In racist banter, stupid is as stupid does
June 19, 2009 — How can you tell if somebody’s mother is from South Carolina? She doesn’t take the cigarette out of her mouth when she tells the state trooper to kiss her ass. I wouldn’t dare put that joke in print if it had not been first told to me by a South Carolinian, and if it didn’t make a couple of salient points about the recent spate of embarrassments Republicans have brought on themselves over the past week or so. Late last month, Sherri Goforth, an aide to Tennessee Sen. Diane Black (R-Gallatin), who heads the Tennessee Republican Senate Caucus, emailed an “Historical Keepsake Photo” which portrayed Obama as two white eyeballs on a field of black, and was promptly called out for it by Democrats. Goforth said in her defense she had sent to joke picture “to the wrong list of people.” If sending a racist email to the “wrong list” sounds dumb, it was soon superseded by Rusty DePass, a prominent South Carolina Republican, who committed his offense on Facebook. When someone posted an item about a gorilla which escaped from the Columbia Zoo, DePass wrote he was “sure it’s just one of Michelle’s ancestors – probably harmless.” Not long afterwards, an employee with a Republican consulting firm in South Carolina got in hot water for making an email joke that Obama takes aspirin “because it’s white and it works.” As you might expect, these indiscretions were all followed by a round of reprimands and apologies, some of which went over no better than the jokes. Black said she’d sent a “strongly worded reprimand” to Goforth warning she could be terminated for similar actions in the future, but it, too, surfaced and came off as less than stern: “I know you take this policy seriously and I am confident you will abide by the policy,” she wrote. “Your service to my office and the legislature has been commendable with the exception of this incident and I look forward to working together with you within these guidelines.” DePass, flanked by officers of the state NAACP, made a public apology, but by then he’d already made himself look even more backward by claiming he was referring to remarks Michelle Obama made about evolution. David Letterman, who gets paid to make jokes, ultimately realized he’d made a serious mistake joking about Gov. Sarah Palin’s daughter, and made a full apology for it. He didn’t look so great, but he handled the situation much better than any of these Republicans. Getting back to that “mama” joke, people tell jokes that could be offensive all the time, not infrequently about their own kind. Although it was originally told in a self-deprecating way, an upstanding South Carolina mother might very well take as much offense to it as Democrats have to the racist jokes about the Obamas. But there’s another difference: the “mama” joke is a lot cleverer than a visual “spook” joke or a ham-handed comparison of the First Lady with a gorilla. Letterman made a mean joke and his ratings went up; the Republicans in question made stupid jokes, and they just looked mean. There's been some concern these incidents could cost their party minority votes, which they didn't have anyway. The bigger worry should perhaps be the toll among college-educated, upscale voters who have more in common with the Obamas than their detractors. None of these incidents amount to the biggest deal, but they aren’t happening in a vacuum. By the end of this month, the US Supreme Court is expected to release its decision on potentially one of the most important cases of this decade: Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder, which deals with the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. None of these incidents will have any impact on how the court rules, but if the court strikes down the preclearance provisions of the VRA, these jokes will take on a new life, as Exhibit A for why the court made a terrible ruling. Who will the joke be on then? |
