RE: Armstrong Williams, Condi Rice, and Bush's racial gestalt

[RandomKoolzip]

We've seen this week how the Bush Administration "hired" a controversial, nationally heard black radio show host to do PR work for them; Armstrong Williams, by dint of his blackness, was deemed the best choice to get the word out on NCLB, to make it seem legitiamte, to gloss over or merely lie about its flaws, and for this the DOE paid him 240,000 big ones.

Which points to an unfunny truth: Bush and his team have a deeply cynical view of race. To them, appealing to minorities is just a ploy, not a commitment. To think that Black America would get on board a program and a governing body which consistently works against their better interests simply because one of their own (just ONE) said it was okay bespeaks a kind of racism and a underestimation of the intelligence of the black community.

How come no one in the media is connecting the dots between how the Bush team handled Williams and their appointments of Condi Rice and Alberto Gonzales? In Gonzales's case, the media, to a man, always plays up how Alberto is the living embodiment of "The American Dream," how he worked himself up from poverty and....well, look at him now! The fact that he approved torture of the members of other minority groups is bounded over in the rush to proclaim "Latino Makes Good!" Does Bush really think that just because Latinos might see a fellow Latino on television and in the papers, taking the title of (gasp) Attorney General, they'll fall in line behind him? Do they really think Blacks and Latinos are stupid?

I find it perplexing that nobody seems to be making that connection. It's not like Armstrong Williams was an anomaly; this is how the Bush team handles members of minority groups. It's why minorities, who traditioanlly vote Democratic, keep getting appointments in Bush's cabinet.....however, if you look at Bush's policies, they consistently work against poor people and minorities. The only way they can get minorities to line up behind those policies is to get figureheads like Rice, Gonzales, Williams, Blackwell, et al. to shill for them, and they're cynically counting on those minorities to not hear what those people are saying and simply see their skin color.

Recently, I read a article with radio show host Tavis Smiley, NPR's newly-departed resident celebrity. He bemoaned that the Bush cabinet was more racially integrated than NPR, which was supposed to be the mouthpiece of the left. I hope Smiley's attitude isn't catching on, because that would seriously indicate a lack of critical understanding of the reasons behind Bush's appointments.

[saltpoint]

1. Very insightful post, RKZip.

I haven't exactly come at it from this angle, and I thought you put up a very persuasive case.

On Tavis -- I really miss his program and wonder what the behind-the-scenes strategies were. It could be that he felt he would reach a wider market and deserved the larger audience.

NPR dumped Bob Edwards a while back. I still don't understand the ideological reason for that.

And on Condi Rice -- Jesus, I just can't abide her lying. She's a woman who has abandoned the goddess. I don't mean this in a coarse way, but how can someone of her intellectual range hang out around people like Dubya unless there is some mysterious sexual component?

[asthmaticeog]

5. "...how can someone

of her intellectual range hang out around people like Dubya unless there is some mysterious sexual component?"

Power. Comrade O'Brien's words in the third chapter of 1984, about how power is its own reward, are very, very true.

That said, I also suspect a sexual component. They've both let hints slip all over the damn place.

[RandomKoolzip]

9. Members of American minorities who are fiscally conservative

are rare (social conservatives are a slightly larger group). Sometimes I think the only ones who exist are in Bush's cabinet.

And if Condi and George aren't bumping uglies, I'll be surprised. It might be the only thing he and Thomas Jefferson would ever have in common.

[lawladyprof]

15. I'm not at all sure that they have a physical relationship

I've always had the feeling that George (perhaps as a result of his drinking and drug-taking) doesn't have an especially strong libido but I do believe there is a strong sexual attraction and thus sexual tension between them with power as the aphrodisiac of choice.

[meppie-meppie not]

11. and here all I thought it was was greed n/t

[saltpoint]

16. The truest part of me wishes you were wrong, asthmaticeog, but --

-- I think you're right.

: (

[Ernesto]

2. IMHO the republicans have given great opportunity to blacks

Too bad the main employment qualification is that you "must be willing to sale your soul".

[NV Whino]

3. Well said

:thumbsup:

[carpe diem]

4. I'm glad others are paying attentionto this and...

that so far, it is not working on the African American community. I was quite pleased that the black vote went almost 90% for Kerry and that will continue to be the case as long as the Republicans continue to use the disenfranchisement of black voters as one of their primary election strategies. Even though they have willing accomplices among the African American community like Kenneth Blackwell, we have always had those amongst us who were willing to sell us out for their own personal gain, and we usually can spot that game when it's being played.

[Toby109]

6. Another question to ask is: Why did they feel

the need to pay anyone to propaga...er, promote NCLB?

[RandomKoolzip]

8. Same reason that they issue talking points

to columnists to demonize teachers' unions.

[Demit]

7. and of course, they create an added layer of insulation against criticis

--criticism of their appointments. Muddying the waters with the suggestion that critics are speaking out of racial bias, or anti-Catholic bias. It's reprehensible and yes, so coldly cynical. Hopefully the intended demographics realize they're being played.

[RandomKoolzip]

10. Well, the media sees them as "success stories."

If there's no counter-point via a legitimate minority voice ala Cornell West in the media, then the message stands, uncontested.

Man, the GOP really has their shit together, don't they? Such fancy footwork! It's gonna be a long forty years before we finally catch up.

[meppie-meppie not]

12. excellent post!!! my head is swimming with the number of people

I want to read this. So insightful and thanks :)

[mitchum]

13. Just further proof that minorities are apparently smarter than "white"...

working class Americans. They DON'T fall for the window dressing and shills put up by the GOP. Pity that I can't say the same for my "fellows"

[Stinky The Clown]

14. This is the most artful of artful dodges

I agree with you completely that they care not a whit about minorities, but are perfectly willing to use them and to pander. They also make it very hard to criticize. After all, we've already been painted as being racist for challenging these paragons of right wing virtue.

Imagine a Condi '08 candidacy .........

Very scary stuff.

[jburton]

17. Like Alan Keyes for Senate "from Illinois"

I swear, they couldn't figure out that there was more to Obama's popularity than his race. Guess they figured Keyes being black would somehow cut into the Democratic base.

Not only cynical, but clueless!

[lapislzi]

18. If NPR is the mouthpiece of the left...

My ass is a Chinese typewriter. We are in deep trouble if people think that, and I have 2 words to bring you back to the "reality-based" community: Cokie Roberts.

So there.