12. The Southern Strategy
Definitely one of the highlights of the book. I had heard of the Southern Strategy only in regards to Nixon, particularly his 1972 campaign. This essay shows how the Southern Strategy (the Republican Party courting disaffectioned Southern Democrats as the national Democrat Party drifted left from the New Deal and Civil Rights) began much earlier, particularly in response to Truman.
13. The Good Protest
This essay looks at how MLK and the non-violent protests of the Civil Rights Era have been simplified and sanitized. While it highlights a more extensive protest movement against segregation, it also skirts around the issue of bad protests (i.e. rioting and looting). There are also some questionable stuff, such as citing a group of students that were asked to name a famous American and the two most common answers were MLK and Rosa Parks. Uh, no - that's not going to a real result under normal circumstances. Maybe if you polled elementary students during Black History Month. Thumbs down.
Admittedly, I'm not a receptive audience for this subject. I find people standing on street corners waving signs and shouting slogans, regardless of what cause they're advocating (and most of the time it's just some random politician running for office) to be a massive nuisance. I don't care if it's a good cause. Same thing with roadside political signs (which tend to multiply and become an eyesore, then half the time don't get picked up after the election). Also people calling or texting me to ask if I will support their candidate. My response is always "no, I'm voting for the other candidate because they haven't called me up and harassed me yet." Same thing with soliciting door to door. In other words, no matter what cause or candidate (or business) you're promoting, even if it's one I agree with, I resent you for any interference in or disruption of my life.
How do you spread awareness if you don't call, text, mail, email, knock on doors, hand out flyers, put out signs, or demonstrate? I think ideally I seek out the information on my own time and terms when an election is coming up. Also, we need a way to communicate with our elected officials that wont result in them spamming us in return.
14. White Backlash
The issue here is "white backlash" against Civil Rights. The author argues the concept of "political backlash" only exists with regards to reactionary politics, especially race-based. The essay's implied underlying idea is that reactionary politics don't exist; they're just already existing conservative politics with increased intensity. The author also critiques the media for describing reactionary politics and political backlash by in whites in passive voice and using victim-blaming. While the examples are Reconstruction and Civil Rights, the author misses a perfectly good opportunity to use the 1850s issue of Abolitionists vs Fire Eaters where some modern historians have argued the extremism of the former contributed toward secession.
I eyerolled my way through this one. I disagree with most of the basic premises behind this essay. Literally yesterday there was a political backlash against President Biden because the Chinese balloon wasn't shot down sooner. No, the Civil Rights Act didn't suddenly turn anyone racist, but I'm sure there were plenty of people who were in favor of doing away with schools being all-white or all-black who resented it when their kids were subsequently bused halfway across town instead of attending the nearest school in the name of balancing racial distribution among schools.
Liked: 4
Okay: 5
Disliked: 4
Skipped: 1
Down to the last quarter of the book which I'm trying to finish so I can return it to the library where it's now overdue (but since my library did away with overdue fines I've got no incentive to immediately return it).
