Lots of energetic conversations happening across the blogosphere. I’m too busy to blog about them with any manner of cogency, but allow me to throw out a few items that I would expound on if I had the time.
The Obama vs. Dobson Bible Controversy. My friend Josh Canada has an informative post about this over at his Introspections & Ideas of a Black WASP blog, and Scot McKnight has started a fascinating conversation at Jesus Creed. I’d encourage you to head over and join in the discussion at those respective blogs. Finally, Christianity Today posted a thought-provoking piece by Collin Hansen on the subject. I’m not sure what the intended takeaway is, but it is definitely generating some vigorous discussion.
Obama and the Evangelicals. I was also intrigued by this brief news article from the Christian Century regarding Barack Obama’s recent meeting with several evangelical leaders. In addition, Arloa Sutter just posted on Obama’s plans to expand President Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, if he’s elected. As with his two-year-old speech that set off Dr. Dobson, Obama engages religion in a way few other presidential candidates have dared. Whether or not you agree with all of his positions on the issues, you must admit he’s a politician who is not afraid to wade into the grayness of religion in American life.
Coded Prejudice in America. This article from the Chicago Tribune explores the new, more covert expressions of prejudice and racism in today’s society, whether it be in the workplace or the media. “Federal officials say they have seen an increase in harassment complaints involving coded words and images in the workplace,” writes reporter Dahleen Glanton. She also explores how Barack Obama’s candidacy for president has given rise to a more strategic use of these veiled expressions of prejudice. Regarding the media, Glanton quotes Steve Rendall, a senior analyst at the liberal watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR):
“We hear code words all the time in talk radio. It’s a constant drumbeat,” said Rendall, who also co-hosts FAIR’s national radio show, CounterSpin. “Code word bigotry is a secret code, a secret handshake between the listening audience and the host.”
Have you observed this “code word bigotry” in action? What challenges does this present for the work of reconciliation today? And if Obama is elected president, do you think it will get better or worse?
The quote from FAIR seems a bit like a conspiracy theory to me. I listen to a decent amount of conservative talk radio, and I fail to see the “constant drumbeat” of coded bigotry. Maybe I’m not inside enough, but I know of no secret handshakes 🙂
My last experience with anything resembling “code words” was in high school. Real mature stuff. Guys would make up “fake” curse words and say them in front of the teachers or make up stuff to make fun of other kids and they wouldn’t “get it” similar to saying the “N” word backwards without race involved (99.5% white school). Pretty immature cowardly stuff.
I don’t doubt that it happens and I feel for the people who have to deal with the meatheads that do it. I guess I’ve either worked where people were respectful, or else they were very open about their prejudice.
Most of this constists of allusions in the sociocultural and political sphere, where it is ambiguous enough to pass it off as something else (plausible deniability) but in context is links to long-held prejudices. For instance, the term “them” is one of those terms, if used in the proper context.
In reality, often has to do with “coded terms” which implicitly differentiate. For instance, my wife, who’s caucasion, talks about how her parents will often describe a person as black, when it has nothing to do with the point of the conversation, but will usually not do the same if the person is white. And in our political and social discource, blacks are almost never described as “working class,” whereas whites are as a positive notion.