Juan Williams blasts GOP? - "Racial code words obscure real issues"

[pampango]

The language of GOP racial politics is heavy on euphemisms that allow the speaker to deny any responsibility for the racial content of his message. The code words in this game are “entitlement society” — as used by Mitt Romney — and “poor work ethic” and “food stamp president” — as used by Newt Gingrich. References to a lack of respect for the “Founding Fathers” and the “Constitution” also make certain ears perk up by demonizing anyone supposedly threatening core “old-fashioned American values.”

The code also extends to attacks on legal immigrants, always carefully lumped in with illegal immigrants, as people seeking “amnesty” and taking jobs from Americans.

The former Speaker has declared that black people should demand jobs instead of food stamps. And he has proposed having poor students work as janitors in their high schools. Regardless of how they were intended, poor people and minorities sense that with those comments Gingrich is winking — some call it “dog whistling” — at certain white audiences by intimating that black people are lazy, happy to live off the government and lacking any intellect.

He used the same rhetorical technique of the segregationist politicians of the past: rejecting the premise of the question, attacking the media and playing to the American people’s resentment of liberal elites, minorities and poor people.

http://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/juan-williams/207295-2012-racial-code-words-obscure-real-issue

If Juan is surprised by this GOP strategy, he shouldn't be.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. And Captain Renault is shocked - shocked! to find that gambling is going on in here.

Hey, Juan, did you just now start hearing the dog whistle? Was the ca-ching! of the Fox News cash register drowning it out until Newt turned it into a trombone?

[limpyhobbler]

2. Juan Williams is spot on correct about this.

The 'dog whistle' politics is worse this year than I can recall in a presidential election since at least 1980.

For me the most disgusting example so far this cycle has been Newt talking about how the 'Janitors are overpaid' .

Juan Williams big mistake was ever excepting a paycheck from Fox News.

I can forgive him but I hope he will cut ties with Fox.

[russspeakeasy]

3. He must have been told that his contract wasn't being renewed.

Or, he's completely tone deaf.

[_ed_]

4. Sorry, when a minority works for Fox News

they lose all credibility to call out racism.

[Viking12]

5. When he calls out Hannity to his face, I'll take Williams more seriously.