Lynching redux

[Wilson Gray]

On Aug 2, 2005, at 7:32 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject:      Re: Lynching redux
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>> I believe the term for what Thomas was doing is "playing the
>> race card."
>
> I'd agree that his use of "lynching" upped the ante, but the race card
> had been in play for some time.  Thomas had been criticized as a token
> negro (in editorial cartoons by Dan Wasserman, and Mike Keefe, in July
> of 1991); he'd been called an "Uncle Tom" and a race traitor; he'd been
> accused of not being black enough, in his work at the EEOC and
> elsewhere; he'd taken criticism for having a caucasian wife; Spike Lee
> had called him a "handkerchief head, chicken and biscuit eating negro"

Too bad that none of that filtered down to the black hoi polloi, most
of whom bought into the okey-doke that a negative attitude toward the
Yard Jockey of the Republican Right was prima facie evidence either of
racism or of self-hatred.

-Wilson Gray

> and the accusations from Hill played into the most base stereotypes of
> race and sexuality.
>