There is a lot of discussion right now on statements made by former President Carter on race. As usually, the right is doing their song and dance on why race is not the issue, and I agree, it's not racism, but the denial of it. Over at Sage Publications, you can find some very interesting electronic journals. One in particular is from Teun A. van Dijk.
One in particular is called "Discourse and the Denial of Racism". This article is from 1993, but the statements mirror many of the statements and political spin we hear and see today in the news. He makes the argument that because of racism's strong connotation for negativity, it is often deflected or redirected as or as he calls it, positive self-presentation.
Not only do most white speakers individually resent being perceived as racists, also, and even more importantly, such strategies may at the same time aim at defending the ingroup as a whole: 'We are not racists', 'We are not a racist society'.
Go to Fox News or listen to any conservative pundit or radio host and you will see a flat out denial of racism. Because of the media's involvement, social media and other forms of technology, the issue of the public discourse for this conversation is more powerful, more effective and more dangerous.
Political, media, academic, corporate and other elites play an important role in the reproduction of racism. They are the ones who control or have access to many types of public discourse, have the largest stake in maintaining white group dominance, and are usually also most proficient in persuasively formulating their ethnic opinions (van Dijk, 1993) .
We see that the denial of racism is not only part of a strategy of personal, institutional or social impression management and ideological self-defense, it also is a form of sociopolitical management. It helps control resistance, and at the same time makes political problems of an ethnically or racially pluralist society more manageable. In sum, denial is a major management strategy (van Dijk, 1993).
President Carter said that many whites do not believe that a black man is capable for leading this great nation. The issue of Joe Wilson 's outburst was also discussed and many believe that his action and many others who oppose the health care bill is seated in racism. The opposition professes only to be concerned about the welfare of the country and debt left the children, but what is driving a lot of this is race. Two critical distinctions about racial denial are justification and reversal. Both are subtle means to deflect the negative connotations away from them and redirect them elsewhere or back at the subjects who accused them. Here is how Van Dijk describes 'justification'.
Besides denial proper, there are also a number of cognitive and social strategies that are more or less closely related to denials. The first is justification, as we already saw in the case of the newspaper justifying special attention for minority crime by referring to the 'truth' or the 'right to know' of its readers. Similarly, in everyday conversations, people may justify a negative act or discourse relative to a minority group member by justifying it as an act of legitimate defense, or by detailing that the other person was indeed guilty and, therefore, deserved a negative reaction. In other words, in this case, the act is not denied, but it is denied that it was negative, and explicitly asserted that it was justified(van Dijk, 1993).
Beck and Limbaugh push the envelope with statements that stir fear and anxiety in many. Van Dijk describes 'reversal' as one of the strongest tools used to deny the existence of racism.
The strongest form of denial is reversal: 'We are not guilty of negative action, they are' and 'We are not the racists, they are the real racists.' This kind of reversal is the stock-in-trade of the radical Right(van Dijk, 1993).
Many whites are influenced by the Right's ramblings due to a term described by Donald Kinder and David O Sears in an article in 1981 titled, "Prejudice and Politics: Symbolic Racism Versus Racial Threats to the Good Life". In the Kinder and Sears journal,
Symbolic racism represents a form of resistance to change in the racial status quo based on moral feelings that blacks violate such traditional American values as individualism and self-reliance, the work ethic, obedience, and discipline. Whites may feel that people should be rewarded on their merits, which in turn should be based on hard work and diligent service (Kinder, 1981).
It goes on to say.
If symbolic racism is rooted in deep-seated feelings of social morality and propriety and in early-learned racial fears and stereotypes, it may well have little to do with any tangible and direct impact of racial issues on the white person's private life. The stereotypical symbols of blacks' violation of traditional values, which are in the media and informal communication all the time, may be more important than the realities of the more occasional actual damage blacks do to whites' own lives. So, symbolic racism may be, politically, the most potent vehicle for racial prejudice today, whereas racial threat to whites' personal lives may have little political effect and little role in the origins of symbolic racism(Kinder, 1981).
What the section points out is that the mere idea of blacks or minorities taking something away from white America that they have not earned, weighs more heavily than it actually happening. You have members of the white community who have no dealings whatsoever with blacks, but yet they fear that some day blacks will come and take what they have worked for. Now that there is a black president in office, the threat seems more real. If you add the delusional ramblings of talk show host and media pundits, you get a recipe for disaster. Does this make all whites prejudice or racist? No, of course not, we are not having a conversation about race, but many are reacting because someone says they should.
There is nothing wrong with feeling fear or being apprehensive about the future, but when the race pimps and hustlers only present one side of the issue for their personal gain, there is a problem. The worst thing that you can do is deny it. Even those of us on the receiving end of this issue are starting to "drink the kool-aid". We are naive if we think that if we get the legislation passed the way we want it on health care that everything gon' be alright. We elected the nation's first black president, and we have seen such a increase in overt racial messages, and it seems to be okay.
We are at a critical point right now in this country and rabid dog of racism that we are ignoring may eventually bite us. We will survive but at what cost?
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