Why We Can't Be Tolerant of Racist Republican Slogans Like "Joe and the Hoe"

How my children are subjected to vulgar and offensive conservative messaging on their way to school

Image by Walter Rhein

I noticed the pickup truck parked along the side of the road as I took my daughter to school.

There was a sticker on the passenger side window with images of guns arranged to spell out the “F” word. Beneath that were the words “Joe and the Hoe.”

My daughter is eleven. She has to look at offensive and racist material like this every day. It made me so angry I parked my car.

“What are you doing daddy?” my daughter asked.

“I’m going to take a picture of that pickup truck so I can write an article about racism,” I said.

In the United States, CRT is banned from schools, but blatantly racist comments are allowed, some might say openly encouraged, on our streets.

We can’t allow for the further normalization of racist hatred. The behavior of modern conservatives is an affront to common decency. We have to do better.

“They hate her because she’s a woman and because she’s not-white, just like you”

I felt it was safest to park up the street and walk to the car. I could disguise myself as a pedestrian. If I parked right behind the offensive truck, I thought I might be noticed.

The last thing I wanted was to have an altercation with some unhinged racist while my daughter was there.

I left my car running. My heart started to race as I trotted over, snapped a few pictures, and then returned to my vehicle.

I probably should have waited until I was alone. Conservatives shoot first and ask questions later.

“Do you know what the word ‘hoe’ means?” I asked my daughter.

“Yes,” she said. “It means ‘whore.’” Her voice was sad.

“Do you know who they’re directing this slur at?”

“Vice-president Kamala Harris,” she said.

“Do you know why?”

She shook her head no.

I reflected on an article I’d read that celebrated how Kamala Harris has a unique background that brings representation to many groups.

For no other reason than being who she is, conservatives will therefore hate her. I went on to explain this to my daughter.

“Racist, misogynist conservatives despise her because she’s a woman and because she’s not white. They feel that her status as Vice-President is a threat to their power, and they’re willing to engage in violence to eliminate that threat. We saw that on January 6th when they tried to overthrow the government. They are horrible people and you have to protect yourself from them.”

These are the kind of conversations I have to have with my daughter on the way to school. Not, “How was your day?” or “What do you want to do on the weekend?” Nope. I have to have ugly talks about racism and violent, conservative men who plaster their vehicles with vulgar, misogynistic stickers.

Our schools should be teaching this.

Our media should be covering it.

Our police should be stopping it.

Liberals are not allowed the same freedoms as conservatives

This is the point in the conversation where conservatives will try to reframe their support for vulgar, misogynistic messages as a defense of first amendment rights.

“We don’t agree with it, but we have to allow it, it’s the same with the Nazi salute.”

Conservatives love to defend the Nazi salute.

In my community, there are a lot of pro-Trump banners. Some of them have vulgar, violent, threatening and racist language.

One day, I saw some kids putting up a sign that said “Tuck Frump.”

There’s nothing vulgar about that sign. It’s two nonsense words. There’s nothing threatening. There’s nothing racist.

The sign was gone the next day.

I don’t know what happened, but I suspect there was a complaint. I suspect the police came and told them to take it down. I suspect the people complied.

The local police have a problem with “Tuck Frump.”

They’re fine with “Joe and the Hoe have got to go.” They’re fine with “Let’s go Brandon.”

When it comes to defending the Nazi salute, conservative lawyers will talk all day about how we have to respect the right of people to say things we don’t agree with.

But the second you write, “Tuck Frump,” the combined might of the conservative leaning police force comes down upon you.

“Why is that sticker racist?”

My daughter and I continued our conversation.

“Why is it racist to use the word ‘hoe?’”

“It refers to the Jezebel Stereotype.”

“What’s that?”

“That’s the disgusting, contorted argument slave owners, all of which were horrible, evil people, would use to insist they had the right to rape their slaves.”

“That’s horrible.”

“You’re right.”

So, I went on to explain to my eleven year old daughter how horrible people like Thomas Jefferson, who was 44, felt he had the right to force himself on his 14 year old slave Sally Hemings.

“She was about your age.”

“Oh my god.”

The white supremacist control of the narrative puts our children at risk

What are you going to say? Are you going to say it’s “safer” to hide the fact that predatory men rape young girls?

Are you going to tell me that I shouldn’t have conversations like this with my child even when there are men in my own community who decorate their cars with images of guns and racist rape language?

Let’s back that up for a moment. Consider the steps it took for that sticker to appear on that car:

• Somebody had to think it was a good idea to make that sticker

• Somebody had to design the sticker

• Somebody had to print up copies of that sticker

• Somebody had to distribute the copies of that sticker for sale

• Store owners had to agree to stock that sticker

• The man in my community found that sticker and purchased it

• The man in my community came home and put that sticker on his vehicle

At no point during this sequence did anyone say, “That sticker is racist and we shouldn’t allow it.” There’s a literal army of entrepreneurs, manufacturers, businessmen, store owners, and consumers who are totally fine with racist language from the slave era proliferating in our community.

I bet they think it’s funny.

The normalization of racist language by powerful, white men with a platform

In 2007, this repugnant and racist slur was all over the American radio. Don Imus used it to refer to a mostly Black women’s basketball team.

Predictably, Imus did not suffer any serious repercussions for using his platform to normalize deplorable and racist language. He was briefly fired, but he was hardly canceled. He had a new job 8 months later.

It was important to him to promise the show wouldn’t change.

Meanwhile, you’re not allowed to teach CRT in modern schools.

You’re not allowed to discuss the origins of racist phrases.

Our children are kept ignorant of the evils of our past and the evils that still exist.

Drivers can put racist, threatening messages on their vehicles.

Nobody objects.

It’s not even a story.

The inequality in plain sight

I laugh when members of my community say they want to model and teach “lawful morals” to our children.

Where are the crowds protesting the horrible man who covers his vehicle with guns and language historically used to justify rape?

Oh, he’ll probably claim he was “ignorant” that it meant that. Yeah, he’s “ignorant” because he and those like him have always steadfastly opposed teaching true history in our schools.

Consider the energy our society expends to prevent any discussion on the prevalence and evils of racism.

Imagine if we used that energy instead to make our society more tolerant.

I’ve seen this phrase on flags, on T-shirts, on coffee mugs, on vehicle stickers.

What an awful message to send out into the world. What an embarrassing level of ignorance on display.

Imagine a world that didn’t tolerate constant, racist messaging

I dropped off my daughter at school. She turned and waved to me and smiled like she always does.

My daughter lives in a community where ignorant people think it’s funny to display messages that refer to a disgusting belief that non-white women are “ lascivious” and “secretly want” to have sex with white men.

I know that conservatives hate my daughter because she’s the daughter of an immigrant, and she’s a girl, and she’s not white.

None of this is acceptable. We all have to speak out. We have to stop being passive. We have to insist that our children inherit a better world.

The one they’re living in now is disgraceful.

Leave some comments, and I’ll print them out along with this article and leave them on this jerk’s windshield.