Apparently it is again okay to use the pejorative “uppity” against Americans who are members of a racial minority group. Ted Cruz is a historic Senator and presidential candidate, the first Cuban-American to join either club, and for that reason (and his unapologetic conservatism) the media is out for blood. The New Yorker went so far as to describe Cruz with the racial pejorative “uppity.”
The conventional wisdom is that Cruz hasn’t got a chance, and, as far as the Presidency goes, it’s probably accurate. To many Americans, he is the uppity loudmouth who, in the fall of 2013, less than a year into his first term as a senator, helped bring the federal government to a halt.
“Uppity” is widely seen as a term used against minorities who “don’t know their place.” Throughout the Obama Administration, conservatives have been attacked in the mainstream media for using the word. The use of the word in the New Yorker warrants special scrutiny because its use is written, not verbal. Thoughtlessly using a word in conversation is something entirely different than the deliberative word choices that come with any form of writing, especially in the New Yorker.
A quick look at an online Thesaurus reveals at least a half-dozen words that work just as well if not better than the racially-coded “uppity.”
The mainstream media has a long and sordid history of “othering” all conservatives, but most especially those they see as apostates — outspoken women, gays, blacks, Hispanics. From Clarence Thomas straight through to Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, and Columba Bush, we see this again and again.
The dogwhistle in these venomous media attacks is of course that these conservative apostates “do not know their place.” They are supposed to be Democrats, feminists, victicrats, and their apostasy is an affront and threat to the Democrat Establishment.
Barack Obama can launch his political career in the home of a domestic terrorist and spend 20 years in a racist church. His mentors were outright communists and horrifying anti-Semites. That is not only okay with the left-leaning mainstream media, anyone who says it isn’t is attacked as racist. Nothing in Cruz’s 44 year history is anywhere near as troubling as Obama’s
Nevertheless, the media presents Cruz as the “uppity” freak — not because he is but because in the long-held tradition of the Democrat Party (see: KKK, Jim Crow), minorities who pose a threat to the Democrat Party must be destroyed.
UPDATE: The New Yorker has removed the word “uppity.”
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