Matt Drudge is so... subtle
Less than a week after running a totally irrelevant photo of Barack Obama kissing a white woman near the top of his homepage for something like 24 hours straight, Matt Drudge is now inexplicably (ha!) illustrating the story "Colin Powell might endorse Obama" with a photo of Powell dancing with rappers:
The photo is from an event on Tuesday, and obviously has nothing, from the perspective of actual news judgment, to do with Powell potentially endorsing Obama. But it's fairly obvious what Drudge is doing here, just as it was fairly obvious what he was doing with themiscegenation, cough, excuse me, ahem, Obama-kissing-a-white-chick photo. In this case, Drudge's message to Middle America can be summed up as: "Colin Powell's going to endorse Obama? So? Who cares what Powell thinks? He isn't actually a revered elder Republican statesman whose opinion you should respect. No, he's just a black guy who likes to dance with thug rappers! By the way, did I mention Obama is black, too, and likes to kiss blonde, fair-skinned white women?"
I have tried, throughout this campaign, to avoid falling into the trap of seeing subliminal racism wherever I look. But damn, this is pretty blatant. Drudge has really lowered himself in the last week -- and that's saying something.
P.S. A bit of clarification on the "trap" I just mentioned. Often, I believe, liberals are too quick to assume that anything which could be racist, is racist. Subliminal racism is, by its nature, open to interpretation, but the liberal tendency is to adhere to the most uncharitable interpretation possible -- so, for instance, Bill Clinton's "fairy tale" comment, or John McCain's "that one" remark, somehow become "racist," just because it is conceivable that someone could say those things with racist intent, no matter how unlikely it is that such intent was actually present in the given case.
Conservatives have the opposite problematic tendency. They are prone to follow the most charitable interpretation possible, no matter how likely it seems, given the context and the possible alternative wordings and the potential benefits of playing the race card in a particular situation, that some subliminal racism was actually in play. Conservatives, in short, tend to defend any remark that could conceivably have been intended in a non-racist fashion. This is problematic because subliminal racism is, well, subliminal -- there's always going to be some alternative, legitimate, non-racist explanation for what's being said; otherwise it would be "blatant racism" instead of "subliminal racism"! Yet conservatives tend to give almost endless benefit of the doubt to those alternative explanations, even when the legitimate aspect of the remark in question could easily have been stated in a far less inflammatory way, if the speaker truly had no racist or race-related intent. Thus, for instance, no matter how strong the evidence is that the Republicans' "palling around with terrorists" line of attack has simultaneous dual purposes -- one legitimate purpose, to raise doubts about Obama's character and judgment, and one illegitimate purpose, to stoke the Manchurian Muslim and Radical Black Guy smears and rumors -- conservatives totally ignore the latter purpose or even the possibility thereof, and indeed act like it's completely outrageous that anyone would suggest that any such thing could be happening. (Liberals, of course, totally ignore the legitimate purpose.)
In other words, both sides get it wrong. (I spent more time explaining the conservatives' error because it's more subtle and nuanced, not because I necessarily think it's a graver or more common error.) Liberals act like everything is subliminal racism; conservatives act like there's no such thing as subliminal racism. This same duality will manifest itself, I guarantee you, if Obama loses the election: liberals will assume that the only possible explanation is voter racism (wrong), while conservatives will react against this assumption by asserting that racism couldn't possibly have been the cause, or part of it (also wrong). Liberals will scoff at even legitimate skepticism of race-based explanations, while conservatives will react furiously against anyone who even suggests that part of the explanation might have been racism. In the eyes of the Right, any such suggestion makes you a vile race-baiter who thinks all Flyover Country voters are racist hicks clinging to their guns and religion!
Needless to say, this is not a healthy mode of discussion, but it's where we're at as a country, and I don't know how to fix it. I do know, however, that Matt Drudge's drudgery with those two photos crosses the line to where I'm perfectly prepared to say that subliminal racism is clearly at work. The alternative explanations are just too flimsy, and the racist explanations are just too obvious, to conclude anything else.
The photo is from an event on Tuesday, and obviously has nothing, from the perspective of actual news judgment, to do with Powell potentially endorsing Obama. But it's fairly obvious what Drudge is doing here, just as it was fairly obvious what he was doing with the
I have tried, throughout this campaign, to avoid falling into the trap of seeing subliminal racism wherever I look. But damn, this is pretty blatant. Drudge has really lowered himself in the last week -- and that's saying something.
P.S. A bit of clarification on the "trap" I just mentioned. Often, I believe, liberals are too quick to assume that anything which could be racist, is racist. Subliminal racism is, by its nature, open to interpretation, but the liberal tendency is to adhere to the most uncharitable interpretation possible -- so, for instance, Bill Clinton's "fairy tale" comment, or John McCain's "that one" remark, somehow become "racist," just because it is conceivable that someone could say those things with racist intent, no matter how unlikely it is that such intent was actually present in the given case.
Conservatives have the opposite problematic tendency. They are prone to follow the most charitable interpretation possible, no matter how likely it seems, given the context and the possible alternative wordings and the potential benefits of playing the race card in a particular situation, that some subliminal racism was actually in play. Conservatives, in short, tend to defend any remark that could conceivably have been intended in a non-racist fashion. This is problematic because subliminal racism is, well, subliminal -- there's always going to be some alternative, legitimate, non-racist explanation for what's being said; otherwise it would be "blatant racism" instead of "subliminal racism"! Yet conservatives tend to give almost endless benefit of the doubt to those alternative explanations, even when the legitimate aspect of the remark in question could easily have been stated in a far less inflammatory way, if the speaker truly had no racist or race-related intent. Thus, for instance, no matter how strong the evidence is that the Republicans' "palling around with terrorists" line of attack has simultaneous dual purposes -- one legitimate purpose, to raise doubts about Obama's character and judgment, and one illegitimate purpose, to stoke the Manchurian Muslim and Radical Black Guy smears and rumors -- conservatives totally ignore the latter purpose or even the possibility thereof, and indeed act like it's completely outrageous that anyone would suggest that any such thing could be happening. (Liberals, of course, totally ignore the legitimate purpose.)
In other words, both sides get it wrong. (I spent more time explaining the conservatives' error because it's more subtle and nuanced, not because I necessarily think it's a graver or more common error.) Liberals act like everything is subliminal racism; conservatives act like there's no such thing as subliminal racism. This same duality will manifest itself, I guarantee you, if Obama loses the election: liberals will assume that the only possible explanation is voter racism (wrong), while conservatives will react against this assumption by asserting that racism couldn't possibly have been the cause, or part of it (also wrong). Liberals will scoff at even legitimate skepticism of race-based explanations, while conservatives will react furiously against anyone who even suggests that part of the explanation might have been racism. In the eyes of the Right, any such suggestion makes you a vile race-baiter who thinks all Flyover Country voters are racist hicks clinging to their guns and religion!
Needless to say, this is not a healthy mode of discussion, but it's where we're at as a country, and I don't know how to fix it. I do know, however, that Matt Drudge's drudgery with those two photos crosses the line to where I'm perfectly prepared to say that subliminal racism is clearly at work. The alternative explanations are just too flimsy, and the racist explanations are just too obvious, to conclude anything else.
posted by Brendan Loy at
10/17/2008 08:51:00 PM
