1.Southern racist populations still believe that black and white should still be segregated, so while the civil rights were advocating for a change in segregation, they couldn’t really stop it because the constitution gave the activist the right to protest. So, the only thing to bring down the civil rights movement was trying to criminalize the activities of the activist, making it possible for these activists to be arrested on claims that they were committing a crime. This gave them advantages because the use of “ Law and Order” still gave them control and the division among races that they want.

2. I believe Southern Strategy is still influencing American Politics, an example I would say is the Trump Presidency. He might not have directly used Nixon’s words, but part of his campaign was focused on Obama not being an all American, sending Mexicans back to their country, building a wall to stop them from coming into the United States, so he gained a lot of supporters and votes from the racist Americans whose interest aligned with that.

I believe that the Southerns racist politicians chose to frame their defense of racial segregation through the language of “law and order” because they felt as if criminals were going to continue break the law and the Civil Rights movements process were for minorities to continue acting out. The special advantages that these choice of words were going to give them were that “Some segregationists went further, insisting that integration causes crime, citing lower crime rates in Southern states as evidence that segregation was necessary.” As well stated in “The New Jim Crow”, southerns believed the civil rights movement was “rewarding lawbreakers”. This caused lots of disagreement for “law and order” within Southern states. I do still believe the Southern Strategy is still influencing American politics by we have seen an trenemous increase in hate crimes and verbal assaults. Many continue to have a mindset that having a different color skin tone is wrong and chose to show no remose in how they feel towards people of color. 

1. Why do think Southern racist politicians chose to frame their defense of racial segregation through the language of “law and order”? What special advantages was this choice of words going to give them?

By taking recourse to the rhetoric of “law and order,” the Southern racist politicians could use the legal vocabulary and the selective constitutional mandates to sabotage the civil rights movements of the black population.

2. Do you think the Southern Strategy is still influencing American politics? Give an example supporting your answer.

Southern Strategy is certainly a part of American politics today. The murder of George Floyd who was choked to death by a white police officer in 2020 is proof of the kind of violence and inhuman treatment black people are subjected to. The law enforcement and police force of the U.S., just to give one example, is still plagued by racial prejudices and discrimination.

• Why do think Southern racist politicians chose to frame their defense of racial segregation through the language of “law and order”? What special advantages was this choice of words going to give them?
• It was able to frame their defense because in reality all they wanted to do was convince people that it was going to be a system that would end up helping. Instead, they took full advantage by using law and order as another reason to continue to have mass incarceration in America, but also target minorities since it’s what they always wanted to do all along. They never wanted to lose control of this specific situation, so what easier way to continue that by setting a new set of rules as a distraction of what the bigger picture truly was. Overall, the advantage was them having the upper hand and continuing to have a world that was still segregated.
• Do you think the Southern Strategy is still influencing American politics? Give an example supporting your answer.
• Absolutely, as much as they love using the example of having a black president or black politics, it’s still a huge fight to get there let alone to have voices heard. No matter what those in power always know how to go about making these situations look as if they were something smaller when in ended it’s a huge problem. Things are no different then, compared to now.

1. Why do think Southern racist politicians chose to frame their defense of racial segregation through the language of “law and order”? What special advantages was this choice of words going to give them?

By framing their demands as a rational decision for the good of the country, it gives them leeway to create unjust policies in the name of “progress.” One can make similar parallels to our approach as a nation to the border crisis. In many ways, the border crisis is a national security issue, and the republican party is not wrong in that assertion. But by making national security the end all be all of the discussion on the topic, they are purposefully ignoring the humanitarian dilemma.

1. Do you think the Southern Strategy is still influencing American politics? Give an example supporting your answer.

Yes. Citing my own examples from growing up in the south, there is almost none if any discussion on the antebellum south or the civil rights era in public school. I like the example Alexander gave about how Nixon used subtly racist viewpoints in order to get the racists to vote. I also see this as being very similar to Trump’s take on the border crisis.

Veronica Gonzalez

POL 100 (0504) – Intro. to American Govt. – Fall 2022

Discussion Board 2.2

1. Why do you think southern racist politicians chose to frame their defense of racial segregation through the language of “law and order”? What special advantages was this choice of words going to give them?

Response:

Southern racist politicians chose to frame their defense of racial segregation through the term and language of “law and order” for the simple fact that the term it self created an air of false patriotism. To be a patriot is to be devoted to and vigorously support one’s country, its ideals and laws. Southern whites could not see, or some did not want to see, that the conditions that the African American population had endured for so many years were immoral, illegal and demeaning. When the Civil Rights movement came about, it became a movement that recognized a struggle and knew that only action was going to make a real change. Civil disobedience and the tactics used such as sit-ins, walkouts, marches, boycotts and protests were now being seen as opposition to the government, were being blamed for increased crime, were seen as “breaking the law” and “creating disorder”. This sentiment was very much echoed in the southern whites who continued to voice that the old “home rules” and Jim Crow laws served a purpose, they kept blacks in their place which meant the law and order was being kept. As stated by M. Alexander, “Support of Civil Rights legislation was derided by Southern conservatives as merely “rewarding lawbreakers (Alexander pg. 40)”. Basically the very grassroots methods of making a change in society were now being denounced as a cause of increased crime and government instability.

The choice of framing their new racial order with the term “law and order” gave  southern racists special advantages in that the term “law and order” allowed southern whites who still supported segregation (Jim Crow Laws) away to exercise segregation but under the guise of now we are fighting against crime. M. Alexander states, “they developed instead racially sanitized rhetoric of “cracking down on crime” – rhetoric that is now used freely by politicians of every stripe (Alexander pg. 42)”.   

2. Do you think the Southern Strategy is still influencing American politics?

Give an example supporting your answer.

Response:

The Southern Strategy was a Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters in the South by appealing to racism against African Americans. I do believe that the Southern Strategy is in effect in some form within our government but as it has been done in the past, it has been reframed with eloquent wording, in order to mask its true intention and interpretation which is racism.

One example of this would be how certain Republican party candidates appeal to white populations in every state by using fear wording, saying things like “defend the U.S. from invaders (immigrants)” or “Make America Great Again” by pushing out what is not white, is foreign, is ethnic or is black and brown. People forget that the U.S. is a melting pot of many different colors, races, beliefs and this is what makes us unique. When a society begins to show signs of breaking down there can be many causes to it, but at the center of it all is respect. When individuals no longer respect each other what kind of a society can we expect to be.

1. I think Southern racist politicians chose to frame their defense of racial segregation through the language of “law and order”, by how they think of civil rights activists and how they think of them as criminals, but in the Bill of Rights, “We have the rights to peacefully protest without causing a commotion”. During the 1950s and 60s America experienced the worldwide freedom movement which is known as the civil rights movement against segregation, where people of our ages, college students, and people of color activists joined forces to make segregation end for all of us and we could be united. Racists believe that races of people are unequal to each other and they can’t coexist. The racist policemen couldn’t arrest people of color because of their race since they don’t have probable cause to arrest them.
2. The Southern strategy was based on was a Republican presidential campaign from the 1968 presidential election. From the Nixion speech, “He promised that he would come up with another way to get racist politics to continue”, which I think is just awful I don’t imagine the world in segregation because we go to public schools and share it with different ethnicities. I believe that the Southern strategy is still being used because look at when COVID happened everyone started being very disrespectful towards the Asian Americans because it was said that, COVID started in China. Yes, it originated in China but that doesn’t give people the right to physically harm them because that is happening we need to protect ourselves because hurting them won’t help.

1. I believe there are a few reasons why the politicians of the South decided to frame their defense of racial segregation through the disguise of “Law and Order”. For one, it was a rallying cry for so many of its white citizens in the South that had vehemently opposed civil rights legislation in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education, thus gaining support with their beliefs and therefore growing its base. Second, the politicians were successfully able to correlate a rise in crime within their society with the rise of civil rights activism. They painted a picture that Law and Order was needed to combat the threat that blacks would bring as a result of them wanting equal rights.
2. The Southern Strategy is for sure being used today. Look no further than the former President Donald Trump. For starters, the phrase “Law and Order” was a huge slogan for his campaign in 2016 and continued to use it all through his presidency. He also is a huge supporter of strict immigration policies. He (as well as others within his party) believe there is a direct correlation between illegal immigration and violent crime and poverty in the United States and uses dramatic words and imagery to make his points. One could argue that people with anti-immigration beliefs ultimately believe in some sort of segregation for reasons only they could know.

1. They use the word ‘Law and Order’ to undermine and hide the fact that they didn’t approve of integrations between white and blacks. By masking it to be law and order they were not directly attacking black people’s freedom but attacking the fact that crime was on the rise. That way they could appeal to the fact that integration was the leading cause of crime in the US.
2. Yes, I do think the southern strategy still is used in today’s politics. One example is our ex-president and his comments about building a wall to keep out illegal immigrants. By him mentioning this he appealed to the white southern Americans that feel that illegal immigrants are the lead cause of lack of jobs and drug smuggling.