Mike Huckabee, Racism, Chain Gangs, a Joke About Assassinating Barack Obama and the NRA:

Submitted by mark karlin on Tue, 05/20/2008 - 7:34am. EditorBlog

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG
by Mark Karlin
Editor and Publisher

May 20, 2008

Here is the abhorrent "joke" Mike Huckabee made at this weekend's annual NRA convention (in Kentucky) about assassinating Barack Obama after hearing a loud noise: "That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he's getting ready to speak...Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor."

Of course, the "likeable right winger" just sloughed it off and made a non-apology-apology the next day. It's the kind of "I'm not admitting that I said anything wrong but if you were offended, I'm sorry for that" non-admission of culpability that the GOP excels at. And then Huckabee, on Sunday, had the chutzpah to announce that he wanted to run with John McCain.

In 2000, then NRA "Celebrity in Chief" Charlton Heston went around the Midwest and at a stop in Grand Rapids, if we remember, he made reference to lynching Al Gore -- who was, of course, then running for president -- because he supported mild gun control measures.

The relationship between guns, race and the largely white male membership of the NRA is not incidental. It is at the heart of the passion that fuels the virtually insane gun lobby opposition to laws that would even help police solve crimes. Anyone who thinks that this issue is about "reason" or "Second Amendment Rights" has forgotten that this nation fought a Civil War that resulted in the end of slavery and citizenship rights being granted to blacks in the South. That is still a deep psychic scar for many white males, and marked the beginning of the perceived descent in their power.

The '60s brought another major assault on the "absolute rule" of the white male, as they were assaulted with the twin movements of equality of power by minorities and women. And let's not forget that women couldn't vote until the early part of the last century.

Guns became the psychic lightning rod, the last Alamo, of the white male's feeling of being besieged by the likes of a democracy that wouldn't allow automatic entitlement for being born white and a man. Only an "effete, elitist pussy" gives up power without a gunfight, and the members of the NRA aren't having any of it. Under the establishment of a real democracy of equal rights, they will die with their guns in their hands. Otherwise they will psychically collapse into their worst fears: having their virility taken away, because "the enemies within" have already recut their American apple pie and started dividing it evenly. (That's if you exclude the wealthiest and American corporations running off with the biggest pieces before the dividing even gets started.)

A BuzzFlash reader wrote us this interpretation of Huckabee's "quip":

When Mike Huckabee joked that a loud sound at the NRA convention was Obama jumping at the sound of a gun, he wasn’t making a mindless gaffe, he was expressing nostalgia. Huckabee knew that the following day, he would force his way into consideration as Vice President, and understood that as a result, he’d be in the limelight again. Huckabee is not stupid, and when he raised the specter of a black man running from a white man’s gun, he understood his audience, their frustrations, their feelings about themselves.
These men remember a happier time, those bygone days when people in this country knew their place, and if some uppity "nigra" forgot it, well, a shot or two fired into the air would make him remember very quickly. If a person of color decided to press one claim or another, the result would be very similar to the scene that Mike Huckabee "joked" about. Stand on the front porch, produce the firearm, and shoot it: Get off my property, get out of my business, stay away from my daughter. It was a lovely and simple way to solve a conflict, and back then, the government knew better than to prevent a man from defending what was rightfully his. What’s rightfully his?
Well, a man’s land, his family, and his right to own slaves. Less than 200 years ago, one-third of the South’s population was in chains, and with such ratios, guns were necessary. Guns were necessary in case the Chained Ones got uppity, in case they forgot who they were. In case one of them ran for President.

Oh yes, you could almost hear the hound dogs braying and the sheriffs and townspeople cursing about the "niggas" in the appalling downwind following Huckabee's comment.

As to those who say Mike is such a likeable guy, we say there were a lot of smiling sheriffs we've seen alongside photos of lynched "Negroes." Huckabee's "joke" shot out directly from the subconscious and into the collective psyche of the NRA audience, mostly aging white males.

Everybody knows that gun control has nothing to do with stopping people from hunting, but the NRA always hides behind that or "Second Amendment Rights." But this is not about either of those; it's about an emotional last stand for the white male whose power has been under siege because a lot of Americans -- such as us -- believe in the promise of justice, equal opportunity, and voting rights.

No, the battle over America's gun culture will never be resolved with "reason." Because the opposition to treating guns as a consumer product -- which they are -- is all about emotion.

Mike Huckabee encapsulated the heart of that roaring, easily ignitable ember in his "homey" assassination "joke."

He put the image of the "good 'ol days when blacks knew their place -- and women too" in the heads of most of his audience right out there in NRA prime time, at their national convention.

He unleashed the dogs on Barack Obama, the uppity black man who would be president -- and when black males got uppity in the old South, you shot or lynched them.

Are we making too much in deconstructing Huckabee's NRA "comic aside"?

No, we haven't even begun to emphasize how much it revealed about the psychic Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and yearning for the good old days of "White Man Rules" -- and how the gun is now the Alamo for the "bitter" (oh, yes, "bitter and angry" -- just go to any local gun control hearing, trust us) white male who feels disenfranchised of his entitlement and under assault by minorities, women and foreigners.

Huckabee's few words (that should have disqualified him as a candidate for public office and stints as a television "pundit," let alone the vice presidential nomination) revealed so much.

Most of the NRA guys don't even live in big cities where gun control is an issue. Their hot branded fears and yearnings relate to a deep psychological wound.

They know that the promise of democracy has been realized. They know that they can't reverse history, but the gun helps them dream of the days of yore, when the white man sat at the top of the pyramid and governed by decree. When women and blacks didn't have the right to vote or seek positions of power based on merit.

There's a lot riding on guns in the psychological needs of the NRA members.

Mike Huckabee just hitched a ride on their anger and feeling of displacement.

That's why the NRA has played such a key role in the GOP culture wars -- and why the Bush Administration has given them everything that they have asked for.