Selling Race Bait
By Pat Racimora on June 24, 2008 at 8:52 PM in Obama, Race Card, Racism
Earth to Obama—everyone knows you are Black. The Republicans will likely give you some very hard times, but using your heritage is unlikely to be one of them. They have no doubt observed that even mentioning race is a perilous campaign tactic. They may be nasty, but they aren’t stupid. (Sexism, on the other hand, remains fair game.)
So, why did Obama recently warn us that the Republicans will use his race against him?
Actually, Obama was using a simple political persuasion technique.
This manipulation is called “inoculation” by social scientists …
A negative accusation is made, and the intended prey (in this case the RNC) is blamed as if it had already engaged in the substance of the charge even though no such thing has actually occurred. This way, should any race-based RNC attacks take place in the future, Obama can say “I told you so.” But there is a much bigger fish just underneath the surface. Actually, the intended message was, “Republicans are racists.”
The RNC and any legitimate McCain surrogates are unlikely to ever use a race card, not because they will play nice but because they don’t have to. They have lots of other material to work with. It is the Obama campaign itself that is obsessed with race and has used it to advantage from the very beginning. This is called “race baiting,” and it’s irritating to those of us who want to hear more about issues that matter.
Read more about what Obama said here: Reuters.
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