Wednesday, February 07, 2007
What's the Deal with South FL?
A friend of mine recently suggested that one place in the South where Giuliani will definitely get votes is South FL: because the alter-kockers will certainly vote for someone who is "tough on crime" and who will keep the "undesirables" away from them. And, oy vey, alas I worry he's right.
I was in South FL recently, and my it is a bizarre place. You have miles and miles of these gated communities filled with alter-kockers and nary a person of color around, except for nurses, caretakers and the occassional security guard. Are there so few non-white alter-kockers that these communities end up by happenstance being so segregated?
Mind you, the inhabitants of these communities are not racist (so they claim): "my daughter's best friend is black and my son's best friend is dating a black girl" and such, you'll hear. But these people are bit too obsessed with keeping the criminal element out -- and if a white person is acting shady, they'll just say the person is acting shady, while if a black person is acting shady, his race is guaranteed to be mentioned. And those places which are integrated, e.g. malls, are deemed "scary places which you should avoid".
The GOP won't need to have a nominally Dem. ringer design butterfly ballots likely to induce AKs to accidently vote for Buchannan in order to win the Northern Miami suburbs if Giuliani wins. He knows he to speak the right code (c.f. my remarks here on Giuliani and the "language of the South" -- n.b., of course, I don't think all social conservatives are racist -- I know personally some social conservatives who are actually very much concerned about the lasting legacy of segregation and are hardly racists, but the fact is that the rhetoric of many of the fundies might as well be against miscegenation and Jews rather than, as it ostensibly is, against gay marriage and abortionists). I wish I could be confident that our country has put it's past behind us, but, pace Tony Snow, alas racism is still alive and well in this country. And Giuliani will be able to capitalize on it.
I was in South FL recently, and my it is a bizarre place. You have miles and miles of these gated communities filled with alter-kockers and nary a person of color around, except for nurses, caretakers and the occassional security guard. Are there so few non-white alter-kockers that these communities end up by happenstance being so segregated?
Mind you, the inhabitants of these communities are not racist (so they claim): "my daughter's best friend is black and my son's best friend is dating a black girl" and such, you'll hear. But these people are bit too obsessed with keeping the criminal element out -- and if a white person is acting shady, they'll just say the person is acting shady, while if a black person is acting shady, his race is guaranteed to be mentioned. And those places which are integrated, e.g. malls, are deemed "scary places which you should avoid".
The GOP won't need to have a nominally Dem. ringer design butterfly ballots likely to induce AKs to accidently vote for Buchannan in order to win the Northern Miami suburbs if Giuliani wins. He knows he to speak the right code (c.f. my remarks here on Giuliani and the "language of the South" -- n.b., of course, I don't think all social conservatives are racist -- I know personally some social conservatives who are actually very much concerned about the lasting legacy of segregation and are hardly racists, but the fact is that the rhetoric of many of the fundies might as well be against miscegenation and Jews rather than, as it ostensibly is, against gay marriage and abortionists). I wish I could be confident that our country has put it's past behind us, but, pace Tony Snow, alas racism is still alive and well in this country. And Giuliani will be able to capitalize on it.
# posted by alberich @ 1:12 PM 
