Origins of Republican Hate Speech Language in America Today

Neil Boortz’s comments last week are reminiscent of the attitudes of southern whites at the turn of the 20th century. The lynchings and Jim Crow laws were based of white fears of blacks developing themselves economically. This became quite evident in the aftermath of Katrina, when white outrage was sparked at the assistance offered New Orleans’ residents as they were evacuated, and were re-located into areas of the country that are content to have limited integration.The following quotes speak to the history of his comments:

WITHOUT SANCTUARY: LYNCHING PHOTOGRAPHY IN AMERICA
edited by James Allen
“Hellhounds”, written by Leon F. Lithwack
pp.12-13
“The cheapness of black life reflected in turn the degree to which so many whites by the early twentieth century had come to think of black men and women and permanently inferior, as less than human, as little more than animals. ‘We the people of the South don’t care to equal ourselves with animals’, a white Floridian told a northern critic.’the people of the South don’t think any more of killing the black fellows than you would think of killing a flea. And if I was to live 1,000 years that would be my opinion and every other Southern man’.A former governor of Georgia, William J. Northern, after canvassing his state in the interest of law and order, found the same disregard for black life. ‘I was amazed to find scores and hundreds of men who believed the Negro to be a brute, without responsibility to God. And his slaughter nothing more than the killing of a dog’.”

p.23
“The Negro as beast became a fundamental part of the South’s racial imagery, taking its place alongside the venerated and faithful Sambo retainer and whites were perfectly capable of drawing on both to sustain their self image“(my emphasis)

This is the basis of the Southern strategy, and current Republican efforts to reduce and in some instances, eliminate all assistance for poor and working class individuals, as is the basis for Neil Boortz’s disgusting iterations. The advent of Mr. Obama’s election exacerbates the belief that blacks and other non-whites have over-reached themselves. attaining the office of the President proves to those of his persuasion that their fears are justified. Consequently, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) is continuing to blast the government’s recent discrimination settlement with African-American farmers as “reparations” — and even predicting that the new Republican-led House will investigate it.

Today we see an active regeneration to those fears and active prejudices in part based upon (I suspect) white fears that non-whites will rise up and return the favor, as well as belief that non-whites in the US have “usurped” that which should be the purview of whites.