House Dems Trained in ‘Racism”

House Democrats received training this week on how to raise the issue of race to defend government programs, according to training materials obtained by The Washington Examiner.

The prepared content of a Tuesday presentation to the House Democratic Caucus and staff indicates that Democrats will seek to portray apparently neutral free-market rhetoric as being charged with racial bias, conscious or unconscious.

In her distributed remarks, Maya Wiley of the Center for Social Inclusion criticized “conservative messages [that are] racially ‘coded’ and had images of people of color that we commonly see used” and proposed tactics for countering the Republicans’ (presumably) racially-coded rhetoric.

According to Wiley’s group’s website, “right-wing rhetoric has dominated debates of racial justice – undermining efforts to create a more equal society, and tearing apart the social safety net in the process” for over 25 years. Wiley had been invited to run the Democrats “through their strategy and how they message and talk about stuff” pertaining to race and fiscal policy, a staffer for Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., explained.

As samples of race-coded rhetoric, Wiley reminded the Democrats of statements by Republican presidential candidates Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. Of Gingrich’s famous comment about President Obama, her distributed remarks note, “Calling a Black man ‘the food stamp president’ is not a race-neutral statement, even if Newt Gingrich did not intend racism.”

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