McConnell, just go ahead and call Obama the n-word [View all]

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McConnell, just go ahead and call Obama the n-word | Column
Tampa Bay Times, 5/17, Leonard Pitts

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Just say it, Mr. Majority Leader. Why not? After all, racial animus has been part of GOP DNA since the 1960s, when disaffected Democrats, horrified at the idea of African American voting and civil rights, fled to your ranks. For decades, the party wooed them in coded language that hid its meaning behind a fig leaf of deniability. You said, "law and order," "welfare queens" and "Willie Horton." You never said "n----r." Never had to.

Then Obama was elected. Panic surged through your party like an electric shock, and codes were burned like crosses, suddenly insufficient to express GOP apoplexy at this threat to white hegemony. Language that had been opaque suddenly became Windex clear as this Harvard-educated professor of constitutional law was dubbed a "street hustler," a "subhuman mongrel," an "uppity" "boy" with a fake birth certificate.

Trump has been a leader in this movement for rhetorical clarity. He’s dubbed Mexicans “rapists,” said Islam “hates us,” told four congresswomen to “go back” where they came from, called black and brown nations “sh--hole countries.”

So your disrespectful tone toward President Obama, earnest as it is, seems overly genteel and out of step with the moment. This is 2020, Mitch. In 2020, Republicans say what they mean and darn well mean what they say. So go ahead and call Obama the n-word. It would be offensive, yes. But we both know it would be honest, too.

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