Loading ...Dirty Tricks Racism: Open Thread for Your Comments
Posted by Joe on Oct 8th, 2008
2008
Oct 8
According to the local website, The Grove Project, the city of Clarendon, Virginia has seen this letter circulating around — aimed at discouraging “guilty” whites from voting for Senator Obama, with cites to antiracist thinking and websites, which have denied any ties to this example of using guilt to get people not to vote for Obama. This is rather blatant racism in very odd clothing, indeed. What do you make of it?
October 8th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
I find the letter to be strange. Some parts, especially the third paragraph, are vaguely similar to the “celebrity” charge used earlier by the McCain campaign (in the ad with Paris Hilton), which suggested interest in Obama was just interest in a shallow celebrity without substance. Other parts echo arguments about reverse discrimination made against Affirmative action, seeming to suggest some whites are voting for Obama because he is black and that’s reverse discrimination. What I would really be interested in is if there is any research that sheds light on how effective any specific types of attacks are likely to be in swaying the voters who are their targets.
October 9th, 2008 at 7:02 am
The letter actually originates in Arlington, VA, and Clarendon is a section of the that city. The Institute for Healing Racism has denounced the letter, and has stated it has nothing to do with it.
October 9th, 2008 at 7:31 am
Sadly there is bound to be a spate of these letters, anonymous or falsely sourced. I don’t think any of us expected anything less. Well, except all those pollyana journalists who loudly proclaimed that by dint of Obama’s nomination racism was magically and instantly gone. For more dirty tricks in the form of letters, see this http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/30082104.html
October 9th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
This letter was posted as a comment on our website, also, on Oct. 1 (www.StopDogWhistleRacism.com). A quick google search revealed that it was left in the comments of a dozen or so blogs that same day. That seems to be the extent of it as far as we have found.
October 10th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Reality…here’s a something else some voters have encountered:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081010/ap_on_el_pr/osama_ballot