To the Editors:
In last week's Orient, Professor Scott MacEachern tried to mount a "euphemism"-busting, "careful and interesting analysis" in response to a cheap slogan scrawled on a campus sidewalk ("Of deniability, dethronement, and 'welfare queens,'" April 17). What he instead produced was quite the opposite—an unthoughtful piece of conspiratorial drivel.
Certainly most everyone can agree that racism has historically played a role in American politics and that racism is bad. MacEachern does not write just to make these two points, because they do not need making. Instead, two such simplistic points serve to lull his audience into an uncritical trance before he unloads an otherwise untenable thesis:
"There's no obvious connection between a race- and class-loaded term like "welfare queen" and the themes of the "Tea Parties" being organized around the country, but at this point there hardly has to be."
Such a claim is overwhelmingly unjustified. If, as MacEachern concedes, no obvious connection exists between racism and disapproval for the welfare state, where then does proof of such a definite connection lie? Apparently it lies on a sidewalk outside Adams Hall in Brunswick, Maine.
MacEachern contends that the use of an antiquated political slogan on a Bowdoin footpath evidences an otherwise undetectable racism that catalyzes all "conservative" reactions against increasing taxation—a universal bond between racism and opposition to the welfare state.
By MacEachern's flawed logic, anyone who admits to opposing the welfare state implicitly admits also to being a racist. He creates a standard whereby labels like "anti-tax" or "anti-welfare" euphemistically imply "racist."
Although MacEachern concludes by preaching the value of meaningful discussion and debate on campus, he does nothing personally to contribute to such a discussion.
Sincerely,
Will Grunewald '10