At an explicit level, Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally did not have anything to do with race. At a symbolic level, "Restoring Honor" was ripe with racial meaning. Various elements of the event were subtly but intimately interlaced with racial innuendo.
The date itself, the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech was a blunt tip off. However, other elements where much more nuanced, but nevertheless racially charged. In his speech, Glenn Beck stated that the "US has wandered in darkness for too long." Given Beck's public dislike of President Obama, this proclamation was just too close for comfort. Couldn't he have conveyed the same message without a racial phenotype reference? For example, "The US has wandered without the right leadership for too long...." Same message, but the latter version does not have the racial flavoring of the former.
Another subtle racial cue came in the form of Sarah Palin speaking at the event. Her appearance comes on the heels of her public and vocal defense of radio personality, Dr. Laura's N-word tirade. Palin's speech was void of any explicit or implicit racial cues, but her role as defender of such a racially negative symbol speaks for itself. Each of these points by themselves can be disregarded as mere coincidences, but together they are just too much of a coincidence. Sure Alveda King was at the rally, in addition to Albert Puljols, a Latino baseball player to add a multicultural element to the mix. And yes, the main issue discussed at the rally was religion and spirituality. However, the racial priming is not diluted in the mix of the other topics and speakers.
I just do not buy the coincidence line. Politicos and journalists are keenly aware of how racial cuing is one of the most potent messaging tools. Shoring up racial animus is not the sole domain of the Republicans. Democrats are also well versed in the use of race to exploit negative racial attitudes and in turn use them to mobilize segments of the electorate, though in the last several decades Democrats have been more subtle in their use of racial strategies than their partisan counterparts.
One of the best examples of symbolic racial priming came in President Reagan's choice of location for announcing his 1980 presidential run - Philadelphia, Mississippi. In 1964, Philadelphia was the sight of the gruesome murder of three civil rights workers. President Reagan could have chosen anywhere to announce his candidacy - including other small towns in the South. But at the urging of Trent Lott, he decided on the town that was emblematic of black-white racial tensions. While President Reagan's speech was explicitly about state's rights, the symbolism in of geography was clear. The exploitation of such emotionally charged feelings allowed him to more effectively mobilize working class Southern whites, also known as "Reagan Democrats." For an excellent review of the racial strategies employed throughout the history of presidential politics in the United States see Kenneth O'Reilly's, Nixon's Piano.
Following the Civil Rights Movement, racism and related racial strategies have been transformed. Forty years ago Dr. Laura could have gone on her N-word tirade with no one batting an eye. This is no longer socially accepted but that does not mean that negative racial attitudes are not present. Moreover, the election of a black president does not wipe clean the slate of race in this country. Today, racial animus can be cued ever so delicately as we saw in the "Honor Rally." Audiences do not need to be hit over the head with blunt racial messages. That is so 1965. Going forward into the mid-term and the 2012 elections racial messaging strategies will indeed be present, appearing in implicit yet potent doses.