The Race Card
By Dave Hitt on Sep 16, 2010 in Politics
The debate is going well for you. Your opponent is from the far left, so it’s pretty easy to counter all his canned talking points. As you back him further into a corner he fires back, “Obviously, you don’t like brown people.” Bam! He’s trying to shut you down with the left’s favorite weapon: The Race Card.
It’s designed to derail the conversation. If you deny it you’ll look defensive, and most denials resemble clichés that are used by real racists. (“Some of my best friends are…”) If you ignore it the lefty will just re-spew the accusation. If you point out this is a common scummy trick, they’ve succeeded changing the subject.
It’s also designed to discount you as a worthless person. Real racists are rotten, ignorant people, so if they can smear you with the label, and believe it themselves, it’s easy to discount anything you say, because who cares about a racist’s opinion?
Do you disagree with any of Obama’s policies? Racist! Think illegal immigration is a problem? Racist! Dislike Islam? Racist! (It doesn’t matter how many times you smartenize them to the simple fact that Islam isn’t a race.) Oppose any social programs? Racist! In the mind of a hard core lefty any opinion that disagrees with theirs is somehow racist.
But now you have a solution. Just send them to this handy page. Better yet, reply with the short URL (http://bit.ly/9KGwlS ). If they keep repeating their nonsense, keep sending them there, and announce that their participation in the conversation is over since they’ve lost the debate.
This is an attempt to put an end to their tiresome, predicable, trite, deeply dishonest nonsense. It won’t solve the problem, but it should help, at least a little.
You’re welcome.
Dave, nice article, I’ll make sure to remember the URL to the race card.
There is a small typo at the bottom of your race card page though, last sentence.
Olivier Lacan | Sep 17, 2010 | Reply
Fixed it. Thanks.
Hittman | Sep 17, 2010 | Reply
I like it so much I got a customized bit.ly for it:
http://bit.ly/theracecard
That’s a lot easier to say in conversation. “Bit.ly slash theracecard! CONVERSATION OVER!!”
Hank | Sep 21, 2010 | Reply
Nice, Hank. Thanks!
Hittman | Sep 21, 2010 | Reply
This happened recently almost on a personal level. The UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers Union) is trying to get in at my plant. Now I work in the food industry, which was one of the industries last impacted by the recession. By no means was it unscathed, but my company’s response to the recession was to cut production by one day a week for three months. Absolutely no one in my company lost their job because of the recession. Not. One. But that’s not good enough for the old UFCW. Oh no. They’re upset because our production line workers have a starting wage of $8-$9 an hour. They’re upset because our plant is “horribly unsafe” (it isn’t, our injury levels are very low for the industry, and you will never be able to have an industrial environment that is 100% safe and idiot-proof), and all manner of lies they’re spouting to the media.
Now for some background on this Union, they represent workers for a few regional grocery stores here in the midwest: Meijer, Kroger, and Plumb’s. They also represent the workers of Rite Aid. When Wal-Mart came to my town a few years ago, there was a mass exodus of employees leaving Meijer to work at big, bad Wally World. Why? Are you sitting down?
Because WAL-MART, the union-busting evil empire, paid their workers MORE MONEY than the UFCW union workers of Meijer! That’s right, non-union workers made MORE MONEY than union workers! This I believe is the part where Michael Moore is spinning with confusion, shouting “up is down! white is black!” until his head explodes.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not universally anti-union. I don’t see every union as some evil communist plot to bring fascism to America. Some unions are undoubtedly better than others, but the bottom-line is this particular union SUCKS. Have you ever gone into a Rite Aid, took a gander at the workers there and thought “wow, they sure do look like they’re making a decent, living wage!”? Neither have I.
But anyway, that out of the way, here’s the real kicker, the union has played the race card. In this article:
http://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/index.ssf/2010/09/michigan_turkey_producers_work.html
You’ll find this phrase: “Pemberton said the majority of workers, who are mostly Hispanics from Mexico and Central America, are paid $8 to $9 per hour.”
Gotta love that subtle dig! Doesn’t say anything about it, just slips it in there nice and quick. “Oh by the way, they’re MEXICANS! SHOCK!! AWE!!” What the article doesn’t mention is that the company is located right in the middle of a heavily hispanic-populated area. So naturally the workers are going to reflect the demographics of the surrounding community. When Pemberton said “who are mostly Hispanics” what he meant was “THEY ARE TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THESE POOR IMMIGRANT WORKERS WHO DON’T SPEAK GOOD ENGLISH AND THUS CANNOT ADVOCATE FOR THEMSELVES AND THUS NEED US TO DO IT FOR THEM!!!”
I mean come on, we’re not a Bernie Madoff scam. We’re not paying slave wages while a few top executives make billions for playing Ouija Board with the stock market. The board members aren’t driving Bently’s here. One of the few industries that create jobs and this shitty union wants to come in and mess it all up. It just pisses me off. Sorry for the rant.
GodlessHeathen | Sep 23, 2010 | Reply
Now, this is funny!
Yet another thoughtless post | Oct 14, 2010 | Reply
Reading back through old posts; I missed this one originally.
I agree that it gets tossed around a lot without weight. However, there are plenty of cases where a repeated pattern of racially-tinged actions or decisions by a certain person or group can amount to valid questions about whether they are, in fact, exhibiting prejudice. And in those cases, the “brown people” line can make for good short-hand. Not perfect, and certainly cliched now (I’ve abandoned it), but it works in a pinch.
Now, if you’re just throwing it out there without context or because you have nothing else to say, I’m completely with you. People who say this in response to any criticism of Obama, for example, can be absolutely obnoxious. I’ve had fellow people on the left throw it at me for daring to question Obama on anything, and I just roll my eyes at them. But that doesn’t invalidate the criticism in every case. There *are* people who don’t like Obama because of his perceived race, and they should be called out for it. I think it can swing so far in the other direction that any mention of race suddenly equals “race card.” You’re smart enough to know the difference, but I don’t know that most people are.
It’s a context thing. If someone can’t come close to participating in an articulate conversation about anything and they toss that term/accusation around, I don’t waste time on them. But if someone who appears to have a brain brings it up, I’ll usually listen to see what else they have to say. Maybe there’s a good point hidden under a poor wording choice. There have been times where I’ve used it as short-hand because I don’t feel like rehashing every bit of evidence from an entire argument the other person’s heard before, and I like to think my intelligence level is somewhere above a criminal justice major’s.
Side-note: I have a friend who routinely alleges that he is unemployed because businesses “only want AA hires now.” He’s Cuban. I think he needs a therapist more than a job.
Ashley | Jul 2, 2011 | Reply