On seeing "Yes We Can" as a threat
Fred Clark tries to get into the Tea Partier mindset and comes away with an interpretation that is new to me. What if when people hear Obama say "Yes we can," they do not consider that "we" to include them?
And thus that three-word expression of unambiguous love for America sounds instead, in the ears of a Tea Partier, like a threat. To them it sounds like the war cry of outsiders, usurpers determined to shoulder aside people who look like her so they can take over the place to make it a home for people who look like him.
And just to be clear, by "people who look like him" and "people who look like her" above I do, in fact, mean black and white. And by that, yes, I mean that Lorie Medina and the Dallas Tea Party are a sad little bunch of racists.
Oh, but you're not allowed to accuse ... and that's rude and uncharitable ... and I'm sure some of her best friends ... and there's a handful of black Tea Party memb ...
Doesn't matter. This isn't an accusation, merely an identification. This thing they're doing and the attitude that motivates it? There's a word for that. If they're not happy to have that word applied to them, then they'll have to change what they're about.
Comments
I wish this guy offered evidence for this claim. The 'we' idea is interesting speculation, and there is evidence out there in the way people talk about Us and Them, but this post is devoid of that evidence.
Posted by: FrFritz Swanson | December 14, 2009 07:38 PM
I kinda figured that his evidence was self-evident: When Clark says "Yes we can" he doesn't intend to include Medina in that "we," and he basically presumes that her thought processes aren't so distant from his. Frankly, I feel like the point stands; in the case of "Yes we can," I feel like I'm part of the "we," and so the Medina interpretation wouldn't have ever dawned on me but, on the other hand, I've never in my life felt like either of the pronouns in the verse "We wish you a Merry Christmas" were intended to include me, either, so I can sorta feel where Medina is coming from. It's powerfully alienating to not only feel excluded, but to feel like there isn't even a place for you in the grammar of the situation.
Posted by: dave-o | December 14, 2009 08:08 PM
It is so pleasant to hear someone tell the truth about racists, I can't tell you how happy it makes me.
As for inclusion, well, it wasn't the Democratic Party that traded on racism for political gain for a generation. Now, it WAS the Democratic party that has largely abandoned the mostly-black underclass, so if we can have one party primarily composed of racists, and another composed of classists, then I guess you get to vote for Coke or Pepsi, and that's what the founders intended.
-A-
Posted by: Alan | December 14, 2009 08:43 PM
The point doesn't stand. No where in the article does Clark cite Medina referencing the phrase "yes we can".
Medina says a lot of things, and she accuses Obama of having 'not' said a lot of things positive about the country, but she never calls out 'Yes We Can'.
Clark's reading of the phrase 'yes we can' is a plausible imagining of what Medina might think, but there is no evidence in this article to connect the dots in anyway.
basically, in the first half Medina says implausible things because she is angry, and in the second half Clark does a critical analysis of the phrase "yes we can' from the imagined perspective of a theoretical racist.
But there is no linkage between the first part of the article and the second, except Clark says "We can figure out why Medina is so scared..."
Well, that's just an assertion.
It bums me out because I find Clark's reading of the phrase 'yes we can' very plausible for the reason's Dave outlines, but I was hoping in this article there would be smoking gun evidence to hang my hat on.
I want the truth to be told about racists. But this isn't the truth. It's just theory and unrelated quotes.
Posted by: Fritz | December 20, 2009 12:55 PM