We all have a responsibility to call out racism in our politics

Lewiston mayoral candidate addresses a crowd Monday evening on Main Street in Lewiston. Russ Dillingham | Sun Journal

Lewiston mayoral candidate addresses a crowd Monday evening on Main Street in Lewiston. Russ Dillingham | Sun Journal

Overt racism is having its heyday in politics.

Oh, sure, most politicians stick with code words — “dog whistles,” they’re sometimes called — to thinly disguise racist comments meant to appeal to white voters while also offering a bit of deniability.

But the code has been broken, and racism is right out in the open.

Amazingly, its practitioners seem deaf to the sounds of their own words and the hatefulness of their actions.

Or maybe they just don’t care.

The anger and the political advantage are too great for them to be held back.

Joe Dunne, the Lewiston property owner who hung racist signs attacking mayoral candidate Ben Chin, doesn’t care what anybody else says. He’s mad, and he’ll say what he pleases.

Lewiston Mayor Bob Macdonald, one of Chin’s opponents, has made an appalling habit of attacking immigrants and low-income families. He’s as subtle as a brick through a window. He doesn’t care what you think about it.

Gov. Paul LePage has stoked the flames of resentment, invoking imagery of race, saying that President Obama “hates white people” and that immigrants bring disease to the country. He says he tells it like it is, regardless of whose feelings get hurt. And he doesn’t care what anyone says.

And then there’s “welfare,” the biggest code word of all.

Despite the fact that there are more white people who receive public assistance than African Americans or other minorities, “welfare” is undeniably wrapped up with racism.

As Time magazine wrote in 2012 while covering President Obama’s re-election: “These code words are ancient racial stereotypes in slick, modern gear. They are linguistic mustard gas, sliding in covertly, aiming to kill black political viability by allowing white politicians to say ‘Don’t vote for the black guy’ in socially-acceptable language.”

Dunne’s attack on Chin combines overt racism — with its caricature of an Asian man and by referring to Chin as Ho Chi Chin (presumably a reference to the North Vietnamese communist leader Ho Chi Minh) — and the clandestine “welfare” dog whistle. (After the attacks, I made a contribution to Chin’s campaign.)

And the Maine Republican Party has added heat to the race, attacking Chin with a website cloaked in racist imagery, trying to play upon fear.

So ingrained have appeals to race become even the campaign against Question 1 on the statewide ballot has invoked race. Question 1 would help to get the money out of state politics and increase transparency and accountability in elections.

Republican Rep. Joel Stetkis, a leading opponent of Question 1, used race as one reason to vote against election reform. And the entire opposition frames the question as “welfare for politicians,” using their all-purpose, go-to attack on election reform, trying desperately to weaken an overwhelmingly popular effort.

When asked about it by WGME-TV, Stetkis said he didn’t mean any harm.

Support the referendum, which I do, or hate it, the appeal to racism by its opponents is the worst of politics.

While the modern-day practitioners of race politics reside mostly in the Republican Party, not all Republicans play along.

In a recent op-ed in the Portland Press Herald, Lance Dutson, a highly respected Republican operative, called out members of his party for using race to try to win elections.

It’s very easy for me to call out Republicans for their misdeeds. I’m a partisan Democrat. But it takes real courage for other Republicans to take on the issues within their party.

As Dutson wrote, “The vast majority of Republicans I know in Maine are not racist, and they aren’t swayed by race-based politics. However, as a longtime Republican activist, I’m deeply disturbed by a growing pattern of race baiting emerging from a small but highly visible group of Republicans that threatens to tarnish the reputation of our party.”

I believe that Dutson is right. Most Republicans aren’t racist.

But his call to action is on the money.

“As the party of Lincoln and in a state known for the courage and moral clarity of our past Republican luminaries, it is our responsibility to speak out against the moral ugliness of race baiting, regardless of the political consequences.”

Republican, Democrat, Green or independent, we all have a responsibility to speak out against ugliness and racism, when we see it in our opponents and when we see it in our friends.

David Farmer

About David Farmer

David Farmer is a political and media consultant in Portland, where he lives with his wife and two children. He was senior adviser to Democrat Mike Michaud’s campaign for governor and a longtime journalist. You can reach him at dfarmer14@hotmail.com.