African Americans dancing in Detroit is now racist symbolism
Jill Bader, the communications director for the Walker campaign, accidentally sent out the wrong link on a Twitter tweet. Instead she sent out a link to a video of a dance show in Detroit showing a mostly African American crowd dancing to “C’mon’n Ride It (The Train).” The Democratic Party, which has little to cling to these days, quickly pounced saying there is a “coded message” of racism in a music video showing African Americans dancing.
I must not have the right secret decoder ring. (Mine keeps saying, “Eat more Ovaltine.”) Because I’ve skimmed through the video and I don’t see anything racist about it. Looks like everyone is having a good time.
Admittedly, the music is not to my taste. I would have preferred if Bader sent out a link to Midnight Train to Georgia” or “Love Train” by the O’Jays.
Maybe next time she could send out a link to “Last Train to London”. Oh wait, this video doesn’t have any African Americans in it. Don’t want Bader of being accused of being racist because of the absence of diversity in her tweets.
At least she didn’t pick “Last Train to Clarksville” by the Monkees. Scott Ross of One Wisconsin Now would have gone ape.
Seriously, one of the more prominent liberal bloggers in Wisconsin allows racist tripe on his site and not even a murmur from anyone on that side of the political fence. Senator Harry Reid, known for making racial stereotypes before, makes a similar remark and no comment from the Left. But Jill Bader accidentally tweets a music video that shows African Americans dancing and suddenly the Walker campaign is sending out “coded” racist messages that require extra-strength tinfoil hats to decipher? Seriously?
I realize that Tom Barrett is eight points down in the polls, but that’s really no cause for the left in this state to go completely flakey. My advice to them is to put down the marijuana. It’s making them paranoid.
And we thought the Vice President was legitimately racist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM19YOqs7hU
We were way off… Bader is the bane of civilized society, apparently.
And Wolf Blitzer is an amateur racist hour compared to Bader:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Sfo32rlkiE
And Comedy Central… Bader could teach them a thing or two about how to offend.
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/155469
Two points
1) One drinks Ovaltine. One eats crow.
2) If Bader is so bad at communicating in the new media that she “accidentally” tweeted something she may be overmatched in her position. In a business where shaping the message is her only job it’s inexcusable that she didn’t know what she was posting. Take your pick. Casually racist or stupidly sloppy.
You can polish Bader’s error anyway you want, but her beyond excuse of retweeting the message with a “wrong link” is beyond flimsy.
Between the “ha! ha!” pass-around email / tweeted Soul Train video clip, and the Obama-based ad, I’d say Walker’s campaign staff is acting like a bunch of Young Republicans. Or maybe they recently had surgery and were tweeting while on painkillers. What’s next? Joking about the relative size of Mrs. O’s behind? Oh, wait, it’s been done. Joking about putting a price on O’s melon? Oh, it’s been done.
P.S. We drink Ovaltine, not eat it.
“We drink Ovaltine…” What do I know? I drink martinis. If you want to argue Bader is “overmatched for her position” because she picked between two re-tweets on the fly at an event and picked wrong, fine. I won’t go out of my way to defend her and she can answer to the campaign on that.
But to run around saying this is some sort of secret racist-coded message by the Walker campaign, especially when they pulled the Tweet right away, is just really stretching the imagination. You’re going to need some extra-strength tinfoil for your hats if you’re going to believe that conspiracy theory.
And seriously, African Americans dancing is now the standard of racism? Have you lost your minds?
As always, IllyT has a great breakdown of Bader’s funky train of excuses. Come on, James. Tell us what’s so “ha!” about the video, and why the campaign staff enjoyed passing it around?
For the campaign: if that’s how Scott Walker’s communications team (Jill Bader & Michael Brickman) want to handle themselves, I hope they get larger roles in the campaign. They are obviously straight from amateur hour.
As for the racial element: When you claim in tweet form that the “President’s response” to Scott Walker’s rail plan is a link to a video of “Cmon Ride the Train” by the Quad City DJs, if not racist, then its juvenile and hackneyed at the least.
James Wigderson Reply:
August 17th, 2010 at 8:33 pm
I’m willing to call it juvenile.
No, it’s not racist.
But Jill Bader has been a liability since she started with Walker. She picked the wrong (or, right) moment to prove it.
PS. I’ve witnessed a lot of real racism in my life. People calling this racist only proves that their lives are full of first world problems.
John Foust Reply:
August 18th, 2010 at 5:56 pm
So because there’s “real” racism out there, we can’t place this on the spectrum of insensitive actions somewhere between “real” and not? Go ahead, tell me why Walker’s staffers were passing this around and why they found it funny.