Sarah Palin’s video message denying any connection between the hateful rhetoric she’s helped to popularize and Saturday’s horrific attack in Tucson, AZ is disingenuous and disturbing. But not surprising.
Palin follows a simple formula that she and others have used over and over again to deny the existence of serious problems while at the same time capitalizing on them.
In her video (after the jump), she denies what many Americans know to be true: that there is something deeply wrong with our current political dialogue. She labels those who question the tenor of the debate “intolerant” and accuses them of “mindless finger-pointing”—all the while directing blame everywhere except her own doorstep. She also insists that violent rhetoric is not dangerous... unless that rhetoric is directed towards her.
But many of us have watched with increasing alarm as Palin and others have fostered division—often along racial and ethnic lines—and capitalized on uncertain economic conditions to stoke fears about the future. Recall, for example, how carefully-calculated messages about undocumented immigrants and images of Latinos were used to bring the health reform debate to a fever pitch and how “birthers” have continued to question President Obama’s “citizenship.” Palin herself was extremely vocal in her opposition to the Cordoba House cultural center in lower Manhattan, casually linking the practice of Islam to terrorism. And let’s not forget that her now infamous call to “reload” rather than retreat was issued in defense of Dr. Laura Schlessinger, who’d rightly been critiqued for an on-air rant filled with racial slurs.
Palin has now expanded her repertoire of thinly-disguised hate-speech. In the video, she invokes the phrase “blood libel,” a term referring to Anti-Semitic claims that have fueled the persecution of Jews for centuries. It’s a new take on an old trick: subtly invoke anger and hatred for cynical, political ends, and if confronted, deny, deny, deny.
Palin also claims that it was Jared Loughner’s actions alone that led to six deaths and 14 injuries in Tucson. Her own use of crosshairs (now removed from her website) and inflammatory rhetoric? Irrelevant. She even asks us to believe that when she encourages the public to “take up arms” she’s talking about ballots. Palin justifies all of this by focusing exclusively on individual responsibility. But this too is nothing new. Similar arguments have been used over and over again to erode support for reforms that would improve prospects for people of color and struggling white families. But Palin’s use of the argument in her video illustrates how truly dangerous it is: there’s nothing we can do to fix this, so don’t bother trying. Even if opportunities to become a better, stronger, more united country slip through our fingers everyday. Even if lives are needlessly lost.
Palin’s is a message of profound powerlessness that is totally at odds with what history teaches us about American ingenuity. It’s time to reject it and to hold Sarah Palin and others accountable for preaching one thing while practicing another.
Brittny Saunders is Senior Advocate at the Center for Social Inclusion. She manages CSI’s transportation equity project, working with local and national allies to develop and generate support for policies that meet the needs of communities of color. Prior to joining CSI, Brittny was Policy Counsel at Be the Change, Inc., where she worked on community and national service issues. She is an honors graduate of Harvard Law School where she worked with a number of racial justice and civil rights organizations including the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment and the ACLU Racial Justice Program. While in law school, Brittny was an editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Journal and served on the boards of the Harvard Black Law Students Association and the Harvard Law School Democrats. Before enrolling in law school, Brittny taught second and third grade at a public elementary school in the Hunts Point neighborhood of the Bronx. She holds a master’s degree in education from Fordham University and earned a bachelor’s degree with high honors in Sociology at Harvard College.
