December 13, 2011: Political Satirists Say Gingrich’s Calls for Poor Children to Clean Schools Contain Coded Racism

Jon Stewart and Larry Wilmore on The Daily Show. [Source: The Darkest Berry (.com)]Political satirist Jon Stewart, the host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, mocks Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s recent calls to have public schools fire most of their professional custodial and maintenance staff and replace them with poor schoolchildren (see November 18, 2011 and After and December 1-2, 2011). Stewart. along with Daily Show contributor Larry Wilmore, says that Gingrich’s proposal is an example of coded racism. Stewart notes that Gingrich modified his original claim that poor people have no work experience, and plays a video clip of Gingrich saying: “Some people who suggest that the working poor by definition know how to work, which is true, that’s why they’re called the working poor. I was talking about the people who come out of areas of neighborhoods where they may not have that experience.” Wilmore says, “Oh, okay, he’s not talking about poor people, he’s talking about poor black people.” Wilmore explains that Gingrich’s choice of phrasing, “in neighborhoods where they may not have that experience,” is “code for inner city, which is code for urban, which is code for black.” Stewart, pretending confusion, says, “It’s a lot of code,” to which Wilmore responds, “[I]t’s 2011, you can’t just call poor black people lazy.” According to Wilmore, Gingrich implied poor blacks were lazy by saying that they “have no habit of showing up on Monday.” Wilmore continues: “[S]omehow when black people are poor, it’s their fault. They’re on welfare and lazy, but down in poor white Appalachia, you’re not the problem. It’s China’s fault, or India’s fault, or all the money we’re spending on black people on welfare! I’m sorry, inner city government subsidy recipients. It’s code, Jon.” Wilmore points out that Gingrich’s solution, in Gingrich’s own words, is to have “poor neighborhood schools” hire schoolchildren to clean bathrooms and mop floors. Wilmore says: “Wait, Jon, so his plan to fix America is for black kids to start cleaning toilets?… He wants to give kids jobs by firing their parents from one of the few jobs they can get to support their kids!” The only other jobs those children see adults having, Gingrich says, is “a pimp or a prostitute or a drug dealer.” Wilmore concludes by proclaiming sarcastically: “Yep, dream big, black people. Hey, you don’t have to be a pimp, prostitute, or drug dealer. You can clean up people’s sh_t! Hey, that sounds… come on! Gingrich 2012, Yes We Clean!” [Daily Show, 12/13/2011; Daily Kos, 12/14/2011]