“American” is the New White… Foreign is the new Black…Unmasking Mitt’s Not-So-Subtle Racist Strategy

by
dominique DiPrima

Everyone I know, and lots of people who I don’t were disgusted when Mitt Romney surrogate John Sununu uttered the blatantly bigoted statement “I wish this president would learn how to be an American.” The outrage was so widespread that Sununu backed off, apologizing for the outrageous slur. But the Romney campaign has remained steadfast with the strategy albeit in a more subtle manner.

Mitt Romney’s performance at the NAACP Convention led some of us to question whether the whole thing was a set up (despite the fact that he reportedly brought his own negroes to cheer him on.) Did he want to be booed to remind us of how very “white” & far right he is? When he defended his appearance there by saying “people who want more stuff from the government” should “go vote for the other guy—free stuff,” it was another not-so-subtle move from Ye Olde Racist Playbook!
Although they are now denying that a top Romney campaign advisor said that President Barack Obama did not understand the “shared Anglo-Saxon heritage” of Britain and the United States, the UK Guardian newspaper is standing by their story. And the Romney campaign is staying the racist course. When Willard “Mitt” Romney said that the President has a “very strange, and in some respects foreign to the American experience type of philosophy,” it was just a slightly cleaned up version of the same rhetoric.

These things sound an alarm in my mind, and I believe, in the minds of many. The attempts to paint the president as “other,” “foreign,” and “suspect,” harken back to the worst of the 2008 campaign, and the lowest points in American history. This president has endured vicious and unfounded attacks on his character, his faith, his place of birth and his politics.

A similar internal warning is set off watching Rep. Michele Bachman attack Hillary Clinton Aide Huma Abedin for completely unsubstantiated, allegedly sinister ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. It seems clear that this is really about Abedin’s last name, her ethnicity and her faith. When Senator John McCain has an unexpected bout of common sense and defends Ms. Adebin, he cites her “commitment to the American ideals…”

All this leads me to believe that “American” is the new White. Crack the code. “Un American” or “foreign” is the new n-word. It is neither subtle nor slick. Just as the sinister birther claims held echoes of Apartheid-era “let me see your I.D.” scenarios. Smears based on the presidents Kenyan roots were meant to paint him as “other,” dangerous, Black, and of course foreign. His connection to Hawaii, was somehow used to make him seem suspect (even though it is a state in our union!) Now the Romney campaign is using a medley of these greatest rightwing “hits” as a fancy way to call the President the n-word with all of its implications and stereotypes!

Let’s read between the lines and push back hard on this xenophobic-flavored racism, this McCarthy-esque bigotry, these dog whistles for white supremacists. We need to call it out at every turn. We need to call a spade, a, er, spade…If it walks like a bigot…We cannot allow candidates or elected officials like Bachman to get away with talking out of both sides of their mouths. We cannot let them steal the word “American.” Maybe that’s how it was in the 50’s…Maybe that’s how they wish it was when they talk about taking America back…But that’s not my America. My American is Black & Latino & Asian & LGBT & Progressive & Rightwing & Young & Old & Christian & Muslim & free! That’s my America. That’s where we’re going. Forward. And that is where you & I can proudly say we are Americans!