Obama is Enslaving the White Middle Class? The GOP Ramps Up Its Racial Rhetoric

Obamais Enslaving the White Middle Class? The GOP Ramps Up Its Racial Rhetoric byDavid J. Leonard | NewBlackMan
Havingalready literallyand proverbiallystuck their finger in the face of the President of the United States, havingalready deployed the food stamp rhetoric, the GOP launched its newestattack: Barack Obama as twenty-first century slave owner.
MarkOxner, a Republican congressional candidate from Florida, recently released a campaignadvertisement that shows a group of entitled and wealthy people sippingfrom their gold cups.  Celebrating"bank bailouts," "health care for life" and "corporate subsidies" aboard theU.S.S. Obamaship.  Amid thecelebration, and captain Obama stifling any questions, the advertisement worksto expose the underbelly and consequences of the entitlement society: enslavedchildren rowing the ship.  With theship venturing toward a cliff, Mr. Oxner announces, "let's not enslave ourchildren.  It's time to turn thisship around."
Ofcourse, this racial line of attack, one that plays on a fallacious view of history,one that denies the connection between white supremacy and the history ofslavery, and that otherwise plays on "racialanxiety," is nothing new.  A2011 advertisement from American Future Fund warned of a future of"economic slavery," lamenting Obama's efforts to hand over America's future toChina.  Signs representingPresident Obama as slave master and "tax payers" or "citizens" (whites) asslaves have been visible at various Tea party rallies (example#1, #2,#3,#4).   Reiterating the thirty-yearplatform of the GOP – waning power of whites, the end of American prosperity,exceptionalism and civilization because racial change – the advertisement andthis sort of demagoguery is emblematic of the GOP's ideologicalfoundation. 
MichelleBachman, in 2011, connected the national debt to the history of slavery: "It didn't matter the color oftheir skin, it didn't matter their language, it didn't matter their economicstatus, it didn't matter whether they descended from known royalty or whetherthey were of a higher class or a lower class, it made no difference. Once yougot here [to the United States] you were all the same."  In her eyes, slavery has changed, withthe process of enslavement merely changing alongside who is master and who isslave.  "From the time when GeorgeWashington took the presidency on his first day to the day George W. Bush leftas president of the United States, all 43 presidents, if you take all of thedebt combined of all of those 43 presidents, do you know that all of that debtis less than the debt that was accumulated by Barack Obama in one year? That isthe level of debt and spending that we have engaged in. So this isn'thyperbole. This is facts." 
She is not alone with these types of  "facts."  Allan West, who described himself as Harriet Tubman, denounced"Barack Obama as the 'overseer' of a plantation on which modern blacks arecaptive."  In 2009, RedState.com published a blog postentitled, "BarackObama, a Black Man, is Now the Most Grotesque Slave Owner in History,"where the author argues that the policies and power of the Obama administrationreflects the enslavement of the (white) populace.
If Barack Obama, the black man, and Democrats, manyof whom are black, are so opposed to and horrified by the notion of slavery inour country and are determined to move the country beyond it, why then did theyjust vote to become the most grotesque slave owners in history?  Otherdespots in our history merely hated America and the Liberty she stood for andwanted to destroy the United States. Barack Obama and his fellow slave ownershate America and the Liberty she stands for yet do not want to destroy us; theywant to compel us to work against our will to provide for them.  The verydefinition of slavery. . . . What remains to be seen is how this Master dealswith the inevitable slave's rebellion. It is coming and it will not takedecades. Because I will not submit to shackles. I will not be compelled tolabor for the comfort of others. I will not live a single day as less than afree man. It is my heritage and my birthright as both a Christian and anAmerican.  I am free and will remain so. I will not be a slave. I am notalone in this. If Barack Obama and Democrats think they have won some sort ofvictory here they are as ignorant of history as they are of human nature.
Thetroubling assault on truth, evident in the views on slavery and the debt,should give pause given the larger issues at work.
TheGOP's deployment of the "enslavement of whites card" and its use of the"economic slavery" trope is neither inconsequential nor without a largercontext.  Within contemporaryracial discourses, the minimization of race represents a dominant frame.  Evident in arguments about thedeclining significance of race, efforts to sanitize history,or claims about "the race card," this dominant racial frame minimizes thecontinued importance of racism. The minimization of racism frame "suggests that discrimination is nolonger a central factor affecting minorities' life chances" (Bonilla-Silva 2003,p. 29).  Dismissing hatecrimes, police brutality, racial profiling, unemployment discrimination,educational and housing inequalities and individual bias, those deploying thisframe depict insertions of race as an "excuse" "a crutch," or an example ofpeople of color being overly sensitive when it comes to issues of race(Bonilla-Silva 2003, p. 29).  
Thiscommercial, and the ubiquitous effort to represent Barack Obama as enslaving "realAmericans," embodies the minimization frame.   It embodies a widespread white fantasy about both thepast and our present moment.  Itreflects the increasing belief amongst whites that reverse racism is the realproblem.  Accordingto a recent study from Harvard Business School and Tuffs University, asizable number of whites see reverse racism as a greater problem thananti-black racism.  The efforts tonot construct Obama as "master" and to represent (white) children as thosesuffering under the shackles of contemporary slavery is yet another example ofthe this deleterious white fantasy that simultaneously imagines whitevictimhood while denying and erasing both white privilege and persistenceracism against communities of color.   
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David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of CriticalCulture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. Hehas written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing inboth popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy ofpopular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, andpopular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextualanalysis.  Leonard's latest book After Artest: Race and the Assault on Blackness will bepublished by SUNY Press in May of 2012.