Decoding the Language of the Liberals

When white Americans express concerns over “crime,” “the public schools,” and “illegal immigration,” or when they advocate “equal opportunity” (as opposed to “equality of outcomes”) and “merit,” they advance by means of seemingly race-neutral language the “racist” agenda of preserving and furthering “white hegemony.” This, at least, is what those on the left have been saying for years. Interestingly, and for whatever reasons, the charge of speaking in “code words” is almost exclusively the stock and trade of the left.

I emphatically deny that the vast majority of Americans who employ the aforementioned language are secretly interested in oppressing racial minorities. However, I do not deny that these same white Americans, whether consciously or not, do indeed select such expressions when discussing racially charged issues.

Yet the left, no less frequently and perhaps to a far greater extent than the “racist” majority of whose motives it is forever suspicious, hesitates not in the least to resort to “code words” to achieve its goals.

With the exception of leftist politicians, like Barack Obama, who seek power that they can secure only by convincing the majority of voters that they share their love of country, leftists seldom sing praises to the United States. Most of their utterances are condemnatory. But whenever leftists condemn America, it is always white America they’re targeting. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that in the context of leftist denunciations of America, “white America” is a redundancy. When they accuse “America” of being “racist,” “sexist,” “patriarchal,” “homophobic,” “classist,” “oppressive,” “imperialist,” “Islamophobic,” and “fascist,” and when, like Michelle Obama, they say that America is suffering from an “empathy deficit,” it is the white majority generally, and “red-state” whites in particular, to whom they refer.

As I have pointed out in previous columns, there is nothing at all “unpatriotic” or “anti-American” about criticizing the United States. All of us, at some time or another, have been critical of aspects of our country. But when leftists indignantly defend their patriotism by means of such mindless slogans as “Dissent is what this country has always been about,” or some other such drivel, they speak either ignorantly or dishonestly, for only ignorance or dishonesty could cause one to conflate objections to a policy of a nation with objections to the fundamental institutions of the nation itself.

I have no doubt that there are many people of good will on the left who genuinely love America. Yet they fail to realize that by charging their country with having been conceived in “racism,” or of committing “genocide” against an entire population of (American Indian) people, or of having perpetrated any other number of acts that fill the left’s catalogue of mortal sins, they render their professions of love unsustainable. How can one love something that is so evil? How can one not oppose with every fiber of one’s being something so horrible?

All of this is highly relevant to the left’s latest goal, the election of fellow traveler Obama to the presidency of the very country whose history they have tirelessly derided for decades.

Obama is a man squarely ensconced on the political left. His voting record, his own words, and his close ties with a host of leftist radicals--including and especially his “spiritual mentor,” pastor, and close friend Jeremiah Wright, who explicitly said that “racism” was encoded in the DNA of America -- readily and indisputably establishes this.

In light of what has been said, it is fair to ask why he wants to hold the highest office in the land? What does he hope to achieve? It is my honest belief that Obama and his cohorts look upon America as a vast reservoir of power by which to remake it in their own image. It isn’t that they want to improve upon some policies and roll back others; they want, rather, to radically alter America’s entire self-image.

This brings us to another code word that has figured centrally in the Obama campaign: “change.” Before Americans, particularly those white Americans who currently inhabit what for convenience’s sake we may call “Red State America,” embrace Obama’s calls for “change,” they should consider that “change” is a “code word” for social engineering on a scale that this country hasn’t seen before.