Lee Atwater, 1981: The Southern Racial Strategy
Here’s how I would approach that issue as a statistician…
(garbled talking)
No, it’s a psychologist, which I’m not, is how ABSTRACT you handle the race thing.
In other words, you start out, and now, don’t quote me on this. You start out in 1954 saying, “N*gger. N*gger. N*gger.” By 1968, you can’t say, “n*gger,” That hurts you. Backfires.
So you say stuff like forced busing, state’s rights, and all that stuff and you’re getting so ABSTRACT. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally ECONOMIC things and a byproduct of them is: BLACKS GET HURT WORSE THAN WHITES.
And subconsciously maybe that IS part of it. I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is that if it IS getting that ABSTRACT, that coded, we’re doing away with the racial problem one way or the other.
You follow me? Because obviously, sitting around saying, ‘We want to cut taxes. We want to cut this is much more ABSTRACT than even the busing thing. And a HELL of a lot more abstract than “N*gger. N*gger.”
So anyway you look at it, race is coming on the back burner.
Queen Buttercup Speaks 