From "Nigger" to "States Rights": The Use of Racially Coded Words in Politics

I've been holding back from talking about this isssue for sometime, but now is the time to talk about it. I compile a list of code words I've heard politicians utilize to speak about race issues without coming off as bigoted:

Whites

Average Joe
Joe six-pack
Moral voters
Independent voter
Evangelical voter
Hockey Mom
Soccer Mom
The southern vote
blue collar workers

Blacks

Welfare recipient
Poor people
Inner-city
Affirmative action supporter

These are just a handful of examples of how our media and politicians (not to mention everyday people) use racialized language to refer to groups of Americans without sounding like they are mentioning anything overtly bigoted. They can use these words and say "the southern vote looks high for.......John Doe" without saying that most southern whites will vote for John Doe. They can say "I don't support just handing out welfare to recipients while hard working Americans bust their asses" without saying "I think blacks are lazy and whites are industrious".

Going all the way back to the 1920s, racially coded language have been used by politicians to describe certain groups of people in hoping to appeal to a much greater audience in winning a race for Governor, President of the United States, Senator, even Mayor & County Commission. Sadly this kind of tactic has worked & it shows no sign of going away.

I hear so much talk about how much better we are in terms of racism in our country. Yes, we've gotten rid of terms such as 'nigger', 'spic', 'gook' from our daily vocabulary, but have we done much in the way of conditioned messages? I don't think so, and many seem intent on keeping things this way by claiming "racism's over", "that stuff ended long ago", "get past it", etcetera.

It's funny how ready most liberal whites were to vote for Obama in the name of change and hope, and not to mention the fact that he's black and how this would "end racism" or something like that. However, three years later, when the country is back to debating issues and race becomes an inevitable facet of the discussion.

Other racial code words include terms like "states' rights," "crime in the streets," and "welfare queens, quotas, reverse racism are uninitiated, racial code words are words politicians (usually Republicans) are accused of using to supposedly help them win votes by raising whites' fears of minorities.

At his now infamous presidential kick-off campaign rally at Neshoba County (Philadelphia), Mississippi in 1980, held virtually a stone throw from where the three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964, Ronald Reagan shouted to a lily white crowd that “I believe in states’ rights.” He laced his campaign speech with stock racial code words and phrases, blasting welfare, big government, federal intrusion in state affairs, and rampant federal spending. He used the term Welfare Queens to justify cutting back social programs. Only being removed from the civil rights era 10 years earlier, that kind of "wink, wink" approach was gobbled up by those who was duped & conned by the Southern Strategy of 1968, which was, above all else, about winning the rural, white Southern vote into the Republican sphere because the Democratic Party falling apart because of its inability to contain the contradictions of being both the formal party of civil rights in the North and the party of Jim Crow in the South.


Other words like "Uppity" which Congressman Lynn Westmoreland called president Obama one time late in the 2008 campaign & GOP congressional candidate Rick Goddard criticized an MSNBC reporter’s sharp questioning of former House speaker Newt Gingrich at the Republican National Convention. Goddard called the African-American reporter, Ron Allen, “uppity“

When the current President is called a criminal, a welfare cheat, they're using new terms to get the point across: he's Black, he's urban, and he's out of step with the rest of us. Plain & simple.

When Newt Gingrich said at the Ga GOP State Convention over the weekend that Obama was a Food Stamp president, now lets be real hear, anytime the words food stamps are mentioned, black people comes to mind, as well as hispanics. That is racially coded my friend.

Sometimes they don't have to be racially coded. Here are a few code words the Democrats think Republicans use, along with the “real” meanings Democrats believe.

State’s rights.” That really means legalized racial discrimination.

Family values.” That really stands for legalized gender discrimination.

Junk lawsuits.” That is any lawsuit by an individual that demands a corporation be held accountable for their misdeeds.

Tort reform.” That is taking away a victim’s right to sue criminal corporations and putting rich people above the law.

Socialist: communist, liberal, progressive, community organizer.”

All these words actually are Republican code for “black.”“We share your values.” That means we are bigots like you.

The Republicans have some code words they attach to the Democrats as well.

In their heads, if a republican hear a Democrat utter the following words, you have to understand the real meaning behind them.

Invest.” That means spend.“

Stimulus. That is spending devoted to liberal causes.

Racism.”Well, I can’t win this argument with you, so this is all I’ve got!

Fiscal responsibility: You don’t pay enough taxes.

Comprehensive immigration reform.” Amnesty.

Republicans are the party of fear” They want to take your Medicare, your Social Security and free school lunches for poor kids.“

Freedom of religion. For everybody but traditional Christians

I can on on & on in talking about this subject, but one thing's for sure, the use of racially coded words to appeal to certain demographics & voting blocs are harmful to the political process. But sadly politicians (most of the time republicans) use this to their advantage & it works.

Article from Congressional Quarterly Politics.

Georgia’s Democrats, who will be trying to reclaim a governor’s office they dominated for well more than a century before Perdue’s first win in 2002, face quite opposite political circumstances. Barnes, the potential favorite for their nomination, is still on the outside, mulling his decision about whether to run.

Referring to Barnes, University of Georgia political science professor Charles S. Bullock III said, “If he were to enter, he would immediately become the Democratic front-runner.”

Bullock’s analysis appeared to be backed by the InsiderAdvantage poll. It showed Barnes leading the Democratic field with 35 percent of the vote. Baker, who has won three elections for state attorney general and is bidding to become the state’s first black governor, ran a distant second at 11 percent. The other two announced candidates were in the low single digits, and 49 percent undecided. Read more at CQPolitics.com.

Barnes’ spokesman Chris Carpenter said the former governor, who practices law in the Atlanta suburb of Marietta, has received encouragement from business and community leaders to wage a campaign, but is still undecided.

“He’s hearing from lots of folks and he knows he’s got to make a decision,” said Carpenter, who added that Barnes will announce his decision “by the end of May.”

Yet even though Barnes’ past experience and name ID might push him to the head of the Democratic field, Bullock added that “it’s not clear that he could win the governorship.”

Barnes had been regarded as a solid favorite for re-election entering his 2002 campaign, but some controversies surfaced up during his term ended up costing him. Many white voters, especially in rural areas, voiced resentment in 2001 after Barnes ordered a redesign of the state flag, which had been dominated since 1956 by a representation of the the Confederate “stars and bars” battle flag. He also angered teachers and weakened his political base by pushing an education overhaul bill that required testing of students and teachers.

Perdue came from behind to defeat Barnes by 51 percent to 46 percent. Perdue won re-election in 2006 much more easily, defeating Democrat Mark Taylor, then the incumbent lieutenant governor, by 58 percent to 38 percent.

Among the candidates already in the field, Baker has by far the biggest political base from his previous statewide campaigns and his ties to an overwhelmingly Democratic African-American constituency that makes up more than a quarter of Georgia’s population.

But Towery of the InsiderAdvantage firm that produced the governor’s race poll said he expects that Baker and Barnes would campaign fairly evenly for support of black voters. “I don’t see Thurbert simply taking the African-American vote,” Towery said.

Political scientist Black also said “it’s not a foregone conclusion” that African-American voters will rally around Baker’s candidacy.

Black and Towery both said Baker’s standing with some African-American voters could be hurt by his strong defense of Georgia’s law that requires state residents to produce a state-issued form of identification in order to vote — a statute that critics say could complicate voting for poorer citizens who do not have driver’s licenses or alternative state identification — and his opposition in 2007 to the release of Genarlow Wilson, who had been sentenced to 10 years in jail for engaging in consensual oral sex with a 15-year old girl when he was 17.

Longtime Atlanta political columnist Tom Baxter, who is now the editor of the Southern Political Report, said transportation issues could give Democrats an opening to take back the governor’s mansion.

“The legislative session ended without any clarity about transportation funding,” Baxter said. “There’s a lot of widespread discontent in the Atlanta metro area with how the legislature has handled things.”

Gubernatorial candidate Porter, who leads the Democratic opposition in the state House, said Georgia Republicans “don’t have the commitment or political will” to address the transportation problems.

DuBose Porter may have said the statement that democrats are going to have to acknowledge:

A rural attorney and newspaper publisher, Porter took his critique further, accusing the Republicans of lacking leadership on education, conservation and health care issues. He said his positioning as a Democratic moderate and ties to both rural Georgia and the Atlanta business community give him an advantage over the other Democrats in the field.

“You have to have rural Georgia to win,” Porter said. “I’m the only one that can bring rural Georgia in a way that’s compatible with the needs of Atlanta.”

Poythress, a former commander of the Georgia National Guard and the first candidate to enter the race, said he considers himself a conservative Democrat in the mold of Zell Miller, a former governor and senator, and former Sen. Sam Nunn. He said he is not worried by the

success of statewide Republicans in the last few election cycles.

“Georgia is fundamentally a very conservative state,” Poythress said. “It is not fundamentally Republican.”

Longtime Atlanta political columnist Tom Baxter, who is now the editor of the Southern Political Report, said transportation issues could give Democrats an opening to take back the governor’s mansion.