GOP Presidential Candidate Goes on Racist Rant
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2012 Jan 3, 6:01am 6,227 views 26 comments
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HousingWatcher
2012 Jan 3, 6:50am
Santorum is engaging in classic dog whistle politics. which is a hallmark of the Republican party. It's part of the "Southern Strategy."
HousingWatcher
2012 Jan 3, 7:02am
If you watch the video in the link, he was talking about welfare and Medicaid immediately before he made the comment about black people. Santorum said he was talking to someone who works in the Department of Public Welfare, never mind the fact that there is no such department. A Google search finds only a Iowa Department of Human Services. But of course Santorum is not going to say "Human Services" since the word WELFARE sounds much better when your speaking to the right wing fringe.
HousingWatcher
2012 Jan 3, 7:05am
If he specifically included language that singled out blacks, then you would have a point. He didn't.
Did you read what I wrote above?
"I don't want to make BLACK people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money; I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money."
*emphasis mine
HousingWatcher
2012 Jan 3, 7:58am
Well then maybe Rick Santorum can make the lives of Wall St. bankers better by not giving them bail outs. Or maybe he can make the lives of Pharma executives better by not giving them welfare. Oh wait, he voted for Part D.
HousingWatcher
2012 Jan 3, 8:02am
SO if Santorum is not racist, why did he single out blacks? Why not just say the exact same thing, minus the word "black"?
He is mentioning blacks because he was being specific in who he wanted to help.
If he was black and talking to a room full of black people, I could see your point. Hell even if he wasn't black and was talking to a room full of black people, it would make more sense in the context you are saying. He would never have the balls to do that though because that is NOT what he means.
Since he is white, and has had trouble with making comments like this in the past, this is further indication of his prejudice. When he thinks of a "welfare queen" in his head, she is most certainly black. In fact, when he thinks of anyone on welfare, they are probably all black based on this comment. That is nearly by definition a racial sterotype.
When someone asks a politician publicly if they are racist, the answer is almost always certainly no. When the same guy claims to not be racist and then makes a comment like this, the real answer comes out.
While it is possible for one to misspeak from time to time, this ain't Santorum's first rodeo. He has made similar comments in the past.
Who gives a shit, really? Rick Santorum has the support of evangelicals, and that's it.
It's the CONTENT of what he says that determines what is racist or not about said content, period....not what is just in your imagination.
Fine. He said he does not want to make BLACK people's lives better...etc.
Why Black People? Why not just people?
If he truly believes he can help all people by not giving them money but the opportunity to do so for themselves, why did he add black?
If we are going on CONTENT only, then he does not want to make black people's lives better by giving them money - but he does want to give other races money. That is exactly what he said. No money for black people.
Now we can argue if he meant to help black people by not giving them money but opportunity all you want - but from the content of what he said he only wanted to remove the money from black people.
The content, taken literally as you asked, means there should be a race test in order to receive money.
So, a race test to receive money is not different from a race test to determine voter eligibility, job qualifications, housing, or any other protection based on race.
If you were a landlord who refused to rent to someone based on race, this would be illegal and you would be racist.
Santorum is a politician who wishes to refuse welfare from an applicant based solely on race. Based upon his statement literally, he is a racist.
QED.
Let me ask you this. Who runs the inner-cities? Who runs the school systems in the inner-cities?
How they doing?
White people
Also, who runs the schools sytems in West Virginia? How many black kids go to school in West Virginia? West Virginia is 49th of 50 in education.
HousingWatcher
2012 Jan 4, 2:52am
No, he said that he DOES want to make black people's lives better.
Do you live in an alternate universe? He clearly did not say that. Unless you are deaf, he clearly said the word "don't."
HousingWatcher
2012 Jan 4, 2:53am
No. It just means he decided to talk about how this problem impacts blacks specifically.
Yes, he was talking about how the problem impacts blacks... in an all white state in front of an all white audience. Makes perfect sense..
HousingWatcher
2012 Jan 4, 2:59am
Santorum has a history of making comments that target blacks:
Rick Santorum Calls Obama’s Abortion Stance ‘Remarkable For A Black Man’
“The question is — and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer — is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says ‘no,’†Santorum said in a televised interview. “Well if that person — human life is not a person — then I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say, ‘we're going to decide who are people and who are not people.’â€
There is currently no record of Santorum mentioning that Bill Clinton is white when he criticized Clinton.
uomo_senza_nome
2012 Jan 4, 3:07am
Santorum is a total doofus. Shrek - you are wasting your energy defending a doofus.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/sex-and-santorum/
Here's a gem of a comment from someone at Krugman's blog:
Government regulating our sex lives is an idea that Republicans can get behind; but not regulation of the Banksters who virtually destroyed our economy.
No. It just means he decided to talk about how this problem impacts blacks specifically.
Now YOU are the one interpreting what he meant. I am just arguing what he said...as you argued against interpretation.
He said "I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money; I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money."
There it is literally. "I don't want to make Black People's lives better..." The literal implication with that clause is that by giving black people somebody else's money, he can make their (black people's) life better. He doesn't want to give them the money, so their life will not better. The literal implication of the second clause is black people do not currently have the opportunity to earn money themselves, but he wants to give that to them."
So literally, he wants to make their life worse by taking away money they currently get from somebody else, but he will replace that by giving them what they currently have, which is the opportunity to make the money themselves.
Why can't he just say people? He is the one that felt the need to insert black in the statement, not me.
And why does he have to "not give money" to black people anyway? Can't he just say "I want to give black people the opportunity to make money themselves." If he were truly wanting to help black people, that would be what he would say. And if he said that, it wouldn't be racist.
And Rick Santorum is still un-Googleable.
I have some other names that need this type of treatment...
HousingWatcher
2012 Jan 4, 3:49am
Exactly david. Plus there are plenty of white people on welfare. I wonder how many of the white people in Santorum's audience are corn farmers who get massive welfare from the Dept. of Agriculture. I don't think there are any black corn farmers in Iowa.
And as I said earlier, Santorum's goal was to be as derogratory as possible toward black people by using the term "Dept. of WELFARE" even though no such agency exists. It's called Human Services, but Human Services does not sound as derogratory as Welfare.
Santorum was my senator when I lived in PA. He is unelectable if he ever gets popular enough for reporters to look into his records while he was senator.
One of my friends was a leader of the state republican party. He said everyone in the party was terrified of all the fast, loose, and very probably illegal financial crap Santorum pulled getting into the press. I remember he maintained some phoney PA address then enrolled his kids (who lived with him in VA) in some bogus online school and billed the PA school district like 100k. The man is a total sleazebag and hupocrite
HousingWatcher
2012 Jan 4, 4:00am
If Santorum is the nominee, then you can look forward to 4 more years of Obama. When it comes to social issues, Santorum is a right wing extremist. This will sound harsh, but Santorum's goal is to essentially make America a Christian version of the Taliban.
uomo_senza_nome
2012 Jan 4, 4:01am
If Santorum is the nominee, then you can look forward to 4 more years of Obama. When it comes to social issues, Santorum is a right wing extremist. This will sound harsh, but Santorum's goal is to essentially make America a Christian version of the Taliban.
Agree, doesn't happen often with HousingWatcher; but he's spot on here.
Santorum was my senator when I lived in PA. He is unelectable if he ever gets popular enough for reporters to look into his records while he was senator.
Enough people know about it in Pennsylvania that he got killed by over 17 points in '06 by a Democrat for a Senate set which had been held by the Republicans since 1947. (With the exception of 2.5 years from the Special election in '91 due to Heinz's death.)
But Shhh...let the evangelical nutjobs vote for whoever they want. Santorum doesn't believe in macroevolution which alone makes him unelectable in a general election. He wouldn't even win Pennsylvania.
WHAT planet are you on?
Ha.
Santorum himself isn't even making these arguments. I just saw on O'Reilley that he is claiming he didn't say "black." He said he was going to say something else, not black, got crossed up, and it came out "Bllla" which was just unintelligible but he didn't say black. He actually said he hardly ever says black, he usually says African American.
Then he went into how he supported historically black colleges.
Nooo....He said exactly what I said he said:
Here is what you said:
No, he said that he DOES want to make black people's lives better.
No. It just means he decided to talk about how this problem impacts blacks specifically.
He said none of those things. The second one is your interpretation of what he meant. You criticized others for doing this - I simply called this out.
Santorum targets blacks in entitlement reform
At a campaign stop in Sioux City, Iowa on Sunday, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum singled out blacks as being recipients of assistance through federal benefit programs, telling a mostly-white audience he doesn't want to "make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money."
He added: "I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money; I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money."
CBS News found that of the people on food stamps in Iowa, only nine percent are black and 84 percent are white.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57350990-503544/santorum-targets-blacks-in-entitlement-reform/
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