Professional Left Podcast #68

""You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.'

By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' - that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff.

You're getting so abstract now that you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is that blacks get hurt worse than whites.

And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other.

You follow me - because obviously sitting around saying, 'We want to cut this,' is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'Nigger, nigger.'" "

— Lee Atwater, the late and unlamented GOP race-baiting pioneer;
savior of GHW Bush's 1988 presidential bid;
mentor to Karl Rove and George W. Bush.

Related Links:

1. Elections Wisconsin-style.

2. Ronald Reagan’s state’s rights dog whistle in Mississippi

3. Poll of Mississippi Republicans on interracial marriage.

4. And if you think we’re overreaching on the fundamentalist Christian / Racist link, read this.

5. And here's Melissa Harris Perry on The Rachel Maddow Show:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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