I just received a very earnest press release touting this piece over at Bill Moyers’s website (the e-mail subject line: “Will GOP Racial Appeals on Ebola Translate into Votes?”). The article is written by Ian Haney López. Here’s his bio:
This is the fifth in a series of posts that Ian Haney López, the author of Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class, will be writing in the weeks leading up to the November election.
This may come as a surprise, but a writer who is professionally invested in the idea that coded racial appeals explain everything in politics has found that coded racial appeals explain the Ebola panic. Indeed, the article is just a long list of bombastic assertions that every Republican comment about Ebola is not only racially motivated, but cynically and deliberately so. López concludes:
The coded terms used in dog whistle politics constantly evolve, partly to fit the times, partly to avoid censure. After a decade and more, we’re long past due to recognize that dog whistling has moved beyond African-Americans, and now also targets Latinos, Muslims and — as of a few weeks ago — African immigrants and Ebola.
I certainly believe that some of the hype has been overdone. But you know what I think is primarily driving the fear of Ebola? It’s just a hunch, mind you. And, please, don’t hold me to this. But here’s my guess: It’s the horrifyingly lethal disease that kills most of its victims by liquidating their organs. Another major factor contributing to the climate of fear: The worry that the people who brought us the ObamaCare website are running the fight against Ebola as well. Fear of African immigrants is way, way, way down the list. If it’s on the list at all.
Okay, call me crazy.
Still, I think that if there was an Ebola epidemic in Norway, Sweden, and Finland, the vast majority of conservatives currently in favor of a travel ban from West Africa would . . . also be in favor of a travel ban from Scandinavia. (By the way, I don’t know of anybody calling for a travel ban against “African immigrants.” They’re calling for a ban from these three countries, which suggests that fear of the literally bowel-stewing virus ranks higher than xenophobic racism,)
But, here’s the funny part: I’d bet many of the people screaming “racism!” right now would be in favor of it too. In other words, it’s the people like López who see this whole episode through a racial lens, not Ted Cruz et al.
Again, it’s just a hunch.