Presidential Politics in the New South

I am a southerner -- born, bred, educated, and domiciled. I have been in many other places, both in this country and others, but my accent and worldview betray a deep southern bent. My grandmother was born on the island of Atsena Otie near Cedar Key, Florida. My grandfather came to America as a young boy from Ireland. My father`s family was nestled near Sarasota more than a century ago.

I was raised in a segregated world, educated in all-white schools, worshipped in all-white churches, ate in all-white restaurants, waited in all-white waiting rooms, drank at all-white fountains, swam in all-white public swimming pools, was policed by all-white police departments, and otherwise lived in a surreal world apart. The first African-American student matriculated at Furman University during my junior year there. I had a lot of catching up to do as a young adult.

I can remember seeing KKK cross burnings as I traveled throughout the south as a college student in the 1960s. As recently as 1982, as my family and I were moving to Louisiana to join the faculty at Louisiana State University, we drove past a cow field with smoldering crosses from the previous night`s Klan rally in Tangipahoa Parish.

Today we live in what we call the "new south". Legal segregation has slipped into history. The Klan moved west to populate white supremacy compounds where they feel safe from the black (and other) people they fear. In Mississippi, a black state trooper can write a speeding ticket for a white motorist.

But memories can be long. Fear is fear. In the states of the old Confederacy, race is at the heart of virtually every political issue. Whereas my childhood memories are mostly of isolation from persons of different races, black folk have deep memories of violence and injustice and, for many, those memories are recent.

The Republican presidential nomination process centers in South Carolina today, the state first in secession. Then the candidates still standing will be here in Florida. We can expect some wild and wooly rhetoric in both places, and we southerners kid ourselves if we do not face up to the fact that much of the rhetoric and vitriol directed toward President Obama has racial overtones. The nonsensical attacks to which we are accustomed are not just a southern phenomenon to be sure. We remember that the "birther" issue has no more vehement spokesperson than the Yankee, Donald Trump. Loud politicians, and not a few loud southern preachers, depict Obama as "other," "non-patriotic," "Muslim," "not like us," "bent on destroying America." But my southern ears hear all of that rhetoric as racial in nature.

We hear about mythical "voter fraud" and the imperative need for "voter IDs," devotion to the 10th Amendment and "states` rights," a great concern for "pay checks, not food stamps," calls for success based on "merit, not government handouts" and the claim that the 99% of us who question the demise of American egalitarianism are jealous, envious of the 1% whose merit clearly surpasses anyone not born to wealth and advantage.

Perhaps it takes one with ears sensitized in the post-World War II South to hear the dog whistle of racism in those priorities. As a white southerner I hear it, and I recognize its false tune. It summons the racial anxieties of the past, and it is inappropriate for the New South.

I see in President Obama a quintessential American man, a family man, a Christian, a devoted advocate of justice, a lover of this country, an educated person, a wise an knowledgeable man. I have not agreed with each and every action (or lack of action) he has taken as president, as I am sure is the same for you.

But when someone seeking to take his job or to otherwise unseat him does so by blowing the dog whistle of racism, and claims that President Obama, my president, is un-American, anti-Christian, a foreigner... and when calls for his removal from office emphasize states` rights, voter IDs, merit, and the other detritus of the sordid well of racism... this southern boy wonders what in the world we have come to, and where in the world we are headed.

Dr. Patrick Anderson is Professor Emeritus at Florida Southern College and editor of Christian Ethics Today, a quarterly journal, and lives in Cedar Key.