If a diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell so that you actually look forward to the trip, white St. Louis must be the State Department. Maybe it’s our passive-aggressive nature, or maybe we were raised to be excruciatingly polite, but we’ll never tell you your dog is ugly; we’ll just say it’s “interesting.”
So herewith, my own version of Google Translate on translating Whiteish into English:
“All lives matter” – “We don’t want to talk about white cops killing black folks.”
“Some parts of our community” – “Ni**ers.”
“Troubled youth” – “Teenage ni**gers”
“You’re playing the race card” – “Shut up.”
“I don’t see color” – “I watch Oprah.”
But even that may not be enough when it comes to politicians like Missouri Lt. Governor Peter Kinder. Throughout Kinder’s interview with the right-wing NewsMax TV outlet, I felt like I should have been wearing headphones so a United Nations-style translator could whisper in my ear, “The ambassador from Cape Girardeau thinks the Black Panthers have taken over the federal government.”
Instead, I had to try and figure out on my own what Kinder was really saying when he told the host, “There is more racism in the Justice Department than I see anywhere in the St. Louis area. … It is Eric Holder and the Obama Left and their minions that are obsessed with race while the rest of us are moving on beyond it.”
Take a moment to re-read that quote and let it sink in.
The second-highest elected official in the state takes to ultra-conservative media to accuse the black president of the United States and the black attorney general of the United States of discriminating against all those poor, long-suffering white police and city officials in Ferguson – who have been running a racist extortion racket for years.
This is the same Peter Kinder who managed to photo-op himself in one of the front pews for Michael Brown Jr.’s funeral.
Kinder says he – and the “rest of us” (meaning white people) – are “moving on beyond (race).” But what is Kinder really saying?
On one hand, of course, he’s using GOP strategist Lee Atwater’s famous formulation of yelling “Uppity ni**ers” as loud as he can without ever saying the words. But on the other, Kinder is merely regurgitating the belief among a majority of white Americans that racism is a thing of the past.
Several polls pretty well sum up that attitude. One, from the American National Election Studies organization in 2012, found that over two-thirds of white Americans think that slavery and Jim Crow have nothing to do with black’s economic problems today.
Another poll, taken of supposedly “post-racial” millennials by the Public Religion Research Institute, found that almost 60 per-cent of whites aged 18 to 34 think that discrimination against whites is just as large a problem as discrimination against minorities.
Then, there’s the research of Harvard’s Dr. Michael Norton, who crunched dozens of poll numbers in 2011 and concluded that whites in America believe racism “has been all but eliminated.”
So Kinder’s statements, taken generously, could merely represent that world view. Less charitably, they could also represent the most cynical kind of politics.
Despite all the talk about Republicans needing to attract people of color, the fact is that what has become, in essence, the White People’s Party doesn’t really need minorities. With white voter turnout both heavier and more reliable than black or Hispanic turnout, and with many congressional districts gerrymandered to reduce minority influence, the GOP could conceivably be a viable “majority” party for years to come simply by attracting more of the white vote.
This is not to absolve Democrats. Missouri Governor Jay Nixon and St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch, both Democrats, have become highly unpopular among blacks post-Ferguson, and black voters often feel the only time white Democrats pay any attention is when it’s time to campaign.
But whether it’s Democrat McCulloch talking about “certain segments” of the community, or Republican Kinder saying he’s “moved beyond” race, it’s always a good thing to be aware of what they’re really saying, just so nothing gets lost in translation.
After all, they might be telling you to go to hell so that you wouldn’t enjoy the trip.
Charles Jaco is a journalist, novelist and author who has worked for NBC News, CNN, Fox 2, KMOX and KTRS.
