For Racist America: It's The Same Old, Same Old...

"He who will not reason is a bigot;
he who cannot is a fool;
and he who dares not is a slave..."
- Wm. Drummond, Academical Questions

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

AUSTIN, Texas - Perhaps more than in the movies or breaking news videos, nothing opens the bloody wound that is America's race problem like a good Republican Party debate in a southern setting. Those people love to stick a knife in the wound, to again grate the rest, to remind us all of what we used to be. And who knows, maybe we still are what we were, things being what they are, the anger much more in the mix, the resentment fueling demons and spreading fear.

Racism, we mean.

Here in this great land. It rears its ugly head all-too-often to be ignored. We are what we are. It happened again last night at the GOP's 2012 presidential nomination debate in Myrtle Beach, S.C., a usually neat place for vacationers seeking the Atlantic Ocean waters or the magnificent golf courses.

The moment came when Juan Williams, an African-American among the moderators for the Fox News Debate, asked this of adulterer candidate Newt Gingrich in response to Gingrich's earlier suggestion that Black kids work as janitors in public schools: "Can't you see that this is viewed at a minimum as insulting to all Americans, but particularly to black Americans?"

Gingrich quickly replied: "No, I don't see that."

And like a scene from a KKK film, viewers watching on TV saw the crowd erupt approvingly, as if cheering a winning touchdown, a USA Olympic victory.

It was, at best, a disgusting scene for all of America. But these same incidents have marked every GOP debate so far this primary season. Race gets the audience in a tizzy. Republicans hate Gays, so they boo an Army serviceman, stationed in Afghanistan, who wonders about the military's stance on those of his sexual persuasion. That happened in Iowa, ahead of that state's early-January caucuses. Similar incidents followed ahead of the New Hampshire Primary, when African-Americans at a town hall meeting scheduled by Gingrich stood to ask him why he was singling out Blacks as those contributing to the rise in applications for food stamps and other welfare programs. Gingrich feigned an answer, as if to say, "What I'm saying about your people I am saying to my people." The Far-Right conservatives, in other words. The unapologetic racists.

Something is going on here that perhaps ought to be looked-at more carefully. I wonder about the presidential primary race, its route. It begins in mostly-White Iowa, moves to almost-all-White New Hampshire and then drops down to Mostly Redneck South Carolina. The Hispanic is not part of the picture and the few blacks are those who show up only when their race is maligned. Asians? Afterthought.

Florida follows South Carolina after this Saturday's vote in that state.

It's an archaic schedule. Iowa? New Hampshire? Both are tiny states. South Carolina is not exactly a state that brings "melting pot" to mind. Its politicians wear their southern roots proudly and openly. Are those people a credible barometer for the nation as a whole? No.

Better would be primary contests in the larger, more inclusive states, like California, Illinois, Texas or New York. All count on a sampling of racists, but the audience would be a bit more representative of the country at large.

Soiled politicians like Newt Gingrich play well with that racist crowd. How would he do in the larger states? Would he be as bold in dishing his racist crap? He's been booed before, as he should be at every stop. But throwing yourself before a national audience should be what the primaries are about, not merely making a stop in front of friendly people of your own race.

So far, this Republican field has painted itself as a collection of low-rent clowns interested in saying what this racist base wants to hear. That only means one thing: their dance is a fiddler's tune suitable only for a retard's barn dance in Georgia.

The idiot Newt Gingrich aside, we as a nation cannot be that stupid, that willing to fly so low, that willing to bend over...

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