This is the first post on how Old Politics is alive and well in the New South/New America and changing it for the worst. I have become increasingly saddened and frustrated by how politics of the Old South is influencing 21st century politics and policy. In fact I never thought about blogging much until the current political drama reached the point of the never ending ridiculous.Yet, I think it is time for those who are frustrated to not remain silent. I think that is one of the lessons that we should take away from the growing radicalism of politics today is that too often those on the fringes are the only groups that are talking and being heard. I don't know whether we are afraid or just too tired to fight but I don't think we have an option at this time. Things are getting pretty ugly and voices of reason must join the conversation. Growing up in the South after the Civil Rights Movement I witnessed in school and in my community the silence of public discourse on the progresses made by the movement. Of course, there were significant examples of the success of the era, particularly in the elective successes of Blacks but during the 1970s there seemed to be a lack of discussion on the need and causes of the movement by certain segments of Black Belt society. It was as if during the 1970s the merchants of hate and division were trying to find how to reengage racism and racist ideology but not be linked to the ugliness of the Old South. By the 1980s, the strategies for success that were deeply rooted in Nixon's Southern Strategy began to bear fruit. Remember Nixon recognized that there were still deep seated racial divisions within the South and the Nation and he and others orchestrated a Republican strategy that would draw Southern Whites away from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. I think Lee Atwater, the famous Republican political strategist framed the strategy perfectly in a 1981 interview:
ATWATER: You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”
Please review more of this interview under "The Politics of Destruction" Section. As I look at the Iowa caucus and how many of these candidates are implementing this strategy in 2012....the sad reality is that this strategy is not only alive and well it is still very influential to many Republican voters.
So I hope that as we grow this blog together we can assist in correcting misinformation and informing voters that there is a Blue presence in a region of red and we desire a politics that does not divide but instead draws on the strength of the collective.
The Black Belt Region
