Questions, criticisms linger over Santorum video

“… We know the candidate Barack Obama; what he was like, the anti-war government nig-uh…” said Rick Santorum in a videotaped campaign speech in Janesville, Wisconsin late last month.

Videos of the speech received more than a million hits on some YouTube pages, and provoked allegations that the Republican primary candidate was about to call President Obama “the N-word.”

“I think for him to say that is so inappropriate,” said Yuan Zhang, a DePaul junior and finance major. Zhang feels that Santorum was about to use the racial slur, but “corrected himself right away.” Upon hearing language she thought sounded clear, “I wouldn’t even pay attention to this guy,” Zhang said.

Using “such explicit racial slurs would be the end of Santorum’s campaign or that of any major politician in this country,” said Christopher Deis, a DePaul professor in the political science department who feels the potential use of a racial slur by Santorum in the video is unclear.

“While he has made many gaffes I find it hard to believe he would be that reckless and foolish—even in front of an audience that may be sympathetic to his extreme brand of right-wing theocratic conservatism,” Deis said.

Maureen George, who graduated from DePaul with a Bachelor of Science in commerce, said she first heard Santorum’s comments being discussed on B96 radio, but hasn’t heard anything about the Santorum video controversy since.

“I don’t think he was going to say the ‘N-word’ because it wouldn’t have made sense with how he finished the sentence,” she said.

Juan Latapi, DePaul journalism graduate student said the video clip of Santorum’s speech reminded him “of Bush-era speeches in a way.” He described the primary presidential candidate sounding “unprepared” and his comments about President Obama, regardless of racial slurs, was “just an attack with no basis.”

Prospective Republican candidates Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum have all implied President Obama is “not a ‘real American’ and not fit to be a U.S. citizen or President, said Deis.

“These are all steeped in a type of white racism, and what political scientists and others call symbolic racism and/or white racial resentment,” he said.

George is not a supporter of Santorum or most of his views and admited, “it does sound like he was going to say the ‘N-word,’ but it could have been fixed with editing.”

“You can’t possibly tell without having the original file,” if the video was altered in any way through editing, said Professor Martin Kalin, associate dean of DePaul College of Computing and Digital Media. “YouTube videos in general are not high quality,” he said. Even if videos look suspicious and appear to be modified through digital editing, “there is insufficient evidence” without a source file to make a final determination.

While Latapi said he thinks it is important to do more research to see if the video could have been modified in any way, he said he doesn’t doubt its accuracy.

The second time Latapi watched the video, he said Santorum was clearly about to say “the N-word” in reference to Obama. “He gets thrown off in the middle of the sentence and has to regroup himself,” Latapi said.

“Just like with the Trayvon Martin killing where George Zimmerman hunted him down and shot him, there was a controversy over the latter’s use of a racial slur as well,” said Deis. “Much of this is in the eye and ear of the listener.”

The recent video clip doesn’t reveal much more than the Republican Party has already divulged, Deis said. The Republican campaign “has been filled with racial, animus, and subtle, and at times overt racist language already,” he said.

Aside from Rick Santorum’s supposed recent video stumble, the hopeful candidate has referred to “black people as lazy parasites who live to take advantage of whites,” Deis said. He also gave examples of Newt Gingrich inferring “black people are pathologically lazy and that their kids should get jobs as janitors to learn about hard work.”

Deis said racial animosity, immigrant hostility, and attempts to repeal women’s reproductive rights “are all part of a general trend towards a very raw, traditional, and hostile type of conservative populism.”

“Ultimately, Santorum does not need to call Obama a racial slur to convey the same hostile intent,” he said. “Contemporary racism is too complicated and multifaceted to be reduced to one video clip or sound bite.”