While South Carolina Gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley is still facing a runoff election because she failed to secure 50% of the vote last night, it's worth noting that she is the likely GOP nominee, despite racist slurs tossed in her direction by a member of her own party. Republicans ultimately chose not to take the bait, not to see the very conservative Haley as an outsider because of her ethnicity or her parents' religion, and I think that says something positive about the direction of the Republican Party on matters of race.
That said, there's a lot of reasons to be concerned about the price of the ticket. Distinguishing oneself from the stereotypes associated with your particular ethnic group seem to be a necessary gesture for admission, and there's something disconcerting about the fact that the GOP's two big political stars of South Asian descent at some point felt the need to change their names. That Haley needed to stress her Christianity in order to avoid potential rumors about her religion hints at the ongoing problems--if she had been an observant Sikh, would that have changed her very conservative politics?
It's part of human nature, but part of how one comes to recognize bigotry is abhorrent is by being the target or caring about someone who is the target. Republican fans of Nikki Haley have learned a small lesson about the ugliness of white identity politics--although in some corners the lesson seems to be that bigotry is only unacceptable when aimed at Republicans. These kinds of conflicts--Republicans explicitly rejecting bigoted rationales for keeping people out of office--are ultimately how the party will learn how to cope with its lingering prejudices and ultimately its difficulty in reaching out to communities of color. That'll probably be bad for the Democratic Party in the long run, but it'll be better for America.
-- A. Serwer
