'Raghead' slur is new ugly twist in S.C. race

[Flashermac]

Lee Atwood would be proud. Or ashamed. Or both.

 

Atwater, the famed GOP operative who ran George H.W. Bush's 1988 presidential campaign, was the universally acknowledged master of the political dirty trick  his was the diabolical mind behind the "Willie Horton" ad that did Michael Dukakis in  until a deathbed conversion in which he regretted the "naked brutality" of his career.

 

Atwater was a native of South Carolina, and in recent months his home state has been living up to his political legacy in ways he never could have imagined  most recently with a Republican state senator using the slur "raghead" for [color:red]GOP gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley, a Christian of Indian Sikh descent[/color], and for President Obama.

 

....

 

 

What is being overlooked here is that another person of Indian ancestry may become a Republican governor in the USA and in another state of the old Confederacy. Go Nikki! Keep Bobby Jindal company.

 

 

[Wallenda]

another person of Indian ancestry may become a Republican governor in the USA and in another state of the old Confederacy. Go Nikki! Keep Bobby Jindal company. [/url]

 

 

What I don't quite get is why Indians are joining up with the one major party that still panders to race politics in this day and age.

[Flashermac]

I suspect the black folks don't want them as Democrats. They are unhappy enough with the Hispanics.

 

When I was an Army instructor, I heard my black colleagues bitching fairly often about non-African American minorities getting their hands into the "affirmative action" pot. They didn't mind the American Indians, but the Hispanics and Asians really pissed them off. "Nobody sold their ass into slavery," they'd say. "They never picked no cotton. They come here and think they deserve special treatment!" It was obviously smouldering just under the surface.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Wallenda]

I suspect the black folks don't want them as Democrats. They are unhappy enough with the Hispanics.

 

When I was an Army instructor, I heard my black colleagues bitching fairly often about non-African American minorities getting their hands into the "affirmative action" pot. They didn't mind the American Indians, but the Hispanics and Asians really pissed them off. "Nobody sold their ass into slavery," they'd say. "They never picked no cotton. They come here and think they deserve special treatment!" It was obviously smouldering just under the surface.

 

Might be a bit of a class thing -- I mean, lower economic class lower education types tend to have bigoted worldviews more than ones who are higher up, regardless of skin tone. I'd think in army you'd get way more from that group than college-educated.

 

But obviously the Dem party is way more diverse in its makeup than Rep. Pretty sure if we looked at demographics on last pres election, it'd show white males with highest % for McCain of any demo group, with almost all others going Obama. Minorities, almost all would have gone with very high % to Obama, blacks most of all of course, but Hispanics probly 2nd. Asians tend to go Dem but not nearly as high % as those 2. There's probably a great link somewhere with this info, tho too busy today to go hunt it down.

 

 

 

[Steve]

I can't speak for all blacks obviously but I would guess that most blacks wouldn't want Indians in the Republican party. The Democratic party is seen as delivering black concerns. Therefore blacks want the Democrats to win and winning means having lots of people, of all religions and ethnicities.

 

Many blacks aren't fond of jews but they wouldn't want jews to leave the Democratic party. Blacks and Irish, Italians and Jews don't particularly like each other in NYC but they are all on one accord with regards to being Democrats as the party, to each of them, addresses their concerns respectively.

 

Indians, as well as other ethnic groups who have a more conservative family profile that reflects some of the same 'family values' as social conservatives as well as being entrepreneurial which mirrors the 'pro business' views of many fiscally minded conservatives. You'd be surprised at how many middle class blacks of west indian descent are Republicans (Colin Powell being the most famous of Jamaican parents). Although indifferent at times, many middle eastern small business owners (Lebonese, etc.) are Republican at least on the national level. Locally, in large cities, they know its Democratic and like a lot of Americans will support Dems locally and Republicans nationally.

 

Many of these ethnic groups are the 'pull yourself with your own bootstrap' types and are against social welfare. They, like other immigrants of the past, like to state how they came here with little or nothing and made a good living with the sweat of their brow. The Republican party seems more attractive than the Democrats. The fact that many of the white americans in the party may not like them is not a major issue. Same with Democrats.

 

 

[Flashermac]

Then how do you explain it - an Indian Republican governor and an Indian Republican candidate for governor, both in states with a very small Indian-American population?

 

California has had an Indian congressman, but he was in an area with a fair number of immigrants from the sub-continent. As I recall, he was a Democrat.

 

[Wallenda]

Then how do you explain it - an Indian Republican governor and an Indian Republican candidate for governor, both in states with a very small Indian-American population?

 

Same way I'd explain Clarence Thomas, or this new GOP chairman Steele. My guess it's part of a deliberate effort to make themselves more colorful, cuz they realized they're screwed going forward if they can only ever count on the white male vote (an ever-shrinking demographic group). The states the Indians are viable in both happen to be ones where Democrats aren't usually strong. I'm guessing they win as long as they're not Democrats, that even an Indian guy is preferable to a Democrat.

 

Having lived in NYC, SF and Chicago, I'd say there's also a heck of a lot of people who hang out with anyone -- basically multiracial social networks, mixed marriages, etc. The stick-to-their-owns make up a segment, of what % I'm not sure. So I'd say what Steve says, that'd probly be more the ones coming from mostly black neighborhoods, or the stick-to-their-own types -- usually not as well educated, well off.

 

ps: there's also a 1st term congressman who's Vietnamese -- in Louisiana if I remember right -- and also Republican.

[Steve]

I suspect Jindal is a Republican not because he isn't accepted by Dems or blacks but because he believes in the Republican party as the party that matches his ideology.

 

The Democratic party has, for the last few decades, always been a hodge podge of many groups: feminists, blacks, latinos, liberal whites, jews, union supporters, etc.

 

Indians by and large don't get more involved in the political process above voting. Jindal has. He's the exception rather than the rule.

 

I can't buy that blacks don't want them in the party, when blacks, specifically, the urban poor and working poor, have as much or more animus against urban Itaians,Irish, Jews, gays (blacks generally are more homophobic than others...voted against gay marriage in Ca for example). Indian americans are pretty far down the totem pole as most blacks don't encounter them much more than store owners and most of the store owners are Korean nowadays in many of the urban areas.

 

 

[Wallenda]

Well then there's also the other angle, of how a lot of politicians are in the party they are because that's the straightest path to where they want to get, namely to a position of greater power. That works for both sides of the aisle, surely.

 

Good illustratoins of this are the recent cases of Republican senators and congressman caught out as active gays themselves, tho they were legislating against any kind of gay rights at all. Don't remember the names, but one was a senator from a conservative state who got caught picking up in the Minneapolis airport men's room. Another congressman got caught trying to pick up underage male interns by SMS text message.

 

Not suggesting this is the rule, but it's at least a theme that recurs with disturbing regularity. Like any job, I'm sure there's some there who are good, sincere and hard-working. But as with any workplace, then there are the others.

[robaus]

>>Then how do you explain it - an Indian Republican governor and an Indian Republican candidate for governor, both in states with a very small Indian-American population?

 

.."We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" (Thomas Jefferson)

 

... just a thought.