11/27/07 09:45 AM
#1

Quote:
Casino's negative aspects discussed

By Mike Melanson, Enterprise correspondent

WEST BRIDGEWATER— A Mashpee Wampanoag resort casino in Middleboro could mean increased traffic and an influx of low-wage workers and Chapter 40B housing developments for West Bridgewater, said casinofacts.org Director Frank Dunphy.

On Monday, Dunphy presented an informational forum on how the planned resort casino would affect West Bridgewater, and only one resident attended.

Click Here to read the entire interesting article.

Note that our good friends at The Enterprise have active links to CFO's website 6 times in the online article.

If the above sounds a bit like social classism or worse to you, how about the following?

Quote:
The workers would need affordable housing, and West Bridgewater could face more Chapter 40B affordable housing proposals as well as the possibility of “hot-bunking,” in which employees who work different shifts and their families take turns sleeping in the same beds.

“They take turns because they're warehoused into these rental properties,” he said.

Is this an appeal to prejudice?

This is the first time I've seen a reference to the term "hot bunking" which is new to me. I wonder if this,
the phrase influx of low wage workers and the term "warehoused" are codes for prejudice against immigrants and minority groups.
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10:55 AM
#3

Is that how you interpret it?

I'll add another quote, not as blatant as the others but using the word "influx" creates a mental image of a surge of undesirables for those inclined to think that way. For them I think it is scare tactic:

Quote:
the town doesn't need the jobs, Dunphy said, but an influx of 300 to 500 resort casino employees could be enough to outvote any other group of residents at town meeting on a casino issue.

Any large new employer who brings a lot of new residents to a town will add to the voting roles. But they are citizens just the same and have every right to vote their interests. I rather doubt anyone would make such a public statement in discussing the prospect of a high tech company opening a large office in the area.

Quote:
"Ho Che Min Trail" and "Tijuana Highway" applied to describe the racial characteristics of the workers walking to work.

Thanks for the History of Bigotry lesson. These terms in this context are new to me. There always will be those who because of ignorance, stupidity or fear, or other reasons abhorrent to me, use these phrases as part of their every day language.

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05:41 PM
#10

Quote:
I have spoken to many folks on the casino issue. I have attended meetings in this and other towns and have never heard any racial comments. I remember the first organizational meeting of CFO and how they were quite adamant about framing the issue as anti casino and not anti Indian. I am not foolish enough to realize that to some people it may be, but, in my experience, those folks would just debase themselves. I would suggest, Hal, that you consider this less in racial terms which paints a whole range of solid citizens with the same brush. This is an issue that you played up a bit on casino-friend and I wrote two letters to your site. I never recieved a response nor were they printed.

First, I printed almost all the signed letters to Casino-Friend I received. There were quite a few anti-casino letters. Some pro-casino people even critcized me for publishing them.

Some of us heard anti-indian comments like "send them back to the reservations" and Mike himself had someone use the N-word in a verbal attack against him.

I always wrote that these people were in the minority.

The main issue I felt needed to be addressed by CFO was the participation of a member of the anti-indian sovereignty organization CERA in the Middleboro anti-casino fight. I simply asked that they disavow CERA and was accused of playing the race card.

I do think that some people in the anti-casino movement are more classist than racist. They are totally accepting of lower middle class and above people of any race, but prejudiced against people they view as "lower class". The kind of people who would frequent "gin mills" for example.

I think that some people who refer to losing the rural character of Middleboro aren't referring to subdivisions of $500,000 plus homes. Rather they mean people who at best can afford renting in one of our trailer parks and similar lower income residences. They aren't even referring to 40B housing.

While I find this distasteful I also think it is ironic because not much will change in Middleboro when the casino moves in. Most workers will commute from wherever they currently live and their kids won't change schools.

Eventually as some of these families earn more I'd see them buying more expensive houses here and in neighboring towns, perhaps in 40B subdivisions, and then a few years later trading up to even more expensive homes.

Most of these workers won't have any education beyond high school, if that, but I expect that their children will aspire to advance in all kinds of fields requiring post high school training or education.

Do I need to say that this is the American dream, and that many of us (myself included) came from families where our parents wanted to assure their children had a better life than they did.

Gee willickers... am I really writing this stuff?
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06:41 PM
#13

Where to begin?

You seem to have misinterpreted so much of what I have written, and what I believe that I can hardly think of where to start to clarify my position.

Planting the seed?

The following is so dead wrong that I can hardly bring myself to respond further but do so because others are reading this:
Quote:
When someone decides to use racial issues to garner support or attempt to debase the opposition I have some serious issues with their collective ethics. IMO that has been a constant with the pro casino folks and it is done with subtle tones.

Is it better not to discuss such things because someone like yourself will accuse you of this? I was told by an expert on hate groups, and have also read, that a tactic of CERA is to accuse anybody who suggests they are an anti-indian organization of play the race card.

I asked CFO to disavow CERA and their message. I assume they decided it was beneath them to even respond.

When anybody uses the term "race card" in any way, shape or form I have to ask myself whether they are trying to distract people from looking deeper into claims of racial prejudice. Glenn Marshall may have had many faults, but even if people didn't know he was a Wampanoag, his skin is dark, and does anybody want to suggest he never experienced racial prejudice in his life?

Issues of prejudice must be discussed with candor and people should be so quick to assume people are trying to paint a movement with a broad brush to discredit them just because they are trying to address sensitive matters.

I don't know any of the people you list except with a few just to say hello, let alone well enough to opine of what is in their hearts. How am I to know whether anybody has racist inclinations? In a controversy such as this I don't expect anybody to stand up and admit to this. We are all respectable and upstanding citizens, right?

Nobody is a closet skinhead or member of the Klan.

But those who have been around Middleboro or are acquainted with people who are familiar with its history know there are some elders well known for harboring such sentiments. They, if they choose, could name names.

Consider this from a Time Magazine article in 1968 when George Wallace ran for president:

Quote:
If We Make It. And he is running hard. Not since 1884 had a presidential candidate visited Middleboro, Mass. When Wallace spoke there last week on a swing through the state, bringing his message of exasperation and estrangement, he won sympathetic audiences.

I see absolutely no signs that this level or prejudice is present in anyone active in the anti-casino movement personally. But in this article, at least with Frank Dunphy as quoted, I see signs of his pandering to those who may have such feelings.

You obviously don't have to have such feeling yourself to shape your rhetoric to appeal to those who do.

Using code terms like states rights, which Reagan used in the south, is now viewed by many presidential historians as an effort to attract bigoted white southern males to vote Republican. The southern strategy in national politics is viewed by many as predicated on a combination of religious fundamentalism, on writing off black Hispanic voters and attracting white males who feel threatened by the gains the former group has made in the past 20 years.

Member:

I agree with what you said about what most people mean about the rural character of Middleboro. I disagree that the casino will do anything more than hasten a change that is destined to happen over the next 10-20 years anyway.

However, I stand by my belief that there are those who use the term "losing rural character" referring to the "influx" (Frank Dunfey's term) of lower income residents. Who wants to come out in public and say they don't want their children going to school with ragamuffins (to put it more or less politely), urchins and guttersnipes who can't even speak the mother tongue?

Methinks some of the pro-casino people object too much when I and one or two others bring up race and prejudice. I view the objections, the challenging me to name names, the righteous indignation, as so much smoke which suggests there just be some fire.

Have I experienced racism? There are those who erroneously think Jews are a separate race, and I have experienced prejudice because I am Jewish. I have also heard anti-Semitic remarks from people talking about others or Jews in general, who never even considered I might be Jewish because of my last name.

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09:07 PM
#18

I am too tired to repeat what I wrote in previous posts on this thread to point by point show how these criticisms miss the points I was attempting to make so everybody would understand.

It appears that the authors of the last two or three critical posts didn't carefully read what I wrote or if they did there was a problem grasping my points.

Either that or they are doing exactly what I said the CFO tactic was when someone tries to get them to address the sensitive and important subject of racism and prejudice.

I'm not going to go over what I wrote and try to be clearer.

Also, the person quoted in The Enterprise was Frank Dunphy, not Bob Dunphy.

If subsequent posts show that whoever posts them actually read what I wrote I will respond.
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Your post indicates to me that there is no way you could have read my post because I said none of what you say I said.

I am not calling you names (bomb thrower - I threw no bombs). Please show some courtesy back to me.

Ignore what you please. CERA is a good example.

Pandering to other people's prejudice isn't the same as being prejudiced yourself. Simple statement. The example of Reagan has been used recently which is why I used it. Click Here and also Click Here or just google Reagan "states rights". All in the news this past week or two.

And I said I wouldn't repeat myself but there it is.
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09:35 PM
#23

Neither (a supporter) nor I have said that CFO was racist.

Anyone can try to keep posting to have the last word on that, but it is just not true that either of us have said this.

Once again and hopefully for the last time I have said that from some of their statements as published in the press they seem to be appealing for support from some people who are either racist or prejudiced against people in lower income brackets.

Again, using Reagan as an example because as noted this has been in the news a lot in the past two weeks Click Here, he was not a racist but there is a new debate raging about what some pundits see as using code-words like "states rights" as he did on the county fair circuit in Mississippi was part of what was called "the Republican southern strategy".

If there are examples of me bomb throwing on Casino-Friend anybody can have a go at pointing them out. The only references I made having to do with anti-indian racism were in regards to CERA.

I will still publish letters there as long as they are signed.
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10:15 PM
#28

I have remained quite calm.

I have painstakingly tried to explain again and again what my original premise was when I started this topic.

A board member of CFO was quoted in The Enterprise as using some phrases that seemed to me as if they might be appealing to the prejudices of others. I never said and never implied that he or CFO was prejudiced. I never made that claim. I have never heard a racist comment from a member of CFO. In fact when I started this topic I hadn't even written anything about race. Another poster brought that up. I do not know why I am being asked to name names.

Using code-words is an unappealing aspect of a certain kind of politics. Is CFO doing this in their political campaign? Perhaps not. Perhaps this was all innocent.

However, what is fact is that Frank Dunphy gave what was basically a press conference to one reporter and was quoted using phrases which I thought together added up to a reference to a group of people those with certain prejudices would find undesirable as new members of their community.

If only one such word or phrase was used it wouldn't have gotten my attention the way it did.

He used three, as follows:

influx of low-wage workers (the word influx means "inundation, rush, stream, flood, incursion; invasion, intrusion, not nice sounding words)

the possibility of “hot-bunking,” in which employees who work different shifts and their families take turns sleeping in the same beds. (I hadn't heard this term before, but it is also an image rich word and in context not attractive sounding)

“They take turns because they're warehoused into these rental properties,” (again, warehousing people in another unattractive image)

If I didn't know better I'd think a professional politco wrote these phrases. They create a compelling negative image for people with prejudices.

I think we are all capable of looking at a pattern of usage and how words can create imagery without being obvious. RealRaven himself described immigrants walking to work along a road dubbed the Ho Chi Minh or the line of workers being call the Tijuana Highway. Sometime all it takes is one phrase, sometimes several.

But can't all be honest and admit that appeals to prejudice are made by people who aren't prejudiced themselves because they believe it justifies their cause?

Then perhaps someone could look dispassionately at what Frank Dunphy said and admit that's what a reasonable observer aware of these kind of communications might think.
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10:19 PM
#30

Yes,

Please read what I posted.

I am not even discussing what it seems that you say I am.

I am referring to a certain kind of political persuasion which attempts to communicate by using code-words to people with prejudices, and doesn't have anything whatsoever to do with whether the person using those code-words is prejudiced themselves.

Why can't people get what I am saying?

I am not calling CFO racist! I am not saying that part of the anti-casino movement is racist. I do not mean to imply this. I am suggesting that they, or at least Frank Dunphy, was playing a political game, in those quotes.

Let's not forget that CFO was engaged in a political fight this summer, a fight for votes. They are now engaged in a statewide fight to influence legislators, elected town representative, and eventually voters. CFO is campaigning. They want to win.

What will they do to win? I don't know, but I am not sure they aren't willing to engage in, dare I say, Rovian politics.

I am not lecturing you or anybody about racism. If it is a lecture, it is a lecture about using words to create images so you can suggest certain things to a receptive audience without having others accuse you of pandering on people's prejudices.

The best example can be found in the links I just put on to the hot debate which started a couple of weeks ago on the New York Times OpEd pages about Reagan's use of the phrase "state's rights" when he was campaigning in Mississippi.

Nobody is calling Reagan a racist. What is being said is that he appealed to racist white males to turn the south Republican by use of a simple code-phrase.

I think it is off base to accuse me of haranguing as I try to explain my points to people who seem to either not have carefully read what I posted here, or who seem to be misconstruing what I said.

I am doing my best to answer posts, but frankly am just plain tired now.

I will say that I believe I have remained courteous throughout and don't appreciate it when posters seem to skim what I write, ignore salient points, and pull out what is their card, not mine, which says on it "claim the other guy is playing the race card and that will shut him up".

As to the subject of racism in America

Racial prejudice and other kinds of bigotry are far too important a topic to be dismissed as topics of discussion here or anywhere that intelligent people gather for dialogue.

Such a discussion requires the ability to look both into yourself and beyond yourself with utter honesty. You can't have a hidden agenda do engage with people of good will in a candid discussion of race.
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10:52 PM
#34

This is somewhat complex material but not impossible grasp if you take the time the read what I wrote. I think it is also important to discuss, but I will not somehow construct a digest or simplified version of my points any more than I already have, if indeed that is what is being suggested.

If people want to skim something and jump in with a post that misses my point entirely, I admit to getting frustrated especially when some people can't seem to resist making rude remarks.

I've done a fair amount of writing and most readers find I am quite good at making my point.

My verbiage isn't "endless". It has a beginning, middle and end. Believe it or not each post is thought out in an attempt to make myself clear.

I won't bite on the "some people may not be as smart" trap. This mouse don't take cheese from that one. If anyone is reading this forum they are plenty smart enough to understand anything I write.

I probably should just give up trying to explain.
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