Welfare = Race Baiting: Not a Conspiracy Theory

In my previous post I was pretty tough on the old GOP - tough but fair. I introduced the term chalkboardism for their propensity to desperately throw around untrue notions and conspiracy theories ala Glenn Beck in attempts to vanquish their Democratic foes. It made me wonder what someone in Tank Tea Bag would consider a left-wing conspiracy theory. Just being honest, they would consider anything they didn't want to believe a conspiracy theory because they create their own truths, but I did think of one issue in particular - the use of welfare as racial code.

As I mentioned in the previous post, the Romney campaign has ceased on a lie that Barack Obama has dropped the welfare requirement. Critics like me say that using welfare in cases like this is used to incite a certain segment of white America. Republicans deny this of course. They think they have their tracks covered. They challenge "how can it be about race when no one says anything about race." Oooo. Very tricky. Very tricky indeed. 

Well, it would be tricky except some racists just can't keep their mouths shut. Again, I refer to a previous AOTL post. In it I chronicle some Tea Party shenanigans including a Tea Party gathering in Arkansas at which the host opened with this joke (audio only). Did you click on the link and listen? Well if you didn't, here it is: 

"A black kid asks his mom, 'Mama, What's a democracy?'
"'Well son, that be when white folks work every day so us po' folks can get all our benefits.'
"'But mama, don't the white folk get mad about that?'
"'They sho' do, son. The sho' do. And that's called racism.'"

In all fairness, while the "comedienne" who delivered the joke resigned from her Tea Party group, there were plenty of people in the crowd who were comfortable with the joke as evidenced by the applause. And if you think that these attendees were the only people in America who instinctively correlate welfare with blacks, then the burden of proof is on you. It doesn't take calculus to figure out that there are people like that all over America, most of whom give white people on welfare a pass as evidenced by the fact that the joke was specifically about a BLACK family on welfare. Maybe AOTL should offer a bounty for a recording of any Tea Party group that kicks off with a joke about WHITE people on welfare. I'm guessing they don't think those are as funny. 

Those people in the room who clapped and laughed at that joke and the people like them are the lynchpin (pun intended) of the narrow coalition Romney needs to turn out and vote for him.You would have to be a real brand new type of dumbass to think that Mitt Romney and his campaign are not aware that these people with the racial raw nerve exist. Aside from blacks on welfare, these same people probably get just as ireful at the thought of private equity firms coming in and busting up their factories for scrap metal, but Obama beat Romney to the punch with that commercial bent.