P365 Dates-Rhetoric 123010

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

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The Rhetoric of Inferiority

Posted by guestcontributor in Opinion 22 hours agoLike Be the first of your friends to like this.

If you watch politics, and listen to how words are being used and to the way arguments are beingframed, you see rhetorical games that just wont go away.
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One such perennial is to question your opponents intelligence or sincerity. This attack comes inseveral 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 andbrainpower especially when waged against minorities is the work of the reactionaries and thepolitical 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 employedby one of our own.

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

I serve on MMTCs 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 organizationsas 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 inthe past. For well over a decade, reactionaries made outrageous allegations against the NAACP,the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committeeand others, charging they were secretly acting to bring down American democracy. Theseactivists who fought for equality were labeled Communists and called tools of a Communistconspiracy. In the Cold War excitement of the 1950s and 1960s, this accusation was used tofrighten 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 goodthings in the movement, fell to this level and I trust unintentionally played into a racialstereotype to make its point. Those with strong arguments on the merits never need to questiontheir 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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15 hours ago

Well stated Dean Dates! I read about this earlier in the month and I'm pleased to see someone speakout against these personal attacks. Any so-called leader should know how to attack the message, notthe messenger.

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P365 Dates-Rhetoric 123010