by Juan Bernal

Mary: A friend of mine from a local college attended a gathering of Orange County Republicans on election night. At this gathering there were a number of  prominent OC Republicans, including a well known district attorney (not named).  When President Obama’s re-election was assured and Obama  started to give his victory speech (night of November 6, 2012), this leading GOP lawyer  shouted “turn that ni***er off.”    This is one of our district attorneys and a leading Republican in our county!.

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Henry:  That is pretty shocking. I like to say our Orange County republicans are not lost in racial hatred, but I guess this says otherwise.

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Tomas:  Racism has been a basic tenet of Republican Party policy and politics for quite a while – ever since the Democrats passed the Civil Rights laws. The “southern”  was a deliberate effort to hold onto power a while longer in the face of a (slowly) progressing America of changing demographics and (curse the word) evolution.

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Joseph:  But Racism exists in both parties. People of color in certain instances voted for President Obama because of President Obama’s color. Racism is not to be extrapolated to all republicans because of incidents like this any more than it should be extrapolated to all democrats of color. Such thinking is illogical and is a common bias…believing that anecdotal incidents are statistically valid.

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Juan:   Yes, I suppose that when we remark that back in the 1950s there were John Crow laws and segregation throughout the South which kept blacks in their place and reserved all privileges for the whites, we’re being ‘racist’ on behalf of the blacks? And I suppose that when we remind our privileged young people of today the extent that white society and white-dominated government discriminated in the first part of the 20th century against Asians and Mexican Americans throughout the West, the Southwest and especially in Texas (denying them employment, housing and access to education), we are being ‘racist’ against the poor victimized white society? Racial discrimination, as you well know, comes from all classes and most individuals, but it is most destructive when the dominant group uses it to maintain their dominance and privileges, a dominance and privilege that our GOP (Guardians of Privilege) in political life work to preserve.

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Tomas:  Correct Juan. The bigots love that equivalence BS that they learned from False Nuze.
Individual prejudice is human and is not the issue.
Racism as an institution and basis for policy (as it is in the GOP – officially part of their platform and most of the laws they try to pass) is a different thing from personal bias. It is precisely the ability to impose that hatred and bigotry through laws that makes it a problem. That is something the bigots will never admit because it exposes their own bigotry.