."

"Maybe these tactics will rile up the conservative base enough to save McCain's campaign from a crashing economy and a war everyone hates. Maybe they won't. But whatever they mean to the political arena, they are deeply corrosive to our society and must be covered as such.

Conservative reactionaries have hidden their demagoguery behind coded rhetoric for decades, and journalists are as responsible for breaking that code as we are for translating any other insider-speak. We must not only tell people what political players said today, but why they said it and what it meant. We do it with complex financial jargon. We do it with the delicate language of international diplomacy. And we should do it with the wink-and-nod of divisive electioneering because outcomes larger than even the presidency hang in the balance."

Kai Wright is a regular contributor to The Root.

KAI WRIGHT

Breaking News: It's Racism

Oct. 9, 2008--Hate-fueled campaigning cannot be covered as mere political hardball.