The “power” of a made up word is an illusion.
Yeah, that’s right! You’re racist!
You might as well be a card-carrying member of the Nazi party, or galloping through the countryside in a white hooded sheet with the rest of the Ku Klux Klan.
Does that bother you? Do you find a compelling need to defend yourself against such a charge? Does your heart flutter nervously when all eyes turn to stare at you (virtually or literally) as the audience waits for your response?
Congratulations! You’re a white American with an opinion. More specifically, you’re a white American with an opinion that has been deemed unacceptable by the mainstream political, media, and social institutions in our society. And you should be ashamed of yourself for even thinking such incorrect thoughts.
“But I’m not even racist!”
Hah! That doesn’t matter! I said you are, and therefore it is truth. Your upcoming scrambling attempts to disprove my accusation will not only make you look intellectually weak, but will completely divert the conversation at hand as you attempt to shoot down every accusation of racism I make against every associate you have. You might as well walk away angrily and save yourself a case of high blood pressure and a bad mood for the rest of the day.
I would wager that an overwhelming majority of white Americans have been in this exact situation before. Any white American who is involved in politics has heard it at least once. White Americans who are politically to the right of (or less statist than) Barack Obama’s Democratic Party have heard it regularly for the past decade.
Today, in the hot summer July of 2013, the only thing that’s changed about this situation is that a growing number of people are beginning to realize how laughingly absurd this whole charade is. White Americans, however, are mostly just as terrible at responding or reacting to the racism charge as they were twenty or thirty years ago. And that’s why this Saul-Alinsky-esque tactic from the political left is still so devastatingly effective.
An accusation of racism from a respected or popular voice can end someone’s career and/or life in the realm of business, politics, sports, media, and education, especially when the person in question is of European descent. Just look at the recent examples of Paula Deen (who said the “n word” at one point in her long life) and Jack Hunter (the political commentator and confidant of the Paul family), whom the leftists at MSNBC and the neoconservatives are trying to paint as a white supremacist in order to destroy Rand Paul’s political ambitions.
Ron Paul had his own battle against racism charges in the form of the decade-old “newsletters” published in his name that said not-very-nice things about black Americans. Ron Paul’s chances of ascending to the presidency were lower than average at best, but the political left and the neoconservatives of the Republican Party still wanted a foolproof political silver bullet to make sure Paul’s political campaign never took off.
It worked. Ron Paul’s supporters (myself included) spent tireless, frantic hours trying to deflect and defeat the charges of racism against our favorite presidential candidate. It was a monstrous, terrible waste of time. We changed no one’s mind; if someone accused Ron Paul of being a racist, the conversation that followed between that person and Paul’s supporters was nothing more than angry rhetoric on one side and pathetic pleading for logic and reason on our side. We, Ron Paul supporters, were successfully distracted.
Did Ron Paul lose the primary elections in 2007 and 2012 because of charges of racism? No, but all the time we spent fighting the racism accusations amounted to a big, rotten goose egg.
Zero. Zilch. Nada.
Today, that same political establishment is trying for the third time to assassinate Rand Paul’s political campaign with accusations of racism. This time, they’re focusing on Jack Hunter, a good man I’m proud to call a friend and a source of inspiration. Hunter’s past as a radio host who wore a Confederate-flag wrestling mask and argued for constitutionalist conservative positions on the radio was juxtaposed by neoconservatives and leftists to portray a dangerous white supremacist whose ties to Rand Paul automatically disqualified Paul from public consideration for president (or, in fact, any political position). And for the past week, all of my libertarian and constitutionalist friends have been spending overtime hours attacking the metaphorical Quixotic windmills in the form of racism accusations.
And guess what? No one on the other side of those accusations has changed their mind or said, “Oh, wow, we were wrong. Sorry.”
But, again, that’s the point. Rand Paul’s supporters have been distracted. And as long as they continue to draft well-reasoned and accurate counterarguments against those claims instead of focusing on the real issues at hand, Paul’s opponents retain the political upper hand.
With the nation already embroiled in the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman trial and Paula Deen’s naughty language from a long time ago, Rand Paul’s opponents launched this attack against Paul and Jack Hunter at the perfect time. You have to hand it to them; they’ve perfected their tactics for maximum political effect. Democratic National Convention chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz used this tactic in a speech to the group “Emily’s List” last November by accusing the Republican Party of being too white and too male. Objectivists and libertarians will say that race and gender do not matter, but it does to the left, and it matters for the majority of non-white Americans and guilty white Americans. Wasserman-Schultz’s comment was received with loud applause.
White Americans:
Consider this the greatest political cheat code you could ever ask for: stop trying to deflect or defend against charges of racism.
I know it seems counter-intuitive. It will be painful at first, because, for the overwhelming majority of you, every charge of racism will be untrue, especially for most of you libertarians.
“We don’t even think in such collectivist terms as race!” you’ll say.
I know, libertarians. But that doesn’t stop your political adversaries from using the most powerful weapon in their arsenal: the natural ethnocentricity of mankind, and most white folks’ tendency to revolt at any accusation of white supremacism or bigotry. Such accusations will make some white Americans recoil in fear and angst (because, hey, they can’t afford to be caught associating with the likes of a RACIST!), and it makes most non-white Americans incredibly suspicious of the accused, if they weren’t already. Rand Paul responded in an almost perfect way to the accusations against him and Jack Hunter: still somewhat distancing himself from Hunter’s past rebel online personality, but defending Hunter’s integrity to the core and refusing to jettison him from his campaign.
Libertarians: if you have to say something in response to an accusation of racism, say something like, “It’s just your opinion that I’m racist. You’re just saying that because I’m [white/not liberal/conservative/not statist].”
At that point, you continue pressing your point of view or your argument. Don’t let them dominate the conversation with their “racism” nonsense. If an undecided voter is on the fence about an issue or a candidate and one side accuses the other of racism, and if the accused launches into full-on defense mode, the conversation completely changes in favor of the accuser. It’s up to you as the intellectual superior to not let that happen.
And yes, you are the intellectual superior in this case, because the racism charge is the easy way out for any argument. It’s the political nuclear option; ignoring the accusation is your hardened bunker.
Remember: just because you refuse to even acknowledge race as a “collectivist categorization” doesn’t mean that race is irrelevant in American politics. If you’re white, you’re already at a disadvantage. But unless you’re a member of the American Nazi Party or the Ku Klux Klan (do they even do anything anymore?), you have nothing to fear but fear itself.