The Rhetoric of Inferiority | Political News and Opinion for African-Americans on Politic365 12/30/10 6:54 AM

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The Rhetoric of Inferiority

Posted by guestcontributor in Opinion22 hours ago

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If you watch politics, and listen to how words are being used and to the way arguments are being
framed, you see rhetorical games that just won’t go away.

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The Rhetoric of Inferiority | Political News and Opinion for African-Americans on Politic365 12/30/10 6:54 AM

One such perennial is to question your opponent’s intelligence or sincerity. This attack comes in
several forms, and one of the most deadly is to suggest that your opponent is a front for others.
A corollary is that your opponent lacks the sophistication and brainpower to do its own thinking.

We have seen this political jab for many years. Traditionally this assault on integrity and
brainpower – especially when waged against minorities – is the work of the reactionaries and the
political cynics – from Stephen Douglas in the Lincoln-Douglas debates to Lee Atwater in the
Reagan years to Glenn Beck today. So it was surprising, and disappointing, to see it employed
by one of our own.

Recently, a leading social justice organization contended that the major civil rights organizations
are incapable of understanding their own advocacy for equal access to the Internet for the
millions of people not online. They suggested that the Minority Media and Telecommunications
Council (MMTC), legal counsel for the groups, controls their thinking.

I serve on MMTC’s Board and have been active in the organization for more than 20 years.
Throughout that time, MMTC has ably represented minority, religious and civil rights organizations
as those organizations have sought fairness and equality in decisions of the FCC.

This recent blast immediately brought to mind the many attacks on civil rights organizations in
the past. For well over a decade, reactionaries made outrageous allegations against the NAACP,
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
and others, charging they were secretly acting to bring down American democracy. These
activists who fought for equality were labeled Communists and called tools of a Communist
conspiracy. In the Cold War excitement of the 1950s and 1960s, this accusation was used to
frighten the mainstream and derail the true message.

Perhaps these tactics have influence over a few paranoid souls in the short term, but over time,
no. Yet it is a sad piece of Americana. Sad, too, that this organization, which has done good
things in the movement, fell to this level and – I trust unintentionally – played into a racial
stereotype to make its point. Those with strong arguments on the merits never need to question
their opponents’ intelligence or sincerity.

Dr. Jannette Dates is the Dean of the School of Communications at Howard University and the co-
editor of Split Image: African Americans in the Mass Media.

Author: guestcontributor

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MMTC Seeks to Preserve Free and Open Internet in FCC Filing
Va. Governor Resurrects Controversy with Confederate History Month

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The Rhetoric of Inferiority | Political News and Opinion for African-Americans on Politic365 12/30/10 6:54 AM

Comment (1) Login

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JCraig · 15 hours ago 0

Well stated Dean Dates! I read about this earlier in the month and I'm pleased to see someone speak
out against these personal attacks. Any so-called leader should know how to attack the message, not
the messenger.

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